Chasing Before (21 page)

She sits up. “There is so much more going on here than you’ll ever understand. I shouldn’t give you this advice, because you certainly don’t deserve it, but don’t trust anyone.” Autumn glances at Furukama’s statue, and when she does, her lip twitches. “Especially not him.” Then she goes to the door, kicks the rubber duck viciously, and lets the metal door slam behind her.

The slam echoes through the gym, driving it into my skull how very cut off from everyone I am. Autumn said I shouldn’t trust anyone, but I know the truth. No one should trust me. Not even I can anymore.

I walk back to my room, kicking idly at stones and
pebbles. Now that Furukama has put his faith in me, I should check out the syllabus and do my meditation homework so I can be prepared for tomorrow, but I get no joy from the thought of doing so. When I reach the lobby of the dorms, I’m greeted by the sound of Neil’s singing voice. He leads a large group of our peers in some songs. I don’t stop. I can’t deal with his cheery public persona right now. I need to get to my room and be alone.

Safely inside, my eyes automatically go to the table by the door to check if the Morati have delivered. They have. And this time there’s not one memory globe but two.

twenty-three

THE TWO UNLABELED milky-white memory globes are nestled in a cream-colored silk scarf. They look so innocent for objects that hold so much mystery and temptation. I should alert Libby or Furukama, but I won’t. Not when the globes pulsate with truths that have been kept from me all this time. Truths that could be my salvation—the keys to improving my relationship with Neil, maybe even salvaging my friendship with Autumn. And until I have these truths, nobody has to be aware of this but me.

I inch closer until I’m poised directly over the twin globes. Their soft glow illuminates my greedy hand as I make contact with the one on the right. The globe pops and
the memory dissolves into my skin, rushing my mind with images and sucking me back in time. Back to my earthly life.

It’s nearing midnight and I’m sitting cross-legged on my narrow bed in the tiny Paris hotel room I’m sharing with my dad. The score to the
Prancing Goat
Symphony is laid out all around him on his own narrow bed, and he scrawls notes in the margins.

“Isn’t it a bit late to be making changes?” I ask. “The concert is tomorrow.” I’ve been practicing for months, but my nerves are so frayed that my hands are tucked under my legs to keep them from shaking. It’s not only worry about my performance. It’s also that I texted Neil earlier and asked him to call, but he hasn’t. And I don’t know why not. He should’ve been home from work an hour ago.

Dad flashes me a harried smile and collects all the papers, stacking them in an orderly pile. “Preconcert ritual to keep the jitters at bay.” He gets up and deposits the score on the desk under the window, sweeping the curtain closed at the same time. “We should get some sleep. Did you brush your teeth?”

I groan. I’m eighteen and my dad is still telling me to brush my teeth. “Yes, Dad.” I finished my entire bedtime routine in the bathroom, including changing into pj’s. I even laid out an extra blanket on the end of his bed in case he gets cold.

“Did you floss, too?”

“Yes.”

He nods. “Floss every day, and you’ll keep your teeth forever. That’s what our health teacher in high school told us. It may have been the only thing I learned in that class.”

In my case my health teacher was far more concerned with preaching safe sex than extolling the virtues of flossing. She averaged 3.2 utterly mortifying statements per class, and none of them had to do with teeth.

I slip under the duvet and stare at the ceiling. Without even moving my eyes, I see all four corners of the room. The springs of Dad’s mattress constrict and his sheets rustle as he gets into bed. He clicks off the lamp and plunges the room into inky darkness.

“Why didn’t Mother come?” I’ve been thinking about her absence a lot today, sure that it means she still doesn’t want to see me, especially because she’s never missed one of Dad’s premieres before. The absence of light makes me bold enough to pose the question.

“Oh, you know. She had an important embassy function she couldn’t miss.” Though he tries to keep his tone light, as if it doesn’t bother him, there’s an undercurrent of strain in his voice. I can just imagine their arguments about me.

“I’m sure.” I taste the bitterness on my tongue when I say it.

“Oh, sweet pea, she would have come if she could have.” His words lack conviction, only confirming what I already suspected. My mother wants nothing more to do with me after what I did to get my security clearance revoked by the State Department. The official reason was that I misused
my diplomatic passport when I entered Myanmar to look for my dad, but I’m sure the fact that I fled the scene of Autumn’s murder without calling the police and hacked my way into a free plane ticket contributed to the State Department’s decision. I don’t answer. There’s nothing I can say that hasn’t been said already. I’ve talked to her only twice since, both after my accident.

Dad and I have been in Paris now for a week, our time eaten up by lengthy daily rehearsals. Neil has called every day without fail, except today. This is the longest amount of time we’ve been apart, with the exception of the days after our car accident when we were both too out of it to even notice. He’s become so much a part of me, I hate being this far away. I wonder if this is how my dad once felt about my mother. If he still feels the ache of separation despite their many solo trips throughout their marriage. Does it ever get easier?

“When did you know that you wanted to get married?” I ask.

“Hmmm . . .” Dad thinks aloud. “Well, after we recovered from malaria in Dakar, we went back to our posts in rural Senegal. I had time to bike over to her village once or twice a week, but it was never enough.”

I hear the smile in his voice as he recalls his courtship with my mother. I wish I were able to see the side of her that brings my dad such joy.

He goes on. “We talked about what we would do when our peace corps term was up. Evie wanted to get her master’s
degree in international relations at George Washington University. My Africa stay had gotten me interested in ethnic music, and I was already composing classical pieces that integrated tribal drums. I didn’t really have a plan, so I ended up following her and proposing to her because I didn’t want to lose her.”

“You knew each other for only a year when you got married, right?”

“Well, it was more like eighteen months by the time we planned the wedding.”

“Did you ever think you should have waited longer?” I ask tentatively.

“We’ve had our problems and differences of opinion.” He pauses, the weight of his statement clear. “But I’ve never regretted marrying your mother. Not for a second.”

Though I find it hard to believe the woman my dad loves so fiercely is the mother who hates me, I’m happy for my dad that their relationship has stood the test of time. It gives me hope for Neil and me.

He clears his throat. “Why the sudden interest?”

I feel my cheeks grow hot. I don’t want to discuss Neil with my dad right now. Not when my insides are churning with so many insecurities about both Neil and the concert. “Oh, no reason. Trying to keep my mind off tomorrow.”

“You’ve been so good in rehearsals. You’ll nail it.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Good night, sweet pea.”

That’s where the first memory ends, a bittersweet fragment of my life that reopens the wounds of my mother rejecting me. But my father forgave me, let me back into his life. I wonder what he’s doing right now. If the pages of his
Prancing Goat
Symphony score swim before his eyes when he thinks of me.

I stare at the ceiling, a dull pounding pain in my head from where it smacked the floor. Maybe I should go into the next memory from a lower position. I get up on my knees and stretch my arm until my hand comes in contact with the second memory globe. Then I’m pulled under again.

Dad and I sit at a table with Arno, the director of the Metropole Orchestra, and Frederick, the guy who organized the financing for tonight’s sold-out performance of the
Prancing Goat
Symphony. They laugh and talk over one another, their eyes still bright with the memory of our standing ovation.

We’re in a brasserie in Paris that Arno recommended. He says he loves to come here for both the excellent food and the art nouveau décor. I stare up at the gorgeous stained-glass windows in the ceiling. In the one directly above our table, green and yellow and white glass come together to form an intricate floral mosaic.

The waiter distributes menus. The leather cover of the menu is embossed with the restaurant’s name. Julien. Not spelled the same way as that ghost from my past, but an unsettling coincidence all the same. I haven’t thought of
Julian much lately. After confiding in Neil about my dark days, Julian pops up on my radar only rarely. I can’t help closing my eyes and picturing him as he was the last time I saw him, when he ditched me outside the Irish pub on Halloween. His face is slightly blurry behind the window of the cab, but the sadness in his eyes is clear. Now I swing my head to the right, as if the motion could erase him from my mind, but instead what I see is impossible: Julian behind a steering wheel of a police car—
the
police car—for a split second before glass shatters all around me.

I open my eyes with a start and drop the menu onto the table. Dad looks at me with concern, but our dinner companions either haven’t noticed anything or are too caught up in their postconcert euphoria to care.

Flashing Dad a reassuring smile, I open my menu and hide behind it. There’s no reason for me to be seeing Julian’s face in connection with the car crash. Whenever I try to think of the crash, my mind shuts down. I don’t know what happened from the moment Neil swerved to miss the police car until the moment I woke up in the hospital, hooked up to machines and under the influence of pain meds. They told us the driver had miraculously gotten out of the twisted wreckage and fled the scene, that the police car had been reported as stolen, and that they had no leads. They also asked us a bunch of weird questions, like if we’d seen a tornado. I hadn’t been back to the crash site, but friends mentioned that the trees and bushes along the side of the road had been flattened.

Julian couldn’t have been in that police car. I was definitely angry with him for a long time, but loving Neil has taught me to be more forgiving—both of others and of myself. I’m sure I only had this vision because I’m under so much stress, and the coincidence of reading his name on the menu made my mind invent Julian’s presence at the scene of the accident. So why is my whole body tense and shaky?

Dad puts his hand on my arm. “What would you like? I ordered the escargot as a starter.”

The waiter poises his pencil above a pad, his eyebrows arched. “The fish,” I say, and he nods and writes down my selection.

In an attempt to steady my nerves, I study the patterns of the stained glass. Conversation and laughter whirl around me. Arno and Frederick comment on the excellent sound in the Salle Pleyel and praise the woodwind section in particular for bringing across the haunting atmosphere of the wild Turkish hills. They also compliment Dad for his composition skills and me for playing the piano so well. They don’t mention my slew of very minor mistakes, but then, it’s possible only Dad and I know the piece well enough to tell. In any case, their attempt to include me in the conversation works. By the time the escargot arrives, with the tiny special fork-like utensils, I’m cheerful and chatty enough that Dad stops throwing me worried glances.