Solitary: A Novel (17 page)

A friend

The note is half of a sheet of paper that someone printed from a computer.

I reread it. A friend.

Don't friends tell you their names?

I wonder if this is from Newt.

When I see him I'll ask.

Surely it isn't from Rachel or Jocelyn.

Maybe it's from someone who doesn't want me to hang around them.

Maybe they're talking about Jocelyn.

They're watching.

Yeah? Well, from the looks of it, everybody's watching. Everybody's waiting.

I slide the note into my pocket and then grab my books.

The last thing I want to do today is learn, but I guess that's what I'm supposed to do.

"Hey, Jocelyn."

I've been waiting for her outside our English classroom and manage to speak to her before she goes in.

"Hi."

She doesn't look at me.

"Can we talk today?"

"About what?"

"About Saturday night?"

"No, that's okay," she says.

"Look-I just want to say a few things."

"That's quite all right."

"I'd feel better if I could."

"And I'd feel better if we just forgot Saturday ever happened."

She walks into the classroom.

I'd like to just wait out here for the next forty-five minutes.

Instead, I walk into the same room feeling stupid for even trying.

I'm on the way to my next class feeling like a product on a conveyer machine when I hear someone call out my name.

Gus. He's decided its about time to pay me a visit.

But the voice sounds nothing like him, and when I turn I see Ray approaching in his cool jeans and shirt.

"Hey, man, how'd you score after the party?"

I look at him and don't quite know how to answer the question.

He laughs and hits me gently in the chest. "That's okay, man. I can imagine. I've been there. No need to share. Hey-I got a question for you. Wanted to ask you at the party, but you disappeared."

"Okay." My voice sounds weak.

"You guys find a church?"

I would have been less surprised if Ray had asked me if I had found a crack dealer.

"What?"

"A church. You guys go to church?"

"Not really," I say. "I mean, we used to. My dad wanted us to go.

"Well, cool. I go to this great church. You should check it out. It's called New Beginnings. The pastor there is amazing."

"Okay, yeah, great."

"I'm serious, man," Ray says. "It's really good. It's not like one of those regular boring churches out there. Promise me you'll think about it."

"Sure."

"Great." He smiles, and I think again how white his teeth look. "I'll see you around."

The last person I'd have expected to invite me to church would be Ray Spencer.

But every single day at this school brings a surprise.

And this day is only half over.

This is high school.

The smell of bad burgers and gym class drifting in the air.

Nameless, faceless ghouls strolling by listening to iPods with blank stares.

Colorless bathrooms with red and black graffiti covering the stalls and cracked mirrors waving back.

A guy named Gus walking in the hallway and blocking the way, taunting you, trying to get something started.

A girl named Poe dressed in a black dress with Converse shoes and some kind of strange monotone top blocking the way to lunch with a disappointed stare.

All I want at this particular moment is to find Jocelyn and try talking to her.

Seeing Poe, I suddenly wonder if that's going to happen.

"What's up?"

"Hello, Chris."

"Something wrong?"

"Yeah, unfortunately," she says.

"Jocelyn?"

She nods, a look of glee on her face.

"I just want to talk to her."

Poe shakes her head. "Uh-uh. Give her some space."

I don't feel like getting into this with Poe. I start to walk past.

"Look, she doesn't want to see you."

I stop and turn. "What's that mean?"

"Well, let's see. I think it means that she, Jocelyn, doesn't want to see you, Chris. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what it means."

"You don't get it."

"I didn't have to go to some lame dance to get it."

"No, you really don't get it."

"Look, moron. Listen to me. I've sat and watched the guys at this dump come and go for two and a half years, treating Joss like some toy, some thing. Something they hold and put on a pedestal and then toss away whenever they feel like it. And we thought you'd be different."

My mouth hangs open for a second in disbelief. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Guys are guys wherever they're from."

"And so are girls," I say, walking away from Poe and going to get some food.

I'll have to find somewhere else to sit today.

"You mind?"

Newt looks up through his oversized glasses, away from the paperback novel he's reading, and shakes his head.

"What're you reading?"

"Dennis Shore. Marooned. Read any of his stuff?"

"No. I've seen some movies."

"The books are better. The books are always better."

I nod. He has a really ripe banana, some pretzels, and a half-eaten sandwich that looks like someone sat on it. The thing on my tray is supposed to be a chicken sandwich and fries, but I bet scientists would say otherwise.

"Hungry?" I ask.

He looks at me, then down at my plate. "You don't want that?"

"Not really."

"Okay."

He takes some fries and eats like a prisoner of war. Watching him, I suddenly get over my hesitation to sit with him. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I feel sorry for him.

Newt, on the other hand, seems used to his life as a high school doormat. He eats as if nobody else is watching him.

Which they weren't, until I sat down with him.

"Girl problems?" he asks, mouth full.

"Yeah, something like that."

"Probably for the best."

"Hey-you know that article you gave me-"

"Shhh!" Newt shakes his head, and bits of fries fly from his mouth. "Remember what I said."

"About what?"

"They're watching."

"Look-did you give me this note today?"

"What note?"

I grab the crinkled thing out of my pocket and hand it to him. He looks around, then opens and reads it. He looks at me. "I'd never sign a letter like that."

"What? As a `friend'?"

"That's right," he says.

"Well, okay."

"I say that whoever gave you this note can't be trusted."

"Really," I say with an exaggerated tone and look. "Maybe you can't be trusted."

"Don't mock me."

"You seriously didn't give me this note?"

"I seriously did not give you that note."

"What do you think it's talking about?"

"It depends on who gave it to you," Newt says.

"Maybe it's talking about you."

Newt ignores my comment and starts to read again.

"You know, maybe you've been reading a few too many horror novels."

"These are supernatural thrillers," Newt says the way a librarian might. "And furthermore, one can't read too many books."

"You gotta live life sometime."

"I plan to do so the moment I leave this town."

"Yeah, well, I hear you there."

I stare at the mystery meat and then put the bun back on top. "Want my chicken sandwich too?"

"Only if you don't," he says. In a millisecond half of it is in his mouth.

I get that feeling that someone is looking at me, so I turn around.

Seven tables away, Jocelyn is looking at me.

We stare at each other for a moment until a group of girls blocks our view. When the girls move past, I look for Jocelyn, but she's no longer there.

I come home to a house that's been trashed.

Cushions are off the sofa. It looks like someone was picking at the fireplace and got soot and ashes all over the floor and the carpet. The table in the family room is overturned-I see broken glass on the floor.

"Mom!"

I search her bedroom and the small bathroom attached to it, then sprint up the stairs and search the two rooms up there.

"Mom, are you here?"

I keep calling out her name while I go back downstairs.

The kitchen is a disaster, with pots and pans all on the floor and food everywhere.

Wait a minute.

I see opened cookbooks, along with several bottles of wine on the counter.

A couple of bottles are in the garbage can.

Noodles in some kind of white sauce (that's now crusty-looking) are in the middle of the floor.

An empty wine glass is on the kitchen table.

Another one is broken on the floor.

It looks like there was a party here and I wasn't invited.

"Mom!"

I open the door to the laundry room, then let out a sigh of relief.

It's sad when seeing your mother passed out on the floor of the laundry room brings a sigh of relief.

Her eyes are swollen, with caked makeup smeared around them and on her cheeks. I can tell she's been crying.

She's been raging too.

I bend down and gently touch her cheek. Maybe it's morbid, but I'm just checking. Then double-checking to make sure.

She's not dead, you idiot. She's just out like the drunkard she is.

Mom is wearing a black dress along with high heels and a necklace. Her hair is up. I prop her up against the back wall, hoping that will revive her.

She's out.

Really totally out.

She smells sweet and sickly, a smell I'm slowly getting used to and quickly learning to loathe.

All around us in this tiny room are dirty clothes. Ghostly light spills in from the tiny round window above us.

I sigh and wipe the sweat off my forehead.

I've got a lot of homework to do, and none of it has anything to do with school.

The sun is gone and so is my appetite. If I keep this up I'm going to look like a skeleton.

It's close to nine, and I hear my mom's toilet flush. After carrying her to her bed and laying her down to sleep a few hours ago, I cleaned the place up as best as I could.

A light goes on. I'm watching one of the three channels we get on our television. I miss DirecTV. That along with a lot of other things.

She doesn't come out for another ten minutes. When she does, she's wearing pajamas. She looks tired, her face a bit swollen, her eyes vacant.

"Thanks," she says.

"For what?"

Mom glances around the room, then looks at me. "For everything."

I nod. What am I supposed to say? To be honest, I'm embarrassed about the whole thing.

"Guess my date never showed up," Mom says, trying to make a joke.

I nod, continuing to look at the television. It takes me a couple minutes before I start laughing.

"Sorry you had to see that," she says. "I didn't even know I had any of my dresses with me."

"You never know when you might need one."

"There are a lot of things I might need, but an evening dress isn't one of them."

Mom goes into the kitchen and comes back holding a glass of water. "Chris-listen to me."

"Yeah?"

"Tomorrow-tomorrow I'll start trying."

"Start trying what?"

"I'll start trying to live again. I'm sorry. I'm sorry you had to come home to that."

I nod again. It's all I can do.

"I need to find a job. Find something to do. Tomorrow-I'll get started on that, okay?"

"Yeah."

"Chris?"

I look at her.

"I know that-I know how I've been. I just-I just want to say that I love you. That I love how strong you've been."

I'm not sure what to say back.

"You have your father's strength, you know that?"

"I take after you more than him," I say.

"Maybe. In some ways. But you're still a combination of both of us."

"I wish I wasn't."

"Don't say that. I need that strength, Chris. I need it. It's sad to say, but it's true."

"Okay."

"I love you, you know that?"

"Yeah."

"It's going to get better," she says. "I promise it's going to get better."

I nod, but I don't believe her.