What We Knew (12 page)

Lisa did a double take. “Wait,” she said. “Did you just say
Foley
?”

I snatched the fondue fork from her fist and pointed it at her heart. “You can’t ever tell anyone,” I said. “Promise?” Lisa nodded eagerly. She wanted details. “Remember the night I was supposed to go out to dinner with Adam?” I said. “Well, Foley called. I hadn’t seen him in a while. I see Adam all the time. We ended up at his house, and … yeah.”

“Have you seen him since then?” she asked.

“God, no.” I covered my face. “I don’t want see him. I just want this to go away.”

“Is that why you were being such a freak last night?” she asked, rummaging through a bin of purses.

I nodded.

“Stop it,” she said. She dropped her armload of clothes in a shopping cart and put her hands on my shoulders. “This doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t make you anything. It’s just sex. It doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to.”

But it still means I’m a cheater.

Toeing a loose tile in the floor, I asked Lisa if she was mad at me. “I was a jerk about you kissing Trent,” I explained, trying on an iridescent smoking jacket. Lisa kicked off her flip-flops and stuffed her feet into some strappy silver sandals with acrylic heels. She shrugged and then shuffled up behind me in the mirror.

“I
should
be mad, but I’m not,” she said over the top of my head. She looked down at her feet. “What do you think of these?”

“Do they come with a pole?”

Her elbow jab was fast and sharp. Rubbing my arm, I climbed into the cart with her clothes. As Lisa pushed me around the store, I told her how Adam and I were supposed to go to dinner later, how we had reservations and everything.

“What’s the problem?” she asked. “Nothing’s changed. Go.”

If sleeping with Foley didn’t have to mean anything—if it didn’t mean anything—then why couldn’t I stop thinking about it? Later, getting ready to go out, my cheeks blazed with the memory of the two of us on the couch. And I smiled, thinking of him, until I remembered the eyes in the steamer trunk. I pushed the image away.

I was surprisingly relaxed when Adam came to pick me up. But then we got to the restaurant. I’ve only been in a courtroom once, when Scott got sentenced to community service for resisting arrest, but I felt like I was waiting for a verdict as the ma
î
tre d’ scanned the book on the stand. Picking at my nail polish, I glanced around uneasily. In the dining room—all crystal and low light and starched linens—silverware clinked. Someone actually guffawed. The ma
î
tre d’ looked up and shook his head. No reservation, but we were welcome to wait. And wait. And wait.

I suspected finding us a table wasn’t exactly a priority, not with the way we were dressed. Me with my blue streaks and a thrift store shift that made me look like one of those black-and-white cookies, only not so round. Adam in his oxford, buttoned but untucked. Both of us rockin’ our Cons. I kicked myself for leaving the glitter stickers on my toes. “C’mon,” I said, grabbing Adam’s hand. “I’ve got somewhere better. You’ll love it.”

I’d never been there without my parents, but Hal’s was our go-to place when everything or nothing was going right. We went there after Scott broke his arm and when my mom got promoted to supervisor and the time I found our cat Snickers flattened in the road. Hal’s was my favorite, but I’d never shared it with anyone, not even Lisa. I don’t know what made me think of it, except I wanted that night to be special. From the outside it isn’t anything, just a short flight of stairs to a basement door and a hand-lettered sign—OPEN 24 HOURS UNLESS WE’RE CLOSED—but the inside is something else.

It’s a little overwhelming at first, the way the walls nearly vibrate with the doodles and signatures of everyone who’s ever been there, but Adam lit up instantly, marveling at the confusion of graffiti. “I knew there was a reason I picked you,” he said, squeezing my hand. “How did I not know about this place?” Squinting, he scanned the tangle of names and dates and declarations of love until a waitress clutching a couple of menus led us to a booth in back. Plunking down, he tipped his head and laughed at the ceiling, at the overlapping hearts competing with skulls and peace signs and a jumble of names too faded to read. “This is crazy,” he said. “I love it.”

“There I am,” I said, pointing to my shaky fourth-grade cursive. “Right under ‘Uncle Clay Hates Cats.’ My dad had to put me on his shoulders to reach.”

“It’s so us,” he said, reaching across the table for my hands. Lisa was right: nothing had changed. While Adam looked around, I looked at Adam, but then his eyes dropped down suddenly and met mine. “I’m going to miss you,” he said.

My stomach nose-dived. My face burned with shame.
He knows.

“When I go to California,” he continued. “My dad made my reservation. I’m leaving in two weeks.”

Relief collided with sadness. I’d forgotten about Adam’s trip. Before I could ask him how long he’d be gone, the waitress came back to take our order. Adam quickly scanned the menu.

“You want the jelly omelet,” I said. The cook leaning in the pickup window agreed.

Adam shrugged. “Sounds questionable. But I trust you.”

After the waitress retreated to the kitchen, I told Adam I wished he didn’t have to go at all.

Folding a corner of his paper place mat, he said, “Me, too.”

“When are you coming back?” I asked.

“That’s the good news,” he said. “I’ll only be gone a week. Chris convinced my mom that I’ll be miserable without you, and I’ll just make everyone else miserable, too. We owe him. When he comes for Christmas, we should bring him here.”

My heart did a little dance, but a deeper part of me—the part that had been blindly grasping at something that wasn’t there yet—relaxed. We had a future—the two of us. Adam said so. December was a long way off. And because December was a long way off, I had nothing but time. Plenty for me to sort out my feelings, that chaotic snarl that was as unreadable as some of the messages on the diner’s walls. We weren’t The Perfect Couple—not yet—but we could be. In my head, I chalked up the last month to a false start. This was my do-over. There was time to make things right.

As I was searching my bag for a pen, our omelets arrived. My mother always says you can dress me up but you can’t take me out. I frowned at the dribble of jelly I almost immediately got down my front. Luckily it was the black half of the dress and not the white. But the bathroom had air dryers instead of paper towels. Wetting toilet paper was a mistake. I was still brushing little gray spitballs from my chest when I returned to the table.

“Don’t forget to write something,” I said.

“I did,” Adam said. “Find it.”

My eyes swept the busy wall, searching for his block print.

“Give me a hint,” I said. “Or we’ll be here all night.”

I followed Adam’s finger to my name and traced a black thread channeling through a maze of doodles and autographs. Up, up, up. I had to stand on the bench to see. There, between “Noel” and “Suck it,” an eyeball beside a heart beside a puffy animal with stick legs and a tiny tail.

I scrunched my face. “I love sheep?”

“It’s a ewe,” he said.

Groaning, I plunked down on the bench. “You’re such a cornball,” I said, grinning. “I love ewe, too.”

Some people are addicted to drama, to pain and fear and sadness. Not me. I’m all about lip-syncing to cheesy songs and writing silly messages and acting like an idiot. That’s who I am—the real Tracy Kolcun. Adam kissed me and my heart felt light. I don’t know why I did what I did with Foley, but I would not be dragged down by some freak that lived in the woods. Who did he think he was? Watching me, judging me with those eyes. I made a mistake. People do. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It just means you’re human.

After dinner, Adam walked me home, but I didn’t go in. I waited until he turned the corner, then ran to the garage and raided my dad’s workbench, digging through coffee cans of nails and screws and bolts. In the bottom of his tool bucket I found what I was looking for: his old jackknife, rusted shut and smelling like pennies.

It was almost dark when I got to the edge of the woods. Rage marched me through the brush. I got into a slapping match with the branches, but the stinging scratches only made me angrier.
I will bury you,
I thought, but then thunder rumbled overhead. The clouds curdled green and yellow. The dying light ground the edges off everything, smudging the pines and rocks and mossy logs. I stood at the top of the stairs and watched the black tarp bleed into night. The ropes I could see, white webs between the trees. Clutching the jackknife, I imagined sawing the lines, watching the house deflate like a black balloon, listening to him struggle under the weight of all that plastic.

A cold wind raised the hair on my neck, stippling my skin. The tarp rippled like an oily wave. I stood there, my courage shrinking, wishing for Lisa, while the sky above me twisted purple and green. A wicked storm brewing. Worse than the one that night at Foley’s. A putrid light ringed in darkness. A vortex forming. A booming crack sent my hands to my ears, and the knife went skittering down the stairs. The only thing to do was hike up my dress and run.

Hands trembling, I fumbled my new key in the new bolt. My mother was in her bedroom watching TV. I ran from room to room, pulling the fans, closing the windows, screwing down the locks.

“What are you doing?” my mother demanded, shuffling into the kitchen with an empty glass and a Popsicle stick. “It’s a thousand degrees in here.”

“
There’s a storm coming,” I said. “Huge. Check the Weather Channel.”

My mother went out on the porch and came back shaking her head.

“Are you high?” she asked, and I think she meant it, because she examined my eyes before she marched me outside and showed me the stars.

fifteen

Sometimes I wish Lisa came equipped with a sensor so I’d know the kind of mood she was in before I agreed to hang out with her. It sounded like fun—roller-skating. We used to go all the time when we were kids. Just because it was a birthday party for Katie’s friend didn’t mean we couldn’t skate, too. I hate the word
turd,
but that’s what Lisa was being, parked at the snack bar with a popcorn and soda, paying more attention to her phone than to me.

“C’mon,” I said, tugging on her wrist. “This is your favorite song.”

“No it’s not.”

“Well … it’s somebody’s favorite,” I said.

I swiped some of her popcorn and watched Katie twirl around under the disco ball and fought the fidgety feeling surging in my chest—the kind I used to get when my mother kept me out of the pool while I digested my lunch. I waited two full songs before asking, “Why aren’t you talking?”

Lisa raised her face. Her eyes were blank and cheerless. “I don’t have anything to say.”

She had to be punishing me for Foley. For being a hypocrite. I sighed. “Fine. I’m going for a spin.”

Nothing drives home the absurdity of roller-skating like being out on the floor without a friend. Now I know why nobody goes alone—it’s boring. Going round and round with no one to pull or push or bump. No one to tell you how awesome your shirt looks under the black light. No one to whisper in your ear about that cute guy or that mean girl.

Katie glided by, wheels weaving a double helix as she crouched into the turn. “Show-off!” I shouted, struggling to stay upright. Her friends blew past me, too, shouting the words to the song that had become their summer anthem. I suddenly felt old and out of place, trying to keep up with the sixth graders. But it was either that or the moms over in the party room, fussing with the birthday girl’s cake and presents. I waved at Lisa every time I passed the snack bar window, but she just sat there, her head on her fist, looking bitchy. Maybe she was mad because I’d ditched her for Adam two days in a row. But how many times had she bailed on me to be with Gabe?

I passed a girl crying under the disco ball and moved aside for the boys gliding to her rescue. Boys were everywhere throwing signs. I tensed. The rink had suddenly grown hot and uncomfortable, infused with the electricity of a fight brewing.

As I skated toward Katie and her pack of friends, someone grabbed my butt. I stiffened. Wheeling around I came nose to forehead with a little Romeo in a basketball jersey and gold chains. My brain crackled and popped like an amp with too much distortion. I wanted to embarrass him the way Lisa had embarrassed the kid at the pool that day, but I knew I’d only end up embarrassing myself.

“Sorry,” the kid mumbled, stumbling along, his arms stretched out before him. It was an accident. He could barely stay upright. My stupid radar was malfunctioning again. I palmed the rail to the exit, my legs vibrating when the floor changed from wood to carpet.

“You know Adam’s leaving in a week,” I said, winging up to the counter where Lisa was chewing her straw. “We should do something. Go to the city. Just you and me. We can look for Scott.”

“Maybe,” she said. “I don’t know.”

I checked my phone for messages, then scrolled through the
M
s in an online dream dictionary—macaroni, manatees, milk, moccasins. I wanted to read her what I’d found about monsters.

“Sometimes I hate my life,” she said.

“What part?”

“All of it.” She glanced at me before turning away again. “I can’t wait to graduate and get the hell out of here. Maybe I won’t wait to graduate. Maybe I’ll just go. I’ll be like Scott. One day I’ll just disappear. Move to the city so no one can find me.”

Katie and her friends flew past the window with their eyes crossed and their tongues hanging out. Lisa shook the ice in her cup and said, “You ever just wake up one morning and wonder how your life got so effed up?”

Right then I wanted to tell her. About what really happened that night in Troy. How ashamed I felt. How stupid I felt for being ashamed of something that wasn’t my fault. I’d been treating that day like a snag in my tights. Like I could dab it with nail polish and forget about it. But the hole kept growing. Part of me wondered if that was the cause of my nightmares. Maybe telling Foley wasn’t enough.