RIP, Swan.
You’ll be missed.
RIP. RIP. RIP.
My eyes pool with tears and I want to send her an iheart, the way I do—did—every day.
She only has fifty-two friends. She was picky about who she’d add. In the Search area under her friends list, I enter Liana T. Nobody comes up. Maybe I’m wrong about the first name. I enter L and three people pop up. Lyndi Tartakoff. Don’t know her. I link to her profile and see she’s from Michigan. I’m curious how Swanee knows her, but she can’t be the LT I’m looking for if she wants to meet Swanee in their regular place. Libby Tyndal-Weir. She was in my keyboarding class in eighth grade. Lili Thompson. I click on her profile and see she’s Swanee’s aunt. I think I saw her at the memorial service.
Dead end.
Next I Google Twin Peaks.
There are a bunch of businesses in Colorado beginning with Twin Peaks, and also a mall. If we’re meeting at a theater, she must mean the Twin Peaks Mall. It’s in Longmont, about forty minutes away. I print directions and check the time: 3:45. I’m going to have to book it.
How often did they meet at their “regular spot”? What did they do there? My imagination is running wild, and I wish Swanee were here so I could ask about LT. I’m sure there’s a rational explanation for a girl calling Swan a hundred times a day and telling her, “I love you. Sleep with the angels.” It’s almost as if she knew that’s where Swanee was headed.
“I’m going out for a while,” I tell Dad.
He says automatically, “Out where?”
Why do I have to justify everything I do? Swanee hated that my parents treat me like a child. She thought it was “belittling.”
“Just out,” I reply.
He swivels in his desk chair and meets my eyes.
“I got the shopping done and the laundry started. I promise to finish it when I get back.”
For a minute I think he’s going to say no and I’ll have to sneak off with the car. Which I’ve never done.
But his face softens and he goes, “Be careful.”
Shock. My brain continues his thought: Because if you total the car, we’re both out wheels. Then I feel guilty for even going there.
Traffic is heavy for a Sunday, as if everyone got out of church at the same time. I’m the one praying while cars zip in and out of lanes, honking or shooting the gaps. I know I drive too slowly on the highway, but going seventy-five makes me feel like the Prius is swerving out of control. Or I am.
Even with the directions, I get lost between Boulder and Longmont and it takes me more than an hour to get to Twin Peaks. I race to the theater entrance. When I check my watch it’s 5:10. Shit. I’m never late.
Swanee is. Was. She was always late, so maybe LT won’t have left yet.
A movie must have just ended because people are swarming out of the lobby. There’s a line at the ticket window, and people are waiting to buy refreshments. How will I ever find her?
I scan the crowd, searching for a clue. She’s a girl. Duh. Is she around my age? She sends texts in Spanish, so is she Hispanic? That eliminates maybe a quarter of the people here. This is impossible. I should’ve made a sign to hold up: LT, ARE YOU LOOKING FOR SWANEE DURBIN?
Hold on. How dumb. Maybe there’s a picture of her on Swanee’s cell. I dig it out of my bag and scroll through her pages and pages of pics. One in particular catches my eye. It’s Joss exposing her breasts. Yikes! I should probably delete it, but Swanee must’ve had a reason for keeping it on there.
The only other pictures left on her phone are of herself and Joss, acting silly, in crazy outfits. There isn’t even one of me. That isn’t right. I know she took dozens of pictures of us together. Why would she have deleted them all?
Swanee said I was the most beautiful person she knew, but maybe she meant on the inside.
I stand across from the theater against the mirrored wall until the crowd thins. Until there’s only a handful of people. Two girls are sitting on a bench acting as if they’re waiting for someone. They look like they might be in high school. I approach, clearing my throat.
“Um, Liana?” I say to the closest one. “LT?”
They halt their conversation midsentence and gawk at me. No, they’re too young. More like middle schoolers, just wearing dark, heavy makeup. LT could be younger, I think.
The two get up and head off down the mall, talking and giggling.
I check out every passerby. She wouldn’t be passing by. She’d be waiting.
A dark-haired girl in a short skirt and layered tops is standing just inside the lobby, by the video games. The hairs on the back of my neck tingle. That’s her. I know it.
I take two steps toward her, and then stop. A sudden bout of shyness paralyzes me. I can’t do this.
The girl, LT, texts on her cell and Swan’s phone pings in my bag.
There’s a Piercing Pagoda a few yards down the mall, so I duck around the cart to read her message.
Where are you? I’ve been waiting over an hour
How long will she wait for Swanee? I wonder. Until she knows the truth, she’ll be waiting the rest of her life.
Why didn’t I have Joss call and convey the news to Liana before she left for Hawaii to “regroup”? She obviously knows her. Or is she just jerking me around? I can’t do it. I hurry down the mall, through the food court, and out the exit. All the way home, I hear Swan’s cell pinging. At a McDonald’s, I stop to use the restroom. While I’m in the stall, I read her messages.
Where were you? I waited an hour and a half. Why are you doing this to me?
I stare at the message for a long time, and then text:
Sorry. Ran out of gas
She texts back:
You might’ve called and told me that!
Good. She’s mad. Maybe now she’ll stop calling and this nightmare will be over.
At home I find the CD from Swanee’s room sitting on my player and slide it in. The first song makes my head spin.
“Livin’ la Vida Loca.”
“Alix?” Mom opens my door. “Dinner’s ready. And by the way, thanks for doing the laundry.”
She leaves. That was definitely sarcasm.
I slide into my seat at the table and say, “I’m sorry. I started the laundry, and then forgot.”
“Where did you go for three hours?” Dad asks.
“It wasn’t that long.” Was it? I think fast. “To church. I thought praying might help.”
That shuts Mom and Dad up. Wow. If lying is an SAT category, I’m going to ace it. We eat in silence, except for Ethan smacking his lips and slapping his high-chair tray.
I hear every tick of the clock and wish I had the magical power to turn back time. I might’ve persuaded Swanee to forget her run just this once so we could leave earlier; asked if Jewell and Asher would stop in Idaho Springs for breakfast on our way up to Keystone to hit the slopes; somehow convinced her that snowboarding would be plenty of exercise for one day.
Mom interrupts my thoughts. “You haven’t eaten anything.”
I look down at my plate and feel nauseated. “I’m not hungry. If you’ll excuse me—”
“You’re not leaving the table until you eat something.” Mom spoons another glop of rice cereal into Ethan’s mouth.
I don’t even remember putting food on my plate. Mom must’ve doled it out when I wasn’t looking. Except the peas and mashed potatoes are mixed together, and only I do that.
“Eat,” she orders me.
I do as she says because I’m always the obedient daughter. Swanee never understood why I didn’t just tell them to cram it. I could never explain.
Ethan whimpers, spits out his food, and then lets out a screech that hurts my ears so badly that I plug them. Mom presses the backs of her fingers against his forehead and says, “He feels warm. With that diarrhea, I wonder if he has an intestinal bug, or the flu. Maybe he never really got over his pertussis. I need to take his temperature.” She lifts him out of his high chair to take him into th
e living room. I get up with her, but her hand pushes down on my shoulder. “Eat,” she says.
I shovel a forkful of potato into my mouth at the same time Ethan projectile vomits his curdled dinner all over the table and down my front.
Forcing down a dry heave, I push back my chair and say, “I’m out of here.”
Dad gets up to wet a washcloth for Mom.
Upstairs in my bathroom, I strip and take a long shower. Nothing like the odor and texture of baby puke to stimulate the senses. Shuddering, I log on and link to Facebook, and then click on Swanee’s profile. Her picture is a rainbow equality symbol. It’s comforting to see that she says she’s in a relationship with me. I read through the profile I know so well. Activities: running track, snowboarding, being with friends, partying. Interests: texting, chatting, not shaving my legs ha ha, indie music, hard rock, medium rock, rock candy, candy apples, candy corn. She supports all the same animal rights and human rights organizations I do: HRC, GSA, Rainbow Alley, the Trevor Project. Everything about her screams GAY.
Mom opens the door. “Your brother has a pretty high temp, so your dad and I are going to run him over to the hospital.”
“Okay.”
She sets a new plate of food on my desk. “Eat,” she says.
Like I ever will again now.
“It’s probably just a virus. But I want him checked out. Would you mind terribly cleaning up the kitchen?”
Yes, I would mind terribly.
When I don’t answer, she goes, “Or I’ll do it when we get home.”
She knows the room will be spotless when she returns.
“I’ll call you if it’s serious or we’re going to be late getting back. Eat.”
“I will,” I snap.
She gives me a steely look before closing the door. I feel sort of bad for raising my voice.
But why? It should be my choice whether I eat or not.
Swan’s cell is silent, and so is mine. Tears well in my eyes, but I don’t want to cry. It won’t bring Swanee back. I clomp downstairs and load the dishwasher, glad for something to do, even if it only takes five minutes. Thankfully, someone swabbed up Ethan’s mess. Swan and I used to talk about finding a small studio apartment in Arizona, rather than living in the dorm. A place we could paint, furnish, decorate. Call our own.
Now I’m afraid I’ll always be alone.
I need to go, get out of here. Take a drive. Get as far away as possible from silence and death and the thought of what might have been.
Chapter 6
If I’m distancing myself from silence and death, why do I drive to Crown Hill Cemetery and park at the mausoleum? A few weeks ago Swanee and I came here to see what was inside. From a distance, it looked like a white marble castle rising from the cemetery grounds, and she was sure it was filled with ghosts.
“My life’s passion is to be a ghost hunter,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “Bet you didn’t know that.”
At the time, I laughed. But the mausoleum had always creeped me out, and I told her I didn’t want to go in.
“Because you’re scared of ghosts?”
“Because it seems, I don’t know, irreverent.”
“When did you get all religious?”
“I didn’t. It’s just…” I gazed at the cold marble building full of bodies and shivered. I so didn’t want to go in.
“Oh, come on,” Swan said. She opened the door, and what could I do but follow her?
The mausoleum was six floors of deceased people, their caskets stored inside the walls with their names engraved on plaques outside. Some had flowerpots with bouquets in them. Since a lot of the flowers were fresh, I assumed they were renewed frequently. Swan remarked on it: “You wouldn’t want dead people to have dead flowers.” Her voice echoed eerily.
I remember the stale air and the sense that the walls were closing in on us as we wandered down each hall. And we had to explore every floor. Read every name on every plaque.
“Swan,” I whispered more than once. “Let’s go.”
“It’s crazy,” she said. “People spending money on this shit.”
I felt claustrophobic and dizzy, so I plopped down on a bench and dropped my head between my knees to stop the vertigo. When I could focus again, I lifted my head and saw a small plaque across from me. I got up to read it, ran my fingers across the lettering. Swan returned and stood beside me.
“This one was only a baby,” I told her. The birth and death dates were five days apart. My mother might have cared for this baby in the neonatal care unit. She might’ve been there when he died.
Swan said, “You’re not going to cry, are you?”
I actually thought I might. “Can we please go now?”
Bumping my shoulder, she said, “Exorcise your inner wuss.”
I curled a lip at her, but she was right.
Now I get out of the car and head toward the mausoleum entrance, but stop just short. I can’t go in. Too much death. Too many ghosts.
Instead, I walk around Crown Hill, noting how the headstones get smaller and smaller the farther out I go, as if the people who died more recently are less important. A guy in a golf cart drives up to me on the path and says, “We’ll be closing in fifteen minutes.”
I didn’t know graveyards closed. “Okay,” I tell him. I guess you’re only supposed to honor your loved ones between certain hours of the day.
I send Swanee a mental message as I head back to the car: You’ll never die in my head or heart.
The next morning, Monday, I ask the librarian if I can eat my lunch in the media center. She gives me the pity look that everyone else has been casting me all morning. “Yes,” she says. “But only for today. Okay?”
Today is all I need. It’s twelve thirty here, eight thirty in Hawaii.
I call Joss. This morning she texted me, telling me to call her ASAP and giving me a number. I don’t know where she got the phone, but I am glad she has one because I need to ask her some questions. She picks up on the fourth ring, sounding groggy.
“Hi,” I say. “It’s Alix.”
“I need you to get me some stuff from Swan’s room,” she says.
“Are you having fun?” I ask. Stupid question. I almost ask if she’s regrouped, but that’d be two stupid questions in a row.
“I want my wigs and makeup kit. I have a bunch of clothes in there, but I don’t care about them. I definitely want Swan’s cell. I know she had it on her when she… Look in that hospital bag.”
I’m barely listening. “Tell me about Liana.”
She doesn’t say anything.
“I know her first name, Joss. What’s her last name?”
Joss yawns. “Why do you want to know?”
“I just do.”
There’s another long pause. “It’s your stake through the heart.”
My what? She’s so melodramatic.
“It’s Torres.”
Torres. LT has a name. Liana Torres. It makes her more real.
“Who is she to Swanee?” I ask.
Joss says, “You don’t have to worry. She won’t find out about you.”
What does that mean? Can’t she answer one question without talking around it?
Now I’m more confused than ever. “Who is she to Swanee?” I ask again.
“Don’t you mean was?”
I’m still having a hard time thinking of Swan in the past tense.
Joss says, “If Swan wanted you to know, she would’ve told you.”
I want to throttle her. “Maybe she was going to tell me, but she didn’t get a chance.” Did Joss ever think of that? Because I have—about a hundred times.
Joss doesn’t take the bait.
“Please, Joss. I need to know.”
“Why?”
Because we didn’t have that much time together, and there are so many things that were left unsaid, and undone. I answer quietly, “Just because.”
Joss sighs, sounding exactly like Swanee. “Liana was her girlfriend.”
/> My jaw unhinges. I say, “But I am—was—”
“Her ex. She broke up with her after she met you.”
Relief washes over me.
“Get Swan’s iPad for me, too. She has a lot of pictures of us on it. Just put everything under my bed so Jewell won’t see it.”
I’m still processing this conversation. Something isn’t adding up, like the time line. And Liana’s ongoing texts. “When did they break up, exactly?”
“I don’t know the date and time. Exactly.”
“But they did break up.”
“I told you they did. Are you calling me a liar?”
“No.” I take a deep breath. “How can you be so sure Liana doesn’t know about me?” I ask Joss. I know about her.
Joss says, “Because Swan gave her a fake last name. Liana didn’t know anything about Swanee’s real life.”
Oh my God. That explains the texts. “Is there a possibility she doesn’t know Swanee’s dead?”
Joss goes, “Fuck.”
“What name did Swanee give her?”
“Swanelle Delaney. I came up with it.”
Like that’s important? “Do you know her? Personally?”
“I met her a few times. At the games Swanee took me to. She’s a bitch.”
Again with the games. “What games? Where?”
“She’s a cheerleader at Greeley West.”
What about cheers being stuck-up sluts? Maybe that only applied to Betheny. “How long were they together?”
“You’re really a masochist, aren’t you?”
“I just think someone should tell her about Swanee. If, um, she doesn’t already know.”
Joss mimics my exasperated breath. “When you find her phone, look in Swan’s contacts list. She might still have the number.”
I almost slip and say I know Liana’s number. “Don’t you think she should be told in person?”
“By who? Me? No way.”
Well, I’m not going to call her. That’d be the cruelest way ever to deliver heartbreaking news about someone you’re obviously still in love with.
I hear voices in the background and Joss says, “We’re off to score some native weed. Want me to bring you back some?”