The First Time I Died

by Joanne Macgregor

  Inside, it was still dark and claustrophobic. And it still took way too long to drive through. As my car rumbled over its boards, I resisted the crazy sensation that the wooden sides were closing ranks in the darkness behind me, sealing off the route out of town. If I were a therapist — and despite my protestations to Prof. Perry, I was far from sure I wanted to be — I’d have been tempted to interpret the tight tunnel as a symbolic birth canal.

  But this time, I realized, I was going back to Mama.

  2

  THEN

  April 2007

  The day of the picnic was the first clear day in ages. After what felt like a year of thick clouds and heavy rain, the sun emerged triumphant in a cloudless, turquoise sky, and the message went out on Myspace and in texts: Spring Break! Picnic today, noon, Flat Rock, bring food and drinks. Seniors and juniors only.

  We arrived in small groups, peeling out of cars and claiming spots on the grass, benches and boulders at the site. Someone hooked up their iPod to a pair of mini-speakers, and The Fray wondered how to save a life. We dumped our offerings of soda and snacks on the lichen-covered, flat-topped boulder, like supplicants at a stone altar to an ancient god. My friend Jessica Armstrong and I had caught a ride with her handsome brother, James, whom everyone called Blunt because he was always stoned. Though he’d been out of high school for a couple of years now, Blunt’s stash of weed was his ticket to any gathering of teens in our town.

  Jessica hoisted her clinking backpack onto the rock and extracted a tower of red Solo cups and three bottles of wine. Everyone standing nearby cheered.

  Pete Dillon, captain of the football team and never one to deny his appetites, gave her a wink and said, “Suh-weet, Armstrong! How’d you get your hands on the weineken?”

  Jessica blushed, but tried to play it cool. “I lifted it.” To me she whispered, “From my father’s liquor cabinet,” and, at my look, added, “What? He won’t miss a few bottles.”

  My contribution to the food consisted of an enormous bag of my favorite Fiery Habanero Doritos and another of popcorn, a tube of Pringles, and a few bottles of Coke and Sour Apple soda — all legitimately sourced from my father’s grocery store in town. Hot, salty, sweet and sour. I had all my extreme taste bases covered.

  Others had brought hot dogs, goldfish crackers, more chips and enough candy to get everyone smacked off their heads on sugar. Colby Beaumont, I noticed — and I always noticed Colby Beaumont — had brought several six-packs of bottled spring water in a range of flavors, which he’d probably collected from his family’s bottling plant just a mile down the way. He was wearing faded Levis and an old Red Hot Chili Peppers T-shirt, and his fair hair shone in the sunlight. Even Judy Burns — who was all over him like salmonella on steak — couldn’t dim his gorgeousness.

  Jessica elbowed me in the ribs and tilted her head in Colby’s direction. She was always trying to get me to make a move on him, telling me, “You two would be perfect for each other.” She regarded the fact that Colby was currently dating Judy as inconvenient, but irrelevant. “That won’t last, you’ll see. What’s she got besides beauty?”

  We both stared enviously at the long legs, big boobs and sleek, strawberry-blond hair of our fellow senior. By comparison, I was boring. Average height, medium-brown hair. The only non-regular things about my appearance were my boobs, which were smaller than the norm.

  “Colby strikes me as the kind of guy who likes, you know, brains. And personality.”

  “She’s not stupid,” I conceded begrudgingly.

  “Plus,” Jessica continued, undeterred by my pessimism, “I heard from Stef that they’re really rocky. But you’ve got to make him notice you. Like, starting now.”

  I made myself consider it logically. If I spoke to him, one of two things could happen — either he’d blow me off, or he wouldn’t. Fifty-fifty odds weren’t bad. I pulled my long braid of brown hair around to the front, because Jess always said it looked cuter that way, and made myself smile as I walked over to Colby. Judy narrowed her eyes territorially at me and held onto Colby a little tighter.

  “Hey Colby, can I try a bottle of the lemon and lime water?” I asked.

  “Sure, help yourself.”

  He fished a few bottles out of the cooler of ice beside him and held one out to me. I took it, hyper-aware of the brush of his fingers against mine. I offered him some of my prized hot chips. “Want to try these? Since you like chilis.”

  “He doesn’t like chilis,” Judy said. “Why would you think he does?”

  Colby looked confused, and I inwardly cursed my sucky social skills.

  “Um.” I pointed to his shirt.

  “Oh, right, I get it.” He grinned and took a few chips and popped them in his mouth.

  “Well?” I asked him.

  “They’re not bad at all. Spicy, but not too hot.”

  “Wait for it …” I said.

  Judy gave me a why-are-you-still-here look, but Colby’s eyes widened as the slow burn kicked into higher gear. Then he went red and coughed, while Judy slapped his back with a manicured hand.

  “I told you he doesn’t like hot things. Are you okay, Colbs?” she asked, fussing over him and handing him a cup of soda.

  “The heat is murdering my face,” he rasped. He gulped down the soda, then pulled a face. “Too sweet!”

  “Here.” I handed him the bottle of lemon and lime water I’d just taken. “Sorry.”

  “You eat those things?” he asked when he could breathe again.

  “All the time,” I admitted, fiddling with the end of my long braid, feeling the spiky tuft of hair against my fingertips.

  He raised his eyebrows at me and rubbed a hand across his chest. “Respect. I think I’ll stick to musical peppers.”

  Judy placed a fingertip on his jaw and turned his head to face her again. “Let’s hike to the top of the hill, Colbs. Maybe we can get some privacy that way.”

  Colby chugged the rest of the water like his throat was burning before giving me a quick grin. Judy muttered something about irritating interruptions as they walked away. I stood like a dope, watching him go, admiring the fine sight of his denim-clad butt until Jess joined me again.

  I sighed. “I’m such a moron. Why didn’t I offer him Pringles? Or popcorn?”

  “Consider the upside,” she said. “At least he won’t forget you.”

  We hung around, soaking up the sun, while some of the others trailed after Colby and Judy. It was always like that — wherever Colby was, others wanted to be. Jess gave a snort of disgust, and following her gaze, I saw Pete lying on a patch of grass with a girl from my class called Ashleigh Hale. He had his tongue down her throat, and she had her hands under his shirt.

  “Come on, you don’t want to watch that,” I told Jess.

  She had a soft spot for Pete. But he had a hard one for every girl in town. He’d even tried putting the moves on me a couple of times, but his bulky muscles and frat-boy-style charm couldn’t compare to Colby’s lean frame, fair hair and slow smile. Pete was loud and funny. Colby was deep and intense. I knew which one I preferred.

  Jess and I headed up the trail that snaked through the trees and around the side of the hill, all the way to the source of the spring near the top. Halfway up, Jess and I stepped off the path to catch our breath. Thirsty from the hot, salty chips, I finished my water while I took in the view. Come the end of September, the scene would glow with the ruby, russet and flame yellows of a New England fall, but now the hills were an endless vista of green stretching to the distant ridge of mountains. The woods ended, like the curve of a frothy wave on a beach, where old Elias Johnson’s dairy farm began on the lower slopes of the hill.

  From this distance, the black-and-white cows looked like a kid’s picture book drawing of cows in a green pasture. But I’d done deliveries from my father’s store to that farm, and I knew that up close the cows were gross, their faces and udders raw and red with eczema caused by a toxin that flourished in the warm, wet weather. The poor
creatures got severe sunburn and had bare, bleeding patches where they rubbed against trees and poles, and my father’s store did a good trade in the zinc ointment that helped the condition.

  “Ready to go on?” Jess asked.

  I nodded, and we were just about to get back onto the path when Pete Dillon came striding up. Ashleigh was nowhere in sight.

  “I didn’t think you were going to join us on the hike,” Jess said, looking happy at Pete’s change of plans.

  “I just wanted to give you guys a head start, else it wouldn’t be a challenge. Watch me get to the top first,” he said and took off running up the trail.

  “Why is everything a competition with him?” I said, as he disappeared around a bend.

  Jess sighed. “He likes winning.”

  “He likes beating Colby, you mean.” As popular as Pete was, everyone knew that Colby was top dog at Pitchford High.

  “That, too,” she conceded.

  We set off again, each in a haze of unrequited adoration.

  “Hey,” I said, trying to shrug off the mood, “time for a bet.”

  “Lay it on me.”

  “Which girl from school gets pregnant first?”

  “Good one!” Jess said. “I’ll put five bucks on you.”

  “Me?” I squeaked, nearly face-planting in the mud as my feet slipped on the pine-needle mulch. “What the …? Why would you say that?”

  “It’s always the ones you least expect.”

  “How d’you figure that?”

  “I watch movies. I know things,” she said, sagely.

  “Well, you’re wrong.” I picked a wildflower and plucked off its petals as I walked. Most flowers had an odd number of petals, so as long as you started with he loves me, you were good. “Ten bucks says it’ll be Judy.”

  “Not altogether unlikely. You think she and Colby have gone all the way?”

  “I do.” It pained me to think of it, but statistically speaking, it was highly probable.

  “Can’t your mother make you a Judy voodoo doll? And a Colby-Garnet love potion?” Jess said, giggling.

  I threw the stripped flower head at her.

  When we got to the top of the hill, everyone was already clustered around the spring. The way Pete was slapping hands with the guys around him made me think he’d alpha-dogged his way to the top and got there first after all. Colby was explaining how the spring — which, honestly, looked kind of unimpressive as it bubbled out of a crack in the granite and disappeared back underground a foot or so later — was the source of Beaumont Brothers’ spring water, even though it was harvested and bottled at the plant down the hill, near old Johnson’s farm.

  Judy sat on a rock nearby, examining her fingernails and looking bored. Maybe she’d heard the story of the Beaumont brothers’ discovery before, but I was fascinated. Though, to be honest, I would’ve been enthralled by Colby reading the ingredients list on the back of a bottle of hot sauce. Nearby, Pete talked loudly about the changes he planned to make to the football team’s strategy in the next season, all the while shooting not-so-surreptitious glances at Judy. I guessed the ultimate win for him would be to score a touchdown with Colby’s girl. Boys were so strange.

  After a while, Colby and Judy headed off into the woods alone — to do the deed? — while the rest of us lazed about in the dappled shade. Jess passed around a bottle of wine she’d lugged up the hill, while one of Pete’s teammates passed around a roach no doubt purchased from Blunt. Sleepy from the wine, I lay down with my head against Jess’s backpack and dozed, only opening my eyes when Jess kicked my ankle.

  “Look,” she said, pointing at me, but I followed the direction of her thumb, as per our secret code.

  Colby was emerging from the trees, running a hand through his thick blond hair and looking … sheepish? Oh, they’d done the deed alright. I closed my eyes again, but another, sharper kick had me sitting up and blinking.

  Mouth pursed, face red and eyes swollen, Judy stormed across the clearing, muttered something to a group of her friends, grabbed her bestie by the arm, and took off down the hill almost at a run. Within minutes, the news had spread amongst the rest of us — Colby and Judy had fought and broken up.

  Judy’s friends were volubly scandalized, loyally accusing Colby of all kinds of nastiness. Pete looked hopeful as he pushed himself off a rock and strolled onto the path after Judy, a hound dog following the scent. Colby splashed his face with water at the spring and avoided everyone’s eyes, while Jess gave me a knowing smile.

  “You,” she said, rounding her hand over her flat belly. “And twenty bucks says by the end of the year.”

  I was still busy telling her not to talk out of her rear end when Colby strolled up to us.

  “Hey, Jess,” he said, “can I give you two a ride back to town? I’m guessing Blunt is pretty blazed by now and shouldn’t be driving.”

  He spoke to her, but he was looking at me.

  3

  NOW

  Saturday December 16, 2017

  Church and state still stood sentry at the top of Main Street, Pitchford. The Bethel United Methodist Church faced the perky red door of the Town Office across the street, as if to say, “You aren’t rid of me yet,” and the old black bear weather vane which still crested its steeple angled this way and that in the gusting wind, as if sniffing at the nearby woods for a hint of coming snow.

  Founded in 1772, the town had been abandoned by many of its more ambitious or distractible denizens several times over the years — in the mid-nineteenth century by desperate hopefuls headed out west for the gold rush, and again during the Great Depression when the mills ceased their grinding, and the screaming blades of the logging companies fell silent. In the 1990s, young people left their cash-strapped farming fathers and cheesemaking mothers in the fertile valley and set course for New York and Philadelphia and other places where your neighbors might not know your name, but didn’t know your private business, either.

  I preferred the anonymity of living in Boston. My apartment was small and the walls were thin enough for me to hear the baby next door crying, but I felt a sense of space and freedom there that was missing in Pitchford, even though the houses here were set far apart on large lots, and my eyes could stretch over the uninterrupted view to drink in the sight of mountains and forests.

  At the stop street, I lowered my window and was hit by a blast of frigid air and a rush of the kind of country silence that made a city-dweller’s ears reverberate. It would take me a day or two to get used to the absence of constant noise. I closed the window and set off slowly down the hill, amazed at the changes visible all around me.

  Towns in this part of the state tended to be either dying or thriving. Ours used to be the moribund type, with a long-dead sawmill, a few small, dusty stores clinging stubbornly to their patch of land on the main drag, and a decommissioned stone-works where local kids risked broken bones leaping into the murky water at the bottom of the deep marble quarry.

  You didn’t have to live in this neck of the woods to know that over the last decade or two, many of the small towns here had succumbed to massively rising rates of drug abuse and accompanying crime; it was all over the daily news. First prescription opioids, then crystal meth and now heroin — Vermont formed a lucrative corridor for dealers hopping between the big cities of New York, Chicago, Boston and Detroit on their way to Montreal.

  But Pitchford hadn’t died. In fact, it appeared to have miraculously transformed itself in the years I’d been gone.

  There were signs of the metamorphosis everywhere. I drove beneath the Christmas lights draped across Main Street, trying to figure out if the old-timey lampposts they hung from were new, or if they’d always been there. What definitely was new was a rash of businesses with quaint storefronts and cutesy names: Granny Smith’s Craft Cider Company, Adirondacks Antiques, and The Granary Gristmill and Bakery, which advertised a variety of artisanal breads in gold vintage-style lettering on its window.

  Artisanal was a hot ne
w word in Pitchford, it seemed. I could purchase Green Mountain Blue at the Artisanal Cheese Company, and across the way, The Vermont Syrup Emporium offered tastings of artisanal maple syrup. Judging by the luxury SUVs with skis and snowboards strapped on their roof racks that were parked outside the Emporium, maple syrup had become a popular tourist attraction.

  I cruised past an art gallery, pottery studio, woodwright and cabinet-maker, chic boutiques, and a specialty chocolate store called New England Nibbles. Farther down the street was Dad’s old mom-and-pop grocery store, now a Best West supermarket cunningly hidden behind a country store facade. Dad had done well out of the sale to the chain and had urged Mom to sell her neighboring New Age store, but she’d refused. Big surprise. She said helping the customers was what kept her alive, and vowed that the only way we’d get her out of Crystals, Candles and Curiosities was in a coffin.

  The store’s name was a pun, because my mother’s name was Crystal. An embarrassing tradition on my mother’s side of the family ensured all daughters were named after gemstones and crystals — which was how I got saddled with my ridiculous name. I had one aunt named Beryl, another called Ruby, and my grandmother’s first name had been Emerald. If I ever had a kid, I’d be sure to call her something like Mary or Sue.

  With my mother resting up at home, the store windows were dark, and a “closed” sign hung forlornly on the inside of the glass door. The thought that Windsor County’s alternatively-minded would have to buy their tarot cards and angel charm bracelets somewhere else brought a grim smile to my lips.

  At the bottom of the hill, where Main Street ended, the Tuppenny Tavern and Chop House was still open for business. The old-timey name wasn’t new, though the neon sign in vintage-style script glowing through the mist was. I wondered if the nearby pier which jutted out into Plover Pond was still a favorite hangout spot for the town’s teens.

  I took a right, turning away from the bar and the pier and the memories, but there was no getting away from the pond. It lay on my left, sulking coldly in the dead center of the village, circled by the prosaically named Pond Road, with the town’s streets radiating out from it, like the concentric arcs of a spider’s web.