“You’ve been here before.”
“A million times. This is the deepest part of the river. We swim here in the summertime. You can’t see it through the trees, but a little ways upriver’s the old railroad bridge. We jump off it and race to the float. It’s like a dare, every year after ice out. First man to the float gets a beer.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“Yeah, people drown sometimes. But kids around here still do it. It’s like a rite of passage.”
“Cool, I want to try. Not now, obviously. Once it warms up.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so.”
“I’m an ace swimmer. Lifeguard certified, five summers of sailing camp.”
“It’s not that. A winter like this, ice out isn’t till May. Swim before June, the water’ll paralyze you in minutes, and you’ll sink like a rock. By the time the river’s swimmable, I’m gonna bet you’ll be off on Martha’s Vineyard sipping cocktails.”
“I don’t have any plans for the summer that I can’t change. Who knows, maybe I’ll stay in Belle River.”
He laughed. “Right, and hang out with me and my townie friends down by the Dairy Bar.”
“Why not?”
“That’d be a sight. I’d like to see it, actually.”
Their eyes caught and held, and they melted together, kissing until they were both breathless. She started to take off her clothes, but he stopped her.
“We’ll be more comfortable in the back.”
He opened his door, smiling, and beckoned her out. The frigid air came as a shock, a faint aroma of skunk adding to its sharpness. They stood together for a moment looking toward the opposite shore, his arms wrapped tightly around her as they listened to the ice grind and crack on the river.
“That sound,” she said. “It’s like it’s alive.”
“Oh, the river’s alive. Never doubt it. C’mon,” he said, and opened the back door.
*
It turned out Jenny did care. Kate had no intention of giving up Lucas at this point. She couldn’t if she wanted to. But she felt bad that she’d thrown her hookup with him in Jenny’s face. And at such a time. With Jenny and Aubrey gone, Kate was lonely and anxious. She wanted to drown her sorrows in sex with Lucas, but since their night by the river (no surprise, they never made it to Bangor), he seemed to be avoiding her. Between Lucas’s disappearing act and her roommates’ absence, Kate didn’t know what to do with herself. She liked an audience; solitude freaked her out. Griff was available to sit with her nonstop, holding her hand and staring into her eyes if she let him, but that got cloying after about five minutes. He took hanging out way too seriously. Grabbing a milkshake together meant they were getting engaged, as far as Griff was concerned. So two days after her awful fight with Jenny, at her wit’s end, Kate called Aubrey’s mother’s apartment and left a message on the answering machine begging Jenny to call so she could apologize. Later that day the phone rang in suite 402, and it was Jenny calling from Nevada.
“I’m so sorry, can you forgive me?” Kate cried.
She paused for breath and then, hearing only the buzz of silence on the line, plowed ahead.
“After you said I was a bad friend for not helping Aubrey, I felt really small. That’s why I brought up Lucas, to get back at you. That was a shitty thing to do, and I apologize.”
“Ugh, let’s just forget it, all right?” Jenny said.
“Yes. Yes, thank you. So you forgive me.”
“About Lucas? Fine. It’s harder to forgive the timing. Aubrey was suffering, I was trying to help, and you were just so—nasty.”
“I tried to explain. I’m terrified of hospitals.”
“We never even went to the hospital. She died before we got there,” Jenny said.
“She died? Oh, no, I can’t believe it. So fast?”
“Yes. We ended up going straight from the airport to the funeral home.”
“Well, I couldn’t have known that, could I? I’m sorry if you think I was heartless. I just got really defensive and lashed out. I care so much about our friendship, Jenny.”
“Yeah, sure, me, too. Listen, if this is all you’re calling about, I should go. We need to pick out an urn, and order food for the memorial service.”
Kate felt like she’d been slapped. She didn’t like to grovel. If she made the effort to apologize, she expected a grateful response from Jenny, not a bitchy tone and getting off the phone.
“I’m very sorry to hear about Aubrey’s mom,” Kate said stiffly. “When is the funeral?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Should I send flowers?”
Jenny sighed audibly. “Honestly, Kate, do what you want.”
“Tell Aubrey I’m sorry about her mother,” Kate said, and slammed the receiver down.
Her roommates were a conundrum. As much as she loved them, she also hated them, especially that impossible Jenny.
12
Finals had already started back at Carlisle. Jenny was desperate to study on the flight from Las Vegas to Boston, but she couldn’t set her mind to it, so troubled was she by what she’d witnessed of Aubrey’s home life. Or lack of one. Brenda Miller had been living in an SRO motel, in a single room with a hot plate and the bathroom down the hall. Aubrey said she hadn’t known how bad things had gotten, or she would’ve found a way to send her mother more money. (How? Aubrey had nothing.) Brenda Miller’s bank account had been overdrawn, and any valuables sold or pawned already, which, looking on the bright side, meant there wasn’t much work to be done to sort out her things. Aubrey took a couple of old photographs and an ugly, crocheted afghan that she said had sentimental value, to remember her mother by. Her pretty sister Amanda, hostile and hard-eyed and impatient, took nothing, though Jenny privately suspected Amanda had pocketed anything valuable before they arrived.