What We Knew (10 page)

“Over here,” my mom called. The sun in her eyes made her squint. She looked happy, but tired. “I think we’ve had a pretty full day,” she said, her cue that it was time to think about heading home. When I was little, I’d cry and cry, wanting the day to last forever. But I guess I’m not a kid anymore because I was okay with the best day ever ending. Dirty and achy, a hot shower was way more tempting to me than another ride. Katie was the only one who frowned all the way to the gift shop and then took her time browsing, dragging it out.

After nine hours in the sun, our car was a sauna. My mom opened all the doors and let the air conditioner run. Waiting for the upholstery to cool, I scanned the lot for my father’s truck. Lisa texted Gabe, and Katie dug through her bag and gave my mom a magnet.

“I got one for my mom, too,” she said.

“Suck up,” I said, because I’d spent my money on myself.

Katie smirked.

“You guys must be starving,” my mom said.

Katie called shotgun. Lisa and I jumped in back.

We stopped at a pancake house on the highway, not the seafood place we’d been going to for years. That was closed. My dad always got twin lobsters. The last time we went there, I was embarrassed by the stupid plastic bib he wore. All our family’s favorite places—mini golf, now Captain Jack’s—were disappearing. Maybe it was a sign. I was stuck in the past. My mom wasn’t the only one who needed to get on with her life.

When we got home, I closed my bedroom door and called my father’s apartment. No one answered. I almost tried his cell phone, but then chickened out, afraid I’d recognize the noises we’d left behind. I asked my mother if we still had the giant pink panda she’d told me about earlier.

“Sorry, sweetie,” she said, shaking her head sadly. “He’s long gone.”

ten

To:
[email protected]

From:
[email protected]

Subject:
SOS

I can’t sleep. I’m too afraid.

The nightmares keep getting stranger and stranger. I dig beneath the carpet scraps, endlessly searching. There’s a cop there with me, in the woods—I’m always in the woods—aiming a water pistol at my head, ordering me to dig. Heart hammering, I claw at the ground until a flash of pink fleece fills me with joy. I always think it’s my panda. But instead I find a rusty zipper and long blond braids. Lisa. Not Lisa now. Lisa in seventh grade, before she hated pink. Clearing the dirt from her eyes, my chest heaves. I can’t breathe. I watch myself collapse into the infinite black of her lifeless pupils. Behind me, scaly fingers claw at the air. The cop just stands there with his pistol, useless against those long gray teeth and waxy lips. That’s when Lisa’s mouth parts, her blue lips curling into a smile.
If he can do this, he can do anything
.

I need help. I keep replaying what I did over and over. It’s the weird, small details that stick. Tonight it was the pattern on one of his dirty blankets. Lambs and stars and moons.

In Troy, it was a chocolate under the couch, wrapped in silver foil and clotted with dust.

eleven

How many times do I have to tell my mom that I’m too old for a pediatrician? I don’t care that they’ll see me until I’m eighteen. It’s humiliating. I felt ridiculous in that waiting room with the picture books and parenting magazines and bright plastic toys. I ignored my mom playing peek-a-boo with a crusty-nosed toddler and looked up stuff about dreams on my phone until the receptionist called my name. A nurse in rubber-ducky scrubs waved from the door.

“Come on back,” she said.

My mom held my bag while I stood on the scale and watched the nurse fiddle with the clunky metal slider. I wasn’t any taller, but I was a pound heavier.

“Is that okay?” I asked.

“You’re within range for your height,” she said, leading us down the hall to the room papered with jungle animals. My favorite. When I was six.

“You know I’m old enough to have a baby,” I whispered to my mom.

She covered her ears. “Please don’t say things like that around me.”

I kicked off my sneakers and hopped up on the table. The nurse wrapped a pressure cuff around my bicep. Fingers on my wrist, she watched the needle on the dial and pumped the bulb in her fist. “There’s a gown for you to put on,” she said over the air hissing from the valve, then dropped my chart in the plastic holder on the wall. “Someone will be by shortly,” she said, wrestling the accordion door closed.

“I can see into the hall,” I complained to my mother.

“No one’s looking at you,” my mother said, flipping through a magazine while I undressed. Somewhere in the office a child screamed in pain. My mother made a face like she hurt, too, then dug around in her bag for a mint. “Please tell me you wore semi-new underwear,” she said. “Not those holey things I keep finding in the wash. Those need to be thrown out.”

I glanced at the faded purple cotton with the frayed elastic and pulled the gown to my knees. A rap on the accordion made me jump. I looked up, praying for Sandy the PA. Dr. Dan poked his head in instead.

“Hi Tracy! Hi Mom! How’s everybody doing today?” Grabbing my chart, he plunked down on the wheeled stool and scooted across the room. “Let’s see, we saw you back in February. Nasty case of flu. I’m guessing you survived?” He examined my fingernails—Gangrene, my new favorite color—and winked. “Maybe not.”

My mother giggled. For a millisecond I wondered if there was a Mrs. Doctor Dan before my brain rejected it.
Awkward.
Listening to my heart, he asked if I exercised.

“Not if I can help it,” I said to the ceiling.

“That’s not true.” I could hear the frown in my mother’s voice. “She swims and she walks a lot.”

“Walking is good,” Dr. Dan said, sticking a black plastic cone in my left ear and then the right. He checked my eyes and nose and throat and then asked me to reach for the ceiling while he felt around under my arms. “We’re almost done,” he said. “If you’ll just lie back.” The paper beneath me crinkled. “I’m going to press on your stomach,” he said. “Is that okay? Any pain or discomfort?”

“No.”

“How’s your menstrual cycle?”

My face burned. “Normal,” I said.

“You can sit up now,” he said. “You want the good news or the bad news?”

“Good news,” I said.

Dr. Dan scooted over to the counter and tossed his gloves in the trash. “Dang,” he said. “I was hoping you’d say ‘bad.’ There’s no good news. You need a meningococcal booster.”

My mother looked mildly smug when I asked her to hold my hand during the shot and then mildly offended when it was over and Dr. Dan asked her to wait for me outside.

“The hall?” She frowned, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “You can go out to the waiting room,” Dr. Dan said kindly. “We’ll just be a few minutes.”

When my mother was out of earshot, Dr. Dan said he had a few questions that might be easier to answer without my mother present.

“Do you smoke?” he asked.

I shook my head.
Liar.

“Do you drink alcohol?”

“No.”
Liar
. I hedged. “Sometimes. Not often. Just once.”

“Are you sexually active?”

Flames of embarrassment licked my cheeks. I pictured Adam guiding my hands to neutral territory and shook my head. I should’ve told him about the jerk from Troy, but I couldn’t. Maybe Sandy the PA, but not Dr. Dan.

Picking at my nail polish, I said, “Can I ask a stupid question?”

Dr. Dan dropped the chart on the counter and returned to the stool. “Shoot.”

“Is it normal to keep having the same nightmare over and over? Like a really bad one. The kind you can’t stop thinking about.” I shivered remembering Lisa’s eyes, the way they felt looking at me, emptily. Cold and slippery. It had me texting her at two in the morning:
R U OK?

Dr. Dan clasped his hands between his knees. “You want to talk about it?”

“It’s almost always the same,” I said. “I’m running through the woods, from this thing, this monster. There’s always this shack, too. When I get there, I think I’m safe, but then I realize the thing chasing me lives there.”

Dr. Dan nodded, thinking. He asked if there was anything going on in my life that had me feeling anxious. Boyfriend trouble? Family issues? Was I nervous about going back to school? “Most nightmares are triggered by stress,” he said. “Also, believe it or not, eating right before bed can give you bad dreams. Alcohol, too.” He smiled, winking. “But you’ve only ever had one drink.” He slapped my knee and stood up. “Try laying off the late-night snacks and see what happens. If it starts interfering with your daily activities—like you’re tired all the time or the nightmares themselves are causing you stress—we’ll have you come back in. Sound good?”

I nodded.

“Want a lollipop?”

I shook my head.

Dr. Dan unwrapped a green one and stuck it in his cheek. “You sure? They’re better for you than cigarettes. Here, take some anyway. For your friends.”

On the ride home, I was decorating the toes of my sneakers with glitter stickers, when my mother squinted at me. “Did you steal those from the examining room?” She shook her head. “Never mind. Don’t tell me. What did Dr. Dan want to talk about?”

“You,” I said. “He wanted to know if you’re seeing someone.”

My mother’s cheeks pinked. She pursed her lips. “Why do you always have to be a smart-ass?”

“Because the truth freaks you out,” I said. “Lollipop?”

My mother scowled at the windshield. “The truth does
not
freak me out.”

Sticking a rainbow on the dashboard, I told her Scott would disagree. A shadow passed over her face. I wish I could talk to her, like
really
talk to her. I would’ve told her about my dad’s evil twin at Action Adventure. I would’ve told her about my nightmares. I might’ve finally told her about what happened in Troy.

But some things are just easier to deal with on my own.

My mother drove the rest of the way in silence. When we got home, I called Adam. He was at the bank, cashing his paycheck. He wanted to take me out to eat. Someplace nice, he said. My pick. I suggested the new Italian place on Eastern Avenue.

“You might need reservations,” my mom said after I’d hung up.

There you go again, being nosy about all the wrong things.
But I stayed quiet. She was already moody from my comment about Scott. She frowned at the stack of mail, picking up a postcard.

“This makes me feel old.” She groaned. I peeked over her shoulder and read the announcement. Her high school reunion was coming up in August. Thirty years. I wondered if my dad had gotten one, too.

“You should go,” I said.

Not going seemed like one of those things she’d regret. My mother sighed, but then hung the invitation on the fridge. There was hope. I’d work on her later, I thought, opening the freezer. Adam was coming at six, but I was already hungry.

My phone rang. Foley.

“Whatcha doin’?”

“Making a toaster strudel,” I said.

“Are they tasty?”

“Delicious,” I said. “Want one?”

“Do you deliver?” I could almost see him, his grin a little crooked, messy hair in his eyes.

I made a lot of bad decisions that day, but the first was asking Foley what flavor.
Raspberry or apple?
The second was lying to Adam.
My mom already has dinner started. Can we do tomorrow night?
The third was meeting Foley at his house instead of the park because the sky looked stormy. The fourth was putting a hot toaster strudel in a plastic baggie. The one I brought Foley was soggy by the time I got there, but he ate it anyway while cuing up a playlist. Watching him I started to feel guilty.

Lightning crashed close by, making me jump. “Relax,” Foley said, turning off lamps. “We’re safe.” As he pulled me to the couch, my eyes drifted toward the door. But then we were sitting, just sitting. Me with my feet on the coffee table. Foley with his head on my leg, air drumming a song I only know because it’s the theme to my mom’s favorite crime show.

We’re just friends
.
I’m allowed to have friends
.

“We hardly ever see each other anymore,” I said. “When did you pierce your ear?” I nudged the silver hoop with my finger and told him I liked it.

“Jeanine did it,” he said.

A clap of thunder rattled the living room windows. I shivered.

“Is she your girlfriend?” I asked.

Foley laughed. “I’m sensing some jealousy.”

“She is, isn’t she?”

“Jeanine’s not my
girlfriend
.” He made a face. He hates anything that reeks of possession. He also hates dishonesty. Foley never lies. He’s the most truthful person I know.

Staring up at me through his curls, he smiled and said, “I’m happy you came over.”

I twirled a lock of his hair
. It doesn’t mean anything. You play with Lisa’s hair, too.
Rain lashed against the window. A volley of ear-splitting cracks rattled my insides. Foley’s knuckles grazed my chin and we locked eyes. Another kind of explosion sent my heart rate higher. That’s when I realized my mother’s vision was sharper than mine. She’d seen it—that gaze. No one else had ever looked at me that way. Adam was always dragging his eyes away, like he was afraid to let himself feel. The jerk from Troy—his eyes were hollow pits.

Foley reached up and pulled my face to his, and my insides turned to jelly. I didn’t try to fight it. Instead, I reached blindly up and closed the drapes, not wanting to see the bolt of lightning that would strike me dead of guilt.

It was nothing like the first time, like that day in Troy. The word “no” never entered my head. Everything was in perfect balance. No pleading. No bargaining. Pressed together under the couch blanket, it was last Saturday all over again. The fear of falling and then I was soaring. Higher and higher. It was far from graceful—our clumsy fumbling. But it felt right. Foley’s hands (not on my mouth, not on my throat) skimming over me. My hands (not claws, not fists) circling him. All arms and legs twisting, not elbows and knees digging. He must’ve known I was somewhere else because his voice gently questioned,
Are you okay? Is this okay?
I nodded, powerless to stop my brain from spinning out even as a sweetly surging heat burned my face. I was melting. The world was melting. But then the images behind my eyes finally stilled and I was filled with a strange calm. Not the distant calm of having just escaped your own body, but a present one, the kind that reminds you that your life is yours and it’s good. Really good. Foley smiled shyly and kissed my neck, and then we stayed like that—tangled together, breathing in one another—until the clouds parted and the rain stopped. A ray of light shone through a gap in the drapes.