Pieces of Us (6 page)

Katie

M
y toe is throbbing. I look away as it bleeds into the
creek.

“Sorry,” Yulya says again, but I can tell she thinks I’m overreacting.

“Forget it.” I make myself look back at the water. I love how clear the creek is. It just absorbs the blood, and it’s fascinating how it diverts it in all directions, thinning it out. Not like the chicken blood at all.

Yulya glances at me. “You’re okay, right?” she says. This time her voice sounds worried and very much just-turned-fourteen.

“Yes, hon. Fine.” I pat her leg in reassurance and she exhales. Sometimes it’s so hard to read her. There are moments she’s so young, looking for approval from everyone, jumping up and down because a boy she likes says hello to her. Then there are other days where she’s hard, impenetrable; where her eyes flash spurts of hate in my direction.

“I’m doing it!” she shrieks, the sweet Yulya coming back. She throws the stones on the water like I taught her, like Sasha taught me right before he kissed me for the first time. I was almost fourteen, and he was my first kiss ever. Perfection.

“Grr!” she screams, throwing a pebble hard at the creek in retaliation for missing a skip.

I stifle a laugh, knowing if I don’t, Yulya will lash out at me.

She slumps down on the grass.

“I can help you practice anytime,” I say, and lie down beside her.

She doesn’t say anything, then quietly, “Maybe.”

I hear a car rumble down the gravel path outside and hold my breath. I know Yulya hears it too.

She snickers. “They wouldn’t come so late. And anyway, if you miss him
sooo
much, why do you play your stupid games?”

I pluck at the grass. “What games?”

Even in the darkness I know she’s rolling her eyes. “Oh, please. The not-talking-to-him during the year. It’s ridiculous.”

“It works for us.”

She laughs. “Yeah, whatever. And only using our Russian names here.”

“That’s what everyone’s grandparents use. Makes things less confusing.”

Yulya backs down. “I guess.” She finds a rock in the grass and tosses it into the creek. It sinks. “But,” she says, turning back to me, “I still think the no-contact thing is stupid.”

I hear the unspoken
so there
as she lays back down and crosses her arms. So fourteen.

Of course she doesn’t understand. She’s just like my mother in that way, thinking everything is so easy for me. Everyone wants Katie, so how could her life be bad? To my mother, my sister, my father the double life I lead may seem like lies, but not with Sasha. Our agreement leaves the world open. And when I met him, it was
before
. So that’s who he knows—Katya who’s never been kissed. Who loves having that spot behind her knee tickled by his fingers. Whose body warms up at his slightest touch and stays warm all summer.

Not Katie, the girl who slept with her ex-boyfriend and his best friend and barely remembers it. Who walks down the halls each day wondering if word got out, if the whispers are about her. Who wonders if she’ll have to spend more lunch periods kneeling on the bathroom floor, drawing on the stalls. Who was lured in by the pom-poms, by the pyramid, who would do anything to stay on top of it.

The girl Sasha knows takes control. She doesn’t let herself be coaxed into doing things she doesn’t want to. Katya stands up for herself while Katie keeps silent, jumping at every shadow, dodging unwanted touches.

Before school ended, Chris said he’d go away, stop following me, stop appearing like a magician’s trick each time I turned around, stop cornering me when the halls were empty and copping feels because he could. It was easy—I just had to sleep with him again. Sober this time, though, so I’d remember him. So I did, crying the whole time while his stupid dog licked my toes again. He told me he wouldn’t move his dog; it was there first. Then, it was done. And he kept his promise. Those last few weeks of school, I was able to walk the halls in peace.

“Can you believe I’ll be in high school next year?” Yulya asks suddenly.

“You’ve come to the basketball games.”

Yulya props herself on one elbow. “That’s not the same.”

“High school is a let-down,” I say.

She waves her hand in the air. “Don’t patronize me, Miss Cheerleader.” Then she’s huffy again, all friendliness gone.

“Didn’t meant to,” I say gently. “I’m sure you’ll love it.” I try to pack enthusiasm into those words, use my fake cheerleader lilt to convey the year will be a
W-I-N!

She laughs, I’m sure in spite of herself. “I know that voice,” she says. Then, in Yulya style, she jumps up and raises her arms in the air. “
Gooo
East High! Yeah!”

“There you go. That’s the spirit.”

She collapses back on the grass in a fit of giggles. We do East High cheers and crack ourselves up. Flashes of my trees on the bathroom stall get fainter and fainter.

The sounds of cars swoosh by. The creek water laps on the rocks.

Our laughter gets louder, pushing that drunken night—Chris, Ethan, the blanket over my naked body—to the hidden places in my mind.

Kyle

Y
our grandparents—
Babushka
wearing the blue apron your dad once got her, and
Dedushka
in
one of his checkered tees—run out to meet you, big smiles, arms open wide as Alex’s car inches down the path. His honk, the first notes of “Shave and a Haircut,” was your dad’s signature, too.

They barely give Alex a chance to turn off the car before they’re hugging you and taking your bags and ushering you in with commands to sit and eat and gain some weight back. They don’t say anything about your mother not feeding you right or taking care of you properly, even though it would be their right and the truth. Their main concern has always been keeping things warm and good and normal. Even the wallpaper in the kitchen—bright orange and green flowers—is the same as it always was.

The lake house was their idea. They knew Katie and Julie’s grandparents back in Russia, and when they reconnected in the Catskills, what better way to keep the friendship going than to see each other every summer? You remember how ecstatic Dad was. He said it reminded him of the vacations he took as a kid. He came every weekend. Sometimes your mom came too, though usually not. “This is the life,” he’d say, parking his chaise longue by the wet laundry hanging on the clothesline outside. You and Alex would get the kiddie chaise longues he bought you and place them beside his. The wet sheets on the line blew in the breeze. There was always a breeze.

In the early mornings the three of you and your grandfather would set out, buckets in hands, and go deep into the forest to pick berries your grandma would turn into fruit punch and jam. You were eight the last time you did this. Your remember your father shielding his eyes from the sun, grimacing and smiling at the same time. You remember Alex acting goofy, throwing berries up in the air and trying to catch them in his mouth. You don’t remember what was talked about, but you remember lots of laughing. When you think about that day now, the laughing hurts.

That fall, your dad found another man’s boxers in the wash and moved out. You wondered what that would mean for summertime. Would you still visit your grandparents? Would the men of the lake house pick berries? You shouldn’t have wondered. Three months after your ninth birthday, before summer came, he was gone.

Your mother—of all people—was the one who told you. She used her calm therapist voice because she’d earned her online degree two weeks before. “Now boys,” she said to you and Alex, who would be turning eleven that weekend. He hated your mother for cheating and called her a “skank,” mostly behind her back. She cleared her throat, looked down at the hot pink index cards fanned out before her, the open textbook on the chair beside her. “Now boys,” she said again. “Something has happened, and before we discuss it, I need you to know it’s not your fault.” When she said this, you didn’t think she was talking about anything that had to do with your father. You thought she was talking about Art, your possible stepdad. You hoped, even though you felt guilty for hoping, that the next words out of her mouth would be, “He’s leaving.” You thought of ways you’d make her feel better, like with a hug or peanut butter and jelly sandwich with strawberry jam—her favorite. Then, while she ate it, Art forgotten due to the jelly’s deliciousness, you’d call your dad and tell him Art was out of the picture. You would convince him to come back home and give mom another shot. Funny choice of words in retrospect.

In the middle of this fantasy, your mother said, “Your father was a sick man. He had many problems.” You didn’t know what that had to do with Art leaving, and it confused you. Your brother banged his fist on the table. Hard. His eyes teared up, something you’d never seen before. You were still confused, but Alex seemed to know what came next. Your mother didn’t look at him, was careful to only look at you when she said, “Boys, I’m so sorry. Your father ended his life today. In his bedroom. With a gun.”

You stared at her, and all you could think about was that game Clue you were so good at, where Professor Plum killed Mr. Boddy. In the parlor. With a candlestick.

She turned over an index card. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated. But she didn’t cry. Your mother who cried at every sappy chick flick and infomercial, who just the day before cried when she saw one of those adopt-a-stray-dog commercials, didn’t even tear up. She put a hand on your shoulder and the fingertips of her other hand on your brother’s shoulder. “I’m here if you want to talk,” she said, and glanced at the textbook on the chair before adding, “Can you tell me what you’re feeling?”

Your brother shrugged off her hand and ran to his room. She sighed and turned to you. “How about you, Kyle? Do you want to talk? I want you to remember it’s not your fault. He loved you.” Her eyes were still dry, and you hated that. And you didn’t understand why she thought you would blame yourself. Your dad would have been in the house with you had it not been for Art.

You shoved her hand off your shoulder and tried to think of bad words you heard Alex use. Then you looked at her, the snot from your nose collecting on your upper lip, tears dripping off your chin, and said, “I know it’s not my fault. It’s yours for being such a fucking skank.”

The summers were different after that. Despite the attempts at normalcy, berry-picking was the one thing your grandfather couldn’t do anymore. The main things you remember about that first summer
after
was absence and emptiness. And playing cards with Julie. When you were with her, your hands moving at the speed of light, you had no time to think of anything else.

Alex

K
atya is at the lake, just like Grams said she would be. The orange one-piece she’s wearing is soaked and a little see-through by her boobs. Last year, her hair hung down to her fine ass. This year it’s cut short to her chin. I normally hate short hair; something really butch about it. But on Katya it’s sexy. The sun shines down on her as she pulls her bathing suit away from her body, like girls do to stop the clinginess. Only she pulls it too far out and I see more than she’d want. I see everything. It’s at this moment that she sees me and waves and runs to me, almost slipping on the sand, jumping on me, wrapping her wet legs tight around my swim shorts. I grab her ass, right there, in front of all the old farts watching us. The old men cheer, the women whisper, waving their fingers at Katya. She lets go quickly, her face red, like she forgot where we were or something.

This is the Katya I love. Or whatever that word means. This crazy Katya who doesn’t talk on and on about separate worlds and shit. I never know what she’s talking about when she goes off like that, but I always look at her all thoughtful, like I get it. Look at her mouth open and close, the tip of her tongue running over the top of her teeth when she’s trying to make a point, and work really hard to hear what she’s saying without thinking about the places on my body that tongue has been.

It would be easy to zone out when she starts getting all deep, but I feel I owe her something. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because she’s not like any girl I’ve ever met before. That’s a freaking cliché, I know, but that’s the best reason I can come up with. She’s not a ho, or stereotypical Jersey girl with the long, painted fake nails, tight jeans, and sprayed hair. Hell, Philly girls are more Jersey than Katya. And she never wanted labels—unlike the skanks back home who ask for a commitment after spreading their legs on date two and claiming they’ve never done it before, all the while moaning like porn stars. Like anyone would respect their loose asses.

That first summer we hooked up, we saw each other every day, almost 24/7, and still we didn’t screw. I’m not a complete asshole. I knew I was her first kiss, and I don’t pressure (real) virgins. But she wanted to “do something special” for me, so I taught her how to jerk me off. She was good at it, too. When that summer finished, I didn’t plan on seeing her again, not until the next summer anyway—if I decided to come back here. But I know how girls think, the shit that runs around in their heads about commitments and crap.

So I had my speech all prepared. I would tell her she was a great girl, really special and everything, that this summer would always mean something to me, like Kid Rock says in that song Katya loved, but things get crazy during the year, we lived too far apart. Hey, we could still IM if she wanted and be Facebook friends or something.

But she didn’t give me the chance to say any of it. The last day there, while her parents were loading the car, she walked into my cottage, grabbed my hand, pulled me into the bedroom, and sat on my lap. Then she put her hand down my pants, rubbed me until I came, and kissed me hard. She smiled at me. “I hope to see you next summer,” she said, squeezing my hand before letting it go and walking to the door.

In that moment, I believed she
was
special. Why didn’t she want to exchange emails? Why hadn’t I paid more attention to our fucking conversations?

“Don’t forget me,” I called as the screen door slammed shut.