aterovis_bm_reapthewhirlwind.p65 (17 page)

I nodded, too far gone to argue. As I stood up, I realized my arm was still throbbing from my tussle with Joey. I took a few Tylenol PM that Aidan produced from somewhere then went into my room. I didn’t turn any lights on; I just stood in the darkness for a few minutes.

Suddenly a feeling of loneliness so powerful I almost cried out overwhelmed me. I turned and crossed the 151

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hall to Aidan’s door, where I knocked lightly.

“Yeah?” he called warily.

I opened the door. “Can I…can I sleep with you tonight?” I felt like I sounded, like a small child at his parent’s door after a nightmare.

“What do you mean?” Aidan said cautiously.

“Just…I’m afraid to be alone,” I said shakily.

He thought for a moment, then nodded slowly.

“Okay.”

I closed the door behind me and undressed in the darkness. I crawled into Aidan’s bed, being careful to stay on my side. We lay in silence with our backs to each other. I waited until I thought he had fallen asleep before letting go. The tears came hot but silent at first and slowly built into muffled sobs as I tried not to wake Aidan. I was surprised but very grateful when I felt his strong arms circle around me. Once again, I found myself crying myself to sleep in his arms.

***

I got up early the next morning after a fitful night’s sleep. I wanted to watch the early news to see if there was any mention of Joey. The Tragic Death of a College Student, as they were now calling it—you could almost hear the capital letters—was the lead story.

“As reported last night, a local student from Pemberton University died while attending an off-campus party. Police have now released the name; Joseph Taylor was an 18-year-old freshman. His friends describe him as a fun-loving young man full of life. According to police reports, Taylor was found by another student in a swimming pool owned by the family of college senior, David Kemp. Kemp was hosting the party. Police say it’s still too early to say conclusively 152

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how Taylor died but they do believe alcohol was a factor.“Are off-campus parties a significant risk to your children? We go now to our—” I turned off the TV, cutting the anchorperson off in mid-sentence. Well, at least now I knew for sure.

“I’m sorry, Will,” Aidan said softly from behind me.

I hadn’t even noticed him there.

The empty feeling from the night before was still there but now it had eased into a dull ache. I didn’t cry; I had done my mourning the night before.

“I…should call his mom or something,” I said.

“Not now, there’ll be too much going on. Later, after things have settled down.”

I nodded.

The phone rang and Aidan answered it, then handed me the phone.

It was Caitlin.

“Did you see the news?” she asked before I could say more than hello.

“Yes—are you okay?”

“I guess. It’s not like I’m his chief mourner or anything. To me he was just some bastard that knocked me up then dumped me. I was calling to check on you. You were his friend.”

“I’m—okay. Well—no I’m not okay, but I’ll survive.”

“Do you have someone with you?”

“Yes, my roommate…” I paused, then revised myself, “my best friend Aidan is here with me.”

Aidan looked up with a strange expression in his eyes, a mix of surprise and some other emotion that I couldn’t name. He looked back down quickly.

“Good, I’m glad. I didn’t want you to be alone.”

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“Did you think about my offer?” I asked.

Aidan looked up again, this time with curiosity flashing in his eyes.

“Yes,” Caitlin said, “but I’m still thinking. Don’t rush me on this, Will. It’s an important decision; one that could affect the rest of my life.”

“It’s not just your life at stake here,” I responded quietly.

“God! How do you keep doing that?” she said with exasperation. I didn’t say anything as she went on,

“Look, I’ll call you next week. I’ve got plenty of time to decide. You can safely abort any time in the first tri-mester and it’s no big deal. I’m only about a month along as I figure it.”

“No big deal for you maybe.”

“Stop that!”

“I’m just trying to make sure you see both sides. I’m trying to speak for the one who has no voice.”

“You’re just making this harder!” she sounded close to tears.

“Good. A life and death decision shouldn’t be easy.”

She sighed. “Good-bye, Will.”

“Bye, Caitlin. I’ll talk to you next week.”

As soon as I hung up Aidan was all over me. “What was that all about?” he demanded.

“You shouldn’t have been eavesdropping,” I said defensively.

“You saw me sitting right there. Besides, you just said I’m your best friend. Best friends tell each other everything.”

I sighed. “Caitlin is pregnant, and she’s thinking about getting an abortion.”

“And that concerns you how?”

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“The baby is Joey’s.”

Aidan blinked in surprise then quickly recovered. “I repeat, and that concerns you how?”

“I feel responsible somehow. I know it’s ridiculous,”

I rushed on to drown out the protest that was already forming on Aidan’s lips, “but I can’t help it. Besides, I really like Caitlin. She seems like a good person. I want to help her.” I paused for a moment, then said the next part super fast, “I told her I’d help her raise the baby if she wouldn’t have an abortion.”

“YOU WHAT?”

“Shh!” I hushed him.

“Don’t you shush me! Have you lost your fucking mind? You don’t know anything about babies! You don’t even know her; you just met her last night for God’s sake! You have no obligation to this person; you cannot get yourself involved.”

“I’m already involved. Look, Joey would have never gone on this—this—whatever it was. This alcohol-in-duced sex-binge if it hadn’t been for me. Don’t you see that? Now there’s a little helpless life that is a part of Joey. That baby didn’t ask to be created. Why should it have to pay for my mistake?”

“Will, you’ve got to talk to Dr. Wohler again. You are not responsible for someone else’s actions. I had to realize that when you tried to kill yourself. At first, I blamed myself, but I had to realize that I didn’t make you jump off that fire escape—just like you didn’t make Joey become a drunken asshole. That was his choice.

You didn’t make Joey have unprotected sex with Caitlin—that was their decision. You are not responsible for any of this.”

“I’ve already given my word to Caitlin and I’m not 155

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breaking my promise.”

“You didn’t have any problem breaking your word to me when you took a flying leap off the balcony!”

I froze.

“Will, I’m sorry—”

“You said you forgave me for that.”

He sighed. “Forgiven but not forgotten—remember?”

“Then let’s just say I learned my lesson. I’m not breaking it anymore.”

He stared at me for a minute. I could read his frustration easily in his eyes. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you? There’s no changing your mind.”

“Yes, I’m serious and, no, I’m not changing my mind.”

Another sigh. “Fine. I can’t believe I’m even saying this, but if you’re absolutely positive this is what you want to do, I’ll support you in any way I can.”

“What?” His sudden about face caught me off guard.

“I think you’ve completely lost your mind, but I’ll be there for you,” he said with just a hint of a smile. His smile broadened a bit as he shrugged and added, “Hey, what are best friends for?”

“Scratching backs?” I said hopefully. His smile turned into a full-fledged Aidan Special Grin, complete with dimples.

“Coming right up!”

***

I called Joey’s mom that afternoon. She sounded as upset as one would expect. I had intended to just offer my sympathy, but she surprised me by asking me to come over. It wasn’t something I was looking forward to, but I knew it was something I had to do. I drove over by myself, after convincing Aidan that I was fine going alone.

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She was seated on the couch when I got there, between two older women I didn’t know but assumed to be family members. For as close of friends as Joey and I had been, I realized I really didn’t know any of his family. He never talked about them. I knew his mom of course, and I knew his dad had run off when Joey was two or three, but that was it. I was introduced to the two women as Joey’s oldest and dearest friend. They turned out to be Joey’s aunts. The one on the left looked like a hungry bulldog, complete with hanging jowls and stubborn expression. The one on the right looked like a scared chicken, gangly, thin, and beady-eyed. Joey’s mom, who I had always thought looked much too young to be a mother of someone Joey’s age, suddenly looked old, although it might have been because it was the first time I think I had ever seen her without any make-up. She looked vulnerable without it. I found myself feeling very uncomfortable.

Mrs. Taylor grabbed my hand and held onto it like it was a lifeline and she was drowning. Which maybe in a way she was.

“When they called me last night—I just couldn’t believe it,” she said, her eyes filling with unshed tears.

They were red and swollen as if she’d been crying a lot.

“I kept saying that they must be wrong; that it couldn’t be my Joey. But then I had to go identify him. They called him ‘the body.’ ‘We need you to come identify the body,’

they said. I said, he’s not just a body, he’s my son.” She almost seemed to be talking to herself. “It was Joey...”

She broke off in a muffled sob but choked it down and continued, “Thank you for being such a good friend to my Joey.” She dissolved in sobs, still clutching my hand while I shifted uncomfortably wishing I were anywhere 157

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but there.

I stayed for what I thought was a decent amount of time and then made my excuses and headed for the door.

“Will?” Mrs. Taylor called just before I escaped. “You weren’t at that party last night were you?”

I felt my heart drop. “Well, actually I was, Mrs. Taylor, but just for a few minutes. I didn’t stay.”

She seemed surprised. “Then I think the police are looking for you.”

“What?” I gasped.

“They described you and asked if I knew anyone who fit that description. I told them you did, but they said you weren’t on the list of people present when they arrived. Several people said they saw someone fitting your description go upstairs with Joey and come back down in a rush. They said you might be the last person who saw him alive.”

“I- I left before—he was alive when I l-left,” I stammered.

She nodded as if it was what she had expected to hear.

“I told them you were a good boy. Tell me, Will, how was he?”

What could I say? “Honestly, Mrs. Taylor—he wasn’t very good. He was drunk. He wasn’t himself.”

She started to cry again.

“I’m so sorry,” I said helplessly. “I’m going to miss him very much.”

I turned to leave once more but she called out again.

“Was he wearing his necklace?”

I knew immediately which necklace she meant. I had never seen Joey without it. It was a silver chain with a small oval charm depicting a saint of some sort hang-158

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ing from it. It had been the only thing left behind of his father’s, who had been a devout Catholic. Joey cher-ished that necklace more than any other possession he owned. As far as I knew, the only time Joey had ever been inside a church was when he was baptized as an infant, but he never took that necklace off. I tried to remember if I had seen the necklace or not. It was so much a part of him I just took it for granted that he had been wearing it, but now I tried to recall if I had actually seen it or not. I mentally walked though the painful encounter with Joey until I found what I was looking for.

“Yes, he was,” I said. “Why?”

“It wasn’t on him when they found him. I would have liked to have had it.”

She turned back to the bulldog aunt and I took the opportunity to finally slip out of the oppressive home which already felt empty without Joey.

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

Joey’s funeral was held graveside on a suitably dreary and dismal Monday morning. The clouds hung heavy with the unrealized threat of rain and the wind whipped through the gathered mourners like an angry spirit.

Despite the inclement weather, quite a few people had shown up to remember Joey. Most of them I didn’t know, family, I guess; but I saw a few familiar faces, old neighbors and people from school. Beth was there, of course. It was the first time we had seen each other since we broke up. When she gave me a hug, it was an awkward moment that only served to confirm the realizations that I had come to over the last few weeks. It struck me how much I had changed since we had dated.

I felt like a completely different person.

There was one person in attendance who particularly caught my attention because of his seemingly odd behavior. He stood in the back and off to one side as if he didn’t want to be seen. He cried through the whole service and left as soon as the last prayer was said.

The service itself was mercifully brief and poignant.

Dad was the officiating minister and he focused on the tragic end of a promising young life. He kept staring at me as he said that phrase. It didn’t take a genius to fig-160

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ure out what he was trying to say.

I didn’t go back to the house afterwards; instead, I drove directly from the cemetery to Avant Guard. Today was my first day at my new job.

Nikki started talking before I was even all the way through the door. “The first thing we need to talk about is the one-man show,” she said. “Do we need to cancel it?”“I—uh…”

“I mean we’ve lost a lot of time and I’m assuming you didn’t paint any masterpieces while you were in that coma.”

“No, I mean—I…”

“Will, I’m kidding. Don’t bug out on me here. But seriously, we are getting pushed for time. We need to have at least fifteen to twenty paintings for a one-man show. The show is scheduled and the invitations have been sent, so we’re locked in unless we just cancel it altogether. That only gives us three weeks. That means you need to do at least a painting a day. Think you got that in you?”