Or Not

by Brian Mandabach

  In the shadowy woods along the creek, it was almost cold, but the aspen groves were full of light. The leaves had fallen, but for a few patches of trees that held fluttering gold, and the ground was covered with pale yellow.

  We climbed along the falls, then followed a ridge up to the southwest. Just below the ridgeline were some crags that caught the sunshine and blocked the wind, so we took a break there. I have another secret place on the other side of that ridge—a little valley that you can only get to by two ways, and I told DJ about it. We promised that if anything terrible ever happened—terrrorist attack, fascist take-over—we’d find a way to meet each other there.

  Meanwhile, we enjoyed the crags, which gave us plenty of privacy. It was strange to be so close in the bright sunlight, but if we closed our eyes it was cool the way the sun came through our eyelids, like we were kissing amidst a red haze. It was a relief to be alone together, and we did some things we hadn’t done before—it just felt right.

  Before we headed down the pass, we caught the sunset with Mom and Dad—from the sunset rocks, of course—and on the way back we hit the Tex-Mex. In the dark car, we held hands, and DJ fell asleep. I kept holding his hand and watched him in the passing headlights, his dark hair fallen back from his face, his straight nose in profile, and his lips, fallen open as he slept. I wanted to reach out and trace his profile, to touch the little dip between his nose and his upper lip, but I didn’t want to wake him up. After I was sort of adoring him for a while, I saw Dad watching me in the mirror. His eyes smiled at me as I ducked back to my own side of the car, out of his mirror.

  20 October

  Today seems very dull, Di, or like it’s going to be. With the new quarter starting tomorrow, there’s no homework except for math. I still have the last Sister to write, but … I don’t know. I had some ideas, but now that number two has caused such a stir, I don’t really want to get back into it. Mom is still bugging me to see numbers one and two, but I’m holding out. Maybe that’s why I don’t want to finish the series: I said that when I did, they could see them all.

  And Mom actually wants me to change the ending of the next one so that my character doesn’t kill herself. But that’s the whole point—the endings have to be the same. Any other ending would be a lie. Although the first ending isn’t truly the same, in my mind, that’s her death. She joins the whale, rolled over and crushed in the surf, or swept out and dumped into the hypothermia rip tides.

  They don’t understand that the story might be what kept me from going for a one-way swim. You’d think that all of Kurdt Cobain’s songs could have kept him alive, and Sylvia Plath’s poems, and Hemingway’s books, but apparently not. Even though I’m happy now, I can see that sometimes all the songs and poems and books and people you love aren’t enough. And living is too much. Waking every morning, eating meal after meal, trying to sleep, over and over and over again.

  I’m going to get myself all depressed again, brooding about this stuff, or maybe I’m just getting into Sisters mode, preparing to write. I could write it now, if no one was going to read it. And maybe that’s the best way—not tell anyone it’s finished, not show it to Griffin even. DJ? Possibly. I should let him read the second one too.

  Okay then: it’s back to Sisters, to the sound of the surf. Loud and constant and always changing. Peaceful and relaxing and sinister and foreboding.

  Three Sisters

  Sister III

  Ally meets Cassie outside security, and they are quickly out of the airport and into the humid city air. Sean pulls up in his old station wagon, jumps out and gives Cassie a hug and a kiss on the head.

  “Look at my little Littless,” he says. “I like your new head.”

  “Thanks, Nickie.”

  He settles Cassie’s duffel into the back of the car among the cooler and groceries and other bags.

  “I’m going to sit in the back and try to work—I have this huge paper due Wednesday—you women sit up front.”

  Ally drives, and Cassie enjoys the newness of the Northwest landscape. Is that the only thing that’s different? It feels almost the same, the three of them together.

  “So, how are you?” Ally says. “Are you dealing okay after the collapse of our grand plan to skip you up to high school?”

  “It was bad at first,” Cassie says. “The whole thing was so stupid—they knew I could do the work, but they had to punish me for messing up their precious test.”

  “What about the kids—still hating?”

  “They’ve pretty much forgotten about me. It got worse for a while, though.”

  “But it’s better now?”

  “Except for the occasional rude comment.”

  “And that boy you told me about, PJ?”

  “DJ,” Cassie says. “We actually told Mommy—that’s what I call his mom—that we’re friends, and she let him come up to the cabin with us last weekend.”

  “Overnight?”

  “No way. But just to spend the day with him was amazing.”

  “Sounds serious.”

  “Not really,” Cassie says. But she wonders. Is she missing him already?

  From DJ, Cassie moves on to telling about her other friends and how she has finally found a group of people who don’t think she’s a freak—or at least don’t mind.

  “When everything went to hell with your plan to move to high school,” Ally says, “did anyone tell you it would work out for the best?”

  “Please. Don’t try to tell me everything happens for a reason. I just got lucky.”

  “No such thing as luck.”

  “Whatnever. Just don’t try to tell me that God’s calling the shots, or that there’s some PURPOSE behind it.”

  “So why are you happy now?”

  “Ask, instead,” Sean says from the back seat, “why she was miserable before.”

  “It prepared her to appreciate this. Made her stronger.” She flashed him a dirty look in the mirror.

  “I said ‘ask,’ not answer.”

  “And what about people who never get better?” Cassie says. “What about the Holocaust, 2,700 people in the Twin Towers, that gay kid who was murdered in Wyoming.”

  “Yeah,” Sean says. “That must have been a hell of a learning experience for Matthew Shepard—being tortured and beaten to death.”

  “You two are unbelievable. If life is so meaningless, why don’t you just kill yourselves and be done with it?”

  “Sartre would say that it’s no consolation,” Sean says. “Even after death, your body would continue, horribly, to exist.”

  “But I like existing,” says Ally, shifting gears, pulling into the passing lane, and stomping on the gas.

  “Me too,” says Sean. “Mostly. I’m just giving you Sartre’s take on it.”

  “And weren’t we talking about how happy Cassie is? Why don’t you get back to Being and Nothingness?”

  “Sorry for intruding on your conversation,” Sean says. “If you want my opinion, in the future, just tell me what it is. Otherwise, I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

  Are they fighting? Cassie has never seen that. Irritation, tension between them, yes, but for a moment they hardly even seemed to like each other.

  After they leave the vineyards and farms behind and come into the trees, Cassie rolls down her window and smells the salty sea. They cross slow creeks, and the road winds down through the forest and suddenly there it is—the Pacific.

  The wind off the sea blows cold as they get out of the car at the house, so they dig in their bags for sweaters and windbreakers before going down to the beach.

  “Remember,” Ally says, “NO SWIMMING. If you get washed in, these rip tides will never let you out, so be aware at all times.”

  She and Ally walk the beach while Sean goes back to open up the house and work on his paper.

/>   “And get started on dinner,” Ally yells back to him. “And make sure the beer is cold!”

  The breeze is damp, and a layer of salty mist forms on Cassie’s sunglasses and face, even in the sunshine. She keeps thinking about DJ, how he would love this beach, and she wonders about things working out for the best. Ally’s words, “Why don’t you just kill yourselves,” keep coming back to her. She’s been there before, in the place with only one way out. It’s not because there’s no God and no purpose. She believes in individual purpose, but not that everything happens for a reason. September 11, The Sand Creek Massacre, Matthew Shepard—that would be too horrible.

  (to be continued . . .)

  21 October

  I went along with Mom on a trip to the pharmacy last night, and I saw the perfect gift for DJ: a watch! It has a tan nylon band, a heavy-duty looking brassy case, and a little ring around the outside of the face that twirls so you can time things. Not only is it going to keep him from being late and getting in trouble, but it’s quite handsome.

  DJ loves the watch. I was too embarrassed to give it to him at lunch, so I pulled him into the library before. He was so cute when I gave it to him, and the first thing he did was put it on. I helped him fasten it, and it looked great peeking out from the cuff of his flannel shirt. At lunch he kept looking at it until Liz noticed, and then he showed it off to everybody. She thought it was the perfect gift.

  “It’s good to know you’re taking care of him, Cassie. I was afraid you were going to get him in trouble.”

  “Oh, I’ll still get him in trouble,” I said, putting my arm around him and making him blush.

  We schemed about how we were going to get to see each other this week, but it’s not looking good. There’s a track meet tomorrow at the big high school stadium. It’s walkable, if Mommy will allow. Today we stayed after school to work on homework in the library. The math took us no time at all, so we got on a computer and did Lord of the Rings trivia from this website DJ found. Ms. Tayebnejad is cool, she didn’t bug us, but guess who took a shortcut through the library and gave us a hard time? That’s right, my favorite modesty enforcer. We were sitting next to each other, at the same computer, with me working the mouse with my right hand, and holding DJ’s with my left. GASP! Gimme a break. She must be very lonely.

  Sister III (continued)

  “At least you unloaded the food,” yells Ally into the side bedroom when they get back to the beach house. “And the beer.” She pulls one from the fridge. “What’s for din?”

  “You tell me, veg-heads.”

  “Let’s unpack, then we’ll cook,” she tells Cassie.

  Ally hauls her bag into the master bedroom, and since Sean is using the other upstairs room as an office, Cassie goes downstairs and claims one of the kid’s bedrooms. There are built-in bunk beds covered with snowy down comforters. A shelf contains Nancy Drew books and troll dolls. She slides the window open and the sound of the surf fills the room.

  Upstairs, Ally’s cutting veggies. The gas hisses under a big pot of water on the stove and garlic sizzles in olive oil. Cassie pulls a beer out of the fridge.

  “No-no—Sean doesn’t want you getting all boozed up.”

  “But you guys always let me have one beer.”

  “Well, one beer now, or a glass of wine with dinner—your choice, but no more.”

  The bottle cap digs into her hand, so she wraps a dishtowel around it, then takes a slug—cold and sweet and bitter. Ally gives her a rueful glance. “I guess a big sister’s job is to corrupt.”

  They eat at the big round table in the living room as the sun slides behind the sea. Cassie sinks into her soft chair, the beer making her slow and sleepy. Sean stays away from the wine and stops Cassie when she grabs for Ally’s glass, “Take it easy, you. That one beer was more than enough—your chair is about to swallow you whole.” He wolfs his food and says, “Back to work—I want to get this thing done.”

  “Wait ’til your sister opens her birthday present,” Ally says, getting up and returning with a flat, square package wrapped in hand-painted paper.

  “Records!” Cassie shrieks.

  “What makes you so sure about that?” Ally teases.

  “She looked everywhere for those LPs, kid,” says Sean. “Goodwill, E-bait, you name it.”

  “If you were a normal kid, it would be so easy, I’d just burn CDs of everything cool—”

  “But you wouldn’t love me the way you do.”

  “—instead of hitting the streets of Seattle and Portland, scouring the bins. Open it.”

  Cassie carefully unfolds the wrapping, which is magically folded so that it’s secured without tape.

  Inside are two Nirvanas and a Pavement.

  “I didn’t even know they did this on vinyl,” Cassie says, sliding out Live in New York—was it mastered on analog?”

  “That I don’t know. But you better not turn up your snobby little nose—it cost me a pretty penny. Put it on.”

  Sean withdraws back to work while they crank up the speakers downstairs and build a fire. The beer wears off, leaving Cassie a little headachy as they put their feet up on the hearth and listen to Cobain’s complaint, “Jesus don’t want me for a sunbeam … ”

  That night in the half-world in and out of sleep, she seems to drift out the window on the sound of the surf. Home is out there, past the shore, on an island in the mist—or is it an underwater mountain? Anyway, it is home. And yet, not home. The halls are dripping limestone, and she wanders toward the sound of someone singing. Is it Ally? Mom? She descends along the outside wall of a spiral stairway carved into the mountain’s heart while pale people hurry on the inside, rubbing past her, touching her with flapping fingers and peering up at her with green eyes like lamps, “Like Gollum,” she thinks.

  Cassie awakens to a day as foggy and rainy as she feels. It can’t be a hangover from one beer, she thinks, but, oh, this headache!

  Upstairs, coffee is on the warmer. She pours a mug and taps on the big bedroom door.

  “Come,” says Ally, who is alone, propped in bed with a cup of her own.

  “Headache,” Cassie says, setting her cup down on the bedside table and easing herself onto the goose-down. “Where’s Sean?” she says into the pillow.

  “He’s in the other room.”

  “Working already?”

  “I don’t know. Sleeping?”

  “But—he fell asleep in the other room?”

  “We sort of broke up.”

  “You—” Cassie peers up from the pillow. Ally gazes at the big stone-covered wall that stretches up to the misted-over triangles of window at the ceiling’s peak.

  “Last weekend.”

  “You didn’t say anything.”

  Cassie feels herself beginning to cry and simultaneously asks herself, Why am I crying?

  Ally opens her arms, but Cassie shakes her head. “So this is, like, the last time,” she chokes, “our last time together.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to be—doesn’t have to be. We’re still the sisters of the paint, always will be.”

  “But not real sisters. Now everything is ruined.”

  Sean comes in. “Shove over,” he says and sits on the bed. “She told you?”

  Cassie nods, her face back in the pillow.

  “I’m sorry, Littless. It had to happen.”

  “Why?”

  “We were turning into better friends than we were lovers,” Ally says. “It might even be worse on you than it is on us.”

  Cassie sits up to see Sean giving Ally a look that seems to say, “Speak for yourself.”

  “But it doesn’t have to be the end,” Ally persists. “Sean and I are still better than friends, like brother and sister. We’ll always have a bond, and so will you and I.”

  “But n
ow I’ll never see you again,” Cassie moans.

  The rest of the day continues foggy, rainy, and cold. At least the weather matches the way I feel, Cassie thinks, and I don’t have to suffer under that Colorado sun. She realizes why Sean has been working on his paper, and she hates Ally for acting like everything is normal. She hates herself more for being so broken up. Shouldn’t she have expected this? Shouldn’t she have known it would happen? It sickens her to remember her fantasies of Ally and Sean getting married, of being a bridesmaid, of everyone being family forever. They were kids really, just as much as she was.

  And if they were kids, what about her and DJ? He wasn’t even allowed to date, for God’s sake—how was that going to end?

  Ally makes breakfast and lunch, but Cassie doesn’t feel like eating. Ally also makes a big fire to drive out the damp, and pots of tea to bring in the warm, but nothing touches her, and on top of everything, her headache gets worse and worse and she feels her period coming on—a thick, weighty malaise, a full brain and body bloat.

  She lets Ally take her out on a rainy walk down the “nature trail”—really just a shortcut to shopping for the summerhouse set. The pines drip, and the fog lifts to reveal the ebb-tide bay and its wide mud flats with herons waiting by still pools, and it’s beautiful, but it isn’t any good.

  (to be continued . . .)

  22 October

  After wondering whether I could get back into it, I got in so deep that I didn’t want to come out. But I like the idea of spreading it out a little bit at a time and revising as I go. Griffin says that revising is the part that most young writers blow off—not me. Maybe that’s why I like this triumvirate piece—it’s ninety percent re-write.

  DJ got permission to go to the big track meet, so after school we hit the path by the pines, cut down to the creek, and ducked into our secret glade. Kel didn’t come, so it was just the four of us, and as usual, Quill and Liz plopped down and started making out the second we got there.

  “Do you guys ever do anything else?” I complained.

  Liz came up for air. “What?” she said.