Denton Little's Deathdate (9 page)

“You don't even remember? Wait. I was with you the whole time Veronica was here, then my mom drove you home.”

“What? No, man. I woke up in
your house
this morning.”

“This house?”

“Yeah.”

“Shame on you, dude!”

“I'm sorry!”

“So you came back?”

“I don't remember getting in your mom's car in the first place.” Do I? There's a fuzzy memory trying to make itself known in my brain.

“Look, all I know is I said good night to you and my mom and went to sleep as you guys were heading out the front door. Right after you made those prank calls.”

“Prank calls?”

“You gotta remember that! You called almost every pizza place in town, said you were a state official and that pizza was being banned? Enzo was really upset.”

“Enzo of Enzo's Pizza?”

“Yeah, dude. It was amazing.” Paolo takes out a pack of clove cigarettes, pops one in his mouth, and lights it up right there in the kitchen. It's a little startling, as it's a new habit.

“You're allowed to smoke in the house?”

“I guess so,” he says, and I'm suddenly impressed that, considering how much his mom spoils him, Paolo didn't grow up to be more of a dick. “Just like you were allowed to stay here so you could bang my sister.”

“Paolo, I'm sorry, really.”

“And
then
you banged Taryn today! It's like, that's not right, you know?” He gestures frenetically with his clove. “Messing around with my sister's heart.”

“She seems to be doing fine, Pow. She doesn't even wanna look at me.”

“Yeah, 'cause her heart's been messed with!”

“But she's got some boyfriend, so who cares? I mean, what about my heart, you know? Which, may I add, won't be beating for much longer?”

Paolo exhales a stream of sweet-smelling clove smoke. “It's okay, D. I'm just joking around.”

But I'm not sure if he is, and frankly, I don't think he knows either.

“I don't mean to get all worked up about this,” Paolo says. “Maybe it's just because Veronica's always had a crush on you for, like, forever.”

“Really?” Whoa. My heartbeat quickens.

“Nah, of course not really.”

“Oh.”

“I always thought she genuinely hated you, actually. That's why this is so shocking. You want one of these?”

“No thanks. Trying to stay substance-free for my last hours so I can die in a clear-minded state.” Also, cloves give me a headache.

“I hear ya. Definitely not the way I'm gonna do it, though. I have the total opposite philosophy.” He drops his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I might try to OD, bro.”

“I hope you're kidding.”

Paolo raises his eyebrows and shrugs while inhaling his clove. The multitasking throws him off, and he has a coughing fit.

“Anyone dying in there?” Paolo's mom shouts from the hall.

“Nope, all good,” I say.

Paolo takes a sip of my water. “Hey,” he says. “Are you supersure you wanna remain substance-free?”

“Yeah, no clove for me.”

“I'm not talking about a clove. I'm talking about this little friend I brought.” He says the last part in a high-pitched funny voice as he opens up the pack to reveal a joint nestled in cozily amongst the cloves. “You did my sister, dude, you owe me at least a hit.”

I first smoked pot a few months ago. It's fine, but I don't think it works on me. I end up sitting there asking “Wait, so what did you say it should feel like?” way too many times.

“You're actually guilting me into doing this?”

“I dunno, you actually did my sister, so…”

“All right, all right, fine, one hit.”

“Hooray!” he says in the high-pitched voice, pulling the joint out and making it soar over our heads like a rocket ship. “Wheeeeee!”

“But I've got some serious stuff I wanna talk to you about, so don't get too high. And I wanna get back to my house a bit before midnight so I can talk to my dad.”

“Cooly, let's head out to W-Town. Lemme take a whiz and grab my bowl.” W-Town is short for WoodsTown, the name we invented for this spot in the woods behind Paolo's house. (And, yes, I have a special hangout spot with both my girlfriend and my best friend. Joke away.)

“Why do you need your bowl? You have the joint.”

“Extra for me. Hee hee! Could you be a dear and grab a paper clip from my mom's office? For bowl-cleaning purposes? Thank you forever!” Paolo says in a goofy voice as he closes the bathroom door behind him.

I walk down the hall to Paolo's mom's office. No one responds when I knock on the door, so I let myself in.

Before Paolo got his own computer, he and I used to spend hours in here playing on his mom's computer, random games and stupid instant-message conversations. It's pretty much how I remember it, except that it seems smaller now. There's a huge shelf of books, a desk with a computer, and a large filing cabinet next to that. Paolo's mom works as the librarian at Bridge Road Elementary, one of the two grade schools in our town, and when I was young, I never fully understood why an elementary school librarian needed a full office. Now I get that this is probably less of a work-related room and more of a place where Paolo's mom can
be alone with her thoughts and pay bills or whatever it is adult people need to get done.

She's an impressive lady, having raised Paolo and Veronica totally on her own. No one talks about Paolo's dad much, but from the little information I've gathered, I know that he left Paolo's mom before Veronica had turned one and before Paolo was even born. Lame. Paolo's mom has had boyfriends over the years, but none of them have stuck around all that long. The sadness of the entire situation is hitting me for the first time.

My eye is drawn to a spot above her computer where a cat calendar is hanging from the wall. The month of May features a fuzzy black-and-white cat looking out from under a piano bench, but what really gets my attention are the two red circles around tomorrow's date. Paolo's mom has emphatically marked my deathdate, though she hasn't written anything inside the circles. Maybe she's being respectful, or maybe it was just too painful to write the words out.

I flip away from my red death circles and, sure enough, on the next month there's a circle in blue for Paolo's deathdate. Geez. Why my death gets two circles in red and Paolo's only one in blue is anybody's guess, but either way, color-coding our deathdates seems pretty morbid. Adjacent to the calendar, I see a framed picture of me and Paolo at age seven or eight. It's us in the front yard with our arms around each other's shoulders, looking really happy.

This office is bumming me out.

I refocus on my task of finding a paper clip. Seeing none on the desk, I pull out its wide metal drawer, which contains a meticulously arranged carnival of office supplies.
The rectangular container of paper clips is easy to find, smack-dab in the center of the festivities, and I grab one, then two to be safe, and start to head out of the office.

But, as I do, I see the filing cabinet, and I stop in my tracks.

The hefty bottom drawer is slightly ajar. This is unusual. Highly unusual.

That bottom drawer is a thing of legend for me and Paolo. Because it's always locked. As long as I've known Paolo, as many times as I've been in this office, that drawer, the Bottom Drawer, has been unbreachable without a key, which we've never had.

“Stuff for work,” Paolo's mom would say in response to our daily interrogations about what she kept in there. “Boring grown-up stuff.”

We, of course, had our own theories, which changed and evolved as we did:

“She's totally a spy. All her spy papers and maps are in there, including lists of people she's killed.”

“I think there's a Komodo dragon in there. They're illegal to have as a pet because they're almost extinct. Remember that time we thought we heard a noise coming from inside it?”

“I bet she keeps pictures of my dad in there, and old letters from him, so when she's alone, she can read them and look at them and cry without me and V being around.”

“Maybe it's where she keeps her supply of dildos and vibrators.”

We were in high school for this last one. It was funny, but after we'd laughed about it for fifteen seconds, it dawned
on both of us that it might be the most accurate theory of all. We haven't talked about that drawer much since.

And now it's open.

I have to look. Even if it is an invasion of privacy, it feels like the universe has given me this gift for a reason, helping me unravel one of life's Huge Mysteries before I'm gone.

I grab the drawer's front handle and pull it open. My heart starts beating a little faster, and a line of sweat drips down my temple. My body understands what a big deal this is.

But I'm instantly disappointed to see that, after all this time, all this anticipation, the drawer is filled with…file folders. Of course it is. I feel stupid that we ever thought otherwise.

I open the first one—why not?—and see a photocopied reader's guide for some kids' book called
Jumping Jimmy and the Bean Factory
.

My excitement has deflated like a sad balloon, and now I'm just going through the motions, looking through the second and third and fourth file folders, all filled with reader's guides for stupidly named kids' books.
Denton Little and the Disappointing Drawer
. Just as I decide to stop wasting valuable life minutes and shut the drawer, something decidedly non-reader's-guidey blurs past my vision. I realize I have hit a whole section of file folders with a new weight and heft to them.

It's an old photo of a baby in blue, presumably a little boy, asleep in his crib. Great, we've got reader's guides and baby pictures of Paolo, what an exciting revelation.

But as I take in the photo, I see that the baby's skin
is lighter than Paolo's. And I notice a familiar friend lying right next to him.

Blue Bronto. My old stuffed companion, adorably and unmistakably himself, only brand-new instead of worn-out and raggedy.

The baby in the picture isn't Paolo. It's me.

I flip to the next photo. It's a picture of my dad holding me when I was a baby.

Why are these in here?

I start rapidly flipping through the photos stacked behind this one. They're all photos of me, some as a baby, some not, many also featuring my dad.

“Hey, Dent, you need something?”

The interruption catches me by total surprise. I bang my wrist against the cold metal of the filing cabinet, dropping both of the previously procured paper clips as I do so.

“Ah no, no, sorry, I was just looking for a paper clip,” I say as I slide the drawer shut, stand up, and turn around to face Paolo's mom. Part of me wants to ask why the hell she's got pics of me and my dad in her office, but a larger part feels embarrassed that I was snooping through her stuff in the first place and would prefer to let the whole thing slide by, passed gas that everyone tacitly agrees to ignore.

“Oh, well, you're not gonna find a paper clip in there. That's just boring work stuff, you know that.”

Boring work stuff, right. I'm reading Paolo's mom's face like I'm looking for Waldo, trying to spot any hint of nervousness, weirdness, or discomfort, but she's as cool as ever, no red-and-white-striped nerd here.

“Of course, yeah, I wasn't even thinking. You know, my mind's in a zillion places right now.”

“I know, honey, I know,” she says, stepping quickly past me to her desk drawer, where she pulls out a paper clip. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.”

“You okay?”

“Yup!” I'm all smiles. “Thanks again for those pills.”

“Anytime.”

We stand there for a moment, staring at each other.

“Okay, well, I'm gonna get going. Me and Paolo are gonna take a drive before my Sitting.”

“All righty, you boys be careful.” She taps her fingers on the desk twice. “I'll see you later tonight, Denton.”

“Sounds good,” I say. As I leave the office, I try to distract myself from thinking about those baby pics by glancing at my phone. It's 10:13. One hour and forty-seven minutes before DeathTime commences. Better make 'em good.

There is no question that I am high right now.

Everything is hilarious. I can't stop smiling.

I was only planning on taking the one hit, but a sister-related guilt trip from your best friend can be a powerful thing, and somehow one spun into two and then five, and I really didn't think pot even worked on me, but now I'm holding Paolo's bowl and lighter, even though I don't remember him passing them.

“So, wait, this guy at the funeral knew your real mom?” Paolo asks, one hand on his hip and one sneaker resting on a gray tree, lodged in the V-shaped intersection where branch meets trunk.

“Yeah, that's what he— What are you doing?” I ask. The crook is kinda high off the ground, and Paolo's position looks uncomfortable.

“Relaxing, dude. Finish your story.”

“Oh, so, yeah, this guy says he knew my mom and I should call him if anything strange happens.”

“What the eff…You should call him and be like, ‘So, something strange happened. I bumped into this weird guy at my funeral, dude. Oh, wait, it was YOU.' ”

I'm cracking up, even though there's a small part of my brain that is scolding me for recklessly ditching my substance-free plan. I've got a lot to accomplish in the last hours of my life, but right now it all seems funny. “How long will I feel high for?”

“Eh, not too long. Two hours? Three?”

“Oh wow,” I say. If I want to talk to my dad before midnight, I'm still gonna be high. I shift the bowl and lighter into one hand and take out my phone to check the exact time. I am greeted by two texts that I've missed during my highness.

The first is from Taryn:
Sorry I totally freaked. It'll be ok tho, right? Miss you. Hey to Pow. See ya soon
.

The second is from my stepmom:
Just ceking in to mak sore u r ok. Pleaase be Hume by 1145. If u go outside wear bug spry. Luv u too much. xxoxoox
.

The texts remind me that there are these other people in my life. People who love me and stuff. But their messages don't exactly feel real. What are text messages anyway? People push buttons on tiny machines to form words that are placed side by side to form sentences, which—

“Everything okay over there?”

I look up, startled. Paolo is now situated on a tree stump, meticulously repacking the colorful glass bowl. “What? Yeah.”

“You've been standing there staring at your phone for at least ten minutes.”

“Oh. Really?”

“Yeah,” Paolo laughs. “I asked you to pass me the bowl, like, five times. I got up and got it myself.”

“Sorry. My mom wanted to make sure I'm wearing bug spray.”

Paolo passes me the newly packed bowl.

“Man, I can't get any higher,” I say. “I need to talk to my dad, remember? To ask him about all this stuff with my mom.”

“Whatever you need, bro. It's your deathdate,” Paolo says.

I take out my phone and tap out quick
Thanks, I love you
s in response to both texts. It's trippy that the same message is a perfectly appropriate response for my stepmom and my girlfriend. How can that be? It seems like—

“Helloooo,” Paolo says, followed by a quick whistle.

I've spaced again. I've lost all sense of time.

A glance at my phone reveals that it is now 11:17. We should head out in fifteen minutes or so.

“So,” Paolo says. “I know you're gonna talk to your dad—he's such a sparkling conversationalist, I'm sure that'll go great—but for reals, how come you haven't called that guy from your funeral yet? Like, if he actually knew your real mom, wouldn't you wanna talk to him?”

“Ahhh man, no, I never got the number. My stepmom intercepted it.” In the distance, we hear a police siren. “But, okay, check this out: he also said I shouldn't trust
anybody, even government people, and then me and Taryn were at that spot we always park at, and this suspicious cop appeared and examined me and shit!”

“What? That's insane!”

“I know! And you know who the cop was?”

“Someone famous?”

“No. What? Why would…It was Phil's grandpa.”

“Whoa.”

“Yeah.”

“That must have been the oldest cop you've ever seen.”

“I mean, yeah, he's, like, in his sixties, but that wasn't really my point.”

Paolo lights the bowl once more, inhales. “Phil sent his grandpa out to, like, check on you guys. That's so messed up.”

“Yeah, that was my point. You think that's possible?”

Paolo exhales a thick cloud of gray. “No such thing as coincidence, bro.” He loves to get all mystic spiritual. Especially when he's smoking.

“Hey, I did solve another mystery, though.” It's out before I'm even aware of what I'm saying, as if my mouth has made the decision to speak before consulting my brain. “I saw what was in the Bottom Drawer.”

“Ha. Yeah, right,” says Paolo as he smacks a gnat on his forearm.

“No…really.”

“You saw what was in the Bottom Drawer?”

“Yes.”

“
The
Bottom Drawer? In my mom's office?”

“Yes.”

“No, you didn't. That thing's been locked my whole life. When?”

“Just now, when I went to get a paper clip. It was open a little bit, so I looked. And then your mom walked in.”

I have Paolo's full attention. “What? Do you know how much time I've invested in trying to see what's in that drawer? And now you just walk in and it's open? What the hell was in there?”

“There were some reader's guides for kids' books. And then also…”

“Porn, right? A crazy amount of power dildos, right? You can tell me, dude.”

“No, no. What are power dildos? I only got to look for a second, but there were a bunch of baby pictures. Of me. In there. Also pics of my dad.”

“Baby pictures of…What the hell?”

There is a sharp twig snap to my left, which momentarily freaks the hell out of me. It's Veronica, making her way to where we are in the woods, looking as wonderful as usual.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” Veronica says to me, clearly displeased. (What else is new?)

“What are you doing out here, V-card?” Paolo says. “This is our last chill time. You and Denton should work out your drama later.”

She shoots Paolo a sisterly death stare. “Why don't you smoke some more, kill off a few additional brain cells? This'll be quick.”

“It doesn't actually kill brain cells; those studies are complete BS. And even if they're not, I only got a month of life left, so how many brain cells do I really need?”

“Apparently not many. Can we talk?” And Veronica is once again blazing her fiery brown orbs into mine.

“Yeah, sure, of course.”

She motions for me to follow her and grab her hand, so I do, feeling excited that things are again good between us and all my stupid mistakes are water under the bridge.

“Be quick,” Paolo shouts. “Denton needs to be back soon.”

As Veronica wriggles out of my grip, I understand that she hadn't actually been gesturing for me to hold her hand. Whoops. But she extracts her hand in a subtle way, like she doesn't want to hurt my feelings, and it gives me an odd kind of hope.

I've never been one of those dudes who're always checking out girls' asses and stuff, but as I follow her deeper into the woods, it's practically impossible not to look. She's wearing these dark blue jeans and a bright yellow T-shirt that accentuate all the curves of her body. Unlike Taryn, who is an inch taller than me and fairly skinny—a pretty flamingo—Veronica is on the shorter side, with more meat on her bones. A sultry bunny.

“Stop looking at my butt,” Veronica says without looking back.

“Oh, sorry. I mean, I wasn't.”

“Sure.”

I have trouble embracing my primal male instincts. Even now, with mere minutes of guaranteed life left, I'm simultaneously feeling guilty about betraying Taryn and like I could never be man enough for Veronica.

“Hey, I know you want some private time with the dude of the hour, but how far are you taking us?”

She stops short and turns toward me. “This'll do.” We're at least one hundred feet away from Paolo, but I can still sorta see him if I look through the trees.

Veronica looks at me, unsmiling. “Take off your pants.”

Well, that's not what I expected her to say. “Ah, look, I already cheated on Taryn once, and I feel like—”

“I'm serious. Take off your pants.”

“Um, do you at least first wanna talk about what happened between us last night…?”

“No. Now.”

I look toward Paolo's section of the woods, thinking maybe I can use him as an excuse not to disrobe, but he's smoking his bowl and looking in the opposite direction.

“Come on,” Veronica adds for good measure.

“Okay, okay. I didn't realize you were such a dominatrix.”

I pull off my Pumas, chuck them to the side, undo my belt, and pull off the jeans I'd changed into after leaving Taryn's, exposing my blueberry legs to the world once more.

“Whoa.” Veronica stares, transfixed. “Paolo told me it was only on one leg.”

All of my sexual fantasies evaporate as I realize Veronica just wants to get a look at my splotch legs. I don't have time for this. Standing in front of her in only my boxers and a T-shirt is still pretty sexy, though.

“Yeah, well, it got worse. What do you care?”

“What do I care?” Before I can process what's happening, Veronica slides off her jeans, and it is so surprising and exciting that my body automatically reacts. I awkwardly adjust my boxers so it's less obvious.

But then I get it. This is not a sexual overture. Veronica's right leg is fully submerged in purple.

“Oh no no no, you too?”

“Yes, me too. What the hell is this?”

“I dunno. I kinda thought you gave it to me last night.”

“You thought I gave this to you? No way. NO WAY.”

“Okay, hold on, let me look at it.” I move closer to inspect Veronica's leg. It isn't lost on me that this is the second pair of exposed lady legs I've stared at in the past few hours. I'm momentarily distracted by a small patch of scar tissue on her knee. Maybe she fell off her bike when she was little.

“Well?” Veronica asks from above me.

“Yeah, I mean, it's the same thing I have, but you don't have the red dots.”

“What do you mean? Lemme see.”

And then she's crouching down in her T-shirt and underwear and looking intently at my right leg. Even though the context is all wrong, this does approximate some fantasies I may or may not have had.

“Can I touch it?” Veronica asks.

Please! Yes! Touch me!
“Sure, feel free.”

Veronica strokes my leg with her index finger, and the brigade of red dots shifts as usual, but really, who cares about that. This is the sexiest moment of my life.

“Wow, they move.”

“Yeah.” There's been a subtle shift between us. It feels like we have some unspoken connection, and the air is thick with possibility.

“But I don't have them.”

“No.”

“Your legs are really hairy.”

“I know.”

“And the purple stuff is just on your legs?”

“Yeah, up to my waist.”

This time, she doesn't even ask permission, she just delicately lifts my shirt up a little bit.

Best day ever. (Not really. I'm about to die.) (But sorta.)

“Um…,” Veronica says as she stares at my torso, and I again try to subtly shift my position so my erection is less blatant. “It's not just up to your waist.”

“What?” I say, laughing because I think she might be flirting with me.

“It's higher than that.”

I take my eyes off Veronica's dark hair and look at my body. Sure enough, the splotch has consumed all of my stomach and the top of it is hovering on my chest, right below my nipples.