East Coast Girls

by Kerry Kletter

  Renee looked at her watch. “Oh, shoot. I missed the last ferry from Orient Point.”

  “Oh no,” Hannah said.

  “It’s fine,” she said wearily. “Just adds another hour to the drive.”

  “It’s already late though,” Hannah said. She looked pleadingly at Blue.

  “All I know is I’m going to bed,” Blue said. “You guys can do whatever.”

  Maya grinned at Renee. “I’ve got a big T-shirt you can sleep in!”

  Renee paused, finally conceded. “Okay. I’ll leave first thing in the morning.” She looked at Blue. “Thank you.”

  “Actually,” Maya said, “I was thinking that tomorrow we can—”

  Hannah tuned out, thinking about how she would break the news that she, too, would be leaving in the morning. This trip meant so much to Maya. And even though she was pissed about the Xanax, Maya was still her best friend, still the one who’d tucked her into bed at the motel when she was scared, who never stopped inviting her into the world no matter how many times she refused it, who loved her when she couldn’t find much to love about herself. But Henry...

  “I won’t be here tomorrow,” Hannah blurted.

  “Beg your pardon?” Maya said.

  “I know you’re going to think I’m ridiculous—”

  “Too late,” Maya said. “I’ve thought that for years.”

  Blue unlocked the front door.

  Hannah braced. “I’m going back to DC.”

  “Oh, come on!” Maya said. “Because I took your Xanax? I’ll give it back right now.” She headed toward the stairs. “It’s in my top drawer.”

  Hannah looked to Blue.

  “She has a bad feeling about Henry,” Blue said for her.

  Maya turned. “What do you mean, a bad feeling?”

  Hannah gave a little shrug, stared at the floor.

  “Feelings are not facts. It’s in your head. The last thing you should do is listen to yourself.”

  Hannah closed her eyes. “I know you don’t understand.”

  “You’re right,” Maya said steadily. “I don’t.”

  “He needs me.”

  “Oh, bullshit, Hannah,” Maya said. “I need you. He doesn’t even know you’re there!”

  “Maya!” Blue said.

  The room went still. Or Hannah did. She didn’t actually know which. It just seemed like there was a moment where Maya’s words hung, suspended in the air before they landed. She had a weird instinct to laugh, but darkly and with horror. That Maya could say that to her. That her best friend could say that. Try to take away her hope when the only thing more painful than hope was to be without it.

  She pulled herself taller, looked Maya right in the eye. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” She turned to Renee and Blue, who both bowed their heads. “None of you do.” She ran past them up the stairs.

  Behind her she heard Maya say, “Shit.”

  Then Blue said, “You’re on a real winning streak, Maya.”

  Hannah slammed the bedroom door shut, grabbed her Xanax from Maya’s top drawer. She opened the bottle, but it wasn’t anxiety she felt, so she closed it again. She sat down on her bed, got up. The room was dark and grainy but for the moon through the window and the light from the hall. She could’ve flipped a switch but she didn’t want to. She had the strange sense that she’d been punched out of her own body, the pain so big and detonating she’d gone numb.

  He does know I’m there. He does.

  She let the evidence play out in her mind. Every moment when she felt him with her, a sudden smile, a single word, a brief light behind his eyes before flickering out again—all these little signs—they were like proof of God or proof of fate or proof of anything that required faith; little clues and then gone, so much space in between those moments to fill with doubt. But they happened—they did. What the hell did Maya know?

  She heard footsteps on the stairs. The door flew open. All three of her friends stood in the entrance.

  “Hannah,” Blue said.

  She went to the closet, pulled out her suitcase, threw it onto the bed. “Whatever,” she said. “I know you probably all think that about him.”

  No one said anything, which only confirmed it.

  “Must be nice. To believe that.” She moved to her nightstand. Dumped her medications into a plastic bag. “Because, like, if he’s just gone, if he’s just...‘brain dead’—” her hands shook as she sealed the bag, threw it into her suitcase “—then you don’t have to think about him. Or worry about him. Or visit him. Or have any responsibility for him at all. Everything’s settled and you get to go on with your lives.”

  “No.” Renee reached toward her.

  “Don’t,” Hannah said. She marched past them and into the bathroom. She gathered her toiletries and makeup except for her toothbrush, which she’d need in the morning. She was a robot, utterly detached from emotion, and she marveled at herself, at the way her brain had snipped off all of her feelings at the root because they were too big to bear. She suddenly remembered a time when Henry had gotten so upset during an argument with his dad about school that he ran out the door and dry heaved on the lawn. It had startled Hannah and humbled her and filled her with such tenderness for him. When life felt hard, he tried to expel himself. She shut herself down.

  The feelings were there though. She was simply in the eye of it. An almost eerie calm within her. If only she could stay there. Just this once. And also forever. She returned to the bedroom, focused only on her mission to pack.

  “You can think whatever the hell you want,” she said, yanking her stuff from the dresser. “But you’re not the ones who sit with him every day.” She tossed her first aid kit into her suitcase. “You’re not the ones who see him smile. Or feel his eyes follow you around the room sometimes.” She chucked in her vitamins, her antibacterial wipes, her extra charger. “You don’t have to see a tear roll down his cheek when you wheel him outside to see a sunset, or hear him suddenly say ‘Mom’ or ‘Yes’ or ‘Hi’ and then be told by your friends—by people who are supposed to be your friends—” she fought the sudden choke in her voice, the calm crumbling “—that there’s no hope. That you’re an idiot for holding on.”

  Maya sat down on the bed in front of Hannah’s suitcase. “You’re right.”

  “I know,” Hannah said. She returned to the drawers. The one convenience of her neurosis was that all of her clothes were already neatly packed in her large plastic freezer bags.

  “I didn’t know he did some of those things,” Maya said quietly.

  Hannah slammed the top drawer shut. “Because you never want to talk about him.”

  “Yes, well, I need to grow up,” Maya said. “We’ve already established that.”

  Hannah checked under the bed for anything that might have fallen under it. “Look,” she said. “I came. I stayed in a disgusting motel for you. We had fun.”

  “No fun has been had yet,” Maya said.

  “Well, whatever, I did it. I tried.”

  “Oh, please,” Maya said.

  “What?” Hannah shot back up.

  “You didn’t try.”

  “Maya,” Blue warned.

  “Sorry, but she didn’t. No part of trying involves packing up your plastic bags and going home.”

  “Why are you on my bed?” Hannah said, suddenly registering that fact. “Please get off my bed.” It was all she could do not to physically remove her, displace the contamination. Maya probably hadn’t even washed her hands.

  Maya didn’t move. “Look, I get that there’s a chance for Henry someday. I get that there are medical advances and all that...but until then...when do you get to live your life?”

  “I am living,” Hannah said. “So maybe mind your business, okay?”

  Maya didn’t even flinch. “I don’t even think you be
lieve that.”

  Hannah stared at her.

  “She has a point,” Blue said quietly.

  Renee bowed her head.

  “I just think—” Maya started.

  “Get the fuck off my bed right now!”

  The room hushed, the air retreating to the corners like frightened children.

  They stared at her in shock.

  Hannah didn’t care. She was a fucking grenade.

  “Fine,” Maya said, standing. “Jesus.” She put her hands up in mock surrender.

  They glowered at each other.

  Hannah went to speak but the spell of rage broke and she was small again, smaller than before, and there was nothing left in her to fight the truth. She slumped down next to her suitcase. Stared at the contents of her life. All that plastic. All those medicine bottles. What she had become.

  She felt something tear, a tiny, terrible rip on the seams she held so tightly together.

  Because it was there. The want. Too painful to own. And yet. Now named out loud? To live. Not just function. To have experiences. To feel things, big things. To have life happen to her. It was there—a hidden yearning and regret for all she’d already given up. So many years. So much of her youth. And she couldn’t be sure Henry even knew she was there. Not when his eyes were blank and distant. Which was most of the time. And, oh God. To live! She’d felt it when they left DC, and again when they pulled up to the house and she remembered what it was like to be excited, to be fearless, to feel her future as wide-open as a prairie. But to move toward life—she understood this—would be a move away from Henry, every step in its direction a step away from him. And that seemed impossible. Unbearable. To detach herself even a little from the one certainty in her life. The only safe thing in a world of dangers. Wasn’t that why people stayed in bad marriages? Because to untangle from a person was to let go of the tether, and without it, however one-sided, however painful her relationship with Henry was, there was nothing, there was falling. If she opened the door, even an inch, she would never be able to return. Not in the same way. And then where would she be? It was the only life she knew. When she tried to imagine any other, she saw herself in the car on that night turning to her friends. I think we’re lost.

  “But what if I stay and something goes wrong?” she said.

  “No,” Maya said. “See, you just did it again.”

  “Did what?”

  “Stopped yourself from living.”

  “No, I’m just saying—”

  “Nope.” Maya stuck her fingers in her ear. “Lalalala.”

  “But!”

  “Lalalala!”

  “So much for growing up,” Hannah sputtered.

  “Stay. You can do this.” Maya grabbed her arm. “You can.”

  Hannah considered. Could she? Which regret would be worse?

  MAYA

  It was still dark when Maya woke, her eyes heavy and dry with a fatigue that had depth to it. Renee had crashed out beside her, Hannah next to her in the other bed, Blue, who was more than happy to have her own room for the night, just across the hall. All of them together. It should have felt right.

  It felt like loss.

  It was loss.

  It could not be loss; she refused it.

  She had to fix it. What could she do?

  Well, she could grow up, for starters. But that wasn’t exactly a small order. And besides, she didn’t want to. And besides, she didn’t know how. They should teach that in high school, she thought, a class for orphans and the unloved and the unparented about the basic fundamentals of being a grown-up. Then again, she would have cut that class anyway.

  She had to try something.

  She climbed lightly out of bed, slipped downstairs into the kitchen. Stared into the darkness there until she could find the shape of action. What moved Hannah? Cleanliness, she realized, a sense of home. She flipped on the light, pulled out the bleach spray from below the sink and began to scrub. Countertops, fridge, table, windows, floor. Wash, polish, shine until the light broke through, until the sleepy sun tiptoed in through the leaves in the trees. Would it help? She didn’t know. But she had hope. She always had hope. The girls would be up soon. She headed out, bought bagels and butter, still Hannah’s favorite.

  She found herself looking for Andy’s bike as she drove down Montauk Highway and passed through town. Already the streets were crowded. A jaywalker darted out in front of her, shot her the middle finger when she honked. The only thing more aggressive than a honey badger is a New Yorker on vacation, she thought. She looked again for Andy inside the bagel shop, somewhat surprised he wasn’t there. It felt like fate had betrayed her. She should’ve given him her number. He’d asked for it as they stood at the edge of the parking lot saying goodbye, his large hands thumbing her hipbones. “It might be hard to get married if I don’t know where to find you,” he’d said with a grin.

  But the girls had been waiting in the car, watching her. She’d taken this trip to be with them. They were what mattered. And besides, it just seemed easier—to keep their night together untouched by love’s erosion—a mint coin of memory she could take out and look back on whenever she needed a smile. But man, she hadn’t expected to miss him so much. She didn’t even understand it. They’d spent only a few hours together. She ordered the bagels, headed back to the house. She was just finished setting out the spread when Hannah appeared in the kitchen.

  “Look,” Maya said. “I cleaned! And I’m making coffee.” She held up a tray of carefully arranged sliced bagels. “And I went out and bought your fave.” Their eyes met. A flash of surprise across Hannah’s face. A spark of hope in Maya’s chest. Then she noticed the suitcase.

  “The train leaves in twenty minutes,” Hannah said. “I just called a cab.”

  “Oh.” Maya lowered the tray. It would be stupid to cry, so she didn’t. Instead she took two bagel halves, stuffed them into the toaster, wiped her hands against her thighs. “Call them back. I’ll drive you.”

  “Maya,” Hannah said.

  Maya moved to the fridge, pulled out the butter.

  “Okay, well. I guess I’ll put my stuff in the car,” Hannah said.

  Maya nodded without turning. A moment later, she heard footsteps on the stairs and then low talking in the foyer. Blue and Renee were awake. Maybe they could convince Hannah to stay.

  Maya tried to listen but the bagel popped up, startling her. She cut little slits in the tops, slathered it in butter, wrapped it, stuck it in a brown paper bag. She smiled brightly to herself for practice and then walked out into the foyer and repeated the gesture.

  “Ready?” Hannah said.

  “Yep,” she said, smiling. Sometimes you could make a thing less bad by pretending that it wasn’t bad at all.

  “Do you want us to come?” Blue said.

  “No need,” Hannah said. “We can say goodbye here.”

  “I got this,” Maya mouthed, winking at Blue. She had to believe she could still convince Hannah to stay. Aloud she said, “I’ll be in the car.”

  She grabbed the keys and walked out.

  It was going to be a hot day. The air already smelled like a furnace. She slipped into the driver’s seat, looked away as Hannah hugged Blue and Renee. The passenger door opened and Maya handed Hannah the bagel and coffee.

  “Thanks,” Hannah said, peeking into the bag and setting it on her lap. “Smells good.”

  Maya backed out onto the street. Too fast. Hannah braced. The car filled with the weight of impending separation. They passed the beach, the ocean, the promise of vacation. They passed two young girls on bicycles. They passed the girls they’d been.

  “There’s gotta be something I can say that’ll change your mind,” Maya said.

  Hannah was watching the girls recede into the distance. “I wish.”

  “You do?”

 
“I know he’s probably fine. If it was something really bad, Vivian would tell me to come home.”

  “Right. Okay. I don’t get it. Why leave, then?”

  “Deer!” Hannah said.

  “What? Oh, crap!”

  Maya slammed the brakes. The deer, stopped in the middle of the road, stared at her with blank, unblinking eyes.

  “Jesus Christ on a cracker,” she yelled. “Why do they just freeze like that? Dumb animals.”

  “She can’t help it,” Hannah said. “It’s how she’s wired.”

  “Seems counterproductive,” Maya said. The whole point of life was to keep going. Any living creature was bound to get run over if they didn’t know that. “So, if you know Henry is fine, are you leaving because of me?”

  “No,” Hannah said. “That’s not it at all. I don’t know how to explain. It doesn’t even feel like a choice, honestly. Everything just gets too...much. Like the world gets in too far. I can’t keep it out. There’s no boundary. And then it’s too painful to stay. To stay anywhere, really.”

  Maya pressed lightly on her horn. The deer ran off into the shrubbery. She pulled out onto the tree-lined highway, the low early sun throwing light in her eyes. She tried to imagine what Hannah was describing but she couldn’t. Not at first. But then she remembered herself in the bank, trying to get the loan. The sense of something intolerable building inside her. What was it? The possibility that she wouldn’t be okay. That some pressurizing force would shatter her to bits. She considered mentioning this to Hannah but she couldn’t bring herself to. She didn’t want to give darkness a voice. She wanted to forget it. “That sounds awful,” she said.

  Hannah held her gaze. “It is.” And then she added, “There are worse things.”

  Maya thought of Henry. Maybe they both did.

  She didn’t want their last moments of the trip to be sad.

  She turned and cracked a mischievous smile. “Do you realize we just left Renee and Blue alone together?”

  “With access to kitchen knives,” Hannah said. She made a stabbing motion and they burst out laughing.