Cold Calls

by Charles Benoit

  “And them—I mean they—are the ones the caller told us to pick on?”

  “Exactly. They each have something in common with her.”

  Fatima looked at the Venn diagram. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that the three victims have anything in common with each other. Their connection to the caller could be something unique to each one of them.”

  “It’s possible,” Shelly said. “But since all three of the victims were getting the same treatment, I believe all of them—the victims and the caller—have one thing in common.”

  “You believe,” Eric said, the doubt clear in his voice.

  “It holds up logically,” Fatima said. “To a point, anyway.”

  Eric crossed his arms. “So what you’re saying is that to solve our problem, all we have to do is figure out everything that three people have in common with each other so we can find a fourth person.”

  “That’s it.”

  He smiled at her. “Three people we barely know. Who hate us. And who we can’t even talk to if we wanted—”

  “To find a fourth person,” Fatima said, “who you’re suggesting none of us have ever met.”

  “You guys are making it sound harder than it is.”

  “Harder? I don’t see how it could be harder.”

  “He’s right,” Fatima said. “I mean, what do I know about Katie?”

  “Who?”

  “The girl I was supposed to go after. Katie Schepler.”

  “Supposed to? You didn’t do anything to her?”

  “I tried. Turns out she’s a lot tougher than she looks. She punches like a guy,” Fatima said, making a balled-up shape that was nothing like a fist. “Of course, I got in more trouble than she did.”

  Shelly nodded. “Because you’re a Muslim.”

  “God, you sound like my mother. No, I got in more trouble because I started it. What I was trying to say is that I don’t know anything about her.”

  “I don’t know much about that Stark kid. Connor. The one I dumped the plate on. I didn’t even know he was in my school.”

  “And I didn’t know anything about Heather Herman, either. But still we all figured out enough to know who to go after.” She looked at Fatima. “Where’d you look?”

  “Where else? Facebook,” Fatima said.

  “Me too. And that’s where we start again.”

  “No way,” Eric said. “I hear they can check to see who’s been looking at your profile. I go to his page and I’m screwed.”

  “I’ll go instead,” Fatima said. “And you can go to the one for Shelly, and Shelly can go to the one for me.”

  Eric thought about it. “What if they’re all blocked now, or restricted to friends or something?”

  Shelly pushed her chair away from the table. “Only one way to find out.”

  Fatima bumped open the glass door of the study room, a small stack of papers in her hands.

  “You print out his whole Facebook life?”

  “Maybe,” Fatima said. “I thought I hit ‘print page,’ but I guess not.”

  Shelly cleared a spot on the table. “Is Eric coming? We’ve only got this room for another twenty minutes.”

  “He just got on now.” Fatima glanced through the glass wall to the cluster of computers in the center of the library. “What is it with old people coming here to look stuff up? My grandparents are online constantly. Skyping with family in Egypt, mostly. That and watching a ton of stuff on YouTube. They’ve got a thing for cat videos.”

  “Is that where you’re from, Egypt?”

  “My family, yeah,” Fatima said. “Alexandria. They moved here before I was born.” Then, after a pause, she said, “You go to St. Anne’s.”

  “I did. They’re still deciding if they’re going to take me back.”

  “Are you Catholic?”

  “More or less.”

  “What, you don’t believe in it?”

  “Parts. The Jesus stuff, yeah, that I believe. It’s the other things—the rules on birth control and gays and women priests. That’s where the pope and I agree to disagree.”

  “Do you go to church a lot?”

  “Enough,” Shelly said, and for a second she thought about adding something on how going to church was better than having to talk to her father’s hookups, but it sounded strange in her head, and besides, she knew that wasn’t the reason.

  Fatima drew circles around random words on the top page. “Is your family really religious?”

  “My family isn’t really anything.”

  “Divorced?”

  “No, I’ve never been married.”

  Fatima laughed. “Duh. I meant your parents.”

  Shelly smiled and kept it simple. “Yeah, they’re divorced. I live with my father.”

  “Does he make you go to church?”

  “He can’t make me do anything,” Shelly said.

  Fatima nodded, and the way she nodded—slow, her head angled down to an empty spot on the table—Shelly could tell there were more questions coming. And that was okay. She had forgotten how good it was to talk. Already it was one of the deepest conversations she had had with a girl her age since the night the police took her away. It felt almost normal. So she waited.

  After a minute, Fatima said, “What would happen if you told him you didn’t want to go to church anymore?”

  Shelly shrugged. “Nothing.”

  “He wouldn’t care?”

  “He wouldn’t know. And even if he did know, he wouldn’t care.”

  More nodding.

  Fatima scooted her chair closer. “Okay, what would happen if you told your parents you didn’t believe in it anymore?”

  “In what? Going to church?”

  “No, not that,” Fatima said, her voice just above a whisper, glancing around as she said it. “What if you told them you didn’t believe in God?”

  Shelly leaned back to think. She knew the answer to the question—they wouldn’t care one way or the other—but what she didn’t know was why Fatima had asked. She looked across the table at her, at her white hijab and her espresso-dark eyes.

  A second later, she had it.

  Shelly leaned in and said, “That’s your secret.”

  Fatima’s mouth dropped open.

  “That’s your secret,” Shelly said again. “You don’t believe in God.”

  “How did you . . . ?”

  “Oh, please, you all but said it.”

  She reached out and gripped Shelly’s hand. “Promise me you won’t tell anyone. Not even Eric.”

  “Don’t worry,” Shelly said, chuckling as she said it, working her hand free. “I won’t tell anybody. But seriously, it’s no big deal. A lot of people don’t believe in God.”

  “I didn’t say that I don’t,” Fatima said, sighing, shaking her head, looking down at her hands. “The truth is, I’m not sure what I believe anymore. I’m still trying to figure it out. And I’d appreciate you not laughing at me.”

  “Sorry,” Shelly said. “I just think it’s funny that that’s your horrible secret. Everybody has times when they have doubts. I know I did. I still do.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re not a Muslim.”

  “I bet some doubters are.”

  She looked at Shelly. “You have no idea. In Islam it’s, like, this major sin to even question if God is real. You’re not even supposed to think about it.”

  “I’m pretty sure Christianity has something like that too. It’s how religions keep you in line.”

  “But you believe in God, right? You’re sure God is real.”

  Shelly nodded. “Yeah, I am.”

  “See, that’s just it. I’m not sure. And the more I think about it, the less I believe. And I can’t stop thinking about it either.”

  “So what? So you don’t believe in God. Or you’re not sure. Whatever. It’s a personal thing between you and God. Or you and nothing.”

  “Easy for you to say. You said yourself your family doesn’t care. My family . . .” She let it trail off
, and in the silence that followed, Shelly gasped.

  “Are you saying your family would . . . would . . . hurt you?”

  It was Fatima’s turn to laugh. “Like an honor killing, that kind of thing? You’re watching too much Dateline.”

  “Sorry,” Shelly said again, “but the way you made it sound, it was like, you know . . .”

  “Yeah, I know,” Fatima said. “And I suppose it does happen, so I can’t really blame you for thinking that. Plus, you don’t know my family. They would never hurt me. Ever.”

  “So they’d be okay with it?”

  “No way. It would kill them. My parents, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles . . . they would be devastated.”

  Shelly could relate.

  “You have no idea how it would hurt them to know that I even had tiny doubts. I mean, that’s, like, the number-one thing a Muslim parent has to do: raise their kids to be good Muslims. Having one of them turn out an atheist?”

  “You don’t know that you are.”

  “The problem,” Fatima said, “is that I don’t know that I’m not. And that I’m even thinking about it.”

  Shelly looked through the glass wall. Eric was still at the computer. They were running low on time, but they needed his results to solve anything, so there was nothing to do but wait. Then she remembered something she had written on one of the big sheets of paper the day before. She flipped through the pile till she found it. “You said your secret was a book.”

  “It is. Two books, really. The secret’s in one of them.”

  “Like a diary?”

  “No, it’s a regular book,” Fatima said.

  Shelly shrugged. “I don’t see a problem with that. I mean, you just had the book. It’s not like you wrote it.”

  “No, but I wrote in it. In the margins, on the blank pages . . .”

  “Yeah, I noticed you do that a lot,” Shelly said, nodding at the papers on the table already crammed with notes.

  “And of course I highlighted the best parts.”

  “That’ll make it easy for someone to know what you’re thinking.”

  “It gets even easier. There were a bunch of papers in it too. Sort of letters to myself.”

  “Like a diary . . .”

  “Fine, a diary. All in my handwriting. My parents read those?” She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “Thinking about it gives me a headache.”

  “What you wrote or what you believe?”

  “Both.”

  “What’s the other book?”

  “It’s a little address notebook. I’ve had it forever,” Fatima said, her thumb and forefinger stretched to show the size and shape. “It’s got the names and addresses and phone numbers and email addresses for every person I know.”

  “An address book? Seriously?”

  “I know, I know. But I like to write things down, remember?”

  It got quiet, and they sat at the table, looking out through the glass wall to the rest of the library, enjoying the semi-soundproof silence. A few minutes later, Eric stood up, and they watched him watching the papers spit out of the printer by the resource desk. Hand on her chin, Fatima said, “You think he’s cute?”

  “Eh. Okay, I guess.”

  “That’s it? Okay?”

  “He’s not really my type.”

  “Hello? Good-looking, kinda jacked, dresses nice?” Fatima laughed. “What’s your type?”

  Shelly grinned. Postapocalyptic razor beat, dark-industrial, techno-goth punk, with brown eyes and black hair and a shy smile. Not that she’d dated someone like that or even met a guy her age who came close, but even with all the shit she was dealing with, the million more important things on her mind, a girl could dream.

  And in that dream, she’d bump into this guy somewhere, like a Starbucks or Hot Topic, and he’d have on a Komor Kommando T-shirt or a T3RR0R 3RR0R patch on a leather jacket, and he’d see her old-school Thrill Kill Kult hoodie, and right there they’d have a connection, since how often do you run into somebody who likes those bands in this town? So they’d get a coffee or whatever, and they’d be talking and everything would be so easy and—

  “Has he got a girlfriend?”

  Shelly shook her head clear. “Who?”

  “Eric.”

  “I think so,” Shelly said, imagining the picture she knew was out there. “At least he did.”

  “Figures,” Fatima said. Then she looked at Shelly. “You know something? I’m glad I met you. Well, not how we met or why, but I’m still glad.”

  “Thanks,” Shelly said. Then, “Me, too.”

  “My mom’s been hyper-restrictive on me lately. She made me promise not to talk to any of my real friends till I’m back at school.”

  “Oh.”

  “But you don’t count, since I met you after she told me.”

  “Wow, lucky me,” Shelly said, her tone slipping past Fatima, whose smile didn’t change.

  “And you know what else? I’m glad you know my secret.”

  “Hmm.”

  “It felt like this weight I was carrying everywhere. I couldn’t tell my friends, because you know how friends can be.”

  “Trust me, I know.”

  “And I’m not stupid enough to talk about it online. Besides, a Muslim saying she has doubts about her faith? No offense, the Christians would be all trying to convert me. And Muslims take everything so frickin’ seriously. Anyway,” she said as Eric came in the door, “I’m just glad I could tell somebody.”

  He pulled up a chair and sat down. “Tell somebody what?”

  “That I’ve got five minutes before my mother picks me up,” Fatima said.

  “And we’ve only got two days to solve this,” Shelly said, uncapping a black Sharpie.

  Twenty-One

  ERIC WAS IN THE PARKING LOT OF THE GYM WHEN HIS grandmother’s old phone wailed. He yanked it open, the blue-gray screen sputtering on, and when he saw the number, his heart thumped in his chest. He swallowed hard, forced himself calm, and said hello.

  “I hope you don’t mind me calling like this,” April said.

  “No, it’s okay,” Eric said, no idea what to say, so he said, “Hi.”

  She gave that little laugh that he’d missed hearing. “Hi.”

  Now what? Tell her how much he’d been thinking about her, how much she meant to him, how he hated not seeing her, not talking to her, and now not knowing what to say when they did talk? “How you doing?”

  “I’m doing good,” she said, and there was that laugh again. “I’d ask you the same thing, but . . .”

  “Yeah. Well . . .” Well? Well? That’s it?

  “I hear Garrett stopped by to see you.”

  Now he laughed.

  “He didn’t do anything stupid, did he?”

  “No,” Eric said, the lung-busting sprint to catch the last bus as it pulled out of the gas station popping into his head. “He just sorta, you know, did the big-brother talk thing. That’s all.”

  “He can be like that,” April said. “He gets it from my parents.”

  Eric could see it. The friendly intimidation, the all-seeing, all-knowing swagger, the need to be in control, the underlying threat of violence. Like father and mother, like son.

  “So, are you, like, suspended forever or expelled or something?”

  He said, “Just for the week. I’ll be back Monday.” But he thought, Unless that picture gets out. She was quiet, but he knew what she was thinking, so he told her without waiting to be asked. “I don’t know what I was doing. It was stupid and ridiculous. I just . . . I don’t know.”

  He could hear her breathing, could imagine her twirling her hair around her finger like she always did when she was on the phone.

  “Basically, I feel like an asshole,” he said.

  “You should,” she said.

  “Good. I do.” He paused, thought for a second, closed his eyes, and said it. “What happened?”

  “You should know, you were there.”

  “Not that,�
�� he said. “Us. What happened?”

  April sighed. “Eric . . .”

  Eric.

  Not hon, not babe. Eric.

  “We went over this.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “Things happened so fast.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I mean, you had just broken up with Simone, and I was still sorta seeing Nate . . . It just got really intense really fast, that’s all. I wasn’t ready for it. And neither were you.”

  Eric felt himself nodding along, all of it true. But that didn’t make it easier to hear.

  “I need more time,” she said. “That probably doesn’t make any sense—”

  “Yeah, it does,” he said, even though no, it didn’t.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  Then it got quiet again and he could picture her close, smell the perfume he’d given her on her neck, feel the warmth of her body against his.

  I love you.

  He wanted to say it, needed to hear it. But he knew it was too soon for that.

  “So, anyway,” he said, dragging the word out like one of her crazy-ass girlfriends. “Next week, you see me at school, I’ll completely understand if you totally ignore me.”

  “We’ll see,” she said, her goodbye lost in her beautiful laugh.

  Shelly loved when she timed it right.

  Her father’s coffee cup was in the sink, but the pot was still warm, and that meant that she had just missed him and had the house to herself all night.

  Golly, what a shame.

  She dropped her backpack on a kitchen chair and picked up the note her father had left on the table:

  Hey,

  Get your homework done early.

  There’s some pasta in the fridge if you want to heat it up. Or you can order a pizza.

  Don’t bother waiting up for me.

  Jeff

  Shelly thought it was an old note she had forgotten to toss out until she noticed a final line.

  PS—You got a letter.

  They came every couple of weeks, a handwritten address on an orange-trimmed Home Depot envelope, enough pages folded inside to require an extra stamp. Shelly had never read any of them, but she could guess what they said.