What We Knew (7 page)

I shivered, but then I heard my mom and Chip in the kitchen, pouring drinks.

“Have you been smoking?” I asked.

“I have to stop him,” she cried.

“Stay there,” I said. “I’ll be right over.”

What turns a nonbeliever into a believer? For Lisa it was coming home to a second eye, settled neatly beside the first. Two starry blues gazing up from her nightstand.

But I couldn’t make the leap.

I followed because she was my friend.

Standing at the top of the stairs, Lisa’s flashlight trained below, we dashed the silence with pounding feet, the hard snap of rocks hitting tarp. Lisa’s fear made her fearless. She shouted herself hoarse—
Leave us alone! Stay away! Touch my sister and I’ll kill you!
—but I hung back, clinging to reason.
There has to be an explanation. No one lives there. The place is abandoned.

And then a shaft of light crossed ours. A long, dark shape advanced. The tight lump of nerves in my chest metastasized, spreading panic through my veins. Brightness snagged my eyes, blinding me. Nails clawed my flesh. Lisa’s nails, digging into my wrist, dragging me up the stairs. We chased the beam from her flashlight through the underbrush, running and tripping but not looking back, not until we exploded into the street.

Safe,
I thought, like an idiot, like this was some game we were playing. But we weren’t safe.

The rules had changed.

six

After two dates with the Chipster, Mom was ready to call it quits.

“It’s…” She lifted her turkey sub and put it back down. Glancing around the food court, she leaned in and lowered her voice. “I don’t know. It’s weird. I’m too old for dating.” She took a sip of soda and swallowed. “You’ve got to remember, I was with your father for more than half my life.” Her eyes welled up and she shook her head. “It’s like you marrying Adam. No. Longer. It’s like you marrying Foley.”

Something in me surged. My face got hot. Now I was the one with darting eyes, hoping no one was listening.“Pul-eeze,” I said, trying to hide what I was feeling.

My mother smiled around her straw. “You two’ll end up together. Once you figure it out.”

“Figure what out?”

“C’mon, Tracy. You’d have to be blind not to see how he feels about you.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, shaking my head, looking away. “He’s like that with everyone. Foley doesn’t believe in commitment. Besides, I already have a boyfriend. I don’t think Adam would appreciate you suggesting I dump him for another guy.”

My mother reached out and chucked my chin. “Lighten up. I’m teasing.” She checked her watch. “When’s your party?”

“Not until seven,” I said.

“Good.” My mother stacked our trays. “I really need something for the company picnic. A simple top that covers and shorts that don’t ride up. Is that too much to ask these days?”

Watching my mother try on one hideous outfit after another, I wondered if she was right—about Foley. He was going to be at Adam’s party. Everybody was going. Everybody except Lisa. She couldn’t let go of the eyeball thing. All week she’d insisted on being home when Katie went to bed, which was Lisa’s bed now, too. She’d started sleeping in Katie’s room. I texted her one last time hoping to change her mind, but she already had plans. Gabe was coming over. Homeless Ryan, too. They were going to the movies. A double date.

By the time my mother dropped me off at Adam’s, I had a wicked case of mall head. Chris was out back filling a cooler with ice, his white polo and khaki shorts emphasizing his insanely dark tan. Chugging a can of soda, I spotted Adam’s stepmom, Linda, spying from the back window.

“I thought they were going out?” I whispered.

“They tricked us,” Chris said without moving his lips. He smiled up at Linda and waved. “Mix-up with their tickets. Show’s
next
Friday. This should be fun. We’re playing energy-drink pong.”

Adam sauntered from the garage, looking paler than usual, a bundle of torches clamped under his arm. “Just in time,” he said, and pressed his mouth to mine. I winced. Twice. Once from the stubble. Again from his breath. It smelled like taco meat.

“You know how to set up the cups for pong?” he asked, dropping the torches at my feet.

“I’m not an idiot,” I said, wishing he’d eat some toothpaste. “You put them in a triangle.”

Adam looked hurt. “I meant would you do it.”

“Sure,” I said, turning to avoid another kiss.

“Everything’s in the garage,” he said. “Shout if you need help with the table.”

The garage smelled like motor oil and gasoline. I wrinkled my nose. Dragging the folding table across the cement, I pinched my finger in the stupid leg brace. Sucking my pinky, I unpacked red plastic cups and eggshell-thin balls, a case of gold-and-black cans, and then texted Lisa again.
Please come,
I begged.
Bring Katie and Ryan.
It was bound to be the tamest party ever. Especially with Adam’s stepmom hovering. Lisa responded with a frowny emoticon,
Just bought our tickets
.

As if on cue, Linda ducked into the garage with a basket of cheese curls. “Adam said to put some snacks out here,” she said, putting down the basket and picking up a can. “I don’t know how you kids can drink this stuff,” she said, scanning the label. “Oh, by the way, the next time you and Adam sleep in the car…”

My face burned. I knew I’d felt someone watching that night. It wasn’t my imagination. But it wasn’t Banana Man, either. It was Linda—Scary Stalker Mom. Lucky for me, Rachel came dancing down the driveway. I shouted and waved, and Linda gave me a tight-lipped smile before marching back to the house. Rachel’s eyes raked the garage. “Where’s Lisa?” she asked.

Sometimes I think Lisa and I are too close, and I can’t socialize without her. I could never talk to Rachel the way I talk to Lisa. After a few minutes, the conversation fizzled out and we drifted, searching for our boyfriends. Hers was arguing politics with the foreign exchange student. Mine was hooking up speakers. I sat at the picnic table, alone, waiting for someone good to show up. Adam had invited theater people, mostly, but then someone he worked with rolled in with a couple of girls from Nisky. Keira, I think, and her friend Something Snobby. I hated them instantly, with their long, smooth hair and manicured nails, faces looking like they’d spent the day at the makeup counter. They reminded me of Jeanine. Which reminded me of Foley. Warm hands cupped my eyes. Everything went dark. My heart did a little dance.

“It’s not so bad,” Adam said. “I think everybody’s having fun. Trent’s got a case in his car if you want something to drink.” Adam’s skin was usually pretty clear, but that night his forehead was a constellation of angry red bumps.

“What’s going on with your face?” I asked, grimacing slightly, and then hated myself for asking.

“It’s from the kitchen,” he said, dragging his bangs to his chin. “I was on the grill. All that grease.”

I brushed the hair from his eyes and kissed him gently. I loved him. I did. Foley meant nothing to me, and I meant nothing to Foley. My mom had it all wrong.

I spent the rest of the party acting like Katie at the pool that day, wading past faces, searching, and then bored. Eventually I parked myself beside Chris and watched him whip one of the Nisky girls at energy-drink pong. When that got boring, too, I wandered out to Trent’s car for something to numb the ache in my chest.

“Get in,” Trent said. He reached behind the seat and passed me a green bottle. “Listen, I’m sorry I started all this bullshit. I didn’t think anybody would actually believe it.”

I took a swig and shook my head, confused.

“This stuff with Lisa. About Banana Man. Gabe says she’s kind of gone off the deep end.”

“You didn’t do that thing with the other eye, did you?” I poked him with the bottle, hoping he’d confess, but now Trent looked confused.

“What ‘thing’ with the other eye?”

He shifted his weight. The upholstery squeaked. In the dark of the car, the closeness made me reach for the door handle, but I stopped, cringing inside, hating my body for overreacting. I hated the way it cropped up like that—the fear. My radar was broken.
He’d
broken it—that stupid jerk from Troy.

But Trent hadn’t noticed.

I tucked my hand under my leg and explained how Lisa had found a second blue eye, in her room, on her nightstand, next to the one she’d stolen.

“I’m pretty twisted,” Trent said, flicking his lighter. “But that’s some sick shit.” Two orange tongues reflected off his glasses as he bent to the flame and inhaled. “Who do you think’s messing with her?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But she’s losing it. She really thinks he’s stalking her.” I thought of the sensor light.
There are no monsters. Only creepy stepmoms.
“The crazy thing is,” I said, “she almost had me believing it, too.”

I was about to tell Trent about our midnight raid—I’m sure we’d scared the crap out of that poor homeless guy, bombing his shelter with rocks—but a boy with a lip ring knocked on the roof and leaned in. “Bar still open?” he asked.

Trent shuttled the bottles through the window. “Be discreet,” he warned, nodding his head toward the Nisky girls, posing beneath the streetlight, finger-combing their hair. But beer ended up out back anyway and so did Linda—to stay, circling the yard like a shark until everyone decided it was time to head over to Eric Stanley’s. He was having a party that night, too. His parents were on a cruise, I think. It didn’t matter. They had a pool. Foley probably just went straight there. Or he was with Jeanine. Or maybe he was out talking some girl off a ledge. You never knew with Foley. He was like a one-man crisis prevention hotline. Rachel offered me a ride, but I stayed to help Adam throw away cups and cans and cheese curls. It was my penance for being a jerk all night.

While Adam and Chris cleaned up the garage, I went around front and sat on the steps. Why was everything always so complicated? And what did my mom know anyway? When did she become an expert on love? She hadn’t even known my dad was having an affair until she found that charge on a credit card. Or that her son was gay until … well, I hadn’t known Scott was gay, either. Not until he told us. But it didn’t matter. She’d ruined my night. It wasn’t the first time I’d made myself miserable waiting for Foley, but that was before I had a good boyfriend, before I had Adam. A small voice in me blistered:
You shouldn’t be feeling what you’re feeling.

“Don’t be sad,” Chris said, startling me. “I’ll be back at Christmas.” Gripping my head, he climbed around me to the next step up and gave my shoulders a squeeze.

I was so distracted all night I’d forgotten he was leaving Sunday. I’d almost gone home without giving him a real good-bye. The porch light winked out and a toad jumped from the shadows. I crouched down and scooped him up. Bumpy and cold, his tiny throat pulsed beneath my fingers.

“I’ll call him Chris,” I said. And then to Adam, as he came slouching across the lawn: “Doesn’t he look like a Chris?”

Adam sat on his heels and chewed a cuticle, considering. “Mammalian Chris is browner than amphibian Chris,” he said. I agreed. Chris poked my ribs and then rested his chin on my shoulder and stroked the toad’s head through my cage of fingers.

“He’s a night creature,” Chris said, laughing. “I think ‘Adam’ is more appropriate—”

A car raced up the street, drowning him out. Brake lights flared. Someone jumped out of the passenger side and waved. “Hey, sorry I missed your party,” Foley called, jogging up the walk. He clapped Adam on the back and shook his hand, and then rushed toward me, stooped on the step with my heart in my throat. My muscles went weak. Foley opened his arms for a hug and I lost my grip. The toad wiggled from his cage and hopped away, vanishing in the grass.

seven

To:
[email protected]

From:
[email protected]

Subject:
SOS

I just wanted to put the fear of darkness in him.

It’s not like we didn’t try to get him to stop. We really did. But he wouldn’t. Things kept escalating. We had to do
something
.

Please come home.

I understand about you and Justin. Mom does, too. She didn’t mean the things she said—you know how she is. That was a pretty big bomb you dropped. How was she supposed to know? You had a girlfriend for three years. Lisa took it hard, too. She always had a not-so-secret crush on you. I think she dreamed that someday you’d see she wasn’t a kid anymore—your little sister’s best friend—and fall in love, just like in the movies. But it’s never like the movies, is it? Love?

Sometimes it feels like the ugliest thing he put in me that day is fear. I fight it, I do. But it’s there. And it hurts. I’ll get over it—I have to, right?—but I don’t ever want to hurt again.

I’m rambling. I know. This is turning into one of those e-mails Grandma sends, the ones where you scroll and scroll and never reach the end. It would be easier if you’d just answer your phone. It’s so quiet right now. Almost too quiet. I keep expecting the cops to show up any minute, pounding on the door, waking Mom, waking the neighbors, dragging me out to the street in cuffs. But I need help. I need someone to listen. I could go to Foley, but I never want to see him again.

I can’t sleep. I’m too afraid.

eight

If I ever make a movie with a grisly murder scene, I’ll film it in the Hillhurst Park bathroom. It’s one of those concrete block buildings with an L passage and a metal door that gets padlocked after dark. Inside, there’s a curtainless shower and four stalls with plywood doors you can see over and caged windows set high in the walls. Post-slaughter, a killer can wash the gore down the floor drain. I don’t know how I’ll capture the smell, which is always something funky.

That day it was rotten eggs.

Washing my hands, I checked my reflection in the polished metal over the sink. My blue streaks were fading. I needed more color. I tiptoed around the wet toilet paper stuck to the floor and held the door for a mother dragging a rabid toddler on a leash. Cue the screechy violins.