The Dead Enders

by Erin Saldin

  And now, three weeks later, it doesn’t look like anyone will.

  “He doesn’t know how deep it is,” I tell Davis, “because he’s not down there.” Davis doesn’t answer. He’s sitting on my bed, watching me pack. I grab a sweater from my floor and turn it over in my hands. Then I fling it back onto the rug. “He’s out there somewhere, living the dream. Don’t you think this was part of his plan?”

  “What plan?” His voice is quiet. “Georgie,” he says, “it’s been two weeks. Don’t you think—”

  “I’m sure he had one. Erik always had plans.”

  But I remember what the policeman told my mom at the station. They hadn’t been able to get back in the water until the lightning stopped. By then it had been hours. “It was never a rescue,” the policeman said, before he noticed me sitting there in my standard-issue wool blanket. “It was always a recovery.”

  Bullshit.

  I’m throwing T-shirts and jeans into a duffel, stuffing them in until it looks like it won’t zip shut. I reach down beside my bed and toss a couple of books and a notebook on top of the pile. Then I grab a smaller black notebook, fling it at Davis.

  “Want it?”

  I watch him leaf through. Read the names. Next to the names: dates, prices, measurements. “What is this, a cookbook?”

  I raise my eyebrows.

  “Hey, Betty Crocker,” he says, throwing it back at me, “burn this.”

  I laugh a little. But it hurts, like trying to swallow something sharp.

  I pick up my swimsuit from the floor and toss it at Davis. He catches it before it hits his face. “That comes with,” I say. “Where I’m going, it’s nothing but sun and sand. I’m a snowbird now. Just me and the retirees, drinking mai tais by the pool.” I try to smile, but it looks as real as Silly Putty.

  “Your working days are over,” he says.

  “You can say that again. Looks like I’m out of the game for good.” And there’s a sudden and familiar sting in my chest that I try to ignore. I reach down and pick up the mug Erik stole for me from the Pancake Parlor. I hold it for a minute before wrapping it in a shirt. I tuck the mug in the duffel, safe in a cocoon of clothes.

  “What about the band?” Davis asks. “Are they going to . . . wait?”

  “Would you?” I ask him.

  He looks down at his hands.

  “It’s Gold Fork,” I tell him. “No one can afford to wait. Besides,” I add, “I’ve talked to them. Told them not to.” And I don’t say it, but we both know: I’m not coming back.

  • • •

  When the ambulance arrived at Washer’s Landing, so did the police. And it didn’t take long before someone found my jacket with all those useful zippered pockets.

  I didn’t care. They arrested me, and I didn’t care. Threatened me with years in jail, huge fines. The book, thrown. Mom: crying. Dad: silent. Didn’t care. Didn’t care. Didn’t. Care.

  The rest of it is fuzzy. Mom and Dad emptying their savings to pay for the lawyer from the city. The lawyer earning every penny—a Weekender, naturally, swooping in and saving the day. Again. I’d have resented it if I didn’t feel so grateful.

  And what did all of this cost me ultimately? My savings are gone, obviously, eaten by fines and fees. Dodge is in jail—thanks to my lawyer, a plea bargain, and my detailed knowledge of his business dealings. My parents will never look at me the same way again, but they don’t have to look for long. I’m getting out, but not in the way I wanted.

  • • •

  “I bet there’s a music program at the school,” says Davis.

  “Sure,” I say, throwing a couple more T-shirts in my duffel, “if you like campfire songs. Keep it wholesome. Speaking of.” I reach over to my nightstand and pick up the Vivian Girls record that Henry gave me. I throw it over at Davis. “You might like this. Bubblegum pop with an edge.”

  “You don’t want it?” he asks.

  “I’m over it. Besides, I don’t think they’ve got record players at the school.”

  Davis chuckles. “I’d pay money to see your face when they talk about the Love of Learning! at orientation.”

  “Meeting Challenges Head-On!” I say.

  “Excelling for the Sake of Excellence!”

  We’re both laughing, or trying to, but it feels like acting. “It’s going to be such bullshit,” I say, but the fact is, I’ll take it. I’ll take some therapeutic school in the desert where they check my possessions once a day over staying here and being reminded of Erik everywhere I go. My punishment—the school—is nothing compared to the punishment of the rest of my life.

  As if he can read my mind, Davis says, “It’s not your fault.”

  “Easy for you to say. I should have figured out what was going on with him.”

  “We all should have.”

  “Yeah, but I should have seen it. He was trying to tell me, in his way.” I sit down next to him on the bed. “Sorry I wasn’t at the memorial. I just couldn’t do it.”

  “I know. It was packed, though. He’d have liked that.”

  “Would he? I’m not so sure. Erik hated most of those people.” Even just talking about him in the past tense feels like betrayal.

  Davis’s laugh is quiet. “True. But they should’ve set aside a whole wing of the church for his Dead Ender girls. What a show. It was like they hoped that the volume of their sobs was in direct proportion to how much they meant to him.” He adds, “I kind of hope one of them was right.” Then he squeezes my arm quickly. “Anyone could see what you meant to him.”

  And that sharp pain again in my chest. Erik on the cliff. Me stepping toward him. The way he smiled and spun and flew. I take a breath. I can’t talk about us—if there was ever an us. Because there’s no us now. “How’d his dad look?”

  “Like he had unspeakable remorse,” says Davis. “Which is too good for him.”

  Neither of us says anything about Erik’s mom.

  “The Nelsons were there,” Davis adds, almost in apology. “He’d have hated that.”

  “Screw them. I bet they don’t feel responsible for any of this.” Then: “Isn’t it funny,” I say. “No one seems to care that much that he did the fires.”

  “It only seems to make him better, somehow,” agrees Davis. “More noble. The whole town’s son, in a way.”

  “The only one with the guts to do something,” I agree.

  “Our Spartacus. Our Che.”

  “Now, that he’d like.” I pick up the little black book. Flip through, looking at old orders. They almost look like numbers written in a foreign script—a language I’ll never use again. “It could’ve turned out differently.”

  “Maybe,” says Davis. “But maybe something like this was inevitable. Maybe he was going to”—he pauses to choose the right word—“go, no matter what.”

  “Least he could’ve done is write a fucking note.” My fingers are flipping roughly through the black book, making little tears in the pages. “You know, before his magnificent escape.”

  Davis nods. I know “escape” isn’t the word he’d use.

  I wave my hand in front of my face, one-two, one-two. “Now you see us, now you don’t.” Us.

  “At least you’ll visit,” says Davis.

  “Don’t be so sure.” I set down the book. “But listen. If he comes back—” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Davis. Seriously. If he comes back. You’ll tell him how to find me.” My breath catches in my throat. “You’ll tell him where I am.”

  “Of course.”

  I need to hear this from him. I need to think he believes it’s possible, too, even though I know he agrees with what one of the divers said after they called it off. No one could survive that.

  “Yes. Of course I will,” he says again, and I let out the breath I’ve been holding.

  I use my hand on his shoulder to push myself to standing. I stare down at him for a minute. “Thanks,” I say. Then I turn back to my duffel. “The thing is,” I add over my shoulder, “even after his mi
raculous return?”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’ll probably want a fucking medal.”

  SEPTEMBER

  WHERE SOMETIMES YOU LOSE

  September is loss.

  They leave in the opposite order they arrived: First, the families, hurrying to pack up the Tahoe and get back to the city in time for school to start again. Always forgetting something: the cooler, dog food, portable DVD player. Always saying, “We’ll pop back up sometime this fall to get it.” Always forgetting. They leave, and the Monday after they’ve gone is a day of hunger and listlessness. Then the families with toddlers and babies, taking their time because they have to work around naps and bottles and one hundred tiny snacks. But they, too, leave for jobs and playdates in the city.

  Finally, it’s just the retirees. They fill the diner in the early-September mornings, decked out in fleece jackets and moisture-wicking pants. Most of them have already been out hiking or bird-watching at that early hour, and their day is half over. They look at us with our backpacks and schoolbooks and they mutter about truancy and tardiness. They wonder about us as we wonder about them. What does it take, we wonder, to get to this point: ordering the egg plate, extra bacon, sitting back and sipping at coffee, taking their time because time, finally, is theirs again. We would ask them how they did it if we could, but they don’t speak our language, and their answer, if they gave it, would confuse us. But finally they go too, called south by the warming sun. If you stand on Main on the right day in September, you’ll see a flock of RVs, sides folded in like wings, lifting over the small rise from the lake road and soaring soundlessly through town.

  And then it’s over. They’re all gone. The town is ours again, but also not really.

  The construction companies hustle in, tearing down old cabins to prep for the spring building season. The sounds of jackhammers and bulldozers blaze across the lake. Rubble everywhere, it seems.

  The dock builders come back with their hired hands, using pike poles and tugboats to take apart the docks, pushing them onto the beach in sections. They’ll rest there like stranded whales as the water levels fall around them, and the walkways, their sturdy pilings sunk into the ground on shore, will lead to nothing.

  We go to Toney’s after the Weekenders have gone, and we check each item carefully before we put it in our cart. Yogurt, orange juice, milk. These things have usually just passed their expiration dates. And who can blame Toney’s for keeping them on the shelves and hoping we don’t notice? Who can blame the grocery store for trying to stave off the losses of the next nine months?

  Who can blame any of us for trying?

  DAVIS

  The letter, if you can call it that, took up the whole newspaper the day after the memorial. Dan said it was worth it. Framed it like a brochure. Said everyone in town would understand once they read it. “They’ll see themselves in the pages,” he said. “They’ll think about what led your friend to that place. They’ll consider their own responsibility for the fires. What more can an editor ask for?”

  A lot, I told him.

  But he was right. To say it touched a nerve would be like calling appendicitis a slight tummy ache. The Weekenders seethed and left, though not before writing three or four newspapers’ worth of letters for “The Forked Tongue” that basically said either No, really! We’re just like you! or the less attractive, You’d be nothing without us. Dan printed a few, and then shrugged and ignored the rest. “They’ll be back,” he said. And of course, he’s right.

  But here in Gold Fork. If I thought being the son of the town minister wasn’t legacy enough. Phone calls—to the newspaper, to the house. The guidance counselor on my doorstep, holding a brand-new college guide and tearing up as she handed it to me. Even the library started a reading group to discuss “Gold Fork Is” (Dan’s title, obviously). I’m the—gasp—invited speaker. Some people agreed with what I wrote. Some didn’t. Depending on who you talk to, I got Gold Fork completely, utterly right or completely, utterly wrong. My parents, proud in their typical we’d-be-proud-of-you-no-matter-what-but-okay-maybe-we’re-slightly-prouder-of-this-than-of-that-ex-girlfriend-book-you-were-working-on way, joke that I need a publicist. Our mayor, looking like he couldn’t tell if this opened up a healthy dialogue or broke the seventh seal, gave me some sort of made-up certificate that I guess is only twenty-five steps removed from getting the key to the city.

  I’d tell someone that—the thing about the seventh seal—but I have no one to tell.

  I haven’t talked to Ana since the memorial. She stood in the middle of one of the pews at church and held on to her mom’s hand. I hadn’t noticed until then how much she looks like her mom. And I said . . .

  Hey.

  And then I shuffled my feet or something equally idiotic, and she looked at me with those thoughtful, somber eyes and didn’t say anything, and I just kind of walked back to where my dad was sitting near the front.

  I called once, but when she didn’t call back, I dropped it.

  If she leaves too . . . If her mom decides that this town has done enough damage, or she—I don’t know—follows Vera to Chicago. Or something.

  There are a thousand ways to leave.

  I can’t even think about it.

  • • •

  Small-town journalistic fame aside, it’s amazing how quickly things become normal-ish. School starts up again, with the predictable essays about What We Did All Summer and the equally predictable lectures about Making Our Time Here Count and Seeking Help When You Need It. Some stores close until May; some stores close for good. The weather starts to turn, little by little, and suddenly we’re all wearing jackets in the mornings over our T-shirts.

  People talk about Georgie and Erik as though they’re both dead, even though Georgie hasn’t left yet, and maybe that’s for the best. Maybe all we can hope for is a way through this, each of us dealing with it on our own.

  Maybe.

  • • •

  When Ana finally shows up at my door one Saturday evening in mid-September, I don’t know what to say. I’ve seen her at school and have even tried talking to her, but she’s seemed folded into herself somehow.

  I don’t blame her.

  But I miss her.

  “Davis,” she says. “Hi.”

  “Hey,” I say. She’s standing in the doorway like it’s nothing, and all I can think about is the old fisherman’s sweater I’m wearing over my long-sleeved tee and why, oh God, why? I glance behind me toward the kitchen, where my parents are finishing dinner.

  We both stand there for a minute, unsure of what to say. Finally, Ana says, “I was just biking around. Thought I’d stop by.” She shrugs. “But maybe you’re busy.”

  “I’m not busy,” I say, too quickly. Try not to look directly at her. Then I add, “Wanna go down to the water?”

  She nods, her expression unreadable.

  I lead her down the side path to our old, weathered dock. We walk out to the end and sit down. Ana takes off her shoes and dips her feet tentatively in the water.

  “It’s cold,” she says, and then plunges them both in to her shins. I hear her inhale. “Wow.”

  “Brave soul,” I say, but I roll up my pants and do the same. The water feels sharp against my skin, little needles pricking at the soles of my feet, but then they start to numb and it’s manageable. “How’ve you been?” I ask.

  “You know.” She looks out across the lake. “I’ve been okay.” She glances at me out of the corner of her eyes. “You?”

  “Same. It’s weird,” I add. “Everything feels normal, but totally alien at the same time.”

  “Yeah,” she says. “You’re right. Whenever I think about it . . .” She stops.

  “It’s like you want to climb out of your body,” I say. “Like you can’t stand to sit there in your skin, remembering.”

  “Exactly,” she says. “I keep thinking there must have been a moment when I could have changed things. If I hadn’t been at the Den. Or if the boat had gone faster
.” There are tears in her eyes. “But more than that. All those moments when we were just hanging out, the four of us, and we could have been—I don’t know—saving him.”

  I nod. “It’s what I wake up thinking every morning.” I don’t tell her about the stomachaches I wake with every morning, the constant state of nausea. The fear that things will never be right again. “But you can’t control how other people are going to act.” I laugh self-consciously. “Mom’s words.”

  “Pastor Davis.” She nudges me with her elbow. “I know that. And we can’t spend all our time just reacting, either. That’s just as bad. It’s—it’s dangerous.” She wipes at her eyes with one hand.

  “Yeah,” I say, and pause. Erik, who felt like reacting was all he could do. And then also—dumb to think about it now, but—Jane. Me fumbling, trying to keep up, never quite it and knowing this, knowing it all along. Always just reacting to whatever little hints or bread crumbs or thinly veiled insults she’d throw my way. Never saying, You know what, Jane? I’m out. When I was with Jane, I was just one reaction away from losing myself completely. I thought that was real—I thought the fantasy of Jane was as much as I could hope for.

  There was nothing real about my relationship with Jane. I’m sitting next to the only real thing I’ll ever know.

  The sun’s going down across the lake, rimming the mountains pink. Ana shivers, and before she can say anything, I take off my sweater and hold it out. “Here,” I say. “The epitome of style.”

  “You sure?” she asks. I nod, and she pulls it on over her shirt.

  I can’t believe I thought that sweater was ugly.

  “Thanks,” she says, and she unconsciously tugs on the sleeve where her scar is.

  “You always do that,” I say, pointing to the sleeve. “I’ve noticed how you try to keep it covered.”