Wake (14 page)

Janie’s stomach twists.

“He drowned. We were camping by a lake…it was…” Carrie trails off and takes a swallow of her drink. “He was my little brother. I was ten. I was helping Mom and Dad set up the campsite.”

Janie closes her burning eyes. “Oh, shit, Carrie.”

“He wandered down to the lake—we didn’t notice. And he fell off the dock. We tried…we tried…” Carrie puts her face in her hands. Takes a long, shuddering breath. “We moved here a year later.” Her voice turns quiet. “To start over. We don’t talk about him.”

Janie puts her arm around Carrie and hugs her. Doesn’t know what to say. “I’m so sorry.”

Carrie nods, and then whispers in a broken voice, “I should have watched him better.”

“Oh, honey,” Janie whispers. She holds Carrie close for a moment, until Carrie gently pulls away.

“It’s okay.” Carrie sniffles.

Janie, feeling completely helpless, fetches a roll of toilet paper from the bathroom. “I don’t have any tissues…Carrie? Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

Carrie wrings her hands. Blows her nose. Sniffles. “I don’t know, Janers. I thought it would go away. I was so tired…so tired of being sad. I couldn’t stand any more silent, pitying looks.”

“Does Stu know?”

Carrie shakes her head. “I should probably tell him.”

They are quiet for a long time.

“I guess maybe,” Janie murmurs after a while, “the bad stuff never goes away. And it’s nobody’s fault.”

Carrie sucks in a shivery breath and lets it out slowly. “Ah, well. We’ll see, huh?” She smiles through the tears. “Thanks, Janers. You’re a really good friend.” She pauses, and adds in a soft voice, “Just keep being normal now, okay? One sad look and I’m outa here, I swear to God.”

Janie grins. “You got it. Kiddo.”

December 11, 2005, 2:41 a.m.

When Carrie dreams, this time Janie knows what to do.

The forest, the river, the boy, drowning. Grinning.

Carrie, looking at Janie. Only a few minutes before the shark comes. Carrie, crying out, “Help him! Save him!”

Janie concentrates, staring Carrie in the eyes. “Ask me, Carrie. Ask me.”

He’s bobbing and sinking, that eerie grin on his face.

“Help him!” she cries again to Janie.

Carrie! thinks Janie with all her might. I can’t help him. Ask me. Ask me to help…you.

In the morning, Carrie remarks at breakfast, “I had the weirdest dream. It was one of these nightmares that I keep getting about Carson, but this time, it all changed and turned into this strange little…something. It was surreal.”

“Yeah?” munched Janie. “Cool. Must be the feng shui over here or something.”

“You think?”

“I dunno. Try rearranging your room, and then at night, tell yourself that you’re going to change the nightmares from now on to work with your new harmonious surroundings.”

Carrie gives her a suspicious look. “Are you yanking my chain?”

“Of course not.”

December 12, 2005, 5:16 p.m.

Janie drives home slowly after a long afternoon at Heather Home. With the holidays on the way, the aides try to fit in some decorating in the schedule, along with their regular duties. And Janie managed to help three residents find some peace in their dreams. It was a decent day.

On a whim, she drives past Cabel’s house, and is surprised to see his car in the driveway. She slows and pulls into the drive, leaving Ethel running.

She sprints to the front door and knocks briskly.

The door opens, and Cabel gives her a look. “Hey, Janie, what’s up?” He’s making signals with his eyes when Shay comes up from behind him and peers over his shoulder. She wraps her arms around his waist possessively.

“Hey, Janie,” says Shay, a look of triumph in her eyes.

Janie grins, thinking fast. “Oh, hi, Shay. Sorry to disturb. Cabel, I’m wondering if you have those math notes you said I could borrow for tomorrow’s exam?”

Cabel’s eyes flash a message of gratitude. “Yeah,” he says. “Be right back. You want to come in?”

“Nah. My shoes are wet from the snow.”

Cabel reappears and hands her a bunch of papers, rolled up and secured in a rubber band.

“We’re heading out to a party now,” he says, “But I kind of need these back tonight, since the exam’s in the morning. How late can I stop by to get them?”

Shay bobs over his shoulder, intent on seeing and being seen. Janie notices Cabel has slowly straightened his posture and is standing at full height, and Shay has to jump to see past him. Janie masks a laugh. “I’ll be up late, but I can put them in the mailbox for you before I go to bed. Thanks, Cabel. Have fun at the party, you guys! I’m sooo jealous.”

Janie trots back to Ethel and heads for home, only a little melancholy over the scene she has just witnessed. She brings the notes in, changes her clothes, and gets out her books. She pages through the papers Cabel gave her, hoping he didn’t give her anything important, since she didn’t actually need his stuff. In the middle of the pile, a scribbled note: I miss you like crazy.

Love, Cabe.

She smiles, missing him. Wanting this mess to be over. She thinks about how he was willing to quit the job, wreck the months of progress the detectives had made, just to get things right with her.

Captain is right. He’s a good guy.

Janie studies past midnight, partly hoping Cabe will come over. By one a.m., she’s nodding over her work. She calls it a night and gathers Cabe’s notes to put them in the mailbox. In case he comes for them. In case Shay is with him, and he has to pretend. She writes a note and slips it inside the papers, then rolls them up and sets them outside in the mailbox.

She’s happy she can sleep in, but checks her alarm clock twice to make sure it’s set. The first exam starts at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow.

And she needs to ace it.

So she can get a scholarship.

Because without that, U of M is just an uncatchable dream.

December 13, 2005, 2:45 a.m.

When the phone rings, Janie jumps. She thinks it’s the alarm clock for one confused moment, but by the fourth ring she’s lunging for it.

Hoping it’s Cabel.

Hoping he’s standing outside, wanting to see her.

“Hello,” she croaks, and clears the sleep from her voice.

She hears sniffling. “Janieeee,” cries a voice.

“Who is this?”

“Janieee, it’s me.”

“Carrie? What’s wrong? Where are you?”

“Oh fuck, Janie,” Carrie mourns, “I’m so messed up.”

“Where are you? Do you need a ride? Carrie, get it together, girl. Are you drunk?”

“My parents are gonna kill me.”

Janie sighs.

Waits.

Listens to the sniffling.

“Carrie. Where are you.”

“I’m in jail,” she says finally, and the sobbing starts fresh.

“What? Right here in Fieldridge? What the hell did you do?”

“Can you just come get me?”

Janie sighs. “How much, Carrie?”

“Five hundred bennies,” she says. “I’ll pay you back. Every cent. Plus interest. I promise, so much.” She pauses. “Oh, and Janie?”

“Yessss?”

“Stu’s here too.” Janie can feel Carrie cringing through the phone.

Janie closes her eyes and runs her fingers through her hair. She sighs again. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes. Stop crying.”

Carrie gushes her thanks, and Janie cuts it short by hanging up. Janie scrambles into her clothes and finds her stash of money that is waiting to be deposited into her college fund. She’s twenty bucks short. “Shit,” she mutters. She goes out of her room and runs into her mother, of all people.

“Was that the phone?” Her mother is bleary-eyed.

“Yeah…” Janie hesitates. “I gotta go get Carrie. She’s in jail. Any chance…any chance you have twenty bucks to spare, Ma? I’ll pay you back tomorrow.”

Janie’s mother looks at her. “Of course,” she says. She goes into her room and comes out with a twenty. “You don’t have to pay me back, honey.”

If Janie had an extra hour to think about that little exchange, she might have come to the conclusion that there are one or two things more bizarre than falling into people’s dreams. 3:28 a.m.

Janie climbs the steps to the front entrance of the police station and gets blown in through the door. It’s snowing furiously. She looks around, and an officer waves her into the metaldetector area and through the security checkpoint. She recognizes him. It’s Rabinowitz. She smiles, knowing he doesn’t have a clue who she is.

“Through the doors. Cash or credit card payments only. No checks,” he says, as if he’s said it a billion times before.

Janie hears them before she pushes open the doors. There is a short line of sleepy-angry parents in front of her. Some of them are carrying on more pathetically than Carrie did on the phone. She peers around the corner and sees the bars of a holding cell. She wonders if this is it. The bust. And then she sees Melinda, being escorted by a cop and her father. Her face is smudged in mascara and tears, and she looks terrible. Her father grabs her angrily by the arm and marches her out. Janie looks at the floor as Melinda goes past. She feels sorry for her.

The next three students she knows as well, and she can see their humiliation. Finally Janie is the last person standing at the desk. She sets one thousand dollars cash on the counter.

“Who you here for?” barks the guard.

“Carrie Brandt and Stu, ah…” She Googles her memory for his last name. “Gardner.”

“I.D., please.”

Janie pulls out her driver’s license and hands it to the guard, who checks it closely. He looks up at her for the first time.

“You’re not eighteen.”

Janie’s stomach thuds. “No—not for another month,” she says.

“Sorry, kid. Gotta be eighteen.”

“But—” Shit.

The guard ignores her. She stands there. Thinking of all the things she knows but cannot reveal. She sighs and sits down in the chairs to think. She puts her head in her hands. Does she dare try to approach Rabinowitz, see if he’ll vouch for her? But, no…Captain said not a word to anyone. That didn’t exclude other cops.

“Can I at least go back there so she knows I tried?” Janie pleads. The guard looks up. “You still here? All right, fine,” he says. “Two minutes.” Janie smiles gratefully and walks to the holding cell.

And she sees them. Sitting or lying on the benches.

Carrie and Stu. Huddled.

Shay Wilder and her brother. Looking extremely pissed, drunk, high, wasted, whatever. Mr. Wilder. Looking fucked up in more ways than one.

And Cabe. Who is lounging on the bench like he lives there. And Shay, Janie notices gleefully, is as far away from Cabel as she can get.

She bites her lip.

Carrie rushes to the bars.

Janie looks at Carrie. “Honey,” she whispers. “They won’t let me. I’m not eighteen till next month. I’m working on it, though, okay? I promise. I’ll figure something out, if I have to drag my own mother down here.”

Carrie starts bawling. “Oh, it’s so horrible being locked up in here,” she whines. Janie, who ran out of sympathy about a minute after the phone rang, just glares at Carrie.

“Jeez, Carrie. Shut up already. Or I’m liable to leave you stranded.”

“No!” chime the drunken voices of Shay, her brother, and Stu. Stu and Carrie start fighting. Janie steals a glance at Cabel, who is watching her, the slyest of smiles on his face. He winks, and then nods, ever so slightly, in the direction of Mr. Wilder. Janie looks.

He’s leaning.

Falling.

Asleep.

She feels a rush of adrenaline. “I, uh, I gotta go back up to the chairs, Carrie, but I’ll get you out as soon as I can, okay?” Janie doesn’t chance another look at Cabe. She sits in the chairs nearest the holding cell, out of view of the guy at the front desk. She can just barely see Cabel’s feet on the bench. His legs are crossed at the ankles. And she remembers him back when his jeans were too short, standing alone and greasy at the bus stop, less than two years ago.

She can hear Carrie and Stu arguing, and Shay and her brother raising their voices, telling her to get over herself and shut up—

And then she’s whirling and blind, gripping the chair, hoping nobody walks by. She doesn’t see Cabel stand up in the midst of the Carrie distraction and come to the edge of the cell bars, trying to catch her eye. Trying to tell her something. She only sees what is in Mr. Wilder’s hopes and fears. Or are they memories?

The dream intensifies and turns nightmarish. Janie is whipped around inside it. Beaten, and blasted.

And she’s trying to see everything. Everything. From the eyes and the mind of a criminal.

She doesn’t see Cabel at all during that two-hour dream, pacing, burying his head in his hands. She doesn’t see him watching her, horrified, as she’s falling sideways off the chair, deadweight. Slamming her face on the corner of the coffee cart. 6:01 a.m.

Her head is pounding.

She’s clammy. Cold.

Her face slides in blood on a cold tile floor.

She thinks her eyes are open, but her vision is taking a long time to return. She can’t move her body.

In the distance, she hears Cabel, calling her name, calling the guard. Carrie is screaming.

For Janie, everything is black as night.

6:08 a.m.

Janie is being lifted onto a stretcher. She concentrates. Tries to wake up. Her head pounds. They wheel her out into the hallway of the police station.

“Stop,” she croaks.

Clears her voice, and says it again.

“Stop.”

Two paramedics look down at her. She opens her eyes. Only one wants to. But she can see shadows.

“I’m fine,” she says, and struggles to sit up. “I get seizures now and then. I’m fine. See?”

She holds her hands out to show them how fine she is.

And sees the blood.

Her eyes grow wide as she strains for her vision to return in full. She feels her face. The blood is dripping, streaming, from her eyebrow onto her lashes.

“Aw, fuck,” she says. “Listen, don’t you just have some Steri-Strips? Seriously.”

The paramedics look at each other, and back at her.

She tries a different tactic. “I don’t have any insurance, guys. I can’t afford this. Please.”

One of the medics wavers. “It’s Janie, right? Listen, you were in a complete spasm on the floor. Rigid. Unconscious. You smacked your head on the corner of a rusty metal coffee cart.”