Vicki Pettersson - The Scent of Shadows

I poured another glass to the rim. One thing was certain: whatever I was going to do, I wasn’t doing it sober.

Back in the living room, I kicked off my shoes, the first marring of my sister’s space, and wondered briefly if she’d have done that. I had no earthly way of knowing.

Letting the vodka fill my mouth, holding it there to numb my tongue, gums, and soul, I stared at the package. From the corner of my eye I saw Luna slinking behind the couch, crouched low as if that somehow encouraged stealth. The ice in my glass rattled as I sat it on a glass-top table and reached for the gift.

Thin, expensive wrapping, a girly bow, a card nestled securely beneath. I didn’t rip it open as I normally might, but tugged at the ribbon until it loosened, then lifted the paper until it fell away. I put the card aside for later. Inside was a pristine white box. Why, I asked myself as I took another swig, was I suddenly noting the most mundane things? Luna sat directly across from me, gold eyes unblinking, apparently wondering the same thing. I lifted the lid and sorted through the tissue paper until I recovered the first item, and lifted it free.

The photo was recent, the last one taken of us together. The occasion was the opening of a new restaurant in Valhalla, and I remember being annoyed with my father for making us attend, and with Olivia for insisting we pose with a group of helmeted and horned Vikings. I’d felt silly already, dressed in expensive black silk. I didn’t want some model with a long sword pressed up against me.

“Please, Jo,” she had begged, her pout in place, lashes fluttering. “You look so beautiful…for once.” She knew to soften any compliment for me with a mild insult, otherwise I might not believe the whole of it. No, not might not believe. Would not believe. I took another drink.

Funny thing, though, she was right. I did look pretty. Or perhaps I just missed my old face. My hair was a sleek and shining dark bob, tucked behind my ears, and a reluctant smile played at my lips, glossy and somehow knowing. That had me dropping the photo to my lap with a wry laugh.

I had known nothing.

The second gift was both smaller and larger than that final captured moment. A simple disk, something she’d probably spent hours fiddling with on her beloved computer, but not, I knew, something downloaded and burned and offered up for my listening pleasure. Olivia would never give me something that common. “How the hell am I supposed to watch this?” I murmured, closing my eyes.

But I did watch it. After retrieving the vodka bottle.

Luna had been sitting beside her. The television went from blank to bright, and she was suddenly there, absently stroking the cat, rubbing perfectly manicured fingers along its temples and ears and brow as she waited for the recorder to engage. Only belatedly did she realize it already had. I laughed aloud at her expression—surprise, pleasure, and chagrin all at once—but instead of rewinding and starting again, she simply shrugged it all away, as was her way.

“Hiya, sis! Now get that sour look off your face, this is a great idea, and just wait until you see how smoothly I’ve edited it. I’m an absolute star!” She giggled, sipped from a wide-bowled martini, a movement I echoed with my own drink. “So, I figure we can do this every year from now on, commemorate the year just past, and, you know, look forward to the next year and stuff. I’ve been doing it for myself for a few years now, kind of a video diary, and it’s a great way to keep track of where you are, and who you are, you know?”

She tilted her head as if waiting for an answer. Then, shaking a finger at the camera, she said, “And no, that doesn’t mean you have to make a disk for me, I already know you won’t. I’ll just do it for the both of us, and then fifty years from now we can have a slumber party and watch them all at once! How does that sound?”

“Like as much fun as a root canal,” I said, not meaning it. It sounded fucking fabulous.

“Oh, shut up.” Olivia smiled, a knowing glint in her eyes. I smiled back, and for a second I could actually believe there was a connection there; that she saw me seeing her, and was responding in real time. I opened my mouth to say something, anything to draw the moment out, but it had already passed.

“So now, without further ado, here is…” She did a poor impression of a drumroll, earning what I took to be a feline scowl from Luna. “…the first quarter century of your life!”

It was, indeed, a video diary of my life. Actually, they were just photos, a slide show running to music—beginning from my infancy to chronologically span the twenty-five years since—but they appeared to be moving because of Olivia’s editing, and I felt myself caught up in the story. The story of my life. A collage of images meant as celebration.

And I saw what Cher had been talking about. One moment there was a photo of me, grinning madly as Ben and I leaned against an old oak in Lorenzi Park, shade dappling our young faces in playful patterns, and his arms wrapped firmly around my waist. The next moment the clock she’d spoken of had stopped. Me, alone. An empty shell, smiling because it was expected, but looking straight through the camera. I didn’t even remember it being taken. “Jesus,” I said on a sigh.

Then Olivia was back. The light in the room was different, revealing the passage of time, and Luna had left her side. She was leaning forward, gaze intent. This time she’d caught the red light flicking on and the exact moment the tape switched back to her. She caught my eye.

“I know you hate all this mushy stuff, but bear with me for a moment because, I don’t know”—she looked to the side, like she was looking out the window, then back again—“I just feel like I need to tell you this now. Like tomorrow will be too late somehow, and I don’t want to have any regrets.”

My breath caught. God, I thought, and she was supposed to be the ditzy one?

“Please know that I love you deeply, and I admire you, and I wish…or I used to wish I could be more like you, but…” She laughed, a small and fragile sound, while motioning down her body with one fragile, manicured hand. “Well, look at me.”

“Don’t,” I said to her, too late, dropping to my knees in front of the television. I traced her face on the screen. “Don’t say that. You’re perfect the way you are.”

“Still,” she continued, oblivious to me and my tears. “We all have our talents, right? And mine is keeping us together. You and I. I know you don’t trust a lot of things or people in this life, but you can trust that. Happy Birthday, sis.” And, on a teary self-conscious giggle, she blew me a kiss good-bye.

I lowered my head into my hands and shook as the screen went blank. The sound that came from my throat was that of a small animal. It shattered the room in a keening wail, like cracked glass jarred from inside me. I jerked at the brush of fur against my leg, and looked down to find Luna staring up at me, her tail straight and quivering as she pressed her lithe, white body against me.

“Miss her too, huh?” I scratched her as I’d seen Olivia do, and she fell for it. Literally. She dropped in a pool of fur at my feet, anticipation rumbling through her body. What a picture we must make, I thought. A drunken woman and her cat.

Then another voice, his voice, filled the room. Luna and I both whipped to attention and one of us hissed. I wasn’t so certain it was the cat. I whirled around, but it wasn’t until my eyes landed back on the screen that I saw him. “Fucking bastard.”

Ajax’s long face stared at me from the television. “Is this thing on?” he said with mock exaggeration. He leaned forward, tapping on the camera so his knuckles hit the screen, and laughed.