The Locker (6 page)

“Hi,” he said again quietly. “You look surprised.”

“Shouldn't I be?” My tone was accusing. “What are you doing?”

“I live here.”

“You do?” I must have sounded shocked, because there was the slightest touch of laughter in his voice.

“Yeah. I do.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“Why didn't you ask?”

“Well, I usually don't go into a new school asking every kid I meet, hey, do you live next door to me?” I was sort of embarrassed, like he'd played a trick on me. “I didn't see you around this weekend.”

“I wasn't here,” he said, not offering to tell me where he'd been. “I just got back late last night.”

“Oh.” I didn't know what else to say. Tyler hopped lightly up onto the railing, his arms straight out at his sides, as if walking a tightrope.

“You as crazy as old lady Turley?” he asked casually.

“I might be,” I said.

“Just wondering.” Again that hint of laughter in his voice, though he kept his face expressionless. I watched him and thought how jealous I was again of his perfect skin and those perfect eyelashes and that perfectly formed mouth.

“You're thinking … you've seen me in some other lifetime,” he said, and I snapped back to awareness.

“I'm not thinking anything about you,” I lied.

“That's why you keep looking at my face. Am I familiar to you? Did we meet in some other dimension? Were we friends or maybe lovers?”

“I wasn't looking at your face.”

“Yes, you were.” He hopped off the railing and landed at the very bottom of the porch steps. He slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans and leaned lazily against one wooden column of the porch.

“So how's it feel living in the museum?”

I almost laughed at that. “Like a museum.”

“Maybe you should sell tickets and take tours through.”

“Maybe. I could use the spending money.”

“So how was your first day? Any more confrontations with your locker?”

“I don't want to talk about that.”

“How come?”

“It was very upsetting. And embarrassing. And you'll just laugh.”

“No, I won't.”

This time he crossed his yard, leapt lightly over the fence, then stood there staring up at me as I watched from my porch.

“That was Suellen Downing's locker,” he said.

“I heard. A girl who disappeared.”

He nodded. His brown eyes looked almost sad.

“She was a nice girl. I liked her.”

“Did you grow up with her, too?”

“No.” Squatting down, he ran his long fingers slowly over the ivy that grew up through the cracks in the walkway. “She was an outsider. Her dad was on the construction crew that came through Edison when the new highway was being built. She and her family were only living here till his job was over.”

I let this sink in, feeling a prickle race up my spine. “Did her family happen to rent
this
house?”

He looked surprised. “No. They had a place outside of town. Why?”

Now I felt stupid. “No reason. I was just curious.”

“So is it?” he asked me.

“Is what what?”

“Your house like a museum?”

I had to laugh. “You can come in if you want. Check for dead teenagers in the basement.”

He looked at me, and his smile seemed sort of strained, and for just a split second everything seemed to freeze around him, as if I were looking at a movie still.

“No, thanks,” he said casually. “Some things are better left un—” But before he could say anything else, a woman came outside and called to him, something about not forgetting what he was supposed to do before dinner.

“I have to go.” He jumped up and swung himself back over the fence into his own yard. “See you around.”

“Yeah,” I said. “See you.”

He started toward his house, then stopped in his tracks and spun around to face me.

“Why don't you come?” he asked.

“Me?” I looked around wildly, as if there might be four or five other people standing around behind me that he might be talking to.

“Yeah. Come with me. I'm just going out to Lost River. I won't be long.”

“I … uh … have homework to do.”

“Do it later.”

“Well …”

“Do it later. I'll help you.”

I shook my head at the offer, but as I stared into those big dark eyes, my heart betrayed me. What girl could have resisted an offer like that?

“I'll have to tell my aunt,” I said.

“Go do it.”

It only took a second to make my announcement and grab my jacket, and then I was back out again, hurrying to meet him where he now waited in his driveway next to a battered old gray Mustang.

“Okay?” Tyler let the hood crash down. He wiped his hands on a rag, wadded it up, and tossed it onto the porch. Then he tilted his head at me with a sidelong glance.

“Hope you like bumpy rides.”

“I don't mind them,” I said.

“Good. Climb in.”

I did, and he did, and then without warning, the car gave a tremendous lurch and bounced off, throwing me right up against him as I desperately tried to keep my balance.

“Sorry!” I shouted. The windows were wide open, and I could hardly hear myself think, and as I struggled to hold on to the door handle, the car swerved and I bounced right into him again. “Sorry!” I yelled for the second time, but he only gave me that faint little smile and made the Mustang go faster.

It didn't take long to get out into the country.

Since the ride was too bumpy and noisy for conversation, I concentrated on the scenery as we sped along, noticing how we turned off the main highway and then, after several miles down a two-lane blacktop, off again onto a dirt road. It got quieter then, and we slowed down nearly to a crawl, winding back and back through deep twisted woods. I wondered how anyone could ever find his way through there, with the shadows so deep and deceptive, and the early twilight almost full dark. I must have shivered a little because Tyler suddenly reached over and touched my arm.

“Cold?” he asked.

“Not really. It's just so dark out here.”

He nodded, curling his body back into his seat, resting one arm lazily across the top of the steering wheel.

“Country dark's not like any other kind of dark. And the river's even worse.”

We rounded a bend in the road, and the headlights picked up a dilapidated little house far back from the curve. Obviously abandoned, it leaned a little to one side, and the weeds grew up as high as the shuttered windows.

“Suellen used to live there,” Tyler said. “You know … the girl whose locker you have.”

I moved closer to get a better view. Shadows angled down over the roof, spilling in black puddles across the sagging front porch.

I shuddered. “It looks haunted.”

Tyler shrugged and began to whistle. His glance flicked briefly to me and then out his window again.

“Tell me about Suellen Downing,” I said quietly.

He didn't act surprised at the request. In fact, he didn't act any way at all. He stared straight out at the curving road and thought for several moments and then smiled.

“She was nice,” he finally said. “I didn't mind her.”

“But what was she
like?
I mean … what kind of person was she?”

His eyebrow lifted, and his face took on a puzzled look. “Why all this interest in someone you don't even know?” When I didn't answer, he added softly, “Someone you're
never
going to know.”

That made me sad. I moved away from him and rested my head against the door, staring out into the gathering dusk.

“I guess it bothers me,” I admitted. “Having her locker and all. Maybe I feel … you know … connected to her in a way.” I looked down and gave a sheepish laugh. “I know that sounds weird.”

He didn't answer. He rested one elbow on the ledge of his open window and leaned his cheek against his palm.

“You really care about people, don't you?” He sounded slightly mystified. “That's so rare these days. Most people don't care about anything.”

“Oh, please—”

“No, I mean it. Here's this girl you don't even know—I mean most of
us
hardly knew her—and you're … you know … concerned about her.”

“It's just that …” I tried to find the right words, wanting to make him understand. “The whole thing seems so tragic to me. One of those horrible things you always read about that happens to someone else—except it happened to a
real person
who used to have my locker. And now … it's like she never even existed. But she
did
exist! She had a
life!
”

In the shadows I could feel his eyes upon my face, could feel the curious way they were watching me.

“Maybe you shouldn't think about it,” he said at last. “It makes you too unhappy, and there's nothing you can do. It's been over for a long time.”

“But it's
not
over, is it? Not really. Not till someone finds out what really happened to her.”

“Most people have stopped wondering by now. They've gotten on with their lives.”

“They might
not
have stopped wondering if she'd been from here.” I sighed.

“But she wasn't,” Tyler said. “She was an outsider.”

“Is that how everyone's classified? You're either a townsfolk or an outsider?”

“Something like that, I guess.” The idea seemed to amuse him. “Why? You afraid you're gonna get tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail?”

“I'm beginning to worry.”

I heard him laugh softly under his breath. He rearranged his cap in the same crooked position, and then he brushed absentmindedly at the hair blowing in his eyes. I sat there gazing at his profile and heard him say softly, “Quit looking at me.”

“I'm not looking at you,” I said, and he gave me a sidelong glance.

“Yes, you are.”

Maybe it was because he sounded so self-conscious about it that I couldn't help teasing him.

“It's your smile,” I said.

There was a long silence.

“Don't you want to know what I think about it?” I persisted.

“No.”

“Well, I'm going to tell you anyway. It's a sweet smile. A wonderful smile. Sort of funny and whimsical—”

“
Whimsical?
”

“Yes, and kind of teasing and secretive and sly all at the same time.” I hid a smile of my own as the silence dragged on and on. “It makes you look like a little boy,” I finished.

“It does not.”

“Yes, it most certainly does. Cute and shy. And vulnerable.”

No answer.

I leaned over and put my face close to his. He was trying to keep his eyes on the road, but as I kept staring at his profile, pretending to study every feature, I saw a muscle move in his cheek, and he stole a glance at me.

“Are you blushing?” I whispered.

No response.

“Hmmm …” I mused. “I think maybe you are.”

I could feel him squirm uncomfortably, and it was all I could do not to laugh.

“I told you you were shy.” I couldn't help sounding smug.

His eyes shifted onto mine. That little smile played at the corners of his mouth.

“Stay close to me like that, and I'll show you how shy I am,” Tyler said.

I stared at him.

I moved back.

I turned my face to the open window and let the cool air blow across my warm cheeks, and I heard Tyler laughing softly.'

“Now who's blushing,” he murmured.

The last shred of sunlight was finally slipping away. As we followed the road out of the trees, I could see a molten glow oozing over the hillsides, and the air smelled wet and earthy. Off in the distance I could see the ruins of a barn, rotting silently away in an empty field.

“Did Suellen really live back there in that awful place?” I asked quietly.

Tyler didn't answer right at first. He kept his eyes on the road ahead, slowing the car even more as we came to a steep incline.

“It wasn't always that bad,” he said, shifting into low gear and starting the climb. “Out here it doesn't take long for nature to reclaim things, especially when nobody's using them anymore.”

“Did you ever go out with her?”

The question popped out before I could stop it. I heard the words hanging in the air between us, but by then it was too late to do anything but feel like an idiot.

Tyler didn't look at me. His hands tightened on the steering wheel.

“Once,” he said.

I waited for him to go on. He didn't.

Instead he coaxed the old car over the top of the hill, and then he leaned forward, squinting through the shadows and pointing to something I couldn't even see.

“Look—there's the bridge,” he announced. “Welcome to Lost River.”

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