The Death of Us

I
lean against a tree at the back of the yard, the night around me like black water. I check my pockets for cigarettes but I’m out. Xander’s party is going strong—beer, hot dogs, parents away.

Xander surfaces from the house. Prairie-dog slim and tall. Fast too. He makes sure people have beers, joins the group of guys near me. I drift over. Listen in. They’re talking about girls. About Ivy. Sure, they all want her. Blonde, sexy. Flips her hair over
her shoulder when she wants me to kiss her. She’s just out of reach. Just something. The girl everyone watches on a stage. Can’t help it.

One of the guys, Greg, asks, “So Ivy’s coming?”

Xander says, “She’s bringing Callie.”

“Callie’s hot too. Not like Ivy, but worth it.” Hankering for details from me, he adds, “Man, I bet Ivy’s wild.”

There’s a scream inside the house. A girl—Angel I think her name is, long black hair, not angelic from what I’ve heard—stumbles out. She’s holding up her phone, yelling my name. “Kurt!”

Xander grabs her before she can get to me.

Slick-sheen sweat over Angel’s cheeks. She waves her phone. “There’s been an accident. Look, Dustin sent this. He didn’t realize … but look.”

I’m closer now. Too close. On her phone is a photo of the main traffic bridge, but something’s wrong. A section of the barrier is missing. I let out a low whistle. “Man, someone hit that hard.”

She flicks to the next image. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

Then I see why she’s so stressed out. Police and firefighters are pulling a car out of the river. The car is smashed up but not beyond recognition.

It’s Ivy’s car.

My stomach roils.

It’s
Ivy’s
car.

Angel is frantic.

Oh man,
I think.
Callie.

FOURTEEN DAYS EARLIER
Ivy

We arrive at the edge of Edenville. Kevin has oldperson music playing from his phone through the car stereo, his hand is on Mom’s leg and the two of them are singing. I stare out the window and hum along. The sun is shining and the wide road is an invitation. The houses in this neighbourhood are quaint, wooden, totally charming.

Soon Kevin pulls into the alleyway at the back of his house. Same house, same muddy alleyway, same everything. The memories rush back. Three years since we lived here and everything’s exactly the same.

Except me. I’m different.

Mom turns back to me with a sunny smile. “You okay?”

“Sure, why wouldn’t I be?”

She nuzzles into Kevin. There’s honestly no way to be nice about it. He’s gross. Balding, eager, too fat in the cheeks, in the tummy, in the butt.

“Up we go,” he says. He’s always saying things that don’t make any sense. Up where? Mom thinks listening to a man is important. Maybe one day one of her boyfriends will say something worth listening to. I smile at my own joke and open the car door, glancing at Callie’s house, two yards over. I remember arriving here the first time, seeing her sitting in the tree, legs dangling. Her red hair held up with a pen. She scowled at me like an angry cat.

“What are you up to?” I asked her.

“Nothing.” She chewed her thumbnail.

I said, “Come down and show me around. I’m new.”

She narrowed her eyes, weighed me up in that way she has and scrambled down the tree. Three years ago feels like three minutes.

Kevin and Mom are giggling together, getting out of the car. He swoops her into his arms and they
do the honeymoon thing—over the threshold, him hauling around his prize, her laughing throatily.

My heart flies back to Kansas—Dorothy-style. I’m wrapped up in Diego and it’s me laughing throatily against his chest, him kissing me, then kissing me harder.

I linger on an image of Diego jumping off the stage and lightly tapping the ends of his drumsticks down my chest.
Hell yeah, Ivy.
But we’re not in Kansas anymore. I smooth my hair and brush imaginary dust from my white shirtdress. I’m going to see if Callie still lives here—shiny-penny Callie in the bank account of my life.

Callie

I get it, I do. They have a baby now and they’ve done their part: what a successful, balanced teenager they’ve created.

I don’t take drugs.
Check.

I don’t drink.
Check.

I don’t go to wild parties.
Check.

Okay, I have a couple extra piercings in my
right ear that Mom hates. And I’ve dyed my hair black, which Dad moans about. And he definitely can’t understand why the dark-blue nail polish, with one green nail on the fourth finger of each hand. I’ve told him there’s nothing to understand.

Still, I keep my room tidy.
Check.

I get my homework in on time.
Check.

I’ll get into any university I want, probably.
Check.

I’m perfectly bone-crushingly normal.
Check. Check. Check.

If only I didn’t feel like I do right now around my parents, we could all just get along like we used to.

I slump over the kitchen table. Mom has Cosmo strapped to her in the sling and she’s doing that foot-shift thing that mothers do. Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot, baby swaying. He’s staring up at her, she’s staring down at him. Mother and child, mother and child, and I shouldn’t care, really, but there’s this jagged feeling in my chest that I can’t make go away. I’m pretty sure I should be delighted with a baby in the house; I truly thought I would be. Babies are cute. And he
is
cute. I know I should be over it. I’m sixteen and I should be able to deal with my mom having a new baby.

I pick at my nail polish, flip through my phone. Rebecca’s put up a hilarious video of her holding a doll. “BABY!” her voice-over yells. I snort.

Mom glances over. “What’s that?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Could you turn it down? Cosmo’s just about to fall asleep. I might, actually, get some work done today.”

The video replays so Rebecca’s voice comes through loud, loud, loud. “BABY! BABY! BABY!”

“Callie, turn it down. Anyway, you shouldn’t be using the phone at the table.”

There’s no one at the table with me. The phone rule doesn’t apply, surely, when I’m the only one sitting here. But Mom looks too exhausted for me to bother arguing. I slide the phone away obediently. Seems the only time Mom has anything to say to me now, we’re talking either about Cosmo or about things I should be doing differently.

Silky light tumbles all over the cluttered living room, catching on the colourful baby seat, packets of diapers, toys and musical instruments. Mom’s latest picture-book manuscript is spread over the bench by the window. Her glorious illustrations come alive in the sun.

She sees me looking. “Nearly done. I just have to go over these pages now he’s sleeping.” She strokes the baby’s head tenderly. “Then we’re going to see the twins for coffee at three. Want to come?”

“And hang out with a bunch of babies? No thanks.”

“Okay, Callie. Well, don’t waste your day. You’ve had weeks off already and you still haven’t got a job.”

“I’ve
tried.
”

“You haven’t been to any of the hotels yet, like I suggested.”

“I
have.
I told you, I went yesterday. It’s not as easy as you think, Mom. I’ve dropped off my resumés in, like, loads of places. No one’s calling.”

“Come on, Callie. You shouldn’t need me to tell you this—use a little initiative. Go back to the same places. Offer to come anytime they need. Make yourself available. You need a job—”

“It’s like you want me out of the house.”

“Honey, that’s not it at all.”

Dad comes into the room and heads straight for her. He’s a bearded guy with glasses and a selection of similarly checked shirts and blue jeans, and he’s
the owner of a big booming voice. He has a love of beautiful things, theatre, Greek epics and my mother. He kisses her hard on the mouth, sweeping her backward in his arms. She laughs and swats him away.

“Honey, you’re squashing the baby.”

Cosmo gurgles. Mom pretends to be mad at Dad for waking him, rolling her eyes, sighing, but she isn’t really mad. I know I should be grateful, or whatever, that my parents are so obsessed with each other. I reach for my phone and read a couple stupid posts. Mom starts singing to Cosmo. I imagine she sang the same songs to me a thousand years ago.

Dad interrupts my pity party. “Busy day, Calliope?”

I shake my head and lean back in my seat, wiping the toast crumbs from my mouth. “I’m just finishing edits on my article. Then, I dunno.”

“What’s Rebecca doing?”

“I told you already. She’s away with her dad, camping.”

“So you can’t message each other a million times a day?” He feigns horror by widening his eyes.

“She has Internet.”

“In the bush? Good lord, what’s the world coming to?”

“It doesn’t work all the time.”

“What about your other friends. Oh, what’s her name?” He snaps his fingers. “The flower girl.”

“You mean Dahlia?”

“That’s the one.”

“Europe with Liona until school starts. Tilly and family are away too.”

“I know. They’re at their cabin? See? I listen.” He hooks a thumb in his belt-loop. “Did you read
Bonjour Tristesse
again yet?”

Every summer I reread it. As the sun falls through the window like this and the smell of sunscreen and cut grass sneaks through the open door, I find myself wanting to experience the story of Cecile growing up all over again. The first time I read it, when I was thirteen, the darkness of how Cecile manipulates her father’s girlfriends, the mess of it, the suicide, all of it, made me feel more alive. Françoise Sagan wrote the novel when she was only eighteen—two years older than I am now. Each year I read it and hope that maybe, maybe this will be the year I actually start to write fiction. My phone buzzes in my hand.

The text is from Kurt Hartnett:
Done the piece?

He’s the editor of
Flat Earth Theory,
the school zine. He’s lining it up for the start of the school year, and he wants an article on the name of our team: Redmen. Is it heinous and racist, or a tradition? It’s interesting to figure out how to write the piece in a balanced way. The three people I interviewed got het up as soon as they started talking.

I have the article in front of me, printed out, while I noodle through with last-minute edits. I snap a photo of it and send the image to him with the words
Just about done
. I lean back a little farther, the front legs of my chair off the wooden floor.

“Careful not to fall, Callie,” Mom says.

She’s barely looking at me. How does she know?

Kurt texts:
Now, now, now!

I orient the chair so its four feet are back on the ground and reply:
Take it easy!

—Wanna meet 2mr 2 talk it over?

—mebbe. Let’s see if I finish it first. U know I wanna get it perfect.