The Edge of Falling

by Rebecca Serle

  “I can’t talk about this anymore,” I say to Claire.

  It’s hard to tell, because she turns her head, her words coming out the side of her mouth like water out of a broken faucet. But I think I hear her say, “Me either,” before she takes off back downtown.

  CHAPTER TEN

  You probably don’t believe this, at this point, given what I’ve told you about my family, but before Hayley died, we used to have family dinners. Not every night, but when we could, when my dad was in town. Me, Mom, Dad, Peter, and Hayley. Trevor came a lot too. His mom is a nurse and works nights, so he’d come over after school and just kind of stay. We’d do homework in my room. Hayley would usually join in. She liked to hang out with us. Well, she liked to hang out with Trevor.

  He was so good with her. I remember one afternoon last December we were all in my room. I had a final English paper due. Something on Edith Wharton that Trevor had already finished. He and Hayley were sketching on her big notepad on the floor. I was sitting at my desk. I kept hearing them laugh and whisper behind me.

  “Can you guys keep it down?” I teased, turning around. “I’m trying not to fail out of school here.”

  “A B isn’t failing, Caggs,” Trevor said. “Sorry to disappoint.”

  I rolled my eyes at him and Hayley laughed. “You think we should tell her?” Hayley asked.

  Trevor squinted at Hayley. “You think she can handle it?”

  Hayley nodded enthusiastically. She started bouncing on the floor.

  Trevor exaggerated an exhale. “I don’t know. I’m just not sure. Have we thought this through enough?”

  “She can!” Hayley cried. “I promise, she can! Let’s tell her!”

  Trevor nodded. “If you insist, Ms. Caulfield.”

  Hayley’s eyes looked like saucers. They got like that—big and bright—when she was really excited about something.

  Trevor cleared his throat. “Show her,” he said. Hayley held up the sketch pad they had been working on.

  “Congratulations!” was written on it in block letters, colored in purple and orange, her favorite colors.

  I looked from Trevor to Hayley. Both of them were beaming. “Congratulations?”

  Hayley looked like she was about to burst. “You and Trevor got the Journal!” She looked at Trevor and bit her lip.

  He started laughing.

  “Is she serious?” I asked him.

  Trevor nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s ours.”

  I flew out of my chair and into his arms. I remember he picked me up and spun me around. Hayley clapped her hands together from the floor. Then he kissed me. One of his end-of-movie kisses. I didn’t even care that Hayley was there. I wrapped my arms around his neck and let my toes leave the ground. “We get to spend all of next year together,” he said, pulling back just a bit.

  I touched my forehead to his. “We were going to do that anyway.”

  “Let’s celebrate!” Hayley said.

  I blew some air out of my lips. “I have to finish this paper.”

  Trevor set me down. “No problem,” he said. “You work; we’ll get the ice cream.”

  Hayley stood up and marched toward the door. “Chocolate?”

  “You know it.”

  She smiled and disappeared into the hallway. Trevor pulled me to him. I wrapped my arms around his neck.

  “I can’t believe this,” I said. “We seriously got it?”

  “Seriously.”

  I threaded my fingers through his hair. “We’re going to rock that thing.”

  “I know,” he said. He cupped my face in his hands. Brought his lips down to mine. We kissed for a few moments—the lazy kisses of two people who assume they have forever.

  Then Hayley yelled from the hallway: “Trevor!” He pulled back. “Her Majesty calls,” he said. I held on to his hand as we broke apart. “Trevor?” I said. “Yeah?”

  “Thank you.”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t do anything,” he said. He followed Hayley out into the hallway then, but I remember thinking how wrong he was. He did everything. He was the one who took care of my sister. He was the one who loved me. Being with Trevor was like being wrapped in a warm sweater all the time. The way it felt to fold into him— it was a perfect fit. I didn’t know then, of course, that that safety would start to act like a barrier. It was this space we’d created—this warm place—that became totally uninhabitable. We couldn’t be there together anymore, so Trevor decided we shouldn’t be together at all.

  At dinner that night Trevor and I laid out our plans for the Journal to my parents. Hayley took notes at the table. About a week later I found an envelope under my door.

  Inside were two pieces of lined paper with Submission for the Journal by Hayley Caulfield scrawled across the top. There was a poem in Hayley’s handwriting titled “My Sister Is the Best Friend.”

  Would Hayley still think that now? Would she know how deeply I let her down? Do the dead hold grudges? Please, Hayley. Forgive me.

  Peter comes home that Thursday. It’s his third trip in two months. “I needed to do laundry,” he jokes when I come into the kitchen in the morning and find him in front of the refrigerator.

  “Flying cross-country seems a little excessive, even for you.” I go over and hug him. “You seeing Felicia?”

  Peter eyes me. “Nah, that’s not really . . . She’s away for the weekend.”

  “Are things okay with you guys?”

  “We kinda broke up.” He cocks his head to the side and smiles.

  “Oh, man, Pete, I’m sorry.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s fine,” he says. “It was for the best.” “Too many cute California girls?”

  Peter laughs. “Something like that.”

  “So why are you back?” I slide onto a stool at the counter.

  “I thought we could hang, kid.”

  “You flew three thousand miles to spend thirty-six with your little sister? What’s going on, Pete?” But as soon as I say it, I know. I’m impressed by how quickly this plan took action. Three days, not bad. “I can’t believe she called you.” I say. Claire and I haven’t spoken since Eataly, but I guess that doesn’t mean she’s been out of touch with all Caulfields.

  Peter closes the glass door and goes to the cabinet, pulling a coffee cup down. “Oh, come on,” he says. “She’s just worried about you.”

  “That gives her some kind of right to make you fly home?” “She’s your best friend, Caggs. She just needed a little reinforcement. Someone to assess the situation.” He turns to me, a big grin on his face. I don’t mirror it.

  “This is so ridiculous. I’m actually happy for the first time in—”

  Peter holds up his hands. “Look, no judgment. But Claire’s got pretty good instincts.”

  “You’re kidding me. Instincts? The girl doesn’t know which way is south without a cab.”

  Peter pours some coffee into the top of the percolator and flips the cap down. “That’s a little harsh.”

  “Do you know the guys she dates? She thinks she’s in love once a week.”

  Something passes over Peter’s face, like the shadow of a cloud. “Do you?” he asks.

  “What?”

  “Think you’re in love.”

  I play with the drawstring on my pajama bottoms and go take a seat at the counter. I feel like we’re little kids again when I say, “None of your business.”

  Peter whistles. “Who is this Astor guy, anyway?”

  “A guy,” I say, looking up. “He used to go to school with you, actually.”

  Peter frowns. “Kensington?”

  I shake my head. “Prep.”

  “Ah.” Peter nods. “Last name?”

  “He’s a senior, not a serial killer, Pete,” I say. “He wouldn’t have been your year, anyway. I doubt you’d remember.”

  I’m reminded of the night I met Astor. Of how he remembered not only my brother, but me. It makes me feel better. Like I’m right and Peter is, well, wrong.

>   Peter pours himself a cup of coffee and holds the canister out to me. “Want some?”

  “I’m good, thanks.” Peter sighs and turns around, leaning against the counter.

  “Don’t be pissed. I’m just trying to look out for you.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Whose rescue are you running to here, anyway? Mine or Claire’s?”

  Peter pretends to be shocked by this. “Can’t a brother just do something nice for his sis?”

  “Buy me a present,” I deadpan.

  He crosses his arms. He seems to have gotten even bigger since the summer. His T-shirt looks like it’s stretching too far. It hits me again. Sometimes it does around Peter. The realization that she won’t age. That I’ll never know what Hayley looks like as a teenager, as a grown-up. I won’t know whether she turns blonde like me, how tall she gets, if she fills out around the middle. She’ll never grow up. She’ll never be a snarky high schooler, or have a boyfriend, or see the world for what it really is. She’ll be ten years old forever.

  Peter looks at me, and all the pretense seems to drain out of his eyes, so what’s left is what he really means. “I just want to make sure you’re okay,” he says quietly.

  I want to tell him I understand. To put my arms around him and tell him that I love him. That he’s all I have left too. But I can’t. It’s different for Peter. Peter doesn’t carry the guilt like I do. He doesn’t have to. His grief is pure, plain, simple. We both lost our sister, true, but it was like the second she died, she became two different people—the sister he lost, and the one I did. Peter didn’t see her at the bottom of our pool.

  He didn’t drag her out. He doesn’t know what her gray lips looked like. He doesn’t know what it feels like to have failed her. How could he understand? How could we share this? I turn away from him, hop off the stool, and busy myself with getting a water glass out of the cabinet above the sink.

  “Does Mom know you’re home?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he says. “We’re all having dinner tonight.”

  I fill the glass and stand with my back to Peter. There is a school dance tonight. Normally I’m not a really big fan of these things, but I convinced Astor to go. It’s going to be at the Guggenheim Museum, in their downstairs event space. I’ve been looking forward to it because they’re keeping the museum open. I’m imagining Astor and me stealing upstairs, him pulling me behind the Miró exhibit . . .

  “I can’t,” I say.

  I hear the opening and closing of the pantry door. Peter doesn’t say anything. I turn back around. “Sorry,” I say. “School dance.”

  “Since when are you Miss Teen Spirit?” Peter asks.

  “It’s my last year of high school,” I say. “Aren’t I allowed to have some of

  these memories?”

  He looks at me, and for a moment I see her eyes. Hayley’s.

  Peter and Hayley always looked way more alike than either of us did. Peter has a lot of my dad. Hayley did too. Rounded features, freckles. And those hazel eyes—always blazing and brilliant. “Of course you are,” he says. “Just don’t forget your family, eh?”

  I don’t say what I want to: I wish I could.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “So are you totally sick of hearing about this?” I ask. I’m on the phone with Astor, relating today’s Peter episode. I didn’t get to fill him in at school. I’m also rifling through my closet trying to pick out what to wear to the dance tonight. All my clothes feel dull—like they’ve been run through the washing machine too many times. If I was on better terms with Claire, I’d call her and ask her to bring something over, or she’d have something messengered from Barneys or Bendel’s. But we didn’t talk today, either, and I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t really want to say anything.

  “Let’s run away,” Astor says.

  “Funny,” I say. I pause to examine a black dress my mother brought me back from a trip to Paris last year. It’s a little bit much. I move on.

  “Come on,” he says. “We could go to Rome for the weekend.” Astor has been on this kick for a while—going somewhere. Paris. London. Prague. Just the two of us. It’s romantic, I’ll admit, but I think even my parents would notice if I disappeared to another country.

  “We can’t go to Rome,” I say. “We have the school dance tonight.”

  There is silence on the other end of the line.

  “What?” I say.

  I hear him inhale. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make it tonight.”

  I drop my hand from a green silk dress. “Why?”

  “I have some family stuff to deal with.” He doesn’t offer anything more. Standing in my closet now, I’m surprised at theE level of disappointment I feel. I don’t know why I care so much. It’s just a dance, at a school I don’t like, with people I barely know.

  “Can I do anything?” “No,” he says. “It’s no big deal.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’re not mad, are you? Do you really want to go to this thing?”

  I look at the line of hanging dresses. The discarded heels on the floor. “I don’t know.”

  “It’s Kensington,” he says. “It’s lame. ” He drops his voice down. “Why don’t I just come over later?”

  “Because I wanted to go,” I say. The words surprise me, but I don’t try to cover them.

  I hear Astor breathing on the other end. “I didn’t really think you cared,” he says. His voice sounds clipped. Maybe even bitter. “You hate this stuff. We both do. It’s just a night of having to be fake to people.”

  I cover. “I get it,” I say. “It’s fine.”

  “It’s obviously not,” he says. He sounds far off, like he’s put the phone on speaker. “I’ll go.”

  “You don’t have to. You should deal with your family.”

  He ignores me. “I have to meet you there, though. Okay?”

  “Sure,” I say. “But if you can’t come, that’s okay too.”

  “No, it’s not,” he says. His voice has changed, softened. “I’ll see you soon.” He hangs up quickly, before I have a chance to say good-bye.

  I feel uneasy. I fight the urge to call him back and tell him I was kidding, I don’t really want to go, and why doesn’t he just come over after and watch a movie? But I don’t. I’d just sound psychotic, I think. Plus I kind of do want to go. I want to dance with him. I want him to hold me underneath the lights. I want to feel like maybe this can be something normal. Something real.

  I sit down cross-legged on the floor and flip open my jewelry box. I peer inside. It’s a mess, just like I thought— everything jumbled and tangled like the rat’s nest my hair sometimes becomes if I’ve been wearing it down. It’s impossible to tell one necklace from another. I hear my mother’s voice in my head: These are nice things, Caggie. You really should take better care of them.

  My mother has always been a collector. She buys the old stuff—antique, art deco. When I was younger she used to take me to the markets in Paris the Marché aux Puces and scour the stands for findings. Whenever we’d go on a trip we’d find the jewelry district and spend at least one full afternoon there. The souks in Morocco, the gems district in Bangkok. It was something we did together, just the two of us. She’d always buy me a present, too. Something to remember the trip by.

  We haven’t done it this year, though. My mother shops a lot at Ralph Lauren now. They started designing stuff that looks like the antiques, so she buys that instead.

  I find a pendant necklace entwined with pearls and a chain-link bracelet I got for my sweet sixteen. I pick them apart and hold the pendant in my palm. It’s green—an emerald, I think—and about the size of my thumbnail. It’s on a silver chain. My dad gave it to me. It was his mother’s, but somewhere along the line the original chain got lost. I remember my mom laughing, “It would be like your father to buy you a gem with no way to wear it,” and taking me to get a new chain. Hayley insisted on coming too.

  We went to Tiffany’s, which was unusual for my mom�
� Tiffany’s was too mainstream for her—but Hayley wanted to go. She was on an Audrey Hepburn kick. She’d made Trevor and me watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s about ten times. I told her she could pick where we went; it didn’t matter to me. So she picked Tiffany’s. She made us get all dolled up before we went, too. Black cocktail dresses and gloves and hats. She even borrowed a pair of my mom’s big sunglasses. I remember they kept sliding down her nose.

  We each chose a silver chain. My mom told Hayley that since she had come with us she could pick something special out. Anything she wanted, within reason. But Hayley chose that silver chain. She wanted the same thing I was getting. My mom tried to explain to her that mine would have a pendant on it, but she didn’t care. She wanted to buy what I was buying.

  Hayley was independent, definitely, but she was like that with me sometimes. It wasn’t that she wanted what I had. She wasn’t jealous. The only five-year-old I knew who never threw a tantrum. She wanted us to match. She wanted similarity.

  She wanted to share things. It was just a plain chain, and I tried to talk her into something else—after all, she didn’t have anything to put on it—but she insisted. One just like mine.

  My mom ended up buying her a charm later—a little ruby— but she never put it on. She wanted to wear it plain. “Just like the day we bought it,” she said.

  I slide the green emerald off and squeeze the stone in my hand. It feels cold, like a frozen penny in my palm. Then I put the chain on. I edge up to the slip of glass on the lid of the jewelry box. I can’t see my face at this angle, just my neck. I could be Hayley, I think, as I glance at the chain, shimmering on bare skin. Then I bring my hand up to touch it. My fingers give me away. They’re long they always have been. Hayley’s were short, tiny, baby hands. Peter would always tease her about it. “Can you even pick up a fork, Hayley?” “Are you sure you can open that door, Hayley?” It was always in good fun, she knew that, but I wonder if he thinks about that now. I wonder if he regrets it.

  “Knock knock.”

  I spin around to see my dad standing in my dressing room doorway. It shocks me so much I practically snap the necklace off.