One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies (13 page)

totally dry-eyed.

School's Cancelled for the Rest of the Day

Waves of kids are spilling out of the buildings
and rolling down the sidewalk,
toward the Tree of Death.

I watch them drifting off together,
with their arms around each other,
and I feel so left out.

Left out of their grief.
Left out
of knowing Devon.

I watch them drift away from me,
thinking about how much I like that name—
Devon.

Thinking that maybe
I would have liked Devon,
if I'd had the chance to meet him.

Maybe I even would have fallen in love with him,
and he would have fallen in love back,
and we would have gotten married and had kids.

Maybe the course of my whole life
has been altered by Devon's death.
Maybe my entire destiny's been destroyed.

And I don't even know it.

On My Way Home from School

I see a broken beer bottle,
its thousand shattered pieces
glittering the sidewalk.

And completely out of nowhere
this tidal wave of sadness
comes crashing down over me.

What the heck is the matter with me?
Why am I standing here like a jerk
feeling sorry for a
bottle
?

I stare at all those shards,
glinting tragically in the sun,
and my heart just about splits in two.

Poor smashed thing.
So demolished, so devastated,
so smithereened …

What's up with me?
Have I gone
absolutely nuts?

Don't answer that.

Oops

Jesus H. Christ.
I don't believe this.
I just tripped Whip's burglar alarm.
And it sounds like a thousand airplanes
are roaring in for a landing on a runway inside my skull.

Which must be cracked or I wouldn't
have forgotten to deactivate the alarm
after I opened the front door.
And I wouldn't have forgotten
what Whip said to do if this ever happened.

I
do
remember him saying,
“Don't worry about it.
If that ever happens, you just—”
But the rest of his sentence seems to have
escaped me for the moment.

Which is what I wish
I
could do right now.
Escape, I mean …
I fumble in my backpack for my cell.
I yank it out and punch in Whip's number.
“How do I turn this thing off?” I shout.

Whip tells me the password.
I hang up fast
and enter it into the box on the wall.
Suddenly—
SILENCE.

Oh, Sweet

Here come two goons
from Safetech Security.
My knights in shining fake police uniforms.

But—
man
!
Those guns they're waving around
don't look so fake …

Oh my God!
These wannabe cops
think I'm a crazed fan!

“But I'm not his
stalker,
” I try to explain.
“I'm his
daughter
.”

“Whip Logan doesn't have any kids,” says one.
“Yeah,” says the other one.
“You can't pull the sheep over
our
eyes.”

“Don't you guys ever read
Us
?” I ask,
punching in Whip's number again,
while my heart does a crazed drum solo.

When he answers, I pass the phone
to Idiot Guard Number One, who goes pale,
and passes it to Idiot Guard Number Two.

Even from a few feet away,
I can hear what Whip's shouting at him.
I didn't know he even
knew
words like that.

Then the guy sort of ducks his head at me,
almost like he's bowing to royalty,
and hands the cell back to me.

Whip asks me
what I'm doing home at this hour.
So I tell him why the dean cancelled school.

Right away, he switches on that deeply annoying
concerned-parent voice of his
and says, “I'm so sorry, honey.”

Sorry? I don't think so
.
Not nearly as sorry as he should be
.
For not nearly enough reasons why
.

Suddenly,
I feel like flinging my phone
into the fishpond in the foyer.

Then he says, “Listen, Ruby.
Don't go anywhere.
I'll be home in half an hour.”

Oh. Goody

After Dumb and Dumber Slink Away

It strikes me
that I've never been alone
in this house before.
And it's giving me the serious creeps.

It feels like I've been locked inside
a department store after closing time.
It's way too quiet.
I
don't
want to be here.

I'm suddenly struck by a wild thought:
Maybe I could pack a bag before Whip gets home
and catch a bus heading back east.
Maybe I could get there before the snow melts!

That's what I'll do.
I'll catch a bus.
Or maybe I could even take a plane!
I race to my closet and yank out my suitcase.

I start stuffing my clothes into it,
but then it hits me—
I might be able to get there
while there's still plenty of snow …

But there'd be no Lizzie,
no Ray,
no Aunt Duffy,
no Mom.

Dear Mom,

How are things in Decomposeville? LOL Things continue to suck here. This kid from my school got killed in a car crash. Or maybe you know that already Maybe he's up there in heaven with you right now, playing Twister …

Anyhow, He-who-shall-not-be-mentioned is apparently rushing home at this very moment. I think he's under the mistaken impression that I need to be consoled. Couldn't you use a little pull and arrange for him to get a flat tire? I am so not in the mood to deal with him right now. Or ever again, for that matter. And I feel the same way about
you
.

After you died, Lizzie told me that as time passed, I'd start thinking less and less about you. She said that eventually I'd be able to forget about you and just get back to my life. But it seems to be working the other way around. I've been thinking about you more and more lately. I keep reliving the whole thing. Finding out you're sick. Watching you waste away. Holding your hand when you die. The funeral. Everything. It's like a nightmare that plays in my head all day long. A nightmare that I can't wake up from.

I wish you'd quit haunting me, Mom. I wish you'd quit haunting me and leave me alone. Forever!

Ruby

A Few Minutes Later

I'm just sitting here,
rereading all my old e-mails from Lizzie and Ray,
thinking about how I should have seen it coming,
how it should have been obvious
to anyone with even half a brain cell.

“Trust me,” Lizzie was always saying.
“Trust me. Trust me …”
What a total numbskull I was.

Suddenly Whip pokes his head through my door
and asks if he can come in.
But he doesn't wait for me to answer.
He just walks over and puts his hand on my shoulder.
Which I instantly shake off.
When's he going to get that I hate that?

“Did you know the boy who was killed?”
“Nope.”
“Has his death stirred up some stuff for you?”
“
Should
it have?”
“I don't know,” he says.
“I just thought it might have reminded you
of your mom's death …”

“Well, you thought
wrong,
” I snap.
“Sorry,” he says.
There's that word again
.

Then he says he's got to go back over
to the set for a few more hours.
And he says he's taking
me
with him.
“I'm just not comfortable leaving you alone here.
When no one's home, it gets way too quiet.
It can give a person the serious creeps.”

I can't
stand
it when he does that.

On Sound Stage 34 at Paramount Pictures

Boy, am I glad to see Max beaming at me
from the middle of this mob of strangers.
They're gawking like I'm some kind of freak.

He takes me by the hand
and pulls me over to sit next to him on these
two canvas chairs with ridiculously long legs.

Max's name has been printed in black letters
on the backrest of his chair.
My chair says: WHIP LOGAN.
And, oh my God!
Right next to us is a third chair that says: EMINEM.

Suddenly, Whip's standing in front of me
introducing me to the real Slim Shady himself.
He smiles, shakes my hand, and says, “'Sup?”
“S'all good,” I say,
acting way more cool than I'm actually feeling.

“You guys want to grab some lunch?” he asks.
And as the four of us head to the commissary
(which is movie-studio-speak for “cafeteria”)
Max whispers to me, “
You're
the reason
that Whip decided to even
do
this picture.
He knew you'd like to meet his co-star.”

I glance over at my father.
He's talking to Eminem, but he's smiling at
me
.
And I can't help smiling back.

Two O'clock in the Morning

I've been lying here on my bed,
trying to fall asleep for hours.
But I can't stop thinking about that kid Devon.

Which doesn't exactly make any sense.
Because, I mean,
I never even met the guy.

So how come every time I close my eyes
I see his car veering out of control
and heading straight toward that tree?

How come I keep hearing
the screaming screech of his tires?
Keep seeing his eyes tripling in size?

Keep seeing his foot
slamming down hard on the brake,
the stripes of burnt rubber scarring the street?

How come I can't stop hearing the dull
thwomp
of his Jeep
crunching into the trunk of that tree?
And the sudden echo of the silence after?

Why does Devon's death scene
have to keep playing in my head like this,
over and over and over again?

Why can't I switch off the DVD in my skull?

Suddenly

My telephone rings.
Who would be calling me at this hour?

I pick it up
and a familiar voice says, “Ruby?”

My heart does a somersault
and leaps up into my throat.

It's my mother!
How weird is
that
?

It
can't
be my mother.
But it
is
.

And she's acting like it's perfectly normal
for a dead person to be talking on the phone.

She's asking me how I've been doing,
and what the weather's been like.

We aren't really talking
about anything special.

But it doesn't matter what she's saying,
as long as I'm hearing her voice.

Then she asks me,
“How's your father doing?”

And this is
especially
strange,
because she sounds like she actually
cares
.

But before I have a chance to answer her,
she starts shouting,

“Get out of the house, Ruby!
Get out of the house!”

—and that's when I wake up.

I Am Definitely Awake

But it's feels more like I'm half awake,
or like I'm sleepwalking or something.

Without even thinking about it,
I slip silently into my clothes

and float right out the front door,
as if I'm in a sort of trance.

It's weird
because I'm not even sure where I'm going.

I'm only sure
that I have to get there.

So I just keep on putting
one foot in front of the other,

for ten,
or maybe twenty minutes,

and the next thing I know,
here I am—

standing in front of the Tree of Death.

My Eyes Drift Across

The chips of glass from the shattered windshield,
the bouquets of wilted flowers,
the sad rivers of melted candle wax,
the dark stains spattering the sidewalk …

They pause to read the note
that's been tacked to the trunk of the tree,
just above the torn-up spot
where the Jeep must have hit.
“I can still hear you laughing,” it says …

They wander past the stuffed frog playing a guitar,
the box from a Scooby-Doo video,
the Jimi Hendrix CD,
the sweatshirt covered with leaves and dirt—
“Devon McKracken” sewn into the collar …

And a photo of a little blond boy,
with a smile like a birthday,
dressed up as a fireman.
Grinning so wide because he had no way of knowing
that
this
was what was going to happen to him someday …

My eyes roam over this shrine for Devon,
this shrine to the lost boy
I'll never have a chance to know,
slowly taking it all in,
and finally come to rest on a charred copy

of
Great Expectations
.

And Right Away I'm Thinking About Mom

I'm thinking about
how she helped me write an essay
on
Great Expectations
just last year.
Right before we found out she was sick …

That's when I hear a car door closing.
I look up and see someone heading toward me.
It's Whip!
He must have followed me here.

He walks up to me
with the softest look in his eyes,
and without saying a word,
he wraps his arms around me and holds me.

And, I don't know why,
but for once,
I don't feel like pushing him away.
I just rest my cheek against his chest.

Then the tears rush into my eyes,
and for the first time in centuries,
they come gushing out of me,
like Coke from a can that's been shaken.

I'm crying for the little boy in that photo.
I'm crying for myself.
And for everything that's happened
with Lizzie and Ray.

But most of all, I'm crying for Mom.
Because she's dead.
And she's never coming back.
Not ever.

Then,
I feel a sort of tremor
pass through Whip,
and I realize that
he's
crying, too.

Suddenly There's Another Tremor

Only
this
one's coming from underneath us.
The ground's shaking!

It's shaking and shifting
like the floor in a funhouse.

Just like it's a— Whoa! It's an
earthquake
!