Ditched_A Left at the Altar Romance

by Holly Hart

  He looks up and gives me the finger. Fair enough.

  Carson makes his way to the raft in thirty seconds flat. He ignores the ladder and hoists himself effortlessly onto the planks. Fucking showoff. He looks like an extra from Full Metal Jacket, with his freshly-buzzed head and burly physique. He grabs a beer and pops the cap with his thumb. It flips like a coin, straight into the lake.

  “Aw, not cool.” Dev dives down after it and comes up empty-handed. “That’ll be down there till the next ice age. Hope you’re happy.”

  “On top of the world.” He takes a long pull. “Wes? Hey—where the fuck’s Shrimpy?”

  “Right here. And quit calling me that.” Wes holds out his hand and Carson helps him up the ladder. “Do I get one of those?”

  “Dude. You’re fifteen.” Kyle fishes a Coke out of the cooler. “Brought this for you.”

  Wes rolls his eyes. “You know we’re all underage, right?”

  “Yeah, but you’re, like...double underage. You’re an actual minor. I’m not contributing to your delinquency.”

  Wes hands his Coke off to Carson, who pops that cap, too. It’s such a normal summer moment, one among thousands, but, shit. When we swim back to shore tonight, we won’t be swimming out again. Not this summer, and maybe not ever.

  Carson elbows Wes in the ribs. “So, tell ‘em your news!”

  Wes wriggles away. “It’s not really news. It’s probably not even happening.”

  “Tell ‘em anyway. Dev—get over here.”

  Dev swims back up, but doesn’t get on the raft. He flips his wet hair out of his eyes and treads water. Think he was a fish in a previous life. “What is it?”

  “Okay, well....” Wes frowns. “My dad wants to move into a retirement home—”

  “A retirement village.”

  “Fine—a retirement village. But I’m talking him out of it. No way I’m sticking him in one of those places.”

  “Those places?” Dev finally clambers onto the raft, settling down beside Wes.

  “Yeah, y’know—God’s waiting rooms. That’s what they call them, ‘cause everyone there, they’re just waiting to die.”

  “Naw, man—that’s a nursing home.” Dev slings an arm round his shoulders. “Nursing homes and retirement villages, they’re two different beasts.”

  “Different how?”

  “Dude! You don’t even know! Nursing homes are like...sick people eating mushy peas. Sleeping in wheelchairs. Dreaming their Alzheimer’s dreams. But a retirement village—that’s summer camp for geezers. Round-the-clock golfing and shuffleboard and old people sex.”

  “Ew—that’s my father you’re talking about!”

  “Mm, yeah. Old man’s gonna get some....” Dev wiggles his pelvis. “Oontz, oontz...bow-chicka-wow!”

  Carson cuffs him back into the water. “Motherfucker.”

  “You could go to college,” says Kyle. “Come to Cornell with us.”

  “Yeah—that’d be awesome, the three of us going to parties—ooh! You could rush Psi U with Kyle!” Rachel reaches into the cooler and pulls out a beer. “Here. You deserve it.”

  I snort at the thought of Wes rushing a frat—any frat. Kyle could probably get him in, with his dad’s connections, but the idea of Wes with douchebag hair, popped collar flopping over his polo shirt...ludicrous.

  “How about you?” Dev’s looking up at me from the water, voice pitched low, for my ears only. “Now you’re up and out of bed...what’s next for you?”

  “Full steam ahead.” I glance over my shoulder, but no one’s listening. “New York’s still on. Found a place near the subway, a roommate who’s probably not an axe murderer, and I’m leaving after Sunday breakfast.”

  He swims closer. “How about we be roommates, instead?”

  “You want to come?”

  He shrugs. “Look around you. Kyle and Rachel, they’ve got the rest of their lives planned out. Carson’s headed for glory, and Wes...well, it looks like he’ll be okay.” A rare scowl furrows his brow. “I can’t afford college. I’m not army material. I stay here, I’ll spend the rest of my life under cars.” He holds up his hands. “Check out my nails. There’s, like...permanent grease under there. C’mon. Don’t let ‘em bury me with a wrench in my hand.”

  It’d be nice to have a familiar face around, but.... “What would you do in New York?”

  His expression turns sheepish. “Well, I mean, Uncle Lou’s got a shop down there, so I figured I’d work there, to start with. But it’s New York! I can branch out. Try other stuff. I’ll be out of overalls by Christmas. You’ll see.”

  I stretch out my hand and Dev shakes it.

  “This is going to rock. I can feel it.” He’s grinning from ear to ear. “Maybe I’ll start a band. Or do standup comedy.”

  “What are you even talking about?” Carson splashes Dev—and my knee, a little bit. “You’re only funny in the ‘What the hell’s that guy doing?’ sense. I’ve never once heard you tell a joke.”

  “Okay—okay, uh...your mother’s so smelly I put an odor eater in her shoe, and she, like...disappeared.”

  Carson bellows laughter. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Like, the perfect illustration of your unfunniness. First of all, it’s yo mama, not your mother. Second, the 90s are over. And—and—hey!” Carson ducks as Dev spits water in his face. He dives in, Kyle hot on his heels, and a three-way splash fight breaks out. Even Wes gets in on the action, churning up the surface with his feet.

  Rachel picks her way past the puddles to sit beside me, holding up a towel to keep the spray off her. “How are you holding up?”

  She means well. I give her the thumbs up, and even force a smile. But, hell—that was the longest I’d gone without thinking of Kate since she pulled her vanishing act. And it was good.

  “Look, I kind of overheard you and Dev.” She puts her hand on my shoulder, and all I can think of is Kate, how she used to do exactly the same thing, how she always knew what to say. “I think it’s great you’re still going. But if you need anything, me and Kyle, we’re only a phone call away. Always will be.”

  Kyle nails Carson with a handful of gloopy lakebed mud. Hoots as it trickles down his face.

  Carson spits and wipes silt out of his eyes. “Oh, you’re going down.”

  “Gotta catch me first.”

  I finish my beer, and this time, I don’t reach for another.

  I’m still going to climb the towers of Manhattan. And when I look down on Kate from the top, she’ll be an ant to me. Crawling in the gutter.

  Chapter 4

  Kate - 2018

  * * *

  Wes tugs on my phone. “Don’t look.”

  Good advice. But I can’t not. The camera shakes. The picture fades to white as a floodlight glares to life. And then it’s back: the concrete tower; the dark figure on the roof. Could be anyone, male or female, young or old. Could be anyone, but it isn’t.

  Wes reaches for my phone again. I turn my back on him, protecting it with my body. It’s Dev up there. I have to watch. It’s the least I can do. Too little, too late, the absolute least.

  He rises on the balls of his feet. Reaches for the stars. And then he steps back.

  That’s right. Keep going.

  Dev covers his face with his hands like he can’t bear to look.

  What are you thinking?

  Whatever was going through his head, it’s lost forever. Dev steps back for a running start. Raises his arms and executes a perfect swan dive. He plummets like a stone, floor after floor after floor, windows blurring as he picks up speed. The camera falls behind just before the streetlights. We’re spared the sight of the impact, but not the sound, not the screams, not the chaos. Not the cops waving the crowd back, the fire department rushing in. Not that wailing woman in the background, and who does she think she is? Did she know him? Did she care? Did she do a single fucking thing to intervene?

  This time, I let Wes take my phone. He sets it face down on the end table. “You’ve got
to stop torturing yourself.”

  I can’t. I grab for another tissue, and Wes hands me the box.

  “How many times have you watched it?”

  “Too many.” Over and over, since this morning. As if the ending might change, if I cried enough, begged enough. I sniffle and wipe my eyes. “Did you...had you talked to him?”

  Wes sighs. “I sent a Christmas card. I think.”

  I didn’t. Haven’t in years. “You know when I last talked to him?”

  “Hm?”

  “Two summers ago. When his mom died. And we didn’t even talk about that.” I draw my knees up to my chest. “People had been calling all day. Wall-to-wall condolences. So we talked about home. Stupid stuff. Mr. Warburton’s algebra class. That time Carson ate a spider. Sneaking that frog into the Breakfast Spot.”

  Wes frowns. “I don’t remember that.”

  “Oh—that was freshman year. You were still at military school.” I smile vaguely at the memory. The frog hopping into Mrs. Aldershot’s salad. That waitress with the spray tan chasing us down Amherst. Rachel kept throwing change at her, like the size of her tip was the problem. Carson and Kyle were still trying to pretend it wasn’t us. Dev couldn’t stop laughing, and Max....

  “Think you’ll go back for the funeral?”

  Funeral. Dev’s funeral. The words don’t fit together at all. “I hadn’t thought about it.” But I am now: Dev laid out, cold and waxy in his best suit. Or, no. It’d be a closed casket, after...after....

  It’s there every time I blink, that graceful, fatal dive, playing out behind my eyes. He never made a sound. Not that I heard, at least. Maybe he was picturing water down there. Maybe he closed his eyes and thought of Diver’s Rock, Lake George below. Children’s laughter, instead of shrieks. Summer sun on his back. They said he was in his swimming trunks.

  Summer on the lake—our best memories and our worst. Surely, this couldn’t have been about—

  “Kate?”

  “Hm?” Oh. Right. The funeral. “Would we even make it?” It’s already been two days. Carson left a message, but I only got to it this afternoon.

  Wes is still poking at my phone. “Says here it’s tomorrow.”

  “So...no.” I tilt my head back. The skylight’s bright, bright, bright. My eyes water, but I refuse to look away.

  “You think this was about...you know. Back then?”

  I’m not going down that road. It’s too much. Too awful. “It’s been eleven years.” I close my eyes, and Dev stretches out his arms. He hangs in the air for a moment, back arched, smiling. He’s scrawny and beanpole-tall, like in high school, with that dumb frosted hair. It’s high school Dev, our Dev, who closes his eyes and plunges into darkness. Our Dev sprawled on someone’s Prius, blood trickling down the windshield. Great. Now, my mind’s filling in details that weren’t in the video.

  Wes sits down next to me, and I let my head drop onto his shoulder. He strokes my hair absently, gazing out at the London skyline. “I was thinking, on the way over, how we let so much slip by. Dreams, opportunities, things that might’ve been nice.”

  I hum noncommittally. Maybe that was it. Disappointment with life. But it doesn’t fit with my memory of Dev. Or with his reality. He was famous, and not in a fifteen-minutes kind of way. He was red carpet royalty. The new Brad Pitt. Guess he could’ve made it to the top and realized he’d climbed the wrong ladder, but....

  “I almost kissed you last year. At New Year’s.”

  That gets an actual laugh out of me. “Why?”

  “Why?” For a moment, I think I’ve offended him, but then he laughs, too. “Sonia was about to break up with me. Didn’t want to start the year with a goodbye kiss. And you were by yourself. Right over there—” He gestures at the window seat. “—staring into your champagne. Smiling this little smile....”

  I remember that. Not the smile—the champagne. Watching the bubbles burst and thinking about Mom. How she slipped me a glass for my nerves, the morning of my wedding. How I’ve hated the stuff ever since.

  “I thought about it a few times, too,” I admit. “Kissing you, I mean.”

  “Oh?”

  “When you first showed up. In London, I mean. I was so drunk, and you were, hell, the first friendly face I’d seen in months. You showed up at that bar, and I was like.... It was like a slap in the face. The good kind. Snapping me out of my trance.” I elbow him lightly. “I’d never have picked myself up off the floor if it wasn’t for you. So I thought about it, but...I mean, we’re best friends, right?”

  “Always.” Wes gives me a squeeze.

  “And now, it’d be weird.”

  “Totally.” He shifts against me. “You need me to stay over, or...?”

  I do, but Sonia’s on her way with the fabrics for the fall collection. Doubt Wes feels like making nice with his ex. “I’ll be okay. Call me, though?”

  “Sure thing.” He unfolds himself from the couch, stretching till his back cracks. “And if you need anything....”

  I nod. If I need anything. A cosmic rewind button, maybe.

  Wes lets himself out.

  When I close my eyes, it’s still there: Dev’s final performance. Only this time, they’re all watching—Carson, Kyle, Rachel, Max, faces frozen in horror.

  Maybe I’ll run again, even farther this time. Australia. New Zealand. Antarctica. Somewhere beyond the reach of phones and wifi and social media. Because of course this is about back then. Why else would he have dressed for summer on Lake George?

  Chapter 5

  Max

  * * *

  “We shouldn’t see each other any more.” I flip open my laptop, walling myself off from Amanda.

  “What?”

  She’s going to make this hard. Same old song and dance: but why? Everything’s going so well. You were finally opening up to me.

  “I told my parents about you.” She flings it at me like an accusation. “They wanted to meet you.” Her palms smack down on my blotter. A pencil rattles on the leather. “You’d have been the first. The first since college. Are you listening?”

  Oh, yeah. I’m listening. I tap at my keyboard, pretending not to.

  “This is how you’re going to do it? Who died and made you King of Passive-Aggression?”

  I give her a sharp look. Her hand flies to her mouth, but her fingers never touch her lips. Can’t smudge that lipstick. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  I wave her off. “It’s fine.”

  “No, really. Your friend. I wasn’t thinking. If you’d just—”

  This has gone on long enough. “I said it’s fine. Say what you want to say. We’re already over.”

  The breath catches in her throat. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her go still. Any second, now...any second.

  She doesn’t run.

  “Was there something else?”

  Amanda scoffs, low and harsh. “When you get your head out of your ass, don’t call me.” And...there she goes. Walking instead of running. No tears; no dented furniture. Well, that went better than I thought.

  I turn back to my laptop, for real this time. Dev’s obituary’s up. Passed away suddenly—I’ll say!—beloved brother and son...star of stage and screen.... Nothing I didn’t know. Nothing that would explain....

  * * *

  Hey, uh, Max? Guess you’re busy. It’s Dev. Uh.... I was calling, uh...this is fucked up. I don’t even—call me back, okay? The second you get this. Call me.

  * * *

  “I fucking did!” I sweep my arm across my desk. Manila folders scatter, contents flying. Not even a day—it wasn’t even a day, and by the time I called.... Was he on the roof, even then? Did he sit on the edge with his phone ringing and ringing in his pocket, till someone looked up and noticed him? Did he even have pockets, in those ridiculous shorts they found him in? Swim shorts, like he was about to take a dip. Why would he—why would he—

  All I can think about is the lake. The raft. Kyle’s boat. Diver’s Rock. Dev floating on his back, squin
ting into the blue. He lived in his trunks from school closing to Labor Day. Always on the water, always smiling... Was he trying to get back to those times? Or trying to forget them? Was it summer break on his mind, or the one night we never talked about?

  “Mr. Westbrook?”

  I look up, embarrassed to find my eyes stinging. My assistant’s hovering in the doorway. “Miss White?”

  “This came for you.” She holds out a FedEx pouch, like she’s scared to come up and drop it on my desk. Guess I am acting kind of psycho. I stand up and take it from her. There’s no waybill attached. No return address.

  “Who left this?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I went to dinner and came back, and it was on my desk.”

  Weird.

  “Sir?”

  “Oh. Yeah. That’ll be all.”

  I turn to the window to open it, as if something awful might tumble out. A flash drive plops into my hand, nondescript and unlabeled. The idea that it’s Dev’s suicide note occurs to me. I dismiss it just as quickly: that isn’t his style. Wasn’t his style. I switch to a virtual machine before plugging it in, but I needn’t have bothered. Nothing there but a pair of text files: 1.txt and 2.txt. Imaginative. I click on number one.

  My mouth goes dry.

  What the fuck?

  Chapter 6

  Kate

  * * *

  Poor, dumpy Kate Miller, catwalk dreams destroyed by a growth spurt that never quite happened! But you can still have that modeling career: ten days from now, you’ll insist on walking the runway in your own New York show. Furthermore, you’ll push one of the models off the stage in a fit of drunken pique. Don’t believe me? Check 2.txt.

  * * *

  Walk in my own show—right. And in New York! This has to be a joke. A weird one, and kind of a cruel one, given the circumstances, but maybe it was sent before Dev...before the tragedy.