Project Pallid (15 page)

“Well,
where’s he keep it?”

“I
don’t know. His keychain, probably.”

“Doesn’t
do us any good,” I said, more to myself than to her, while I searched an
alternate solution.

“Why
are you so curious anyway?” she asked. “This can’t
just
be about the
porn, can it? You know you can get that anywhere, right? Maybe even
here
if you play your cards right,” she suggested, and repositioned her chest in her
shirt.

“Don’t
tempt me,” I threatened and grinned, while I continued to trouble-shoot the
lock in my head.

I
gave the handle a jiggle before I checked the keyhole, hoping it’d be one of
those pushpin types where all you need is a nail to get it open. No luck. I grabbed
its dangling lock and gave it a few tugs. No give. “I just think it’s weird
that he’d go locking you out of your own house, that’s all. Like he doesn’t
trust you or something.
Or
like he’s got something to hide. Don’t you
think it’s a little strange?” I asked.

“I
suppose so, yeah. But I’m used to it by now. That’s how he’s always been, Damian.
He’s
never
told me anything. You know that. We live together, but we’re
complete strangers. I barely even speak to him anymore. You’ve seen how he
treats me. He’s got no respect for me. He’s got no respect for life. He’s a
monster, Damian. I knew it when he ran over that dog. He doesn’t care about
anyone or anything but himself.” She spoke the revelation like I’d heard it
before.

I
processed her words, assembled a fragmented story, and remembered back to my
dad’s disturbing dinner-share on the first day of school. I thought back to her
tears as I waited for my schedule in Mr. Grayson’s office.

“Oh
my god!” I gasped. “He took his car to my dad’s shop!”

“What!
Really?!”

“Yeah!
He told my dad there was something rattling under it. My dad checked it out,
and he found a collar and leash!” Tears welled in Catee’s eyes as I added fresh
dimension to her remembrance of the events.

“He
didn’t even stop!” she cried. “THUD!” “THUD!” Her hands moved in wavelike
movement with her sound effects to illustrate the hit and run. “He told me he
didn’t have time to deal with a mess! He didn’t even slow down. He just kept
driving, and he dropped me off at school and went to work like it was nothing!”
she recalled.

I
was stunned that I’d completely forgotten to ask about our first-day encounter.
Blinded by love, I’d been so focused on the moment-to-moment that I’d totally
forgotten to ask about her first day tears.

“Wow.”
I didn’t know what else to say. Before I’d even known who he was, Mr. Laverdier
had already left his dark, indelible impression on my family. He’d been making
us sick from the start.

“Catee.”
I asserted, and refocused our attention to the task at hand. “We’ve
got
to get in this office. If he could do that to that poor dog,” I said,
capitalizing on the moment, “just think what else he could’ve done! He could’ve
killed an entire family! They could be rotting away in there, right now!!” I
jabbed my thumb at the door, half-kidding, but half-worried about the inherent
possibility of my words.

Dropping
to hands and knees, I pressed my nose to the floor and to the crack of the
door. “Do you smell that?” I asked with the heavy seriousness of discovery.

“Smell
what?” Skeptical at best, she looked down with her hands on her hips.

“Get
down here! Smell it!” I insisted.

Begrudgingly,
Catee took to the floor and to hands and knees, too. The tops of our heads
pressed together as we pushed our noses to the small crack.

“Do
you smell it?” I asked.

“No
… well … maybe. Yeah, I think so … it’s kind of … well, it’s sort of … What is
it??” She breathed deeply to process a scent that I’d only pretended to
discover.

“Catee,”
I said with panicked alarm, “I know
exactly
what it is,” I rose
solemnly, spoke gravely, and left her to continue sniffing out the floor’s dust
bunnies, alone. “That’s the smell of ………… a SUCKER!”

“ASSHOLE!!!”
she popped to her knees and slapped me hard on the shoulder.

My
hands grabbed her arms, slid to her elbows, and held them to her sides.
Motionless, I stared into her eyes in total adoration. She was … is … the
strongest person I know.

Chemistry
took over and we leaned forward in front of her dad’s office. Our knees ground
into the hardwood, but our heads were impervious to pain.

Arms
pinned tight to her sides, our faces met halfway and locked.

And
there was comfort in our closeness that was unlike any we’d felt before, and
unlike any we’ve likely felt since our separation. It’s a connection that
exists for anyone, in only one other person, and it’s one I felt with her. It’s
one she felt with me, too. And if I know her like I know I do, we’ll both risk
it all to have it again. Her dad couldn’t separate us then, and whatever this
is, it won’t separate us either.

Minutes
passed before we pulled apart to speak again.

“Catee
…

“Yeah?”

“Something’s
going on with your dad.” I spoke calmly and decisively.

“I
know.”

“Okay.
I know, too. So if we both know, we have to do something about it. We’ve got to
figure this out.”

“What
are you proposing? What
can
we do?”

“Well,
first off, we’ve got to get inside.” I pointed back to the door.

“Fat
chance of that happening, Damian. He’s not about to go giving me the key.”

“Then
you just might have to take it.”

“Are
you kidding me!” she yelled and pulled her elbows from my hands. “You’ve seen
how he treats me. He’d
kill
me if that key disappeared! There’s no way I
can get it without him noticing!”

“Then
you have to do it without him knowing,” I asserted.

Somewhere
along the way, I’d lost the reserve that’d always held me back, and the new
Damian Lawson was emerging as a stronger, more emblazoned person than I’d known
before. My gut screamed that something wasn’t right, and as soon as it
registered there, I couldn’t shake it from my head. Since I’d met
him—even before I’d met him—I’d wondered and worried about Catee’s
dad. Getting inside his office might finally ease some of those anxieties.
Whatever we found in there, good or bad, it would at least be closure—or
so I’d hoped.

“So
what do you want me to do? Knock him out cold when he comes home and just grab
his keys? Dig through his things when he’s sleeping? You know he’s going find
out about it, Damian.”

“Is
there another key? Can we make a copy of it?” I grasped at straws.

“I
don’t know, and I don’t know,” she replied, hesitant to offer suggestions for
fear of the backlash that might follow.

“Come
on, Catee, we’ve got to figure something out. What about the window? Do you
think it’s locked?”

“I
know I might seem simple,” she replied, “but trust me, I’ve tried it all on my
own. It’s locked. It’s always locked.”

“Okay,
so what’s left?”

The
glisten in her eyes told me she’d found our solution. Her expression softened
and she spoke assuredly: “No worries, Mr. Lawson, I’ve got it covered.”

I
was perplexed by her sudden epiphany. “What do you mean you’ve
got it
covered
?” I asked. “How do we get inside??”

“You
just leave that to me, big boy.” She leaned in and planted a kiss on my cheek.
“I’ve got it figured out.”

“So
what do we do?”

“
We
do nothing. I’ll handle it, and I’ll have us a key by tomorrow.”

February
10
^th:

I
got off the bus that Wednesday to wintry winds that lashed at my face, and I
looked downward to keep its skin from being peeled away in shaven, icy layers.
With my head concealed, I burst through the lobby doors with the other
Platsville drop-offs, and strode excitedly to where I knew Catee would be
waiting for me. But when I got there, she wasn’t.

“Hey,
where’s Catee?” I asked Mara, the only girl whose name I remembered.

Consumed
by other conversations, she offered little insight. “I don’t know. Absent, I
guess.”

“Oh.”
I dug my hands deep in my pockets to warm them up and to hide the discomfort I
felt standing awkwardly alone in a group of mostly acquaintances.

At
lunch, I naturally noticed Catee’s absence, too. Without her there, I felt
almost as estranged as I had on day one; I imagined the worst going down
between her and her dad.

What
had she done?

What
had she
tried
to do?

Did
he catch her?

Then
what?

I
was the one who insisted she get the key to begin with, and I was consumed with
guilt by whatever harm it’d done to her.

By
afternoon, I was completely dreading geometry class—the place where I’d feel
her absence the most. Justin would be there. He’d be glaring me down like he’d
done since Catee first swapped to my side of the room, and I wouldn’t be able
to ignore him so easily without her around. Maybe he’d even take her absence as
an opportunity to bash my skull in and to really drive his point home. I
dreaded the thought of leaving class, even more than the thought of going in.

But
to my shock, there she was: smiling and waiting as I entered the room. It made
the walk to my seat seem eternal.
Why was she so late? What’d she done? Did
something happen with her dad?

“Where
have you been all day!?” I asked. Emphatic urgency screamed from inside me as I
pulled to my seat beside her.

“I
was handling business.” Her reply was a satisfied one.

“What
do you mean?”

In
response, she slid two, red, plastic keys across our desks.

I
looked down, then curiously at her, and I dove to cover them like they were
radioactive plutonium.

“It’s
okay, Damian. You can look,” she laughed.

I
pulled my fingers apart enough to peek through, before I finally relaxed enough
to reveal the gifts she’d somehow procured. I picked up the keys, one per hand,
to turn and examine closer. “Wow! How’d you do it?!” I asked.

“Eh,
no big deal,” she brushed off my awe like her accomplishment had been as simple
as buying a pack of gum.

“No.
Really. How’d you do it?” I asked, still turning and admiring the precision of
her work. Albeit hard plastic, they looked spot-on.

“It
took some work,” she began, “but once I got started, they weren’t too hard to
make.”

“But
how?!” I asked emphatically.

“Well,
I just waited until he was sleeping, then I took the keys from his keychain. I
checked them on the door to make sure they were the right ones, first,” she
assured, “and then I took them to my room. I used a lighter to heat them up and
pressed them into bars of soap. It took a while, but it worked.” Her brilliance
stunned me. “And eventually I had two molds. Then I just made sure to clean
them up and had them back on his keychain before he left for work this
morning,” she said satisfactorily. “He tried to get me up this morning, but I
just pretended to be sick. It was easy. He left without a fight. No questions
asked.”

This
girl’s a genius
! My head
drifted on her words.

“And
when he was gone and when I knew he wasn’t coming back, I got up, made a double
boiler out of a pot and mixing bowl, and threw in some poker chips. It took a
few tries to get it right, but I figured it out, and I melted them down. And
when it cooled off, I got it in the soap molds to set, and … TA-DA! Keys!” she
gestured to the keys that I held and admired.

Silenced
by the simplistic brilliance of it all, I turned critically inquisitive. “Are
you sure they’ll work?”

“I
tried them before I came to school,” she flatly assured. “They work.”

“Did
you go inside? Did you look around?!” I badgered.

“I
wouldn’t know what to look for. No, I didn’t look around. I figured we’d do
that together.”

“Well,
you better put these somewhere safe until tonight.” I handed the plastic keys
back to her. “I don’t want to be the one responsible for losing them.”

“No
problem.”

As
she leaned to stow them away in her bag, I reached to clasp my hand on her
thigh. It startled her upright and caused her to drop one to the ground, that
she quickly retrieved and zipped with first, before she turned back to me.

“I
love you.” The words fell from my mouth. They came without thought or logical
reason. They came from somewhere deep inside, where adoration supersedes
rationality, and the unplanned proclamation startled even me. Not surprisingly,
the swift suddenness of it shocked her to silence.

“I
love you, Catee,” I stood my ground and reaffirmed my testament.