As if on cue, Linda ducked into the garage with a basket of cheese curls. “Adam said to put some snacks out here,” she said, putting down the basket and picking up a can. “I don’t know how you kids can drink this stuff,” she said, scanning the label. “Oh, by the way, the next time you and Adam sleep in the car…”
My face burned. I knew I’d felt someone watching that night. It wasn’t my imagination. But it wasn’t Banana Man, either. It was Linda—Scary Stalker Mom. Lucky for me, Rachel came dancing down the driveway. I shouted and waved, and Linda gave me a tight-lipped smile before marching back to the house. Rachel’s eyes raked the garage. “Where’s Lisa?” she asked.
Sometimes I think Lisa and I are too close, and I can’t socialize without her. I could never talk to Rachel the way I talk to Lisa. After a few minutes, the conversation fizzled out and we drifted, searching for our boyfriends. Hers was arguing politics with the foreign exchange student. Mine was hooking up speakers. I sat at the picnic table, alone, waiting for someone good to show up. Adam had invited theater people, mostly, but then someone he worked with rolled in with a couple of girls from Nisky. Keira, I think, and her friend Something Snobby. I hated them instantly, with their long, smooth hair and manicured nails, faces looking like they’d spent the day at the makeup counter. They reminded me of Jeanine. Which reminded me of Foley. Warm hands cupped my eyes. Everything went dark. My heart did a little dance.
“It’s not so bad,” Adam said. “I think everybody’s having fun. Trent’s got a case in his car if you want something to drink.” Adam’s skin was usually pretty clear, but that night his forehead was a constellation of angry red bumps.
“What’s going on with your face?” I asked, grimacing slightly, and then hated myself for asking.
“It’s from the kitchen,” he said, dragging his bangs to his chin. “I was on the grill. All that grease.”
I brushed the hair from his eyes and kissed him gently. I loved him. I did. Foley meant nothing to me, and I meant nothing to Foley. My mom had it all wrong.
I spent the rest of the party acting like Katie at the pool that day, wading past faces, searching, and then bored. Eventually I parked myself beside Chris and watched him whip one of the Nisky girls at energy-drink pong. When that got boring, too, I wandered out to Trent’s car for something to numb the ache in my chest.
“Get in,” Trent said. He reached behind the seat and passed me a green bottle. “Listen, I’m sorry I started all this bullshit. I didn’t think anybody would actually believe it.”
I took a swig and shook my head, confused.
“This stuff with Lisa. About Banana Man. Gabe says she’s kind of gone off the deep end.”
“You didn’t do that thing with the other eye, did you?” I poked him with the bottle, hoping he’d confess, but now Trent looked confused.
“What ‘thing’ with the other eye?”
He shifted his weight. The upholstery squeaked. In the dark of the car, the closeness made me reach for the door handle, but I stopped, cringing inside, hating my body for overreacting. I hated the way it cropped up like that—the fear. My radar was broken. He’d broken it—that stupid jerk from Troy.
But Trent hadn’t noticed.
I tucked my hand under my leg and explained how Lisa had found a second blue eye, in her room, on her nightstand, next to the one she’d stolen.
“I’m pretty twisted,” Trent said, flicking his lighter. “But that’s some sick shit.” Two orange tongues reflected off his glasses as he bent to the flame and inhaled. “Who do you think’s messing with her?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But she’s losing it. She really thinks he’s stalking her.” I thought of the sensor light. There are no monsters. Only creepy stepmoms. “The crazy thing is,” I said, “she almost had me believing it, too.”
I was about to tell Trent about our midnight raid—I’m sure we’d scared the crap out of that poor homeless guy, bombing his shelter with rocks—but a boy with a lip ring knocked on the roof and leaned in. “Bar still open?” he asked.
Trent shuttled the bottles through the window. “Be discreet,” he warned, nodding his head toward the Nisky girls, posing beneath the streetlight, finger-combing their hair. But beer ended up out back anyway and so did Linda—to stay, circling the yard like a shark until everyone decided it was time to head over to Eric Stanley’s. He was having a party that night, too. His parents were on a cruise, I think. It didn’t matter. They had a pool. Foley probably just went straight there. Or he was with Jeanine. Or maybe he was out talking some girl off a ledge. You never knew with Foley. He was like a one-man crisis prevention hotline. Rachel offered me a ride, but I stayed to help Adam throw away cups and cans and cheese curls. It was my penance for being a jerk all night.
While Adam and Chris cleaned up the garage, I went around front and sat on the steps. Why was everything always so complicated? And what did my mom know anyway? When did she become an expert on love? She hadn’t even known my dad was having an affair until she found that charge on a credit card. Or that her son was gay until … well, I hadn’t known Scott was gay, either. Not until he told us. But it didn’t matter. She’d ruined my night. It wasn’t the first time I’d made myself miserable waiting for Foley, but that was before I had a good boyfriend, before I had Adam. A small voice in me blistered: You shouldn’t be feeling what you’re feeling.
“Don’t be sad,” Chris said, startling me. “I’ll be back at Christmas.” Gripping my head, he climbed around me to the next step up and gave my shoulders a squeeze.
I was so distracted all night I’d forgotten he was leaving Sunday. I’d almost gone home without giving him a real good-bye. The porch light winked out and a toad jumped from the shadows. I crouched down and scooped him up. Bumpy and cold, his tiny throat pulsed beneath my fingers.
“I’ll call him Chris,” I said. And then to Adam, as he came slouching across the lawn: “Doesn’t he look like a Chris?”
Adam sat on his heels and chewed a cuticle, considering. “Mammalian Chris is browner than amphibian Chris,” he said. I agreed. Chris poked my ribs and then rested his chin on my shoulder and stroked the toad’s head through my cage of fingers.
“He’s a night creature,” Chris said, laughing. “I think ‘Adam’ is more appropriate—”
A car raced up the street, drowning him out. Brake lights flared. Someone jumped out of the passenger side and waved. “Hey, sorry I missed your party,” Foley called, jogging up the walk. He clapped Adam on the back and shook his hand, and then rushed toward me, stooped on the step with my heart in my throat. My muscles went weak. Foley opened his arms for a hug and I lost my grip. The toad wiggled from his cage and hopped away, vanishing in the grass.
seven
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: SOS
I just wanted to put the fear of darkness in him.
It’s not like we didn’t try to get him to stop. We really did. But he wouldn’t. Things kept escalating. We had to do something.
Please come home.
I understand about you and Justin. Mom does, too. She didn’t mean the things she said—you know how she is. That was a pretty big bomb you dropped. How was she supposed to know? You had a girlfriend for three years. Lisa took it hard, too. She always had a not-so-secret crush on you. I think she dreamed that someday you’d see she wasn’t a kid anymore—your little sister’s best friend—and fall in love, just like in the movies. But it’s never like the movies, is it? Love?
Sometimes it feels like the ugliest thing he put in me that day is fear. I fight it, I do. But it’s there. And it hurts. I’ll get over it—I have to, right?—but I don’t ever want to hurt again.
I’m rambling. I know. This is turning into one of those e-mails Grandma sends, the ones where you scroll and scroll and never reach the end. It would be easier if you’d just answer your phone. It’s so quiet right now. Almost too quiet. I keep expecting the cop
s to show up any minute, pounding on the door, waking Mom, waking the neighbors, dragging me out to the street in cuffs. But I need help. I need someone to listen. I could go to Foley, but I never want to see him again.
I can’t sleep. I’m too afraid.
eight
If I ever make a movie with a grisly murder scene, I’ll film it in the Hillhurst Park bathroom. It’s one of those concrete block buildings with an L passage and a metal door that gets padlocked after dark. Inside, there’s a curtainless shower and four stalls with plywood doors you can see over and caged windows set high in the walls. Post-slaughter, a killer can wash the gore down the floor drain. I don’t know how I’ll capture the smell, which is always something funky.
That day it was rotten eggs.
Washing my hands, I checked my reflection in the polished metal over the sink. My blue streaks were fading. I needed more color. I tiptoed around the wet toilet paper stuck to the floor and held the door for a mother dragging a rabid toddler on a leash. Cue the screechy violins.
But the places where bad things happen aren’t always so ominous, I thought, stopping to buy a blue raspberry taffy from the Snack Shack. A few days before, a boy with a bee allergy died right here in front of the candy counter.
I took the shortcut through the pines back to the pool. When I’d left, Lisa was propped on her elbows watching Katie practice handstands in the shallow end. But now Katie was crouched on the grass with the towel over her head and Lisa was screaming and gesturing at a woman in a mom bathing suit. The mom flailed angrily right back.
Conflict makes my knees go wobbly. I wanted to climb under the towel with Katie. I caught enough of the shouting to hear that the woman’s son had yanked down Katie’s bikini bottom. I didn’t know if Katie was hiding because everyone had seen or because her sister had morphed into a raging psycho.
“If your son ever touches my sister again, I’ll break his little arm!” Lisa shrieked. Which was exactly the wrong thing to be yelling when park security showed up to investigate the disturbance. The guard listened to the lifeguard and then the mom. A few minutes later, he was escorting Lisa through the crowd toward Katie and me. I pulled on my T-shirt and then peeked under the towel and handed Katie hers.
“Get this,” Lisa said, shoving her book in her bag. “He’s asking us to leave.”
The officer just stood there, clutching his belt, looking bored.
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s cloudy anyway.”
“It’s sexual harassment!” Lisa shouted to anyone still listening. “My sister has a right to go swimming without being felt up!” She reached under the towel for Katie’s hand and guided her up the knoll to the jogging path. When we got to the play area with the rocket slide, I tugged Lisa’s shirt to slow down. I started to apologize, but she cut me off.
“Save it,” she growled. She stuck her head under the towel to talk with Katie. “You can come out now,” she said gently. Katie’s eyes were red from crying. Her breath escaped in uneven bursts.
“Stupid scummy slimeball jerks,” Lisa muttered, doing her best not to curse in front of Katie.
Then the sky opened up, pelting the hot asphalt with warm summer rain. A low rumble rippled across the park. Two seconds later, the air horn sounded. Everybody out of the pool.
“Good,” Lisa said, finally smiling. “I hope those lowlifes get struck by lightning.”
I’d always known Lisa was fiercely protective. Once she’d yelled in our math teacher’s face to defend me after he accused me of cheating. I hadn’t. I’d just studied really hard—all weekend, at the diner with Lisa. Her reaction today made me wonder what she would have done to the jerk from Troy.
If I’d told her.
Why hadn’t I told her?
I’d skulked home that day feeling shivery and brittle, thinking everybody looking at me knew, like what had happened was as visible as a big black eye.
We waited out the storm in the Snack Shack, and then we cheered Katie with a trip to the big-box drugstore they tore down all those houses to build. She loves that place. Actually, Lisa and I love that place, too. I hate running errands for my mom, but I never complain when she sends me down there. It’s in a crummy part of town, but as soon as those sliding glass doors part, you could be anywhere. That day: Alaska. A blast of frigid air turned my skin to goose bumps. I checked my reflection in the giant round mirror in the ceiling and made a beeline for cosmetics.
“I look like a quarterback,” I said, wiping the black smudges from under my eyes.
“Cotton Candy Frenzy?” Lisa asked, spritzing my wrist.
I sniffed. “Nice,” I said. “If you want to attract clowns and carnies.”
I moved down the aisle toward the lipsticks. Uncapping a tester, I asked Lisa if she liked the color. She shrugged. “Not on you.” I drew a stripe on the back of my hand. Too dark.
“These are your shades,” she said, gathering a handful of tubes and pots.
After she did my makeup, we wandered over to the magazines and browsed fall fashions. It’s hard to get excited about boots and sweaters when it’s ninety degrees. Everything looked binding and itchy. End-of-summer colors did nothing for me either: brown and ocher and maple leaf.
“I’m getting these,” Katie said, running up with a pair of kiwi-green eyelashes.
“Where’d you get money?” Lisa asked.
“Mom.”
“Buy me something, too?” Lisa pleaded
Katie counted her bills. “What do you want?”
Lisa came back with a bottle of pearly nail polish.
“Okay,” Katie said. “I owe you for sticking up for me. Even if we are banned from the pool.”
“We’re not banned,” Lisa said. “And you don’t owe me. He had no right to touch you.”
“Pervert,” Katie said. “We should tie him up in the woods. Sacrifice him to Banana Man.”
“That kid’s not a pervert,” Lisa said. “Just a horndog. Please don’t make me explain the difference.” She turned Katie by the shoulders and sent her toward the registers. “Go pay.”
“I never should’ve told her he’s real,” Lisa whispered. “It’s all she talks about.”
It’s all you talk about, I thought. I wanted to take her by the shoulders and say Wake up. You’re not a little kid. Monsters don’t exist. Instead I said, “You didn’t tell her about the eye, did you?”
She picked up a box of hair color and put it back down. “I’m not stupid.”
“Doesn’t she wonder why you’re sleeping in her room?”
“I told her my room’s too hot. It’s true. She’s got the better fan.”
I knew it was the wrong time to bring it up, but I told Lisa that my mom wanted her to stay over Friday night, so we could get an early start on Saturday. The company picnic was at an amusement park this year—something new. They used to hold it at the Rod and Gun Club. Hamburgers and hot dogs and contests for the kids. Scott and I always went home with half the prizes.
Lisa sighed heavily.
“If you don’t want to go,” I said, “tell me now. I’ll bring Adam. He hates rides—”
“No, I want to go.” She sounded torn. “Can I let you know tomorrow?”
Katie came back waving four dollar bills. Outside, she dragged us toward the yellow arch shining brightly against the storm-bruised sky. “That’s a lot of food if we order off the Value Menu,” she said. She was right. Four bucks won’t buy a grilled chicken salad, but it will buy two cherry pies, a strawberry shake, and a hot fudge sundae. When my mother got home from work, I wasn’t hungry. Which was too bad—she was actually planning to cook. Parmesan chicken and the first green beans from the garden. She made herself a frozen dinner instead.
“Can Adam come over and watch a movie?” I asked.
My mom blew on her fork. “Sure,” she said. “I need to do some weeding tonight, anyway.”
“You don’t have to hide,” I said. “We won’t get anything scary. Nothing sexy, either.”
&
nbsp; The phone rang. My mother froze. “If that’s Chip, I’m not here,” she whispered.
I picked up the receiver. “This is Tracy,” I said. I looked at my mother; a mouthful of beef tips squirreled in her cheeks like she was afraid whoever was on the other end would hear her chewing. “Chip?” I said. “That’s so funny! We were just talking about you. Yeah. Hold on, she’s here.”
My mother bulged her eyes angrily and swallowed. Putting the phone to her ear, she croaked, “Hi!” As soon as she realized it was a recorded message for some company trying to sell us something, her face relaxed into a smile. “Ha-ha,” she said, hanging up. She tossed the black plastic tray in the trash and her fork in the sink. She was smiling. Good. It was the perfect time to ask what I’d been wondering about since the drugstore: “Can we bring Katie to the picnic?”
My mother went to the fridge and pulled a couple of plastic deli bags from the meat drawer. Her silence meant she was considering my request. I got out the chips and stuck a fruit cup in her insulated lunch bag. “She’s a good kid,” I said, trying to sway her. “She’ll do whatever you say.”
“Katie’s not the problem.” My mother chucked a loaf of moldy bread. “I’ll have to pay full-price at the gate. And she wouldn’t get any lunch. You need a special wristband for that. They came with the tickets I got through work.”
“The problem is, Larry might have to do overtime,” I said. “If she can’t go, Lisa can’t go.”
I hated lying, but the truth was ridiculous: my best friend was afraid of the bogeyman.
“Let me see what I can do,” she said. “Maybe somebody has an extra ticket.”
Leaning on the counter, watching her build a sandwich, I asked if she’d ever heard a creepy story about a guy called Banana Man.
“Banana Man? Like the fruit?” She rolled a slice of turkey and popped it in her mouth. “Sounds kind of silly. Where’d you get that from?”
What We Knew Page 6
