by Dalya Moon
After a few blocks, we're far enough behind the others that we have some privacy, so I ask her, “Are you really taking medication now?”
“What? No. Well, I'm taking vitamins. Like Vitamin D and stuff. And a B vitamin. I don't know. But I'm not taking any anti-crazy pills if that's what you mean.”
“Oh.” We walk for a bit. “You just seem more mellow, so I thought ...”
“I've been talking to that counselor lady about stuff. It's been good. Your mom's the one taking the cuckoo pills.”
“What?”
“Yeah. She told me, about how she got really sad right after your sister left for college. She thought she'd snap out of it or whatever, but then she kept on being sad, and even having us around didn't cheer her up.”
“She told you all that?”
“She didn't tell you? Yeah, she started taking some anti-depression pills. That kind that everybody takes. Paxil, or Prozac, or P-something? I don't know. She seems happier though.”
“I guess.”
Our steps have fallen out of rhythm, so I skip on one side to get back in alignment with my cousin.
We keep walking, in silence.
I don't have to ask where we're going, because deep in my gut, I know it's the high school, and I know my new friends are the ones responsible for the graffiti that's been appearing all over the school.
I glance back in the direction of the 7-11. I should go straight back to the convenience store and call my parents for a ride. I should not go with people who are spraying graffiti, no matter how cute one of them is.
My feet feel heavy.
* * *
When we get near the school, we switch over to the unlit alleys, where the snow's piled as high as the tops of my boots. I didn't bring mitts, so I unroll the sleeves of my jacket and tuck up my fingers as best I can. We walk swiftly through several blocks' worth of houses, their un-curtained back windows illuminating yards full of slumbering gardens and swing sets. My breath fogs in front of me.
“I could go for some hot chocolate,” Josh says.
“We could go to my house,” I say.
Tick doesn't say anything, but she does frown and glance at Dana, making me realize my mistake. “I mean our house, mine and Tick's. My mom makes it on the stove, and we have this Mexican Cocoa with real chili flakes.”
“Crazy,” Josh says.
“Sounds weird, but it's amazing,” I say. “The chili flakes are hot, like cinnamon, but times ten. It sounds weird, but totally makes sense when you taste it.”
We're at the school now—specifically, the big, white exterior brick wall of the gym. The wall's basically a giant canvas, and in the summer, the Film Club shows movies on big wall, and people sit on the grass on blankets.
“Maybe not tonight,” Dana says to Ty. “Lainey's going to watch us and then tattle like a good girl. You should check her pockets for a camera.”
“Paranoid much?” Ty says to Dana. “Are there listening devices in your fillings?”
“Not funny.” She punches him in the arm hard enough for him to groan.
“Tell your cousin to go home to Mommy,” Dana says to Tick. “She can have her hot cocoa, made on the stove.”
“Be nice,” Tick says, but I've already turned and started walking away.
Dana calls after me to come back.
I keep walking, blowing on my hands to try to warm them up.
Dana yells, “Can't you take a little friendly razzing?”
I stop and call back over my shoulder, “Didn't seem that friendly.”
“Come back,” Ty says.
A wind picks up and blows right through me. I turn around and walk back to the group, saying, “Fine, but just for a few minutes, then we have to go to the pizza place. I'm freezing.”
“You're the new one,” Dana says, and she looks right at me, practically through me. Her dark brown eyes are black in this dim light, with just the security lamp on overhead and the three-quarters-full moon behind the clouds. The snow is still falling, but lightly, almost imperceptible.
“You do the honors,” Dana says, handing me the spray can. “You know what the Anarchy symbol looks like, right?”
Josh, Ty, and Tick all look at me expectantly, like this is a pop quiz and they want me to get an A+. The night is quieter than ever, with the falling snow dampening the sounds of faraway traffic.
“I've seen the Anarchy symbol. It's a big letter A in a circle. That's what you want me to paint? That's not very original.”
“We don't have the stencils to do anything better,” she says. “Quit stalling and do it. If you don't do it, we'll never be able to trust you.”
I shake the can. It's just paint. I know God is watching, but it's just paint, and it can be painted over again in a few minutes.
Ty says, “Go, Lainey, go. Shake it. Shake it up.” He makes some beat box sounds and a funny little rap that gets everyone laughing, including me.
I shake the can some more, point it at the wall, and press the button down with my finger, which is hard to do, because my hands are so cold. The paint comes out too light, and then too thick. After some test blobs, I move three steps to the right, shake the can, and try again. I spray-paint, onto the white brick wall, a blue circle the size of a medium pizza.
“Enormous,” Ty says. “They'll see that from outer space.”
My hands are damp now, even though they're cold, and my heart is racing like I just swam in a relay race.
“Hurry and finish it,” Dana says, her voice full of contempt. I'd like to turn and spray the paint all over her nice ski jacket. Instead, I finish off my artwork with two wide-set dots for eyes, and a big, cheerful smile.
“Better than Anarchy,” I say to Dana.
The smiley face needs something more, though. Teeth. I shake the can and add on two pointy little vampire teeth coming out of the smile.
Perfect.
Josh slow-claps with approval.
Things start to move, with shadows skittering up the wall.
Lights are on us, blinding me.
“Run,” Dana says, and she bolts past me, hitting me hard with her shoulder and knocking me down to my knees.
I drop the paint can and push myself up. The lights are low, coming from a car, plus now there are flashing lights too, red and blue ones, swirling. The siren howls, the shock of it nearly dropping me to my knees again.
Time passes. Seconds.
The siren stops, but the lights keep going. Whatever is sticking me to the spot releases me, and I begin to run.
A woman's voice commands me to stop, to stop running, but I keep going, faster than I thought I could.
Where are the others? Are they in front of me or behind me? I can't see anyone.
I dodge left down an alley, to where I think the others must have gone, because it's the way we came from. They aren't here, though.
I'm alone.
I crouch down next to a fence to catch my breath. Is there paint on my hands? I reach down to the snow and scrape it over my fingers painfully, until they're raw. It's dark here in the alley, but I don't think any paint got on me.
The can. My fingerprints are all over the can, along with Dana's.
A car turns in at the end of the alley. I've got nowhere to go, with my back against the fence, so I huddle down in the boot-deep snow, behind some recycling bins, and try to make myself small.
As the car passes, I steady my breath and peer between the recycling bins with one eye. Driving the police cruiser is an Asian woman—Officer Jones, Genna's mother.
I pray silently, please don't stop, please don't stop.
A few car-lengths past where I'm hiding, the car's red brake lights flash on and it stops. Officer Jones steps out of the vehicle and shines a flashlight down at the fresh footprints in the snow. Are those my footprints?
She calls out, “Hello?”
I make my breath quieter still and tell my heart to stop beating so loud.
A compressed voice comes out of the cruiser—a man over the r
adio—and Officer Jones steps back into the car. She answers the call with her door still open and one foot on the ground.
“You got them? Good work,” she says.
My stomach flashes with pain.
“Tan jacket, blonde, that's right,” she says. “You got her. That's definitely the young artist I saw.”
She slams the car door shut, flashes the brake lights once, then pulls away.
I pitch forward, landing on my hands in the snow. From my mouth comes a sound between a howl and a moan. I think I might throw up.
I cough and spit in the snow until the feeling passes.
* * *
The lights are on at my house, but nobody's home inside. I pick up the phone to call my parents. After six agonizingly long rings, my father finally answers the call. “Good, you're home,” he says.
“Dad, I'm so sorry. I knew it was wrong. I knew I should have gone home. I'll never do anything like this again, I swear!”
Some other people are talking in the background.
“I'll deal with you when we get home,” he says, sounding much less angry than I expected. “Don't go anywhere. Stay right there.”
After I end the call and put the cordless phone back on the recharger, I go over and over what he said. Don't go anywhere? Where would I go? And why wouldn't he tell me what was happening?
Clearly I'm the one who's in the most trouble here, because I'm the one who vandalized the wall. Even if Tick refused to tattle on me, surely Dana would have been thrilled to.
That means the police are coming to my house to arrest me, or charge me, or whatever it is they do. I don't even know what they do to kids my age. It's not something I've considered before now.
I look down at my fingers. There's a little blue paint under the fingernail on my right hand.
I'll confess, of course, and take my punishment that I deserve, but I'm too ashamed to leave this paint on my finger. It's too much to bear.
I'm already in the kitchen, from pacing the bottom floor of the house, so I turn on the kitchen tap and begin scrubbing away with the dish soap and the vegetable brush.
I still feel nauseated from running all the way home. I wish I could climb into my bed and pretend tonight was all a bad dream.
It's Friday.
I should have been safe at home, doing my homework.
* * *
Midnight comes, and my family still hasn't returned home.
I go into my bedroom in the den and lie on the bed. I'm still in my clothes. I stare up at the ceiling fixture, but it's too bright, so I turn it off.
* * *
When I wake up, someone's in the room with me and the little bedside lamp is on. It's the one from my bedroom, down here along with my vintage alarm clock, to make the den more like my old room.
“Olivia?” I sit up and hug her.
“Lainey, it's me.”
I pull back and tap the brass base of the lamp again, to make it brighter.
It's not my sister, but my cousin. She looks older now, in this light, with her hair a natural color.
“Everything's settled,” she says. She has her pajamas on and her breath smells of her weird cinnamon-flavored toothpaste.
“What's settled? When did you get back? How much trouble am I in?”
“Shhh,” she whispers. “Everyone's asleep. I don't know how soon we're going. I wanted to say goodbye in case it's sooner than later.”
“Why are you leaving? I don't understand. Did your mother get her settlement?”
The furnace comes on with a bang and we both jump.
She motions for me to scooch over on the sofa bed and pulls back the covers. I climb under them, and she gets in under the covers next to me.
“There's only one pillow, but you can have it,” I say, handing her my pillow.
“No, it's really yours,” she says. “I'm fine. I don't need anything.” She gets comfortable on her side, propping up her head with one hand.
“I was so scared,” I say. “I wish I could take back everything. When are the police going to talk to me?”
“Never,” she says, and then she explains that there won't be any formal charges laid, but the school will be notified of what she did.
I say, “But you didn't do anything wrong, I did.”
“The good news is, I'll be permanently suspended.”
“Don't be ridiculous,” I say. “I'll tell them the truth and show them my jacket, how it looks the same as yours. I have a clean record, so I'll probably just get a week's suspension. Maybe I can help Dad at his office and get a makeover, like you did.” I smile and force out a laugh to lighten the mood.
She purses her lips. “You've got the play. Opening night is next week, and you shouldn't miss that. You can't be in the play if you're suspended.” She shakes her head. “Nope. I've been thinking, and this is the best outcome. Mom and I don't belong in Snowy Cove anyway.”
“That's not true.”
“Come on. You'll be so glad to be rid of us.”
I swallow hard. “No.”
“You hesitated before you answered,” she says. “No hard feelings though. I wouldn't want some pain-in-the-butt relative to move into my nice house, if I had one.”
I roll over, facing the wall with the wallpaper. It's got a geometric pattern of overlapping simple shapes, and the segments are either white or a raised velvety black. Mom says it's called flocking. Dad says it's flocking ugly.
I stare at the wallpaper, willing this whole evening to be a nightmare, a bad dream.
There's a clattering upstairs, as Aunt Trudy uses her crutches to get to the washroom, for the first of several trips during the night.
“She didn't used to be like this,” Tick says.
I roll onto my back and stare up at the ceiling. “What do you mean?”
“She had a hysterectomy last year. The whole uterus came out. No chance of a little brother or sister for me.”
“Does she still have a ... um ...”
“Yeah, silly. The uterus is the part that's way up inside. It holds the baby. Don't you know all the reproductive organs?”
“I do, but color-coded diagrams are a bit different from real life.”
“The uterus is up inside,” she says. “It holds the other organs up and off of the bladder. But it doesn't do that job if you don't have one.”
“Is that why she has to go to the bathroom all the time?”
“I think so. We don't really talk about it. She was really sad after that surgery, and just when things were getting normal again, that jerk broke her knee.”
“What? Who broke her knee? I thought she slipped on a government building's steps.”
“Something like that. Never mind. Hey, do you know any fairy tales? Tell me a bedtime story.”
“Wait, Tick. How did she break her knee? Is she getting money or not?”
Tick gazes at me solemnly. “Can you keep a secret?”
This time, I say, “Yes.”
“There won't be a settlement. She was playing Frisbee with some people from her work. They had some booze leftover from their Christmas party, so they had this other party, between Christmas and New Year's.”
“At their office?”
“No. At some guy's house. I wasn't there, but it was raining, and they were playing Frisbee in the park across from the guy's house, and the guy was acting like it was tackle football. He pushed her out of the way, and she fell down a hill and landed on her knee, on a walkway. There was a government building not far away, so her friends and this guy, he's an idiot by the way, loaded her into their car and drove her over there. They left her there, by herself, and she called an ambulance from there, on her cell phone. She waited all alone, with nothing for the pain.”
“I don't understand. How was she supposed to get a settlement from them if she fell in the park?”
Tick presses her lips together and gives me a think about it look.
“Oh. She lied,” I say.
“Tried to. But I guess they h
ave security cameras outside the government office. Plus they weren't even open that time of day. It was a terrible idea, but the guy she's friends with knows this other guy, who's sort of a lawyer, I guess, and he had all these big ideas. Of course he didn't know about the camera footage.”
“But it seems like she believes she's still going to get the money.”
“I know,” Tick says. “She wasn't always like this. It's like she's in her own reality.”
“Wow. That really sucks. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone.” I mime zipping my lips, locking them, and throwing away the key. “I'm sorry you guys won't be getting any money.”
She gives me a smile and tugs at my pillow, so she can share it. It's a King-size pillow, so two people actually can use it. “Cheer me up. Tell me a bedtime story, would ya?”
“Sure. Once there was a girl with candy-apple red hair. She was actually a princess. And ... I seriously have to pee.”
“This story is familiar, but strange,” she says.
“Be right back.” I get up and climb over her. I feel lightheaded. I visit the downstairs bathroom, wash my face, and give my teeth a quick brush.
Back inside the den, I say, “You can stay with me down here tonight, if you want.”
She's already asleep.
I stare at her face for several minutes before I turn off the light.
* * *
On Saturday morning, the Murphy family sits together for a big Murphy Family Brunch and everyone acts Murphy Normal.
No mention is made of my cousin's brush with the law, until Aunt Trudy says something about airfare and seat sales. Mom and Dad lock meaningful gazes for an instant, then Dad asks for another bagel and more lobster salad.
“Good, isn't it?” Mom asks.
“Yes, but it's not real lobster. It's crawfish or something.”
Mom picks up the lid and reads out, “Lobster salad.”
“Well, I guess that's that,” Dad says, and we continue eating, the sounds of eating punctuated by brief observations about the weather and the fruit trees that should have been trimmed last fall.
* * *
On Sunday, I go swimming with Dad and Briana.
Instead of swimming laps, we make it a diving day. Dad joins us and shows off some of his dives, and we try to dive as well as he does.
