Boy Nobody

by Allen Zadoff

  “Doesn’t everybody?”

  “Not me. I’ve got a checkered present. It’s a lot better. All my shit’s on the surface.”

  This isn’t working. I have to try a different tack.

  “The truth is that I can’t get involved with anyone right now,” I say.

  “Neither can I,” she says. “You asked if Sam has a boyfriend, but you didn’t ask if I did. For your information, his name’s Geoffrey. He’s older. He goes to Princeton, and he would beat the crap out of you if he were here. What do you think about that?”

  What’s the right thing to say here?

  “It scares me,” I say.

  “But it excites you, too, doesn’t it?” She reaches for my belt.

  I guess that was the wrong thing to say.

  I take her hands in mine and hold on to them.

  “Seriously. I don’t want to mess with another guy’s action.”

  “Are you noble or something?”

  “It’s not that.”

  “If that’s what it is, then you’re the only one in school,” she says. “Nobody else cares.”

  “I care.”

  She stops grabbing at me, takes a large step back.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t like taking advantage of people.”

  The line surprises me. Not because it’s a line, but because when I say it, it feels like the truth.

  Erica studies my face.

  “You do care in some weird way,” she says.

  What is she seeing right now?

  The whole thing is disturbing to me. The thoughts I’m having, the fact that I’m saying them out loud.

  It’s bad timing. And it all started with Sam.

  “Love does terrible things to you,” Erica says.

  She pulls her skirt up to her waist. I see a flash of pink flowers on her underwear.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I need to pee,” she says.

  “I’ll give you a little privacy.”

  “You don’t have to,” she says.

  I slip out the door.

  “You can run but you can’t hide,” she calls after me.

  You’d be surprised, I think.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  MUSIC ECHOES THROUGH THE HALL.

  I move away from it, away from Erica and Darius, from Sam in the kitchen, from the party.

  And toward the mayor.

  I project my energy through the space the way I’ve been taught. Then I follow my intuition deeper into the apartment.

  The music grows distant as I walk farther down the hallway, passing from public space into private. I scan the ceiling, looking for telltale signs of cameras—ceiling trim that has been added to cover wires or variations in the paint where holes have been patched after an install. I don’t see any, but they could be there.

  To protect myself, I move like a kid lost. If someone stops me, I can say it’s my first time in the apartment. It wouldn’t be unusual that I’d take a wrong turn, or even try a little sightseeing. It’s the mayor’s place, after all.

  But I don’t intend to be stopped.

  I turn a corner and notice light spilling from a doorway down the hall.

  I move toward it.

  The door is open a crack, so I peek inside.

  It’s a well-decorated home office, the desk covered with papers and huge stacks of computer printouts. The desk light is on, filling the room with a golden glow. There’s an overstuffed armchair facing the window, the back of a man’s head, a shock of gray-brown hair.

  “Hello?” I say.

  The man doesn’t turn.

  I make my voice unassuming.

  “Sorry to bother you,” I say. “I think I’m lost.”

  “You found the only place in the apartment where the party isn’t,” the man says.

  That’s my opening.

  “To be honest, that’s the kind of place I was looking for.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I don’t really know anybody at the party.”

  “Then you are welcome here,” the man says.

  The voice. The haircut.

  I make myself sound surprised.

  “Oh my gosh. You’re the mayor.”

  “So they tell me.”

  I reach into my breast pocket, feel for the ballpoint pen I brought with me.

  “This is really embarrassing,” I say. “I must have taken a wrong turn.”

  Laughter from the far end of the hall where I came from. Two kids from school go by, talking loudly and slapping each other too hard on the back.

  “Join me if you like,” the mayor says.

  A slight accent. Manhattan by way of Jersey.

  “Maybe for a minute,” I say. I reach for the door. “Open or closed?”

  “Close it. Give my head a rest.”

  “Perfect,” I say.

  I close the door. You can hear the faint rumbling of a bass line vibrating through the floor as I step into the room.

  “Much better,” the mayor says.

  I calculate the odds. Chance of our being interrupted. Chance of my leaving the party early without attracting notice. Chance of the mayor passing away unexpectedly at a party where I happen to be.

  Me, a new student. A stranger who has been here for less than a day.

  It could be a mistake to act now. There must be no connection between me and the mayor’s death, and my disappearance afterward can raise no red flags.

  I have to constantly gauge this in my work. When am I integrated enough into the social system to act without drawing attention? Sometimes I finish quickly and I’m gone before anyone knows I was there, sometimes I wait for an opening, and other times—

  Other times fate makes the decision for me.

  The mayor turns, and I see his face for the first time, one side lit by the desk lamp, the other in darkness.

  It is a kind face. A famous face.

  And the eyes. Something about them.

  Sam has the same eyes.

  No matter. We are in this room together. The door is closed.

  I need only to complete my assignment and be back at the party before anyone discovers the body.

  “How many apartments do you think we can see from here?” the mayor says.

  He turns and gazes out the window.

  I look out at a gorgeous, unobstructed view of the city over the roof of the Museum of Natural History. Windows above, windows below. Life framed and illuminated in neat squares.

  “Thousands, maybe,” I say. I’m standing behind him, a few feet from his left shoulder.

  “On the order of twelve thousand,” the mayor says.

  “You’ve counted them?”

  “I don’t need to. I count the number of windows viewed through a one-inch square of windowpane, then multiply by the overall size of the pane, then divide by the average number of windows per apartment.”

  “This is why you run the city and I’m failing trig.”

  He laughs.

  I remove the pen. I spin it in my fingers without looking at it, find the trigger mechanism under my thumb.

  “Twelve thousand in this one small slice of the city,” the mayor says. “Imagine you were looking for an apartment. With so many choices, how could you choose the right one for you?”

  My father’s image pops into my head. My father in his office at the university. He’d take me to work occasionally, and I’d sit across from him while he graded papers at his desk. He’d look up from time to time and ask me a question—about life, relationships, school—and we’d argue back and forth about it. Even when I was ten years old he was training me how to think.

  The mayor turns and looks at me.

  “Most people don’t get to choose,” I say. “I mean, how many of those places can an average person afford?”

  “Good point,” the mayor says.

  He looks back out the window. I take a step closer.

  The music changes. The bass slows.

  Thu
mp, thump.

  “So you’re saying we don’t choose,” the mayor says. “Our limitations choose for us.”

  “I think so. Yes.”

  I remember Sam in the debate this morning. She has the same kind of intellectual curiosity. Now I know where she gets it from.

  The mayor says, “But if your limitations make the choices for you, how do you know what it is you want?”

  “Maybe it doesn’t matter what you want,” I say.

  I take another step closer to the back of the mayor’s neck.

  Striking distance.

  “And yet we are defined by our desires,” the mayor says. “If you don’t know what you want, how can you know who you are?”

  “I guess you make your best choice given your circumstances, and then you live with it.”

  I twist the pen cap to the right.

  It is weaponized. One click death, two clicks temporary coma.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he says.

  I click the pen once, and the pen point glides out, small and deadly.

  “There is always a moment before you choose, isn’t there?” the mayor says. “A moment when you realize the choice you’re about to make could affect a number of people.”

  “Your choices, maybe. Not mine.”

  “Why is that?”

  “You’re the mayor. I’m just a teenager.”

  “Yet we all make choices. And they have repercussions.”

  Choices.

  My father made a choice. He chose loyalty to one thing over another. Questionable loyalty, as Mother put it, and his choice changed my life forever.

  I make choices, too, and I change other people’s lives forever.

  Sam’s life, for example. And the mayor’s.

  I freeze with the pen in my hand.

  Why am I thinking about this now?

  A single step and I will be at the mayor’s neck. I will be finished. I will be moving again, away from this city, this place, from Sam.

  A single step.

  I do not take it.

  The mayor sighs. He turns toward me.

  “You’re very kind to put up with me,” he says. “As you see, I’ve got a lot on my mind, and a very big decision to make about my future. Sorry to bore you with it.”

  “It’s not boring,” I say. “Just a little beyond me.”

  “Somehow I doubt that,” he says.

  He looks at my hand.

  “Why do you have a pen?” he says.

  At that moment the office door opens and Sam steps in.

  “What are you doing in here?” she says.

  I stare at her for a second, surprised to have been caught with the mayor.

  I hesitated, and now my opportunity is gone.

  I twist the pen cap to the left. Safe mode.

  Sam waits, her hands on her hips.

  “What am I doing?” I say. “I was about to embarrass myself by asking your father for an autograph.”

  “This is a private part of the residence. You shouldn’t be here,” Sam says.

  “I invited him in,” the mayor says. “And we had an excellent discussion, didn’t we?”

  “We did,” I say.

  The mayor throws me a wink.

  “Okay. Sorry,” Sam says.

  The mayor walks toward Sam, his lanky body a little stiff. Sam gives him a big hug.

  “My daughter is very protective,” the mayor says. “Do you know her, son?”

  I am not your son.

  “My name is Benjamin,” I say. “And I’m just getting to know her. There are a lot of layers.”

  The mayor laughs. He has a warm, easy laugh.

  “Indeed, Benjamin,” he says. “She’s just like her mother that way.”

  “Hey, guys, I’m in the room,” Sam says. “I can hear what you’re saying.”

  I glance at the desk. A picture of the three of them—Sam, the mayor, and her mother, the woman whose picture I saw in the Facebook profile. They’re all posed in front of a monument somewhere in the Middle East.

  Sam says, “Why don’t we get out of your way, Dad. I know you’ve got work to do.”

  She starts to pull me from the room.

  “Just a minute,” the mayor says.

  He comes toward me. He holds out his hand, palm up.

  “Your pen,” he says. “Give it to me.”

  I take out the pen, click open the point.

  I place it in his hand.

  Gently.

  He leans across his desk, pulls out a card with the mayoral logo. He shakes the pen. Then he uses it to write something. He folds the card up and passes it back to me.

  “Nice to meet you, Ben,” the mayor says.

  “You, too, sir,” I say.

  We shake. His palm is warm and dry.

  “I hope it won’t be the last time,” he says.

  “I’m sure it won’t.”

  I take two steps toward the door, then I stop.

  “Sorry to bother you, sir, but my pen—”

  He looks back toward his desk. The pen is sitting there.

  “Of course,” he says.

  He hands it back to me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  THE PRO IS STANDING OUTSIDE THE OFFICE DOOR.

  Waiting.

  How long has he been here?

  What if I had finished my assignment and walked out to find him here?

  But that doesn’t matter now.

  The Pro looks at Sam, then at me.

  “You’re not allowed in this part of the residence,” he says to me.

  “This is my friend Benjamin,” Sam says.

  He talks to Sam, but he doesn’t take his eyes off me.

  “What were you doing in your father’s office?” he says.

  “Talking to my father. Privately.” She emphasizes the last word.

  He looks at Sam, nods, then cracks the door and peeks in, checking to make sure the mayor is in there.

  “Satisfied?” she says.

  “Just doing my job, ma’am.”

  He closes the door and goes back to his gargoyle impression.

  Sam pulls me in the opposite direction.

  “Asshole,” she says. “Sorry about that.”

  “I don’t think he likes me,” I say.

  “He doesn’t like anyone,” she says, “but he really doesn’t like you.”

  “Strange, because I’m very likable.”

  “My father seems to think so.”

  “And you?”

  “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

  “Take your time,” I say. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I can’t go anywhere. I’ve wasted my first chance and I have to scramble to find another. I told Father I was going to finish quickly and make things simple. Instead I’ve screwed up and now things are getting more complicated.

  I sense myself drifting into thoughts that are not helpful to me. Regret. Recrimination. I’ve learned not to dwell on such thoughts.

  Things happen.

  Adjust. Stay on task.

  “Was my dad talking your ear off in there?” Sam says as we walk down the hall together.

  “Both ears.”

  “He has a big decision to make, and it’s got him a little crazy.”

  “Is he going to change garbage day to Thursday?”

  “Funny,” she says, “but it’s more like, ‘What am I going to do with the rest of my life?’ ”

  “I didn’t know mayors thought about things like that.”

  “Mayors in their final terms do,” Sam says. “That’s the beauty of term limits. They are fear-inducing.”

  “I thought he’d go back to running his company.”

  The mayor’s company, GRAM. Global Risk Assessment Modeling. Sophisticated data-mining algorithms applied to global security. It turned the professor into a businessman and the businessman into a billionaire. That billionaire became the city’s mayor at a time when the world felt the most unsafe.

  At least that’s how the
story is told. That was nearly eight years ago. I was in third grade at the time.

  “Who knows what he’ll do,” Sam says. “My father has a way of making simple things very complicated. My mother used to call him on that, but now—” Her smile fades. “Now we’re sort of on our own.”

  Her mother. I’m remembering the article I read about her mother’s car accident in Israel.

  Sam stares at the ground, traces the pattern on the marble with one toe.

  “You okay?” I say.

  “Memories,” she says. “I hate them sometimes.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Really? What do you have memories of?”

  Many things, all of them dangerous to me.

  Before I can answer, a girl with bright red hair interrupts us coming down the hall.

  “Great party!” she says.

  “Thanks for coming,” Sam says to her.

  Red gives me a double take, not recognizing the new guy with Sam. She lingers, waiting for an introduction.

  She doesn’t get one.

  “I’ll leave you guys alone,” she says, and keeps going down the hall.

  “Any other questions about my dad?” Sam says.

  “A lot more,” I say.

  Her face darkens.

  “I want to know more about him because I want to know more about you.”

  “I see,” she says, studying my face.

  “You’re always trying to figure out if I’m telling the truth,” I say.

  “Professional hazard.”

  “What profession is that?”

  “Daughter of a famous person,” she says.

  But I wonder if it isn’t something else. Girl who got hurt by her ex. Or maybe Girl who lost her mother and doesn’t trust the world.

  Whatever it is, it’s complicated.

  We cross the threshold of the front door on the way back to the party, and I stop and grab the door handle.

  I’m not going to get another opportunity with the mayor tonight. My best play is to get out now.

  “Where are you going?” Sam says.

  “I’m leaving.”

  “April Fool’s?”

  “For real.”

  “You’re blowing off my party?”

  “Not blowing it off. I was here; now I’m leaving.”

  This is not a girl who is used to boys walking away from her. I see her wrestling with the idea. She wants to ask another question, but she stops herself.

  “Okay, then,” she says. “But I think Erica will be disappointed.”