Sylvio gleefully tapped the steering wheel in time to the music. “Marco said he had lunch with you?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m having a hard time picturing that.”
“Did you get her phone number?”
“Who, Regine? Yes. She told me about a nightclub they go to on Fridays, Diaboliques. It sounds pretty awesome. Actually, I kind of wish we had moved here last year. She told me about three of their friends who were seniors last year. I guess they’re all at Metropolitan now: a brother and sister, Ivo and Liz, and another guy, Marco’s boyfriend. I forget his name . . .”
Brenden, Bruno said under his breath.
“The six of them call themselves the Rosary, and they did everything together. It must have been amazing. I guess I’m the newest member.”
Bruno was a little stung that Sylvio already had placed himself with these intriguing new people. Sylvio’s greatest wish had come true on their first day at Suburban.
“We’re going to do what they did last year. Starting tomorrow we’ll drive to Regine’s house on the way to school, and then we’ll make the rounds to pick up Celia and Marco so we can all arrive at school together. I’m so glad I got a black car!”
Bruno looked out the window, counting down the blocks until they got home.
WHEN THEY ARRIVED HOME, Bruno dropped his things and went back out the front door. He turned in the direction of the house next door—the house whose backyard he guessed he had visited the night before, even though from the front it looked nothing like that one. If that other girl—Celia’s double—wasn’t in this house, she had to live in one of the houses on his block, so he would work his way around until he found it. Bruno had intended to make the rounds in the neighborhood to offer his services, so he had an excuse to conduct his investigation.
This lawn was flat with only a few bushes. It would be an easy job to mow it, if they needed someone. The metal knocker sounded deep and important against the heavy wood door. Bruno stepped back and put his hands in his pockets and then pulled them out as a woman answered. She looked older than his parents, but not as old as his grandparents. Her curly hair was brown and gray, and in her long denim skirt and nubby sweater she reminded Bruno of a kindergarten teacher.
She gave him a friendly, curious smile. “Hello. Can I help you?”
“Hello, ma’am. My name is Bruno. My family moved in next door.” Bruno motioned vaguely in the direction of his house.
“Oh, hello! It’s nice to meet you, Bruno. I’m Alice Stein. I met your parents a couple of weeks ago when we were out walking. We’ve been meaning to invite you over for dinner.” Alice turned when another woman came into view behind her. “Gertrude, this is Bruno—is it Perilunas?” She turned back to Bruno for confirmation, and he nodded.
“It’s nice to meet you! I’m Gertrude Toklas.” She extended her hand and Bruno shook it.
“I just wanted to let you know, I mowed lawns and walked dogs for people where we used to live, in case you need anything like that.”
“You know, we might.” Gertrude looked at Alice, who nodded. “We go out of town sometimes, and it’d be nice to have someone to bring in the mail and water the plants.”
“Actually, I wouldn’t mind having a break from mowing the lawn, too,” Alice said. “Do you shovel walks when it snows?”
Bruno nodded. “We have a snowblower.”
“Well, I think we definitely will be able to make use of your services. What are your rates?”
“For the lawn, the first time is free, and then I can give you a fair price.”
The women raised their eyebrows at each other. “Very impressive. You are quite the businessman,” Alice said. “I was going to mow the lawn this weekend. Would you like to do it?”
“Sure,” Bruno said. “Do you mind if I take a quick look in the backyard?”
“Go right ahead. It’s nice to meet you!” The women closed the door, and Bruno went off around the house.
There was a gazebo and a vegetable patch. No rock garden. The dense brush along the back side of the yard probably hid the Ebentwine clearing, but when Bruno looked up at the back of the house, there was no question: The windows were the wrong size, and in completely different places, and they had no shutters. This most definitely was not the yard in which Bruno had trespassed the night before.
He worked his way around the block and picked up two more yard jobs, but none of the other houses looked anything like the green-shuttered house in which he had seen the transfixing girl who looked so much like the transfixing Celia.
He returned to his own backyard and was heading through the hedgerow into the grassy alley when his mother poked her head out the back door. “There you are! Dinner will be ready in a little. Would you be a love and set the table?”
After dinner Sylvio got on the phone, and Bruno was sure he was talking to Regine. Ignoring his conscience, Bruno picked up a cordless extension, placed his thumb over the microphone, and carried it down the hall behind his back. He leaned around Sylvio’s door frame to look in and said, “Are you on the phone?” When his brother angrily pulled his cordless away from his ear to snap that wasn’t it obvious he was on the phone, Bruno turned on the phone behind his back. Feigning exasperation, he backed away from the door and retreated to his room to listen in.
“Tell me more about the Rosary,” Sylvio was saying.
“Oh, it’s the only thing that’s kept me alive for the last three years,” Regine said breathily. “My first year, I remember noticing Ivo and Liz immediately. Especially Ivo, because he was the first one who really started dressing the part and everything. I remember feeling so cool when they spoke to me—you remember your first year, when you felt lucky if anyone from the upper classes paid any attention to you? Bruno must have felt that way when we talked to him today. Marco didn’t transfer in until the next year, so to start it was just the four of us. I don’t remember how Ivo and Brenden met. The first year we were kind of in our own world, until Brenden got his license and we went to Diaboliques the first time, and then it all clicked.” Regine’s voice sounded dreamy and wistful. “By Halloween everything was in place. We were dressing up every day, and people started to recognize us the way they do now. The next year Marco got here, and he and Brenden started dating almost immediately. Then Celia joined us last year.”
“How did you come up with the name?”
“It was Ivo’s idea. And then we all wore rosaries for a while, which was funny since none of us is really religious.”
“I thought it might have something to do with the Jesus and Mary Chain or something.”
“Oh, I like that band! But no, not really, though I can see how it fits. Last year Marco made us the bracelets for First Night, and now that’s our symbol.”
“Do you think he’d make me one?”
“See, I don’t know . . . The Rosary is a special group of people—it still is. Three of them are at Metropolitan now. I don’t know if I have the right to say that you should join the group if three of the founding members haven’t even met you.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Sylvio said, trying not to sound disappointed.
“You’ll meet them soon. I’m pretty sure they’ll be back for fall break, and they’ll definitely come back for Halloween. They’ll like you—I’m positive.” Regine was silent for a moment. When she spoke again it was clear she was trying to be as encouraging as she could. “I have no doubt when they meet you they’ll be totally fine with making you a member. I already talked to Ivo today and told him all about you.”
“You did?”
“Of course. So, who’s your favorite band?” Regine asked.
“I don’t know if I have one. The Cure, maybe.”
“That’s a good choice.”
“But I love so much music, and a lot more obscure things than the Cure. Do you like Ikon?”
“Yes! Patrick plays them all the time. Do you like Faith and the Muse?”
“‘Shattered in Aspect�
� is a great song. Do you like Ghost Dance?” Sylvio asked.
“I don’t know that song.”
“Oh, no, it’s a band.”
“I—I don’t think I’ve heard them.”
“They’re older. Most of their songs have never been released on CD, but they’re really good. I’ll make a disc for you.” Bruno detected his brother’s pleasure in knowing some music Regine didn’t.
Bruno carefully put down the phone. He went downstairs, out into the backyard, and through the hedgerow. At the end of the grassy alley he passed through the trees and reached the strange clearing with the fountain marked EBENTWINE. Again the air was oddly perfumed with spice and brine, and the surrounding town might have vanished from beyond the perimeter. The gardener was there, working on one of the flower beds.
“Hello again.”
“Hello.” Bruno inhaled the different air. He half expected to hear the distant cry of a gull.
“Are you going to see her?”
“See who?”
“The one of whom you’re so fond. What’s her name?”
“I don’t know.”
“I thought you did.”
“Do you know who that girl is, who lives in that house you sent me to?”
“I haven’t met her, but I thought you did today.”
“Do you mean Celia?” The gardener nodded. “It’s not Celia.”
The man laughed. “Of course it is.” He lifted a plant from a wheelbarrow and set it into the hole he had dug.
“But it can’t be. She told me she lives on Market Street, and that’s at least four miles away.” Confusion fuzzed around the edges of Bruno’s brain.
“That’s right. And you’re almost there.”
“To Market Street? That can’t be right. It’s all the way—” Bruno raised his arm, but he wasn’t sure in which direction to point. His head felt light.
“No, no, her house is right through that hedge, just as it was last night. You can’t stay here, so you’d better go see.” The gardener moved to one side of the clearing and beckoned for Bruno to follow. Bruno went through the hedges, and when he reached the other side, he paused, waiting for his head to clear. He looked up at the window, and there she was.
She stood in profile, brushing her long, straight hair. She turned and looked out at the night sky, and there was no doubt. There had never been any doubt. It was Celia, even though Bruno had no idea how he had reached her backyard having barely left his own. There were mysteries to ponder, but for the moment he didn’t care. He marveled at this perfect girl who stood in the open window above his head. The same ethereal song that had been playing the night before drifted down to him, but Bruno still couldn’t hear the singer’s words.
Once again Bruno felt the pull to her, and he wondered if this was what the moon felt, gazing on the earth. He was rooted in his spot, ready to stare up at Celia all night, when the back door of the house opened and an older woman came out into the yard, a phone to her ear. “Okay, I can talk now. I didn’t want her to walk in on me,” she said, and Bruno leapt back through the hedge.
The gardener looked disappointed. “That’s it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought maybe you’d visit her for a while.”
“How is it possible . . . I don’t understand . . .”
“We are fortunate to live in a world where we are not limited to experiencing only the things we understand.” The man’s eyes were serious, and he spoke to Bruno like a child. “And as for whether things are possible, if they happen, does it matter whether or not they are possible?”
“I need to go home,” Bruno said.
“All right then. It’s just back that way.” The gardener gestured, and Bruno ran in that direction, brushing past trees and hedges. The next thing he knew, he was pulling up short in front of his garage. The lights from his house waited on the other side of the hedge.
What just happened?
2
dance along the edge
THE NEXT MORNING, SYLVIO drove them to Regine’s house and then they followed her car. Bruno’s heart beat faster when they turned onto Market Street. They stopped in front of a house that had the same white siding and evergreen trees he had seen from behind for the past two nights, and Celia emerged. She waved at Sylvio and Bruno and got into Regine’s passenger seat. They continued on to pick up Marco at his house before proceeding to school.
Bruno felt like a stowaway in a funeral procession. He had worn the only pair of dress pants he owned and a button-down shirt, but in the mirror he had looked rumpled and uncomfortable. When the five of them walked into school, Bruno fell back, watching Celia from behind. In twenty-four hours he had fallen in love twice. At least he knew now it had been with the same girl.
Celia looked around to see if he was there. She gave him the hint of a smile, then turned back. For the rest of the walk into school he studied the texture of her moss-green crushed-velvet jacket. She chatted with Marco, who looked like a proper companion for her. In the lobby she told Bruno, “You look nice,” and he almost felt worse.
He thought about Celia all morning and wondered about her boyfriend, Tomasi. Sitting in geography class, he tried to guess what Tomasi looked like. Bruno supposed he must be tall, since Celia was tall, but trying to picture him was like peering into fog.
Bruno was distracted from his daydream by a girl in the hall outside the classroom door. She wore a sweater that was a riot of bright colors, and her hair was a vibrant mass of tight reddish-blond curls. He wondered how she could be wandering the school in the middle of a period without getting into trouble. She stopped, framed by the open classroom door, and looked curiously at Bruno.
“Excuse me?”
Bruno looked back at the front of the room to find the teacher, an Indian man with a British accent named Mr. Williams, regarding him with an expression of exaggerated patience. Everyone had turned to stare at Bruno, ready to savor the first mortification of the new year. “Am I boring you?”
“No,” Bruno said, reddening.
“It’s the second day of class. Am I to expect this level of inattention from you every day?”
“I don’t know how to answer that.”
“So much depends upon . . . I take it you are so well versed in European geography, I am wasting your time?”
Before Bruno knew it, he had said, “Probably.” Around him students gasped.
Mr. Williams’s shock shifted immediately to disdain. “Really? So you could list for me the European mountain ranges, then?”
Bruno looked inward, flipping his mental atlas to the appropriate page, and then he checked off the names as he wandered around the map. “Well, the Kjolens in Scandinavia, then the Pyrénées, Alps, Apennines, Dinaric Alps, Carpathians, and Balkans. Plus the Urals and the Caucasus Mountains, which separate Europe from Asia.”
Mr. Williams gaped for a moment. “Pay attention in class,” he snapped, and returned to the board. Bruno felt stares from all sides, but he kept his eyes forward. When the moment finally passed and he looked back out into the hall, the brightly colored girl was gone.
He didn’t see her in the halls between classes, but he did find the timid blond girl from the day before, lost again, and pointed her to her next destination. This time she gave Bruno a longer look of gratitude, but he didn’t dwell on it. It didn’t matter how many mysterious girls there were around here; Bruno could only obsess about one.
WHEN HE ARRIVED IN the cafeteria for lunch, the vast room was already packed. He was heading to the lunch line when he saw her standing across the room. Her long, dark hair framed her pale face, and she raised her hand. Bruno froze as Celia mouthed the words Come here.
When he reached her, she said, “Hi! I didn’t know you had lunch now. Let me see your schedule.” He handed over his card and set down his books, marveling at the numbing rush that returned the moment he was near her.
“Do you want anything?” Bruno pointed at the lunch line.
“O
h, no, thank you!” She smiled again and turned her attention to his schedule. When he returned with a tray of food, Celia had a puzzled look. “Were you just in Spanish class?”
“Yes.”
“That’s all the way over in the Chancellor Wing. How did you get here so quickly?”
“It’s not far.” Bruno shrugged.
“Yes, it is! You have to go all the way through Chancellor and then down the main hall and through administration. It’s almost the farthest point in the school from here. When I had Spanish before lunch, I used to get here ten minutes after the bell rang.”
“I didn’t go that way,” Bruno said.
“What way did you go, then?” She looked incredulous.
“I went out the back door of Chancellor, across the grass, and in the back door of the technology wing. That’s just down the hall from that side of the cafeteria.” Bruno pointed over his shoulder.
Celia stared at him. “That’s brilliant! And lucky; I can’t believe that door was unlocked. I’ll bet a lot of people start using your shortcut.” For the second time she looked at him so directly, he thought she was seeing straight through to his heart, which sped up as she stared. Why does she look at me that way?
“I heard . . . Marco told me your friend died last year?”
“Oh.” Her face fell, and Bruno hated himself for ambushing her. “Mariette. Yes. She was my best friend outside the Rosary. That’s what we called ourselves last year. Did Marco tell you about that?” Bruno nodded. “It was crazy, in so many ways. She was such an amazing person, and I miss her every day.” Celia pulled a chain out from under her blouse and showed Bruno an amulet hanging from it. “She made this.”
The silence stretched out, and he felt obliged to fill it because he had dredged up unhappy memories. “I saw your mosaic.”
Celia waved the idea away. “Oh, it’s not my mosaic. I just drew what the seniors wanted, and then the artisan did all the work.”
“It’s very nice,” he said anyway.
“Well, thank you! So, Silver and Regine seem to have hit it off.”
Pull Down the Night (The Suburban Strange) Page 3
