Half In Love With Death (17 page)

Tony leaned across the table. “I'm going to show you that photo now.” He glanced around, acting all secretive.

“Okay,” I said.

He reached into his pocket, held it up so only he could see, and slid it across the table to me. As I picked it up, he motioned for me not to wave it around.

There were fingerprints on the glossy surface like it had been touched many times, and the edges were cracked. I imagined Tony studying it, missing her. The light in the restaurant was dim, but I could tell it was Jess. She was sitting on a lounge chair on a beach, wearing her red bikini. Her hair was styled in a flip, she wore sunglasses, and she was smiling, her lips parted slightly to show her white teeth. Her small hand was raised, waving to whoever was taking the picture. It reminded me of how she had looked in the dream I'd had when I'd passed out by our pool, Jess waving in sunglasses, going further and further away.

“So,” Tony said, “now do you believe she's in California?”

I looked up at him, the realization that my sister really was in Redondo overwhelming me. “Yes.”

He smiled slowly. As he started to put the photo back in his pocket, I asked if I could keep it. He stared at me questioningly. I told him I liked looking at it.

“Okay.” His gaze drifted to the window as he handed it back. The parking lot was a jumble of cars and kids. He turned to me. “She was wearing that bathing suit the first time I saw her.”

“I know. I was there.”

He scratched his chin. “You were,” he said, as if just remembering this. “I'll never forget that moment.” He paused. “She was the first thing I saw when I shot up out of the water. It was like I was prescient. You know what that means?”

I fidgeted with my napkin, unable to shake the sense he was telling this more to himself than me. “No.”

“It means you can see things that are going to happen. In that instant I saw everything between her and me.” He made a fist and stared at his knuckles. “Prescience was another gift the water gave me.” He turned to me, his eyes as luminous as the flashing blues of a police car. When I looked into them, I could have sworn I saw that part of him was human and part of him, the part that came from the water, was something else. It made everything about me—my string of As in school, my friends, the clothes I liked—all seem stupid and irrelevant. For a second, it was like I didn't exist. I stared down at my perfect lavender nails and the thought came to me that I would like to change my name to Caro. It had a touch of mystery to it. I wanted to tell him, but the words wouldn't leave my lips.

He smiled. “I got the car all tuned up. We should be able to get to Redondo in a day. I'll let Brian know we're coming, and tell him not to tell Jess.”

“So when exactly are we going?” I asked cautiously.

He seemed to think on this, and then said, “Saturday night. I've got a couple of things I need to do first.”

“Saturday?” I almost choked on a bite of burger.

“I thought we went through this.” He sounded mad. “You want to just hang around until your parents send you away.”

“No.” I tore my napkin into pieces. Out the window, red and white lights distorted in the evening air as cars cruised past. “Saturday is fine.”

“I knew you'd come around. It'll be fun. We'll go to the beach, swim, hang out, and you'll convince Jess to come back with us. Before you know it, we'll be sitting here again, all three of us.” He looked me in the eye. “When I foresee something will work out, it usually happens.”

I looked away. The way he referred to a future beyond California, a time when we'd all be together, reassured me, though at the same time I didn't want to think of Jess being back with Tony.

He touched my hand. “What's wrong? This is what you want, isn't it?”

“It is, but when Jess comes back she'll be with you, not me. I know that sounds selfish, and I'm sorry for that.”

He shook his head. “Sweetheart, much as we were something once, now Jess hates the ground I walk on, but you . . . .” He paused, studying me. “You're my girl.” He closed his hand around mine, and a sweet wave washed through me. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

When the waitress took our plates away, he put some money on the table and frowned. “I really wanted to see you in those shoes.”

“I told you I was sorry,” I said.

“I know, but I can still wish it, can't I?” He smiled, leaning his face on his palm. I couldn't stop staring at his lips. “Just bring it next time. When we find your sister, I promise that you and me, we'll go dancing.” As he took my hands in his and raised them up like we were already dancing, warm feelings rushed through me.

I let go and glanced at my watch. “I better go.”

He cocked his head. “But we haven't even gotten started.”

I sighed. “I know, but it's a school night. I have to be home early.”

He rubbed his chin with his hand. “You always gotta leave, but I guess we'll have plenty of time alone together soon.”

“We will.” I tasted burger at the back of my throat.

“Just promise me one thing,” he said. I looked up. “Don't breathe a word about this to anyone.” His eyes were chilly as the sea on a windy day. He pressed his knees against mine under the table. All the time he'd been Jess's boyfriend, it was like I'd never seen who he really was, but now I did, and he was real as the grass growing out of the dark earth, as an orange dangling from an orange tree, as real as could be.

“I won't tell,” I said.

On Thursday before walking to school, I paused in front of my house. Since we'd moved here it had never really felt like home, but now, strangely, it did. I noticed the orange sherbet color of the stucco, rough as sandpaper, and how the hibiscus flowers by the front door matched the red tile roof. It was a nice little house with a lawn that Dad kept green with endless watering, and a single mesquite tree with its own crooked shadow. I stepped back to take it all in. No cars backed out of driveways. No planes zoomed overhead. No one but me was outside. From our street all the way to the desert's yellow emptiness, everything was as silent as a page in a storybook.

My name is Caro, I thought, and I'm going to California with Tony. I took the picture of Jess out of my purse where I'd put it that morning so it would be with me wherever I went. I wanted to show the photo to everyone I saw, the knowledge that Jess was somewhere and that we were going to find her almost too hard to contain, but I knew I couldn't do that. From somewhere far away, a bird sang a lonely song.

In school I said silent goodbyes to everyone. They weren't forever goodbyes. I was coming back, but when I did, nothing would be the same. Everyone would be happy to see Jess, and know it was because of me. My parents would be sorry for saying I couldn't see Tony, and glad I hadn't listened. They would regret everything. I would be a new person.

As I went from class to class, I felt like the ghost of this person I had been, floating around the corridors, my thoughts expanding far beyond this little place that smelled of chalk and disinfectant. And then I thought, what was a ghost anyway but a shadow of something that was, and since we were changing every minute of every day, weren't we all ghosts of ourselves, all of us except for Tony? When he opened his eyes after drowning, it must have been like time stopped as he rose up through all the ghosts of himself into who he really was. I was so lost in these thoughts, I walked right by my locker and had to go back to get my books. As I ran down the nearly empty hall, already late for class, I bumped into a teacher.

“Who are you? Where are you going?” he asked sternly.

“Caro,” I said. He gave me a puzzled look and let me go.

• • •

In English, May and I didn't speak. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed her writing in her notebook. She was probably writing another stupid poem about not being thin enough.

Mr. Raymond was saying something about our unit on poetry being over when the intercom buzzed. An announcement came on. My stomach lurched as I heard the words, “Will Caroline Galvin please report to Principal Shannon's office?”

May watched me leave with a bemused look, her cheek on her palm. A wave of panic went through me. Had she told the principal something bad about me?

My father was sitting on a chair in the office with a grim expression on his face. I inhaled sharply. Mr. Shannon shuffled some papers around on his desk. I braced myself for him to ask about me and Tony in front of Dad.

“Your dad has come to take you home,” was all he said. He didn't sound angry. He seemed like he felt sorry for me. Dad took my hand. I had the sinking feeling that my trip to California was over. I had no idea how he'd found out about it since I hadn't told anyone.

When we got outside he fixed his sad eyes on me. “Caroline, I don't know any other way to say this, so I'm just going to tell you. They found a body.”

“No,” I said, backing away.

“It's the body of a girl. She was buried in the desert.” He rubbed his forehead and sighed. “They don't know if it's Jess, but we have to be prepared for the worst.”

“It's not Jess. It can't be.” He looked so distressed I couldn't bear it. Not being able to say anything pulled me apart, but I couldn't tell him she was in California. If I told and they sent the police to look for her, Jess might take off. We might never find her. I couldn't let that happen.

• • •

Mom was in the living room when we got home. She looked up, her eyes puffy from crying, and reached her arms out to me. I buried myself in them. “Caroline,” she said through tears. When she let me go, the look on her face was as if she was steeling herself for the end of the world.

“They don't know if it's Jess,” she said.

“I'm sure it isn't.” I put my hand on my purse with the photo safely tucked inside.

“We can only hope so.” Dad took Mom's hand. “The police had an anonymous tip. They're still trying to trace it.”

“Dicky's staying at Betty Beckham's until things are sorted out here. She's a saint,” Mom said. I hadn't even noticed that Dicky wasn't around. Everyone forgot about him lately. We were all too busy thinking about Jess.

I went over to the window. The new yellow curtains were tied back, revealing another beautiful sunny day. It was probably sunny in Redondo as well. I pictured Jess splashing in the surf, with no idea that Mom and Dad were sitting here imagining the worst. This was going to be the longest day of my life. I knew that already. We sat in silence, staring at each other like statues in a museum. Then Mom said she was going to make some coffee, and I went up to my room.

I sat down on my bed and took the picture out of my purse, put my finger on my sister's face and thought, everyone thinks you're dead but you aren't. The picture was blurry, but that didn't matter. I didn't need a picture to remember the way Jess's green eyes stared right through me, to see her jiggling her foot, drumming her nails on the table, fidgeting, turning from whatever was in front of her so as not to miss the next great thing. A picture could never capture someone like Jess. She was never still.

I put my head in my hands and thought, Jess, please stay in Redondo until I get there. Don't take off. Don't do that to me. There was no answer. I put the photo back in my purse and then did this thing I hadn't done in years—I knelt down beside the bed, my knees pressing into the stiff, pink carpet, and prayed.

I'm sorry, God, for smoking pot, I said in my mind. I'm sorry for kissing Tony when Jess was missing, and liking it. I'm sorry for caring more about my friends than looking for her. I'm sorry for all of this, and I'll give everything up if you'll just make her stay in one place long enough for me to find her.

When I was finished, I got Jess's pretty white shoe out of the closet. Soon I would be dancing. Soon we'd all be dancing. I held the shoe close to my chest and rose on my tiptoes like a ballerina, the knowledge of California dancing within me. I heard a tap on my door. I hurriedly tossed the shoe back in the closet. Mom leaned in, her face pale and haggard.

She fingered the doorframe hesitantly. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I'm fine.” I gave her a dismissive glance, angry with her for intruding on my private moment of hope.

“Well if you need anything . . . .” She kept staring at me.

“Really, Mom, I'm okay.”

“Good.” She backed away, her gaze still clinging to me.

As she softly clicked the door shut, a terrible thought occurred to me. If things didn't get figured out soon, I might not be able to go California. There would be no triumphant finding of Jess, because my parents would never let me out of their sight. Things would keep going on the way they were, everyone paralyzed by grief over something that hadn't actually happened. How I wished I could tell them Jess was in California, and not buried in the desert. I tore a tiny piece of dry skin off my lip and flicked it on to the rug. Then I flopped down on my bed, grabbed the pink spread, and twisted it up in my hands. Tears stung my eyes. In her own strange way, Jess had showed me a way out into the world. Her restless energy carried her to places I couldn't imagine going to. She did all the wrong things I never dared to do. Without her to lead me I might never get out of here.

• • •

We didn't hear anything that day or the next. No one could say a word to Mom without her bursting out crying. When she wasn't crying, she was looking at Dad as if he'd ruined her life. On Saturday morning, she made pancakes for breakfast though no one wanted to eat. I helped her clean up while Dad sat at the table reading the paper. Each time he'd rustle the pages, she would flinch.

When he came over and asked for more coffee, she whirled around and said, “What is wrong with you?”