And just like that out of nowhere Rene can say something profound and tap into exactly what I’m feeling. How does she do it? That comment is the first thing that has made sense to me today. ‘We are the generation of nothing.’ And of course, nothing is pointless. Whatever I do it will be pointless. It’s the times we live in so I should just surrender like Rene.

I watch her, thankful she is my friend. The silence is  comfortable and I lie there watching Rene smoke.

She hands me the cigarette. I focus on the cherry-flame. “Where did you get these?”

“They were on the table on the patio. I snaked them. What is it about Catholic girls sneaking cigarettes to sneak a smoke? It’s so cliché.”

I take a puff. I don’t like to smoke, but tonight I want to be me more like Rene, less like myself than ever before.

Rene sits up and pulls from another pocket a small bottle of scotch. She takes a long swallow and then says, “I wish my dad was like Jack.”

“I wish my dad was more like your dad. I wish once Jack would just yell at me like your dad does. But he never yells. He never just says You screwed up, Chrissie. I’m disappointed in you. He never tells me what he really thinks.”

Rene takes another drink, longer, more. “Then come to my house and next time my dad starts yelling, stay in the living room instead of running off and hiding. Why would it be better if Jack yelled?”

“Then I would know what he thinks. What he expects. That he cares. He never says I’m disappointed in you. He never says he’s proud. Sam was always his favorite. It feels more like he’s just stuck with me and doesn’t know what to do about that.”

Oh crap, one of my lockboxes is opening. No, Chrissie, not tonight. Don’t let yourself dwell on your brother tonight. Don’t think about how Jack was after he died. Don’t think about how Sam looked laying blue and cold in his bedroom. Don’t think of how his flesh felt. Don’t think about how everyone loved Sammy, how much he screwed up, and how remarkable he was. Don’t think of Jack’s months of drunkenness. Jack’s rage. The days of being forgotten by Jack. All the bad days. So many bad days. Before those days of boarding school, Jack’s recovery and second run at sobriety.

I lift my cheek from the sand to find Rene staring at me.

“Jack said he was proud of you tonight.”

“Oh, no he didn’t. He said, ‘Your mother would be so proud of you,’ but not a word about what he thinks. Never a word about what he thinks.”

“At least Jack tries, Chrissie. I’m not saying he’s perfect. I’m not saying he’s even good at it. I’m saying he tries. Cut him some slack if he’s not doing it right.”

“He’s not doing it at all. We are going through life tiptoeing around each other.”

Rene takes another drink. “Jack tries.”

Jack did try, but somehow it makes it all the more awful.

Rene springs to her feet and begins to brush the sand from her legs. “We should go back.”

“You just want to party on the patio with the rock geriatric ward.”

Rene laughs. “That is a terrible thing to call your dad’s band. Jesus, your dad is young and hot. You just can’t see it because he’s your dad. And why not hang with the rock geriatric ward since we won’t be at Peppers with the rest of the seniors?” Rene closes the scotch bottle, almost puts it back in her pocket, and then buries it the sand. “We’ll leave something for the bums instead of tossing it. I am sure Jack would disapprove of that since I took it from his bar.”

I stand up, brushing the sand from my backside. Rene loops her arm around my neck and we walk toward the car. I can smell the scotch on her breath, and I like the smell, though I should hate it, just as I hate the endless glasses always sent to our restaurant table.

“I have a rule pact for New York,” Rene announces out of nowhere.

I start to laugh. “When did you come up with it?”

“Just now. I make your rules. You make mine. And Doctor Rene thinks what Chrissie needs is to do one crazy thing a day until we are back at school.”

I laugh harder. Only Rene could float between profound and ridiculous in an hour. “And how will I know if it’s something crazy to do? Do I ask you?”

“Oh, you’ll know. Did you think what you did to that poor waitress was crazy? Well, you’re right. It was crazy. But it was a good thing to do. I loved watching you do it, Chrissie. You let some of it out for once. When the voice insides you says no, just do it. Be bad. Be young. Be wrong. Lose your virginity. It’s OK.”

Rene takes my cheeks in her hands and does a fast friendship kiss on my lips and suddenly this isn’t silly but deadly serious to her.

Oh crap, why tonight? Another of Rene’s sneak attacks on all my little issues.

I fumble in the dimly lit parking lot to unlock the car door. “Fine. One crazy thing each day. But here’s your rule pact, Rene. You can do anything you want and I won’t tell, but you have to spend one day with your dad and be nice to him even if he’s with fembot thirty-seven.”

That was a really bitchy thing to say. She leans with her arms on the roof of the car. Then she points at me. “You stay sweet.”

Now I want to cry again. “You stay cute.”

It is our ritual, how we prop each other up or how we say hello and goodbye to each other as we pass on campus on our way to class. I can’t remember how I became sweet and Rene became cute, but it is how it is, how it has always been.

I pull the car from the parking lot and I am there at the intersection to Cliff Drive. I feel all shaky and loose inside again. If I go left I drive into the fog and back home. And right—where will right take me?

I turn right toward the city and away from home and Jack.

* * *

The parking lot is packed and thumping with the sounds of a live band. We are on State Street on a Friday night about to enter a club at midnight. I know this is not a good idea, but this is where the car has taken me: To Peppers and Eliza’s private party and Brad. For some reason I feel pissed off enough to come here and do…do what?

I unbuckle my seatbelt and climb from the car. I look at my modest t-shirt and worn jeans. Jeez, I’m wearing UGG boots. Not exactly club gear. I haven’t any makeup on and my hair is a ponytail. Rene is waiting, staring at me from the other side of the car.

“We are not actually going to crash Eliza’s party, are we?”

“We’re not going to crash the party,” I say quickly.

“Then what?”

I stare at the giant tote Rene hauls everywhere with her. “What do you have in your bag? You must have something cuter than this t-shirt. I look like a lost school girl in UGGs.”

Rene makes a face. “That’s because you are a lost school girl in UGGs. If you’re going to go postal again tonight, warn me in advance.” She dumps the contents of her bag onto the passenger seat as I come around the car.

Rene’s giant tote is a very, very odd thing. She carries everything she might need, I mean everything, absolutely everywhere she goes. It used to worry me. I used to call it the ‘everything I need to book bag.’ And I was afraid Rene was just going to take off and disappear one day. Then I wouldn’t have anyone. A selfish thought, but it used to worry me because without Rene I wouldn’t have anyone.

“Well, do you have anything I can change into in there?” I ask.

Rene rummages through her junk. “No shoes, but this should be cute even with the UGGs.”

She pulls out a gold blouse and a jean mini-skirt. She tosses them to me. They still have Saks Fifth Avenue tags on them. They are slightly wrinkled, but they’ll work better than what I have on.

I change in the parking lot behind the car door. The blouse is too tight, Rene isn’t busty, but the skirt works even though I have to roll it once to make it short.

“Stand still.”

Rene has eyeliner, mascara and lip gloss in hand.