I'd Give Anything

by Marisa de los Santos

  “This June? Doesn’t it take forever to plan a wedding?”

  Kirsten shrugged. “It’s possible that I got a jump on the planning a few months ago. Or six.”

  “You started planning your wedding six months before you got engaged.”

  “Only the location. And the caterer. And the florist. Anemones. Don’t you love anemones?”

  “So you decided to hold off on choosing the napkins.”

  “Pale pink damask, and I’m talking very pale, like the tights I wore for ballet when I was six. And don’t worry, I’ll share all my information with you for your next wedding. I’ve got a file as thick as a five-tiered Victoria sponge wedding cake decorated with sugared berries and floribunda roses.”

  “That’s so nice of you,” I said. “But here’s a thought: Harris carried off his last box of stuff ten minutes ago.”

  “Exactly. Times a-wastin’. Start dating, honey!”

  “If by dating you mean going on dates, I’d rather poke needles—or three-carat diamonds—into my eyes.”

  “You’ve always been a boy magnet. You’ll meet someone.”

  “A boy magnet. My first boyfriend was gay and my second was Harris.”

  “Third time’s a charm! Come on, there must be men you’ve been attracted to since the Harris blowup. UPS deliverymen. Or those cute newly divorced guys in the grocery store who are paralyzed in front of the peanut butter selection or stand there reading the labels of the egg cartons.”

  To my horror, my face got hot, and I dropped my head before Kirsten could notice me blushing.

  “Holy shit,” she said. “Who is he?”

  “There’s no he, idiot.”

  Kirsten folded her arms and looked at me, waiting. Kirsten, with her silver-dollar-size blue eyes, could win a staring contest with a dead person. I groaned.

  “Shut up,” I said. “It’s not a big deal. My dog park friend, Daniel the vet.”

  “The one you said you could say anything to?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he good-looking?”

  I pictured Daniel, backed by the green grass of the dog park, his gray eyes and dark hair and smile as heavenly as my dog Walt’s.

  “He is. Very, actually. But it’s more that he’s so nice.”

  Kirsten’s eyes widened. “Oh Lord. You’re sunk. It’s what they never tell you when you’re younger, how when you grow up, nothing on God’s green earth will be sexier than nice.”

  “True. But let’s stop this nonsense and talk about your upcoming nuptials.”

  Kirsten got a funny look on her face. “Yes. Right. Okay. Here’s the thing.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “I want you to throw me an engagement party. Soon. Really soon. Like in a couple of weeks, so it doesn’t seem like we just got engaged and—boom—we’re getting married.”

  “Oh! Is that all? Well, of course I will! We can do it at my house, unless you think we’ll need a bigger space?”

  “Your house is perfect.”

  “Perfect.”

  Kirsten grimaced. She had an adorable nose-wrinkled grimace and knew it. I had seen that grimace in action more times than I could count.

  “What?”

  “I want everyone there. Everyone I love best.”

  This seemingly reasonable request knocked the wind out of me. I knew what she meant: everyone she loved best, who, not coincidentally, happened to represent the bulk of the people (minus Harris) I’d failed most miserably in this world.

  “Kirsten. I haven’t seen them in seventeen years, and that was at a party while we were in college, and as soon as I got there, they left. They hate me. Not that I blame them,” I said.

  “I don’t think they do,” said Kirsten. “I mean, I don’t know because we have this unspoken agreement never to talk about you, which I break fairly often, but still, and actually, CJ might still hate you just because he is so loyal to Gray, but, come on, it was all so long ago.”

  “Gray’s dad died, and I abandoned him. That’s the only word for it. I failed him. At the time, I could barely figure out how to get up in the morning and get dressed, but that’s no excuse for letting Gray down like that.”

  “We never talk about this, you and I,” said Kirsten, quietly. “Not really. All those things that happened senior year; it’s the only thing we never talk about.”

  “I know. I try not to even think about it, but I’ve thought about it a hundred times by accident over the years. What’s the point, though? I’d give anything to go back and be a better friend to Gray—or even a not hideously awful friend—and I can’t do that. I can’t fix anything.”

  Kirsten absorbed this, and then, slowly, said, “I think— Okay. I think we were so used to you being the strongest and bravest of all of us that we didn’t see the toll everything took on you. When Gray came out, you were his champion. You were amazing, like Joan of Arc going into battle. But that must’ve been so hard for you.”

  “I was heartbroken. I thought I would marry him,” I said.

  “Yes. And then his dad died. And then whatever happened between Trevor and your mom happened, and he transferred to Emory midyear and basically disappeared from your life. When I think about it now, when I envision the person you were that whole second half of senior year, I think you must have been depressed. Like, very.”

  I nodded. “I was.”

  “So, yeah, maybe you should’ve been a better friend to Gray. But we three should’ve been better friends to you. We should’ve seen that you needed taking care of, too.”

  My friend Kirsten and I sat inside a haze of regret and remembering, before Kirsten said, “At least, after the fire, things got better for Gray at school.”

  “Well, yeah,” I said, wryly. “It only took running into a burning building to save his best friend and losing his father in the same night for those assholes to stop holding his sexuality against him.”

  “He’s in a good place now,” said Kirsten.

  “I’m glad he found Evan. I’m glad they got married.” I smiled. “I’m dead jealous of course, but I’m glad.”

  “They’re having a baby.”

  Tears filled my eyes, hot and sudden. “Oh, that’s wonderful.”

  “They used a surrogate. Gray’s sperm, and Evan’s sister donated the egg, so it’ll have both their genes.”

  “Those are some good genes,” I said, remembering Gray.

  “Hell, yes, they are,” said Kirsten.

  “Will you prepare them, Gray and CJ? Tell them I’ll be getting in touch about the engagement party?”

  “Yes! And, um, one more thing? Or one more person, actually?”

  I sighed. “Trevor. You two always did love each other.”

  “Please?”

  “If I die of awkwardness, you’ll look after Avery?”

  “I love you, I love you, I love you,” sang Kirsten, and then she slid over and wrapped me up in the Kirstenest of Kirsten hugs.

  Chapter Eleven

  December 1, 1997

  People say “bear witness” and now I know why. It’s that seeing the terrible, the unstoppable terrible, the unerasable, it-can’t-be-happening-it-is-happening terrible not so much unfold as inflict itself upon the world in front of you is heavy, a lead-heavy burden you bear and bear until you are bent double under its weight and can barely breathe.

  I want to unsee it. I want to undo it, to reel in that hour—ugly minute after ugly minute—and hurl it into a bottomless pit.

  I’d give anything. But I can’t. No one can.

  Now, two days after it happened, it feels like time to piece that night together, all those impressions that aren’t just scattered but whirling and screeching and flapping like giant black birds of prey. I will try to put the night into sentences, to patch those sentences into an order. It won’t change what happened. It won’t fix a thing. But that’s what I do. That’s how I bear witness.

  During the football game, with nearly two thousand in attendance, not just from Lucretia Mott or C
ole but from all over, our school began to burn, the wing that holds the theater and, beneath that, a floor down, the gym where the ninth graders have P.E. I don’t know how long it took, whether it smoldered for a long time first and then crept over the floors and theater seats or whether it arrived in a burst and tore through the place, scrambling up the stage curtains and walls to eat away the roof in chunks.

  It was during the third quarter. I don’t remember the score, but I know we were losing by enough to have the LM side scared. At halftime, the marching band had lacked its usual high-stepping zest, all except for CJ, who, despite Gray telling us to go ahead and cheer on our team, hoped with every fiber of his fierce and scrawny being that the LM Owls would get pulverized. CJ was practically dancing across that field, his sax bright as the sun under the stadium lights.

  Later, when he walked up to rejoin us in the stands, I saw that he had his arm stuck straight up over his head and was brandishing his giant “#10 Is the Man!” sign like a sword. I also saw that, while he wore his hooded sweatshirt and winter jacket on top, he still had on his band pants.

  “It’s kind of nice to know that some things never change,” I said to Kirsten.

  “Sorry about the pants there, Seege,” said Kirsten.

  “Thieving bastards,” said CJ. “But at least we’re still losing.”

  I don’t know how much time passed—not much—before CJ got a weird look on his face, lifted his nose in the air like a bloodhound, and said, “Do you smell smoke?”

  I didn’t really, but then a few minutes later, I did. And right then, the refs stopped the game and the announcer’s voice came on telling us to please walk, not run, in a calm, orderly manner through the west exit of the stadium and down the hill to the lower playing field, even though the announcer himself sounded anything but calm. He sounded like a guy who’d expected his biggest challenge of the evening to be pronouncing the players’ names correctly and who was teetering right on the edge of freaking out. But some people, including CJ, Kirsten, and me, followed his instructions, even as chaos was breaking out on every side.

  We’d had fire drills a lot over the years, but those were based on the premise that the fire would take place during the school day and that students, guided by teachers and administrators who all knew the drill, would be evacuated from the building. But this was totally different: nighttime; the stadium; the place full of little kids and old people and people who had never been to LM before the night of the game; too few people in charge. And there were so many people there, lots of them pretty riled up because of the game, so nothing went the way it was supposed to. It wasn’t a stampede; no one trampled anyone underfoot, but it also wasn’t calm or orderly. People blurred by, some of them pulling kids by the hand. Some of them were laughing. Some of them were running. Crowds bustled and jostled out both gates of the stadium, and, once out of the gates, people flew off in different directions, some of them running, probably thinking they’d get into their cars and go before the fire trucks arrived.

  My heart was beating fast, and I took hold of Kirsten’s gloved hand, but I wasn’t really scared, not yet. I wasn’t even that scared when we began to see the smoke, pale gray, billowing in roiling clouds against the dark sky, because the building had to be empty. It was Saturday, and everyone who was there was watching the game, even Mr. Jones and his staff. I’d seen them standing at the fence near the snack bar. Still, as I walked between Kirsten and CJ, near the back of the crowd pouring down the hill to the field, the cold stinging my cheeks, I sent up a tiny prayer—even though I’m not sure there’s even a God up there—that said, “Please let the building be empty.”

  Then, suddenly, like a high whining wind, I heard the sirens and, layered over them, CJ’s voice saying, “Oh shit! I’ll be right back!” Before Kirsten and I knew what was happening, he wheeled around and took off like a shot.

  “Meet us at the lower field!” I shouted, and CJ, still running, raised his hand into the air in a thumbs-up.

  “Typical CJ,” said Kirsten.

  “Probably going back for his sign,” I said. “Because it’s important to have your pep sign when the school is burning down.”

  “Someone will stop him and make him turn around, and CJ will give that lucky person a long lecture about free will or freedom of speech or some such thing, till they’re ready to throw him into the burning building and lock the door,” said Kirsten.

  When we joined the shivering, noisy, energy-buzzing throng at the lower playing field, we had a clear view of the theater wing in the distance, the entire top of it shrouded in storm-cloud smoke. That’s when things got fragmented in my mind. I remember kids running around, dodging through the thick crowd, laughing and screeching with glee like they were at a Fourth of July picnic. I remember sirens charging the air with wildness, the fire trucks passing close enough to splash us with red and white light. I didn’t see Gray’s face, but in a moment of clarity, I saw the number on one of the trucks—98, our graduation year, that’s how I remember it—and I remembered that Gray was working with his dad that night.

  “Gray’s truck!” I said to Kirsten.

  The red trucks strung themselves along the curb like a train, throwing light brighter than day onto the burning roof. From a distance we could see water blasts, ladders telescoping into the sky, firefighters moving around in what, from that distance, looked like, and maybe was, a calm, purposeful, almost choreographed manner. The crowd we stood at the edge of got not quiet, but quieter, watching. I don’t know how long Kirsten and I stood that way, mesmerized by the movements of the firefighters, but suddenly, a thought struck me, and I grabbed Kirsten’s arm.

  “CJ,” I said. “He never came back.”

  Kirsten looked at me, dazed, and then snapped to with a gasp.

  We searched, hand in hand, spinning through the crowd, calling his name. When I remember it now, it’s like we were on a merry-go-round, a scary one. Faces lurching in and out of focus, big then small. Dizziness. My own voice banging around inside my head. No one seeming to hear us. No CJ. No police officers to tell. I don’t know why. They must’ve been there by then. No help coming from anywhere. And then a screeching-halt moment, when I said to Kirsten, horror hollowing my voice, “Oh my God, his sax!”

  Her eyes widened.

  “That part of the building isn’t on fire, is it?” she said. “It isn’t, is it? Is it?”

  But we didn’t know, did we? How fire moves? Does it rush around inside walls? Stampede down hallways? Could it have been stealing through the interior of the school all this time without our knowing?

  There were other things we could have done. Other courses of action we could have taken. But we were the fearsome foursome—CJ, Kirsten, Gray, and Zinny—a complete set, and all we could think was to get to Gray to get to CJ, and then we were running headlong through the darkness—pound, pound, pound—toward the trucks and the glow and the smoke. It makes no sense that no one caught us, but no one did. It makes no sense that we found Gray almost right away, at the side of a truck, unfolding a great ribbon of hose. Under his helmet, his face looked older, slashed with shadow.

  “What are you doing here?” he said. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  Winded, we panted out our story and saw our worst fears reflected in Gray’s eyes.

  “I’ll go,” he said.

  “You?” I said. “What? No. Tell your dad.”

  “He’s on the roof,” said Gray, talking fast. “I’m going. No one else will be able to find the furnace room, and it will take too long to tell them where it is. And if I tell them, they won’t let me go. I’m going.”

  He reached someplace inside the truck and there was a long-handled ax in his hand.

  “Go back to the field,” he said. “I mean it.”

  And he sidled his way along the side of the truck, then broke into a run, his head down.

  Kirsten and I didn’t go back to the field.

  “I want to stay,” said Kirsten, starting to cry. “Until
CJ’s back.”

  I nodded, and we made a break for a row of trees maybe fifty yards away, on the edge of the parking lot, and sat against the trunks, inside the shadows of the branches.

  “Let them be safe, let them be safe, let them be safe,” said Kirsten, hoarsely, over and over and over, like a chant.

  I scooted close and put my arm around her shoulders.

  “Let them be safe, let them be safe, let them be safe.” She beat out the words to the rhythm of her sobs.

  “Let them be safe, let them be safe, let them be safe . . .”

  She was still saying it when Gray’s father fell off the roof.

  December 4, 1997

  2:00 A.M.

  Gray’s father has been dead for five days.

  Gray’s stepmother told us Gray won’t see anyone. He won’t speak. He hasn’t said a word since it happened.

  Gray’s father is dead, and Gray is unreachable and shattered by sorrow maybe forever, and nothing could get worse, nothing could happen to make things worse, and then, tonight, something did.

  I will write this down once. I will write it down and rip out the pages and take them to the woods and burn them. Like a rite. Like magic. Like witchcraft. I will burn the pages and the thing that happened will be gone, erased from history. It takes up so little space. Not a night. Not even an hour. Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes weighs almost nothing, a tiny wedge of time I can pinch between my thumb and forefinger and scatter like ash. Fifteen minutes can only ruin everything if you let it.

  And I won’t I won’t I won’t I won’t

  And I won’t I won’t I won’t

  Avery whispered into the open book in her hands, whispered to Zinny and Kirsten and CJ and Gray, “What? What happened?”

  In a rush, she flipped through the rest of the pages in the journal. Then, again, just to be sure. All empty, blank as snow. Not a sentence. Not a wisp of pencil sketch.

  She read the final written-on page again, then ran a finger down the ragged edge where the next page had been torn out.