“Kidneys clean your blood,” She says suddenly, “Everything comes through in a big mess, and your kidneys soak up the poisons.”
I don’t say anything, and we’re silent again.
Tosca follows the street down to the water, past restaurants and tourist traps, out onto the pier. She doesn’t look at me, but I keep looking at her. I wish I knew what comes next. It feels like we’re marching off to some abstract war together. Like we’re going to keep walking until the dock ends and we step off into the water, but it’s not a bad feeling.
Boats bob on either side of us. Yachts, speedboats, and sailboats that probably cost more than my house. It’s colder here against the ocean. Tosca slides her hand away and takes a few steps back, so I put mine in my pockets and pretend to look at the water.
“They took those bodies.” She pulls her jacket closed and sinks down cross-legged at the edge of the pier. “How many people are sitting at home, waiting for them to come back? They’ll never know.”
I shrug. “At least they can still hope.”
“Bullshit. Hope sends you looking over your shoulder every second of every day. You turn around, thinking maybe this time you’ll see them, and there’s nothing. People should just die and get it over with.”
“I don’t know.”
She yanks on my pants until I sit down. “What do you mean you don’t know? That’s the way it is.”
An image of the man with his hands in the air comes into my head. “It seems like…” I poke my finger into a wet spot on the pier. “Have you ever put a phone up to a dog’s ear while someone on the other line talks?”
Tosca gives me a blank look. “Why the fuck would I do that?”
“It’s weird. The dog puts up his ears and stares at the phone, like he wants so badly to know where that voice is coming from. He’s trying with every last neuron he has to wrap his head around this thing, but he can’t. It doesn’t matter how long he listens. He’ll never understand. Dogs can’t fathom the telephone.”
“So?”
“So maybe we’re the dog.”
There’s a silence. I dig at the spongy wood with my nail, and try not to feel like an idiot. It sounded better in my head.
Tosca looks like she’s thinking, but then she just wipes her nose on her sleeve and says, “Sylvia Plath tried to drown herself here.”
“What?”
“You know, that one chick.”
“I really doubt she was ever near Puget Sound.” I try not to say it like an intellectual, but Tosca scowls.
“Well, she drowned herself somewhere, or tried to. It’s on Wikipedia or something. She was dumb. If you’re going to off yourself, at least pick something where they don’t drag you out a week later looking like a raisin. You know?” She pulls her knees up against her chest. Her skirt falls open. “Plus it’d be cold. What a stupid way to kill yourself.”
“There are worse ways to die.”
It’s evening. The water has bits of sun on it, but mostly it’s smooth and gray. A flock of seagulls are fighting over a Twinkie on the dock next to ours, screaming at each other like five-year-olds. There’s a frigid breeze coming off the water, rattling the boats, making my skin prickle under my shirt, but somehow there’s a stillness under the murmur of birds and traffic and people. A hole in the city.
Tosca cups a hand over her pocket. “I’ve never seen anything die before.”
“Huh.” I remember to breathe, and try to avoid looking up her skirt.
“I bet you haven’t either.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah you have or yeah you haven’t?”
I shrug and flick a piece of gravel off the pier. “Does it matter?”
“Yes it fucking matters. We’re just a brain swaddled in a few layers of meat, and to realize that,” She smacks her hand flat on the pier, “That’s profound. How can you say it doesn’t matter?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you seen something die or not?”
There’s too much of a pause. I start to say something, I don’t know what, but Tosca scoots back and stares at me.
“Holy shit, was it a person?”
“It doesn’t–”
“Was it?” She yells. A few of the seagulls turn their heads to look at us.
“Fine.” I wipe ocean spray off my glasses. “It was a person. Happy now?”
“Were his eyes open?”
“Tosca–”
“Well, what did it look like? Did you touch it? What’s it feel like? Was it cold?”
“Stop it.” I try to stand up, but she gets me by the shoulders and shoves her face right into mine.
“Tell me. Was it the beautiful? Did it smell? Is it true you shit yourself when you die?”
“Tosca!” I snap, and she jumps.
“I want to know.” Her hand on my shoulder loosens, and all of a sudden she looks sad. I feel like a jerk, but you get sick of telling people that kind of stuff. There’s nothing left to say after a few minutes, so the other person sits there feeling sorry for you, and you sit there feeling dumb.
I give her a half-assed smile and shrug her hand off. “Look, it’s not important. Just leave it, okay?”
“Fine, don’t tell me.”
“I’m sorry.”
She glares out over the water and says nothing. The seagulls roll the Twinkie off the dock and have to go in after it. I try to think of a way to change the subject, but come up with nothing. I should go. The sun’s right on the horizon, and it’ll be dark soon. Tosca puts her chin on her wrist and plays with her necklace.
“Heavy.”
“What?”
My stomach bunches. I scrub at my forehead, and say, “Heavy. That’s what it feels like. I don’t know how else to describe it.”
For a second, we’re both stalk still, then Tosca heaves a sigh and slouches back onto her knuckles. “Well?”
“Well what?” I run a hand through my hair, pulling hard where the roots go into my scalp. “For Christ’s sake, what do you want?”
“Who was it?”
“My sister.” It’s easier saying it than not, actually. Talking is pretty easy once you start. It’s just talk. Tosca’s fingers brush my leg. She pats me gingerly, leaving her hand on my knee. It’s delicate and warm through my jeans, like a butterfly that’s just barely there.
She tips her chin and stares down her greyhound nose at me, so I keep talking.
“You wouldn’t think one thirteen-year-old girl would be so heavy, but she was. I kept trying to get her out of the bathroom. I don’t know why. I just thought if I could get her out, someone could fix it. Would you believe it, I couldn’t move her. I was there for seven minutes, trying to drag her out of the shower while she bled to death right in front of me. No idea what I was thinking.” I laugh. “Hindsight’s 20/20 I guess.”
Tosca’s hand is still on my knee. It’s not shaking, but she’s tense. I feel like I should cover it with mine, but I don’t know how to do that.
“Did someone shoot her or what?”
“Nothing like that.” I fold my hands, unfold them, try leaning back, then sit up because that feels even weirder. Shit. “She walked into the bathroom one morning and slit her wrists.”
“Why?”
“I guess she was unhappy. There weren’t any signs, but people are complicated.”