Lovely, Dark and Deep

by Amy McNamara

  I’m speechless.

  “You’re here,” I say finally, my voice breaking. It’s the best I’ve got.

  She nods, teary.

  I stand up. Walk over to her. We hug.

  “I made your mom tell me how to get here,” she says, her mouth pressed into my shoulder. “I know you still want to be alone, and all that—”

  I nod.

  “But it’s getting too long. I had to come and see you. For myself.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  I am. I’m sorry for everything. For disappearing.

  “You’re talking,” she says when we finally let go of each other.

  I nod again.

  “Can you leave—here?” she asks, gesturing to the library.

  I look over to where Lucy’s sitting, in the corner, drinking coffee, pretending not to listen to a word we’re saying.

  “Go,” she says, without looking up. Waves her hand toward the door. I give her ten seconds before she calls Zara to tell her Meredith’s in town.

  I put the letter bundles in my bag, grab my coat, and we’re out the door.

  Meredith has one of her parents’ cars. It looks funny, out of place in this little town, parked rural style, angled into the spot. Clean. No winter’s worth of salted snow crust in the wheel wells like everyone else’s up here. She probably had it hand washed for the trip. She clicks it open and we get in.

  “Where am I going?” she asks.

  Good question. There are precious few private places in this tiny town.

  I direct her to the Chat ’n’ Chew. It’s small town right out of a made-for-TV movie. Lots of birch and gingham. Lobster tchotchkes. Embroidered tea towels for sale. Someone’s idea of cozy. A bakery case bears dense wedges of gingerbread, snickerdoodles, whoopie pies. And like most places in town at this time of year, it’s largely empty. We get hot drinks and pick a table.

  I can’t stop shivering. I’m amped up and sad. It’s surreal. I can’t think of anything to say. My old life and the new one are pressed up against each other, tight. I squirm on my creaky chair. Can’t get comfortable.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I hear myself say. But I’m not sure if I am.

  “Me too,” she says. Looks down at her cup. “I miss you.”

  Her voice is quiet. Small. We’ve never been awkward with each other. It makes her seem like a shrunken version of herself.

  “I went over to your house. The first day of winter break. Surprised your mom. She let me stay for lunch.”

  My mother loves Meredith. Her poise. She says it like that, Meredith’s poise. She has no idea. Meredith can be poised, especially around parents, but she was also the devious mastermind of everything we weren’t supposed to do and did anyway.

  I sip my latte. The milk’s scalding. My tongue will be wrecked for a day or two.

  “She told me you were doing okay—better,” she said, “but that you still didn’t want me to send you letters?” It’s a question. She looks like she’s going to cry again.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. I can hardly make my voice come out. I fight a moment of panic. What if I stop speaking all of a sudden? What if I can’t control it? What if it just happens and I can’t make it stop?

  I look at her face, and there I am, on the edge of her parents’ bathtub, clutching my wrecked life on that little white stick in my hand. I can hear her voice, outside on the beach. Laughing. Flirting with the guy with the guitar.

  We’re quiet a minute. The air between us is heavy with everything, her letters sitting there like some kind of evidence. All the ones I never read, never wrote back. I look at my hands. Breathe carefully, in, out.

  “Where are you?” she asks after a minute.

  I look up at her. Burst into tears.

  “I don’t know,” I choke. “Here, I guess.”

  If I could answer her question I wouldn’t be sitting up in the north woods at the Chat ’n’ Chew. I’d be a freshman at Amherst, making new friends, learning new stuff about myself, about the world, my place in it.

  “Do I really have to call you Wren?” she asks.

  I nod. I’m having a hard time stopping crying. Making more noise than I want. Drawing attention. I thought I was starting to feel a little better, but here I am again, sinking fast.

  She sees. Does a quick change.

  “God, Wren,” she emphasizes it, stage-whispering, a glint in her eye. “Stop it. The weird ogre-looking guy over there from The Home is staring at us.”

  Saves the day.

  I laugh.

  “Ever kind to the less fortunate,” I say, blowing my nose on my napkin. Deep breaths. Rein myself back in.

  “Oh, come on,” she says, feigning dismay. “You know I care.”

  “I can see.” I nod, pointing to her jacket, feeling my way back into our way of talking. “Thinking of others and prepared for the worst—I’m pretty sure a family of three could withstand the cold in that jacket.”

  She flicks some of her milk foam at me.

  “I think about you a lot,” I say when I’m sure my voice will hold steady. “But I couldn’t talk. I still kind of can’t. I can’t explain it, Mer. I felt like I was going to die if I didn’t get out of there. Sometimes I still feel like that, up here, even.”

  She looks out the window a minute. It’s snowing. Again.

  “I really wish you’d trusted me more, I thought you did,” she says.

  I watch the snow drift down. We both thought a lot of things.

  She clears her throat. Looks right at me.

  “I’m up here because I need you back. It’s time for you to wake up, be my friend again. I can’t have it like this anymore. It’s been months. If this is the way it’s going to be—you don’t get to just fade away.”

  She spins her cup on the saucer a little. Breathes. Lays it on me.

  “You have to say it to me. Say you’re done. We’re done. If we aren’t going to be us anymore—” She looks away from me, shreds her napkin into little strips. “I have a bunch of new friends at school.”

  I know what she wants me to tell her. And I do. I say it. Because that’s how it works. Because she’s here and right now I can’t face what would happen if I said anything different.

  “We’re still us.”

  And when I say it, for a second I think it’s true. It feels true. But maybe it’s not; maybe it’s an old habit. Either way she’s right. I faded away. From everything. Her. Myself.

  “Oh, Art School,” she says, resurrecting an old nickname, “you have no idea how much I needed you. I was freaked out about everything—everything changed. Going away—I thought we’d go through that together. My parents weren’t there for me—you know—and my brother’s a total loser.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say again. I am, I think. I am. I’ve been a bad friend. I take a huge breath. “I came up here because I couldn’t stand being anywhere else.”

  Silence. I guess I sound defensive. She reaches up, undoes and reties her pony. Not that it needed it.

  I pick at a sticky bit of something on the tabletop. “I just don’t see how people can ignore all the terrible things that happen and shove on with life.”

  “Well, they just do,” she says firmly, rewrapping her scarf around her neck. She’s so used to having the final word. Thinks she still can, that it means something to be so sure. “Wow.” She breathes out, looking at me like she’s really seeing me, as I am now, for the first time. “Wren. How did you get so messed up?”

  Patrick died ten inches from me.

  I was pregnant.

  I close my eyes. Press my lips tight.

  “I didn’t mean it like that—Wren—” she says.

  I open my eyes and look at her again.

  “I don’t know when I’m going to feel better. I’m just trying to live up here. Trying to wake up and not feel like everything’s pointless.”

  “Everything is pointless, you idiot,” she says, sounding more like herself. “I don’t know why that’s bothe
ring you now, all of a sudden.”

  We sit there a minute, then she leans toward me, drops her voice to a whisper, “Can we go back to your house? I need to stay the night at least, and Mr. Hunchback over there is giving me the creeps.”

  I laugh. She wants me to.

  “I’m here,” I say again, to make her feel better, more comfortable. “A little out of my mind, but here.”

  Her face softens when I say it. Looks less afraid. She looks like my friend again. The one I’ve known since we were little. The one I loved. Love.

  But the thing is, I don’t know if I can go back to being Meredith and Mamie. If I want to. My heart’s pounding. Like it could come out of my chest, leave me. Like I might run out of here, chasing after it.

  you’re

  a

  freak

  NIGHT SLIPS IN when we aren’t looking.

  “You drive.” She tosses me the keys. “You always drive.”

  She looks at me, horrified for a second. “You do still drive, don’t you?”

  “Of course.” I can leave the Jeep at the library overnight.

  She gets the deluxe tour of beautiful Main Street. Quick and dirty. Then we fly down the highway, past the turn-off to Cal’s road and on to ours. I pull in slowly along the muck-rutted drive.

  “Christ,” she says, looking out the window as we pass some of Dad’s piles of scrap metal. “I think we were thirteen the last time I was up here. Remember that? Your mom had some big work deal she couldn’t change, and we took the train up for that long weekend? She was so worried! Man, what did she think was going to happen? We were all excited, and then it was just a regular weekend. With trees.” She looks around. “I forgot how pretty it is. Is your dad the same?”

  “Yep,” I say. “And his girlfriend is living with us.”

  “Your mom didn’t mention that.”

  “She doesn’t know.”

  The house is dark, but the studio’s glowing. We pop in to say hi to Dad and Zara. He looks ridiculously happy to see Meredith again, that I have a friend with me.

  Nick sets his work down and comes over to meet her too. She gives him the once-over, then blows him off. It’s kind of funny. He looks so disappointed I almost feel sorry for him. Almost.

  Before we leave, he calls out to us, “I’ll be working late if you guys are looking for something to do later.”

  He raises his finger a second, to make us wait, darts into the back room, then back out again, carrying something.

  “I found this digital projector in the studio, your dad says Mary left it? How about I hook it up and we screen something in here? Ladies’ choice.”

  I shoot him a small smile, he’s trying so hard, then we head back to the house.

  “Come on!” he shouts after us, laughing. “There’s nothing to do up here!”

  We step in the door and I’m reminded of the day Cal first came. Watching him see the place, take it in. Like he was meeting an old friend. I throw on all the lights and stand next to Meredith a minute while she does the same.

  “Nothing’s changed!” she says, happily.

  “Dad’s not big on interior decorating.”

  “Oh, I used to be so jealous of you that your dad was like this,” she says, waving her arm around the room.

  “Like what?”

  “You know, artsy, loose, not concerned with how everything looks all the time. I thought if I had this, a real place to come to like this, it’d make everything a lot easier.”

  “You have the beach house,” I say, without thinking. My stomach takes a dive.

  She kicks off her shoes, flops on the couch, and wisely changes the subject.

  “So . . . I’m seeing someone new . . .”

  I am rushed backward and forward through time. She’s seeing someone new. Which means high school ended, she went away to college, and she met new people. New friends.

  She watches me closely, waits for me to ask.

  “Okay, spill.” I raise my eyebrows. Like I’m excited to hear everything. This is exactly what I’m not sure I can do. Care. Like I did before. But I can try.

  “Oh!” She pops up and grabs her purse. “That reminds me, I didn’t tell him I got here. I said I’d let him know.” She sends a quick text.

  When she’s done, she smiles. “And, since you asked, Middlebury’s great. Cool people, I love the campus, and finally some new guys, a fresh crop, thank God. After the same Bly boys for twelve years—” She shakes her head, like she’s not sure how she made it through.

  I feel like an out-of-touch social anthropologist, listening to her. Did I used to talk like this? I can hardly remember what it felt like, what I thought was so exciting or important.

  “His name’s Matt,” she’s saying, almost singing his name. “He’s my roommate’s brother’s friend. Third year. Poli-sci. From L.A. He kind of has that surf thing going on.”

  She savors the details. I would have loved this a year ago. I can almost picture him from the look on her face. I remember it now, how we did this, talked about guys, the way it felt to imagine yourself attached to someone new, to another life in your imagination, feel like someone different, or more than you already were. It’s just that the stakes turned out to be higher than we ever dreamed. I sit next to her on the couch.

  “I’m glad,” I say, sounding like someone my mother’s age. But Meredith’s from the other side, an emissary from the land of what my life might have been, a road not taken.

  “That’s all?” She deflates. “Don’t you want to see photos?” She waggles her phone at me.

  I take it. Look at her pictures. He is cute, exotic, so not New York. Very white teeth. Probably really popular. Kind of reminds me of Nick. I shiver a little.

  Meredith pokes around the house while I scroll through her photos. “God, your dad has some crazy art.” Admiration in her voice.

  Life at Middlebury. This is what it looks like. Going away to school. All these shots of her with her arms around people, faces I don’t know. She’s smiling in every one. Seems like a lot of work. All that smiling.

  “So.” She plops back down next to me, tugs a lock of my hair. “In case we were still friends, I snuck us a little treat.”

  I look at her. No idea what she’s talking about.

  She pulls on her boots, grabs her keys, and runs out to the car. Comes clomping back in with two bottles of champagne. The kind her dad buys by the case. The stock we pilfered at the beach house.

  “I thought,” she says, “we might celebrate. You know, that everything’s okay.”

  Everything’s okay. She wants it to be okay, everything. Maybe it is. I wish it were.

  “I’m sorry.” I apologize again, like we’re sealing a deal. “I—”

  What? I’m sorry I’m not the person she wants me to be?

  She sets the bottles on the table. Hugs me.

  “Me too,” she says. “And, it’s okay. You’re a freak. It’s not your fault. They only let you out of The Home as an experiment anyway. We’re tracking you with interest.”

  She stretches out on the couch. Puts her head in my lap. Bites me on the arm. Makes puppy eyes.

  “So, you ever going to go to college?” she asks, casually. I can tell by the way she’s holding her voice she’s been dying to ask and is probably going to report everything I say right back to my mother.

  I sigh. I wish I had a clear answer for her.

  “Probably,” I say. “I guess my dad’s been talking to people at RISD. It sounds like they might take me in the fall if I want.”

  “RISD?!” She bites me again. “Your wish! Wren, that’s great! You got your wish! And your mother’s coming around?”

  My wish.

  She has no idea how that sounds. She can’t possibly, or she’d never have said it.

  The wish that sunk Patrick. Me. Sometimes I wonder how deep underground they buried him, whether he was cremated or if he’s stretched out in dress clothes in some bizarrely padded but tasteful satin-lined box. Did his mom
buy him new clothes or is he wearing something I knew, buttons I slipped out of their narrow holes? I wonder if I could go and lie on the grass above him. Arrange my body like his. Look at the sky for both of us.

  “Earth to Wren,” Meredith’s saying. The present rings off her like an alarm. “Let’s chill this champagne. RISD. So awesome.”

  I close my eyes. Try to come back.

  Be normal.

  I follow her to the kitchen, will myself to go on talking. Take a shaky breath. “Either that or I’ll go to Berlin—remember all those cool, weird German gifts I used to get on my birthday from Theo and Marta? My dad’s friends? They’re offering to have me stay with them for a year. Take some classes over there.”

  But I realize as I say it that it’s not going to happen. Berlin. Not yet anyway. It’s too much. Too different. I would have leapt at the chance a year ago. I lean against the counter, remember Cal in this same spot, looking so beautiful on New Year’s Day. Maybe Theo and Marta will let me come later. After college or something.

  I’m holding two squishy, cold, overripe avocados while she rearranges the fridge to make room for the bottles, when my dad and Zara walk in. Dad eyes the bottles, opens his mouth a second, but says nothing. Zara holds his hand tight, like she’d stop him if he were going to object. She keeps him near the door, tells us there’s dinner in the fridge. Some frittata thing she made that we can just heat up. They’ll leave us to our night, she says, firmly. They need to go to Mercy House anyway, pack a few more things. May or may not be back. I wonder how much of this is cool with my dad. He keeps quiet.

  I hand the avocados to Mer and run over to hug him. Hug them both. It’s the first time I’ve hugged Zara, but I know she’s looking out for me, and I feel a surge of love for her because of it. They leave us, with promises to call in an hour or two. Check in.

  As soon as the car pulls away, Meredith grins at me and says, “Warm bubbly never hurt anyone. Let’s pop one of those babies.”

  She bangs around looking for glasses while I reheat Zara’s frittata. Finally she hands me a jelly jar full of champagne. “I couldn’t find flutes.”

  I laugh a second, to her surprise, then she laughs too.