I Was Here (11 page)

21

Tricia’s in a good mood. The weekend I lost big in Seattle, she won big at the Indian
casino, so even after paying for the expenses of food, hotel, and gas, she comes home
two hundred dollars richer. She fans out the twenties that night at dinner and says
we should splurge on something. For Tricia, this usually means something expensive
and useless that she sees on the Home Shopping Network, like an ice-cream maker that
she’ll use twice and then turn into a receptacle for more junk.

“What do you think we should get?” she asks me.

“A year’s worth of Internet.”

“Why do you keep going on about that?”

I don’t say anything.

“There
is
a guy.” She smirks at me. “I knew it all along. You’d better not get pregnant!”

If there is one thing Tricia has pounded into me over the years, it’s not to make
the same mistake she did.

“You’ve been to Tacoma, what, three times now? And you want an Internet connection
so you can go into chat rooms and do what you do. Don’t tell me it’s not a guy.”

After the kiss, Ben tried to get me to calm down, but I grabbed my stuff and started
walking toward the bus station, and he was forced to give me a ride. In the car he
said, “It’s okay, Cody.” And I said, “How can you say that? I don’t know if she can
see us. If she’s up there or down there, watching us. But if she is, she’s disgusted.
You know that, right?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. Who knows?”

“
I
know. And it doesn’t matter anyway because
I’m
disgusted.”

He didn’t say anything else after that. At the station, I asked him to forward me
all those long emails Meg had sent him and, after that, never to contact me again.

“It’s not a guy,” I tell Tricia now.

“If you say so.”

In the end, she buys a decorative fire pit.

x x x

I have read every post I can find written by All_BS. He doesn’t post that much. But
he posts enough that it’s clear he’s there, paying attention. And the name? All_BS?
What’s that all about? Is it short for “All Bullshit”? As in, “These boards are all
bullshit”? Or as in, “Life is”?

x x x

One day, on the way home from the library, I see Sue driving out of the parking lot
of the fried chicken fast-food restaurant. My impulse is to duck out of the way.

“Need a ride?” she asks, pulling up alongside me.

I peer into the car. There’s no Joe, no Scottie, just a big bag, already seeping with
grease. Sue moves the chicken to the backseat and opens the door for me.

“Where you headed?” she asks, as if there are multiple possible destinations.

“Home,” I say, which is true. “Tricia’s waiting for me,” I add, which is not, but
I’m worried she’s going to invite me over and I can’t face that, especially right
now, with the folder full of Final Solution printouts in my hand.

“We haven’t seen much of you,” Sue says. “I’ve left you some messages.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve been busy.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she says. “We want you to get on with your life.”

“I am,” I say. The lies slip off my tongue so easily now, they barely register as
untrue.

“Good. Good.” She looks at the folder, and I start to sweat. I think she’s going to
ask about it, but she doesn’t. The silence grows and gapes between us, shimmering
like the heat on the empty asphalt.

It’s not a big town, and within five minutes we are home. I’m relieved to find Tricia’s
car in the driveway, if only because it backs up my story.

“Maybe come for dinner one night next week,” Sue says. She glances toward the bag
in the backseat; the deep-fried smell has now settled throughout the car. “If you
come, I can make the chili you like. I’m starting to cook again.”

“Chili would be great,” I say, opening the door. As I shut it, I catch a glimpse of
Sue’s face in the side mirror, and I understand that we’re both of us liars now.

x x x

The next day, I clean Mrs. Driggs’s house. It’s one of my easiest jobs because it
is usually immaculate. I strip her bed, the sheets smelling like old lady, even though
Mrs. Driggs can’t be more than ten years older than Tricia. I scrub the bathtub, self-clean
the oven, Windex the windows. I save Jeremy’s room for last. It creeps me out a bit,
the ghostliness of it, vacuuming the shag carpet, still bearing the treads from last
week’s cleaning.

I push the vacuum into the corner where Hendrix’s cage once sat. Something clatters
in the motor. I switch it off, get down on the floor to inspect what’s inside, and
find a bobby pin, the kind Mrs. Driggs uses to pull back her bun. So she haunts this
empty room, this empty house. She should get a pet or something, maybe some cats.
Much better than a snake, although cats would go after mice too. Still, it wouldn’t
be such a rigged game as it was when Jeremy fed Hendrix—the victim and the victor
predetermined. Poor fucking mouse.

I’m sitting there with the bobby pin in my hand when it hits me. How to find All_BS.
He’s the snake. To get him, I have to be the mouse.

22

What makes someone appetizing to someone like All_BS? Why did he choose to help Meg
and not, say, Sassafrants, or the guy who always asks about rat poison? And how can
I get him to think I’m one of those people?

I go back through his posts, looking for a pattern. He responds more to girls than
to guys—particularly to smart girls. He doesn’t ever reply to the illiterates, or
the ranters. He also seems to take an interest in people at the beginning of their
journey, the ones who are just starting to think about “catching the bus.” And he
likes philosophy—his posts are full of quotes—and seems drawn to those whose posts
are philosophical too. No wonder he liked Meg.

The first step is obvious. I’ll have to post something on the boards. An opening,
like Meg’s. Something that introduces me to the group, announces my intentions to
kill myself, couching those intentions in a question. If I’m too sure, if I’m already
shopping for rat poison, I won’t seem like a mouse.

It takes me several days to come up with something, and then I get stuck thinking
of a username. Everything I want to use is related to Meg, and I don’t know how much
she told him about herself, so I don’t want to give myself away. I glance at the overdue
stack of library books and use them as inspiration.

Kafkaesque
Opening Salvo

I’ve been thinking about catching the bus for a while. I think I’m ready to buy my
ticket. I just need some encouragement. I’m worried about my family and not succeeding,
and let’s be honest, succeeding. I’d welcome intelligent thoughts.

As soon as I post it, I regret it. It sounds fake, nothing like me, and nothing like
a suicidal person. I fully expect to be called out as a fraud by everyone on the boards.
But the next day, there are several responses. As with Meg, most of them are so nice
and encouraging—
Welcome! Congratulations!
—which, in an odd way, is gratifying. Except All_BS isn’t among the responders. I
might have fooled some of these people. But not the one I’m looking for.

I switch usernames and think of Meg’s post about Scottie and try again.

CR0308
Survivor

I have been thinking very seriously about taking my life for several months now, but
what’s held me back is my mother. It’s just her and me, and I worry about what it’ll
be like for her if I’m gone. Can I live with myself? Will I have to?

This one also smells of bullshit. It’s not entirely accurate to say Tricia didn’t
want
me, because she did
keep
me. It’s more that I don’t think Tricia wanted children. What mother makes her two-year-old
call her by her first name because she says she’s too young to be called Mommy? I
know Tricia would probably be pretty bummed if I killed myself, but I also know she’s
looking forward to having me out of her hair. She tells me this on a regular basis.

I get a bunch of responses, some of them telling me that, yeah, it’s a pretty fucked-up
thing to do to a single mom. That maybe I should wait for her to remarry or something.
Which makes me laugh. Tricia can’t
re
marry until she marries, and with her three-month-relationship shelf life, I can’t
see either of those ever happening.

There’s nothing from All_BS. I have this weird feeling that as long as I lie, I won’t
get a response. Which is kind of a catch-22, because how can I do this without lying?

I pick a new username, something vaguely Meg-related—the Pete and Repeat—but ambiguous
enough not to be tied to her. Instead of trying to channel Meg, I try channeling myself.

Repeat
The Truth

I recently lost someone. Someone so integral to me, it’s like a part of me is gone.
And now I don’t know how to be anymore. If there’s even a me without her. It’s like
she was my sun, and then my sun went out. Imagine if the real sun went out. Maybe
there’d still be life on Earth, but would you still want to live here? Do I still
want to live here?

The next day, there are a bunch of responses, though not one from All_BS. Some of
them are weird scientific explanations of how unlikely it is for the sun to actually
go out. Others are more understanding of my loss. Others yet suggest that if I were
to die, I’d be reunited with the person I lost. They are so certain, as if the Final
Solution people have visited death, taken notes, and come back to report. I’m reminded
that for so many of these people, this is a kind of entertainment.

But I am starting to understand the appeal of the boards. Yesterday when I hit post,
I felt this massive sense of relief. This whole thing might be a charade, but for
the first time in a long time, I am telling the truth.

x x x

A few days later I’m at work at the Thomases’, trying to figure out how to smoke out
All_BS. I’m lost in thought, which is maybe why I don’t hear Mindy Thomas walk in
while I’m cleaning her bedroom. If I had, I’d have gone and pretended to clean the
garage or something.

“Hey, Cody,” Mindy calls in a singsong voice. “How’s it going?”

“Great!” I say with all the enthusiasm I can manage while holding a feather duster.

Mindy is trailed by her posse, girls all a year younger than me whom I haven’t seen
much since I graduated. Sharon Devonne waves to me. Sharon was one of Meg’s acolytes.
She adored her, used to follow her around like Meg was a movie star. Meg pretended
to be put out by this, but I knew she thought Sharon was sweet, particularly because
she was nice to Scottie. She was his counselor at the Y camp, and he had a huge crush
on her.

“Hey, Cody,” she says shyly.

“Hi, Sharon. How’s senior year going?”

“Almost done.”

“Any plans for after graduation?”

“Sleep.”

“Yeah, I hear that—”

“You know what?” Mindy interrupts, clapping her hands. “I have the
best
idea. Cody should come to the party. It’s next weekend. My parents are going out
of town, and it’s going to be a rager.”

Before I have a chance to make an excuse, Mindy continues: “It’ll be so perfect. You
can come to the party and do the cleaning up afterwards.” Her laughter follows her
out of the room.

I stand there, too floored to say anything. Mindy Thomas? We used to take dance class
together. She always wore these perfect outfits: leotards, leg warmers, ballet shoes,
all matching. Tricia couldn’t even afford the class—the teacher, a friend of hers,
let me take it for free—so I just threw together what I could: leggings that were
ripped, a tank top, mismatched legwarmers that I found at a thrift store. But then
one day Mindy came in wearing the same getup as me. I’d thought she was making fun
of me, but when I’d told Tricia, she’d laughed. “The little brat is copying you.”
I had my doubts. One thing I knew for sure: A year ago, Mindy Thomas never would have
spoken to me like she just did.

Sharon lingers after the other girls leave. “She’s just being a bitch,” she whispers.
“You should come to the party.”

“Thanks, Sharon,” I say. I hold up my feather duster to show her it’s time to get
back to work. She hesitates as if she wants to tell me something else, but then Mindy
calls to her and she trots off.

x x x

Later, at the library, I can’t stop thinking about Sharon, the way she used to idolize
Meg. Meg may have stood out in town, but she definitely had her admirers. She had
that thing. People, at least smart people, were drawn to her: people from school,
musicians she met online, All_BS—they all found their way to Meg.

How am I supposed to attract All_BS? I don’t have what Meg had. People may have called
us the Pod, but it wasn’t really an accurate description. There was Meg. And me, lassoing
myself to her.

I can’t do that anymore. To find All_BS, I have to be all me. I take a breath. And
I start to type.

Repeat
Repeat

I’m not one of those people who has spent a lot of time thinking about death, or imagining
her own death, or dreaming of it, or wanting it. At least I didn’t think I was. But
so much shit has happened in the last year of my life that I am questioning whether
I even have a life, or if what I thought was my life is actually an illusion, or maybe
a delusion. Because it doesn’t seem like living to me. It seems like persevering,
like that’s the most I can hope for. I’m not that old, but I’m already so tired. Even
getting out of bed each morning seems like an enormous chore. Life seems to be about
endurance, not enjoyment, not fulfillment. I don’t see the point. If someone told
me I could go back and undo my birth, I think I might. I really do.

Is that the same as wanting to die? And if so, what does that mean?

23

One night I’m sitting at my computer, staring at all of the messages I’ve posted to
the Final Solution boards and all the responses I’ve received. There are way too many
pages to print out now without arousing Mrs. Banks’s suspicion, so I’ve started saving
everything to a file on the hard drive.

The door swings open. I snap the computer shut. “Ever hear of knocking?” I ask Tricia.

“When
I’m
living in
your
house, I’ll consider knocking,” she says.

I’m about to mention that I pay rent and therefore it’s my house too, but then I think
of the boxful of cash stashed under my bed and decide it’s probably wiser if I don’t
bring money up.

She taps on my computer, which is hot. “I read somewhere that the rise in cancer is
linked to how much people stare at their computer screens all day,” she says.

“Everything gives you cancer,” I reply. “The
sun
gives you cancer.”

“I read that computers are really bad. All that radiation. It’s not healthy.”

“Where’d you read that? In one of the many scientific journals you subscribe to?”

She ignores the dig and sits down on the edge of my bed. “What are
you
reading these days?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you. You used to always have your nose in a book, and now I only ever see you
on that computer.”

When I returned the latest batch of books Mrs. Banks had borrowed for me, I pretended
like I’d read them all when, in fact, I hadn’t finished a single one. I used to read
at home at night, but now I can’t seem to stop looking at my growing file on Meg,
which I’ve hidden in a dummy folder named
college
. I’ve still gotten no response from All_BS, and I keep re-reading all the messages,
trying to figure out what to do next.

Tricia gestures to the computer. “What’s so interesting in there anyway? Is there
some other world?”

“It’s not another world. It’s just ones and zeros—that’s all programming is.” But
that’s not true. All_BS is somewhere in there. Meg, too.

Tricia doesn’t say anything. She stares at my room, my walls, the pictures tacked
up with Scotch tape of me and Meg at shows, me and the Garcias on a camping trip to
Mount Saint Helens, Meg and me on graduation day last year, her beaming, me smirking.
There are pictures of me and Tricia, too, but they’re outnumbered by the Garcias.

“You two always were like day and night,” Tricia says, looking at the graduation picture.

“We don’t look
that
different. Or didn’t.” Meg had dark brown eyes and mine are hazel gray, but that
was the biggest distinction. We both had brown hair, and though Meg had Joe’s coffee
complexion, in summer my olive skin gets so dark that we used to say that I could
pass for Joe’s daughter. Except I wasn’t Joe’s daughter, and now this insistence on
our resemblance embarrasses me. Was this just another way of trying to lasso myself
to Meg?

“I’m not talking about looks,” Tricia replies. “Personality. You’re nothing like her.”

I don’t answer.

“Thank God,” Tricia adds.

“That’s not a very nice thing to say.”

Tricia continues to stare at the graduation photo. “She had everything. Those big
brains. Fancy college scholarship. She even had that expensive computer you can’t
seem to get off of.” Then she looks back at me. “You just had me. And you’re smart,
don’t get me wrong, but you aren’t Meg-smart. You got stuck at the shitty junior college
and now, from what I can tell, you don’t even have that.”

I twist a loose thread from my quilt around my finger until my finger throbs. Thank
you, Tricia, for such a precise overview of my inferiority.

“But even with the deck stacked against you, you stuck to your guns,” Tricia continues
on her tear. “You didn’t quit that damn dance class that Tawny Phillips let you join
for free, even when you sprained your ankle.”

“I couldn’t quit. I had the big solo in the dance show,
All That Jazz
,” I remind her. I’d forgotten about that. Mindy Thomas had been so pissed when I’d
gotten the coveted role. I’m not sure Tricia remembers it either. She couldn’t come
to the show. She had to work. The Garcias came.

“Right,” Tricia continues. “And at school, you hated math, but you kept with it all
the way through goddamn trignastics.”

“Trigonometry,” I correct.

She waves away the distinction. “You took math all the way through
that
because you wanted to go to college. My point is, you never quit on dance, on math,
on anything, and maybe you had more reason to. You had a pile of rocks, and you cleaned
them up pretty and made a necklace. Meg got jewels, and she hung herself with them.”

I know I should defend Meg. This is my best friend. And Tricia has it wrong. She doesn’t
know the whole story. And she’s probably jealous of the Garcias for being the family
she never was.

But I don’t defend Meg. I may not be Joe’s daughter. But right at this moment, I actually
feel like Tricia’s.