We Can Be Heroes

by Kyrie McCauley

  Vivian did her homework.

  First, she identified any other members of congress committed to common-sense gun legislation, gathered all their social media handles, and added them to the tags on her mural posts.

  Next, Vivian dug into the Violence Against Women Act—which was due to be renewed next year. There was time to close the boyfriend loophole, which made it harder for victims of abuse to get protection if they weren’t actually married to their abuser. Made it almost impossible to keep those abusers from getting guns.

  Bell didn’t want to take responsibility for Cassie.

  Bell, the town.

  Bell, the family.

  Bell, the guns.

  So that burden had slipped down, down, until it fell to Beck and Vivian to make it right. To find a new balance, in a world without Cassie.

  Vivian had never been one for revenge, but people can be changed. It would be so easy, she thought now, to let this consume her. To let it fill the spaces in her life left empty by grief and fear and loss.

  There was a soft knock at her bedroom door, and Vivian closed her laptop. She reached up to her map, thinking she’d take it down, but decided to leave it. It was just a map of Bell. Nothing suspicious about that.

  It was just her home.

  “Come in,” Vivian said, and her mother pushed the door open. Vivian’s mom, Alexandra, was young. She’d had Vivian just out of high school and raised Viv alone while putting herself through nursing school. It was because of her that Vivian was interested in medicine in the first place. She’d bring home stories from the emergency room—but only the good ones. The time they’d brought a child back from nearly drowning. The time she’d caught a grandpa’s heart attack in time to get him into emergency surgery. She’d taught Vivian that medicine was like magic for those whose lives it saved, and Vivian had fallen in love with the idea of it. Vivian, always more grounded in facts than stories, knew that what she wanted most was to be like her mother. Practical, and self-sufficient.

  But Vivian also knew that medicine had its limits. Some bodies couldn’t be saved from the wreckage they’d faced. Wreckage like a bullet to the temple while sitting in English class.

  “I’m heading to work,” Vivian’s mom said at the door, pulling her back out of that classroom, that day. “There’s a casserole in the fridge for dinner. Are you okay, honey?”

  “I’m great,” Vivian said. When she’d first told her mom she didn’t want to go to college, her mom hadn’t pushed back at all. But Vivian knew it wasn’t because she agreed with Vivian’s choice. She just figured Vivian needed time to come around.

  Part of Vivian hoped that was true.

  Another part of her was prepared to risk everything. Her entire future. All those years of planning and studying and dreaming. Just to see someone pay for what happened to Cass.

  And that part of her was speaking the loudest right now.

  “Vivian,” her mom said. “The Queens called again.”

  Vivian turned in her chair. She put her arms around her knees and pulled them in close.

  “They really need an answer from you,” her mom said. “They want to file this week. Have you thought about it any more?”

  The Queens. Cassie’s parents. They’d left town a week after the funeral. Not even bothering to sell their house—they just left it standing empty, moving in with Cassie’s grandparents on the other side of the state. As far as they could go, as fast as they could get there. But it didn’t mean they were finished with Bell.

  They were suing the company.

  And they’d asked Vivian to join them. For damages. For the health care bills her mother would never repay. For the trauma she’d suffered.

  Vivian had been unsure, at first. She didn’t care about the money, and she’d fixated on that—on how others would think that was what she was after. But this wasn’t about a payment. It was about accountability.

  In this town, owning a gun was the only status symbol that mattered. Town pride. Bell Firearms had designed the weapon that killed Cassie, manufactured it, and then Mr. Bell himself left it in a place accessible to someone dangerous.

  “Tell the Queens I’m in. Let’s get the bastards.”

  Cassie

  During the day

  I distract myself

  by playing memories in my mind.

  I remember how Vivian was always moving.

  To stay in shape for track, she’d say,

  but I think she just didn’t know

  how to ever be still.

  She’d run before school

  and at night—sprinting short distances

  to keep her muscles warm, she said.

  We’d meet at Beck’s house

  and sit on her grandfather’s ancient,

  paint-peeling wraparound porch,

  and cheer for Vivian as she sprinted

  up and down the dirt road

  again, and again, and again.

  We watched her run,

  sipping lemonade

  made from cheap powder

  and sometimes a splash of

  Beck’s grandfather’s vodka.

  That drink

  and the summer heat

  always made us sick

  but we drank it anyway.

  I tried to yell

  motivational things at Vivian:

  You’re doing great!

  You’ve got this!

  But Beck was Beck:

  Move it, bitch!

  LIFT THOSE LEGS!

  Let’s see some effort!

  Once when Vivian flew past the porch

  sweat dripping down her face

  looking like Athena mid-battle,

  and Beck was two drinks in already

  she yelled things like:

  Hot stuff, Viv! Bend it like Beckham!

  Nice ass!

  Then she slipped her two fingers

  between her lips

  and gave Viv

  a nice long whistle.

  The next time Viv came

  around the corner

  she had the hose on,

  full blast,

  and chased us off the porch with it.

  During the day,

  all I can do is remember.

  But usually the memories

  are enough.

  Mural 3

  TITLE: MEDUSA

  LOCATION: THE WATER TOWER

  Beck

  BECK JONES WASN’T ALWAYS SCARED OF heights.

  She’d spent so many nights out on the fire escape of her apartment building. She’d drag a blanket out and watch the stars, not bothered by the openness beneath her feet. She just wanted to be out there, in case there was a clear night, cloudless, giving her a view of the stars.

  That changed when she was seven.

  She’d been outside for an hour, and the window dropped shut. She tried as hard as she could, but tiny Beck couldn’t lift the stuck window again. She was trapped on the fire escape. At first she tried banging on the window, but her parents were passed out in another room. They’d been drinking. They were always drinking. So Beck decided to climb down. She took her time, one step at a time on the ladder rung, both hands gripping. But as she walked along the partition to reach the next ladder, the railing broke.

  Beck fell.

  It was random, the man walking by below. And he could have easily been watching his feet. Minding his business. But the sky was particularly clear that night, and that twenty-three-year-old man had his eyes up, looking at the stars, just like Beck. So he saw her fall.

  Somehow, he caught her.

  That was how Beck made it on to child protective services’ radar. And she never made it back off, until she went to Grandpa’s farm. She never sat out on the fire escape again, either. Couldn’t even look out of the apartment windows.

  And now, a decade later, Beck was climbing for the second time in two weeks. This time, the Bell Water Tower.

  “This is a mistake,” Beck said, shifting her ba
ckpack to look down at Vivian climbing below her.

  “We are fine,” Vivian called. “Stop looking down.”

  Beck kept climbing, trying to stem the panic she’d felt to see the ground so far, far below. This was higher than the billboard. It was higher than the third-floor walk-up she’d fallen from as a kid, too. How had Vivian convinced her that the water tower was a good idea?

  For Cassie, Vivian had said when she picked that location for their list.

  And apparently, for Cassie had been enough of an argument for Beck.

  When they reached the top, Beck scooted back to the wall of the water container, pressing her back against it. Vivian immediately got to work, pulling out the first paint can, propping up the sketchbook.

  “I think this one is my favorite yet,” Vivian said.

  “It’s the easiest design so far,” Beck told her. She needed it to be simple, quick. Something she could finish in an hour or less. Beck didn’t want to spend one minute longer than necessary on this godforsaken tower. Not to mention, this location was their riskiest by far. They could see all of Bell, and all of Bell could see them. They had to hurry.

  “Sit behind me? Please?” Beck asked Vivian, who nodded and moved between Beck and the railing.

  Beck pulled her mask into place and began to paint. It was simple, but it would look great up here on the tower.

  Tonight’s Greek myth was Medusa.

  Cassie said that Medusa’s story was misunderstood. She was clearly the victim, but was treated like a monster again and again. Blamed for her beauty. Blamed for her own assault. Cursed with snakes as hair and a stare that turns men to stone.

  But Cassie said it wasn’t a curse, not really. It was a weapon. The snakes disguised her beauty, so no one would come after her again. And the look that could turn men into stone?

  “Well,” Cassie said. “What girl couldn’t use that skill at one point or another?”

  Beck outlined Medusa’s head. She gave her solid black, unseeing eyes. They looked creepy on the side of the water tower, looking out over Bell. Like she might freeze the whole town in stone.

  And then the hair. The snakes.

  “Cerulean blue,” Vivian read on the side of the paint can before handing it to Beck. “God, remember what a disaster that night was?”

  “Like I could forget it,” Beck said.

  It was last year, and they were celebrating the start of summer with a road trip. They’d even booked a bed-and-breakfast a few towns over.

  Cassie had left Vivian and Beck alone to run to the drugstore for something, and they’d fought the entire time she was gone. The room itself was painful to be in. It was like the designer couldn’t choose a floral pattern and said Fuck it. We’ll use them all. And they had. Flowers everywhere, but in competing patterns and colors. It gave Beck a headache after ten minutes.

  So she was especially grumpy when Vivian started talking about Beck moving out of Bell next year.

  “I’m not. Going. To college,” Beck ground out while lying on the bedspread stitched with violets and lilies. “I have Grandpa’s shop. I’ll take it over for him. I’m all set.”

  “I didn’t mean college,” Vivian said. “You love making art. You used to say you wanted to be a tattoo artist. You could do that anywhere.”

  “If I can do it anywhere, I can do it in Bell,” Beck had replied.

  Vivian probably would have argued with her all night. First, because it seemed like she just loved to argue with Beck. And second, because it was weirdly important to Vivian that Beck consider not staying in Bell.

  When Cassie came back to the room with bright blue hair dye, Beck had jumped to her feet and grabbed the box. A very welcome distraction for everyone. So they started with the bleach. And then all hell broke loose.

  Cassie said it was burning her skin, and she panicked. She was laughing, and running around the bathroom, and shouting. Like she couldn’t decide if the situation was more funny or painful. Beck had to drag her to the shower to rinse out the bleach, but they knocked the blue dye off the counter as they went.

  It splashed everywhere.

  Blue dye covering the peachy-rose bath mat.

  Blue dye on the burgundy zinnia wallpaper.

  Blue dye staining the purple chrysanthemum soap dish.

  They were kicked out of the bed-and-breakfast and had to drive all the way back to Bell that same night. They picked up new dye for poor Cass, whose hair was only half done, a hideous orange-yellow from the failed bleach job. They went to the lake, because it was their spot, and they sat in the beam of Betty’s headlights and finished dying Cassie’s hair blue.

  They jumped into the lake to rinse.

  Afterward, they laid their stained clothes on the roof of the van. Beck passed out clothing from the abandoned pieces that never seemed to leave the van—her old soccer sweatshirt for Cassie, shorts and a thermal shirt for Vivian, an old flannel and some leggings for herself.

  Cassie had pulled out Beck’s art bag, and insisted Beck give them all faux tattoos to complete their night of rebellion.

  Beck remembered the look Vivian gave her when she finally let her see hers—a bright red fox on Vivian’s thigh, surrounded by brambles and thorns.

  “He’s beautiful,” Vivian said, examining her thigh. “Beck, you’d be really good at this. If you decided to do it.”

  “Thanks,” Beck answered, taken aback by the soft sincerity in Vivian’s voice. A far cry from her usual bossiness.

  Cassie had asked for sunflowers. And that Latin phrase. The one from the last monologue she’d auditioned with after reciting a hundred times to them for practice. Collige Virgo Rosas.

  “What’s it mean?” Vivian asked Cassie that night, taking a sip from the bottle of cinnamon whiskey Beck had passed around while she painted.

  “Gather, girl, the roses. It means pick the flowers, while you still can. It’s like Carpe diem. Seize the day. Or, you know, YOLO.”

  Vivian coughed, sputtered, began to laugh, more drunk than Beck had realized until that moment.

  “YOLO.” Vivian gasped the word between her giggles, and soon they were all helpless. And once they’d finally calmed down, all it took was someone whispering the word again, and they started all over.

  They fell asleep laughing, with the headlights on. They had to call Cassie’s parents in the morning to jump the van and bring them real clothes. Their stained ones had blown off the van overnight and were probably buried in mud at the bottom of Bell Lake.

  “Maybe that night wasn’t such a disaster,” Vivian said, turning on the narrow platform so that she was facing Beck.

  “Maybe it was kind of perfect,” Beck said, smiling at the memory.

  “Yeah, maybe it was.” Vivian shifted closer, handing her the last paint can.

  Medusa was nearly done.

  Beck had made the snakes blue, for Cassie, in honor of that night. They never did figure out why she dyed her blue hair back so quickly.

  But Beck could guess now. There were a lot of signs that something was wrong. It’s just that no one was watching for them.

  A sudden sound drew their attention, and Vivian looked over the railing.

  “Shit, we have to go,” she said. “Get your bag. Don’t clean up.”

  It was Cassie, honking the van, and when Beck looked up, she saw it. Flashing lights, and a siren. On the old highway, but heading their way.

  They were gonna get caught.

  “Shit,” Beck said, climbing on to the ladder after Vivian. She grabbed her backpack, but left the paint cans.

  It took them two minutes to climb down, the sirens growing louder—closer—with each rung. Beck’s heart was in her throat the entire time, sure she would slip.

  “We’ve gotta go,” Cassie said as soon as they opened the doors.

  And they did. Doors slammed, blocking out the wail of the police car. Beck drove down the service road that led to the water tower and turned back toward town.

  “Hurry,” Vivian said. “W
e need some distance. The van will stand out.”

  “I know, I know,” Beck said, going faster.

  A minute later, they turned onto Main Street.

  They could still hear the siren, but it was distant now. Probably just arriving at the water tower.

  Beck wove through the streets, taking the most roundabout way to Vivian’s house.

  “Maybe we should take a break,” Vivian said as she climbed out. “That was way too close. If Cassie hadn’t managed to honk the horn, we’d have been caught.”

  “Okay, yeah,” Beck said. “We’ll make a plan for next week sometime.”

  “Dammit, I didn’t get a picture of the mural,” Vivian said.

  “Then you better hope the paper covers this one, because there is no way in hell I am climbing that tower again.” Rushing down that ladder as fast as she could, with the sirens growing louder and closer, Beck had felt that same hollow weightlessness she’d felt when she fell as a child. Beck was committed to this insane mission of theirs, but she wasn’t going near the water tower again.

  “I’ll figure it out,” Vivian said. “Night, Cass. Love you.”

  She slammed the door, leaving Beck with her ghosts, and her ghost.

  “Why’d you change it back?” Beck asked on the ride home, trying to keep her voice light and casual. “The blue hair. It looked really pretty on you.”

  Cassie was lying on that middle seat again. Don’t need to buckle if you’re already dead, she’d pointed out to Vivian earlier, who had rolled her eyes.

  “Not everyone thought so,” Cassie said softly. When she shifted on the seat, Beck could make out the faint blue stain from that night. Cassie had slept on the seat and her newly dyed hair had soaked into it, staining it cerulean blue.

  It wasn’t fair that Cassie’s name would forever be known for how she died. Instead of her laughter, her poetry, her voice. Beck wanted to remember Cassie as she was that night last summer. Blue-haired, legs covered in painted flowers, laughing so hard that tears fell down the side of her face.

  So that was what Beck imagined as she painted the water tower tonight. Cassie as Medusa—not cursed, but protected by the stony power in her gaze and the wild creatures in her hair. But she wondered if even that could have kept Cassie safe. Beck knew there wasn’t any right way to be a girl in this world, but she’d often wondered if there was a right way to survive as one. Once upon a time, Medusa wasn’t a gorgon at all. She was pious and pretty. Vulnerable, thought Beck. And they came for her.