Текст книги "Twisted Fate"

Автор книги: Norah Olson

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

We left the Laundromat and walked through the winding roads back into our neighborhood and headed to Declan’s. I remember feeling like we had a sense of purpose at last. Not just about finding Brian, but in general. I remember thinking that Brian going missing somehow revealed what our lives were really like. We generally didn’t do much. We listened to music and skated and went to school and got stoned. Sometimes my parents decided I should go sailing with them or go to a party.

I suddenly had this sense that maybe all the nothing we did wasn’t really our fault. The cutting class and doing nothing and sitting in the Laundromat or at the beach or out in the woods just waiting for whatever—waiting for our lives to begin. Those things weren’t entirely because we were bad kids. It’s just that there wasn’t much to do unless you were like Ally and got a kick out of baking muffins. There was a whole world out there that we were going to inherit and it wasn’t a very good one.

I know Ally saw the good in everything—even in the end she saw the good in everything. But me, I wanted to change things so that when I finally got out of Rockland and made my own way it would be in a better place. The problem was I didn’t know how to do it. And every time I felt like I might be figuring it out something came up that swept it all away. It might not be our fault we were like this, but we were the only ones who could do anything to change it. If we wanted things to be better we had to do it. We had to work together and do it. The AMBER Alert for Brian and everyone coming together made me feel something I had never felt before and that was part of a community. Part of a big group of people who look out for one another.

That evening with Becky and Declan, I felt like we were good people. Like we were the children of this town and we were trying to help other children in the town. The adults may not be doing a great job all the time and some of them were probably actually dangerous. But other people were doing so much and felt so touched and hurt by what happened. It was all one more thing that made me want to change. Made me want to understand Ally, made me want to do what Richards wanted. I guess when Brian went missing it was another turning point for me. Made me think in ways I never had or never had to before.

Declan was sitting on his porch waiting for us. His house was an enormous rambling Victorian with stained-glass windows, a porch swing, and several comfortable wicker chairs scattered about the overgrown lawn, which was full of wildflowers. As usual he was sitting on the floor on the porch surrounded by a pile of books, looking like he didn’t even notice us until we were standing right in front of him. And at that point he said, “Greetings, earth women. According to your eight texts, a Facebook chat, and five voice mails, we are endeavoring to discover some information from a handsome arty dullard about a sweet little boy.”

Becky rolled her eyes and shook her head. But when Declan looked up he looked serious and worried.

“That’s correct,” I said.

“Sadly,” he went on, “I am preoccupied with some reading for my AP history class, which I have not attended in some weeks. So I don’t know that I’ll be all that much help.”

“Of course you will,” I said. “Ditch the studying for tonight. We’re just going to go over and see if Graham has any movies of Brian that might help us out and then maybe go around and do the fake ‘We’re lost’ thing so we can get more information.”

“The fake-lost thing might be a challenge,” he said. “But I’m up for screening the handsome Art Dullard’s movies. Let’s go.” He grabbed his jean jacket off the back of the chair, slipped his bare feet into his black Vans, brushed his long black hair out of his eyes.

“Can you guys not call him Art Dullard?” Becky asked.

“Why?” we said in unison. Then, “Jinx,” which we also said in unison.

“Because he’s cool as hell, that’s why. And he’s going to help us.”

“Fair enough,” said Declan. “I’ll let up on the nicknaming until we have further information about his character and intentions.”

We walked through the neighborhood and even though we had a purpose and Declan had been trying to keep things light with his usual joking around, things felt terribly heavy and sad. I could tell Becky was having a hard time not thinking about Brian. And I knew the three of us had probably pictured some awful thing happening to him.

When we got back to my driveway, we expected to see Graham on the other side tinkering around in the garage with the Austin. But he wasn’t there so we rang the doorbell.

A tall very handsome old guy—Graham’s dad, David—answered the door. And smiled.

“Is Graham home?” I asked.

“Oh, hey, Tate, sure, just a minute.” He took out his phone and texted something, then asked us to come into the house. Apparently yelling up the stairs wasn’t done around here—or maybe Graham just wouldn’t be able to hear him. We stood in the front hall and looked around. As usual the massive weird paintings by Graham’s stepmom, Kim, seemed to take up all the space around us.

“Would you guys like something to drink? Or a snack?” David asked. He had sweet kind worried-looking eyes.

I said, “No thanks,” thinking about all the junk food we’d eaten earlier.

But Becky said, “Yes please,” at the same time. Then his phone buzzed and he looked at it. “Graham will be right down. I’ll go get some refreshments.”

When David headed down the hall to the kitchen, Kim came around the corner holding a glass of wine. She was wearing khaki pants with paint all over them and a man’s button-down shirt. Her hair was up in a loose bun. She smiled when she saw us standing there. I remember thinking how smart she looked. Like she had a look on her face where she seemed to understand everything that was going on and to be deep in thought. Studying us as we stood there.

“Hi, Tate,” she said. And then she reached out to shake Becky’s hand. “I’m Kim,” she said. She nodded at Declan.

These people were very different from other people’s parents that I knew. They seemed somehow more there. They really looked at you and asked you questions. And they seemed to be very concerned, but they also treated you like an adult, didn’t ask a bunch of silly questions about school but just talked about regular stuff.

Graham’s dad came out of the kitchen with a plate that had fancy crackers and cheese on it and a bowl full of tiny black olives. He set it on the coffee table in the living room and then pulled three little bottles of San Pellegrino from the pocket of his sports jacket and handed them to us. We sat in a row on the couch under Kim’s massive painting of a jellyfish. The house was so immaculately clean and bright and smelled good. I remember thinking how weird it was that this place was right next door to my own house, which felt more cavernous and dark and dusty, like the hold of an antique ship. And except for the rooms where Mom entertained historical society people, it was always filled with one construction project or another. Pretty much the only thing that made my house feel like a home was the smell of the muffins Ally baked all the time.

We were not used to this kind of snack or this kind of hospitality from adults and it was like I could hear Becky’s voice in my head saying, “See? They are so cool,” but that’s probably because she said it about Graham once an hour.

David sat down across from us and Kim stood in front of the bookcase near their grand piano, still holding her wine. And then Graham came downstairs looking like he’d escaped from some completely other world. His hair messy, his expression slightly dazed, his clothes rumpled. He looked high.

“Looks like someone’s been making art,” Kim said. “He’s got the unmistakable halo of creation about him.”

Graham laughed and looked a little embarrassed. He took a couple olives out of the bowl and popped them into his mouth.

“You guys want to come upstairs?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

David said, “We’re ordering Thai food later—is there anything special you’d like us to get?”

Declan and Becky and I looked at each other. We didn’t even know you could order Thai food in Rockland. Or really what it even was.

“Maybe just four pad thais?” Graham said.

“Gotcha,” his dad said, and nodded.

“Could we eat it in the screening room?” Declan asked.

“Of course,” Kim said. “Wherever you’re going to be working, we’ll bring it up.”

I remember thinking how funny it was Kim thought we would be working on something instead of just hanging out. She thought of everything as some kind of art project or the planning for some kind of art project. But actually I guess we would be working. Strategizing, and even I had to admit it was very cool of them to see it that way.

Graham grabbed the bowl of olives and we followed him upstairs. Through the maze of rooms and hallways into his back bedroom.

“What’s up, you guys?”

“Not much,” I said. “You’ve heard about Brian, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah, it’s so messed up. I was just talking to him last week.”

Becky said, “That’s why we’re here. We thought maybe you had something on your film that would be a clue. You filmed a lot at that park, right?”

“Yeah, and at the school and all around there. You’re right. I didn’t even think there might be something on the films.”

“Can we watch them?” Declan asked.

“Hell yeah!” he said.

We sat on the floor in his room and he opened his Mac Air and looked at it for several minutes. “Yeah, okay, all the files are here. And the raw stuff before I edited it into the main movie. Let’s take this to the screening room.”

We followed him down another long hallway to the back stairs and then went up to the third floor, to the tiny dark theater where Declan and I had first seen his work and where Declan had first got the idea to christen him “Art Dullard.”

But now we were all nervous and anxious to see the movies. I really felt like we were going to find Brian’s kidnapper. That Graham might have even captured him on film. Graham attached his laptop to the projector and then Brian’s soft round face filled the screen. Becky took a sharp breath and then started crying.

“What are you up to?” Graham’s voice asked on the audio.

“I’m headed to Professor Xavier’s house,” Brian said.

“Oh yeah? What are you going to do there?”

“Meet up with my friends, because we all have the X-Gene.”

“You’re an X-Man?”

Brian nodded and held out his arm for the camera to inspect. He had drawn the word X-Man on himself in magic marker.

Graham’s voice said, “That’s awesome, dude.”

In the background when the camera pans back you can see there are several people sitting in the park. A guy reading the newspaper, a couple walking past, Brian’s mother and baby sister perched on a bench across the way.

“Wait,” Declan said. “Go back and pause it.”

Graham did and we looked at a guy wearing a blue sweat suit, who seemed to be looking right at Brian as he walked past.

“What time is that on the footage?”

“Four forty-three,” Graham said.

Declan pulled a little notebook out of his pocket and wrote something down. We did that for every part of the film where some stranger appeared or someone seemed to be looking at Brian.

The film was just Graham talking to Brian. Asking him questions that were the little-kid version of what he had asked Becky when he filmed her.

“Where do you live? How old are you? What’s your favorite food? What’s your favorite show? Where do you go to school? Where do you like to play? Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

All his answers were kinda cute and funny because he had a squeaky voice and he talked a lot—for every answer he would practically give his whole life story.

“My mom used to pick me up because she was working, but now she’s home with the baby and I walk home by myself and have to be really quiet because she’s taking a nap but usually my mom takes a nap too before our gramma gets there and then she has to go to work again. I can even go home by myself when no one’s there. I’m Wolverine.”

“How do you get home from school?” Graham asked.

“I take Sunnyside Drive and then my friends keep going to Demerest Parkway and I turn down Hendy Creek by myself.”

“Do you ever walk along the creek?”

“Sometimes.”

Declan and I exchanged looks. I knew he was thinking what I was thinking. I felt my heart pounding and like I was going to throw up.

“Wait,” I said. “Wait a minute. Who besides us has seen this movie?”

Graham shrugged. “Anybody can buy it from my site.”

“What?” Becky asked, suddenly shocked.

“I have a site and you can buy any of my stuff about Rockland or my experimental stuff; once the payment processes, the file downloads. I told you, people have spent hundreds of dollars, sometimes more, for my films. I wasn’t lying. I need to make money so I can do my major feature-length film.”

Declan looked like he was going to be sick. “Graham,” he said. “Do you know who downloads the films—is there a record?”

“I guess. It’s all through PayPal and my Amazon wish list. People buy me things from my wish list and then they get the movie. The ones of kids talking are pretty popular because I guess everyone loves kids. I actually thought I’d film Brian for a long time—like over his life, so you can see how he changes. Like in the documentary 35 Up. Have you seen it?”

“Graham,” Becky said, her voice shaking. “This movie has all of Brian’s personal information in it.”

“I know. It’s amazing how much he talks.”

“No,” she said. “I mean, you sold this thing and it has the kid’s address and everything on it.”

“Yours does too,” he said. Still seeming not to get it.

Becky glanced at me with incredulous fury and was about to say something to Graham but Declan cut her off.

“We have to take this to the police and find out who downloaded the movie,” Declan said.

Then Graham started to look freaked-out. “Oh my God, no way! We cannot take any of this to the police.”

“We have to!” I shouted. “Are you crazy? This kid could be out there and maybe they could find him right away because of this.”

Graham stood up and started pacing around.

“No,” he said. “No way. I didn’t do this so someone would hurt Brian. This is just a movie.”

“Didn’t you ever wonder why so many people were buying your movies?” Declan asked.

“Because they’re good!” Graham said. Then he looked sheepish and shrugged like maybe he did know. “Whatever,” he said defensively. “This is my job and my art; I’m not going to go to the police and have them take everything away from me. This is just what happened with the stuff me and Eric made. Why can’t people understand art when they see it?”

Declan and I exchanged shocked looks.

“What kind of movies did you and Eric make?” Declan asked.

“Beautiful movies,” he said. “Beautiful, beautiful movies.”

He called me in the middle of the night and his voice was rough with sleep or sleeplessness.

“You can’t let them do this to me,” he said. “You understand how I feel and what I’m doing. I don’t know why everyone tries to blame me for the things that go wrong.”

“Shhh,” I whispered into the phone, and then slipped out of bed and into the bathroom so I could have more privacy. “What’s going on?”

“You can’t let them take this stuff to the police. I had nothing to do with what happened to Brian.”

“Shh. Shh. Shh. It’s okay.”

“Meet me outside,” he said. “Down in my backyard by the fountain.”

I would have said no but he sounded so upset and frightened I agreed. “Okay,” I said. “Ten minutes.”

I had never done anything like this in my life but I had never heard someone sound so afraid before. I put on my sweatshirt and wool socks, then grabbed my shoes and carried them down the stairs so I wouldn’t make noise. Then I crept quietly over the creaky floors to the back door and slipped out.

The sky was a deep black-blue and stars shone brightly down. The moon was a little silver crescent. I could see him already beneath the fountain staring into the woods. He was wearing a black hoodie with a flannel shirt under it and his same Diesel jeans. He had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. The water in the fountain was burbling. It shone liquid and lovely in the starlight. Even though he was upset and I was doing something I shouldn’t be doing I had an incredible sense of freedom being outside in secret with no one around.

When he saw me, he ran forward and held me in his arms. Rested his head on my shoulder. I could feel how much he needed to be hugged and we stood that way for a long time.

“What’s going on?” I said finally.

He looked at me annoyed and confused for a moment and then shook his head. “Please, you have to know I had nothing to do with anything bad that may have happened to Brian. I thought he was a nice kid and a really interesting subject.”

I laughed a little at the way he said it. “Yeah,” I said. “I know you did.”

“Don’t let Declan and Becky go to the police.”

“I can’t make Syd and her friends do anything,” I said.

He held both my hands and squeezed them and looked intently into my face.

“You can, though. You can influence her. You can talk to her. Listen, you and me understand each other. I know we do. We know what it’s like to be shy and outside and different and see things that other people don’t.”

He was staring at me so intensely and his face was beautiful and pale in the starlight. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes looked dark and frightened like an animal’s.

“I don’t know anything about this,” I said. “If you have some information the police need maybe you could just give it to them yourself. You can explain that you were working on this documentary. You just give them what you have. I don’t think they would take it away from you.”

He looked like he was thinking about it. “I’m afraid,” he said.

“Don’t be afraid. People know you don’t mean any harm. You could be a hero.” I watched a wave of relief pass over his face.

“I don’t know how I got to have you in my life,” he said. And then he held me and kissed me. He laid the blanket down in the dewy leaf-strewn grass and then we lay down together beside the burbling fountain. He put his hands inside my sweatshirt and I held his head and kissed him.

Being beside him, and taking care of him that way, made my heart race and when he pressed himself against me I did not say no. I did not push him away. I held him tight and felt our hearts beating in unison. Felt our hearts beating as one. And I knew then I would protect him. Just like I had always protected Syd.

When I slipped back into my room at three a.m. she was awake. Sitting up in bed with her arms folded.

“Where were you?”

“I went for a walk,” I said. Already feeling like this was some kind of weird role reversal.

“A walk into Graham’s backyard?”

I could feel my face flushing. She took Sparkle Pig from her bed and threw it at me. “What the hell are you doing, Ally? What is going on?”

“Graham’s worried you and your friends are going to report him to the police.”

“Don’t you ever wonder why he is so freaked-out about the police?”

“No,” I said. “Lots of people are freaked-out by the police. You and your pothead friends are freaked-out by the police.”

“Don’t you wonder why he goes to school only when he feels like it and he’s always hanging around with his cameras and he acts so spaced-out?”

“We both know the answers to those questions,” I said simply. I was not going to get into her hysterical immature way of being. And frankly I didn’t care. It might have been one of the most special nights of my life and I wasn’t going to let her ruin it with her negative way of thinking.

“Ally,” she said. “I’m worried about you. Graham has made a bunch of weird movies and he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with them or with selling them to strangers online. He made one of Brian and he made one of Becky and God knows who else. We watched some of them yesterday and thinking that anyone could get ahold of these is really scary.”

“It’s no different than Facebook,” I said. “It’s the same as having a Tumblr account.” Which were things I had heard Graham say before.

“It’s very different from Facebook,” Syd said.

“Listen,” I said. “He knows what the right thing to do is and he’ll do it. It’s not up to us to go to the police or mess with his life.”

“Oh my God, Ally! It’s totally up to us. If we have information and we do nothing about it and something happens to Brian, it will be our fault too. We will have helped the person who took him.”

“That’s assuming the person who took him had any knowledge of Graham’s movies, which they probably didn’t.”

“But even if there is only the slightest chance they did, it should be reported.”

“He’s going to go to the police himself.”

“What? How do you know?” Syd asked.

“Because I asked him to,” I said simply. “Because he knows it’s the right thing to do. You can’t blame him for being scared. After the way his whole life was turned upside down.”

“How was his whole life turned upside down?” she asked. “I don’t think anyone has any clue what happened in Virginia.”

“I have a clue,” I said quietly

“What?” she whispered fiercely. “Ally, tell me.”

“He and Eric made some movies and they got in trouble for it. The same kind of thing I guess where they were young and Eric’s family thought the movies were really offensive. Also they were filming and not paying attention and they crashed the Austin. I think actually they may have crashed the Austin on purpose because of how it would look on film and then that’s where all the trouble started. After that they found all the other movies and Eric’s family made a big deal of it and sued Graham’s family and they haven’t seen each other since even though they were friends since they were three. Can you imagine not being able to talk to Becky ever again?”

“Yes, okay, I get that some weird shit happened, but what were the movies? Do you think they were . . . Do you think they were like porn or something?” Even as she said it, I could see it interested her more than disgusted her.

“No,” I said. “I don’t. He’s too shy, you don’t know him like I do. I think they were probably something as silly as Becky smoking or Brian talking about X-Men. Just nothing. He said they thought they were making something that expressed how beautiful life was, but people twisted it the wrong way. He said he has only one copy of the movie left that no one knows about and he’s going to make it part of a bigger movie and then sell it—maybe get an art agent or a gallery interested in his stuff. But he’s had to hide all these things and if he had to go to the police, it would ruin everything he’s worked for and get him in more trouble and probably make his parents take his camera away.”

She was very quiet, thinking. I came over and lay on her bed next to her. She wasn’t really mad. We were both exhausted and I was flushed with the joy of being with Graham; I could still feel the amazing warmth of his skin against mine. I sighed and she ran her fingers through my hair.

“Ally,” she said. “He didn’t make one of those movies of you, did he?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I whispered, exasperated at her questions. “It doesn’t matter if he did. They’re just movies. They’re art. They’re documenting our lives. Everybody with a Twitter account does the same thing.”

I looked up at her and saw her concerned face. Neither of us had the energy for another fight. She was quiet, lost in thought. But when she spoke again she only said, “I’m sorry I threw Sparkle Pig.”

I said, “That’s okay. It’s better than when you stabbed him with the sewing scissors.”

“He needed surgery,” she said, starting to laugh a little. “He needed weight-loss surgery.”

And then I don’t know why but I just threw my arms around her and squeezed her tight. I said, “I love you, Syd.”

“Oh God,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Hey, what’s this about? Why are you all sentimental? Are you getting your period?” Then she looked down into my face. “Oh . . . my . . . God,” she said slowly. “Did you and Graham . . . ? Did you?”

I nodded and she smiled a confused smile at me and shook her head and then she kissed me on top of my head. “I love you too, Ally, and I know you’re in love.” She was silent for a time, and then she said, “But please. Don’t let him come between us.”