No More Us for You

by David Hernandez

  “What?” I yelled.

  “Snake dances like this,” Carlos shouted, then he jerked his head forward and back, forward and back, his mouth slightly open. Good thing I wasn’t drinking then or else I would’ve showered Carlos with orange juice and vodka.

  “Oh my God, that’s hilarious.”

  “What?”

  I bracketed my mouth with my hands. “You’re hilarious.”

  Carlos smiled and then we started dancing for real. A disco ball twirled somewhere and pieces of light swam across our faces. Hearts were taped haphazardly along the gymnasium wall, twinkling with glitter. A girl bumped into me from behind and shouted, “Sorry!”

  When a red balloon bounced our way, I slapped at it and it bounced off Carlos’s head. I covered my mouth with both hands.

  “You did that on purpose!” he hollered.

  “I swear I didn’t!”

  “I’ll remember that!”

  “It’s hot in here!”

  “What?!”

  I leaned in close to him, right by his neck. “I said it’s hot in here!”

  “You want to step out for a while?”

  I nodded and he took my hand again, my sweaty hand, and we slipped out of the crowd toward the gymnasium’s back entrance. When Carlos opened the double doors, a heart that was cut from construction paper and folded in half fell like a heavy leaf at our feet. “Whoa, whoa,” a boy said, jamming his shoe in between the doors before it closed. He picked up the folded heart and placed it over the lock, then carefully closed the door so the heart poked out like an arrowtip.

  “Sorry about that,” Carlos said.

  “No worries,” the boy said. His pupils were dilated, his dark hair curly and big as a pom-pom. He ambled over to his friends leaning against a chain-link fence where a girl dipped her face into a jacketed boy’s lifted palm. She snorted loudly and tossed her head back as if a car had rear-ended her. She pinched her nose, rubbed it, then pinched it again.

  I must’ve had a strange look on my face because Carlos asked me, “Want to go back inside?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Vanessa and Snake are probably looking for us.”

  “They’re probably still in the car.”

  “You think?”

  Carlos grabbed the folded heart and opened the door and slipped it back over the latch once we were inside. The DJ was now playing a ballad. Blue lights turned the gymnasium into a giant aquarium where kids slow-danced in the water, their indigo faces shiny with sweat. I saw a couple kiss in the sway of bodies and I thought of Gabriel, his face and how he died, his eyes and how he laughed, barely making a sound, like he was laughing behind thick glass. Maybe it was the booze, maybe because Carlos was holding my hand, but at that moment I didn’t feel sad at all, or guilty for not feeling sad. I scanned the room, the blue bodies turning slowly, looking for Vanessa and Snake.

  “I don’t see them,” I told Carlos.

  “Snake doesn’t slow-dance,” he said.

  “Do you?” I asked him, but he didn’t hear me. Or he did and pretended that he didn’t.

  Carlos led me to the front entrance and once again we were outside, standing before Mr. Bissell and Ms. Lauden. The pencil marks on the clipboard looked the same as when we’d entered.

  “That was quick,” Ms. Lauden said.

  “We’re actually looking for our friends,” Carlos said. “Snake—I mean Jeffrey McKenzie.”

  “And Vanessa Barcelos,” I added.

  “Jeffrey is one of my students,” Mr. Bissell said. “First period.”

  “Did he come inside after we did?”

  “No, he didn’t,” he said.

  Ms. Lauden shrugged.

  We turned away from the table and headed back to the car, following our footsteps, zigzagging the same way across the parking lot that we had come. A siren wailed in the distance.

  “What if they’re, you know…” Carlos said. He cleared his throat.

  “I don’t think they are,” I said.

  “Well, I know how Snake is.”

  “I know how Vanessa is, and she wouldn’t do that with a guy she barely knows.”

  “How long have you known Vanessa?”

  “That doesn’t matter,” I snapped.

  Carlos chuckled. He had this I-know-all-the-answers look on his face.

  I folded my arms, annoyed. Everything had been going so well up until that point.

  “We’ll see who’s right,” he said.

  But there was nothing to see. Where Snake’s car should’ve been there was now an empty parking spot. Just two parallel lines painted on the ground, an empty red cup on its side like the ones we were drinking from. A breeze pushed the cup and it rolled back and forth along the same arc. We looked around the parking lot as if they had just pulled away, as if we could chase them down and stop them from going to wherever they were going.

  CARLOS

  By third period the next day, news of the accident was falling down all over Millikan like ash. Bits and pieces of information swirled to our ears. Some fit with each other, some didn’t. According to one story, Snake ran a red light and sideswiped another car, killing himself and Vanessa. Another rumor had it that they’d both survived, but everyone in the car he hit, a family of four, was dead. I also heard he crashed into a utility pole, that nothing happened to Vanessa, just a few scratches here and there, but Snake was gone, crushed between his seat and steering wheel. I called Snake’s cell repeatedly, but all I got was his voice mail: Yo, leave me a message, beotch.

  I walked around campus, stunned, full of dread, my heart a chunk of ice inside my chest. Lockers slid by me, the gills of their vents, then the classroom doors, their taped flyers. I glided with the students in a daze, outside and across the quad with the screeching seagulls, the orange tables and green trees, the radiant blue California sky. Someone called my name and I turned around and there was Christopher Olsson, his worried eyes, asking me what I knew, telling me what he had heard, that Snake was hit by a drunk driver and was now dead. “Shit, man,” he said, “last weekend he was at my party, laughing at my stoned dog, and now he’s gone.” I heard my name again and it was Mira, her eyes wet, one hand over her mouth. “What happened? I keep hearing different stories,” she said. “Was he drinking? Were you with him last night at the dance? As soon as I heard, I thought of you. I’m sorry, Carlos, I’m so sorry. I’m here for you if you want to talk.” I wondered what was true, what wasn’t—dead or still breathing, both or just one, and if just one, who? Then Will’s voice, Will’s slackened face and hooded eyes, his shoulders hunched with the news.

  “I just called his cell phone and his dad answered,” he said. “He’s at Long Beach Memorial.”

  I stood there and said nothing.

  “His dad said he’s on life support.”

  I listened.

  “He asked if I gave him alcohol.”

  I stood there.

  “He said if it wasn’t me, then who ruined his child’s life.”

  A seagull wheeled above us and squawked angrily, over and over, like nails yanked out of a piece of wood.

  “I was hanging out with him last night,” I finally said. “He was drinking. We both were.”

  “Let’s go to the hospital,” Will said. “I’ll drive.” We walked across the quad, past the administration building and into the school parking lot. The sun blazed above the gymnasium and every windshield flashed under its harsh light. Our shadows slid in front of us, our legs scissored the pavement—open, close, open, close. Someone shouted behind us, “Hey, where do you two think you’re going?” It was an adult’s voice, a teacher, maybe the principal, some authority who saw us as nothing more than delinquents skipping school. We ignored whoever it was and folded our bodies into Will’s car and drove off.

  The windows were rolled down and the air rushed over my arm, my shirtsleeve fluttering. We hit a red light on Willow and watched an old couple stroll arm-in-arm, their steps slow and measured, as if the crosswalk were a rickety bridg
e suspended over a canyon. On the freeway, as we were driving past the airport, I watched a 747 coming in for a landing, the wings and fuselage dazzling in the sunlight. Then Will pulled off the freeway and we headed south on Atlantic until we saw the L-shaped hospital looming to our right.

  The glass doors at the hospital entrance opened automatically like the ones at the museum, and there, in the middle of the polished floors, underneath a skylight, was a circular planter made of concrete, a tree with a slim trunk and slimmer branches, shiny green leaves that looked almost plastic. Blue sofa chairs lined one wall where a man sat alone reading the newspaper, his torso and face hidden behind the newsprint. He coughed loudly and the paper shook in his hands and I wondered if Snake and Vanessa’s story was already printed, their names quivering with the other words, or if their story was too new for ink.

  I was sliding my finger down the hospital directory, trying to locate the Trauma Center, when Will whistled me over. He was already standing by the elevator, pushing the button repeatedly with his thumb. “I know where to go,” he said.

  Once we were both in the elevator, Will rested his head against the cold steel wall and stared up at the acrylic panels that shined from the tube lights above them. We swayed and moved upward, a low chime for every floor we passed, like a drop of water hitting a bell. I felt my stomach turn, anxiety pressing on my chest. I closed my eyes and pretended I was somewhere else, a hotel in Las Vegas, so that when the elevator doors finally opened I would be greeted by the noise and lights of a casino, plush red carpets and the clamor of a hundred slot machines, mirrors and laughter and the green velvet of poker tables, and rising up from all the chaos would be the siren of a jackpot, shrilling like a car alarm going off.

  The elevator doors opened on a quiet waiting room, maroon sofa chairs lined up against two walls, more than half filled with visitors. A potted plant in the corner dangled its knife-shaped leaves beside a coffee table fanned with magazines.

  I sat down beside an old man who smelled like mint aftershave, his knobby hands resting on his lap. Will went to the reception desk and talked to a woman in a baby yellow shirt with a name tag pinned over her heart. He leaned against the counter and said something to her. She tilted her head and said something back, then lifted the handset and spoke to someone on the other line. Will looked back my way and raised his hand with his palm up as if to say, She doesn’t know anything or We’re not allowed to see Snake. The woman hung up and said something to Will and he looked at his watch before walking back to the waiting room and sitting across from me. “Only family members are allowed to see him,” he said.

  “Shit,” I said. “What should we do?”

  Will stretched out his legs and positioned the heel of one shoe against the tip of the other. “I don’t know, you tell me.”

  “Did you ask her how he was doing?”

  “She said she didn’t know.”

  “What about Vanessa?”

  “I didn’t ask,” he said.

  I went to the reception desk and waited for the woman to put down the receiver. Her name tag read ANDREA and she had a gold cross on her necklace. “Dr. Holman wants to run a couple more tests….” she said to whoever she was talking to. “Yes, I understand…. Have a good afternoon.” When she hung up, she scribbled something on a bright orange Post-it and attached it to the bottom of her monitor. She turned in her swivel chair to face me. “Yes?” she said.

  “I was wondering if you know anything about Vanessa,” I said. “She came in last night.”

  “What’s her last name?”

  I bit my bottom lip. “I don’t remember,” I said. “It begins with a B.”

  The receptionist fiddled with her gold cross, waiting for me to give her more information.

  “She was in a car accident with my friend Jeffrey McKenzie.”

  “Is she a friend of yours also?”

  “Yes. I work with her.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Carlos,” I said. “Carlos Delgado.”

  The woman let go of her cross and picked up the receiver. “I’ll see what I can find out,” she said.

  I went back to my chair and slumped down into it and let my legs bounce nervously up and down.

  “What did she say?” Will asked.

  “Not much.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “She didn’t tell me anything,” I said. “I know she knows something.”

  “Stupid bitch,” Will muttered.

  I looked around the waiting room.

  A girl with a ponytail and ball cap talked softly into her cell phone, her hand cupping her words.

  A man in a crisp white shirt and tie dug his finger into his ear and yawned.

  A large woman in a flower-printed muumuu fidgeted with a Kleenex, twirling and pulling one end between her finger and thumb.

  “Let me see your cell phone,” I told Will.

  He fished it out of his pocket and lobbed it to me, but when I flipped it open and looked at the keypad, I realized I didn’t have Isabel’s number.

  The elevators dinged open and a black woman walked into the lobby with her two boys—twins, it appeared. They both wore the same jeans and green-striped shirt, the same little brown shoes. The woman shuffled to the reception desk while her boys followed behind, heads lowered, grief-stricken, one clutching a portable PlayStation, the other empty-handed. Their mother exchanged a few words with the receptionist before sitting down on a sofa chair near the coffee table. She picked up a Newsweek and flipped through the pages casually, her face a brown stone smoothed by water. Then her boys began jostling over the PlayStation. “It’s my turn.” “No it’s not.” “Give it to me.” “Stop it, Leo.” “You’ve been hogging it all day.” “No I haven’t.” Finally their mother slapped the magazine down on her lap and hissed at them.

  Will stared at his watch as if he could make it go faster. Above his head was a painting of a boy in red swim trunks, shin-deep in water. He was setting down a toy sailboat and the water was full of ripples, the blue sky and the boy reflected in it—the red squiggles of his trunks, the beige and peach of his skin, the white sail like a cloth napkin dropped on the floor. I imagined a strong gust pushing the sailboat away from the boy and gliding out into the heart of the lake, getting smaller and smaller and smaller….

  “Are you Carlos?”

  He wore a white coat, blue shirt and black tie, slacks and Nikes.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I was told that you were inquiring about Ms. Barcelos.”

  “You mean Vanessa?” I asked, just to be sure.

  “Yes.” He took off his gold-rimmed specs. “Vanessa’s parents were here last night.” He folded his glasses and slipped them into his coat pocket. “She didn’t make it. We tried everything that we could, but her injuries were too severe and extensive.”

  The air was sucked out of me.

  “Okay,” I said.

  He placed his hand on my shoulder briefly and gave it a little squeeze.

  “Okay,” I said again even though he hadn’t said anything more.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  I nodded and he walked away.

  Will had his head lowered and his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped together. He looked up and met my eyes and then let his gaze slide off to the floor. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

  I felt my body getting heavier, or rather I felt the world around me getting lighter. It was as if I were on an elevator, dropping floor by floor, while everything around me stayed where it was. The walls. The maroon chairs. The receptionist. The painting. Will. The ponytailed girl. The yawning man. The black woman. Her sulking twins. The large woman. Her dress crowded with flowers. The tissue she twirled and twirled into a candlewick.

  ISABEL

  It was almost a year to the day when Gabriel’s car went into the canal, and I couldn’t help but think Vanessa’s death and his were somehow related. It felt like some sick joke, a cosmic prank that’s
only played on an unlucky few. I barricaded myself in my room, swaddled myself in bedcovers, and cried for hours. For both of them.

  Late in the afternoon, when I looked at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, my eyes were all puffy and red, my skin was pale, more like dough than flesh. My dark hair, which was normally wavy, now hung limply to my shoulders. I didn’t bother to swipe any lipstick across my lips, so my mouth looked chapped and bloodless. Grief had turned my face into a stranger’s. It was if I were looking at a sister I never knew I had, an older sister who lived in another state, who’d gone through many hardships and now was coming home, looking for shelter.

  The doorbell rang and I went to answer it, brushing my hair with my fingertips. Heidi stood on the front porch with the same look of despair. The whites of her eyes were pink, her shoulders hunched. Above my neighbor’s house across the street, dusk had turned the sky into different shades of maroon and orange like the skin of a nectarine.

  Heidi sniffled. “You ready?”

  “Let me get a sweatshirt,” I said.

  In my bedroom, my mom came in and gave me a hug from behind. She kissed the top of my head. “We can talk some more when you get back,” she said.

  I pulled my mint green sweatshirt from the hanger and slipped it on. My mom lifted my hair over the hood and smoothed it down with her hands. “Maybe you should wear your jacket instead. You might get cold.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Please don’t come home too late.”

  I grabbed the plastic bag on my bed with the two vanilla candles inside. “I won’t.”

  “When’s the funeral?” she asked.

  “Sunday.”

  “I could go with you if you’d like.”

  “You don’t have to,” I said.

  She brushed her hand down my hair again. “After school tomorrow, we can find a nice dress.”

  “Okay.”