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June 23
Dear Raine,
I miss you already. The stars are shining, though.
It's quite dark outside even with the unbelievable light of the stars. I never
realised it would be quiet. The music I'm playing felt so surreal I actually am
wearing headphones. I felt rude for playing it out loud.
The moon is bright too. I never thought the moon was
bright back home. Remember when we were outside looking at the skyline and
promised each other we'd never stop loving each other? I'm so sentimental but
that night does hold an especial significance for me. Maybe it does for you,
too, though you're more of a spontaneous person, not someone who holds onto
moments forever like I do.
I was looking at that picture Jesse took of you and
me that day on the terrace. The one where we're lying down side by side, looking
at each other. He captured it really well, actually. Your curls look especially
pronounced. I know you say your hair's hardly curly and when it is it's rather
lank and tangled, but I think it's beautiful.
Velvet wasn't how I thought she would be. The way she
appeared at the funeral, flouncing in like she owned the world, that threw me
but at the same time it showed the greatest sadness of all. Now she's a silent
spectator, watching the stars and the moon float on by, touching your things
like they're made of glass. Maybe they are made of glass but we just never
perceived them that way. Anything's possible, isn't it? I wish it was.
The way we perceive things is so... almost relative,
you know? It's like wondering what happens after you die. Do you go to heaven,
where the fairies dance and the trees sway to some melodious trance of the wind?
Or hell, where you burn in fires and regret everything you ever did? Or do you
stay in purgatory forever, waiting for the court case between Satan and God to
end? Or does your soul, being so pure, attain nirvana and you become part of
God, or the divine soul, or something equally confusing? Or do you get
reincarnated because your soul isn't divine enough yet, and you might be a frog,
a rabbit, a poor girl from
Argentina, a businessman in Antarctica? Do you know the answers after you die,
Raine?
Velvet Amarensky, my mother, unbelievably the
daughter of my uptight grandmother, is a lady who sings the saddest songs in the
morning, who calls the trees in the orchard her spirits, and who tastes butter
like it's the most splendid nectar ever.
I don't know her. I don't think I really want to know
her. Maybe a while ago I would have wanted to know her, because she's so
intriguing and everything, but right now it's too wearisome to be interested in
another person. Raine, do you ever feel like knowing people is a wearisome task?
I guess you don't. You're not abnormal and strange like I am.
I know it's been two months. I should have written to
you before, but I couldn't. I wish I knew where to send this letter. I wish
you'd been there for the funeral. I would have hated for you to see me that way,
but you could have taken over for me. You always do things like that
excellently. Of course, I've never seen you at a funeral, but I bet you'd be
able to do it. You would be the martyred lover, the martyred best friend.... who
somehow managed to get up there and speak, however hard it was. You would have
slid in place like cookie dough. Cookie dough doesn't exactly slide, but it
merges, doesn't it? That's what I mean. You would have smoothed things over,
rubbed the odd bumps in the way your hands have always smoothed clay. But is
that what you were angry about? That you were always expected to be perfect?
You are perfect without even trying, Raine.... I
think I saw at least some of you that was you... and I wish I had told you this
sooner.
Love,
Tara.
June 27
Raine,
It's been exactly two months.
Is it fate, that it happened just a week before
Velvet came to take me home?
I don't believe in fate, though. I have no reason to
believe in anything. If things are torn away from you, like a piece of fancy
silk cloth torn in half, why should you believe? Answers prove to be wrong. Math
equations lie unsolved. And if I'd ever believed, I wouldn't have been me.
Velvet was talking about enrolling me at the high
school here. Grandma's called me every day at promptly six-thirty in the evening
for the past six days. I wonder if she's going to do this forever. She also sent
me huge boxes of things. All of those dresses and shoes and clothes and dolls
and books and notebooks and gadgets I left behind, and some new things added in.
Velvet stared at everything and just murmured, "I wonder why you haven't become
like her."
So one day Grandma and Velvet had this huge fight
over the phone about how Grandma wants me to go to a Catholic private school and
Velvet wants me to go to the public high school, which is known for being one of
the best schools in the country.
I hope Velvet won. I couldn't stand being at another
one of those effing snotty schools.
I still wonder how Grandma never found out about us.
Spokane is a beautiful city, really, a lot better than the suburbia of New York.
I never want to go back there. Sometimes I wonder if I miss Grandma. I think I
do in some ways, and in others I don't. I haven't become like her, like Velvet
says, but I know her in other ways, too. I know you hated her because she was so
superficial and such a stuck-up bitch, especially to you (she must have
suspected something), but Raine, you haven't had all those times with
Grandma. When we made that huge family tree and I helped her pick cherries in
the garden, and we swung together in the hammock. And I know when I moved to New
York to live with her nothing worked out, and she became more and more of a
bitch. But I've seen other parts of her too.... and maybe they still do remain.
Though why should I hope?
The neighbourhood is still suburbia, but not as bad
as it was in
New
York. I've seen various architectural styles around here, and I think you would
like them. You would have photographed them, and made floor plans and blueprints
and whatever else. You would like it here. Is that why you left, because you
knew I wouldn't be near? Oh, please, tell me, Raine. It wasn't that, was it?
Then it would be all my fault. And... and... please don't say that's why. But
then, it's selfish to think that it happened because of me! As if I
govern, as if I rule the universe. But I should have tried....
Love,
Tara.
June 29
Raine...
The summer is endless. It's not as hot as it gets in
New
York, but hot enough to put the AC on with a vehemence and wear tank tops and
tiny shorts all day long. I see little kids playing outside, skipping in
sprinklers and throwing balls and running everywhere. Were we like that too? I
remember us playing like that, but it seems really, really impossible. We
weren't silly little kids like that....
I sound so patronising.
I need something to think about. I do have to read
this novel for a summer reading project if I want to get into the honours
English 10 class. Oh.. that reminds me. Velvet won the debate, and so I am now
enrolled at LC.. and not at The Oaks.
About the novel... there are some rather
strange-sounding choices. I picked one on a whim. Bel Canto. I think I'll stick
with it, if it's good, anyway. I have to write an essay about it, too. So far
I've read two pages of it. But I haven't been able to get interested in anything
lately... nothing at all.... I wonder why I even passed the finals. I studied
almost mindlessly. I didn't think about anything... if that's even possible.
They said I came first in our grade.
There are some teenage people around here. This cute
guy you'd probably be interested in. Some rather punk people come by once in a
while. I could care less.
June 30
Raine,
I thought I wouldn't ever see him again. Of course,
as that cliché of life, fate, will have it – he's here. Waiting for me, whatever
other bullshit.
Velvet called me down, jubilant this morning. When I
saw him I – I don't know why – I thought of how horrible my hair must look. (I
haven't brushed it since June 16th.)
"Tara..."
He looked shocked, and again I wondered what had happened.
"Tara,
I heard about Raine." He said.
I went back upstairs.
Love,
Tara.
July 7
Dear Raine,
I brushed my hair. It was the hardest thing ever. I
don't think all of the tangles are out yet. I spent the whole morning brushing
my hair, and then I put on some My Chemical Romance. It sucks so much. It's the
worst band I've ever heard. I can't understand the lyrics. You would google them
or something, but I'm too tired to.
It's still playing.
Ezra came to see me again today. Actually, he came
almost every day for the past week. He and my mother had conversations about me,
you, music and cooking. I stayed upstairs and pounded a million lines of
gibberish... also known as poems.... into the keyboard.
Today I let him come up, though.
It's funny to see that he's grown. You would laugh,
but I didn't. You would patronise me and say something like, "Well of course
he's grown, ma cherie, did you expect him to stay a sweet little boy forever?"
He wasn't a young boy then, either. He was fourteen.
Now he's nineteen, and I'm trying to remember whether
his birthday is on the 18th or the 19th of December.
"I can't believe it's been so long."
"I can't believe what happened to Raine."
"I miss Raine so much."
"I've missed you too, of course."
"I know it's been five years, but...."
"We spent our childhoods together."
"Well, it's strange, since I was so much older than
you."
"When Velvet told me you were coming home, I was
really happy."
"I was shocked when she told me about Raine."
"I can understand if you don't want to talk about
it."
"Oh God, I'm screwing this up, aren't I? I'm sorry."
"Maybe I should just leave you alone."
"Tara...
you look so pale."
"You've changed so much."
"I guess I have, too...."
"It's a good thing I kept in touch with Velvet,
though, isn't it?"
"I'm glad to see you again, though."
"I'm now studying at Gonzaga. English, mostly, though
I'm also on the debate team."
"I hear you're going to start at LC? It's an amazing
school, I hope you like it. I can introduce you to a few people there."
"Maybe I should just leave you alone."
"Why won't you talk,
Tara?"
Then he left.
Love,
Tara.
July 9
Raine.. oh, Raine.
I wonder what life would have been like if I hadn't moved in with
Grandma and spent those five years at The Academy.
I remember myself at ten, vaguely: a rather timid person, I
think, the sort of girl who is mortally afraid of bullies and is generally
referred to as a 'bookworm' or a 'geek.' You, three years older than me and the
classified queen of all the bitches... you seemed to think this was a good
thing.... you terrified me, Raine. That first year was pure torture, knowing I
could never be like you and yet wanting to be like you. I don't know why I
wanted to be like you, though. And later, when I found out that's not who you
were at all, I questioned your masquerade. But I think I can see it now: you
needed something to hold you, to keep you there. You didn't belong there, but
you needed to stick it out. It's easier to stick it out when you're known as the
coolest girl in the whole school. But didn't you ever feel like that was a huge
pressure? I guess you did. To all the adults, you equalled the role model for
their own children. Straight A-ing, full of irrepressible talents, amazing and
confident.
But wasn't it hard to pretend? Everyone talked about you... you'd
slept with Jeff O'Connor, you drunk three bottles of whiskey in two hours
once... you regularly did pot. Wild rumours, but somehow everyone thought they
were true. You were loved and hated. But mostly admired, and everyone wanted to
be just like you... and so of course I was one of them.
For some reason you accepted me – maybe you, an existent God or
something, saw something in me that was actually worthy of attention. I don't
know what, though you whispered things that were so wonderfully amazingly
splendid when we kissed, when we spent aeons of dreams-turned-to-reality
together.
Throughout sixth and seventh grades I was your protégé, almost...
maybe we were friends, but I was so amazed that you thought I was worthy of your
selective herd I was eternally grateful anyway.
And in eighth grade I grew... and you clung onto me as I tried to
shake off your herd. And I never thought you would leave that reputation, that
aura, that renown behind – and not for me, surely – but you did, like a Greek
hero.
I'll always be melodramatic, Raine. You would laugh now, that
laugh, the one you reserved specially for these moments. You've always had such
an air of a ventriloquist about laughs. When I first read The Wizard of Oz... I
think Velvet read it to me, actually, when I was four... I wanted to be a
ventriloquist so badly. Did you ever take a class in ventriloquism or something?
And so... we became friends. The closest. Intimate. Confidantes.
Who cared about the rest of the school, anyway. You held my hand through all the
name-calling and the spray-paint and all those so-called 'friends' deserting
you, us...
But we were lovers, and that was real.
What happened, Raine?
Love,
Tara.
July 13
Dear Raine,
Sorry I haven't written in a few days. It's been raining, but
it's not been nice rain. There are puddles and mud everywhere, and the air
smells like autumn.
Velvet's been singing sadder songs than usual, and Ezra hasn't
appeared since the last time. Yesterday Velvet told me the preppy girl, about my
age, who lives across the street, is Ahna, a girl who used to be my friend back
then. I was shocked, since Ahna ... Ahna was never preppy... but I guess
that's typical, isn't it? Life is just a stupid train of uselessness. People
change into what you don't want them to change. People live, people die. Same
old story.
Velvet wants me to go see Ahna tomorrow.
I'm almost finished with Bel Canto. It's the kind of book I would
have gone on and on and on about to you, but now I feel trite reading it.
Love,
Tara.
July 14
Raine...
Velvet took me to see Ahna today.
Ahna and I stood about while our mothers small talked.
The rain continued outside, peeking inside in small drops on the
hall carpet.
Ahna looked wary. She was wearing the typical sort of outfit –
blue jeans that made her hips look sexy, flip-flops entwined in her pinkish
clean toes, a pink and white shirt under an Abercrombie cardigan. She looked
really different – she merged, now, but five years ago she wore brightly
coloured clothes and had wiry, frizzy hair and sparkling eyes.
I tried to figure out what you would say about her. I'm still not
sure, though. "Annoying prep," you might have said upon first inspection,
derisively. "Sexy butt," You might have muttered as she passed in front of you,
just to aggravate her. But I don't know what you would have said in your finale.
This bothers me.
I don't think I'll be seeing Ahna again. Her mother is a
Republican and she and Velvet have nothing in common, nothing to talk about
really, and I didn't talk to Ahna at all, nor she to me.
Is time really the reason, though? I think it was my leaving.
Love,
Tara.
July 17
Dear Raine,
I went to Manito Park today, and walked around for ever so long..
walked and walked and walked, and then I was lost. I wasn't afraid, though, like
I used to be. You used to find me, sobbing pathetically or something, and take
me home. This time I was just silent.
I was sitting there, listening to Ella Fitzgerald, tears staining
my cheeks. I don't know why I was crying. I can only cry silently, but even when
I do cry, I never know exactly why. I can't pinpoint an exact reason at all....
So I squeezed my iPOD, sitting there in the slightly damp grass, hairs sticking
to my cheeks.
This time Ezra found me.
I had let my hand trail, and soon someone's hand found mine, and
traced their fingers over mine, over the ring you gave me. Then they stopped. I
sat still, waiting.
"Hey," He said, coming around and sitting down next to me.
"You're crying," He stated.
Silence. I took off my earphones and wound my hair up into a
rough bun. The kind you would slowly tease apart, running your hands through
what you described as my 'radiant tresses.' You would have slowly come closer
and then kissed me, melodically, softly. Then you would have smiled.
I closed my eyes.
"I found this photograph the other day," He said, giving me a
picture. In it, Ezra looked younger and more naive, and I looked solemn and
strange. "You were quiet and sad even back then," He said, with a rough sort of
laugh.
That made me mad, for some reason. "Shut up!" I screamed, leaping
up. "You have no fucking idea what you're talking about!"
"Well, of course not..." He said, shocked.
"So shut the fuck up then! I don't need to hear your fucking
bemused wonderings about why the fuck I'm so silent and whatever other
puerile fucking shit!"
Then I ran away.
Love,
Tara.
July 23
Dear Raine,
Velvet took me to see a shrink yesterday. Apparently, Ezra had
told her about what had happened at the park. Fucking goody-goody. You would
have snorted and shown him how utterly pathetic he is.
I can't believe he could have degenerated that much.
The shrink's name is Riley Morris. She's fairly young, actually –
can't be older than thirty or something. She observes people, I can tell, and is
almost intimidating... though you would have denied that immediately.
When she and I were alone, she smiled. I wasn't sure what Velvet
had told her, but her first question was unexpected.
"Were you in love with Raine, Tara?"
I stared at her. I didn't answer.
She noted something down, then asked me if I wanted a cinnamon
roll. I shook my head.
"What do you want to talk about?" She asked.
After a pause, she quickly said, "Tara, you and I have to
communicate. If we don't communicate, nothing gets done. And if nothing gets
done, your mother will try and cage you even more, and bring you here even more.
I know you are going through an extremely, unimaginably hard time right now.
Which is why we need to talk about it."
“Oh, I
do know.” She said.
“Then you obviously are so egocentric you can’t even realise that
some things are beyond your sphere of knowledge.”
She raised her eyebrows, then shrugged. “Maybe so.”
“I don’t see why I’m wasting my time here,” I concluded. I
plugged my earphones in and turned the volume on Slipknot way up high.
She swiftly came over, yanked the earphones out, and snatched my
iPOD away.
“God, how childish,” I commented.
“We are going to communicate here, Tara.” Riley said, firmly. “I
will do whatever I can to ensure that we can talk. That we can try and figure
things out. Because, Tara, I really do want to help you out.”
I didn’t talk anymore after that.
Love,
Tara.
July 25
Dear Raine,
I started skating again today. Velvet made me. She says I have
the potential to go for the gold, and I shouldn’t waste that potential. And she
wasn’t going to let me.
I know you don’t have much appreciation for ice skaters – “flimsy
little girls in even flimsier dresses bleeding their toes out” – but oh, Raine!
Maybe skating was something you and I didn’t agree upon, but I couldn’t not
skate. And even if my feet bleed from trying to wear in new skates, and even if
I slip on the ice a million times because I’m so rusty, and even if I have to
try out for the city-wide competition again even though I won state in New York
– Raine, at least I can drain away everything else when I skate. Skating is
about passion, you know, but more than that it’s about the melody of motion, of
concentration, of physics. And when I skate... I forget everything... and when I
remember I write to you.
I don’t want to forget you, Raine, but sometimes I need to forget
some things, so I can live... if living is worth anything at all.
I remember when I won state, you weren’t happy. We had a fight
that night, and that’s why I haven’t skated in three months.
I felt exhilarated, that day, because Fateh and I hadn’t made a
single mistake... we flowed like the wind, and the ice was perfect. And he
caught me perfectly each time. No crashes, no sighs from the audience. Only
breathless waiting, and the music. And the dance. The ice was kind to us, like
magic.
You’ve always gasped at the way partners can be so – so utterly
close – when skating. Sometimes you’ve even said it’s like sex without
really being sex. And I don’t know if you were jealous of Fateh or not, but you
did know he was in love with me – you caught us kissing that day – Oh, Raine, I
should never have let him kiss me. That was the worst thing I could possibly do
but I didn’t know it would be that horrible, so cruel to you, I didn’t know you
would be that hurt.
How can I say that. Of course you would be hurt. I would have
been hurt too. God, I’m acting so fucking... fucking narcissist.
But what does loyalty mean, Raine?
When they announced the winners, everyone was roaring, clapping,
yelling, standing up. But I saw you slip away. So I gave the trophy to Fateh and
I raced after you, taking off my skates in a flash, scraping the side of one
skate, ruining my new nylons as I ran. And behind me everyone was calling me.
I found you, finally. You were crying.
“Rainey!” I cried, “Raine. Please, please tell me. I’m sorry, I
really am. I mean, I won’t-”
You shook your head over and over.
“Oh, Raine, I’m sorry. I mean, I didn’t mean to –“ I wasn’t sure
what I’d done by winning, but I must have done something.
“Congratulations,” You whimpered. I let you bury your sobs in my
hair. “Congratulations,” You continued, bitterly, “you got what you wanted,
didn’t you?”
“Oh... oh... why, this doesn’t mean I’m going to leave you or
anything, or get all competitive like all the other skaters...”
You tore apart from me. “You already are fucking
competitive! You’ve already been reduced to their level. That trophy is
everything, isn’t it. Every fucking thing!”
And you ran away, and I stayed there. I really was trying to
figure out what was going on, Raine. Why couldn’t you believe me? What did I do?
I know you were upset, before the competition started, because of Fateh and me
kissing. But, Raine... Oh, Raine, I wish you’d tried to talk to me.
I wish you had, because I wanted to say so many other things.
But I should have run after you, even then. Pulled you back. It
was horrible when on Monday you wouldn’t talk to me in school at all. You even
gave Jeff O’Connor your phone number and sweet-talked him.
I should have pulled you back.
But... Raine... I started skating again. I’m sorry.
Love,
Tara.
bravenet.com