Whisper to Me (24 page)

“Well, yeah,” he said. “Like, football trophies.”

“And him?” she gestured back to you, still on your phone.

“Oh yeah,” said Shane. “He has a shelf of the things.”

“My brother’s the same,” said Julie. We were in line for funnel cakes now. The smell was amazing. “Growing up, he was always winning that stuff. You know, those little pedestal things with statues of guys on them, swinging a baseball bat or diving or whatever. His room was full of them. I always …”

“Yeah?” said Shane. I felt like I had underestimated him. He looked genuinely interested, I mean, interested in the story.

“I don’t know. I just wanted
one
, you know? Just one.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why. They were stupid, those little statues.”

“Give us all of your funnel cake,” said Paris, reaching the front of the line.

“I’ve got like a ton,” said the redheaded girl in the stall.

“Give us five of your funnel cakes.”

“Five dollars,” said the girl, handing over a bag.

For a long moment we just ate funnel cake. When I say “we” ate it, I mean the others, not me, because of my allergy. I miss out on all the fun. Major understatement!

Paris said it was good. I mean, you know that anyway. I don’t know why I’m telling you. Funnel cake is good. Alert the President and the Joint Chiefs.

Anyway.

“But you might still win a trophy,” said Paris, to Julie.

“What?” said Julie.

“Roller derby,” said Paris. “You guys are in the final, no?”

“Oh. Yeah. But you get, like, a certificate.”

“No trophy?” said Shane.

“No.”

“Dude. That
sucks
,” said Shane. He was serious. I kind of fell in love with him a bit in that moment. I mean, in a platonic way. I knew now why the two of you were friends, even though you were so different. He would never be reading Ovid, that was for sure.

Julie brushed some powdered sugar from her T-shirt. “If we win a certificate, I’ll be happy,” she said. “At least that’s something.”

“So, roller derby?” said Shane. “What are you, a jammer or a blocker?”

“You know it?”

“Yeah, my sister …”

The two of them strolled on, chatting about roller derby. The two unlikeliest people to be talking to each other. The jock and the punk. It was like a Benetton ad or something.

And you were still talking on the phone, like twenty feet behind, pretty intensely. Now I’ve met your dad, of course, and I know a bit more about you, so I get why, but at the time it seemed strange.

Which left me and Paris.

“What was that?” I said.

“What?”

“That whole deal with the basketball. You know I worked one of those stalls. You knew I’d be good.”

“No. But I figured you might be.”

“So?”

“So what?”

“So what was the deal?”

“With what?” she asked. She seemed truly bemused.

“With me and … him. Now he’ll be feeling, I don’t know, emasculated. He lost. I won.”

Paris smiled so wide it was like her face splitting. Only nice. Okay, ignore that simile. Let’s leave it at: she smiled wide. “Please,” she said. “If he was feeling that, then he wouldn’t be the guy for you. And now the tone has been set, you know, for your relationship. You won him a Cookie Monster. Now he’s your bitch. Not the other way around. I think St. Thomas of Aquinas said that.”

“Our
relationship
?”

“Come on. You’re seriously crushing. Even after an hour I can see that. And the whole deal with rushing to the side of the pier when you saw his truck?”

“I’m not—” I started to say.

“Whatever,” said Paris, waving a hand. “Anyway, he’s cute. Not the other one, Shane. The troglodyte.”

“He’s actually quite—”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure he’s an angel. But anyway, your guy? I approve.”

“Oh good,” I said. “What would I have done otherwise?”

“Not gone out with him, obviously,” said Paris.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Of course,” said Paris. “What, you’ve never had anyone look out for you before? Someone has to watch out for a person. For you, that’s me. Okay. That was inelegantly phrased. I am not on fire today. If I am a fire, I am officially out. I am, what would you say? I am damp.”

“
Damp
?”

“Like wood that won’t catch, you know? That’s how not on fire I am.”

I couldn’t help it, I laughed. “Well, thanks,” I said. “For watching out for me.”

“Of course. And now he has passed my stringent tests.”

“By acting cool when I won him a Cookie Monster?”

“Indeed.”

We sped up, to catch you and the others. You were off the phone now and eating your funnel cake. It left a white sugar smile around your real smile.

“Seriously, has
anyone
been looking after you?” asked Paris as we approached. “Your dad …”

“It’s complicated,” I said.

“He hurts you?”

“No! God, no. No, he just … it’s complicated.”

“You said.”

“Yeah.”

She linked her arm through mine. “Well, I’m here now. And I will keep you safe. I’ll be, like, your tooth fairy, watching over you.”

“I think you mean fairy godmother,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Paris, shaking her head. “I felt it even as I was saying it. Not my A game.”

I smiled.

“Hey,” said Paris. “You look nice when you smile.”

“I don’t usually smile?”

“No,” said Paris.

An uncomfortable silence.

“Oh,” I said.

“Well,” said Paris, after a while. “We’ve only just met. I mean, relatively recently. We have our whole lives ahead of us. Whole lives of smiling and fun.”

False statement.

I paid for the fun, it goes without saying.

We got home about eleven, and Dad wasn’t home yet. There were no lights on. You and Shane said good night, then went up to your apartment. Shane was nudging you with his elbow, whispering to you, and you whispered fiercely back at him. I thought … I thought maybe he was telling you to make a move.

I hoped.

But you didn’t make a move. You followed him up, and disappeared through the door.

I put my hand to my pocket where I usually kept my keys—

No keys.

Oh yeah.

“You’re locked out,” said the voice.

“Uh, yes,” I said. “Because I wasn’t allowed to take keys.”

“You’ll have to wait for your dad.”

“He’ll ground me. I have a curfew.”

“Yes. That was the point of the exercise.”

“You wanted to get me grounded?”

“I wanted to
get
you.”

I sat down on the porch step and closed my eyes. “I thought …” I hesitated, amazed at the weirdness that had become normal in my life. “I thought we were getting along well,” I said. It sounded crazy even to me.

“You’re having too much fun,” said the voice. “It’s time you realized that I am the ****** boss around here and what I say goes. And you forgot the date.”

“The date?”

“Think about it.”

I did. Oh, Jesus. August 7. It was the day … the day …

“You ****** forgot, Cass. You
forgot
.”

“I didn’t mean … I just …”

“You disgust me. You are a ****** disgrace. I am going to ruin your life. I am going to break you. You are nothing.”

There was wetness on my cheeks; I touched them with my fingers, felt the tears. I didn’t mean to, I wanted to say, I didn’t even think, I didn’t say anything to Dad, didn’t mention it this morning at breakfast, and no wonder he was acting so weird and quiet when he was making pancakes.

I put my head in my hands, then I saw movement in the window of your apartment, and a moment later the door opened.

“Cass?” you called.

“Yeah.”

“You locked out?”

“Yeah.”

“Come up. We’re watching a movie. Some trash about a shark fighting an octopus. It’s
awesome
.”

I thought for a second. At least the voice would go, if I was with you.

I climbed the steps, and you opened the door wide for me.

“You okay?” you asked.

I nodded. “I got locked out.”

“But you’ve been crying.”

“I was upset about being locked out.”

You gave me a sympathetic look mingled with doubt. “Well, I’m sure your dad will be back soon,” you said.

That’s the problem
, I thought. But I didn’t say anything. You ushered me in. You’d turned it into a dump, the two of you. Pizza boxes everywhere, stacked like Jenga. Beer cans, take-out menus. Clothes hanging from furniture to dry, or maybe just to hang there, I don’t know.

“It’s a mess,” you said. “Sorry.”

I shrugged. “Not my apartment. But don’t let Dad see it.”

“He doesn’t come up here.”

“He might.”

Shane, who was standing in the door to the living room, made an exaggerated scared face. “We’d better clean tomorrow,” he said.

“I can do it,” I said.

You frowned at me. “You want to clean our apartment?”

“I like cleaning,” I said. Also I didn’t like my bedroom, I mean the voice was always so
loud
there, and it had been better in the apartment. There were less memories there.
Fewer
memories. Damn autocorrect, underlining my words in green. “I can do it when you’re at work, the two of you.”

“Seriously, Cass, it’s gross, you can’t—”

“I don’t mind.”

“I say let her,” said Shane. “We can pay you in beer.”

“I don’t drink.”

“Pizza.”

“My dad owns a pizza restaurant.”

“Money.”

I thought for a second. “No. Books. Bring me books from the library. I’ll keep this place clean. Okay?”

You looked at me. “You can’t get books from the library?”

“No.”

You seemed confused by this. Of course
now
you understand why. “Uh, deal,” you said.

We went into the living room and watched the movie. It was stupid and also, as you’d said, awesome. I was sitting next to you on the couch. I could feel you, feel your leg next to mine, even though there was four inches of air between our skin, and clothes. It was still like we were touching, like our bodies were magnets, held close to each other—something in our molecules vibrating; buzzing.

There was a crunch of tires on gravel.

“Oh no,” I said. “Dad.”

I jumped up; ran to the door and pulled it open, started down the steps. I was on the bottom one when Dad looked up, his hand on the door of the Dodge as he closed it. He looked at me silently. Then he walked toward the door of the house. I thought:
Maybe he’s going to go easy on me. Maybe he’s going to give me a break.

I followed him, and he stayed silent as he held the door for me, just like you had done an hour before with the door to the apartment, but also so very differently.

“Dad—”

“No, Cass. Don’t ******* even. What were you doing?”

“I forgot my key and—”

“You went out? At night? When you have a ****** mental illness and there’s a ****** guy killing ****** women in this town?”

“I—”

“I don’t care. And you went up there? When we’ve had a RULE, Cass, a goddamn RULE, since you were twelve ******* years old, that you don’t go in the apartment when it’s boys renting. What were you thinking?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

He put his hand out and clasped it around my arm, tight enough to make me gasp. “On THIS ******* day of all days? THIS day? Did you even remember it was the anniversary? You have to be ****** kidding me. You don’t leave this ****** house again after sunset, do you hear me?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head. “Upstairs,” he said.

I started up the stairs. “Are you having fun now?” said the voice.

That night, I lay on my bed and imagined that I was a bird, flying above Oakwood. Same view as on the Ferris wheel. Looking down on the sudden small beauty of the town, embracing it with the outstretch of my wings, untethered from the ground.

Floating.

Inhuman trajectory and lift: carried higher by updraft of warm air, no effort at all, wings arched above me. The houses and streets dwindling, forming into fractal patterns, dissolving into distant abstractions of light; the dark mass of the ocean.

Floating on the air. Freed from all movement and decay, freed from the voice, blessed with a new perspective. The place where birds live: the same world but different, in the mirror of the sky, inverse to us as death is to life, hovering in the spaces where our roofs and cars and towers aren’t; in the gaps; in the blue brightness; a kind of heaven.