With or Without You

by Lauren Sanders

  You sucked your lip through your teeth, and looked a little bit like my grandmother before she put in her dentures. For some reason I felt really sad.

  “Are you sure you don’t want a photo?” you said, and jutted your face out like the balloon-you again. “I have new publicity shots from the play. I could write a message just for you.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said, regaining my composure somewhat. “I really didn’t want to bother you. Actually, I’ll even take back the drawings. It’s just a few scribbles.”

  “No, I’d really like to see them. It’s not every day someone draws something for you, right?” You stared at me, your eyes and lips softening, and for the first time since I’d fallen into your dressing room, we connected, just like the day on the set when you’d sought me out in the darkness and winked in my direction. We were together in this. You put the envelope down on the table and grabbed a pen and a shot of you onstage, your eyebrows squinted in confrontation though you hadn’t yet removed your shirt. On it you wrote: “To Edie the usher, Thanks for the drawings! Always, Brooke,” and then handed it to me.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “No problem.” You led me closer to the door. “Maybe I’ll see you around the theatre.”

  I nodded and couldn’t believe this was the meeting I’d been anticipating for years. A quick exchange of drawings for a photo. And everything I’d said was so stupid, of course you didn’t know it was me. We needed to sit down together, we needed to have lunch, but my tongue-tiedness was back. Unable to formulate a sentence, I got hotter under my skin. It’s okay, I calmed myself. You’d promised to look at the drawings. Soon you’d understand. There was plenty of time. With all the strength in my body, I stepped my right foot out, then my left, and it was an easy path to the door.

  “Take it easy, Edie,” you said as I exited.

  I turned slightly and waved. You went back into your dressing room, and I ran to the stage door. Out in the alley, I stumbled against the wall and fell to the ground. It was covered with muddy garbage and cigarette butts, but I didn’t care. I was breathing like I’d just sprinted a quarter-mile dash and dying for a cigarette. Instinctively, I dipped my shoulder, but nothing came forward. “Fuck!” I shouted, a thousand buses screeching inside in my head. I left my bag outside your dressing room! Stupid idiot! Idiot, idiot, idiot! I screamed a few more obscenities, banged my head against the bricks. All of my money was in that bag! My house key, car keys, an expensive Syracuse sweatshirt—Nancy had been shocked: “Thirty dollars for a piece of cotton!” As if she had anything in her closet that cost less than thirty dollars. She was such a hypocrite. Jack had bought it for me anyway—a copy of People magazine, and my sketchbook! I had to go back.

  It took a little while to psych myself up. It’s okay, I repeated, just slip inside and grab the bag. It had to be right outside your door. I could get in and out without disturbing you. And if you saw me I’d just say I left my bag. I was allowed to come back for my own bag. Besides, I’d missed the chance to ask if you wanted to have lunch. This could actually be a good thing, I thought, as I walked back through the long hallway a second time. It was foggier than before and smelled like smoke. A few steamy clouds drifted from your dressing room, and my backpack was nowhere in sight. As I came closer, I saw you kneeling down next to the table, a pile of papers burning in a metal bucket in front of you. My backpack was next to the fire, its contents spilled out on the floor. In your left hand was one of the Brooke Harrison PSAs. You were dipping it into the flames.

  “What are you doing?!” I shouted.

  You looked up and it was your exorcism face I saw. “You didn’t fool me for one minute,” you said.

  There was a jolt in my chest, a pounding in my head, my heart, through the walls. Like my entire body had been turned inside out.

  “Those are my drawings!”

  “He put you up to this. Nobody else is that psychotic. Well, you can tell him where his precious warnings are now.”

  I lunged at you trying to grab the drawing, but you dropped it on the burning pile. A flame brushed against my arm. “Ow!” It scorched. I could smell the hairs burning. “Stop it!” I screamed.

  “I can’t believe they let you work here … or was that just a story, too?”

  A couple of storyboards were still on the couch. I reached for them, but you slapped your hand over the pile. “Not on your miserable life,” you said, and tossed them into the flames. “I’m getting rid of him for good this time, getting rid of everything …”

  “Hey, that’s my book!” Pounding was everywhere, my book in your hands, flames the color of my mother’s hair roaring in front of you, illuminating your glowing white skin, your blond hair, those blue demon eyes, looking really disjointed like they were turned toward a car wreck, as you opened my book and started thumbing the pages, smirking with naked contempt, the way you’d looked at those people in Foxboro when they wouldn’t accept your black boyfriend, only this time you were laughing at me, and my book, the one thing that was really mine, the one thing Blair had given me, and there it was hanging over a bucketful of flames.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the gun.

  You laughed out loud. “Are you going to shoot me? Are those your orders? He is really desperate this time. Okay, go ahead, do me a favor.”

  You flayed your arms out in front of you, almost knocking the gun from me, but I steadied my wrist with my left hand, then moved it underneath for support like Bobby Davis had shown me, and if I could just scare you off and get my book, before you—“Hey!” I shouted. You were ripping the pages one by one like that day I’d spotted you pulling the hairs from your scalp, crazy, focused, only the hair was yours, you could do whatever with it, but that was my book you were tearing, throwing the pages of my life into the smoke and flames, kicking up the heat a few more notches, frying my brain so hot I was afraid I’d faint, but it was mine and how could you leave after you’d given it to me and said whenever I draw I’ll think of you and there you were destroying it. “Please …” I begged.

  “Stupid fans!”

  “I’m not a fan. Don’t call me a fan.”

  “You’re pathetic.” You ripped another page.

  “I’m warning you, don’t make me shoot, I don’t really know how … just give me back my book!” Through the fiery light I saw the melting blue and red Grateful Dead skeleton on the front cover. You’d once said they were your favorite band, and I’d listened, going out and buying all of their albums, and when you said the albums sucked compared to bootlegs I went to a concert and before the show in the parking lot bought a couple of tapes, and you were right, they were better, you were right and I’d listened. I heard everything you said and you were destroying me … I lunged forward and with my underneath hand reached for the book, but missed. You laughed. “Stop it!” I shouted. “Give me my book!” I reached out again and grabbed the edge of the cover but couldn’t get a good grip, and you yanked back, still laughing, like it was some bizarro game, only I didn’t know the rules, maybe you had to be famous, but all I wanted was my book and you wouldn’t let go and more flames engulfed us and someone, it couldn’t have been you, screamed, “I hate you!” and then the loudest noise I ever heard rang through my ears, knocking me back toward the wall and searing my eyes shut, though my arm and chest throbbed, and I opened my eyes but couldn’t see a thing through all the smoke.

  Slowly, I balanced upward and realized I was still holding the gun. Only it was scorching hot and vibrating in my palm. I pulled the trigger! But the safety was on. Through the roar of the fire I heard you whimpering. NO, THERE’S NO WAY …

  I shoved the gun back in my pants and turned over the table. You were lying on the charred floor, a hole the size of a quarter in your chest with smoke coming out of it. I touched your shoulders. “Brooke!”

  Your eyes were wide open, the bluest blue I’d ever seen. “Why?” you said.

  “Oh my god! I’m so sorry … Can you move?”

>   “Why?”

  Your head slouched to the left, and your eyes fluttered. I thought when you shot people they fell over and died like in movies. But you were still alive, watching me now. You said it again: “Why?”

  “I’m so so sorry, I didn’t mean to—the safety was on, I swear …”

  You shut your eyes.

  “Brooke!” I shook your arms. “Brooke! I love you!”

  Opening your eyes again, you looked horrified. “Shhhh,” I whispered, and sat down beside you. I pulled you up slightly, held you, stroked your hair. “You’re going to be okay … hang in there.”

  You sunk into me, and I felt your body relax slightly. “It’s okay, I’m here,” I said softly, and we melded together for a couple of beats and I thought if I kept breathing, kept my heart pumping, it’d be enough. And it was. For a while. And in those few beautiful minutes there was nothing but you and me and I felt closer to you than ever, felt as if everything in my life had led to this. Then you edged up slightly, twisting your shoulders and trying to speak. “Don’t,” I said. “You have to save your strength …” But you pushed forward and your neck gave out. I held your head. Your eyeballs rolled up in their sockets, lids clamping over them. You went totally limp and suddenly I was alone. “No, don’t leave …” I hugged you. Smoke filled the room, flames drifting to the couch. I stood up and saw my shirt was drenched in blood. Smelly, metallic red. A horror. People used that word too lightly. I wanted to throw up but held it back. I had to go but didn’t want to but had to or else … I dug my burned-out book from the embers and dumped it in my backpack. Then I took off my shirt, shoved it in the bag, and put on the Syracuse sweatshirt.

  I bent over and, grabbing you by the armpits—they were still warm, a good sign—pulled you out of your dressing room and into the hallway. For a second, I thought about dragging you all the way to the hospital, but I smelled like a firecracker and was splattered with blood. You were a star; I was nothing. They wouldn’t believe a word I said. I set you down next to the wall, gently, like I imagined you’d put a baby to sleep, and I remember thinking distinctly, Now there’s something I’ll never do. You looked so graceful, like a blond china doll. My eyes filled with tears.

  “I’m going to get help,” I said, and turned and ran out the stage door. Pushing my way through the crowds on Forty-second Street, I was terrified each person I passed was going to stop me: Bing! You’re under arrest. After running a couple of blocks, I called 911 from a pay phone. When the operator answered, I said there was a fire, gave the name of the theatre, and quickly hung up. The rest is all a blur. I know I moved fast, probably not staying to the right, as I ran all the way to the West Side Highway. A helicopter flew overhead, and I was convinced they were coming for me. I felt like a wild animal. Hunted. And I deserved it. My heart was beating so fast I thought I’d have a heart attack and I kept repeating, “Please be alive, Brooke, please be alive.” I could barely get down the sickly air, so thick it obscured the yellow dot of sun, its heat pressing down on me. Sweating, pulsating, I crossed the highway and crawled onto a grimy wooden pier. It stank of piss and oil and seaweed. I leaned over and vomited, then, catching my breath, reached into my pants and took out the gun. The metal still felt hot. Holding it between my palms, I shut my eyes and blew on the side for good luck, thinking, What are you, crazy? I lifted it above my head and with a loud scream hurled the gun into the river.

  ASTEROIDS

  THEY SCATTERED HER ASHES underneath the old sugar maple. In a small ceremony restricted to family and a few close friends. There had been a funeral in Blue Bell, their tiny church overrun by more than two thousand mourners, many forced to remain outside listening through stereo speakers. At least it was summer and a glorious day for it. If one didn’t know any better—although it would have been a stretch to find some such person in town—the scene might have resembled the annual church picnic, minus a few punch bowls and barbecue tables, or one of those outdoor rock concerts Brooke had always loved. Closer, though, the tone was unmistakable: not a steady jaw among the masses who’d politely set out blankets, rising with the omnipotent vibrato coming from the speakers and bursting forth in tearful funeral hymns. Watching segments of it later on the local news, Mildred thought Brooke would have been pleased. Above all, she’d wanted to be adored.

  It was Cynthia who’d insisted on having her sister cremated, and in the absence of a will or any other written direction, they listened as she told them about a night she and Brooke had driven down to Tijuana, and while drinking shots of tequila underneath a net of twinkling constellations, promised never to let the other one be buried, each terrified of being caged in the earth, if perhaps for different reasons, and spooked by the prospect of having one’s life reduced to an inscription on a grave. “She never understood how people talked to tombstones, you know? She thought it would make much more sense to, you know, stand under a tree and say, ‘Oh, hey, here you are. I’ve got something to tell you …’” Cynthia choked up, which got Mildred going, imagining her daughters, after only two decades of life, barely old enough to vote or drink or drive, talking about death and dying in a way Mildred had never examined herself. Now that she thought about it, she’d just assumed they’d all end up together in one of the family plots. How remarkable that these two had discussed alternative plans, and how tragic that their world, so different from Mildred’s own, had warranted such a conversation … and yet they were right, Mildred thought, besieged by a deeper sadness than she’d ever known, waves of hopelessness infected with a clenching anger and resentment. She wanted the girl to die!

  Quickly, she pushed the thought aside—though in all her years she couldn’t remember ever having such trouble with repression. Festering over the next few days of outstretched arms, phone calls, pity casseroles, that feeling seeped into everything, morning and night, coloring her actions so that even an innocuous act like preparing her cup of tea brought visions of pouring the one-hundred-eighty-degree water over the girl, and then, of course, scalding herself for the evil act. Why couldn’t she be more like her husband? Her rock. So far he’d only cried one time that she knew of, that first day in the hospital when he pounded his fist through three layers of drywall and plaster in the operating room and shouted, “Goddamn you!” He was sedated and, a few hours later, had ten stitches knitted into his hand, which seemed to strengthen his lean-on-me shoulder. He was never far from Mildred when she needed a hug or a few soothing words, though the two of them often passed each other like soldiers in war films, moving slow-motion through a haze of useless opulence, everything couched in absurdity. Everything except the details. Tom had taken charge there, concentrating on the minutiae, perhaps to avoid the very feelings that Mildred herself couldn’t contain.

  She went to see the pastor. Ralph Rickett had baptized both of her daughters. He’d married Mildred and Tom, and in his heartfelt eulogy for Brooke had spoken about her in terms of the small-town girl they all knew, the one who’d visited Blue Bell Nursing Home since she was a child and who came back every year to see the play at the rec center, the young woman who above all honored and cherished her family. She believed the world was a wondrous, loving place, he’d said, and in her optimism she elevated us all. But Mildred was having trouble ascending. She wanted answers. She wanted justice. She wanted revenge. Ralph Rickett, if anyone, had to understand that.

  In his study, he took Mildred’s hands in his and explained that everything she was experiencing was indeed normal, and together they prayed, although Mildred couldn’t see what good it would do. God had obviously deserted their house. Still, she returned a few times more and, one day in an uncharacteristic display of emotion, confessed the anger, the guilt, her inability to occupy herself for longer than a minute, and again they prayed, Ralph guiding her with soft, easy words, at this point merely asking for guidance.

  “It’s not enough,” Mildred blurted out, springing from her seat.

  “Be patient, Mildred. Only through understanding will you be abl
e to forgive.”

  “I don’t want to forgive!” she shouted. “My daughter is gone. Don’t you see? She took her from me. She took away my baby …” Mildred cried, and Ralph Rickett came out from behind his desk and wrapped his arms around her, perhaps reasoning that she needed a friend more than a man of the cloth, and Mildred took comfort in his light offduty clasp, so different from her husband’s fervent clinging, a reminder of the agony they might never be able to squeeze from each other. How did anyone ever get through this? She cried deeply, wholeheartedly, as if it were the first time she’d shed a tear, and Ralph told her to embrace the grief, to let it flow, and soon her focus shifted to him. What a good man, she thought, living his life through the heightened moments, good and bad, of others, and for one second she could see how a pastor might take advantage of this situation—the priest who’d played opposite Brooke’s character on World Without End, for instance—and with that thought, she trembled, fearing something in her own composition had been permanently altered. “I’m becoming a bad person,” she said softly.

  “No, Mildred,” Ralph said, leading her back to her chair and kneeling in front of her. “You’ve suffered gravely. Whatever you’re feeling is entirely reasonable and true, and nobody will judge you for it, least of all God. He knows exactly what He’s handed you and how much and why.”

  “Do you expect me to believe there’s a reason for this?”

  Ralph sighed, “I think there is. Perhaps it’s something you and I will never know, but you’ve got to believe. Have faith in God, and He will take care of you.”

  “And if it were your daughter, Ralph?” Mildred spit out the words, ambushed by the bile in her own voice. She tried to lighten the tone. “Would you be sitting here telling me the same thing?”