Then You Were Gone

by Strasnick, Lauren

  “What now?”

  Sobbing. Full-blown hysterical shrieks. The voice is high and broken and alarmingly familiar. It’s not Alice. It says, “Adrienne?”

  I shoot out of bed, fully freaked. I trip over my jeans, crumpled up in a ball on the floor. “Who is this?” I screech. My heart is all fast and screwy like a metronome off its beat.

  “It’s me,” replies a thin, shaky voice from so very far away. “It’s Dakota.”

  49.

  “Sometimes I think—” She starts, then stops, hurling herself down onto the floor, next to me. “Don’t you ever wonder what real love feels like?”

  “Real love?”

  “Yeah. Like really real love.”

  “I guess,” I say, uneasy. “Sure.” I pick at the berber carpet, pulling loose a few nylon loops.

  “I never think about loving anyone. You think that’s weird?”

  “I—” I stiffen. “Never?”

  “Not ever.” She blinks. “I only ever think about people loving me.”

  I look at her perfect, poreless complexion. Her bony shoulders. Her puffy upper lip. “That dress looks better on you,” I say.

  She pulls her chin to her chest, looking down, assessing herself. “Does it?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I say. “It does.”

  She smiles. Then she cups my cheek with one hand and kisses me. She does it easily, with zero hesitation. She leans forward, her lips parting, and nudges my mouth with her mouth. I don’t stop her. I don’t ask where it’s coming from or what the hell she means by it. I kiss back. Because maybe it feels nice or maybe I haven’t been kissed enough. And who doesn’t want to be wanted by her?

  She moves closer. She sucks on my bottom lip and laughs. She takes my hand and sets it firmly on her breast. I jump a little, but leave it there. Then, abruptly, she pulls back. Swipes at her smeared lipstick. Says, coolly, “Everyone’s the same. Boys, girls.” She shakes her head, glaring. Then she gets up, grabs her coat and bag, and heads for the door.

  “Where are you going?” I whisper, still on the ground.

  “I told you. On my date.” She’s halfway down the hall already. She’s not looking back.

  50.

  It’s quarter to six, dark still, and Julian’s doing ninety on the I-15. We haven’t talked since LA. Dakota’s three hours east, in some teensy desert town by Barstow. This is happening. I’m scratching and pinching at my thighs through my jeans because, yes, this is totally real.

  Julian chews his nails to the quick. We blow smoke out open windows. Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire” plays on repeat for a fourth of the trip, making me feel really sentimental and tense.

  • • •

  Half past seven. We’re here. The sun creeps over a dry, jagged landscape. Julian parks the car in a dirt lot beside Dakota’s motel. The place is sad—ten crumply units, side by side in one long row. Neon sign: “Vacancy. Free TV. Guest Laundry. No pets.” For three full seconds I’m sick, then just as fast, I’m fine. I’m watching the moment, not in it. You dump your boyfriend. You chase the dead girl. Life in second person. Things are better this way.

  We walk to unit four. Julian looks past me, hesitates, then knocks. We wait a bit. He knocks again. We wait some more. There’s some clicking. The door rattles and cracks.

  “Adrienne?” I see a sliver of nose first, shiny and thin. Then one wide eye.

  “Can you undo the chain?”

  She shuts the door. The lock scrapes. Then there she is, all of her: bare-faced, kid-like, wearing an oversize Bowie T-shirt. Her legs are bruised. She doesn’t look like the real Dakota. Mischievous. Cocksure. She looks beaten and girlish. A bony pile of white skin and limp hair.

  “I can’t believe—” My relief is epic. I feel warm and loose. “I’m just so happy to see you.”

  She doesn’t say anything back. Her eyes flick sideways, to Julian. “Why is he here?”

  A whack to my gut. I look at sad, stiff Julian.

  “I don’t have a car,” I say lamely. “And he cares about you.”

  She turns away, walks inside, hides herself. “Make him leave, please? I don’t like the way I look.”

  I’d like to, like, repeatedly rip her face off.

  Sorry, I mouth, facing Julian.

  “I’ll be in the car,” he says flatly, and he’s hurt, I see it, but he backs away. I follow Dakota inside.

  Stained carpet. Orange, pilly bedspread. Kitchenette. TV. The place has a sweet, chemical smell that makes me spacey and nauseated. I beeline for the sink, grab two clear cups with a grayish tint off the bar, and fill them with tap water. Then I walk one over to Dakota.

  “Here.”

  “Glad you came.” She sips some water and pats the bed. Smiles wanly.

  I sit, guzzling from my glass. The water tastes like pennies. “How long have you been here?” I ask, fitting the cup between my thighs. It’s the first thing I think to say. Where the fuck have you been? seems too cruel and aggressive.

  “A while.”

  “Doing what?”

  She shrugs. Bends over. Picks up a half-eaten package of Red Vines. “Want some?”

  No, I don’t want some. I’m furious. Suddenly. It’s a wild feeling—fierce, knotted, stuck just beneath my rib cage. “I don’t,” I whisper. Red Vines? Why the hell am I here? A month of misery, self-loathing, guilt—all for what? For this? Why is Julian stuck outside in the car? What sort of crappy creature can’t even say, hi, hello, to her ex? Why’ve I spent weeks—no, years—obsessing over someone so totally hard-hearted and fucked? Why was I wearing her clothes, worshipping at her altar of rock? Christ, why’d I obliterate my relationship with Lee? I twist fully forward so she can’t block me out. “Dakota.”

  She takes a tiny bite of licorice, mumbles, “Uh-huh?” She’s chewing still, and rocking slightly. Pitching back and forth, her knees tucked under her sheer shirt.

  “Are you high?”

  “Don’t be dumb.”

  Fuck you, fuck you, fuck OFF. I swallow a scream. “You know what people think back home, right? That you’re dead. That you killed yourself.”

  She doesn’t flinch, look up, change shades. She stays very much the same—pleasantly unresponsive.

  “Do you know why?”

  Another shrug.

  “They found a note in your Jeep.” And, “You made quite a splash.”

  She sighs heavily, gets up, picks a pair of jeans up off the floor, and slides them over her feet.

  “Do you remember the last time we hung out?” I ask.

  She looks at me, finally, fully connecting. “The guy who owns this place?” she says, switching subjects. “He cuts me a deal.”

  I can’t help but wonder what he gets in exchange. “Oh yeah?”

  “I couldn’t afford it otherwise. I mean, it’s a shit hole, but I’m broke.”

  Of course. “So that’s why you called?”

  “I don’t want your money,” she snaps, shifting her weight from leg to leg. “I’m pregnant,” she finishes, flatly.

  My gut flops.

  “I mean, I was. I’m not now.” She follows fast with, “It wasn’t Julian’s, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  I was and I wasn’t. “I’m sorry,” I say, but do I mean it? Am I surprised?

  “It’s fine,” she offers. “I didn’t lose it or anything. I came here to have it but I just—I couldn’t—can’t be a mom.”

  I nod slowly, the picture crystallizing. “Were you . . . was it Murphy?” I ask.

  She stares for a bit, then smiles, and I see a glimmer of old Dakota. “He make a pass at you?”

  “What? No.”

  She drops down into a chair, tugging boots on over jeans. “Nick—he likes little girls.” Wow. “He liked me, anyways. I think maybe—” She pauses to chew a cuticle. “Maybe I loved him. You think that’s possible? That I loved him?”

  “How would I know?”

  “He never said it back.” More candy. “He talked about the baby a lot. Not
ours.” She looks up. “The one he was having with Gwen.” Then, real casual: “Did she have it yet? Her kid?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What is it?”

  “A girl.”

  She blinks. Blinks more.

  I wait a moment. “What about the jacket?” I ask.

  “Hmm?”

  “The army jacket,” I say. “With the writing.”

  She perks up. “Oh, my jacket? Oh yeah. Why, what about it?”

  “We just, we thought—” I stop, starting again: “What’s with the numbers?”

  “Oh.” She wrinkles her nose.

  “I mean, they’re dates, right?”

  She shrugs.

  “Just—can you not be coy right now?”

  “Right, yes, they’re dates.”

  “Marking what?”

  “Just . . . days . . .” Spit. It. Out. “. . . I was with Nick.” She squirms. “You know. Like, biblically.”

  Holy fuck, she sucks. He sucks. They’ve been fucking around for years. Since sophomore year. “You’re serious?”

  “Of course, yes.”

  “Well, what about your boyfriend?”

  “Jesus, Adrienne. We were never official. I never committed. Not really, anyways.”

  “He says something different.”

  “Of course he does. Of course. He’s, like, rewriting history. He wanted it that way, he did, but I was never—” She shakes her head. “I wasn’t ever really . . . free.”

  I picture Julian outside, alone. My chest tightens. “You left that note,” I say.

  “Note?”

  “In your Jeep.”

  “Oh. That.” She tilts her head. “Well, I wanted to do this. For real. Start over. But, you know . . . I thought it would feel different, being on my own.”

  “Like how?”

  “Like, good. Like I’d raise my kid and make money off music and I’d be, I dunno, happy. Don’t you ever just want to be new?”

  I look down at my grubby jeans. I get a quick flash of Julian. Then of Lee back home with Alice Reed. I think of Dakota’s dress crumpled up in that dumpster. “Yeah,” I say. “Sometimes I want to be new.”

  She slides sideways off the chair. “How much shit am I in?”

  “Sorry?”

  “At home. If you take me back now, how fucked am I, really?”

  “I don’t . . .” I trail off. “Not sure.”

  “I’m screwed, right? God, I can’t—”

  “You can,” I interject thoughtlessly. I have no clue what sort of trouble she’ll face—legally, socially—but none of that matters now, does it? She’s broke, alone, miserable, friendless.

  “Yeah, and? What happens then?”

  She’ll worm free, won’t she? She’s manipulative, shrewd, charismatic, self-serving—

  “I come back, and what?”

  “I—” I clam up. She’s pale and meek without makeup, and for a split second I feel bigger and better than: I have a home, a Kate, a mom, a Sam. What does she have?

  “Do you even like me?” she asks, a tiny tug in her voice.

  “I—” Do I? I’ve spent four weeks obsessively mooning and grieving, and now here she is—she’s real, she’s here, she’s disappointingly small. I think back to that last exchange, sophomore year, in my room. My dress, her date, I only ever think about people loving me. “I don’t know,” I admit. “Not really.”

  She nods. “That’s fine,” she says, then, “Take me back?”

  “Okay,” I say. I get up.

  51.

  It’s everywhere now. Teen faked her own suicide. It’s all over the papers, the local news; it’s all anyone at school can talk about (’twas drugs, a psychotic break, extreme narcissism, borderline tendencies). Of course, the real “whys,” the meaty details, Dakota keeps to herself. She’s home again, with Emmett, and I’m back at school trying to pull my shit together. Julian’s MIA, but I’m not thinking about him right now. I’m not thinking of her, either.

  “Bat-shit, right?” It’s Kate, at my side suddenly.

  “Hmm?”

  “Oh, puhleaze. Like you know nothing. You and band boy. You want?” She offers up half her candy bar. “Salty chocolate. All the rage.” I take the foil packet. “You feel like telling me any D. Webb deets? I know you know stuff.”

  “I do.” I break off a piece of chocolate. Nibble at it. The earth, literally, shakes.

  “Seriously?” Kate shrieks, sliding sideways toward the restroom. Shit’s rumbling. Lockers bang. Everyone scatters, laughing nervously—clinging to each other, the doorways and walls, rocking.

  “Hate, hate, hate this . . .” I whisper, squeezing Kate’s hand. She squeezes back. Three seconds later:

  Loud, enthusiastic applause. Cheering. A few whoots. “It’s over.” Kate steps away from the wall. “See? Tiny quake. So nothing.”

  “I gotta go outside,” I say, suddenly sweaty.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine.”

  I’m backing up, turning away, jogging quickly toward the exit.

  • • •

  Lee’s favorite spot. Rocks, cacti, school pool.

  I’m pacing, clutching my hot chest, trying to calm the fuck down. Panic attack. It’s happened before. Once, while stuck at a light at the Glendale-Alvarado intersection in Echo Park; another time, on the 110 north with Sam driving.

  This time it’s that same creepy buildup: I’m shaky and tingly and can’t keep still. Like some vicious, upside-down orgasm. Someone passes by and asks if I’m all right. I must look insane—pacing, weeping. I wave the guy away and pull a pack of Altoids from my book bag. I chew two. It helps, eating something—whips me back to earth.

  52.

  “Hi.”

  I’m standing in Murphy’s doorway. He’s hunched over a stack of papers.

  “Hello, hello?” I repeat.

  He jumps, looking up. “Adrienne, wow, hey.” He’s clutching his chest and grinning uneasily. “You scared me.”

  “Did I?” I lean against the door, snapping it shut with one hip bump.

  “Everything okay?”

  I’ve never seen the guy so manic and jerky. I shuffle forward and drop down in front of his desk. “Sure.”

  “Crazy quake, right?”

  “Right.”

  He smiles. Does his signature head rub. Back to front, rub, rub, rub.

  I feel a flicker of that earlier panic: zippy heart, dizziness. “I came to tell you something,” I blurt.

  “Oh?”

  News of Dakota’s miraculous resurrection broke yesterday, but I can’t tell if the waxy glaze in his eyes spells relief or big terror.

  “Yes,” I say, feeling really ridiculous. This—whatever this is (some sort of showdown? Face-off?)—smacks of utter BS. I’m playing dress up. Faking it. “I’m dropping your class,” I tell him.

  His gaze narrows. “You can’t drop lit, Adrienne. It’s not an elective.”

  “Right, no, I know.” I pick at some paint peeling off the lip of his wood desk. “I just—” My tongue is sandpaper dry. “I think—” I’m doing this. I’m really, really doing this. “I think you’re gonna pass me. You’re gonna mark me on time and here every day, and then I don’t have to—” Say it, Adrienne, for fuck’s sake, FINISH it. “I don’t have to watch you lie like a rat anymore.”

  His lips part. Out seeps a thin, two-syllable moan.

  “You’re not a family man,” I say. “You’re not some upstanding, shiny, clean guy.”

  “Adrienne—”

  “You’re a lech.” My voice quivers like some brooding soap star. “I know what you did, okay? And I know who you did it with.”

  He stays very still, caught, yellow, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

  “So. To reiterate: I’m dropping lit. And you get to keep your job. And, ya know, your kid and your marriage.” I stand, feeling triumphant and massively freaked out.

  “Adrienne, come on, s-sit down,” he stammers. “Let’s just—let’s talk, okay?”
/>   “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “Adrienne—”

  “I’m done,” I say, swinging my book bag over one shaky shoulder. And, “We good?”

  He leans back. Drops his pen. Rubs his head the wrong way (front to back). “Yes,” he says, acquiescing. “We’re good.”

  53.

  I find Kate later. After school, by her car. She’s pressed against the driver’s-side door, something big and dark mauling her body. My first impulse? To attack, claw at, kill the creature sucking her face off, but—wait—they’re kissing. Mashing. Loving, not fighting. I jog ten feet closer and crouch by Kate’s front left wheel. I’m trying for a better view of the assailant: dark coat, big boots, likes to yank ponytails and bite earlobes:

  Wyatt Earp.

  I let go an involuntary yelp of glee. Kate pulls back, twists around, wipes her mouth. “Knox?”

  “Hi,” I whisper. “Hi, sorry, carry on.” I stand up. “I’ll come back.”

  “No, Knox, I’m driving you home.” She turns to Wyatt, says softly, “I’m driving her home.”

  “That’s cool.”

  Their grins are gooey. They love each other. Oh my god they love each other. “Bye.” More smooching. More pawing each other’s faces. Wyatt looks longingly at Kate while backing away. He says, “Later, Knox.”

  I wave. Wait a beat. Kate pushes away from her car and whips around. I pounce. “What the fuuuuuuuuuck??!!!!”

  She winks. “What? No big thang.”

  “You liar! You lie, you lie, you lie! You love him.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Oh gosh, you love him!”

  “Stop.” She pushes my head down, checking over one shoulder to see where Wyatt’s gone.

  I lean in, sniff her neck. “You smell like boy.”

  “Fuck off.” She slaps at me. “Get in the car.”

  I do. She does. We look at each other. “How the hell did this happen?” I say.

  “Thanks.”

  “No, I mean—” I think about it. “No, actually, that’s exactly what I mean. What the fuck, how?”

  “He’s shy,” Kate says plainly. “He needed encouragement.”