Before Goodbye

by Mimi Cross

  She buries her face in her hands, and for half a minute, I just stand there. I so want to put my hand on her back, stroke her bowed head. But she twists away before I can touch her, sliding out of her chair, rocketing to her feet, running into the backyard, into the night.

  I don’t want to go, don’t want to leave. But I do want. I want so badly it hurts. I want—but I don’t know what I want. I want everything, it seems. I want the summer back, and I want music. I want—my mom, and something else. Something more.

  Now I feel a breeze—fingers through my hair, breath on my neck—but there is no breeze. I want to know what could have been. I want time to rewind.

  About to go, I spot a blue hoodie hanging off a patio chair, the word “SWIM” spelled out in disintegrating white block letters across the back. The faded blue is so familiar—I’ve seen it on David a hundred times.

  Tripping over to the chair, I snatch up the sweatshirt—

  But I don’t admit why I’m taking it, not even to myself.

  HOME

  CATE

  Laurel’s not in school the next day, so as soon as the bus drops me off, I do a little K—snorting it quickly, though it burns, so I can get going. Then I ride my bike—all slo-mo and dreamy now—through the drizzle to her house.

  Before I have a chance to knock, the polished mahogany door of the sprawling Tudor swings open and Dee pushes past me. She’s nothing but a scowling whirl of motion as she gets in her car and slams the driver’s side door. She starts the car, revs it. The tires squeal in protest as she pulls away.

  “Okay . . .” I waver on the doorstep, feeling not at all like myself yet completely like myself, pondering Dee’s speedy departure.

  “Not okay.” I startle at the sound of Laurel’s voice. She’s standing in the doorway. Her eyes are glassy and very red. I can’t tell if she’s been crying or if she’s high. Seems like, ever since she started hanging out with Dee, she’s one or the other.

  “Do you want to talk?” I ask.

  “Not really, but you obviously do.”

  “You got my million messages?”

  “And texts. Thought maybe skywriting was next. That’s what Dee’s going to have to spring for if she expects me to—” Laurel folds her lips. Then she says, “Sorry I didn’t get back to you.” She pulls me inside and into a hug, then she shuts the door.

  I follow her through the grand foyer—grand is the only word for it, for the entire house really. “Late twentieth-century castle” would not be a pretentious way to describe the Ridgeways’ palatial home with its surrounding gardens and acreage. Being here always makes me feel a little small, a little scruffy. At the same time I feel wonderfully welcome. My shoulders relax slightly.

  We settle on the cushioned window seat in the kitchen, one of our favorite spots. Laurel looks out over the formal back garden, allowing her gaze to wander the paths that curve and cross, then disappear down past the massive central fountain as the property slopes toward the same woods that my house backs up against. I wish she’d talk to me about what happened with Dee, but her eyes have turned steely, and I know what that means, so I go ahead.

  “Laurel. I have to talk to you. It’s Cal, he’s—”

  “Aw, Cate.”

  I wave a hand. “It’s not that; I’m okay, just listen—”

  “You’re obviously not okay, how could you be?” Mrs. Ridgeway says as she enters the kitchen.

  Anne Ridgeway is the opposite of my mother. She’s always around—and slightly round, where my mom is all sharp angles—and Laurel is the center of her world, in a good way. Mrs. Ridgeway isn’t a helicopter parent; she just loves Laurel. Could be part of why Laurel is slightly spoiled, but why shouldn’t she be? That’s what her mom says to us all the time: “Why shouldn’t I spoil my girls?”

  Today when she sees me, she looks relieved. Laurel has joked more than once that her mother wishes Laurel was dating me instead of Dee.

  I feel suddenly guilty that I’m high, but there’s nothing I can do besides try to ignore the rubbery feeling in my limbs and act normal.

  Mrs. Ridgeway sits down beside me and wraps me in a hug, kisses my hair. “How’s my other daughter?” She doesn’t release me, just pulls back enough to look into my face.

  Sometimes I think it’s when we have someone to lean on that we become unsteady. Lose our balance. Fall the hardest. Just like that, as soon as she asks how I am, my eyes fill with tears and I’m—flooded. That’s the only way to describe it. I start crying, can’t stop.

  Laurel and her mom both coo reassuring words that I’m sure they know can’t help the hurt, but what else can the two of them do?

  The words they use now have an entirely different definition than any dictionary would assign them. They say, “It’s okay,” but they mean, “We love you.” They say, “Everything happens for a reason,” but they mean, “Your pain is going to pass.” “Here’s a cup of tea” means “We’re here for you.”

  And they are. They pet my shoulders, pat my back. Laurel makes tea. Mrs. Ridgeway tells me to breathe, puts a pillow behind my back. Then she takes a fluffy mohair blanket from the back of a nearby couch and spreads it over me.

  And it’s that—the couch in the kitchen—that makes me hurt more but stops my tears. Because I realize this crying jag over Cal is like . . . a gateway. I miss him. I want his reflection in the mirror to be real, to believe that he’s here somehow, but that want is part of so much more want—a desire for a home I don’t have, with a mother who’s always there, a sister, a couch in the kitchen that says “Sit down where I can see you.” It’s the same as all the want I felt last night, the same ache that music gives me, the one I’m so sure Cal Woods understood.

  After finishing our tea, Laurel and I head up to her room. The pink cocoon, we call it.

  “There’s more,” she says as soon as she shuts the door. “Isn’t there?”

  “Yeah.” I tell her what happened, describing Cal’s reflection in the mirror. My voice grows shaky as I come to the most nebulous part, the breeze I felt that wasn’t a breeze but more like a touch. Then, although I hadn’t planned to, I recap the conversation with Bryn.

  “So that’s what happened to her. I mean she was always kind of a bitch, but when she took it up a couple notches, I started to wonder. Then she dyed her hair, and I knew it was something epic, but I never—God, I feel sick.”

  “I told her I’d help her.”

  Laurel nods. “Good, but what about you? Who’s going to help you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, my mom’s right. You’re not okay. And this idea, of seeing Cal—”

  “I am okay,” I say, feeling a scowl crease my forehead. “I’m fine. The show’s coming up; I’ve been practicing like mad.” I sound like shit, but still, as of yesterday, practicing like mad.

  “Yeah, well . . . Have you been sleeping? Eating? I mean, if you’re hallucinating—”

  “I wasn’t hallucinating. I saw him!” I become more agitated as I realize she doesn’t believe me. Oh, she wants to believe me, of course she does. But she’s always been the more grounded of the two of us, the sharper one. I might do better in school, but that’s because I put in the time. She’s the alpha. I’m the sidekick. And that’s okay. It’s always been fine with me, to let her throw the party, carry the conversation. Find the right words. But she can’t find them now, and a minute ticks by.

  Finally, she asks slowly, “Cate, have you been to the cemetery?”

  My stomach drops. “For the funeral. You were there.”

  She looks at me intently. “I think . . . it might be good for you to go again.”

  I start to object.

  “I’ll go with you,” she says.

  “What do you think, L? That seeing Cal’s gravestone again is going to—”

  A Killers’ tune rips through the room. Laurel’s cell jitters on the glass-topped dresser.

  “Loud enough or what? Must’ve had it set to deafen for some reason—oh yea
h, so I’d be able to hear it over Dee’s bitching.” She jumps up and grabs her cell, glances at the screen.

  “Bryn Bennet,” she says into the phone. “Hiya.”

  Laurel might have a wicked competitive streak, but she has her mother’s heart. Now that she knows what Bryn’s been through . . .

  L’s not a small-talk kind of person, but she’s making it now, just to be nice, asking Bryn about school, about whatever.

  Even though I don’t want to admit it, I’m pissed at Laurel for not believing me, angry that she’s suggested I go visit Cal’s grave. I don’t find it generous that she’s offered to go with me and hold my hand—I find it patronizing.

  But I don’t wait around to say these things to her, because I know I won’t. And even though Laurel is pointing at the phone, I don’t wait to find out why Bryn of all people is calling. I just slip out the door, ignoring Laurel when she hollers after me—

  “Cate! Bryn says don’t tell anyone. She says you know what she means, don’t tell.”

  STATIC

  CATE

  Over the next few days and nights I practice so much that even my parents are worried.

  Sometimes they knock on my door. I ask them, nicely, to go away.

  I blow off my homework. Blow off my life. Still, my guitar sounds like a stranger.

  Some nights I get high before bed. When I give in to sleep, I dream about Cal. I wake up with songs in my head.

  Sometimes I don’t know it’s a dream, and I think Cal’s in the room with me—is he? Those times, it’s like a chess game—I can only plot so many moves ahead, can only see so far behind. So I don’t ask Cal a million questions, like, “What happened after the crash?” “What happens when you die?” Instead, I cling to this moment. My move. I want to play music.

  Except once, I ask him, “What’s it like?”

  It’s like buzzing inside. Like static.

  “L-like a TV screen, when the picture goes bad? Like the Internet dropping, is that it?”

  He shakes his head. Tucks his hair behind his ears.

  Nervous laughter bubbles up from somewhere inside me then—but it’s from the wrong place. It’s from the place that produces screams, I think. It’s a strangled, choking sound.

  The wind lifts my hair and I reach up to smooth it—

  Waking myself up. I’m in a sitting position already. Sleep-sitting. Thoughts muddled. Wind in my bedroom.

  I spin toward the windows— they’re both closed. Cal, of course, is not here.

  And—he is not at Carnegie Hall.

  This time it’s me who’s onstage, at the Weill Recital Hall. (And straight as an arrow for the occasion.)

  This isn’t a dream—though it feels surreal—the date has finally arrived.

  Weill Hall is an intimate place, not like Stern Auditorium where Cal played. It holds two hundred and fifty people or so, not two thousand, but still, I’m all tingly.

  Tonight Weill Hall holds my dad and my mom, and Laurel and her mother. It holds the other participants’ parents, and possibly the founders of Strings with Wings, and definitely the president and administrators of its child company, Pupils with Promise. Most important, Weill Recital Hall holds a handful of men and women from the audition panel of Juilliard, the Manhattan School of Music, and several other conservatories, including Eastman.

  Laurel told me tonight that I look luminous, and I believe her. In the mirror I’d been black-and-white, all dark gown and pale shoulders, nude lips, hair in a low bun, wound tight.

  And now, straight-backed, feet flat—jaw slack (lips together, teeth apart)—I begin.

  My guitar is in my arms, as close as the lover I’ve never had. Fingers arched, hands hovering, really, I’ve already started. Before the first note slips from the sound hole, I’m playing the music.

  See me now, a statue: dress draping, neck swanlike, left foot on a folding stool like every classical guitarist the world over. This is me, who I am.

  Where I go, what I do—it may all depend on this single performance.

  The first of Leo Brouwer’s Estudios Sencillos—simple studies—spins out quickly from beneath my fingers, then ends abruptly after only a minute. I pause, as I should, then continue with the second.

  Number two slows things down, raising goosebumps on my arms, hardening my nipples. No matter how many times I play it, it never ceases to captivate me.

  I hope the audience feels the same—but then I’m on the third étude, in it. There’s no time to hope—no time, period. A violently beautiful burst of sound, it’s over before I can breathe.

  Number four always throws me a little, maybe because the third étude is so short, or maybe because of the 5/4 time signature.

  Cal, this is the one that gets me. You always made it sing.

  And then I’m at five, meaningless to me except that it reminds me of an old song by R.E.M., and for the millionth time I swear I’m going to send an email to those guys. Six is about speed and steadiness and gorgeous harmonies. Étude seven is marked, Lo más rápido posible (as fast as possible). Eight is almost two studies, with a fast and a slow section, and nine is divided into three. Ten is very rhythmic with a slightly elusive downbeat—

  Then it’s over, but I barely notice the applause, certainly don’t take the time to feel it, to pull in the praise. I simply move on to Bach’s Chaconne. Segovia’s transcription is unparalleled . . .

  The finish of the Bach brings more applause, and cheers of “Bravo!” as well. But I couldn’t care less. I’m finally here, the place I’ve been heading all evening: Quatre Pièces Brèves.

  Frank Martin’s harmonic dreamscape spreads out in time before me like a destination.

  Written in 1933, this piece hits me in a way no other ever has. As soon as I begin the Prelude with its single sustained tone, I’m somewhere else. There are mountains in this movement, pastoral plains. Quatre Pièces Brèves has a mysterious prayer-like sensuality I’m afraid I may never fully understand, but I love it. I dive into it. Imagine it dives into me.

  At some point while the music cascades over me, I realize I’m slightly out of control. There is an emotion building in me that has nothing to do with how I feel about this piece. But the music continues unwinding from my fingers, like magic, so I don’t check myself.

  Cal would, he’d reel it in. He’d never let the tempo get away from him like this.

  Something at the back of the hall catches my eye. The flash of a camera or—

  Focus. Cal would focus.

  The music flies, almost plays itself now, but—

  Cal. He would have played it better. Played it perfectly. He would have had total control.

  Suddenly, in some unfair, twisted trick of time, the first few glorious movements of the piece are behind me, and I’m at the last movement of the Martin, Comme une Gigue, which is not a jig at all, but a deceptively disordered jitter. I don’t have a second to spare now, for thinking, for worrying, for . . .

  Remembering.

  Thoughts jostle in my mind, but there’s no time. Don’t think, just play.

  But again, at the back of the hall, something flashes, something white, too bright.

  Still my fingers don’t slip.

  The audience isn’t supposed to take pictures, but—the flare of white, it comes once more.

  And I realize now it’s not from the audience; they’re unmoving, an ocean of eyes. The white slice like a sickle—

  It’s a smile.

  It’s a fierce thing, the sickle smile, as it cracks into the front of my consciousness. It sits below hooded eyes in a too-handsome face. It is framed with full lips that are gluttonous and cruel and coming down hard on mine—

  My nails trip on the strings—

  And then I hear it. It’s like buzzing inside. Like static.

  But not static—words.

  Here, wrap your lips around this—

  My eyes close for the briefest moment and I see Cal Woods, walking into a burst of light—not white light, but fier
y blueyellowred—then I feel my skin crawl as Rod Whitaker’s big, almost-man hand—but really a man’s hand, yes, a man’s hand—pulls hard on my hair.

  My head snaps back—

  The music—

  Stops.

  Because I stop. I just—stop playing.

  But inside me, the sound doesn’t stop. It’s like buzzing. Like static. Those words.

  Like a bolt I am up— gone from my seat, leaving the stage.

  Minutes later, backstage, there are more words, and the echoes of words, as everyone—Marion, Mom, Dad—all say the same thing.

  What happened?

  It’s as if there are only two words left in the universe.

  What happened? What happened?

  I, at least, have three.

  Three words that break open a black abyss inside of me—

  I don’t know.

  FRUIT

  DAVID

  Kimmy has a new babysitter. She is not happy.

  I am not happy.

  Sonya, however, the new sitter, seems very happy. And horny.

  Sonya arrived at our house for the first time today, with a frowning Kimmy in tow. In the seven hours she’s been here, she’s brushed up against me like a wayward cat in search of milk at least twice, maybe more. I’m not sure of the number, because I didn’t count the first time or two. Just chalked up the casual collision of Sonya’s breast with my bicep to her being kind of—bouncy, or to me being in the way. Her hip bumping mine in the kitchen . . . had to be accidental.

  But Kimmy’s in bed now, so there can be no excuse, no coincidence that brings Sonya to my bedroom. I hear footsteps—one, two, three—someone ascending to my door.

  She doesn’t knock, just enters, her mouth forming a little O as if she’s surprised. “Sorry! Didn’t realize this was your room.”

  I don’t ask her whose room she thought it was, I just wait for the rest.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  “Ah—” She’s caught me off guard with this. All at once I’m acutely aware that I’ve just come from a shower and am wearing a towel like a skirt. She seems aware of it, too—her eyes are everywhere. Finally I say, “I don’t.”