Bang (5 page)

“Chess club,” my dad says from the single

uncluttered chair in the darkened living room. The blue

haze from the muted TV hangs low in the room, making

his hoards of junk look even weightier somehow.

Tonight I did my first shift of deliveries since the crash.

Somebody had a late-night craving that we agreed to satisfy even though technically the restaurant was closed. By the time I got back the place was dark.

I take off my coat. “Yeah,” I say.

“They start a new club in the middle of the second

semester?”
My left eye starts to twitch. “No, it’s been going on all

year.” I hang my coat up and start down the hallway.
“Come back here,” he says.
I stop in my tracks and turn around slowly and walk

to the doorway of the living room. “It’s late, Dad,” I say.

“I’m exhausted.”
“Chess club will do that to you.” He’s not looking at me.
My stomach is clenched. But I’m mad too. “No, actually, working a six-hour shift after chess club on a school night will do that to me.”
“You don’t know how to play chess.” It’s a challenge.
“That’s why I wanted to learn,” I lie, and I’m surprised

how easy it is to lie to someone you’ve lost all respect for.

“I was thinking about trying out for a sport, but with the

cast, my options are limited.”
“Is that Angotti boy in chess club?” He turns to look at

me for the first time. He hasn’t shaved in a few days.
I meet his gaze. It would be so easy to just tell the truth

and say no. Instead my big mouth shows up. “Why don’t

you call his parents to find out?”
His eyes flare and he squeezes the arms of the chair.

He looks like he’s going to ream me out, but he holds it in.
After a moment I force a smile. “Night,” I say, and

turn around, heading back down the hallway to my room.

Once inside I let out the breath of fear I’d been holding.

Note to self: learn how to play chess. Now.

“I need to learn how to play chess,” I say when I see

Sawyer the next morning.
“Yes, yes you do.”
“Like, for real.”
He nods seriously. And then he narrows his eyes.

“Wait. You mean literally.”
I grin. “Yes, you horn dog. My dad’s suspicious.”

“Oh. Well then.” He contemplates this as we walk in

the direction of our first-hour classes. And then he stops

outside his classroom and his face brightens. “No problem. We’ll do it at lunch. I just remembered—there happens to be an app for this situation.”

I laugh. “Wouldn’t it be cool if there was an app for

figuratively playing chess?”
His green eyes bore holes in mine. “No. I only like the

real thing.” He pulls my hand toward his mouth, never

taking his eyes off mine, and lets his lips linger on my

thumb knuckle. Then he gives me that shy grin and disappears into his classroom.
Big sigh, Demarco.
At lunch Sawyer downloads a chess app on his phone

and starts explaining the game pieces and what they do.

Trey looks on, mildly interested. After a while he says,

“Maybe I should join chess club.”
Sawyer and I look at him.
He frowns. “Not your euphemistic club. Duh. I’m not

into incest, thank you. However . . .” He raises an eyebrow

at Sawyer. “If you ever, you know, want to experiment . . . ”

I punch Trey in the arm.
Sawyer grins. “Maybe I could bang all the Demarco

siblings.”
“Ack! This conversation is so inappropriate,” I say, and

I feel my face getting hot. “Now I can’t get that image out

of my head, you losers. Don’t drag poor, innocent Rowan

into this love triangle, please.”
Trey pipes up. “It would be a quadrangle—a love

rhombus. Not pretty. And two equal teams would end up

in a draw. But at least two of the Demarcos would be—”
“Stop,” I say, putting my hands over my ears, and they

stop, finally. Guys are so weird and gross. But it’s good to

see Sawyer having a little fun in the middle of this mess.

Sawyer’s fun doesn’t last long. After school he’s waiting for

me outside with a serious look on his face. I glance at Trey

and Rowan, who stop with me. “You guys go ahead,” I say

to them. “Tell Mom I had to go to the library.” I turn to

Sawyer. “Can you drop me off later?”

“Yeah, of course.”
“Cool.” I turn back to Trey. “I’ll be home before five.

We just need to talk about . . . some stuff.”

Trey and Rowan glance at each other and then back

at me. “Okay,” Trey says. He shrugs and they get in the

delivery car.

When they leave, I look at Sawyer. “What happened?”

“Had a film in biology today.”
“And?”
“Supposedly it was about amphibians.”
I wait.
“All I saw was twenty minutes’ worth of the vision on

constant repeat. Gunshots in my head every four seconds.”

He taps out the rhythm on the car door.

“Sorry.” I cringe, thinking of the gory mess he

described. “Did you see anything else?”
“Yeah. There’s new stuff.”
“Helpful?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s so quick. But then something else happened.”
I narrow my eyes. “What?”
“After the film was done, we opened our textbooks,

and all I could see was the vision.” He brings a gloved

hand to his eyes and shakes his head a little. “I think I’m

losing it, Jules. I’m not sure I can handle this. Not sure

at all.”

We go to the library and sit at the computers. I

tell Sawyer to pull up a video while I take some notebook

paper and a pencil out of my backpack.

“Are you seeing it?”

“One sec,” he says, pushing play. “Yeah.” He presses

pause, rewinds, and hits play, then pause again.
“Okay. What do you see?”
“Hey—can’t I just print—”
“Ah, no. Tried that. Doesn’t work.”
He frowns. “This is one of the new pieces. It’s our guy

walking. He’s outside, wearing the same clothes.”
“Bonus. Finally. Is it dark or light out?”
“Dusk.”
“What do you see?”
“A sidewalk. Grass. A bare tree.”
“Grass?”
He nods. “Brownish-yellow grass, all flat and wet.”

“Any buds on that tree?”
“No. Eh . . . wait. Yes, tiny buds. It’s blurry.”

“Any snow at all?”
“No, just wet grass and wet sidewalk.”
I look out the library window. There’s snow on the

ground a couple of inches deep, but huge honking piles

of the dirty kind along the road and the sidewalk. On my

computer I check the weather report. The ten-day forecast shows a quick warming trend with rain on the weekend and temperatures reaching the sixties by next Tuesday.

One week from today.
“Shit,” I mutter. “Rain plus warmth equals snow

melted by this weekend.” I look at Sawyer. “How bad has

the vision been, exactly?”
Sawyer stares at the computer. His hand shakes on the

mouse. “Bad. It’s everywhere.”
“Car windows?”
“Sometimes.”
“Mirrors too?”
“Yes.”
I stare at him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I—I thought I was telling you.”
“Well, yeah, but you didn’t say it was getting so

intense. That means it’s happening soon!” My whisper is

on the verge of breaking decibel records.
He turns to me, his eyes weary and red rimmed. “I

know. But there’s no fucking information here, okay? I

can’t
do
anything unless it tells me how to find it!”
“Sawyer, there
has
to be something there. That’s the

way it works! You have to look for stuff!”
“That’s the way it worked for you,” he says, no

longer whispering. He pushes his chair back. “You

keep telling me I’m doing it wrong, but you don’t see

it. You don’t know. There are no body bags, no faces I

can recognize, because the faces are all blown to bits.

Okay? There’s nothing there that I recognize. You had

a building that you could figure out. You had a face you

recognized, and that helped you put it all together. Me?

I don’t have jack shit.”
I stare at him. He stares back. And I think about what

I just said and close my eyes. “God, you’re right,” I say

finally. “I’m sorry, Sawyer, I don’t know what I’m saying.”
The intensity on his face wanes a little, but he leans

forward and adds, “Don’t treat me like I’m stupid just

because my vision is different from yours. I get what we’re

trying to do here. I’m doing my best.”
I hang my head. Dear dogs. What am I doing to him?

Nothing like adding another layer of pressure—as if the

vision wasn’t enough. “Sorry,” I say again.
He gives me a rueful smile. “S’okay. I know you’re

worried too. You must feel pretty helpless.”
I nod. “Anyway,” I say.
“Anyway,” he agrees. “Okay, so I liked the questions

you were asking earlier. That was helpful.”
I nod again. And I like that we just talked this out.

No big fight, nobody getting all hurt feelings or acting

passive-aggressive or whatever . . . it’s nice. As nice as it

can be, anyway. “In this frame, are there any buildings?”
“No. But there’s a road. More like, um, not a public

road with painted lines or anything—it’s like a private

paved road.”
“Like a school would have. Makes sense. Any signs?

Street signs, big cement block signs, school marquee-type

signs in the distance?”
“There’s a little stop sign down at the end of the road.

Not like full size.”
“Can you see the sky?”
“The sky? Yeah, I guess. It’s dark, cloudy.”
“No sign of a sun or sunset or anything?”
“No.”
I take a few notes. “Any idea what kind of tree that

is?”
He squints. “It’s got really thin branches. The trunk is

sort of squat and rounded and the branches are like long,

narrow fingers going everywhere.”
I frown. “Like a weeping willow? All hanging down

like hair?”
“No, more like . . . hmm. Like the kinds of trees that

line downtown streets, you know? They aren’t like hulking

oaks or maples; they’re daintier, low to the ground, like a

big bush.”
“A flowering tree, maybe?” I tilt my head, trying to

picture it. “Here, can you draw?”
“Not well.” But he takes the pencil and tries.
“What if you hold up the paper to the monitor and

trace it?”
He glances sidelong at me. “Smart.” He does it, and

it’s so weird to see him tracing something I can’t see. The

bare branches look like fish skeletons. “I don’t know what

good this will do.”
“I know. Probably none. But at least we’re accomplishing something. How’s the vision now—if you look out the window, is it there?”
He turns his head and looks. “No, not at the moment.”
I smile. “Good.”
“So we’re doing something right?”
“I think so.”
“About time.”
We go through the vision frame by frame until it’s

almost five and I have to go. Sawyer drops me off a

block from the restaurant. “Thanks,” he says. “It’s nice

talking things through, you know? My family always

just yells.”
“It was really nice. Sorry I was in your face.”
He leans over and we kiss, slow and sweet, and then

I get out and head to work, wondering if Depressed Dad

is oblivious to my nonappearance or if Angry Dad will be

waiting by the back door for me.

Lucky for me, no one notices me slipping in

because my parents are too busy admiring the shiny new

ball truck in the back parking lot. I dump my coat and

backpack, throw on an apron, and go out back to join them

in the cold. The giant meatballs are the same, but the lettering and logo on the side of the truck are fresh and bold.

Inside it’s pretty much brand-new, customized to Dad’s

requests, with all new cooking equipment and fixtures

and extra storage from what we were used to. It’s actually

pretty nice, as food trucks go. Here’s hoping it puts Dad

in a better mood.

“I hear it’s warming up this weekend,” I say, trying to pretend I’ve been here all along. “Can’t wait to try it out. There’s a food truck festival in the city. Heard about it on Twitter.”

Trey snorts and gives me a look.
I grin and shrug, rubbing my arms to keep warm. My

cast snags my sweater, not for the first time. Annoying. I

frown and poke the yarn into the new hole with my pinkie.

“I’m going inside to see if Aunt Mary needs help,” I say.

“Me too,” Rowan says.
We run in together.
“Is Dad pissed?” I ask.
“No, he didn’t say anything. Giant balls saved the day,”

Rowan says. We clear the snow from our boots.

“Sorry to put you guys in an awkward position again.”

“Don’t worry,” Rowan says, hanging up her coat. She

looks over her shoulder at me and fluffs her hair before she

puts it up into her usual work ponytail. “I’ll get you back.”

The first customers are arriving as we check in with

Aunt Mary, and my mind strays to Sawyer and the new

scenes. It’s frustrating, not being able to see the vision.

I feel like I’m removed from it in a big way. Like it isn’t

really happening because I can’t see it, and this is just a

puzzle I need to solve. Like eleven gunshots are just ricocheting in some movie I haven’t been to.
But it’s real. It’ll happen to real people, and to their

real families, whether we’re there or not. It’s the kind of

horrendous tragedy that makes national headlines. And

somehow, in my mind, a guy with a gun that could go off

in any direction and end lives in an instant seems so much

LISA M c MANN

more random and dangerous than a single snowplow hitting a single building. Like the snowplow is easier to control than one person’s arm.

Around nine we have a lull, so Mom and I are starting

cleanup in the kitchen. When I feel my phone vibrating

under my apron, I grab the bags of trash and run them out

to the Dumpster.

“Hey,” I say. “I have about ten seconds.”
“Okay. Something wasn’t sitting right, so I went back

to the library after I dropped you off. I watched the vision

again, then rewound all the way and realized there’s a

single frame so quick I missed it—it was just a little flash

right after the short scene with the grass and sidewalk. And

it took me forever to just land on it right, but finally I did,

and there’s a building.”
I suck in a breath. “Okay?”
“It’s an old building with ivy on it. I can only see part

of it. I sketched it. I’ll bring it tomorrow.”
“’Kay. Gotta run. Good job.” I slide the phone in my

pocket again as Trey pulls up after finishing deliveries.

I toss the trash in the Dumpster with my good arm and

meet Trey on the way to the door.
“Slow night,” he says. “Nothing new come in?”
“Nada. You get to help us clean up.” I grin.
Before we go inside he pauses, his hand on the knob,

and turns to look at me. “Is there something going on with

you and Sawyer besides . . . you know. The usual kisskiss

stuff?”
I try to stop my eyes from darting around guiltily, but

I’ve never been good at lying to Trey. “Well, I’m not pregnant if that’s what you’re wondering. Again. Be sure and tell Dad and everyone.”
He laughs. “No, I wasn’t thinking that. Sawyer just

looks…”
“Hot?”
“No. Well, yeah, but—”
“Sexay?”
He sighs. “Stressed-out.”
I just press my lips together in a grim smile and shrug.
After a minute, Trey nods. “Okay.” He starts up the

steps to the restaurant and turns. “Well, if you ever need

an ear.” I can tell he’s trying not to look hurt.
“Thanks, big brother,” I say, and reach out to squeeze

his arm.
He messes up my hair. “Dork,” he says. He turns the

handle and we go inside.

At night, when I lie in bed staring at the ceiling and watching the blinking lights from the sign outside, I think about what schools might be composed of old-looking buildings

with ivy on them. The last thought I have as I drift off:

Probably in the city.