by Jamie Ayres
“Yesss! Olga got game!” Sean held out his hand for a fist bump.
“What a butt munch,” Nate said.
“Yeah, and my mom was watching the whole thing through our living room window and started flipping the porch light on and off rapidly, signaling for me to come in. You should’ve seen her total menopausal breakdown when I walked through the front door. Lecturing me about getting a reputation and how I should wait until I’m ready to get married before I date and even then the guy should be courting me.”
The boys stared at me with their mouths open.
“Yep, that’s what happens when you have parents from the fifties.”
“I do have that,” Nate said. “But they’re called grandparents.”
We all laughed, and I buried my face in my hair.
It was so hot, from heat and embarrassment, I imagined my cheeks matched the fire engine red color of my curls. “The sun is the most annoying thing ever today. I can’t stand how hot it is.”
Nate nodded toward the water. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the lake is right there.”
He stood, brushed the sand off his shorts, held out his hand, then pulled me up.
When we got to the water’s edge, I stopped short.
“Seventy percent of the world is covered by water; you can’t ignore it forever.”
I smiled. “Conner used to say my blood was seventy percent coffee.”
Stabbing hurt rose up in my chest, and I sucked in a deep breath.
“When you look that sad, it breaks my heart.” His voice was as smooth as silk, like an angel’s.
Gesturing with my hand toward the lake, I said, “He was killed out there.”
In my head, I thought back to my last sailing date with Conner. I remembered it perfectly, as if it happened just yesterday, no matter how hard I tried to forget.
So many days since then I wished it was me who died instead of him.
My breathing came fast now. “He had a pulse. I should’ve noticed sooner he wasn’t breathing. I should’ve pulled him up and administered the rescue breaths as soon as I got to the boat. We should’ve been wearing life jackets, too. I wouldn’t have had to dive after him if we were, wouldn’t have wasted all that time.” My voice was unbalanced, trembling like strings on a guitar. “Everyone thinks the lightning killed him instantly, but it didn’t. That’s what keeps me awake at night. This guilt, knowing his death could’ve been prevented. It wasn’t some freak accident. It was plain stupidity. Just like my hate letters said. I may be a genius, but I’m a complete idiot.”
I sobbed and he tried to hug me, but I untangled my body from his arms and then shoved him away.
“Stop it!” My voice rose. “I don’t deserve to be comforted. I stood there and let my best friend die. Don’t you see that? Don’t you get what I’m telling you?”
Nicole was at my side now, putting an arm around my shoulder and smoothing my hair.
“He had a pulse,” I confessed to her, too.
She shook her head. “Olga, I wasn’t there, but I didn’t have to be there to know you would’ve done everything humanly possible to save Conner’s life. You can’t beat yourself up over it. Let it go. Remember how he lived more than how he died.”
Nic took my hand and gently led me into the water, my legs wobbling.
I looked over at Nate, and he gave me a sad half-smile. Realizing I still held my pen in my hand, I stuck it behind my ear. The water rhythmically lapped against my knees, and I closed my eyes.
S.T.A.R.
I knew my last item for my life list now. What Dr. Judy suggested to me in her office: Let go of my guilt about Conner’s death.
Sliding my sunglasses to the top of my head, I squinted at the sun and a cloud moved in front of it, finally. I blocked out all the sounds around me, and all I heard was the water and the wind. A warm, soft breeze blew across me, like Conner whispering from the grave, It’s okay. Go on, go on. Those words are something I’d heard many times before but never listened to.
Life does go on, and it shouldn’t.
“Courage does not always roar.
Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying,
I will try again tomorrow.”
—Mary Anne Radmache
Today would’ve been Conner’s eighteenth birthday: June thirtieth. Ugh, that hurt so bad, but there it was. The Jedi Order hadn’t heard from Conner’s family since the funeral, but two weeks ago, we received an invitation for a celebration.
I was surprised I got an invite. I figured they held me responsible for the accident.
Standing next to my parents on the front porch, I rang the doorbell, my hand shaking. His mom, Loria, let us in and even gave me a hug.
His dad, Robert, pulled me aside.
“We heard from your parents that you’ve been going to counseling. How have you been?” He smiled, but it wavered at the edge.
“Um, okay. Better this past month, I guess. The Bookman keeps me busy with the tourist season and all.” I thought of the last time I saw him, at the funeral, and looked down at my hands.
“We’ve started seeing Dr. Judy, too. Megan made us before she left to go back to college. She’s taking summer classes.”
There was an awkward pause. I bit my lip, unsure of how to talk to him anymore. I thought about telling him how the party was a nice idea, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt wrong for coming to the whole shindig in the first place. Taking a step backward, I surveyed the house of my childhood where most of my best memories were built, and counted to ten. I thought I’d need to count all the way to fifty before I could really calm down. Then Robert placed his hands on my shoulders, and my body eased.
“He loved you, you know? More than anything. You were his best friend.”
The words were meant to comfort, but his sentiments felt more like an accusation, slapping me hard in the face.
Yes, I was his best friend, and I let him die.
I knew I was supposed to be over this now, moving on with my life. Breathing in and out, letting my guilt go, visualizing my future. Everyone kept helping me with the list, trying to make me forget. Moving forward was all part of the war I engaged myself in daily. I knew I owed it to everyone else around me to remove myself from my emotional prison, but I didn’t want to forget. Dr. Judy kept telling me moving on didn’t erase what happened or my friendship with Conner, but enabled me to integrate the disappointment, sorrow, and injustices of life into learning opportunities as the foundation of my growth. Blah, blah, blah.
“Anyway, Dr. Judy is the one who suggested this party,” Robert explained. “Since we really didn’t have a celebration of Conner’s life after the funeral. It was just too much to handle then. And she’s been making us go into his room once a week to get rid of or donate one of his things.”
I flinched a little, the realization he’s dead hitting me again and again like bullets to my heart.
“We had left his room alone, until a few weeks ago. I wanted to let you know you’re welcome, along with Sean and Kyle, to go down to his room tonight and keep anything you find sentimental or of use.”
I cleared my throat, hoping my voice didn’t squeak when I said thanks, but it betrayed me. I turned slowly, unwillingly, and headed for the stairs leading to Conner’s basement bedroom. If I put off the visit, I knew I’d chicken out.
The room was cold and dusty, and I could barely see as I descended the steps, my only light from the glow of the kitchen upstairs. I strained my eyes and reached for the switch at the bottom but wished I hadn’t. Every inch of me felt suffocated, seeing his room almost exactly the way it looked when he still walked among us. It definitely showed they hadn’t gotten far into cleaning out his stuff, adding to the haunted feeling. His video games littered the center of his floor where an old brown couch sagged in front of a widescreen tv, the cords to his PlayStation 3 stretching across the coffee table.
But would coming in here have been easier if they’d cl
eared out his room? Probably not.
Sucking in a deep breath, I pushed forward, my stomach in knots and tears in my eyes. The plaid patched quilt Loria sewed years ago for Conner twisted into lumps on top of his bed. Resting my head on his soft, plump pillow, I inhaled his amazing scent still lingering on the sham, a kind of earthy outdoors smell. I stared at the black and white Green Day poster on his ceiling, thinking about how things used to be simple, everything laid out in black and white.
Now, everything in my life hung in this gray area called the unknown. I wanted to convey a brave face tonight but didn’t want to be a poser. Because truthfully, I was terrified, and no amount of therapy or life list would fix that.
Huddling my legs close to my chest, I rocked back and forth in the fetal position until I glimpsed two things—an unframed photo of Conner and me at the beach, sitting on his nightstand, and a hair scrunchie I lost featured prominently on his bedpost. No matter how many months these items rested here, they now served as signs to pull myself together and honor Conner’s memory.
I grabbed my old hair scrunchie and the picture of Conner and me, then slid them into the pocket of my hoodie.
“Find something worth keeping?”
I jumped at the sound of Kyle’s voice. “You scared the bejeezus out of me.”
“Sorry.” He narrowed his eyes, eyebrows pulling down in concentration.
S.T.A.R. “It’s okay. I guess Robert gave you the message, too?”
“Yeah. There’s only two things I can think of wanting though.” He rubbed a hand over his face, and I could tell being here killed a little part of him too. “His song book, because I know there were songs in the works in there, and I think he’d want us to use them, and his guitar. His dad said he’d want us to have it.”
I pointed to the dresser beside Conner’s bed, the mirror mounted on the wall above the chest of drawers reflecting all our sadness. “I know the song book is in the top drawer.”
When Conner was alive, his room was a mess. I came over every Thursday night to help him study for Friday tests, and I often tidied up for him.
After retrieving the items, Kyle turned and faced me. “You ready to head outside to the bonfire?”
My eyes watered at the mirrored reflection of just us two standing alone in Conner’s room, knowing he’d never come back. “Yes, it’s a little weird being in here now.”
“Lewis Carroll for sure.”
I shook my head, thinking Nate’s offbeat remarks were already influencing Kyle’s vernacular.
“I mean, yeah, weird.”
Someone stomped down the steps. Conner’s room took up the Anderson’s spacious basement, a perfect practice venue for the Cantankerous Monkey Squad. We looked over and found Sean staring back at us.
“This is weird,” Sean said.
Kyle nodded. “We were just discussing that.” He held up Conner’s things. “Got the song book and guitar.”
“Great minds think alike.” Sean tapped his finger against his temple and walked to the closet. “That’s what I was coming down here for. And one more thing.”
“You want one of his shirts?” Kyle asked.
Even though Conner’s family was loaded, the majority of his wardrobe consisted of Goodwill finds.
Sean held out two white tees. One featured a hot dog and said, ‘The dog kids love to bite.’ The T-shirt was an advertisement for some food company and so was the other, which said, ‘My fanny has no fat.’
Kyle meandered over, then took the fanny one. “I guess it would be cool to wear his shirts to gigs sometimes, honor his place in the band.”
Sean grabbed one more T-shirt from the closet, a black one that said, ‘Trust Me. I’m a Jedi Master.’ “Nothing honors Conner more than a Star Wars shirt, and we need one for each member of the band.”
Suddenly, a moment of silence struck us. A crushing disappointment weighed on me, and maybe them too. We’d never see Conner again. As we all stood there, I felt so small, so insignificant, contemplating how quickly life could end.
I picked at a loose thread on my sweater and thought about Nate instead, wondering if the band picked him as an official replacement yet.
“Now, can we get outta here? Not to sound insensitive, but I don’t need Conner’s stuff to remember him. And being in here creeps me out,” Kyle said, clearing his throat while sliding Conner’s guitar strap over his shoulder.
“True dat,” Sean said, leading the way out the sliding glass door to the backyard, slinging the shirts over his shoulder.
I followed but took one last look around Conner’s room; the memories of our childhood together made my chest ache.
Lawn chairs and blankets littered the backyard, adding to the outdoor glider and two sitting hammocks, always a standard around the Anderson’s fire pit, which burned bright. Most people crowded around the fire, telling their favorite stories about Conner. Loria dashed up the stairs of the deck leading to their dining room and kitchen to fetch more food, her dozen beaded necklaces swinging as she went. Mom trailed behind her.
Nicole sat at our favorite spot on the glider, so I joined her. I eyed a basket, packed with s’mores ingredients, on the grass by my feet and then noticed Tammy and Nate relaxing in the two hammock chairs adjacent to the glider. The guys must’ve invited him to the ‘party.’ I didn’t even know he was here, and the sight of him next to Tammy made me cringe.
Odd.
As soon as he saw me, he got up and then squeezed himself into the glider with Nicole and me.
“Where have you been?” Even in faded jeans and an olive green hoodie, he looked handsome. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
I swung the glider back and forth and admired the way he swept his hair back from his face. “Stalker.”
He grinned, the smile quickly becoming my favorite. “Totally.”
“What are those boxes of sparklers for?” Sean asked, nodding to a stockpile on the ground.
Nicole handed me and Nate sodas from the cooler next to her. “Loria and Robert already handed them out to everyone. Kinda like party favors, I guess, since Conner liked them so much.”
Kyle’s lips turned up into a huge smile, and he sat in the hammock next to Tammy. “He really did. This is actually kind of perfect.”
Nate turned to me and whispered in my ear. “By the way, you look really cute tonight.”
In Conner’s honor, I’d dressed up a bit. I borrowed Nicole’s brown sequined V-neck tunic, pairing it with my old jeans featuring a few torn holes in them and Tammy’s fur trim boots.
I couldn’t fathom looking cute to a guy. Taking in Nate’s smile again, I met his eyes for a second, but I was sure I blushed because heat rose in my cheeks, so I looked away.
“Did you get it?” I asked Tammy, because I let her and Nicole in on my plan earlier today about accomplishing number four on my list. I figured getting the Cantankerous Monkey Squad on the radio was a definite step in the right direction for landing a record deal.
Tammy nodded just as I spotted Loria and Mom coming down the stairs with cheese and veggie trays.
Perfect timing. I glanced at my watch. 8:00 p.m. I nodded to Tammy, signaling for her to make the announcement.
“Holla, holla, holla!” she shouted, holding up the radio. “Shh! Olga has a surprise.”
A few seconds later, the DJ delivered the introduction. “It’s time! Every Saturday at eight o’clock I play ya something new. So, here’s one from a local teen band called Cantankerous Monkey Squad. Today, I met their biggest fan, Olga Worontzoff, and asked her how the band got their name. She said their lead singer, Conner Anderson, thought of it. Their self-titled debut explains it all. Here’s to you, Conner; may you rest in peace as your music plays on.”
Everyone listened quietly, seeming to savor the moment just as much as I did. Kyle tapped out the drumbeat over the speakers, Sean strummed his guitar, and Conner belted out the lyrics. “Down on Washington Street/ I saw a deal I couldn’t beat/ Fifteen dollars for a cymbal
-banging cantankerous monkey/ I thought to myself, ain’t that funky/ You had a red and white striped shirt and yellow pants/ But there was something disturbing I didn’t see at first glance/ Red rings painted around wide open eyes/ Could take home Most Scary prize/ I reached into my wallet, but it was empty/ But that’s okay, ‘cause Mom and Dad have plenty/ So I’ll just wait till I come around/ Back to this side of town/ That night, I’m sitting at my coffee table/ Wondering if I’m able/ Coming up with the band name is the hardest part/ I wish I could shop for one at Discount Mart/ Then, I remembered those cymbals in your hands/ And I knew what to call the band/ Cantankerous Monkey Squad/ Our problem finally solved/ I screamed Oh My Gawd, Oh My Gawd/ Next day, I walked back to Washington Street/ Not caring at all about Grand Haven’s heat/ But the cashier said we’re all sold out/ And I became the same boy who used to pout/ But I’ll always remember the way you bobbed your head/ Cantankerous Monkey Squad is what you said.”
After the three-minute stint ended, the song was rewarded with applause, and goose bumps spread over my arms and legs. Then, Robert’s firm hand was on my shoulder, Loria next to him. We just stood there for what seemed like a long time. I think each of us tried hard not to cry, to say something meaningful. But words failed to express what we felt, so silence hung in the air. Sometimes, I realized, you just had to show up, to be there for someone. No matter what my future held, Robert and Loria had been a huge part of my past, and a piece of them would always go with me. I was glad I came tonight, after all.
“That was really special,” Robert finally said.
Loria leaned closer. “Thank you. And I want you to know, we don’t blame you for what happened. I’m sorry if it seemed like we did, at the hospital. We were hurting, but we should’ve handled it better. You were always like a second daughter to us, and we loved you like Conner did. If you ever need anything—she tilted her head toward Robert, seeming to draw strength from him to get the words out—“you have our number.”