Half In Love With Death (15 page)

“I have to change first.” I looked down at the dress, hanging half off me. “It would send my parents over the edge to see me in this.”

He stared back at me as if this were the saddest thing.

I went on, “My mom cries all the time, and when she isn't crying, she's mean as a snake. And my dad is . . . .” I paused, not wanting to say this, but having to. “A drunk. Sometimes it's like I don't even have parents anymore.”

“Parents. Who needs them?” He shook his head. “Go ahead, change.”

I frowned. “Can you please leave?”

“Sure.” As he stood in the doorway he said, “And Caroline?”

“What?”

“Someday, if you're a good girl, I'll show you
my
poetry.”

I wanted to believe that we had this in common, but I wasn't sure. He didn't look like a poet to me in his black boots and tight jeans, but I figured with someone like Tony, you could never tell.

• • •

I was zipping up my denim skirt when Edie walked in. She glared at me.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“You'll be sorrier later,” she replied.

“What do you mean?”

She sat down so close to me I could smell her wine breath. “He killed a girl, you know.”

My blood froze.

“Jess?” I was barely able to speak her name.

She shook her head. “No, some other girl. She's buried somewhere in the desert. He killed her and he didn't even care, and I shouldn't be telling you this 'cause he'd kill
me
if he knew I'd told you.”

She stared at me coldly. I wanted to leave, but the way she was looking at me made it impossible to move. “You're lying,” I said. “You just want me to give him up so you can have him back, but the truth is neither of us can have him. He loves my sister.”

She didn't flinch. “Believe what you want, but I'm telling you the truth.” Her skinny fingers absent-mindedly toyed with the big ring on the zipper that went down the front of her dress. Her pupils were so large, her eyes looked like black holes. She didn't seem like Edie anymore. She seemed like someone who'd taken too many drugs.

“How do you know it's the truth?” I asked.

She touched the small scar by her lip. “The ghost from the Ouija board told me.”

“You're crazy,” I said. “Abnormal.”

“Ready?” a voice said.

We turned to see Tony standing in the doorway.

Tony and I stopped by the pool before going to the car. Light reflecting from the house shimmered on the water. He took my books from me and put them on the ground. Then he took my hand, and I knew I should be afraid of him, but I wasn't. It didn't seem possible that he'd killed someone. Edie lied about everything. Everyone knew that, but I couldn't get her words out of my head.

He turned to me, his glance soft as a breeze. “You know what I like about you?”

“What?”

“You listen. No one else listens.” He put his arm around me. “I miss her. God, I miss her.”

He led me closer to the edge. Our two reflections blended in the water, his sad shadow touching mine. “I've been told I'm an old soul.” He paused. “I'm not so sure about that, but sometimes I do feel like I'm living in the wrong time, like I don't belong here.”

I squeezed his hand. “Me too.” I remembered what Jess had said about his loneliness. I felt it now. It was like a darkness reaching into space and touching me at the same time. He'd washed off the white makeup, but there were still smudges beneath his eyes. He looked like he hadn't slept in weeks. His hair was damp and messed up. I could tell that he was suffering. Now wasn't the time to ask him about what Edie had said. If it wasn't true, it would hurt him. He wouldn't trust me anymore and he might stop helping me. And if it was true . . . . I didn't want to think about that. I needed to listen, watch, and wait for the right time to ask, the way detectives did on TV. I stepped back from the water.

“Come on,” he said, and we went over to the car and got in. I sat on the far end of the front seat, but he pulled me close. I was so confused. He turned on the radio. Marianne Faithfull sang “As Tears Go By.” Her voice was breathy, soft, and beautiful. It was like she was singing of my sadness, our sadness.

“You like this?” he said. I nodded. His eyes searched my face. “I knew you would.”

He drove more slowly this time, the headlights illumining the road a little ahead, the rest swallowed by darkness. Much as I wanted to ignore them, Edie's words still weighed on me. I was resisting the urge to ask when he said, “I have a confession to make.”

I almost jumped out of my seat.

He went on, “I do know the guy who drove Jess to California.”

“What?”

“His name is Brian Glen. He's a pal of mine. When I saw how mad your sister was and how determined she was to run off to California, I asked him to take her. I knew he'd keep an eye on her and let me know where she was when they got there.”

“So you knew where she was all this time and you didn't say anything?” My voice was shaking. “I thought we were a team, and we were going to share what we knew.”

“That's why I wanted to see you today. I was just waiting to be sure she was okay before I told you. Brian called me last night.” He cleared his throat. “Seems Jess told him she hated me and never wanted to speak to me again.” He looked away. “But when Brian saw a story about her in the news, he decided to call. He said she's staying with him in Redondo Beach.”

This was too strange. “Redondo Beach? My dad looked for Jess there, but he didn't find her.”

He smiled. “That's 'cause he's your dad.”

I paused, letting his words sink in. “Are you sure Jess is in California?” He nodded. “But what if your friend is lying?”

He frowned. “Brian doesn't lie.”

I stared at him, finding it hard to accept this incredible truth. “You sure?”

“I'm as sure of this as I am of that moon in the sky.”

As I gazed up at the giant white disc hanging over us in all its majesty, I wanted so much to believe that Jess was somewhere and that all these weeks of waiting might finally be over, that she wasn't—I could barely think the word—dead. “So how are you going to get her to come home?” I asked.

He laughed. “I think you mean what are we going to do to get her home? We, you and me, we're going to California, and we're going to find her. We're a team. Remember?”

“We're both going to California?”

He nodded. “You have to come. She hates me right now, but she doesn't hate you.”

“But shouldn't we tell the police so they can find her?”

He looked at me. “You know that won't work. Jess is like a butterfly. You've got to creep up real quiet, or she'll fly off. Sometimes people who run away don't want to be found, but I think she'd let you find her.”

What he said made a lot of sense. “When should we go?”

“Soon. We'll just take off like in
On the Road
.” As he turned into the neighborhood where I lived, he gestured toward all the little box houses and said, “And leave these puppet people living their phony little lives behind.”

“But I have school,” I said.

He frowned. “Caroline, we're talking about finding Jess here. Isn't that more important than school?”

“I guess.” I bit my nail. I was happy, but at the same time the thought of actually getting in Tony's car and leaving my family behind as we sped down the highway on our way to California made me nervous.

He gazed through the windshield, not smiling. I wanted him to squeeze my hand to reassure me, but he just kept driving. I worried that I'd disappointed him. He pulled up about a block from my house, as always. I was about to get out of the car when he pressed a piece of paper into my hand. I looked at him questioningly.

“That's my poem.” He smiled. I started to open it but he said, “Don't read it now. And don't tell anyone about California, okay?” I nodded. As I gathered up my books, he added, “You don't have to do anything you don't want to do, but remember, Jess might move around. I don't know how much longer she'll be in Redondo.” He touched his finger to his lips and then touched mine.

• • •

Upstairs, in the light from the lamp with the pink-flowered shade, I unfolded the piece of paper. On it was written:

Though I didn't completely understand his poem, I was relieved. How could someone who'd written something as beautiful as this have done what Edie said? As I smoothed out the paper and placed it on my desk, I wondered if Tony felt the same way I did, that poetry was one of the only things that could get him through all of this.

• • •

When he didn't call for days, I ricocheted between excitement and fear. Doubts arose at the oddest moments. I'd be spreading mayonnaise on bread when the phrase “he killed someone” would go through my mind, and I'd lose my appetite. Then I'd remind myself that Edie was a liar who was full of crazy ideas that she got from a Ouija board, for Christ's sake, and I knew where Jess was. I was going to find her.

Other times I'd wake in the middle of the night thinking that precious time was passing, and we had to go to California right away. I'd clutch the sheet and as I inhaled its flower scent, the doughy smell of Tony's sheets would come back to me.

The hardest part was not telling my parents about any of this. Every time I looked into their faces, I could see how upset they were, but I couldn't forget what Tony had said about Jess being like a butterfly. I couldn't tell them she was in California. I'd already messed up by not telling them she'd snuck out. If I did something that made us lose her again, I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

On Wednesday afternoon, I sat in the white chair that went with my white desk, trying to do my history homework, but I couldn't concentrate. I went to the window, pushed aside the curtains, and tapped my fingers on the glass. The longer we waited to go to California, the greater the likelihood was that Jess would slip away. She'd never been patient. Why wouldn't Tony call?

Had something happened to him? If Jess were in my place, she'd be bombarding him with phone calls by now. She went after what she wanted so easily. But every time I thought of picking up the phone I froze, unable to summon the courage to do it.

From outside I heard the muffled jingle of the ice cream truck. It pulled up across the street. Kids came streaming out of nowhere, and formed a line. I wished I was one of those kids, standing in line for ice cream, but that time was as far away as the twinkle of a distant star.

I sat down on the rug, wrapped my arms around my knees, and stared at the pink phone, wishing I could make it ring. The only way I could ever figure things out was if Tony called me. And then, as if it heard my wish, the phone really did ring, its sound lovelier even than the ice cream truck's jingle. Before anyone else in the house could answer, I picked it up. It was Tony. I felt a rush from head to toe.

He said, “Did you get a chance to read my poem?”

“Yes.” I hoped he wasn't going to ask what I thought it meant, because I had trouble explaining things like that.

“I got a thing about the water.” There was a silence. “How it changes you. I almost drowned once, you know.”

“Someone told me that.”

“There's probably more to it than you heard, but I don't want to bore you with the details.”

“I don't mind listening,” I said.

“Okay.” He took a deep breath. “I was at Sabino Canyon. It had been raining hard, and the creek bed rose. Some of my friends dared me to jump over it, and you know me. I did and I missed, but I didn't scream for help. I laughed.”

“You laughed?”

“I did. The water was churning all around me, dragging me downstream, and I just let go. It was exciting to be so helpless. As I went under I thought my chest was going to explode, but then I got this feeling of peace and everything went black, and I saw the nothing that is beneath all of us. And it was infinite.” Infinite, I thought. Just like in my book.

He paused. “When I opened my eyes, I was a new person.”

“You mean you're not really you?”

His voice grew serious. “No, Caroline. Now I'm the real me. It's hard to understand unless it happens to you. I should have died, but I didn't. And now, unlike most of the stupid people stuck on this planet, I'm not afraid to live my life. I'm not afraid to do anything because I know there's no past, no future. There's only now.” He paused to let me absorb that. “People said it was an accident but it wasn't. What happened wasn't like all the bullshit they talk about in the Bible, either. It was magic.”

“I believe in magic,” I said quietly. “I think there are moments when you can pass from one world into another. When the edges of things are soft. Like an amoeba. If you find one of them, anything is possible.” I wrapped the cord around my wrist. “Those moments are like a door. You just have to figure out how to open it. Some people do it with drugs. For you, maybe it was drowning.”

“Then I guess we have that in common.” He paused. “Doors and amoebas. You never cease to surprise me.”

I wanted to say more, but I worried I'd said too much.

“You okay?” he finally asked.

“Yes. Thanks for calling.”

“You sure are a thankful girl,” he said. “Do you thank everyone for everything?”

“No.”