Project Pallid (23 page)

“With
that settled,” Mr. Laverdier returned to my mom, “I’d like to invite you back,
Martha. Anytime you like. Not just for dessert, but for Family Dinner. We’ll be
meeting each night at 5:00.”

Still
transfixed by his indulgent exchanges, Mom accepted his invitation and agreed
to return the next day.

I
didn’t know what to say. What would come of our own Family Dinners? What would
Dad do the next night when he got home and there wasn’t a home-cooked meal
waiting for him? When Mom and I weren’t waiting there for him? What was she
planning to do? Bring home leftovers from Catee’s place? Throw together some
heartless, ten-second, microwave meal for him?

I
worried how Mom’s acceptance of Mr. Laverdier’s offer might dramatically alter
the family dynamic I’d always known, and I couldn’t help but loathe Mr.
Laverdier even more than I already did—if that was even
possible—for the very active role he was starting to play in my own
family’s dismantling.

February
15
^th:

“So,
your mom’s coming back over tonight?” Catee asked. Her hands clasped my own,
and we sat in an almost photographic repositioning of our exchange from the day
before. The library was silent around us.

“She
says she’s coming by at 4:30 to help with dinner before we all sit down.”

“That’s
crazy.”

“Right?”

“Why
does my dad want anything to do with your mom? I mean, we’re moving away, no
matter what, so why would he even bother getting to know her?” she asked.

“I
can’t explain it. I don’t know.”

“Well,
does your dad know?” she asked in a hushed whisper, though the library was
entirely empty.

“Yeah,
he knows. They were talking about it in the living room last night. She told my
dad that your father
needed
her. That he wanted her expertise as he
tried to move his own family forward. A bunch of crap like that.”

“We
both know he doesn’t want that, Damian.”

“Hey,
I know it. You know it. She doesn’t. And my dad doesn’t. It’s like we’re seeing
totally different things than them. He’s got them totally fooled. I tried
saying something. I did. I jumped in when they were talking. I told them he was
completely nuts. I tried to repeat everything—how he’s like, fourteen
different people—but they wouldn’t listen. Even my dad said she was doing
a good thing. I tried to stop it from happening, but I couldn’t. She’ll be
there. Tonight. At 4:30, sharp.”

“It’s
crazy,” she said. “He doesn’t care anything about your mom or your family.
Nothing. The only person he cares about is himself. I don’t know what he’s up
to or what sick fascination he’s got with your mom.”

“Hey,
my mom’s not
that
bad,” I interjected in her defense.

“I’m
not talking like that, Damian. There’s something else going on, and it’s not
sexual. He’s up to something. I’ve
never
seen him be so nice to anyone
before. I’ve barely even seen him
talk
to anyone else. I don’t get it. I
don’t know what he’s doing.”

“Maybe
he’s being genuine,” I spoke in his defense—more for the false sense of
security it brought than anything else. “Maybe he really
does
want to be
a better person and a better dad.”

“Fat
chance of that,” Catee jumped. “That’s the last thing he cares about. As far as
he knows, he’s the
best
person already. Trust me, I’ve heard it with my
own ears; he’s not looking for anyone’s guidance.”

“So,
why’d he invite her over? What does he want?”

“I
don’t know, but it’s got me worried,” she said. “It’s weird.”

“No,
it’s crazy,” I declared. “And we’ve got to make sure we’re there to control it,
and him, however we can.”

The
trivial ins and outs of high school lost any significance they had left that
day. The people around me concerned me less and less, and I became inexplicably
more worried for if they weren’t there at all. Call it a prophecy, a
premonition, or whatever; it was a thought I couldn’t shake.

At
lunch, Catee and I hunkered even closer to each other. It was an intrinsic and
irrepressible response to the darkness that crept in around us. We didn’t have
a safe-haven anymore. Everything we did, all we were, and whatever we were
becoming, it was all on display for our families to see and judge. That had to
have been what her dad was after all along, when he first recruited my mom; she
was additional surveillance to keep the two of us in line and to stifle our
nosing around.

We
sat side-by-side in geometry class, impervious to Justin’s stares from across
the room. After months and months of harbored resentment, his output had lost
all gravity, long before. It was childish and inconsequential to the times at
hand. In months of trying, he could’ve never reached, nor would he have liked
where he found himself, had he hit the depth of clarity I’d reached with Catee
and her dad. He wouldn’t have been able to handle it and, looking back, I
wouldn’t have wished it on him anyhow.

And
at the 2:30 bell and dismissal from last period, Catee and I reconvened at our
locker—both burdened by the possibilities of what the evening might have
in store. We didn’t know what might come of it, but based on everything we’d
learned, we understood that we were powerless to redirect its energies.

“So,
what now?” Catee repeated what had become a trademark line.

“What
now?” I asked back. “
Now
, we make sure they don’t get too close. I don’t
know what your dad’s up to, and I’m not sure what my mom’s hoping to get out of
this, but we’ve got to make sure they both leave tonight, completely
unsatisfied. We’ve got to make sure they don’t go planning any more cozy
get-togethers. It’s better for us if we keep those worlds apart,” I declared
with absolution.

She
looked almost hurt—for the insinuation that my world was somehow better
than her own—but she agreed anyhow, and recognized that in context, I was
probably right. Her dad had shown us countless times before that he was a loose
cannon who couldn’t be trusted. We knew his decisions had no weight in anyone
other than himself, and we knew that whatever was happening, we’d have to
figure it out quietly, and for ourselves; he wasn’t about to discuss it with
anyone—not even my mom—and Catee and I had to do everything we
could to protect her from what she couldn’t see coming.

Sure
enough, Mom pulled into Catee’s driveway at 4:30 on the money that night; she
was prompt, if nothing else, and she climbed from the car to make her way
toward the foyer door.

I
met her there, invited her in, and after a quick hug, she moved briskly by me
and into the kitchen, where Mr. Laverdier bounced between stove, cutting board,
counter, and oven. Mom adorned an apron of her own and began to move
rhythmically with him to put final touches on what would become an
uncomfortable, three-course meal. Catee and I watched, listened, and exchanged
only few words that wouldn’t disrupt the semi-organic flow in which our parents
went about their sickeningly symbiotic, pre-meal performance.

“Well,”
my mom said, “when Damian got to high school, I told myself I was going to
start letting go some.” She spoke like I wasn’t even there, on a bar stool,
strategically positioned at the island, and observing from beneath a row of
cabinets.

“I
thought the same thing when Catee started,” he returned.

“But
it wasn’t that easy, right?”

“Nope.
Wasn’t easy at all, Martha,” he said. “It still isn’t easy, but I’m trying to
allow it to happen. To just step back and let nature take its course.”

The
lines he spilled were all complete bullshit. He hadn’t done, or even tried to
do anything that would let nature takes its course. Until then, he’d done the
exact opposite, and everything possible to have his hand in every move that
Catee and I made. The falsity of his professions made me want to scream, but I
squeezed harder onto Catee’s leg instead, concealed behind the protective
shield of the counter.

“Ever
since her mom passed away,” Mr. Laverdier continued, “it’s been like this dark
cloud hanging over my head. Every day is marked by this perilous rain that
could pour down at any time to wipe away everything I’ve got left. It’s
terrifying,” he said and stopped mid-kitchen with a large roasting pan in-hand.
“I never thought it could be this hard.”

His
face, torn with loss, beckoned a sympathetic response from my mom.

“David,
I know I’ve said this before,” she halted, mid-chop at the cutting board, “but
if you need anything.
Anything
at all. You just let me and Darryl know,
and we’ll be there for the both of you.”

His
satisfied look showed Catee and me that he was getting exactly what he sought:
support. It’s all he needed, really: just that one, first person on his side.
My mom was the chosen one. And whether she saw it or not, and whether I liked
it or not, and in spite of how I tried to alter her course from there, that
single moment of submission to him marked the beginning of an end.

Mom
had been recruited, and her enrollment in Mr. Laverdier’s campaign would secure
the enrollment of tens, then dozens more, as the infection started its spread
and everyone grasped for a lifeline.

And
by the peak of outbreak, and as people discovered that the only sure-fire
protection from the pallor was allegiance to him, devotion to Mr. Laverdier
turned to law. Only he held the vaccine, and only his mercy could decide who
lived and who went white.

It
was scripted and executed like a well-written play. He put all the characters
into place; he introduced the perfect, incurable catalyst; and then he sat back
to watch his cast lead themselves to the only obvious conclusion: that he was their
savior, and that he, and only he, held the vaccine for salvation.

He
became like a god.

But
then, that’s how he always saw himself anyway.

It’s
what he set himself up to become.

March
12
^th:

Catee
and I mulled over our parental connection for the better part of the next
month. We wondered what her dad’s fascination with my mom had to do with
anything. Did it? Or had he just turned a corner after being fired from work?
Maybe the new him
was
actually genuine; maybe we
were
reading
more into it than we should’ve been.

But,
truth revealed, and like my mom always advised, you’ve got to go with your gut.
And even though we couldn’t say exactly what he was up to back then, the next
obvious sign came weeks later, in mid-March, when he closed off their garage with
a series of locks that shamed the earlier ones he’d installed on his office.

It’s
not like Catee and I ever used the garage for anything to begin with, but
neither did he. Not until then. Not even for parking. It’d been nothing more
than a space, attached to their house, for trash and storage. We hardly paid it
any attention at all until three, hanging locks suddenly appeared on its door,
and its windows turned papered in yesterday’s news.

When
we arrived that afternoon, Mr. Laverdier met us at the door with clear
instructions. “You kids see those locks?” he asked, standing in the foyer and
pointing to the garage door beside him. “Those locks there?” he reiterated,
still pointing to the dangling three. “That garage is off limits now. It’s a
no-go zone from here on out. You kids make sure that whatever you do, you keep
far and clear. Is that understood?”

“Yes,
Dad.”

“Yes,
Mr. Laverdier.”

There
was no room for delay or negotiation in our response.

I
couldn’t believe he was hanging such an obvious carrot in our faces. Maybe he’d
installed cameras while we were away at school. Maybe he was looking for the
ammunition we’d avoided giving since my re-immersion into his home: something
he could blowup at, so he could justifiably pull Catee away from Madison for good.
I remember looking at him quizzically and trying to figure out the ulterior
motives at play, but not being able to get a good read from the blank
expression on his dead-set face. I went with my gut, though, and I didn’t
pursue it any further—not in his company.

But
later on, when we were alone, it was one of the first things I brought up with
Catee. “So what’s with the garage?” I asked.

“You
got me. It’s the first I’ve heard of it, too,” she replied. “He’s hiding
something. I know it.”

“I’m
glad you said it first.” I squeezed my arm tighter around her as we sat
cross-legged in front of her small, bedroom television.

We
were naively unaware of the gross mayhem that lay ahead. And as suspicious as
we were, we could hardly fathom the magnitude of finalities that brewed
outside, no more than we could have changed direction of the toxic ball that
Mr. Laverdier had already set into motion.

March
15
^th:

By
Friday, we were alone again. Mr. Laverdier had decided that we were trustworthy
enough to be by ourselves as he ran some local errands. And while the time we
had wasn’t much, it was plenty sufficient to uncover answers to some of the
questions that had plagued us.