How Many Letters Are In Goodbye? (15 page)

I start to laugh too, roll back to face her. “Imagine if he knew. What was in that flask anyway?”

“I don't know, but it was super strong,” Laurie says. “I think he had a whole plan worked out to get me drunk. He asked me on the way back which room was ours.”

“Did he?” I don't know why it shocks me so much to hear that, but it does. “Did you tell him?”

“No,” Laurie goes, “I told him about Mike—that I have a boyfriend. Don't worry, we won't be getting any company.”

There's silence for a second and I wonder if she'd have asked me first. What I would have done if Jamie did show up at the door.

“If it hadn't been for Mike, would you have? I mean, do you like him?”

I've never asked her anything like that before, we don't talk about that kind of stuff. She makes me wait before she answers.

“I don't know. Maybe,” she says. “He's cute, don't you think?”

“I suppose.”

“I mean, here, he's cute. If you took him home, like brought him to school, he'd just look weird.”

“Yeah,” I go. “Imagine him getting on the school bus in his cowboy outfit.”

I think she's going to laugh again, but instead she says something else. “Maybe I should've said he could come over. Mike's not here. He'd never know. Anyway, I'd only make out with Jamie or whatever, I wouldn't do anything else.”

I want to ask her about the “anything else.” She's a year younger than me but I bet she's done more than I have.

“Mmmmm,” I say instead.

There's silence for a bit then but I know she's not asleep yet, her breathing hasn't changed.

“So, have you slept with Mike?”

I launch the words out, like a missile into the dark. I don't know why I want to know, but I do. I'm glad that she can't see me. I hear her breathe in before she answers.

“No,” she goes. “But I might, later in the summer. I've let him get to third base.”

I don't know what these American bases mean, but I can probably work it out. I'm afraid she'll ask me something next but she keeps talking.

“Tanya let Chris Trifiro go all the way and she said it was overrated. That it hurt more than anything else.”

“Yeah,” I go. “I'd say it would.”

I say that on purpose, to let her know I haven't done it without her having to ask, but she asks anyway.

“You've never done it with anyone?”

“No.”

“No one back in Ireland?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

I shrug, even though she can't see me. “I don't know, I think you've got to like someone a lot to do it, you know, love them a bit.”

“Was there anyone you wanted to do it with in Ireland?”

“No.”

“So, you've never loved anyone? Like, been in love, I mean?”

The question catches me off guard and I take too long to answer. Laurie hears the pause.

“There was someone! Who? Tell me!”

“There's no one.”

“Rae, I can tell when you're lying. Come on, I was honest with you, it's not fair if you don't tell me.”

I lie there, breathing.

“I thought we were starting to be friends, Rae, but we can't be friends if you don't trust me.”

“I do trust you!” I don't know if I do or not but right then it seems like the right thing to say.

“Well, then? Who is he?”

“No one. There is no ‘he,' Laurie, I'm telling you.”

That's the end of it, I think it is, but I don't count on what she's going to say next.

“Is there a ‘she'?”

In the dark, I'm wondering if I heard her right, if she really said what I think she did. I'm trying to figure out how to answer, but she speaks next.

“It is a girl, isn't it? I knew it! I don't care, it's no big deal, loads of people have girl crushes.”

Girl crushes.
I've never heard that before. I want to ask her how she knew, but saying that, saying anything, would let her know she's right.

“Come on, Rae, tell me something about her. What's her name?”

And I don't know if I want to tell her then, but it's more like I need to tell her. I need to tell someone.

“Nicole.”

I can barely hear my voice over the bam bam of my heart.

“Nicole? Nicole what?”

“Gleeson.”

“Nicole Gleeson.”

Laurie says it slowly, like it's the name of a film star. I'm in Montana, thousands of miles away from Rush, but I'm on the 33 as well, with Nicole's leg pushed up against mine.

“What does she look like?” Laurie goes.

“It doesn't matter.”

“Is she gorgeous? I bet she's gorgeous.”

It feels weird, the question, and I don't know how to answer, so I don't.

“Is she dark? Like you?”

I'm about to tell Laurie that Nicole has blonde hair, but something stops me, makes me lie.

“Yeah, she's dark.”

“Do you have a photo of her? Back at home? You can show me,
if you want.”

My school annual is under my bed with a class photo where Nicole is a blur of black and white, but the real photos are in my head.

“No,” I go. “I don't have any.”

She doesn't say anything after that and I don't either. I'm lying there thinking about Nicole. After ages, Laurie talks again.

“In case you're worried about me telling anyone you're a lesbian, I won't, okay?”

The matter-of-fact way she says it sends a jolt through me.

“Shut up, I'm not a lesbian!”

“Rae, you just told me—”

I can't let her finish her sentence, can't let her say that word again.

“Don't ever say that, Laurie, I'm serious.”

“Okay,” she goes. “Okay.”

“You were the one who said loads of people had girl crushes, it doesn't make them all, all—lesbians.”

I say it low, in case the family next door can hear through the log wall, in case Aunt Ruth and Cooper can, all the way from the end of the hallway.

“Whatever,” Laurie goes. “Whatever, Rae. Whatever you say.”

She doesn't say anything else about it, not that night, even though we both lie awake for what seems like hours, and she doesn't say anything in the morning when we're packing or on the journey back to Florida. And I wonder if maybe she forgot because of the drink Jamie gave us, the way Dad used to forget things sometimes.

And after ages of her not saying anything, weeks and then a month, I think that must be what happened, that she has forgotten, even though deep down I'm afraid she hasn't.

Deep down, I'm waiting for her to bring it up again.

Rhea

King Street, New York
2nd May 1999
2:33 a.m.

Dear Mum,

I've been doing this all wrong. I don't know why I didn't work it out before, that it's better to sleep during the day, that it's safer, way safer than doing it at night. The thing to do at night is keep moving, keep walking, look like you're going somewhere. So that's what I've been doing tonight, because I don't want to spend money on the subway and I'm a dumbass for not sleeping today.

It's not until Seventh turns into Varick that I realise I'm walking to Michael's apartment. I don't know why I am, it doesn't make sense. I don't go to Grand Central or Penn Station because I don't want to see Sergei, but I come here, to a place that reminds me of him.

So that's where I am now, sitting on my step across the street, like the night I waited for Sergei, only I'm not waiting for Sergei now. I'm only sitting here because I'm tired and I need a break from walking. The light in Michael's apartment is off, so he's probably asleep, which is a good thing because if he sees me, he could call the police because he probably thinks I stole his money. In the apartment next door, the light is still on and I wonder if that means the neighbours are fighting or fucking tonight.

Sex changes everything, doesn't it? Did you ever think it might be easier if there was no such thing as sex? If people were just friends and that was it? Like Sergei and Michael—if they hadn't been having sex, if they'd just been friends, I bet they'd never have fought. I bet we'd still be there.

Sex was what got me and Laurie grounded last summer, a few weeks after the Montana holiday. After we got back, Laurie started inviting me to parties with her and I'd been going. Cooper and Aunt Ruth thought we were going to the movies or to people's houses where their parents were supervising us. They were happy we were hanging out together, you could see it in the smiles they gave each other at the dinner table when we were telling them our weekend plans. They thought the smiles were secret, that we didn't notice, but I noticed and I bet Laurie did too.

I didn't enjoy the parties much. They were just kids getting drunk or stoned and falling in people's pools. They reminded me of the “Freers at Rhea's” the winter before Dad died when girls I was never even friendly with at school started to call in on Friday nights and pretend they wanted to hang around with me, but really it was because they knew I'd have a freer. The first weekend, it was Therese Roberts and Nikki Hartnett, and then Ronan Barry and John Duffy and Dominic Kelly called in with some cans. They came the weekend after too, and so did Tracey Dorgan and Alan Roche, and the next weekend Susan Mulligan called in and smiled and said “Hi, Rhea” as if she always called for me, and I let her in too. And even though Lisa said they were all only using me—even though I knew they were—it was kind of fun all the same. It wasn't anything to do with Nicole either—she was always at her dad's at weekends—it was just that I liked having the house full of people, playing Dad's Hendrix records for them and making batch toast for everyone.

It was fun, that's all. It's fun until the night I come in and I find Susan Mulligan and Therese Roberts in my room, and Susan Mulligan is ripping the fold in the subway map with her nail and Therese is on her hunkers, looking into the bedside locker where I keep your photos and the Carver book and saying something about you that's really horrible and that's not true. And that's when I kick her in the back, hard; I didn't know she was going to fall over, that she'd cut her face on the corner of the locker door. I didn't know she'd freak out when she saw the blood.

That's the last of the “Freer at Rhea's” weekends. Susan Mulligan's face is all mean as she walks out with her arm around Therese and she tells me I'll be sorry. At school she calls me Diarrhoea, which she hasn't done since about fifth class, but it sounds even more stupid now and she stops after a few days.

The parties me and Laurie go to are mostly in Shannon's house, because her father and mother are in Europe and Shannon's older brother is supposed to look after things but he's never there.

They're younger than me, most of the kids at the parties, because they're in Laurie's grade, and even though I recognise them from school, I don't know most of them. I make friends with Spencer at the first party, when he asks me to play euchre with him and I do. That's what we do all the time after that, me and Spencer, play euchre while he drinks neat vodka and I drink Coke. That night, we're playing by the pool and I'm winning for once. Nearly all the other kids are getting off with each other by then, on the loungers around the pool or upstairs. I don't want to get off with anyone and Spencer only wants to get off with Erica Simons, who's getting off with Jason Tomback. I'm keeping an eye on the time, because my job is to get Laurie from where she is upstairs with Mike when it's getting close to our curfew. I know she's using me, Mum, just like Susan Mulligan and Therese Roberts, but I'm kind of using her too. Glenda's away with her family for a whole month, and Cooper won't give me all the shifts I want in the restaurant, and playing euchre with Spencer is better than sitting at home with Aunt Ruth.

I never did find out how Cooper knew we were there, at Shannon's. It's before our curfew when he shows up—he should have still been at the restaurant—but he's in the kitchen, coming through the double doors onto the patio, waving my prosthetic in one hand.

He comes right over and I don't remember what I say, or if I say anything, but he's shouting about how much the prosthetic cost and that he didn't pay all that money so some dipshit could use it to fondle himself. Spencer is cracking up laughing but I can't look at him, because I'll start laughing too and that'll make it worse.

Cooper throws the prosthetic into my lap. “Put it on. We're going.”

He's looking around the pool, his eyes squinting trying to make out who's who. I'm fiddling with the straps and they're even more awkward than usual.

“Where's Laurie?” he goes then, when he realises she's none of the people by the pool. “Where the fuck is Laurie?”

Shannon is coming over and he grabs her arm, spilling her drink. She giggles and gestures inside. “She's upstairs, Mr. Wilson. You want me to get her?”

I should have done something then, I should have acted quicker, but Cooper's already dropped Shannon's arm and pushed past her, through the double doors, back into the kitchen. I'm behind him and Spencer is behind me, all of us running around the kitchen counter, up the stairs. On the landing, the doors are open, all of them are, except for one at the end, and that's the one Cooper charges towards.

Me and Spencer get there in time to see what Cooper sees, Laurie with no top on, Mike grabbing a sheet from the bed to cover himself up as he runs to the corner. Cooper doesn't pause, if anything he speeds up as he strides into the room, his legs and his arms all one motion as he picks Mike up and holds him against the wall before punching him straight in the face, twice, three times.

Laurie's screaming and there's blood and then Mike's on the ground, his hands over his head, and Spencer is trying to grab Cooper's arms and someone on the landing is yelling about calling 911.