by Karen Rivers
“I didn’t know you had a dad,” I say at the same time as Soup’s saying, “Sorry, you go first.”
And then he’s kissing me and whatever I was planning to say is blown out, like wind extinguishing a fire. There’s smoke, and then there’s nothing left but a burning smell.
“Do you smell something?” he asks, pulling away.
“Yeah. Paint.” I lean back in.
We kiss forever. We don’t stop kissing. We kiss until I feel like a whole day and night must have passed.
Then we stop.
“So,” he says.
“Hey,” I say.
“We’re really eloquent.” He grins. “Someone should write this down to use in a movie later.”
“Probably. I should have brought my camera and filmed it so we could transcribe our brilliant dialogue.”
He laughs. “Where is your camera? I don’t think I ever saw you without a camera, you know, before.”
“Before,” I say flatly. I shiver. Then, “I know.”
“Aw, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring Piper into—”
“It’s fine,” I interrupt. “Forget it.”
Some things don’t go away when you close your eyes.
I should get up and leave but I can’t. There’s the situation with the magnet and the humming and the physics.
A rat runs between us, his tail brushing over my toes. I scream.
“It’s a rat,” he says.
“Oh,” I say. “So you’re in charge of stating the obvious, I guess.” I mean it as a joke, but it comes out wrong. Sharp and mean.
“I’m not funny,” I add. “I’m sorry, that was meant to be funny.”
“You are funny. Usually. Maybe not right now. I won’t even make the joke I was going to make about rat traps.”
“It’s been a difficult time,” I say, mimicking Mr. Stewart.
Soup laughs without moving his mouth. “Better,” he says.
Neither of us moves. The sun pushes through somewhere and the fallen raindrops start sparkling in the waning light of the day. I can’t tell what’s real shimmer and what’s a migraine aura, threatening. Across the street, a thick stand of trees rustles. It’s really more beautiful than it should be. Look at that, I want to say. The beauty. I also want to smash the whole image with my fist. I can feel the waiting inside me, compressed and wanting to unfurl.
“Touch me,” I say.
“What?” Soup asks.
“Forget it,” I say. “If you say ‘what’ when you heard me, then it wrecks the moment.”
“Sorry.” He gently rests his hand on my shoulder.
I stare out onto the wet road, the occasional car going by and spraying water in arcs from the deep puddles. A crow swoops low, a McDonald’s wrapper in his beak. Somewhere in the distance, there’s the sound of music blaring up and dying away. I hug my legs without moving my shoulder. I don’t want to move my shoulder away from his hand.
An image of James, over me, his mouth hanging open.
The way he grunted.
The look on his face.
I cough, gagging a little bit.
“Are you choking to death?” he says, patting my back.
I shake my head.
“I miss her,” I say. “Don’t you?”
He doesn’t answer for so long, I wonder if I really asked it, or if I just thought it.
Then, “Yes. But it’s different. You were best friends for your whole life. She was only my girlfriend for a few months.”
“Almost five.” My voice is so small, it might not even come out. I have goose bumps rising everywhere.
He shifts himself a fraction of an inch closer to me.
And then suddenly, we’re kissing again.
My lips, his lips, him, me.
I push him away. I have to tell him.
“Hey,” Soup says.
“Sorry. Sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry. I have to tell you something.”
“Okay.” He pulls back a little bit, eyebrows raised. “Sloane? Are you all right?”
“I don’t know if I can say this.”
“Try.” He picks up my hand and squeezes it. I can feel my heartbeat all the way down to my fingertips.
A cyclist rides by, a spray coming up from his wheels. In the distance, a dog barks.
I take a deep breath.
“I know him,” I begin. “I know James Robert Wilson. So does Piper. So did Piper. She met him at work. He worked at the movie theater. He was the one. He was the one who I slept with who wouldn’t leave me alone. It was him.”
Soup is watching my face carefully, like I’m something fragile that might break.
“I’m fine,” I say. “I’m going to tell you all of it. I have to tell you all of it. Okay?”
“Okay.”
So I do.
SOUP
I want to do it again and again and again and never do anything else, ever.
That’s the truth. That’s what it’s like, kissing Sloane. It’s like falling into something and getting stuck there: quicksand or tar. But a good kind. I don’t know how to make the right kind of metaphor; I know that with Sloane, it’s right. She’s what matters. Everything else is noise and stupidity.
Nothing else matters.
Not even my dad and why I know he exists and he doesn’t know who I am.
Not even what she told me about James Robert Wilson.
Which was shocking, don’t get me wrong.
I don’t exactly know what to do with it, so I’ve wrapped it up and stored it somewhere deep in my brain, a place that I imagine looking like a messy art room. I put it in the corner where I don’t have to think about it right away.
I lie on my back on the cool, wet concrete. I look up at the roof of the Tube and see layers and layers of paint that I’ve added over the years, one on top of the other, overlapping swear words and art, the round canvas of it, the layers of everything I’ve ever felt.
I’m on a rocket ship to a planet where nothing matters but love and art and no one is dead.
Not Piper, not anyone.
I rub my hands over my arms, touch my face. My skin tingles.
The skin feels stubbly on my chin.
I kissed Sloane. Again.
It’s so good, kissing Sloane.
Do I deserve something so good?
I take out my tin of red and I spray until nothing is left, the mist of the paint freckling into the air, probably into my lungs. I can taste it on my tongue. I turn the painting into a setting sun.
Sunsets are cheap and easy with spray paint.
Try it one day. You’ll feel like freakin’ Van Gogh.
SLOANE
I’m walking down the hall when the fire alarm goes off like a message from the dead.
From Piper.
It’s shrill and deafening.
It takes me a few seconds to figure out what it is; mostly it feels like a cacophony that’s coming from somewhere inside me, the pain that’s trapped in there, the sound I can’t bring myself to make.
Or the warning bell of the zombie apocalypse.
No one is panicking, except me. Kids are slowly wandering to the exits, talking and laughing.
I can’t move.
“Sloane froze in the hallway,” my imaginary narrator’s voice intones, “while the building burned around her. No one knows why she ignited, but she took the building down with her. The other students escaped, but the school was destroyed.” A pause. “The source of the blaze appeared to be the girl herself.”
I check my arms for smoke.
No smoke.
No sparks.
No flames.
Maybe Piper’s not mad anymore.
Maybe Piper’s gone.
I put my hand over my own mouth, not sure if sound is coming out or not. I need the noise to stop. It reminds me of something. It reminds me of everything. A cigarette in my hand, my phone in the other one, the crunching sound of the car pulling into the driveway, Piper’s mom’s voice, the sound t
he sky would make if it shattered and fell, and I’m breaking into a million pieces, frozen in place, my mouth opening and closing, opening and closing. Everyone has left, but I can’t move.
I’m stuck.
“James,” I say out loud.
A hand on my shoulder.
I jump and scream.
There’s no one there.
“Leave me alone,” I whisper. “No one knows, so it didn’t happen.”
But Soup knows.
The alarm stops.
Kids start coming back inside, still joking around.
The bells still echo in my head.
There’s something I have to do. It’s time to tell.
I take out my new phone. There’s only one number programmed in so far. I use it to text Soup. “Police station. After school. Come with me?”
“Confirmed,” he replies quickly. I slip my phone back into my bag. The other kids are disappearing into classrooms. I straighten up and I turn to go down the stairs, hurrying so I’m not late.
PART THREE
BEFORE
The pile of neatly folded clothes sits on Mr. Aberley’s kitchen table. “Talk,” he says. “Tell me everything, Ms. Sloane.”
“I don’t know if I can, Mr. A,” I say. “I don’t know how to say it.”
“Did you ever wonder,” he asks, “what I do all day?”
“Not really,” I mutter. “I mean, I don’t know. Nap?”
“My dear Sloane,” he says. “I’m tired. It’s true, I’ve been alive for a long time. But I do more than nap.”
“Oh,” I say. I sneak a look at the pile of clothing. The jeans are frayed. A few white threads stick out. The T-shirt looks as though he’s ironed it. On the top of the pile, there’s a wallet.
Of course there’s a wallet.
Boys always have a wallet.
Men always have a wallet.
“The fascinating thing about being old,” he goes on, “is that people are unable to imagine that you were ever anything else. Certainly not that you were once a baby, and then a child, and then a teenager.” He pauses. “Teenagers are the worst at it, I think. They think of themselves as a species. Maybe they are a species. Perhaps they are a species that goes extinct as soon as they become adults. Of course, that’s not possible. We are one species.”
I yawn without meaning to. I’m not bored, but when I get anxious, I can never pull enough air into my lungs.
“I’m interested in species,” he says. “It’s something you and I have in common, remember? The talks we’ve had about the flocks of birds, the whales washing up on the beaches. Speaking of which, three dead humpback whales just this week. Did you read about that? Trapped in those ridiculous nets at the fish farms.” He pauses. “Murderers. Blood on their hands.”
“Three?”
“Three,” he says. “It’s a terrible thing.”
“Totally,” I agree. “Anyway, I don’t think like that, that all old people are just old people. Grandma was amazing. When she was young, she was really successful.”
“But she stopped being a powerful businesswoman when she became old. And because she was old, she only had two dimensions to you, like she was simply a photograph of herself.”
“Mr. Aberley,” I say. “Come on. I loved my grandma.”
“I know. But I don’t think you knew her very well. In any case, that is neither here nor there about these clothes.”
“I’m trying to figure out how to explain.” I look out the window. The sea looks gray and cold today. Unwelcoming. I think about the dead humpbacks and I feel like crying. In the distance, a wave rises like a whale’s back.
Mr. A blows on his tea. I can smell his breath, which is musty like mothballs.
“My point—and I do have one—is that old people are also young people. We are the same as we’ve always been, it’s just our housing that’s changed,” he says. “If you think about it—and I do think about it a lot—our bodies are the carriers for our souls. Do our souls ever really change?” He stares out the window, his blue eyes seeming to almost fog over.
“Mr. A. The thing is—”
“I’m not finished,” he interrupts, his voice stronger now. “I understand why someone might want to take a boy to an island in her neighbor’s boat. I understand why she might want to do that, to be alone with him. I understand she might not be aware that her neighbor has a rather large collection of telescopes. Because he enjoys seeing things: the whales while there are any left, and the birds, of course, but also the changing tide, and the shape of driftwood on the beach.” His blue eyes look directly at me. “Sloane, I’m not judging what you do, but I feel the need to warn you about something that I know. That young man whose clothes these are is not a boy. He’s a man. And there is something about that particular man that I recognize, being a man myself. After you tell me where I can find him, I’m going to return these things to him and then you aren’t going to see him again.”
“I don’t want to see him again!” I blurt. “I want him to disappear.”
“I see,” he says. “People tend to not disappear, you know. Especially the ones who you hope will go.”
“I know. I know he won’t really.” I spill some sugar on the table and trace my finger through it. “I know he won’t vanish, but I’m not going to see him again. You’re right. It was a mistake. It was all a mistake.” I pause. “How much did you see?”
“I hope it’s not a mistake that comes back to haunt you,” he says, not answering. “I hope you’ll be more careful in the future. I hope…” He trails off, and his head drops forward slightly.
“Mr. A?” I say tentatively. I push back my chair and stand up. I go around to his side of the table, put my hand on his shoulder. He jerks upright.
“Your grandmother’s funeral is when?” he says. “That’s what you came to tell me, right? Perhaps you can drive me. Perhaps on the way, we can drop these items at your friend’s home.”
“I don’t know where he lives,” I say. “I know where he works.”
“Close enough,” he says. “What you did, leaving him there like that. That was dangerous, do you know? I know people are always blaming young women for things, saying they asked for this and they asked for that. You didn’t ask for anything, but I also don’t think you understand young men. At least, not angry young men. I’m not sure of the answer. You had to leave the island when you did. I understand. But you opened yourself up to be on the receiving end of his anger. He will be righteous about it because that is how he’s wired. It’s all predictable. And terrible. When I drop the clothes, I will tell him to stay away from you. But I don’t know if he will. I suspect he will think that I’m a joke.”
“Mr. A. No. Don’t. If he is angry … I don’t want him to take it out on you.”
“I’m not a threat to him. Not in the way that you are. You don’t understand. I know you don’t. I wish you didn’t have to. I’m afraid you will soon enough. Now, I’m tired. I need a nap. See you tomorrow, Sloane.”
“See you, Mr. A,” I say. I leave the clothes on the table. It will be hard to explain to Mom and Dad, who will be driving, why we’re stopping at the multiplex on the way to Grandma’s service, but maybe they won’t ask. Maybe they won’t notice how strangely I’m behaving. Maybe they won’t ask me anything at all.
NOW
The day after Soup and I go to see Detective Marcus, I skip school. Mom and Dad don’t ask when I say that I’m staying home; they just look at each other, something passing between them that I don’t want to see. They are going to know now. Everyone will know now.
Everyone will know what I did.
Everyone will know who I am.
I deserve it. Piper doesn’t. She definitely doesn’t deserve to be dead.
On the other hand, it was all her idea.
Is that victim blaming?
Her tongue on her lip. Twirling while she modeled a cashmere sweater. She’s the one he wanted all along.
Obviously.
; I knew that.
I should have known that.
I should have guessed.
I was a Piper substitute.
Instead of going to school, I sit on the rocky beach.
The sun is warm in an inadequate autumnal way. It’s high in the sky, which remains blue as ever, an illusion of heat. The season is turning the furnace down gradually, slowly reminding us that winter is coming.
I am like the sky: I look the same.
But I am different.
I take a stick and flip a grounded jellyfish back toward the water, just in case it’s not quite dead. It’s hard to tell the difference between a live jellyfish and a dead one once they’ve been beached. Sometimes when I get them back into the water, they fan out and start to float again.
Sometimes.
Not very often.
Mr. A was wrong about the whales. Only two of them died. The third one lived. After they untangled him, he swam away, rising and falling like the waves.
I’ve been reading the websites again.
They shot a mountain gorilla in an American zoo because a boy fell into his enclosure and they were worried, they said, for the child’s safety. There are only eight hundred mountain gorillas left in the world. Well, seven hundred and ninety-nine now. They are counting down to extinction.
If I were to make a documentary about that, I’d interview people on a busy street, traffic zooming by in the background. I’d take my camera on a plane to wherever the remaining wild mountain gorillas live. I’d crouch in the long grasses and point my camera lens shyly in their direction. I’d stay still and film their quiet faces.
Piper, I say to the waves, but there isn’t an answer, because she’s gone, really gone, all of her dissipating into the hugeness of the sea. Her mom told me that they scattered Piper’s ashes in the ocean. She hated the water! I wanted to say. It made it extra sad, somehow, that Piper is dead and her mom thought that’s who she was, a kid who loved the water, and she was so wrong.
“Goodbye, Piper,” I whisper to the sea. “I never liked you anyway.”
Then I add quickly, “I loved you,” so her ghost doesn’t misunderstand my joke.
I want to get into the water and drink it so that I can hold her in for longer.
