I Hope You're Listening

by Tom Ryan

  I consider this. “Are you saying you want to hold my hand now?” I ask, wondering what I’ll do if he says yes.

  He laughs. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ll spare you.”

  We’ve arrived at Fresh Brews, the local kid-friendly café, and he leans in to give me a quick kiss on the cheek. “Have a good day, my sweetie.”

  “You too, Dad,” I say.

  He bounces up the steps like he’s on his way to a playdate. As the door jingles open to announce his arrival, I catch a glimpse of his group of friends, Jaron and Pickle and a couple of other guys I don’t recognize. They’re at their regular table and raise their hands in greeting as Dad enters. Over the past couple of years, Dad has found himself a small group of young, stay-at-home dads to hang out with. He says that he likes hanging with them because they’re living the life he wished he’d had when he was a young father. Stay-at-home dads are a lot more common these days.

  As I walk to school, I can’t help but think about what Dad said about me needing more distance. I wonder: How different am I now than I was then? What if things hadn’t happened the way they did? Would I be a completely different person if Sibby had stayed? If I’d been taken instead of her?

  6.

  I stop across the street from the school, watching the throngs of students returning. I have at least ten minutes before the first bell rings, and I’m in no rush to join the fray, so I grab a seat on the stone wall that runs along the sidewalk and pull out my phone. My Radio Silent notifications are as busy as I expected. Loads of retweets and mentions and threads, which I’ve come to expect the day after a case has been cracked.

  “Yo, Dee!”

  I look up and see Burke approaching, his bag slung over his shoulder, sunglasses perched uselessly on the end of his nose as he peers over them at me. The impression is of a cheerful but slightly confused puppy, which isn’t a bad way to describe Burke. He and I have been friends since we were babies. He grew up next door to me, and Sibby grew up across the street. The three of us were inseparable. Until one of us was separated.

  “Yo,” I say, shooting him an ironic finger gun.

  He stretches out his arms and takes a deep, satisfied breath. “Wonderful day to reenter the social assimilation facility, wouldn’t you say?”

  I slide my phone back into my pocket and stand. “Not much choice about it either way.”

  “Good Christmas?” he asks as we cross the street to the school.

  “It was okay. Turkey and presents. Not as good as yours, I bet.” Burke’s family spent the holidays with his grandmother in Florida, and he spent two weeks posting pictures from the beach on his Instagram.

  “Yeah, it was pretty awesome,” he says. “Sun and surf.” We weave through the crowd of loiterers and push through the front door into the school foyer. “Any intriguing new cases?”

  “Burke,” I say, shoving him, exasperated. “What the hell?” I glance around to see if anyone heard anything, but it’s too noisy, and frankly, nobody gives a shit about us or our conversation.

  “Sorry,” he says. “Just curious.”

  “I thought you didn’t even listen,” I say.

  He shrugs. “It’s the sign of a good friend to pretend to care about dumb hobbies.”

  When I say that nobody knows that Radio Silent is my podcast, there is one exception: Burke. The short version is that Burke is really great with computers, and I’m not. I mean, I’m good at the creative stuff—writing and organizing, using the sound editing software and setting up social media and stuff, but when it comes to security and encryption and firewalls, I’m useless, so I asked Burke for his help.

  Most of the time, I forget he even knows at all, because he doesn’t really give a shit about it. I mean, he’s happy that the podcast is doing well, and he’s always trying to convince me to monetize it, but it just isn’t his thing.

  “Don’t look now,” Burke mutters. “It’s the fourth horsewoman of the apocalypse.”

  I turn to see Brianna Jax-Covington walking toward us. As they always do when Brianna appears, my eyeballs roll involuntarily.

  Brianna and I used to be friends, back when we were little. She didn’t live in our neighborhood, but her mom and Sibby’s mom were friends, so we were always at each other’s birthday parties, and we even had semiregular sleepovers. That all changed when Sibby disappeared. Brianna and I didn’t really hang out much after that.

  That’s not why I have a problem with Brianna, however. Little kid friends grow apart all the time, and the truth is we were only friends because of Sibby. My problem with Brianna is that she has a problem with me. There’s a whiff of disapproval that floats about her like perfume, a cloying, flowery scent that you know is supposed to be expensive and desirable, but is really just a warning sign: here comes a real asshole.

  She nods briefly at Burke, then turns to me and smiles broadly. “Hello, Delia,” she says comfortably, as if we always have friendly grown-up-lady chats. “How was your Christmas?”

  “It was all right,” I say. “How was yours?” I’m not sure why she’s talking to me. Brianna and I don’t run in the same circles. Her circle is the “who’s who” of high school; my circle is Burke.

  “Oh, it was lovely,” she says. “We flew to Aspen and went skiing with my brother and his wife. Amazing conditions. We went heli-skiing. You have to go sometime. You’d love it.”

  “Oh, for sure,” I say. “I’ll have to dust off my skis.”

  “I’ll dust off my helicopter,” says Burke. “Teamwork.”

  “Listen,” says Brianna, ignoring our sarcasm. “I’m wondering if I can count on you to help out with the upcoming Winter Carnival preparations. As you know, the eleventh graders are responsible for decorating, selling tickets, organizing refreshments—you know, that kind of thing. I’m the committee chair this year, and it’s going to be the best Winter Carnival yet. The theme is La La Land.”

  “Woooooooowwwwww!” says Burke in the voice of a dazzled, slightly stunned little kid.

  She rolls her eyes at him, then turns back to me. “Anyway, I was hoping you’d be willing to volunteer.”

  “Volunteer?” I ask. I realize too late that I sound horrified. Burke snickers next to me, and Brianna’s smile disappears.

  “Yes, volunteer,” she says. “You know, like, offer your skills and talents for the good of the community.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Sorry. I know what you mean. I just, I don’t think I have any skills or talents that will be helpful to you.”

  “I need someone to sell raffle tickets at the RedBoy,” she says. “It’s not rocket science.”

  The thought of sitting at a table, facing throngs of towns-people at one of the biggest events of the year—the annual charity hockey game between the Redfields Cardinals and their biggest rivals, the Boyseton Thunder, commonly known as the RedBoy—literally makes me queasy. I have a hard enough time facing the bored, uninterested crowds of people at my school, let alone a couple hundred well-meaning grown-ups, all of whom know me as the girl who was in the woods with Sibby Carmichael when she was abducted. The girl who wasn’t taken.

  “Oh man, Brianna,” I say. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t think I can do that.”

  “Why not?” she snaps. She’s obviously not used to people turning her down.

  I don’t really know what to say. “I wasn’t even planning on going to the game,” I say.

  “That’s irrelevant, but whatever,” she says. “You know, I thought if anyone would recognize the importance of community, it would be you, after everything this town has done for you and your family.”

  “Wait, what?” I ask. I’m uncomfortably aware of people stopping conversations to listen to us.

  “I thought maybe this would be good for you,” she says, “an opportunity to interact with your classmates and the world a bit.”

  My mouth drops open, and my sense of embarrassment disappears, replaced by anger. “You’re doing it for me?” I say. “Like it’s any of you
r business how I choose to spend my time?”

  “Well, everyone knows you’re a bit messed up, and who can blame you?” she asks.

  More people are listening, and I want to melt into the floor. Fortunately, Burke decides it’s time to step into the situation.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Brianna. How’s your chlamydia doing, anyway?” he asks loud enough to get snickers from anyone within earshot.

  “Screw you, Burke,” says Brianna.

  He makes a face of mock horror and backs away. “Not until you get that taken care of.”

  She rolls her eyes, then turns her glare back to me. “It’s fine, Delia,” she says. “I’m sure I’ll find somebody to do it, but it would be nice if you could find it in yourself to help someone else for once in your life.” At that she turns on a heel before storming away down the hallway, just as the bell rings for first class. The crowd disperses, distracted by the official arrival of a fresh new semester.

  “You shouldn’t do that,” I say to Burke as we walk toward the classroom. “It’s slut shaming.”

  “Are you kidding me?” he says. “She was being a total jackass. Besides, I wasn’t slut shaming, I was asshole shaming. Besides, why are you defending her? She just crapped all over you.”

  I just shake my head, dropping it. It doesn’t work that way, but I don’t feel like explaining it to Burke at the moment. It’s not my job to educate him on gender dynamics, as much as he clearly needs it.

  Our first class of the day is math. We’re only a few minutes into the class when there’s a knock on the door. Mr. Langley pauses in his run-through of the semester’s syllabus and steps outside for a few seconds.

  A moment later, Mr. Langley steps back into the room. Standing slightly behind him, hands in her pockets and a piece of black hair hanging in front of one of her eyes, is the girl from the Dunlop house.

  “Class,” says Mr. Langley. “This is Sarah Cash. She’s new to town, so be sure to take a moment to introduce yourselves at some point.”

  In an easy, casual gesture, Sarah Cash reaches up and runs her hand back through her hair, opening up her face to the room. One corner of her mouth turns up, and she does a slow scan of the room as if she’s taking stock of us, and not the other way around. There’s a split second, a fraction of a moment, when her eyes land on me and my muscles freeze, my blood stops moving in my veins, and I worry that she’ll recognize me. Could she have seen me watching her from the window last night after all? But her eyes move right past me and Langley directs her to an empty seat, directly next to Brianna. She settles and he continues with his lesson.

  I catch Burke’s eye, and unexpectedly, he winks. Surprising myself, I blush in reaction and turn away before he notices. I deliberately avoid looking at Sarah Cash for the rest of the class.

  When the bell rings, I notice Brianna immediately accosting the new girl. I can tell that she’s making some kind of pitch, but when Sarah casually shakes her head and turns away without an explanation, I can tell by the look on Brianna’s face that she’s been turned down for the second time today.

  Maybe Sarah Cash and I have more in common than just a neighborhood.

  7.

  After school, as Burke and I walk out the side entrance, we notice that a small crowd has gathered near the parking lot. At the bottom of the steps, we stop and watch as Sarah Cash walks nonchalantly across the parking lot to her Nova. I notice Brianna standing off to the side with her friends, watching with narrowed eyes. As Sarah opens the back door and tosses her backpack in, Brianna—her eyes still on Sarah—leans in and whispers something to her clique. They all turn and stare, unimpressed, as Sarah jumps into the front seat and slams her door.

  Brianna’s clique might not be impressed, but plenty of other people are, Burke included. As she pulls out of her spot, one guy gives her an exaggerated holler of approval. The car stops, and a moment later, the driver’s side window opens and her hand appears, a middle finger snapping to attention before the whole arm disappears back into the car and she squeals out of the parking lot and drives away down the street.

  I reach over and tap Burke’s lower jaw closed with my finger. “You’re drooling.”

  “Oh, and you’re not?” he asks. “I saw you looking back there in class.”

  “You did not,” I say, turning around and starting to walk away before he notices me blush.

  He catches up but knows me well enough to drop the subject. “Hey, can I come over for a while?”

  “Sure, I guess.”

  “Terry is back in town,” he explains.

  I understand what he means immediately. “Good old Terrance,” I say. Burke’s uncle Terry is a classic deadbeat. No fixed address, no stable job, and a tendency to drop in on Burke’s family every couple of years. He always pretends he’s just visiting, but he usually needs a place to crash and ends up sticking around for weeks, or even months.

  “He’s staying in the basement,” Burke says. “Just lying around on the couch all day, watching TV and drinking beer and farting. He’s so gross.”

  I laugh. When Burke’s sister, Alicia, moved out last year, on her way to college out of state, Burke inherited the bedroom in the basement. It’s nothing fancy, just a boxed-in room in the corner, but it’s private. There’s a toilet and shower in the laundry room, and the rec room has some battered old couches set up around a giant old TV. It’s like a personal lounge, except now that Terry is sleeping on the couch, Burke’s oasis has been invaded.

  We leave the school and move away down the sidewalk. “The worst part,” says Burke, “is that he’s talking about staying this time. He says he’s ‘looking for work’ and as soon as he finds something he’ll get his own place, but that’s bullshit. He’ll be around for months.”

  “Why don’t your folks kick him out?” I ask.

  “If it were up to my mom, they would, but my dad would never consider it,” says Burke. “Terry’s his little brother. He’s a screwup, but he’s family.”

  Instead of walking back to my house through town, we take a shortcut, heading down the alley next to the old abandoned bowling alley and skimming through the hole in the fence to get to the path that runs along the train tracks. Once we’re out of sight from the street, Burke drops his backpack onto a crusty, pebble-encrusted snowbank and unzips, rummaging around inside for an old Altoids tin. He takes out a small glass pipe and packs it with some broken-up weed. He sparks up as I stand shivering, waiting for him to finish.

  “You want?” he asks through clenched teeth, holding the pipe to me.

  “No thanks,” I say. Burke knows it’s not my thing, but he never fails to offer, which I find equally irritating and endearing.

  He breathes out the smoke, a thin blue cloud twisting into the air like a ribbon. I like the smell, even if I don’t smoke, sweet and sour like the decay of fall. Burke shoves his little Altoids container back into his backpack and we start walking again.

  “So what’d you really think about the new girl?” he asks.

  “Well, she lives across the street from me,” I say. It’s a nonanswer, but it gets his attention.

  “No shit? In that house that’s been for sale forever?”

  I nod.

  “Why didn’t we ask her to give us a drive home?” He takes another haul on the pipe.

  “What, and miss out on our precious quality time?” I ask him. “Come on, man, I haven’t even spoken to her. I just noticed them moving in yesterday.”

  “The girl next door,” he says. I can hear the grin in his voice even through his clenched teeth. He exhales a cloud of smoke.

  I ignore him. As always, Burke shuts up for a few minutes after he smokes, so we walk along in silence. It’s fine with me, since I have some stuff to think about anyway.

  We reach the path that takes me back to our house, and I climb up after him, digging the toes of my boots into the sides, where the snow hasn’t been packed down into an icy slide.

  At the top, I turn toward my street,
but Burke stops me.

  “Hang on,” he says. “I want to grab some chips.” He grins and rubs his hands together. “Got the munchies.”

  I roll my eyes, he’s such a cliché, but I follow him across the street and around the corner to the gas station on Livingstone Street.

  I follow him into the store and stand around near the cash register, looking at my phone while Burke slowly mulls over the snack options on display. He turns into a sloth when he’s stoned, carefully picking up every bag of chips and analyzing the packaging. The guy behind the counter barely looks up from his phone. He’s used to this routine.

  The door jingles, and I glance up as a tall woman I don’t recognize enters. She’s very attractive, with long, super dark hair and a sharp, fine-featured face. She’s wearing high leather boots over tight jeans, a dark green wool peacoat and a nice scarf, and huge dark sunglasses that she sweeps back onto the top of her head as she walks out of the bright sunshine of the winter afternoon. Her gaze sweeps casually around the store, passing over me. To my surprise, her eyes land on Burke and she smiles and approaches him.

  “Hi, Burke,” she says.

  He turns, startled, and then his dumb, stoned face breaks into a grin, and I can tell that he’s shifting into his patented “speaking politely to adults while stoned” mode.

  “Oh, hi there, Mrs. Gerrard,” he says. “What brings you here to the, uh, Fuel-Up?”

  She laughs. “Just needed to pick up a couple of things.” His eyes widen as if he’s had an epiphany, and he turns to me and beckons me over. “Hey, Dee,” he says. “Come here for a minute.”

  Reluctantly, I slide my phone into my pocket and walk over to them, trying to look friendly while doing my best to send Burke “I hate you” vibes. I don’t enjoy talking to adults the way Burke does.

  “Mrs. Gerrard, this is my friend Dee,” he says. “Delia. She used to live in your house!”

  I realize too late that my mouth has dropped open in shock and scramble to slap a normal look back onto my face.

  She also looks surprised, while Burke seems oblivious to the impact his bomb has had.