East Coast Girls

by Kerry Kletter

  The traffic was crawling as they neared town. The shadow of that night hitchhiking along, creating a dusky gloom inside her. “What if you knew there was something you could’ve done differently?” she said. “Something that would’ve stopped it from ever happening?”

  Hannah looked stricken.

  “Hypothetically. I’m not saying you did—you didn’t. I’m just saying what if. Like, if you knew you messed up. If you were sure it was your fault. Could you ever forgive yourself?” There was something wrong with her voice. It sounded strange to her own ears.

  “I don’t understand why you’re asking me this.”

  “Forget it,” Maya said. “Dumb question. We should definitely talk about something else.” This was why she never wanted to talk about Henry. It made her blood move too fast, like she was dangling over the edge of a steep precipice, a dark swallow below.

  “Would you?” Hannah said after a long silence. “Forgive yourself?”

  “I don’t know,” Maya said. “I don’t know if you’re supposed to.”

  They were both quiet for a moment.

  “Anyway,” Maya said. “It wasn’t either of our faults, so no need to think about it. Those dirtbags are rotting away in prison—right where they belong.”

  “Yeah,” Hannah said. “If only that made me feel better. I mean...obviously I’d feel worse if they weren’t, but...”

  “It doesn’t change anything.”

  “Exactly. Yeah.” She bit at a cuticle, stared off. “Do you ever think about the fact that they’ll be eligible for parole in a few years?”

  They shared a loaded look.

  “No,” Maya lied. Sometimes the thought ambushed her in the most random places—at work or the grocery store or standing in her kitchen. She’d feel a prickle in her spine and she’d turn suddenly, half expecting to find them standing there, a gun in her face. She knew it was irrational. Blue kept frequent tabs on their parole status and the lawyers had assured them they’d be unlikely recipients of early release based on their long rap sheets. But still, the possibility shadowed her. “It’s not happening, trust me.”

  Hannah nodded, worried her lip.

  “And even if it did, it’s not like they’d come looking for us. It wasn’t some personal vendetta. It was meth.”

  “True,” Hannah said, though she hardly looked reassured. “Hey, I’ve been wondering about something. Do you know why Blue’s shirt was bloody that night?”

  “Huh?” Maya took a sip from her water bottle, trying to wash away the black feeling. She really, really wanted to change the subject. But how many times had she done that on Hannah? It wasn’t fair.

  “I had a memory of Blue from that night. Her sweatshirt was ripped and bloody,” Hannah said.

  Maya shook her head. Tried to recall—or rather found herself recalling before she could stop herself. She’d been in the bathroom when the men came in the house, had crouched by the door, fear-still, all the life in her turned off so they wouldn’t hear it. Her purse was in the car, her phone. She was frantically calculating a way she might get to it. Or at least to the gun in Henry’s closet.

  She rolled down the window to let some air in. “Maybe it was Henry’s blood?”

  She didn’t want to think about it.

  But the memory came back again anyway.

  The muffled sound of the men through the door, taunting her friends. Hannah’s voice, terrified. Henry trying so hard to sound tough. Maya’s own heart beating so loud in her chest. In a moment of quiet, she’d accidentally leaned against the tub, knocked over a shampoo bottle. She froze. Braced. Waiting. Nothing. And then a sudden gunshot. So loud it blew the thoughts right out of her head. She was only seizing heart and blaring adrenals and splintering mind. Then Hannah was screaming “No!” And, oh God, Maya had never heard such a sound. Everything in her tightened. She was caught inside a horror she could not yet grasp. All animal terror and human regret. And then an awful thought had come to her. Thank God, she’d thought, thank God it had been Henry and not Hannah.

  She had been grateful. God help her, what a thought to have.

  By the time she heard the men go upstairs and she’d dared to run to the closet for Henry’s father’s gun, the police had arrived. But it was too late, in some way, to save any of them.

  “Blue wasn’t in the house when he got shot,” Hannah said, pulling Maya from her thoughts. “She ran, remember?”

  “I don’t know,” Maya said. She was agitated and light-headed at once. “Maybe we should ask her.” The grainy gray sky deepened around them. Already she missed the daylight. “Look.” She pointed to a small Ferris wheel peeking above the car line on the side of Montauk Highway. As she pulled in to the parking lot, tents and rides suitable for small children came into view. She tried to summon that feeling that carnival lights usually gave her—the way it took her back to that dizzying life-lust of her youth, but her mood had dampened too much.

  “I’m nervous all of a sudden,” Hannah said.

  “If by ‘all of a sudden’ you mean every day of your life,” Maya said.

  Hannah pressed her hand to the window like a child watching snow fall. “What if she tells me something I don’t want to hear? I hadn’t really considered that.”

  “She won’t,” Maya said. “I won’t let her.” But now she was worried too. Hannah was so susceptible.

  “Maybe I should take a Xanax,” Hannah said.

  Maya said nothing, turned in to the lot.

  “Why did you take it anyway?” Hannah said.

  “Just don’t think you need it,” Maya said. And yet even as she said it, she was aware of some internal alteration, her certainty fraying at the edges again. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling, left her exposed to self-doubt. But it also allowed her to see that her certainty, which she’d always thought a strength, was sometimes actually a crutch. It separated her from other people, put the world and everyone in it into boxes, created judgment. Without it she was aware of feeling vulnerable, but also spongier, more attuned to life’s mysteries, where answers, like humans, were not so cut-and-dried. “Scratch that. Maybe I just didn’t want to believe you needed it.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” Because it makes me feel guilty, she thought but could not say. Because I don’t want you to become my mother. “I just wanted you to live.”

  “I’m trying,” Hannah said.

  “I know you are.”

  “The meds help.”

  “Then I’m an asshole.”

  “You are,” Hannah said, smiling. “That’s accurate.”

  Maya laughed, but also she felt the truth of it. She had to stop trying to force people into living the story that she needed them to. It wasn’t fair. She pulled in to what was hopefully a legal parking space—though she wasn’t going to look too hard to be sure—and the two of them got out and joined the crowds.

  Maya pointed to the left. “They still have a photo booth! We are definitely hitting that before we leave.” She would put it in her locker at work with the original photo of the four teenage girls they’d been—giggling as they piled in and flashed their innocent, hopeful smiles into the future. She could almost summon what it had felt like to be that age—oblivious and unbound—life so impossibly shiny before it had been dulled by overuse. But as soon as she grasped the feeling, tried to keep it, it slipped away. Left her with more sadness.

  The fair looked so rickety and more run-down than she remembered, like an aging man with bad knees. It suddenly seemed foolish that she’d thought they could re-create the trip they’d had, go back to seeing only the brilliant lights and forget the rats scurrying in the shadows, or the fact that the games were rigged, the prizes cheap. What were you supposed to do with the underbelly that adulthood revealed? If only she could unsee it.

  Hannah scanned the vendors, and Maya felt both her worry and ho
pe that the psychic might have answers for her. The dark feeling in her spread. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea,” she said, though her words got carried away in the crowd.

  Hannah pointed to a sign over a booth:

  ORACLE LAUREN: Tarot, Palm, Crystal Ball.

  We take credit cards!

  There was a small line of people winding around the table, partially blocking their view. They craned their necks to see over the crowd.

  “Is that her?” Maya asked.

  Hannah nodded. “Yep.”

  “I actually predicted that it was,” Maya said. “All right, well, let’s see what she has to say for herself.”

  “Maybe we should walk around for a minute first,” Hannah said.

  Maya noticed Hannah’s hands were shaky. “Okay. You can buy me an ice cream.”

  Hannah gave her a look.

  “What? We have to re-create this exactly, and last time you bought me ice cream. I don’t make the rules.”

  They wandered through the throng, the smell of popcorn and cotton candy and the briny Atlantic on the breeze. Above them, big mechanical arms spun kids up and down, backward and forward, throwing chips of colored light onto the pavement.

  They each got soft serve cones as well as cotton candy to share. Maya ate quickly, burying her worries about Hannah under a thick layer of creamy sweetness and airy sugar. They sat down on a bench and soon the night came down solidly around them, the small, tragic carnival lit up and swirling, alive with the shrieks of happy children, the crank of machinery, the ring of prizes being won. Everything seemed heightened as if Maya herself were aloft on a ride and being whisked around like a glow whip, everything both bright and dark, thrilling and seedy, twirling toward an inevitable end when the rides would be over, the carnival packed up, everything gone except silence.

  It was the silence part Maya couldn’t stand. The dark breath that lived under everything, wordless and terrifying. That place inside herself she could not, would not enter. And yet it was too present tonight. Had been since they arrived. She looked over at Hannah now wiping her hands with a disinfectant towel she’d kept in her purse, her eyes fixed on the psychic’s tent. Something in Hannah’s face cleaved at Maya’s heart.

  “Let’s go on the Ferris wheel first!” she said suddenly, dragging Hannah toward the ticket booth. She wanted to be dizzy and unthinking, wanted them both to be.

  “Do we have time?” Hannah said.

  “It’s only eight thirty. It’ll take five minutes.”

  Hannah hesitated.

  “Please tell me you’re not scared of a Ferris wheel. It’s small.” Which was true. But it had those spinning cages that made it more fun, and what it lacked in majestic heights and thrilling speed it more than made up for by questionable construction and code violations. This was the real thrill, Maya thought, that at any time a bolt could fail and they would plummet to their deaths in a sea of funnel cakes. Not that she would say that to Hannah.

  They bought the tickets and within minutes they were at the front of the line handing them off to the teenage ride operator. He led them to a cage and then pulled the safety bar over their laps. Hannah made him check the lock twice before he sealed them in.

  A sudden whir.

  “Oh God,” Hannah said.

  And they were in motion.

  Slowly they rose, spoke by neon spoke, Maya grinning with that particular bite of tension mixed with delight, until they were throned high above the crowds, the perspective strange and joyful. Soon the ride was moving faster, suddenly swinging them back and forth, then all the way around in their cage as the wheel made its arc. They squealed and gripped the bar and their screams joined those of the other riders, floating up like balloons into the summer night. Spinning, spinning, Maya looked over to see Hannah wild-eyed and emitting terrified, gleeful shrieks, the primal thrills and terror of the ride overpowering everything but the moment. Their eyes met and they both laughed. They were children, adults, best friends all at once, and Maya’s heart was a swell and then a whoosh and a scream as the wheel spun around again and again until the world was nothing more than a blur of lights and sound, her mind free of everything but merriment. It was exactly what she needed.

  Suddenly the ride ground to a jerking stop, the two of them perched precariously near the top. Their cage swayed and tilted downward. The ride shuddered forward for one moment, flipping them upside down.

  Then it stopped again, leaving them dangling.

  Maya looked over, saw Hannah blanch. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’ll start back up in a second.” She didn’t want to be stopped, she wanted to be moving again, wanted to be inside the spin and the noise. The blood was rushing to her head.

  “Any second,” she repeated. The Ferris wheel creaked. “See?”

  But nothing happened.

  The bar was too distant from her lap. She was hanging out of her seat against it. It seemed like she could slip out of its protective hold so easily. She wondered if the cage would break her fall or if she would crash right through it, the force of her body pushing it open, launching her like a missile into the pavement. Hannah’s fears were rubbing off on her.

  “This is how you get an aneurysm,” Hannah said, clinging to the safety bar.

  “No, it isn’t,” Maya said.

  The Ferris wheel made a strange groaning sound, tipping them farther.

  “Oh my God,” Hannah said.

  “It’s fine,” Maya said.

  Someone in another car was screaming, the rest of the riders suspended in awful silence. A small crowd gathered below, looking up.

  “I knew we shouldn’t have done this.”

  “Any minute now.”

  “I seriously hate you for this,” Hannah said.

  Maya knew she didn’t mean it, but still the black feeling she had earlier returned, sinking and formless.

  Blood pooled in her head, a building pressure.

  Hannah was breathing strangely, making whimpering sounds.

  “You’re fine. We’re fine!” Maya said.

  Dammit, why had she suggested they do this?

  In the distance, sirens and flashing lights. July night and still that person screaming. Too familiar. She closed her eyes against it. Her fault. Hannah’s words: I hate you. Hannah should hate her. Maybe it would even be easier if Hannah did hate her. How could she not? How could Hannah not hate her for what had happened. She wanted to say I’m sorry. She wanted to say I know I should’ve just kept my mouth shut. If only she hadn’t said anything to that scumbag at the convenience store... It was always there, hanging a thumbnail below consciousness: I’m sorry, I’m sorry. And just above it: It’s not my fault! How could I have known what they would do? I had the right to defend myself when he grabbed my ass. I am not to blame for what those sick men did.

  The cage swayed.

  “Stop,” Maya yelled. Her mind was suddenly bright with screaming, a hard, blazing sunshine breaking inside her skull. “Let us down!”

  “Please. Shh,” Hannah said, clearly terrified.

  Maya closed her eyes, breathed. “Okay. Sorry. Sorry. Okay.”

  Distraction was what they needed, Hannah especially. Something light and funny. This was a thing Maya could do. A way she could help. And she needed to help. To fix the mistake she’d made. “Hey,” she said. “Remember that ski trip in eleventh grade? When we spent the whole weekend in our room high out of our minds?”

  Hannah shook her head. A bead of sweat on her brow. “Not really...”

  “Oh, come on, you must. Don’t you remember how the last day we decided we should get a few runs in so your new skis would look slightly used and your mom wouldn’t get mad?”

  “Ha, no,” Hannah said through fear-gritted teeth.

  “We were so stoned we couldn’t figure out how to get off the chairlift at the beginner hill. We just
panicked.” Maya was laughing now, which was sort of an uncomfortable thing to do while she was upside down. “We just kept going up and up. All the way to the top of the mountain. Double black diamond. Vertical incline. Super icy. We were all, ‘We’re gonna diiie.’ I can’t believe you don’t remember.” She looked over at Hannah. Maybe it was helping. It seemed like it was. “What could we do but ski down?”

  “Oh no. It’s sort of coming back to me now. Wasn’t that the trip when Doug Penny got his head stuck between the toilet and the tub looking for his phone?”

  “Yep. He’s probably still there, actually. Anyway. We convinced ourselves we could do it. Of course, it took us all of two seconds to wipe out, and then we were both just sliding down the hill, bouncing off every mogul like pinballs. I think you lost a ski.”

  Hannah let out a little laugh and Maya was pleased. She looked down to see several men had joined the teenage ride attendant and were examining the controls. A fire truck pulled in to the parking lot. If she could just keep talking until they fixed the wheel.

  “I remember trying to get up and then just straight tumbling down the mountain. It was so crowded. People were literally leaping out of my way to get to safety.”

  Hannah laughed again.

  “I knew I should be scared because I was falling fast. Or at least it seemed like I was. But I was so stoned that I just thought it was hilarious.”

  “I definitely remember losing a ski.”

  “We ended up just sprawled on the hill, cracking up. Every time we tried to stand, we’d fall again.”

  “Weren’t people yelling instructions at us from the chairlift?”

  “Yep! And skiers kept stopping to offer a hand. Everyone was so worried, trying to help, but we couldn’t stop laughing long enough to let them.”

  “Such idiots.”

  “So great,” Maya said.

  “If only I was high now maybe I’d think this was funny.”

  “I’m just going to pretend we are...whee, upside down, yay, so fun!”

  “Does that really work?” Hannah said.