by Lee Chambers
Now her face was a mere inch or two from Gordie's white, rolled-back eyeballs. And the pack of cigarettes, wedged in his top pocket. Her brand, as it so happened.
Then with a big tug, the backpack came loose and Amanda brought it out of the hole. Taking a deep breath, she hurled the bag to the ground, and she paused for a split second. Made up her mind. “Screw it.”
Amanda knelt back down and stuck her arm back into the hole. Her hand re-emerged with Gordie's pack of cigarettes. A girl's gotta do, what a girl's gotta do.
Flipping open the pack, Amanda put a cigarette into her mouth. Holding the filter between her teeth, she patted her skirt pockets. No lighter.
With a grimace, Amanda leaned over the edge of the hole. It would be worth it, she thought.
And she was right. Walking along, with the backpack hanging from her shoulders, and the lit cigarette burning from her happy lips. Not too shabby, Miss Becker.
The trail ended here and she was free and clear. There was nothing to tie her to the crimes of four scheming criminals. She would play out the rest of the semester as the dust settled and then quietly walk away from the high school and Pineville for good. With Carl no longer in the picture, Amanda imagined dropping some dough on a small and swanky ocean view apartment in Marina del Rey. Take in some LA sunshine. A devious smile shone across her face.
Yet, her smile quickly turned into a displeased scowl. The taxi was gone, leaving a tell-tale set of tire tracks in the mud.
“Son of a…”
“Bitch,” Aaron finished her thought, whilst stating his own.
Amanda whirled around to see Aaron with several officers who he'd led down to the wooded area.
Her mouth curved into a perfect 'o' and the cigarette–that she struggled so hard for–tumbled from her lips, extinguishing with a fizz in a brown puddle at her feet.
“I have to hand it to you, Miss Becker. It turns out you really are quite the actress after all,” Aaron said to the stunned woman; now a virtual stranger. The Miss Becker that Aaron thought he knew had retracted turtle-style into the shell of this body, leaving only a criminal caught red-handed. “I reckon you deserve an Academy frickin' Award, for sure.”
“What?” she said sheepishly, feeling the police officers' eyes crawling all over her.
The officer in charge took a large step towards Amanda, and she immediately recoiled a step backwards. Her eyes were frightened and dancing around the faces surrounding her. “We found this on Carl,” the officer announced, producing an envelope–with two plane tickets inside. “Two tickets to Aruba; in Carl's and your names. Planning a little trip, were we?”
Amanda went on the defensive: “So what? It's no secret we were dating. How could you…”
Aaron quickly interrupted her argument, “They were one way, Miss Becker! It's pretty hard to put a play on Monday night when you were planning on sipping margaritas with Carl on a beach, don't you think?”
In his other hand, the officer revealed a pair of shiny handcuffs. Amanda stepped back again, but this time bumped into another officer behind her. She let out a tiny yelp. The officer unzipped the backpack and nodded to his superior. “Pineville bank bags,” he called out.
Her face dropped. “I'm sorry, Aaron,” Amanda said, staring down at the murky puddle, with the cigarette slowly circling the water.
“And you didn't even call for help? You just sat in that car thinking of ways to spend the money… knowing I wasn't ever going to come out of that school alive.”
“I'm sorry!”
“Tremblay said they'd stashed the rest of the money near the campsite. So, I knew it was the only way to be sure about you, by returning to the woods, to see if you were 'in' on it,” said Aaron, with a shake of his head. “Honestly, I could've expected this much of Tremblay, maybe even Carl, but not you, Amanda. How could you? I trusted you. Saved your life.”
“I'm so, so sorry Aaron.”
“Yeah. me too,” Aaron shook his head and looked away. He couldn't look at her anymore. “Me too.”
Aaron watched the cops slap on the metal cuffs and start pushing Amanda away, leaving the backpack on the ground. She watched it reluctantly disappear from her. Mascara staining her cheeks. Crying partly for the money, partly for Carl, but mostly for herself. Confusion about the mill setting all these nasty chain of events in motion. Her dreams and plans shattered by greed. Now all Amanda's confidence and strength was with Aaron. He assumed a new role and stood tall. Taller than he ever had before.
The officer in charge glanced at Aaron, who was looking solemn, broken and really damn tired. “So, what about you, kid?”
“The show must go on.”
forty one
RRRRIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNGGGGG.
The bell signaled the end of class. Within seconds, the janitor disappeared back inside the maintenance room and the freshly-mopped hallways of Pineville High School were filled shoulder-to-shoulder with adolescent students.
They wandered past the library–still closed for cleaning and asbestos removal–of which there was none–and the empty Principal's office.
Two weeks had passed them by. The school had closed down. Time needed to clean up some of the mess. Get over the devastation and loss. Consider it an early holiday for the 234 students. But time stands still for no one except the dead. The spirit of Pineville can't be stopped and another night of carnage was about to ensue–that being the fake stage deaths in Hamlet.
Amongst the throng of kids, Aaron and Mike emerged from English class. The substitute teacher, a bookish woman, gathered up her belongings and her '#1 Teacher' coffee mug and ventured off to the staff room in search of a refill.
As Aaron made his way to his locker, a few students slapped him on the back, giving him thumbs-up gestures and tossing out cordial comments like “Way to go,” “Hey, Aaron,” “Break a leg tonight, man.”
Despite feeling ready and rehearsed, having spent more time treading the boards of the school stage than many of the other actors, particularly after his impromptu sword-fighting with the former Sheriff; these well-wishers only added to the tension creeping up Aaron's spine and the twisting pit in his stomach since his half-eaten bowl of Cheerios that morning.
Nevertheless, Aaron smiled and reciprocated several high-fives before opening his locker. He pulled his Hamlet book off the top shelf and stared at the mud and water stains spread across it. The corners damaged and worn. He rubbed his hand across the cover. A sly smile crept across his face. He reached further into the locker and fumbled around to grab his frilly costume.
There was a newspaper clipping, taped haphazardly to the inside of the locker door: “Town Pays Tribute To Hero Student At Parker Memorial.” On the same clipping, a headline to a missing article: “Stevens Completes Mill Purchase: Announces Expansion.”
“Is he coming?”
Aaron turned abruptly, slamming the locker door, and looked into the dazzling green eyes of the pretty girl from his English class, Marissa. Shrugging nonchalantly, Aaron tucked the copy of Hamlet and his costume under his arm, and strolled down the corridor beside Marissa.
“Well, good luck tonight anyway.”
“Thanks,” Aaron said a little shocked she was actually talking to him. It was really a first. The object of his affections since her family moved to Pineville from the big city of Thunder Bay at the start of the semester, Marissa was quickly drawn into the 'punish all things Stevens' fan club. He had all but given up on her. Things can really change on a dime or in his case millions. This could be good.
“What are you doing after?” Marissa asked, stroking the back of her arm, looking shyly in the opposite direction. She was pretty. Very pretty and her direct stare was intoxicating.
“Uh… nothing.” Aaron shrugged again. He felt his heart actually skip a beat.
“Cool. Maybe we could do something?” Marissa said with a smile, which Aaron could feel shine right through him. This was going better than he could've hoped.
He opened the door for h
er, and carried her smile on his face for the rest of the day, and the rest of the night. Opening night.
forty two
Things looked very different from the last time Aaron was on the same stage. Beside him, Mike was dressed for the part of Horatio, in an equally frilly outfit as Aaron was wearing.
Pete, dressed up nicely as he could in Goth attire looked relieved to be sitting in the front row. With trusty Charlotte by his side, looking bored out of her mind, silence fell over the packed house. All eyes forward, watching the action unfold. No one truly knew what evil took place on this very stage. But, Aaron did and he channeled it all into giving the best performance he could.
Aaron's Hamlet was bent down on one knee, looking up at Horatio.
“Oh, I die, Horatio. The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit,” Aaron–in character–quivered for a second. “I cannot live to hear the news from England, but I do prophesy the election lights. On Fortinbras, he has my dying voice, so tell him, with the occurrents, more and less, which have solicited. The rest is silence…”
With that, Aaron keeled over on the stage–“dead.”
Mike continued the play's finale, turning to another boy from their English class. “Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince… ”
The curtain began to lower in front of Aaron's half-closed eyes. As the audience eclipsed in front of him, he scanned the faces–searching, searching, searching, but not finding the one that he sought. Suddenly, he heard the thunderous applause and the curtain had touched down, blocking his view.
Aaron looked to Mike, who reached out a hand, lifting him to his feet. “I'm sure he tried to make it,” Mike said, reading his friend's mind. They shuffled to their positions with the other actors and waited for the curtain call.
The clapping continued as the fabric rose, revealing the players again to the crowd. Aaron nodded to the applause and cheers of the audience; however, his scanning eyes settled on a single empty chair, his father's chair.
Suddenly above the steady clap, Aaron perceived another pair of hands, vigorous and extra loud. There at the side of stage right stood Derek Stevens and beaming with great pride, as he started a standing ovation.
Aaron couldn't contain the grin spreading across his face. He savoured the moment, one unforgettable harmonious sound to be forever treasured.
The rest is silence.
about the author
Lee Chambers is an award-winning writer and director. Born in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada, Chambers now makes Thunder Bay his home after living in Los Angeles and England.
www.leechambers.com
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Copyright © 2011 by Lee Chambers
Pineville Heist Inc.
c/o MISFP Publishing
www.pinevilleheist.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the written prior permission of the author.
ISBN: 978-0-9864943-2-1
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication details upon request.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
Edited by Julinda Morrow
Cover photo by Shutterstock
Formatting by ebookpartnership.com
dedication
For Alex and Lesley. My parents.
acknowledgements
While this debut novel is based on my original story and characters, it could not have been written without Todd Gordon, with whom I share the writing credit on the award-winning screenplay, from which this novel is based. Designed as my feature film directorial debut, the process of crafting the book version further cemented my ideas about the characters and allowed me greater freedom to explore much more than the screenplay would permit.
I am also grateful to Julinda Morrow, Elle Andra Warner, Toby Osbourne and John Halasz for assisting me in this process of turning this story into a book.
