CHAPTER 4
THAT
NIGHT I CURLED UNDER THE COVERS WEARing my warmest flannel pajamas, bone
weary and cold all over. My phone chirped, and I brought it into bed with me.
Elena had sent a picture of the Goonies
movie poster.
Feel like a watch-along? she wrote.
We can spend the whole movie texting….
Sorry,
I wrote.
It’s
been a day.
No apologies, she wrote back.
What flavor of day?
You
know. The usual.
Human
sacrifice.
Dogs
and cats, living together.
Mass
hysteria.
Whoa. Ghostbusters day.
That’s not effing around.
There
will be stories.
I hope so.
Later.
I’ll be here.
I
rested my phone on the pillow beside me and watched the video of me and Tyler
that Nathan had sent for maybe the dozenth time. At first, it had seemed so
sweet, but the more I watched it, the more it troubled me. I had no idea he’d
recorded our guitar lessons. In some shots I’d been wearing school clothes,
but in others, I was in ratty pajama bottoms and a T-shirt with no bra. And
he’d put me out there for anyone to see, with no warning, without asking. He
clearly valued his own privacy, but didn’t he think I deserved the same?
And
when had he even started a YouTube channel? Had he considered himself an
amateur filmmaker, or was he just trying to get internet famous like everyone
else with a cell-phone camera?
When
the video ended, the screen bounced back to Nathan’s original message, and I
could see his picture, small and smiling, beside the link that he had sent. I
clicked on the photo, and Nathan’s face filled the screen. I studied the
curve of his chin and the shadow in the hollow of his cheek, tinged with a
hint of violet.
How
had Nathan known my brother? How well? For how long? I replayed our two short
conversations in my mind, wincing at every awkward, rude comment I’d made,
and I remembered that he’d asked if Tyler had shown me “the videos.”
As
in more than one.
I
sat up in bed and clicked on Tyler’s YouTube username, TwoRedCents, but I
didn’t see any other videos on the channel.
Well,
maybe Nathan had more he could share.
I
sat up and quickly typed out a message. More videos, I wrote, and hit send.
Ugh.
Ugh ugh ugh. No matter what Elena said, I was terrible at thinking first. My
fingers practically tripped over one another trying to correct my mistake.
I
mean, are there more videos?
And
if so please send?
Videos
of Tyler.
Not
videos of you.
No
offense.
I’d
definitely watch videos of you.
I
smacked myself in the forehead with the phone. Oh my god, stop hitting send! Before I could
figure out a plan for damage control, he wrote back.
Best series of msgs ever.
Thanks.
My
fingers hovered over the screen, and my mind raced through a dozen possible
responses, but I didn’t type any of them. After a long pause, Nathan texted
again.
No more videos. That I know of.
But how are you? You okay?
I
let myself fall back onto the pillow. Did Nathan know anything about the
money in Tyler’s locker? I didn’t want to bring it up over text—I wanted to
see his face when I asked him.
Or
maybe I just wanted to see his face.
Lots of questions, I wrote. Can
we talk? A blast of nerves shot through my stomach, and I
couldn’t quite tell if I was excited or terrified. In person?
Sure,
I guess so.
Tomorrow?
Here? Or I can come to you.
Another
pause, and then he wrote back: In
a hurry, huh?
I
buried my face in my hands. This whole exchange had been beyond humiliating.
Before I could tell him to forget the whole thing, he wrote:
Tomorrow might work. Your place. If I can.
Great, I replied, trying for casual. See you then.
My
mom dropped me off at school the next morning, and I walked through the
parking lot with the carousel ticket clasped in my fingers, turning it over
and over until the paper felt soft as fabric. I was on the lookout for Leigh
Barry, the only Leigh I could find in last year’s yearbook. It wasn’t much to
go on, but I was going on anyway.
A
car horn sounded, and Eric Bowling pulled up beside me in a little blue Geo
Metro that must have been twenty years old. He rolled down his window and hooked
one elbow out.
“Well,
well, well! Exactly the person I was looking for!”
I
kept walking.
“I
wanted to talk to you,” he said, driving slowly alongside me. “You know,
about yesterday. The incident”—he
managed to italicize the word with his voice—“by the lockers?”
He
waited for some response. I offered none.
“You
know which incident I
mean?”
I
stopped walking and turned to him. “Yes. I know which incident you mean. The incident was fairly
memorable to me.”
“Anyhow,”
he went on, “I think we should talk. I’ve taken the liberty of preparing some
research for you to look at.” He glanced around to make sure no one could
hear us. “It’s to help you figure out your next step. You know, as you move
forward with your powers.”
“What
is your problem?
I do not have …” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “I am not some kind of
superhero.”
He
smiled. “Isn’t that exactly what a superhero would say?”
“You
are infuriating. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Oh,
yes,” he said. “You, personally, used to tell me that all the time.” It
didn’t sound like an accusation, but still, I felt a pang of guilt for not
doing more to stay in touch with Eric. “Now back to the subject at hand.
There are a lot of things you should consider.” He reached into his backpack
and pulled out a three-ring binder. “I thought about what happened to you,
and I decided what you basically did was See the Past.” The phrase “See the
Past” got verbal capitals and its own hand gesture. “So I made a list of some
local experts who can do that, in different ways. I also pulled some articles
and information about each one.”
“You
did all that last night?”
“Sure.
You can take a look if you want.” He offered me the binder. I started walking
again.
“Or
I could just tell you.” He pulled the car forward to keep up with me.
“There’s that famous psychic, Denise Chambers? She used to live in Phoenix,
but I looked for her in property sales records and figured out that she lives
in Virginia now. Not far from here. She wrote a ton of books about how she
helped the police by communicating with murder victims. And there’s this
other woman, Rebecca Tattenbaum; she runs an antique shop on Capitol Hill,
and rumor has it the building is haunted—”
“Sorry,”
I said, cutting him off. “Thanks but no thanks.” I ducked between two parked
cars and made a beeline for the main doors.
* * *
I
spotted Leigh Barry at lunchtime, eating at a table with a couple of other
girls. Anxiety curled in my stomach as I watched them. If there was anything
I hated more than talking to people, it was talking to new people. I reached up
and tugged at my hair. Tyler had always acted like talking to people was
easy. It was supposed to
be easy. I mean, it was called small talk. The word “small” was right there
in the name. So why did it feel so massive and unmanageable instead?
Leigh
didn’t look particularly intimidating. She wore a rose-pink cardigan over a
ratty gray band shirt—the kind that was genuinely worn out, not the kind most
Westsiders seemed to have, the ones that cost more because you bought them
prefaded. Her pale hair hung down her back in two long braids, and when she
laughed, she turned her face toward the ceiling and let out an oversize “Ha!”
I waited for her friends to leave before approaching her table.
“Um
… hi! Leigh, right?”
Behind
her rectangular glasses, Leigh’s eyelashes were so pale they nearly glowed.
“That’s me.” She flashed a bright smile. “What’s up?”
She
had no idea who I was. Not a promising beginning.
“I’m
Megan. Megan Brown? I’m—”
I
watched the surprise and recognition move across her face, and her smile
collapsed. “Oh, you’re Red’s sister.” She looked around, as though hoping for
reinforcements. “Are you … I mean, is there anything you need?”
A double scoop of the salted caramel ice cream from
Larry’s,
I thought, but I stopped myself. Go
along to get along. I mustered a smile. “No, thanks.” I’d been
practicing a few smooth, casual questions about Tyler that I could ask, but
now that the moment was upon me, my brain was having trouble sending signals
to my mouth. I sat down next to Leigh and pulled the ticket out of my pocket.
I turned it so she could see her own name on the back. “Do you recognize
this?”
She
let out a little hum, and her hand went to her mouth, but I could see that
she was smiling. I’d found the right girl.
I
slid the ticket across the table toward her. “You guys were friends?”
Her
mouth went hard. “I thought so.”
“What
happened?”
She
let out a harsh laugh. “Um, the baseball team’s senior prank happened.”
A
few months ago, Tyler and his teammates had broken into the school and set up
a Slip ’N Slide, complete with sprinklers, right outside the principal’s
office. But what did that have to do with Leigh?
Leigh
stood and reached for her backpack. “Anyway, if you want to know more about
it, talk to Bobby Drake.” She spit out his name like bad milk. “I’m sure
he’ll brag for days.”
“Oh,
god,” I shot back without thinking. “Please don’t make me talk to him again.”
She
stopped with her bag over one shoulder and stared at me for a second. Then
she busted out a laugh and sat down again.
“Listen,”
she said, “it was my own fault. I helped them get into the building. Red said
it was no big deal. And I believed him.” She sighed and picked up the
carousel ticket. “He just lit things up, you know? Like Christmas every day.”
Her chin crumpled, but she didn’t cry.
Her
emotion washed through me. Then I remembered: Bobby had said that Leigh’s dad
used to work
here.
“The
prank … did your dad lose his job over it?”
One
harsh nod from Leigh. “Because he took the blame for the missing access key.
He covered for me.”
I
thought about the roll of money in Tyler’s locker, and the pieces fell into
place in my mind. He’d been saving the money for Leigh, because he felt bad about
her father. I unzipped my backpack and took out the roll of cash.
“When
I found that ticket, it was attached to this.” I held it out to Leigh, but
she recoiled as though I’d offered her a spider. I tried again. “Seriously. I
think he meant it for you.”
She
pushed my hand away. “Yeah, he tried to pay me off months ago. And I told him
I didn’t want his guilt money.”
“I’m
sure he wanted to do what was right.”
“No,
Tyler just wanted to be the good guy. He couldn’t accept that this time—he
wasn’t. He was the bad guy. And he couldn’t talk his way out of it. Or buy
his way out of it. But that’s how all of you think.”
I
shook my head. “All of us?”
“My
dad took this job in the first place so I could go to this amazing school.”
Her voice was laced with sarcasm. “But it didn’t take me long to figure out
that everyone who goes here is, like, Richie Rich, and they have no concept
of what real life is like. Or they feel sorry for me.”
“I
don’t—” I began.
“Save
it.” She shook her head. “Do you even realize how messed up this place is? I
mean, sixteen-year-olds get cars that cost more than my dad used to make in a
year. And those weekly assemblies where they announce who got into what fancy
college? It’s like they’re actually trying to rub it in.”
“Yeah,
those assemblies suck,” I tried.
But
Leigh wasn’t listening. “So I’ll tell you what I told your brother: I don’t
want your charity. I feel sorry for you, for living in this privileged little
bubble and having no idea what life is like in the real world.”
As
she grabbed her backpack, I sat stunned, tears in my eyes.
She
looked back at me, and I watched her realize that I was the girl whose
brother had just died. Her shoulders sagged, and her face twisted into a
wince. “Aw, fuck,” she said. “I’m really sorry. I’m really …” She dashed away
without finishing her sentence, leaving me once again the center of curious
stares from everyone in the room.
I
shoved the money back into my bag. Leigh’s words stung, because there was
truth to what she’d said. This school was an unforgiving place for people who
weren’t on the “right track,” or who didn’t fit into the Westside mold. And
no matter how harmless Tyler might have thought that team prank was, he had
used Leigh. He’d hurt her, and he’d hurt her family. I understood why he’d
been looking for any way to make it right. But even if that’s what the money
was for, I still
didn’t know where it was from,
or how Tyler and Bobby had managed to “earn” more than four thousand dollars.
I
watched Leigh’s braids flying as she disappeared through the cafeteria doors.
I took out my art journal and did a quick sketch ofher in pen: her head
thrown back, laughing full out at the sky.
When
Dad and I came home that night with Chinese takeout for dinner, Detective
Johnson was sitting at our kitchen table.
Her
leather jacket hung over the back of a chair, and a knotty black tattoo
peeked out from under the cuff of her white dress shirt. My mother perched on
a barstool, just back from her evening run, her hair in a sweaty ponytail and
her posture rigid and stiff. Johnson looked up when I came through the door,
and her keen eyes met mine.
I
glanced at my bag, as though she could see the roll of cash right through the
canvas. Should I tell Detective Johnson about the money? It felt disloyal,
somehow, like ratting Tyler out, but on the other hand, why should I keep it
a secret?
Mom
turned and spotted me, and her body immediately relaxed. She held out a hand,
and I walked to stand beside her.
“Detective
Johnson is here,” she said unnecessarily.
“Detective
Johnson is leaving.” The officer pulled on her jacket, and relief washed over
me. “But I do have a question for Megan before I go.”
I
sank down on a stool next to my mother, letting my bag thunk to the floor at
my feet. Mom rested a hand on my arm. Her fingers were trembling, and I
curled my hand around hers.
“We’re
investigating the possibility that Tyler was at a party in northeast DC the
week before he died,” Johnson said. “Not far from where his body was found.”
“A
party?” I shook my head, confused. On one level, it made sense. Tyler at a
party—that always made sense. Part of his plan to make sure I fit in at
Westside—or at least got by—was to drag me to a lot of excruciating parties.
But I’d never heard him talk about going to one in DC. “Is that bad?”
“Not
necessarily. But if he went to that neighborhood regularly, to meet with
friends, that might help us understand what Tyler was doing there the night
he was found.”
“Did
you know anything about this party, Megan?” my father asked. “You can tell
us. You don’t have to protect him.”
I don’t? I thought. But that’s what he would have done for me.
But
then I paused.
At least, I think he would.
Mom’s
hand tightened in mine. She hated the police asking me questions. She might
call that “being protective,” but to me, it felt like babying, as though she
thought my poor childlike brain would be scarred by the harsh facts of the
police investigation. Mom and Dad would shuffle Detective Johnson out the
front door as fast as they could. But Johnson might know things about Tyler
that I didn’t, and as long as she was still here, maybe I could do some
investigating of my own.
“I
went to some parties with Tyler,” I said. “Where was it? I mean, do you have
the address?”
Johnson
looked a bit suspicious, but she pulled up the information on her phone and
showed it to me. “Well?”
I
repeated the address in my head a few times so I would remember it, then
shook my head. “No. It’s not familiar.”
Johnson
cocked her head to one side and gave me the eye. “We’re looking for whoever
sold him the drugs. Depending on the toxicology results, we may be able to
charge them in Tyler’s death.” She stared at me for a few more moments, but
when I didn’t speak, she just nodded and turned to shake my father’s hand.
“All right. You have my number if there’s anything else you need.”
“Wait!
I have a question for you.” I could feel my mother stiffen beside me as I
spoke.
Johnson
paused, her gaze shifting between my parents. Whatever she saw in their faces
didn’t deter her. “Go ahead.”
“The
police officer who found Tyler’s body,” I said, “why did he go into that
building in the first place?”
“You
don’t know?”
I
shook my head.
“We
got an anonymous call.” She shrugged slightly. “We’re investigating that as
well. There may have been someone with him who was afraid to stay and face
the authorities.”
It
turned my stomach to think that somewhere in the world, there might be a
person who knew exactly what happened to Tyler, who might even have been with
him when he died. Someone who wasn’t coming forward.
My
father stood, bringing the conversation to an end. “I’ll walk you to the
door, detective.”
Mom
also rose to her feet, formal and polite in every circumstance. “Thank you
again for bringing Tyler’s things.”
“Not
a problem,” Johnson replied. She gave me one last searching look before
disappearing with my father down the hall.
I
turned to my mother. “Tyler’s things?”
She
picked up a clear plastic bag, the size of a kitchen trash bag. A jumble of
random objects shifted inside as she set it down on the countertop. “Tyler’s
personal effects,” she said. “Stuff from his car, and the things they found
with his …” She trailed off. His body, I thought with a sharp pang.
“His
cell phone?”
“Missing.”
I
reached for the bag, then stopped myself as a thought occurred to me. “Wait,
so if they’re returning all this stuff to us, does this mean they’re done
investigating? Is that the end of it?”
She
closed her eyes and shook her head. Her expression didn’t change, but the
twitch in her cheek betrayed her.
You’re making it harder for her, I thought. I
remembered the look on her face when she had told my dad about the support
group, and how she’d walked away when he tried to comfort her. She wanted to
pretend all this had been an accident, and she wasn’t going to let us
convince her otherwise. I bit down hard on the side of my tongue and said
nothing. The two of us stood together for a moment, staring at the plastic bag.
Part
of me thought, Let it go.
But only part of me.
“Do
you mind if I take a look?”
She
opened her eyes again. “Go ahead.” I reached for the bag, but she took my
arm. “You’ll talk to me, right? If there’s anything going on? Anything you
need?”
“Sure,
Mom.” I grabbed hold of the bag and edged free from her grip. “I’ll talk to
you.”
Instead
of going to my own room, I headed instinctively for Tyler’s. I sat down on
his bed and upended the bag, spilling the contents out onto the quilt. All
these things might hold his secrets: The
True History of Tyler Brown in Seven Objects. Or they might only
amount to a pile of junk. I pushed aside a blue sweatshirt and some crumpled
receipts, and finally, at the bottom of the pile, I uncovered a wooden box
with Abraham Lincoln’s head carved into the lid.
It
was the same box I’d seen in my hallucination, when I had almost passed out
by Tyler’s locker. My pulse sped up, and my mouth went dry. The box was real.
And it had been with him when he died.
I
sat staring at it for a few moments. It was far more elaborate than I
remembered, and I felt drawn to it in a way I couldn’t explain. Ornate metal
feet curled around the bottom corners of the box, and a brass clasp held it
closed. The lid was intricately carved with curves and scrolls surrounding a
central diamond shape, which framed Lincoln’s head. His face was in profile,
like on the penny. He had the usual beard, but his hair was swept up and away
from his forehead in a cool wooden pompadour. He looked like the James Dean
of Abe Lincolns.
I
reached out to run a fingertip over the scrollwork on the lid.
As
soon as I touched it, a sharp heat seared across the center of my forehead. I
jerked my hand back and rubbed at the pain, squinting at the box through
narrowed eyes. I could hear my own breath, jagged and uneven, far too loud in
the quiet room. My mind raced. What was going on?
Still
gripping my forehead with one hand, I stretched the other out slowly. If I
touched the box again, would the same thing happen? Before my trembling
fingers made contact with the wood, I stopped myself. If this was really
happening to me, I should proceed carefully. Methodically.
I
went through all the other objects from the bag, handling each one carefully,
but nothing unusual happened. Finally only the box was left. I stared at it
for a moment, looking for answers in Lincoln’s face, but he gazed inscrutably
into the distance.
No more excuses, no more delays I took a deep breath
and seized the box in both hands. The pain drilled into me again, as though
my head were splitting in half. It felt like the headache I had gotten
before—turned up to eleven. I rocked backward onto the bed, still clutching
the box, swamped by waves of nausea that barreled through me, one after the
other. Somewhere beyond the pain, I could hear a rush of sound, words so
indistinct I couldn’t make them out. At the edges of my vision, shadowy
figures moved across a black and threatening landscape. I dropped the box and
grabbed at my head with my hands, but the crushing ache did not fade.
What
was happening to me? The fear overwhelmed even the pain, as I started to
think again about all those scenarios that didn’t involve superpowers. Things
like brain trauma. And cancer. And aneurysms.
I
needed help. Wincing against the sudden, overwhelming brightness of the room,
I staggered to the door. As I stepped out into the hallway, I saw a figure
coming up the stairs. Tyler?
“No
… I can’t …” I stumbled backward to escape the vision descending on me.
But
this vision actually caught me before I hit the ground. It had strong arms
and big chunky eyeglasses and smelled so good I wanted to cry.
“Nathan?”
I
lost my balance, my eyes burning with tears of relief. Nathan dropped
awkwardly to the rug with me half on his lap.
“Hey,
hey, what’s wrong?” he asked, still cradling me.
“Thank
god you’re real,” I whispered.
“Okay,
let me get your parents. They’re right downstairs. They told me to come up.”
“No!
Please. I’m fine.” I tried to untangle myself, but he tightened his arms
around me, scrutinizing my face.
“You
don’t look fine.”
“Get
my painkillers. Please.”
“Are
you sure you don’t want me to get—”
I
grabbed a handful of his shirt. “No. Just help me? Please?”
He
searched my eyes for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “Where are your pills?”
“Bathroom.”
I tried to pull myself up. “Prescription bottle.”
“Easy
there. Sit a minute.” He unwound himself from my bodyand headed down the
hall. Without his warmth, I began to shiver. He brought me the migraine meds
the doctor had prescribed, along with a glass of water, and I managed to
choke down two tablets.
“Do
you need to lie down?”
I
nodded, and he hooked an arm around my waist to help me up. We stumbled down
the hall to my room, where I kicked off my shoes and collapsed onto the bed.
Nathan
looked around, his eyes going to the old drafting table I used as a workspace
for my art. I liked to mix media, combining paint and fabric and paper, and
all those supplies lay scattered across the table: acrylics, watercolors, and
oils; Mod Podge and colored tissue; tiny triangles of paper in a dozen colors
that I hadn’t bothered to sweep away. I had tacked a few finished collages on
a corkboard above the table, and Nathan’s eyes lingered on them. They looked
so small and vulnerable up there, and I half expected him to say, “You think
you’re some kind of artist? Who do you think you’re fooling, Brown Brown?”
“So.”
I forced out a laugh that sounded more like a cough. “You made it. Thanks for
coming by.”
“Listen,”
he said, “I’m gonna go.”
“Wait.”
The back of my head still ached, and Nathan looked blurry around the edges.
He tugged nervously at the bottom of his shirt, a short-sleeved black
button-down with white panels in the front. He looked like he’d spent the
afternoon bowling—in 1964.
I
knew I should let him leave before I did something embarrassing, like passing
out or throwing up all over him, but I wasn’t sure I had the guts to ask him
to meet with me again. And I needed to figure out if he was one of those
people Detective Johnson was looking for … the ones who knew more about
Tyler’s death than they were telling.
“My
backpack,” I said. “It’s in Tyler’s room. Would you get it for me?” He
returned with it in a matter of seconds. “The front pouch. Pull out what’s in
there.”
Nathan
reached into my bag and came out with the roll of money. He held it up and
turned to me, wide-eyed. “Holy shit, Megan. What are you into?”
My
snort of laughter left me gripping my forehead in pain. “It’s not mine. It’s
Tyler’s.”
Nathan
didn’t respond. He turned the money over and over in his hands, a deep crease
between his eyebrows. Finally he looked back at me. “I don’t get it. What was
he …” Sadness flickered across his face, and he blew out a deep breath to
steady himself.
My
heart lurched toward him in that moment, and the rest of me wanted to follow.
I didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved that he had no idea
where the money had come from.
He
held up the roll. “That detective said drugs. Heroin. You think this is
related?”
“I
don’t know.”
“’Cause
this doesn’t look like buying. This looks like dealing.” He sat down on the
edge of my bed.
“I
know.” I stared at his hand, which rested a few inches from mine. My vision
clouded over again, and I could feel myself getting woozy. I wasn’t sure if
it was the migraine meds or some kind of aftereffect from the pain, but I was
going to pass out, and soon. Even if Nathan couldn’t explain the money, I
still wanted some answers.
“How
did you meet my brother?”
Nathan
glanced back over at my artwork. “Oh, you know, the usual places.”
“Was
it at a party? A party in DC?”
His
eyes were back on me in a second, and I felt like he was sizing me up. “I
should go.”
I
grabbed his hand as he stood to leave. “Are you a liar?” I asked.
He
froze, his hand still in mine, and he didn’t answer.
“Because
you don’t seem like a liar. You seem like someone who cared about my brother.
But then, I’ve been known to have really bad judgment.”
After
a moment, Nathan let go of my hand and sat back down. “Yeah,” he said. “We
met at a party.”
“Did
he go to a lot of parties in DC?”
“A
few.”
I
tried to concentrate, but the thoughts kept slipping away from me. “Why
didn’t he ever take me with him?”
Nathan
shook his head, rubbing his hands on his thighs. “It’s a long story.”
I
let my head fall back onto the pillow. “I’m not going anywhere.” But the
dizziness was getting worse. My stomach turned, and I could barely keep my
eyes open.
“DC
has a curfew. If you’re under seventeen, you can’t be out after eleven. So a
lot of the parties are underground.”
“Like
in someone’s basement?”
Nathan
snorted. “Not literally underground. They throw them in businesses after
hours, or in closed-up buildings.”
I
fought to keep talking. “So Tyler was sneaking out and driving across state
lines to break the law and dance in a boarded-up building?”
“Pretty
much, yeah.”
I
gave in to the vertigo and let my eyes drift shut. “I’m listening. Keep
talking.”
Nathan
took my hand in his. His thumb drifted across my knuckles, warm and
comforting. And that was the last thing I remembered.
|
giovedì 6 aprile 2017
The Hidden Memory of Objects by Danielle Mages Amato
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