Freeze Tag (7 page)

Lannie’s fingers in winter.

Meghan sobbed dry tears, tottering among the obstacles.

A raised ranch house has three doors: front door atop many steps, back kitchen door opening onto a high deck, and a door into the garage. If you go in by the garage, you must ease your body between the silent cars and the debris stacked along garage walls. There is an oily waiting stink in a garage. The darkness that has collected over the years lies in pools, sucking your feet.

In winter, the garage door was always dark.

Meghan hated the garage door. But if she went in the front, she would be exposed to Lannie’s view. If Lannie was home. If Lannie was looking away from West.

And she could not go in the kitchen door, because it was latched as well as locked.

The door in the garage opened with a raspy scream.

It wasn’t the door, thought Meghan. It was me.

Would Lannie have frozen Tuesday? Had Lannie frozen her own mother? It had seemed silly when she was surrounded by the warmth of Mrs. Trevor. Now, in the oily dark, it seemed so very real.

Meghan did not feel frozen this time, but suffocated. The oil that had leaked out of the cars and soaked into the cement floor came through the soles of her shoes and crawled up her veins and lay like a sheet of rubber over her lungs.

West and Lannie. Hours now. Alone together.

She got out of the garage, up the stairs, into the safer more open dark of the living parts of the house. She turned on no lights. She did not want Lannie Anveill, across the street, to see that she was home.

Although of course Lannie always knew.

And Lannie, who could materialize anywhere, anytime, Lannie might suddenly be leaning against the wallpaper right here in this room, with her little chuckle of ice and snow.

It was a matter of will not to turn on the lights and make sure that the corners were empty. Lannie isn’t here, Meghan told herself. I’m not going to be a baby and panic.

She sat in the dining room, which the Moores never used; it was just wasted space with a table and chairs. But it had a window view of West’s driveway. She wanted to see him come home.

He didn’t get home till supper.

He parked that car of his mother’s and sat quietly for several moments behind the wheel before he opened the door and got out. What was he thinking about?

He had been alone with Lannie Anveill for three hours.

What had they done in that three hours? West … with his Trevor need to be courteous. Just how courteous had West been? What on earth had they talked about?

That hand on the pants leg of West’s jeans. Lannie’s hand. Thin and white like a peeled stick. What had that touch been like?

Had West shivered and felt sick?

Or could Lannie’s hands, which froze bodies and hearts, make other changes, too?

West did not look over at Meghan’s house. He did not look at his own, either. He got out of the car so slowly he looked damaged. He had to pull himself along, as if his limbs were a separate weight. He had trouble opening his front door, and trouble closing it when he was inside.

But then the door closed, and he was as lost to her as he had been driving around with Lannie.

The dining room curtains had been put up years ago and their positions rarely changed. They hung stiffly at each side of the sills, as frozen into place as if Lannie had touched them. It was utterly silent in Meghan’s house. She had not turned on the television or the radio for company. Her parents were not yet home.

Meghan was so lonely she wanted to run over to the Trevors. Not even waste time getting to the door. Leap straight through the window.

But Lannie would be watching. Lannie always watched. It was what she had done her whole life: stand in the shadows and watch.

Standing in her own shadows, watching the passing of others, Meghan thought — Life? This is not life. This is a warehouse.

Lannie had just been stored, all these years. Born and then stuck on a shelf, while others lived.

It was time to turn on the lights and go back to living herself. Meghan left the dining room, and walked through the house flipping every light switch. Then she sat by the phone.

It did not ring.

Meghan couldn’t believe it. What was the matter with West? He had to know that the most important thing on earth was to call her up and tell her what was going on.

He didn’t.

Meghan’s parents came home. The routine in the Moore household never varied. Her mother and her father smiled at the sight of her, lightly kissed her forehead or her cheek, and asked how her day had been. How Meghan yearned for the passion at the Trevors’ house — the clutter and noise and chaos and exuberance.

“I had a great day,” said Meghan. The morning’s academic successes might have happened ten centuries ago. “I’m really improving in Spanish. And history was very interesting.”

Her parents wanted to hear her improved Spanish accent. They wanted to find out what had been so interesting in history.

But it was West’s interest she wanted.

West did not call after supper.

He did not call at all.

At nine-thirty, Meghan gave up the wait and telephoned him herself.

West answered. “Hi, Meghan,” he said. There was nothing in his voice.

“Are you alone?”

“No.”

“Who’s listening?”

“Everybody.”

“What happened?”

“Tell you later.”

“I have to know now. I can’t sleep without knowing!”

West sighed and said nothing.

Meghan said, “I’ll meet you at the truck.”

They had done this a few times: crept out of their houses, walked silently over the dark backyards down the hedge lines, down the sloping grass, slick with evening frost. Then they’d sit in the front seat of the Chevy to talk. You couldn’t slam the doors because it would make a noise the families might hear. Plus now that the handles didn’t work from the inside, you didn’t dare shut the doors anyway.

The truck interior was not romantic.

In summer, because it was in a low place where vines and tangles grew thickly, there were mosquitoes. In winter, a chill rose off the ground and could not be shaken. Meghan’s feet got so cold she couldn’t stand it. And this was January. Cold as Lannie’s heart.

“Okay,” said West finally.

“What time?”

“Same time.”

“Eleven?”

“Okay.”

“West, I can’t tell a thing from your voice. What is going on? Is it okay? What did Lannie do?”

“It’s okay,” said West.

“I love you,” she said to West.

There was a long silence. “Okay,” he said at last.

But it was not okay.

Meghan’s parents liked to be in bed by a few minutes before eleven, and at eleven, sitting up against the big padded headboard, they would watch the evening news together. In that half hour of broadcasting, Meghan could do anything and her parents would not know.

As soon as their door shut, she slipped downstairs to rummage in the closet, seeking out her heaviest coat.

On the back step, the wind bit her face and cut her skin.

She felt like an explorer on a glacier.

The backyard was long and deep.

There were no stars and no moon.

The wind yanked silently at the young trees and the hovering hedges.

The world swayed and leaned down to scrape her face.

She could not see a thing. But a flashlight would be a diamond point for Lannie to see out
her
bedroom window. Lannie must never know about the tangles, the privacy and the pleasure of the truck deep in the shadows.

How deep the yard was!

I must be taking tiny steps, thought Meghan. I feel as if I’ve gone so far I’ve crossed the town line.

The ground became mucky, and her feet quaked in the mire.

Where am I?

A hand grabbed her hair.

She tried to scream, but was too afraid. Her whole chest closed in as if a giant’s hand had crushed her like newspaper for a fire.

“You walked right by,” whispered West. “Come on. Truck’s way back there.”

Meghan’s knees nearly buckled. “You scared me!” she whispered.

West led her back to the truck, where the driver’s door hung open. She was amazed she had not walked smack into it and broken a bone. She climbed in first, and West got in after her, and on the wide single seat they crushed against each other.

“Tell me,” said Meghan.

“About what?”

“About Lannie!”

West said nothing.

Meghan was used to the dark now, and could see his eyes. They were large and shiny. “Did you make it clear to her that you and I are going out with each other?”

West was silent for a long time. At last he said, “No.”

“West! Why not?”

“Because.”

Meghan hated him. Just as much as she loved him, she hated him.

West closed his shiny eyes and Meghan felt buried.

“She was serious,” said West. He did not touch Meghan. He ran his hands over the torn dashboard, as gently as if he were stroking velvet. “When we talked, she slid over next to me, Meghan. She never took her eyes off me and she never blinked. I couldn’t see down into her eyes. It was like riding around with a store mannequin. People shouldn’t have eyes as pale as that. But she’s like that all the way through. Too pale. What’s human in her got washed out. Bleached away.” West linked his hands together and studied them. Perhaps he had had to hold hands with Lannie. Perhaps he had scrubbed them to get the Lannie off. “She’ll freeze Tuesday,” said West.

“Why Tuesday?” said Meghan. “Why not me?”

West played with the broken door handles. The wind raked through the open cab door and chewed on Meghan’s cheeks like rats.

Meghan thought: because West would risk me. He would call her bluff on his neighbor Meghan. But he would never call her bluff on his sister Tuesday. Tuesday matters.

West went in stages with his family. There were times he could hardly bear having a younger sister and brother. There were times he hated their dumb names and wished somebody would adopt them, or send them to boarding school. There were times when he and Tuesday and Brown bickered steadily, hitting each other, throwing things, being obnoxious.

But he loved them.

“Lannie is jealous of us,” said West slowly. “We Trevors — our family works. We get along. We talk, we hug, we fight, we have supper, we share, we bicker. It works. We’re a close family.”

I’m jealous, too, thought Meghan. How weird that I can understand Lannie in that. Meghan thought of Lannie’s cold cold eyes growing hot as tropical fever.

“Lannie is alone,” said West. “She’s always been alone. And she’s tired of it. She’s chosen me.”

There was a strange timbre in West’s voice, like an instrument being tuned.
She’s chosen me
. Could he be proud? Could he feel singled out for an honor? That Lannie had chosen him?

“She wants an excuse, Meggie-Megs,” said West softly. “She’s ready to freeze somebody. I can’t give her an excuse.”

“Just stop her!”

“How?”

The little word sat in the cold night air and waited for an answer.

But there was none.

No parent, no police officer, no principal could prevent Lannie from touching somebody she wanted to touch. No bribe, no gift, no promise could ease Lannie’s requirement. She wanted West.

“What about Friday night?” said Meghan at last.

Friday night they were going to a dance. West had never taken a girl to a dance. He’d attended plenty of them, of course. It was something to do. He didn’t object to dances as an event. He’d go, and hang out with the boys, and do something dumb like hang off the basketball hoop, and bend it, and get in trouble, and have to pay for repairs.

But he wouldn’t dance.

West knew all the top songs. He knew all the good groups. He owned all the best cassettes and CDs.

But he wouldn’t dance.

He was a senior, and as far as Meghan was concerned, you could not have a senior year without dances.

There were to be raffles and games and prizes. There was a DJ (nobody wanted a band; they never played the songs right) and the chaperones were somebody else’s parents. That was key. A good dance never had your own parents there. There was even a dress code this time: dresses for girls and a shirt tucked in with a tie for boys. Meghan could hardly wait.

“You have to understand,” said West Trevor.

He meant he was not taking Meghan to the dance. Meghan could have overturned the truck on top of him. “Lannie won’t freeze Tuesday!” shouted Meghan. “She knows you won’t go out with her if she freezes your own sister!”

West swallowed. Meghan could hear the swallow. Thick and difficult. “She said she would.”

If Meghan cried, West would not comfort her. He was frozen in his own worries: he had to protect his little sister. That was first with him.

I want to be first! thought Meghan.

She slid away from him, and jerked open the handle on the passenger door. The handle being broken, of course it didn’t work. She tried to roll down the window so she could open the door from the outside. That handle didn’t work either. She fumbled and muttered instead of storming away. There was nothing worse than a slamming exit — and no door to go out of. Eventually she had to look back at West.

He was laughing.

“You bum,” said Meghan. She absolutely hated being laughed at.

West’s grief and confusion evaporated. His long crosswise grin split his face. His head tipped back with the laugh he was choking on. He had never been more handsome. “Don’t be mad,” he said. His hands unzipped her heavy jacket. “So I have to take Lannie to some old dance.” His hands tugged at Meghan’s thick sweater. “Big deal,” said West. He leaned forward, hands and lips exploring. “I’ll wear Lannie down somehow,” he promised, “and get rid of her. It’ll be us again, okay?”

The cold and the wind were forgotten. The torn seat and the broken handles meant nothing. The heat of their bodies left them breathless and desperate.

Yes, yes, it was okay! What was Lannie Anveill, against the strength of true love?

Meghan’s adoration for West was so great it seemed impossible they could survive the pressure; they would explode with loving each other. Her arms encircled his broad chest in the tightest, most satisfying embrace.