All the Pretty Things

by Emily Arsenault

  “Some people are making out like it’s Winnie’s fault about Ethan,” Morgan offered. She was looking at me now as she spoke, as if watching for my reaction. “That she was supposed to walk him home. But she wasn’t even working at Fabuland that night. That’s what people seem to forget. And her brother walked him home just as often—or drove him. It was a rare night that neither of them were there. Ethan said he would call his mom, but he didn’t. Why not? Why didn’t he go get his backpack out of his locker either? Why was he in such a rush to go home? On foot?”

  “Those all sound like good questions,” I said quietly. “Are the police blaming Winnie?”

  “No.” Morgan seemed confused that I had asked. “But since Ethan can’t answer those things for us…I wonder if there’s someone else who can.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe he just decided to walk. It was a nice night, right?”

  “A hot night. But nice enough. Yeah.” Morgan’s expression looked almost feral now, and her voice lowered to a whisper. “I wonder if it’s occurred to anyone that he didn’t fall.”

  “What…,” I said uneasily. “Like that he was pushed or something?”

  “I don’t know. Just…that he didn’t fall.”

  “Who would want to push Ethan? Ethan never hurt anyone.”

  “I didn’t say anyone pushed him. All I asked was if it ever occurred to anyone…” Morgan couldn’t finish her sentence. She was crying.

  I wanted to reach out and hug her, but it felt like she was maybe too delicate. It was almost like we were still on the Ferris wheel. One wrong move and she might end up overboard.

  “It’s okay, Morgan,” I murmured. Just like I had on the phone while I was in North Carolina. And just as ineffectively. “Occurred to anyone…what?”

  Morgan sniffled and pulled a mushed tissue out of her shorts pocket. “Never mind.”

  “No…not never mind. I want to know what you were going to say.”

  But Morgan dried her eyes and said nothing. Her gaze crept toward the ceiling again.

  My hands tightened around the stems of the yellow roses.

  “Morgan,” I whispered—more sharply than I intended.

  “Yeah?”

  “A few days after Ethan died you texted me that there was something from that morning you wanted to talk about. Something about the day you found Ethan.”

  Morgan nodded and finally let her eyes meet mine, seeming to focus a little. “Yeah. There was.”

  “I wanted to ask you about it on the Ferris wheel, but it, um, didn’t seem like the right time.”

  Morgan’s face broke into a little smile. “Right. That would’ve been…inappropriate.”

  I smiled too. Here was a glimpse of the old Morgan. We both found it funny how people overuse or misuse that word. Like when the local paper characterized the Fuck off and die someone had spray-painted on the assistant principal’s car as “an inappropriate sentiment.”

  “So…can we talk about that now?” I coaxed.

  “Yeah. I actually have it with me.” Morgan hopped out of her chair. “In my room.”

  “What?” I said, stunned by her burst of energy and intrigued by whatever the “it” was that apparently was at the root of all this.

  “Hold on a sec,” she called as she shot out of the room. “I’ll be right back.”

  After she was gone a minute, I began to wonder if she actually intended to come back. And I wondered what a room in this part of the hospital looked like.

  I checked my phone. No texts, of course, since Morgan and my parents were the only people who usually texted me. I put the roses on the floor and stood up. Then Morgan came back in.

  “This,” she said, and thrust something smooth and round into my hands.

  It was a small half-globe paperweight with blue-green glitter on the bottom. Isolated in the middle of its clear plastic domed top was a little brown scorpion.

  “Is that real?” I asked.

  “I think so. They have these as new prizes at the Water Gun Fun and the balloon dart booths. They’re only for this summer. Stuff for older kids to pick from, I guess. Not just toy cars and magic wands and mini stuffed animals. That’s what Emma told me.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. Emma worked a couple of different prize booths, depending on the day.

  “The morning I was walking to Fabuland from my house…before I got to the trestle…before…” She swallowed and took a breath. “Before Ethan. Like a minute or two before I saw Ethan, while I was walking along the path from Braeburn Road to the trestle, I saw this and picked it up. I thought it was kind of cool, so I put it in my pocket. I forgot about it, though…when everything happened.”

  “Okay,” I whispered, waiting for more as I handed the paperweight back to Morgan.

  “That night I found it in my pocket. Put it on my dresser. Debated if I should get rid of it. Seemed like a bad-luck charm kind of thing, that I found Ethan a minute or two after I’d put this thing in my pocket.”

  I shuddered and sucked in my breath. I’m not very superstitious, but finding a scorpion trinket seconds before finding someone dead seemed like pretty staggering proof that bad omens existed.

  “I almost threw it in the trash, but there was so much going on those few days—talking to the police, and not being able to sleep for a couple of nights and the wake and the funeral and everything—I kind of forgot about it. Until after the funeral. A few of us were hanging out at the pizza place on East Main that night, chatting, mostly just sharing memories about Ethan. And then Emma starts saying how Ethan kept coming to her booth the week before he died, and kept eyeing this one paperweight, one of the new scorpion paperweights. There were a few purple ones and a red one but only one light blue one. He wanted it so desperately that Emma tried to give it to him, but Ethan insisted no, he had to win it fair and square.”

  “And?” I said.

  “And he won it. The day before he died. Emma was telling everyone how happy Ethan was, how Ethan hugged her and couldn’t wait to show it to his mom, to his cousin Tim. To everyone else it was just a sweet story about Ethan. But…for me…”

  Morgan didn’t finish her sentence.

  “Wait.” I wanted to clarify something. “You found it before you found him?”

  “Yeah. Ever since I heard it was his, I’ve been carrying it around with me. I had it with me on the Ferris wheel.”

  I bit my lip. I didn’t like the thought of the bad-luck scorpion having been with us up so high in the sky.

  “Do you think Ethan dropped it?” I asked, once I’d recovered from the thought.

  Morgan shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know it was his. Unless he gave it to someone. Because it was, like, in the middle of the path. Enough people walk that path that it’s unlikely it could have been there for long.”

  I could see why it had unsettled Morgan—aside from the obviously creepy vibe of Ethan’s prize. Coming from Fabuland, after you crossed over the trestle, the path in the woods went in two directions. The shorter path went toward Braeburn Road, which was close to Morgan’s street. The other, longer path went up a hill, then behind several houses on Sweetwater Road, toward Ethan’s neighborhood. It was odd if Ethan had been on the shorter path, since it didn’t lead directly to or from his neighborhood.

  “Did you tell anyone about it?” I asked.

  Morgan shook her head. “Not till now.”

  “Not even Emma?”

  “Not even Emma.” Morgan’s voice was a whisper.

  “What about Winnie?” I said.

  Morgan looked surprised to hear Winnie’s name again.

  “No,” she muttered, avoiding my gaze.

  I could feel her slipping away from me again, so I quickly turned my attention back to the paperweight.

  “There are a few ways it could’ve gotten there,” I said, trying
to sound casual.

  “Yeah. I know.”

  Ethan’s cousins Tim and Winnie also lived up the Braeburn way. Maybe Ethan had given it to Tim. Maybe he’d been visiting them.

  “I keep thinking he could have been confused that night,” Morgan said quietly. “That’s one possibility. He walked up the wrong way, turned around, went back to the trestle for some reason.”

  “Huh,” I said. It was incredibly sad to think of Ethan lost and confused in the woods in the minutes before his fall.

  “But I can’t help thinking that something isn’t right.” Morgan shook her head. “That maybe someone isn’t being honest about Ethan. About where he was or who saw him that night.”

  My mind was reeling. It made sense, what Morgan was saying. At least on the surface. But on the other hand, I wondered if she wasn’t looking for someone to blame. Surely seeing Ethan like she had made it harder for her to accept that his death was something that simply…happened.

  I took a breath.

  “Morgan, can you remind me who rode the Laser Coaster with Ethan the night he died?”

  “Anna Henry, Lucas Andries, and Briony Simpson. Why?”

  “I just…well…if we were to ask someone about it…I’m wondering who we’d start with.”

  “I thought of asking more questions after I realized the scorpion was Ethan’s, but…right after that I got…” Morgan’s gaze was drifting around the room as she wove her fingers together in her lap. “Distracted,” she said softly.

  Distracted. I didn’t ask for clarification. Distracted by whatever personal demon sent her climbing up a Ferris wheel in the middle of the night? Distracted, maybe, by the memory of Ethan’s dead face? Was it bloody? Pained? Were his eyes open? I wondered for the hundredth time in the last few days—even though I tried very hard not to.

  Morgan closed her eyes again.

  “Morgan?” I whispered. When she didn’t reply, I asked, “Why were you crying with Winnie Malloy in the Food Zone on Wednesday? Do you remember? Did she say something to you?”

  Morgan’s eyes snapped open. Her expression looked like it had on the Ferris wheel.

  “There’s something I should probably tell you,” she said slowly. “My mom is suggesting I go to Portsmouth in the fall. I’m thinking of saying yes this time. When I get out of here.”

  I was speechless for a moment. Since the beginning of high school, Morgan’s mom had been floating the idea that she go stay with her aunt and uncle in Portsmouth so she could be in a better school district. Morgan had never once taken it seriously.

  “But…it’s senior year. What’s the point?” I asked, trying not to raise my voice. “Would you really want to leave now?”

  Morgan flipped the paperweight from one hand to the other. “I don’t feel…comfortable in Danville anymore.”

  “Because of Ethan?” I asked. “Or…?”

  I didn’t finish the question.

  “Maybe you could leave me alone for a little while,” she said, her tone flat. “Don’t come and visit me here. Wait till I get home.”

  “But—” I started to protest. I didn’t understand why one minute she wanted to confide in me about the scorpion and the next didn’t want to talk to me.

  “And can you do me one favor?” Morgan interrupted.

  “Yeah…anything.”

  “Don’t tell people where I am.” She finally let her tired gaze meet mine. “Okay?”

  “Of course I won’t. Is there a story you want me to tell people?”

  “I don’t know…maybe that I was drunk when I climbed up there? I passed out once I got to the top of the Ferris wheel. That’s why I was there in the morning.”

  I only had to think about it for a few seconds. I wasn’t sure I could convince kids of this, but I could probably have about half of the younger Fabuland staff at least saying it within the next forty-eight hours. If that was what Morgan wanted. Apparently she felt drunk out of her mind was easier to live down than simply out of her mind.

  “Absolutely,” I said, and thrust the yellow roses into her lap.

  She looked at them for a moment, and then handed me the sparkle-scorpion paperweight in return.

  “Thanks,” she said. “And maybe you should take this with you.”

  “All right,” I mumbled.

  I felt rattled as I made my way back down to the lobby with Morgan and Ethan’s bad-luck charm weighing down my right pocket. But I’d have felt worse if I’d refused. If I’d made her keep it instead.

  SIX

  As soon as our takeout burritos were unwrapped, Mom peered at me over her new horn-rimmed glasses.

  “Do you want to talk?” she asked.

  Of course she meant talk about Morgan.

  I took a moment to decide how little I could say without making my mom think I was deliberately shutting her out.

  “Well…I think she’s still pretty shaken up about Ethan,” I said carefully.

  “It’s hard.” Mom nodded knowingly. “When someone we’re close to experiences something traumatic and there’s not much we can do.”

  It’s hard is my mom’s go-to line about everything. She works with little kids—in a charter school during the year and at a day camp in the summer—and she’s always affirming their feelings. I know, sometimes it’s hard to share, she probably says all day long. It’s hard to say goodbye to Mommy. It’s hard when we don’t get our first choice.

  I always wonder if she ever wants to add, But you’re just going to have to suck it up. She never had to when Jason and I were little, because Dad was around then to say those kinds of things.

  “I wouldn’t say that yet. That there’s not much I can do.” I touched the smooth paperweight in my pocket.

  “Well…you might want to take a wait-and-see approach, you know? Give her a few days or weeks to work things out a bit. She’s wrestling with something. You might want to wait and see if she has a chance to pin it down herself, rather than jumping in. She’s already communicated that she’s in some kind of pain. Sometimes, in those cases, all we can do is listen.”

  I decided not to reply—at least not right away. Sometimes all this “affirmation” is infuriating. Instead, I refolded my burrito because black beans were falling out of it. While we ate quietly, I went over in my head all the people I wanted to talk to about Ethan’s last night and about his scorpion paperweight: Emma, the three kids who’d ridden the ride with Ethan, and Tim Malloy. But would talking to Tim be any easier than talking to his sister?

  “Wanting to help is great, but wanting too much can be a way of making it about ourselves,” Mom said. “You know?”

  Mom had a lot of therapy after the divorce, and it showed. Don’t make it all about you is one of her favorite themes. That was how she talked now, at least when something serious came up. Nothing she was saying was wrong exactly, but I occasionally missed the old Mom, who could be a little more laid-back and fun. The Mom who used to be in charge of the kids’ birthday parties at Dad’s shops. The Mom who could rattle off the color names of at least five different shades of pink sprinkles (neon pink, Valentine spectrum, taffy swirl, berry blush, sweet sixteen…) and who knew how to operate a ride-on bubble machine.

  Now she’s an assistant kindergarten teacher at Danville Elementary, and Feelings are way more important than I ever remember them being when I was a kid. Feelings and Respect and giving each other Space. All good things, of course, but sometimes I wonder if she doesn’t realize I’m old enough to apply these things with some degree of nuance.

  It’s hard to believe your parents were ever married, Morgan says sometimes. She and I became friends when we were eleven—two years after the divorce—so she never got to see it for herself. My mom was different then, I tell her.

  “I know you want to be a good friend,” Mom added.

  “Sure,” I snapped.
“I get it. You don’t need to say anything else.”

  The moment I said it, I regretted it. I wasn’t really annoyed with my mother so much as with myself. I wanted to be a good friend. I just didn’t feel like a very effective one right now. And Morgan’s suggestion that she might leave town as soon as she got out of the hospital had put me on edge.

  Still, a wounded look came over Mom’s face. It’s easy to get a look like that from her. And it’s hard to so regularly see such a look of defeat on a face that looks so much like yours.

  “I mean, what you’re saying is helpful. I just don’t want to keep talking about it right now.”

  Mom nodded. We ate in silence until one of us thought up a safe subject: TV. There was a Netflix series we’d both liked last year, and a new season would start streaming next week. We’d have to binge-watch it some night. Some night when things weren’t so busy at Fabuland. Maybe we’d get some of that gourmet dark chocolate ice cream for the occasion.

  We talked like that for a few minutes—gently, casually—until the sad look eased from my mother’s face.

  While we talked, I reached into my pocket and gripped the paperweight once more—to remind myself what I had to do next. By accepting it from Morgan, I felt I’d made her a silent promise. She had questions about the night Ethan died, and I did too. Morgan wasn’t in a position to ask them at the moment. I was. And if I wanted to keep her in Danville, I needed to start asking them on her behalf. Even if people didn’t like me quite as much as they liked Morgan.

  * * *

  • • •

  After dinner, I sat cross-legged on my bed, staring at the scorpion paperweight in my palms, considering who I might start with. The kids who’d ridden the Laser Coaster with Ethan—and seen him last—seemed like the natural place to start. Lucas Andries, Briony Simpson, and Anna Henry. Lucas lived near Braeburn Road, relatively close to Morgan, so he might be most likely to know what the story was with the scorpion. But I knew Briony from chem class. We’d been lab partners for a semester. We weren’t exactly friends, but we did chem homework a few times at her house, and I had her number from when we’d texted to meet up. And it felt a little less intimidating to start with her.