Encore to an Empty Room (17 page)

I don't know if I believe her, but she's nursing the same one an hour later when I start to fall asleep in my seat. I excuse myself to my makeshift bed on the floor, leaving Val to bond with her old friend.

My head feels full of thoughts about Denver, about tomorrow and learning more of Eli's dark past, about the interview I'm missing, but I'm so tired, I fall asleep almost the moment my head hits the pillow.

“Summer.”

I roll over and find Val lying beside me, propped on her elbow. She's wearing a tank top, her hair just-showered wet. It hits me in a fuzzy, just-waking way, that Val is pretty hot. Or more like . . . primal? Elemental? Neither of those are quite right. It's something, though.

Also, she's just staring at me.

“What?” I roll over, my back aching. I slept on a yoga mat, huddled under a meager blanket. I tap my phone. “It's only eight.”

I'm aware now of the layers of snoring from around us. From the loft, the couch. There's a lump in the kitchen, hugging an enormous killer whale pillow.

“Are you awake?” Val asks.

“Um, now that you woke me up. What's going on?” My mouth tastes like the arm of a couch.

“We need to go.”

“Where?”

She's still gazing at me, her eyes sideways, and except for my assumption that she's human, and given that humans blink on average every ten seconds, I can't be sure that her eyelids have actually moved.

“Princeton,” she finally says.

I sit up. My head swims with fuzzy exhaustion. “Wait. Why?”

“There's a couple things I forgot when I split. It's okay. Mom and the boyfriend will be at work.”

“Isn't that really risky? Aren't we trying to be sure they don't know you're here?”

She nods. “Please.”

I shiver. This apartment is frigid. “Okay. But I demand a quality New York bagel and coffee.”

I dig into my bag for my toiletry kit, then shuffle into the bathroom. In the clinical fluorescent light, I don't like what I see. The dark circles under my eyes. Hair matted and brittle with the winter dry. My cheeks and lips seem limp, like I've aged two decades on this tour.

I sit on the ice-cold toilet, brushing my teeth. A spear of yellow hits my face. The sun cresting the craggy line of rooftops outside, the light splayed by ice crystals in spiking patterns on the glass. It's beautiful and alien. Deodorant, water on my face, can't find soap anywhere. Oh well.

“There's a nine forty-five train we need to catch if we want to meet the boys at the Hard Rock,” Val says as I get on my coat.

I glance at my bag, feeling the urge to bring it, but also not wanting to lug it all day. “We're coming back here, aren't we? I need to shower and stuff.”

“Definitely. Come on.”

We slip out. Our breath makes clouds as we descend the flights of warped stairs. Outside, I check my email and realize my battery is at about half. Forgot to charge it overnight, and . . . damn, just left the charger back in the apartment.

“I need to go back,” I say.

“We don't have time. Unless you want to skip the coffee.”

Coffee or guaranteed battery life? No one should have to choose between these two things, ever . . . “Coffee.”

We file along with the swift pace of the sidewalk crowd, then wait in line for bagels that don't disappoint and coffee that does. Val goes for the lox and onions, I just stick with plain cream cheese. The bagel is somehow crispy and chewy and well worth needing to ration my battery usage all day.

The sky is frigid blue, too cold for clouds. The steam billowing from vents and building tops has a cottony weight, its edges aglow with the bright, angled sun. We pass through gusts of hot-dog smell, pretzel smell,
shawarma smell, through packs of tourists and schools of commuters. The wind gusts between the buildings and each time I shiver and hunch over further and just try to keep up with Val, who is like a mole burrowing through the woolen shoulders.

We duck into a subway station and grab the 6 uptown. We sit on the smooth seats and Val's head lolls back against the window, sunglasses still on, her skin corpse gray.

“How are you doing?” I ask her.

“Ugh. I feel like death.”

“Did you drink more last night?”

“Don't get all after-school special on me, Catherine. I've had friends who were in rehab at fifteen. Do you know what it's like to drink a fifth of vodka before first period?”

“No.”

“Neither do I. But I know what it's like to drag that person to the car and the ER. I also know what it feels like to be too late. . . .”

She sits up, clasping her hands and staring at the floor. “Neeta is one of my good friends from back in those days. And yes, I am aware that ever since Christmas I've been drinking too much and acting out, and any good shrink would say that this is due to the mounting psychological pressure of proximity to my mother. My mother with a drug problem. Does Val have her mom and dad's same weaknesses? Will she succumb to those same vices? Find out this week on
Children of the Dead and Negligent
.”

I smile. “Yeah, well, you've given us reason to worry, don't you think?”

“I'm not proud. So, how's Ethan?” she asks, as if she'd actually answered my question.

“Still Ethan,” I say. “Why?”

“You two had a romantic stroll after hours in Denver, that's why.”

“I was looking for you. And also avoiding a contact high and not fitting in.”

“See, this is exactly my point,” says Val. “You had your reasons. I'm going to respect those reasons.”

“I respect yours.”

“Actually, I believe you. Just tell me you didn't . . . with Ethan . . .”

“Ugh, no! You mean like what you did with Matt?”

Val smiles devilishly. “I know, I'm terrible. But you know what's even better at reducing stress than drugs . . .”

I shoot her a look of feigned shock. “Caleb and I have not had nearly enough time for that this week with Randy around.”

“Ugh.” Val wrinkles her nose. “You are talking about my brother.”

“Yup. And this is what he likes.” I do a little shimmy.

Val completely cracks up. I'm pretty sure it's the first time I've ever made her laugh.

Then she says, “But Ethan's into you.”

“He's only into me because he can't stand to have
anyone hate him. And because I'm around. I can handle it. And being business friends with him is better than being enemies.”

“Business friends? That sounds hot.”

“Shut up. It's so not hot. What's hot is when me and your brother—”

“Okay, okay. Fair enough.”

I can't believe Val and I are dishing about boys, but then a cloud crosses her face and she sighs and slips in her earbuds without a word.

We change trains and get to Penn Station. Val hustles us to a ticket machine, and we run for the Princeton-bound train.

We settle into higher backed, softer seats, and as the train pulls out and shuttles through a dark tunnel, I succumb to dry-eyed sleep.

My phone wakes me, buzzing against my leg. I pull myself up from the sweatshirt pillow I'd propped against the window. Outside the world is bright and white and brown. Old snow and bare trees.

Val is wide-awake beside me, staring at the scenery. I wonder how it feels to be coming home. I'd ask her, but her earbuds are still in, the music loud enough that I can hear its tinny echoes.

I get out my phone and find the screen full.

“Don't tell him where we are,” says Val. She's looking over my shoulder. “He'll freak.”

I glance at her. And so we are bonded by secrets.

And I know she also saw that Ethan text.

Which I am not replying to. I do write back to Caleb:

I feel a little sick typing this.

Shit. It's already 10:25.

“Just tell him I'm grumpy about that,” Val says, still reading along. “That will buy us the extra time.”

I resist the usual social media business I would normally attend to. Have to save battery. Not that I can post any photos from this clandestine trip anyway. A secret journey within a secret journey.

Instead, I lean back and watch the yards and houses sliding by.

We have to transfer to another train, and after a fifteen-minute wait in the paralyzing cold, we are nearing our destination.

“It's about a fifteen-minute walk from the station,” says Val quietly. Her eyes have gotten clear and wide. I don't know if I have ever seen her nervous before.

“Now arriving, Princeton station.”

We cross the platform, use the bathrooms, and then walk along the icy sidewalks through tree-lined streets, the sun on the snow blinding us.

“Are you worried anyone will see you?” I ask.

“Nah.” Val walks hunched into her coat, just looking straight ahead. “I didn't hang out with that many people. Just band mates.”

“You were on the cross-country team,” I add.

Val looks almost impressed. “Spying on me, huh? Here,
I'm hungry.” She ducks into a Dunkin' Donuts.

“You know,” I say as we stand in line, “for a few weeks there, I thought you had come to join Dangerheart so you could steal the lost songs. That you were actually teamed up with your mom.”

“That's hilarious.” Val orders a dozen chocolate Munchkins. “Like my mom could be counted on to remember anything.”

We keep walking. Past an idyllic school, kids playing on the plowed blacktop. Through more quiet streets. Finally Val stops.

“There.”

Based on the stories, I guess I'm surprised to see a fairly average-looking suburban house. One story and white and cute. The mailbox has cardinals painted on it. There's still a Christmas wreath on the front door.

But there are other things: the driveway hasn't been shoveled, just a crosshatch of icy tire tracks. The garbage cans beside the house are overflowing with bags. One lies punctured on the ground, a spill of trash crusted in frost.

Val glances up and down the street of similar-style houses. “Most everybody works,” she says. “Probably least conspicuous if we just go in the front door.”

“You sure about this?” My heart is pounding.

“I'm sure that this is the last time I'm ever setting foot in this house.”

We walk up the driveway, then an unshoveled path to the front door, our shoes punching holes in the crusted snow. Val taps the wreath. Brittle needles rain down on the icy steps. “I think this is the one we put up last year.”

She tries her key and it works and we step into the warm house, the light dim through drawn blinds.

“Jesus,” says Val, her nose wrinkling. The house smells like body odor, Lysol, and other chemicals I don't recognize. We're standing in a living room. Two brown recliners are aimed at a large TV perched on a rickety stand right in front of the fireplace. There are folding tables set up beside each chair, and there is crap everywhere. Newspapers and magazines, clothes, unopened mail. A particularly large pair of gray sweatpants hangs over the near recliner. There are dirty plates, empty beer bottles, an artificial Christmas tree still set up in the corner.

And there are other items on the little coffee table between the two recliners, things that likely have a drug purpose. Glass and lighters and bags.

“This way.” Val is breathing in short, quick bursts.

We head into the kitchen. The counter is a junkyard of dishes and takeout boxes. There are blackened bananas, a brown head of lettuce. In the corner there's a cat box that hasn't been changed in far too long. Val pulls open the fridge and finds it nearly vacant. More takeout. Wilted frozen pizza boxes. Four large bottles of Fresca. The shelves on the door seem to be filled entirely with jars of olives.

Val peers deeper and reaches in, retrieving a prescription bottle. She reads the label. “Expired by nine months. Mom . . .”

“She has plenty of others over here,” I say, noting a line of pill bottles on the counter.

Val eyes them. Likely evidence that the message she received about an illness was true.

“Fuck.” Val stalks out of the kitchen. I follow her down a hallway lined on both sides with cluttered stacks of boxes, packaging, crooked stacks of magazines, lumpy piles of clothes. We pass a bathroom, its counter overrun with junk. The hall ends at two closed doors. Val opens the one to the right.

The room is surprisingly pink. The walls are striped with pink accents and there are bunches of balloons painted near each corner. The rug is lime green. There was probably once a cute set of kids' furniture in here but now the desk and dresser and bed are super basic.

Covering every surface like an angry scribble are black T-shirts and jeans and bras, books and notebooks and guitar magazines, band posters affixed to the wall at intentionally cockeyed angles, bottles of mascara and nail polish in every shade of black and purple. Like teenage Val graffitied over her child self.

It looks like she left for school this morning, like her room has been frozen in time. Except for a thick layer of dust on everything. I think of my parents being on my case
to clean like every week. How could her mom let over a year go by and never pick this up?