by Jeyn Roberts
I’d be grinning at him in amusement if it weren’t for the fact that this is supposed to be serious.
“Faye?”
I look away from Aggett and see that both Gazer and Daily are staring at me.
“Um … yeah?”
“Where were you last night?” Daily asks again.
“I was home,” I say. “Here. All night.”
I’ve decided to lie. Might as well go all out.
Daily opens up his notebook and flips through a few pages until he finds what he’s looking for. “We’ve got a report of a party last night. A girl matching your description did some damage there. Do you know anything about that?”
“What kind of damage?” I ask.
“Seems like there was a fight,” Daily says, and I can hear the amusement in his voice. “This girl took on a few drug dealers. Kicked their asses halfway across the room if you’ll pardon my language.” He laughs. “Never thought I’d live to hear a story like that. Gotta wonder what these kids are smoking these days.”
“Really?” I say looking straight at him. I don’t dare glance over at Gazer. I won’t be able to keep a straight face if I do. “Wow.”
“One of the dealers ended up dead,” he says, and I immediately lose the smile.
“I’m sorry, officers,” Gazer interrupts. “What does this have to do with Faye?”
“A few kids mentioned her name,” Daily says. “Personally, I think it sounds impossible, but we have to follow all leads, as you remember.”
Gazer nods and I realize he must know these cops. At least Daily. He can’t possibly know Aggett; he’s too young. But Gazer probably worked with Daily back in the day before he turned in his badge. This could be good on my behalf. If Daily respects Gazer enough, he might not follow this lead through as much as he would someone else. I can only cross my fingers and hope.
“Anyway,” Daily says. “We’re just checking things out.” He turns to Gazer and turns his pen around a few times in his fingers. “Can you confirm she was here last night?”
“Yes, Faye was with me,” Gazer says, and it takes all my strength to keep from jumping off the chair and hugging him.
Daily writes a few words in his notebook. “Figured as much. Crazy party if you ask me. These kids today are nuts. Way different from back in our days. Wouldn’t have dared to do any of the crap they pull. Most of ’em were whacked out on booze. From what I heard, a bunch were stoned too. Not the hard stuff, thank God. Found some weed in the bushes, though. Drop and dash.”
“What about the guy who died?” I ask. I look over at Aggett and he’s still staring at the pews. He’s managed to take out his notebook to look like he’s paying attention, but it remains untouched.
“Hit by a car,” Daily says. “Happened after the party broke up.”
“Oh,” I say, and inside I’m jumping with joy. Yes, it was an accident and no, even if they could place me at the scene, I still wouldn’t be charged with anything. But at least I’ve still managed to remain hidden. Even if this gets back to Rufus, there will be no mention of my name.
“Anyone I know?” Gazer asks.
“John Sheffield,” Daily says. “You remember him, right? Goes by the name of Trank? Back in the day. Think you ran him in a few times.”
“Yeah, I remember him,” Gazer says. “Bad blood.”
“Yep,” Daily says. “No great loss. We should be thanking the poor fool that creamed him. I can guarantee there isn’t going to be a big search for the hit-and-run. Should give the idiot that killed him a medal.”
Gazer nods.
“Anyway …” Daily stands up and all his weight goes along with him. There’s a dent from where he sat on the couch. “We should get going. It was good seeing you again, Gazer. Sorry to put you to any trouble. You should come down and have some beers with us sometime. Miss having you around.”
“Thank you,” Gazer says. “Maybe I will.”
I lead the officers toward the front door. It’s agonizingly slow because Daily wants to chat a bit more with Gazer. They talk about people they both know. Officers who have retired or died in the line of duty. It’s not a happy conversation but Gazer says all the right things to push them along.
I open the door and the cops step outside.
“How can you live here?” Aggett asks.
I’m actually surprised it took him so long to ask.
“It’s home,” I say.
“You couldn’t pay me anything to stay here,” Aggett says with a smile. “This place just creeps me right out.”
I laugh and give him my sweetest smile. “I’m used to it. I’ve never known anything else.”
They leave and Gazer closes the door. It’s only then that I notice his hands are shaking.
“Go to your room,” he says. “I don’t even want to see you right now. I’ll come talk to you once I’ve calmed down.”
I’d apologize but we both know that would just piss him off more. I look at Gazer’s face and I can’t remember ever seeing him look this angry before. I don’t question it. Turning, I flee to the stairs and head upstairs into the darkness of my bedroom.
Ten
“What were you thinking? Do you have any idea what kind of trouble you could have gotten into last night?”
Gazer is still fuming. To give him credit, he did wait a few hours before coming up to punish me. I say punish, because it’s obvious he doesn’t care to hear my side of the story. He’s been yelling at me for the past ten minutes and there’s no sign of slowing down. I sit on the bed and watch him fume. I deserve this. He’s right to be angry.
He’s right about many things.
Gazer stops his ranting and finally sits down on the bed across from me. The light from the bedside table reflects off the side of his face and he looks old at this angle. But he’s not old. Gazer’s in his late thirties, hardly ancient. But some things age a person, forcing him to wither on the inside. With the light glowing dimly in the dark bedroom, he looks ninety. Tired. Gazer is tired. Why haven’t I noticed this before? Am I really that selfish that I haven’t spent enough time worrying about him?
“I understand,” he says. “I know you probably think I don’t and there’s some truth behind that too. I have no idea what it feels like to be you. God knows I’ve tried. We’ve both shared our own personal hells. I wish I could be more understanding of yours.”
“It’s not that,” I say.
“And it’s not fair that you have to grow up in a world that won’t let you be normal,” he continues. “I can’t help but wonder if you would have turned happier. Less angry. Maybe if you’d been allowed a normal teenage life, you might have given up on these revenge ideas. Time only heals all wounds if you’re allowed to move on. I was wrong. I never should have sent you to that school. I should have kept you home. Maybe then you wouldn’t have to follow all those stupid rules. Maybe we should pull you out. I might be able to find a tutor to help finish off the year. It’ll cost more but maybe we can find a way around it.”
“No,” I say. “School is good. I have to graduate.”
“You’re not happy there,” he says.
“Yes, I am,” I say, and I’m a little surprised when I realize it’s true.
“Maybe we can find a way to add a little normalcy to your life,” Gazer says. “We can try to work around some of the rules so you can do some crazy kid stuff. Go to the mall with friends. These girls who invited you to the party, perhaps?”
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” I say. I give him a small smile and grab my pillow, placing it between my legs and resting my body against it. “Those girls aren’t my friends. I was only invited because they knew I could fight.”
“What do you mean?”
I tell Gazer everything, starting with the original fight with Trevor and how it led up to the bet. I don’t tell him about the money, tho
ugh. I still don’t think he’d approve of me accepting the thousand dollars. So I just leave that part out along with the threat I made to Jesse about giving me a chunk of his winnings.
“I’m sorry, Faye,” he says when I’m done. “That was a terrible trick they played on you. But on the bright side, they’ll probably leave you alone now that they know you can kick their ass at any given moment.”
I smother a laugh in my pillow. “It sucks, though,” I say. “I almost felt like I had a friend. It’s been so long. I have you, but no offense, you’re not really the person to talk to about girl things. I didn’t realize I was that type either. But I guess you can take the girl and give her weapons and stuff but somewhere deep inside she still wants to wear makeup and paint her toes pink.”
Gazer nods. “Hold on a second, I’ll be right back.”
He leaves the bedroom and I’m left alone to wait. I toss the pillow against the wall as hard as I can and then pick it up again. This is one of those times where I wish I had a teddy bear or something similar to abuse. Isn’t that what girls my age are supposed to do? Cuddle stuffed animals when they’re sad and then write in their diaries or something?
I’m not going to sit here and whine about how the world owes me and that I’ve been cheated out of a normal life. I’ve never had that defeatist attitude and I’m not going to start now. I get up and go over to the window and pull back the dusty curtains. It’s a cold day. The clouds are hanging low in the sky, threatening to rain, but I can see a single beam of sunlight trying to force its way down to warm the earth. I look at the street below and search around, wondering if Chael is out there watching me. The thought warms me a little.
I’m excited to see him again even if I don’t want to admit it. I finally think I know the right questions to ask him.
Gazer comes back with a small box in his hands. He crosses the room and places it in my palm. “For you,” he says. “It belonged to my mother. I planned on giving it to my daughter and that means you now.”
“What is it?”
“Open it and find out.”
I lift the box lid and look inside. A small pendant, slightly tarnished, lies on soft pink silk. It’s in the shape of a circle with a cross in the middle, and there are silver bands intertwined tightly to form a tiny design in each corner.
“It’s a Celtic knot,” Gazer says. “It symbolizes protection.” He points to the top right corner of the pendant. “It contains all four elements. Earth, wind, fire, and water. If you wear it, you’ll always be safe.”
“It’s beautiful,” I say. I take it out of the box and the long chain tumbles down through my fingers.
I bring it up and over my head. The chain is long enough that I don’t have to undo the clasp. The pendant rests just above my breasts and I pick it up again once it’s on.
“If anyone needs protection, it’s you,” Gazer says with a smile. “I meant to give it to you when you graduate, but I think you need it now.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“On that note,” Gazer says, “I’m going to go do some reading. If you go out tonight, promise not to get the police involved.”
“It’s a given,” I say.
Gazer gets up to go back downstairs. He rubs his hands along his pants before heading out the door. “Wear your warmer jacket. I hear it’s going to rain.”
And that’s it. He’s gone and I’m sitting on the bed realizing that he really does understand me sometimes. It just sucks that our situation is so different from everyone else’s. Even though Gazer tries to protect me, he knows there’s nothing he can do to make me change my mind. By giving me the necklace, he’s setting me free.
I think this is probably the closest we’ve ever gotten to a real father/daughter talk. Thank goodness he didn’t try to talk to me about sex or something equally embarrassing.
Either way, I think we both agree that once in a while it’s nice to be normal.
I’m sitting at the beach. Okay, not the beach. But I’m on a big fluffy towel with a bright sun in the middle and I’m surrounded by vivid colors of pink, blue, and purple. I lie down on my back and look up at the ceiling, imagining that it’s a bright blue sky with one or two puffy clouds floating above me. If I try really hard, I can almost hear the sound of the surf as it crashes against the sand. The taste of saltwater in the air. The peaceful breeze against my face.
Almost.
We’re in my house and it’s raining outside for the fifth day in a row. Our parents are both at work. I told Christian that I wished we could go to the beach because the water is warm and the sun is much better than the rain. At the beach you can run around barefoot and only have to worry about stepping on sharp seashells. Christian agreed and said it’s a perfect day to go swimming, although neither of us has ever been near a lake or the ocean. We’ve never learned to swim either.
Since we can’t go to the beach, Christian brought the ocean to us. We’ve moved the stained couch into the corner and placed the coffee table on top of it. We picked up all the newspapers and magazines from the floor and tossed them in the recycling bin. Christian ran back to his house while I finished clearing a big spot for us to have our picnic. By the time he returns, I’ve managed to find some leftover lunch meat and cheese from the fridge and I’ve turned an empty cereal box into a picnic basket. I fill it with some crackers and grab some empty Pepsi bottles from the recycling bin. Filling them with water, we will pretend they are beer and Christian and I will get make-believe drunk.
Christian has found a bonanza of junk back at his place to create our afternoon getaway. He’s spread out the beach towel and he even found an old washtub that is big enough for me to sit in. We take turns going from the kitchen with pitchers of water until the tub is filled. Our beach is complete.
We put on our summer shorts and shirts and sit down to our feast. We eat the crackers, tossing the crumbs at imaginary seagulls. I sit in the tub, squealing because the water is cold, and Christian rushes over and pulls me out, pretending to be a lifeguard. Water trails across the carpet, turning the dirty pink roses a deeper shade of sogginess.
I’m thankful my mother won’t be home until much later because she’d never approve of the mess.
Afterward, we lie down on our backs and stare up at the ceiling and I think I’m the happiest girl in the world. Christian reaches over and gives me a kiss on the cheek. Just a friendly kiss, nothing more, but it’s enough to make me wish that when I grow older we can live in a place like our imagination and every day will be warm and peaceful.
I miss being innocent.
I wake from the dream and the rain is pounding on my window. It’s a little after eight and I’m surprised that Gazer didn’t call me down to dinner. He probably figured I needed the sleep after last night.
I reach over to the bedside table and pick up the photograph. I stare at Christian’s face, trying to imagine what he’d look like today. It’s been six years. He’d be nineteen now and probably working alongside his father at the factory. Or maybe he would have gone to school like he wanted and become somebody important. He wanted to get an education and his parents supported him. But in all honesty, things like that don’t work out the way we plan. It’s most likely he would have ended up with the industrial job.
But at least he would have been alive.
Would I still have loved him?
I look at his smile and his dark hair and think about how soft his lips were when he kissed my cheek. I hate the days when I dream of the past. These are memories I no longer want to revisit but my subconscious seems to like torturing me.
I put the picture back down on the dresser and go seek out some warmer clothes. As I get dressed, I can’t help thinking that Christian would look a lot like Chael.
Hell, he’d look exactly like Chael.
Speaking of Chael, I don’t see him. I wander the streets but they’re empty of his pr
esence. I wander down by the burned-out grocery store,. I go by the coffee shop and take a peek inside. I even spend more than an hour outside the bar, though I know Rufus isn’t inside. But no Chael.
He doesn’t want me to find him tonight.
It’s a slow Saturday night. The rain is heavy and most people have retreated to the comfort of their homes. Even the soapbox preacher and his entourage are missing in action tonight. The bars look pathetically empty too. Isn’t there a sad song about not wanting to drink alone in the rain? I don’t see the girl with her umbrella and soggy flyers. Finally, after a few hours of empty wandering, I’m on my way back, heading slowly toward home, when the boy comes up to me. It takes me a second to recognize him; he’s the gutter rat from several nights ago. The one who saw his grandmother dancing in a sky of Heam-colored rainbows. He’d been with that girl I saved. What was her name? Beth. I can’t believe I almost forgot. I should have been thinking more about her but I’ve been so busy. I wonder how she’s dealing with her newfound hell.
“Can you come with me?” he asks. He’s breathing heavily and his face is flushed,like he’s been running for a while. He leans over and starts coughing for several minutes and I can’t help wondering when he used his lungs last.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, once the hacking spell passes.
“It’s Beth,” he says. He turns and spits out a lungful of phlegm. “You need to talk to her. She’s going to kill herself.”
