Wild Awake (30 page)

“Is that what you told Mom and Dad?” I shriek. “You told them I was on some kind of drugged-out rampage? Thanks, Denny. Way to be a liar.”

He ignores me. “—in case there really
is
something wrong, because even though you’re shrill and unreasonable and completely insane, you’re the only sister I have left.”

We stare at each other, spent. At the intersection, the walk sign chirps
bleep-bloop, bleep-bloop, bleep-bloop
. Denny puts an arm around my shoulder as if he half expects me to bolt down the street, which I half intend to do.

“What time are they getting here?” I demand as he guides me to the car, my mind already blazing with to-do lists, stratagems, battle plans.

“Who cares?” he says. “Let’s get Mongolian.”

“There’s no time for Mongolian,” I say. “Give me your phone.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to call them.”

“You can’t. They’re probably on the plane.”

“I’ll leave a message.”

“And say what?”

“Just give me the phone.”

Denny hands it to me, and I dial Dad’s cell number. It goes straight to voice mail.

“Hi, Mom and Dad,” I say. “It’s Kiri. I hope you’re having a good time on your trip.”

Denny rolls his eyes. I make a face at him. “Anyway, I’m just calling to say that—”

Denny is watching me with a curious expression, and for some reason my voice catches. “
What?
” I hiss, but he just shakes his head and waves at me to finish the message so we can go. I swivel away from Denny and plant myself on the sidewalk.

“Anyway—” I start again, but then I glance down at the silver shoes I’m wearing, so shiny against the dull pavement. There’s a warm breeze playing with the hem of my dress, and I can smell the salt in the air from the harbor a few blocks away. The sky, stained orange from streetlamps, is still dark enough to show a speckle of stars.

I feel a sudden wave of homesickness, and I don’t even know what for—beauty, or freedom, or love, all the wild and dangerous parts of myself that die a little with every carefully sanitized syllable I speak into the phone. What am I so afraid of, anyway? Let them come home. Let them see me as I am for once, and not as they need me to be. I’m braver than they think I am.

Hell, maybe they’re braver than I think they are, too.

I flip the phone shut and toss it to Denny.

“Let’s get that Mongolian,” I say.

We don’t mention Mom and Dad
the whole time we’re wolfing down dinner. But on the drive home, my resolution starts to waver, and I ask Denny what he thinks I should do.

“Get some sleep,” he says automatically.

I tug at my seat belt. “That’s not what I mean. Do you think I can replant the old azalea bushes, or is there a nursery open where we could stop and buy new ones?”

For some reason, the azaleas feel extremely significant—like Mom and Dad will take one look at the ruined bushes and know my every thought, every twitch, every transgression. Who but a monomaniac would pull up the azaleas? What kind of sinister deviant would broadcast her own broken-ness in such a public way?

Even though I know there are a million other things I should be worrying about—like the Showcase, and how to explain the fact that our magazine-perfect house is now home to an irascible three-legged cat that I am starting to suspect is an alcoholic—the azaleas seem to overshadow it all.

“We can’t buy new azaleas bushes at three a.m.,” says Denny. “Get some sleep. Anyone would go nuts if they slept as little as you.”

A wave of dread rolls through me. “But what about—”

Denny’s hands are calm and even on the steering wheel. “Tell you what,” he says. “You go to bed and let me worry about the azaleas.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah.”

My body untenses when Denny says this, like the matter of the azaleas was a big hairy spider on my shoulder and Denny just flicked it off.
I’m safe
, I think, drawing a deep, rattled breath.
The azaleas. Thank God
.

It turns out that when you unsubscribe from sleep, it’s actually rather hard to get started again. The sleep gods don’t just let you back into the club after you’ve snubbed them. You need to make some kind of sacrifice or penitence or offering to get back in. I light a stick of the incense Skunk gave me and wave it around my bed, singing a wheedling sleep chant as my room fills up with fragrant smoke. I say a little prayer,
Oh sleep gods, please let me in
, and climb under the covers. The first few minutes seem promising. I snuggle into my pillow and try to let my brain go still. For a moment, it seems like I might really fall asleep, and if I can really fall asleep, then maybe there’s no problem after all.

But a few seconds later, my brain’s at it again. I start thinking about all the complicated things I need to explain to Mom and Dad—Sukey’s things, the Showcase, Skunk—and spend the rest of the night wide awake, planning for their arrival.

First I think it might be best if I’m sitting at the piano practicing when they show up, and I can twist around with a pleasantly surprised expression on my face as if I hadn’t heard the cab in the driveway.

Then I think I should lay out Sukey’s things in the living room and stage a family catharsis, talk show–style, and we’ll all weep and hug and confess our wrongdoings and emerge from the house hours later, bleached by forgiveness and scoured by tears.

Then I start worrying that Mom and Dad are going to be angry at me for embarrassing them in front of Petra and Dr. Scaliteri. In that case, perhaps a vulnerable approach would work best. They’ll walk in and I’ll be curled up on the couch, frail and frightened, with Snoogie the cat in my arms, their poor hardworking daughter who nearly practiced herself to death just to make them proud.

The clock on my nightstand glows red, and even though I try all sorts of different sleeping positions and pillow configurations and chants and spells and prayers, the sun comes up in the morning and I haven’t slept at all.

My parents materialize like sunscreen-smelling aliens, all rolling luggage and breathable clothes. There’s a brightness about them that doesn’t seem real, a sanitized freshness like cut flowers gazing out at the world through cellophane.

I come out of the bathroom after brushing my teeth and Mom and Dad are just
there
, as crisp and neat and color-coordinated as people clipped out of a catalogue. The various scripts I’d run through in my head scramble themselves into a dizzying triple helix and instead I just stare at them, raw-eyed from lack of sleep, as they bump around the kitchen, talking at me so fast I can only process a quarter of what they say.

“Kiri,” they keep saying like a pair of chirping birds.

They want to know what happened to the azalea bushes.

And where I put the mail.

They have spent their last three days on the cruise ship doing Research on various teen mental health websites. They tell me it’s a good thing Petra and Denny observed the Warning Signs, or I might be in real trouble.

My dad pushes a pile of books into my hands that they apparently bought on the way home from the airport. I scan the titles.
The Adolescent Depression Workbook
.

You’re fucking kidding me
, I think.

My parents chatter on and on. Petra has recommended a Hip Young Counselor with whom I will be having an appointment tomorrow morning to discuss a possible future in monomania. Petra has also recommended an acoustic guitar–wielding music therapist, who is supposed to be very, very skilled with troubled teens. Since I am so musical, we are sure to be great friends.

They dig out a few little presents for me: the shampoo and soaps from the cruise ship, a necklace made of some sea creature’s crushed-up bones. I twist the little pink shells between my fingers, wondering when they’re going to ask me what happened, how I’m feeling, what
I
think’s going on. Petra’s right, Lukas is right, Denny’s right, Skunk’s right, they’re all right—I’m Thingy, I’m having a Thing. I’m exhausted and cracked out and not entirely okay. But I don’t even care about that anymore. That seems like something that will get better. It’s right now I’m worried about: It’s standing here together with so much to say, and not saying anything at all.

I hover there a moment longer, waiting for them to ask me about something, anything, that actually matters.

Dad busies himself with the plugging-in of cell phone chargers.

Mom checks the fridge for milk.

There’s an exaggerated kind of industriousness to their movements, bright and false, like kids pretending to be absorbed in taking notes so the teacher doesn’t call on them. Mom is unscrewing a giant bottle of vitamin pills that gives off a scent like rubber flowers, Dad’s pouring himself a glass of water at the sink, and for the first time since Sukey died I can see us clearly, hovering at the intersection of love and avoidance like lost tourists who can’t decide which road will bring them home.

My shoulders start to tremble and my chest swells up like a hot-water bottle filled too fast.

“Mom?” I warble. “Dad?”

They both spin around at once.

“Can we talk?”

It comes out strange and strangled, like words in a foreign language I’m only beginning to learn.

Then they’re hugging me in their sunscreeny arms and breathing in my hair with their mouthwashy breath, and I feel like a firewalker who’s just crossed hot coals to collapse, on the other side, into cool grass.

“There was a phone call,” I mumble into the sleeve of my dad’s shirt.

We start from there.

That night, I do my incense
ritual standing over my bed, and I’m just about to swallow the melatonin Mom left on my dresser when I realize I haven’t checked my phone all day. I fish it out of my purse and see three missed calls from Skunk, and two texts from this afternoon:
JUST BIKED PAST IMPERIAL. ALL BOARDED UP. ???
And:
TALKED 2 CONSTRUCTION GUY. DEMOLITION 2MORROW!!!

I spit the melatonin into my hand and press call back. Skunk answers on the twenty-millionth ring, his voice thick and groggy from his medication.

“Huhllo . . .”

“They’re tearing it down
tomorrow
?” I whisper.

“Mmmmmmm.”

I don’t think he’s really awake, or even physiologically capable of being awake. The pills he takes are basically elephant tranquilizers.

It occurs to me in a flash that starting tomorrow, the Hip Young Counselor might try to put me on elephant tranquilizers too.

Skunk makes a sleepy, confused moan. I whisper lovingly, “It’s okay, Bicycle Boy, go back to sleep.”

I press the end button and sit on my bed, my body straining between rival impulses like a chew toy being pulled in six different directions at once. I know I should go to sleep. I should take the melatonin and get into bed. But when I think about everything that’s happened this summer, I can’t let it end like this, with a pill and eight hours of chemical oblivion. It would be like skipping Sukey’s funeral all over again. It would be like I never went out to find her at all.

The house is quiet. The only sound I hear is the barking of a distant dog through the open window, blocks and blocks away.

Just one more night
, I say to myself.

I get up and pad down the hall, pausing outside my parents’ door to make sure they’re asleep. They kept yawning during dinner and making comments about being on “Canary Island time,” and I’m pretty sure they’re conked out on melatonin themselves. When I don’t hear anything, I tiptoe into Sukey’s old room, avoiding the squeaky floorboard by the door. I find what I’m looking for and hurry back to my room. I throw on a sweatshirt and sling a canvas messenger bag over my shoulder, tucking the contraband inside.

Two minutes later I’m silently wheeling my bicycle through the side door of the garage.

For the first few blocks of the bike ride, my senses are on high alert. Every car that passes is my parents coming to bring me home. Every pedestrian is a neighbor or acquaintance who will call them to report my escape.

She’s out of control!

She’s gone berzerk!

She’s biking in her pajamas!

But I feel more solid than I have in a long time, and more certain. My grip on the handlebars is steady. My wheels roll straight and true. The contents of the messenger bag clink softly against my body, their weight reassuring. By the time I get to the bridge, I’ve stopped worrying about being caught. Ahead of me, the city is still and quiet, the only motion the private dances of the sidewalk trees.

I reach into my bag and pull out the first paint jar from Sukey’s set. Anchoring it against the handlebars with one hand, I unscrew the lid with the other, my bike swerving slightly beneath me. When I get the lid off, I hold my arm out and tip the jar over the sidewalk, and a thin stream of paint pours out in one long thread. I look behind me. A trail of marigold yellow follows me down the bridge.

Hey, Kiri
. An echo.

I hear you’re in a band
.

“It’s just me and my boyfriend,” I say out loud, then laugh at the weirdness of my voice, after midnight, on the bridge.

I screw the lid back onto the yellow paint jar and drop it back into the messenger bag, steering my bike one-handed as I rummage for another jar. I paint a pink dot on Sukey’s magnolia tree, and twin streams of cobalt and crimson along the bike trail where Skunk and I raced at Stanley Park. I leave an emerald splatter on the pavement in front of the Train Room and a tiny white blossom on the patio outside Skunk’s door, hurrying away on tiptoes before I get caught.

Each time I dip my hand into the messenger bag, my fingers close around exactly the right color. The paints shine up at me like little wet faces from the bottom of the jars.

That’s rad, Kiri. You got a demo for me?

As a matter of fact, I do.

The fire hydrants stand stout and friendly on the street corners, and the sly little breezes push me forward through the city, and closer, closer, closer to my goal.