Future Imperfect (17 page)

The message is written backward, so I have to get up and hold it up to the mirror on the back of the door to read it. Even though the handwriting’s pretty, I’m guessing the message is nasty. If it’s from the geezer prank calling me, then it’s gonna be a nasty limerick or a curse. That’s it. It’s going to be a curse. Belle cursing me.

Only it’s not.

The note, it says:
Negative Woman fell in love. Her powers, the negative energy, got out of control and she was worried she’d hurt the man she loved, so she gave her powers up. Really, they left her. Negative Woman was pissed at first. But then, she realized she didn’t need the negative energy, she realized she was better off without it. That made her very happy. What would make you happy, Ade? Love, Vaux.

Once again, I’m sure I’m still unconscious. I’m sure this isn’t happening now.

What would make you happy, Ade?

The room isn’t as plastic as it should be. There aren’t any black-light blues.

Love, Vaux.

I do pinch myself. Hard. Really really hard. And it hurts. Hurts enough for me to know that this is real. That this is right now. Jimi was in my house just hours ago tattooing himself. Vauxhall wrote me a letter. This is the moment right here.

Love, Vaux.

The future has come.

We are going to be so in love.

I’m saying it right now: I’m quitting.

No more concussions. No more Buzz.

Being with Vauxhall and not being brain dead would make me happy. Knowing that I don’t need the Buzz because Vaux is kissing me would make me happy. Not having an overripe melon head would be nice. Not having to shit in a bag would be wonderful.

After a few painkillers, with the last birds singing outside and Mom rustling in the kitchen, I have a revelation.

I realize that I don’t know a single person living in the now. The here.

Me and Vaux have it the worst. Her and me, we’re chasing down highs everywhere but now. Her stuck in the past and me racing into the future. Neither of us caring about anything else. And I think about my mom and how she’s in the future too. Her life is all about the distant prospects. The Rapture. The Return. She loves me dearly, but in some ways, really in many ways, I’m just a looking-glass into that distance. And Paige, I think about how she just longs to leave high school and her parents and find someplace that will accept her for who she is. And Jimi, him hunting down his dad like his dad was a stray dog that bit him, obsessing over something that might never ever happen. And I think of everyone at Mantlo, everyone out for the next big thing, the next big score. All of us, we’re not living for right now. For all of us, life is just one step to something better.

Not for me now.

Not anymore.

SIX

I’ve been “sober” now five hours.

This is, naturally, when Vauxhall calls my cell. I answer with a squeak, must be the concussion or maybe the fact that my throat is sandpaper dry. Vauxhall says, “Hey there, you okay?”

“Yeah,” I say, clearing my throat. “I’m a pro at this.”

“That’s really sad, but I get it. I know why you—”

“The high. Buzz, that’s why.”

“Not me?”

I’m silent for a few breaths though I don’t mean to be. It’s telling.

Before I can say anything, Vaux says, “Let me make it up to you. Will you go see a movie with me next weekend? Saturday night?”

“You and Jimi?”

“No, just you and me and maybe two friends. A double date.”

“Double date, huh?”

“Yeah. I’ll pay.”

“Okay. I’ll drive.”

“Great. Hey, can I ask you a question? Did you see anything? I mean the last time, the time you went to the hospital? I’m not going to tell Jimi or anything, I’m not … Just so you know.”

Closing my eyes tight, I relive the hit, the spin, the future, and then tell Vauxhall what I saw. I tell her all the details, down to the color of the masked man’s mask. I say, “And he turned to me and told me something kind of poetic and that was it. Over.”

“What exactly did he say?” Vauxhall is fast to ask.

“Uh, it was like denying the past to—”

“Change the future?”

“Yeah, right. What? Is that some movie quote or something?”

It’s Vauxhall’s turn to be quiet and it’s all static for what feels like a whole movie’s worth of time. Then she says, “I saw him, the scary guy in the mask. When Jimi was a kid. He was there ten years ago. Jimi’s sure it was his dad.”

“What?” My head starts to hurt. A headache creeping up.

“I didn’t think much of it other than it was really strange.”

“Messed up is what it is. How is that even possible?”

“I don’t know, but Jimi is keen on it. He thinks it’s his dad.”

“His psycho dad?”

“Yeah.”

“How? How could he…” I clear my throat. My head is pulsating, I close my eyes tight to push the pain back inside. “You gotta get rid of that guy, Vauxhall. Seriously.”

She says, “I can’t, Ade. We have—”

“He’s using you, Vaux.”

Vaux laughs, it’s all uncomfortable. “I’m helping him.”

“He’s dangerous, Vaux. This dad thing … I’m worried about you.”

“Every day, he gets better. Every day, I help him see and help him—”

“Don’t lie to yourself, Vaux. You do it for the high.”

Vaux goes cold. She says, “Okay, I’m going to hang up now.…”

Only she doesn’t.

We sit in silence for as long as it takes for a plane to fly overhead, for the rumble in the sky to go dead. I say, “You are so much better than Jimi. Deserve so much more. Vauxhall, you’re incredible. I’ve been in love with you for two years now. I’ve been drawing pictures of you ever since I saw you. Been trying to come up with your name. Trying to remember every detail about you. I’m going clean for you. Stopping for you. Doc’s making me take the next week off from school to recover, but when I get back, I want … I want you to go clean with me.”

And that’s when the line goes dead.

CHAPTER SIX

ONE

Dr. David Gore —

I don’t know why you’re insisting on doubting what I’m telling you. And I find it really offensive that you’ve taken to calling Dr. Borgo a “quack.” What’s that about? What if I called into question the degrees you have listed on your business card? The FRCSC thingy after your MD, for example? Or how about your FACS? Whatever that means.

Fact is: You just don’t like the fact that you’re stumped by this.

I also take offense at your suggestion that I’m a paraphrenic. I had to look up what that actually meant though I was sure right off the bat that it wasn’t good. And it certainly isn’t. Couldn’t have you just called me a schizophrenic? Or said I was delusional? I think you need to take a moment and do some (what Dr. Borgo would call) old-fashioned self-exploration.

Anyway, your attempt at trying to ruin my day has failed.

Later.

Ade Patience

P.S. I’ve been considering keeping your name in my mind the next time that I happen to receive a concussion, just in case I can see something about your future. You know, something juicy.

TWO

Paige keeps her fourth-grade class photo on her dresser.

When you look at it you can’t believe it’s the same person. The Paige in the photo looks like someone who’d been kept locked away for years. Someone who never saw sunlight. Who was fed with a tray slid under the door. The Paige in the photo is blond to the point of hurting your eyes. She looks off to the side, her eyes so milky blue you’d swear she was albino.

The Paige I know today is nothing like this feral girl.

She is lively and popular and she’s dyed her hair black. Now when people take pictures of her she looks right in the camera and gives this big smile. Now it’s the smile that’s blinding and not her old weird ghost face.

I’m over at her place, it’s one in the morning, and I’ve spilled my guts, and I’ve informed her that I’m done. That I’m ready to stop the concussions and quit the Buzz and mostly it’s because I just want Vauxhall to myself. “I want her to go cold turkey with me. I mean, she can have sex with me and all, but not—”

“That wouldn’t be cold turkey for her, then.”

“All right. All right. You know what I’m saying though, right?”

“That you don’t like her being with Jimi?”

I nod.

“That you don’t want her to be a slut.”

I nod.

“That’s romantic,” Paige says. “In a junkie sort of way.”

“I’m ready for this. To stop. It’s the first time in a long, long time.”

“And you’ll stay clean how?”

I shrug. “I just won’t need it.”

“And Vaux?”

“We need to convince her.”

“We?” Paige sneers. “Actually, you need all the help you can get. You talked to her? It’s been almost a week?”

I say, “You know she avoided me all week. Said hi via text maybe twice. You know, the verbal equivalent of that little arm punch like you do. That let’s-be-friends-right-now arm punch. That I’m-totally-uncomfortable arm punch.”

Paige looks disgusted. “I don’t give you arm punches.”

“You do. But anyway, I think we’re still going out tomorrow.”

“Right, the date. What do you think Jimi will think?”

“He won’t know.”

“Hell he won’t.”

“He won’t care.”

“Hell he won’t.” Then Paige hugs me, tight. Says, “I just think it’s so freaking cool that both of you have powers. I mean how crazy is that? All this time you’ve never met anyone else and, wowsers, the girl you love is another genetic freak like you!”

“Like I
was
. I quit, remember? Haven’t had a concussion, not even a slight rap on the head, for over a week. For me, that’s monumental. Anyway, I’m also going to swim. Join the swim team. I don’t have to compete or anything, but my doc thinks it’ll be good for me. Used to be a pretty good swimmer. First practice is tomorrow afternoon.”

“On a Sunday?”

“It’s like tryouts.”

“Won’t your brains leak out?”

“Ha. It’s been over a week since the hospital, Paige. I think I’m safe to swim.”

“No, seriously, swim team is good. Good start.”

“That’s what I thought. Chicks dig swimmers, right?”

“Honestly, Ade, even if this whole true love thing doesn’t work and Vaux ends up turning tricks on Colfax, it would be nice to not be worrying about you every week. It’d be super nice not to have to patch you up.”

Then she turns on the TV and makes some cheddar popcorn. We watch this crazy Mexican soap opera that involves pirates and it takes my mind off things for about fifteen minutes. First commercial break and Paige just hugs me out of the blue.

This girl, damn she’s my Holmes.

Fact is: I knew Paige before I met her.

I could see in the Vauxhall vision that we were friends. I took things slowly. We sat next to each other last year in Mr. Paul’s social studies class. Really it was a front for long, dull lectures on economics. A lot of kids left the class within the first few days and Mr. Paul seemed totally unfazed, as if this happened all the time. Paige and I were two of the ten who stayed. Me mostly because I knew she was the first step toward meeting the girl from the vision. We bonded over our shared love of H. P. Lovecraft and comic books. Our shared fascination with water (being in it, watching tanks filled with it brimming with colorful fish, swimming across it, staring longingly into the depths of it). Our shared interest in Sylvia Lorne’s impossible cleavage (one warm day, when Sylvia was wearing this outrageous V-neck, we estimated the length of the crack to be an astounding ten inches).

Boobs and horror, pretty much the stuff friendships are made of.

And it goes without saying that her parents, Bob (collar up) and Linda (tattooed eyebrows), don’t accept her. That they don’t even try. Paige would love a shouting match. Screaming fits. Slammed doors. Even being kicked out of the house would be a blessing. It would mean Bob and Linda care enough. Just enough to reject her. They don’t, though. Paige is merely a teen going through a phase. In her parents’ minds she’ll be a punk rocker next and pierce her nipples. Then she’ll go to college and become a hippie kid. Maybe hang out naked with dreadlocked black guys. This is all a phase. After school she’ll straighten out completely. She’ll follow Linda’s footsteps and get a career in advertising. Marry young. Marry wealthy. Have kids. Raise dogs. It makes Paige sick and I can’t count the number of times when we’re just hanging out that she’ll stop mid-sentence and look like she’s either going to scream or punch a hole in a wall. When that happens I just hug her or punch her shoulder.