“Well?” Jack said. “Come on. What am I thinking?”
Focusing on the dart in Jack’s forehead chased the tears, instantly. But as soon as Rebecca lowered her gaze to his eyes, she blushed, without knowing why. Without wanting to think why.
“Come on,” said Jack.
Quietly? Nervously? Was that a little croak?
“Rebecca. What am I thinking?”
On the desk behind her, Rebecca’s computer pinged. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Joel’s name pop up in its seemingly personalized, permanent chat window. Poor Joel.
“You guys go on,” she murmured, not quite meeting Jack’s eyes again. “Go play.”
“That isn’t quite what I was—”
“You weren’t thinking Human Curling? Tell me you weren’t thinking Human Curling.”
“Human Curling!” Kaylene whooped, dragging Marlene back between cubicles toward Jack.
“I can’t,” said Marlene. “You guys, it’s two weeks until school.” But she was only protesting out of habit, Rebecca thought. Duty. She was hardly even trying, tonight.
“Kaylene, let go.”
But now Jack had Marlene’s other arm. And there they stood in front of her. Her Crisis Center shift mates. Her every-single-day cafeteria meal buddies.
Her friends.
“Someone’s got to man the phones,” Rebecca said, ignoring the pings behind her as Joel tapped out his lonely messages from the kitchen worktable at Halfmoon House. He’d be sitting in no light, at this hour, Rebecca knew from long experience, from so much shared insomnia at that table in that house at these hours, the only sound the wind whipping leaves down the cracks in the gutters, owls in those trees, loons on the lake. Poor Joel.
But why would he be poor? Why did she always feel bad for him? Certainly, he never seemed to.
“Rebecca,” said Jack. “This is your Captains speaking.”
“Jack and the ’Lenes,” said Kaylene.
Even Marlene joined in, smiled tiredly. “Jack and the ’Lenes. Come on, Bec.”
“Not tonight,” said Rebecca, and wondered if she sounded as happy as she felt.
“Oh, it’s tonight,” said Kaylene.
“It’s tonight, it’s tonight, it’s tonight,” Jack chanted. “Why won’t you come? Seriously. It’s the middle of summer. It’s the middle of the night. It’s the middle of East Lake NoAssWhere, New Hampshire. No one’s going to call. And if they do, they’ll just get forwarded to the Hospital center. To, you know, professionals.”
“Who aren’t their peers.”
“Is it a money thing? How about if tonight’s on me? Rebecca, seriously, I know you don’t have—”
“It’s not a money thing,” she said, too fast, and half-honestly. There was always the money thing, of course. But that wasn’t the reason. How could she even explain the reason?
Was there even one?
Only Joel. And the phones, which were supposed to stay manned at least another hour. And the fact that this feeling—this accompanied sensation—was still new in her life. And wading around too much in it—or setting out across it—felt foolhardy. Dangerous. Like testing fresh ice.
“You take Crisis Center rules pretty seriously, don’t you?”
“So do you, Jack. Or you wouldn’t be here.”
“The rules are not the Center.”
“We are the Center,” Kaylene said, and grinned at Rebecca. And … winked? Gestured with her chin toward Jack, and his ridiculous dart?
Then, somehow, the ’Lenes were shutting down their desk lamps, and Marlene had packed her backpack, and they were out the door, arms around each other’s shoulders, doing their leaning thing, first to one side, then the other. Their voices echoed down the empty corridor as they stomped and leaned their way down it, fluttered up staircases and sounded the silent classrooms overhead.
Jack, meanwhile, had shut down his computer, collected his supplies. But he’d dawdled, doing it, and now he paused once more in the doorway, his face half in shadow, the only remaining light coming from Rebecca’s lamp. He folded his faintly pudgy arms across his pudgy chest, which made him look twelve, like someone’s little brother, or else like a jester. A harlequin. And also like Jack.
“Is it me?” he said. “Is it my rad thrift-store blue bowling shirt?” He plucked at his pocket, with the name Herman stitched across it. “How about I man the phones, and you go Human Curling with the ’Lenes. You could use it. They’re good for you.”
“They’re good for everyone,” Rebecca said.
As if on cue, both ’Lenes appeared at the windows, on the path, standing together, joined at the hip. When they saw that she was looking, they did the lean. One side, the other. Kaylene beckoned, calling Rebecca out, into a world Kaylene was so obviously sure she belonged in.
And therefore, did? Rebecca wondered. Was that all it took?
“So it is me,” said Jack.
“It really isn’t.”
Unfolding his arms, Jack waved his fingers in front of Rebecca’s face as her computer pinged again. Joel, seeking contact. Jack’s fingers continued to wave in her face like a mesmerist’s. “Rebeccccaaaaa. You are getting very hungry. And thirsty. And Curly. You want to come play Human Curling with Jack and the ’Lenes.”
When Rebecca just sat, arms folded over the logo on her UNH-D hoodie, and smiled, he lowered his hands and stared into them, as though baffled that his spell hadn’t worked.
“Maybe tomorrow,” she said.
“Tomorrow,” said Jack. “You’re coming tomorrow. Plan on it. Book it in your Rebecca-Must-Plan-Everything-Years-in-Advance book.”
“I might,” she said.
“You just did.” Jack thrummed his dart, and it vibrated at her.
“Someone could really take that the wrong way,” Rebecca said.
“But not you, apparently.” Sighing, he smiled sadly—as sadly as Jack knew how, anyway—and left.
She watched the windows until he appeared. Instantly, the others adhered around him like charged particles, forming a nucleus. Kaylene glanced up once more at Rebecca, scowled, then waved. Jack waved, too, but over his head, without looking back. Then they were off, crossing from shadow to shadow down Campus Walk toward Campus Ave, where they’d skirt the forest, the edges of the little subdivisions full of tiny, mostly subdivided shingle houses, many of them empty for the summer, and make their way, at last, to Starkey’s, which had to be the only non-pub within fifty miles still open at this hour. They’d eat Mrs. Starkey’s awful canned-pineapple pizza, drink a pitcher of her Goose Island Night Stalkers: cranberry juice; white grape juice; seltzer; some rancid, secret spicy powder; and gin. And then, if Mrs. Starkey was feeling friendly, or else Jack waggled his magic fingers at her, she would give them the keys to the rink in the giant shed out back, and they’d grab brooms and push-paddles out of the cupboards in there and Human Curl to their hearts’ content.
It’s an orphan thing, she muttered inside her head, standing there in the dark. She was talking to Jack and his unicorn horn, but the phrase was Joel’s. Just one of the thousand things he had taught her during her four and a half years under his and Amanda’s foster care at Halfmoon House. That reluctance. That inclination toward solitude. You either have to learn to pay it no mind, or learn to mind it enough to do something about it. One or the other.
Like most of the things Joel and Amanda had taught her—most of Joel’s things, especially, she had to admit—that idea had made more sense back when she’d lived with them. Had seemed so comforting. It made less sense these days, or maybe just seemed too simple, not at all helpful, now that she lived on her own, had a little rented room she called home, even if it didn’t feel like home, yet. Not in the way she’d always assumed—been told—her own room would feel.
Stepping closer to the giant windows, Rebecca flicked on the lamp on Marlene’s desk. And voilà, there she was, out there in the world. At least, there was her reflection superimposed over the path: little Chagall girl in a blue UNH-
D hoodie, more pale-faced and mousy brown than glowing blue, but floating, anyway, up amid the lower leaves of the gum trees, her narrow face tinged green by the grass, blue by the moon.
Flicking off Marlene’s lamp, she watched herself vanish, then retreated to her own desk, pulled up a chair, tapped her sleeping computer awake.
RebeccaRebeccaRebecCaCaCaCaRebecca. Her name scrawled, and was still scrawling, across Joel’s chat window, as though he were tagging her screen from inside it.
Hiya, Pops, she typed.
Instantly, the scrawling stopped. The ensuing pause lasted longer than she expected. It lasted so long that she actually checked her connection, started to type again, then decided to wait. Around her, the whole building seemed to settle. Rebecca could feel its weight, hear its quiet.
Please don’t call me that, Joel typed. I’m not your dad.
I know. Don’t be ridiculous.
I know you know.
So don’t be ridiculous.
Pause. If she closed her eyes, Rebecca could see him there so clearly: his coal-black skin even blacker against whichever filthy white work T-shirt he’d worked in this particular day, the light from his laptop the only light in that long room, at that long wooden table. His wife gone to bed hours before, without bothering to tell or even locate him. His current foster kids—just two, right now, though he and Amanda generally liked to keep four at Halfmoon House, because that helped it feel more like a boarding school, which was exactly how Amanda wanted anyone she brought there to think of it—upstairs in their beds, possibly sleeping, possibly sneaking reading or headphone time of their own now that Amanda-chores and schoolwork were over.
On the lake, less than a mile away through the woods, there would be loons, Rebecca knew. The night-loons.
How’s Crisisland? Joel typed.
Empty, Rebecca answered, but didn’t like how the word looked. She deleted it, started to type Serene instead—which wasn’t quite right, either, just closer to right than “empty”—but Joel was faster.
SMACKDOWN??!!
Joel’s enthusiasm worked like Jack’s wiggling fingers, but was even more powerful, or maybe just more practiced. Or familiar, and therefore comfortable. And yet, what Rebecca typed back was, How’re my girls? How’s Amanda?
Tiring. Fine. SMACKDOWN??!! And then, before Rebecca could respond: I mean, the girls are tiring. Testing us. Amanda’s fine. I guess. Hardly saw her today, as usual. Working hard. Trudi still mostly talks to her socks.
Trudi was the newest Halfmoon House resident, one of the youngest Joel and Amanda had ever decided to bring there, barely ten.
She’ll come around. You’ll reach her, Joel. You always do.
Hey, R: maybe you could take her out rowing when you come tomorrow? Or—take her Human Curling!
Surprised, Rebecca straightened in her chair, her fingers on the keys. She thought about Amanda. Amanda would most definitely not be encouraging—or allowing—Rebecca to do any such thing with Trudi.
You know Human Curling? she typed.
I invented Human Curling.
Liar.
Okay, I didn’t. But you have to admit, I could have. It’s something I would have invented if your man Jack hadn’t.
Which was true, Rebecca thought sadly, staring at the screen. Human Curling was exactly the kind of thing Joel would have invented—and played, with everyone—if he’d had time. Or a wife who played with or even enjoyed him. As far as Rebecca had ever seen, Amanda just worked and taught her foster orphans how to survive the hands they’d been dealt and made rules. Like the one about seeing things clearly. Calling them what they were. And so, not calling Amanda “Mom” or Joel “Dad.”
Meanwhile, all unbidden, Rebecca’s fingers had apparently been typing. And what they’d typed was: Jack’s not my man.
Too slowly, again, she moved to delete. Again, Joel was faster.
A man after my own heart, your Jack. I do like your Jack, by the way. Fine man, your J—
SMACKDOWN! Rebecca typed, already opening the game site in a new window, calling up a string of letters for them to unscramble, make words from. READY?
What, for you? I don’t have to be ready for you, Rebecca. I barely have to be awake.
Rebecca grinned. Middle-of-the-night Joel. Checking in on his former charges, as he did almost every night, and which he had promised he would never stop doing until and unless he was sure they didn’t need him anymore. Talking trash to his computer in the quiet dark of his house. As alone as she was.
Can you feel it? she typed. That rush of wind? That’s me, surging past you.
You can’t win, Rebecca. If you Smack me down, I will become more verbose than you can possibly imagine.
Laughing, she typed her name into the left-hand SMACKER 1 box on the game site, waited for Joel’s name to appear next to SMACKER 2. Then the scrambled letters appeared, that awful, thudding cartoon hip-hop beat kicked in, the robot-Smackdown voice said, “Lay ’em down. SMACK ’EM.” And they were off. She got three words right off the bat, then a fourth, was typing a fifth, her fingers flying, when she realized her phone was ringing.
The Crisis Center phone. The one on her desk.
Joel, I’ve got to go, she typed fast into their chat window, and then closed it. She couldn’t have that open, didn’t want to risk distraction. He’d see eventually, whenever he looked up. He’d know what had happened.
And anyway, her phone was ringing. First time in weeks.
Rebecca had been working the Center too long to rush or panic. She allowed herself a moment to get centered and comfortable on her chair and in her head. Out of habit, her eyes flicked to the Quick Reference charts pinned to the cubicle walls, with their ALWAYS DO and DO NOT EVER lists, not that she needed them, or ever had, really.
You’re a natural, Dr. Steffen had told her, the first time she’d left Rebecca alone on a night shift. The best I’ve ever seen, at your age.
Switching off her lamp, settling into the dark, Rebecca picked up the receiver. When she spoke, her voice was the professional one she had mastered, had hardly had to practice: neutral, friendly, comforting, and cool. Anonymous. Almost exactly like her regular voice, she thought, then squashed that thought.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m so glad you called. To whom am I speak—”
“But should I?” said the voice on the other end. Sang, really. And then it made a sound.
Whistling? Wind? Was that wind?
Rebecca straightened, found herself resisting simultaneous urges to bolt to her feet and spin to the windows. Run from the room.
What the fuck?
“Should you have called?” Rebecca shushed her thoughts, commanding herself to relax as she leaned into the phone. “Of course you should have. It’s great that you called.”
“So it’s going to get better,” said the voice.
Was that a question? It hadn’t sounded like one. And … shouldn’t that have been her line?
One last time, Rebecca glanced at the Crisis chart. Then she turned away from it, relaxed in her chair. She was a natural, born for this if she’d been born for anything. “Starting right now,” she said.
Again came that sound on the other end of the line. Wind or whistling. Then, “I think so, too. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s time.”
“Time?”
“Is it good, do you think? Dying?”
Rebecca pursed her lips, made herself relax her hands on the tabletop. “Where are you?” she asked.
“High. Close.”
To the edge? To her? How would he know where he was calling, and why would she think that?
High, as in on drugs? Or in the air?
“The end. Lonely Street,” the voice whispered.
No. Sang.
“Is it beautiful there?” Rebecca heard herself say. Then she was staring, astonished, horrified, into the darkened windows, the shadowed summer leaves over Campus Walk. “I’m sorry, that was a really stupid question. What’s your—”
“It is, actually.” And he sounded surprised, her caller. Small, lonely, and surprised. “You know, it really is beautiful here. Hear it?”
Rebecca clutched the phone, watching the window as though it were a teleprompter that would tell her what the ALWAYS DO answer to that might be. Hear what? Nothing about this conversation was going in the direction it was supposed to.
But she was sure of one thing, or almost sure: this guy wanted to talk more than jump. Or whatever the hell he had been thinking of doing. So that was something. She would talk.
“What makes it beautiful?”
“The roofs,” he said. And he made a whimpering sound.
This time, Rebecca actually lifted the phone from her ear and stared at it. She wondered, briefly, if this were a pop inspection, some new Crisis Center supervision thing Dr. Steffen had invented. Then she decided it didn’t matter. Either way, she had a job to do.
“Roofs.” Nodding, though she had no idea at what, she leaned forward on her elbows. “That’s fantastic. What about them?”
“How far they are from the ground. The beautiful ground, where my Destiny would have walked with me.” Then he whistled, low and mournful.
It was like a song, almost, less what he said than the way he said it. Sang it. Was that why she had tears in her eyes?
“Listen. Why don’t you tell me your na—”
“And they’re all peaked! The roofs are. They have little attic rooms underneath, under the peaks. I just saw a little girl in one, with a night-light. She looked so alone up there in the middle of the night.”
“Yeah, well. Story of my life,” Rebecca murmured—as though she were dreaming—and realized she was blushing. Jesus Christ, was she flirting, now? Maybe she’d better stick to the chart, after all. “But no one has to be alone. Really. I should know. And I’m here with you.”
For answer, she got footsteps. Her caller, walking across whichever roof he’d picked to climb out onto. Then he whistled again, and went silent. As though …
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