by Carrie Arcos
River came dressed in a black suit and tie. It made him look taller for some reason. He shook my dad’s hand and tried to shake Jenny’s, but she hugged him. He held on to her for a while. I saw he was crying. When he got to me, his eyes were swollen. We shook hands and he pulled me in for a manly side hug and pat on the back as if he were my uncle, but River wasn’t family. He was some guy who’d dated Grace for a couple of months.
At the gravesite, I stayed underneath a tree. I leaned against it as if I were holding it up, but the truth was, it was holding me up. I needed something to keep me together because I was afraid I’d split into pieces. Staring at the casket, I logically knew Grace’s body was inside, but my actual Grace wasn’t. She was gone. But I felt like she was still with me, I just couldn’t see her. How can someone be a living being with dreams and plans, and then suddenly not exist anymore? She didn’t even say good-bye.
And I was the one who was supposed to say good-bye. That’s what funerals are: a bunch of people coming together to say good-bye to the dead and to face their own mortality. We’re all supposed to have a good ugly cry, get the pain out, remember the good times, and then move on. We tell ourselves the dead would want us to do that. We tell ourselves that death is a part of life. We tell ourselves anything to try to make sense of it. One moment Grace was here. The next moment she wasn’t. I could find no sense in that.
When they lowered the coffin, I stopped breathing. Just as I had after the accident when I was waiting for her to breathe again. My breath had always kept time with hers. At the gravesite, my chest hurt. My lungs started to burn. I inhaled a huge gulp of oxygen. I would have to learn to breathe on my own.
Then she was in the ground. Gone. Forever. People began peeling away in twos and threes, but I stayed. My back pressed against the tree, as if it’d been nailed to it.
River came up to me.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and stood next to me.
That’s what everyone kept saying. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Over and over again. No one knew what to say. So instead of just being quiet, they said empty words. Apologies. What were they apologizing for? They weren’t the one driving our car. They weren’t the one who survived.
Right after we were hit, I’m sorry were the first words I heard. I was trying to get out of our car, when the driver who hit us said, “I’m sorry! You okay in there? Oh man. I’m so sorry!”
Grace never got to hear his apology.
He kept saying it over and over, as I crawled out, as I tried to get to Grace, even after the ambulance arrived.
River said it again. “I’m sorry,” and all I could hear was that man’s voice. A man who’d looked down for a couple of seconds, some teacher, a father of two. He wrote my parents a four-page letter. They actually wrote him back. My dad said without forgiveness a heart would freeze. But I didn’t care. I refused to read the letter. Let my heart become Antarctica.
“I loved her, you know. I really did.” River’s body shook a little.
His confession made me so angry. He didn’t love her. He barely knew her. I loved her. I felt so possessive, as if no one had the right to miss her like I did. No one could share in that pain.
River put his hand on my shoulder. “If you ever need anything, Mark, I’m here for you.”
I shrugged his hand off and pushed him away. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he told me again how sorry he was. I hit him in the face and then in his chest, stomach, wherever I could get in a punch. I’d never hit anyone before. My hands stung with every contact. I heard my dad say my name, but I kept hitting River. He just stood there. He didn’t fight back or even hold up his hands to defend himself. Blood trickled from his nose, and he started crying, really crying.
My dad pulled me off of River, holding me from behind. Everyone was there: Jenny, Hanna, my mom, my grandparents, the aunties. Everyone was crying.
“Don’t do that!” I yelled at River. “Don’t cry for her. She didn’t—she didn’t even love you!”
“Mark,” Dad said. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay!” I screamed. “It’ll never be okay!”
I twisted free of my dad and ran away.
• • • •
My plan had been to never speak to River again, even though Hanna suggested I make it right. But I couldn’t admit my shame at how I had treated River. He hadn’t fought back, as if he welcomed the suffering. The pity in his eyes made me hate him. I also hated that he held a piece of Grace I couldn’t carry.
The only way the thing between River and me could be made right is if Grace weren’t dead. If I could somehow go back in time and not take the bridge or if I could tell the guy not to drive that night.
But you can never go back. You can never undo what you wish you hadn’t done. You can’t do the things you wish you did.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the bracelet. I keep driving, the thin chain cold and heavy in my hand.
Fifteen
Sebastian is better at composing than I am, but he wants me to create the music for Pete’s show. He says it’s because I’m already hearing a melody. Pete’s bugging me about it, even though the show’s not until December. I have plenty of time, but I tell him that I’m working on the music during my free period, when I’ve signed out one of the practice rooms. I’ve been in here for a good half hour and am starting to lay out parts over Sebastian’s track, when there’s a knock on the door.
“Come in,” I say, irritated that I have to stop.
A Chinese girl with a blue streak through her short black hair stands in the doorway. “Um, Mark?”
“Yeah?”
“Pete told me to come find you.”
I look at her like, Yeah, so what do you want?
“I’m choreographing for the show. He said you’re on music. Is that it?” She’s referring to the beats I still have going. I turn off the track.
“Partly. I’ll be adding cello and bass.”
“Cool. Kind of classical, hip-hop fusion.”
“Kind of.” I don’t recognize her. “What’s your name?”
“Lily.” She smiles and her whole face lights up. She’s cute. “I just transferred in this year. I’m a junior,” she says, as if to answer my question about why I haven’t seen her before.
Either she’s really good or no one wanted to help Pete. I size her up: small frame, skinny, and a little flat in the chest, more like a ballet dancer. She’s wearing two-toned black-and-purple leggings, high-top Nike sneakers, and a gray baggy T-shirt with a red flannel tied around her waist.
“I’m supposed to tell you to come to the dance room.”
“Now?” I say, a little annoyed because the piece isn’t ready.
“Yeah, we’re all there.”
I think about having her tell Pete I’m not coming, but I know he’ll just come here himself and demand my presence. I pack up my bass.
“Where have you been?” Sebastian asks when I follow Lily into the dance room. He and Brandon are set up in the corner. Pete’s talking to someone on his phone.
“No one told me we were having practice.”
“Pete said you called it.”
“No, I told him I was going to . . . Never mind. Actually, this’ll work. I have some ideas we can play around with. Hey, Brandon.”
“Hey,” he says. “Hi, Lily.”
Lily gives him a big smile and sits down on the hardwood floor in front of the mirrors and begins stretching. I talk through what I have in mind with Sebastian and Brandon.
When we’re ready, I count off and Brandon starts the piece with the cello. Sebastian comes in on his drum machine after a couple of measures. Sebastian’s beats are simple at first and a little thin, but he’s setting the tempo. Lily begins twisting and turning, contorting her body to the music. I take out my bow and begin playing long sustained notes, holding them longer than Brandon’s, so as I finish one, he’s already on to the next. It’s like a
call and response.
As the beats become more intricate, Lily uses them as markers, making her movements more angled, sharp. She pops and juts her body to the rhythm.
I switch to pizzicato, plucking the bass lines. We play for a couple of minutes before I give the signal to stop.
Pete claps. “That was great, Santos. Really great.”
“It was crap,” I say.
Lily stands with her hands on her hips. A little sweat forms on her temple.
I add, “Not you, Lily, what you’re doing is awesome.”
She smiles. “I’m just freestyling.” Her smile is the kind that makes you want to lean in closer.
“No, no, it’s going to be good,” Sebastian says. “It’s rough, sure, but once you write what we’ll actually be playing . . . I can hear it.”
“We’ll be playing when the models walk the runway, right?” Brandon asks.
“Yes and no. Okay, here’s the show. I wrote it all down.” Pete opens his sketchbook and explains his concept, which is big and extravagant and completely Pete, but I have no idea if we’ll be able to pull off.
“Cool,” Lily says when he’s done. “So how many dancers are you thinking?”
“Seven? Can you get me that many?”
“Done.”
“So I have to be a model now?” Brandon asks, looking worried. “I’m not going shirtless.”
“Neither am I,” Sebastian adds.
I shake my head no when Pete looks at me.
“Cowards,” Pete says. “I’ll need to take all your measurements. Lily, we’ll have to talk costumes for the dancers, too.”
“Sure. Are we done, then?” Lily says.
I check the time. “We have ten minutes or so. Let’s keep playing, see what we come up with. Can you dance again?” I ask Lily.
“Yeah.”
Lily interprets the music so effortlessly that I find myself inspired. Next to Levon, she’s probably the best dancer I’ve seen at the school. She’d be the perfect muse, not just for this show, but for my senior recital at the end of the year. Pete asks me something as I’m playing; I nod my head. My focus is on Lily. Her movements are the beginning of a feeling that’s contagious and grows with each measure. It takes me a beat before I recognize it: hope.
• • • •
I didn’t realize I’d agreed to go to the fashion district with Pete after school, but I guess I did. He told Sebastian he’d be my ride home, too. Pete also ropes in Lily because he wants to go over fabric for the dancers’ costumes.
“How long is this going to take?” I ask Pete as he parks in a tagged-up lot surrounded by a chain-link fence.
“Not too long. An hour?”
I’ve only been down here one other time, which was also with Pete when he recruited me for a different project. The fashion district is located in downtown LA, and it reminds me a little of being in certain parts of Mexico. Each store has reams and reams of multicolored fabric in their front windows and spilling out onto the sidewalk. Since we’re here in the afternoon, it’s crowded and the streets have that too-many-people smell of BO and milk, which makes me want to gag.
Pete takes us to his usual haunts. In one of the larger stores, I have to pause so I don’t get dizzy. The walls have rolls of fabric piled to the ceiling. There’re too many bright colors in one place. Pete and Lily walk through the aisles as if they know exactly what they’re looking for. He stops in front of a ream of a camouflage.
“Yes. For the bottoms, for sure,” Lily says.
“You planning an eighties retro look?” I ask as I touch a black piece of velvet from a nearby ream.
Pete glances at Lily as if to say, See what I put up with?
“In due time, my friend,” he says. “In due time. Maybe this can be for you.”
“For me?” I ask.
“Yeah, remember, you’re part of the show.” He holds the camouflage up to my face as if he’s testing the color.
“Pete, nothing embarrassing, okay?”
“It’ll be my designs. When have they ever been embarrassing?”
“There was that one—”
“Stop! Freshman year shall not be mentioned.”
Pete and Lily continue walking around the store, pulling more fabric and other items on his list, while I find a seat by the door. There are a couple of fashion students here, probably from one of the local colleges. It’s easy to tell them apart from the general public who’re just trying to get a deal. The students all have that skinny, a little androgynous, funky with their clothes or hair look, like Pete. Pete will be one of them soon. He’s hoping to go to Otis, a really good arts school in the area, next year. He’s so driven that my lack of plans seems to freak him out a bit, but he doesn’t ride me about it.
We leave the store and load up Pete’s car.
“That was fun,” I say, the sarcasm lost on both of them.
“Yeah, thanks for taking me. I’ve never been here,” Lily says.
“Oh, we’re not done yet.”
“Lead on,” she says.
I groan, but follow the two of them through the tight streets past smaller stores that all look like variations of each other. How many fabric stores could there be? The store clerks perch outside on metallic stools ready to offer you a great deal as soon as you are in earshot. Pete stops at one to buy some lace. Lily waits with me. We lean against a concrete wall.
“I thought you’d be more into fashion,” she says.
I think it’s supposed to be a compliment. “I like the finished product.”
She nods. “Pete’s very talented. How long have you known him?”
“Since freshman year. Where’d you transfer from?”
“This terrible school. I moved from Chicago two years ago and my grandma didn’t really know about the schools in her area.”
“Chicago? That’s kind of far.”
“Yeah, well, after my mom died, Dad and my sister and I moved in with Grandma. LA’s not that bad. The people are cool.”
She pulls out her phone and starts texting or whatever.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and cringe because I’m saying the very words I hate to hear.
She keeps typing. “It’s not your fault she died, but thank you.”
I notice her fingers are long and slender. Everything about her is petite, but she’s got incredible strength. There was a part in her free styling when she switched to B-boying and performed a one-handed freeze for more than a couple of seconds, then threaded into another handstand.
Maybe it’s because of her transparency or because she doesn’t really know me, but I say, “My twin sister died last year.”
She looks at me. “What was her name?”
“Grace.”
“That’s pretty. My mom’s name was Susan, but everyone called her Suzie. She had the best laugh. I have an old voice mail of her telling me about this perv that tried to pick her up at a grocery store and she bursts out laughing. I sometimes play it when I miss her. Want to hear it?”
I’m taken aback with how open she is, so I just nod. Lily finds the recording on her phone. She puts the phone on speaker so we can both listen. Her mom tells the story and at the end comes the laugh, deep and rich and explosive. She ends with, “Love you, baby.”
I agree with Lily about the laugh.
“What do you miss about Grace today?” she asks, which takes me a little off guard. In fact, the whole conversation is a little unnerving.
“Today?”
“Yeah, like today I miss Mom’s laugh, other days it’s the way she’d make French toast, a little burnt and crispy.”
“I don’t know. I . . . How can you just talk about it, about your mom?”
“What’s the alternative? Not talking? Then it’d be like she was never here.”
She starts typing again on her phone.
Lily shocks me. I mean, could she be more blunt? She’s not waiting for me to answer, either. She acts as if she doesn’t care if I respond or not. So I decide to of
fer up: “I guess today it’s the fights we’d have in the morning over the bathroom.” Grace took forever, so I usually tried to get in there before her, since we shared a shower. But sometimes I didn’t make it. I’d pound on the door and tell her it wasn’t her personal sauna.
Lily puts her phone in her back pocket. “That’s a good thing to miss because it’s real. The details are important. They start to fade if you don’t work to remember them.”
Pete exits and I’m a little disappointed because I was starting to get into our conversation.
“Done?” Lily asks him.
“Almost. Come on.”
Pete walks slowly, leading us down one of the alleys, where the feel is more like a foreign bazaar. Tiny stores are all smashed together, selling not just fabric, but clothes, shoes, children’s toys, jewelry, clubbing attire, watches, towels, and sports paraphernalia. Everything’s cheaply made. You’ll save money buying the stuff, but get ready for it to fall apart in a month.
Lily stops at a jewelry case. She picks up a beaded necklace and holds it up to me.
“I’m not a necklace kind of guy,” I say.
“Yeah,” Pete says, “the only accessories you’ll see on Mark are those plugs and beanie.”
The way he says “beanie” makes me ask, “What’s wrong with my beanie?”
“Nothing.”
Lily laughs just like her mom. “Ohh,” she says when she sees mannequins wearing leotards and huge multicolored leg warmers in a shop’s window. “I’ll be back.” She enters the store.
“Where’d you find her?” I ask, not daring to trail after her.
“Levon’s suggestion. He’s too busy with his own senior show.”
“She’s . . .”
“Great, I know. I knew you two would get along.”
“I was going to say ‘forward.’ ”
Lily comes out of the store and smiles at us, holding up a pair of leggings as if she’s just found some major score. “Aren’t these amazing?”