“Well—” Troy says, but Annie very quickly says, “Yes, that’s great.” I can’t help but smirk. Having me in her room is better than having me in Troy’s, I guess.
When we get to her room, she takes out a new toothbrush and a nicely folded towel. “Do you want to take a shower? You can borrow some pajamas if you want. You can wear my flip flops, too.”
She shows me where the women’s bathroom is. There are three shower stalls. One of them has a huge wad of someone’s hair, so I pick the middle one. Annie gives me her shampoo, too, which is the same kind that Gwen uses. It’s weird. I don’t think I could have told you what kind of shampoo Gwen uses, but as soon as I smell it it’s like we are curled up on her couch together watching a movie.
I don’t want to miss Gwen, but I do.
I stay in the shower a long time. It feels like I haven’t showered for days, like we’ve been on this road trip for a week at least, rather than just a few hours. Back in Annie’s room, she’s already in her bed. She’s laid out this kind of foam folding chair thing and even put clean sheets on it.
“Thanks,” I say. “It’s really nice of you to share this—whatever this is.”
“It’s a futon chair,” she tells me. “But people call them flip and fucks.” She blushes as she says it. She starts undoing her braids and her red hair is in waves.
“Wait, what?”
“Gross, right?”
“It doesn’t even make sense. If I came here to sleep with you, we would be in your bed, wouldn’t we?”
She doesn’t say anything. She looks down at her hands where she stretches a hair elastic. “Are you, like, I mean, are you hitting on me?”
“No. I mean, no. I’m not a lesbian, even if my brother thinks my taste in music leans that way.”
“Neither am I,” she says. Her voice is rounder now, and lower, not the baby voice she used all night.
“I thought maybe you liked Troy,” I say.
She gives a half smile. “I did when I first met him. He is kind of cute, right?”
“Sure.”
“But it turns out he flirts with everyone. I mean everyone. So you feel all special when you’re with him, but then you see him with another girl, and it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s just how he is. I’m not special at all.’ I’m not even sure he realizes he’s doing it. Like, if you had tried to hook up with him or something, he would have been shocked and said, ‘But you’re only sixteen.’”
“Actually, I’m fifteen.”
“He would be horrified.”
“Is that why you won’t sleep with me?” I joke.
She smiles. “Exactly. If you came to school here and I was still here—oh, wait, I can actually do basic math.”
I smile up at her. Her hair is all down now and fanned around her and I think I understand why she wears it in braids. It’s a little bit too beautiful, too stunning. It’s like all anyone would see of her. “You have a nice voice,” I tell her. “Why do you use that baby voice?”
She looks out the window toward the lights of a building across the quad. “Your brother and Zack made me nervous.”
“Zack and Charlie?”
“Boys always make me nervous. It’s like, every time I meet a new guy, I can’t help it, but my brain is like, Maybe he’s the one. Maybe, maybe, maybe. It’s pathetic, I know. I mean, I’m nineteen. It’s too early for true love to come walking through the door. But I can’t help but get my hopes up, you know? And then that voice comes out.”
“Well, I wish you had said something because Zack is gay and Charlie is—heartbroken.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?” she asks.
“Not right now, no.”
“I’ve never had a boyfriend.”
“Really? But you have such great hair.”
She laughs at this, big and loud. Then she claps her hand over her mouth. “Is that all it takes?”
“The harder part is finding a good guy. I don’t actually believe in true love if you want to know the truth.”
She doesn’t say anything. She just looks at me.
I say, “I guess boys make me kind of nervous, too.” My stomach tightens with anticipation. I’ve never really talked with anyone about this. Never said it out loud. I mean, Charlie would tell you that I’ve bitched a thousand and one nights about Seth, but that’s different. I’ve never said the whole story of what happened, not to anyone. Annie has a poster of Van Gogh’s night sky on her ceiling and I stare at the swirls. “It’s just that you can never tell with them. They can seem so nice and normal and thoughtful, but underneath it’s something else. Or how they act with their friends and how they act with you. Like you were saying with Troy—it’s hard to know who he really is, who he really cares about.”
“So you’re saying all guys are like that. It’s just variations on a theme.”
“I guess so.”
“So maybe you do believe in true love,” she says. “And what you don’t believe in is the possibility of non-loser guys.”
“Have you met any yet?”
“No,” she says. “But I have to believe they’re out there, right? I mean I haven’t ever seen a moose or an elephant in real life, and I believe in those.”
BEFORE
September
The bulletin board outside the art room was decorated with some of the best work from the year before. Hannah dragged us down to show us because there was a picture she painted of an egg sitting in a porcelain egg cup. It was really good, actually, in the sense that all the details were just right. The egg looked like it had weight. The cup looked like one fall to the ground and it would smash into a million pieces. But I wasn’t sure why she painted an egg in a cup. Weren’t paintings supposed to have meaning or something?
“It took me, like, half the semester,” Hannah said. “My parents are going to frame it.”
“Cool,” I said, but couldn’t muster much enthusiasm.
“It’s really good, Hannah,” Gwen told her, sounding much more sincere than I did.
I scanned the rest of the board. My eyes were drawn to a small sketch of an empty chair. Seth did it. Seeing his name, Seth Winthrop, beneath the picture made me all warm and fuzzy like I’d transformed into a little kitten in a basket or something totally cute-explosion like that. I knew better than to show that side to Gwen and Hannah, and, anyway, right next to Seth’s was a self-portrait by Remy Yoo. She’d drawn herself staring right out of the picture, right through me. She had harsh bangs and a hint of a smile that said I am better than you.
“Bitch,” I murmured.
“Who?” Hannah asked.
But Gwen saw what caught my eye. “Give it a rest, Lexi. They broke up last year.”
Hannah caught on. “It’s a really good self-portrait.”
“But, like, of course it’s a self-portrait, right?” I could just picture Remy staring at herself in every mirror she passed. Staring, staring, staring because she was so beautiful and had fine, distinct features and that dark, dark hair. Nothing washed-out. Nothing soft.
“Um, I think that was an assignment,” Hannah said.
I turned to look at her. She stood with her feet together like ballet first position and she was sucking on her lower lip. She looked like somebody’s kid sister visiting from the elementary school. “What’s your deal?” I asked. “You guys friends with Remy Yoo now?”
“No,” Hannah said quickly.
But Gwen said, “I’m not not friends with her.”
“You should be,” I said.
“Why?” Gwen asked. She stood with one foot out to the left, a hand on her hip. Snob stance, that’s what we called it in middle school because all the too-cool popular girls stood that way while they made fun of the lesser girls. So, yeah, of course she stood that way now.
“Because she’s Seth’s ex. Because she treated him badly.”
“Did she treat you badly?” Gwen asked.
I thought of the funny looks I’d gotten from Remy in the halls. Not daggers. More like r
aised eyebrows, impenetrable and unknowable. It’s like she knew something I didn’t. Like she was holding it over me. “Yeah, sort of. She looks annoyed every time she sees me.”
“Of course she’s annoyed. You’re dating her ex. You won, Lexi. Isn’t that good enough for you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Have some grace, Lexi. Don’t be a sore winner.” Her voice was a mix of pleading and exasperated, like I was on a ledge ready to jump, and this was her last-ditch effort to save me, but part of her kind of wished I would just jump so the whole thing could be over with.
“Screw you,” I said.
“Screw you, too,” she shot back. Then she pivoted on her heel. She grabbed Hannah, who was blinking like a baby bunny, and dragged her down the hall.
I spun back to the bulletin board. There was Remy Yoo staring back at me, her pencil-drawn eyes flashing. And when I turned to go down the hall, away from where Gwen and Hannah went, there was the real Remy. She stood by the water fountain clutching her water bottle in two hands. “Lexi,” she said.
“What?” My voice fought to escape my throat and it sounded garbled and coarse.
“Do you think we could talk sometime?” She took a step toward me.
“Were you listening?” I asked.
“Listening to what?”
I couldn’t tell if she was lying or not. I shook my head. “Whatever. Never mind.”
I strode down the hall. Remy stepped into my path. “Lexi,” she said again.
I pushed past her. I didn’t mean to, but I bumped into her, my elbow hitting her arm. The water bottle fell and its top spun off, spreading water down the hall. “Shit,” she whispered.
I kept going. I walked away while the spill slicked the tiles behind me.
NOW
In the morning, I wake up before Annie. I leave the pajamas she loaned me behind and slip back into my jeans. I take a clean shirt from my bag and put my old sweat shirt on over it. I take the toothbrush with me.
She has a whiteboard on her door. I draw a picture of an elephant, and then give it antlers like a moose. I write: You’re more likely to find one of these, but I wish you luck. You deserve it.
I find Zack and Charlie out in the common room. Zack looks well rested and like he took a shower, too. Charlie doesn’t. We step outside into the cold morning air, and Charlie says, “I looked at the campus map online. The theater’s over there.”
I know what he wants to do, although I don’t know why.
We crunch across the frozen snow toward the theater. It’s a big stone building with columns built into the face of it. The ground out front is wet with melting snow, and, when I slip a little, I grab on to Zack to steady me.
I figure the door will be locked, but when Charlie pulls on it, it opens, and we all step inside. It’s mostly dark, with just one light on down a distant hallway. “Creeptastic,” I say.
“I think it’s kind of peaceful, actually,” Charlie says. His voice doesn’t have the edge I’ve come to expect, but he also isn’t really looking at me or maybe even talking to me. It’s like his voice is just floating out there for no one to hear.
Charlie opens another door, which goes into the theater itself. It’s a little weird to be in here with no one else. The darkness is intense, and I take out my cell phone—all charged up now—and use the flashlight to guide us down the aisle. I think of Seth and how I once told him to try out for the play, how he acted like it was the worst possible thing I could have asked him.
At the end of the aisle, Charlie hops onto the stage. Really. He just kind of jumps and twists and lands sitting on the edge of it like it’s the most natural thing in the world. I find the stairs on the side and go up those, followed by Zack. Charlie is already making his way backstage. He finds a wall of light switches and flicks a couple, lighting up different areas of the theater before he finds one that brings the backstage into a shady sort of half light. I turn off my phone.
The light makes a crackling noise, and it’s easy to imagine the whole thing blowing out, sending sparks and glass raining down on us. Zack and I follow Charlie as he walks the perimeter of the area. He opens one door, peeks in, and then shuts it before I can look in after him. I feel like if I speak, the whole theater will collapse around us. Like it is made of fabric or air and will just drop, and the world around us will be gone, too. It will be just us afloat.
“Here,” Charlie says, and pushes open a door. It’s a dressing room, messy, with a large mirror that, in this scant light, looks like a puddle hovering in the air. Zack turns on a light and then the mirror is just a mirror, reflecting us back at us. Charlie turns his head.
The signature isn’t hard to find. It’s right by the door and, like Kristy said, it’s fading a little, mostly around the W of his last name. Charlie stands and stares at it a long time before he says, “It’s just the past.”
I don’t know what he means by that. I know he didn’t think we would find Adrian Wildes here curled up in the dressing room. But what did he expect?
We’re crossing back over the stage when Zack stops. “When I was eleven, my mom signed me up for this boys pageant thing.”
“There are pageants for boys?” I ask.
“Yeah. They’re—something. Anyway, I had to perform for the talent section, you know. I wanted to sing. But my mom said my voice was ‘not from the angels.’”
“Where was it from?” I ask.
He shrugged. “So instead I decided to do magic tricks. I was The Great Zacktini! I had this toy magic set and I practiced and practiced, but when I got up on the stage, I just flubbed. Like big time. Dropping the balls and the scarves and everything. It was a disaster.”
“It sounds a little cute, maybe.”
“Oh, yeah, the audience thought it was hilarious. I should have hammed it up like I was doing a comedy routine, not a magic act. But instead I just got more and more flustered and then I started to cry a little. But I stayed up there. I finished the act. I got Most Spirit at the end, which I think is actually a step below a participant’s ribbon.”
The whole time Zack is talking, Charlie is pacing around the theater. Then he sits down on one of the chairs in the front row. So I go and sit next to him. “Sing now,” I say.
“What?” Zack asks.
“Or do some magic. But I’m guessing you don’t have your magic kit with you, so sing.”
He shakes his head and gives a little smile. “Nah.”
“Come on,” Charlie says. “We’ll be the best audience you’ve ever had.”
“The only songs I have in my head are Adrian Wildes songs, and I know how Lexi feels about those.”
“It’s fine,” Charlie says. “It won’t kill her.”
“It won’t,” I agree. I kind of want to hear Zack sing. I wonder if he’s really terrible or if his mom was being mean or what.
Zack looks down at the floor of the stage, but then he starts singing, kind of quiet and low. I recognize the song pretty quickly—“Topeka”—but Zack sings it differently.
You blow across me
Like a Topeka tornado.
And all I can think is,
How’m I gonna save you
From the storm inside?
Adrian Wildes’s voice, when he sings it, is full of sorrow, but Zack sings it more with guilt and anger, his voice scratching over the words like boots over ice. And maybe his mom is right and his voice doesn’t come from an angel, but as he’s singing, I find myself loving the song with every word he sings.
When Zack finishes, Charlie says, “I gotta piss.”
“So polite,” I reply.
When he’s gone, I say, “You know, if we’re ever going to find Adrian Wildes, it’ll be by looking someplace no one else is looking.”
“I don’t think we’re going to find him,” Zack says.
“Then why’d you come?”
“I told you, my parents—”
“They’re fighting?”
“They aren’t fighting. They aren’
t talking They aren’t anything. It’s the Cold War up in our house. Mutual assured destruction.”
“So coming along with me and Charlie has been a real break from all that, huh?”
He smiles down at the stage. “What about you?”
“I’m not sure how familiar you are with Charlie’s general demeanor lately, but he’s been on the couch for weeks, and frankly wasn’t Mr. Get Up and Go before that, and now he’s suddenly raring and ready to go.”
“But that’s a good thing, right?”
“Were you not paying attention during the suicide unit in health class—the sudden energy and euphoria—”
“I wouldn’t exactly call Charlie euphoric.”
“You haven’t seen him this last month. The only bigger sign would be if he had started giving away all of his possessions. He is on the edge, and I need to stay with him.”
My stomach sinks then as I realize I have just left him alone. Going to the bathroom is a classic escape move in cop dramas. But then Charlie is walking back across the stage. He claps his hands together. “We need to regroup,” he says, and pulls the old folded map from his back pocket. “So, I was thinking in the bathroom—”
“Spare the details,” I interrupt.
He doesn’t even bother to roll his eyes. “We’ve been to Narragansett, right?” he says, putting his finger down on the map. “That’s where he’s from. And here’s Philadelphia, that was his last stop. And then he was on his way to New England for shows in Hartford and then Boston, right?” He puts a second finger on Hartford.
“Okay, sure?” Zack says. “We knew all this.”
“But he went missing on the Delaware River near Bethlehem. That’s totally out of the way if the bus was going to Hartford.”
I look where he’s pointing. He’s right: the spot on the map is nowhere near 95 or any of the other highways you would take to get from Philadelphia to Hartford. “But he asked to go see the river, right? It’s his tour, so maybe they had to go where he wanted,” I say.
“Right. I think we need to try to get on the road he was on.”
“What do you mean?”
“Follow the Delaware River north, and look where it gets you.” He traces his finger up the map along the blue line that narrows as he goes north. It’s so thin I can barely see it, but then it widens again as it curves up along the border between New York and Pennsylvania and leads right into one of the circles he and Zack had drawn earlier: Shangri-La, the abandoned amusement park. “I think that’s where he was heading. We start there. If we don’t find him, then we follow the river south and we’re bound to run into him.” He traces his finger south until it gets to Trenton, New Jersey. “If we haven’t, we can get back on ninety-five north there.”
Good and Gone Page 7
