The Dead Enders

by Erin Saldin

  “You always think there’s going to be time to tell someone how they’ve hurt you,” she says. “God. I can’t tell you the hours I’ve spent, imagining what I’d say to her, how I’d phrase it exactly. And now”—she snaps her fingers—“that chance is gone.” She starts crying again, but catches herself. Shakes her head. “I don’t know why I’m here.”

  I’d feel sorry for her if I could, but I can’t. Not right now. I don’t know the Vera she’s talking about. I only know the small, frail woman in the bed next to us, alone in the world but for me, and we’re both surrounded by sharks.

  • • •

  Mom’s still out by the time I get home. I putter around the kitchen, washing a few dishes, getting the coffee maker prepped for the morning. Two scoops for every cup, the way we like it. But I can’t settle down, can’t sit down. I wish Mom would get home. I need to not be alone with this.

  By nine, I’m climbing the walls. There’s only one other person I want to talk to.

  “Vera?” He doesn’t even say hi.

  I nod before I realize he can’t see me. “Yeah. Her daughter, actually.”

  “Listen,” he says. “There’s something—I found something.”

  “Kathryn?” I ask. “I know.” My voice breaks, and I let out a little sob like a hiccup. And then I’m crying ugly, can’t breathe can’t talk can’t stop sobs that ricochet off the phone and hit me from every angle.

  “It’s okay. Hey. It’s okay.” He doesn’t sound scared, the way some people would—a girl crying on the phone like this. He just sounds . . . certain. He waits until I finish crying.

  A long, shaky breath. Then I tell him all of it: Kathryn, Lewis, Abby’s real dad.

  “I found out about Kathryn last night,” he says. “I wanted to tell you.”

  “I don’t understand how it gets to this point,” I say. “How you can just decide that your mom isn’t worth it. Ever. End of story. Even if.”

  “Even if.” Davis pauses. “I don’t know,” he says. “It’s hard to imagine.”

  I wipe my nose on my sleeve and smile at the phone. “Says the golden child of golden people.”

  “You make me sound like a character in a fairy tale,” he says.

  “Exactly.” And he is. The only person who doesn’t know that Davis is the kid in the palace who wins every magical bet, vanquishes witches and evil sorcerers, saves the kingdom with a shrug and a smile, is Davis.

  I hear him blow a sigh into the phone. “I’m lucky,” he says. “I admit it. And so are you.”

  “My mom isn’t anything like your parents.” I can hear the bitterness in my voice.

  There’s a pause. Then he says, “It can’t be easy, doing it all on your own.”

  “It’s not,” I say. “It’s exhausting.”

  “I was talking about your mom.”

  “Oh.” I sigh. “She’s— It’s complicated. We haven’t exactly been connecting lately. She’s got—” I almost tell him about Zeke, how she’s been going out with him a few times a week, how everything’s amazing, she says—and then decide not to. “She’s been busy,” I say instead.

  “But she loves you.” I can hear how embarrassed he is to say those words. “Remember after the fire? She was the only one who didn’t try to forget what happened.”

  I do remember. Georgie’s parents sent her immediately to a counselor, and then on to a three-week tennis camp in Lindy, the next town over (despite the fact that she doesn’t play tennis). They acted as though being outside of a burning building was somehow just as dangerous as being inside. Erik’s mom pulled him from the youth group—said it posed a threat. Side-eyed the rest of us whenever she saw us in town. Davis’s parents were busy dealing with the loss of the chapel and the cost of rebuilding. But my mom sat next to me in the hospital as I got my arm stitched up. She sat there and didn’t ask any questions. She just held my hand. Later, she invited Davis, Georgie, and Erik to a barbecue on the community beach. Fed us hot dogs, chips, watermelon. Let us just be. Go through something like that together, she told me later, and you’ll always know who your friends are. She was the only one who saw how it changed things, even though she didn’t know—couldn’t know—that we were responsible for it.

  “And—this is something I’ve been thinking about.” Davis coughs and keeps going. “How the people you love most will disappoint you. It’s inevitable.”

  “Glass half-full,” I say.

  “No, but,” he says, “it’s more what you do with that disappointment. Whether you forgive. Whether there’s a reason to, I guess.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Fine. But Vera. She couldn’t—” I can’t finish. I can’t imagine Vera not loving her daughters. Not wanting the best for them. I can’t bear to think otherwise. Can’t bear to think that she rejected her daughters the way my mom’s parents rejected us.

  But Abby’s voice sounds in my head: Not calling the sheriff, not doing a thing about it. And then: They might not have signed a death certificate, but . . .

  Wait.

  “Davis,” I say, “does your dad have the paperwork for the sale of the estate?”

  “I doubt it,” he says. “He turned them down. Why?”

  “Can you find out?” I say. “There’s something I want to check.”

  “Okay,” he says. “I’ll ask.” Then he adds, “You going to be okay?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I feel like everything solid is water.”

  “It really is,” he says, “if you think about it.” We both listen to the distant buzz of an airplane on his end, probably flying low over the lake. “Fucking tourists,” Davis adds, and I don’t know if he’s talking about Abby.

  GEORGIE

  What do you do when everything burns? I mean the slow burn of desire. The reaching for each other in tiny ways—finger on wrist, slight touch of the shoulder, hips brushing hips as you walk. Everything bright, everything burning. The goddamn song of it all.

  Being with Henry is really screwing with my music.

  That’s not all it’s screwing with.

  Because I can’t stay away. Just like a character in a pop song, I’m addicted to Henry. Addicted to the way he makes me feel, the way he looks at me, the way his hands move across my body. Cue the orchestral accompaniment. We’re a song I want to play. So even though I mean to end things after the party on the Fourth, even though I wake up most nights to the memory of Erik’s face as he looked at Henry and realized how I know him—even though. I still can’t do it.

  And that’s why I’m with Henry when I find out about the sale of the Den. Another afternoon tangled up in each other in the back of his 4Runner, my phone on silent, the only noise his heavy breath in my ear, asking the question.

  This time, I don’t hesitate. I bite his lip, pull him closer.

  Yes.

  Yes.

  Yes.

  But later, when I read the message and look over at Henry as he pulls on his shorts, his shirt still in a ball in the corner of the SUV next to a catcher’s mitt—why?—I regret the yes. For a second.

  “What the hell?” I say. “Your mom is selling the estate?” I almost say “Den,” but catch myself in time.

  He reaches into the back pocket of his shorts and pulls out a couple of pills. Holds one out to me.

  “No,” I say, waving it away.

  Henry puts it back in his pocket and pops the other in his mouth. Drinks a mouthful of water before swinging his legs over the back and letting them dangle in the air. We’re out at the Nelson cabin site, and the way he parked, I can see from the back of the 4Runner all the way to the Den. I imagine a scar instead of a house.

  “Sorry,” he says, lighting a cigarette, taking a drag, and blowing smoke away from me. “I didn’t know what to say, you know?”

  “How about this: ‘Oh, Georgie. Almost forgot. There’s gonna be an exclusive club that none of you can join, taking up, like, a third of the lake.’ ” I pull my shirt over my head. “ ‘Thanks to me and my family, Gold Fork�
��s about to get fucked.’ ” I can’t get dressed fast enough.

  “Don’t be so dramatic,” he says, reaching for me. “It’s just a club.”

  I shift farther away. “It’s never just a club. And Davis told me the way it’s planned, it’s going to bring more fucking aristocrats.”

  “Aristocrats!” He laughs. Then, when he sees how serious I am, he says, “Come on.”

  “Don’t you know what this means for the town?”

  He looks at me blankly. “I’d imagine something good. I mean, all these fires haven’t exactly bolstered the economy, have they?”

  I lean forward. “This is exactly the kind of thing Gold Fork isn’t. Other towns have resorts—gated communities and shit. Not here. That’s never what we’ve been about.”

  “We’ve?” He smiles. “Aren’t you a class warrior.” Henry reaches over and tucks some hair behind my ear. “It’s sexy.”

  “You don’t get it,” I say. “You can’t.” And I don’t know why, but suddenly I’m thinking about Kelly, one of those Dead Enders that Erik used to hook up with, and I can just see her, down to the gray streaks on the apron that ties around her waist, standing over an industrial sink in the back kitchen of the club restaurant, hands submerged in soapy water. I can see her loveliness leach out of her, replaced with fatigue. Poverty. Not enough of anything, ever.

  “Hey. Hey.” Henry runs his hand up and down my arm. “Let’s not. This was good. Let’s just let it be.” He puts his head on my shoulder. “This isn’t us.”

  “It’s not you, you mean. It’s just your family.” I jerk my shoulder so that he has to move his head. “Your family, ruining everything.”

  He sits up straight. “You think I don’t know that, Georgie?” I’m pretty sure, but I’m not certain, that his lower lip quivers in the hazy light of the afternoon. My heart twists in my chest. Then he swallows and looks away. “Why do you think I go to State—and not some school closer to Chicago? I wanted to be close to this place. Until this summer, I hadn’t been here since I was a kid. It’s my family’s only real thing, right?” For a second, it looks like he might cry. “Now I can’t even have that. Kyle’s basically been ruining everything ever since he and my mom met that one summer. He’s a dick. He just is.”

  “I wish you could tell Erik that,” I say. My cheeks are still bright with anger, but I can feel myself starting to soften.

  Henry looks away. “You sure care about him.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “Fine,” he says, and makes a sweeping-away gesture. “Do you get how little we can control any of this?” he goes on. “Our parents’ jobs. Our parents’ money. Look,” he says, “I get that this club kind of sucks. I get it. But it’s not going to ruin anyone’s life. And maybe with Kyle, that’s the most you can hope for.” He touches my arm, and I let him pull me toward him.

  “I know,” I say, leaning in. It’s not fair to blame Henry. He didn’t make all of this happen. This isn’t his fault.

  Also, we just had sex. And I’m not, like, the kind of person who thinks that sex changes everything, but, okay, it changes some things.

  So I drop it.

  • • •

  Henry lets me off downtown. I tell him I want to walk home from there, but the truth is, I don’t want to introduce him to my parents. What’s the point? I’ve never talked to them about these things, and I’m not about to start now—not when I’m this close to leaving. And okay, maybe there’s a tiny part of me that thinks there might be space for Henry in my life in the city—a visiting-on-the-weekends sort of thing, a casual-until-it-isn’t situation—but even if that ends up happening (and I know, I know, what are the odds, really), my parents don’t need to meet him yet.

  Besides, there’s another reason I don’t want Henry to drop me off at home.

  I’m meeting Erik.

  He texted me earlier, before I met up with Henry. Got something for you, he wrote. Meet at the beach?

  And sure, it would’ve been easy to tell Henry—to say, “Drop me downtown. I’m hanging out with Erik.” But I didn’t say anything.

  I don’t really want to think about why I didn’t.

  He’s waiting down by the water. There are families all around him: Noisy little kids in water wings hoist buckets of sand, their faces as serious as if they’re building a goddamn church. Erik stands among all the kids like an elementary PE teacher. He sees me coming and smiles. There’s something in his hand. A brown paper bag.

  “Took you long enough,” he says.

  “I had a thing.” I haven’t seen him since the Fourth, and he looks smaller. Younger.

  Then he says, voice sure and light, just like the old Erik, “I bet you did.” There’s the slightest pause, and I’m afraid he might shut down like he did at the party, but he smiles again, and it’s genuine. “You been okay?” he asks.

  “You’re asking me?” I laugh. “I’m fine, Erik.”

  Erik nods. “Yeah. You’re fine.”

  “But I mean, what about you?” I say. “The Den—”

  He shakes his head. “Nope. This isn’t about that. We’re not going to talk about that.” He holds the paper bag out to me. “Got a little something for you this morning.”

  I rub a hand over my face. “Okay.” Then I open the bag and pull out a mug from the Pancake Parlor. Yellow, with brown writing—probably made in the seventies and still on rotation today. I raise my eyebrows at him. “Pancake Parlor,” I say. “What are you, a Weekender?”

  “I’ve been there a couple times lately,” he says.

  “By yourself?”

  When he says, “I was there with Layla this morning,” it’s like biting into an orange with a cut on my lip.

  “Surprised she didn’t mind. Something tells me you didn’t buy this.”

  “Not for sale,” he says, and shrugs. “Doesn’t mean not for the taking.” He mimes slipping something under his shirt, and I see a brief wink of skin above the waistband of his jeans. “Layla’d already left.” Then he laughs. “Look inside.”

  I do. The mug is filled halfway with dirt. “Thanks?” I say. “A reminder to wash?”

  “From Twin Lakes,” he says. “Remember?”

  I remember. Early days in the youth group. Some death march to the top of a mountain, followed by an overnight at two joined lakes that, from the peak, looked like someone had drawn an infinity sign and colored it in with green water. It was so cold—cement toes no matter how many socks I layered—and then Erik pulled out this tinfoil blanket and gave it to me. Said that astronauts swear by it. I don’t need it, he said when I asked him what he was going to do. I’m a self-sustaining organism.

  Here’s what else I remember: How much we laughed. How cold it was, and how beautiful.

  This was a month before the chapel fire.

  “Thanks,” I say. “But shouldn’t you be giving this to Layla, not me?”

  “It’s not a fucking promise ring, George,” he says, and his cheeks get red. “Consider it a parting gift.”

  “Didn’t know you to be a blusher,” I say, leaning into him so that I can elbow him in the side.

  He grabs my elbow and holds it for a second. “I’m a changed man,” he says. Then he lets go and adds, “She wouldn’t understand that.” He gestures toward the mug. “But believe me, I give Layla plenty.”

  “How’re things going with that?” I don’t want to know—not really—but I feel like I have to ask.

  “They’re good,” he says. “Really good.” He pauses like he’s embarrassed, and then he adds, “Who knows? Maybe I’ll see you in the city in a couple years.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just—things are going really well. Who knows, you know?” Then Erik looks away.

  I almost make a joke about how every summer romance has a moment when you think it’s going to last forever, but then I think about Henry, his body moving over mine, and how he looked at me like I was the best fucking thing he’d seen in a lifetime. How, afterward
, he made some joke about visiting me in the city next year (because I told him—of course—about dropping out and just going), and how I laughed but thought, Why not?

  Because: summer. Because: In Gold Fork, nothing and anything is possible.

  “That’s great,” I say.

  Erik glances out over the lake. A few boats drift near the buoys. We can hear someone yelling from a boat toward a friend on the beach: “Swim out here! Come on! We’re hitting the cliffs!” And we watch as a kid—twelve, maybe thirteen—runs into the water, swims out to the boat, and pulls herself in. Then the boat—parent at the wheel, from the looks of it—speeds off toward Washer’s Landing.

  “Won’t make it past the ten-footers,” I say. “Once you’re standing there, they seem a lot higher than they look from the water.”

  “Yeah,” Erik agrees. “Twenty bucks says none of them jump.”

  And we laugh. Then I hold the mug up in the sunlight and turn it, inspecting.

  “A perfect specimen,” I say.

  “That’s why I thought of you.”

  I place the mug carefully back in the bag and tuck it in the crook of my elbow. “I’ll love it forever,” I say. “Seriously.”

  “Good,” says Erik, turning from the beach and starting back toward Main Street. “I wouldn’t want you to forget us when you’re gone.”

  I stay on the beach. Then I raise my voice and yell, “Erik.”

  He turns.

  “No one could forget you.”

  He looks at me for a long minute. “You’d be surprised,” he says. Then he walks away.

  ERIK

  I’m pretending not to wait.

  I’m always playing pretend.

  The box under my bed is overflowing. So I get a bigger box.

  Boxes, boxes. For things, for people, for hopes, for broken promises. There’s a box for everything.

  When the phone rings, I count to three before looking at it. I don’t want to look too eager. I thought he’d call sooner, but . . . Well, never mind. The relief is a hot washcloth on my forehead. He’s calling now.