Memento Nora (17 page)

29

Therapeutic Statement
42-03282028-11
Subject:
JAMES, NORA EMILY, 15
Facility:
HAMILTON DETENTION CENTER TFC-42

I borrowed some money from Mom’s purse and took the bus to Winter’s house. She wasn’t there. Mr. Yamada was sitting in the gazebo in her garden, staring at the new sculpture on the table. It was a partially constructed metal mask held in place with wires and scaffolding. Through the eyes and behind the unfinished, or maybe torn away, part of the face you could see dozens of gears. Wheels upon wheels working together. They were connected to this big red cog, almost the size of the face sitting next to it, with a wrench dangling from the nut. It was massive. And cool. And kind of creepy. Very Winter.

“The cops picked her up,” he said without looking at me.

My stomach felt as if it had dropped through the floor. “They got Micah, too,” I whispered. “It’s all my fault.”

“No, I shouldn’t have trusted Bell.”

“I’ll probably be next,” I said. “But that’s okay.”

Mr. Yamada looked at me, and I held up the final
Memento
. He smiled. It was the first time I’d seen him do that.

“Cops don’t appreciate art,” he said as he clicked a button on the remote control in his hand. The gears on the sculpture started to turn, and he lifted a flap at the base, revealing a slot.

I fed the original into the slot, and the gears started turning. The monkey wrench spun around slowly as the last ever issue of
Memento
printed out from the base of the big red cog.

It was the perfect final piece for Winter’s garden.

30

Therapeutic Statement
42-03282028-11
Subject:
JAMES, NORA EMILY, 15
Facility:
HAMILTON DETENTION CENTER TFC-42

“Homeland High,” Mr. Yamada told the cabbie as we settled into the backseat.

I’d told him he didn’t need to come with me.

“I need to see my lawyer about Winter,” he explained. “I’ll drop you off on the way.”

Neither of us wanted to talk.

An ad for the Nomura Pink Ice flickered across both of our windows. A girl a lot like me held the mobile to her ear and said, “You can never be too pink or too thin.”

I felt sick, but I hugged my backpack tight. Inside, two hundred fresh copies of
Memento
waited to be released.

The cab let me out right in front of school. Mr. Yamada looked so alone sitting there in the backseat. I hitched up my backpack (and my courage) to walk up the front steps. We’d done it before. I could do this alone, I told myself. I just needed to get past the rent-a-cops and make it to the bathrooms.

When I stepped inside, I was so busy psyching myself up that I didn’t see Officer Bell standing to the side of the bag search area.

“Miss James,” he said. “I need to talk to you.”

The rent-a-cops looked up from their magazines. Bell opened the staff door to the garage and motioned me toward his waiting police car.

I hadn’t acted fast enough. Micah and Winter must have already made their statements. I wanted to run, but my legs wouldn’t move. I felt as if I were standing in a bucket of Jell-O with a two-ton weight on my back. A rent-a-cop touched something at his desk, and the front doors clicked shut, locking behind me. Trapped, I willed myself to move toward Officer Bell.

He held open the back door of his squad car for me. Somehow I got in. He flicked a couple of switches on his dashboard as he slid into the driver’s seat. The windows blackened. The other switch must have been the sound damper. I couldn’t hear a word he was saying into his mobile, but he was obviously arguing with someone. Then he threw the mobile on the seat and turned on the lights. We sped away from Homeland Inc. Senior High No. 17.

My only regret was that
Memento
was still in my backpack. My friends would never know about the vans or the car bombings. Neither would I.

As Bell’s big gray car hurtled me toward the Big D, I imagined the old me waking to find she’d hit the jackpot. A glossy life behind the gates. A new house. A seemingly happy family. The right friends. Her own car. And a date to the prom with Tom Slayton.

I felt sorry for her, especially when she’d read what I’d written across the top of the chapter on the Renaissance in her history book.

YOUR FATHER BEATS YOUR MOTHER.

I hoped that was enough to keep Mom (and the old Nora) safe. Would I believe me? I don’t know. Maybe I can leave some things out of my statement before I get the Big Pill, some things for the old me to hang on to.

Winter and Micah must have omitted a lot in their statements or else Bell would have been arrested, too. Well, not if he’d been working undercover and narced on the whole Memory Loss Support Group. Mr. Yamada was right. We shouldn’t have trusted him.

Bell slowed the car and parked.

“Did you turn in the whole MLSG?” I blurted out as he opened the car door. “They trusted you.”

Officer Bell pointed toward a building. That’s when I noticed where we were. It wasn’t a police station. It was the same alley, the same back door to the same church where we’d met the MLSG. Southside Methodist Church.

Inside were the same macaroni paintings, the same burned coffee smells, and the same folding chairs as before. The chairman, Ms. Curtis, and two other members waited for us in the little kitchen. The librarian, to my surprise, rushed to meet us. The others stayed put, sipping their coffee and watching us over the white brims of their Styrofoam cups. Ms. Curtis hugged me lightly, pulling away after a few seconds as if she was embarrassed by her feelings.

“Does that answer your question?” Officer Bell asked. “I’m sorry we couldn’t get Winter and Micah in time,” he added quietly. The worn Formica breakfast bar stood between us and the coffee klatch in the kitchen. Under the counter, Ms. Curtis gently took his hand.

“Then why haven’t you or Ms. Curtis been picked up?” I asked. “Or them? Or Mr. Yamada? He thinks you turned in Winter.” I wondered if he’d seen Bell grab me through the plate glass doors of the school. Or if he was already on the way to his lawyer’s.

“Katie and I were ready to make a run for it as soon as we heard Micah was gone,” Bell said, staring at some random fleck in the countertop. “But then a friend at the detention center told me that someone ordered the kids held without statement.” He looked up at me, anger in his eyes. “They’re kids. It should be a simple erase and release job. I tried to call Koji, but he wouldn’t answer.”

I had a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. And I was suddenly conscious of the cool silver bracelet dangling on my wrist. “My father?” I asked.

Bell nodded. “He doesn’t want them to implicate you.”

Or screw his career. Mom had changed hers because it was hurting his.

“But how can he stop them from talking?” I asked. “Don’t the police run Detention?” Did Dad have that much power?

“Soft Target runs the Hamilton Detention Center for Homeland Inc.,” Bell replied.

“Which is owned by TFC,” Ms. Curtis added.

“Oh,” I whispered. My dad ran the Big D. And his people blew up shit. For the company that would help you forget about it with one little white pill. TFC was the one with so much power. I took a deep breath and tried to absorb it all. It didn’t work. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around Dad making his living—
our
living—this way. And
he
was the one holding Micah and Winter. Another thought popped into my head. “If Micah hasn’t talked yet, why did Winter get picked up?”

“He made a call to her before he was detained,” Bell said. “About a printer.”

“Damn.” It’s a monitored network. Micah had said it himself. And he’d forgotten it when it counted the most. That was probably my fault, too.

“Their detention also protects us,” the chairman said. He put down his coffee cup and walked around the counter to where Bell, Ms. Curtis, and I were standing. The others continued to sip their coffees and watch us warily. “If they don’t talk, no one will know about us—which is why you cannot hand out any more of those comics. You cannot risk going to Detention, young lady,” Mr. Carver said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “For our sakes and your own.”

Officer Bell snorted, but I felt an odd sense of relief flooding through me. The backpack felt lighter. Maybe I had no business endangering these people. Maybe I should ditch
Memento
, leave it to the adults, and get on with my life.

“It’s a pity about your friends, though.” The chairman closed his hand on my bag.

A pity?
I drew back. I could see Bell staring at the floor, not wanting to look at me. Then I got it. If Micah and Winter were being held without the possibility of them telling their stories—which was the only way to erase their memories—then they could be in Detention indefinitely. And all because of me.

My dad didn’t want TFC to know that his little princess was involved—and that he’d been unable to stop it. That would ruin everything for him. No big contracts. No house in the compound. No money.

So my friends could sit in the Big D not telling anybody anything for years. Just like Winter’s parents. Maybe that’s why they’re still there. Somebody didn’t want them to talk, either. I backed away from the chairman, clutching my backpack.

“You—we—can’t leave Winter and Micah in Detention forever,” I said. The chairman’s face told me he could. Maybe. His eyes darted to the other members in the kitchen. They looked to Ms. Curtis, who gripped Bell’s hand tightly. I turned to him. “If I tell my story, would the authorities have to hear Micah’s and Winter’s? You said it should be a simple erase and release case, right?”

Bell didn’t answer for a moment. I could see him turning the possibilities over in his head. “You know you’d have to get caught red-handed, right?” he said slowly. “Otherwise your father could continue to protect you.” He paused again. “Your father wouldn’t hold
you
in Detention forever, would he?”

My dad might be a lot of things—ambitious, controlling, cruel even—but deep down I know he loves me. I think he even loves Mom, in his own awful way.

However, it would certainly be embarrassing for him if his biggest client found out that his daughter wrote (and distributed)
Memento
—and he covered it up by keeping two other kids on ice. Okay, Dad is definitely a creep, but he’s
my
creep. I had to gamble that he loves his princess enough not to tuck her away forever behind bars just to cover his own ass.

And the story was important enough to take the risk. Kids needed to know TFC was blowing up shit to keep us scared. Scared enough to forget but not too frightened to stop spending money. I thought of Winter’s crab sculpture, scrambling along, weighed down by its shopping bag shell, unable to break free.

I shook my head. “Take me back to school.”

The chairman and the other MLSG members started to object, but Bell quieted them with a glare.

“Hold on,” Bell said to me. “We have to be sure your father can’t still
fix
things. . . .” He trailed off.

I knew what he was thinking. Dad could still get me out before I made a statement if there wasn’t a lot of attention around my arrest.

“We need witnesses,” I finished for him.

Ms. Curtis nodded. “The phone tree,” she said, staring intently at the chairman as if daring him to object. Without breaking that stare, she explained to me that MLSG members know the numbers of only three other members. When there’s a meeting, you call three, then each of those three call three, and so on. “These are my three,” she said as she shifted her gaze from the chairman to the MLSG folks in the kitchen. After a moment—to their credit it didn’t take them too long—her three put down their cups and joined us.

“We’ve got some calls to make,” Bell said, “before I take Nora back.” The chairman grunted, about to cut in, but Bell pressed on. “The kids only know me, the chairman, and Ms. Curtis by name. Everyone else can just lie low when this is done. Katie and I will disappear together after I drop off Nora.” Turning to me, he tried to smile but couldn’t.

I also failed miserably at the smiling thing. I was so not glossy—and I couldn’t even fake it anymore.

The chairman, Bell, and the others made their calls. Ms. Curtis, I noticed, had slipped out the back into the stairwell to make a call. As I walked toward her, I heard her say, “Just give me five minutes.”

When she came back in, I said, “I thought those were your contacts, Ms. Curtis.” I motioned to the others still on their phones. I said it loud enough for Bell to hear.

The librarian snapped her phone shut. “Just calling work.” She brushed past me.

“Something wrong, Katie?” Bell asked as he crossed the room.

“We need to get out of here,” she said quickly. “We need to get
her
back to school.” She flashed a strained smile at him as she herded us toward the door. “We need to go
now
.”

Then we heard footsteps overhead. Lots of them. They scattered as if they were searching every room up there.

“No!” Ms. Curtis said angrily. “They were supposed to wait until we’d gone.”

“What?” Bell had stopped with one hand on my shoulder. The color was gone from his face. He looked like someone had shot him.

I’d trusted her, too. I’d spilled my guts about something I hadn’t shared with any other person besides Micah. And I hadn’t told him everything. She’d listened and reassured me that I’d done the right thing. Of course, she knew what was going to happen all along. But if I’d listened to her, I wouldn’t be here now.

“I’m sorry, Doug,” she said, her eyes begging him to under-stand, her hands still pushing us toward the back door. “I had to.” She looked at me as tears welled up in her eyes. “I was trying to do the right thing.” I could see her story there. My father or someone else had gotten to her. Maybe Dad had made the connection between us that day he came to school. And maybe he’d asked her to keep an eye on me and my friends or narc on hers. Or else. “I did it for us,” she said, her voice trembling as she met Bell’s eyes. “For your job and mine. For our future together. And for my mother. They said they’d let her go.”