This is his fascination, and I get it, and I’m just about to tell him when he flips the pages one more time.
NATHANIEL MCGOVERN.
No, I think.
“When my dad told me we were moving here, I did what I always do. I got online, I looked for stories. And then we got here, and I came to Common Grounds—”
“Stop,” I say, but he’s talking so fast that he can’t.
“I didn’t tell you when we first met, and I’m sorry,” he says. “I knew about you. I knew before we moved here. But I didn’t know I’d meet you that day, I didn’t know I’d—”
“No,” I say. I don’t want to hear what comes next. “I can’t.”
It’s a dream, the kind where you can’t move because there’s thickness everywhere, the kind where it takes superhuman effort to get off the couch and walk to the front door and open it and drag your bike off the ground.
It’s a dream as I ride away.
And I don’t notice until I’m almost home that I’m not wearing my helmet.
tuesday 9/23–wednesday 9/24
Chase keeps his distance for the next couple of days but he leaves my bike helmet in my mailbox and repeatedly texts.
i’m sorry
I delete every message. Mel must sense that something is off, because I find offerings in my locker. An eraser shaped like a piece of sushi; a postcard from Bismarck, North Dakota, with a picture of a UFO drawn on the back; a small bag of what claims to be chocolate-covered ants. They are strange, these things, and they provide the perfect distraction.
After school, she lures me to the gym and puts me to work painting signs for the carnival’s game booths, directing me to “marry kitsch and readability.” I nod as if I understand, and paint block letters while eavesdropping on Zoey telling Fiona that they should start a new slang term. Much to my relief, Amy is nowhere to be seen.
“How do we do that?” Fiona asks.
“We just start using it,” Zoey says. “And everyone else will pick it up.”
“Oh,” Fiona says. “Like, what do we say?”
“How about instead of lame we say scud? Like, This carnival is totally scud.”
“I don’t know.” Fiona sounds skeptical.
“Oh, whatever,” Zoey snaps. “I’ll do it myself.”
I am sorely tempted to get Mel in on this, but she is currently harassing some unfortunate kid about his lack of attention to detail, and I am having trouble remembering whether beanbag is one word or two. I have painted BEAN in huge letters and suddenly the question of where to put the next B is deeply important. I feel the beginnings of a sweat storm brewing across the small of my back. I set my brush down carefully, stand up to stretch, and force my eyes to look somewhere else. Straight ahead. Which creates the illusion for Principal Hunter, who is striding purposefully toward me, that his timing couldn’t be more perfect.
“Tallie,” he says solemnly. He speaks this way to most students, but especially to me. He is a large man whose clothes seem always on the verge of giving up trying to hold him in, and his booming voice is being amplified by the gym acoustics even as he tries to keep it low.
“Hello,” I say, gripping my paintbrush.
“Just checking in,” Hunter says. He tries to cross his arms but they are too short to breach his belly and he succeeds only in gripping his forearms.
“We’re in good shape, I think. The signs are being painted and the construction on the booths—”
“Yes, yes.” He waves a plump hand at the other kids and then nestles it back into the crook of his arm. “Looks fine. I’m more interested”—he turns to face me—“in how you are doing.”
I will let you in on a little secret:
There is a delicate balance at this moment, at any time when people ask the how-are-you-doing question. I cannot seem too stable or happy, but I cannot give them more cause for concern or the how are you doings will multiply until it’s the only question I ever get. “As well as can be expected, I guess.” I say this slowly, with gravity. I say it so I sound tired but brave. That is what people seem to want from me, most days.
“We are all so proud of you, Tallie,” Principal Hunter says. “I have assured your parents that you’ve been attending Bridges meetings, as we agreed you should, and they have brought me up to speed, as it were, about their plans for”—he lowers his voice—“reevaluation. In a few weeks.”
Apparently, like me, my parents have messy bursts of emotion punctuating their days. And apparently, when the bursts happen, they sometimes call Hunter to check on me.
“That is good to know,” I tell him. I mean it, in a way. It is good to know that my parents still have a sense of purpose. And that they’re checking up on me.
“Of course, we would hate to see you transfer to another school. But we would understand if it was just too…painful for you to be here.”
It probably should be, I think. More confirmation that I’m not feeling things properly.
“Well”—Hunter frees his arms and claps once—“back to it! Excellent work, everyone!”
Mel salutes him as he exits.
Suddenly the smell of all the paint joins the haze of Principal Hunter’s cologne and I have to close my eyes. And then I feel Mel jab me in the arm with her finger.
“Remind me to never volunteer for anything ever again.”
“You got it.”
“Are you okay?” Mel asks.
“Sure.” It’s the best I can offer right now. Because I really don’t know. But I recognize that I am acting strange, and even with Mel it’s vital to keep things as normal as possible. “I can’t remember if it’s beanbag or bean-space-bag.”
“Spacebag?”
“No, I mean, is beanbag one word or two words?”
Mel pats my shoulder. “My little perfectionist. Make it one word. If it’s wrong, we’ll post a retraction in the school paper.”
I force myself to smile. I am my own marionette.
Mel cocks her head, pulls out her phone, and takes my picture. Then she says, “I’m starving.” It’s a statement, pure fact. No emotion involved, just a basic physical need that must be served. This I can handle.
So after a full afternoon of carnival work, we head to Common Grounds. We walk straight to the counter and order croissants and cappuccinos. Mel pays and I ignore Martha’s smug looks and Cranky Andy’s limp attempts at conversation as I wait. They think I’m sad not to be working here anymore, but they’re wrong. Being among the customers is better than observing them from a distance. I can blend. They’re my camouflage.
I pick up the tray, careful to keep it balanced, and turn to see that Mel has selected a table next to Chase. I was so determined to approach Martha without flinching that I completely missed the fact that he was here. Sloppy, I chide myself.
Mel widens her eyes at me as I approach, all fake innocence. “Look who I found,” she says. “Just sitting here. Almost as if he was expecting us.” She draws out expecting and glances at Chase, who shrugs one shoulder, unruffled.
“I’ve been texting you,” he says.
“I am aware of that,” I tell him.
“But you haven’t texted back,” he says.
“I am aware of that, too.”
“Naughty Tallie,” Mel says, stirring one foamy finger around and around in her mug. “She’s so self-absorbed sometimes. On account of”—she lowers her voice to a whisper—“the accident.”
Chase can’t help but react to this, grimacing at the whispered word.
“Mel,” I warn.
“What? I’m just dealing you your get-out-of-acting-weird-free card. You never use it, and I’m pretty sure it expires at some point.”
I glare at her.
“Okay, okay.” She stands up, gathering her cappuccino and croissant. “I’ll be over there. Scud. So sensitive.”
Chase waits until she’s out of earshot before saying, “That was kind of awful. I have to admit, I’m not totally seeing why you’re friends with her.”
I sit, the chair still warm from Mel’s body. “She’s not careful with me.”
“I can see that.”
“No, I mean, it’s a good thing. I think. Everyone else is afraid to say certain words around me. Mel doesn’t try to stop herself. She doesn’t treat me like I’m breakable.”
“Is that what you want?” Chase asks. “For people to be tougher on you?”
What do you want? is a very different question than How are you? It wants a real answer.
“Not tough,” I tell him. “Just normal.”
He smiles. “What’s that?”
“I’m working on a definition,” I say. “I’ll let you know.”
Then. Silence. So.
“I didn’t handle that very well,” Chase says. “Showing you the binder. I guess I thought showing you would be easier than telling you.”
“Easier for who?” I ask pointedly.
He nods. “That’s fair.”
“Are you planning to ambush anyone else in Molton, now that you’re here? I think the cafeteria lady’s husband died in a boating accident a few years ago.”
He shakes his head.
“So the honor is all mine.”
Fingers through the hair. I bet he’s a terrible poker player.
“I’ve never shown it to anyone,” he says. “I’m not even sure why I keep adding to it anymore. But there was something about your story—your brother—my brother—”
“It’s not the same,” I say.
But in a strange way, it’s a relief, to sit here and know that I’m not the only one who is trying to remember. The rituals have lost much of their power since the summer. I’ve all but given up on them, at least on doing them with any sustained focus. They’re too formless, too indirect. Maybe the binder—knowing that it exists and that it has him in it—means I can replace them with something better.
“It’s okay,” I tell him.
Chase reaches into his pocket and extracts something. It looks like a tiny basket but it’s shaped like a cylinder, with holes on either end. Like a tunnel. He holds it out to me, and I take it. The pattern of thin wooden strips woven together, the straight lines and perfect corners, is mesmerizing.
“Thank you,” I say. And I roll it over in my hands as he tells me about a secret museum in Las Vegas where David Copperfield has Houdini’s best tricks and devices set up. The museum is hidden behind a replica of the men’s clothing store that Copperfield’s father owned when he was young, and you can only get inside by special invitation or if you’re an apprentice magician or you’re researching a book or something. As Chase is saying that he would like to write a book about Houdini someday, I feel something strange, and when I look down, my index fingers are stuck in either end of the tiny tunnel.
“Oh,” I say. I pull my fingers apart. The tunnel tightens around them.
“No,” Chase tells me, “you have to…”
But there’s a kind of roaring in my ears and my heart is racing as I’m pulling, pulling, and it feels like my fingers are being suffocated, like they’re choking and I can’t see how to get them out. The panic, it’s like being packed in snow. It’s all around me.
Chase reaches over, grabs my fingers and forces them closer together. And they are released.
“It’s a Chinese finger trap,” I hear him say, but he sounds really far away, even though I can see him right in front of me. “Haven’t you ever seen one before?”
I shake my head. I can still feel the grip on my fingers, and my heart is slowing but still beating fast. I feel like laughing.
I feel.
I feel.
“Are you okay?” Chase asks, because I am rubbing my fingers but also grinning crazily. I can feel the smile on my face, stretching my cheeks, pushing against my eyes. It’s like a mask I used to wear. It feels strange and excellent.
“I’m good,” I tell him. “You were saying?”
“I forget.”
I press my throbbing finger onto my plate, gathering croissant flakes. I bring my finger to my mouth, scrape them off with my teeth, and say, “Something else, then.”
“Did you know Houdini wanted to be a movie star?”
“You know a lot about Houdini.”
“Biographies. I’m addicted.”
Then he tells me about Harry Houdini’s movies, in which he played a series of characters with H-names. “Harvey Handford, Harry Harper, Howard Hillary. You get the idea. I guess he could never really let go of being himself even when he was supposed to be acting like someone else.”
I let him talk, his voice floating around me like a cloud, and I think about how I wished so much, in the early days of after, that my brother would send me some kind of sign. A sign that he forgave me, or at least that things were going to be okay. Could this be it? A boy who looks like him, who is a bottomless well of words about magic and possibility? Not a reincarnation of my brother, of course, but maybe a representative.
Then Mel scoots her chair noisily up to our table and shatters the calm. And before I can even register feeling silly about such hopeful thoughts, she says loudly, “Hate to interrupt, but it’s about time I get this little lady home. Can’t worry the parentals, y’know?”
Chase smiles stiffly. “I do.”
I stand, sling my bag over my shoulder, and turn to go. I know I should say something but I’m afraid of what will come out, so I just reach down and roll the finger trap toward him.
“Keep it,” he says.
“Are you sure?”
He smiles, for real this time. “You obviously need to work on your escape technique.”
I pick it up carefully—keeping my fingers away from the ends, as if it might grab on to me by itself—and tuck it into my pocket. Stand there, shift my weight.
“Ohfergodsake,” Mel mutters. “Let’s go.”
But something won’t let me move. Now that my brain has brought me the idea that Chase has been sent, I’m afraid that he’ll disappear as suddenly as he arrived. What if I walk out of Common Grounds and never see him again? What if there’s something I’m supposed to do or say and I miss my chance?
He knows something. He has to, because he stands up, too, and says, “I’ll walk you out.” And then a miracle happens. Chase waves to Cranky Andy and calls, “G’night, man,” and Cranky Andy actually lifts his hand and waves back.
Mel gasps. “Unprecedented,” she whispers.
I stroke the finger trap in my pocket.
“Indeed,” I say.
—
Mel drops me off and roars away, revving her engine to show her disdain for people who go to bed before eleven. I watch her taillights shrink into the darkness and turn the corner, and then I stand in the black for a moment, letting it envelop me. Darkness was one of my trials after the accident, a penance I tried to pay. I blocked all the light from my room and imagined I was buried, trying to scare myself. It never worked. Now I can see a perfect square of light at the base of my house, a sign that my father is in his basement workshop, sorting his nails and screws into tiny labeled drawers.
I stop to get the mail before I go inside. The mailbox has been my domain for the last few years—my dad pays all the bills online and my mother does her shopping the same way, so neither one of them cares anymore about what shows up in our green plastic receptacle. Even my report cards are delivered by email, though the last one was all screwed up because of our arrangement with the school. I imagine I’ll have to explain that someday, if I’m applying to colleges. But that particular someday seems impossibly distant. The depth of one dark mailbox is about as far as I can reach right now.
Awaiting me is the usual assortment of junk: shiny postcards from various politicians and real estate agencies, coupons for lawn care and gutter cleaning, catalogs. But then I notice a large manila envelope with a white label on the front. TO THE FAMILY OF, it says, and then my brother’s name and our address. The return label in the upper left corner says LIFE CHOICE.
They’re a little lat
e, I think. I tuck the envelope under my jacket so my father won’t see it if he comes upstairs when he hears me in the kitchen. It is one of my unspoken tasks, making sure my parents don’t have to see my brother’s name in print.
There is a note on the kitchen table, something about Mom going to her office in the morning and bagels in the freezer, which I crumple up and toss into the recycling bin along with all of the mail except the manila envelope. That comes with me to my room and waits patiently on my bed while I wash my face and brush my teeth. And it is still waiting after I jam my clothes into the hamper and put on my favorite black T-shirt and a clean pair of underpants.
My desk drawer is full of mail addressed to him that I can’t read but won’t throw away. I opened the first thing that came for him after the accident, and it turned out to be a bill for the ambulance ride. As if he could have paid it. As if anyone should have to. You didn’t save him, I thought. I couldn’t bear to give it to my parents, so I stuck it in the drawer. Now it’s under a pile of other envelopes: college brochures, magazine subscription notices, offers he can’t accept or reject anymore.
I lay the Life Choice envelope across the top of the pile, like a blanket, and close the drawer slowly. I retrieve Matty from his hiding place, hoping the music will do something for me, but this time I go to the playlists. I need something more than shuffle, more than Matty’s random selections. I need a design. I need my brother’s thought process.
Most of the lists aren’t titled, they’re just numbered with dates, but there’s one that’s different: FOR AMY.
It’s a family of songs, all sad and sweet. I’ve heard them all before but not together, not this way—I’ve been listening to them on their own, separate links of a chain I didn’t know existed.
FOR AMY.
No wonder she won’t come near me. All this time I thought she just didn’t know what to say to me. I thought if I got normal again, we’d be okay. But it wasn’t about me at all.
He really liked her. He might have even loved her.
And I took him away.
I fall asleep stroking my river scar.
Some of the Parts Page 6
