On the black rocks
Some stories start with a dark and stormy night. Ours—the one where Kate dies in the most beautiful and tragic sense of the word—begins on a night like any other. Minus the fact that it’s my birthday. That only happens once a year, and I’m forced to share the day with my brother.
Kate hands me a crinkled joint with her non-dominant hand, fingers closed around the moist paper she just had her lips on.
A little rim of Primrose Pink lip gloss splotches the starchy paper, filling my mouth with the taste of peppermint and herb. I've never particularly decided if I like the taste of marijuana or not, but there's something homey about the rancid smoke and the fog that comes with hotboxing Torren’s Honda CR-X. We've been doing it for a couple of years now, in a different car every once and a while, but we've always found a way to gather outside of the Sou’Wester restaurant that Daddy owns and get high as kites.
Liam sits in the front seat with Torren, listening to some song on tape by Johnny Cash, the lyrics all mushing together in my head and turning the sounds into colors that float across the night sky like a midnight rainbow. They've been friends since kindergarten when Liam made me eat a piece of chalk; Torren thought it was the funniest thing in the world. Probably because we're twins and when we were little he was always getting the short end of the stick for being the oldest. Mom's voice still echoes through my head even though she passed away three years ago - 'take care of Dolly, she's your little sister'.
Kate elbows me and mimes for the joint, and so I hand it back over and lose myself in the guitar riffs again. I can't say I particularly like Johnny Cash, but I'll get high to whatever music Torren and Liam choose so long as they're willing to provide. Plus, when Liam gets into the weed he tends to get touchy, and it's my birthday so I'm willing to put out for that. He's got these golden eyes that remind me of a sunrise and I love the look they give me when he's just about to pass out.
Through the hazy windshield, I can see the silhouettes of our other acquaintances gathered in the Sou’Wester, their outlines moving bottles of stout from table to hand to mouth and back again in time with the beat of some song that clashes with Johnny. The liquor is illegal for most of them at this point, of course, but Daddy's made a special exception for us. He's gone away to Halifax on some kind of business anyway, so at least if we get busted by the cops he can say he didn't know anything about it.
"Dolly, baby, pass that smoke back up here," Liam croons, the song on the tape fast-forwarding to the middle of a tune that I don't know the name of. His voice is smooth, like butter on a freshly made pancake, and this makes me think of breakfast and the last time we'd had it together.
Torren doesn't know, and what Torren doesn't know won't kill him.
"Kate's hogging it. Roll another one." I lean forward in the small backseat and drag my fingernails through the neckline of Liam's hair, my hands getting caught up in the strands. It's just dark enough out that Torren and Kate can't tell what I'm doing, but obvious enough to Liam that he's got me for the night if he wants me. And, of course, he does. I don't need him to tell me, because it's something I just know - it's like a scent. I can smell it on him.
"I'm not hogging it, I'm using it to maximum potential. Not wasting it while yammering my mouth off like you three morons." Kate takes in another deep suck, that same old Primrose Pink melting together with all the other smells again, before leaning over the center console and practically dropping the joint in Liam's lap. "Here, you jerk."
Torren’s finger hits the fast-forward button again, a whistling sound escaping the tape deck until he's found another song to listen to in the dark underneath an autumn night of stars.
"I'm rolling my window down now. Everyone ready?"
I can tell Kate is pouting just by her body language. We've been friends for ten years now, ever since she moved to Peggy’s Cove from South Portland, Maine. She hasn't gotten any less obvious, or any less obsessed with Torren. As far as I know, nothing's ever happened, and I assume this to be the truth because if it had, Kate wouldn't have stopped talking about it long enough to take in a breath.
"Oh, come on Torren, just a couple of minutes longer?" The words come purring out of Kate's mouth and I swear if the overhead dome light of the car had been on, I would have seen her pink lips in a perfectly executed pout.
"We really should be getting back to the party. You know, since it's for mine and Dolly's birthday and all. Seems kind of rude to sit outside and smoke all night."
"Since when have you cared about rules?" Kate wiggles her fingers at Liam to pass the last of the joint back to her. Torren sighs in response, turning off the ignition and therefore, the music.
"You've got thirty seconds, Kate. Starting twenty seconds ago. Nine, eight, seven-,"
"Okay, Jesus, Torren. Don't have a conniption. We'll go back into your party, get hammered, and then maybe we can go for a swim off the rocks?"
"I'm not taking a hundred and fifty people who are just here for the free booze off the rocks. Most of these people haven't even spoken to me since graduation."
I cough, loudly.
"You know, this isn't all about you, Torren. I happen to be friends with some of those people who are inside."
I mean, of course, I can name the people who are in the Sou’Wester - at least a good portion of them - but as for calling any of them friends besides the people in this car, well, I don't really think so.
Torren huffs and rolls down his window, letting all the smoke drizzle out into the autumn breeze. The night is a deep indigo, little sparkles of stars watching us overhead, my mother among the souls who glimmer down on the earth through the night. On evenings like this; however, I hope she's looking in the other direction. The boys push open their doors and the overhead light blinks on, blinding me, while Torren flips the handle for the seat, allowing Kate and I to slide out on his side while Liam flips the butt of the joint out onto the ground. The sound of the waves smashing against the shoreline sounds a bit like Rice Krispies cereal, popping once the milk is added to the bowl, while the night blows away the little roll of marijuana filter off into the distance until I can’t see it any longer.
It’s around then that we bob away from each other—Liam and Torren heading downstairs into the restaurant while Kate and I cascade upstairs into the crowd of dancing bodies. I lose her around two in the morning to Billy Irwin, the lobster fisherman’s son. At six, when I finally stumble drunkenly out to the rocks to watch the sun rise, Liam hot on my tail, I spot her body floating out to sea off the rocks, the smoke from the ocean around her bright red hair and a sinking tube of Primrose Pink.
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