What Remains of Me

by Alison Gaylin

  With Mom, it had started earlier, and it had been a lot more dramatic. Catherine yelled at her, called her a bitch. She slammed doors in Mom’s face, mocked her “no Hollywood” rules, and made a big, spectacular show of pushing her away.

  But she was sweeter about leaving Kelly. Instead of screaming at her, she eased out of her life in such a way, Kelly barely noticed it happening. First, she stopped watching Happy Days with Kelly at night, excusing herself to take phone calls in the kitchen and later heading out to, as Catherine put it, “destinations unknown.” Instead of dragging Kelly along like she used to do when they were little and it was sleepovers and birthday parties she was going to, Catherine would leave on her own to meet her new and mysterious circle of friends, reporting back to Kelly when she returned and Mom was out of earshot. “So this girl I met at the party? Her dad used to play drums for Jimi Hendrix!”

  “I kissed the most adorable guy. He’s done commercials! You know that Tide one, where those kids roll down the hill and get grass stains . . .”

  “Kelly, I can’t believe you don’t know who Jimi Hendrix was . . .”

  “I’m going all the way. Don’t tell Mom.”

  “I lost it, Kelly. For real. I bled and everything.”

  “The Whisky is amazing. You have to go there sometime. All these girls were doing poppers in the bathroom.”

  “I can’t believe you don’t know what poppers are . . .”

  “I can’t tell you who he is. He’s . . . he’s kind of famous. We haven’t done it yet but we will. I can feel it.”

  Kelly loved these late-night talks, looked forward to them so much, she barely noticed that they were happening less and less, that Catherine was becoming weird and remote, claiming tiredness, slipping off to sleep, saying “tell you later. I promise.” Later never came. Catherine was shedding Kelly, the same way you’d shed any bad habit, bit by bit by bit.

  By the last few months of her life, Catherine had become a stranger. She’d grown lean and leggy and hard-eyed, while Kelly stayed a chubby kid. She started wearing lipstick you could only get in Europe that came in an elegant silver tube and was called Rouge de la Bohème. She took it with her everywhere, made a big show of applying it.

  Mom didn’t know what to make of her. “Who are you, anyway?” She said that to Catherine more and more.

  Catherine hardly ever said a word to Kelly, sneaking in late without waking her, ditching her at the school bus with a quick wave good-bye. She would disappear for days at a time and return wearing brand-new clothes and once, a new necklace with a delicate, shimmering chain and gold, heart-shaped pendant that had two small diamonds at the bottom. “Where did you get that?” Mom had asked, between her teeth, eyes narrowing as Catherine just stood there, smirking at her. “Answer me. Who gave that to you?”

  “I think it’s pretty,” Kelly had tried. Neither one of them had paid any attention.

  Kelly pined for Catherine. She started spying on her, following her down the street at a safe distance as she walked with her beautiful friends, strawberry blond hair swinging and gleaming. She strained to overhear Catherine’s phone conversations, marveling at her coy laugh, her cagy, clever way with words.

  She stayed up late, listening for Catherine’s rides to drop her off outside their apartment. Sometimes it would be groups of girls, their laughter floating in the night air. Other times, Kelly would hear rustling and heavy breathing outside their front door and she’d know it was a boy.

  Once, when Kelly was home from school sick and Mom was at work, she’d heard tires screech outside their window. Kelly had peeked around the curtains to see her sister hurrying away from the most beautiful car she’d ever seen—a shiny black Porsche, with tinted windows and mirrored hubcaps. Kelly had been so enthralled with the car that she hadn’t even bothered to think about who Catherine had been storming away from until he got out of the driver’s-side door and followed her a few steps. As Kelly watched, the Porsche’s driver grabbed her sister’s swinging arm, then spun her around, pushed her up against one of the palms that lined their street, and kissed her, hard. It looked strange and mean, as she’d never imagined a kiss could be.

  As he headed back to his car, Kelly had been able to take a good, long look at him—mirrored aviator glasses to match the hubcaps, black T-shirt and sports jacket and slacks, not jeans. Very short hair, receding hairline. He wasn’t a boy. He was a grown man, much older than Len. He was probably older than their father.

  Kelly had hurried back into her bedroom and gotten into bed, closing her eyes and seeing it all again behind her lids—the beautiful car, the man with the aviator glasses. The way he’d grabbed at her sister.

  “You’re here,” Catherine had said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m sick.”

  “Okay. Um . . . Hope you feel better.”

  It had made Kelly open her eyes—the crack in Catherine’s voice. And then she’d looked at her face, the streaks of mascara down her cheeks. You’re crying, she had wanted to say. You never cry.

  “Kelly?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you remember Thumbelina?”

  Kelly had nodded, remembering the doll they’d both begged for when they were little—tiny Thumbelina who could crawl and turn over and looked so real and cute on the TV ads. They’d pleaded with their parents for months—Just one Thumbelina doll! We can share it!—and finally their dad had relented. They’d torn open the box, only to find a cheap plastic thing with hollow eyes that whirred angrily when you pulled the string, flailing and falling on its side like something broken. The real Thumbelina had been nothing like the doll in the ad. She’d been scary, in fact, and while Kelly had been disappointed, Catherine had sobbed.

  Cried real tears, just like now.

  “We wanted that doll so bad,” Kelly had tried.

  Catherine had nodded slowly, touching the necklace, tapping a finger against the two small diamonds. “We never should have opened the box.”

  Valentine’s Day couldn’t have been more than two months later. Catherine had come home very late. Close to 3:00 A.M. Kelly had been sound asleep and she’d woken up to the front door slamming, a car roaring away.

  “Where were you?” Mom had shouted.

  And then Catherine had said it, in an awful, smirking tone that made Kelly pull the pillow over her head. “I was with my Valentine.”

  “Tell me his name.”

  “You don’t get to ask me that.”

  “Catherine—”

  “Get away from me!”

  Mom had exploded. She’d called her all kinds of horrible names.

  Kelly had gotten up. She’d left the bedroom she still supposedly shared with Catherine and padded into the hallway, just in time to see Mom slap Catherine hard across the face . . .

  “I’m sorry,” Mom had sobbed, just after the slap. “I’m sorry, baby. We can fix this. Let me help you fix it.”

  Catherine had spotted Kelly in the doorway and run for her, her whole cheek bright red. She’d thrown her arms around her, hugged her for the first time in so long. “It’s in the top dresser drawer,” she had whispered in her ear. “Keep it for me.”

  Before Mom could stop her, she’d grabbed the car keys off the hook by the door. She’d run out, starting up Mom’s car and driving away—leggy, mature Catherine who had somehow learned how to drive. Mom had run out of the house, screaming after her own car before finally collapsing on the front step, Kelly staring at her, not knowing what to do.

  “Go back to your room,” Mom had told Kelly. And so she had. She’d looked in the top dresser drawer and seen it there. The necklace.

  ON THE KITCHEN RADIO NOW, THE ANNOUNCER INTONED, “looooooowest prices evvvverrrrr” in a rumbling, movie demon voice, and Kelly tried to make those words drown out what was looping through her brain. The car screech. Mom’s sobs. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”

  It was easier to pretend Catherine was alive and in the room with her, sneaking candy, tryi
ng to put one over on Mom the way they used to before everything went sour.

  In Kelly’s shirt pocket was Len’s phone number, written on the back of a Denny’s matchbook. “So you’ll think of me when you light up,” he had said.

  “Did it count, Catherine?” Kelly whispered to the picture when the radio was at its loudest. “Tonight with Len? Can I call it my first time?”

  Kelly popped the whole chocolate in her mouth, curling her tongue around it, closing her eyes for the sweet, rich taste.

  She gagged. It was awful. Stale and nearly tasteless. Kelly spit it out into her hands, picked up another, tested it with her fingers. It felt like plastic—not even a hint of softness. How old is this box of candy?

  “What is wrong with you, Mom?” she said, under her breath, then left the bedroom in a few long steps, grabbing her shoes on the way out, making it into her own room at last as an ad for some skin care cream blared. Softly, carefully, Kelly closed her door. She grabbed a tissue out of the box on her nightstand, wrapped the candy in it, a strange sadness flooding through her, the chalky taste lingering.

  What is wrong with you, Mom?

  She headed across the hall to the bathroom. “Rockin’ Robin” tweetilee deeted out of the radio like drips of ice cold water.

  “Kelly?”

  “Just brushing my teeth!” Kelly brushed the awful taste out of her mouth, along with the questions floating around in her brain, the sadness. The past. Valentine’s Day would be the two-year anniversary of Catherine’s death and her mother was up all night scrubbing the kitchen floor, an ancient box of stale chocolates (Who gave them to her?) waiting on her nightstand. She brushed all of that away, too. And then she flushed the piece of candy down the toilet.

  Once she was in her room again, Kelly checked the very back of her nightstand drawer—the place where she now kept the necklace. She changed into her pajamas and got into bed. A little bit of her high still lingered and she was glad for that. As she closed her eyes, she brought her thinking back to Len, how tightly he’d held on to her. She thought about Bellamy, her new friend, and what she’d say to her in science class tomorrow.

  BELLAMY DIDN’T SHOW UP AT SCHOOL FOR THREE WHOLE DAYS. THE first day, Tuesday, Kelly could barely keep her eyes open from lack of sleep the night before. She spent most of the day in a haze but arrived early to science class and stood waiting at the new girl’s empty desk, clutching the Denny’s matchbook with Len’s number on it—her new talisman. She stood there, waiting and waiting until Mr. Hansen came in and started writing on the board and Evan Mueller, who sat next to Bellamy, asked Kelly what the hell she was doing, all moony-eyed at Bellamy Marshall’s desk like a groupie. “Are you a lezzie or what?” he said. Kelly didn’t answer.

  After school, she finally went to detention, which was held in the same room where she normally had study hall. There were three other kids in the room with her—a couple of punk rock boys with scary spiked Mohawks and dog collars and anarchy signs on their leather jackets, a girl in tight jeans and a tube top, chewing fruit gum Kelly could smell from three rows away. None of them paid attention to her and neither did Miss Rivers, the teacher in charge. And so the three hours went quickly. Kelly spent the whole time with her notebook open, writing long letters to Bellamy, asking her questions.

  THE NEXT DAY OF BELLAMY’S ABSENCE, KELLY SNEAKED OVER TO THE administration office during lunch, the Denny’s matchbook buttoned into the pocket of her denim jacket. She asked the receptionist, Mrs. Yanikian, if she could tell her where Bellamy Marshall’s locker was.

  “Why?”

  “I’m in her science class.”

  “Yes. And?”

  “And . . . we have a project. We need to work on it and I can’t find her . . .”

  Mrs. Yanikian glowered at her over the cat’s-eye glasses she wore on a gold chain around her neck. The rhinestones at the edges twinkled.

  “Can you tell me the locker number, please?”

  The receptionist paged through a notebook on her desk, her manicured nails a deep bloodred, her copper hair molded into perfect waves. Mrs. Yanikian spent an awful lot of time dolling herself up, just to sit in this cage of an office all day long.

  “Bellamy Marshall is absent today,” she said. “But if you have a project together, you should already know where her locker is.”

  “I . . . forgot.”

  Mrs. Yanikian smiled at her with flat eyes. “Run along, Kelly,” she said. “The bell is going to ring soon.”

  ON THE THIRD DAY, WHICH WAS VALENTINE’S DAY, KELLY SAT WORRYING through science, Bellamy’s empty seat gaping at her back until finally she could no longer stand it. She raised her hand.

  Mr. Hansen, who had been explaining something having to do with cell production, said, “Yes, Kelly?”

  “Can I get a hall pass please?”

  “Silly me. I thought you were going to contribute to class discussion.”

  A few kids snickered. Kelly took a breath. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  More snickers. Mr. Hansen let out a heavy sigh and handed her a pass. It was everything Kelly could do not to leap out of the classroom, but she made herself take it slow. She made herself walk, not run, down the hall to the pay phone outside the nurse’s office because running would get her stopped by a hall monitor or janitor. She knew this. It was the way life worked. Try to rush something, you get delayed. You break the rules, bad things happen.

  Once she got to the pay phone, her heart starting pounding. In her mind, she told herself, It will be fine. Before she could think too long, she threw her quarter into the slot, plucked the Denny’s matchbook out of the front pocket of her corduroys, and dialed Len’s number.

  It rang and rang and rang and rang.

  Not home. She was about to hang up when, finally, a woman answered.

  Kelly’s stomach dropped. “Who is this?”

  “Who is this?”

  She shut her eyes, felt her cheeks flushing. “Is Len there? Sorry. I’m just . . . I’m looking for my friend Bellamy and I don’t have her number and so I’m wondering if maybe—”

  “Len?”

  “He’s friends with my friend Bellamy and . . . uh . . .”

  “Is Len your boyfriend or something?”

  She cleared her throat. “I met him the other day. He gave me this number.”

  The woman started to laugh.

  “He did. I swear.”

  “You sound young. How old are you, anyway? Twelve?”

  Kelly exhaled hard. “No.”

  “Honey, trust me on this,” the woman said. “Len does not want to see you.”

  “You don’t know that. He gave me this number. He told me to call.”

  The woman laughed some more. “This number,” she said, “is a pay phone.”

  Kelly’s cheeks burned. She slammed down the receiver, her neck hot, her throat swelling, that awful tingle starting in her belly, coursing through her . . . same thing she had felt on her first day back at school two years ago, working the combination on her locker next to Catherine’s empty one and knowing she had no one now. No sister to follow around. No chance of a friend.

  Len had given her a made-up number.

  She’d told him it was her first time. She hadn’t planned to tell him that—she had wanted him to think it was no big deal, that she was like Bellamy. But the pot had felt like truth serum and his hands were crawling all over her and she’d wanted him to know. She’d wanted him to know how important this was and how, after it happened, she’d never be the same. He’d given her a Kleenex. He’d written down his number on the back of a matchbook and slipped it to her like a present. “So you’ll think of me when you light up.”

  Why bother lying like that? Why bother writing down a made-up phone number when she hadn’t even asked? Was it some joke? Was all of it—Bellamy and her house and the pot and everything—was all of it a joke that Len had been in on?

  “Len likes you. I can tell.”

  Kelly felt that heat pres
sing up against the backs of her eyes. She knew she was going to cry. She couldn’t be here any longer. Her legs moved beneath her, like they were a separate machine, coming to her rescue, propelling her down the halls and lurching her to safety.

  “No running in the halls!” one of the janitors shouted. But Kelly pretended not to hear him. She didn’t care about breaking rules anymore.

  Before she could think very long about what she was doing, Kelly was out the front door of the school, and she was rushing down the steps, the sun too bright, the sidewalk hot beneath the wavy soles of her sandals.

  It was an uncommonly warm day for this time of year . . . same as it had been two years ago, the stifling air from outside billowing into their house when Catherine opened the door for the last time. A blast of oven-heat in the middle of the night, just like Santa Ana season, even though it had only been February, the Santa Anas months away . . .

  Or maybe that was just the way Kelly remembered it. Maybe it hadn’t been warm out at all.

  Kelly was on the sidewalk now. She heard someone making kissing noises at her out the window of a car, the blast of a horn. A girl on a Hollywood sidewalk never gets ignored, no matter how ignored she is everyplace else.

  Kelly kept up a fast pace and forced her eyes down until she saw pink stars under her feet. Hollywood Boulevard. She’d taken a wrong turn somewhere, but it didn’t matter. Her mother wasn’t working today and the last thing she wanted to do was see Mom, with her questions and her disappointment and her sad, headachy eyes. So she couldn’t go home either.

  She couldn’t go anywhere.

  “You there,” said a hoarse voice. Kelly turned and saw a shirtless man with a stained yellow beard, leaning against the window of a dirty magazine store, twitching. He was beyond broken—as though some huge monster had chewed him to bits and swallowed him and spit him back up again. “You’ll die soon,” he said.

  Kelly’s stomach dropped. She whirled away from him and stepped into the crosswalk. She heard the screech of wheels and froze and closed her eyes, not caring as much as she should have cared. Not caring at all.

  But there was no impact. No crushing pain. Just Kelly’s own name, yelled at her. She opened her eyes and saw the red VW rabbit, Bellamy behind the wheel, hair wild around her face, black-framed Ray-Bans guarding her eyes. “Are you deaf or what?” Bellamy said. “We’ve been chasing you for blocks. We were honking.”