Some friend, Cath thought bitterly, surveying Sarah’s sleeping body in the backseat. As soon as they returned to Mari’s—no, Cath’s—car after the concert, Sarah had put on her headphones and fallen asleep in the back. But Cath was sorry for that thought almost instantly. It was unfair. Sarah really had been good to her since the funeral. Sarah was the only one who seemed to understand that Cath had loved Mari with more than all of her heart and that she wouldn’t just be able to go on with life in an instant. And Sarah also understood, the way Cath was only just beginning to, that she couldn’t show the depth of her feeling even thought Mari was… was… dead. So Sarah would hold her when she couldn’t hold onto herself anymore, but also slap her around and force her to make public appearances without breaking down or looking like a ghost—no, bad thought, a shadow.
A good friend, thought Cath, but an aggravating one. She fiddled with her iPod until opera poured out of the car speakers. Nothing could be more in contrast with the metal concert they had just left, but Cath found this much more to her taste. Mari would have liked the concert.
As she drove down the nearly deserted frontage road, opera filling the car, the play of light from the streetlamps making patterns on the dashboard, Cath’s mind turned to Mari, as it invariable did. The memories were still painful, but what was worse was the fear that she might forget them. There would be no more memories like that. So when she saw the black-clad figure climbing down the embankment and, in seeing its face recognized the face of the girl she had loved, she had slammed on the brakes without thinking.
She felt stupid and a little ashamed. Mari was dead. And Cath missed her so much she was becoming delusional. She told herself to look at the face, still illuminated by the orange glow of the streetlight, to see that it wasn’t Mari, and to move on. But again she looked and again Mari’s face looked back. “Mari?” she gasped. No reaction. Then she wanted to scream, “Duh.” It’s the middle of winter; her windows are rolled up. She put on the parking brake and was out of the car in a second, briefly tangling herself in her seatbelt in the rush. “Mari?” she asked again, out of breath, near tears, and desperate.
“Cath,” said Mari, for it must be Mari, it knew her.
Cath made to run forward and straight into her arms, where she knew she’d be safe and protected and loved. But one of Mari’s hands, white fingertips peeking out from the tops of black gloves, moved faster than Cath’s eyes could follow. Cath stopped, inches from Mari’s palm, stretched out in front of her in a universal command to halt.
“What? …Why? …How?” Cath was crying now, tears streaming down her face and leaving icy tracks. Her mind had choked up as well as her throat and she couldn’t form the words to ask the questions that were plaguing her. Was she really there or just an amazingly real hallucination brought about by her grief and whatever was in the air at the concert? And how? How? Cath remembered the funeral. How could she forget? That memory was branded into her mind with burning tears.
She studied Mari with intense concentration, trying to find an answer to her question in the silent face before her. The face was Mari’s face, very round and very lovely, but it was harsher somehow. The face was too pale, the eyes too dark, the circles around them too deep. And so expressionless, like a powerful force held all the emotion in check. But it was Mari. It had to be.
“Can we just not? Not now. Can we just pretend that things are like normal? Please” Cath heard the emotionlessness snap on the last word and by the “please” she was practically begging.
“How can I? You’re, well, you’re…” But she couldn’t say it, couldn’t get the words out.
“Yeah. Sort of. Not now.” And Mari started to walk back up the embankment.
“NO!” Cath cried out in pure desperation. “You can’t do this. You can’t… die… then come back for two seconds just to run off.” It was unfair. It was worse than that: it was cruel. It was torture. She had been tortured enough already.
“Then what do you want, Cath?” She was making her think, making her answer, but Cath didn’t know what to say.
“There’s a car coming,” said Mari, coming to a decision. She moved towards the still open driver’s side door.
“That’s my side,” said Cath, forcing down the emotions threatening to overwhelm her.
Mari smiled a dry, painful smile and slithered across the seats to the passenger side. “Habit.”
A car was coming. The middle of the road was hardly the best parking spot. Cath climbed back in the car and started driving. There were so many questions she needed to ask, but that she knew Mari wouldn’t answer. What could she say? She remembered Sarah, somehow still asleep in the back seat, and tried to see her through Mari’s eyes. A little too much makeup, maybe, explained away by the concert. What would Mari think? The silence was uncomfortable.
“How’ve you been?” asked Cath, the first thing that came to her, then she winced instantly. But she did want to know.
“Topic off-limits,” said Mari. “Since when did you drive this?” she asked, indicating the car around them. Neirenn, the pet name for the old Prius, had been Mari’s car.
“Since three days ago. Ruth said I could have it, as a reminder. Plus, my parents wouldn’t pay for a car now that I have my license.” She could pretend to forget, sitting here like old times, talking about her day.
“What are you doing down here?” asked Mari now.
“VAST concert,” she answered shortly.
“How was it?” asked Mari with genuine interest.
“You weren’t there.” That was a dangerous area, and she shied away from it. “And I was never much of a fan. Not like you.”
Silence fell again. Mari reached over to change the music. Evanescence. Typical Mari. “That’s too depressing,” complained Cath, but with good humor; it was a familiar argument.
“Just one song,” begged Mari, smiling, but she was already scrolling to a new album.
DUN! DUNDUNDUNDUNDUN!
Cath grinned. She couldn’t help herself. There were so many memories, so many good times, so much of her life with Mari had been played to this. “I promised you his autograph, remember.” The touring company had been in town, with John Cudia, the best Phantom according to both of them. They had gone together, all dressed up, gotten dinner beforehand, and Cath had paid, so it was one of their few real dates. But Cath had been going a second time, with her church choir, to have a backstage tour. That had been two days before… before… Mari’s death.
“I remember.”
“I got it! Almost froze to death waiting, but I got it!”
“Where is it now?” asked Mari, a touch of sadness creeping into her voice.
“With mine. In that picture frame.” That picture frame that held all her treasured “flats,” signed posters, letters, notes.
“I should come claim it.”
They lapsed into silence again, but before it could become awkward Mari started singing along with the Phantom’s part. Cath smiled and joined in with the soprano when it was time. This was what she missed. Nothing big and dramatic, just singing together. Memories flooded her: Mari singing, Mari doing homework, driving, brushing her hair.
They sang through half the CD, Mari doing most of the parts, but Cath paused it at the Entr’acte. She still wasn’t sure if Mari was really there, but wasn’t about to try something that might make her disappear. So she let herself sink into memories and try to forget the painful event that had made those memories so important.
“Remember when we met…”
“At that Renn-Faire,” put in Mari. Mari’s mom, Ruth, was obsessed with all things medieval, obsessed to the point of naming her daughter Marion Guinevere. Cath was obsessed too, but to a lesser extent. Naturally, both had gone, Ruth Winters dragging an uncooperative Mari along in her wake. “I was bored out of my mind and wished everyone would stop being so goddamn cheerful and that I could go home.”
“I noticed you right away,” said Cath, lost in her memories. She could feel the glare of the sun, smell the straw, hear the music, and the sound of hundreds of people happily chattering. “You were so out of place in your black and silver, amidst all the long gowns and earth tones.”
“Love at first sight,” said Mari, with a very overdramatic, Mari-like gesture.
“Hardly,” scoffed Cath. She was almost happy. “I was furious with you for ruining the image of the place with your goth-ness.”
“There were Goths back then,” said Mari with a smile. It was another long running conversation.
“Not that sort of goth. Anyways, I was mad.”
“And I was mad. But not at you. And then we ran into each other. Hard. Knocked me over, you did.”
“And then you were mad at me.”
“No, not really, actually. It was the first interesting thing that had happened all day.” They were both smiling now, real smiles, lost in the past, which was all they had to share anymore. “I spend the rest of the time watching you, for lack of anything better to do. And you’re hot.”
Cath blushed, as she always did. Mari had been surprisingly persistent in pursuit of her, especially as she’d had no idea of what sort of relationship Mari had been after. A strictly Catholic home-schooled upbringing doesn’t exactly explore those things.
“Remember when we picnicked on the roof…” Cath said, veering from the topic.
“Those were damn good scones.”
Typical Mari. “Trust you to fixate on food,” Cath said with a laugh. Oh how she had missed this.
The conversation dwindled, but the silence was a companionable one. As they reached the exit, however, Cath’s questions began to return. She felt instinctively that she would not be seeing Mari again. Mari was messing with the music again, but Cath said, “Don’t.”
“Don’t. I have questions. I know you don’t want to talk about it, but you can’t do this to me and not tell me anything.”
Mari didn’t say anything, but looked resigned.
“Did you really kill yourself? I won’t believe it.”
Mari laughed, actually laughed. “Is that what they’re saying? No, I didn’t. Of course I didn’t.” There was a pause. “You look far too relieved for someone who didn’t believe it,” she added.
Cath stuttered, but formed no response. “Did it hurt?”
Mari closed her eyes and Cath winced. It hurt. A lot. “No, not really,” said Mari.
The car pulled into the driveway of Cath’s house and Cath wished she’d had the forethought to drive around the block or something. This was it.
“Cath…” Mari started.
But Cath had had enough. Her body could not handle another goodbye. She had kept it together throughout the whole ride, but this was too much. She was sobbing huge choking sobs, begging not to be left again. Mari held her and Cath was still present enough to realize that this was the first contact between them and that Mari did not feel like a ghost. She felt solid and Mari-like and was wearing the silk turtleneck Ruth had given her for her birthday that Mari wore so often there were loose threads on the sleeve.
“I’m dead, Cath,” she said, as if she still couldn’t quite believe it. “I’m dead. You have to let me go. I love you.” With utter gentleness, Mari disentangled herself from Cath’s arms and kissed her lips. Then she was gone.
Cath sat, numb. Gone. She was really gone. And Cath had no more tears.