“You can’t hang out with your old friends?” the man asks, his eyes skittering up and down the length of her. “What’re they, trouble?”
“The one girl’s a druggie.” The anorexic shrugs. “I used to buy stuff from her. But I wasn’t even talking to her. It was total coincidence that she was even there. When I knew her, she barely ever left the house.”
“You mean total coincidence that he was there,” the man says. “Or just bad luck.” He grunts sympathetically. “He wrote me up ’cause I was ten minutes late getting home last night. Didn’t matter that I was up at the mall, buying my kids shoes. He didn’t want to hear it. Just kept saying, ‘Rules are rules, buddy-boy. Rules are rules.’”
“He calls me buddy-boy!” The anorexic sits back, folding her toothpick arms over her chest. “Like I’m some kind of fucking Boy Scout.” She shakes her head. “What an asshole.” She is wearing a thin white sweater with no sleeves, even though it’s barely warm enough for a T-shirt. The tops of her shoulders stick out like knobs. She sits forward again suddenly, opening her legs, draping her elbows along the bones of her thighs. “He treats us like kids. Like we’ll never grow up or get it right, you know?”
The man nods, draws his fingers down the stubble along his face. “They’re all like that. Every single one of them.”
Like we’ll never grow up or get it right. I wonder if this is how Ma sees me. Stuck perpetually at fifteen, still kicking and screaming about missing Dad. Still deliberately making the wrong choices, although I know better. And how about Mrs. Ross? Am I just another one of her clients who lets her down, a typical self-centered brat with tunnel vision? Have either of them ever really believed in me, or have they just been holding their breath all this time, waiting for me to screw up?
Mrs. Ross appears then, a stack of files in the crook of her elbow. She pushes open the door, gives me the same dour expression as before. “Okay, Bird. Let’s go.”
“Good luck,” the man says behind me. “Don’t let them push you around.”
I can hear the two of them snickering as the door closes behind me.
The second hand on the clock ticks forward: 10:46.
I FOLLOW MRS. ROSS’S legs back down to her cubicle, sit down in the empty chair next to her desk before she has a chance to tell me to. She slides into her own chair, arranging her legs just to the right of the desk, and, without giving me a glance, starts typing. Her fingers move quickly and then speed up, flying so forcefully at one point that the keyboard starts sliding around the desk. She doesn’t seem to notice, her eyes set firmly on the screen, until finally, with two deliberate smacks against the keys, she sits back in her chair and turns her head. A long moment passes as she hooks a finger over one of the strawberry-sized beads in her necklace and glares at me.
“What?” I ask finally.
“Don’t ‘what’ me, Bird,” she says. “You know very well what.”
“But you’re freaking out for no reason. You don’t even know anything and you’re just jumping to conclusions.”
“First of all, I am not freaking out.” Mrs. Ross spits the word back out at me, as if the thought of using such vocabulary would never occur to her. “I’m just incredibly disappointed. And secondly, I am not jumping to any conclusions.” She leans forward, lowering her voice. “I found the drugs, Bird. In your pants pocket.”
“But that doesn’t mean I took them. Or that they even belong to me. Or Jane.”
Mrs. Ross straightens up again in her chair. “Well, what would it mean, then, Bird? Why don’t you tell me? Do you have some kind of secret life on the side that I should know about? Have you started popping Vicodin suddenly for some phantom illness? Or are you conducting a little extra business on the side?”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot.” I can feel a latent anger starting to catch, a flame lighting. “I’m not a . . .” I pause, the word “child” sitting on the end of my tongue, and swallow it back down. Not because it’s the wrong word. Because it’s the right one. I’d bet any amount of money that those idiots out in the waiting room know it, too. For some reason or another, we are all still acting like kids, every single one of us in this place, making stupid, thoughtless decisions that we don’t take the time to think all the way through. But why? It can’t be as simple as being selfish, can it? Have all of my actions, from writing that second bad check to deciding to help James, really just been about me?
“I don’t think you’re an idiot,” Mrs. Ross says. “I’m pretty sure I know you by now, Bird. Which is why I know you’re hiding something from me about those Vicodin.”
“I’m not!”
“Okay.” Mrs. Ross shrugs, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with me. “Explain it to me, then.”
“It just means you found two Vicodin in my pants pocket. They could’ve been there for years. Or maybe I was holding them for someone. Maybe I even—” Why can’t I stop lying? What is it that keeps me from getting out of my own way? Maybe some of us don’t ever grow up. Maybe some of us will never get it right, no matter how much we want to.
“Bird.” Mrs. Ross cuts me off, leaning forward again. “Stop it, okay? You’re insulting my intelligence and yours. You and I both know where the Vicodin came from.”
“No, you don’t! That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You have no idea—”
“I do.” Mrs. Ross’s voice is soft, her blue eyes edged with glossy mascara. “And you do, too. I don’t know why yet, and maybe you don’t either, but we’re going to figure out why you would go and do something like that when you’re this close to getting off probation.” She holds up her fingers, spaced an inch apart. “When you’re days away from moving into that apartment on the lake you want so much for you and Angus. Why do you think, Bird? Why would you go and sabotage something that you want so much, that you’ve worked so hard to get?”
Something flashes through the back of my head then when she says that, but it doesn’t have time to register because the sudden roar of sirens outside makes us both jump. There is a flurry of movement around me as various probation officers stand up, and the sizzle of static from the police scanner on the wall.
“All units to Saint Augustine’s Church on Maple Avenue,” a flat voice says. “Repeat. All units to Saint Augustine’s Church on Maple Avenue.”
I leap up as if someone has just lit my chair on fire. “What did they say?”
The crackly voice over the intercom gets louder. “CODE 217. ALL UNITS TO SAINT AUGUSTINE’S CHURCH ON MAPLE AVENUE. REPEAT. THIS IS A CODE 217.”
“Bird?” Mrs. Ross is looking at me strangely. “Sit back d—”
But I’m already running blindly through the cubicle’s rat maze, heading for the exit. “Bird! Where are you going? Bird, wait!” Mrs. Ross is yelling behind me; somewhere in the distance, I can hear footsteps. They may be hers or someone else’s, but I’m not sticking around to find out. “Bird!” she screams again, just as I turn a corner and swerve to avoid slamming into a cubicle wall. “Sawyer! Philip! Get her!” I backtrack quickly, spinning around just as enormous hands grab me from behind, pinning both of my arms tightly against my sides.
“No!” I scream, my heart plummeting as the hold around me tightens. The guy’s big, with arms like trees. I’m sorry to have to hurt him. I kick back, aiming low, feel a sudden release as the man grunts and then stumbles forward, dropping both of us to the floor. I look up; the door to the outside is ten feet away. I scramble to my feet and lurch for it, even as bodies seem to fall out of the heavens, from every direction, pinning me against the rough blue carpet.
“No!” I scream again. “I have to go! Let me go! I have to get him! Please! He’s waiting for me! Let me go get him! He needs me! He needs me!”
Mrs. Ross appears suddenly, getting down on her knees as two men hold my arms on either side. Her eyes are wild, the skin around her lips pale and tight as she leans her face in close to mine. “Who are you talking about, Bird? Who do you have to get? Angus?”
My brain
crackles like lightning. Yes, of course, I’ll tell her it’s Angus. She loves Angus. I’ll tell her he’s sick. And then, when she lets me go, I’ll take the back route, past North Main, down all the one-way streets. I can do it. I know I can. I’ll get there before the police cars and fire engines and God knows who else they’re sending to bring him down. And I can . . . I can . . .
As if to mock my thoughts, the scanner sputters again: “Shots fired at Saint Augustine’s Church. Repeat. Shots fired.”
No.
Who fired the shot? James? The police? Both?
“Who, Bird?” Mrs. Ross asks me again. “Who do you need?” She reaches out, touches my face. Everything feels as if it’s slowing down around me. “Who, hon?”
“Officers moving in.”
And just like that, I know it is over.
I know that our time has run out, that there is no way, no possible way anymore, that I can save him. Something in my body takes over then, and I kick and scream as if possessed, writhing and twisting my limbs like airplane propellers. I bite and scratch, fighting for my life. For his. For us. For the life we will never have, at least not in this world.
“Suspect down.”
“Nonononononono!!!!”
The shriek in my ears is the last thing I remember before lurching a final time and hitting my head on the floor.
Afterward, black.
Chapter 36
I wake up in a hospital bed, a white sheet draped over my clothes. I open my eyes slowly, staring up at a white ceiling. My shoes are gone and someone has fastened a plastic band around my wrist. The space I’m in is tiny, bordered by one of those blue-and-white striped shower curtain sheets that slide around on a thin metal strip. A dull pulsing behind my eyes feels like fists beating the back of my head. Boomboomboom. The ache is enormous, spreading down behind my ears and into my neck. My arms hurt, too, just under the armpits, as if someone pulled on them.
Suddenly, I remember the probation office. James. Shots fired. Suspect down. My God. What happened? Where is he? I sit up with a start, clutching at the sheet.
“Hey.” Mrs. Ross gets up from a plastic chair at the foot of my bed and clicks her way over to me. Her suit jacket is off; she’s pinned her hair back up. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.” I yank the sheet off, slide sideways off the mattress. My head feels like it’s going to explode from the inside out, but I force myself to keep moving.
“Whoa, whoa.” Mrs. Ross reaches out and grabs my shoulder, pushing me back down. “You have to stay in bed for a little while. At least until the doctor comes back. You hit your head pretty hard back there at the office. You were out for a while.”
“I don’t need a doctor.” I wince as the pain in my head spreads down the front of my face. “I’m fine.”
“It won’t take long.” Mrs. Ross sits down on the bed and crosses her legs. “He’ll be back in a few minutes. He said it might be a mild concussion, but he wanted to run a few tests once you were awake to be sure.”
“I don’t need any tests either.” I push past Mrs. Ross, pulling the long silver arm attached to a television on the wall until the screen is close to my face. “I need to know what happened at the church. At Saint Augustine’s. Do you know? Does anyone know?” I flip impatiently through the channels. Soap operas. Family Feud. More soap operas.
“Bird.”
“I’m just looking for the news.” I keep flipping. “Okay? Am I still allowed to watch TV?”
“Bird.”
I stop then, my hand going limp. I can tell by the expression on her face that she already knows, but I don’t want to hear it from her. I can’t. “What?”
“Did you know he was up there?”
I stare at her, a plate of pain widening behind my eyes.
“There are a lot of things being said right now, but the big one is that someone helped James Rittenhouse while he hid in that choir loft.” She rubs the bottom of her chin. “Was that you?”
I don’t even blink.
“They found food and water and his leg had been set. With the injury he suffered, there’s no way he could have done that himself. He had clean clothes, too. Pants at least. And baby wipes so he could keep himself clean.” She inhales deeply. “Is that who you were talking about in the probation office? Is that who you wanted to go see?”
A long moment passes. I know she’s waiting, but I can’t bring myself to say it. I can’t bring myself to say anything. Not about this. Not about him.
“Do you know what harboring a fugitive means, Bird?” Mrs. Ross gets up off the bed finally, arranging her arms in a neat little package across her chest. The softness in her voice is gone; the little lines around her eyes have begun to crease. “Do you understand what can happen to you if you’re found guilty of something like that? If you’re on probation and you’re found guilty of something like that?”
My voice is still lodged in a rock eight miles away. Where is he? Is he here, in this hospital? In an operating room?
“It can be classified as a felony, Bird. A felony! Do you know what a felony is? It means that you could go to jail for two years! Maybe even longer! Do you understand what I’m telling you?” Her eyes are snapping under the fluorescent lights. “Do you?”
I don’t know if I have ever been so terrified in my life. And yet, somehow, there is something even bigger to be scared of. Something that pushes the voice out of the back of my throat, and out into the space between us. “Did they shoot him?” I whisper. “Is he dead?”
Mrs. Ross’s shoulders sag. She has the same defeated look on her face that Ma had earlier in the kitchen. Then she points to the television behind me. “Look for yourself.”
I turn around.
And all of a sudden, there he is.
Or there someone is, lying on a gurney, covered in a sheet, being wheeled into the back of an ambulance. It doesn’t mean it’s James. It could be anyone. A police officer, a fireman, maybe even Father Delaney, God forbid. Police officers stand around as the body passes, watching as the EMTs fold the metal legs and roll it inside the cavernous vehicle. I lean in slowly, turn up the volume.
“. . . the body of James Rittenhouse, who was involved in a bar fight a few days ago and then managed to escape while in police custody.”
I bring my fingers to my mouth. They are trembling.
“Police are currently saying that Rittenhouse provoked the ultimately lethal response by pointing a gun at the three officers as they entered the building, leaving them no choice but to defend themselves. Further investigation is pending.”
I want to move. I do. I want to put my fist through the television. Rip the volume knob off. Throw the whole fucking thing through the window. Or better yet, at Mrs. Ross.
But I can’t.
There’s nothing left inside.
Nothing at all.
THE NEXT TWO days are a blur of quiet, clipped activity. It turns out that I do have a mild concussion, just as the doctor suspected, and so I have to lie still, keep away from the TV, and avoid any loud noises. This is not hard to do, since both Ma and Angus tiptoe around outside my room, talking in whispers and letting me sleep. I am not sleeping, of course. I doubt I will ever sleep again, although I have no choice but to lay there with my eyes closed since it hurts too much to keep them open. Still, the pictures inside my head torment me. I play the final scene between James and the cops a thousand different times, from every possible angle, but each one ends the same way. My eyes fly open just as the bullet hits him (in the chest, not the head) and I lay there panting, tears leaking from both sides of my eyes.
On the third day, Ma comes into my room and tells me that I am wanted down at the district attorney’s office. “I can tell them you’re still not feeling well,” she says, standing in my doorway, rewrapping the edges of her cardigan around her waist. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the look on her face before; it’s a mix of terror, rage, and maybe a little bit of apathy, which frightens me the most. “Do you wa
nt me to call them back?”
“No.” I push the covers off, inhale a stale stink. “I just want to get this over with. I’ll go down.”
“Take a shower first,” Ma says. “I’ll drive you.”
I sit in the back with Angus, who reaches for my hand as soon as he climbs in and rests his head against the side of my arm. No one says a word as Ma drives to the courthouse, and despite the warmth of his little hand in mine, I can’t help but wonder what Ma has told him, or if he’ll ever talk to me again.
Inside the DA’s office, I follow directions woodenly, sitting in a brown chair behind a long glass table, staying quiet until I am spoken to. I tell the truth, too, when they start firing questions at me, because honestly, I’m too afraid at this point to keep lying. I’m scared they’ll take Angus. I answer everything as succinctly as possible, even though it feels as if I am underwater, as if someone else is doing the talking for me:
“No, I didn’t take James to the church.”
“Yes, I accidentally ran into him after heading up to the choir loft.”
“Because I heard a noise up there, and I thought it was Father Delaney.”
“No, Father Delaney did not know anything about it. At any time. Ever.”
“Yes, I brought him food and water and the equipment to set his leg with.”
“Yes, I brought him clean pants and baby wipes, too.”
“No, we weren’t romantically involved.” I’m not giving them that, as small as it was. No how. No way.
“No, we did not have sex in the church choir loft.”
“Yes, I knew him from before.”
“Yes, he told me what led up to the bar fight.”
The district attorney sits up a little straighter when I answer this last question, and flicks his eyes over at the guy across the table who has loosened his tie, and has one finger on the tape recorder. “He talked about the bar fight?”
The Odds of You and Me Page 28
