Disturbed

by Kevin O'Brien

  He tried that for two pages, but it seemed like a dead end. Pretty soon, Chris was aimlessly staring out the window at the red, brown, and golden treetops. He was thinking of the other mysterious notes he’d gotten — over the summer, when he’d been a lifeguard at the Lake Forest Park Community Pool.

  He’d pedaled his bike three miles to the pool every day. One Tuesday, during a hot, dry spell in late July it was particularly crazy — with some loud, unruly kids and their equally obnoxious mothers, who objected to his tone when he reprimanded their darling little brats over his bullhorn. He was glad for the end of the day, near twilight. The pool was closed, and he washed down the lounge chairs and the deck area with a hose. He looked forward to hanging out with Elvis that night and maybe going to a late movie. After locking up, Chris headed for his bike — the only one still at the bicycle rack outside the chain-link fence behind the pool house.

  He stopped abruptly when he saw something white on one side of his handlebars. As he got closer to his bike, he noticed it was a piece of paper, rolled up and fixed on there with a rubber band. He unrolled the paper, and read what was scrawled across it:

  Meet me here behind the pool house at 9:00. It’s inportant.

  Chris looked up from the note and glanced around the empty parking lot. He figured this was some kind of prank. Someone was screwing around with him, some idiot who didn’t even know how to spell important.

  “I don’t have time for this shit,” he muttered to himself. He had no desire to wait around there until nine. He shoved the note inside one of the pockets of his cargo shorts, and forgot about it — until the following night.

  At quitting time, he found another note wrapped around his bike’s handlebar — in the same spot as before, by the left-hand grip.

  Why didn’t you meet me? I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow night at 9:00. It’s very, very important we talk. I know you are a nice, thoughtful person, and you will be here.

  The next day, as Chris sat on his lifeguard perch — slathered with sunscreen, wearing his pith helmet, sunglasses, and red trunks — he looked down at the crowd around the pool. He wondered who was jerking him around with these weird notes. Why didn’t they just tell him who they were? Was it one of a gaggle of girls who hung out at the pool every day? Did one of them have a crush on him? Maybe he was about to get punked, and they were all in on the joke. Or was it that overly tanned older-woman regular who always looked at him kind of weird behind her designer sunglasses? A bunch of guys his own age hung out at the pool, and he’d had to discipline a few of them from time to time when they acted like jerks. Maybe they were setting him up, so they could beat the crap out of him or something. Finally, there was a guy about twenty or so, who may have been gay — and he was always friendly. Was he the one leaving him these notes?

  During his lunch break, Chris went out and checked his bike for another note on the handlebars. But there was nothing. So he ducked into the pool house office and wrote his own note, then secured it with a rubber band to his handlebars. It said:

  Who are you?

  For the rest of the afternoon, Chris kept checking the crowd to see if anyone was watching him. Near closing, he saw a burgundy-haired girl around his age, hanging outside the chain-link fence — near the pool house. She had that Goth look, and wore a black T-shirt, black jeans, and black wrist-bands. She was so pale — almost sickly looking. And he imagined she had to be sweltering as she stood in the sun in those black clothes. She put a hand up to the other side of the fence, her fingers hanging on the crisscrossed chain links. She stared right at him — to the point that Chris became uncomfortable.

  He finally had to look away. A few moments later, when he glanced back toward the pool house again, she was gone.

  She reminded him of Mr. Corson’s niece — whatever her name was. It had been months before. Sabrina? No, Serena. He’d been convinced she was the one whispering to him in the men’s room at the funeral parlor during Mr. Corson’s wake. Who else but Serena would have left his lost sunglasses — the pair of Ray-Bans he now wore — on that gate outside Mrs. Corson’s apartment complex? It would have been just like her to plant those strange notes for him.

  But it wasn’t Mr. Corson’s niece in the community pool’s parking lot. This girl was taller, and so skinny she looked emaciated.

  At closing time, Chris checked his bike, and the note he’d left on the handlebars was gone. Nothing was there in its place. After a bit of deliberation, he jumped on his bike and pedaled home. He thought about driving back to the pool at a quarter to nine, but decided to get together with Elvis instead.

  For the next few days, he kept an eye out for that Goth-looking girl. And he always expected to find another note on his bicycle handlebars at quitting time every night.

  Pretty soon, Chris forgot about the girl in black. He didn’t see her again until late August — on another hot afternoon. He just happened to glance over toward the pool house from his lifeguard’s perch, and there she stood on the other side of the fence. She was glaring at him. It looked like she was wearing the exact same clothes she’d worn last time. And she looked sick, or drugged out, or both. She seemed to hang on to the fence to keep from collapsing.

  Chris grabbed his bullhorn: “Office?” he said, holding his hand up. That was the sign that he needed someone to relieve him. One of his coworkers, Karen Linde, a pretty, college-age blonde with a boyfriend, hurried out of the office. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  He climbed down from his post to meet her. “I just need to check on something for a few minutes,” he said distractedly. “Thanks, Karen. Be right back.”

  He hurried toward the gate by the pool house. The Goth girl started to back up. She weaved a bit, like she was drunk or about to faint. Chris glanced over his shoulder at Karen, taking his place on the lifeguard’s perch. When he looked forward again, the girl was gone. It was as if she’d just vanished. Chris didn’t have any shoes on, but he ventured out to the parking lot with its hot asphalt and pebbles. He scoped the area for any sign of the girl, but didn’t see her.

  Before heading back inside the fenced area, Chris checked his bike. There wasn’t anything on the handlebars.

  For the rest of the day, he kept his eyes peeled for the Goth girl. But she never returned. Then at quitting time, he went out to his bike. There wasn’t a note on the handlebars.

  But someone had slashed both his tires.

  Chris never set eyes on the sickly looking Goth girl again. But he thought about her now. It was happening again. Another strange, anonymous note; and someone had broken into his locker to leave it for him: Ask your stepmother about Tina Gargullo and Nick Sorenson.

  Chris couldn’t help thinking this was yet another little mystery that would go unsolved. He wondered what would end up slashed this time.

  Hunched in front of the computer monitor, he noticed most of the other students had left. Outside the streetlights were on. He glanced over his shoulder at Mrs. Chertok, who gave him a patient half smile and pointed to her wristwatch. Chris checked his own watch: 5:23. The library was closing in seven minutes.

  His fingers started working on the keyboard again. Under the Google subject head, he typed in all three names — Molly Wright, Nick Sorenson, Tina Gargullo — and then pressed ENTER.

  The first item that came up didn’t show Molly’s name, and yet Chris somehow knew this was what he was supposed to find:

  3 Dead, 5 Wounded in Campus Shooting SpreeThe gunman, Roland Charles Wright, 26, was shot by a security guard. . a teacher, Nick Sorenson, 32, and a cafeteria worker, Tina Gargullo, 20, both died on the scene. Wright fired three rounds into Sorenson . .www.thechicagotribune/news/1302007.html

  All he could think about was Molly’s younger brother, Charlie, who was supposed to have committed suicide.

  “What?” Molly murmured into her cell phone.

  She sat on the edge of the chaise longue in her attic art studio. The door at the bottom of the stairs was closed. Two levels do
wn, on the first floor, Erin was parked in front of the TV in the family room and Chris was on the computer in Jeff’s study. Jeff had asked Molly to take her cell where the kids couldn’t hear her. So she’d come up here.

  She’d been on edge most of the day. Jeff had kept asking if she wanted him to cancel his trip to Washington, D.C. But she’d insisted he go, and so he’d gone — at 11:35 this morning. She’d tried to act brave about being alone with the kids so soon after the latest cul-de-sac murders. It wouldn’t be for long. Jeff would be back the day after tomorrow — the same day she’d be seeing her doctor.

  Chris had come home late and immediately barricaded himself in Jeff’s study. He’d emerged for dinner: sloppy joes, green beans, and fries in front of a Simpsons rerun in the family room. Molly kept weekday dinners without Jeff casual. During a commercial, Chris announced he was spending tomorrow night at Larry’s place. His mother would be there alone, because Larry was helping chaperone an overnight field trip to Olympia with his daughter’s class.

  “I think my mom could use the company,” Chris said, gazing at the TV — and not her. “She shouldn’t have to be alone in that house. You’ll be okay with Erin, won’t you?”

  “Of course,” Molly said. “If it’s okay with your dad and mom, that’s fine with me,” Molly continued. “I can drop you off in Bellevue tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Can I stay with my mom, too?” Erin asked, almost kicking her TV table.

  “That’s fine,” Molly said, with a pale smile.

  She wasn’t looking forward to tomorrow night all by herself — with an empty, dark house next door. And while Chris’s reason for leaving her alone seemed rational enough — even sweet, in that he was looking out for his mother — there seemed more to it. Molly felt him pulling away. He’d hardly looked at her all night.

  After dinner, Chris called his dad from the phone in the study. He had the door closed. Molly was watching TV with Erin, but she could hear him down the hall murmuring. He raised his voice a few times, but the words were indistinguishable. He was talking in there for twenty minutes, which was something of a record. He and his dad usually kept their phone conversations brief.

  Finally, Molly heard the study door click open, and Chris lumbered into the family room with the cordless in his hand. Eyes downcast, he gave her the phone. “Dad wants to talk to you,” he muttered. Then he retreated back to the study and closed the door.

  “Erin, honey, could you turn down the TV a bit,” Molly said. Then she spoke into the phone. “Hi, there. .”

  “Hi, babe, we need to talk,” Jeff said. “If you can get away from the kids for a few minutes, I’ll call you back on your cell. . ”

  It was raining lightly; so instead of stepping outside with her phone, Molly had retreated up to her studio. Jeff had called after only a minute or so — and he’d told her what had been bothering Chris tonight.

  “What?” Molly repeated into the cell phone. She got up from the chaise longue and clutched a hand to her stomach. “So that’s why he’s been in your study all night. He’s been holed up in there, looking up articles about my brother. My God, no wonder he can’t bring himself to look at me.”

  “I think his biggest concern was making sure I knew,” Jeff said gently.

  “So — he just assumed I’d keep something like that from you?” Molly asked. She started pacing around the studio space. “Is that the kind of person he thinks I am?”

  “Honey, look at it this way. Together, we kept him in the dark about this for well over a year. You can’t blame him for wanting to check with me to find out how much I know.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll tell you who we can blame for this — Angela!” Molly said, exasperated. “God, she’s a piece of work. Is she so out to get me that she doesn’t give a damn about traumatizing her own son? Just the other day, I was starting to feel sorry for her. I was starting to feel she might be halfway human. And then she turns around and smashes our pumpkins. It doesn’t seem to matter that it broke poor Erin’s heart. And now, she’s pulling this shit with Chris. She’s crazy! Breaking into his locker, leaving notes. . ”

  “I’ll talk to her,” Jeff said.

  “She’ll just deny it,” Molly shot back. “The same way she denied smashing our pumpkins on Saturday, and then using her old key to get back in here and leave that — that weird smiley-face jack-o-lantern arrangement for me to find on the kitchen counter. I’m sorry, but I’ve had it with her. She’s certifiable, she really is.”

  “You’re right, you’re right.” Jeff sighed. “You shouldn’t have to put up with this. I’ll have it out with her tomorrow. The gloves are coming off, I promise. By the way, I told Chris that he and Erin are staying home tomorrow night. You shouldn’t be alone there. Besides, I don’t want them spending any time with Angela until I’ve talked to her. I don’t think she realizes how much she’s hurting her own children in her efforts to hurt us.”

  Molly plopped down on the chaise longue again. “No,” she said resolutely into the phone. “I’ll have it out with her. It’s high time I handle this. You’re too nice, Jeff.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll talk to Chris tonight and straighten things out with him. And I’ll talk to Angela tomorrow. And when you come home on Wednesday night, this will all be in the past. . ”

  As she assured her husband that all their fears and troubles would soon be behind them, Molly almost believed it herself.

  Almost.

  There was a knock on his bedroom door.

  Chris had been expecting it — and dreading it, too. He’d hoped maybe if he came up here and shut the door, she might not bother him. He really didn’t want to talk to Molly right now. He just couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that her brother had shot all those people in that college cafeteria. One of the articles he’d read online said that Roland Charles Wright fired nineteen shots from a handgun, which meant the son of a bitch probably had to stop and reload while people around him were screaming and dying.

  And this creep was his uncle.

  No wonder Molly and his dad had kept it a secret.

  At his desk, Chris turned his swivel chair. “Yeah, come in,” he grunted.

  Molly opened the door. She had a photo album tucked under her arm. Chris had glanced through it one night when he’d been bored and alone in the house. Molly kept it on the bookcase in her art studio — along with those elephant figurines. Chris had been a lot more fascinated by the nudes in her figure-study drawing books than snapshots of Molly’s childhood.

  She stepped into the room and set the photo album on his bed. “So — now you know why I don’t talk about my family much.”

  He frowned at her. “You told me that your brother committed suicide.”

  Molly shrugged. “Well, in a way he did. I don’t think he expected to live through that—nightmare he inflicted on so many people. Anyway, it’s easier for me to tell people he killed himself. Usually it shuts them up and keeps them from asking any more questions — at least out loud.” With a sigh, she sat down at the edge of his bed. “I’m sorry I treated you like just people. Your dad and I should have trusted you with the truth, only — well, it’s been difficult enough for you to get used to me without me dragging my family skeletons out of the closet.”

  Chris’s eyes narrowed at her. Family skeletons out of the closet, there she went with another one of her weird expressions. It sounded gay-related, but he wasn’t sure.

  She opened the photo album and brought it to him. “That’s Charlie and me when we were about eleven and twelve. . ”

  Chris glanced at the photos of two kids, bundled up in jackets, earmuffs, scarves, and boots, playing in the snow. They were building a snowman that was taller than both of them. It looked like a scene from the movie A Christmas Story.

  “When I look at these pictures,” Molly said, “I still can’t believe he did what he did. But I’m sure your dad explained to you that Charlie was mentally ill. Anyway, if you have anything you’d like to ask me about my brother or my
family, feel free.”

  “Is that why you and your mother aren’t close?” Chris asked. “Because your brother shot all those people?”

  Molly nodded. “Yes. And it’s a shame, too, because I really miss her. But I guess we’re both having a hard time forgiving each other — and ourselves.”

  Chris turned the page in the photo album — to some pictures of Molly on what must have been her thirteenth birthday. At least, in the photos, there was a 1 candle and a 3 candle on the cake. She was kind of gawky looking, with braces and braids. At the dinner table with the cake and the stack of presents, it was just Molly, her brother, and one parent. In some photos, it was the mom, in other photos, the dad. The parents must have taken turns snapping the picture. It was sad. There was no one else at her birthday. And there was no one else playing in the snow with them. “Didn’t you guys have any friends?” he heard himself ask.

  Chris noticed the slightly pained look on her face. Then he cleared his throat. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize,” she murmured. She sat back down on his bed. “Charlie didn’t make friends too easily, and I felt responsible for him. It sort of became my job, my role in the family. Plus, to be honest, I was embarrassed to have people over to the house, because of him. So as freakish as it sounds, I guess the two of us were very close growing up.” She glanced down at the bedspread and smoothed it out with her hand. “You’d think I would have known him a little better, and known what he was capable of, but obviously I didn’t.”

  “After it happened, did you ever talk to any of the people he shot?”

  She nodded soberly. “I wrote to all of them. A couple of them wrote back. This one woman who was severely wounded, God bless her, she said she’d already forgiven Charlie, and she was praying for me. On the opposite side of that, I visited the mother of the man who was killed, and she spit in my face. I’m not sure if I lost a son, I wouldn’t do the exact same thing.”