Last Train to Babylon (19 page)

Thursday, October 9, 2014.

I
DRUM MY
newly manicured fingers to a frantic beat over the wood counter. The deep red polish reflects the overhead lights of the liquor store. I'd gone with my signature color.
Wicked.

The cashier rings up two bottles of Jack Daniel's and stuffs them into separate paper bags. He doesn't ask to see ID. I breathe out through my mouth, too loudly, while he swipes my card, and the man looks up at me and apologizes for the delay. I don't mean to rush him and feel almost sorry for the guy, but I've got things to do.

It's just past eleven, and the funeral is in full swing just across town. Right about now, all of Seaport should be gathered around, clad in their best black, as they lower Rachel into the ground. It's the perfect day for a funeral—gray and cold—with a seventy-five percent chance of rain. I hope they brought their umbrellas.

I didn't stick around to see Karen off. I grabbed my car keys and peeled out of the driveway before she could even get a word in this morning. She just stood there, outside my doorway, a dumb look on her face, like I had to explain myself any further. I made myself perfectly clear—a picture of perfect elegance. What's left to say? But all of those things I said keep playing back over and over, pounding like a shot to my throat.

Rachel is dead. And I don't care. And Adam is worried. And I also don't care. Do you see now?

I totally let some guy fuck me on Adam's birthday.

“Here you go,” the cashier says, handing me the bag. “Having a party?” he asks, and he's trying to be friendly.

“Nope,” I say. “Going to an after-party.”

T
HE RAIN ASSAULTS
my car as I sit in the parking lot, and the wipers dance to a furious beat. I smooth the dress over my lap and pass the bottle of Jack back to myself. I'm laughing, I realize, sputtering in my insanity, as I randomly think about this one time in tenth grade when I'd had my tonsils out. It was a cold day in December, and Rachel had taken the day off. She'd been too hysterical to go to school that morning, her mom later told Karen. So instead, she'd spent the entire day leaving voice mails on my phone and calling my mom for updates. When I got home that night, she'd been waiting on my front porch, inconsolable. We'd all laughed about it, my brothers, Adam, and me, and even Karen couldn't help but mock Rachel's flare for the dramatics. It had been a simple procedure. I went into the hospital at 6
A.M.
and was back home by dinnertime, but Rachel couldn't stand the thought of losing me, apparently. And I can't see the logic in any of it, looking back.

My phone buzzes from the dashboard, and for a fleeting second I think it might be Rachel.
Surprise! I'm alive! This was all just a test. And by the way, you failed.

Her voice mail still lies trapped in my phone—a stale and rotting corpse as each day passes. I pick up my phone, the numbers blur and come into focus, and I take another swig of Jack. It's Danny. I ignore it at first, letting the phone fall to the floor, but as the rain strikes up, and the Jack flows through me, I reach down and answer.

“Hello.” I almost sing it into the phone. There's silence and heavy breath on the other line, like he's trying to find his tone.

“Where the hell have you been,” he says. “I've been trying to get you all day.” I stifle a laugh. He'd only called twice and texted less than an hour ago. That's hardly an attempt. Rachel would have been way more persistent than that, I'm sure.

“Did I ever tell you that I had my tonsils out,” I start to say, the words slurring off my tongue.

“Aubrey.”

“Don't say my name like that. It's condescending.” I open my windows, and the rain pounds inside the car.

“I talked to your mom,” he says, and I feel my body go slack.

I'd been sort of honest with Danny back in college. Not completely honest, but as close as I could have been.

“It was messed up,” I had said the first time he asked me about losing my virginity. “I don't want to talk about it.” We were at Brown, squished in his twin dorm bed.

“Who was it?” he'd asked. We were both naked, tangled in a thin jersey-knit sheet. Danny traced his finger over my tattoo.

“It wasn't Adam,” I said. He had known about Adam. As much as I was willing to share about him. That was never something I could have hidden from Danny. He was my high school boyfriend, and my mother would forever compare Danny to the first boy I brought home. “It was some guy,” I said. “Just some douche bag. I was drunk. I didn't want it to happen. You know how it is.”

Danny was quiet. He wasn't appalled, outraged, or ready to vindicate me. I didn't really expect him to be either. Instead, he just pulled himself closer to me and said, “Yeah, it happens.”

I can still hear him breathing on the line.

“I talked to your mom,” he says again. “She told me everything.” I don't say anything, just sit in my driver's seat clutching the bottle in one hand and my phone pressed against my ear. I reach for the radio and crank up the music, Tracy Chapman again, until I feel it reverberate through my shitty old car, and the speakers throb.

So remember when we were driving, driving in your car. Speed so fast it felt like I was drunk.

“Don't call me again,” I say, before hanging up the phone and throwing it in the backseat.

I take one last swig, feeling the boozy brown liquid warm my veins, and I hoist myself up out of the car.

I
WALK INTO
the bar and time stands still. Like a movie, everyone stops and stares toward the door, but it's not a smooth entrance—not the kind where The Girl walks in and she's got this glow around her and everyone just watches, grinning at her in slow motion as she flips her hair back and forth before walking through the crowd. It's not like that at all. It's not glamorous, and no one smiles. They just stare, holding long-neck bottles of light beer to their parted lips. Someone whispers, someone even says my name, but not to me. No one says my name to me.

It smells like Clorox and beer, and the fluorescent lights flicker overhead. There should never be fluorescent lights in a bar; it's unnatural and it illuminates the crowd, who're all still dolled up in their best black. From across the room, I spy the guy from the train—Frank, or Gary or Louis—and he shifts his gaze to the floor. He wears the Rachel T-shirt over his black button-down. The white cotton tee stretches over the bulky material of his dress shirt; he looks lumpy and out of place, and Rachel's face hangs crookedly over his chest; and she watches me, those eyes, and her Cheshire cat grin. Most of the guys have loosened their ties, and I just stand there, in my black cotton dress, and wring the rain out of my hair.

It's nothing like that last night at O'Reilly's—the way the band started up, and everyone danced, and Rachel swung her hips into Rod and I stood back staring at the front door, waiting for Adam. It's not like that night at all. The mood is different—somber, and it's still sort of light out. There's no music, but I see some guy setting up a DJ booth by the back. I remember the college band that played that Pat Benatar song that last night here, and how it sounded hazy and dark, like a bad dream, and I wonder what happened to them, if they ever made it beyond the local bar scene. I think of that night, and I think about Rod, and I wonder if he's here, but I doubt it. He'd been the only guy to notice Rachel that night, and now everybody's here for her and only her. She would have loved this.

I stand near the door, and Chloe's the first to come at me. It takes me a moment to process her face. The last time I saw her, she was twelve, with a mouth full of braces and too much eyeliner. Now she's got a decent set of teeth and her hair hangs in loose curls around her narrow jawline. She looks nothing like Rachel, but sort of moves like her, I notice as she swings her shoulders from side to side and steps in front of me.

“Oh my God, Aubrey,” she says. She holds me by the shoulders and looks at me for a second, like she's assessing how much I've grown, but I want to push her off, I want to take her by the face and say,
Little girl, get the hell out of this place.

She's sixteen, not even old enough to be here. But it's her sister's funeral, and if she's anything like Rachel—if she's anything like me—then she's popped her O'Reilly's cherry way before this.

And then I see him, leaning against the bar, in a button-down shirt and a mint-green tie.

Chloe pulls me closer, rests her chin on my shoulder, and says, “I'm so happy you came. It would have meant so much to Rachel.” I mumble something and start to back away toward the door, but she's still got her hands on me, and I can't go anywhere. I feel my phone buzz inside my bag. It's probably just Karen. She's been calling me nonstop since this morning, but all I can think about is that voice mail. Rachel's voice mail, lingering—trapped inside my BlackBerry. If Chloe was the one to find Rachel's body, did she also find her phone? Did she know that I was most likely her final phone call?

I start to feel it in my chest—like a burst of sulfur—and I wonder if she can smell the whiskey on my breath. The dull lights start to spin, slowly, and everything starts to shift sideways. I can still feel them staring.

And then I hear my name again. Chloe's still got her hands around me, and I'm standing stiff, with my arms pinned down at my sides, and then the voice is close—right beside us, but I can still see him, leaning against the bar, laughing, smiling, holding a bottle of Bud.

“Is this Aubrey?” I look up and see this heart-shaped face and wiry blond hair spattered over the shoulders of a charcoal blazer. “I've heard so much about you,” she starts, and swipes at her watery brown eyes. I give her this look, like
I have no idea who you are, lady,
and her whole face softens into this weak smile. “I'm Rachel's cousin.” Chloe's still got her arms on me, everyone stares, and the bar floor is still slick with Clorox and beer. “Diane,” she says, pressing her fingers against my wrist.

I remember the countless times Rachel would casually namedrop Diane into a conversation, like that somehow gave her an edge over the rest of us, like her experiences transferred over to Rachel simply by association. But I'd never actually seen her—not in the flesh—and as she stands before me, blubbering over her poor cousin—I feel like I'm in the presence of a celebrity.

“Diane?” I sputter, pushing Chloe away. I don't mean to laugh, but I do, and I feel giddy, and the cousins exchange a look, and then both put their hands on my shoulders again. “Like ‘The Diane'?” I'm talking too loud, I know I am, because both girls lean in close and start to whisper to me. I'm not really sure what they're trying to say, but I don't need to hear it, so I keep on talking. My blood starts to do that buzzing thing again, and I push them away. “I can't believe you're real,” I say. “I can't believe you're actually real.”

“Honey,” Diane says, lowering her voice, “let's get you some water, okay?”

“The Diane,” I keep saying. “Un-fucking-believable.” I still see him at the bar, laughing, smiling, with his bottle of Bud and mint-green tie.

“Chloe,” Diane says, signaling with the flick of her wrist. “Get Aubrey a glass of water.” She's got me by my own wrist, leading me to a bar stool. I pull away, too hard.

“Come, sit down, honey,” she says. “Sober up.” I put my hand up between us.

“Do you realize,” I say, I think I may be slurring, just a little bit, “that you directly led to every act of debauchery I ever participated in?” I'm laughing again.

She laughs, too, but it's a nervous laugh, and she looks behind her at Chloe and mouths,
Water. Now.

“No, listen,” I say, backing away. “Like everything we did was because ‘Diane did it first.'” I look around the room, but don't take my eyes off of him for more than a few seconds, and everything in me stirs. I see Ally, though, standing nearby, and I wave my arms at her, turning my attention away from him—anything to turn my attention away from him. “Ally,” I call across the room. I know she hears me, but she only offers a tight-lipped smile and looks back over at the Girl I Can't Remember. “Ally,” I say. “Are you seeing this? It's Diane. It's
the
Diane.” She doesn't give any indication that she hears me, and then I remember Monday night at her house, and all those things she said.

We heard you did something bad. You really weren't there for her, were you? She really could have used her best friend in the end.

I look back toward Diane, and I try to smile, but the lights start to spin again, and I'm standing still, but everything else starts to shift.

“Let's not make a scene, honey,” Diane says.

“No, listen to me, Diane. I don't think you understand what I'm saying.” She feigns a smile and glances toward the exit. I realize I'm stuttering, and I know I need to just shut up.
Just shut up shut up shut up.
But I can't, and I feel the words start to fall out of my mouth again. And I know that Diane is just a temporary distraction, that the moment I stop rambling, I'll have to acknowledge him, in the corner, with his mint-green tie. “She got me to do everything because of you! Because of the glorious Diane!” I say. “Except for coke. Rachel never got me to do coke.” I lean in. “You don't have any on you right now, do you?” She drops her hand from my wrist and turns to the crowd of mourners, still in their best black, still here for Rachel.