7 Souls

by Barnabas Miller; Jordan Orlando

  Now, crossing Ninetieth Street, coolly returning the avid stare of a reasonably cute young businessman who was walking in the other direction, Mary tried to tell herself she felt fine. Men looked at her so constantly, so dependably, that their attention was really only notable when she wasn’t getting it, or when she was getting the wrong kind, like during that horrible Crate and Barrel moment—a memory she was determined to permanently expunge. She was never going to tell anyone about that.

  But what happened last night?

  A flock of birds circled silently in the featureless sky. The air was wet and still, with a faint scent of rain to come.

  Forget it. Whatever it was, it’s over now.

  On the corner of Eighty-second Street, she checked her BlackBerry again—still no birthday texts or e-mails—and leaned to inspect her lipstick one last time in the mirrored window of a parked Porsche Cayenne. Then she took a deep breath, tried to clear her head, and turned the corner, ready to face the day.

  CHADWICK STUDENTS WERE SPREAD out across the entire block like grazing cattle, smoking cigarettes, making phone calls, leaning against the granite walls of the neighboring apartment buildings and sitting Indian style against the tall iron gates of the school, screaming with laughter and, no doubt, spouting off about Eastern philosophy and the sociopolitical ramifications of Britney’s latest comeback.

  Mary strode confidently down the sidewalk, approaching the crowd, trying to look completely disinterested while she furtively scanned the faces for her friends. Any minute now they would see her coming—one by one, the heads would turn, as they always did: a chain reaction of avid male eyes and envious female eyes as the one and only Mary Shayne arrived, fashionably late, flawlessly dressed as usual.

  And then the birthday greetings will start. She remembered what it had been like, a year before—the nonstop attention of her adoring fans had begun moments after her arrival at school: Melanie Kurzweil ran up and poured a small bag of Hershey’s Kisses into her hand; “Giant Brian” Moss had grabbed her from behind and given her a ticklish birthday kiss on the back of the neck; even the eternally depressed Darin Evigan broke his two straight days of black-turtlenecked silence to hum her an emo rendition of “Happy Birthday” (she had pressed her hand to her heart and complimented his “haunting” voice). It started immediately and continued all day long.

  But now, as she waded into the thick sidewalk crowd, nobody was looking at her.

  Nobody acknowledged her at all. There were a couple of glances from students who blocked her path—they spared her a look as they got out of her way—but basically nothing. All that stress over her clothes, and it didn’t seem to make any difference.

  The overcast sky shone overhead, cold and white. The front gates of the school—where the usual Zac Efron wannabes and bargain-basement Hayden Panettieres sat with their backs against the wrought iron, trying to look sullen and disaffected—were veiled in dark shadows. Mary caught herself shivering. The expensive fabric of her T-shirt rubbed painfully against the raw scratches on her lower back, making her squirm—she was twisting her body around, reaching beneath her book bag to rub her tender skin when she saw him, and froze.

  Trick.

  Patrick Dawes, devoted boyfriend, was standing right in front of her. Somehow, she had managed not to see him at all until the last moment. He was wearing a vintage Cambridge University blazer over an A&F hoodie with extra-low-slung jeans, which exposed the slim trail of light blond hairs that ran down from his navel, disappearing behind the taut elastic waistband of his Calvins. He stood squarely on both feet, fingers in his jeans pockets, steel TAG Heuer glinting on his wrist. It was impossible to read his expression: his dark brown eyes gazed coolly at her, as if she wasn’t his girlfriend—as if she was a Starbucks barista who’d just asked him how she could help him.

  He was still so unbearably beautiful. That’s what had made Patrick such a maddening (but exciting) puzzle in her life during the three months they’d been together. Those little blond Greek-god curls, those naturally golden eyebrows, that flawlessly sculpted, lean, sinewy body—his beauty was completely impervious to his C-grade personality. No matter how tiresome he could be, no matter what he’d done to piss her off, she still felt that bolt of sugar-sweet electricity run through her chest whenever she saw him.

  Something’s wrong, Mary thought. She knew it, immediately; there was just no question about it. Did someone die?

  But it wasn’t that. He hadn’t been crying; he didn’t look stressed at all. He looked fine—rested, even, which was unusual; his telltale reddened eyes usually betrayed his pot-related insomnia and fatigue, marring his classical features in a way that was only visible up close. But not today: he looked like he’d gotten nine hours of sleep and run ten miles. Mary began to feel a tightness in her stomach, as if the day’s bleak chill was seeping into her body and making her shiver with nervousness.

  “Trick?”

  She hadn’t wanted to speak first. She had wanted to stand there and smirk prettily as he unveiled a turquoise Tiffany’s box with a milky white ribbon, or a pair of Fall Out Boy tickets, or even a single daisy from behind his back; she wanted him to kiss her deep and hard in front of the whole school and whisper happy birthday in her ear. But he just stood there, looking at her. His eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn’t move.

  “Come on.” Trick jerked his head, beckoning her down the street. “Let’s walk.”

  “Walk?” Mary had completely lost her composure. The sea of kids around them was still jostling her, talking and texting and wandering from place to place, but their voices seemed to change, to dissolve into a mounting roar like an approaching subway … and Mary realized that she was more than nervous: she was frightened. Something was definitely up. “Where do you—”

  The scream she heard next, the desperate, distant voice behind her, made Mary flinch as if jumper cables attached to a car battery had suddenly been jammed against her shoulders.

  “Mary!”

  A high male voice—a teenager’s voice, calling her name.

  “Mary! Mary!” it repeated. The fear, the desperation in the voice nearly made her forget to breathe. Everyone was looking, craning their necks to peer behind her.

  Mary turned and looked. Through the crowd, she could see someone—a small figure—running right toward her, but could only make out thin, sandy blond hair and a dark Windbreaker.

  “Mary, look out!” the boy screamed. “Look out, you’re in danger!”

  The crowd was moving now, pulling back in shock, eyes and mouths wide. Mary finally saw who was screaming her name.

  Scott Sanders.

  In another context it would have been funny: short, plump Scott Sanders, her physics buddy, her savior in so many classes and before so many tests, his plain, kind face distorted in wild-eyed, crimson-tinted fear, his gut visibly swinging up and down as he ran clumsily toward her. His glasses tumbled from his face, clattering to the sidewalk as he rushed at her like a bull charging a matador, his unbrushed hair corkscrewed around his head like he’d stumbled out of bed and run all the way to school.

  But it wasn’t funny at all.

  “Mary, for Christ’s sake—” Scott was no athlete; he couldn’t run and scream at the same time without stumbling and panting. His book bag was flying up and down behind him like a red canvas piston. “Mary, you’ve got to listen—you’re in serious danger—”

  And then they stopped him. It wasn’t the whole Chadwick football team, just a few of the linebackers (who, as usual, had been lounging against the fence punching each other in the arms); they moved fast, darting forward with their muscular arms raised, converging on Scott as he propelled himself down the sidewalk like a runaway train headed straight for Mary.

  “Hey, assface,” Pete Schocken snapped—he had gotten there first, and he moved his tall, thick body directly in Scott’s path so that Scott slammed into his raised arms like a thrown garbage bag smashing against a tree. “What the hell, man?”

  The
crowd was still staring—some at Scott, some at Mary—and for once, she didn’t want their eyes on her at all.

  “Mary, please listen, you’ve got to get out of—”

  The smacking sound of Pete’s open hand slapping Scott’s face echoed like a gunshot and the crowd of students gasped. The other linebackers had flanked Scott—this was what they did, after all; they could intercept downfield rollouts without even thinking—and he was so hopelessly overmatched it was hard to even look. Scott’s pudgy, waving hand was visible for one second, silhouetted against the distant sky, before the linebackers converged and he was invisible. “Chill out, you goddamned freak,” Billy Nelson snapped—and then everyone was talking at once, the crowd converging on the fight, racing across the wide sidewalk.

  “Mary, run!” Scott screamed. “Please listen! You’ve got to—Ow!”

  Mary barely saw Scott go down, through the forest of arms and legs and bodies that blocked her view. She could hear the sliding thump as Scott dropped to the sidewalk, his book bag slipping from his shoulder and tumbling to the ground. She was hyperventilating. She could feel her pulse in her throat, clicking like a metronome. The fear was so intense that she weakened and nearly lost her balance; she might have fallen, but someone banged against her in a rush toward Scott and the linebackers, knocking her back upright.

  “Come on.” A hand grabbed her shoulder, making her flinch again. It was Trick, pulling her away. “Let’s talk.”

  “But—” Mary turned her head to stare at him, strands of hair flicking against her cheek. Patrick didn’t seem concerned about what was happening to Scott, ten feet away. It was like Mary always got insane screaming warnings from geeks on the sidewalk—like it was so routine it didn’t even bear mentioning. “Patrick, Jesus, look what they’re doing to Scott! Why did he—”

  “Come on,” Patrick repeated gravely. His hand was still on her shoulder; his face was set in a tight, impenetrable mask. “We’ve got to have a conversation.”

  “Let go of me,” Mary said, squirming and pulling out of his grip. Her headache was coming back and the queasy feeling in her stomach was making her tremble. So much adrenaline had flowed into her bloodstream so quickly that she felt like she was drunk. “Patrick, Jesus, what the hell is your problem?”

  “Mary, run!” Scott called out one last time.

  Trick didn’t seem to care, or even notice. He was already walking east, smoothly extracting a Dunhill from his scratched gold cigarette case, drawing it out with his sexy lips while he whipped out his engraved silver lighter with his other hand—a practiced movement that she had probably see him do a thousand times. A cloud of exotic smoke billowed from his nose as he exhaled, still walking away from the school’s gates, as if expecting her to follow.

  Mary had never seen Trick act like this. Usually, he was pleasantly chatty in the morning, in his low-key, medium-cool way, telling stories about some pathetic coked-up lawyer he’d met at an after-hours bar or some cheesy peach-fuzzed entrepreneur who wanted him to invest in an oxygen nightclub for teens. Now it was like he’d joined the Secret Service.

  “Trick?” Mary asked, struggling to keep up with his long-legged strides. “Trick? What the hell—why are you being so weird?”

  He looked at her. “Weird how?”

  Mary, run! Scott’s shriek was still ringing in her ears.

  “Weird, like—like this,” Mary said helplessly. “Come on, Patrick, seriously—what’s the joke?”

  “No joke.”

  It’s a conspiracy, she thought suddenly. Sure—it’s a birthday thing.

  That had to be it. Everyone had conspiracy theories on their birthdays. It was natural; it was routine—you spent the whole day waiting for somebody to surprise you.

  But she didn’t believe it. Not really; not for one second. The way Scott had screamed … it wasn’t a game; it couldn’t have been.

  “All right,” Trick muttered, slowing as they got past the last stragglers, away from the Chadwick crowd and toward a flock of baby strollers steered by sinewy yoga moms or Jamaican nannies. “Here’s as good a place as any.”

  “As good a place—” Mary didn’t know what he was talking about, but she didn’t like it one bit. She still felt dizzy. A cloud of Dunhill smoke blew across her face, straight from Trick’s nostrils. Usually, Trick was very careful to blow smoke away from her, but now he was letting the wind decide. “Trick, seriously, you’re freaking me out. What the hell is wrong with you? Are you high? Are you high right now? Because that would be—”

  “Not high.” Patrick smiled humorlessly down at her. “In fact, I think I’m seeing things more clearly than I ever did before in my life.”

  “What—”

  “That’s why I want to talk to you.”

  This wasn’t just a hangover. It was different, somehow. She had been trying to ignore how she felt, but there was no getting around it anymore. Something was wrong.

  I’ve got the flu, she thought dismally. I’ve got some kind of bug—something you get from sleeping naked in a climate-controlled furniture store.

  (Mary, you’ve got to listen—you’re in serious danger—)

  Whatever it was, Mary was beginning to realize it wasn’t getting better. It was getting worse, more noticeable. The noises and scents of her surroundings seemed unusually strong, unusually acute. Her heart was still racing, she realized—and a soft, quiet dread was beginning to grow inside her.

  This is the moment, Mary told herself. He’s going to suddenly smile and then pull out some plane tickets—he’s going to laugh at my reaction and hug me and kiss me, and then, later, when we’re all jammed in around a club table sharing bottle service, he’ll keep telling Joon and Amy how scared I looked.

  But Patrick didn’t do anything like that.

  “It’s time to wake up,” Trick told her. “It’s time to face facts.”

  “What—?” Mary gazed into his brown eyes. That cold feeling in her stomach wouldn’t go away. “What the hell—Okay, what’s wrong? Just tell me now so we can have a normal day.”

  “A normal day?” Patrick smiled again, slightly, with one side of his mouth. “You think this is a ‘normal day’? Is that really what you think?”

  I think it’s my birthday, Mary thought angrily. What the hell do you think it is?

  “I think you’re on another fucking planet and you’d better return to earth this instant, or—”

  “Or what?” Trick’s face wasn’t registering any emotion. His eyes were blank. “Or you’ll do what? What are you going to do to me, exactly?”

  “Excuse me?” Mary’s eyes widened. “Patrick, anytime you want to snap out of this … this thing you’re doing and tell me why I should—”

  “You’re boring.” Patrick looked deep into her eyes. “You’re so fucking boring, it’s starting to hurt my head. Don’t talk unless you have something interesting to say, okay?”

  She couldn’t believe it. How dare he talk to me this way? On my birthday? She still couldn’t believe this was actually happening—that this avalanche had landed on her so quickly. And there was something else—she was suddenly picturing something. A dark image, murky and unrecognizable, floated into her head right at that moment.

  “Don’t act offended,” Patrick went on, still maddeningly calm. “Seriously, I’ve seen that show before.”

  “You are such an asshole!” she snapped uncontrollably. She could feel tears welling. “You’re such a fucked-up asshole! What is the matter with you?”

  “Oh, hell, yes!” Trick pumped his fists as he raised his voice. The effect was not funny in the least. “Thank you! Thank you for calling me by my actual name! ‘Asshole’! Hey, here’s a question for you. If I’m such an asshole, then why are you going out with me?”

  “Wh-what?”

  Mary couldn’t believe her ears. The owner of the corner candy store had come outside to watch the pretty teenagers’ drama unfold—he was probably one of those forty-something pervos who liked to watch Gossip Girl. All h
e needed was a remote control and some microwave popcorn for the show.

  The image in her head wasn’t going away. Mary could see a darkening evening sky, with bands of fading light streaked across the horizon. A vast nighttime sky and the sharp edges of a shape in front of her, across a pale white clearing—a shape like a building, a barn, maybe—tall and wide, looming over her.

  “You heard me just fine,” Patrick said, looking away as he dropped his half-smoked Dunhill and stamped it out. “Why would you want to go out with me?”

  He wanted to talk, she remembered. The dread in her stomach had spread to her throat. He led me down here because he wanted to have a conversation in private.

  Are you really doing what I think you’re doing, Patrick?

  She stared into Patrick’s eyes and suddenly wanted him to grab her and kiss her like he’d always done, cupping her slim face in one hand and sliding the other hand up the small of her back, beneath her T-shirt, fingers probing her bare skin, then grabbing the elastic of her panties just below the waistband of her jeans.

  Are you breaking up with me?

  It was insane, unthinkable.

  “Can’t think of any reasons, can you?” Patrick said quietly. “Because I really can’t either.”

  Mary felt her hot eyes itching, her vision blurring as she stared back at Patrick. Is this the same boy? she wondered. Is this the boy I fell for? She remembered how they’d started, like it was yesterday: that December night at Rockefeller Center, where the gang always had their traditional pre-Christmas skate, going back years. Everyone was there, even Patrick, although he and Joon were all but broken up by then. Mary remembered the terrible cold she’d had, her determination to push through the evening for old times’ sake. She’d kept mounds of snotty Kleenex buried in the pockets of her white parka, hoping no one would notice her slow, unsightly death by phlegm. But Patrick noticed—he’d seen her sneezing like an actor in an antihistamine commercial, and after another huge fight with Joon, he’d appeared as Mary was leaving the rink, rising from the sunroof of a stretch limo and whisking her to Katz’s Deli for emergency chicken soup and noodle pudding. They spent the whole night there, trying to figure out how to patch up his relationship with Joonie.