Thanksgiving Without Peggy
Sara clung to my arm as we walked through the door. The same photos were on the wall, but Mom didn’t usher us in, pulling off our coats and pinching cheeks. It hit me, all those ways she was gone.
We were late, so I shoveled turkey and stuffing onto my plate, while giving out one-handed hugs. I squished in next to Dad, on his second overflowing plate already. Sara sat in the only other open seat next to Aunt Mona, who would be after those gums with a toothpick mid-meal flicking bits of food onto everyone in the vicinity. When I introduced Sara, her smile too bright, her auburn hair shining in the mid-afternoon light, Dad dropped his fork, splashing gravy on his sweater and gaped.
We were used to some level of eccentricity out of him, especially since mom passed, but his slack jaw was weird enough that all conversation died and my cousin Tara giggled in the silence. I elbowed him under the table and he mumbled a nicety. Sara blushed and took tiny bites of sweet potatoes while feigning interest at Aunt Mona’s hatred of the Yankees lineup. Her large eyes darted sideways, finding mine. It killed me that he hadn’t saved us seats together. Mom would’ve remembered.
“Dad,” I whispered. “What’s with you?”
He didn’t answer. Just continued to squirrel mountains of mashed potatoes into his cheeks. Every few seconds his eyes would find Sara and stare for a moment, before pretending to look out the window behind her and then down at his food. It was nuts.
“Dad! You’re making her uncomfortable!”
“She looks…” he started to explain, then stopped. The words spun out over our plates for a minute.
“Dad?”
“Peggy, she…” he started again.
“Sara looks nothing like Mom, Dad.” I said, annoyed. Where was he going with this?
“No, no, not her...” He answered, then stopped again. I thought for a second that he was going to push back from the table, unzip his khakis and retire to the living room, but instead he blurted this out.
I started recording after the first few minutes when I realized he was unburdening himself of some old cancerous memory. I decided to post it because, well, I feel like other people should know what happened, but I’m not ready to talk to the family. I just can’t face it. Not yet anyway.
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… too fast, I slid my new ride off the cobblestone drive, mowing over a row of tulips, almost clipping Maggie’s hip. I gave Maggie’s older sister Tempe a quick kiss as Phoebe, my best friend, moved silently into the back. Window down in the cool autumn air, I slapped the door with my palm, too cool by half.
“We gotta run by Buck’s right quick.” I said, catching Phoebe’s emerald eyes in the rearview. Phoebe froze. She was anorexically thin now. Her thick red waves were matted too. Her skin was normally milky, but in that moment translucent. Blue veins shown at either temple. I felt her shrinking, melting into the leather. I had a sense of impermanence, of foreboding. That was my first missed opportunity to save her.
Buck lived by himself in a patchwork one-story behind the school. He wouldn’t talk about it, but everyone on the team had seen the scars. I figured whatever had happened was likely why he was so damn good on the field. He feared no-one and hit like a guy three times his size. I wasn’t friends with him exactly, but I tried. Because of Phoebe.
He was sitting on his broken porch swing in a T-shirt as if it wasn’t thirty degrees out, shading his eyes against the glare. He was searching for Phoebe so I purposely stood in his line of sight to box him out. Still, I took the bag when he asked and gave him the Ram handshake on my way out.
We pulled up to the field as the treasure hunt was kicking off. The first clue was written in sloping letters on a sandwich board hanging from the mascot’s horns. He looks warm at least, I thought.
It read, “Pipes through which no water flows.” I pulled the girls into a huddle. “Alright, Red team,” I began. Maggie was picking at her fingernails, slumped onto her back foot.
“This one’s obvious, but I don’t want to lead the other teams in. Tempe and I will cut through the woods.” Tempe flicked her eyelashes at me, sexy smile peeking from one corner of her mouth. “You two loop around the front and meet us at Jason Park.”
We chased each other across the field. She was damn fast. Two juniors stood just inside the treeline rolling a joint. Once we were safely past, I stopped and took out the hunting knife Buck had given me, turning it over and over in my hands, making a spark dance on Tempe’s chin from the autumn sunlight that filtered through the maples. She gave me doe eyes and kissed me hard, grinding on my jeans and giggling self-consciously. Then, with her warm breath still caught in my ear, she took off, swerving between the trees and faux screaming. I followed at a jog, adjusting my jeans and cursing her under my breath.
Maggie and Phoebe were cresting the top of the half pipe as we arrived. Orange team came in at a jog from the bottom of the pipe. Both teams leaned in, our shadows darkening the curve, making the chalk inscription easier to read.
“An unwritten message of great importance,” it said. Maggie sighed and walked in a little circle, shoving the white rubber tip of her sneaker against the rising concrete.
“This blows,” she said, shivering.
Tempe shot back quickly, “God, Maggie! You’re always so bitchy! Your bullshit is pissing me off lately.” Phoebe frowned at Tempe and gently rubbed Maggie’s back.
Maggie wrinkled her forehead, but held her tongue. “Fine,” she whispered, “It’s the highway sign at the onramp to fift...” Before she could finish, Tempe shoved Maggie’s chest, too hard to be playful. Maggie stumbled back a step and looked down at her sneakers, pissed.
“Of course!” Tempe exclaimed. “The chick with her baby in one hand and the chemistry book in the other right? Don’t have sex, sex equals babies, duh!” Tempe smiled up at me and learned in for a kiss. I bent down to catch it, but she bit my bottom lip instead and laughed. Man, I wanted to hit her sometimes.
The onramp was empty when we got there. Phoebe picked up a rock that had been painted Ram orange, wiping dirt from the folded paper that had been hidden underneath. I snatched it away from her.
“Hey, what the hell C!” she complained.
“I read faster,” I said and laughed, holding the slip above her head. When she jumped for it, I saw the bruising under her chin. Her scarf had rubbed away the makeup she’d so carefully applied that morning. Blue fingerprints were visible on both sides of her thin throat. I wanted to say something, wanted to touch her face, make her look at me. But Tempe was hugging me from the side, her arms wrapped protectively around my waist. That was my second missed chance.
“What’s found but not lost.” I read.
Phoebe frowned a minute, tapping the top of her thigh lightly with her long white fingers and then answered. “It’s the lost and found at school I bet,” she said softly. It says FOUND on the outside of the bin, but that’s it.” She smiled crookedly. It made her look younger than seventeen. Her freckles burst across both cheeks and her green eyes sparkled in the sun. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. But the aura, that swirl of dark was still there just under the surface. I felt sick with it. I held her gaze for as long as I dared.
“I’m out,” Maggie said, ruining the moment. She looked tired and nervous. Phoebe slung her arm across Maggie’s shoulders.
“I’ll walk you,” she said softly. That’s when everything went wrong. In hindsight, I should have seen it coming because I was closest to Tempe.
In an instant, Tempe’s hand snaked into my backpack and she came up with the knife, thrusting the air in front of her. “You’re not going fucking anywhere!” she yelled, only half kidding.
“Woah,” I yelled, trying to grab Tempe’s arm. She whirled away from me and closed in on them. Phoebe froze, but Maggie had the sense to pick up the orange rock and chuck it at Tempe. She ducked in time and rushed Maggie, grabbing her ponytail and holding the knife point up to her cheek just under her eye. I still don’t know why she choose Maggie. Maybe because she was a little afraid of Phoebe, just like I was a little afraid of Buck.
“Listen kiddos,” she said, her voice chipped and cracking. Her blue eyes were glassy as if tears were starting, but she was laughing. “I just want to get this done and win the prize!” Her eyes cut to the still deserted onramp. “No other team is even close! Just SHUT UP and LET’S DO THIS!” she screamed and pumped the air with her free hand as if leading a cheer. Tears were rolling down Maggie’s face and Phoebe’s lips were squeezed in a bloodless line.
“Alright, alright Tempe,” I said, keeping my voice low and soft. “Gimmie the knife and we are all…” I looked quickly to Maggie and Phoebs for support and they nodded slowly “we’re ALL gonna get this done.” She sighed dramatically and then tossed the knife in the dirt in front of my feet. When I stooped down to pick it up, Maggie turned into Phoebe’s arms for a hug, sobbing. Tempe swatted my ass and giggled. I picked her up and threw her over one shoulder, smacking her ass hard enough to leave a bruise. She gasped and then giggled again. I wanted to hit her harder. Hit her hard enough to get through to her. But I didn’t.
When we crossed back over Old T Bridge, Buck was sitting on the top trestle facing the river. Tempe saw him first and rolled her eyes at me. “Wackadoo is after Phoebes again, C.” she said. “Maybe you should talk to him?” It chafed that Tempe used Phoebe’s nickname for me. And she was trying so hard to be sweet that it was cloying, false as if she hadn’t been holding a knife on her little sister twenty minutes ago.
I sighed. “Yeah, I guess. Go back and apologize to Maggie and Phoebes too. I’ll try to do this quick so we don’t blow our lead.”
Tempe grinned her perfect teeth smile and kissed me on the cheek before trotting back to the girls. I watched her go, thinking suddenly that I hated her. She was really an empty wasteland.
I hopped the fence, swinging both legs over to straddle the trestle next to Buck. I saw the half-empty bottle of J.D. in his right hand. He held it low and swung it back and forth, matching the rhythm of his legs.
“Little early for the sauce yeah?” I said to the side of Buck’s face. He still hadn’t acknowledged I was there. When he finally turned, it was crazy what I saw. I’d seen Buck an hour earlier, but this Buck wore a totally different face. This Buck had two black eyes, a shattered nose (it lay against his left cheek) and his bottom lip was ripped open and hanging in two pieces. It must have hurt like hell to swig from the bottle.
“Who?” I asked. Buck didn’t answer, but of course I knew. I reached into my backpack and returned the knife. I wasn’t sure how Buck knew that his dad was coming for a visit, but he had. It wasn’t the first time he’d asked me to take the knife and each time he looked tuned up when I gave it back to him. I wondered whether he didn’t trust himself or was it that he thought his dad might kill him with it? I glanced over my shoulder and saw the girls were close.
Phoebe separated from the other girls once she got a good look at Buck. She took a couple of steps, hesitant at first and then ran hard for him, scrambling up over the fence and grabbing Buck from behind. I got one good look at her before she and he traded places on the trestle. That was my third chance to save her. I didn’t.
The last thing I saw before I turned back to Tempe was Phoebe place her hands gently on either side of Buck’s face, slowly letting her head fall forward until their foreheads were touching. I saw her lips moving as she whispered something lovely to Buck. It was an intimate moment, so I turned away, gritting my teeth.
Turning back, I missed what Tempe said, but I knew by the self-satisfied look on her face that it had been shitty. Maggie’s face cracked wide open. As I watched, her gloom dissolved and fury bloomed in its place. Maggie whipped her hair back as if summoning courage from the autumn wind and shoved Tempe hard. Tempe stumbled, falling to the pavement and Maggie climbed on top of her. She got one slap in, but Tempe was stronger. She rolled Maggie over one hip and pinned her underneath expertly, grinding her skull into the pavement and throwing handfuls of pebbles into her face and open mouth, drawing outraged tears and painful coughing from Maggie.
I was bending down to pull them apart when I heard Phoebe scream. I froze. Later I thought I had been absorbed in the spectacle in front of me. But that wasn’t true. Really, I had been waiting for this to happen. That’s why I didn’t move. I had known. Had in fact handed Buck the knife.
When I finally turned around, it was too late. The ruined face that stared out at me was void, dead already. He forced Phoebe to stand on the trestle, leaning into the vertical strut. Tears ran down her face and she was whimpering. Her large eyes were locked on mine. There was the girl I’d seen in the rearview. She’d been begging me silently all day, this Phoebe, to save her. And I’d done nothing. Nothing but hand him the knife.
It was only five steps from the Maggie-Tempe tangle to the railing where Buck and Phoebe stood. As I watched, he held her face out, making sure I had a good clear view. Then he brought out the still glinting knife and stabbed her in wide sweeping arcs once, twice, three times. Blood poured from her stomach, her chest, her neck. I was two steps out, my hands just touching the rail when Buck pushed off. She howled as she fell, screaming my name. The echoing cry found me, ringing up from under the bridge, hitting me over and over again.
I was still looking over the side, still scanning the water for any sign of her when I felt Tempe behind me. She ran her arms through mine, coiling into me like a snake.
“Oh, I’m so sorry…” she whispered, cooing into my ear. Then she giggled. It was the giggle that killed her. Not me.
Maggie was there for me after. She helped me tell my story, our story, to the police. She saved me, she loved me. She had always hated the nickname Tempe gave her. So she used Peggy instead.
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