I memorized the way I wiped her eyes with my calloused thumbs. I memorized the gloss on her lips and how they tasted like strawberries.
I memorized the way her curly hair felt under my fingers, and that while I would’ve expected that much perm to feel fried, the hair itself felt soft and smooth.
I memorized how, when I brushed her forehead with my lips, the darkness around us didn’t seem so deep.
I knew then what made her an Old Girl, and it had nothing to do with what she wore or who she hung out with, and everything to do with who she was. Jaime was the girl who gave you the shirt off her back when your nose was ripped up.
I had lifted her sweater high enough that I could feel the soft skin around her waist, when she broke away.
Too fast? I thought.
Then I saw what she saw.
Evan was standing at the back door. He did not look happy.
“I came to tell you that Crock just got the call. We’re number two on the call sheet for the PfefferFest. The only ones higher are the Crazy 8s.”
He turned away and slammed the door behind him.
Slowly, the hops smell crept into the store again.
I ran after Ev but turned back to take one last look at Jaime. She nodded.
We’d had our moment.
Now I had to deal with the Marr.
THE TEMPERATURE IN THE STORE dropped twenty degrees. Outside the night grew deeper, as if something had swallowed the stars.
Noah, I heard the Marr hiss. Relaxxx. I’m not coming for you.
I bolted up the stairs to the Maxi Pad. I didn’t see Jojo or Ziggy, and I definitely didn’t see Ev. His messenger bag lay in a heap by the front door, but Ev himself was nowhere to be found.
Sonia was gleefully chopping vegetables next to a sizzling wok. Crock was talking on the wall phone with the twisty cord. A big smile wrapped his face. They were still high from the news, clueless about what was coming.
I took a deep breath and exhaled frosty bile.
Outside the darkness hissed: Soon he’ll be all mine. I leaned out the window over the street by the Fish Grotto. No Ev below. I looked up the street to the PfefferBrau Haus. Starting at the brewery, streetlights winked out one by one.
Part of me is already inssside him.
It was coming.
I slammed the window down and ran around the Maxi Pad, closing the rest of them. Slam! Lock. Slam! Lock. Time to get us ready for a siege.
Crock saw me and hung up the phone. He walked toward me with his arms open like he expected me to run into them. “Did you hear the great news? Number two on the call sheet! Isn’t that awesome? What’s the matter, man? You don’t look too good.”
Gnawing my way out as we ssspeak.
“I’m fine.” Slam! Lock. “Where’s Ev? Is he in the bathroom?”
Sonia turned around. “Isn’t he with you guys? He went downstairs to tell you and Jaime . . .” Her eyes narrowed. She looked at her watch. “Wait—what were you and Jaime doing alone down there? The store closed a half hour ago.”
She pointed a sharp paring knife at me, but I didn’t care. If she was pissed she could have my other nostril. Shit, she could have my whole face. Just not right now. “You’ll have to ask her. I’ve gotta find Ev.”
I felt Ziggy before I saw him. He was at my right shoulder. Always on my right. He whispered: “Quickly, Noah. The alley. He’s still out there.” Right. The alley. How could I have forgotten? “The bag, son. Bring the bag! He may need it!”
I plucked Evan’s messenger bag from its spot by the door and followed Ziggy down the stairs, vaulting them three at a time.
The back exit from the store not only led to the cat pee stairwell, it led to a solid-metal outside door, so rusted and repainted and warped with age we practically needed a linebacker to slam it all the way closed. We used it to take out the trash.
I didn’t stop at the bottom of the stairs but used the momentum to ram into it. Stuck. I should’ve known. I shouldered it open and stumbled into the inky night.
I found Ev gripping the lip of the dumpster, both his eyes screwed tight, massaging his temple with his free hand. The world’s biggest thunderhead was closing in on him, reaching, curling, and uncurling. It was cold. Oh, so cold. And it whispered.
Sooo young. Sssuch talent. He’s delicious.
I reached to pry Ev’s grip off the dumpster. “Come on, man. We’ve gotta get you outta here.” I pushed his messenger bag behind my back to get a better hold on Ev’s scrawny arms.
Ev swatted me away. “No Old Girls! We promised! That was the deal!”
His right eye was really twitching now. Was he having a seizure? “Now’s not the time, Ev. We gotta go.”
“After Sonia I thought you’d learn! We agreed it was hands off! We had a pact!”
Can you hear him pop? Can you hear him explode?
The Marr was inching closer, the darkness consuming everything in its path. It didn’t come straight ahead like it was walking. It was sneakier than that. It would curl over something, say an empty bottle of Jack Daniels (this was an alley), as though it were tasting it, then retreat for a second or two, which made me think it would let that thing alone, only to come back stronger and swallow it whole.
“Pact!” Evan was still shouting at me, but I was only half paying attention to him.
“Whatever. I’m an asshole. Let’s finish this conversation inside.”
He shook me off. “Mafia, Noah. Remember Mafia? She was supposed to be the last one to die!”
I finally suctioned him from the dumpster. “Nobody’s dying here. Not tonight.”
I draped his arm around my shoulder and half carried, half dragged him back to the Maxi Pad entrance.
I rattled the doorknob. Shit! It was stuck. I kicked it. Hard. It wouldn’t give.
What now? Stand here and shout upstairs, hoping that someone would hear me and let us in? I’d just closed all the windows.
You know where I started? Where would it cause him the most pain?
Zzzt. Another, closer streetlight flickered out.
I felt chills in places I normally didn’t get chilled. My knees. My thumbs.
Ev’s whole body was racked by shivers.
I searched the street, looking for an escape, and saw a yellow halo the Marr hadn’t reached. It was on the corner. A head of golden hair atop a golden suit. He sparkled like an award. “Too late, Noah! You’ll have to run for it!” Ziggy said. “Where are your car keys?”
I patted my jacket pocket and got a reassuring jangle.
“Come on, then, son. Move it!” He motioned us toward him, unusually frantic.
“Right. Ev, let’s get you home.”
You can’t get him away in time.
I zigzagged us down the block. He wasn’t that heavy— he just wasn’t helping. Dead weight draped over my shoulder, like a really heavy leather jacket.
“All the girls,” Evan said, then grunted. “Why do you have to have all the girls?”
The Marr was closing in. I could feel it pricking my heels even through my boots. Faster. I had to go faster.
Where the hell had I parked? Were the streets always this tangled?
But there was Ziggy’s yellow head, always five paces ahead of us, always pointing where we needed to go next. “This way, Noah! Hurry!”
I kept looking over my shoulder. The third time I glanced back, I accidentally loosened my hold on Ev’s arm. He dropped, a rolling ball of pain on the sidewalk.
The Marr was so close now I could feel its cold poison creeping through my veins, freezing me from my feet up.
I knelt over Ev. “Let me see your eye,” I said.
He looked up. The whole right side of his face was twitching.
And that was when I knew.
We weren’t going to outrun the Marr. Not this time.
I patted him on the shoulder. “You’re fine, Ev. We’ll have you home soon.”
Then I stood and faced the black cloud that had been dogging us, and I
smiled. If it was going to get Evan, it was going to get me too.
Let it come.
Here are some things I learned about the Marr from the inside:
1. It doesn’t eat you up right away. It takes its time, snipping and jabbing at your flesh.
2. The unbearable pain Evan had been feeling? Inside that black cloud, I could feel it too. It was the worst I’d ever felt. And I knew pain. But the kind I knew was sharp and quick, like a gunshot. In this there was no hope of relief. It teased you for a moment, letting you go, thinking it was done, before coming in for another attack.
3. Bad as the pain was, the fear was worse. Ziggy was right. Pop you like a balloon. It whispered that we had nothing to look forward to, so we should just lie down on the sidewalk right here and give up.
That last part pissed me off. The Marr was a bully. Just like my dad.
My eyes snapped open. I was hunched over Ev, wrapped around him, trying to protect him from the worst of it.
Give up? Curl up here in a heap? No way.
I stood over Evan and closed my eyes. I didn’t expect to see anything. That wasn’t the point. I never understood anything with my eyes. I had to hear things to believe them.
That was why I started strumming chords on my jeans. I knew what we needed. An anthem.
It didn’t take long. I started humming the chorus. Just a tune—no lyrics, but to me it sounded like strength.
Nicccce try, Noah. But we both know you don’t have brain one.
I let doubt creep into my voice. I faltered. I thought about lying down next to Evan. It would be so easy, like going to sleep.
That was when I felt the lightest of touches on my shoulder, and even though it was too dark to see him, I knew Ziggy was there. He had enough confidence for all three of us. Together, we hauled Evan up and finished the chorus.
I’m standing with you
We’ll face it together
Don’t be afraid
Never be afraid
I sang the chorus over and over again to give Evan courage. To give me courage.
Something must’ve worked, because when I opened my eyes the Marr was gone. It was still cold and dark and damp, but regular Northwest-in-April damp. We could still feel the pain, but it was fading, like the afterimage of an explosion.
Ziggy, who I thought for sure would have disappeared, was still standing at my shoulder, his touch as light as feathers. He looked at me and smiled as a father would. A proud one.
Evan leaned into me. The right side of his face still looked as though it were melting off, but it was no longer twitching. “Not bad, Noah,” he said. “What was that progression again?”
Slowly, the streetlights flickered on again, one by one, as though someone flipped a switch.
Together, Ev and I hobbled to my car, counterpoint to each other, with an icon of a man always five paces ahead of us, showing us the way home.
WHEN WE PULLED UP TO EV’S HOUSE on the hill later that night, Mrs. Tillstrom was standing in the open doorway. She did not look happy. Although it was tough to tell these days if she was really mad or if it was just her eyebrows, which she’d plucked into a high arch. She looked a little like Cruella De Vil from 101 Dalmatians. She looked as though, if she could, she’d peel the skin from my back and make a coat of it.
“I’ll take it from here, Noah,” Mrs. Tillstrom said, taking Evan’s arm from me. He lurched into her embrace.
I followed them to the family room at the back of the house. It had floor-to-ceiling windows—the ones with the view of five mountains in two states. Handy to watch Mount St. Helens exploding the year before.
Yeah, the view was a bonus of living on a hillside. The drawback? According to Ev, it was erosion. I never felt it myself, but he said that after every rainstorm the floor seemed to be in a different place, so you never knew where you stood.
Mrs. Tillstrom lowered Ev onto the sofa and I pulled his boots off. He lay back while his mom smoothed his fried, dreaded hair away from his face. Meanwhile, I went into the kitchen and got a clean tea towel from the linens drawer, ran it under the cold tap, and brought it back in, careful not to drip water on the plush carpet. I’d spent so much time there I knew all the Tillstroms’ “Evan’s Sick” routines. We’d done it so much it was practically choreographed.
Not tonight. Cruella definitely wanted me gone. I could see it in the way she took the tea towel without looking at my face.
I wasn’t sure what I’d done this time that she disapproved of. Here’s a short list of possibilities:
1. I’d kept Evan out past six o’clock on a school night.
2. I’d brought him home sick.
3. I’m pretty sure we’d never paid her husband for all the times he’d sewed me up. But then again, we’d never gotten a bill.
4. Accessories. My mohawk was gone, my nose ring was gone, but I still wore a studded dog collar and leather jacket. Definitely not featured in all those fashion magazines she read.
5. Two words: wall bleaching.
While Mrs. Tillstrom sponged down Evan’s forehead, I pulled giant pill bottles from his messenger bag and arranged them on the coffee table. There was Valium, Percocet (ninety count, refills = YES), and others whose names I didn’t recognize but looked about the size of horse suppositories.
Dr. Tillstrom appeared: a lurching Scandinavian presence, glasses askew, carrying a cracked-leather doctor’s bag.
“I wasn’t sure which ones to give him,” I said, pointing to the pill bottles.
Dr. Tillstrom ignored me. He sat on a footstool and pulled a blood pressure cuff and a stethoscope from his bag. “How bad was it this time, son?” he said.
“It’s nothing, Dad.”
“It’s not nothing, Evan,” Dr. Tillstrom said, inflating the blood pressure cuff around Ev’s arm. “You have to take care of yourself. Health care is a partnership.”
Mrs. Tillstrom smoothed Ev’s hand with two carefully manicured fingers. She had to get fake nails every month because she chewed through the ones that God gave her at an alarming rate. (“You should see the real ones,” Evan once told me. “They’re all stunted and twisty and bleeding. They’re worse than yours.”)
With his family crowded around Evan, I wasn’t sure of my next move. “Is there anything else you—”
“We’ll take it from here, Noah,” Mrs. Tillstrom said, still not looking at me. “You can go home now.”
“Oh,” I said. “Are you sure I can’t—”
Mrs. Tillstrom whipped around. Definitely Cruella De Vil. For the first time, I noticed little broken blood vessels in the whites of her eyes. She was more than mad—she was barely keeping herself together.
“Go home, Noah. I’ll forgive you tomorrow. I promise. Just not tonight. There’s too much going on.”
I shrugged. “No prob,” I said, and turned to leave. I got about as far as the kitchen, then turned around. I don’t know what stopped me, other than I was tired of being a free-floating asshole.
“Just out of curiosity, forgive me for what? This time, I mean.”
“Shut up, Noah,” Evan said before his dad thrust a thermometer under his tongue.
And that was when Mrs. Tillstrom blew like Mount St. Helens. “Oh, come on, Noah! It’s not just tonight, and you know it.” She stood up and poked me in the chest. “You know what he’s been putting off and still you keep him out night after night, rehearsing for this stupid contest, which, aside from everything else, you won’t be playing because some girl was killed there!”
“HE DOESN’T KNOW!” Evan yelled. He sat up. The thermometer went flying across the room in a shower of spit. I picked it up and rinsed it under the tap in the kitchen sink.
There were so many things I wanted to apologize for, so many things I wanted to ask. But I didn’t, because they would only lead to a fight. And that’s not what a good health partnership was about, apparently.
Mrs. Tillstrom was right. It was time for me to go.
“Right,” I said, standing on
the kitchen threshold. “See you tomorrow, Ev.”
Mrs. Tillstrom had plopped herself in a Barcalounger and was staring at me with new interest.
“There’s no way,” she said. “Are you really that stupid, Noah?”
“He’s not stupid,” Ev said. “I never told him.”
She stared at me again, taking in everything from my square-toed boots to my new spiky hair. But for the first time, possibly ever, I got the idea that she was trying to look behind all that, to see what I was really made of.
“How could you not know?” she said. “It’s been three years. You two see each other every day.”
“You mean that Evan’s sick? He says it’s migraines, but they started after his appendectomy, right? That’s what’s going on? He’s having complications?”
Mrs. Tillstrom’s eyes narrowed, like here was a problem she could finally get her brain around.
“Appendectomy?” Mrs. Tillstrom said. “Appendectomy? Evan still has his appendix, Noah. He just doesn’t have a—”
“Mom!”
“Evan, honey, you swore up and down . . . Oh lord. I’ve gotten this all wrong.” She pinched the bridge of her nose with two red dragon-lady fingers.
I was beginning to see why the Tillstroms hadn’t had me to dinner in a while. I still didn’t know exactly what was going on, but it had nothing to do with my green hair, and everything to do with Evan.
Evan said, “Can you blame me, Mom? It’s embarrassing.”
“It’s not your fault,” Dr. Tillstrom said, taking off the blood pressure cuff. “You have no reason to be ashamed. It sometimes happens this way. There’s no logic to it.”
“He’s eighteen, Harald. Don’t you remember what you were like when you were eighteen?” Mrs. Tillstrom said.
“Whether he’s eighteen or not, he knows it’s time. I’ll call Dr. Rolfe. See if we can get you in, in the morning.”
Evan’s face got red and twisted. “So soon? Oh god, no. Please, Dad. I’m not ready.”
“Not ready for what?” I said.
The Rise and Fall of the Gallivanters Page 14
