Save the Enemy

by Arin Greenwood

  I hear a gunshot. But a moment later, the world still exists. I still exist.

  Look up to see if Dad is still standing. He is. Roscoe isn’t hit, either.

  “Ben!” I call out. He calls back to me, “I’m right here.”

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “My arm still hurts from before,” he says.

  “Are you hurt in any new way?” I yell.

  “No,” he says. “Not in any new way.”

  “Pete?” I say. “I’m here,” he yells back.

  Who is missing? Who’s been shot?

  Short P.F. is standing next to Mrs. Severy, holding the gun to her head. Fat lobbyist P.F. is on the ground. His forehead is bleeding.

  “Get out of here,” still-alive P.F. says to me.

  WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU

  Chapter Twenty

  The keys are already in the ignition of the black SUV. Pete gets behind the wheel. I sit next to him. Dad and Ben and Roscoe sit in the backseat.

  The last thing I see, as we drive away, is P.F. walking Mrs. Severy toward the cabin.

  No one talks as we head back onto the crowded highway into Old Town. Pete says nothing about his mother being marched into a fire. About the possibility that he will be an orphan after this, or the possibility that he won’t be. I steal glances at Dad in the rearview mirror. He looks awful, as you might expect after having been kidnapped, tied to a chair, and left in a burning cabin. I can’t imagine he ate very well in the last week, and he has a more gaunt look to him, though you can still see his belly extending under a T-shirt with a picture of a heroic superhero on it. That shirt seems richly ironic right now. And, belonging to a “hirsute people” as he is wont to put it—it’s his fancy way of saying that he has a lot of hair and I don’t know why he can’t just say it like that—this week without shaving has left his face covered in thick and uneven bristle. He’s got dark rings under his eyes. Darker than usual.

  He also just looks worn out. Done. I think about him asking me to leave him in the cabin and try to stop thinking about it. That was the most terrifying moment of my life. And especially of late, I’m not wanting for terrifying moments. But it’s really scary seeing Dad sitting quietly like this, too.

  Ben, who is looking a little more oily than usual, could also use a shave—evidently he is a hirsute Trask as well. He doesn’t ask what happened in the cabin, nor if we’ll get to see the jail where Norman Mailer stayed when he tried to levitate the Pentagon. He just keeps petting and hugging Roscoe, who looks healthier than ever. (Roscoe’s thick black and white coat is glossy. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he appears to have had a pedicure. Certainly, if nothing else, his nails, and his whole being, look better-groomed than any other Trask. His eyes are bright and calm, and closing, slowly, as he settles in for a nap.)

  Did it work, when Mailer tried to levitate the Pentagon? Does it work when anyone tries to make anything levitate, or are we all just stuck in a confusing but unmagical world after all? I used to think—to believe—that we had either reason, or magic, in this world, but not both. And probably just reason. Picking wood shards out of my hands and brushing off my knees, I’m worried we don’t have either. In which case, what do we have?

  We have a brother with a shot arm, is what we have, and to tend to this we stop at a drop-in medical clinic on the way home. When we pull up, Dad starts to get out of the car.

  “Medical reporting laws might cause some problems here,” Ben says. “If we go in with an adult, I’m concerned that the police will be notified. It might be safer if only the kids go inside, and we don’t use our real names.”

  Dad looks stunned and hurt, settling back into the car. Pete and I take Ben inside, give the receptionist a fake name. Smith. Hank Smith. Because that’s not suspicious. The doctor asks what happened to young Hank’s arm. Nearly crying, again, I explain that one of his careless cousins, Bob Smith (??!!), was shooting BB guns in the backyard. The doctor says that the wound does not look like a BB gun wound—it’s not “arrayed” in the way, she explains, a BB gun wound would be—but I just shrug, and, counting on Ben’s enhanced facial expression-reading skills, give my brother a stern look that tells him now is not the time to be concerned about the truth or facts.

  And he does something that nearly makes me fall over in surprise. “I know hospitals are legally mandated to report to law enforcement in cases of gunshot sounds. And in child endangerment cases,” he says, “I can see why you’d be confused about the nature of my injury. But I assure you that high-caliber BB guns array identically to youth-marketed .22 caliber rifles. I would be quite pleased to put you in touch with my friends at the National Rifle Association to give you more information if you’d like.”

  “That’s okay, Hank,” she says.

  The doctor cleans and wraps Ben’s arm. Gives us a bottle of antibiotics and instructions to use Neosporin and fresh bandages twice a day for two weeks, then asks one more time if there are “problems at home” that we “need to tell an adult about.”

  I can see the doctor, in her clean white jacket, looking all of us over. I’m filthy. Covered in mud, smelling like a house fire, which I can only hope covers up the smell of a person who hasn’t showered or changed clothes in quite a while. I haven’t slept a full night in over a week. Haven’t eaten a real meal in days, I don’t think; I can’t even remember. My brother is shot in the arm and we’ve got an unbelievable story about how this came to be, that I guess we’re going to get away with?

  Then Pete … well, he looks great, somehow, his hair still curled attractively over his forehead, his skin with a healthy sheen to it. His clothes are rumpled, but appealingly so. I do not detect any stench on his person. Is he as pulled-together as he looks? If so, how can this be? Did he not just go through what we went through? I’m gazing at him, trying to know this boy, and I don’t. I know that I’m drawn to him, almost chemically so. And I know, or I think I know, that he helped us after trying to hurt us. But I don’t know him.

  “We’re fine,” I say to the doctor.

  You have to love the American medical system and its respect for privacy. Pete pays the receptionist with $200 in cash from his wallet and we walk out the door.

  “How did you do that?” I ask my brother when the door is shut behind us.

  “I used bits and pieces of facts that I know to be true and wove them together in untrue ways,” Ben says.

  “You lie now?” I ask.

  “Not right now,” he says. “I’m going to run back to the car so I can see Roscoe again.”

  Pete holds my hand for a moment in the parking lot as my brother runs off, and we’re walking more slowly back to the car.

  “I know this is crazy,” he says. “I, I wish I could take you to prom.”

  “Shenandoah doesn’t have a prom,” I reply.

  “I said it was crazy,” he says.

  We get back in the car and make our way through quiet, quaint Old Town. It’s Sunday and spring in the early evening. Tourists are walking up and down our peaceful, shop-lined streets.

  “It’s strange but good being back,” Dad says as we’re driving down King Street.

  “We ate there,” Ben says, pointing at Lee’s as we drive by.

  “She’s from Guam,” I explain to Dad, which I assume he’ll understand means that she’s not still hoping slavery starts up again. Or actively working toward making that happen. I’m trying to please him again, I realize. I stop talking.

  “Did you like it?” Dad asks.

  “Yeah, it’s good,” I say. “Lee said she’d give me a job if I need one. She gave me a tarot reading.”

  “Your mother believed that horseshit,” Dad says.

  “Yeah,” I say. “It was really helpful, actually.” I stare down at my lap, then turn around to look at him, and Benny, and Roscoe. Ben is reading. Dad is watching out the window, with one hand on Roscoe, and tears running down his face.

  “Why didn’t you leave her, Dad?” I ask.

  “Ov
er the tarot?” he asks. He laughs, wipes his eyes on his shoulder. I laugh. No one asks why Dad would have left Mom. I suppose Pete probably knows the context already. Ben is just lost in his book. And Roscoe doesn’t speak English that well.

  The sky is turning a kind of burnt orange; the cherry trees are in full pink bloom. Both sides of King Street are silly with those trees, covered in the delightful, glorious, deliciously scented blossoms. They will last only a couple of days, I understand, before falling to the ground and becoming so much pink trash. But for now, just briefly, they are beautiful and perfect.

  I look at Pete. I want to say something to him. More like I want to want to say something to him. I’m out of words. I’m filled with a longing for him to stay with me, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.

  Pete stops in front of our house. Uncle Henry is sitting on the front stoop. He’s smoking a cigarette, which he stubs out on the step as soon as he sees us. “Sorry. A bad habit. Just an occasional cancer stick when I’m out of town.”

  “What are you doing here?” I ask him, getting out of the car.

  “Your aunt and I got worried when you left the way you did,” he says, eyeing my father, holding out his hand to shake my father’s hand. “Jacob,” he says, his voice lowering a register or two. “How’re things?”

  “Not at the house, Henry,” dad says. “Never at the house. Julia’s allergic. You know that.”

  “She’s dead,” Uncle Henry says.

  “Yes, I’m aware,” my dad says. Then: “Still, not here.”

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “Same as always,” says Uncle Henry. “Aunt Lisa is inside. We used the key that your mom gave us when we first helped you move in.”

  “Great,” says my father. “Really, great. You all hungry? I’m starved.”

  “I am not literally starved, but I am very hungry,” says my brother.

  He goes inside the house. My father and Uncle Henry follow. I call Roscoe out of the car, say to Pete, “Want to stay for dinner? We can get takeout from Lee’s.”

  “I do. I want to,” Pete says, touching my hand, then touching my arm, then pulling away. “I’m going to find Ben’s notebook. Get it back for him.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Are we still in danger, Pete?”

  “Molly might be if I don’t find that notebook,” he says.

  “Oh,” I say, startled. “I thought this was over.”

  “Wouldn’t that be great?” Pete says.

  “Do you want me to come with you?” I ask.

  He smiles. He kisses my forehead. “Of course I do, nervous girl,” he says.

  “But I can’t,” I say.

  “I’ll come back,” he says. “I’ll have your brother’s notebook. I’ll make sure your friend is safe. And isn’t taking too much Ritalin. I’ll come back. Please promise me that you believe that.”

  “Okay,” I say, trying to let down my guard, trying to be vulnerable, which is harder and scarier than trying to be invulnerable, after all this. I don’t really know Pete.

  He’s been holding Roscoe’s leash. He hands it to me. Bends down to pet my dog, then says, “You’re like a brother to me.” Roscoe licks Pete on his cheek. “Thanks, dog,” he says before standing up, kissing me on the cheek.

  “Does that make us related?” I ask.

  “Luckily not,” says Pete, who then gets a serious look on his face. “We have a lot more to do, Zoey,” he says, and I don’t know if he means a lot more to do vis-a-vis our parents or each other or what.

  “See you soon, I hope,” I say.

  “I promise,” he says.

  I stand on my tiptoes and kiss him, one soft kiss on the lips that I swear to myself I will never lose the feeling of. I try to record it in my brain and on my skin, in that moment. Then Roscoe starts fidgeting, and a mosquito bites me on the cheek, and I step back down onto my heels. The kiss is already just a memory, even while Pete is still standing in front of me.

  When he drives away, I turn to come inside. My aunt and uncle are sitting on the gold couch, eating pieces of what looks like pepperoni.

  “Alpaca sausage,” says Aunt Lisa, holding out a piece for me. “S’good.”

  “Thanks,” I say, handing it to Roscoe, who gobbles it down. I’m composing a list in my head of the normal-life things that need doing now that we are home: wash my school uniform, Ben’s school uniform; put my floral dress in the dry cleaning pile; get dog food; get human food; get cell phone turned back on; get bills paid. Prepare, mentally, for lacrosse practices and seeing Muffies and Annes with bright futures and bright presents before them. I wonder if Pete will be in school, and if he is, what we will be to each other.

  I walk to the kitchen counter to examine the pile of mail splayed on the granite. Bills, bills, magazine offers. A slim envelope from Berkeley. I open it. “We regret to inform you …” I put the letter down. No California. No escape. Maybe I will go to the University of Rhode Island and become a marine biologist after all. I can keep an eye on Molly there, if she’s speaking with me.

  That is if URI will even have me. If we’d even have the money to pay for it, without Dad’s job or Mom’s freelance income, or bribes having been paid. I wish I had money and could just drift off to Europe. I would like to see the Stonehenge of Sweden, I think. I will have to stop by Lee’s tomorrow to ask her if I can still come work for her. I hope I am okay as a waitress. But will we even get to stay here? Will we have to move? Are we still in danger? If we are, then who is trying to hurt us?

  Dad comes out of the bathroom wiping his hands on his pants. His eyes meet mine.

  “Why?” I ask him.

  He gives me a sad half-smile, opens his arms. I step in for a hug. Dad kisses the top of my head. He stopped being really affectionate when I was younger. Maybe I’m the one who stopped it. I’ve missed him.

  “You smell like smoke,” he says.

  “I know, I need to shower,” I say.

  “You were brave,” he says. “You should be proud. You are strong. I knew you would be. Don’t let yourself get bored, baby girl. Don’t trap yourself too young, with babies and mortgages. Husbands.”

  “But you think I should go to college so I can meet a husband,” I say. “I saw your email to your Individualists.”

  “Well, okay. But I didn’t mean it like that,” he says. “I just … I don’t want you to be unfulfilled. Mundanity isn’t good for people like you. Or your mother. You understand, Zoey, your mother didn’t do what she did because she needed the money. Not at first. Okay? Do you understand?”

  And suddenly I do understand. All my life, I thought I was like Dad. Weird, quiet, awkward, short, messy, disorganized, into peanut butter sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and having a strong dislike for organized activities.

  But maybe it’s not Dad who I’m like. Maybe it’s Mom. My insouciantly dressed, murdered mother who has left us like this. My interesting, slow-acting-poison specialist mother, who found our home life so wretched that she became a murderer just to be less bored. Who then got herself killed and Dad kidnapped. And put me and Ben and Roscoe in danger. And left me to fix it.

  But I did. I fixed it. I wish I could talk to my mom about fixing it. I wish I could talk to her about Pete. And about why she became a slow-acting poison specialist. I wonder if her ghost will visit me and explain. I hope it will. I’d like to know how all this happened. I’d like to know her. It seems unlikely. I haven’t dreamed of her much at all, and when I have, she and I haven’t been chatty.

  And I still haven’t seen any solid evidence that would lead me to believe ghosts actually exist, besides, you know, my brother being visited by hers on a regular basis. But also, I might just be past being surprised by anything. Ben told me it was statistically impossible we’d find Roscoe again. And now look at us. Anything could happen next. I mean, it really could.

  “You want takeout, sweetie?” Dad asks.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Pizza?” says Dad. I’d been hungry
for Lee’s. But now pizza sounds fine. Pizza, shower, sleep. Then life, I guess. A life where I finish high school, get through a handful more lacrosse games without working up a sweat, maybe find out if Pete and I like each other when we aren’t on the hunt for our criminally inclined parents, and then, who knows.

  But first this. “So, we found something last night,” says Aunt Lisa, putting down her bag of alpaca sausage on the table. Roscoe immediately hops over to sniff it. He’s licking his lips. “Don’t know if it’s important or not. Found it in an air duct. Noticed when we turned the heat on last night. It burned a little. Brr, it gets colder in Virginia than you’d think, and I’m a New England girl!”

  “Where is it?” I ask.

  “Right here,” she says, pulling a Ziploc out of her bag. I walk over to take it from her and instantly know what I’m looking at.

  “Ben, come with me,” I say, going upstairs to my room.

  “I’m reading,” he says.

  “Come with me,” I say.

  “You’re too bossy,” he says, but follows this time.

  When we get to my room, I turn on the light that makes the sea creatures swim across my walls. Take off the crusty, worn army jacket. Put the gun in my bedside table, then open the bag, which is filled with shreds of paper, charred and browned in places, with bits of my mother’s handwriting on them. I forgot what terrible handwriting she had. She’d write notes and lists that only our family could read. Outsiders would look and say, “Julia, you should have been a doctor!” And she’d laugh, say, “I can’t stand blood.”

  Thinking of her saying that brings quick tears to my eyes. Mom couldn’t stand blood, but she was a killer and I want desperately to know where she got the idea to do this, and if it was hard to kill people. If they knew that she was killing them. How much she got paid to do it. If she liked doing it. If she loved me, and Dad, and Ben. If she was like me when she was my age. If she sees herself in me.

  I pull out one scrap, with initials K.L. and a bit of an address. Another piece has 45 Neptune Drive, and the date 4/13 on it, but I can’t make out the year.