Push (25 page)

The last box contains some stuff from the desk I had in my bedroom. A mug I used to keep my pencils in, a Mickey Mouse stapler, a pink desk lamp, a flowered plastic desk set. There is a framed photograph of me and my friend Susan on a summer vacation at the beach. Her family invited me to come with them the summer before our junior year, and it was one of the few times that Michael didn’t interfere. There are also a couple of items from the corkboard that used to hang in my room. Ticket stubs, one or two postcards from my mother, and the Simpsons badges I collected in middle school. In the bottom of the box, in a small silk bag, is a gold bracelet that Peter gave me at our high school graduation. He told me he had planned to give it to me on prom night, but he never had the chance. I never wore the bracelet because it was inscribed with “E.S. + P.B. = <3.” It freaked me out to see the sideways heart and know that Peter might have loved me. Especially because I didn’t love him back.

David thoughtfully watches me sort through everything, asking an occasional question and offering a supportive comment whenever he thinks it’s necessary. I toss what I don’t want into a box and pack the items I do want into another. I tuck the “keeper” box back into the closet as David leaves the room and comes back holding the last two beers from the kitchen. I joke that I wish it was whisky instead. He grins and tells me to call in an order for Chinese. He’ll stop at the liquor store down the street on his way back from picking up the food.

“Now
that
is an exceptional idea,” I say with a smile, and he is out the apartment door before I can say thanks.

The Kooks were followed by the Crash Kings long ago, and when that album ended, David’s iPhone started playing a band that I never heard before. I pick up his phone to call in the food order. I’m about to dial when I see that the last number David called is still listed on the call screen. 241-375-2229. My stomach drops. It was dialed last night at 11:36, when I was already asleep. And it ended at 11:42. A six-minute phone call.

I stare at the number. It is the number that I had to memorize halfway through the second grade. It is the number that Peter Beckman and Bobby Sarson dialed over and over again. It is the number that I wrote on all of my college applications. It is the number that the police dialed to tell Michael about my mom’s car accident.

What the fuck.

Chapter Thirty-Six

I stare down at the numbers on David’s phone, and I can feel the blood rush into my head. My heart is pounding in my ears, and my skin is starting to bristle and burn. I suck air in through my nose, trying to keep myself from going ballistic, but I can feel the anger and confusion filling every muscle in my body. I can feel myself losing control. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my reflection in the bedroom mirror¸ and I nearly toss the phone into my own face, shattering it into a million shards of glass. But instead, I close my eyes and breathe, trying to think of a reason why David would spend six minutes on a phone call to a dead man’s house while I slept. I am trying to regain my composure. Trying to placate my enraged mind with a reason.

It isn’t working. I need a release. I need a way to make it stop. I can’t bring myself to think of a reason until I find a way to tamp down my anger. Then I can be rational.

I look around the room searching for my release. A split second later I have found an aggressive end to my fury. David’s phone drops to the floor, and a box of my childhood discards flies through my bedroom window, breaking the glass and scattering it across the bed and floor. I scream out a low, hollow noise as the box hits the window, and then I ball my hands into fists. I strike myself, landing two stiff blows on my thighs. I feel the surge of anger pushing its way into the muscles there. And then I am still. I am lighter now. Now I can think.

I reach down to pick up David’s phone, and before I can stop myself, my finger presses the call log list. I scroll through the entries, looking at all the phone calls David has made over the past few weeks. I see lots of numbers that I don’t recognize, along with several familiar names. Matt, Saz, John, Brad, Carl, Jake from the tattoo shop, and a handful of others are listed there. And then I see Michael’s number again. David called him a few weeks ago. On a Tuesday afternoon. It was the same day that David took me to poker. The same day that Matt held my hair over the toilet. And it was the day before Michael’s head met a baseball bat.

I notice that before that four-minute call to Michael, David made a call to 411 information. And after the call to Michael, another 241 number is listed. I recognize it immediately—Ricky’s cell. I can see David calling Michael to rip him a new one about sending me the dog tags, but why the fuck would he call Ricky? And how did he get Ricky’s number? From Michael? Maybe that’s why he called Michael—not to chew him out, but rather to get in touch with Ricky. But why? I don’t get it.

I walk out to the living room as I am sorting through the muddle of thoughts in my head. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I should say to David, and I panic when the thought rushes into my head that somehow David was involved in Michael’s death. If that’s the case, how the fuck am I supposed to feel? What am I supposed to do?

I need David to be here. I need him to tell me what the hell is going on. I can’t call him, because his phone is in my hand. I look down at it, and the screen has gone black. My time is up. I don’t know the code to get back into the phone. So I sit down on the sofa and wait.

Fifteen minutes pass before I hear David’s key slide into the lock. He is holding the handles of a plastic bag and a large bottle of Maker’s Mark 46 in his left hand. He does not look happy.

“What happened?” he says. “You didn’t call in the order.” He pauses, waiting for me to say something. But I can only stand here, holding his phone at my side and thinking about what I am going to do next. “I forgot my phone here, and I couldn’t remember your cell number,” he says. “I had to wait for them to make us something. What happened, Emma?” He puts the bag and the bottle down on the table and walks toward me. He must see something in my face. He must see that something isn’t right. He lifts his hand to touch me, but he drops it and steps back just before he makes contact.

I stare at his face. My eyes narrow, and I hold out his phone. My arm is rigid, and when the phone is right in front of his face, I speak.

“Tell me why the fuck you called Michael’s house last night.”

“Shit,” he says softly. He brushes his hair back off his forehead and then rests his hand on the back of his neck. “Jesus, Emma.”

“For fuck’s sake, David, do not bullshit me.”

David turns his back to me and walks over to the table, dropping his hand and turning back to look at me. “Shit,” he says again. This time it sounds sharp and loud. “You shouldn’t have looked at my phone, Emma.” My head draws back, and I shake it in disbelief. Seriously? He is going to chastise me for looking at his goddamned phone? Fuck that.

He rubs his fingers over his eyes, and then he picks up the whisky. He peels off the wax and pulls out the cork with his teeth. And then he drinks from it. Long, rough swallows. When he stops to take a breath, his eyes move back to mine. “Fuck. No. It’s my fault, Emma. I shouldn’t have left my phone here. I should have erased the number. Fuck me. Fuck,” he says briskly.

I walk over to him, throw his phone down on the table, and take the bottle out of his hand. I carry it into the kitchen and pour a hefty dose into a glass. For a second I consider smashing the rest of the bottle on the floor, but I know that won’t get me what I want. I have to keep myself straight. I walk back out of the kitchen and over to David. He has picked up his phone and is looking down at the backlit screen. I hand him the bottle and hold my glass up.

“A toast,” I say, looking straight into his eyes as he looks up from his phone, “to Michael—the man who just keeps on fucking me over.” My voice is loud and pointed and resolute. David does not raise his arm, so I clink my glass against the bottle. Then I drink the whole damned thing in a series of a dozen or so rapid, burning swallows. When it’s empty, I hold the glass out in front of me and raise my eyebrows. David lifts the bottle and pours more Maker’s into the glass, filling it nearly to the top. He doesn’t say a word, but as I begin to drink, he swallows straight from the bottle, sip for sip. Once my glass is empty, I toss it down on to the table. It skitters across the top and rolls off the edge, landing on the carpet with a soft thud.

“Talk, David,” I snap at him, grabbing the bottle from his hand. My face is hot, and I am about sink into a rage. I am losing control again. There is no stopping it. “I will keep drinking like a goddamned fish until you tell me what the fuck is going on.” I lift the rim of the bottle up to my mouth and take another deep swig. The bottle is half empty. I feel like a runaway freight train.

“Emma, don’t,” he says. “Don’t do this.”

“Fuck you, David,” I spit at him, the alcohol and emotion surging through my veins. He looks at me as if I am completely insane. It is infuriating. I want to castigate him. I want to make him pay for both the way he is belittling my anger and whatever the fuck it is he’s hiding. “This is
your
fault, David. It’s
your
fault that I am acting like an out-of-control circus freak right now. And this time,
you’ll
be the one holding my fucking hair when I’m retching my guts out. You hate not being in control? Well, fuck that shit. Things are gonna get way outta control tonight, my friend, unless you make the decision to man up and tell me the fucking truth about why you made that phone call.” I lift the bottle to my mouth again, and when I drink from it, a small trickle of whisky runs down my chin. I am getting sloppy already—but I am not stopping until he fucking talks. I am on fire.

David reaches up and runs his index finger across my chin, wiping the stream of whisky away. He puts his finger into his mouth and cocks his head. His eyes are narrow, and he looks more bemused and entertained than angry. It makes me want to punch him in the fucking face.

“Fuck you, David Calgaro,” I scream at him, lifting the bottle to my lips again and taking another series of sips. “Talk!”

David is still regarding me as if I am utterly nuts, and I know that the crazy current is there, pushing through his body and thrilling him. “You’re drunk already, Emma,” he laughs, “and it will
not
be my fault if you spend the night retching your guts out. This is
your
choice—and it is not a very mature one at that. I am not explaining anything to you when I can see that you are clearly not behaving rationally.” Oh. My. Fucking. God. Who the hell does he think he is?

“You’re a jackass,” I sneer at him. “What fucking high horse did you ride in on?”

“The one that gives a flying fuck about your pretty little ass,” he says smartly as I am sloshing down more whisky. “I’m not watching this, and I’m not holding your fucking hair either. You have completely lost it, Emma. And, the crazy thing is, you don’t even know why.” David walks to the door. His hand is on the knob as he turns to look back at me. “Eat that food, Emma, and call me tomorrow. When you’re done retching.” And then he is gone. And I am lifting the whisky bottle to my lips again.

* * *

I wake up in my bed on Monday morning with the alarm buzzing full blast into my ear. I don’t even remember setting it. Come to think of it, I don’t remember getting into bed either. The last thing I recall was lying down on the couch and closing my eyes. And before that, I was drinking. A lot. I don’t remember puking either, but the taste in my mouth suggests that was part of my evening, too. I sit up in the bed and put my hands on my head, trying to squeeze out the monumental headache raging inside of it. I am wearing a T-shirt and panties and nothing else. The clothes I was wearing yesterday are draped neatly over the end of the bed. I glance over at the clock as I switch it off, thankful that I have time for a quick shower before I have to leave for work. It is going to be a long day.

As I climb out of bed, I am struck by how dark the room is. It is then that I notice a large piece of plywood nestled into what was one of my bedroom windows. It is duct-taped into the opening, and all the glass has been cleaned up off the floor. I carefully run my hand across the top of my comforter, and there is not a single shard of glass there either.

Why did he come back here? I had every right to be pissed off at him last night for contacting my family and not telling me why, but I feel ridiculous for sinking into such a livid rage over it. The idea of him returning to close up the broken window and put me to bed confuses the fuck out of me. I sink to the floor and drop my face into my hands.

* * *

Despite my hangover, I manage to make it to the bus stop on time. The ride is blissfully quiet, and I spend the entire trip thinking about what I should say to David about last night. I am still furious at him for keeping the phone call’s reason a secret. Why didn’t he just answer me? This whole screwed-up situation could have been avoided if he had just told me the damn reason in the first place. And I never even had the chance to ask about the earlier calls—my own ridiculous insanity kept me from that. I am upset with myself for getting so out of hand. Still, the thing that confuses me the most is the fact that David came back. He didn’t have to come back to check on me. He didn’t have to put me to bed or set my alarm or clean up the broken window. But he did, and I can only imagine what went through his mind when he saw the mess.

As I ride the elevator up to my office, I flip open my phone, hoping that David might have sent me a message last night or this morning. There’s no message waiting for me, but my fingers begin to type one of their own. I stop them, though, because I have no idea what to say. I have no idea where to go from here. I close the phone and slip it back into my purse.

At lunchtime I check my phone again. There is still no message from David. Part of me wants to extend an olive branch to him, to apologize for being so belligerent, to start the conversation all over again and ask him
nicely
why he made those phone calls. But the rest of me, the stubborn part, wants him to take the first step. I want him to apologize for opening that damned bottle of whisky instead of answering my question. I want him to apologize for walking out on me when I challenged him to man up. And then I want to thank him for cleaning up my mess and for sealing the broken window and for putting me to bed and probably for holding my hair while I retched.

By the time six o’clock rolls around, I am absolutely exhausted. This morning Matt asked me about what David and I ended up doing on Friday afternoon. I told him about the tattoo, and he laughed and said that he thinks I got off pretty easy. I smiled at him and said that he hasn’t seen how big the damn thing is. He could tell that I wasn’t myself today and asked me twice if I was feeling under the weather. I told him that I was just tired because it was a busy weekend. I am glad the day is over.

Matt and I ride the elevator down together. I haven’t heard from David all day, nor have I contacted him. As the numbers on the elevator display drop closer to the bottom floor, I start to feel my heart rise up in my throat. By the time we reach the lobby, I think I might cry. I close my eyes briefly as the door opens and take a deep breath before stepping out. Matt pulls me aside just before we get to the exit door.

“Are you all right?” he says. “And don’t tell me again that you’re just tired.”

I smile softly at him, willing my stupid self not to cry. “I’ve been hungover all day and I’m exhausted, and David and I had a fight last night, and I’m mad at myself and I’m furious at him. I don’t know what to do next.”

“Ahhh,” he says, tipping his head back. “A lover’s quarrel
and
a hangover. That’s a bad combination right there.”

“Yep,” I say sadly.

“You guys will figure it out. David can get a little rough when he drinks, but he’ll apologize. He always does. He’s more than familiar with drunk assholes because of his father, but thankfully, he can recognize when he’s been one. He’s a good guy. Just forgive him. He can’t help it. It’s genetic.” Matt smiles and shrugs when he says the last two words. Everything he said is ringing in my ears.

“Fuck me,” I say quietly to myself, and then I look up at Matt. “He wasn’t the drunk asshole.
I
was. And he walked out on me because I was angry about something, and I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to punish him for it. I didn’t remember about his father.”