7 Souls (6 page)

Patrick dumped me!

She still couldn’t believe it had actually happened. Maybe she’d seen it coming—maybe, in her heart of hearts, she’d had
some
idea that all was not well, that there was trouble in paradise. She kept remembering the snowy night in December when it all had started: sitting in Katz’s Deli and listening to Trick’s laments about Joon while sneaking glances at his delicately modeled lips and high cheekbones when she was sure he wasn’t looking. Trick went on and on about how he couldn’t see eye to eye with Joonie anymore, about all the ways their relationship was “dying on the vine.” All those sentences that began “I know she’s your best friend, but …” Mary had sympathized and held his hand and understood what he meant. Maybe she’d thought about what Joon was going through—how Joon must have
known
what was going on, must have
known
that she was about to lose her boyfriend—but that wasn’t something Mary could change, was it? Besides, she was
helping
, wasn’t she?

But now it was happening to
her
. And it was very different, she realized.

She got to the top landing, leaning on the banister to keep from stumbling with fatigue. Her legs were aching and her heartbeat was thwacking in her ears.
That’s today’s workout
, she thought dazedly. There was nobody around; the landing was deserted. A blinding thread of overcast light framed the windowless metal door to the roof, which somebody had wedged open with a shim. Mary lunged forward, forearms bashing against the door, pushing it open.

A cool wind tossed her hair around her face as she stepped forward onto the tar paper, letting the door clang shut. Other East Side buildings shone through the haze beyond the chain-link fence perimeter. Mary wasn’t alone—two student-shaped silhouettes loomed in her tear-blurred gaze, facing each other from very close, haloed by the blinding sky.
Too bad
, she thought—the last thing she wanted was to deal with anyone else. That was the whole point of coming to the—

“Oh, thank God!” Mary yelled. Her eyes had cleared, adjusting to the sunlight, and she recognized one of the shimmering figures—Ellen. She was dressed in the same tangerine Gap hoodie and gray sweatpants she’d been wearing in her bedroom two hours earlier—no pre-school makeover for her. “I can’t believe you’re up here—” Mary ran forward and wrapped her arms tightly around her sister.

“What the hell—” Ellen hugged back automatically, but her grip felt awkward and clumsy. “Mary, what’s the matter with you?”

“Sorry—I’m sorry,” Mary said, pulling away, throat burning as she finally gave in to the tears. “I’m sorry, but—Trick dumped me!”

“Really?” Ellen squinted oddly, as if surprise was blending with another emotion that Mary couldn’t recognize. She wasn’t looking at Mary—she was looking
past
her, at the third person on the roof.

Mary turned around. A male figure—a boy—stood facing them, returning Ellen’s gaze. Mary had no idea who he was. He wasn’t a Chadwick student—she was sure of that. After ten years at the same school, Mary could probably pick any of the seven-hundred-or-so students out of a police lineup—even the ones she’d never met.

And yet, there was something familiar about him. He was tall, and wiry like a swimmer. It was hard to make out the details of his face—his unkempt, wild dark brown hair, which rode a fine line between an actual style and a bad case of bed-head, cast his eyes and cheeks in shadow. A layer of dark stubble coated his angular jaw. He wore an untucked, unironed (but clean) white oxford shirt and a loosened gray tie, worn-out jeans and scuffed Puma running shoes.

“Um—” the boy said.

Mary looked at him, hot tears running down her face, still squeezing Ellen’s shoulder with one hand.
Go away!
she felt like yelling.
Get out of here and let me cry on my sister’s shoulder
. But suddenly she was sure she’d seen him before.

“Mary, you remember Dylan?” Ellen said. “My friend Dylan, from—”

“Scruffy Dylan!” The words popped out before Mary had a chance to think. “Of course!” Just like that, she had recognized him: Ellen’s bookish friend, whom she’d passed in the Shayne kitchen more than once without either of them ever saying hello.

“Yeah,” Dylan said, nodding and smiling. He didn’t sound offended. “I guess. Scruffy Dylan.”

“I’m sorry,” Mary said quickly. “I’m sorry. I just—”

“No, no—please.” Dylan stared down at his weathered Pumas and scratched the back of his neck. “Don’t worry about it. It’s accurate.”

There were lots of these scruffy boys in the Shaynes’ neighborhood; they were all Columbia students (which, she now vaguely remembered, Dylan was too). She’d grown up seeing them hunched over outdoor café tables up by 114th Street, each with three open textbooks, three empty espresso cups, tons of sugar packets everywhere, and chewed-up pens in their mouths, trying to solve a world health crisis or translate some ancient Greek. Mary had never even considered talking to Dylan, those times he’d been at her apartment, given the chances of her feeling like an idiot halfway through the conversation. If he was smart enough to be friends with Ellen, she reasoned, then he was
way
too smart to be friends with her.

“Wait—
what’s
this about Patrick?” Ellen reached up to her shoulder, protectively covering Mary’s hand with hers. “What happened?”

“He dumped me,” Mary repeated. Sobs were knifing through her now, catching in her throat. “He just
dumped
me, out of the b-blue—”

“Wow.” Ellen still wore the same startled look—she was staring past Mary at Dylan. “Just wow. Did he—did anything prompt this? I mean, were you fighting, or—”

“No, nothing!” Mary still couldn’t believe it.

(You
know why.)

“Poor girl!” Ellen pulled Mary close to hug her again. “Poor Mary. Don’t cry….”

“But it hurts,” Mary whispered, Ellen’s flat, nonconditioned hair pressed against her face. “It hurts so much.”

“Now
you’re
crying,” Ellen murmured. “Funny how things change.”

“What?” Mary pulled away, wiping her nose. “What did you—”

“I’m sorry,” Ellen said, the wind whipping strands of hair around her face. Her glasses reflected the bright sky. “I’m sorry, it’s just—you just reminded me of last night, when Mom was, you know, when Mom got sad. I didn’t mean to—”

“When
Mom
got sad?”

You’ve got to be kidding
, Mary thought. She always had to remind herself, over and over, of how emotionally immature her sister was. It was the result of not having a social life, of never having a boyfriend, she supposed. But here Mary was, facing the devastation of losing her boyfriend—her
boyfriend
, for Christ’s sake—and Ellen’s first thought was that this was somehow comparable to middle-aged Dawn Shayne, displaying all the emotional stability of a petulant five-year-old as she let her daughter’s birthday and her long-dead husband’s absence move her to tears.

“Come on, Ellie, you really think this is—”

“I’m just trying to make a point,” Ellen went on, pleasantly enough. “Just twelve hours ago,
Mom
was crying, asking you about Dad, and you couldn’t even—”

“I don’t remember.” Mary was conscious of Dylan standing patiently behind her, waiting for the Shayne sisters to finish their emotional scene.
Serves me right
, she thought bitterly.
I turn to a family member for help and get pulled right into a family argument
. “I don’t remember, Ellen, but can’t we just—”

“Last night at dinner,” Ellen went on, still maddeningly calm. “The waiter had taken the plates away and Mom was crying, talking about your birthday and asking you about Dad’s last—”

“I mean I
don’t remember,”
Mary snapped. She was in absolutely no mood for this. “I remember last night, but I don’t remember the fucking story Mom keeps referring to, when Dad, you know, when he died, because I was
fucking seven years old!
Why can’t you and Mom both just—”

“All right,” Ellen said quickly. “All right, sorry. We’ll get into it later.”

“Do you want me to leave?” Dylan said. He’d picked up a rumpled messenger bag from the tar paper—a folded jacket was draped over it. “If you’re having some private thing, I can—”

Yes!
Mary thought furiously. The emotional rawness, in front of a total stranger, was making her feel even worse.
Leave! Get out of here!

“No, that’s okay,” Ellen said, more loudly. “Forget it—I’m sorry, Mary. It’s hardly the appropriate time. Wow,” she marveled, shaking her head. “Patrick actually—Wow.”

“Excuse us, Dylan,” Mary told him, trying to muster a smile and barely managing. “It’s just, you know, sister stuff. Listen”—she looked back and forth between Dylan and her sister, affecting a scandalous tone, trying to cover the embarrassment she felt—“what are you two doing up here, anyway? What’s going on between you guys?”

“What? Nothing. We’re just, um—” Dylan gestured. “Having a conversation.”

“Something intellectual, right?” Mary smiled. “Talking about an old book or something.”

“Yeah.” Ellen had picked up the jovial tone, clearly trying to smooth over the awkward moment. “You could say that, sure. An old book. I’m consulting my resident language expert.”

“‘Expert’—right.” Dylan rolled his eyes and slid his bag over his shoulder. “Ellen, you’ve got class.”

“Don’t roll your eyes, Dyl!” Ellen smiled as she pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “That’s a very kind thing to say! If you’re going to compliment somebody, mention their erudition, or their—”

“Class
—you’ve got class,” Dylan repeated, looking at his watch. “Right? History or whatever, at nine-forty. You’re going to be late.”

“Oh,
shit
—he’s right,” Ellen said, reaching for her own overstuffed book bag. “Mary, I’m sorry—I’ve got to get down there. Really, I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay.” Mary accepted Ellen’s quick, strong hug, but she’d already written Ellen off.
She’s not going to help
, Mary thought.
She can’t do it, no matter how well intentioned she is—she just doesn’t have the emotional vocabulary
. “We’ll talk later.”

“Nice to meet you,” Dylan said, prying open the door in the brick shed that covered the stairwell’s top landing, and holding it for them both. “Sorry you’re having a bad day.”

“Thanks,” Mary said, sniffing.
And mind your own business
.

A
T TWO-FORTY-FIVE
in the afternoon Mary realized, dully, that she hadn’t gone to a single class. She’d moved up and down the Chadwick staircase with the other students at one-hour intervals, buffeted by the crowd, whenever the way-too-loud class bell rang out from (it seemed) a corner of every ceiling, up and down the ten floors of the school. Around noon, she’d wandered into the cafeteria, seen none of her friends, and wandered right back out. But she hadn’t been able to bring herself to actually go into a classroom. The thought of sitting in a metal and Formica chair under fluorescent lights and staring at a blackboard seemed absolutely out of the question.

I’m going to get in trouble
, she thought, over and over.
I’m going to be in serious trouble for this
. By her count, she’d already cut three classes and was about to cut a fourth; the consequences (even for a second-semester senior) were pretty dire.

But she couldn’t make herself care.

Nobody had wished her a happy birthday. Nobody was looking at her; their eyes brushed against her and then moved away, quickly, as if she was wearing that scarlet letter in that book she’d had to read for English class last year. It was beyond “Worst Birthday Ever,” and every time she saw her reflection in the glass panes of the school’s classroom doors, she saw her carefully assembled birthday outfit and felt even worse. It was like her own clothes were making fun of her.

It took five minutes for everyone to gallop madly from class to class … pausing to slam their lockers open and grab their books and shout and flirt and make jokes while their shoes squeaked on the linoleum … and then everyone was rushing back into the classrooms and the doors were closing and that prison-yard bell rang again, and Mary was alone, in the center of the corridor, shivering and trembling with her arms wrapped around herself.

I’m missing Shama
, she thought absently.
I’m missing that test
.

Again, she just couldn’t make herself care.

And something else was happening, too—something she couldn’t ignore any longer.

It had started while she was with Patrick; she had been looking at him but seeing something else—a house silhouetted against a dark sky—that made her nervous, somehow. More than nervous—she was actually frightened, but she had no idea why. It had happened twice more: that same strange
sliding
feeling, like the world was slipping away. Mary had tried to ignore it.
Hangover
, she’d told herself.

An hour later, it happened again.

It was like someone had changed television channels. All the clamor around her was
gone
. Just like that, the school was gone, the warm recycled air with its unmistakable scents of gym clothes and perfume and chalk dust was gone, and she was cold, outdoors in the dark.

A freezing wind blew across her face as she gazed up at the vast sky and the pale bloodred glow beyond the flat, distant horizon. Snow fell like ash; she was
standing
in snow—deep, fresh powder that had seeped through her boots and frozen her feet numb—staring forward at the black shape of the house.

And this time, shivering in the cold, she saw movement, close to her: a darkness in the white ground; a hole in the snow that swirled like a drain. Peering through the dimness between the dancing snowflakes, Mary realized that something was in the hole: a dark shape—something alive, reaching for her and calling to her.

A chill passed through her, making her shiver, and then she was in the Chadwick corridor, alone in the middle of the fourth floor, missing the physics test. The cold wind was gone, replaced by the stale Chadwick air and the muffled sounds of teachers’ droning voices from behind the classroom doors lined up on either side of her.