24 November 2015
Lunch raged around us, but I was too absorbed watching Diego and Audrey argue to notice anything outside of our bubble.
“Only an idiot could prefer Matt Smith to David Tennant.” Audrey was so worked up, her nostrils flared and her eyes had gone full-bore crazy.
Diego remained calm, which only seemed to infuriate Audrey more. “Then I’m an idiot.” He popped a chip into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed, while holding his free hand in the air to let Audrey know he wasn’t done speaking. “I’ll give you that Tennant brought a gravitas to the Doctor that grounded the insanity of the ludicrous situations he got himself into, but Matt Smith didn’t play the Doctor, he was the Doctor.”
“You guys know I’ve got no clue what you’re talking about, right?”
Audrey and Diego both turned to look at me like I’d climbed atop the table, dropped trou, and hosed them down.
“You’ve never seen Doctor Who?” Diego glanced at Audrey. “You have failed as a best friend.”
“Hey, I only got hooked last year,” Audrey said. “There was nothing to do at my grandma’s house except watch a ton of TV.”
“How’d you watch it, Diego?” I asked. “I thought you didn’t have a television.”
Diego focused on eating his sandwich, chewing each bite deliberately. His smile and laughter vanished like he’d blown a fuse, and an impenetrable wall rose between us.
“Look.” Audrey pointed toward the door, where Marcus McCoy stood sweeping the cafeteria with his eyes. His forearm muscles bulged from clenching his fists, and his lips were twisted into a snarl. I’d spent enough time with Marcus to know that it took skill to make him seriously angry. He was rich and popular, which insulated him from the effects of most humiliation. He started walking and wound through the crowd until he reached a table occupied by Larry Owens, Shane Thorpe, Tania Lewis, Missi Lizneski, and Zac Newton. Everyone was watching Marcus—taking pictures and video with their phones—and I had to stand to see over their heads. He was yelling at Zac, but his words were lost in the excited murmuring of the lunch crowd. Zac’s shorter than Marcus, but he’s on the wrestling team and built like an inverted pyramid. He got in Marcus’s face, using his weight to bully him backward.
Marcus sucker-punched Zac in the jaw and followed with a left to the nose that sent him reeling into the table. Zac’s friends rushed to help him, but Marcus didn’t even wait to see if Zac was going to retaliate before he stormed out of the cafeteria. Mrs. Francesco chased after him while Mr. Baker cleared a path to Zac.
“What the hell was that?” I asked. Zac’s nose was gushing blood, and Mr. Baker was trying to stanch the flow with a handful of napkins. If I hadn’t witnessed it, I wouldn’t have believed Marcus capable of breaking Zac Newton’s nose.
“You didn’t hear?”
“Hear what?” A small knot of students had gathered around Zac and Mr. Baker, offering ice and towels. It took the combined strength of Larry, Shane, and Mr. Brown to keep Zac from running after Marcus.
“Someone smashed the windows of Marcus’s car,” Audrey said. “Obviously, he thinks it was Zac.”
“Do you think it was Zac?” I asked. Audrey’s only answer was a shrug. “Why the hell would he have busted Marcus’s windows?”
Audrey’s voice rang with a note of satisfaction. “Because he’s dating Natalie Carter—was dating Natalie. I’m not too clear on the current status of Zac and Natalie’s rocky romance.”
“That’s no reason to take it out on the car.”
Mr. Baker led Zac out of the cafeteria, and I sat back down. Audrey was gathering her trash and babbling about how Zac learned Natalie and Marcus had hooked up because someone posted pictures from Marcus’s party on their SnowFlake page, and when Zac confronted her about it in the quad before classes, she hadn’t denied it, reducing Zac to tears.
Diego hadn’t spoken since the beginning of the afternoon show. I kicked him under the table, gave him a smile. He barely returned it.
“You have econ with Zac, don’t you, Diego?” I asked. “Do you think he did it?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care. I’m just glad Marcus got what he deserved.” Diego picked up his tray, dumped his trash, and returned to his seat. He didn’t say another word until lunch ended.
• • •
“Everything all right?” I asked Diego as we walked to study hall. He seemed preoccupied. “Diego?”
“What?”
“I asked if you were okay.”
Diego shrugged. “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You’ve been somewhere else since lunch.”
He shifted his backpack from his left to his right shoulder. He smiled, but there was something off about it, like milk that was about to turn. “Really, I’m good.”
I had no reason not to believe him, but my gut told me something was wrong. Maybe he wasn’t lying, but he wasn’t being entirely truthful, either. It reminded me too much of the way Jesse had deflected my questions and pretended that life was wonderful even when it wasn’t. “If something’s wrong, you can talk to me.”
“It’s nothing. Drop it, okay?”
“Sorry.” We got to my class and stopped by the door. “You don’t need to walk me to class every day.”
“It’s not a problem.”
“I can’t believe Zac trashed Marcus’s car. Pretty ballsy move.”
Diego glanced at his watch. “I guess. Listen, I can’t give you a ride home today.”
“It’s cool.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“See you later then.” He took off down the hall and disappeared into the crowd, leaving me to wonder what the hell I’d done.
• • •
Audrey’s dog yapped at the waves and skittered backward as the water rushed toward it. The tiny terror was barely the size of a football, and answered to the name Plath.
“Aren’t you afraid she’s going to drown or be eaten by a shark?” I asked as we walked, the setting sun burning up the sky behind us. The daytime crowds had disappeared, leaving behind a few strays desperate to soak up what little light remained.
“I wish.” Audrey glared at Plath with derision. “Come on, stupid mutt!”
Plath ignored her and barked at the water as if she thought she could annoy it into submission.
“My mom only adopted her because the Becketts have one.” She rolled her eyes. “They got a Mercedes, Mom got a better Mercedes. They rented a house in Colorado for the winter, Mom bought a summer house in Martha’s Vineyard. It’s like she doesn’t know what to do with the money, so she buys whatever the neighbors buy.”
“But you got that sweet ride.”
“Only because Stella Beckett got one for her sweet sixteen.”
I laughed at the thought of Mrs. Dorn keeping a tally of everything her neighbors purchased, and tried not to be jealous that Audrey got a car because of a game of wealthy one-upmanship. “Is she working on anything?”
Audrey shook her head. “She’s decided she’s going to write a book. Only, instead of actually writing, she spends her time buying things she hopes will turn her into a writer. First it was the expensive laptop, then she needed to redecorate the study, and now she’s convinced that real writers do it longhand and with a fountain pen. And Dad’s so bored, he joined the homeowner’s association so he can harass people whose bushes need trimming or roofs need reshingling. I don’t know who they are anymore.”
Growing up, I’d admired the Dorns. While my parents were busy slamming doors, her parents ate Sunday dinners and baked cookies together. They were the picture of a perfect family. I suppose even perfect pictures fade.
“How’s Nana?”
I dug my toes into the sand. “It’s rough, you know? She looks like the same person, sounds like the same person, and sometimes she even acts like the same person, but she’s not, and every day it gets worse.” Plath rolled around in the sand in front of Audrey. “Her health is great—cancer’s gone, heart’s good, no other real problems—but her mind is a balloon with a slow leak. Sometimes I think . . .”
Audrey looked at me when I didn’t finish. “What, Henry?”
“Nothing.” But it wasn’t nothing, and I think Audrey was the only person I could admit it to. “Sometimes, I think Nana would be better off dead. I mean, if I got to where I couldn’t take care of myself or didn’t recognize my own family . . . what’s the point?”
We walked farther down the beach, the light growing dimmer. The moon had already risen, but it was still too bright for stars. “Do you think that’s how Jesse felt?” I asked.
Audrey’s shoulders turned inward slightly, and she became smaller. “Jesse was sick, and I think he just wanted to end the pain.”
“I guess.”
“Do you feel that way, Henry?”
I couldn’t tell Audrey the truth, partly because I knew she’d feel obligated to tell my mom, but mostly because she didn’t deserve that kind of burden. “It doesn’t matter either way.”
“The end of the world?” Audrey glanced at me, and I nodded. I don’t think she ever believed I’d been abducted, though she had always humored me because of Jesse and had laughed when I told her about the button. It’s not that she doesn’t believe in the possibility of aliens or other life in the universe; she simply doesn’t think it’s plausible that beings from another planet would travel hundreds or thousands of light-years to abduct cows and teenage boys. I can’t blame her for her skepticism; sometimes I’m not sure I believe it myself. “How do you think it’s going to happen?”
“Superbug, nuclear war, man-made black hole, asteroid. I have a lot of theories.”
“You’ve clearly put some thought into this.”
“I’m surprised we haven’t wiped ourselves out already.” I sat down in the sand and pulled my legs up to my chest. Plath crawled into my lap and licked my chin. “If I save us, who’s to say another disaster won’t come along and obliterate us anyway? I sort of feel like I’m doing everyone a favor. Take Charlie and Zooey, for instance. I’m saving them the pain of raising a kid in this fucked-up world.”
The dampness from the sand seeped through my shorts. I threw a stick down the beach for Plath to chase. Audrey plopped down beside me and leaned her head on my shoulder. “Did Diego convince you to go to his barbecue?”
“Mom and Zooey are planning a whole Thanksgiving meal, and either one would castrate me if I tried to bail.”
“Ouch.”
“Right?” I paused then said, “Do you think Diego could have broken Marcus’s car windows?”
“No. Why would you think that?”
I struggled with how to explain it without coming off paranoid. “You should have seen him after I got attacked in the shower. I know I don’t know him that well, but I’ve never seen him so angry.”
“Diego’s a good guy. He was worried about you, that’s all.”
“It was more than that. He told me this story about how he took a beating from his father to protect his sister, and I don’t know, Audrey. I feel like his whole the-world-is-beautiful-and-we-should-be-happy-to-be-alive shtick is just an act.”
“He’s not Jesse.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I know you’re right, but I can’t shake the feeling he’s the one who smashed Marcus’s windows. And that’s scary, you know? Who does shit like that? It’s psycho.”
Audrey cleared her throat. “Speaking of Marcus. Have you talked to him lately?”
I shook my head. “No. Why?”
Audrey whistled when Plath wandered too close to the water, but the stupid dog ignored her. If she got pulled out to sea, I was not going in after her. “No reason,” Audrey said in a singsong way that meant she absolutely had a reason.
“Spill it.”
“Well, he got suspended for punching Zac, and Cheyenne said that he’s going off the rails. The rich boy trinity: booze, pills, and meaningless sex.”
It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. I’d seen him eat the occasional oxy he’d stolen from his mom, but his drug use had been strictly recreational. “Why are you telling me?”
“I thought you’d want to know.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“Okay.” Audrey paused for a moment. “I know you liked him, Henry.”
“We were only fooling around.”
Audrey snapped her fingers in front of my face to get my attention. It was getting too dark to see her expression, but I didn’t need light to feel the intensity of her stare. “You can’t lie to me.”
I tried to shake my head, to tell her that none of it had meant anything, but I couldn’t. I dug at the sand, unable to face her. “He took my mind off Jesse, but I didn’t worry about having feelings for him because I thought I’d never have feelings for anyone again.”
“Are you in love with him?”
“No!”
“You wouldn’t be the first person to fall for a jerk, Henry.”
I dug the hole until it was so deep that the sand at the bottom was wet and cold. “After Jesse’s funeral, after everyone else disappeared or went back to their normal lives, Marcus was there for me.”
“He’s an asshole who doesn’t deserve you.” Audrey took my hand, kissed the top of it, and held it to her chest. When she let go, she pushed my mountain of sand into the hole and packed it down.
“His parents put a lot of pressure on him,” I said. “And his friends—”
“Don’t you dare make excuses for him, Henry Denton.”
“I’m not.”
“You are!”
I raked my hair with my free hand as I wrestled with how to explain what I meant. It was so clear in my mind, but when I tried to say it out loud, it fell apart. “All of this . . . all of them . . . it matters to him. What they think matters to him. Their opinions form the foundation of Marcus McCoy. Without them, he’s nothing.”
Audrey tut-tutted. “You know that’s not true.”
“He believes it.” Most people hadn’t seen Marcus the way I had. They’d never seen beyond the facade. Even I’d only glimpsed a little of who he truly was, but I worried that, the longer he wore it, the easier it would be to forget that the mask wasn’t the truth. Marcus wasn’t a lost cause yet, but convincing Audrey of that was.
“As far as I’m concerned, he’s a waste of good hair.”
I made gagging sounds. “I’ve already forgiven you. You don’t have to keep insulting him on my account.”
“I’m serious!” Audrey began giggling, and Plath took that to mean it was time to play. I hopped up and ran down the beach, letting the yappy beast chase me until I was out of breath. When we returned to Audrey, she was brushing sand off her jeans, hugging her knees to her chest. “I know it was Marcus who attacked you in the showers.”
Plath was still barking at me and trying to bite my fingers, but I stopped cold. “You can’t tell anyone, Audrey.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because it’s not worth it.”
“If he hurts you again, I’ll tell everyone.”
“He won’t. Anyway, it’s the end of the world. What does it matter?”
“It matters, Henry.” She clipped the leash to Plath’s collar, and we started walking back toward the road. The bright lights from the cars sped past like comets.
I wanted to believe Audrey, I really did, but I knew better.
• • •
Mom was parked in the driveway, sitting in her old Buick, smoking and listening to the oldies station on the radio. She’s always had a soft spot for Motown. I stood quietly and listened to her sing along with “You Can’t Hurry Love” in her raspy but beautiful voice. When the song ended, I cleared my throat so I didn’t scare her.
“Henry?”
“Hey, Ma.”
Mom scrambled in her seat, waving her hands around. It took a second for me to realize she wasn’t smoking a cigarette. “What’re you doing sneaking up on me?”
“Are you high?”
“No.” Silence. “Yes.” Mom climbed out of the car, shamefaced. She was still wearing her waitressing uniform, and the puffy skin under her deep-set eyes sagged heavily. I snaked the joint from her and took a hit. The weed was cheap and burned my throat. “Henry!”
“I won’t tell if you won’t.”
Mom chewed on that for a moment and then shrugged. We sat down on the driveway behind the car and passed the joint back and forth in silence. After a while Mom said, “I’m glad you’re spending time with Audrey again. She makes you smile.”
“I wish you’d smile more.”
“Things are hard right now.”
It felt like I hadn’t talked to my mom in a long time. She was always so angry or exhausted. “Why don’t you try cooking again? You could easily snag a good job.”
Rather than snapping at me like usual, she took a hit off the joint and held the smoke in for what felt like forever. When she exhaled, it was like she’d blown the last dusty remnants of her hope out with it. “I can’t do that anymore, Henry.”
“Why not? Your food is amazing, and you love cooking.” The pot loosened my tongue, gave me the courage to be honest. “You haven’t been the same since Dad took off.”
Mom sniffed and then giggled; I couldn’t tell whether she was crying or laughing. “Your father took the best parts of me when he left.”
“That’s not true, and you know it.”
“You don’t understand, Henry.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Mom.”
“Watch your mouth.” Mom scowled and flicked the joint into the grass. I’d seen Nana use the same look. It was probably passed from mother to daughter like that horrible meatloaf recipe.
It killed me to think Mom was so willing to give up because Dad had disappeared. If the world was going to end in sixty-six days, she deserved to enjoy every last one of them. “Dad might have helped you see the best parts of yourself, but they were always there, and no one can take them away.”
Mom clenched her jaw, and I swore for a moment she was going to slap me or start sobbing or shut down completely and never leave the driveway. Instead she said, “If that’s true, how am I supposed to see them now that he’s gone?”
“Get a mirror.”
“Chain of Fools” played on the radio, and I crawled around the side of the car to crank it up. Mom didn’t sing, but I leaned my head on her shoulder as we sat in the driveway and listened together.