When the Beat Drops

by Anna Hecker

  “You’re making this into a bigger deal than it needs to be,” she says.

  “Just give it to me.”

  She rolls her eyes, but hands it over. “If her parents ground her for the rest of the summer, we’re blaming you.”

  I ignore her and turn on the phone. My stomach contracts as I flip through the contacts, my fingers clumsy on the keyboard. I find Mom and press CALL before I can think too hard about how awful this is going to be.

  “Yelena, zdravstvuy.” A woman’s voice answers in Russian on the third ring. It’s even gruffer than Yelena’s, deep and smoky, and it makes my heart plummet.

  “Mrs. Andreyev?” My voice feels thin and forced.

  “Hello, yes. Yelena? Who is this?”

  “I’m Mira. Yelena’s friend. Britt’s sister?” I look over at Britt but she’s placing Yelena’s items back in the doll’s belly, as precisely as if she were doing surgery.

  “Yes. What is it? Where is Yelena?”

  “Um, that’s why I’m calling.” I feel like my throat is closing up. “I’m so sorry, but Yelena’s in the hospital. You need to get here as soon as you can.”

  “What?” Panic rises in the woman’s voice like a startled flock of birds. “Who is this? Is this a prank?”

  “I’m sorry. It isn’t a prank.” I fight back tears as I give her the name and address of the hospital. “I’m with Britt right now. We think she’ll be okay, but we don’t know.”

  There’s a scrape and static on the other end of the line, and I hear Mrs. Andreyev conversing with a man in rapid Russian. A few minutes later she’s back.

  “You’re a friend?” she asks again. “From the camping trip?”

  “A friend.” I dig my fingernails into my leg.

  “Something happened?” She sounds lost. “Did she break a leg? Was it a bear?”

  Every word out of her mouth makes this worse. “She collapsed,” I say, just above a whisper. “We don’t know why. She’s with the doctors now. But you should come. Soon.”

  There’s more static, more muffled Russian conversation.

  “Fine,” she says brusquely. “This better not be a joke.” She confirms the hospital’s address one more time, tells me they’ll be here as soon as they can, and hangs up. I slump over and rest my elbows on my knees, staring at a patch of pale green tile on the waiting room floor.

  We sit like that for another hour before Britt caves and lets me go get us warmer clothes. I charge my phone and flip aimlessly through Shay’s Instagram, which is filled with filter-heavy festival pics of her and her friends in front of the stages. I text Derek to tell him what happened.

  OMG, he texts back. Is she ok? Are YOU ok??

  I text back that I hope so. That I don’t know. That I’ll keep him posted.

  A couple of times I try to talk to the nurse at the check-in station, but since we’re not family nobody will tell us what’s going on. We’re practically frozen with boredom and fear by the time the hospital doors swing open and an older couple rushes in. The woman is stout, with bleach-blond curls piled on top of her head, but I recognize the curve of her mouth and her huge, dark eyes—Yelena’s eyes. I nudge Britt as they hurry to the check-in window.

  The nurse asks them to wait. A moment later a doctor comes out. Britt and I leap to attention, straining at the edges of our seats. The doctor says something to Yelena’s parents and the three of them disappear down a hall.

  I jump up. The doctor knows something; it’s obvious. Britt grasps my hand and we rush through the waiting room and into the hall. I keep expecting someone to stop us: a nurse, an orderly, anyone. But nobody’s paying attention.

  The doctor ushers Yelena’s parents into an office and shuts the door. We stare helplessly at the bland, pale wood as his voice rumbles unintelligibly behind it. I’m about to press my ear against the door when a high-pitched wail pierces the air, stopping my blood in its veins. It sounds inhuman, like a wolf chewing off its own leg.

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor says, louder now. His voice is like petrified wood. “I’m so sorry.”

  The wail rises again, turning my blood to ice.

  “Mrs. Andreyev …” the doctor begins. The door in front of me swims out of focus. Blood roars in my ears.

  “You’re lying!” Mrs. Andreyev gasps, despair and venom spitting through her Russian accent. “She’s only twenty-one years old! She’s strong as an ox!”

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor says for a third time. My knees buckle, and I sink to the floor. “I know how difficult this must be.”

  “She can’t be,” Mrs. Andreyev chokes.

  Britt’s face turns to ashes.

  “This must be a mistake,” Mr. Andreyev says.

  Britt collapses next to me, her hand flailing for mine.

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor sounds helpless. “We did everything we could.”

  The roar in my head drowns out his words, Mrs. Andreyev’s wails, everything. I grope for Britt’s hand and find it, and it’s the coldest thing I’ve ever touched.

  CHAPTER 24

  It’s raining when we leave the hospital, drops hitting the pavement in warm, angry bursts that send steam spiraling into the humid air. Britt stops once we’re through the doors, tilting her face to the sky so the water streams down her cheeks and turns her hair to sodden ribbons.

  “Come on.” I take her arm, guiding her to the car. “We’re getting wet.”

  “Mmmmm,” she says, letting me lead her like a child. She’s humming a tune that sounds familiar, although I can’t quite place it, and she’s wearing Yelena’s backpack on her chest so the doll bounces against her as she walks. She doesn’t seem to notice where we’re going, or to care.

  But I notice everything: the rain seeping through my sneakers and wrinkling the skin of my toes, the protesting squeak of windshield wipers as I pull out of the hospital parking lot, the specter of Yelena’s two giant suitcases rising from the back seat. The world seems too close and too real, too sharp around the edges. I keep waiting for it to take on the blurred quality of a dream, soft and surreal, so I can wake up all over again in the warmth of Derek’s van and none of today would have happened.

  But there’s the back seat in my rearview mirror, the spot where Yelena laughed and chattered all the way from Connecticut to Pennsylvania, now silent and empty. There’s my sister staring through the windshield at nothing, her face closed and gray.

  The drive home takes hours, the rain and holiday traffic turning the highway into miles of red brake lights and frustrated sighs. Somewhere around Scranton, Britt leans her head against the window, but her fingers never loosen their grip around the doll’s plastic arm so I know she’s not asleep. I want to put on music, long for the comfort of one of Grandpa Lou’s jazz tapes to soothe away this hurt, but even the most mournful blues aren’t sad enough for this. Instead I hunch my shoulders against the erratic whine of the LeSabre’s windshield wipers, hit the brake in time to the patter of rain on the windshield.

  I can feel Britt’s shock rising off of her like steam, my grief a lump that won’t leave my throat. I want to say something that will bring us together again and make this all right. But nothing will make this all right.

  The sky is dark and I’ve just crossed the town border into Coletown when Britt turns to me, her eyes suddenly focused and sharp.

  “Mira,” she says, and to my surprise her voice has the bossy quality of the old Britt, the one who hid animal crackers under her pillow when we were kids and made me promise to cover for her when she snuck out to parties in high school. “We can’t tell Mom and Dad.”

  “What?” The LeSabre swishes through a puddle, splattering water on the side of the car.

  “About Yelena.” She sounds impatient.

  “Why?” I can’t imagine not telling Mom and Dad. It would be like trying to hide an elephant under my bed.

  “Don’t you know how stressed they’ve been?” She puts a hand on my arm, her fingers bitter cold. “All they ever talk about is th
e gym going under.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “If they find out about this, it’ll break them.” Britt speaks clearly and calmly, enunciating every word. “Dad’s still sad about Grandpa Lou and Mom’s freaking out about our finances. They’re barely holding it together as it is.”

  “I know,” I sigh, squinting into the rain. “But don’t you think they’d want us to tell them? Don’t you think they’d want to be there for us, no matter what?”

  “Like they were there for you when Grandpa Lou died?”

  Her words land like lead. Grandpa Lou’s death happened to coincide with the new Crunch opening across town and Britt going off to college. Our parents managed to organize the funeral, empty out his apartment, and sell off his possessions, but they didn’t have a lot of time or energy left over to comfort me as I drifted through the house like a tear-swollen ghost.

  Britt was the one who was there for me instead, messaging every day to ask if I was okay and sending me goofy GIFs to cheer me up. If it hadn’t been for her and Crow and Nicky, I don’t know if I would have survived those first few months.

  “Look, this is already bad,” Britt says. “Listening to Mom and Dad freak out about it will just make everything worse.”

  I sigh, sinking back against the seat. “I don’t know, Britt. I’ll try, okay? But if they ask—I can’t make any promises.”

  “Fine.” Britt turns away, resting her head on the window. She keeps it there until we’re parked and our engine is off. The house is dark; our parents must still be at the gym, although I can’t imagine anyone is working out at this time of night on a holiday weekend.

  “Do you want the first shower?” I ask, grabbing my duffel bag from the trunk.

  “No.” She drags one of Yelena’s oversized suitcases from the car. “I just want to go to bed.”

  “Okay,” I pause at the foot of the stairs, put the bags down, and hug her cold, stooped shoulders. “Knock on my door if you need anything. I love you, okay?”

  “Mrrrrmph,” she replies, dragging the suitcase up the stairs. I’m too tired to ask why she grabbed Yelena’s suitcase instead of her own. All I want is to get under a stream of water so hot my skin can hardly stand it, then put on fresh pajamas and crawl into bed.

  But even after I’ve scrubbed my skin until it’s raw and steaming, even after I’ve put on my favorite oversized Windham T-shirt and green plaid boxers and pulled the covers over my head, today’s memories crash and burn in my mind. Yelena seizing in the dirt. The sad siren on the EMT golf cart. Yelena’s mother’s inhuman wail.

  I’ve held it together all day, keeping my cool for Derek and the paramedics and Yelena’s parents and, most of all, for Britt. But now I can’t anymore. A plume of grief wells up and catches in my throat, erupting in a ragged sob. Grandpa Lou dying was hard enough, but at least I understood it: he was old, and he kept smoking even after his doctor and everyone else begged him to stop. But Yelena wasn’t old, and she wasn’t sick. I can’t believe she’s just gone.

  Suddenly I want my mom more than anything in the world: just to hear her voice, to know she’s still here. I won’t say anything about what happened unless she asks me. I promised my sister that, and I keep my promises.

  I call Mom’s cell first, but she doesn’t pick up. When it goes to voice mail I try the gym’s landline. She never ignores that, not when it could be someone wanting to join. She picks up on the third ring, sounding frazzled and out of breath.

  “Mom.” I struggle to steady my voice. “It’s me. Mira.”

  “Mira! Can this wait? That pipe in the basement burst again; I’m up to my knees in water.”

  My voice catches. “I guess…. ”

  “Great! Love you, Mir-Bear!” She hangs up, leaving the dial tone buzzing in my ears.

  Slowly, tears still streaming down my cheeks, I bring the phone to my side. I want to call back and tell her to hire a plumber and stop trying to fix everything with hope and duct tape. But I know they don’t have the money and I realize now that Britt was right; Mom and Dad really do have a lot on their minds. Telling them about Yelena, and expecting them to fix a problem that can’t be fixed, would only make things worse.

  It’s not just the pipe in the basement. Our whole world is falling apart.

  CHAPTER 25

  I call Nicky, my face a mess of tears. I don’t care anymore about our petty argument; I’ll apologize a thousand times just to hear one of his acerbic cracks. When it goes to voice mail I dial him again.

  Pick up, I text him. Emergency. SOS.

  On the fourth ring of my fourth call, he answers.

  “Jesus, Mira.” I hear music and laughter in the background, and realize he must be at the Visitors’ Weekend dance. I long to be there with him, so much it makes my lungs ache. “What do you want?”

  “Nicky …” My voice catches. I can’t move on to whatever comes next.

  “Yes, that’s me. Glad you remembered.”

  “Don’t be like that. Please.” The words come out as a gasp. “I need you.”

  “Oh, now you need me?” I picture his cheeks flaring pink the way they always do when he’s upset. “You sure didn’t need me this weekend.”

  “I’m sorry. I fucked up,” I sob into the speaker. “And now everything’s broken, and I can’t … there’s nothing …” My words tumble over each other, cracked and leaking tears.

  “Mira. Jesus. It’s not that bad.” I hear a door shut, and the background noise dies away. “That was some serious drama, but I was going to forgive you eventually.”

  I choke on a sob. “I’m sorry,” I say again. “It’s not just that. It’s … Nicky, it’s really bad.”

  “How bad?” Another door shuts in the background, and there’s a chorus of crickets. He must be outside now, standing on the porch overlooking the lake. “It’s not like anyone died.”

  A wail tears past my lips before I can stop it. I clamp my hand to my mouth, hoping Britt didn’t hear.

  “Jesus,” Nicky says for the third time. There’s a long pause, and then, very quietly: “Did someone die?”

  Through choking sobs, I tell him about Yelena, about my set and Derek and Electri-City, about the weekend that started out like heaven and then turned to hell. “Oh, and I lost my virginity,” I finish. “Not that it even matters, now.”

  “Whoa.” Nicky exhales slowly, his breath releasing static into the line. “And I thought my weekend was crazy ’cause Crow’s parents brought éclairs.”

  I laugh a little in relief. That’s exactly the Nicky I was craving. “I don’t know what to do,” I say. “This is like a nightmare.”

  “Sounds like it.” Nicky’s voice is soft and soothing. “I wish I was there to give you a hug.”

  I sniffle. “Me too. I miss you guys so much. Both of you.”

  “Yeah.” There’s a pause on the other line. “We miss you too. Even though Crow refuses to admit it.”

  I curl up with my head under my covers, the glow from my phone turning the space into a small green cave. “Is there anything I can do?”

  He sighs. “I can try to run damage control. I’ll tell her what happened to you this weekend. But eventually, you have to talk to her yourself.”

  “I know.” I rearrange the covers over my head. “I will.”

  There’s a comfortable silence as I struggle to control my breathing. Gently, almost like a lullaby, Nicky tells me about Visitors’ Weekend, about Crow’s anti-“Embraceable You” rant and the cocktail wieners they served in the dining hall and meeting the parents of Sidney, the boy he has a crush on. I close my eyes and half listen, letting the cadence of his voice lull me into a place where it almost seems like everything is okay.

  Then I hear another voice in the background, calling Nicky’s name. A male voice.

  “Mira …” he begins, his voice tinged with pleading.

  “It’s okay,” I say, realizing he’s been missing the dance—his first-ever dance with a boy he likes, one who likes him back—to s
tand outside and talk me off a ledge. “You should go.”

  “Okay,” he sighs. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

  “You too,” I say. “And thank you. For everything.”

  We hang up and I drop my phone onto my mattress, plunging my blanket cave into darkness. But as soon as I close my eyes I see Yelena’s face again, pasty and slick with sweat. I hear the thud of her body hitting the ground and the growl of DJ Skizm’s track and Britt’s agonized shrieking. And then I think of Grandpa Lou wheezing in a hospital bed, his body skinny as a spider and covered in tubes and wires.

  My eyes fly open and I reach for the light. This is too much death for one year; too much death for one lifetime. And even though I’m exhausted, I know it’s going to be a long, long time before I can sleep.

  CHAPTER 26

  All I want is an iced coffee. It’s been a week since Yelena died and I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since. Now, as I knock on Britt’s door, exhaustion makes the world shimmer around me like a desert mirage.

  “Come in!” Britt calls. I turn the knob with one hand and yank at my recital dress with the other. It’s made of black polyester that sticks to my skin in the heat, but it’s the only thing I own that can pass for funeral attire.

  Britt’s reflection smiles at me from her mirror. She’s wearing a backless shirt and shiny silver leggings.

  “You can’t wear that!” I exclaim.

  “Why not?” Britt turns, a mascara wand in her hand. Her computer speakers vibrate with a familiar tech-house track.

  “To a funeral?” I march to her desk and turn the music down. “It’s totally inappropriate.”

  “Oh.” She flicks her hand dismissively. “I’m not going to the funeral.”

  “Seriously?” I don’t have time for this. If we don’t leave now, we won’t have time to stop for coffee. “Come on. Yelena was your best friend.”

  “Exactly.” She bats her eyes at the mirror, reminding me of Yelena in the Dream campground right before my set. A rush of grief blocks my throat. “I knew her better than anyone. She’d want everyone to go out dancing, and have fun. She hates when people are sad.”