Winter (A Four Seasons Novel)

by Rae, Nikita

  “Yeah, that’s it, Morgan. I’ve seen you two hangin’ around. I was wondering if your services were still on offer?”

  I can literally hear the smirk in his voice, but he doesn’t sound like he’s being a jerk. I sigh and hit Morgan on the shin. “What’s up? Have Freddie and Kyle moved out of state?”

  He laughs. “Nah, but they are going back home for the holidays. I’m spending Thanksgiving with a bunch of friends in the city but everyone’s leaving at the end of the holiday weekend. That means I’ll be a poor lonely foreigner in the big city with no one to hang out with. I heard you were going to be around. Any chance you might like to catch a movie or something? Purely in the interests of keeping me out of trouble, you understand.”

  I frantically try to think of something, anything that will mean I don’t have to go to a movie with Columbia’s hottest, most popular exchange student. I come up blank. Morgan shimmies forward so she’s literally on the edge of her seat when she sees I’m hesitating, pulling a warning face. She clenches her fist at me, threatening physical violence if I don’t say yes. She obviously knows why he is calling. I flip her off and spin around on my office chair.

  “Sure, Noah. That sounds great. I’ve got family with me for a couple of days but I’m totally free after that. You can just shoot me a text and we’ll work something out.”

  “Grand!”

  He hangs up and I drop my cell onto the coffee table, doing my best not to launch myself at Morgan.

  “Who was that?” she asks breezily, and I can’t do it anymore. I pounce onto the sofa and proceed to thwack her mercilessly with one of the cushions.

  “You know damn well who that was, you witch!”

  “Aggghhh! Stop, stop, okay, okay! I admit it. Stop!” she squeals. I sink back and let the cushion drop. “I’m sorry, Avery. He just asked so nicely, and that accent…I couldn’t help it!”

  “Whatever.” I nail her one last time with the cushion and let out a long sigh. “And I’m serious—take that sweatshirt off. I don’t want you funking it up with your out of control pheromones. I don’t intend on having to wash it before I return it.”

  “SURPRISE!”

  BRANDON shows up on the doorstep of the ridiculously large apartment I’ve rented with a huge red ribbon looped around his head, complete with a messy bow tied on top. He stands there grinning at me with his arms spread wide, waiting for me to tumble into his embrace. He’s such a goofball sometimes. I can’t help but laugh and do as expected, squeezing him until he pretends to wheeze and choke.

  “What’s wrong with you, kid? You tryin’ to crush an old man to death?”

  Where Morgan and I have an arrangement not to fish for compliments, I’ve never managed to convince Brandon to do the same. He’s incorrigible. I wave him into the apartment, helping carry his bags inside. “You’re forty-six, Brand. You’re hardly old. It’s not like you’re about to fall down dead.”

  He drops his bag on the kitchen floor and sweeps his hands back through his thick brown hair. “You see that?” he says, pointing exaggeratedly to the top of his head. “That’s a receding hairline. I’m losing more hair in a day that I can possibly hope to re-grow. I’ve calculated that if it continues to fall out at this rate, I’ll have a comb-over by this time next year.”

  He doesn’t have a receding hairline at all. He knows it; he’s just being a fool. I shove the other bag I’ve carried in for him into his chest and tut. “Come on, then, old man.”

  I show him the three other spare rooms and he throws his stuff into the one opposite mine before immediately cracking open a beer. “It smells great in here, Ave. What have you been up to?”

  “The usual.” I take his beer can from him and put it back in the fridge. “It’s not even eleven. You’ll be asleep before the food’s ready and I’m not listening to you snore while I try and eat my buttered parsnips.”

  Brandon tramps into the living area of the apartment and sinks down onto the sofa, sulking. “You’re turning into your mother, you know that?”

  That has to be the most offensive insult anyone could possibly give me. “Fine! Screw you, buddy. You can drink all the beer you want and fall asleep. I don’t care. I’ll watch Charlie St. Cloud and polish off some wine. I’d much prefer that over being abused by you!”

  Brandon pulls a face and kicks his feet up onto the glass coffee table. “No way. No Efron in this apartment. I won’t stand for it.”

  Brandon thinks Zac Efron is genetically modified in some way, and the last time I tried to watch that movie he chucked a fit. I smile and throw myself down next to him, knocking his feet off the rented furniture as I do.

  “What’s new with you then, old man?” I don’t really want to know the daily happenings of his life in Breakwater, but since my dad has been gone he’s really stepped up and taken care of me. I feel bad that he’s back there on his own most of the time. He’s a little rough around the edges, and in a town like Breakwater that doesn’t earn you any friends.

  “I’m gonna tell you something now,” he says, “and you’re not gonna believe it for one second.”

  I sit patiently waiting for him to spill his secret, but ten seconds tick by and he just smirks at me. “Well, come on then! What?”

  “I,” he says, grinning while he pulls a pack of smokes out of his pocket, “went on a date.” His eyebrows waggle comically as he flicks a cigarette into his mouth.

  “What? That’s amazing! Who with?” Brandon didn’t go on a single date the entire time I lived with him, and he probably hadn’t been on one before then, either. Maybe not since my Aunt Mel died. I finally realize what Brandon is about to do as he leans forward to light his cigarette, and I snatch it out of his mouth.

  “You didn’t hire this place. When you’re responsible for the deposit, then you can smoke indoors. There’s a balcony. Now tell me who you went on a date with!”

  He groans and tips his head back against the sofa. “I took Monica Simpson out to that fancy Thai place you like, and she was bor-ring.” He stretches out the word so it sounds like two, and I bite back a bark of laughter.

  “Monica Simpon? Candice Simpson’s mom?”

  “The very same.”

  “The one with…” I gesture with hands towards my chest. Monica is a petite woman but she has a huge chest that nearly all the men in Breakwater have fantasized about getting their hands on. She’d already suffered through two breast reduction surgeries by the time I left high school.

  “Exactly.”

  I can’t keep the laughter in this time. “Why on earth did you ask her out? I mean, she seems like a nice enough woman, but…”

  “I didn’t ask her out. She asked me.”

  That makes it even funnier. I guess I am too used to him after all the years I spent growing up with him, but Brandon would probably still be considered a good looking guy by some people. Older people. Much, much older people. I laugh so hard that I snort.

  “Hey! I hope you’re not finding it funny that a woman asked me out. These are modern times, y’know. It’s completely normal for the broad to ask the guy. Maybe you should keep that in mind, huh?”

  I give his arm a light punch and rest my head against his shoulder. “I’ll be sure to remember.”

  “Don’t get too comfy, kid. I didn’t get that smoke out the packet to look cool. I fully intend on lighting it. On the balcony!” he adds before I can object. “Plus I have something for you.”

  “A gift?” I sit up straight and grab hold of his arm. “Seriously?”

  “Well, I know it’s not Christmas yet but I thought it might be nice to give you something now for having me up here and cooking and everything.”

  I eye him suspiciously. “Will we be opening presents together on Christmas, too?”

  “Yes,” he laughs. “I swear. I’ll come back to the city if that’ll make you happy. We could even rent this ritzy palace again. Now do you want your present or not?”

  “Of course!”

  Brandon hurries to
his room and comes back thirty seconds later with a reasonably big box in his hands. It’s wrapped in Transformers gift paper.

  “Aw, Transformers. You shouldn’t have!” He hands it over and I do the whole shake-it-to-see-if-you-can-tell-what-it-is bit. “You didn’t steal this from under some poor kid’s Christmas tree did you?”

  “Scout’s honor.”

  I tear off the paper and stare down at the box in my lap. It’s a video camera, the kind I’d always wanted when I was a kid. A Super Eight. I’d forgotten about my dream of someday becoming a movie director, but Brandon clearly hadn’t. He collects up the shredded Transformers paper and scrunches it in his hands.

  “I figured you could, y’know, practice filming yourself for when you’re a TV reporter or something.”

  I look up at him, stunned. “This probably cost a fortune! A working Super Eight? They’re almost impossible to get ahold of now!”

  “Yeah, well, I’d love to pretend I spent big but I’d be lying. It’s been sitting in the attic for years. I used to screw around with this old thing before you were even born. Your dad, too. He used to borrow it when he had enough beer to bribe me with.”

  My dad used to film with the camera sitting in the box before me? For some reason my eyes are welling. I reach inside and lift it out, surprised by how heavy it is. It kind of looks like a speed gun traffics cops use—a small lens, a boxy square, black metal housing and a grip handle. I point it at Brandon and he smiles a sad smile.

  “Your aunt used to film our games with that bad boy. I’ll show you how to use it later. But first…” Brandon holds up his cigarette and grins, a little of his melancholia drifting away. “I must smoke.”

  THANKSGIVING DAY is over in the blink of an eye, and Brandon has to leave pretty much immediately. The joys of being a business owner. I spend most of the next day tinkering with my new Super Eight in the living room of the apartment, the ceiling to floor windows displaying New York City’s dramatic skyline—a jigsaw puzzle of concrete teeth bared against a winter sky. Brandon showed me how to use the camera, or at least the bare bones of how it would point and shoot if I didn’t mess with any of the buttons. As soon as he leaves I do just that, trying to figure out all the settings. There are still two days before I have to return to college and I fully intend on keeping busy during that time, getting to grips with my new favorite toy. It isn’t like I’d forgotten Noah’s request to go see a movie, but I still get a nervous rush when I see his name flashing up on my cell on Friday night.

  “Hey, Avery Patterson. How was your thanksgiving? You been living off turkey sandwiches or what?”

  I laugh and nod even though he can’t see me—I have, indeed, been living off turkey sandwiches. “If I never see another slice of turkey, I will be one happy girl. What about you, Noah Richards? Have you over-eaten and drunk too much in keeping with our most cherished American holiday?”

  “Absolutely. And did you just give me the full name treatment? I guess I deserve that after using yours, but I look like a Noah Richards. You don’t look like an Avery Patterson. I’m having to do one of those positive affirmation things by saying your name every time I speak to you. Maybe that way it’ll stick.”

  My cheeks instantly flush. Does he know something? How could he, though? I mean, the only four people in the whole world who know about my name change are Morgan, Brandon, Luke and my mother. No way any of them are spilling the beans. “What…what do you mean?” I stammer.

  There’s a short silence on the other end of the phone before Noah chuckles quietly. “Sorry. I should have thought about that before I opened my mouth. I’m not too smart sometimes. I didn’t mean that you weren’t…memorable. You’re exactly the opposite. It’s just that I think people suit different names occasionally. Like you, for instance. To me, you look like an Evie or a Charlotte. It’s all that blonde hair and your button nose. I dunno. You just don’t look like an Avery. Should I stop talking now?”

  He doesn’t know anything. I let out a shaky laugh and tamp down the panic. “That’s okay. It’s just no one’s ever commented on it before.”

  “See. I’m a fool. You’re going to have to let me make it up to you by taking you to the R rated movie I saw reviewed in Gore Fest Magazine.”

  I chew on my lip and force down a bolt of panic. This really is starting to sound like a date. “I don’t know. That sounds rather bloody. I’m usually more of a comedy kind of girl. What score did the reviewer of Gore Fest Magazine give this film?”

  Noah pulls in a long breath that makes it sound like he’s smoking. “Five out of five decapitated heads.” I can hear car horns blaring on the other end of the phone and then Noah starts swearing profusely. “Jeez, what is it with you bloody New Yorkers trying to kill everyone when they try and cross a road?”

  “Did you use the crosswalk?”

  “No.”

  “That’s your problem, then. Jay walkers get smushed in America.”

  “That’s just another thing that I love about the US, y’know. The citizens of the most powerful country in the world can’t cross a road safely without being designated a specific area to do so. Can’t you people be trusted to look both ways and just cross a bloody road like everyone else?”

  The image of Noah standing on a street corner anywhere in New York and saying something like that out loud is hilarious; he’s probably going to get lynched if he breathes another word. I prop myself up by my elbows on the kitchen counter and consider my options: go out with the seemingly nice, hot guy from class, or stay in the apartment alone, reading an instruction manual. The age-worn Super Eight manual is actually really interesting, but still…

  “I’m not sure about your choice of movie, but I’m not doing anything. I could be persuaded.”

  “Great. Get your ass down to the Beekman Theatre on 2nd. I’ll grab our tickets and some popcorn. You like chocolate?”

  I smile despite myself. “I like chocolate.” This might actually be fun, and listening to Noah speak really is quite something, even over the phone. “Hey Noah,” I say, reaching for my jacket. “What’s the movie called?”

  “Way out of Wyoming. About some psycho killer who murdered a bunch of girls. Apparently it’s based on a true story. We can go and see something else if you like, though? The new Adam Sandler movie looks good if you’re into comedy. Do you have any preferences?”

  My hand tightens around the phone. Sam O’Brady. Jefferson Kyle. Adam Bright. Sam O’Brady. Jefferson Kyle. Adam Bright.

  “Avery? Avery Patterson?”

  “Uh…sorry, Noah, I…” My throat is so dry I can’t swallow. “What did you say?”

  “I asked if you had any preferences? Adam Sandler?”

  I fix my eyes on the digital clock on the oven, forcing oxygen in and out of my body. “No, I don’t care really. Just pick whatever. But not that one. Not the Wyoming one.”

  Noah completely misses the way my voice cracks. He chuckles and says, “Man, girls are such pussies” and then he hangs up the phone.

  I make my way from the kitchen into the lounge where I’ve set up my laptop and sit down in front of it, activating the wifi on my cell phone. Once my laptop recognizes the wifi hotspot, I head straight to Youtube and type in ‘Way Out Of Wyoming Trailer’. The comments at the top of the page are bad. They all refer to how messed up the movie is, and how it made someone’s mom, sister, girlfriend puke. Loud rock music starts up and the trailer finally loads. For the next minute and thirty seconds I stare at the screen and watch without blinking once.

  “When teenage girls started going missing across Wyoming, police officials never suspected they were dealing with a serial killer. There was no motive. No profile. No pattern. And for the killer’s victims, no hope of escape.”

  Scenes of young girls being chased through woods strobe on the screen, accompanied by the breathless, frantic sounds of someone running for their life. At the end of the trailer, an image of a masked man brandishing a rusty machete flashes up, and a high-pitched sc
ream rips over the brash guitar music, ending the clip on a dramatic note. I slam the laptop closed and slump back, chewing on my thumbnail, trying to figure out a way to stop my stomach from rolling. They’ve made a movie out of it. A movie. Everyone in the whole country is going to be talking about it, especially since it looks like one of the most gruesome things I’ve ever seen. That means that they’ll be talking about my dad, too, if anyone catches sight of Mayor Bright’s book. And they will. Because that’s just my luck.

  *****

  Noah wasn’t kidding when he said he’d grab us some snacks. I rock up just in time to catch the box of milk duds he’s trying to balance on top of the biggest bucket of popcorn ever.

  “Whoa, nice catch!”

  “Thanks.” I manage a smile and stuff the box into my pocket.

  “Hey, I saw that!” Noah shakes his head, grinning. “I don’t know…been acquaintances for all of five minutes and she’s already stealing my confectionary.”

  My smile grows a fraction bigger. I silently hope he’ll think the redness of my cheeks had a lot to do with the biting cold outside instead of suspecting I had to fight tears the whole walk over through the Upper East Side. Noah’s cheeks are a little rosy, themselves; he probably isn’t going to notice. He’s wearing another beanie—I don’t think I’ve ever seen him without one. He’s gone for a smarter version of his casual dress: a thin black sweater over a button down shirt, and stone washed jeans. The sweater looks like it’s that really soft kind that feels amazing on your skin.

  Noah cracks a smirk. “I got us tickets. Are you okay? You look a little dazed.”

  Great. I’m a nervous wreck from watching the trailer already, and now I’m staring mindlessly at the guy I am on a ‘maybe’ date with. “Uh, what? No, I ahh...I’m fine. Shall we go in?” It would have been nice to think that the larger portion of my scrambled brain has to do with how good Noah looks, which he really does, but unfortunately I am still obsessing over Dad and Way Out Of Wyoming. What if the movie directors caught wind of Mayor Bright’s accusations while they were planning the film? Did they use my dad’s name in it? Do they call the Wyoming Ripper Maxwell Breslin in the newest box office hit? I force the ghost of a smile onto my face, feeling hideous, and follow Noah into the movie theatre, only half conscious of the fact that he’s going to be giving a lot away with his choice of seating.