Billy and Darcy got back on the road west for one final push to Joshua Tree and Darcy’s stars. Her wish to see the place came from her obsession with the U2 album. Within a year of its release, she had worn out her cassette tape completely, which knotted up the tape deck in her car, and when she saved to buy a small CD player for her room, she almost played the art off the disc. On the rare occasion a song from the album played on a radio station along their drive, she turned the volume up enough to distort the speakers and sang as loud as she could.
After a brutally hot morning driving through the southern edge of the Mojave, they dropped south from Route 40 into Twentynine Palms, where they picked up a tent and some blankets at an Army-Navy store and were told Ryan Campground was where they wanted to be if they wanted stars.
What they hadn’t counted on was the Marine base and a city tied in knots over their loved ones being deployed to Saudi Arabia. There was an almost tangible weight to their departure. Billy was crushed by a tidal wave of guilt, knowing he should be one of the Marines deploying, and that he had walked away from his obligation to his country and his best friend.
Darcy went into a grocery store to grab some snacks and hot dogs to cook once they set up camp and got a fire going. Billy told her he’d catch up in a minute and found a pay phone outside.
“Mrs. Foster? Hi. It’s Billy.”
“Oh, my goodness, Billy! How are you?! How’s the Marines going?!”
Billy realized Mark had told his mom that he left for boot camp and not that he took off on a road trip with a girl he just met. His face flushed as he looked around and watched the worried wives and kids and girlfriends whose men were actual Marines leaving for the war walk to and from their cars and trucks in the parking lot and in and out of the store. He lowered his voice, feared he’d be overheard.
“Uh, good. It’s going good.”
“They’re not being too hard on you, are they? I mean, I’m sure it’s not easy, it’s not supposed to be, but you’re ok?”
“I am, yeah. I’m doing pretty good so far.”
“Good. You hear these horror stories, you know, and you just don’t know what’s real and what’s made up.”
Billy could’ve left it at that. Not said anything else about the Marines. Not lied anymore and just asked if Mark was home. But his mind was full of static, and he couldn’t stop himself from talking.
“We’re being deployed soon. To Saudi.”
“Oh, Billy!”
He could hear the shock and tears starting in her voice.
“It’s ok, Mrs. Foster. It’s what I signed up for.”
“Maggie. Please, call me Maggie.”
“Sorry.”
“Please, please, be careful. Ugh, I wish Mark were here so he could speak with you. He left to go look at RPI with his father. He got in on a late acceptance. He was just devastated when you left. You were always such a great friend to him. Oh, he’ll be so upset he missed you.”
Billy felt like he was going to throw up. He bent over and leaned against the wall.
“That’s ok. Just tell him I called when you see him?”
“I will, Billy. Oh, please be safe. We’ll say lots of prayers.”
“Thanks, I will. Bye.”
***
The moon was full and high in the southeast as Darcy and Billy followed a bridle path into the open desert with two blankets. The mountain to the west was a hulking shadow and its foothills extended a soft indigo sweep around them to the south.
A new moon was still weeks away, so the night sky wasn’t as star struck as Darcy hoped it would be, but the further they looked north away from the moon, as their eyes adjusted, more constellations presented themselves. They walked a long way before deciding to spread out the blanket and lie down close to each other. Billy pulled the second blanket over them. They could just start to see their breath and watched it rise and disappear.
“I can’t believe every one of those stars is dead,” Billy said after a few silent minutes.
Darcy made a small grumbling sound.
“I lied when I said that.”
“You lied?”
“Well, I didn’t lie, they’re all going to die at some point. Most are still alive. But there are stars that we can see that died thousands of years ago.”
“Well, I guess that makes me feel a little better. I was going to say that’s depressing as hell.”
“Sorry.”
“Thousands of years ago and we can still see it, huh?”
“The closest star is ninety-three million light-years away, and the furthest is twenty-eight billion. That’s how far the light has to travel for us to see it.”
“I think we could make it. Just need to get a few million gallons of gas first.”
Darcy swung her arm and hit Billy in the thigh.
“Jackass.”
“Why do you love them so much?”
“My grandmother gave me a book about stars when I was little. She knew I spent a lot of time outside at night when my parents fought and thought it would be a good distraction. When I learned just how far away stars are and that there are thousands we can see just by looking up on a clear night, thousands more with a telescope, and who knows how many more beyond what we can see, it was just so unbelievably huge that it made my problems seem small. I love that reminder.”
Billy thought for a moment, then pointed northwest.
“I know the Big Dipper. That’s about it. I can never find the Little. Or maybe it’s the Little I can find and can’t pick out the Big. I don’t know.”
“That is the Big Dipper.” Darcy lifted his arm to raise his point higher. “That’s Ursa Minor. Little Dipper.”
Her touch felt different to Billy. Softly charged. A small shudder rolled up his spine.
“And that whole cloud,” Darcy said. “That’s the Milky Way. I’ve never seen it this bright. It’s beautiful.”
“It is.”
“You know what else I love about them? When stars die, they don’t just disappear, they become parts of new stars and planets.”
Darcy looked at Billy.
“I hope that’s what happens to me,” she said.
“Huh?!”
“I mean, not like right this moment. But whenever I die, I hope the good parts of me live on in something new. The bad goes away and the good stays.”
Billy stared into the black between the stars and thought about how he had watched the entire world disappear and then come back together, cell by cell, into the most perfect state of being he could ever imagine.
He had never really thought about death too deeply, his own or in general. His grandparents died, but they lived in Florida and he didn’t really know them. His reaction to his classmate killing himself had more to do with his anger and sadness with the unfairness of it all. The injustice of the wrong life ceasing to exist and his desire to right that wrong.
But he never considered what happens once the body becomes inert and the world keeps moving. What lives on and what falls away. Billy wanted to believe, like Darcy, that the good prevailed. But he knew that bad would always find a way to exist. Everything good casts a shadow and death can’t clean that slate; it only rearranges the pieces.
Billy thought about the call with Mark’s mom, felt another wave of guilt flow through him, and sighed heavily. Darcy rolled on her side toward Billy, propped an elbow, and rested her cheeck in her hand.
“How come you haven’t tried anything with me?”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve barely kissed. You haven’t made any other moves.”
Billy squirmed a little and blushed heavily behind the shadow of his face from the moon.
“I don’t know. You’ve been through a lot. I didn’t want to push.”
“Just because I’ve been through a lot doesn’t mean I don’t want to be close to anyone. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to be loved.”
Darcy spoke before Billy could form a response.
“You’ve been through a lot. Do you not want to be close to anyone? To not be loved?”
“No…I mean, I do. Want to be close. To you. It’s just…it never really came up, and I didn’t want you to think that was like every other guy and that’s all I wanted.”
“I know you’re not.” Darcy laughed. “I mean, most other guys would’ve tried to get in my pants the first night. Like it’s a given or something. You gave me time and space.”
“Yeah.”
“Look, I know it was hard for you to leave Mark. I know it was hard for you to ditch the Marines. I could see it in your face the whole time we were in town today.”
“I tried calling him.”
‘Mark?”
“Yeah.”
“Was he home?”
“No. Talked to his mom.”
“What’d she say?”
“Mark was looking at a college with his dad. He told her I left for the Marines.”
“Did you tell her about us?”
“No.”
Darcy waited.
“I told her I was being deployed soon.”
“Billy, really?”
“I panicked. I didn’t want to disappoint her or explain all this when I don’t even know what the fuck I’m doing.”
Darcy lay back down and, after a few minutes, took Billy’s hand in hers.
“I shouldn’t have asked you to leave,” Darcy said.
“I asked you.”
“Yeah, but I should’ve said no. I shouldn’t have made you feel guilty about leaving for the Marines in the first place.”
“You didn’t make me feel guilty.”
“Yeah, I did. And I was half joking. I was like, damn, meet a good guy and now he’s leaving. Then you asked and I panicked and I didn’t say no and it just snowballed.”
“Darcy…”
“No, Billy. I would’ve left eventually. On my own. Found my own way out here. But I acted like it could be your dream, too. Or you could be a part of it. This isn’t what you wanted.”
Billy sat up.
“I did want to do this.”
“No, you didn’t know what you wanted other than to leave town with me. Me wanting to get out here, my crazy idea of the stars taking away my problems, like I could die like them and get a new start…you grabbed onto it like it was your own. Grabbed onto me. Which is OK, I mean, I’m happy you’re with me. But that dream, it’s not yours. And it’s not fair to you.”
Billy felt her words like déjà vu. A voice from some parallel space and time spoke in chorus with her in his head. A tumbler clicked and a crystal-clear scene with Billy talking to Mark in his driveway played behind his eyes.
“That’s what I told Mark.”
“Huh?”
“Before you picked me up. Mark was there. He wanted to come and I told him the exact same thing.”
“You’re kidding.”
Billy shook his head.
“That’s wildly ironic,” Darcy said. “Like, the universe-is-trying-to-talk-to-us ironic.”
“God, I’m an asshole.”
“No, you’re not. Don’t be a douche.”
“What the hell do we do now? What do I do now?”
Billy’s head was in his hands. Darcy put her fingers in the hair on the back of his head.
“I can’t tell you that. I can tell you whatever you decide, it has to be for you.”
Billy knew if he went home, Mark would be off to college, and he’d be back to his original two choices.
“What if it’s the Marines?”
“If that’s where you think you need to go, go.”
“I’ve always looked at myself as less than everyone else. Parents divorced. No money. Shitty house in a shitty neighborhood. I went into that recruiter because I thought I had no other options.”
Billy wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
“But I did. I just never saw a reason to expect more of myself. To do something I can be proud of or make people proud of me. Now I do.”
Billy was silent for a moment.
“I don’t want to lose you, though.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Billy.”
Darcy tucked a finger under his chin and turned Billy’s face toward her.
“Besides, you think I’m going to find someone else who would stick around after I stabbed a guy in the eye?”
“Good point.”
Billy looked at the way Darcy’s hair caught the moonlight as it fell from behind her ear in front of her face. Except for crickets, silence.
“Jesus, Billy, take a damn hint,” Darcy said. “This would be a good time to make a move.”