Zipped

by Laura McNeal

  Mild impatience crossed Mr. Cruso’s face. “Thus did speech evolve. When we have problems, the customary thing to do is talk about them.”

  Mick shrugged. “Yeah, well, that’s not always so easy.”

  The teacher raked his fingers through his neat beard and kept his eyes on Mick. “So your theory is that this was the voiceless trying to speak.”

  Mick imagined a face with a blank space where the mouth should be. “Maybe, yeah. Who knows?”

  Mr. Cruso made a thin smile. “Oh, somebody does.”

  There was a short silence before Mick said, “But you think it’s a kid from school, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, then,” Mick said, “it’s just a matter of time, like you said.” He ran the zipper open, then closed. “Because whoever it was will blab to somebody, and somebody will blab to somebody else, and pretty soon some nice kid with good moral values will walk through the door and tell you all about it.”

  Mr. Cruso kept his eyes on Mick. For the next half minute neither of them spoke. There was only the dim sound of the sliding zipper. Open. Closed. Open. Closed. Finally Mr. Cruso said, “How about you, Mick? Would you walk in here and tell me if you heard who did it?”

  Mick picked his words. “I guess it would depend on the kid’s reasons. But yeah, if his reasons were bogus and I thought you were a good guy, I guess I’d come in and give you some kind of hint about it.”

  Mr. Cruso slowly took this in. “Ah. So it would depend. It would be conditional.” A few seconds passed. “How old are you, Mick?”

  “Fifteen. Sixteen in a few days.”

  “Well, your answer would normally be a good one. Very mature. It recognizes that lots of moral questions aren’t as black and white as we’d like.” His eyes seemed to narrow slightly. “But the line between right and wrong on this one isn’t blurry. It’s as straight as can be. Whoever deliberately vandalized my car is a felon, Mick. That much is a fact. He can, however, make things easier on himself. If, for example, he were fifteen when he committed the crime, he’d be treated as a juvenile. His records would be sealed after a probationary period, and there would probably be no actual punishment beyond compensation.”

  Mr. Cruso kept staring at Mick, who stared back and kept moving the zipper back and forth. Neither of them blinked.

  In a soft, sympathetic voice Mr. Cruso said, “Is there anything you want to tell me, Mick?”

  Mick’s hand on the zipper stilled for a second, then kept moving. Open. Closed. “No,” he said. “I already said everything I had to say.” He let his eyes drift for a second, then brought them back to Mr. Cruso. “Why? Do you have something you want to tell me?”

  A startled look crossed the teacher’s face, followed at once by annoyance. “No,” he said through tight lips, “I certainly do not.”

  Mick nodded and let his gaze float. “So can I go now?”

  In a brittle voice, Mr. Cruso said, “Yes, you can go now.” He turned and began putting papers into his briefcase, but as Mick left the room he felt Mr. Cruso’s eyes drilling into his back.

  Waiting just opposite the classroom door, smiling in her green plaid skirt, white top, and braided red hair, was Lisa Doyle. “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey.”

  They fell in together, walking the corridor toward the stairs. She said, “I heard Cruso went weird last period.”

  “Jeez,” Mick said, “it only happened ten minutes ago.”

  She grinned. “Weird news travels fast.” They kept walking and when Mick said nothing, she said, “So? Did Cruso ballisticize?”

  “A little,” Mick said. “Somebody trashed his fancy car.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I heard. Which is in itself weird because I thought everybody liked Cruso.”

  “A few more periods like that one and the tune might change,” Mick said, a thought that pleased him. He was beginning to feel good about holding his own with Cruso, and about Cruso’s annoyance and frustration. He suddenly chuckled and when Lisa gave him a quizzical look, Mick said, “Cruso said the guy who did it was swampy, sleazy, and primordial.”

  Lisa didn’t laugh as expected. She thought about it and said, “I would’ve just called him cowardly.”

  Mick fell silent. Cowardly? He never thought anyone would think of what he’d done as cowardly.

  They turned down the stairs together and Lisa said, “So how come he kept you after class?”

  “I guess because I asked in class why somebody would want to do that to his car.”

  “Does Cruso think you know who did it or something?”

  Mick made a small laugh. “Actually, I think he might think it was me.”

  Lisa pulled up short. “What?”

  Mick shrugged. “He didn’t say so straight out, but, yeah, that was my impression.”

  They walked on a few steps in silence, then Lisa stopped again and looked Mick in the eye. “I guess I’m sorry for Cruso and his car, but I think it’s horrible he’d think it might’ve been you because if I know anything at all, I know you’d never do anything like that.”

  She stood looking into him from eyes that expected to see nothing but virtue, and Mick felt a strange compulsion to tell her the truth. They were in the foyer, and from the steps someone called out, “Hey, Doyle, we’re waiting on you!”

  She reached forward and squeezed his hand. “Bye-ya,” she said, and as she left, she called over her shoulder, “Call me!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Mail

  When Lisa Doyle opened her mailbox that afternoon, she found a catalogue for fireplace tools, a dry-cleaning coupon, a gas bill, and an envelope that made her skin prickle. The scribbly handwriting was Joe Keesler’s, and it was postmarked Cambridge. She sat down on the grass, still prickling and almost giddy with the feel of an actual letter from Him, and ripped open the envelope:

  Wednesday, May 23

  Dear Lisa,

  I feel very confused and sorry, but the long and short of it is that when I came back home, my old girlfriend from Duke had driven all the way from North Carolina (she called my mom and my mom told her when I’d be released) and even though she broke up with me when I decided to go on a mission (she’s agnostic), she said she wanted to be with me again and I have to say that when I saw her, I felt the same way. I really wasn’t leading you on. I really, really care for you. I cared for you more than I should have, given the situation. But I have to see where things are going with Kara.

  Please forgive me for any hurt this has caused you.

  Joe

  Lisa crumpled the letter in her fist, then smoothed it out, reread it, and crumpled it again. She let it drop to the ground. Wednesday. He wrote the letter on Wednesday. Which meant he’d left on Monday, long before she set the book on his doormat. Was the book sitting there still? Or did Elder Pfingst have it on a shelf somewhere in the apartment, wondering what to do with a used book by Isak Dinesen and a note from a girl signed Love?

  She looked at the balled letter. She picked it up, unwadded it, and then with the flat of her hand tried to iron the letter smooth again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Perambulation

  That same afternoon, Mick headed for the library, then changed his mind and started toward his father’s shop, then changed course again and wound up at Reece’s. He called in through the back door and heard Reece yell, “Down here!”

  Reece was in the basement lying on the sofa reading Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe.

  “How is it?” Mick said, nodding at the book.

  Reece made a mock grimace. “Every time Moll does any of the stuff she’s famous for—you know, the good wanton stuff—she pays the price, and then some.”

  “Kind of takes the fun out of the fun stuff, huh?” Mick said. The problem was, he thought, sometimes you don’t know what price you’re going to pay. Getting caught by Cruso—if he did get caught—didn’t bother him. Whereas Lisa Doyle indirectly calling him a coward did.

  The phone ran
g. Reece waited for the third ring, then picked it up and said, “Reeceville.”

  Mick saw his eyes brighten and heard his voice deepen. “This is Mr. Reece speaking.”

  Mick knew at once it was a telemarketer. Reece loved asking telemarketers increasingly weird questions until finally the telemarketer would hang up on him, which was the object. Today Reece began, “You know, I haven’t been very happy with our long-distance service. I’ve been calling the Cayman Islands a lot lately—what kind of rates do your people have to the Caymans?”

  Mick went over to the piano and played “Invention 13,” twice. When he finished, Reece was still on the phone, smiling and talking in his husky adultoid voice.

  Mick closed the key cover. As he headed for the stairs, Reece covered the phone and said, “Who gave you permission to leave?”

  Mick smiled, waved, and kept walking.

  The house was empty when Mick arrived home ten minutes later. He took Foolish to the park, threw him Frisbee after Frisbee, shot him a stream of water from the fountain, then went over to the spot where he’d first met Myra and Pam. He sat on the ground and scratched Foolish’s stomach until the dog stretched out and went limp with sleep.

  Mick lay back and closed his eyes, but he didn’t feel like sleeping. He didn’t feel like anything. In fact, things seemed pretty grim. He’d thought making Mr. Cruso feel bad would make him feel better, but it didn’t. It made him feel worse, especially after hearing Lisa’s ideas on the subject. And two thousand, three hundred and seventy-five dollars. He had no idea that a little sand in a gas tank could rack up that kind of money.

  “That you, Mick?”

  Mick’s eyes shot open. Myra smiled down at him. He said, “What’re you doing here?”

  Myra fingered the sleeves of her jogging gear. “Running. Getting stuff out of my system.” She smiled. “How about you?”

  Mick nodded at Foolish. “Giving the hound a little quality Frisbee time.”

  Myra gave him one of her big, easy smiles and sat down close enough to Foolish that she could stroke his stomach. They were quiet for a while, then Mick said, “My history teacher was freaking out last period because somebody vandalized his car.”

  Myra asked who his history teacher was, and when Mick said, “Cruso,” she kept smoothing her hand back and forth over Foolish’s stomach. Finally she said, “I wouldn’t feel too sorry for Mr. Cruso.”

  This surprised Mick. “Why’s that?”

  In a quiet voice Myra said, “He’s got a slimy underside.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means he makes passes at female students.”

  Another surprise. “I didn’t think teachers did that.”

  Myra laughed. “Yeah, well, in a perfect world they don’t.” A few seconds passed. “Here, for example, is what Cruso said to me. It was after a practice for Anne Frank, and he gave me a ride home in his little roadster, and before I got out he said, ‘You know, Myra, you are strangely vivifying. You breathe life into things. You should give me a call sometime late at night, after you turn eighteen.’

  “Cruso said, ‘You are strangely vivifying’?”

  Myra smiled unhappily. “Direct quote.”

  “What did you say?”

  She kept scratching Foolish. “Well, in this weird way, I was flattered. I mean, vivifying. Nobody ever called me vivifying before.” She smiled. “But afterward I thought it was creepy. Lining up girls for future, you know, plucking.”

  Mick nodded. Myra was the local version of a rock star. He’d never imagined feeling sorry for her, but he felt a little sorry for her now, or at least for the younger Myra that Cruso had been hitting on. “Not so easy being a girl, huh?” he said.

  Myra shrugged and smiled. “Not so easy being anybody,” she said. They were quiet a few seconds, and Myra said, “Okay, this is fun, but it ain’t aerobic.” As she bent to stand, her strapped top loosened and drew Mick’s attention to the smooth whiteness that swelled there. She gave him a knowing look, then set something on her watch. As she turned to go she said, “Check your e-mail when you get home.”

  Mick watched her start into long loping strides. She had her hair in a ponytail and when she got far enough away that he could no longer tell the color of her hair, she reminded him of someone else.

  He leashed Foolish and started walking. He thought he was going home, but when he got there, the house was still dark and he kept walking, just walking, block after block, first in one direction, then another. He walked past houses, Duz Bro, and the First Presbyterian Church. He checked his pants pockets, found $3.75, and stopped at McDonald’s for four eighty-nine-cent hamburgers and a cup of water. He sat at one of the outside tables, ate two of the burgers, and gave two to Foolish. They kept walking. When the sun set and it turned cool, he zipped up his jacket. He turned east into a snug-looking neighborhood, glanced into the lighted homes and saw people eating dinner, watching TV, reading newspapers. He walked block after block, heading generally toward the high school but in a totally new way that made him feel he was a tourist in his own town. He crossed streets named after birds and governors and forgotten officials, then followed one that led to a series of English names. Cumberland, Westmoreland, Nottingham.

  Lisa Doyle’s street.

  Mick followed the numbers down the street until he stood in front of 1331, the numerical palindrome.

  A Dutch-style house on a hill. The front room was lighted, but nobody was in it. To the right was another room, also lighted, but the interior was made indistinct by sheer curtains. Mick glanced around, then looped Foolish’s leash over a fence picket and walked over to the window and glanced in.

  It looked like the breakfast room. Lisa Doyle was still in her green skirt and white blouse, lying on the window seat with a letter in her hand.

  He tapped lightly, then a little harder until Lisa looked up, startled. She came over and cranked open the window. She looked a lot different than she had after school this afternoon, a lot worse. Her face looked puffy and wet. “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi,” Mick said. “What’s the matter? Is something the matter?”

  She lowered her eyes. “Not really.” Then, looking up, “How’d you get here?”

  Mick saw the envelope on the window seat. “I don’t know.” Pause. “I was just out walking the dog.”

  Lisa raised her eyebrows. She sniffed a little. “Kind of a long walk.” Then, touching her nose with a wadded tissue, she seemed to be thinking about something. When she met his eyes again, she asked, “Want to walk a couple more blocks with me?”

  This seemed like a good way to find out what was going on. “Sure. If you want to.”

  As they headed away from her house, Lisa crossed her arms and said, “It’s nice out.”

  Mick nodded and didn’t say anything. It was nice, especially now that Lisa was there. There was the clicking of Foolish’s nails on the pavement and the gentle stirrings of light wind moving through the street trees.

  She said, “Were you out walking because of that Cruso thing?”

  “I guess so,” Mick said. He couldn’t tell her he’d watched Myra Vidal running and her swishing ponytail had reminded him of her, which, he realized now, was exactly what Myra’s ponytail had reminded him of. He stopped so Foolish could do a little bush marking. Lisa stopped, but she didn’t say anything.

  Mick thought of the wrinkled letter on the window seat looking like it’d been wadded up, then smoothed out. “Was that letter something bad?” Mick asked.

  She looked like she was about to say no, not really, or some version of it, but then her shoulders dropped and she said, “Kind of, yeah.”

  “Yeah?”

  She gave him a long, wondering look. “You really want to hear this?”

  Mick put up a little laugh. “No, I mean, yeah, I do want to hear.”

  Lisa seemed to be collecting her thoughts. “Okay. Remember a while back how I told you about the missionaries coming to dinner?”

  Mick took a
deep breath. “You mean tall, dark, and Mormon?”

  Lisa nodded. “Well, tall, dark, and Mormon came to dinner. Tall, dark, and Mormon sort of said that he liked me. Tall, dark, and Mormon went back to Boston, where he immediately wrote me a letter informing me that his girlfriend from Duke, who he’d never mentioned, had decided to take him back.”

  The “who” should’ve been “whom,” but Mick wasn’t about to say so.

  “Her name is Kara,” Lisa said. “The petty part of me thinks, how could he go for somebody named Kara?”

  They walked half a block in silence, and Mick said, “So you liked him, I guess.”

  “Yeah.”

  For Mick, this made everything seem a little less nice. “Well,” he said.

  Lisa didn’t say anything for a while, and neither did Mick. The streets were dark now, and a big, squashed moon was rising. “What’re you thinking about?” Lisa asked.

  Mick looked at the squashed moon, then down at Lisa. “Oh, I guess I was thinking about how, before I got to your place, the houses I was passing seemed to be full of all these happy-seeming people doing happy-seeming things.”

  Lisa looked down at the sidewalk. “And now they don’t?”

  “Now they seem to be full of disappointed people.”

  “Like me?”

  “Yeah,” Mick said. “Only I think it was probably my disappointment I was feeling right then.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  They walked past a man practicing his golf swing in a dark front yard. The club head made a quick shush as it swept past the grass. Foolish turned to see what had caused the sound, but seemed confused.

  Mick looked at the dog and said, “That’s why we call him Foolish.”

  Lisa’s small laugh was delicate, and, to Mick’s ear, almost musical.

  After a minute or so, he said, “Once this college girl told me her favorite time ever was eighth grade because she and her boyfriend would just walk around everywhere together. Walk and talk.”