by Cyn Balog
Like
???
Do people do movies around here?
I swallowed. He wanted to do fun things with me?
When?
One?
OK, so I was still an early afternoon girl. He probably had some big party or date set up for later. But still, it was my first social engagement that didn’t involve you, Andrew. Of course, the second I thought about you, I felt guilty. But we were just going to hang out. Early afternoon hanging out. Surely, other people would be there. Guys and girls could hang out together in a group without it meaning anything. All of this reasoning played in my head as I typed.
OK.
The second I did, my heart started thudding in my chest. I was going to hang out with Z for fun. I was going to hang out with Z for fun! And other people too, but this was an invitation to a new world. One I knew you’d want me to accept. Right, Andrew? I mean, you ached along with me whenever I told you how alone I was at school, and above all, you wanted me to be happy. I was both thrilled and terrified as Z wrote back with: Pick you up at your place? Where?
He was going to drive me. Like a date. But not a real date. Just hanging out. With other people. I thumbed in the address carefully, realizing that since you didn’t drive, this was the first time I’d be in a guy’s car, ever.
I mentally dissected my closet, wondering what I should wear. Z had only seen me in my uniform. You pride yourself upon being a fashion victim (yes, I’m thinking of those jeans that are two sizes too small and that lumberjack shirt, Andrew), so I never had to “dress to impress” with you. And because I didn’t have any social life other than spending time with you, my wardrobe was limited. I started rifling through my drawers and found one pair of jeans and a nice blouse. But I thought the blouse might be trying too hard, so I found that pink T-shirt you bought me from the Renaissance Faire. It was enormous then, but now it fit me fine. I went back and forth… Blouse? T-shirt? Blouse? T-shirt? I finally settled on the T-shirt. I laid them on my bed and found my flip-flops, then realized I had to paint my toenails, so I gave myself a quick pedicure.
I hadn’t slept at all, so when you left at four in the morning, I was awake to see you leave. Stiff and yawning, I tilted the blinds and watched you load the cooler into the back of the pickup. You hefted your blue backpack on your bony shoulder and looked up at my window—as if you were hoping I’d jump out of it and save you—then climbed listlessly into the cab.
If I’d been a better person, maybe I would’ve come out and saved you. If I could go back and do any one thing different, anything, Andrew…please know I would have tried.
Chapter 11
What sort of person was Z?
The best. Cool dude. Always the life of the party. Always willing to help a friend. Everyone liked him. Everyone. That’s why I really can’t understand what happened. I think about it and…it’s just insane. I can’t get it through my head.
So there was nothing that seemed off about him?
No. He kept to himself a lot. And he was unpredictable, I guess. You couldn’t really pin him down.
You’d heard the rumors about him then?
Which ones? That he was a drug dealer, or that he was an heir to an oil fortune, or that he was a transvestite stripper on weekends? Yeah, the kid was a rumor magnet, but he took them all the same way—with a shrug. So even if the stories were true, you wouldn’t know by his reaction.
—Police interview with Ian Cummings, junior at St. Ann’s
Z didn’t come to pick me up at one.
I waited faithfully by the window, like some one-eyed dog at the animal shelter that nobody wants to adopt. At first I thought that he had other people to pick up and that was taking longer than he expected. I sat there, hope pulsating in my heart every time I heard the sound of tires approaching on the asphalt.
My parents were busy worker bees, moving from room to room. The first time my dad passed me, he said, “Hey, kiddo, what’s up?” I told him I was going out with friends, to which he replied “Friends? Cool!” in a surprised way. He was clearly excited for me because if I didn’t count you, Andrew, I hadn’t been out with friends before, ever.
“Who?” my mother piped up.
I shrugged. “From school.”
My mother wandered into the hallway, wiping her hands on a dishrag. “Should we meet these friends? Who’s driving? Is she safe?”
I shook my head. “Mom, that would be embarrassing.”
She and my father exchanged worried glances. “Victoria,” she said, “what’s a little embarrassment if it saves you from getting wrapped around a tree because your friend decided to text while driving?”
My father studied the growing panic on my face and said, “Oh, Abby. Let her go. She’s happy.” He squeezed my side.
I felt a surge of love for my dad. He was obviously as ecstatic as I was that I had friends to spend the day with. But by two, my father’s elation had dissolved into concern that bordered on pity. My parents kept giving me wary, sideways glances, probably waiting for me to break down in tears. My dad asked me to help load the car with supplies for the dinner, and I did so reluctantly, hoping I wouldn’t get all sweaty. They were close to enlisting my help with rolling meatballs, which I knew would make me smell like garlic, when Z showed up in a battered black Honda Civic. I flew out of the house as if shot from a gun.
As I neared the car, I saw there was nobody else in it. I swallowed. I’d expected to be sandwiched in the back of the car with a bunch of jocks, but instead, I climbed into the front passenger seat.
Z managed to make St. Ann’s gray slacks and a burgundy polo shirt look nice, but words can’t express how he looked in regular clothes. He was wearing a wrinkled T-shirt and loose cargo shorts, exposing his tanned, athletic forearms and calves. He’d probably taken three seconds to select his wardrobe, as opposed to my three hours. I just stared and stared and stared, until he motioned at the open door and I realized I had to close it if we wanted to make it out of the driveway.
He didn’t apologize for being late. He just said “Hey,” took a sip from a giant travel mug, and threw the car in reverse. He must have seen my confusion because he asked, “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. “Who are you picking up next?”
“Next?” he asked. Then he grinned. “What? Are you afraid to be alone with all this manliness?” He gestured at himself.
Yes, I was afraid. I mean, this wasn’t, like, a date, was it? No, of course it wasn’t. We were friends, and I had you, Andrew. I mumbled something incoherent about thinking it was a group thing. Then I shrugged. “No big deal.”
He didn’t know where the movie theater was, so I gave him directions as best I could since I’d only been there a handful of times. I’m sure in Arizona they have one of those mega-cineplexes that shows twenty movies at one time. Our old theater was built early last century and was the only entertainment here in Duchess. The Forum was playing only one movie, a comedy with a bunch of old actors who were way past their prime and making fun of how they each had one foot in the grave.
Z’s face leaked no emotion as he parallel parked across from the theater. “I was going to ask you what kind of movie you like,” he said, “but it doesn’t look like we have a choice.”
That the movie had started thirty minutes ago didn’t faze him. The tickets were only two dollars and he bought mine, which both excited and terrified me. How chivalrous! But did he think this was a date? I itched like crazy to see inside his mind.
We crept into the darkened theater. It was easy to find seats. There were only a couple gray-haired people in the audience illuminated by the light from the screen. We sat in the back, in the very center of the row.
The seats in that old theater are really close together. I let him have the armrest to be nice because he’s bigger. I kept my hands in my lap and tried to concentrate on the movie, even though
I had no interest in the story and no idea what was going on, since we arrived late. Mostly I concentrated on filling my lungs with air because although I’d popped my trusty Ativan earlier, Z made me so nervous that even breathing was hard. I had a small heart attack when his hand snaked over the armrest and found mine. Mine was hot and sweaty; his, warm and nice. He played with my bony, knobby-knuckled fingers and then started stroking my palm.
Mayday, Mayday! This was quickly progressing from friendship to something else. Something I’d convinced myself wouldn’t happen. For a second, I just stared at his hand on mine, hardly able to believe this was happening to me. Finally, I got up the courage to slide my hand out from under his, run it through my hair, and place it back on my thigh. No, sir, I’m not available like that.
But two seconds later, his hand landed on my knee. Breathing about a mile a minute, I angled my knees as far as I could get them away from him without changing seats, but he kept his hand there. Obviously, Z did not get the hint. So swallowing, I leaned over and whispered, “I-I don’t…”
He looked at me with a blank expression, as if he had no idea what was going on. As if he was completely innocent in this.
“Your hand,” I whispered. “I didn’t know… You see, I have a sort of…um…boyfriend.”
He looked down at his hand, almost surprised to see it on my knee. He said, “I have a girlfriend.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling dumb. Wait, he has a girlfriend? But…
“Does this scare you?”
Yes, it scared me. But maybe it shouldn’t have. Maybe it was normal for friends to touch each other’s knees. I mean, it wasn’t like he’d grabbed my boob. I didn’t answer because he’d already moved his hand. We watched the rest of the movie in silence and without touching. I spent those twenty-three hundred tortured breaths wondering what he’d say to me after the credits rolled. When they finally did, he stood up, and I followed him out of the theater.
We didn’t speak again until we were back in his car. He started the ignition. “Weird. I thought half the people in that movie were already dead.”
That was that. We were just going to forget about the whole hand-holding incident. Great, I could do that. I relaxed. “I did too.”
I thought he would drive me home. I was OK with that because, really, I’d had enough being social to last me a year. Keeping my anxiety in check so I didn’t act like a total loser was exhausting. My heart was about to give out.
Instead, Z said, “I’m hungry. Let’s get food.” I didn’t have to agree. It wasn’t a question. He was just going to do it, and I suppose if I was against it, I’d have to jump out at a stoplight. I was kind of against getting something to eat because I knew you would be home soon, and if you saw me being dropped off by Z, I wasn’t sure if I could explain. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell Z that. After all, it was innocent. I needed to chill.
He said, “Just got to stop at my house first.”
I suppose I thought that anyone as perfect as Z would have an equally perfect house. Say, a pristine, white house with Greek columns and manicured landscaping and a butler waving to us from the front door. Nope. Z lived in a run-down mobile home down on Route 11 by the recycling drop-off about three miles past my house.
Andrew, you’ve probably driven by it a thousand times and not noticed because it’s half shrouded in overgrowth and shade trees, and the other half is speckled with greenish-black mold. There were gnomes with faded paint and wooden silhouettes of dogs and a boy fishing in the overgrown weeds. The lawn hadn’t been mown in ages. There was a Ford Festiva in the driveway that was so dirty its original color was a mystery, and a rotting, metal swing-set carcass peeked out from the backyard.
Maybe his house should have been my first clue that something was off with Z. I know, Andrew, our duplex is nothing great. I’ve always been a little embarrassed by it. But Z wasn’t embarrassed at all by the trailer. “Come on in,” he offered, searching his key ring.
I got out and started to follow him, but then I saw the Beware of Dog sign on the door. I stopped. “I’m allergic to dogs,” I told him. I lied because I was embarrassed to tell him the truth—that I was afraid of dogs. Ever since one jumped on me at my aunt’s picnic when I was five, even cute and cuddly dogs scare me to death. Andrew, you’re the only one I’ve ever told about that.
See, Andrew? There are still some things only you know about me.
Z tilted his head, looking at me, looking through me. I think he knew it was a lie. “Really? OK. Wait out here.” He ran inside, and no sooner had the door shut than I heard a voice.
“Zacky?”
From my position, I could just see around the back of the mobile home. Ten toes, painted in bright-pink polish, were waving in the air. I craned my neck to look. A girl was lying on her stomach on a towel in the middle of the weeds. By “girl,” I mean the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. She was blond and light, her skin gleaming porcelain, her lips bright and red like one of those fifties pinup models. Her body was perfectly proportioned and wearing the tiniest pink bikini I’d ever seen. I shifted my stare toward the ground because it seemed wrong to look at anyone wearing so little. She turned over, leaned forward, and removed her movie-star sunglasses to inspect me. “Who are you?” she asked, frowning. “Where’s Zach?”
“I’m Victoria,” I began dumbly.
I thought she would introduce herself, but she just rolled her eyes as the screen door in front slammed. The girl called to him again, but he tugged on the sleeve of my T-shirt and motioned for me to follow.
After we got into his car and pulled away, he said, “Sorry. I didn’t know she was going to be there.” There was a hint of disdain in his voice, but then he flashed a smile.
“Who is she?”
He pulled his dark sunglasses over his eyes as he drove. “My aunt.”
“Your…aunt?” That young, pink vixen looked nothing like an aunt. I was hoping he’d explain further, but he didn’t. “Um…you two don’t get along?”
He shrugged. “Rarely. She’s supposed to be working today. And obviously that’s not happening.” He seemed to shake off his mood when he put on the radio. It was “Dope Hit” by the Young Freaks. He said, “I like this song. Who sings it?”
I told him. “Yeah, I like it too,” I agreed.
We listened until we pulled up at the Duchess Diner, which has only slightly better food than Kelly’s Deli. We have a lot more dives in Maine than respectable restaurants. I’d been at the diner once with my parents, and we’d never gone back because they ruined our grilled cheeses. How hard is it to make a grilled cheese?
We went in and got a booth. I opened the menu, looking for something other than grilled cheese. Z folded his hands over his menu, leaned forward, and stared at me. “So, what about this boyfriend of yours?”
I nearly choked. “What about him?”
“I want details.”
Andrew, I foolishly thought that talking about you would make me completely yours. So I did. I told him all about you, how we’ve known each other since we were seven, how you are homeschooled, how your stepdad works at the paper mill, and how you go on hunting trips with him every month, but what you really love to do is play music. But the funny thing was, the more I said, the more it felt like I was betraying you. Z knew everything about you, and you knew nothing about him.
Z listened intently. Then he said, “I need to meet this guy.”
I raised my eyebrows. He’d tried to hold my hand in the theater, and now he wanted to meet you? Maybe that was a friendly gesture. After all, his tone made him sound like a dad. Or a brother. Maybe that’s what he wanted to be, my protective brother type. “OK.”
“So he plays the piano?”
“He plays pretty much every instrument,” I said proudly. “But he’s best at the piano. He wants to study music, to be a teacher.”
He scratche
d his chin. “Julliard?”
“No,” I said, trying to think of a way to talk about you and your condition so that you didn’t sound like a weirdo. “Andrew is…sheltered.” I bit my tongue. I didn’t want to say more. I didn’t want to tell him your secret, your biggest shame. Agoraphobia. Your constant need for routine, for refuge from the outside world. I guarded those details as if they were my own. But Z has a way of prying things out with only a look. I said, “He’s more of a small-town boy. He wouldn’t last a day in the city. He also doesn’t like being in front of large groups of people. It…frightens him.”
“Frightens?”
I winced. I didn’t mean to make you sound weak.
“Well, it makes him uncomfortable. So he’ll study music around here and tutor local kids. He’ll be happy doing that.”
“But he has the talent to…um…play Carnegie Hall?”
“Oh yes. He’s amazing. Anyone who hears him says so. They say it’s a shame to keep his talent a secret. If he could just get over his fears, he could write his own ticket. He’s really the best.”
Z nodded. “That’s impressive, but…can he play knick knack on his shoe? Because I can. Really well.”
I laughed. “He probably can’t do that as well as you can,” I acknowledged.
Z propped his chin on his hand. “Great. Now I’m jealous. You have a fabulously gifted boyfriend. He’s probably handsome and debonair too, huh?”
“He’s not bad,” I offered humbly. He was joking, obviously. “And you have a girlfriend. Tell me about her.”
His phone dinged. He looked at the display and said, “She’s in Arizona. And she has a worse texting habit than I do. Today she had eggs for breakfast.” He rolled his eyes. “So you see? I’m all alone here. And you have a fabulously gifted boyfriend.”
I stared at him as he pouted in front of me. Was he serious? He had everything. How could he be jealous of me? “You said before you had no family…”
For the first time, his face darkened. “Yeah.”
