AFTER THE MEMORIAL SERVICE, Kate stands smoking in the shade of the tall hedges beside the funeral home. I walk over to say hello and we stand together quietly for a minute looking past the cemetery and over the trees toward the highway. “I didn’t sleep last night,” Kate says finally. Her face is cool, almost cold. People gather and mill around the parking lot. Max’s older brother is standing by the front doors talking with someone, absentmindedly plucking leaves from a bush.
“Can I bum a smoke?” I say. Kate hands me her pack. She tilts her head to examine me until I feel uncomfortable. I pause when I see there’s only one cigarette left. “Smoke it. Enjoy,” she says. She has a new expression, something she does with her lips, fattening them into a pout to punctuate her sentences.
When I introduced myself to Max’s mother, I shook her hand and said, “Hi, you don’t know me.” She was walking down the long line of people waiting to get into the funeral home. I was staring at the poster board by the front door with Max’s school picture from last year pinned to it, his hair combed and neatly parted to the left in a way I’ve never seen him do it before. Usually his hair hung down kind of scraggly and the most he’d do was tuck it behind his ears. I was distracted thinking about how his hair was his best feature, when his mother appeared in front of me with her hand extended. I wasn’t prepared for her dull, river-stone eyes, flat and lifeless. I was grateful when Kate leaned past me and took her hand.
I smoke quickly. “Where’s Elgin?”
“Elgin?” Kate seems confused by the question. “At home.”
“Oh.” I focus on the burning tip of the cigarette. “I thought he’d be here.”
“No.” Kate shrugs, ashing in the hedge. “He hates funerals.” She turns her gaze back to the distant highway noise. “I felt this duty to come. We weren’t close with him like you.”
“I wasn’t close with him,” I say, maybe too quickly. I’m glad I didn’t cry during the service. I thought about whether I should try to, but now I’m glad I didn’t.
“Well, you guys did get together that one time,” Kate says, turning to look over the crowd, to look anywhere but at me. “That must mean something.”
“Yeah, but—” I look back at the funeral home. The doors are closed and someone is locking them now. The cops said Max wasn’t high when he jumped from the bridge. I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I guess it doesn’t mean much of anything when the result is the same.
“I don’t mean anything by it,” Kate says. “I just mean it must be harder for you.”
“I know.” My fingers fiddle with the hem of my shirt.
“And I didn’t spread those rumours about you,” she says all of a sudden. She squints into the crowd as though she’s looking for the person who did. “I know you think it was me.”
“What rumours?” I say, pretending to have no idea what she’s talking about.
“You know, that you’ve slept with a bunch of people.”
I nod; I’ve learned it’s better to say almost nothing if you want to keep up a charade.
“I mean, I know you’re not a slut or anything, obviously. I don’t know why people are saying that,” Kate says matter-of-factly.
“It’s fine.” I shrug my shoulders.
“I guess so,” Kate says, “if you don’t care.”
Max’s mother is standing at the edge of the cemetery, staring at a tree. She looks like she’s being held up by a piece of thread. Someone should be standing beside her.
“So,” Kate says, butting out her cigarette, “what are you doing tonight?”
“Nothing.” I was planning to go to bed early, but I don’t tell that to Kate.
“Want to go to the dam?” She’s already heading for the bus stop, talking to me over her shoulder. “It would be good to hang out. We’ll, like, remember Max and stuff.”
“Okay.” I have no idea if she hears me. I stand there waiting, smoking my cigarette down to the filter, until the bus comes and she gets on.
As I’m leaving, someone puts Max’s mother into a car. They have to bend her knees and lift her legs inside.
THE BUS IS FULL of night skiers and boarders as it travels up Capilano Road. I get off near the base of Grouse. There’s still snow on the mountain even though it’s spring, and I stuff my hands in my pockets, making my way across the street. The mountains are so tall it’s like they’re folding over, the last colours of the day gone now, black inking itself out of the trees into the sky. At the base of Grouse, the reservoir is as still as a mirror, reflecting the icy caps of the mountains. It all feels like glass, as if any loud noise — even one from far away — could shatter everything to pieces.
When I get to the dam Kate’s not there yet. I peer over the edge and watch the water pour down, a mist coating the bottom of the canyon and winding through the trees, making the rocks sparkle in the dark. I pull a stone from my pocket — I always bring stuff to throw into the dam — and toss it into the arc of water, losing sight of it almost as soon as it leaves my hand. The longer I stare at the spiralling water, the more I feel as though I’m falling, but I never find the rocks below, I just keep spinning out of control, unable to grasp anything or anyone around me. In a lot of ways I feel like Max dragged me down with him. If he knew he was going to end it all, why did he let me get close to him at Mosquito Creek? He could have said, I’m fucked up. Stay away.
I can hear Kate before I see her, her laugh ricocheting through the trees. I turn to face the dam to hide my disappointment when I see Elgin with her. “Sorry we’re late,” she calls as they walk toward me hand in hand. They’re both drinking beer.
“I just got here,” I say.
“Want one?” Elgin pulls a can from his knapsack and throws it at me without waiting for my answer.
“Thanks,” I say, cracking it open and flicking the tab into the gully.
“We used to chuck things down there,” Kate says, grinning as she peers over the edge. “Your math book and my crappy runners.”
“I almost failed math,” I say.
“Those runners were ugly. I had to quit track and field because my mom wouldn’t buy me a new pair,” Kate says, wrapping an arm around Elgin’s waist. “We were so stupid.”
Elgin leans over the edge and sticks out his tongue, trying to taste the mist. “This place makes me feel really insignificant.”
“You’re totally stoned,” Kate laughs.
He grins, slamming back the rest of his beer and launching the can in a graceful arc over the falls. Kate climbs up onto the concrete wall and straddles it. “Remember when we used to play that game at the cliffs?”
“Kate,” Elgin says, “get off there. You’re high.”
“Do you remember?” she says to me, ignoring him.
“It’s gone now,” I say. I didn’t notice she was high at first, but now I can hear the effects of the weed in her voice, the heavy-tongued silliness.
“What do you mean gone?” Her voice echoes off the rocks below.
“Yeah. The cliff, it’s like a condo development now,” I say.
“What?” Kate pushes herself onto her knees, a cat on the fence. She looks sad, but I can’t tell if it’s genuine or an act or the weed making her phony. “But that was our place. We went there almost every day in grade seven.”
“I’ll give you a toke if you get down,” Elgin says, lighting a joint and waving it in front of her face.
“I don’t need your skunky pot.” Kate slowly pushes herself up to a standing position, holding her arms out for balance. “I was always better than you at that game,” Kate laughs, loud and forced. “Braver.”