Just Like Heaven (7 page)

Roland just nodded, looking unconvinced.

The screen displayed another scene: Nick at nine years of age, crouching in a small aisle of a gas station, surrounded by rows of candy. His seven-year old brother
, Harold,
stood at the front of the aisle, watching the cashier behind the glass, counting out change for the customer
standing before him. Harold
twirled his hand, signaling Nick, who grabbed a
couple
stack
s
of Hershey bars, Whatchamacallits, and Milky Way
s
and stuffed them down his pant
pockets.

Then he got to his feet, cocked his head for
Harold
to follow, and headed toward
the door, keeping his gaze straight ahead.

“Hey, you two,” said the cashier, opening the transparent door behind the counter and hurrying toward them.

Harold
stopped, raising his hands as though he’d committed a felony. “Nick stole the candy. I didn’t even want to. He made me.
”

“Is that right?” asked the cashier. “Sounds like a case for the cops.”

Nick, lowering his head just as he reached the door, turned around. Glaring at his brother, he withdrew the candy from his pockets as he approached the cashier. “Way to turn on your family,” Nick said,
curling his lip in disgust
.
The picture paused on that expression.

Roland grunted. “My, oh my: a thief at nine years old. What will we discover when young Nicholas turns sixteen? The suspense is
killing
me. Get it,
killing
– because I’m already dead?”

“
A sense of humor. Wow, I’m impresse
d. How much did you pay for it?”
Nick disregarded his image on screen.
It was the first (and last) time that he’d ever stolen something.
He didn’t even want to take the candy. He only did it to see if he could trust
Harold
, who
’d
earlier
promised to stop tattling
on him for everything from
t
ossing his baseball glove into the yard, only to forget to pick it up before his father ran it over with the lawnmower
,
to forge
t
ting
to close the front door
on a January afternoon
,
allowing
frigid
air
to enter their home
, thereby forcing his dad
to pay an expensive heating bill that month.
Nick could still hear his father shouting at him, “What, are we heating the whole damn neighborhood now?”

Another scene: Nick at thirteen, sitting at a
rectangular
table in school, drawing a human hand.
Two boys flanked him and a girl sat opposite him. Then a
shadow appeared over his
sketch
. He looked up.

“Why did you call me last night?” asked a
cute
girl with
long, shiny black hair.
“I don’t like you, Nick. I don’t know why you keep telling me you love me.
” Her face was red with embarrassment.
“
We don’t even know each other.
I don’t like you,” she said, raising her voice to ensure that her classmates heard her. “
Stop calling my house.” She stormed away.

The entire class of twenty-five kids looked up from their school work and stared at him. Then they started laughing. Some pointed. Others rocked in their chairs with delight. The girl returned to her seat, looking relieved to have set the story straight, to have saved her reputation from further humiliation.

Nick glanced
at a kid he considered a friend then
launched himself at the boy, knocking them both
to
the ground. Nick started pounding
the kid’s
cheeks and ears with fists, u
ntil his teacher pulled him off
. The picture froze on that image.

“What was that about?” asked Roland.

“That jerk called Veronica
the night be
fore, claiming to be me and telling
her
that I loved her. He did the same thing
with four other girls
.”

“What happened? Did you like her
?”

“No. She was right. I didn’t even know her.”

The video rolled:
N
ick sitting at another circular
table wearing the same t-shirt and jeans from the previous scene. Another shadow appeared over his sketch of a dolphin. He looked up.

“Yes, Nick,” said a
girl with glasses and frizzy brown hair
. She
smiled down at him.

He glared at her. “What do you want?”

“Yes, I’d like to be your girlfriend.”
Her smile widened.

“What are you talking about? I didn’t ask you out. Are you crazy? Leave me alone.” He looked down at his artwork again and continued working, ignoring
her even though her shadow hover
ed over his sketch
. The screen paused on that image.

“That was…”
Roland didn’t finish the sentence.

Nick dragged his gaze away from the screen.
He’d buried that memory in the deepest corner of his mind. After all, who would want to remember treating someone so horribly? But why would it appear now? For what purpose?

“You knew how that felt, so I’m curious: why
did you
treat her that way?”

“I’m sure
it
was no big deal
.”

“Really?
Let’s find out.”

The screen splayed an image of a bedroom with pink walls covered with posters of the Backstreet Boys, N’Sync, and Britney Spears. The bed was covered with a
Spice Girls
blanket. The same girl that had accepted Nick’s
“
proposal
”
threw herself onto her bed, stuffing her face into the blanket. Sobbing, her body quaked with every ragged breath.

“
Sha
reen, are you okay in there?” a woman asked from the hallway.

The girl stopped crying. She wiped the tears from her eyes and
faced the door. “Yes,” she said with an
unsteady
tone
. “I’m fine, Mom.”

“Okay, honey. Dinner in fifteen minutes. Salmon and macaroni and cheese.”

The footsteps receded.

Staring at the door, Shareen’s face crumbled again and tears surged into her eyes again. She covered her mouth to prevent eliciting a single sob as she fell back to the bed, curling her body into a fetal position. The screen froze.

“
No big deal
,’”
Roland said, quoting Nick.

“What is this about?” Nick asked, turning to his companion. “Why a
re we here? What do you want
with
me
?”

“
This is your dream, is it not? Why don’t you enlighten
me?”

“You know what? This is a bunch of shit. I’m outta here.” Nick turned around and headed for the door. He opened it up,
stepped out, and
walked up to the r
ailing, only to find that he stood
about thirty
floor
s up.” He
made his way
toward the staircase, looking to his
l
eft at a set of closed doors. He
moved
quicker
and
past an
other closed door
. Then another. And another.

E
ven though the staircase was only forty yards ahead, he didn’t seem to have gotten any closer to it.
Only a f
ew people walked along this path. The same went for the
landing
opposite him. But
those he did see were
accompanied by another individual. And in each case, every
person
looked solemn, as though whatever they had experienced had weighed heavily on their souls.

Nick
picked up his pace, jogging now, still check
ing out the doors – each one
closed. That had to be
symbolic
. What would a closed door mean? And
he’d
already run
more than
forty yards,
but
the staircase seemed just as far away as it had been upon exiting that room with Roland.

Irritated, h
e stopped before a closed door,
grabbed the doorknob
,
and turned it. It didn’t budge. He ran over to the next one. Same thing. Now
,
both angry and somewhat frightened, he rushed over to another door and tried the knob. Locked.

“Dammit,” he shouted.

The profanity reverberated throughout the h
all, his voice bellowing with such ear-splitting precision
that every person in the building looked up as one, staring directly at him
as they cupped their hands to their ears
.

Nick had never bef
ore felt so expos
ed, so humbled, so ashamed. But
he didn’t know why he
felt that way. He
just knew
that
he shouldn’t have used that particular word to express his emotions. More than that, his
anger
felt not only inappropriate but out of place in this building. 

“The Lord frowns upon such words,” Roland said, standing beside Nick.

“Jesus,” he said, jumping at his sudden appearance.

“
Are you
trying
to incur His wrath?
”

“What’s going on here? Is this some kind of
insane asylum? Everyone looks
so serious.
They look
at me like
I’m some kind of freak show.
” He approached Roland and grabbed him by the lapel, spinning him so that his back pressed up against the railing. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“I told you, Nicholas
. You’re dead.”

“Bullsh—I mean…” Unable to f
ind a word to express his fury
, he tilted Roland’s back against the bannister, pivoting him in such a way that hi
s right leg left the ground, tipping him
off balance. “I will push you over. I swear to God, I’ll throw you right off this ledge.”

“You’re not a murderer, Nicholas
. I know you better than you know yourself. You’re many things, but you’re not a murderer.”

Grabbing Roland tightly, c
onsumed
with confusion and rage, Nick didn’t
pay attention to how much he’
d hoist
ed his companion off his feet, nor to which extent that he’d slanted Roland off balance, so that by the time that he felt his comrade pitch backwards, he didn’t have the speed or the strength to pull him back to the
floor
.

And that’s when Roland su
rprised him. Just as he fell, Roland
clutched
Nick
’s hand and dragged him along as they both went over the railing.

CHAPTER FOUR

“Thanks again for being my guide,” Nina said to
Mei Lee
as they entered the Hall of Wisdom.
Then, hearing a scream from overhead, she looked up to find two people hurtling through the air towards them.

Mei Lee
shook her head, unimpressed. “That Roland: such a drama queen.”

“That’s Nick up there
screaming
!
”

“
And Roland right besi
de him laughing like a lunatic.”

About fifty feet above them,
the screaming and laughing die
d
out
. A moment later, Roland and Nick stood beside Nina and
Mei Lee
.

Eyes bulging,
heaving for air
,
Nick
looked at one arm before turning to the other
then checked
to make sure that he still had legs
.
Finding
Roland beside him again
, he flinched
. “Jesus
! Why do you keep sneaking up on me like that?”

“It rattles you.
” He released a pent-up smile.
“
I find it tremendously entertaining.
But m
ust you continue with the heavy breathing
?
It’s more than a bit melodramatic.”