Panic (7 page)

SATURDAY, JULY 2

THE NEXT DAY, THE NOTICES WERE EVERYWHERE: PINK betting slips, papering the underpass, stuck to gas pumps and in the windows of the 7-Eleven and Duff’s Bar, threaded between the gaps in the chicken-wire fences that lined Route 22.

The betting slips blew all the way to Fresh Pines Mobile Park, carried on the soles of muddy boots, snatched up by the metal underbelly of passing trucks before escaping on the wind. They found their way to Nat’s quiet residential street. They appeared, half sodden, sunk in the mud in Meth Row.

There were a third as many players now as there once had been. Only seventeen players had even made it over the fence—of those, ten had managed to get something from Donahue’s house.

But there were other notices too: printed on large, glossy sheets of paper, inscribed with the crest of the Columbia County Police Department.

A
NY INDIVIDUALS FOUND TO BE PARTICIPATING IN THE GAME COMMONLY KNOWN AS PANIC WILL BE SUBJECT TO CRIMINAL PROSECUTION
.

In smaller letters, the pertinent criminal charges were enumerated:
reckless endangerment, destruction of private property, breaking and entering, intent to do grievous/bodily harm, drunken disorderliness.

Someone had squealed, and it was obvious to everyone that it had either been Cory Walsh, after his arrest at the water towers, or Byron Welcher, who had, it turned out, been mauled pretty badly by one of Donahue’s dogs, and was now in the hospital over in Hudson. There was no getting to Byron, at least not until he was released, so a few people took out their anger on Cory—and he ended up in the hospital too, his face beaten to the pulpy purple of a bruised and rotten tomato.

That was only a few hours before Ian McFadden found out from his older brother—a cop—that actually it hadn’t been either Cory
or
Byron, but a quiet junior named Reena, whose boyfriend had just been eliminated from the competition.

By the time the sun was bleeding out over the horizon, all the windows in Reena’s car had been smashed, and her house had been covered with a fine, trembling sheen of egg, so it looked as though it had been enclosed inside a membrane.

Nobody believed that Panic would stop, of course.

The game must go on.

The game always went on.

MONDAY, JULY 4

dodge

THE WEATHER STAYED BEAUTIFUL—FINE AND SUNNY, just hot enough—for a whole week after the challenge at Donahue’s house. The Fourth of July was no different, and Dodge woke to sunlight washing over his navy-blue blanket, like a slow surf of white.

He was happy. He was more than happy. He was psyched. He was hanging out with Nat today.

His mom was home, awake, and actually making breakfast. He leaned in the door frame and watched her crack eggs into a pan, break the yolks up with the edge of a wooden spatula.

“What’s the occasion?” he said. He was still tired and his neck and back were sore; he’d worked two shifts stocking shelves after closing time at the Home Depot in Leeds, where his mom’s ex-boyfriend Danny was manager. Dumb work, but it paid okay. He had a hundred dollars in his pocket and would be able to buy Nat something at the mall. Her birthday was still a few weeks away—July 29—but still. Might as well get her something small a little early.

“I could ask you the same thing.” She let the eggs sizzle and came over to him, and gave him a big smack on the cheek before he could pull away. “Why are you up so early?”

He could see traces of makeup. So. She’d been on a date last night. No wonder she was in a good mood.

“Didn’t feel like sleeping anymore,” he said cautiously. He wondered whether his mom would admit to going out. Sometimes she did, if a date had gone really well.

“Just in time for eggs. You want eggs? You hungry? I’m making some eggs for Dayna.” She shook the scrambled eggs onto a plate. They were perfectly scrambled, trembling with butter. Before he could answer, she lowered her voice and said, “You know all that therapy Dayna’s been doing? Well, Bill says—”

“Bill?” Dodge cut in.

His mom blushed. Busted. “He’s just a friend, Dodge.”

Dodge doubted it, but he said nothing.

His mom went on, in a rush: “He took me out to Ca’Mea in Hudson last night. Nice tablecloths and everything. He drinks wine, Dodge. Do you believe that?” She shook her head, amazed. “And he knows someone, some doctor at Columbia Memorial who works with people like Day. Bill says Dayna’s got to go more regular, like every day.”

“We can’t—” Dodge started to say, but his mom understood and finished for him.

“I
told
him we couldn’t afford it. But he said he could get us in, even with no insurance. Can you believe it? At the
hospital
.”

Dodge said nothing. They’d gotten their hopes up before—new doctor, new treatment, someone who could help. And something always went wrong. A pipe burst and the emergency fund would dry up replacing it; or the doctor would be a quack. The one time they’d managed to see someone in a real hospital, he’d looked at Dayna for five minutes, done nerve tests, banged on her knee and squeezed her toes, and straightened up.

“Impossible,” he’d said, sounding angry, like he was mad at them for wasting his time. “Car accident, right? My advice is: apply for a better chair. No reason she should be wheeling around in this piece of junk.” And he’d toed the wheelchair, the five-hundred-dollar wheelchair Dodge had busted his ass for a whole autumn trying to purchase, while his mom cried, while Dayna lay curled up every night on her bed, fetal, vacant.

“So you want eggs or not?” his mom said.

Dodge shook his head. “Not hungry.” He picked up Dayna’s plate, grabbed a fork, and carried both into the living room. She had her head sticking out of the open window, and as he entered he heard her shout, “In your dreams!” and then a burst of laughter from below.

“What’s that about?” he asked her.

She snapped around to face him. Her face went red. “Just Ricky, talking stupid,” she said, and took the plate from him. Ricky worked in the kitchen at Dot’s, and he was always sending gifts up to Dayna—cheap flowers, purchased at the gas station; little teddy bear figurines. Ricky was all right.

“Why are you staring at me?” Dayna demanded.

“Not staring,” Dodge said. He sat next to her and pulled her feet into his lap, began working her calves with his knuckles, as he always did. So she could walk again. So she would keep believing it.

Dayna ate quickly, eyes on her plate. She was avoiding him. Finally, her mouth crooked into a smile. “Ricky said he wants to marry me.”

“Maybe you should,” Dodge said.

Dayna shook her head. “Freak.” She reached out and punched Dodge’s shoulder, and he pretended it had hurt. He was overwhelmed, momentarily, with happiness.

It was going to be a good day.

He showered and dressed carefully—he’d even remembered to put his jeans in the wash, so they looked good, crisp and clean—and took the bus to Nat’s neighborhood. It was only ten thirty, but the sun was already high, hovering in the sky like a single eye. As soon as Dodge turned onto Nat’s street, he felt like he was stepping onto a TV set, like he was in one of those shows from the 1950s where someone was always washing a car in the driveway and the women wore aprons and said hello to the mailmen.

Except there was no movement here, no voices, no people hauling trash or banging doors. It was almost too quiet. That was one thing about living in the back of Dot’s: someone was always yelling about
something
.
It was kind of comforting, in a way, like a reminder that you weren’t all alone in having problems.

Nat was waiting on her front stoop. Dodge’s stomach bottomed out as soon as he saw her. Her hair was fixed low, in a side ponytail, and she was wearing a ruffled yellow jumper-type thing, with the shirt and shorts attached, that would have looked stupid on anyone else. But on her it looked amazing, like she was some kind of life-size, exotic Popsicle. He couldn’t help but think that whenever she had to use the bathroom she’d have to get totally undressed.

She stood up, waving at him, as though he could
possibly
miss her, wobbling slightly on large wedge heels. She wasn’t wearing her ankle brace anymore, even though he knew she’d screwed her ankle up again running away from Donahue’s house. But she winced slightly when she walked.

“Bishop and Heather went to get iced coffees,” she said as he approached her, doing his best not to walk too quickly. “I told them to get us some too. Do you drink coffee?”

“I’d shoot coffee, if I could,” he said, and she laughed. The sound made him warm all over, even though he still felt a weird, prickling discomfort standing on her property, like he was in a One-of-These-Things-Doesn’t-Belong drawings. A curtain twitched in a ground-floor window, and a face appeared and disappeared too rapidly for Dodge to make out.

“Someone’s spying on us,” he said.

“Probably my dad.” Nat waved dismissively. “Don’t worry. He’s harmless.”

Dodge wondered what it would be like to have a dad like that—in the house, around, so taken-for-granted you could dismiss him with a wave of the hand. Dayna’s dad, Tom, had actually been married to Dodge’s mom—only for eighteen months, and only because Dodge’s mom got pregnant, but still. Her dad sent emails to her regularly, and money every month, and sometimes even came for a visit.

Dodge had never heard a word from his father, not a single peep. All he knew was his dad worked construction and came from the Dominican Republic. He wondered, for just a split second, what his father was doing now. Maybe he was alive and well, back in Florida. Maybe he’d finally settled down and had a whole host of little kids running around, with dark eyes like Dodge’s, with the same high cheekbones.

Or maybe, even better, he’d taken a big-ass tumble from a tall scaffold and split open his head.

When Bishop and Heather returned in another one of Bishop’s junkers—which rattled and shook so badly, Dodge was sure it would quit on them before they reached the mall—Dodge helped Nat to the back and opened the door for her.

“You’re so sweet, Dodge,” she said, and kissed his cheek, looking almost regretful.

The ride to Kingston was good. Dodge tried to pay Bishop back for the iced coffee, but Bishop waved him off. Heather managed to coax a decent station out of the patchy radio, and they listened to Johnny Cash until Nat begged for something that had been recorded in
this century
. Nat made Dodge do magic tricks again, and this time she laughed when he made a straw materialize from her hair.

The car smelled like old tobacco and mint, like an old man’s underwear drawer, and the sun came through the windows, and the whole state of New York seemed lit up by a special, interior glow. Dodge felt, for the first time since moving to Carp, for the first time maybe in his life, like he belonged somewhere. He wondered how different the past few years would have been if he had been hanging out with Bishop and Heather, if he’d been dating Nat, picking her up to drive her to the movies on Fridays, dancing with her in the gym at homecoming.

He fought down a wave of sadness. None of it would last. It couldn’t.

Dodge had driven past the Hudson Valley Mall in Kingston but had never gone inside it. The ceiling was fitted with big skylights, which made the spotless linoleum floors seem to glow. The air smelled like body spray and the little bags of potpourri his mom put in her underwear drawer.

But mostly, it smelled like bleach. Everything was white, like a hospital, like the whole building had been dunked in Clorox. It was still pretty early and the crowds were thin. Dodge’s cowboy boots echoed loudly on the ground when he walked, and he hoped Nat wouldn’t find it annoying.

Once inside, Nat consulted a small flyer she had pulled from her bag, and announced that she would meet up with the group in an hour or so, outside the Taco Bell in the food court.

“You’re
leaving
?” Dodge blurted out.

Nat looked to Heather for help.

Heather jumped in: “Nat has an audition.”

“An audition for what?” Dodge asked. He wished he didn’t sound so upset. Immediately, Nat began to blush.

“You’re going to make fun of me,” she said. His heart practically ripped open. Like he, Dodge Mason, would ever
dream
of making fun of Natalie Velez.

“I won’t,” he said quietly. Bishop and Heather were already wandering off. Bishop pretended to shove Heather into the fountain. She yelped and walloped him with a fist.

Wordlessly, Nat passed him the flyer. It was badly designed. The font was practically illegible.

W
ANTED
: M
ODELS AND
A
CTRESSES TO
S
HOWCASE THE
B
EST AND THE
B
RIGHTEST AT
D
AZZLING
G
EMS
!
C
OMMERCIAL
A
UDITIONS
:
11:30
A.M
. S
ATURDAY AT THE
H
UDSON
V
ALLEY
M
ALL
.
M
UST BE EIGHTEEN OR OLDER
.

“Your birthday’s on the twenty-ninth, right?” Dodge said, hoping he might get extra points for remembering.

“So? That’s only three weeks away,” Nat said, and he remembered she was one of the youngest in their graduating class. He passed her the flyer, and she shoved it back into her bag as though she was embarrassed to have shown him. “I thought I’d try, anyway.”

You’re beautiful, Natalie
, he wanted to say to her. But all he could say was, “They’d be morons to take anyone else.”

She smiled so widely, he could see all of her perfect teeth, nestled in her perfect mouth, like small white candies. He was hoping she might kiss his cheek again, but she didn’t.

“It won’t take more than an hour or two,” she said. “Probably less.”

Then she was gone.

Dodge was left in a foul mood. He wandered behind Bishop and Heather for a while, but even though both of them were perfectly nice, it was clear they wanted to be alone. They had their own language, their own jokes. They were constantly touching each other too—pushing and shoving, pinching and hugging, like kids flirting on a playground. Jesus. Dodge didn’t know why they just didn’t get it on already. They were obviously crazy about each other.

He made an excuse about wanting to get something for his sister and wandered outside, smoking three cigarettes in a row in the parking lot, which was beginning to fill up. He checked his phone a few times, hoping Nat had already texted. She hadn’t. He began to feel like an idiot. He had all this money on him. He’d been planning to buy her something. But this wasn’t a date. Was it? What did she
want
from him? He couldn’t tell.

Inside, he wandered around aimlessly. The mall wasn’t actually that big—only one floor—and there was no carousel, which disappointed him. One time he’d taken a carousel ride with Dayna at a mall in Columbus—or was it Chicago? They’d raced around, trying to ride every single horse before the music stopped playing, yelling like cowboys.

The memory made him happy and sad at the same time. It took him a moment to realize he’d accidentally stopped in front of a Victoria’s Secret. A mom and her daughter were giving him weird looks. They probably thought he was a perv. He turned away quickly, resolving to go to Dazzling Gems and see whether Nat was done yet. It had been nearly an hour, anyway.

Dazzling Gems was all the way on the other side of the building. He was surprised to see a long line snaking out of the boutique—girls waiting to audition, all of them tanned and wearing next to nothing and perching like antelope on towering heels, and none of them close to as pretty as Nat. They were all cheesy-looking, he thought.

Then he saw her. She was standing just outside the boutique doors, talking to an old dude with a face that reminded Dodge of a ferret. His hair was greasy and thinning on top; Dodge could see patchy bits of his scalp. He was wearing a cheap suit, and even this, somehow, managed to look greasy and threadbare.

At that second, Nat turned and spotted Dodge. She smiled big, waving, and pushed toward him. Ferret melted into the crowd.

“How was it?” Dodge asked.

“Stupid,” she said. “I didn’t even make it through the doors. I waited on line for, like, an hour and barely moved three places. And then some woman came around and checked IDs.” She said it cheerfully, though.