Evidence of Things Not Seen (15 page)

Once he did, he imagined dating her. She seemed so different from all the other girls at Fred. Friendly, bold, direct. Not one ounce of the confusing coyness that drove Jake nuts. She seemed like she knew exactly who she was. He imagined asking her out. He imagined that she would say yes. He imagined it every night. Talk about watermelon delight. One time, he fantasized about running into her again, having a conversation with her, being bold enough to ask her out. He even went so far as to figure out what classroom he needed to be leaving in order to accidentally run into her. But he worried it wouldn’t be the same. He would know it was coming. He’d be expecting her to act the same way. If she didn’t, well, he didn’t want to ruin it. So he kept imagining it all the way to the end of the year, when she graduated and went to UT.

Now she is standing in the pull-out. She is looking around, peering into the cab of his truck. She walks around the truck. Eventually she stops by the watermelons. She slaps a few. Picks up a few more.

“Hello? Anybody around? I want to buy a watermelon.” She reaches into her front pocket and pulls out some bills. She ducks inside the cab and puts the money on the dashboard. Then she lifts one of the greenest watermelons into her arms.

Too green. Even at this distance, Jake is pretty sure it isn’t the sweetest one. Jake wants to help her get the best one. He stands up and starts walking toward her. He doesn’t want to startle her so he scuffs his boot and kicks a rock so it trips across the caliche. She turns and smiles.

That smile.

Jake can hear her explaining how the money is in the truck.

He smiles at her. “No harm, no foul.”

AUGUST 8 . THREE MONTHS MISSING

TIM

No, I don’t mind taking a break, Sheriff. It’s hot as hell out here. I swear the main part of the preseason workout is surviving the heat.

I can’t really tell you much about Tommy. I mean, I only saw him was when I was going into the physics classroom after school. That’s where I met Izzy for tutoring. I flunked chemistry my sophomore year and had to retake it. If I flunked again, I couldn’t play sports. And if I can’t play sports, I’m not going anywhere.

I started going back in January. Like I said, I didn’t meet Tommy. He was always gone or leaving the physics room as I was getting there. He was kinda rude, the way he’d blow past me. About the third time it happened, I said something like “Dude, yoo-the-fuck-hoo. Say ‘Excuse me,’ why don’t you?” I swear he looked at me like I was speaking Greek and kept going.

That’s when Izzy told me his name. Said he always bolted class the minute the bell rang. She seemed kind of protective of him. At first I thought there was something there. You know, like maybe Izzy liked him, but then I figured out it was a big sister kind of thing.

He seemed okay. Definitely nerdy but not a jerk like that guy James. That dude is offensive. Tommy was weird, like he was tuned in to another channel.

That’s as much as I know. I went there maybe twice a week to do my chemistry homework before practice. Izzy really helped me. I got to play basketball and baseball. Yeah, I’m a jock: football in the fall, basketball in the winter, and baseball in the spring.

I never would have noticed Izzy if she wasn’t tutoring me. Not that she’s not pretty. She is, but she’s totally different from the other girls I know at Fred. That’s why I liked her. She isn’t always talking about her hair and makeup or her skin-cleaning routines.

Yeah I went by there that Friday. Not for tutoring. To see Izzy. To ask her to the prom. Tommy definitely wasn’t there. I waited until I was pretty sure she was alone. It was a week before the prom. A little late to ask someone, I know, but I was trying to make sure she wasn’t seeing anyone. I listened to her and Rachel talk while I was doing my homework. I watched what she did between classes. You know, I figured it out.

Okay, so I probably should admit it. I read that kid Tommy’s journal. Back in April, a month or so before he disappeared. That’s when I thought about asking Izzy to the prom but I wasn’t sure if she was seeing someone. When I saw Tommy’s journal lying on the floor like it had fallen out of his backpack, I picked it up. I looked at one page and saw that he’d written “her” and “she” a bunch of times. So I took it home and read it. I thought maybe he was writing about Izzy. I mean, he saw her every day, so I thought maybe he would write about her. If I saw her every day, I’d write about her. If I kept a journal, that is. I mean. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to write about in journals: girls?

He wrote about weird shit. Stuff I couldn’t understand. Like about simultaneous realities and multiple universes and an original particle that started this whole world. I can tell you one thing for certain. That guy does not believe in the God my mom believes in. If her church got ahold of that journal, they would have burned it.

No way I kept it. Not in my house. I snuck it back into the physics classroom and put it on McCloud’s desk. I assume he gave it back to Tommy. I never saw it again.

Not a word about Izzy. Nothing. Turns out the “her” was Rachel. It was pretty scientific but you could tell he liked her. Like the way he described her hair. It wasn’t brown; it was this color of sand by a certain creek out on the Stillwell Ranch after it rained. At a certain time of year. No wonder the dude didn’t pay attention to where he was going. He had formulas of brown in his head.

After I read the journal, though, I thought about how all I talk about is basketball and football and stats. Like we all have stuff we’re really focused on. Tommy’s thing is particle physics and alternate dimensions and the color brown. My mom is all about God and good and evil and doing everything the Bible says. The thing is, we’re not that different except in how we think about life. Do you see what I mean? It’s like we get fixated on how we look at the world. But we’re all doing the same thing: looking at the world. You know, trying to understand it through the things we like.

I’m not saying I believe what Tommy wrote. I probably didn’t understand it. But all he was trying to do was figure out stuff through how he looked at the world. The way my mom looks at it through her church. Some people think God created this world. Some people think there was a big bang. What if it was both? What if we never know because we can’t go back in time to find out? What if it doesn’t matter?

People like Tommy and Izzy and that whole junior nerd squad, they want to explore every possibility. They want to find out the truth through science and observation and experiments. But when I go to church, I hear words like “faith” and “hope” and “belief.” It makes me wonder if science is kind of limited. Maybe there are supposed to be mysteries we can’t explain. Or shouldn’t explain.

I didn’t read every word in the journal, but I didn’t see anything about Tommy planning to run away or meet someone. Besides, he seemed more like an in-the-moment kind of guy, not a planner. I’m in the moment when I’m playing ball, but I’m also playing offense and planning shit out. Like with Izzy, I was checking out if she was going out with anyone and planning out when to ask her to the prom, so that once I asked her I was ready for all the possibilities in the moment.

Like I noticed her talking in the library with this computer nerd Alex. So I asked around about him and found out that they grew up across the street from each other. So I figured they were friends. Someone told me he crushed on her in middle school but it was over. Besides, he’s kind of lame looking. A real beaky nose and his head looks like it was squeezed in a doorway.

I thought maybe she liked that guy James but no way. Like I said, he’s an ass. Besides, I don’t think he went in for girls.

Because the dude hit on me. It was late April. Fred High had made it into the division baseball finals. I was doing my chem homework and he sat down next to me. Izzy was helping someone else at another table. Anyway, he started talking to me and telling me that unless he walked into the gym and observed me hitting a ball, there was an equal possibility that I wasn’t hitting a ball. Not only that, in some sort of quantum guru world, there could be a zillion balls being hit as long as no one was there to observe it. I said, “So what?” Like why bother thinking about all the possibilities that you don’t see? It’s purposely confusing.

He said, “Because the possibilities are what will blow your mind.” And then he put his hand on my leg under the lab table. Not like an accident. He was rubbing my thigh. No lie. When I jumped up and told him to knock it the fuck off, he acted like it didn’t happen. Like it was one of the many possibilities, but if no one saw it, then it was only a possibility. I stayed away from him after that.

I listen to the nerd squad and I don’t know why they’re the smart ones. According to them, if you didn’t observe what happened to Tommy, then all possibilities exist: He’s dead. He’s kidnapped (and possibly dead or alive). He’s lost. He’s found his bio parents and is living with them. He’s found another dimension. I said, “Well, isn’t that a mystery?” No, they don’t believe in mystery. To them, it’s all probability. They think they’re so smart. I think they’re confused.

I know you have to look at logically and check out every possibility, Sheriff. I guess I feel stupid around them. It doesn’t seem like Tommy could be alive after this long. I mean, look how many people die crossing over from Mexico. Ranchers find them in their fields all the time. I know you haven’t found his body. And I know he was missing almost twenty-four hours before you started the searches, but he couldn’t disappear in thin air, right? But he could have walked a long way. He could have gotten really thirsty. He could have passed out. Someone could have found him. He could be alive but he might not remember who he was. I mean, he was a pretty strange guy. Maybe dehydration would have made him stranger.

This whole thing with Tommy disappearing makes you question everything. Like what you believe. My mom says we should pray. If we pray enough to God, then Tommy will turn up. That doesn’t seem right either. I mean, what does God have to do with it? Why does one supreme being care?

I guess I believe that life is really random and mysterious. I guess I believe that science and God can’t explain everything because life is random.

Like feelings. Like how I like Izzy? That was random. What about how we kissed at the prom? That was random. I mean, it’s pretty random that a jock would like a geek. But it happened.

What about that pickax girl? Wasn’t that random?

Some stuff is random. Feelings. Violence. Scoring more baskets than you ever have before. Why can’t that be random and mysterious? Why does it have to be probable or possible? Why does there have to be some equation for it? Why does everything have to be linked to something else?

Like the day I took Tommy’s journal. I’d seen it on the floor before. But I took it that day. Why? Does it matter why?

Like the way my mom brings meals over to Tommy’s house. Nobody asked her. Nobody organized it. She just does it. Isn’t that random? Maybe she does it because it makes her feel good. Or maybe she does it because she’s afraid that someone will snatch me and if she does good things, then she’ll keep the bad things away. What if she’s trying to pay off God with her goodness? What if it is goodness for goodness’ sake, like she’s trying to put good back in the world? We don’t know. It’s random. It’s mysterious. Why can’t we just let it be?

Tommy believed in the mysterious. From what I read. I mean, a lot of it was science and probabilities, but he said there have to be mysteries because that’s what science wants to explore. Like he goes on and on about black holes and holes to other dimensions, how nothing’s proved, how anything is possible. Well, isn’t that mystery?

Izzy, James, even McCloud, they want to explain it all. Sometimes the way they talked made me feel like fruit flies were buzzing around my head. I wanted to say something but I didn’t. It would probably sound stupid. All that science talk makes me feel stupid. Probably you shouldn’t like a girl who makes you feel stupid, right? But that’s what they can’t explain. Liking someone is a mystery.

Yeah, I still like her. I saw her a couple of times over the summer. We didn’t kiss like we did at the prom but I still like her. I’m hoping she’ll keep tutoring me this year. I gotta pass physics so I can keep playing so I can get recruited.

Does there have to be a reason for my liking her?

Can’t it be random?