The Midnights

by Sarah Nicole Smetana

  “I already told you I was sorry about yesterday,” I said.

  “I know. It’s not that.” She paused as we slowed for a red light. “Your grandmother’s having some health issues.”

  I turned to face her. “Is it serious?”

  “It’s nothing you need to worry about. In fact, she was adamantly opposed to me telling you, but I thought you should know, just in case you witness something . . . off. If she repeats herself, or forgets where she is in a conversation.”

  A warm swell of relief washed over me. “So she doesn’t, like, have cancer?”

  “No,” my mother said. “Not cancer.” We began moving forward. “She’s started seeing a specialist and they’re working to figure it all out, find her the right medications.”

  “I saw some of her medicine in the pantry this morning,” I confessed. “By the cereal. I thought it was kind of a weird place to store it.”

  My mother nodded, her lips tightening into a thin line. “Yes, that is a weird place for it.”

  When we reached the drop-off zone, I hoisted my backpack onto my shoulder and had just opened the door when a black, half-formed thought nudged me. I looked back.

  “But Vivian’s going to be okay, right?”

  “You don’t need to worry,” my mother said again. “And actually, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell her you know. The last thing she wants is to be treated like a sick person, or for you to think of her that way. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said, stepping from the car. If my mother said not to worry, then I’d try not to worry.

  Still, my thoughts remained tangled as I set off across campus.

  Due to several wrong turns, it took me longer than anticipated to find the library. But when I finally arrived Lynn was there, on a splintered bench in front of the entrance, wearing a lace minidress with torn black tights and Doc Martens. Her hair was electric against the delicate white fabric and the old, yellowing pages of the book in her lap. The sight of her filled me with buoyancy; until that moment, I hadn’t fully believed she’d show.

  She glanced up then. “Oh good, you’re here,” she said, and I felt a shock of familiarity. Behind my eyelids, I saw my father curled over a guitar, the spark of joy on his face when he finally noticed me standing in the doorway of our studio.

  And then I saw him smashing through his windshield like a brick.

  She said, “I wasn’t sure you were going to make it before the bell.”

  I shook my head, ordering the images away. “If you’re trying to finish a chapter or something before class, I can leave you to it.”

  Lynn plopped the book closed. It was the library’s copy of Anna Karenina, equipped with stained filing stickers and a dust jacket covered in thick, murky plastic. “Oh, no,” she said, gently patting the cover. “This is just for fun.”

  I sat down next to her. “I’ve never read it.”

  “You should. It’s terribly depressing, which is exactly how I like it.” She laughed then. “A story is only as good as its drama, you know?”

  I said, “It seems long.”

  “I’m a fast reader. Plus, a few days a week I work at this costume rental shop that’s completely dead most of the year, so I’ve got plenty of time to kill.”

  I tried to picture Lynn at work, in a small store brimming with carnival masks and poodle skirts. I smiled. A place like that suited her. All those relics of the past.

  “You read much?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I love reading, but I’ve had trouble concentrating lately.”

  “ADD?” she asked. “I think I have something for that.” She rifled through her purse and pulled out a small, scuffed Altoids tin. Inside were tiny pills of varying sizes and colors. She offered them to me. May cause dizziness, I thought.

  “No thanks.”

  Finding an uncoated peach tablet, Lynn tossed it into her mouth. She swallowed it dry.

  “You have ADD?” I asked.

  She shrugged and said, “Sometimes it helps.” She dropped the tin back in her bag. “Reading’s always been my outlet, how I escape from all the fucked-up shit in my life. You must have something like that, right?”

  I nodded. “Music.”

  “Oh,” Lynn said, drawing out the vowel. “That’s right.”

  “What?”

  “You said you were a musician.”

  “I am,” I insisted, but for the first time, this sounded more like a lie than the truth.

  “It all makes sense now.”

  “What?” I asked again.

  “Why Cameron was so taken with you. Don’t get me wrong, you’re very pretty—”

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, heat rushing across my face.

  “—but the boys are frequently surrounded by pretty girls. It takes something else to actually hold their attention. Cameron wouldn’t tell. But now I know.”

  I hesitated. “You lost me.”

  “I’m just thinking out loud,” Lynn said, shaking her head. “Point is: Nothing in the world matters more to those guys than their music. And yesterday, you must have met him on his level. That’s what made such an impression.”

  I felt caught between elation and annoyance. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone. At least not then, not with Cameron. For that brief period, I actually felt like myself again (or, rather, the few remaining parts of my old self that I still liked combined with the few identifiable fragments of the new self that I wanted). So while I was naturally thrilled by my lingering impression, something about Lynn’s comment, and the odd undertone clinging to her words, unnerved me. She had told me Cameron was like her brother, but maybe the situation was more complicated. Maybe she still had feelings for him. Liked to keep potential enemies close.

  The first bell rang. All around us, people began to gather their things, give their hugs, shuffle away.

  I turned back to Lynn.

  “I wasn’t trying to impress him,” I began, the words leaving my mouth before I could process them. “Music matters a lot to me, too, but I haven’t been able to talk about it lately. It was my thing with my dad. He taught me how to play guitar and sing, and write songs, and since he died, I haven’t done any of that. My conversation yesterday with Cameron was the closest I’d come to getting back that piece of myself, but if I did something wrong then you’ve got to tell me now, because you’re the only friend I have here and I’d really fucking hate to lose you already.”

  I was breathless, hot-cheeked, and full of adrenaline. I never cursed (never out loud, anyway). The word itself was like a shot of caffeine straight into my bloodstream. Fuck, I thought. Fuck.

  And yet, as the seconds collected between us, my euphoria dwindled. What I’d said sounded so childish. I should have just stayed quiet.

  “It’s hard when you lose them,” Lynn finally said, staring at some point out in the deluge of students. “And the pain doesn’t get easier. It may lose its priority in your life, but it will always be a big fucking crater right in the center of you. The best you can do is try to keep it from swallowing you whole.”

  Though I wanted to know more about her father, how he died, how old she had been, and if the same devastating déjà vu consumed her every morning when she woke and remembered once again that he was gone, I didn’t ask. No one could make you talk about that darkness unless you truly wanted to. I knew that better than anyone.

  “But,” she continued, “you need to get over whatever is holding you back. Try to think of the music as something your dad left you, rather than something that was removed with him. God knows a lot of my problems would be solved if I could just play a damn guitar.”

  She stood up, looking around, and roughed her hair with her fingers. “Jesus, I want a cigarette,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said automatically, also standing. Our time was almost up. “I’m sorry we’ve been talking about me this whole time. Is everything okay with you?”

  Lynn’s focus flickered back to me, her eyes a nebulous pattern of silver and white. �
��Never been better,” she said.

  “I’ll see you at lunch, then?” I asked.

  “Lunch,” she agreed. As she merged into the crowd, she yelled, “You’re one of us now, so cheer up.”

  I smiled and waved, watching the flame of her hair disappear down the hallway.

  When lunch finally came, I couldn’t find her. At first I thought I just didn’t know where to look. We had never actually designated a meeting spot, so I went first to the trees, then back through the quad and past my locker, ultimately ending my search at the library. I ate my lunch on the bench where we’d met that morning, in the cool shade of the concrete buildings, and wondered what other places I may have missed. Surely Santiago Hills had an infinite number of secret nooks where people retreated during lunch. I almost went back to the trees, thinking maybe I hadn’t waited long enough, but the bell rang before I could get there.

  She wasn’t in sixth period choir, either. During attendance, Mr. Tipton asked me if I knew where she was, and I felt a soothing gratitude toward him then for the simple assumption that I would already know such things, but also unequivocally disheartened, because I did not.

  After school, I sent her a text to make sure she was okay. She wrote back swiftly: Wasn’t feeling well. Got permission to go home, thank God. I spent the rest of the night thinking about the fear that still—despite everything—lurked through me, and about the warm, woozy bliss that replaced it in Lynn’s kitchen when I was talking with Cameron about music. I thought about what Lynn had said that morning: You need to get over whatever is holding you back.

  The next day, when I saw her at lunch (the trees became our meeting spot after all), I knew exactly what I needed to do.

  “Is the offer still standing for next Saturday?” I asked.

  Lynn was lying on her back, her book bag beneath her head. “Of course,” she said. “You going to sneak out?”

  I nodded. “How should I do it?”

  “Start by telling them you’re really tired. Say the whole experience of moving and starting at a new school has been exhausting, and you’re going to go to bed early. Don’t offer anything more unless they ask, and then be entirely unspecific—mention an ailment that can connect to any number of simple or severe things. Like a headache.”

  “But what if they decide to check on me in the middle of the night?”

  I glanced down at her. The dancing leaves above us were reflected in her big round sunglasses. “Why would they do that?” she asked.

  It was the kind of thing I had seen in movies: a mother cracking open the door as a slice of light spread across the sleeping child, who was really no more than a strategically lumped cluster of pillows. I shrugged. I had no idea why they would do that.

  “You’ve never snuck out before, have you?” she said.

  “My mom never used to care what I did,” I said, defensive.

  “I’m only asking because if you’ve never done it, there’s no reason for anyone to think you might. Trust me, it’ll be a breeze. It only gets tricky when you’re trying to climb down from a second story, but you don’t even have to worry about that.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I said, lying next to her. Above us, the sun formed kaleidoscopic patterns as it blazed through the swaying leaves, and I struggled to watch the colors, how they changed from yellow to green with the angle, but I couldn’t stop myself from squinting, and soon, closing my eyes. My own sunglasses were still at our house in LA, and my mother hadn’t said yet when we would return for the rest of our things. Just as well, I thought; I wasn’t sure if I was ready to go back there yet, pack up all my father’s possessions, seal our old life in boxes. I’d rather buy a new pair. I’d ask Vivian to lend me the money when I got home.

  A moment passed. The breeze blew my long hair across my face. Lynn said, “A successful liar knows exactly how much to give, and precisely when to stop.”

  This was the second thing I learned from Lynn Chandler.

  Twelve

  THE NEXT WEEK passed slowly, considering that my grounding kept me from doing anything even remotely interesting. I went to school. I came home. I completed all of my homework assignments and read The Awakening for advanced English. I carried on text message conversations with Nick from the confines of my bland new bedroom. I thought about Cameron’s show.

  That Friday, in choir, Lynn passed me a note folded tightly in a triangle:

  Cameron just texted me AGAIN. Can I tell him you’re coming yet? PS: Mr. T looks kind of hot today in those khakis, don’t you think?

  I glanced at the front of the room and giggled. For an instant, Mr. Tipton’s gaze rested on me. We continued practicing scales.

  After the bell, as the class darted from the choir room, Mr. Tipton called out, “Susannah, can I have a word?”

  “Shit,” I whispered to Lynn.

  “The note?” she asked.

  My stomach tightened. I shoved her note in my back pocket and decided to plead the fifth as we approached his desk.

  “Ms. Chandler?” Mr. Tipton said. “Is there something I can do for you?”

  “I figured I would need to stay,” she said. “Susannah and I are partners in this course, after all. You deemed it so yourself.”

  “Nice try,” Mr. Tipton said.

  Lynn feigned horror, one hand brushing the rigid bump of her collarbone. “I can hardly believe it, Mr. T. The one day I’m actually offering to spend extra time in your class and you kick me out.”

  Mr. Tipton leaned back in his chair. “Well, I’ve actually had some new ideas about extra credit, if you’re looking for more—”

  “As much as I would love that,” Lynn interrupted, “I just don’t feel right about causing you the extra trouble when I know you teachers already work so hard.” She started backing up, slowly retreating toward the exit.

  Right before she opened the door, she mouthed, Text me! Then she was gone.

  Left alone, Mr. Tipton turned to me. My breath stuttered, and I coughed.

  “How are you doing?” he asked.

  The question seemed oddly general and I wondered if I had maybe dazed out for a moment, missing some crucial part of the exchange. “Fine?” I asked, hoping that my tone would elicit clarification.

  “Ms. Grobler, as you must have guessed, alerted all of your teachers to your recent”—he searched for the right word—“hardships. You’ve been here over a week now, and I just want to make sure you’re getting on all right.”

  “I’m fine,” I repeated, looking down at the cluttered surface of his desk. Near the front edge lay a stack of worn hardcover books with a half-full Santiago Hills Stallions mug balancing dangerously on top of the heap. I stared at that mug, not blinking, certain that it would fall to the floor and shatter at any moment. I wanted to warn him.

  “I’m fine,” I said again.

  “And Lynn? Is she helping you? You can be honest, Susannah. If she’s not fulfilling her end of the agreement, I can speak with her.”

  “She’s helped a lot,” I said. “Really.”

  Mr. Tipton regarded me, as though waiting for something else. “All right, then. But I trust you’ll let me know if I can help you in any way. Even if it has nothing to do with choir.” He started gathering his things.

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  “Yes. That’s it.” Mr. Tipton headed toward the door.

  While his back was turned, I reached across the desk and moved his mug to a more central, safe location. “I thought I was in trouble,” I said before following him.

  He looked back. “Have you done something that might get you in trouble?”

  I paused. “No.”

  “Then why are you worried?” Smiling, Mr. Tipton pushed the door ajar.

  I exited first, emerging into the gleaming afternoon. The air was dry. Hot, too, but that I was used to; the crisp, dark mornings of fall always gave way to a bright wave of midday warmth. A drop of sweat dribbled down my temple and I wiped it away with my knuckles.

  �
��Susannah, look,” Mr. Tipton began. “I know how the passing of a loved one can consume you from the inside until you think you have nothing left. And I understand how hard it is to confide in someone unfamiliar, but it’s important to me that you know my door is always open.”

  I nodded. His voice was gentle, but there was also a sense of candor in his words, a pain that hovered behind his kindness. His eyes searched mine, and I recognized something in him then—the peripheral shape of a sadness I was just beginning to understand. “Thank you,” I said.

  Then someone called my name.

  “Susannah,” my mother said again as she approached us. “Why didn’t you answer your phone? I’ve been waiting out front.”

  I winced with embarrassment, even as Mr. Tipton began to explain that it was his fault for keeping me after class.

  “She’s not in trouble, is she?” my mother asked.

  Mr. Tipton cast me a knowing glance, and smiled. “We were just chatting,” he said, but his voice trailed off as he glanced—finally, fully—at my mother.

  I had seen men look this intently at her before, but Mr. Tipton’s gaze was different. It was filled with wonder, and my mother took off her sunglasses in response. Her lips parted slightly, her eyes so vibrantly golden and green next to all those pale cinder block and stucco buildings. An unfamiliar grin broke across her face. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her right ear.

  “This is my choir teacher,” I started to say.

  But she finished the sentence for me, his name distinct and alive on her tongue: “Roger Tipton.”

  “Diane Crane,” Roger said, shaking his head in disbelief. “You look incredible.”

  They leaned in for a hug, arms crashing into arms, faces tilting the same direction. Laughing, they bobbed back and forth—a dance that culminated with a flustered touch and shoulder pats. And I knew right then, from the unmistakable awkwardness of their embrace and the smooth cadence of their names in the other’s mouth, that at some point long ago, before my father appeared on that stage at the Troubadour and saw her face framed beneath the wayward glare of a broken spotlight, my mother and Roger Tipton had loved each other.