the river

The next day, Steph makes me go down to the river with her. I put up a fight, but she says it’s important. She has something to tell me, and we need to go there together. We have unfinished business down there, she says. I haven’t gone down there since your body showed up. I haven’t even left the house.

We pass the dentist’s house and then slide down the slippery path toward the river. My shoe glides on a patch of mud, and I fling my hand out to grab on to a tree branch. Ahead, past the trampled grass and through the trees, I can see the river. I’m afraid. What does she have to tell me? Why here?

I step carefully over the train tracks. A part of me still thinks they’re going to electrocute me, an old superstition from when I was a kid.

“Remember Kidnapped Girl?” Steph stands on the tracks and then jumps in the middle. It reminds me of when she was a kid—she always did that and it freaked me out. She puts on her deep voice. “I’ll help you, little girl.”

“That game was messed up.” We used to pretend to be tied up on the train tracks. One of us would go in the woods and then the other would scream for help on the tracks and “the bandit” in the woods would run out and say in a deep voice, “I’ll help you, little girl.”

That was before we met real creeps, before we knew how awful people could be, before we knew about real danger.

We walk across the long grass field, toward the river.

“We’re going to be in trouble when we have kids,” she says.

Not something I want to think about. I take big steps over the grass, scanning for snakes.

“Speaking of which…”

I whip my head to look at her. “You’re pregnant?”

“No,” she says. “But this happened.” She lifts her left hand. There’s a big old diamond ring. Which, for some reason, I haven’t seen on her finger until now.

“What the hell?” I grab her hand and stare at it like it’s not a hand, but a claw. “You’re engaged?”

“Yep.” She grins. “It happened on graduation night.”

“I’m so happy for you.” I wipe a tear running down my face. “It’s beautiful.”

“Right?” She gazes at it, all lovesick.

“You’re really getting married?”

“Yep.”

She always said she wanted babies when she was young. How can anyone be that certain they want to spend the rest of their life with anyone?

“Aren’t you worried it’s too soon?” I say.

“Nope.” Her face is glowing, all rosy cheeked and everything. “I love him. I mean, I know you think we just started going out, but we’ve known each other for, like, two years, since I started at the Steakhouse.”

I throw my arms around her and give her a Steph-quality squeeze. I let go and stare into her face. She’s going to stay in this town. I’m going to leave.

“You going to have babies right away?” I say.

She shrugs. “Maybe.”

“You’ll be a great mom.” Even though she’s crazy and she drinks too much and she likes to gamble, she’s the most loving person I know.

I take in a deep breath and let it out; this is happy news. We keep walking all the way to the edge of the riverbank. I stare out at the swirling water.

“You okay?” she says.

I see your arm slide out of the river. “I keep seeing him, Steph,” I whisper.

“What do you mean?”

“I see his arm coming out of the water. Or I imagine him getting sucked under the rapids. At night, when I close my eyes, he’s in the water.”

“You have to find a way to forget. I mean, it’ll get better, right?”

You’re unforgettable. Good old Nat King Cole. Played him a lot this week. Unforgettable. That’s what you are. Unforgettable. Tho’ near or far. Like a song of love that clings to me, how the thought of you does things to me. Never before has someone been more.

I nod, gulping. “Why did you want to come here?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess I thought it was important for you to remember the good times, that this town and even this river is, like, the place of our childhood. It’s not just a place where horrible stuff happens, you know?”

I can see us as kids, right here on the riverbank. We are making up stories together. She was a river mermaid. I was a grand priestess. She was a bank robber. I was the mastermind. She was a fairy and I was a gnome. So many imaginary games.

“I’m going to let my kids play down here too,” she says.

“I can be their aunt.”

She laughs. “You will definitely be their aunt.” She opens her bag and pulls out the vodka and orange juice. “Let’s drink to it.”

We choke down the first vodka and orange juice fast, and then she pours another. “You still thinking about applying for that program?” she asks.

“Yeah. Next year.”

“I’m going to miss you.” She forces a smile. “You’re going off to get your degree and all. You’ll probably forget about me.”

“Oh, Steph.” I press my head against hers. “I would never.”

She lets out a sad laugh.

“Tell me how he proposed,” I murmur.

She goes off on this long detailed story about how he put it in the mud pie that she ordered at the end of her shift and the staff all circled around while he proposed.

“Wasn’t the ring goopy?”

“I just licked it off. Everyone clapped. It was super romantic.”

I gulp down my sadness. “That’s cool.” Then I sit up and rummage around in my big black bag, which no longer has the gun, and I pull out my paper airplane, decorated with flowers. I know it was your thing, but it might be mine now. “Here—I made this.”

Tears jump to her eyes. “Oh my god.” She bites her lip. “Like Chris.”

Then she unfolds it. I look away. It’s hard to watch. She’s quiet as she reads. I just wrote her a bunch of things I was thankful about. She sniffs again. Wraps her arms around me, squeezes my guts out of me.

She pours me another drink, then lifts her cup. “To adventure.” I bang my plastic cup against hers and gulp it back. I’m getting wasted, but I don’t care.

Soon, we’re leaning our heads against the trunk of Mr. Tom, the cedar tree, moss and all. Steph isn’t even thinking about spiders in her hair. It’s splayed against the wood. She looks like a fairy creature.

“You have the best hair,” I slur.

“You have the best boobs,” she says, grinning at me.

This has always been our thing—she has the hair, I have the boobs. “You want to do me?” I joke.

She laughs and I snort. We have the same coarse sense of humor. Thank god. I mean, without her, I don’t know what I’d do.