Cracked Up to Be (20 page)

“It can’t be that hard,” he says, heading for the kitchen.

I go upstairs. I sit on the bed in the guest room. I don’t even feel like showering anymore. I just want to sit here with Bailey’s blood on me while he’s splayed out on the middle of the road.

He can’t stay there forever.

After a while, I tiptoe down the hall to Chris’s parents’ bedroom, steal into their bathroom and turn on the light. I stare at myself in the mirrored cabinet. I look really bad. I open the cabinet and stare at the prescription bottles inside.

Chris’s mom was a desperate housewife before it was cool.

I grab the bottle of pills that make you happy and let you go to sleep, open it up and empty them beside the sink. I start counting them out, and when I’ve done that I arrange them in neat rows of six.

I can make out two shapes in the darkness, on the ground. On a bed of pine needles. My heart sinks. I inch forward quietly and hold my breath. If she’s fucked him, this is
—
this is harder to fix. Jessie’s fucking him.

“What are you doing?”

My hand jerks into the rows of pills and some of them scatter into the sink. I scramble to prevent as many of them from going down the drain as I can, but it’s futile, they all go, and anyway, it doesn’t matter.

I start putting what’s left of them back.

“Why don’t you tell me what you think I’m doing?” I ask.

“I don’t even want to say it.”

I rub my hands on my shirt.

“I just wanted one to sleep. Your mom has the good stuff.”

“A whole bottle is hardly one.”

“I wanted to pick the right one.”

“Oh, duh. I should have known.”

“I—” I force myself to look Chris in the eyes. “I have to take that shower.”

“Fine. But if it takes longer than ten minutes I’m coming back up to get you.”

I take the shower, but I make sure it’s a long one just to see if he’ll come in. He doesn’t, like I knew he wouldn’t. Because the air is different now. I’m far away from the pills and they’re far away from me, but Bailey’s still out on the road, dead, not far away at all, and he can’t stay there forever.

I come out of the bathroom and change into one of the nightshirts they leave for the guests and wrap myself up in one of the guest housecoats.

And then I put on my best face and head downstairs.

“—But we have to move him,” Jake’s saying. “Should we get Parker?”

“She’s upset. We could do it for her,” Chris says. Pause. “I don’t know. Maybe she wants to be there for it. Maybe we should get her.”

Silence.

“Well, which is it?”

“I don’t know,” Chris says again. “I hate this.”

It gets heavy quiet. I sneak out the back door, putting as much distance as possible between me and the house. I thought I knew why I was coming out here, but now, between the road and woods, I’m not so sure.

I head for the woods.

It’s extremely quiet. No matter how close I get to all the trees, even memories of sound are hushed by the death out on the street.

And then I’m in the woods. In them. Just far enough in.

I get down on my hands and knees and start brushing pine needles aside. Maybe the bracelet will show up again. Maybe I’m supposed to lose it every so often and then I’m supposed to find it again and Bailey was supposed to die because it’s here for me, like it was before. And then I can wear it around my wrist, for both of them—

Bailey
.

I can’t do this. What am I doing?

I leave the woods and make my way to the road, to do what I should’ve done in the first place. He’s still there, all broken and stiff, and I think I hate him for it. I kneel in front of his body and rest my hand on his chest, hoping for a heartbeat even though I know there won’t be one.

Or maybe . . .

I rest my head against his chest and listen. His fur is scratchy and unpleasant against my skin, not soft like it was, the blood on it caked and flaking.

I close my eyes and I really listen.

Come on, Bailey, you stupid dog.

Come on.

Please.

“Parker?”

It’s Jake.

“My dog’s dead,” I say. He kneels beside me, but he doesn’t say anything, so I keep talking. “I knew this would happen.”

“You couldn’t have predicted that car.”

“Yeah, I could have,” I say. “Because that’s what I do to people. And now dogs. I just fuck them up. And it’s always spectacular how I do it, too. But—maybe not
before.
I wouldn’t have predicted it before. But now I can.”

He stares at me, concerned. I feel off my head.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“Before I thought I was above letting these kinds of things happen, but now I know that’s not the truth. Now it’s just a matter of time before they do. And I knew if Bailey—” I gaze at my dog’s prone form. He was my dog. “I knew it would end like this. And here we are.”

“Here we are.”

“It shouldn’t upset me that you guys are done with me,” I say. “Because that’s what I want.”

“Really,” Jake says. “That’s what you want?”

“Yeah. I just forget it sometimes, I guess. I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“You’re echoing everything I say.” I meet his eyes and I can’t believe how it wasn’t that long ago he was just this new kid and I kind of scared him and somewhere along the way I got lazy and let him get close, so I guess that means he’ll get hit by a car or something, too. “I like certain things a certain way or it’s not right. But I’ve been forgetting.”

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“But he was a good dog,” I say after a minute, running my hand over Bailey’s head, the way he liked it when he was alive. Alive. I swallow. “And I have to move him. I can’t leave him here.”

“Parker, I can . . .” He hesitates. “Do you need help?”

My answer gets stuck in my throat and stays there, never passing my lips.

It doesn’t matter.

Together, we move Bailey off the road.

twenty

Mom decides we should bury Bailey under the maple tree in the backyard. She
asked me what I thought about it and I said I didn’t care, but she just kept at it and kept at it and I just wanted her to shut up, so in the end I had to remind her about the time I told her I couldn’t have cared less if Bailey died, and it worked. She shut up.

And she hasn’t really spoken to me since.

“It felt like we had him longer.” Mom wipes her eyes. Dad nods and wraps an arm around her. “We should have had him longer.”

That’s a dig at me.

“I guess it was just his time,” Dad says after a while.

“Lucky him,” I say.

It just slips out.

“What did you say?” Dad’s voice is sharp. He gives me this look. I shrug and march away from the whole scene, but he keeps talking. “Parker, get back here and tell me what you said—Parker!”

“What did she say?” Mom asks.

And of course they can’t just leave it at that. On Monday, on my way to catch the school bus, my little slip-of-the-tongue turns into this:

“Make sure you come straight home after school.”

I pause at the door.

“Why?”

“Because your mother and I need to talk with you.”

Think quick, Parker.

“I can’t.”

Dad lowers the paper and looks at me, like, I don’t know.

“Why?”

“I promised Becky I’d give her some tips about these new cheerleading routines she’s planned. She’s not feeling so confident about them. And then I was going to . . .” I fumble for the words. “I was going to stay the night. I forgot to ask. Sorry.”

He frowns and thinks about it. Doesn’t even notice I don’t have an overnight bag or anything, but doesn’t want to believe that after all this I would still lie. It’s sad.

“Fine,” he says, returning to the paper. “Tomorrow then.”

“Death freaks me
out,” Jake says suddenly.

It’s going to be one of those days.

“Thanks for sharing,” I say. I’m filling my blank sheet of paper with circles and he’s drawing a tree. Art is back to normal, as in no one really cares. “I don’t know what I ever would have done had you not told me that about you.”

He frowns.

“I don’t like it. It always makes me take stock. And then I have to go through this process where I have to decide how important things are and if I’m doing enough about them. That freaks me out, too. Does that happen to you? . . . Did it happen to you?”

“Nope.”

“So I called my mom.”

I stop drawing and give him my full attention because if we’re talking about this we’re not talking about Bailey or me.

“What happened?”

He squints at his paper.

“She thought I was calling to beg to come back home. It didn’t go so well when she found out I wasn’t.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“What can I do about it?” He shrugs. “She’s decided; I’ve decided. I called her and she shut me out.”

“Does it make you feel worse or better?”

He thinks about it for a second.

“I thought I’d be happy for the closure. But it’s worse, actually. I feel guilty.”

“So what happens next?”

He shrugs again.

“I keep going from here?”

We reach for the white gummy eraser sitting between us at the same time. His hand brushes over mine and then lingers there and I freeze.

“Your hand is on my hand,” I say in this completely stupid voice.

And then Chris struts over under Norton’s disapproving gaze, but since the sun is shining and it’s nice out he’s feeling lenient enough not to shout Chris back to his seat.

“Hey, Jake. Rain check tonight.”

“What?” Jake turns around. “What the fuck?”

“Sorry,” Chris says, glancing at me and looking away. “It’s just that Becky’s got romantic-type plans.”

I roll my eyes. Becky’s idea of “romantic” is no underwear.

“So?” Jake asks.

“So,” Chris says slowly, leaning forward, “I can either fuck Becky or dick around with you. What do you think I’m going to choose?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Jake mutters. “Asshole.”

Chris punches him in the arm.

“Thanks, man. I knew you’d understand.”

“You’ve got until I count to three to get back to your seat, Ellory,” Norton says lazily from the front of the room. “One . . . two . . .”

Chris scurries away.

“Plans tonight?” I ask.

“Not anymore,” Jake grumbles. “I’m on a two-day vacation from my parents. It was going to be a guys’ night in, blow off school tomorrow. We’ve been planning it forever.”

“Sounds pretty hot.”

“I was hoping,” he says, grinning. “I mean, look at him. He’s so built.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, Jake.” We draw in silence for a little bit and I’m thinking, thinking, thinking. I know how to take advantage of every situation and I’ve got nowhere to sleep tonight. “If you ask me over right now, there’s a ninety percent chance I’ll say yes.”

Jake stops drawing, but he doesn’t look at me.

“Are you serious?”

“Eighty. It’s eighty percent now.” Pause. “Seventy . . .”

“Come over?”

I stare at all the circles I’ve drawn.

“Yeah.”

On the bus ride there’s only quiet between us. Jake leads me off at his stop and we walk up Trudeau Road, to his house near the end of it. I recognize the place. It’s a small bungalow with a neat front lawn and a cute little garden along the path to the front door. The shutters are faded pink. It’s the kind of house that might as well have a sign that says GOOD PEOPLE LIVE HERE mounted in front of it.

“How did you finish our art project anyway?” I ask while Jake unlocks the front door. “What did you do in the end?”

“Oh,” he says, pausing. “I painted half of it and let the other half stay unfinished. I don’t think even Norton knew what he was talking about when he said all that bullshit about unity and disparity. He
was
just fucking with us. But he enjoyed the picture. Said the right side reminded him of you.”

I’m not expecting that.

“Why?”

“It was the unfinished side. He was totally on to us.”

I smile. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.” He opens the door and steps aside. “But he still gave us an A, so it’s all good.”

The front door opens into the kitchen, which is a small, neat little room with a tiny breakfast nook that must serve as the lunch and dinner table as well.

“Nice place,” I say automatically, because that’s what you do.

“Thanks,” Jake says. He sets his book bag on the floor, so I do the same. He makes a beeline for the fridge, totally relaxed. “Are you thirsty? Hungry?”

“Thirsty.”

“Water, Coke, OJ? . . . Heineken?”

“Water, thanks.”

He hands me a bottle, takes one for himself and leans against the kitchen counter, staring at me. He gets the upper hand because it’s his house. I should’ve thought of that before I wrangled an invitation out of him. I twist the cap off my water and sip.

“Sure you’re not hungry?” he asks after a minute.

This is weird.

“I’m sure.”

“Well, I’m starving and I have to do something about it.” He heads back to the fridge, rifles through it, and pretty soon he’s got all the ingredients needed to make a sandwich massive enough to feed ten men or one teenage boy. “Hey, First Friday Mass is this Friday.”

I groan. “Don’t remind me.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. What a waste of time.” He looks at me. “Is that blasphemous? I don’t know how you crazy Catholics operate.”

“It’s probably blasphemous.”

He goes back to the fridge, retrieves an apple and tosses it to me.

“I never see you eat lunch,” he says. “Eating is good for you.”

I sit at the table and roll the apple along the varnished wood surface.

“You go to church a lot?” he asks, throwing everything imaginable between two thin slices of bread. For the first time since we got here, he sounds awkward. I don’t want things to be awkward when we have the whole evening stretched out in front of us.

“Not outside of school, no.”

It goes quiet, which makes everything else get loud. Jake finishes making his sandwich and the sound of his chewing is amplified by our silence, weirdly punctuating the moment. I stop rolling the apple and take a bite. It’s so sweet, I almost gag.