The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon (15 page)

“You’re seventeen,” his father said. “You don’t know what your goal in life is, or what it ought to be. That’s why we worry, and why we push, and why we can’t let you let some girl screw it all up.”

“Bullshit,” Albert said. Dropping a swearword at the table was definitely on his father’s shortlist of unacceptable dinner conversation, but Albert had become too angry to care.

“Albert! Apologize to your father right now!”

“Forget it, Vanessa,” his father said. He stood up, pushed his chair abruptly back, and began clearing the table. To his son he said quietly, “I don’t know what’s happening to you.”

“May I be excused?” Albert asked. He didn’t know what was happening to him either, but whatever it was, he didn’t think he could stop it now.

“Just go,” said his mother wearily. “I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m not even sure how to punish you.”

Albert pushed his chair back. “Yeah, it’s kind of tough when I already don’t have a car or a cell phone, my girlfriend is missing, and the police are keeping tabs on me better than you are, isn’t it?”

“If you want a car, then save your money and buy one!”

“You won’t let me get a job, either!” The complaint came out like a reflex even though they weren’t fighting about whether Albert should have a car. He just couldn’t help himself.

Before this stupid side argument could grow, Albert’s father called from the kitchen, “Stop it, both of you! Albert, just go to your room!” As he fled the dining room, Albert wondered why he always found a way to make a bad situation worse.

Then he was closing the door to his bedroom, and his eyes found the lump of his pillow under the rumpled bedcovers. Lily’s journal was under there, calling to him, reminding him of his responsibility to her.

I can’t get away
.

He felt like there was an imaginary string stretched between him and Lily. Imaginary, but still real somehow. And the pressure pulling it was impossible to ignore.

At this point, he was past worrying about getting into trouble. He was tired of not doing anything. He had an impulse.

He made himself wait several minutes, then went to the door and cracked it carefully, listening. He could hear the hum of the TV from the front room. He opened the door a little wider, scanning the hallway. It was empty, so he opened it just wide enough to slip through. The cordless phone was hanging in its base on the wall a few feet from his door. As silently as possible, Albert grabbed the handset. The sound of his father’s voice arrested him, but after a moment he realized that he hadn’t been busted; the old man was just saying, “… was fifty out yesterday, but look, it’s started snowing.”

Exhaling his relief, Albert picked up a phone book, too, and slipped back into his room with the phone and the directory.

He pulled Lily’s journal from under his pillow and looked at it. It was time to bury Kogen.

With a sudden rush of nerves that covered him in a light sweat and made his hands tremble, Albert dialed the police station’s main number from the phone book. His heart beat harder with every electronic ring. He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the size of what he was doing, and how many lives would be changed by it. He hoped this was what Lily would want him to do. And he hoped they cuffed Perry the Perv’s wrists nice and tight when they arrested him.

“…”

Albert realized someone had picked up on the other end. He said softly, “Is Detective Andersen there? Phil Andersen?”

“Sir,” said the clearly irritated female voice on the other end of the phone, “speak up.
Who
do you want?”

Albert swallowed and said a bit louder, “Detective Phil Andersen.”

“Hold on.” There was an abrupt click and then there was Lionel Richie singing the hold music. Not the Muzak version, either. After several bars, there was another abrupt click cutting off the music and the voice said, “The detective isn’t in.”

“What about …” Albert struggled to remember the other cop’s name. “Officer Demiola. Is he there?”

“He’s not on tonight. You want to leave a message for one of them?”

“When will Detective Andersen be in?” Albert asked, as loudly as he dared.

“Hold on.” There was another, shorter, click-music-click transition, then, “Should be here at eight.”

Albert looked at his clock radio on the desk; it was just after seven. “No message. I have something kind of important to … I’ll just come in and talk to him in person.”

“Suit yourself.”

Now, if Olivia would just call and he could figure out a way to sneak out of the house, they could go down to the police station tonight and finish what he’d just started with the phone call. Tonight.

No sooner had he set down the phone than there were three loud, hard knocks to his bedroom door. His heart jerked painfully at the abrupt interruption.

The door opened and his mother poked her head through. “You have a guest out here.” She was gone again as soon as she said it.

Albert glanced at the pile in the middle of his bed—the phone, the directory covering the journal—and was glad his mother hadn’t noticed it. But in the next moment his relief was gone, because he knew who his “guest” had to be: Kogen.

It was becoming clear to Albert just how much he was afraid of this man. The memory of Kogen’s vague threats, and even more, the calculating look on his face, terrified him. Kogen’s expression had been a mix of cold hate under a layer of smugness; it was a face that said, “I’m not worried—I always get my way.”

Albert had a feeling that he was about to be steam-rolled by an older, more powerful, and smarter enemy. Hastily, he pushed the pile up to the head of the bed and pulled his pillow over it, then went out to face Kogen with very little hope.

When he reached the living room Albert saw three people standing there awkwardly, all of them waiting for him. His parents stood on either side of a third guy, but the guy wasn’t Lily and Olivia’s stepfather. Albert found himself looking into the vaguely familiar face of a guy in a clichéd small-town high school letterman’s jacket and wearing a nervous look on his face. The guy’s gaze darted around the Morales’ living room, and when it landed on Albert, bounced off again. Trying to figure out what Patrick MacLennan was doing at his house, Albert waited for him to speak; meanwhile, his parents were looking expectantly at Albert.

“Sorry to bug you,” the guy finally said. “But you’re in my chemistry class and I …” He stopped. “I wondered if you had the reading assignment for the test tomorrow? Somebody said Mrs. Yost gave us chapters last week, but I wasn’t there.”

“Um …” Albert said. “We’re in the same chemistry class?”

“I miss a lot of class during basketball season. And baseball. And football.”

“Oh,” said Albert. He looked over at his parents, waiting for them to either excuse themselves or tell MacLennan to leave because Widdle Albert was grounded. But they just smiled stiffly, kind of confused, and stood there, the both of them. “Isn’t there anyone else you can ask? I’ve seen you with your friends in the lunchroom. Don’t any of them go to chem class, either?”

MacLennan looked down at his scuffed sneakers. “Dude, some of my friends are jerks. They don’t mean anything by it.”

“Whatever,” Albert said abruptly. It didn’t make sense that this guy would have the stones to look up Albert’s address, come over, and actually ask for
help
with his homework. They were never going to be friends. Albert couldn’t believe he was the only guy MacLennan could think of to ask, and he’d better not have come here to talk about Lily. He didn’t say any of this, though—not in front of his parents.

“So, do you have the assignment?” MacLennan asked. “Can I look at your notes?”

The guy was definitely sweating. Albert didn’t know what to say. He looked at his parents to see what
they
would say. One look and he could see that they were torn between the fact that they were still pretty pissed at Albert, and the fact that when there was a stranger in their living room they had to be civil. One of the core tenets of the Morales life strategy was that you never aired dirty laundry in front of company.

Albert’s father, clearly not understanding what was happening between this kid and his son, said, “Well, go on, Albert. Take the boy to your room and give him the reading assignment.”

“Come on,” Albert said, gesturing for MacLennan to follow him to his room. Since getting rid of him would be difficult without embarrassing explanations, he decided to just give him what he wanted so he would leave. Time was passing quickly, and he still needed to figure out how he and Olivia were going to sneak out.

He left MacLennan standing in the middle of his room while he searched his desk for his stupid chemistry notebook, wondering if that was even the real reason the guy was here. When he found it, he flipped to Friday’s notes and the reading assignment he hadn’t even thought of doing, and handed the notebook to MacLennan. “That’s it,” he said. “Knock yourself out.”

MacLennan grabbed a pen off Albert’s desk and sat on the edge of his bed with the notebook in his lap. After a moment, and without even looking down at the notes, he said to Albert, “Hey, do you think you could get me a glass of water? My mouth is really dry.” MacLennan cleared his throat as if to demonstrate how dry it was in there. He did look a little sick.

Albert didn’t care. “Are you kidding? It will take you ten seconds to jot down the assignment. I’ll even do it for you. And then you can get the hell out of here.” The half-buried phone on his bed gave a ring and they both jumped. Someone picked up another extension after two rings.

MacLennan continued as if they hadn’t been interrupted. “What’s the big deal, dude? I told you before that I was sorry about … the thing in the lunchroom. We were messing around, that’s all. It wasn’t even my idea.”

Even if he’d wanted to bother explaining, Albert didn’t know how to tell the guy it wasn’t the lunchroom thing. He just couldn’t get past the fact that MacLennan, who had supposedly been Lily’s friend, abandoned her the night of the accident. And
then
tried to act all tough-guy-protector about her in the lunchroom. As if MacLennan thought
he
was Lily’s worried boyfriend, not Albert. As if MacLennan was actually doing anything to help her.

MacLennan smiled, and Albert guessed it was the same supposedly charming grin he flashed at teachers when his homework was late. “It’s just water.”

“Is there something else you want to say to me?” Albert said. It seemed like MacLennan was angling at something and Albert thought maybe just asking him point-blank would surprise him into spitting out whatever it was. “I don’t want to talk about her with you any more now than I did before.”

But MacLennan just shook his head. They stared at each other, the energy in the room crackling.

“Albert.” They both glanced at the door where Albert’s mother was standing, her lips pursed. “There’s a girl on the phone, says it’s about an English assignment.” Her tone was doubtful.

Not wanting to admit he had the portable phone in his room, Albert thought for a second. It had to be Olivia calling, in what was about the world’s worst timing. “Um …” he said again. He looked at MacLennan. “Are you done yet?”

“No.”

Now there were two people looking expectantly at him. Albert didn’t know what else to do, so he reached into the pile and retrieved the portable phone. He figured he had no choice, even if it meant he’d be getting another lecture later.

His mother’s eyes flashed. “Damn it, Albert.” She jerked the receiver from his hand with catlike speed. “You know damn well ‘grounded’ means ‘grounded from the phone,’ too. You can take the call in the kitchen, and make it fast.” She turned her glance to MacLennan, for a moment seeming to want to say more.

“It’ll only take a second,” Albert said, reaching to get the phone back.

“It will only take a second in the kitchen, then,” his mother said, turning abruptly and taking the portable with her.

Albert knew there was no point arguing over which phone he could use. It would be faster just to get rid of Olivia. He didn’t like to leave this jerk MacLennan alone in his bedroom—it creeped him out, actually—even if it was only for a minute.

“Be right back,” he said finally, and MacLennan nodded without looking up from the chemistry notebook.

“This had better actually be about school,” his mother said as he busted into the kitchen. “All of this had better be about school.”

Albert ignored her and picked the phone up from where it rested on the counter, its cord hanging down like coiled rope. His mother made a big show of ignoring him and fussing with the dishwasher, but he knew better—she was eavesdropping, enforcing the whole grounded-from-the-phone policy.

“Hello?” he said, his voice coming out kind of breathless. He cleared his throat into the receiver.

“Gross,” came Olivia’s irritated voice on the other end. “Hey—I thought you were going to pick up the phone when I called? I had to make up some lie about homework.”

“Yeah,” Albert said. “I think I have my notes from
The Canterbury Tales
. If I can find them, I’d be happy to lend them to you.”

“Can’t talk right now, huh?”