Raining On Heaven

by Amanda Foote

  We joined them on the bed. The girls were both stick thin and clad in tiny tank tops and shorts. One of them wore a pristine white cowboy hat over bleach blonde hair and cowboy boots, the other had her dark hair in a braid and wore flip flops. She was tan, but it was very natural. She looked almost foreign but something I couldn’t quite place, like Lithuanian or Polish or some other European ethnicity. The guys both looked like your typical football players, beefy and tough, but the blond one looked moderately coherent and the other, a brunette, looked not quite there, but that could have been a side effect of alcohol.

  “It’s Ally’s turn to ask,” said the brunette male, to which the girl in the hat said “Ok… Liberty Bell. Truth or dare?” I guess Liberty Bell actually knew these people. I thought she was as much a stranger to them as I was.

  Liberty Bell grinned and said, “Dare.”

  Ally glanced around, then looked back at Liberty Bell and demanded, “Take five chugs of your beer.”

  Liberty Bell did as she was dared easily, then grinned. “Alright, Dan,” she said, turning to the brunette guy. “Truth or dare?”

  “Dare,” Dan said, and Liberty Bell dared him to take off his shirt. He did.

  Shirtless Dan then said, “New girl. Truth or dare?”

  I didn’t actually expect to get called on, so it took me by surprise. “Uh…”

  “What’s your name?” asked the brunette girl.

  “Heaven,” I replied.

  “Heaven,” Shirtless Dan demanded, “quit stalling.”

  “Uh,” I glanced at Liberty Bell, whose eyes almost begged me to say dare. “Dare.”

  “Hmm.” He looked smug. “Let’s see. I dare you to lick your elbow.” Everyone turned to look at him a little incredulously and he exclaimed, “What? I couldn’t think of anything good under pressure!”

  So I licked my inner arm (I couldn’t actually reach my elbow) and turned to the blond guy. “You,” I said.

  “Joe,” he responded.

  “Truth or dare?”

  He looked at me firmly and said, “Truth,” unperturbed.

  I glanced again at Liberty Bell then at the other girls, who seemed equally surprised at his choice. “Okay. Uh, what… what was… er… I wasn’t expecting Truth. Haha.” He grinned. “Okay, truth. What is the name of the last person you kissed, other than family?” I thought it was the lamest question on earth but no one else seemed to think so. They stared at Joe intently, waiting for his response.

  He was quiet for a moment, eyes tossed to the side like he was trying to remember. Then he found it. “Oh. Ashley.”

  “What took you so long?” the brunette girl asked.

  He shrugged. “It’s been a while.” Her face scrunched up in surprise, as did the other girls’. “So how about you, Natalia? Truth or dare?” he asked her.

  “Truth,” she said.

  “Name your best lay,” he grinned.

  She laughed. “It wasn’t you,” she said. “Jake Asher.”

  It was his turn to look surprised. “Gross,” he said.

  “Back to you Joe. Truth or dare?” she asked.

  This time he chose dare. She stared at him seriously for a minute, then turned to me. I pulled back a little in trepidation. “Joe, I dare you to kiss the new girl.”

  Shirtless Dan perked up. “Now we’re gettin’ somewhere.”

  Liberty Bell glanced at me nervously but I was concentrating on the very cute blond guy inching toward me. “Is this okay?” he whispered, but I didn’t respond so he proceeded.

  It’s not like I’ve never been kissed before. But I’d never been kissed by a complete stranger during a game of Truth or Dare. Even despite his overuse of tongue, it wasn’t bad. Though I might compare it to the sensation of kissing wet lettuce, if I’m being honest. Not the best kiss I’d have even that summer… but I’m not at that part of the story yet.

  Then he pulled away and the game recommenced (after a hoot of congratulations from Shirtless Dan). He dared Ally, who truthed Natalia, who dared Dan, who truthed Liberty Bell, who truthed me (she asked me about any crushes I had and I said none, to which I got a lot of boos and I exclaimed “I literally just moved here!”), and I dared Ally, who truthed Joe, and so on and so forth. One hour and thirty seven minutes later, Ally had passed out, Shirtless Dan had passed out, Joe had left twelve minutes ago, and Liberty Bell had finally finished her beer.

  “Do you guys wanna go chill outside for a while? I need a smoke,” Natalia said, and we agreed, leaving the two slumbering teenagers cuddling each other on the bed.

  Natalia was pretty drunk, stumbling a little as we left the room, and she braced herself on Liberty Bell, who neatly folded herself into Natalia’s side as she helped her walk a little straighter. Natalia slid her hand into Liberty Bell’s back pocket and used her beer-soaked lips to whisper a soft “thank you” into Liberty Bell’s pierced ear. Liberty Bell grinned. We finally made our way outside to the porch where almost everyone had either left or passed out, though a few more groups of people were huddled around a dying bonfire someone had made in a metal trash can.

  Natalia and Liberty Bell got comfortable on a white porch swing while I slid into a camping chair with a cup holder someone had left their half drunk beer in. I really might as well have not been there at all, though. Liberty Bell and Natalia were whispering together in hushed tones, and I have to admit, it seemed like a lot more than innocent gossipy whispering between friends. Natalia’s hand rested neatly on Liberty Bell’s inner thigh. I felt the urge to clear my throat, but I tried to ignore it. I succeeded for three and a half minutes but after a while my ankles were starting to itch and I was getting really tired and it didn’t seem fair that I was sitting there being ignored by Liberty Bell in favor of this much prettier, apparently much more interesting Natalia. So I cleared my throat anyway.

  Liberty Bell seemed far away. “Hmmm?” She said, pulling away from Natalia’s mesmerizing eyes. She looked at me through a fog. “What time is it Heaven?” I glanced at my wrist, but I had forgotten my watch (something I really really hate it when I forget it).

  “Probably time to go home,” I said.

  “Oh,” she sighed. “Okay.”

  She hugged Natalia goodbye.

  We said goodbye to a girl named Laney who was trying unsuccessfully to wake Ally so they could leave, then found Bobby and Melonie tangled up in a bedroom downstairs (reclothed, thankfully), got in the car and left. I found myself driving them all home, returning to the Armstrong’s house to find Marlene still chatting away with their mother and father and Cadence asleep on the couch with Bliss asleep in her arms. I woke Cadence and roped Marlene away from her new friends, getting us all in the car and driving us home, deciding that Oklahoma was definitely, very much, overwhelmingly not what I expected.

  ✽✽✽

  Rosebud approached me the next morning with a stack of my books about to topple out of her arms. I sat on the porch swing with Bliss, who was laughing hysterically every time we swung backwards and the world flew out from under her.

  “I brought these back,” Rosebud said in place of a greeting. Her long fiery hair was sloppily thrown into half a ponytail and there were green paint stains on her blue shirt. “I promised I would,” she added.

  “So you did,” I agreed.

  She sat down on the porch swing next to us and made goo goo eyes at Bliss, who ate it up like banana-flavored baby food. (She loved banana-flavored baby food.)

  Cadence opened the door then and joined us outside, taking a seat on the steps of the porch. “Hi there,” she said to Rosebud. She glanced at me. “And who might you be?” she asked her.

  “I’m Rosebud. Heaven’s friend.” I smiled. “I live across the street, in that house there.” She pointed across the street but she was too busy entertaining Bliss to see where her hand was pointing and she pointed in the completely wrong direction. I laughed and pulled her hand so that it actually pointed at her house.

  Rosebud looked up then and really ackno
wledged Cadence’s presence. “Are you Heaven’s sister? The one that’s sick?”

  Cadence’s eyes go a little wide and she looked at me again.

  I shrugged. “She does that somehow. She just picks up on things.”

  Rosebud nodded very vigorously. “My mom told me I’m a people watcher.”

  “You’re very good with Bliss, I see,” Cadence told her.

  “It’s because I have a baby sister.”

  “Oh, so your parents must be very excited to have a new baby, huh?”

  Rosebud actually laughed at her. “Not my dad. My sister is the reason he left. Oh. Well and because my mom likes girls and not boys. But that’s another story.”

  I widened my eyes then, and they caught Cadence’s, who looked equally shocked. We both laughed nervously.

  “How do you know that about your mom?” Cadence asked her.

  Rosebud brushed the hair from Bliss’ eyes and sighed. “I found a letter he wrote her after he left. I probably shouldn’t have read it, but. Oh well. Mom shouldn’t have left it out. I think we are probably better off, but… it doesn’t mean I don’t miss him.”

  “Rosebud,” I start. “Did he ever send you that birthday present he promised?”

  She looked up at me, her eyes angry. “No, he didn’t. He lied.”

  I nodded and sighed. “People do that sometimes.”

  ✽✽✽

  In the dark that night, I awoke to a noise coming from the kitchen. I glanced at my phone with sleepy eyes. 2:32 am. I heard noises again. Curious, I got up. I found Cadence digging in the fridge in a soaked nightgown. “Cadence?” I whispered. She jumped, dropping a tomato on the floor, and whipped around. The wet clothes were clinging tightly to her curvy frame, her dark honey hair was slick with sweat and her skin seemed paler than usual in the soft light of the refrigerator.

  “Heaven, you scared me!” she whispered back.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. “What happened? Why are you all wet?”

  She glanced down, as if she hadn’t even noticed she was drenched. “It’s called night sweats,” she sighed. She turned to pick up the mangled tomato and closed the refrigerator door. I turned on a small lamp on the kitchen island and we both sat down on the stools beneath it. “They’re normal for my condition,” she said, pulling a knife from a drawer and cutting into the tomato, slicing off the bit that smashed into the floor. “And I don’t know why, but tomatoes make me feel better. There’s probably no scientific explanation behind it, but they’re delicious,” she grinned, offering me one of the six slices. I took it. I never met a tomato I didn’t like.

  She was still smiling, munching on one of the tomato slices. A trickle of tomato juice fell down her chin and she wiped it away happily. I just couldn’t get over how at peace she was with her life. She seemed to always be happy. It made me a little angry. She had been through hell, and she had a genuine smile plastered on her face at all times. I’d been through hell and the best I could manage these days was a fake laugh. She saw me frowning.

  “I’m okay, Heaven. I mean, I’m not okay, I got the short end of the stick. But I’m gonna cherish that stick like it’s the best stick in the whole world. Cancer is kinda like love, Heaven. It grows even when you don’t want it to.” She paused for nearly a minute, contemplating her words. “I won’t leave this place a sunken ship with black sails. I have to show Bliss what it means to be a happy person, even in the face of horror, before I die.”

  “I understand,” I said softly, but I really didn’t.

  She smiled weakly. “No. You don’t.”

  Chapter Five.

  “So what do you think?”

  Marlene glanced up at me from the papers in her hand. “This is your personal essay?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. I had already sent most of my college applications in except for one or two, but I still wanted Marlene, the award-winning published author, to read through it and tell me if it was any good.

  She was looking down at the papers again. She glanced up at me one more time. “Heaven, have you ever considered taking up writing yourself?”

  “Not really.”

  She smiled as she set the papers down. “You should.”

  We were sitting at the table, Cadence and Bliss both napping on the Friday following graduation, when we heard three sharp knocks at the door. A brief pause. Four more sharp knocks. “I’ll get it,” I said.

  When I opened the door, the person standing there was completely not who I was expecting. “Dillard!”

  Dillard was standing in front of me, behind the screen door, black hair a little tousled and deep blue eyes smiling. The gash on his forehead had healed into a faint scar that snaked from his temple to his widow’s peak. He wore a pair of loose dark jeans and a black button-up shirt. “Hi Heaven,” he grinned. I stared at him opened-mouthed, until finally he said, “Uh, ya gonna let me in, Heaven?”

  I opened the screen door and let him in. “Dillard, hi. Um. What are you doing here?”

  “Well, I just graduated, and you just graduated, and I didn’t have anything to do this summer. And I’ve never been to Oklahoma, so I thought, why not make a spontaneous road trip to see Heaven?” He grinned again, glancing over at Marlene, who was still sitting at the table, watching us. “Hey Marlene,” he greeted her.

  Him being here was already weird, but that knocked it out of the park. “How do you even know her?” I asked, still in shock.

  He shrugged. “We’re Facebook friends.”

  “Who’s this?” Cadence had sleepily come into the kitchen from the den and noticed Dillard.

  “Uh,” I said. “This is my… my friend, Dillard. Dillard, this is Cadence.” I checked his reaction when I said, “My sister.”

  I was pretty sure he’d had no clue I had a sister but he didn’t even seem fazed. “Cool,” he said nonchalantly, “nice to meet you.”

  Marlene got up from the table to join us in the foyer. “So, Dillard. How long will you be here in Oklahoma visiting Heaven?”

  He shrugged again. “Eh, I’m not really sure. I was thinking maybe the whole summer.” Marlene laughed when my eyes went wide.

  “Really?” I asked. “That long?”

  “You didn’t want me to come, Heaven?” He looked a little hurt.

  “No, no, that’s not it. I’m just…” I stammered. I could barely get a grip on the situation. On the one hand, here was Dillard, guy whose best friend’s car murdered my parents. Though I’d told him no hard feelings, I couldn’t help but harbor a tiny secret grudge about it. I mean, I’m only human. On the other hand, here was Dillard, cute, kind of pudgy, slightly muscular black-haired, blue-eyed sweetheart who traveled all the way from California to Oklahoma just to spend time with little old me. “I’m just surprised that you’re here is all. It’s a good kind of surprised though.”

  He smiled a half crooked grin at me. “Awesome.”

  Marlene cleared her throat. “Where are you staying, Dillard?”

  “A friend of my uncle lives here and he’s letting me crash with him.”

  She smirked. “Been planning this trip for a while, huh?”

  He smiled too. “Maybe.”

  Twelve seconds of awful silence passed. “Uh,” I started. “Well Dillard, I was about to go hang out with some friends. I guess, do you want to come?”

  “Yes!” he exclaimed, maybe more enthusiastically than he meant to because he followed it up with a more leveled, “Yes, that would be nice.” Followed by another (unfortunately) adorable half smirk.

  Dillard had driven here in his dark teal Range Rover (okay, really?) and as I was still less than warm toward riding in cars after what happened, I let him drive us to LB and Bobby’s. I had plans to pick them up and we were all going to go bowling (a plan I had refuted, bowling being a game I found endlessly boring, but they insisted). We had barely been in the car fifteen seconds when Dillard asked, “So, when did you get a sister?”

  “Uh…” I wasn’t entirely sure how to respond
to that. “Last month?”

  “She grew fast.”

  “What?” I laughed, glancing over at him.

  “Your month-old sister looks a lot like somebody in her twenties. Sorry, weird joke.”

  “Oh, haha. No, I mean, I found out about her last month.”

  “Ah,” he said, glancing at me with understanding deep blue eyes. I felt like I could drop a penny in those eyes and I’d never hear it hit the bottom. “Around the same time your parents passed,” he continued, not as a question but as a statement of fact.

  “Yeah. Also, she has cancer. And a daughter.”

  His eyes went kind of wide. “You’ve been having quite a year.”

  “Yep,” I said.

  “And then I show up on your doorstep,” he sighed, then chuckled a little. “Maybe I should have called first.”

  I looked at him briefly and smiled, my first genuine smile in some time, then looked away sheepishly. “No, this is good. I’m glad you’re here.”

  Liberty Bell and Bobby of course had all kinds of questions when they got in the car and found this new person in it. In the rearview mirror I caught Liberty Bell giving me a devilish smirk when I told them he was a friend from L.A. who had driven all the way down to see me.

  “How old are you Dillard?” Liberty Bell asked, stretching out her seat belt so she could lean forward and talk to us.

  “Eighteen,” he answered.

  “You’re from L.A. too, did you go to the same school as Heaven?”

  “Yep.”

  “Have you lived there all your life?”

  “Yep.”

  “Did you know Heaven’s parents?”

  “No…”

  “How did you meet Heaven?”

  “Uh…” He glanced at me, unsure if he should be honest.