Hannah Gersen - Home Field

“Are you alone?” she said. “Can I come over?”

“I’m already out,” he said. “I’ll come to you.”

STEPHANIE SAT ON a worn-out futon couch in the basement of the Arts House, waiting for the ecstasy to kick in. She was nervous but optimistic. Gabe had convinced her of the drug’s goodness. He had done it several times, and he described it as a “big warm hug.” Gabe seemed like someone for whom nothing bad could ever happen and so, by some transitive property, the things he recommended could not be bad for others. He had already checked in on her twice, refreshing her vodka and orange juice.

The drug had already begun to work on Raquel, who was sitting next to her, rubbing the futon’s striped canvas upholstery. She didn’t seem much different, except for the fact that she was now enjoying the band, which she had previously deemed “sloppy.” Stephanie was slowly noticing that Raquel, for all her wildness, was actually quite intolerant of things that seemed messy or unplanned.

“Do you feel it yet?” Raquel asked. “Do you want to dance?”

“Not yet,” Stephanie said. And then she felt something, a delicious relaxation spreading throughout her body, like the feeling of dozing off, those precious milliseconds when her anxieties slipped out of view, just before sleep overtook her body and mind. Except sleep didn’t arrive. Instead she stayed in the velvety slipping phase, the little party worries — about her clothes, about the music, about the time — skittering away. It was a contentment that reminded her of something specific, a memory that she couldn’t quite grab hold of. Certain smells came to her. Warm smells of grass, hay, dust; cool smells of water, plant life, and mud. She remembered riding a horse, the trees above her, a cool tunnel of shade. She remembered the sun on her arms. The bone-deep relief of being finished with high school. Of moving away from her mother. Slowly, the day came into sharper focus, with names and dates: June, Juniper, the muddy creek. .

And then, like a stubborn hook finally catching the latch, the rest of the memory fell into place.

Stephanie turned to Raquel. “This is a terrible drug. How do we stop it?”

“What do you mean? You’re feeling it? How do you feel?”

Stephanie shook her head. “I can’t. You have to stop it. How do we stop it?”

“It’s supposed to feel good. It doesn’t feel good?”

“You’re repeating yourself,” Stephanie said. A horrible clarity was coming over her, mixed with overbearing anxiety, anxiety whose cause was at first obscured but then became plain. There was something, she realized now, that she had worked hard to avoid, but now that the drug had rapidly cleared all the stupid shit that had distracted her up to this point, that thing had come forward, it had center stage, it had the microphone, it was asking her, what did Robbie see? And it kept asking her and asking her, what did Robbie see, what did Robbie see, what did Robbie see? And she was forced to imagine that thing that Robbie must have seen: her mother’s neck in a noose, her mother’s body stretching toward the floor, her mother possibly struggling at the last minute, possibly changing her mind, as so many suicide victims — she had read — were known to do. And what the funeral home had done to fix her mother’s neck and face was a kind of dark sorcery she didn’t want to think about. And what poor Robbie had witnessed, she didn’t want to think about, and why he had gone to the barn in the first place, she didn’t want to think about, and how close he had gotten, she didn’t want to think about, and if he had looked at her face, she didn’t want to think about.

“Please, please, you have to stop this drug.” Stephanie took Raquel’s hands, as if to keep her on the sofa. “You must know a way. What if I throw up?”

“You can’t, it’s in your blood,” Raquel said. “Come on, let’s dance, you’ll feel better.”

“You don’t understand. It’s not affecting me in the right way. I’m having a bad reaction. Maybe I’m overdosing. Maybe I’m getting brain damage. Have you ever heard of anyone having this reaction?”

Raquel shook her head. Her expression reminded Stephanie of a babysitter she’d once had, who’d watched the boys when Robbie was potty-training and didn’t know what to do when Robbie couldn’t make it to the bathroom. She almost began to tell Raquel about this babysitter, but the clear part of her mind told her to stay focused on the task at hand, which was to get the drug out of her system.

“I think I need to go to a doctor,” Stephanie said. “Or I need to talk to a psychiatrist. Do you know any psychiatrists?”

“Stephanie, chill out, you’re not supposed to be this anxious.”

“I know . That’s why something is obviously wrong, I’m having the wrong reaction. I feel like I’m falling inside, like I’m losing my mind. Why did you think this would be a good idea? Why did you think this would be fun? This is the worst night of my life. It’s worse than the night my mother died.”

Raquel stood up. “I’m getting Gabe. He’ll calm you down, okay? He has a good vibe.”

“Did you just say vibe ? You never say things like vibe . You’re nervous, I can tell you’re nervous. Just be honest with me, am I going to die of this? Oh my God, what a stupid way to die.”

“Stay there!” Raquel commanded. “I’m getting Gabe.”

Stephanie obeyed. She stared at the dancers in front of her, who shook their bodies happily, ironically, self-consciously, and occasionally gracefully, oblivious to her agony. The music, a hazy melody with an unsteady beat (they were a sloppy band), could not distract her. Her thoughts were so loud, so unquiet, so insistent. She sipped her drink, and it tasted like her life ten minutes ago, a faraway place that she’d lost forever, a place where she was in control of her mood, where her fears didn’t have a death grip on her thoughts.

She had to get out of this basement. She was so tired of parties in basements.

She found the back stairs, and it bothered her that they were carpeted. They felt soggy, somehow. Upstairs was the ballroom, or what passed for a ballroom in a reclaimed fraternity house. The large room was shoddily grand with scuffed parquet floors, high ceilings, tall windows, a large defunct fireplace, and a bar. Stephanie felt a breeze coming through one of the windows. The music was now a vague hum beneath her. She settled down a little. She watched the people at the bar, lining up to receive red plastic cups of beer and cheap liquor. She remembered Mitchell saying that alcohol is a known poison . Why hadn’t her mother taken poison? Why not pills? Wasn’t that the nicer way? The feminine way? The way that could be perceived as an accident?

Gabe and Raquel had followed her upstairs. They looked like cartoons of themselves, Gabe with his sproingy blond curls and Raquel with her big eyes exaggerated into place by heavy eyeliner.

“Hey, Stephanie, what’s going on?” Gabe rubbed her arms and shoulders. “Calm down, girl.”

“Why did she have to do it that way? It was like she wanted everyone to know. But I knew . I knew!” Stephanie pointed to herself.

“Knew what?” Gabe asked.

“I knew how bad she was feeling and I didn’t do anything!” Stephanie felt like crying but she couldn’t.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Gabe said.

“You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

“I know, but I know you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Of course you didn’t, you’re a good person,” Raquel said.

“Good people can do bad things!” Stephanie was struck by Gabe’s sweetness and Raquel’s callowness. They weren’t going to be able to help her tonight. She felt no resentment toward either of them. She couldn’t; it would be like resenting Robbie and Bryan for not writing back to her postcards.