Текст книги "Twisted Fate"

Автор книги: Norah Olson

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

I probably did it to spite her, I can see that now. Syd told me to stay away from Graham and then she and Declan went over there. Watched movies with him. She literally did that the day after she told me not to hang out with him. I knew that he was just another boy she would treat badly. I’d seen her do it before. I wanted to be friends with him and I wanted to do something interesting in my life before I went off to college. Something daring. I wanted to be with someone who could appreciate me for who I was and also show me things I didn’t know about. Syd is so crazy the way she exaggerates. “Stay away from him or it’ll ruin everything we have,” she said. I mean, please. I was like, “What exactly do we have? We haven’t had one good conversation since we were ten years old.”

Syd never introduced me to her friends. We used to play with Becky together when we were little but Declan—I don’t think he’s even said a word to me. The two of them are always off together. If I come in the room and they are there, she pretends I’m not there and says “Let’s go” to him and he makes kind of an awkward face and then does whatever she wants. I started thinking about all the things Sydney had excluded me from. How after elementary school she pretty much ignored me at all times. And when she started smoking dope, and doing God knows what else she and her stoner friends get up to, it’s like I don’t even exist.

Graham was maybe the first person who hung out with us together a lot because he lived next door. And because of the way we met—all of us standing out there by the edge of the woods. We would sometimes hang out talking together. He seemed to really like both of us and be interested in both of us. He was weird and cool and had something rebellious in him like Syd and he cared about things the way I did. At first, I thought he was maybe one of those academic stars that she always liked to be around and then I realized he was gentler and shier. More like me.

Anyway I had all this on my mind and also the whole thing about going off to college. I used to look at it as a great adventure, but the closer I got to leaving the more I thought of it as being gotten rid of, maybe permanently. I know our parents loved me and that it wasn’t true but I felt like Sydney had outgrown everything about me and wanted me gone. I wanted to get away from her too. I did. But I couldn’t help feeling like I was the one who was being cast out and might never be a part of her life again. Even her talking about us coming together and being unified about things also freaked me out. For some reason it made me feel more like she was getting rid of me—not less. It was so unlike her. I just felt in those days like I was about to disappear.

So I did it. I did. I went over to his house because he invited me. And went up to his room. The house was amazing. Though it looked smaller than I thought it would be after seeing it from the outside. There were these tiny little paintings hanging all over. A whole wall taken up with miniatures that looked like they had been painted with a single eyelash they were so delicate. The house was really tastefully done. Not in the cozy New England style my mother preferred, but in a sophisticated way. Outside in the backyard there was a marble fountain with a single long smooth stone in the middle—it looked like one of those polished stone sculptures we studied in art history. I think the artist was Brancusi.

And I went up to his room. It was incredibly neat. Completely organized. It was more like a suite in a fancy hotel. He had his own bathroom connected to the room and the furniture was all really nice. He had a big old oak four-poster bed. The room was bright and on a corner with windows that overlooked the woods and also our house. His room was right across from our room. It was cool and quiet and he had shelves of interesting artifacts—things he said his parents and grandparents had brought back from traveling, or things people bought him as payment for the movies he made. He had more stuff than anyone I’d ever met. A massive record collection—I mean an actual vinyl record collection—that took up one wall of the room, another set of shelves from ceiling to floor lined with books, and another wall of electronic equipment—film stuff I guess. And then he had a closet full of stuff—some of it still in packages. Different kinds of cameras and lights and cables and microphones.

He also had an extremely thin flat-screen TV and that I guess is what we were going to watch his movies on—or that’s what he asked me over to do anyway: watch movies.

He hooked up his camera and I sat in a big comfortable leather chair in the corner by the windows and then he set up a tripod. He stood behind it looking at me and looking down at the camera every once in a while.

“Is this okay?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Sure. I guess.”

“You’re really beautiful,” he said, and I covered my face, embarrassed.

“Okay,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Allyson Tate.”

He looked confused for just a second and then smiled.

“Where do you live?”

“Next door to you.”

“You’re the girl next door.” He smiled and looked up at me as he said it.

I could feel myself blushing. “I am,” I said.

“Where do you go to school?” He adjusted some things on the camera. Messed with the focus or the light or something.

“RHS,” I said.

“What kinds of things do you like to do?”

I shrugged. “I like baking.” It made me smile to think about. “I like riding my bike. I like going out in the boat with my dad . . . gardening.”

He was looking very intently at me. Studying me, but also smiling. Boys have looked at me, of course they have, but I don’t think any boy had ever looked at me like that. Certainly not a boy as handsome as Graham Copeland.

“Where do you work?” he asked.

“Pine Grove Inn.”

“What are your hours?”

“You know . . . after school until nine on Wednesday and Thursday and then Saturday mornings. I also just come when they need me.”

“You’re a fascinating creature, Allyson Tate,” he said, and I shook my head. Even I knew that wasn’t true. I was a capable Mainer. I loved my parents and my little town and I would probably end up buying a house like my parents had and fixing it up and going sailing with my own kids when I grew up. I knew I wasn’t fascinating, that I probably looked like some girl from an L.L.Bean catalog. But maybe being happy with all the traditional things is what made me interesting to him. Maybe being able to find blueberry patches, to make a good “lobstah dinnah,” to winterize an old house, or to love your parents—maybe those were some rare qualities I’d overlooked in myself.

He came around from behind the camera and sat next to me. And we both looked awkwardly at the lens for a while.

“I have one more question,” he said.

I could feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Because I thought I knew what he was going to ask. “Okay,” I said.

“Can I kiss you?”

I took a sharp breath and then laughed. “But . . . with the . . .” I pointed at the camera.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “I mean, no if you don’t want to. Of course, if you don’t want to, but, uh . . . well . . . I just want to kiss you on camera so I can feel like I kissed a movie star. I don’t think I’ll believe it myself if I don’t have evidence. We can record over it. I just. I . . . ah. Never mind.”

I shook my head at him and laughed, and for a minute I didn’t even remember he was filming us at all. I didn’t care.

I could smell his hair, which was clean and smelled a little like cinnamon.

“I . . . um . . . sure,” I said. “Sure. Yes.” And I could feel my heart racing and I laughed again, not even knowing that I was going to.

And then he held my face in his hands and he kissed me. And then he kissed me again. And again. And again.

I felt so validated by the move to Maine. Things were going as planned. Graham was thriving. Simply thriving. He would have an amazing portfolio to send off to wherever he decided. And he seemed to have boundless energy. He wasn’t the shy, broken boy we arrived with. It was so gratifying for me to see him turning into a real artist. Someone who put the art before everything else. And just as I suspected that made him blossom, open up, start talking and thinking about things we were afraid he’d simply buried.

I think the best way to describe this brief period of his life is as a kind of creative atonement. It was astonishing how much he could do with the simple tools he had.

That second month in Maine was one of the best in our lives. David had cut back on his work and was around more. Helping Graham with his car. We ate dinner together every evening and screened films up in the attic room. Graham and I looked at each other’s work and gave each other comments and critiques. The first month was bumpy, but the second seemed magical. I could see how David and I were going to be when we were old and traveling to different countries to see the amazing art of our amazing son. I imagined it many times. But now those thoughts are just a memory. The last memory of happiness we have.

It was a big mistake to hit the pipe before I went down to breakfast. My mom was acting all weird and I couldn’t tell if it was because she was actually acting all weird or because I was high. She looked totally freaked-out, and at first I thought maybe she knew I was high or she found my stash or something. Or maybe it was the way I was dressed. I was all in black, but I had a fishing-line necklace I made out of sea glass and broken-up circuit boards that I thought was probably the coolest thing I’d ever made in my life, and generally my mom disapproved of me smashing up my electronics stuff and turning it into jewelry. She could be pretty conservative in her tastes, and I was waiting for a comment—then I realized there was something big going on. Something bad in the news.

I said, “What’s wrong?” and she just handed me the paper—she looked like she had been crying a little. I took it and looked at the headline: AMBER ALERT FOR ROCKLAND BOY, and a picture of this cute little chub in a baseball cap. I looked again and realized it was Brian Phillips—our cleaning lady’s son. He’d been over to the house plenty of times and was really sweet. I loved Brian Phillips! I even showed him how to write some code one day after school. My hands started shaking. I wished I wasn’t high. I felt sick.

“Oh my God!” I shouted. “This is terrible!”

My mother nodded and then she came over and put her arms around me. Hugged me tight I guess partly to reassure herself. “Jenny Phillips must be out of her mind with worry,” she said, still holding me.

“I can’t imagine,” I said, hugging her back. I put my head on her shoulder. The news was the biggest, most terrible buzzkill ever, and I barely felt high anymore, just really upset.

The story in the paper said that the last time Brian was seen was by his friends just before he took the turn off to the street where he lived. That was after school yesterday at about 3:10. Around 3:40 his mother started calling his friends, and then at 4:30 she called the police. Someone must have taken him between his house and the corner.

Unfortunately there were no witnesses.

My mom started crying. “We should have paid her more,” she said suddenly. “She would have been able to get him a phone if she had more money, or be there to pick him up herself if she didn’t have to work so hard. Why didn’t we pay her more? We could afford it. Oh, poor Jenny.” Then I hugged her while she cried on my shoulder. “Poor little Brian,” she kept saying. “Poor little guy.”

I said, “It’s not your fault, Mom. It’s going to be okay. They’ll find him.” She nodded and apologized for crying and then started crying again.

I didn’t feel like eating. I just had a glass of orange juice and then headed off to school.

“Be careful, Becky,” my mom said. “Please. Just call me when you get to school today, Okay? Just this once.”

“I will, Mom,” I said. “Don’t worry, someone will find him.” I left her sitting, stunned, in front of the television. Listening for any updates about the AMBER Alert.

I got outside and could see what the news had already done. I don’t think there was one kid or even a group of kids walking without someone’s mom or dad right there with them. It was like the whole town had become tense and paranoid overnight. Brian was a really nice little kid. He was the kind of kid who just talked to everyone, super friendly and chatty and kinda never stopped talking. Lots of people knew him because of that, which I thought was a good thing. It seemed likely someone would recognize him—and I thought he’d be more likely to find a way to get help, to talk to someone.

I walked up Euclid Avenue and stopped at the corner to light a cigarette and to wait for Tate and Declan so we could walk the rest of the way to school. I figured they would have heard the news, but I could tell even watching them walk from a distance that they hadn’t. They were laughing and bumping shoulders as they walked.

When they got close enough to see my face, Tate said, “Whoa, what’s up, Becks?”

“Brian Phillips was kidnapped,” I said.

“Who?”

“Little Brian! Jenny Phillips’s kid? Our cleaning lady’s kid. Don’t you know him? He’s a cute chubby little motormouth, talks about X-Men?”

At that they looked at each other and their eyes went wide.

“Oh my God!” Tate said, turning pale.

“We just saw him last week,” Declan said, trying to sound calm. “Talking to Graham.”

I started getting rides home with him every day after school. Syd was usually in detention so she wasn’t there to hassle me. He’d pick me up in the Austin and we’d drive home along the harbor looking at the ocean, sometimes stop at the beach. Sometimes we’d get out and walk along and collect stones. And he always brought his camera. He’d ask me questions or film the ocean rolling in. I got used to being with him and to being on film and to the quiet times we had.

He did take drugs for his ADHD and for the stuff he had gone through. I didn’t pressure him to tell me what had happened back in Virginia. But he told me most of it and I knew those were things I should keep to myself. He’d been hurt enough without everyone in Rockland finding out what happened. I knew he had different conversations with Syd than he had with me and I didn’t care. I knew she was interested in the drugs he was taking and the problems he’d had but I was interested in how things could be better for him. I believed in him and I believed in his art. And I liked being independent of Syd. I liked what knowing him was doing to me. How it was changing me.

We were at the pier and the ocean breeze was blowing my hair and my skirt. The salt air and ocean smell at once familiar and exotic. Graham put his arm around me and pulled me closer to him to keep me warm and we listened to the waves and to the stones clacking together as the sea washed over them

“I had a dream about you last night,” he said. “I had a dream we were out in the Austin driving along these winding roads and I was filming you and your hair was whipping around in the wind and you were laughing. You were standing up on the seat with your arms stretched out. It was like you could fly.”

I nestled my head against his chest as we walked. “What else happened?”

I didn’t look up but could feel him smiling beside me. That way he had where he would go quiet and just grin. He was always some strange combination of shy and confident, I couldn’t quite explain.

“You said you wanted to go visit Eric, to meet Eric.”

I nodded. “I do want to visit Eric,” I said. “He sounds really cool.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe we can. And then in the dream I pulled you back down into the seat and then suddenly we were out in this field of red flowers by this bridge and there was fog and smoke everywhere and we were kissing and . . . you know, we were, uh . . . it was . . .”

I knew what he meant. I’d had dreams like this about him too. I would never think to tell him about them though and I felt like he was really brave to bring it up, to even be able to talk like this.

“Did you have a girlfriend back in Virginia?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No. I mean, I had crushes on people, but really I spent all my time with Eric. I didn’t take things very seriously, I guess. I didn’t know how to ask a girl out. What about you? Did you ever have a boyfriend?”

I said, “Nobody all that important, I guess.”

“What about Declan?”

“What?” I asked. “Declan?” This was just weird. I mean I know he saw Declan probably coming and going from our house all the time but clearly he had to know who he was visiting.

“Declan is Syd’s friend,” I said.

Graham looked really uncomfortable to have even brought it up.

“I think he’s more than her friend,” he said. “Uh . . . so . . . you’ve never been interested in him?”

He started to sound a little jealous and I really couldn’t figure out why.

I said, “Declan? No. Of course not. I wouldn’t even think of it.”

Uh, hello? Can you tell me why we are sitting in the Laundromat?”

“Shh. Don’t be fucking stupid. I’m trying to think. And can you come up with a better place to meet?”

“Um . . . ,” Becky said, “how about anywhere else?”

“Brilliant,” I said. “That’s a brilliant and creative suggestion.”

I went over to the vending machine and got a Coke and a bag of Fritos and then sat back in one of the rolling metal baskets and hung my legs over the side. And Becky did the same. She fiddled with her nose ring and then held her hand out for the Coke and I passed it to her.

“Remember when we put Declan in the dryer and turned it on?”

I laughed. A few years ago Declan was shorter than Becky and super skinny and we used to hang out in the Laundromat eating candy and taking turns going for a spin in the dryer. But once we got more into skateboarding and could drive we didn’t hang out there anymore. We’d get high and walk out to Friendly’s and eat ice cream and then skate in the parking lot until they kicked us out.

But I still liked the Laundromat; there was something about it that reminded me of simpler times and I liked to go there to just watch people or think. When I was little sometimes my parents weren’t home to make dinner because of work and I’d get change out of the big jar in the living room and walk down to the Laundromat and get lots of candy from the vending machine and sit there, watching people do their laundry. It was kinda comforting just watching people fold clothes as the sun was going down. I didn’t usually know them, they were just adults doing household stuff and it was nice to talk to them sometimes. Like we kept each other company. I remember one time my parents came home and couldn’t find me and I was at the Laundromat. After that Ally got all freaked-out about me going there and told me to stay home. Anyway. It was a place I came sometimes to clear my head a little when things got stressful or confusing.

“It’s so fucked-up about Brian,” Becky said. She’d been really worried about the kid and I guess the whole town was and maybe that’s why we were back there eating junk food and sitting in the rolling baskets. Maybe it made the town feel normal and boring again. Or it would have felt normal and boring if there weren’t Missing posters with Brian’s picture on them hanging on the bulletin board. What had happened was starting to change us. Make us grow up a little I guess.

“Maybe we can do something to help find him,” I said.

“Listen, Tate,” Becky said. “Don’t even start in about Graham being some kind of stalker creep child molester or something. He made one of those films of me and I’m fine, and besides, you said the cops were already over at his house. If there was something to find, don’t you think they would have?”

“No, no, no. I know, I’m not saying he kidnapped Brian. I’m saying maybe we can help find who did it. Graham talked a lot to the kid. Maybe he knows something or figured something out, some clue.”

I was thinking about this one time me, Becky, and Declan hitchhiked far out into the country and pretended we were lost and then knocked on people’s doors to ask them for directions. We weren’t lost. I don’t know why we did it. We were just curious about what the insides of people’s houses looked like. And as usual we were bored out of our minds.

This got me thinking about how the cops would be searching for Brian.

“Hey, that’s it!” I said.

“What’s it?” Becky said with a mouth full of Fritos.

“We’ll do the ‘We’re lost, can we use your bathroom?’ thing.”

“You really think this is the time to do something like that? God, Tate, stick with something. I thought you wanted to try to find Brian.”

“Duh. This is how I want to try to find him,” I said. “The cops can only cover so much ground and regular people aren’t allowed to snoop around people’s houses.”

“You want to go looking for a missing kid by walking into people’s houses? Why are you so crazy? I mean, really, do you even know why you are so crazy?”

“It’s not crazy, Becks. Better yet, we can be all like, Hey, I’m lost, can we use your computer to email my mom, and then we check what websites they’ve been on.”

“So okay, we’re going into the house of someone who may, like, molest or kidnap kids. That’s a place we’re trying to get into? And they’re just going to let us on their computers based on a really, really dumb idea.”

I said, “It’s worth a try. Otherwise we just sit around here feeling weird and freaked-out, and I am not about feeling weird and freaked-out.”

She sighed and drank more of the Coke and then looked again at the Missing picture. He was wearing his X-Men T-shirt in it and smiling. Becky’s eyes filled with tears.

I reached over and held her hand. “What is he like?”

She shrugged. “He used to come with his mom and hang out and read comics when she was cleaning. I remember he was really sweet. He came up to my room once and I showed him how to make things on the computer. We used to get him to talk about stuff because he had such a cute little voice. I dunno. I always thought he was a cool little kid, you know?”

“IS a cool little kid,” I said. “And we can help look for him.”

“Okay. Yeah.” Becky’s voice was hoarse and she wiped her eyes. “It’s better than doing nothing. Do you think Graham can really help with this?”

I nodded. I didn’t tell her about all the feelings I had about Graham or about the fact that he was already trying to get with Ally. My feelings about him were all mixed-up. But if there was a chance to help this little kid I was going to take it.

If there’s one thing I’m good at it’s taking chances.