Cris had found a corner to sit by herself, nursing a champagne flute. No surprise she didn’t often get approached by guys, in spite of her looks. She looked so out of place in the sea of skin, scanty costumes all around her.
“Did it hurt?”
I smiled at the familiar sultry voice. As usual, when I turned around, I saw my ex’s cleavage first, popping out of a corset she didn’t need a holiday as an excuse to wear. I couldn’t tell what she was supposed to be, aside from sexy.
“Huh?” asked Cris. I would’ve thought, given all the Catholic schoolboys she used to date, she must’ve heard the pick-up line about falling from heaven.
Vicki rolled her eyes. “Never mind.”
While my ex struggled to slide into the booth in her tight leather skirt, my sister shotgunned the last of her champagne.
“Thanks for meeting me,” said Cris.
My eyebrows shot up. I figured it had been the other way around. Did she know who exactly she’d invited for drinks? I’d joked occasionally, tested her tolerance, but I’d never come out to her.
“I’d never dare turn you down,” replied Vicki, with a wink.
Judging from her stammering, my sister suspected now, at least.
“What’ll you have?” asked Vicki. “It’s on me.”
I’d never seen Cris drink anything aside from champagne, only one or two in a row, and after that, she’d have a full glass of water. But she put on her mask, raising her chin.
“Mal’s usual.”
Vicki raised her thin eyebrows. “Sure you can handle that?”
“What does it matter?” Cris smiled. For some reason, it made me shiver.
“All righty then,” said Vicki.
She wriggled back out of the booth. I followed her, looking for a good drink myself. As if I had much of a choice amongst all the skin and paint and plastic masks. At the first accidental sip, I couldn’t help but laugh, having a good time whether I liked it or not.
As soon as we got back into the booth, Cris tossed back my straight whiskey. She didn’t gag, or even grimace, though she couldn’t blink back the tears. They spilled over, beginning to run her mascara. Vicki acted quickly, taking the edge of a napkin and wiping away the inky trails. That salvaged her makeup before it could get any worse.
“Not bad,” said Vicki.
I had to agree.
Once she’d drunk for courage, my sister didn’t bother with any more niceties. “Tell me about her.”
That ought to have been my cue to leave.
“Diving right into it, huh?” said Vicki. “What do you wanna know?”
“Everything.”
Vicki sighed. “Buckle up.”
She started at the beginning, when we met as roommates in college. “The first time I saw her, she was wearing this horrid denim overall dress that went all the way down to her ankles, just completely covered up while she brought in her boxes, and her mom hung an actual crucifix on the wall. I got so scared and excited, like this is either gonna be my chance to corrupt a Catholic schoolgirl, or I’m gonna get hate-crimed. But she beat me to the corrupting. By the end of the week, she was borrowing my clothes, and the crucifix was gone.”
Cris finished her whiskey and started borrowing sips of rum and Coke. I’d already told her about my first band, the all-girl punk group, when I came home for vacation, lending her secrets to keep in lieu of having her own.
I’d wanted to brag. Besides, it distracted her from the divorce. Gave her a glimpse of what life could be like with no more house rules.
“It didn’t take long before she got noticed by some real talent in the making, stolen out of our garage for a popular new local band. Then she dropped out to go on tour. She and I didn’t last long after that. I almost dropped out myself to follow her on the road, but—”
I gulped, watching a fleeting wince of pain cross her face. So it still hurt, even after all these years. My limbs tensed, wondering how she’d explain it.
But she just smiled, like she didn’t care all that much anymore. “Well, she’d already moved on to the next lead singer.”
Maybe she considered herself lucky, losing me sooner than anyone else did.
“I don’t know what happened during the tour,” said Vicki. “I mean, straight from her. I heard they kicked her out for drinking too much, missing recordings, jerking around with everyone’s feelings. She wouldn’t answer my calls, so I don’t know for sure.”
“We got back in touch after that,” said Cris. “I mean, she didn’t tell me much about it, either. She tried to call before, but Mom wouldn’t let me answer.”
Vicki straightened up. “What do you mean, wouldn’t let you?”
Cris flushed, her drunkenness starting to show in the slur of her words and gestures. I cringed on her behalf.
“Mom said—I thought—she’d gone to the devil.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” asked Vicki.
My sister’s eyes glazed over. “I couldn’t save her. She’d strayed too far, and, like, wanted to take me with her.”
Vicki’s hand shook, clutching her empty glass. “I swear, the shit your mother put in your heads.”
“Well, it didn’t stay put,” said Cris. “I started talking to her again when I moved out. Only she went radio silent again, for too long. I tried not to think anything of it, but then—” Under the table, she balled her hands into fists. “She texted me goodbye.”
I didn’t remember that. I’d been blackout drunk. When I got my phone back in the hospital, she’d blown it up with messages, and I’d felt too guilty not to answer.
Vicki’s red lips hung open. “Wait, what?”
“She drank herself into a coma,” said Cris, her voice flat. “Had to get her stomach pumped. It looked like an accidental binge, but… well, then why the goodbye?”
“Fucking hell,” said Vicki. “Did she go to rehab, or counseling, or… no, wait, I know the answer to that.”
“She did go to a few AA meetings,” said Cris. “But they were too churchy for her. She tried going to a psychiatrist, too, but she had spotty insurance, job-hopping too much. So that didn’t work out, either.”
“Well, I underestimated her.” Vicki stabbed at the ice at the bottom of her empty glass with her straw. “And how hard it is to get help in this shithole country, on top of having to stomach asking for it.”
I braced myself for an impassioned rant, looking forward to the tangent that would distract from all the talk about me. But Vicki got up to get more drinks instead. I followed suit.
Once they’d gotten a couple of gulps into their candy cocktails, they switched turns.
“Tell me about her,” said Vicki. “I mean, whoever the fuck you were burying.”
“She crashed with me for a while,” said Cris. “Then she got a job and moved out.”
“Didn’t she make any royalties?”
“Not enough to pay the record company back for breaking contract.”
They’d sued me, actually. Hospital bills took care of the rest.
“What job?” asked Vicki.
The alcohol probably didn’t help my sister recall the list. “Uh, something in finance, I think administrative, but that one didn’t last so she slung coffee for a while, then worked at a couple of call centers.”
Vicki blew out a puff of air, flapping her lips. “Ugh, boring.”
Cris stared, eyes glazing. “She knew if she didn’t change, she’d die young.”
“So, to keep living, she stopped living? What the hell? It didn’t even work. Why didn’t she just join another band? She played so many instruments. Or she could’ve stayed behind the scenes if she wanted, just writing.”
“Whenever I asked, she got snappy and stopped talking for days. Whatever went down with the band, it made her miserable. I thought she’d be better off moving on.”
“No way,” said Vicki. “She couldn’t have been happy without music.”
Cris sobbed. It made me tense, so sudden and short. “I wish I’d known,” she said. “Do you think it was an accident?”
The light above their table dimmed, then flickered even brighter.
Vicki didn’t even answer. She just groaned as she squeezed back out of her side of the booth and went over to my sister’s, putting her arms around her, like I wished I could.
I wondered what would happen if I tried touching her. Whether I’d pick up on her thoughts. Perhaps there’d be comfort in my touch. But I didn’t dare, in case I couldn’t handle what she felt.
“This is fucking sad,” said Vicki. “Come on, she’d gag to see us crying over her in the club. Let’s drink to her memory, and then just drink.”
Cris recovered surprisingly quickly, like she’d gotten used to crying lately, able to sprint through the stages. “I can’t stay too much longer. I’ve got a makeup exam tomorrow.”
Vicki sighed. “At least you’re pretty.”
She replied with the sulky shrug of the perpetually single. It must’ve gotten hard to date and still keep her virginity pledge at her age, unless she’d secretly given up, too embarrassed to tell me.
“Don’t get a lot of attention?” asked Vicki. “Not a surprise, you project that halo of yours pretty far.”
“Really?”
“Keep drinking, let’s see if it falls off.”
Cris’s laugh unsettled me. Not her usual soft, restrained giggle under her breath. She always hid her outbursts as if she were still sitting on my bed at midnight, trying not to wake our parents. This one grated, harsh and gravelly. More like mine.
“I think it already did,” said Cris. “I mean… I don’t believe anymore.”
For years, I’d been trying to poke holes in her faith. But just enough to let in some air. I hadn’t thought it would give me so little joy to watch it collapse. Believing might’ve given her some comfort right about now.
“So you think she’s just gone?” asked Cris. “Nowhere, nothing?”
Vicki pursed her lips, like she didn’t like the reminder, but she couldn’t deny it. “There’s the fucking rub.”
“Never mind,” said Cris. “Let’s drink. I might as well catch up, while I’m still here.”
“That’s the spirit,” said Vicki.
Their glasses were empty, but they clinked them anyway.
I couldn’t tell who made me more jealous: my sister, for getting cozy with my ex, or my ex, for getting to take my sister on her first drunken adventure. At least she’d finally loosened up, even if it was too late for me to enjoy it with her.
Alastair had been right. I shouldn’t watch her grow up without me.