out of him, the ladder still tilted against the roof, you were standing there with your wavy blonde hair and your milkmaid face and your wide, vine-ripened mouth. ‘I realized I loved her right then,’ Mark told me. He had been dying to introduce you to me for a while, but I’d been working so much that summer and had hardly been around.
I don’t know what made me go into Dairy Queen alone the next time, knowing what I knew. Mark had been my best friend since third grade, when we were both punished for sticking chewing gum to the underside of our desks. Perhaps it was because you said hello twice. Perhaps it was because Mark joked, that first time, ‘Now, don’t go stealing her away, Rich. She’s mine.’ I don’t know why he said that-I’d never stolen anything from Mark in my life. But maybe it got into my head, started whirring around. Maybe it was your dove-gray eyes, the way your hands were chapped and red from the Dairy Queen freezers, the way you swayed a little, winsome and uncertain, when you dispensed the ice cream into the pale yellow cone. The first time I went in alone, you pretended to forget my name. All you said was, ‘You’re Mark’s friend, right?’ The second time I came in, you said, ‘It’s freezing. All this snow, in October. You seriously want ice cream?’ The fifth you told me bits and pieces about your life.
You told me that you and Mark were secretly engaged. He wanted to get married as soon as you graduated-you were a grade behind us, so it was still a whole year away. You sat on the steel sink in Dairy Queen’s back room, surrounded by ice cream mix, boxes of rainbow sprinkles and glamour shots of the Buster Bar and the whorish, frothy DQ Float-Go ahead and splurge! Get it with Tab®! You told me how afraid you were, that you weren’t sure if Mark was the guy you were supposed to marry, how you thought love was supposed to hit you like a spark and you weren’t sure that had happened. ‘But I’m a good person,’ you always said when we pressed against the shelves of the walk-in, your lips tasting like caramel syrup. ‘I still do chores and everything.’ ‘It’s me, I’m the terrible one,’ was what I always said next. I wanted you to be blameless, pure. ‘He’s my best friend. I’m the bad person here.’ I touched the six freckles clustered together by your right eye, a constellation. I even gave the freckle-cluster a name, though I can’t remember it now. That’s probably a side-effect of what I’ve been through-so many precious memories have been yanked away forever.
The eighth time I told you everything about me. That winter, I took you to the old, abandoned drift mine, one of my favorite spots in all of Cobalt. We looked into the black, gaping mouth in the side of the hill to avoid staring at each other. You shivered and said coal mining had to be the scariest job in the world, trekking into those dark, uncertain caves. ‘I’m sure miners get used to it,’ I replied, but you shook your head and said you couldn’t see how. I told you that my father looked perfect on the outside, but he hardly ever ate dinner with us anymore. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d had a conversation. It was always sports on TV, or long hours at work, or time spent at the new golf club closer to Pittsburgh. He wanted me to play golf, too-he got me a membership to the country club a few Christmases before. ‘Golf is a good skill for your future,’ he said gruffly, ignoring my lack of enthusiasm. ‘I’m grooming you for better things.’ The only thing I’d wanted that year was a set of encyclopedias, but my father said I could just use the encyclopedias at school. When new encyclopedias showed up on our doorstep a few weeks later, my father frowned, thinking it was a mistake. ‘It’s not,’ my mother said quickly. She’d gotten last year’s set at a discount from a door-to-door salesman, practically for free. When my father turned his back, she winked at me. I read those encyclopedias cover to cover, starting with A and ending with Z. I loved M; it was so thick. There were so many fascinating things in M. Myelin. Mummification. Melanoma.
I told you about the scholarship to Penn State-first that I’d applied, next that I’d been interviewed, and that I was waiting to hear if I got it. ‘You will,’ you assured me. ‘But that means you’ll leave me.’ I told you I’d never leave you. I told you I’d take you to college with me. ‘I’ll pack you in my suitcase.’ I took your small, tan hand and said, ‘I’ll marry you right now.’ I said I’d go get my minister’s license so I could marry us myself. You took a whack at me-you liked to slap the air when things were funny-and said we would need witnesses. I said, ‘How about this mine? It could be our witness.’ The coal was as silent and solemn as God. You looked away then. ‘You know we can’t,’ you said. We were quiet for a while after that.
Then there was the party at Jeff’s house. I had gotten there late, so we met in the hall, me holding an empty cup, on my way to the keg, you holding a sleeve of Ritz crackers. I couldn’t wait to show you the letter I’d received that very day, the one I hadn’t shown my family or anyone else yet. It had Pennsylvania State University’s prowling lion logo on the top. I unfolded it, thinking you’d be proud of me, but your expression clouded. And then you told me-you just blurted it out, two words. I said, ‘Are you sure?’ And you said, ‘Yes.’ And then I was talking and not thinking, or perhaps thinking too much and talking to avoid saying what I was thinking. Just as your eyes started to fill, Mark approached. We straightened up fast. ‘What are you two talking about?’ Mark asked, swaying, his breath acrid and hot, so wasted and not even an hour into the party. He touched your boob right there in front of everyone, his beer sloshing over the lip of the cup.
Mark took your arm and you turned away. Jimi Hendrix came on the stereo. I walked over to the plate of crudités on Jeff’s parents’ kitchen table, but they tasted like sawdust. When the song ended, you found me again. ‘Mark wants to go, you said. But he’s…’
You looked at Mark, swaying in the doorway. It was obvious what you were asking-you’d just gotten your permit but didn’t feel comfortable driving Mark’s car yet. This was usually a treat for us-Mark would drink too much at a party, and I’d drive you both home, dropping him off first, making sure he got into his house, sometimes even guiding him to his bedroom. Then you and I would drive for hours, rolling slowly across the bridge, along the winding roads to the woods, past the junkyard and lot of abandoned tires. Talking about everything and nothing, simply being together.
But we both knew there would be no after-hours drive that night. Looking back, if only I’d have ushered Mark into the back bedroom so he could lie down for a while. If only I’d have breathed, put things in perspective. I should have taken your hands and said, ‘I’m sorry. This is great.’ Instead, I rolled my eyes and said, ‘Give me the keys.’ On the way to the car, you said loudly to Mark that you didn’t want to run away and get married anymore, that you wanted to do it right here. You wanted to invite all of Cobalt. Mark threw himself into the backseat, groaning, and you got in the front, next to me. When you stared at me, imploring, I should have stared back, but I gunned the engine hard, gritting my teeth as Mark made a gagging sound. What you’d said in the house throbbed inside of me. The words paraded in front of my eyes, obscuring my vision.
I started down the slick, twisting road. One minute, it was peaceful, dark. The next, there he was, paused right in front of us, blinking in the moonlight. I saw his antlers first, then his broad, brown chest. You screamed. My foot fumbled for the brake. I met the animal’s wet, shiny eyes, and then there was that groan of metal. Things were white and chrome and loud and then quiet. Leaves fluttered to the ground. I came to with my head on the steering wheel. I saw your rose-petal hand first, folded neatly in your lap. The glass from the shattered windshield, shimmering on the dashboard and Naugahyde seats, looked like thousands of diamonds. I thought that I could mount a shard in a gold band and give it to you.
‘Hello?’ I cried out. No one answered.
I saw you once after that. The hospital walls were a sterile green. You were in a gown with faded blue flowers all over it, something you never would’ve worn in real life. I was afraid to touch you. Plenty of other people were there to do it for me. They did all kinds of things to you, tubes in places, bags in others, needles in veins, tape covering up half of you, a metal cage around your head. Did they find tiny Ritz cracker crumbs in your mouth when they tried to breathe for you? Did they remark on the strawberry
