Then You Were Gone (9 page)

We used to do this all the time, me and Lee. Screw around for hours. Order Thai takeout or pizza. Do our homework downstairs in front of the TV while his parents were out at some dinner or fund-raiser or fancy premiere.

Now, no more screwing around. And Lee’s big, showy shack makes me feel sad, sick, and lonely.

“Pass that, please?” He points.

We’re trading dishes. Shrimp lo mein for pork fried rice. Lee takes a sloppy bite of noodle and makes a face. “Tastes weird, right?”

“What?”

“The lo mein.” He chews quickly and pats his mouth with a napkin. “Saltier?”

“Tastes fine to me.” I suck on my lip and push the plate away.

“You’re done?”

“Yeah.”

“You barely ate.”

“I did, Lee, I ate, like, half a tub of that eggplant.”

“That’s nothing. That’s like eating
air
.”

I shrug him off and grab at the orange chicken. “Look,” I say, picking up a glossy piece of meat with my middle finger and thumb. “Mmm.” I fake enthusiasm, taking a bite and playfully pushing Lee backward. He’s not laughing.

“Knox.” He drops his chopsticks.

“What?” I lick my thumb clean and flash my fakest grin. “I’m eating, see?”

“You’re miserable.”

I don’t want to have this conversation right now. I want to pack up my crap and go home. “Lee, I’m fine. I’m tired, okay?”

“You’re different.”

“Lee.”

“It’s like, you look at me and it’s like—” He looks at me. “Like I make you sick or something.”

“Stop.”

“No, I just—I want to talk about it.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“I just—I can’t tell if it’s her?” he says, breathing hard. “Or if it’s
me
.” We watch each other. “Is it me?”

“Is
what
you?”

“You don’t, like, let me touch you anymore.”

“That’s not true.”

“It
is
.” His eyes are wet. “Why can’t you just admit it?”

“Admit
what
? Lee. Jesus,
stop
. You’re freaking out over nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. God, Adrienne. You’re showing up drunk to dinners, you’re completely withdrawn, you’re dressing different—”

“You
like
this,” I say, grabbing at my dress, incensed. “You
prefer
it, remember?”

“Prefer it to
what
?”

“You said I looked sexy.”

“You do! You did and you do.”

“So—what is this?” I scream, not looking at him, looking at the shiny walls instead. “You’re pissed off because I won’t
fuck
you?!”

“Oh my god, Adrienne.” His voice cracks and one arm flies up, accidentally knocking the takeout container out of my hand. Orange chicken skitters across the Turkish rug.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers quickly, looking humiliated and apologetic. I dart toward the blinking television, where the white rectangular box lies, mangled, nearby on its side. “It’s fine,” I say, digging bits of fried batter out of the carpet.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay, Lee.” I right myself, carrying the mess to the trash can. “I wasn’t hungry anyway.”

Open period. Julian and I share a cigarette inside his Datsun.

“This thing work?” I ask, straining to roll down the sealed side window.

“Jammed,” he says, biting the cigarette, touching his tongue to its filter. “You need to, like—” He stretches across the seat, using both hands to joggle the window roller. “There.” He pulls back, both elbows brushing my thighs. “Air.”

“Thanks.”

“Finish it,” he says, passing me the last of the cig.

I squish the wet filter between my fingers. Touch the damp part to my lips. “I googled that guy,” I say, dragging lightly, holding the smoke in. “I have his info. I think we should contact him.” I exhale, bracing myself for Julian’s wrath, but—

“I can’t stop thinking about, just, like, the two of them.”

“Maybe he’ll talk to us . . . ?” I say quietly, seizing my moment. Julian’s willing, I feel it. Ready to yield. “Maybe he knows something?”

“Maybe he
did
something,” he suggests.

I look over. His face is fuchsia.

“Those freakin’ pictures,” he says, putting his head in his hands. “And I keep going over those dates. A few overlap with shows, but the bulk of them—there’s no pattern. I can’t link them to anything specific.”

I have nothing to offer. No theories, no fantasy scenarios. I feel bad for him. Jilted beau. Betrayed bandmate. “Want me to do it? I can call him,” I say. “Try to set something up?”

He’s zoned out, hunched over, chewing a knuckle. After a minute: “Don’t do that,” he says, snapping back to life. “No, I know the guy.” He faces me. “I know where to find him.”

The Echo.

Julian knows the door guy. We skate by with quick waves—no IDs, no dollars. Inside, it’s black, packed, and L-shaped. There’re mirrors. There’s a bar. Onstage, three girls beat drums and scream melodiously into mics. Julian leads me up front. We meet the crowd, scanning lit faces.

“What does he look like?”

“Dunno. Old. Shithead vibe.”

We squint, searching. I gesture left. “That guy?”

Not that guy.

We wait. Check our watches, watch the door, watch the show. We buy drinks. Between sets, we buy more drinks. New band: loud, goth, grating. I’m ready to go.

“Can we leave?” I scream, having hit my death-metal limit.

Julian shrugs.

“He’s not here,” I say.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

He nods. We head out. Then: “
There
.” Julian points. “Right there.”

By the bar, a forty-something aging rocker—leather skin, shaggy hair—sips amber liquid from a clear plastic tumbler. “Stay here.”

“Wait, why?”

“Because. You’re a girl. Guy’s a creep.”

“So? Why am I here, then? I’m coming.”

“No way.”

“I am.”

“Adrienne.”

We glare at each other. “I
am
.”

He relents. “Whatever.” We weedwack forward.

Mills looks past us, at the stage. His head bops. Julian slaps his shoulder. Mills smiles back, polite-like, grips his arm, then looks away. Julian leans close. Says something I can’t hear. Mills pulls back, drags a pack of Camels from his coat, then heads to the back of the club. We follow him out to the patio. He lights his smoke. Then, out of nowhere, Julian pummels the guy.

My heart flies to my throat. People part like the red sea. I
scream and yank Julian’s jacket, pulling him backward. He’s wailing, shouting, “What did you do to her?! She was
eighteen
. What the fuck did you do?!”

Some random short guy helps me hold Julian back. He’s thrashing and bucking like a horse. Everyone stares. Mills blots blood on his sleeve. “I didn’t
do
anything. Fuck, dude, my nose.”

Julian inhales. Tries to slow his breathing. His face is freaking me out. Huge eyes, veiny forehead, purple cheeks. After a few silent seconds, people go back to their cigarettes. Julian, shrill: “We found pictures.”

“Who the hell is ‘we’?”

“Me,” I say, stepping forward.

“And who the hell are you?”

Julian, sounding sad now, defeated: “She wasn’t dressed, man.”

“Get me a towel,” Mills says. “Someone, please.” He’s pinching his nose.

I riffle through my purse. Pull two tissues loose. “Here.”

He takes them. Tilts his head back. “We were working together,” he says, crumpling up the Kleenex. “Those pictures—they were her idea. Cover art. For the demo.”

“What demo?”

“
Her
demo.”

“She wasn’t working on one.”

“Dude, she was. And it’s freaking beautiful.”

Julian looks crestfallen. He shakes out his fist. “Why didn’t I know that?”

Soft, sympathetic even: “Look, I don’t know. She came to me.” Then, as if suddenly remembering that the sociopath he’s consoling just pounded him like a veal cutlet: “Jesus, man, why’d you have to fuck my face up?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Super sorry,” I echo.

Mills, clearly conflicted (missing girl, grieving kids): “I can burn you a disc. Of the demo.”

“Really?” I screech, sounding insanely overeager. “We’d like that.”

“Wait.” Julian again. “Did you—” He’s halfway out the door, Mills. “Did you sleep with her?” One final, frantic plea for answers.

MM exhales dramatically. “Dude,
no
. Come on.” The tissue I gave him is completely soaked through. “We done?” He’s itchy and irritated. “I gotta go deal with my nose.”

“August eighteenth,” Julian blurts.

“What?”

“The date. On the pictures. August eighteenth.”

Mills, perplexed, says, “The processing date?”

Julian raises one hand in surrender. “I’m really sorry, man. About your face.”

Mills spits out an aggravated grumble. Saunters off.
Saunters
. Really, truly.

Julian touches my hip. “I messed up.”

“You beat the crap out of that guy.”

“We should leave,” he says. He sounds tired. I am too. “Come on.” He pushes me forward, his hand on my hip still. “Walk fast, let’s go.”

“What is wrong with that woman?”

Five p.m. I’m in the kitchen fixing spiked tea and cookies for Kate. My neighbor is throwing a full-blown fit. “Her boyfriend,” I say, dumping scalding water from the kettle into a teapot. “He won’t commit.”

High-pitched girl-shrieks rattle the ceiling and walls. Kate winces and blocks her ears with balled-up napkins. “She does this a lot?”

I nod.

“She really should move on, don’t you think?”

“They’ve been together awhile.” Some dull thudding. “She loves him, I guess?”

Crash.

We both duck. Kate mashes her finger into an oatmeal cookie crumb and continues: “That don’t sound like love to me. . . .”

I shrug. Spill some tea into Kate’s cup. “Love . . . hate . . .”

“Seriously?”

“Two sides, same coin, don’t’cha think?”

She pours two shots’ worth of bourbon into her Sleepy-time. Glares at me over her cup rim.

“What?” I laugh. “What’s with the look?”

She frowns and lowers her cup. “He’s miserable. You know that, right?”

My smile wilts. My insides tense up. The neighbor lets out a shrill string of obscenities. “Who? Crazy Girl’s boyfriend?” I ask, feigning oblivion.

Kate’s face stays stony. “You’re fucking everything up, Knox. Lee loves you and you treat him like shit.”

I put my palm flat against the side of the scalding kettle. “It’s not the same with me and Lee.”

“Right.” She sniffs. “Because you spend all your time chasing down a dead girl. Lee’s alive. I’m alive. We’re right here. And you, you’re over there, looking like some goth geek and going on dates with Julian Boyd.”

Heat’s too much. I yank my hand back—

“You didn’t think I knew about that, right?”

—and hide behind my hair. “We’re not going on dates,” I say.

Kate grabs at two fingers and twists my palm toward the ceiling. “Don’t do that to yourself,” she scolds, blowing lightly on my burn. Then, “Watch yourself, Adrienne.”

I look up.

“I love you,” she says, dipping a finger in her cup and sucking off the tea-and-liquor concoction, “but you keep going the way you’re going, and you’re gonna fall into a big pile of shit.”

Eight fifteen a.m. I’m a cartoon burglar tiptoeing down the hall to lit—holding my breath, then peering through the tiny rectangular window to Murphy’s classroom. There he is, at the pulpit. And there’s Julian in the pews. I back away, chewing my cheeks. I’m sans essay and not facing Murphy until I finish the thing.

I go outside to wait. For what? I twiddle my thumbs and chew a cherry cough drop. I twirl in place. I do it again. Chaîné turns. Pirouettes. I’m twirling and twirling when I smack into something tall, skinny, and warm.

“Crap.”

There’re two of us on the cement sidewalk, an explosion of papers and books.

“Wyatt.”

“
Jesus
, Knox.” He’s rubbing his shoulder with one hand
and sweeping his stuff into a pile with the other. “Fancy dance moves.”

“Sorry, god, sorry.” I’m up on my knees and grabbing at smashed loose-leaf.

“My fault,” he says. “Wasn’t watching the road.” He’s pretty, up close. Bright but not blinding.

“Here, I’ll get this.” I lunge for the last of it. Two stiff sheets of notepaper with—
holyshitamazing
—Kate’s curly writing.

“That’s mine,” he says, snatching it back.

“Yours, huh?”

He’s all shades of red and scrambling to his feet.

“Sorry about—” He waves at me, still on the ground. “Can you get up?”

“I’m fine,” I insist, dazed.

“Great. Good.” He’s batting the letter. “Bye, then.”

“Sure,” I say, waving as he walks. “See ya around.”

•    •    •

Lunch. Lee’s birthday.

Me, Kate, Lee, sharing a sleeve of Fig Newtons and throwing shit (pen caps, paper clips, baby carrots) at each other’s faces. We’re laughing. I’m in Lee’s lap. I’m making an effort. I can be good. I can be a nice girlfriend and a better best friend.

“Missed.” Kate’s crouching down, smiling. She eats the carrot I tried to nail her nose with.

“Sit up.” I take aim again, throw, and—bull’s-eye—hit her forehead hard with a pen cap.

“Ow.”

Lee and I high-five. I feel good for a sec—bright, cheery—then I don’t. Just like that—a momentary flash of something sweet, followed by a whole bunch of nothingness. He squeezes my thigh. “Nice shot.”

I smile. Back to faking it.

“Tonight,” he says.

“Right, tonight.” B-day dinner with Lee’s folks. I’m dreading it. I adore them. They’ll see straight through me.

“Pick you up at seven?”

I nod.

“Great.” Then, “Get up,” he instructs. I do. “Getting a Coke. Anyone want anything?”

No one wants anything.

“What?” Kate says after Lee leaves—because I’m grimacing, maybe? Or glaring?

“Write any love sonnets lately?”

“Sorry?”

“Or send any sexy letters?”