Echoes (US Edition)

by Laura Tisdall

  Spanish follows biology, then English with the reliably dramatic Mr Cartwright. At lunch, Mallory sits down at a near-empty table, a chair away from Darlene Overton and Heidi Balinski. Darlene eats with her mouth open and has a disconcerting habit of blinking far more than is necessary. Her conversation topics are usually limited to ‘things that Heidi has done wrong’ and America’s Next Top Model – current and reruns. Heidi, for her part, stares at you too hard when she talks, though that isn’t much at all. People call her Batty Fat Heidi because her eyes aren’t set quite straight and she has a weight problem. At least, that’s what she calls it. Darlene calls it making a show of eating salad for lunch, then stuffing her face with Twinkies in the bathroom between classes. Mallory doesn’t comment. She’s never found regular friendships easy to navigate, usually opting for the much less stressful route of avoiding them altogether – but Heidi’s parents own the general store on Main Street where she’s worked three times a week for the past year, and she sits with her every indoor break because she and Darlene act as a kind of buffer to anyone else coming over. The cafeteria is a teeming mess, too full of people all too close together, all talking so loud it feels as if the walls are constantly pushing in. Mallory normally eats outside on dry days, but they’re banned this semester since someone – Bobby Dahn, she knows it was him, the asshat – set the walkway roof on fire during the first lunch of term.

  She leaves the cafeteria at the first bell, darting out to her locker before the corridor becomes busy again. One of her books falls as she slides a pile into her backpack and, as she bends to grab it, someone wolf whistles. She starts back up straight, turning to see the very same asshat Bobby standing across the corridor, hair so slick with gel it looks like he’s been swimming in it. Aaron Wendell and vomit-risk Eddie Prang are hanging back beside him. She blanks them, going back to her books, but Bobby saunters over, leaning against the locker beside hers. Her muscles tense uncomfortably. He’s so close she can smell all that stinking gel.

  And she can feel his eyes looking down at her.

  She can feel them wandering in a way she doesn’t like. People used to look at Jeanie like that all the time, and she’d liked it, but Mallory doesn’t. She doesn’t.

  You’re okay, she thinks, forcing herself to concentrate on what she needs from the locker. Math this afternoon, then history…

  ‘Looking hot today, Park Rat,’ Bobby crows. His friends laugh and Mallory makes a mental note to let Eddie cut up his own damn eyeball next time, let him barf all down his new letterman jacket like a kindergartener. ‘Though, you do seem kinda tense,’ Bobby continues. ‘What you hiding under that baggy tent of a sweater? You even got any tits? I heard your momma had real good ones.’

  Mallory slams the locker door shut so hard he actually jumps.

  ‘Got any balls?’ she snaps. ‘Didn’t fucking think so.’ She re-zips her backpack and walks away. Bobby Dahn has been a jerk since her first day at middle school in Watertown, back in sixth grade – an irritating practice he’s kept up all through high school too – but he’s sunk to a new level of mental blacklisting since his idiocy forced her to have to eat in the cafeteria every day, with Darlene the food-spitter for protection.

  ‘I’ll show you if you like,’ he shouts after her. ‘Fancy a quickie under the bleachers?’ Mallory turns out of the corridor, refusing to look back at the hoots of laughter. Her heart is pounding, her skin creeping all over. She grits her teeth.

  You’re okay, she tells herself.

  He is beyond contempt.

  ***

  ‘Miss Park.’ Mallory looks up from her desk. Mrs Fraser-Hampton is watching her as everyone else files out the classroom. ‘Would you come here a moment?’ says the math teacher. Morgan Hale – the narcissistic cheerleader who has definitely had a boob job – makes a loud, squealy oohing sound, inspiring a chorus of similarly unpleasant noises from surrounding squad members. Mallory shoots her a murderous glare and the girl seems to choke on her laugh. She distinctly catches the words, ‘Like, actually, crazy,’ as she hurries out of the room.

  ‘Miss Park.’

  Mrs Fraser-Hampton is frowning now, dark eyebrows arching heavily. She’s new at Watertown this term, a replacement for the now-retired Mr Ortega, and still a fairly unknown quantity – other than that she chose to give them a spot test in their first lesson and so far everything about her seems neat and precise, from the pant suits she wears to the considered touch of powder on her ebony skin. She’s real clever, too. It’s there in the way she watches the class, the way she notices who understands and who doesn’t, and doesn’t let it slide.

  Mallory crosses the room, her face a practiced neutral. She stops beside the middle front desk, not too close, finger beating absently against the plastic chair back. Mrs Fraser-Hampton picks up a brown file.

  ‘I’ve been going over your academic record,’ she says. Her eyes skim across the pages of the file. ‘I like to do that with all my new students, make sure I’m up to speed with where they’re starting from so I don’t miss anything.’ Her face softens and she smiles, looking back at Mallory like she wants a response, so Mallory nods. ‘You had three different schools in your first five years of education,’ she continues. She closes the file. ‘I was an army brat too. It’s tough.’ She says it like she’s doing that thing teachers sometimes do where they try and make a connection, show you they’re not that different; something everyone else at Watertown has long since given up attempting with Mallory. She just nods again.

  The frown reappears.

  ‘You skipped second grade,’ she goes on, ‘and up until you moved to Watertown, your marks were near perfect. Then they slipped during sixth – steadily down to Bs – which you’ve been getting ever since. Most army kids find it tough while they’re moving, not when they stop. Did something happen? You didn’t like your new school?’ Mallory swallows, thrown a little off guard.

  ‘The work just got harder,’ she says.

  ‘Okay,’ the teacher replies carefully. She pauses, then, ‘The reason I wanted to talk to you, Miss Park, was because of your spot test result from last week.’

  ‘Did I do badly?’ Mallory asks. She knows she didn’t; sixteen out of twenty. She got a B.

  ‘You got a B,’ Mrs Fraser-Hampton says. Mallory nods again, tries to look as though she’s pleased, but she’s starting to feel distinctly unnerved about where this is going. ‘However,’ continues the teacher, ‘what I wanted to talk to you about was not your overall mark, so much as which questions you got right and which you got wrong.’ She lifts up a small pile of white paper from her desk, stapled at the corner; Mallory’s test – she can see her name scrawled on the front in the rough little letters of her handwriting. ‘Questions four, six and eleven were fairly simple; basic algebra, long division… you got them wrong. Questions seven and fourteen; complex simultaneous equations and two of the hardest to answer… those, you got right.’ Mallory swallows again, the tapping speeding up.

  Four, three, four, two.

  Four, three, four, two.

  ‘Now, the one that really interested me,’ says the teacher, ‘was question seventeen.’ She smiles. ‘I slipped that one in from a college-level advanced calculus paper, just to see if I had any smart alecs who might need further work to keep them engaged. And you know what, you were the only one who got it right, and without a single crossing out in your workings.’

  Mallory’s left hand clicks sharply into a ball. Her mind flicks back through the paper’s questions. She still remembers each of them, but she hadn’t even noticed the difference in level. All of the answers had been obvious. Revealing things like that, though, it draws attention to you. When people realize you’re able to do what most can’t, they either think you’re odd or they start watching you too closely – neither of which is a comfortable or desirable thing, so she’s learnt how to avoid it.

  ‘Someone who gets that question right,’ Mrs Fraser-Hampton goes on, ‘well, it’s… unusual for them to get a si
mple long division wrong. Can you explain that?’

  ‘No,’ Mallory says. ‘I just did the ones I could.’ She makes herself not look away – people notice if you look away – all the while silently berating herself and wishing the math teacher would shut it with her needling. ‘Have I done something wrong?’ she asks. Mrs Fraser-Hampton holds her gaze just a second longer, then shakes her head. She looks disappointed.

  ‘I’m on your side, Miss Park,’ she says. ‘I just want you to achieve what you can. This year is important. The grades you get are what’ll get you into college, and that affects the rest of your life – I think you’re smart enough to know that.’ Mallory doesn’t respond. The teacher sighs. ‘Do you know where you’re applying?’

  No, Mallory thinks. She doesn’t even know if she will, if she wants to, what she’d do, if she could leave home, leave Jed… Her insides twist. She hates this damn question.

  ‘I’ve got some ideas,’ she answers.

  ‘Well, don’t leave it too late. Some of the deadlines are only a few months away. Anything I can do to help…’ Mrs Fraser-Hampton finishes, leaving it open.

  Mallory nods, fourth time.

  ‘Can I go now?’ she asks. The teacher’s face seems to drop a little.

  ‘Yes, you can go,’ she says. Mallory leaves, trying not to walk too quickly. People notice that too.

  Shit, she thinks.

  She’ll have to be more careful in future.

  ***

  Jed is in the parking lot on time after school, just like she asked – which is good because she is very much ready to leave. The seam of his bag is frayed even further. She tells him, again, not to pick at it. She asks him how his day was and makes a mental note of all his new homework as she drives, planning out in her head how they can fit it in before the deadlines. She helps him with English and Spanish because he’s dyslexic. He finds math hard, too. It’s not that he’s stupid, it just takes him longer to get some things, that’s all. Once it’s clicked, he’s fine.

  When they get in, Roger’s sitting in his usual place on the couch. There’s a book on his lap, but his eyes aren’t moving. Mallory’s chest tightens.

  No, she thinks, an unspoken, automatic request. He has a shift tonight.

  He’s staring at the page in silent contemplation, like he’s mulling over some deep existential question. That’s not what he’s doing, though. She can see it in his face, in the taut lines around his mouth. The book is one of Jeanie’s, one that he must have got out of the boxes in the garage. She should just pack that damn stuff up and drive it over to her nana Ruthie’s across town – be done with it. She should have done it right away when she passed her test last month… but she doesn’t want to go to Ruthie’s. She hasn’t been in years, hasn’t let Jed go either, though he used to ask. She doesn’t trust her and the things she says any more, and she’d start asking to see them again and trying to explain and…

  Mallory bites down on her lip, feeling the flush of anger she gets every time Roger takes out Jeanie’s old stuff – feeling it and hating the underlying pang it brings with it.

  He’s just sitting.

  Just sitting.

  Probably has been for hours.

  She balls her fists – closed, open, closed, open – trying to keep control, and asks Jed to go upstairs and start on his science. He hesitates just a second, eyes flicking from their dad back to her, then he goes. She waits.

  Then, ‘Roger,’ she says, loud and sharp. He gasps, just like she knew he would. The book falls from his hands, fear flashing across his face, fear of something that she can’t see. ‘Roger,’ she says again. He blinks, coming back into himself, slowly seeing the room he’s really in. He looks at her. She tosses him the car keys and he catches them automatically – reflexes still good, at least. ‘Exhaust’s going again,’ she says. ‘Can you fix it for me?’ She holds his eyes while she says it, her gaze unwavering. After a moment, he nods. She goes upstairs to change into her work clothes, all the while willing him not to go dark on her, willing him to have shaken off whatever crap he’s got stuck on by the time she comes back down…

  She finds him standing up, the tool box on the floor beside him, the book gone. The tension in her chest loosens a little.

  ‘I’m on it, Mal,’ he says, and he nods again and his mouth purses in real concentration, and for a moment it tugs at her.

  ‘Right,’ she manages. Then she reminds him she’s got a shift now. She reminds him he has a shift tonight, starting at seven. He’s already had two cautions for being late and he can’t do it again. He tells her he won’t miss it. She goes to leave.

  ‘It’s good,’ he says, as she reaches the front door, ‘it’s good you working like this, saving for college.’

  What is it with everyone and that today?

  Mallory stops. It’s something he started saying over the summer, though they both know that’s not what she saves her money for. She looks back.

  ‘Yeah,’ she tells him.

  ‘College’ll be good for you,’ he says. ‘You’re a smart kid. You’re gonna do well. I know you will.’ Mallory bites her lip again. He knows she hasn’t applied anywhere. He picks up the post from the mailbox every morning like clockwork and he knows she hasn’t been sent anything. ‘You want to go through any brochures or what, sometime,’ he adds, ‘we can do that…’ She bites harder. He sees it and stops, voice trailing away.

  ‘Sure,’ Mallory says. ‘Sure, Roger,’ and she walks out the door real quick. She’s not saving for college. Half her money goes on groceries and bills because his hours aren’t enough, and he knows that too. The rest she’s saving because it’s good to save, and, well, she doesn’t trust him not to lose his job. He’ll work up to saying stuff like that every now and then, like he thinks he can just say it and make everything else all all right, but he can’t. He says it and then he zones out and disappears on them again, and she’s left with…

  She’s…

  Jed’s left.

  She shuts the door harder than she needs to and starts walking. It’s over a mile from Oakville, the Watertown neighborhood where their house is, to the Balinskis’ store, but Mallory doesn’t mind it. She cuts off road where she can, walking down through the woods past Echo Lake Brook, the trees just starting to show signs of the coming fall. She’s found she likes the open air and the feel of stretching her legs out running with Jed, something relaxing about the rhythm of it. She’d run now if she wasn’t headed to work.

  As it turns out, she spends most of the afternoon working up a sweat anyway, cleaning half-congealed ice cream out of the chiller cabinets. They broke that morning, but no one noticed until the shelves were already covered in melted gloop. Mrs Balinski has Mallory clearing, then washing, then drying them; Heidi panting beside her, arms jiggling away as she scrubs at the surprisingly resilient cream. It’s not so bad, though. Heidi talks every now and then – mainly about the upcoming episode of Next Top Model and something Darlene had said earlier that was ‘just down right mean bean’ – but she’s careful to keep to her own space and she doesn’t mind that Mallory mainly stays quiet. Her own voice is soft, too, not abrasive and painful like some people’s, like Mallory always imagines Scarlet’s to be. After the chillers are done, Mallory’s stacking shelves alone, perfectly lining up tins of corn, pinto beans and spaghetti hoops. Bobby, Aaron and Morgan come in around six, but they don’t see her down at the back, and Mrs Balinski soon shoos them out for knocking over some sodas and generally making their usual asses of themselves. Mallory’s glad of that. Her patience is already almost expired for the day and she couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t have ended up yelling at one of them. Mrs Balinski does not like any yelling at customers, unless she’s the one doing it. By the time the clock on the wall reaches seven thirty, she has stacked two hundred and twenty-one cans, and only had to talk to two customers. She buys Jed some NFL stickers on her way out, then runs the whole way home, fixing her mind on claiming a new hack later, wondering what Warden’s next
crappy guess about her name will be and hoping, really damn hoping, that Roger did leave for his shift like he said he would.

  Missing

  Mallory scans through the ACTIVITIES section of the Forum again, but The Asker hasn’t posted anything new since she last checked. Her brow creases. She’s done three more hacks in the sixteen days since the Harrison Copeland one. They were fast and, for the most part, frustratingly easy. All that’s listed now, unclaimed, are a small number of similarly dull ones – nothing large-scale, nothing like the kind The Asker usually gets passionate about, the kind that can take Mallory out of herself.

  Nothing like the kind she wants.

  She glances at her profile. Her prestige rating has risen to more than fifteen thousand over the past two weeks, higher, now, than even Scarlet’s – a source of seemingly unending amusement to Warden. Mallory is kind of indifferent. Scarlet’s good, but she was only ranked so highly in the first place because she’s been there so long and she flirts alarmingly in the role-play threads – the same way Warden’s ranked lower than he should be because he pisses people off all the time. People seem to think Scarlet’s some gorgeous blonde, fawning over her like they do. She’s probably nothing like that, like she’s compensating, the way she goes on. Mallory’s sometimes tempted to hack her for a real photo, just to prove it to everyone; one picture showing her conceited, likely overly made-up face, snorting into her webcam beneath a crappy red dye job…

  She looks at the sparse list of threads, feeling jittery. The Asker gives every hack a prestige rating so newbies can’t take on something they aren’t ready for and get caught and cause a whole shitload of problems, like them having to reset the entire login trail. There have been no new requests marked above ten thousand for several days, though. His name in the right-hand window has also been set to Do not disturb far more than usual. It makes her nervous because it makes her wonder if maybe something’s wrong in his real life and she really doesn’t like that thought. She doesn’t really like thinking about him outside of the Forum at all, and it’s not just because of the ingrained rules against actually knowing. Her mind has almost subconsciously imagined what the other members might look like – Nexus is a skinny brunette with glasses, Case_X dresses like he thinks he’s in The Matrix… but she never does it for The Asker. It wouldn’t feel right, like it would make him seem somehow less than what he is.