Faster, Faster, Faster

by Jonah Black

  I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. “Probably.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Well, I should go and leave you alone. But there’s one more thing you should know. I think Sullivan is going to get clearance to go see Sophie. The doctors at Maggins think that seeing Sullivan may help her with her trouble.”

  “Her trouble?” I said. “What is her trouble?”

  “Jonah,” Betsy said, furrowing her freckly forehead. “They think her trouble is you.”

  (Later.)

  Well, it’s late now, but I might as well write down the last major thing that happened today.

  Honey came back from Harvard, where she apparently scared the hell out of everyone and made them regret they ever let her in. I think her plan was to make sure she got a single room for the fall, which looks pretty definite now. From the way she says she acted when she was up there I think if they gave Honey a roommate they could count on that roommate transferring to someplace else before the end of the first week of classes.

  The important news, though, is that Honey didn’t come back from Harvard alone.

  Honey brought this guy Maximillian back with her. Max, as Honey calls him, has his head completely shaved on the sides, but it’s really long on top and pulled back into a ponytail. He has something which you can’t really call a beard—it’s like a thin line between his lower lip and his chin. And he has these very sparkly, jovial eyes. His clothes are all covered with paint—even his shoes.

  Max is in some band called Severed, which Honey has heard of. When I told her I didn’t know anything about Severed, she looked at me like I was stupid. “It’s okay,” Max said. “Not everybody’s into it. There’s no rule that you have to have heard of anything.”

  “He should have heard about Severed, though,” Honey insisted. “You guys rock.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Max. “The world is big.”

  The thing is, I think I actually like Max. There’s something incredibly sweet and gentle about him, even if half his head is shaved and he is in a band called Severed. He asked me lots of questions, too, as if he was really interested.

  We were in Honey’s bedroom, which—for the time being—is still all beige. Honey saw the cans of pink paint and the pink wallpaper samples and said, “Ha!” But Max didn’t seem to mind them. He had changed into these black-and-white striped pajamas, which were covered in green paint, while Honey tinkered with her robot.

  “Do you think of yourself as an angry person, Jonah?” Max asked me.

  “Well, no,” I said. “I mean there are things I’m mad about, but I’m not exactly angry, if that makes any sense.”

  “I understand that completely,” said Max.

  “It wouldn’t be a bad thing if you got mad once in a while, Jonah,” Honey said. “It’s good for you.” She was twisting a screw in the guts of the robot.

  “Bzzzzrp,” the robot said. “Znnnnnt.”

  “Hey, Honor,” Max said. “Let me do that.”

  Honey gave him the screwdriver.

  “See, the thing about black metal music,” Max explained, as he fiddled with the robot, “is its deep anger. Its aggression. Most of the people who listen to it are pretty angry. They’ve spent their whole lives feeling like they’re different, like nobody gets it, like they’re just totally outside the workings of the planet. Then they plug in to Mudvayne or Cradle of Filth, or, God Deathrone, Mushmouth, or Korn, or—

  “Or Severed,” Honey said.

  “And it’s like somebody is actually listening to them.” Suddenly Max’s face lit up. The robot made this humming sound. “There you go, Honor,” he said. “You had a bad capacitor.” He started typing things in on this little keyboard, and watching a small monitor. “Yes, yes, yes,” he said. He grabbed the phone off the table and pulled the cord out of the bottom and plugged it into the robot. “Ooh, wee!”

  “Max performs as Scabbaxx,” Honey said.

  I just looked at her blankly. “His father was the original Scabbaxx?” she said. “In Poison Squirrels?”

  I nodded. “Ah, right. That Scabbaxx.”

  I looked at Max. His lips were moving softly as he typed on the keyboard. “So your dad was a musician, too?” I asked him.

  “Yup,” said Honey. She was looking at Max with an expression of awe and admiration that I’ve never seen on her face before. That’s when I realized. Honey’s in love!

  “So how was Harvard?” I asked her.

  “Harvard sucks, man!” she shouted. “I can’t wait to go there.”

  “Yeah?” I said. “I thought you said everyone there was going to be a loser.”

  “Yeah, mostly,” she said.

  Electra said, “It is a wise man who knows better than to throw his pearls before swine.”

  “Hey, Honor,” Max said. “What does that mean? Pearls before swine?”

  “It’s a metaphor, Max,” Honey said. “It means if you have something valuable you don’t throw it in the path of somebody who can’t appreciate it.”

  “I know what it means, Sweetstuff,” said Max. “I’m just not into the verbiage.”

  “It’s from Matthew. Matthew 7:5,” said Honey.

  “It’s Matthew 7:6,” countered Max. “I still don’t like the verbiage.”

  “You guys know the Bible?” I said. I don’t know why it should have surprised me.

  “Old Testament, New Testament,” Max said. “Koran. Tibetan Book of the Dead. I’ve read them all.”

  “The Tibetan Book of the Dead sucks,” Honey said.

  “No way, Honor,” he said. “Did you read it in translation?”

  “What, you read the original?” Honey said, her eyes all dreamy.

  Max shrugged. “I like Sanskrit.”

  Honey just smiled at him. I couldn’t believe it. It was like they were made for each other.

  Max typed some more, and then hit Enter. “Okay, now we just have to wait a bit to see if it works.” He got up and went over to a backpack on the floor that had a skull and crossbones on it. He reached in and pulled something out. “There’s something I want you to have, Little Master,” he said. He walked over, and put something heavy in my hand. “Take this,” he said. “You may need it.”

  I opened my hand. It was a metal ball. It felt like it was made of lead. “What’s this?” I said.

  “What’s it look like?” said Max.

  Honey nodded. “Nice one, Max,” she said.

  I just stared at the ball.

  “It’s for luck,” Max told me, his face serious. “You might want to have it. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. I put the ball in my pocket.

  “Atta boy!” the robot said.

  Max’s face lit up and he smiled. “We’re in!” he shouted.

  “In where?” I said.

  Max typed some more stuff into Electra’s keyboard. “You’re clear, Little Master,” he said.

  “What do you mean, I’m clear?” I said.

  “Show up at this Maggins place, tomorrow at ten-thirty a.m. Tell ’em you’re Mr. Smith-Smith. They’ll let you take that girl Sophie out for a ride in your car. You’ve got security clearance for an hour and a half.”

  “What? How did you do that?”

  “It’s a snap, Little Master,” said Max. “Honor built herself a real smart robot.”

  Honey blushed.

  “So I’m—? I can—?” I stammered. I couldn’t believe I actually had clearance to see Sophie. Tomorrow morning, in the flesh.

  “You are,” Max said. “And you can.”

  “Wow,” I said. I could barely breathe.

  “Max goes to Harvard,” Honey said, beaming. I’ve never seen her look so happy before.

  I nodded. “Uh-huh.” I guess Honey doesn’t mind the idea of Harvard so much anymore.

  “Uh-oh, wait a minute,” Max said, looking at the monitor again. “Little Master, you know anybody named Sullivan?”

  I felt the color drain from my face. I nodded.

  “Well he’s coming in right
after you,” Max said. “He’s scheduled to see her at noon. So you do whatever you need to do before twelve, okay? ’Cause this guy Sullivan is the next one in line, after you bring her back.”

  Then I said something that surprised me. I didn’t know I’d decided it until I said it.

  “I’m not bringing her back,” I said.

  Max got up and put his arm around Honey.

  “Good night, Little Master,” Max and Honey said in unison.

  “Good night,” I said, and walked out of Honey’s bedroom, turning the heavy metal ball over and over in my hand.

  And now I’m lying in bed, writing this. Honey and Maximillian are “asleep” across the hall. Tiffany and Cuddles are locked in their bedroom. Dad is drinking gin in the library.

  And Sophie is in her room at Maggins, with no idea that I’m about to come save her again, hopefully for the last time.

  Feb. 3

  I’m just about to head over to Maggins to see Sophie. I’m wearing a white shirt and a tie that I wore last year when I was a Masthead student.

  There is this one big hole in Honey and Max’s plan, which is that Mrs. Redding is probably going to be at the front desk again. I don’t think the tie is going to disguise me very well. Anyway, I’m going to go over there and see who’s at reception. If it’s someone other than Mrs. Redding, I’ll walk in there and say I’m Mr. Smith-Smith. If it’s Mrs. Redding, I think I’ll have to go and buy a disguise. There is actually a store in Bryn Mawr that sells costumes, so this isn’t out of the question. I could wear a gorilla head. Or I could dress up like a guy who really knows what he’s doing, somebody without any problems. That way they’d never recognize me.

  Plus, I got this e-mail this morning:

  To: JBlack94710

  From: Northgirl999

  Jonah, did you see Sophie yet? Everyone at Don Shula thinks you had to go back to Pennsylvania because your murder trial started. Your friend Thorne Wood says you’re accused of manslaughter, which I think he made up because he thinks girls will think it’s sexy. Are you really friends with him? He seems like such an idiot if you ask me. Anyway, I am worried about you, Jonah. Molly Beale told Elanor Brubaker that she had the greatest sex of her life with you. That isn’t true either, is it? My guess is you broke up with her. I really like Molly but I can see how you’d get tired of her. She’s pretty intense. Speaking of breaking up, I broke up with the guy I was seeing so now I am single again and totally horny.

  Maybe when you come back to Florida I will tell you who I am. Assuming you do come back to Florida.

  My prediction is, you come back to Florida and you and I finally start to see each other. Once you realize that you don’t want Sophie, that is.

  Anyway, you still have to guess who I am first.

  Okay, I’m out of here. I’m going to see Sophie. Well, first I’m going to stop at the Wawa to get condoms. I know it’s kind of presumptuous of me, but I just feel like I should have some. I can’t believe this is happening.

  Feb. 5

  Two days later. I can’t believe I haven’t had the time to write in my journal, but it makes sense. Now I’ve got all the time in the world. I wish I didn’t, but I do.

  It’s going to take a while for me to get down everything that’s happened over the last couple of days. But I’ll start where I left off and see how far I get before my hand gets tired.

  I drove over to Maggins, and it looked even creepier to me than it did the first time. Maybe it was the snow. It seems like people would get worse after spending time there, not better. I parked Dad’s Mercedes and walked up the front steps. The sky was gray and it felt like it was about to start snowing again. I put my hands in my pockets because I didn’t have any gloves.

  And there in the pocket of my jacket was Max’s metal ball. It felt cold, but I squeezed it so hard it warmed up right away

  I pushed open the door and walked into the front hallway.

  To my relief, it wasn’t Mrs. Redding at the desk, although I did take the precaution of stealing Dad’s reading glasses before I left the house. I was kind of hoping they would make me look older, and more like a Mr. Smith-Smith. The reading glasses magnified my eyes so that they looked huge. I don’t know what the woman at the desk thought of me. She was younger than Mrs. Redding and she didn’t have a nameplate.

  I cleared my throat and said the line I’d rehearsed all the way over there in the car. “Hello, my name is Mr. Smith-Smith. I believe I’m cleared to take Sophie O’Brien out for a short excursion.”

  The woman looked up and seemed kind of panicked. She knocked a glass of water over on her desk.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m such an idiot.”

  “That’s all right,” I said.

  “I’m just temping here. Their regular receptionist— Mrs.— what’s her name?”

  “Mrs. Redding,” I said. I felt very well-informed, knowing the regular receptionist’s name. It made me more credible.

  “Yeah, well, she got a message from the police about an hour ago. Something about her house being on fire or something. She had to leave.”

  Thank you, Max, I thought to myself. No wonder he goes to Harvard.

  The woman mopped up the water with some tissues. Then her fingertips hammered at her keyboard and she looked at her computer screen. After a moment she said, “Mm-hmm, that’s fine. I have you right here. She needs to be back by noon.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  She gave me a visitor’s badge that said Smith-Smith on it, and then she nodded toward the door and said, “Room 109. She’s resting right now. I’m sure she’s expecting you.”

  I walked through the door, into this kind of common room, and I suddenly realized the seriousness of what I was doing.

  A bunch of girls my age were all sitting around, watching some soap opera on TV. Well, a couple of them were watching. One girl who had bandages all up and down her wrists was just sort of staring into space. Another girl sat on a radiator looking out the window. The window had bars on it. Two other girls were looking at the TV, crying, and holding hands. They were incredibly thin, like skeletons.

  They all looked over at me as I walked through the common room. I felt like I was looking at puppies at the pound. In the distance, there was a girl wailing, and someone else, a nurse maybe, trying to calm her down.

  Whoa, I thought, this place is for people who are really in trouble. I don’t know why I was so shocked by this. I mean, Betsy told me Sophie was really troubled. I guess I just didn’t want to believe it.

  I passed by the room of this girl with huge gray eyes. She was writing in a red book entitled My Diary.

  Then I reached room 109. Sophie was lying on her bed. “Oh, Jonah,” she said, sitting up. “I was thinking it might be you.”

  Okay, I have to stop her for a sec. Honey wants to get a Frosty from Wendy’s. I’m not even hungry, but I think I’ll get some fries anyway.

  Still Feb. 5

  Okay, back to meeting Sophie at Maggins.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” I said. “Hi, Sophie.”

  Sophie was wearing a pale pink T-shirt and white Capri pants, even though it’s winter. I guess she didn’t get out much. Her hair was longer and straighter than I remembered, and it hung loose on her shoulders. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, just the little diamond studs in her ears that she always wore at Masthead. I gave her some earrings when I saw her in Orlando. I wonder if she ever wears them. There were big tired circles under her eyes, and, strangely, she was wearing glasses. She took these off when I came in. I could smell her shampoo and I remembered the smell—of daisies and sunlight. She smiled and the smile changed her whole face. A second before I’d thought she looked tired. Now all I could think was, Wow, is she beautiful.

  Her room was very bare. There was a bed and an institutional-looking dresser and a small desk with two books on it: The Great Gatsby and The Lord of the Rings. There were lots of loose pieces of paper with her handwriting on them too. In the closet a few
of her things were hanging on hangers. There was one yellow dress I remembered from Orlando.

  “How are you, Sophie?” I asked.

  “I didn’t think they’d let you see me. They think you’re the cause of all my problems,” she said.

  I sat down on the bed and took her hand.

  “Is it okay that I came?” I said. “Really?”

  “Jonah,” she said. Then she leaned forward and kissed me.

  Her kiss was soft and hot and needy. I felt like she was going to swallow me. She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed me a little tightly. She was hurting my bad arm.

  “I knew you’d come,” she said. “I knew it!” She glanced out the window. “Oh, not now,” she said softly.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” Sophie said. “For a second I was thinking it was those helicopters again.”

  I remembered her saying something about helicopters when we were in the hotel room in Orlando together. It had kind of freaked me out then, too. My heart was beating quickly. If Sophie was in this place maybe she really was nuts. I was probably nuts myself for thinking I could ever help her.

  “Don’t think like that,” Sophie said.

  “Sorry,” I said, although I didn’t see how she could have known what I’d been thinking. “I’ve been worried about you,” I said.

  “Yeah, I’m worried about me, too,” Sophie said, with an odd little smile. “I wasn’t crazy when I got here, but I think I am now. The pills they give you . . .” Her eyes grew big and she pulled at the blanket on her bed. “You know, if you get cured they have to let you out, and then they lose money. So they can’t let you get better, no way, are you kidding?”

  “Thanks for the e-mails,” I said. “And the, uh—”

  “Oh, no,” Sophie said. She balled her fists and held them to her temples. “I can’t believe I sent you that bird. I knew you’d think I was really insane when I did that. I felt so stupid. It was just that I found it and it seemed so sad, and so I mailed it to you and then I wanted to unmail it. I wanted to open up the mailbox but they wouldn’t let me. They said the mailbox was like, the property of the goddamn government, like getting my package out of the mailbox was going to be some federal crime or something, and all I wanted was to get that box with the bird in it back and unmail it so you wouldn’t think I was truly nuts. That’s when they decided you were the cause of all my problems, Jonah. I didn’t think they’d ever let me see you again.”