The Unquiet

by Jeannine Garsee

  “It’s a saying, Rinn.”

  “I know it’s a saying.”

  “I have no idea what he meant.”

  “And what’s wrong with her?”

  “Car accident, ten years ago. Joey was driving drunk. He spent two years in prison for it. Poor Deb was in a coma for nine months.”

  So this is Dino’s family: a drunk, obnoxious dad and a braindamaged mom.

  I should’ve been nicer to him when I had the chance.

  Mom brightens as Nate and Luke Brenner approach. So do I.

  “Closed casket,” Nate notes with some relief.

  Nana had a closed casket, too, although at the time I’d wished it was open. I even asked Frank to lift the lid so I could see for myself that people weren’t lying to me, that she really did die from the smoke and not from the flames. Frank’s reaction to that made me want to crawl into that casket.

  Nate notices my shudder. “What’s wrong?”

  I will not panic. I’m sick of being such a baby. Sick of popping a pill when things get to be too much.

  I unclench my clammy hands. “Too stuffy in here.”

  Nate weaves me around the milling visitors. Tasha waves, but I’m too distraught to wave back. On the way outside we pass Lacy, too, slumped and sullen, hemmed in by her parents. I ignore her as well.

  On the freshly shoveled and salted porch, Nate opens his jacket wide, draws me in, and folds the leather around me. I forget my panic. I forget I’m at a wake, pretending to grieve for a dead boy I didn’t care for much. Engulfed by Nate’s warmth, sheltered by his arms, I’m exactly where I want to be at this moment. When his lips touch my hair, I lift my face. Like magic, those lips find mine and my arms slide around his waist. We kiss, and we kiss, while I wonder, dazed, why I can still feel the rock salt crunching under my boots.

  By now I should surely be floating to the sky.

  4 MONTHS + 4 DAYS

  Sunday, November 9

  It’s a cold, bleak, wet day for a funeral. After Reverend Kessler, Lacy’s dad, delivers the final blessing, one by one we drop roses on the casket. Bennie Unger, his neon orange cap squashed over his head as usual, squints at me. I wave halfheartedly. He then wipes sleet off his face and lumbers over to toss his flower at Dino’s casket. He misses.

  I huddle by a tree while Mom and Mr. Brenner talk to the Mancinis. I don’t think Dino’s father had a chance to hit the bottle today; he looks haggard and miserable. Mrs. Mancini, as lifeless as yesterday, drifts through the snow like a rag blowing in the wind.

  Lacy stands with her family, her shoulders convulsing, tears dripping endlessly. I know she and Dino had a thing going on, but I never expected this reaction out of her. Before I can decide whether or not to walk over, I notice Mr. Mancini pass something to Mom. Over the wind, and other conversations around me, I make out two words: “Dino” and “pool.”

  Then he collapses, sobbing, to his knees in the muddy snow. Dino’s mom picks at her gloves, ignoring the anxious onlookers who gather around her husband.

  Stomach fluttering, I trudge off toward the cemetery gate. All I want is to go home, grab a book, and crawl into bed. But Nate sloshes over and catches my hand. “Hey.”

  I know by his smile that he’s thinking about how we kissed. My mood spikes. I smile back and squeeze his hand. “Hey.” That’s as far as it goes, because Mom and Luke hurry to join us. I drop Nate’s hand and ask Mom, “What did Mr. Mancini say about the pool?”

  Mom shifts her Jimmy Choo boots while Luke shakes out a cigarette. “Oh, that. Well, what he said was”—she gazes longingly at Luke’s Newports—“he knows why Dino was by the pool that night.” With great care, Mom rearranges her scarf before reaching into her coat pocket. She hands over the mysterious item, adding in a peculiar, distrustful tone, “They found this in his pocket.”

  Speechless, I finger the broken ceramic shard. It’s the base of my candleholder, my name plainly carved into the jagged red disk:

  Rinn Jacobs

  I know it wasn’t my idea that Dino climb that fence. But I didn’t go out of my way to discourage him, either. Yes, he did tell me to leave if anyone showed up. But what if I’d stayed? Aside from what happened to Nana, I’ve never felt so guilty. Or so afraid.

  There are “doings” going on back at Barton’s, coffee and cookies, nothing fancy. But Lacy begs Meg, Tasha, and me to come home with her instead. “I gotta talk to you guys in private. No boys allowed,” she adds to Nate.

  I hesitate. Mom and Luke are a half a block ahead of us, heading toward the funeral home. But Nate says, “Go on, go. I’ll let your mom know. Call me later?”

  I nod, deflated, cupping the pottery shard in my coat pocket.

  “So what’s up?” Meg asks as we turn to head toward Lacy’s street.

  Congested from crying, Lacy croaks, “I’ll tell you when we get there. I have to show you something.”

  Lacy’s house is unoccupied except for one fat striped cat stretched across the center hall stairs. Lacy boots him out of our way. “I told my folks I have a headache. They’re so used to hearing me say it they don’t even question me anymore.”

  This is the first time I’ve seen Lacy’s room. Surrounded by lace, fluff, and various shades of pink, it’s like plunging headfirst into a cotton candy machine.

  As soon as we settle, Lacy starts sniffling again. Meg hugs her. “Aw, Lace. We know you’re sad about Dino. But if you don’t stop crying you will get another headache.”

  “I’m not crying over Dino! I’m crying about Chad! I e-mailed him again, like you said.” She throws me an accusatory glance. “He still didn’t answer me. So I kept on e-mailing him, like a thousand times. Then last night”—Lacy reaches for a stack of papers on her desk—“I get this.”

  She hands the first sheet over. We crowd around to read the message: Hey, sweetie, sorry I missed all your e-mails. Some of the guys and me got a few days off and went to Shanghai. Don’t worry, I been thinking about you every second! I’ll read the rest of your e-mails and get back to you ASAP! Love, Chad

  “But that’s good,” Meg proclaims. “It means he’s not blowing you off.”

  “Wait.” Lacy thrust a second paper at us. “Then this one came this morning.”

  No “Hey, sweetie” this time. Instead: Well I finally finished going through your last 39 e-mails. Let me just say that I’m glad I found out NOW what a crazy bitch you are before I did something stupid like MARRY you. You sure that’s my kid? I want proof—because you’re SICK! You need a shrink! Am I the only person who ever told you this? I can’t believe you wrote that stuff. All I can say now is: do not EVER contact me again. FYI, I reported this to my C.O., who says he’ll notify your family if you write me again. P.S. Keep the damn ring.

  “What?” Meg howls. “You e-mailed him thirty-nine times? What did you say?”

  Lacy, face scrunched, hands over the rest of the papers, all but one. We pass them around, and it’s pretty dramatic stuff: Lacy begging Chad to answer her, demanding to know where her plane ticket is, pleading with him to tell her if he still loves her or not. Nothing bad enough to make her look “sick”—only possessive, frantic, and really annoying.

  “Man,” Tasha breathes. “This is, like, stalker stuff.”

  Instead of reacting, Lacy simply hands over the final paper. “This is from Wednesday. This is the last time I wrote him.”

  You asshole! How dare you ignore my e-mails? What are you doing over there, screwing some Japanese slut? Well, FYI I have a NEW boyfriend now and he’s way hotter than you in EVERY WAY! Believe me, I know cuz I’ve been fucking him for YEARS! BTW if you think I’m having any baby by you, think again, freak! I don’t care if I have to jump in front of a train! I wish you were dead! I HATE YOU, YOU BASTARD! Good-bye forever.

  Speechless, we all pass it around. Then Meg ventures, “Um, why would you write this?”

  “I didn’t! I mean, I know I wrote him that night. But I pretty much said what I said in all the others. B-but this”—she sla
ps the paper—“is what he got from me.” She draws herself up, rigid with suspicion. “You guys didn’t do it, right? I mean, Meg’s got my password, and—”

  Meg gasps. “I’d never! None of us would.”

  Lacy slumps back against her pink wicker headboard. “I know. I—I just had to ask. I keep trying to figure out how this happened. But it’s my e-mail address, right? And it’s in my sent mail, so I know I sent it—I just don’t know why! I swear to God I don’t remember doing it.” She cries harder, her words barely coherent. “I had a headache that night, the worst one ever. It hurt so bad I just wanted to die! And now I hope I do. Because I can’t lose Chad. I’d rather be dead!”

  “Don’t say that,” Meg pleads. “You have to think about the baby.”

  Lacy can’t, or won’t answer. For a minute or two all we hear are her hysterical sobs. I yank a fistful of Kleenex from a pink crocheted box and hand it over.

  “You’re right,” she blubbers, mopping her face. “I do love my baby. It’s all I have left.”

  “Everything’ll be fine,” Meg soothes. “We’ll even throw you a shower. We’ll babysit and everything!”

  Lacy’s eyes shine. “You will?”

  “Sure. You just have to, you know, tell your folks about this, Lace.”

  “Omigod, they’ll kill me! I’d rather kill myself.” She slaps Meg away. “Leave me alone, all of you! Just, just go away …”

  Tasha argues, “You can’t say you want to kill yourself and then expect us to go away.”

  “Oh yes, I can!” Lacy’s unexpected rage petrifies me. “I guess I’ll just have to wait till you bitches aren’t around.”

  Meg ignores that. “You don’t want to die.”

  “You don’t,” Tasha echoes. “No dude’s worth that.”

  From an unfathomable distance I hear myself say, “Maybe she does.”

  Three stunned faces whip in my direction.

  “Are you nuts?” Meg cries.

  I stare into Lacy’s moist, venomous eyes. “I know you feel like dying. But don’t try it. Because if you screw it up, Lacy, it’ll make everything worse.”

  I drag down my turtleneck to display, on purpose, the scar they’re too polite, or too afraid, to ask me about.

  “Trust me,” I say quietly. “I know.”

  “Open it!” I tried to dodge around Frank to reach the casket myself. “Open it! Please, I have to see her!” I wanted to see for myself that Nana didn’t burn to death, didn’t lie there screaming while flames devoured her flesh

  Frank shoved me away, his eyes filled with hate. Nobody ever looked at me like that before. Nobody’s looked at me like that since. “Get the hell away from her!”

  The jolt knocked the fight right out of me. Mom stepped forward with a strangled sound—and that’s when I felt myself reaching that plane. The same plane, I know now, that Cecilia seeks whenever she’s trapped in a closed space with no hope for escape.

  Tucked safely up where no one could reach me, I watched the scene play out below. Mom, in a sleeveless black dress and an elegant chignon, dabbing her eyes. Frank, in a suit and tie, his ponytail neat, beard expertly trimmed, looking deceptively like an anguished old man.

  I saw myself, too, in shorts and sandals and a grungy tank top, not the dressy black suit Mom brought home from Neiman Marcus. My hair, unwashed for days, reeked of smoke and salt water and glittered with sand.

  I saw how people veered around me, embarrassed. Because they already suspected I put Nana in that flower-draped casket? Because they knew of my reputation for being surly and unpredictable? Or because I looked so filthy, and possibly smelled worse than I looked?

  I couldn’t distinguish the murmuring of the guests from the Voices in my mind. The good Voice soothed me. The bad ones taunted me.

  I moved away from my parents. Like walking on a sponge, my sandals sunk inches into the floor with each awkward step. People smirked, suspecting I was stoned, but I had to move. Only constant movement kept the worst of the Voices at bay.

  I weaved around people, strangely alert though I’d already gone three days without sleep—pretty typical of me. I liked strolling the streets or the beach all night. I knew where the stoners hung out, who’d share a blunt or a beer. I knew who was safe. I also knew who might hurt me.

  If the police picked me up for breaking curfew—or worse—Frank usually convinced them to let him take me home, or back to the hospital for another “evaluation.”

  I had no boyfriends, only guys I slept with for dope. No girlfriends, either. The last one I lost because I’d picked open her back door and hung out for two days while she and her family were vacationing in the Bahamas. I lost the one before because I hooked up with her boyfriend. I don’t remember why I hooked up. I pretty much hated the dude.

  To this day I don’t remember a lot of things.

  I do remember the beach, and watching the smoke billowing from Nana’s cottage.

  I remember asking Frank about the piano, and Frank’s horrific rage.

  I remember all the psychiatrists. All the pills I flushed. All the times Mom pleaded with me to take them, Rinn, please, just take the pills!

  But the pills made me too groggy to function. And, like I told Nate, I missed the highs. I missed feeling invincible. Sometimes I even missed the shadow people and the Voices, the only friends I had left when even my teachers learned to keep their distance. If you’re forced to live your life in a lonely stupor, then tell me: What’s the point of living at all?

  At Nana’s funeral, I was on drugs; Frank made sure of it. Although what he crammed down my throat didn’t stop the Voices, it did make me understand Nana was dead, that her funeral was real, and that I, Corinne Katherine Jacobs, was responsible for it all.

  I was drugged on the outside, but wild and frantic inside, like a snake trying to shed a skin made from glass. I had to get out of there. I swiped Mom’s cell phone from her purse, hid out in a bathroom stall, and punched 4-1-1 to get the number for a cab. At that precise moment, several ladies walked in.

  This was what I heard:

  “… they need to lock her up and throw away the key.”

  “Monica will never stand for it.”

  “Poor Frank. To think he raised her as his own. Did you hear her out there?”

  “I’ll bet he’s ready to slash his throat.”

  “Or hers.” Chuckle, chuckle.

  “That girl’s not right. Don’t they have places for kids like that?”

  “Sure they do. And Monica better wise up before they all end up dead.”

  Toilets flushed, water ran, and then the automatic hand dryer drowned everything out. By the time the motor stopped, the women were gone.

  Alone again, I dropped the phone in the toilet with a thunk and a splash.

  Monica better wise up before they ALL end up dead …

  Haunted, bones clanking, I waded off through the invisible sludge, thinking: This is how they want me to spend my life. Walking in quicksand. Terrified I’ll murder the rest of my family.

  Downstairs, caterers darted to and fro, arranging lunch meat and pickles and loaves of bread. The bread knives looked sharp. The Voices raged like the surf on Nana’s beach, the words garbled, yet perfectly clear nonetheless.

  I knew what to do. But there was no place private enough to do it.

  So I left, and slapped back home in my sandals, sunburned and exhausted by the time I arrived. The cold house smelled unfamiliar, the home of strangers. Halos of color danced around the lights, magnified by my double vision.

  The phone rang, scaring the shadow people from the walls.

  “It’s okay,” I said to them, and to myself.

  At Frank’s desk I printed out a note and propped it next to a picture of me.

  The phone rang again, and again, and again. Then stopped.

  Calmness descended.

  It’s okay. It’s okay.

  I cracked open a pack of replacement blades for Frank’s razor. I filled the tub in the master
suite and turned on the Jacuzzi. Dying on the beach might’ve been nice. Lying in the sun and tasting the salty wind while your blood seeps away into warm, swirling sand.

  Too late for that. I’m already here.

  I climbed into the water in my shorts and tank top. People do this naked on TV, but I couldn’t take the chance Frank might find me first.

  The razor sparkled in my surprisingly steady hand. Those women from the rest room must’ve followed me home; they circled the foaming tub, repeating the same truthful words: