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vii. this life, what if it’s you and me?
Shane is t-boned at an intersection in Galveston by a minivan; seven people die, including him, and his sister (who called Liam, who called Lauren to get her number) tells Amy the funeral is Saturday in Austin. It’s mostly hard to concentrate on a coherent answer, brain chemistry flooding every sense as she tries not to focus on the woman disintegrating on the opposite side of the phone, but she manages to say yes of course I’ll be there and can I do anything? It is a nonsensical statement, hollow, because things happen: it’s all they do, and car accidents are one of the most common causes of death in the United States. A doctor knows.
Doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.
She catches a red-eye and takes a cab from the airport, unwilling to call her mother or a puffy eyed Lauren – Shane’s unlikely best friend and recent business partner, the two going in together on a clothing store downtown. Christ.
High school seemed a hundred years ago, a foggy window blurring the lines of memory to the point where she can hardly distinguish between what mattered and what did not. The parties and being popular and the people who surrounded themselves with a magnetism which never really existed in the first place, created only from the glitter of youthful zeitgeist. As if it all happened to someone else and Amy was simply watching re-runs of a show she once knew by heart. Like a depressing episode of Friends.
Her mother kisses her cheek and shakes her head at the tragedy of chance.
“You know, he always was fast on the gas pedal,” she shakes her head and Amy wants to yell about traffic laws in the same teenage petulant voice she employed in her younger years. Instead, at thirty-four years old, she stays silent. “I’m just glad Lauren wasn’t in the car with him.” Another sad shake of her head, to rid the mere thought. Amy nods.
“Listen, I’m gonna crash.” It’s a change of subject and mercifully her mother doesn’t question it, switching to fussing about linens and drawers.
And that night, surrounded by boxes of her old things and half-finished paintings and mountains of spare fabric, she thinks of a face and a name for the first time in a decade; funny how people fade, especially the people who always seemed to mean the most.
At first, Amy thinks maybe Karma was not invited; then, as the day moves slowly on and they continue to insofar manage to avoid crossing paths, she thinks maybe Karma just didn’t want to come. Liam (art teacher in Arizona, married with two kids – who knew?) squashes the former assumption with confirmation that he did, in fact, call, and a clattering whiskey sour in a pair of shaking hands nearly running her over outside the bathroom kills the latter. Sixteen years never dissolved so fast: Karma has been crying, Amy has not. Karma does session work in Nashville, Amy does pro-bono surgeries at a children’s hospital in Queens. Karma has a beach house in Santa Monica, Amy owns a townhouse in Manhattan. Karma has a daughter who is staying with her actor father, Amy’s ex-wife has a new wife. Karma is seven years sober (still, despite the drink in her hand) and Amy is tipsy halfway through a small glass of wine.
Everything has changed. Everything except them.
Because after they say goodbye to Shane, they can’t quite say goodbye to each other; they walk through town towards the ancient amusement park that’s been condemned forever, and then they walk to their old houses, to the strip malls everybody used to hang out near, to the high school. Austin feels familiar in a dangerous, lulling way. Too much like coming home, when it never really felt like home to begin with (and maybe she starts to wonder if it has anything to do with her current company; and that’s more dangerous than anything).
They sit on the grass by the quad, an illusion of so many years ago.
“Do you ever miss it?” Karma asks tentatively, in a subtle pause in their conversation about what happened in their futures apart as a vague throwback to their past together.
Amy shakes her head. “In the abstract – sort of? I guess I miss the people, not really the place. Nothing ever feels like it happens here.” She could be wearing a doughnut shirt and eating frosting, in her matchbox bedroom extolling the virtues of Katniss Everdeen versus Bella Swan. Half-squinting, suddenly self-conscious, she glances at Karma, “Does that even make sense?” Karma laughs.
“No. But I think I get what you mean. Reality as a kaleidoscope. Shane would be proud,” she says lightly, tearing up a little at the corners of her eyes, and Amy cannot force herself not to look and be charmed.
This isn’t right, for so many reasons, a sick mirror held between then and now, feels perverted and twisted to recognise the familiar thrill of being in Karma Ashcroft’s bubble yet again. It’s been over a decade and yet, and yet, and yet.
Long story short, Amy does the stupid thing and kisses her.