Catskin

The lights strung above us reverberated a faint, humming glow, bathing the whole scene warm and mellow. We were curled up on her porch swing, Christine and I, so that each was supported by the other’s weight, temples pressed together. A pink tapestry blanket was strewn over our laps.

“Are you cold?” she asked.

It was about as pleasant as you could ask of a Florida evening — 65 degrees and clear skied. Stars only slightly obscured by the suburban light pollution. Still humid, but the occasional breeze that echoed through the covered patio made it bearable.

“I’m okay.”

We had started drinking two hours ago, and only now that the initial wave of energy and anticipation had washed over us did we begin to slow, settling for a glass of Sangria each. It was a routine of sorts: a walk to the nearest thrift shop or grocer, a meal, a few drinks, an ecstatic and short-lived burst of dancing, and then this — the bench, the wine, the conversation. The lights and the silence.

These days, we were young women, no longer bound by the adolescence we once reveled in. It was a new and shaky feeling, like a fawn’s first tentative steps. We were feeling it out. Each conversation seemed an opportunity to solidify the space between the version of me she had once known — quick-eyed and defenseless — and this new version, the she of hardcovers and maxi dresses, of grace, and patience, and certainty. I knew she was watching me, noting my metamorphosis. I was watching her too.

“Another drink?” I asked.

“Please.”

I rose and jerked open the sliding glass door. The house was old, and the features original. Everything required a bit of force to operate.

I was skeptical when Christine told me she would be moving to a house in our hometown. When we were younger, we often talked of leaving this place and escaping to a better life, whispers in the promising darkness of her bedroom. She would go to Pennsylvania, and I to Vermont. It was a pact, and I had held up my end of the deal. It seemed she had forgotten, even willingly abandoned hers.

But the house was lovely, and I forgave her betrayal quickly. The kitchen was my favorite room, with its wall-mounted can opener, floral wallpaper, and tastefully ornate wooden cabinets stained the same shade of orange as those from my childhood home — that early 2000s finish. There was an authenticity to it, a frankness that many of the other homes in the rapidly expanding suburbia lacked. The house was worn and outdated, but it was real, and it was loved. It looked best at this time of night, when her many stained-glass lamps were lit throughout the space, and the overhead fluorescents had been off long enough that their greenish afterglow had subsided.

I poured the wine and returned to the porch, carefully tugging the door closed so as not to spill the drinks. She made space for me on the swing.

“I think,” I started, taking a sip of my drink, “I don’t know.”

“What?”

“I don’t think I’m happy in Burlington.”

There was a predictable rhythm to these porch conversations, and I knew I had just set the next few hours into motion. I would talk, she would listen. Silence for a bit. Then it would be her turn. It was mutually understood that nothing was expected of us here. Anything went: nostalgia, gossip, every private, idiosyncratic, underdeveloped thought would be heard and accepted. Then, it would all dissipate comfortably into the night, and we would begin the next day lulled and renewed.

I sensed her surprise at my confession.

“I don’t know, I guess I am.” I backtracked, “I love the lake and the mountains. I have two good jobs. I love my classes. I love my apartment, too. Well, my bedroom, at least.”

“So, then what’s wrong?” she asked, nudging me.

I was quiet.

“Do you remember those nights at your dad’s house, when we were fourteen?” I finally asked.

“Of course,” she said softly.

I lived with Christine, on and off, for nearly a year in our youth. What began as weekend sleepovers extended into stays that lasted weeks at a time, retuning only to collect shoes, deodorant, my work uniform. Eventually, I spent so many nights at her house that it became my own. My real home, the one that housed my family and other unused belongings, was stiff and foreign. But there, in the childhood home of another, everything — the fridge, the pool, the twin bed we shared — was safe and comfortable. And it was fun. We lit sticks of expired incense and snuck out to trespass on a nearby golf course. We pretended to know the difference between Joy Division and New Order. We watered down vodka and played at existentialism. It was magic. It was everything.

I made a noise that was something of an exaggerated exhale: half laughter, half sigh.

“I guess I was just hoping it would feel like that, you know? I wanted it to be home, like what we had then, but in its own way,” I paused. “I wanted it to be my home.”

She shifted to place her head on my shoulder. “I know you did.”

I straightened myself to accommodate her weight, silently bearing the prodding of her shoulder into my arm. We sat like that for a while.

***

Our quietude was interrupted by a rustling from the bushes.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Don’t know. An opossum, maybe?”

There was a flash of orange, followed by a soft mew.

“Oh, it’s Peaches!”

Peaches was the neighborhood stray, a loving little thing that, despite her habit of dismembering dead birds at Christine’s door, had an air of refinement about her. She often seemed to me a woman, trapped in the body of a cat.

“I can’t imagine ever leaving Peaches. I just love her so much.” She spoke in the tone that people assume when talking to babies, rubbing her thumbs over the cat’s ears.

“Oh, it’s not so bad.” I leaned down to stroke the sides of her face with my knuckles, feeling the bumps of her teeth behind her cheeks.

“What, you weren’t sad to leave Lola? And your mom and sister?”

The thought that I was leaving them behind had gnawed at my chest constantly in the weeks leading up to to the move. Time and again I would ask my mom if it was okay, if she was okay, as if her blessing would grant me both permission and absolution. She always answered the same. You’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to do. It was her way of giving me the acceptance I needed, while deflecting from her own sadness.

“No,” I said, recognizing that answer as the half-truth it was. “I knew it was what I was supposed to do. Also, dogs don’t really understand time like that, I think.”

Peaches brushed her face against my shins and curled up by the door. A gust of wind echoed through the porch, causing goosebumps to ripple over my skin, and I pulled the blanket up to my shoulders.

“Do you smell that?” Christine asked.

I wrinkled my nose. “Yeah, that’s awful. What is it?”

“Skunk, I think. I’ve seen one around here.”

She reached over me to grab a box of incense from the side table. I recognized it to be the same one from her old bedroom. The rose, lavender, and jasmine had long been depleted, so we were relegated to the scents we never liked: sandalwood, and something called musk-amber.

“I can’t believe you still have that thing. It’s been, what, six years?”

“I stopped burning it as much when you left.”

My attention turned to the blanket on my lap, the sweater hanging off my back; all at once I was aware that they were simply sitting on top of me, that underneath, my body was naked and vulnerable, and it always had been. They were an illusionary protection.

She settled on sandalwood, propped it upright in the dish, and held her lighter to the tip. I cupped my hands around the flame in an attempt to protect it from the wind, but the smoke blew back into my face. I blinked hard. Tears rushed from the corners of my eyes.

“It just isn’t what I thought it would be,” I said.

“Not much is.”

“I’m not what I thought I would be, either. I mean, I am, but it didn’t make me happy.” The words stung leaving my mouth.

She blew gently on the incense, reducing the flame to an orange glow that slowly made its way down the stick. I touched the compacted ashes left in its place, and they collapsed effortlessly. I rubbed the tips of my fingers together, feeling their softness, their dissolution.

“I thought I could invent a life for myself, you know? Plan it out, like writing a script. Play my part.” I looked down. The ashes had settled into the grooves of my fingerprints, and I could see their swirling patterns, the tiny valleys and mountains.

She laughed a bit. “I know you love Whitman, but you can’t take his metaphors so seriously, dude. It’s not a play. There’s no audience. Just do what feels good. If that’s not Burlington, do something else.”

“I just want to do the right thing. I want to make something good.”

“You’re going to drive yourself crazy.”

“I know.”

She met my eyes. “You’re okay.”

I took in a breath to protest, and I could feel it all bubbling up, white-capped intensity, a wave swelling up my throat — but I stopped. The words felt suddenly empty. I deflated, and shifted to swap our places - my head on her shoulder – resolving myself to quiet.

She passed me my glass, and with a gentle finality repeated, “You’re okay. Drink.”

I did, and considered the glaring predictability of the whole thing. Of course the twenty-something writer has vague feelings of dissatisfaction and a tendency for dramatics. It was simultaneously disappointing and reassuring. I thought of my mom. You’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to do.

I imagined my breath, imagined the air was cold enough to see it leave my body, imagined watching it curl in and around itself like the sandalwood smoke. I imagined swallowing all my thoughts, holding them in my lungs, and letting them out in one great exhale. I imagined that was about the same as writing.

My chest felt tight, and I realized I had been holding my breath. I yawned. Christine nudged me off her shoulder.

“Ready?”

We untangled ourselves from the blanket and carried in the glasses. She swept, and I washed the dishes. We argued about who should clean: her, as the host or me, as the guest. Oh my god, I thought, We sound like our mothers.

She locked the doors and began moving around the room, darkening each lamp and candle. Each extinguished flame left behind thin wisps of smoke that shuddered, then composed themselves and spiraled upward.

“Are you going to be okay out here on your own?”

I nodded. She closed her bedroom door behind her.

I fell asleep on the couch, orange rays from the streetlights filtering through the blinds and shifting in slants across my eyelids, over and back again.