A Boat Made of Bone (The Chthonic Saga)

by Grotepas, Nicole

  “She just wanted me to tell you hi for her.”

  He grunted, standing on the other side of the counter, his hand cupped around his drink as he turned it in place and stared, unseeing, at the ground by Kate’s feet. “That’s it?”

  “Yep.”

  “Huh.” They were both quiet for a few minutes as Beck’s latest album played in the background.

  “Well, I think I’ll put on a DVD,” Ferg said, turning and heading to the used DVD rack.

  Kate stared at him, thinking about how frustrating it was to try to get your friends to make choices that weren’t totally stupid. Like with Ferg and Emily. Or Audra and all her boyfriends. But, if Kate was honest about it, to an outside observer, her decision would make absolutely no sense. Not that they made sense to her. I mean, a dream boyfriend, literally, she thought. Her eyes narrowed and she squinted as she watched Ferg pick out the LA: Bluefire DVD set. What? Why would he pick that one?

  “There was something hilarious about this. And mysteriously good,” Ferg said as he popped the disc tray open on the Xbox resting on top of the DVD book case.

  “You mean mysteriously awesome and sexy?” Kate teased. “Face it. You think the lead actor is a total hottie.” She had no idea where that was coming from. Was she being subversive? Was she just finding a way to talk about her lust for the Casanova from her nighttime rendezvous? That had to be it. Because there was no way she thought Ferg had a crush on an actor from the 1970s.

  “Sounds like someone’s projecting. No, man, I just liked the cars, and the grittiness of it. We both know if they made this show now, it would be on HBO and would be as big as Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones or The Sopranos.”

  “Well, nice way to change the subject away from Emily.”

  “Look, it’s over. OK? I don’t want to talk about it,” Ferg said. After navigating through the menus and turning on the subtitles, he hit Play All.

  Kate was about to tell him that Emily still cared about him, when the door burst open and in walked Anthony and Zach.

  “Get lost, losers,” Ferg said with a sarcastic grin as he looked up. Zach charged at Ferg and tried to punch him in the side. Ferg dodged and slapped Zach on the cheek.

  “Ow.” Zach rubbed his cheek. “We just thought you’d want to see Anthony’s newest tat, but we’ll go.”

  “Oh, we want to see it,” Kate said, leaning over the counter. She didn’t. She hated tattoos.

  Anthony turned and with delicate movements, lifted his shirt to reveal his right shoulder blade. It was the 311 logo. Red, irritated, and bruised. Kate bet it hurt on that bone.

  “Nice,” Kate lied. “Very cool.”

  With a loud crack, Ferg slapped Anthony on the bare part of his arm.

  “Ow! What?” Anthony cried, letting his shirt drop.

  “We told you not to get that, man. Do you sincerely believe you’ll still be listening to 311 when you’re fifty?” Ferg asked.

  Anthony shrank to the corner by the video games, out of Ferg’s reach. He blinked a few times, took his baseball hat off and turned it around. Bleached blond hair stuck out from the band along his forehead. With his square-framed glasses, he looked attractive, though Kate wasn’t attracted to him.

  “Why not? It’s possible. I still like the bands I loved when I was in junior high.”

  Zach had been silent. “Yeah right. When was the last time we chilled out to Pearl Jam?”

  “I still like them,” Anthony said, sounding as stubborn as a six-year-old claiming to be a big kid and not a silly child.

  “That’s not the point,” Zach answered. He was standing with one arm propped on the edge of the end-cap shelf next to the front counter.

  “You don’t actively listen to them, though,” Ferg said, coming to the counter to take a drink from his coffee. “They’re just part of your library. I predict that in ten more years, you won’t even listen to Pearl Jam.”

  Kate was silent through all this. She’d rather be asked to chew nails than partake of something like a tattoo, something so permanent in such a fleeting life. Nothing done on earth lasted forever. Even the pyramids at Giza were buried and when they weren’t, they decayed. There were days when Kate loathed her record collection and wanted to burn it all, just because it was a bunch of lifeless matter that she put so much emphasis on, yet it returned nothing. Not in permanent terms, anyway. It was an accessory. A trapping. When she died, it would rot, be sold or stolen.

  Something on the TV caught her eye. Her gaze cut to it in time to catch Will walking into a nightclub with a glowing sign over the doorway. The sign flickered in the relative darkness of the episode. It was a giant, brilliant dragonfly perched on a reed. “The Dragonfly Club,” it was called. Kate’s pulse quickened. It figured into the episode, she was sure. But it was strange—so strange to see something so prominent from her dreams fixed to the waking Will.

  Inside the club, a plainclothes Will strode around bamboo tables where couples drank sake. His head was tilted down like a wolf and there was a dark glint in his blue eyes as he searched and found a way into the back room. He approached a Japanese boss playing some kind of game with dominoes. “I came to the sign of the Dragonfly,” Will was saying, according to the subtitles. “Yes. I knew you would come,” the Japanese boss said.

  “You OK, Kate?” Zach asked out of nowhere. Kate stirred. Her head was cocked, arms crossed, and she glowered at the TV screen almost like a catatonic patient in an asylum. She nodded without tearing her eyes from the scene. The movement loosened the cobwebs in her eyes. She rubbed her fingers across them and then looked at Zach, forcing a smile. “Yes. What’s up?”

  “You look ticked,” Zach answered.

  “I was just thinking.”

  “She gets that way sometimes,” Ferg said from his post at the metal detector pylons, like he knew everything about her, and turned to glance at his faint reflection in the glass door, combing his fingers through his hair carefully. Kate sighed. He was one of her oldest remaining friends. So many people had come and gone in her short post-college life. But still. It could be annoying to have someone around who thought they knew all your characteristics and moods and secrets. “You guys missed her show Saturday night. Where the hell were you?”

  Zach threw his hands in the air. “Work, man. Some of us don’t get to call the shots. I had to do a swing shift at the gas station.”

  “And I had a date,” Anthony said, glancing over his shoulder as he looked through the Xbox titles.

  “Like I believe that,” Ferg scoffed.

  “He did, the bastard,” Zach said in a chagrined voice.

  “With who? Aw, who cares, Kate’s gig was amazing. You guys missed out. She wooed the audience like David Bowie or The Flaming Lips.”

  “Hardly, but thanks . . . uh, I think,” she said, shaking her head. Her face burned and she couldn’t look any of them in the eye.

  “Well, then I’m very sorry I missed it,” Zach said, grinning at her.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Kate muttered. Her pulse still fluttered in response to what she’d seen in Will’s show.

  “All I can say is, you better be at the next one Zach. Anthony, you should miss it, otherwise I’m sure you’ll end up getting Kate’s name emblazoned across your ass or something.” Zach laughed and slapped his thigh, Ferg beamed at his clever joke, and even Anthony laughed despite a telling blush. Kate couldn’t help but chuckle a bit at the thought too.

  13: Deliberation

  “Did you say anything,” Kate asked Audra in a hushed tone, her eyes narrowing and her jaw clenching. They strolled through the more private aisles of the Home Warehouse, taking a sandwich Kate brought Audra back to the employee break room. Kate clenched her fists, having just heard a story from her best friend that brought out the protective side of Kate.

  “No, what would I say?” Audra asked, continuing in the whisper she’d used to tell Kate about the five hundred dollar return that Dave, the store manager, had to approve. Dave rubbed Audra’s bac
k in a lingering way a few times while he was at the till during the return, which obviously grossed Audra out.

  “How about: get your hands the freak off me?” Kate said, livid.

  “That wouldn’t go over well,” Audra laughed. But the sound was hollow and Kate could tell that Audra felt like she’d been taken advantage of.

  “Report him to Human Resources,” Kate insisted. “Or else I will.”

  “Kate, he’s the store manager,” the other girl protested as they strolled through a virtual wonderland of shiny chrome, brushed nickel, and antiqued bathroom fixtures.

  “Which is why he thinks he can get away with it,” Kate said, her lip curling.

  “It was no big deal,” Audra said, sounding flippant and irritated that Kate was taking such a firm stance.

  “The next time it’ll be worse. He’s grooming you. You didn’t stop him or say anything, so he thinks you’re fine with it.”

  “He has a family,” Audra said.

  “So? His wife would like to know he’s this kind of man so she can leave him before he does something worse.”

  They arrived at the employee break room and went inside. An old man with graying hair and wearing a lifting brace over his clothes occupied a table near the refrigerator, eating a white-bread sandwich and crunching chips loudly. There were a few others scattered around the large room, sitting in small groups, eating from Tupperware containers and drinking sodas.

  “Kate, seriously, you’re concern is quite validating. But calm down. I’ll talk to someone about it tomorrow,” Audra promised.

  “Promise?” Kate asked, stopping in front of Audra to block her.

  Audra pushed her aside. “Yeah, I promise. I swear it.”

  “Good,” Kate said, pausing long enough to make switching subjects appropriate. While Kate hesitated, Audra wrote her name on the sandwich sack using a black Sharpie and shoved it in the employee fridge. Then they headed back out into the store. Kate cleared her throat. “So, I don’t think Ty is right for me.”

  “What?” Audra shrieked. She whirled around and stopped Kate with both her hands on her shoulders. “You’re joking, right?

  Kate blinked, surprised at her friend’s reaction. “Uh, no. I’m not. Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d be so heartbroken about it.”

  “Kate, what’s wrong with you? He’s amazing. He’s beautiful. He’s into you. He’s—he’s most likely smart, I haven’t been able to tell yet. But he’s gorgeous.”

  “Come on,” Kate answered, removing Audra’s hands from her shoulders and pulling her friend along through the pre-built shower section. “I don’t know. I just, he’s kind of boring, so far.”

  “B.S. This is crap. You’re full of it. I know what this is. This is you thinking about that non-existent guy from your dream, isn’t it?” Audra gave Kate a sidelong glance as they headed between shelves full of cleaning supplies and enormous packages of paper towels.

  “No. Hardly. Pish,” Kate said, scoffing. But her ears were torches, broadcasting Kate’s complete embarrassment.

  “I knew it! You’re actually into a man from your dreams. A figment of your dreams, girl! You know how crazy that sounds?”

  “I’m not, stop it,” Kate protested.

  “I know you better than you know yourself, chiquita. I know I’m right, and I know that if I don’t stop you from making this huge mistake, you’ll do something stupid and hate yourself for the rest of your life.” Audra’s eyebrows remained near her hairline like some kind of ventriloquist doll as she lectured Kate.

  They arrived back at the returns desk and Audra slipped behind the counter, while Kate leaned against it and grinned, embarrassed, at her friend. “Shut up. You’re wrong.”

  “I mean, think about it. What chance does Ty have against a guy your mind creates?” Audra asked, fiddling with the Sharpie in the pocket of her apron. She took it out and began coloring her fingernails with it. Kate didn’t tell her that Will was alive at one time, and so not just a creation of her mind.

  “Going Goth on me?” Kate asked, indicating Audra’s now black fingernails.

  “Hardly. This is called boredom.” She continued coloring them, painting long strokes along her thumbnail. Her gaze flicked up toward Kate. “So, admit it. You want to dump Ty because of dream-guy.”

  Kate hesitated. She didn’t want to keep lying, but Kate still didn’t know if what Audra was accusing her of was totally true. Would she keep hanging out with Ty if she wasn’t having the dreams with Will, or would she feel just . . . off with Ty anyway? “Maybe.”

  “I knew it!” Audra stopped coloring her nails and looked up. The store became quiet as Audra stared disapprovingly at Kate. The background music that usually blared over the tinny warehouse speakers had gone silent. Somewhere in the distance Kate heard a sudden guffawing laughter echo through the cold building. The flow of returns traffic had stopped and Kate got the sense that there was a gunfight about to begin as she returned Audra’s judging glare. “This is depressing. Truly depressing.” The paint mixer across from the returns desk started up. Audra shook her head. Kate blushed, wondering how many times she could do that in a lifetime and if she could ever blush to death.

  “You don’t know what it’s like,” Kate said. That was all she could come up with to defend herself.

  “That’s the truth if I ever heard it,” Audra said.

  A customer sauntered up to the far side of the counter and dropped a bag on the counter that clanked with sprinkler parts. In one hand he clutched a crumpled receipt. A dark wedding band glinted in the cold lighting. Audra flirted with him, laughing and joking about taking a cut of his return for working so hard on it. He joked back with her, grinning. When he left with his money, Audra returned to the side of the counter where Kate was stationed.

  “He was cute,” Kate observed.

  “Very hot. One hundred percent gorgeous, totally sweet, and . . . taken,” she said, her voice filled with regret.

  “When are you going out with that rich guy?”

  “Breck? Friday night. He’s taking me to Donna Bellissimo.” She arched an eyebrow.

  “Um, wow. Is that the right response? Impressive?” Kate asked.

  “Um, yeah. Hi, a really expensive restaurant?”

  Kate shrugged. “I don’t pay attention, since I’m poor. And my parents were poor.”

  Another customer seemed to materialize on the other side of the desk and Audra hurried over to take care of him. Kate studied her fingernails, feeling bored with her night so far, while anxiety to see Will again gnawed at her insides. She sighed, pushing a cuticle down and thought about how stupid it was to want to see someone she only ever saw in her dreams. It was preposterous. She was sure she was a total nut. A complete freak.

  And Audra seemed to agree. What could Kate do? It wasn’t like she had a choice. The dreams controlled her. Not the other way around.

  Kate turned and leaned against the counter, ignoring the benign pleasantries Audra shared with the customer in her endearing way and thought again about the whole roller-skating date with Will.

  It wasn’t a date, she fought with herself.

  What was it then?

  A dream. A pointless, stupid dream with a non-existent man. If you can even call him a man.

  He was alive once. He walked the earth once and now I dream of him, one part of her rationalized.

  Exactly, you dream of him. Not real. Dead. Or fake.

  She sighed, thinking how that cold, calculating voice in her head had a point.

  “Are you talking to yourself?” Audra’s voice interrupted Kate’s mental conversation. She straightened and whirled around.

  “What? No, pffft,” she said in a dismissive tone. Was I?

  “You were too. I heard you,” she said, lowering her brow, crossing her arms, and tilting her head to one side. “We really need to get you some professional help, don’t we.”

  “And that’s my cue to leave,” Kate answered, beginning an exaggerated shuffle acros
s the concrete floor.

  “Hang on,” Audra protested.

  “Nope, I’m going, now. My sandwich is still in my car and it’s getting cold. Er, hot.”

  “Kate,” Audra said, putting her hands on her hips.

  “We’ll chat later. At home.”

  “Grrrr. Fine. See you later,” Audra said, throwing her hands in the air and shaking her head.

  “Love you!” Kate called as she passed through the metal detectors and hurried out to her car.

  ***

  Kate ate her sandwich in the car as she drove home through twilight. The sun dipped behind the mountains in the distance and the evening was left with a lemony-orange strip of sky against the blue horizon. She rolled the windows down and listened to the sounds of summer. Her heart was on fire with longing for something inexplicable—a place, a person, a location, some fantastical life where she’d be able to pluck Will out of her dreams and place him in a home, in a living of some kind in a world outfitted just for them. What would he do? Would he be an actor again if he had it to do over again? Or would he make different choices?

  A clump of lettuce fell on her thigh and she almost swerved into an oncoming car as she tried to retrieve it. Her pulse thumped for a minute as she recovered and set the sandwich down on the passenger seat without taking her gaze from the street.

  She gripped the wheel with both hands, squeezing it tight and drilled her eyes to the road. She took a couple deep breaths, thinking about how she could have just killed herself over a chunk of lettuce. In that pause between living and dying, she realized that all she got was one life. One. Her mom had been telling her that for as long as she could remember. Usually Kate just laughed and said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.”

  But she didn’t really know. She still didn’t even get it. She should, because she was making decisions that would affect the rest of her life, but she hadn’t taken it too seriously. A person did their life one day at a time, trying to make decent enough decisions so that they didn’t end up in a dungeon somewhere or working in a brothel in Nevada, but still—who thought too hard about getting just one life? One chance at this entire maze of choice after choice after choice?