Krista and I parked the bikes between a fence and hedge at a house around the corner from the 7-E. Krista looked like she was on fire, red curls tangled in a spray around her face, her cheeks and forehead a bright, glazed pink. “Fuck, these jeans are frozen to me,” she said, walking toward the 7-Eleven, legs stiff and nearly straight. I opened my jacket and tried to warm myself, wrapping my arms around my waist to cover the space between sweater and low-slung jeans. Air had shot up under the hem of my jacket, a band of cold on the exposed skin as though painted with a brush dipped in water. The two of us walked in silence till we hit the parking lot. Then we had to start looking casual.
“Whose party did you say it was?”
“Jeff’s. His parents are in Van. Don’t turn around now, I think that’s Rob’s car.”
“You know the sound of his car?” The car cut in front of us to pull into a space. Rob, Matt, and Mike got out, spitting tobacco and smirking.
“You ladies ride your horses over?”
“Ha. Funny. Look, I’m laughing,” Krista replied and walked past them into the store. I followed. We bought coffee to warm our hands, a carton of orange juice for mix, then loitered near the magazine rack. Two of the guys came up behind us and literally breathed down our necks. I turned around abruptly and glared. Krista turned around slowly, smiling, her expression belying her words. “And what the hell do you think you’re doing?” she purred.
“Oohhh,” one of the guys raised his eyebrow. “Language, ladies. That’s not what they teach you in church, is it?” I didn’t know how to deal with banter, the hollow, slightly malicious tone of it. Nothing was neutral to me, nothing simple or kind. A kind of battlefield, the area in front of that magazine rack, those smirking faces and bodies of boys surrounding us.
“You guys are going to Jeff’s, right?” I asked, pulling their eyes off Krista as they adjusted the shoulders of sweatshirts, tugged at the brims of caps.
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Give us a ride. Let’s get out of here.”
Krista looked at me like I had broken some kind of rule. She was crude and straightforward when she thought it would be shocking, coy and evasive otherwise. I didn’t know the nuances of that language.
We started drinking in the back seat, perched on laps, too many hands everywhere. The guys had guy drink – cans of O’Keefe Extra Old Stock, rye. We had a carton of orange juice, a two-sixer of vodka and large Styrofoam cups, recently emptied of coffee. Half-and-half, straight down. We plugged our noses and closed our eyes against the burn of alcohol, knew when it went down because of the burn down our throats, the warmth expanding in our stomachs. The party was twenty minutes away in Jeff’s parents’ large, pastel-stuccoed house on the hill. By the time we got there, Krista and I were laughing fire out of our noses. I clutched the door handle as I lifted myself from the car, the air welcoming me, light and electric and suddenly warm. The house twinkled with lights and sound. A wall of noise hit us when we opened the door.
We left our shoes in a pile near the door and held our coats in front of us as we pushed into the house. The guys kept their shoes on and left us as soon as they got in the door. We watched their shoulders part the crowd, their chins raised and jutted in a greeting to other guys. Then the house swallowed them, other faces and bodies turning toward and away from Krista and me in their wake. All familiar faces, no one I wanted to talk to.
Krista and I threw our coats on a bed in a spare room and made our way into the kitchen hugging juice and vodka to our chests. We opened cupboards, looking for glasses, and finally pulled two out of the dishwasher that was partially open, a ball cap perched on one of the racks. The kitchen was already smelling old with smoke. Two guys stood over the stove, one holding knives against the burner and then heating a ball of hash with them, the other holding a two-litre pop bottle with the bottom cut off, ready to take in the fumes. Girls lined the countertops, bare legs dangling out from tight denim skirts, hands on their drinks or in their hair, touching each other’s shoulders and knees quickly, teasing. The stench of hash was thick in the air, the laughter of girls high and shrill.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, leaning into Krista. She nodded back. We each had two huge glasses of vodka and orange. We’d be fine. We left the empty bottle and carton in the sink with beer cans, ashes, and waterlogged bits of food. We circled the house, gulping down our drinks, steadying ourselves against walls and pieces of furniture. Everything in the house was cream- and peach-coloured, gleaming with glass and brass fixtures. I suspected that before it had filled up with smoking, sweating high school students the house had smelled strongly of vanilla.
I had already lost track of time when I started to feel sick, having finished my drink so long before that I didn’t know where I had left the glass. In the dining room, I found myself gripping the back of a chair. Krista was gone. One of the guys – a Rob or a Mike or a Matt – came up behind me, snaked his thick arm around my waist and gripped the chair to me, flexed some muscles.
“You dizzy?” he slurred. I could smell his breath, sour behind me.
“You better let go. I feel like I’m going to hurl.”
“Oh, not such a good girl now, are you?” I tried to pull away but his heavy arm held me firm between the chair and his body. I concentrated on some distant point in the air. Through the arch separating dining and living room, I could see a surge of people twisting around themselves, shrieking. Soon, people pushed their way into the dining room and the arm was gone from my waist. I could hear yelling and the sound of two or three loud voices shouting commands, then something being released like a crack of thunder. There was a girl leaning up against me, laughing so hard she couldn’t stand straight, face shining with tears. She grasped my arm.
“The couch is on fire!” she roared, spit spraying on my face.
“What?”
The girl hiccuped. “Yeah, the fucking couch is on fire! Jeff and Matt are using the fish tank to put it out.” I pushed my way around her and into the living room, my socks soaking up water from the carpet. The couch was smouldering and bright green plastic plants clung limp to the furniture. No fish in sight but I imagined fins and tails pulsing against the upholstery.
I turned back into the dining room, pressed my palms together and held my arms straight out, pointed them toward the sliding glass door on the other side of the room. Putting my head down, I pushed through the crowd with my arms in front of me until I felt the glass of the sliding door meet my fingertips. It slid open to dry, cold air and perma-turf sodden with beer. Two headbangers leaned over the railing of the deck, tapping the head of a glowing joint onto the lawn. Hoping that the sweet, sticky smell of marijuana would fill the place where nausea had been, I gripped the railing, leaned into the smoke and followed my hands along the banister until I reached the bangers.
“He-ee-ey,” one of them turned to me and said this word as though it had three syllables.
“Hey,” I responded, curt and cool.
They dragged on the joint and passed it between them. There were shrieks coming from the lawn, the sound of drunken people walking into objects in the dark, laughing at things that weren’t funny. I wondered when they would offer me some smoke. I was sure that if I could take it into me, fill my lungs with warmth and air, the dizzy weight in my stomach would disappear. I was just going to have to ask. “Hey, can I have a drag?”
They stopped fidgeting and looked at me. “Yeah, of course, yeah, sure,” one of them responded.
“We, uh, didn’t think you’d want any,” the other said.
I took the joint, closed my eyes when I inhaled and tasted smoke along my teeth and gums. I inhaled through my nostrils, slowly and surely. I didn’t cough. I let out a long, smooth sigh and opened my eyes. The guys tried not to look impressed. I handed the joint back to one of them and watched his fingers, thick and blunt, how they could hold the tip of the joint so delicately, how they fell against his jeaned thigh when he handed it on. I wondered how that hand would
feel tracing a line down the back of my neck.
Suddenly Krista was there, swaying a bit. She held on to the shoulder of one of the guys to balance herself, laughed, and then announced, “Shit,” as though it was some sort of commentary.
“Hey, Kris, what’s up?” I asked.
“Uh, Harp, is it okay if we go now?”
“Yeah, sure.” The house throbbed with noise behind us and I couldn’t imagine going back in. “How are we going to get home?” Home suddenly seemed very far away, like days would pass before we got there.
Krista turned me from the railing and gave me a nudge back into the house. She followed me through the crowd, speaking over my shoulder, her words hot in my ear. “Listen, Rob can drop us off at 7-E. Mike wants to meet me later. We can get the bikes and bike over to Harstad. Mike wants me to meet him there, will you come?”
I tried to twist around to face Krista. “Why doesn’t Rob just give us all a ride to Harstad, or to my place. You guys can fool around in my living room for all I care.”
“I don’t know – we have to get the bikes anyway – and they’re about to leave. I need to tell him. Please?”
Getting us all back into the car was a challenge. Once again, Krista and I were on laps, necks kinked to accommodate the car ceiling. As promised, we were driven to the 7-Eleven. Before getting there, I said, “It wouldn’t hurt you to give us a ride all the way to wherever, like my place, would it?”
To which one of the guys answered, “You never know, it might.” I didn’t know how to respond, and so didn’t.
The guys dropped us off at 7-Eleven, inscribing a smooth arc with tires into the frost on the parking lot. We rounded the building, cut through a yard, and groped briefly between bush and fence before finding our bikes. As we dragged them out, small, cold branches snapped from the leafless bush, a cracking sound around us.
Harstad was an elementary school in the opposite direction of my house from the 7-Eleven. We started pedalling. We weren’t cold, not at first. Alcohol ran like coffee in our veins, made us hot and fast, full of energy. We pedalled until our legs tightened and our calves burned, jeans chafing against cold skin. By then, we were there. Krista and I leaned the bikes against the side of the school. Everything around us was wet and cold – the brick school, the concrete yard, each metal railing and banister. Tether-ball chains clanged against poles, the balls taken down for the weekend.
“I’m supposed to meet him over by the goal posts,” Krista said.
“Oh, that’s fitting.”
“What?”
“Nothing – go, the sooner the better. I’ll wait here. Try not to be too long, hey?”
“Fuck, I don’t know many people who would do this,” Krista lunged in a hug at me. “You sure?”
“Yes. Go!” I watched Krista walk into the field, air like steam around her. Then she was gone, the lights around the school only reaching so far. I sat down on the steps and realized why I was there, at an elementary school at two in the morning, waiting. What Krista wanted so badly that she would bike for twenty minutes in the cold to lie down on a wet field, I couldn’t say no to because I wasn’t brave enough to go after it myself. It was more than the feeling of wanting that headbanger’s hand along the back of my neck. I’d been able to let go of that easily enough. I wasn’t yet willing to find out what would happen if I gave myself over to someone else so completely that I didn’t care, in that moment, about the consequences. And so, I tried to allow Krista that. I sat until the cold concrete sent shoots of pain into my backside, my spine. Then I got up and jumped the steps. Drunk and numb, I should have fallen, ground my face against concrete, but I didn’t. The challenge of remaining in control of my own movement kept me focused, warm for a while. Then the wind picked up.
When the frigid air had made its way through every stitch of my clothing, into each pore, I walked out into the field toward the goal posts. I walked until I couldn’t exactly see Krista and Mike, but a different kind of darkness, lumped on the field, then stopped and called, “Krista! Let’s go. I’m freezing! We have to go.” When I heard something, movement, a muffled giggle, I yelled again. “Krista, we have to go. I’m leaving.” I followed my own wet prints back to the cement yard and waited under a light. I couldn’t see more than two feet in front of me, the effect of the illumination meeting the dark, nothing in between.
Krista’s voice came out of shadow, a low giggle. “I’m so sorry, Harp. You’re right, it is fucking cold. I think it’s going to snow soon, don’t you?” I just looked at her.
Mike appeared. “Uh,” he said to me. “You want a smoke?”
“Are you kidding?” I turned toward the bikes and heard Krista whisper as she said something to Mike, then let out a laugh like a cough.
The cold on the way to my house was enough to make me want to cry. We didn’t speak, just rode. When we got home, Krista followed me, wordless, to the bathroom. We stripped to shirts and underwear and sat on the edge of the tub, feet frigid, watched the colour spread from toes to ankles, Krista’s feet burning magenta, mine a muddied red. Yelled into each other’s shoulders when the feeling came back into them, our feet gripped with cramps. We slept in thick socks and long underwear, Krista curled into my back, and we each rubbed our feet together until we fell asleep.
I woke, heavy and hot, my body twisted in fabric – the sheets, long johns, a useless bra chafing my shoulder blades – and couldn’t pull the layers off for the sweat. I struggled with the sheets until I woke Krista up.
She was moaning and cursing. “I feel like crap. There is no way I’m getting up for church.”
“Bullshit, Kris. If I can bike to Harstad with you at two in the morning, you can haul your ass out of bed and come with me to church. It’s communion Sunday. You know I have to go.”
I held the wall as I walked across the room. “Sylvie!” Vera called from the kitchen as soon as I opened the door. “You two better have breakfast soon or we’ll be late.” When I didn’t answer, she continued, “Nick and I will go on without you and you’ll have to take the bikes.” The bikes. There was no way I would take the bikes. I winced my way down the stairs and into the bathroom, held the counter and faced my bloodshot eyes in the mirror, splashed cold water on my face. I couldn’t find a glass so I emptied a Mason jar of flowers out the window, rinsed it and filled it with water. I took it with a bottle of aspirin back upstairs.
“Okay, we’re going to have to pull ourselves together or my mom, the bag, is going to make us bike to church,” I told Krista, who was groaning and had her knees up to her chest, arms wrapped around them.
“I can’t believe you let me do that last night,” she said as I straightened one of her arms, opened her hand and spilled four aspirin into her palm. I held the Mason jar out to her. “What’s this?”
“Water.”
“God, why does it smell like compost?”
“Just drink it. Let you do what?”
“Go with Mike! Shit, he’ll probably never speak to me at school again.”
“He hardly spoke to you before.”
“I know, but you just watch, by the time he tells the rest of them what a slut I am, no one will be speaking to me and then – this tastes like shit, I’ll have you know – guess that’s just the way it goes.”
“Yeah, I guess so, Kris.”
As soon as we got to church, Krista and I went to the small bathroom in the basement. She leaned over the toilet gagging and spitting clear liquid into the bowl. I slapped my cheeks and opened my eyes wide in the mirror. Despite four aspirin, my head hung on to the ache. I began strapping my hair into a braid as Krista vomited, finally bringing something up, apparently from the night before as we hadn’t eaten breakfast. I finished my braid, then went into the stall, pulled Krista’s hair from her face and rubbed her forehead. She started to cry.
“I’m so stupid, Harper.” I rubbed her back as she leaned over and vomited again. I had to close my eyes and concentrate on not getting sick myself. I would not leave Krist
a alone in the stall. She was the one strong enough to meet boys in fields and vomit up the evidence in a church basement the next day. Next to her, I was an observer, sitting on concrete steps in the cold. Krista coughed up again, then closed the lid of the toilet and rested her forehead against it. I braided her hair and hummed under my breath. When I finished, Krista got up, rinsed her mouth in the sink, and we both splashed our faces with cold water. Slapped our cheeks until they shone like ripe apples.
As Pastor John began his sermon that Sunday, I wrapped my arms around my stomach and gripped my waist with my hands to try to keep my head upright on my shoulders. Part way through the sermon, Amens and Hallelujahs rose up to a pitch around us. Vera had her head down, eyes toward the Bible open on her lap. I thought that she had been watching me and, as if sensing my thought, she looked up and in that moment her expression seemed to me distant, regretful.
I steadied myself, my spinning head and lurching stomach, until we rose for communion. We went to the front of the church and lined up. There were three men up there – a councillor who put wafers on our outstretched tongues, Pastor John who held out the communal cup for us to drink from, and another councillor who stood ready to refill it, a white cloth wrapped around the bottle soaking up spilled wine. The wine was cheap and smelled like composting grapes and vinegar. I knew it was bad even before I’d had a drop of anything better. Twelve of us lined up at a time and Pastor John said, “And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them.” The councillor placed fine wafers on our tongues. “This is my body which is given for you: Do this in remembrance of me.” I saw Krista’s body, spread out on the field, her hair bright red against the ground, stars reflected in her pale skin. I pushed the wafer against the roof of my mouth until it dissolved. I could smell the wine coming closer. A shadow came over Krista, wiped out the stars. “This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for the remission of your sins.” The cup was at my lips, the bitter taste of metal. I let the wine touch my mouth then backed away. “Drink of me and you shall have everlasting life.” I held the wine in my mouth and felt my throat constrict. Krista was on the ground, blood bright and rising between her legs. I struggled to swallow.
The Sudden Weight of Snow Page 4