The Best American Short Stories® 2011 (12 page)

"Have you done this before?" you asked, incredulous.

She'd drunk two white wines (which you'd matched two-to-one with beers) and was starting on her third. "Of course not."

"So ... I tell you I used to torture kitty cats, and that stops you from wanting to jump my bones?"

"Did you?"

"Fuck, no."

"I'll go first," Sasha said.

She'd started shoplifting at thirteen with her girlfriends, hiding beaded combs and sparkly earrings inside their sleeves, seeing who could get away with more, but it was different for Sasha—it made her whole body glow. Later, at school, she'd replay every step of what had happened, counting the days until they could do it again. The other girls were nervous, competitive, and Sasha struggled to show only that much.

In Naples, when she ran out of money, she stole things from stores and sold them to Lars the Swede, waiting her turn on his kitchen floor with other hungry kids holding tourists' wallets, costume jewelry, American passports. They grumbled about Lars, who never gave them what they deserved. He'd played the flute in concerts back in Sweden, supposedly, but the source of that rumor might have been Lars himself. They weren't allowed beyond his kitchen, but someone had glimpsed a piano through a closing door, and Sasha often heard a baby crying. Her first time, Lars made Sasha wait longer than anyone, holding a pair of spangly platform shoes she'd taken from a boutique. And when everyone else was paid and gone, he had squatted beside her on the kitchen floor and unbuttoned his pants.

For months she'd done business with Lars, arriving sometimes without having managed to take anything, just needing money. "I thought he was my boyfriend," she said. "But I think I wasn't thinking anymore." She was better now, hadn't stolen anything in two years. "That wasn't me, in Naples," she told you, looking out at the room. "I don't know who it was. I feel sorry for her."

And maybe from a sense that she'd dared you, or that anything at all could be said in the chamber of truth where you and Sasha now found yourselves, or that she'd blown out a vacuum some law of physics required that you fill, you told her about James, your teammate: how one night, the two of you took out two girls in your pop's car, and after you'd brought them home (early—it was a game night), you and James drove to a secluded place and spent maybe an hour alone in the car. It happened just that one time, without discussion or agreement; the two of you had barely spoken after that. At times you'd wondered if you'd made it up.

"I'm not a fag," you told Sasha.

It wasn't you in the car with James. You were somewhere else, looking down, thinking, That fag is fooling around with another guy. How can he do that? How can he want it? How can he live with himself?

In the library, Sasha spends two hours typing a paper on Mozart's early life and sneaking sips of a Diet Coke. Being older, she feels behind—she's taking six courses a semester plus summer school so she can graduate in three years. She's a business/arts double major, like you, but in music. You rest your head in your arms on the table and sleep until she's done. Then you walk together through the dark to your dorm, on Third Avenue. You smell popcorn from the elevator—sure enough, all three suitemates are home, along with Pilar, a girl you quasi-dated last fall to distract yourself after Sasha paired off with Drew. The minute you walk in, the Nirvana volume drops and the windows fly open. You now seem to be in the same category as a professor or a cop: you make people instantly nervous. There's got to be a way to enjoy this.

You follow Sasha into her room. Most students' rooms are like hamster burrows lined with scraps and tufts of home—pillows and stuffed doggies and plug-in pots and furry slippers—but Sasha's room is practically empty; she showed up last year with nothing but a suitcase. In one corner is a rented harp she's learning to play. You lie face-up on her bed while she gathers her shower bag and green kimono and goes out. She comes back quickly (not wanting to leave you alone, you have a feeling), wearing the kimono, her head in a towel. You watch from the bed as she shakes out her long hair and uses a wide-tooth comb to get the snarls out. Then she slips out of the kimono and starts getting dressed: lacy black bra and panties, torn jeans, a faded black T-shirt, Doc Martens. Last year, after Bix and Lizzie got together, you started spending nights in Sasha's room, sleeping in Lizzie's empty bed, three feet away from Sasha's. You know the scar on her left ankle from a break that had to be operated on when it didn't heal right; you know the Big Dipper of reddish moles around her bellybutton and her mothball breath when she first wakes up. Everyone assumed you were a couple—it was that deep between you and Sasha. She would cry in her sleep, and you'd climb in her bed and hold her until her breathing got regular and slow. She felt so light in your arms. You'd fall asleep holding her and wake up with a hard-on and just lie there, feeling this body you knew so well, its skin and smells, alongside your own need to fuck someone, waiting for the two to merge into one impulse.
Come on, pull this all together and act like someone normal for a change
, but you were scared to put your lust to the test, not wanting to ruin it with Sasha if things went wrong. It was the biggest mistake of your life, not fucking Sasha—you saw this with brutal clarity when she fell in love with Drew, and it clobbered you with such remorse that you thought at first you couldn't survive it. You might have held on to Sasha and become normal at the same time, but you didn't even try—you gave up the one chance God threw your way and now it's too late.

Out in the world, Sasha would grab your hand or throw her arms around you and kiss you—that was for the detective. He could be anywhere, watching you toss snowballs in Washington Square, Sasha jumping onto your back, her fluffy mittens leaving fibers on your tongue. He was the invisible companion you saluted over bowls of steamed vegetables at Dojo ("I want him to see me eating healthy food," she said). Occasionally you raised practical questions about the detective—Had her stepfather mentioned him again? Did she know for certain it was a man? How long did she think the surveillance would last?—but this line of thinking seemed to irritate Sasha, so you let it go. "I want him to know I'm happy," she said. "I want him to see me well again—how I'm still normal, even after everything." And you wanted that too.

When she met Drew, Sasha forgot about the detective. Drew is detective-proof. Even her stepfather likes him.

It's after ten by the time you and Sasha meet up with Drew on Third Avenue and St. Marks Street. His eyes are bloodshot from swimming, his hair is wet. He kisses Sasha like they've been apart for a week. "My older woman," he calls her sometimes, and loves the fact that she's been on her own in the wider world. Of course, Drew knows nothing about how bad things got for Sasha in Naples, and lately you have the feeling she's starting to forget, begin over again as the person she is to Drew. This makes you sick with envy; why couldn't you do that for Sasha? Who's going to do it for you?

On East Seventh you pass Bix and Lizzie's, but the lights are off—Lizzie is out with her parents. The streets are full of people, most of whom seem to be laughing, and you wonder again about that change Sasha felt when the sun rose in Washington, D.C.—whether these people feel it too, and their laughter is connected to that.

On Avenue A, the three of you stand outside the Pyramid Club, listening. "Still the second band," Sasha says, so you walk up the street for egg creams at the Russian newsstand and drink them on a bench in Tompkins Square Park, which just reopened last summer.

"Look," you say, opening your hand. Three yellow pills. Sasha sighs; she's running out of patience.

"What are they?" Drew asks.

"E."

He has an optimist's attraction to everything new—a faith that it will enrich him, not hurt him. Lately you've found yourself using this quality in Drew, scattering breadcrumbs for him one by one. "I want to do it with
you
," he tells Sasha, but she shakes her head. "I missed your druggie moment," he says wistfully.

"Thank God," Sasha says.

You pop one of the pills and put the other two back in your pocket. You start to feel the E as soon as you enter the club. The Pyramid is jammed. The Conduits have been big on college campuses for years, but Sasha is convinced their new album is total genius and will go multiplatinum. She likes to get right up against the stage, the band in her face, but you need more distance. Drew stays close to Sasha, but when the Conduits' nutcase of a lead guitarist, Bosco, starts flinging himself around like a berserk scarecrow, you notice him edging back.

You've entered a state of tingling, stomachy happiness that feels the way you hoped adulthood would be as a kid: a blur of lost bearings, release from the drone of meals and homework and church and That's not a nice way to talk to your sister, Robert Junior. You wanted a brother. You want Drew to be your brother. Then you could have built the log cabin together and slept inside it, snow piling up outside the windows. You could have slaughtered the elk, and afterward, slick with blood and fur, peeled off your clothes together beside a bonfire. If you could see Drew naked, even just once, it would ease a deep, awful pressure inside you.

Bosco is getting tossed over your head, his shirt gone, skinny torso slimed with beer and sweat. Your hands slip over the flinty muscles of his back. He's still playing his guitar, hollering without a microphone. Drew spots you and moves closer, shaking his head. He'd never been to a concert before he met Sasha. You shimmy one of the remaining yellow pills from your pocket and push it into his hand.

Something was funny a while ago, but you can't remember what. Drew doesn't seem to know either, although you're both convulsed with helpless hysterics.

Sasha thought you would wait for her inside after the show, so it takes her a while to find the two of you out on the pavement. Her eyes move between you in the acid streetlight. "Ah," she says. "I get it."

"Don't be mad," Drew says. He's trying not to look at you—if you look at each other, you're gone. But you can't stop looking at Drew.

"I'm not mad," Sasha says. "I'm bored." The Conduits' producer, Bennie Salazar, has invited her to a party. "I thought we could all go," she tells Drew, "but you're too high."

"He doesn't want to go with you," you bellow, your nose running with laughter and snot. "He wants to come with me."

"That's true," Drew says.

"Fine," Sasha says angrily. "Then everyone's happy."

The two of you reel away from her. Hilarity keeps you busy for several blocks, but there's a sickness to it, like an itch that, if you keep on scratching, will grind straight through skin and muscle and bone, shredding your heart. At one point you both have to stop walking and sit on a stoop, leaning against each other, half sobbing. You buy a gallon of orange juice and guzzle it with Drew on a corner, juice gushing over both your chins and soaking your puffy jackets. You hold the carton upside down above your mouth, catching the last drops in the back of your throat. When you toss it away, the city rises darkly around you. You're on Second Street and Avenue B. People are exchanging little vials in their handshakes. But Drew stretches out his arms, feeling the E in his fingertips. You've never seen him afraid; only curious.

"I feel bad," you say, "about Sasha."

"Don't worry," Drew says. "She'll forgive us."

After your wrists had been stitched and bandaged and someone else's blood had been pumped inside you and your parents were waiting at the Tampa Airport for the first flight out, Sasha pushed aside the IV coils and climbed into your bed at St. Vincent's. Even through the painkillers, there was a thudding ache around your wrists.

"Bobby?" she whispered. Her face was almost touching yours. She was breathing your breath and you were breathing hers, malty from fear and lack of sleep. It was Sasha who found you. Ten more minutes, they said.

"Bobby, listen to me."

You opened your eyes and Sasha's green eyes were right up against them, your lashes interlocking. "In Naples," she said, "there were kids who were just lost. You knew they were never going to get back to what they'd been, or have a normal life. And then there were other ones who you thought, maybe they will."

You tried to ask which kind Lars the Swede was, but it came out a mush.

"Listen," she said. "Bobby. In a minute, they're going to kick me out."

You opened your eyes, which you hadn't realized were shut. "What I'm saying is,
We're the survivors
," Sasha said.

She spoke in a way that briefly cleared your head of the sweet cloudy things they were pumping inside you: like she'd opened an envelope and read a result that you urgently needed to know. Like you'd been caught offside and had to be straightened out.

"Not everyone is. But we are. Okay?"

"Okay."

She lay alongside you, every part of you touching, like you'd done so many nights before she met Drew. You felt Sasha's strength seeping into your skin. You tried to hold her, but your hands were stuffed-animal stumps, and you couldn't move them.

"Which means you can't do that again," she said. "Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. Do you promise me, Bobby?"

"I promise." And you meant it. You wouldn't break a promise to Sasha.

"Bix!" Drew shouts. He charges up Avenue B, boots clobbering the pavement. Bix is alone, hands in the pockets of his green army jacket.

"Whoa," he says, laughing when he sees from Drew's eyes how high he is. Your own high is just beginning to teeter. You've been planning to take that last pill, but you offer it to Bix instead.

"I don't really do this anymore," Bix says, "but rules are for bending, right?" A custodian made him leave the lab; he's been walking around for two hours.

"And Lizzie's asleep," you say, "in your apartment."

Bix gives you a cold look that empties your good mood. "Let's not get started on that."

You walk together, waiting for Bix to come onto the E. It's after two
A.M.
, the hour when (it turns out) normal people go home to bed, and drunk, crazy, fucked-up people stay out. You don't want to be with those people. You want to go back to your suite and knock on Sasha's door, which she leaves unlocked when Drew isn't spending the night.