Essential Maps for the Lost (15 page)

“I don't love it.”

“You don't?”

“No.”

“It seems like it. You seem so happy talking about your class. And the whole Murray and Murray thing.”

“I didn't want to seem all negative.”

“Do you even like it?”

“I sort of like it. I maybe like it. I don't know. I don't think I like it. Let's just call it a family obligation. It's complicated.”

He grins.

“Oh, great. I know what you're thinking.” She can't help but smile now. “I know exactly what you're thinking.”

“You're a mind reader, huh?”

“Don't even say it,” she warns.

He raises his eyebrows, wiggles them. Man, he likes her.

“If you say it, I'm going to punch you.”

“Say what, something about complications? Something with the word
like
?”

“I'm going to punch you a good one.”

“I'm a lover, not a fighter.” It sounds stupid, but kind of just right, too. She laughs. She play punches his arm anyway, and he wishes he could grab her so hard and kiss her and pull her down on the sand.

Ivy's squirming again, getting cranky. She's making little monkey screeches.

“This is going to get ugly,” Mads says. “Jeez, what time is it? I've got to go.”

“Yeah, me too. I better get Rocko over to his new digs.”

They head back to their cars. When they reach the tracks, he takes her hand and runs everyone to the other side. No train is coming, but still. You don't want to take chances. Every one of them, Madison and Ivy and Rocko, and even him, yeah, even his fucked-up self, is worth protecting.

She buckles in Ivy. The baby twists and reaches for Billy like he might save her from the torture of the car seat. Shit. Now he kind of loves her, too.

“That's very dramatic, Ives.” Mads hands the baby a round Tupperware container of Cheerios, and Ivy decides she likes the car seat after all. “It was really nice to meet you, Rocko.” He likes how Mads looks at the dog. Like she's trying to give him all the love she can with her eyes.

He wants to kiss her so bad. He's trying to find a moment, but she's rushing all around, settling the baby, and before he knows it, she's in the truck. She rolls the window down, fast. After this great day, now she's all hurry-hurry, like she's trying to get away. “Well, thanks so much for the chocolates, and for, you know, stalking me.”

“Hey, no problem. Anytime.” He's not feeling the kiss coming. In fact, if he doesn't do something fast, she'll be gone. He doesn't get this. A second ago, it was like they were practically a couple, a possible couple, walking down that beach.

“Um, Mads. Wait. You want to get together later?”

No answer. Shit. Shit! She just runs her hand along the seam of the window ledge, as if checking the quality of workmanship.

“Or tomorrow?”

She stares out toward the water where the ferry disappeared.

“Or another time?”

“Billy—”

“Don't even say anything.”

“No. No! It's not you.”

He groans.

“No, I mean, this has been a great day. I was so happy you found me! But I can't come here and sell real estate, you know? I've got to go back home in September.”

“You don't know what might happen between now and then.”

“I've got to go home in September. I know
that
.”

“Okay.”

“And I'm not . . . I don't know. I don't want anyone to get hurt here. I don't know how to explain it.”

“We're just hanging out.” He's such a liar.

She rubs her forehead. “Ugh.”

“Hey,” he says. “No problem.”

“I'm so sorry. I'm such an idiot.”

“No worries. I'll just have to find someone else to go to New York with.” He tries to make it seem like a joke, but his voice is cheery as a crime show.

“Just remember to keep your feet up in the bathroom stall so the guards don't see you.” She looks like she might cry.

It takes three, four times for the engine to start. He stands around looking lame. He's not one of those guys who can lift the hood and fix the problem. He knows the chassis is the body, and the engine is the heart, and that's it.

She waves. He waves. In two minutes, he's gone from soaring to crash. He wants to swear and kick tires, but Rocko is with him, and Rocko has seen enough explosive shit. He's got a responsibility to that dog, even if the world is mean. He swallows that meanness and hopes it doesn't burn an acid hole in his own rusty engine.

•  •  •

He's in a bad mood. Even Night Worlds sucks. Drew knows someone who knows someone who's having a party, so he decides to go with Alex and Leigh. Supposedly, Alex and Leigh aren't back together, but going out together looks back together to Billy. He doesn't like Leigh. She's one of those people who always make little corrective statements, laughing at how Alex pronounces something or telling him to close his mouth all the way when he eats and shit like that. Next time, he's going to say something. He's not going to fucking sit back and watch Alex be humiliated. His mom's old boyfriend Powell used to do that to her.

He's in a hurry, and he's not hungry anyway, so he takes a few swigs out of the milk carton. Gran gives him a Gaze Attack. It's not about the milk, though. His mother didn't like when he didn't use a glass, but Gran couldn't care less.

“Billy.”

“What.”

“You aren't going to eat? What's the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“Slamming the fridge door as you say
nothing
is not nothing.”

“I'm just in a hurry.”

“Is this about her birthday coming?”

Swear to God, it's like someone punches him. An actual punch, right in the gut. He's socked with pain. It bends him over. He deserves it, too. He forgot! He fucking forgot his mother's birthday was coming. How could he? How could he be such a dick? He wants to hurl that kitchen chair through a window, but he just jerks it away from the table and flings himself into it. He puts his head in his hands. He presses on his eyeballs until he sees stars.

Gran's hand is on his back. “You ever remember my birthday? No one ever remembers my birthday. It's okay.”

It isn't. Nothing is okay right then. He starts to cry like a big baby again. His stomach heaves with grief. The wracking sobs give him the beating he deserves. First, he couldn't stop his mother, and second, he wasn't enough, and third, he almost forgot her. He knows he's not supposed to think like this. Depression is a disease, yeah, okay, but a person still makes choices! Even in that darkest of dark places, a choice was made, and he can't get past that fact. No matter how hard he tries, he keeps coming back to the wrong, black logic his guilty mind insists on: It's something she did to him, something he did to her, something people do to each other, which means it could have been different.

He forgot her birthday, and Madison Murray basically told him to take a hike after he already had started to fall for her, and now he's going to end this fucked-up day by going to a party when he hates parties, and a tornado of sadness is ripping through him.

“Billy. Look at me.”

He doesn't want to look at her.

She forces his chin up with her hand. He hates when she does that. It makes him feel like he's six and not a man.

“Quit,” he says.

He yanks his chin away. But she's already seen his eyes.

“It's not just that, is it?”

Sometimes she doesn't know when to leave a person alone.

“It's a girl, too. That girl.”

“For God's sake,” he says.

“Where did you say you met this girl, anyway?”

“We just ran into each other. It doesn't matter. I'm not going to see her again.”

“You ran into her twice, you said. At home. At the bridge.”

“She knew someone on our street. So what.”

“Oh, really.”

This is another thing he hates. Gran's paranoid. There's always some big plot, some way a person will do you wrong. Occasionally, she's right, but usually, she's just looking for a reason to hate people. Like her neighbors, the time they used her dock for like five minutes. She was pissed and held a grudge for years, because they didn't ask first. Like his old friend Jacob, who stopped coming over after Gran said he smelled like weed. He was a good guy, straitlaced, went to church even. He just lived with his dad and they didn't do a lot of laundry. Billy didn't like to think about it.

He loves Gran, but she has a mean streak. It's different between Gran and him than it was between Gran and Mom, he keeps telling himself. Easier. But he wonders, you know, what it'd be like to grow up being told you should think the worst of people. If every person was bad, how did you ever feel safe?

“I don't know what you're thinking, old lady, and I don't care. I'm outta here.”

“Don't be a fool. If something seems strange, it's usually strange.”

“You're strange,” he says.

At least he's done crying now. Also, he's just pretty much done in general.

•  •  •

The party's at this girl Becka's house. She and her friends were sophomores when Billy and his friends were seniors. It's weird, being at a party with people still in high school. He feels too old for this. He's only been out of school for a year, but hanging out with them seems like something you could get arrested for.

Becka's parents are gone. The house has a backyard with neighbors on all sides. The music's loud. The dining room table is filled with beer and open bags of chips and a bowl of dying guacamole. A few broken chips stick up from it like headstones.

Billy cracks the top of a bottle of beer he doesn't even want. Alex and Leigh are kissing. It pisses him off. “They have a hot tub,” Drew shouts next to him.

“Did you bring your bathing suit?” Billy asks, and then feels fifty. Drew pretends to choke on a swallow of Corona and gives him one of those looks that says
What the hell?

“Whatever,” Billy says.

He doesn't want to go home, but he doesn't want to be here, either. He should have taken his own car. A bunch more people arrive, and a guy sets another case of beer on the table. Bags of chips get thrown on top of other bags of chips, stacking up like bodies in a war movie.

The door is open and cool night air shoots in, and suddenly arms circle his waist from behind. They shove his T-shirt up, and icy hands press against his skin.

“Oh my God! Wolfie, you're here. Warm me up,” Amy says.

He doesn't push her away, but he doesn't exactly encourage her, either. She rubs his bare skin for a minute and then gives up, tugs his T-shirt, gives him a little shove.

“Get me a beer,” she says, even though they're right in front of her. She's the kind of girl who expects you to do stuff for her.

He hands her one. She hands it back. He unscrews the top. She grabs it, takes a drink. “I can't believe I haven't seen you at work in a week. I swear, Jane's putting us on different schedules on purpose.”

“Nah.” Yeah.

“Look around. It's a baby party. We should get out of here.”

“You've been here two seconds.”

“Long enough to know I have a better idea.” She takes another long swallow, displays her neck like he's a vampire.

Now she meets his eyes, draws close. She sticks her hand in his back pocket. “Show me that thing you don't want me to see.”

Yeah, double meaning, whatever. He can feel her fingers wiggling against his ass. She has the wrong pocket, and he's glad. He pulls away.

“Don't you know what secrets do?”

He'd never tell her about the map. She'd never understand. No way. Not in a million years.

“You want to dance, or something? People are dancing.” She's right. The music's gotten louder. He can see through the kitchen and out the open back door to the patio, where guys and girls and girls and girls dance. Leigh and Alex are out there. Drew stands on the deck of the hot tub, lifts off his shirt. Jesus. How much time does he spend at the gym?

Amy grabs Billy's hand and leads. They pass through the kitchen—there's a row of cookbooks, a fancy mixer, a microwave with its door swung open and something recently exploded inside. The parents are gonna love that. Just as they reach the back steps, Billy's phone vibrates in his pocket.

“Just a sec.”

“You're going to get that
right now
?”

You don't just let a phone ring. After his dad and all the times with his mom, he always looks, at least.

His stomach flips, right as—
Jesus!
—Drew takes his pants off.

“I gotta get this,” he says to Amy.

“Wolfieee. Ugh!”

She stomps away. Drew gets into the hot tub. His bare ass descends like the setting sun.

“Hello?” Billy ditches his beer on the kitchen counter, plugs his ear with his finger to hear better. The music's so loud, it's like being beat up around the head.

“Mixed-message phone call.” Mads's voice doesn't belong here. It's like an angel in a head shop.

“Hey, it's you.”

“Where are you? Sounds like a party. Of course you'd be at a party. I mean, it's Friday night.”

“I can't hear you. Let me get outta here.”

He passes the food table, spots packages of hot dogs and buns. Some naïve high schooler thought this was a barbecue. He grabs the dogs, elbows past a couple making out by the front door. More cars pull up; more kids pile out. “Hang on, I'm almost—”

“Wow, what was that?”

“Just this girl. Whistling.” Amy's on the front lawn, hands on her hips. The whistle is
pissed
.

“It sounds like a car alarm. Like someone's stealing something.”