Or Not

by Brian Mandabach

  Cassie stops and tears at the button and zipper, pushes the damp denim down to her knees, and then kicks at the legs. They’re stuck, rolled up around her ankles, so she steps on one leg and has almost pulled her foot out when the wave hits.

  So big that it has only started to break when it hits her, it sweeps her off her feet and slams her into the sand, driving the air out of her lungs. Then it rolls her up the beach and sucks her back out.

  Her empty lungs pull for air but get salt water. She feels bottom and pushes herself up, coughing, but before she can get a full breath, the current grabs the jeans around her ankles and pulls her under.

  NO! I just found out—

  Cassie fights to the surface. She coughs out water and pukes wine and gets air and coughs again, catching a glimpse of the silver moon, the fuzzy silvery moon through burning salt in her eyes, and she bobs for a moment, getting a half-water/half-air breath before the current takes her down again.

  She’s too cold.

  And she doesn’t have enough air.

  And the current doesn’t let her up, but sweeps her along by her ankles, her jeans like a sail in the wind of the water, until, loosened by the now gentle touch of the tide, they slip off and away.

  And, eventually, she cools to the temperature of the water.

  Her body is mostly water anyway, and part of everything—water and air and stone. But the spark that was life goes away, sucked into the nothingness she saw revealed in the shadow of a cloud before the moon.

  Tomorrow, she’ll wash up again, as all dead things do, to warm in the sun and dry in the wind and make people wonder what happened, where did the spark go, and why did the sea have to drown her life? Did she give herself as an offering, or was she taken the way someone must be taken, the way everyone must be taken, sooner or later?

  Journal Ten

  23 October

  Dear Di,

  That one kept me up almost all night, and I slept through writing club. I’m exhausted and don’t feel like dealing with school at all, but I miss DJ. I wish he could come over here, and we could spend the day together.

  When I got to school, DJ met me in the hall, seeming upset with me for missing writing club. I told him that I had been up until after three writing.

  “I need to see you after school,” he said. “Can you meet me at the pines?”

  “Sure, what’s up?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it with anybody else—don’t say anything at lunch, okay?”

  It was killing me wondering what was going on. DJ did a good job of acting normal at lunch, even when Quill teased him for being all freaked out that I missed writing club. He’s so thin-skinned that it must have taken an effort.

  I called Mom to tell her I was staying with DJ to do homework, and she said that it was okay, as long as I came straight home after. I figured that gave me an hour or so at the most before she started getting anxious. This suicide-watch thing is getting old. She has even been talking about quitting the quartet. Obviously, she thinks that I need to be under guard at all times. She moved up the practices, so she can be home after school.

  I really wanted to run home and get something warm before going up to the pines—a cold front came through during school, and it was very nippy outside—but I knew Mom would be home. I couldn’t figure out how to explain why I needed a ski jacket to stay after school and study.

  DJ hadn’t worn anything warm either. We walked fast, trying to get some warmth going, up the path toward the pines.

  “My mom knows about us,” he blurted out, all dramatic, as soon as we were away from the after school crowd.

  We hugged and held on—both of us were freezing.

  “What happened?”

  “The watch,” he said. “She saw the watch you gave me.”

  “Oh no, the watch. That was supposed to stop you from getting in trouble.”

  “I know,” he said. “It’s not your fault.”

  “Come on,” I said. “Tell me about it as we walk.”

  Every day he had been careful to take it off before he got home, but last night while he was in the bath—he still takes baths at night, Di, is he not cute?—she had taken his jeans to wash them, gone through the pockets, and found the watch. I guess she keeps pretty close tabs on his cash flow. She knew he hadn’t bought it, and she accused him of stealing it.

  He wanted to admit to stealing it, he said, at first. It’s crazy but he thought that it would be “like betraying you, betraying us,” if he told about us. But then he realized that there was nothing shameful in what we were doing, that denying me was the truly shameful thing.

  So he told her, “My girlfriend gave it to me.”

  “Your girlfriend?” she said.

  “Cassie,” he said.

  Then she “went, like, ballistic” and reminded him how she had forbidden him to date. He had the guts to tell her that I said we weren’t going out, we were just seeing each other. This didn’t impress her very much, and she—big surprise—forbade him to see me.

  But he refused to stop. He demanded that she change the rule and allow him to date. He told her he would see me as often as he wanted—with or without her permission. She could send him to Christian school, she could send him to his dad, but she couldn’t run his personal life.

  By this time he was pacing around the glade, and I was standing there hugging myself and bouncing around trying to keep warm.

  “What did she say?” I imagined her breaking into tears at this point, but I guess she wasn’t that good at manipulating.

  “She kept on forbidding, and I kept on refusing to obey. She said that she’s going to call my dad and the Christian school tomorrow but that I am not to see you.”

  “Does she know you’re here now?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t you call her or anything?”

  “Are you kidding? Just so she can yell at me?”

  “Come here,” I said, and put my arms around him. “I think you are one brave dude for standing up to her. I’m proud of you.”

  “But we’re in trouble, aren’t we?”

  “If she sends you to California, I don’t think we’ll be seeing much of one another.”

  “She won’t. That’s the last thing she wants.”

  “What about Christian school?”

  “I’ll still see you. Every day. And she can’t afford it, anyway.”

  “So we’ve got nothing to worry about,” I said, and kissed him.

  “It is so freaking cold,” he said and held me close.

  “Like a witch’s teat in a brass bra, as my dad always says.”

  “Your dad is cool.”

  “You’re cool—freezing, even. C’mere.”

  But trying to wrap ourselves around each other wasn’t really doing it. It must have been in the low thirties, twenties even, and the wind was blowing even in our sheltered grove. Kissing helped a little, our steamy breath together, his face cold, with blotches of pink on the cheeks and his neck warm under his hair and his mouth wet and steamy. But when he put his hand under my shirt, OW! It was cold.

  Finally, we gave it up. We decided to go back to my house, but we had to wait until Mom left. His watch said it was almost five, and she was going to be gone by five-thirty. He would wait in the alley until the coast was clear. I found an old blanket in the garage, he wrapped up in it, and I ran inside.

  Luckily, she left early, making me promise that I would be okay until Dad got home at six.

  Big deal, I told her. Hadn’t I already promised over and over again that I was okay?

  She took off, I waited for at least a minute, then I called out the back door to DJ. I put some apple juice on the stove and dumped in a bunch of cinnamon and cloves. I was tempted to put some booze in there, but what if Dad
came early? I could explain that DJ just got there, I thought, if we were innocently sitting in the kitchen, but not if we were drinking his Wild Turkey.

  Then, miracle, Dad called to make me promise I would be okay if he didn’t get home until seven.

  Big deal, I told him. Hadn’t I already promised over and over again that I was okay?

  I immediately poured us each a little splash of bourbon in our cider—with that big 1.75 liter, how could he miss it?—and we went upstairs to my room to listen to records.

  We had an hour, easy, because it was much more likely that Dad would be later than he said rather than early. DJ had to hear my Zeppelin album, and he thought it really did sound better on vinyl.

  For a while, we just listened. It seemed too weird to be on the bed together, so I piled pillows on the floor and he lay with his head in my lap and I played with his hair as we listened to the good, loud music.

  Then we fooled around, trying some of the things that we started out on the mountain on Saturday. We ended up on the bed, which, weird or not, is a lot more comfortable than a granite crag.

  It felt so good, Di, just to be close together in my warm room on my soft bed. As the clock moved away from 6:30 toward 7:00, we lay holding each other, listening the Mamas and the Papas, which sounded kind of silly after Zeppelin and Nirvana. Then, with time pressing in on us, we forced ourselves to fix the bed and our clothes, wash the whiskey off our breath with mouthwash, and go downstairs.

  I called Dad and told him that DJ had dropped by, and could he stay for dinner? He was a little flustered about me having a boy over when I was home alone, but he said it was okay. We had just broken out the chips and salsa to further disguise our breath—we weren’t even buzzed, it had just been a taste—when he showed up. He must have put the phone down and raced home.

  DJ had set up some books and paper around the kitchen table while I was on the phone, so we were sitting there acting like we were doing homework when he showed up.

  So far, so good, but I was starting to worry about DJ’s mom. Sure enough, just when Dad was pulling out some frozen hamburger patties, asking DJ if he was a carnivorous man, she called.

  “Yes, he certainly is here,” Dad boomed. “Wandered in out of the cold and we’re getting ready to give him a belly-full of dinner, if that’s okay with you.”

  “You’re very welcome. He’s a fine guest.”

  “We’ll see you later then, here’s your boy.”

  He handed the phone to DJ, whose conversation seemed a little less relaxed than Dad’s, though he—as Mommy must have been—was trying to make it sound as if everything was normal.

  “We’re sitting around the kitchen doing homework, Mom.”

  “Okay, Mom.”

  “See you later.”

  “Did she know you were here,” Dad said to the interior of the refrigerator, “or was she looking for you?”

  “Looking for me, I guess,” said DJ.

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that, son. We parents get worried if we don’t know where our kids are. You’re always welcome here, but would you please tell her where you’re going?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “Love this boy’s manners, Cassie.”

  So we had dinner with Dad, who continued to be his personable self. Mommy came an hour or so later, and didn’t even seem too mad, which I thought was a little odd.

  Dad thanked me for calling him as soon as DJ arrived, making me feel guilty, and repeated to me that he preferred parents know when their kids are coming to our house.

  “Your mother tells me that DJ’s mother doesn’t know that you two are—how did you put it so delicately?—seeing one another. Is this still the case?”

  “No, he told her last night.”

  “Good. How’d she take it?”

  “Not well,” I said.

  “Young love is never easy—”

  “Dad? Please.”

  “Well, it isn’t, honey. I’m not trying to be a wise guy—no more than usual, okay?”

  “All right.”

  “I hope it works out well for you kids, and—try to keep some perspective. Don’t get too all-fired serious too fast.”

  “Sure, Dad. I better hit the books.”

  “Give your dad a hug and kiss.”

  DJ is in such big trouble—I hope she doesn’t send him away. Either California or Christian school would probably mean the end of us. I don’t see how we can stay together with him at a different school and her trying to keep us apart.

  And I am turning into a major sneak. I haven’t done a bit of homework—I can’t concentrate at all.

  Ugh! I just remembered that I have to go to the shrink again tomorrow. Maybe I can make this my last appointment. I am so beyond that issue. The problem is life, but the solution is not death. That would be way too obvious.

  24 October

  More bad luck. Terrible luck. Dreadful luck. Abyssmal luck. Vile, ghastly, apalling, fucked-up luck.

  No such thing as luck!

  Fuck.

  Who knows what’s going to happen now, but it can’t be good. Everything had calmed down with those morons at school—those mean, mean, horrible, horrible people—and today it all blew up again.

  And the day started out so great!

  DJ wasn’t at school when I got there, so after checking the caf, I waited outside—hanging back where Mommy couldn’t see my hated self. She dropped him off a few minutes later, and I rushed up to him with a big hug.

  “What happened last night?”

  “We compromised.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “It’s not all good—but we actually worked it out.”

  “How did you manage that?”

  “I think it was the report card. It came in the mail and she opened it before she came to get me. Four Cs and three Bs. It’s my best one since fourth grade.”

  She didn’t totally let him off the hook, though. The first thing she said was that he was grounded for two weeks for going off without permission. But then she asked him about the grades. He told her I had helped him, not doing his homework for him, but doing it with him. He said that I motivated him. She was so relieved that he didn’t have any Fs or Ds that she had to admit that something good must be going on. She is allowing him to see me, occasionally, under supervision.

  “But not for two weeks?”

  “There’s school, and she’s going to let us study together, here—but I have to get a note from the librarian or a teacher or someone to prove I was actually here.”

  And then it happened.

  Nathan walked by and just had to make a crack at me.

  “American Taliban slut,” he muttered, and kept walking.

  “What did you say?” said DJ.

  He turned around. “You heard me, punk.”

  “Take it easy, Gimli,” I said quietly.

  “No way,” he said. “This is, like, bullshit.” He stood up and stepped toward Nathan. “You need to stop this shit.”

  “DJ—”

  “Do I, punk?”

  “You also need to apologize.”

  “Oooo, and you’re gonna make me? Come on.”

  Nathan gave DJ a shove, and DJ punched him a quick one to the face.

  I don’t think it connected very hard, and too bad because it was the last good shot he got. Nathan’s fists started flying, and another kid pushed DJ into him. Then they both went down with Nathan on top.

  I was yelling, “NO! Stop! Get off him!” but by now a crowd had circled us with everybody yelling.

  DJ struggled to get him off, to get away, to protect himself while Nathan hit him and hit him. I grabbed at Nathan, trying to pull him or push him off. “Leave him alone, get off!” I screamed, and I heard
kids starting to yell, “Get her, get her off!” Somebody grabbed at me, and I flung my elbow back and felt it connect with something hard.

  Then Mr. Bad was there, bellowing in our faces, “STOP IT RIGHT NOW AND GET AWAY FROM EACH OTHER!”

  We all went limp.

  I moved back and Nathan got up. Dr. Hawk got between Nathan and DJ. Some teacher I didn’t know got in front of me and forced me back while Mr. Bad knelt down by DJ. His nose was bleeding, and his whole face was red from crying and being hit. I was crying too, but Nathan was all puffed up, shaking his shoulders and acting like he couldn’t wait to get in for another punch.

  We were all led off to the office—DJ to get cleaned up, Nathan to wait for interrogation, and me straight into Dr. Hawk’s office.

  “Cassie, Cassie, Cassie,” he said with tired relish. “I didn’t expect to see you again, but I should have.”

  “Can I call my dad?” I said, taking a tissue and wiping my nose.

  “They’re making the call right now. Why don’t you just tell me everything that happened while we wait?”

  “I’m not saying anything until my dad gets here.”

  I was thinking, “without my lawyer,” and the thought sent me into a spasm of laughter, and then sobs. I took some more Kleenex. I was determined not to cry in front of him, though the laughter was probably worse.

  “If you won’t talk until Daddy gets here, you can wait in the in-school suspension room.” He called on his walkie-talkie to Mr. Bad, who came to escort me out.

  DJ was sitting on the bench, holding a tissue to his nose but looking otherwise unhurt.

  “I’m sorry, DJ,” I said.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said.

  “But it’s all my fault.”

  I sat and stewed in the hole, pretending to do homework so the monitor wouldn’t bug me, and finally Mom and Dad showed up.

  Dr. Hawk wanted to handle it, but they insisted on the head principal, so we had a big meeting in Mrs. Trumbull’s office with both of them and Mr. Bad. I told what happened, leaving out the “American Taliban slut” and just saying that Nathan was bugging me.