Forty-Four Box Set, Books 1-10 (44) (77 page)

Kate and I sleeping in chairs near her bed.

That doctor.

“It wasn’t what she would have wanted,” Kate yelled, her voice strong and fragile at the same time. “Just take the damn tubes out!”

I stood there, not saying anything, watching like it was a movie. Too numb and destroyed to beg him. The doctor shook his head, glancing at the chart he was holding. He knew there was no hope.

Later that day, he did it. We sat stroking her hands, telling her how much we loved her as the quiet of the heart monitor grew. She took her final breath while we foolishly clung to the hope that she would open her eyes.

I shivered at the memory.

I was making her a playlist for her birthday. It was just Kate and me and we did it every year. We went to the graveyard and left her the gardenias. I made a lemon cake and we brought out the old photo albums and listened to some of her favorite songs.

She loved Bruce Springsteen, the old songs.
Spirit in the Night, Growing Up, Born to Run, Thunder Road, Point Blank
. As I created the playlist, I remembered that one rainy night.

“Come on, girls,” she said, turning the stereo up loud. “Katie, Abby! Dance with me! It’s Bruce. Come on!”

Kate rolled her eyes and took the phone into the kitchen. But I loved dancing with Mom. I met her in the middle of the living room and we moved fast to
Rosalita
, sweating and laughing and almost crashing into the TV a couple of times.

When it ended, a slow song came on. She ran over to the stereo and I thought she was going to skip it, but instead she turned it up even louder.

She grabbed me and we started dancing slow.

Bruce’s sad voice echoed throughout the house, full of longing as he sang about loss and old love letters that made one of the characters in the song feel a hundred years old.

She wrapped her arms around me tighter and I put my head on her chest, her voice vibrating through my body as she sang along.

The song ended with a confession. The singer was afraid that in “this darkness I will disappear.”

We rocked back and forth, back and forth to the slow, haunting beat, like no darkness would ever touch us.

CHAPTER 25

“You won’t believe what they’re expecting me to wear,” David said as we roamed up and down the aisles at Ross. He was looking for an outfit for his upcoming play, the one where he only had a few lines.

“They handed me something that Lyle would wear. And it looks like it’s just as old as he is, too.”

I gave him a look.

“Seriously, it’s dusty and just hangs there on me. I don’t know who they think I am. If I’m going out on stage, even in some lame minor role, I’m going to look bad ass.”

I laughed as I held up a shirt for him to consider.

“Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “Too western. Remember, it’s a serious story set in Kansas City in the 1940s. I’m looking for something, I don’t know. I’ll know it when I see. And I’m not seeing it.”

I put it back on the rack.

“So, remember too that I can’t really spend as much as I was hoping. I went all drunk millionaire last night.”

I looked at him.

“You know. When you get so drunk that you keep buying rounds at the bar? It’s cut into my costume budget.”

It was fun being with him away from work.

“So that’s really cool that your mom’s coming out for the play. That’s a long trip.”

David’s family all lived in Maine. I was never too sure why he had moved to Oregon. The few times he began to tell me, the story meandered around so much that I never got a real explanation.

“Yeah,” he said, sounding a little sad.

“Don’t you get along with her?”

“Oh, it’s not that,” he said. “Let’s go look at shoes.”

He pointed out a bunch of shoes, all with three inch heels on them.

“Abby Craig, it’s time to say goodbye to those river sandals.”

“I thought we were shopping for you,” I said. “And anyway, what’s going on with your mom? I can see it in your energy.”

He stopped and looked at me, worried.

“Oh, my gosh, really?” he said. “Well. Okay. This is how it is. I was so sure that I would get the lead role. You know, like I should have. So that’s what she’s expecting to see. That’s why she’s coming out.”

I nodded.

We went back to look at more shirts.

“Isn’t this color incredible, Abby Craig?” he kept saying, forgetting about my color blindness for at least the hundredth time.

We were becoming really good friends, and despite his loose mouth, I felt like I could trust him. It was nice to have someone to talk to about my abilities. It made me feel good that I had someone else other than Kate who I could be honest with about this kind of stuff, someone who didn’t judge me.

“I just wish she’d be able to see me in a real production,” David said, sighing and holding up a blazer. “I invited her to come out thinking I’d get the main role, not the role of Cab Driver Number One.”

“Yeah, that’s too bad,” I said. “But I’m sure she’ll love just seeing you up on stage. Plus, there’s always a chance that you could still be the lead. You’re the understudy, right?”

David turned to me, that signature eyebrow of his flying high.

“And don’t you think I haven’t thought of that,” he said, lowering his voice. “You never know. Marlon might just have a…”

He looked around making sure nobody else was within earshot, then cleared his throat.

“An accident the night of the show.”

He winked and after a moment of silence we both started laughing.

“It would serve him right,” he said. “Any actor who calls himself
Marlon
these days has it coming to him. Don’t you think? I mean, how pretentious is that?”

“So, David, I’ve been meaning to ask you about Club 6,” I said, as he made a face while holding up a hideous checkered number.

“I’m your man,” he said. “Shoot.”

“I was wondering if you’ve ever seen anything, you know, anything odd there.”

“Practically every time I’ve been there,” he said. “That place can be a real freak scene. But it’s my kind of freak scene.”

He smiled.

“No. I mean, like have you ever seen something you couldn’t explain? Like what Paloma’s talking about? A ghost of some sort?”

David thought on it for a minute and then shrugged.

“If I did see a ghost, I didn’t know I was seeing it. Anyway, by the time I wind up at that place, I’m usually a few sheets to the wind, if you know what I mean.”

“Paloma says the ghost is a man in his 40s with dark hair and blue eyes. She says he likes to hover around her. Have you seen anyone like that in the club?”

I knew I was just grasping at shadows in the dark, but I figured there was no harm in asking.

“I’ve never seen anyone under 25 in that place,” he said. “Besides, I thought you were the one who was supposed to see ghosts.”

“Not this one,” I mumbled. “I really want to help her, but I can’t do much if I can’t even see the ghost she’s talking about.”

“Well, don’t beat yourself up over it,” he said. “We can’t always shine like we want to. Sometimes, we just have to settle on being cab drivers.”

I laughed.

We walked over to the Halloween section.

“Maybe I can find a costume here,” he said.

“Isn’t it a little early for this?”

“Where’s your inner child, Abby Craig? It’s never too early for Halloween.”

He suddenly picked up a skull with a candle on top.

“Alas, poor Yorick!”
he began in a deep, booming voice.
“I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rims at it.”

A few people turned and began staring. David continued.

“Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that.”

When he had finished, some of the people listening started clapping.

David set the skull down and took a bow.

Sometimes I forgot how good he was. He was always acting funny, but when he turned it on he had real presence. It made me wonder if the director knew anything about acting.

“You’ve got a real gift, David Norton,” I said. “Maybe you could put on a one-man show for your mom.”

“That’s so nice of you to say, Abby Craig.”

“No, I mean it.”

“I’ll give it some serious mulling over,” he said excitedly. “It might be fun.”

We walked back over to the shoes.

“Look!” he said, holding up a pair of plastic snakeskin cowboy boots. “Giddy up, anyone?”

I didn’t have to see colors to know that they were the ugliest cowboy boots this side of Texas.

“What’s Mama Norton gonna think when she sees you wearing those?” I said.

“That she did a good job raising me,” he said, laughing. “Because her son is one fierce
mutha
.”

CHAPTER 26

I was about a mile into my run when I saw him walking out from the trees at the edge of the park. I was glad to see him, but a little nervous. I didn’t know what to say, or if he knew.

I took a deep breath, threw down my water bottle, and headed over to meet him.

There was something about the way he was walking toward me that reminded me of when we were kids, back in fourth grade. I flashed back on our science project and how we were talking about it as we walked to his house. 

We had chosen volcanoes as our topic and we had to give a presentation to the class. I had my backpack filled with color markers and books and I was holding one of those giant white poster boards. Jesse pushed his bike alongside me, and we talked about Mt. Vesuvius.

“What’s that for?” Jesse said, looking at the blank board in my hands.

He was shorter than I was back then and I used to like looking down at him.

“Duh,” I said. “It’s for our volcano project. I think you should draw it, being that you’re the artist and will get us a good grade.”

His green eyes sparkled in the sun.

“No way,” he said, tugging on his cap. “We’re not drawing it. We’re blowing it up! We should build a volcano and I’ll rig it so lava flows out the top as we give our speech. It’ll be so cool.”

“You know how to do that?”

“Of course. I’ve been building volcanoes with my dad since I was little.”

I smiled at the memory as I watched him. I was surprised to see him at all. I hadn’t called and was trying to figure out how to explain about Ty, how to say it right.

“Jesse,” I said, pushing down the guilt. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Hey, stranger,” he said.

We found an empty bench and I closed my eyes, the sun warm on my face, giving me strength. When I opened them, Jesse was staring at me.

“It’s okay, Craigers,” he said. “Stop freaking out. I’m okay. Anyway, believe it or not, I’m not here about your love life.”

I laughed nervously.

“I love you too, Jesse,” I said.

“I know you do,” he said. “We’ll always have that. Nothing takes love away. But I’m glad you have him too.”

A tear slid down my cheek.

“What’s up then?” I asked, my voice cracking.

He paused, fumbling for the right words as my heart hammered in my chest.

“What is it, Jesse? Tell me.”

“Something is happening around you again,” he said. “I don’t really know what it is, just that the energy around you is different. Darker. Something is coming up, seeping in from the sides. It’s like when you were in the lake and the black water surrounded you.”

I sat back and tried to calm down, thinking what it might be.

“You don’t know what it’s about? No idea at all?”

“No. Just that sometimes it blocks my view of you. It’s been getting worse lately.”

I took a breath. Then another.

“The last time you told me something like this I was kidnapped,” I said, trying to push away those terrible memories that haunted me long after the fact. “Is that what’s going to happen? Is this about Jack Martin? Is he back here in Bend?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry, I wish I could see more. I was just glad to have found you now. It’s important that you know. You need to be prepared.”

I nodded, my eyes darting back and forth at the people walking by.

I sighed and he put his arm around me and I fell back into him, scared.

“I’m tired of it,” I said. “I’m tired of being in that lake. It feels like no matter how much I try to climb out of it, it sucks me back in, one way or another.”

“I know,” he said. “But you’re not alone. I have your back. I won’t let anything happen to you like that again. Not ever. I won’t.”

I nodded, staring at the people around us, searching.

Looking for Jack Martin.

CHAPTER 27

Ty and I met out in front of Amber’s house for the party. I brought a red pepper dip and a few baguettes. The other guides were already there when we walked in, along with the front office staff and a few other people from the company that I didn’t know that well.

Small paper lanterns and lights were strung across the front yard. The Ramones played in the background.

It was fun. We told stories and drank beer. As twilight fell it brought along cool air. There were still some warm days ahead but summer, as a long block of time and as a state of mind, felt like it was over.

We took our drinks and sat down on the sofa. I looked around. It was a small, older house with arches in the doorways and molding around all the windows. It had a lot of character.
“So what color are the walls?” I asked Ty.

All I could see was that they were dark.

“Well, it’s like a lot of grape stomping went on in here. All sorts of purples and reds. It’s cool.”