Soul Catcher (16 page)

Another secret was that he was staying with Eddie’s family in Brooklyn. Actually, Patrick didn’t come right out and tell me this; he must have known it would upset me to hear he was in touch with Eddie, let alone living with him. He casually mentioned walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, and I guessed the rest. But he swore he was straight, and that Eddie was out of trouble. They were both working in a bakery and had learned to make bread. He was terrified of anyone finding out where he was and turning him in to the police for robbing the newsstand. And taking the ring. And
running away from school. Not to mention having slept with me. I was only fifteen. Once the authorities discovered his history with drugs, that would have been the end: of his freedom, his youth, us.

I promised never to tell, and I didn’t. I protected Patrick with all my heart. He had hurt me, and I was angry that he hadn’t told me the truth before we went to the princess’s apartment. But I loved him. I was
in love
with him; there was no way I could betray him.

Then one day, Eddie was arrested for dealing drugs. He was fined and put on probation. Patrick claimed it was pot, but the rumor around school was that it was also smack — heroin, the mean stuff. Patrick assured me that he was not involved in any way, selling or using. He even offered to let me speak with Mrs Cohen to confirm the story. I didn’t want to; I was trying to trust him. But trusting an addict with the truth is like trusting a jewel thief to guard the palace door. He’ll guard it, all right; no one will get past but him.

January was cold and bleak and lonely. The landscape was slender, naked trees perched on frozen dirt, under a grey sky streaked with darkness by mid-afternoon. It barely snowed. The Reverend White melted into a nondescript lump on the science field. I would stand there and remember in exact detail the exchange of our vows. I could remember everything: Patrick’s face through the small opening of his hood, the way his hands (in black gloves) were clenched at his sides, the bite of the wind, the clouds of frozen breath with each word. I never cried, and sometimes I didn’t feel anything. I just stood there. The snowman melted into a wet spot on the ground, then into nothing.

I was there one late afternoon, just before dinner, when I heard the sound of footsteps crunching on the frozen earth behind me. They were steady, controlled steps that got louder as they descended the hill, and stopped just behind me.

‘This would be the perfect spot,’ a voice said.

I turned around and there was Peter Prentice, straight as a pole with his arms flush at his sides. He looked tiny under his huge blue pea coat. A grey driving cap sat awkwardly on his head of straight brown hair. His gloveless hands were bright red. When he smiled, the small, refined features of his face remained perfectly still.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘This would be the perfect spot for the dome.’

Oh, the dome. That ridiculous project of his.

I braced myself against a sharp gust of wind. He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. Very softly, he said, ‘If you just relax, you won’t be cold.’

‘It’s freezing out here, Peter.’

He opened his eyes. They were dark blue, like Patrick’s, but with lush brown lashes. He said, ‘To a degree.’

I couldn’t resist smiling at that, but I quickly suppressed it. I didn’t want him to think I was being friendly; he was a loony, after all.

‘It must be about time for dinner,’ I said.

‘It’s four minutes before six o’clock,’ he told me without looking at his watch (if he even had one). ‘Dinner is at —’

‘Yeah, I know, six o’clock.’

He looked toward the barren science field, calmly, as if such quiet and emptiness were so familiar they didn’t intimidate him. I felt a stab of pain —
his
pain. I assumed he was very lonely. Then I realized that, despite my assumptions, I didn’t have the slightest idea of who he really was.

‘There are approximately one-and-a-half minutes left before returning to central campus is utterly necessary,’ he said. ‘I would rather spend it here, thinking about the dome.’

‘Well, I’ll see you around, then.’

He nodded. His face was expressionless, strangely peaceful. I didn’t know why, but I was tempted to stay with him for that extra ninety seconds.

‘Please don’t feel concerned about leaving me here alone,’ he said. ‘I feel fine.’

I wanted to ask:
but how?
Or say:
bullshit, liar, I have friends and a boyfriend
(absent if not former; I didn’t know just to what degree Patrick was gone)
and I’m dying of loneliness! How can you feel fine, when you don’t have a single friend?

What I said was, ‘What is a geodesic dome, anyway?’

I saw a flash of gratitude in his eyes. No one had ever asked him.

‘According to the Random House dictionary, it is a light, dome-like structure developed to combine the structurally desirable properties of the tetrahedron and the sphere.’

‘Uh huh. Could I ask you another question, more personal?’

‘There’s time for one more.’

‘Why do you want to build one? I mean, what for?’

This time I saw a flicker of pleasure. He had probably been aching to tell someone. He said: ‘It’s my dream.’

A few days later I saw Peter walking into the field after his physics class. He was only in ninth grade, but took twelfth grade physics; he was a real brain when it came to science. Patrick had also been in physics, which was why I knew what the class next door to my biology class was. It was the last period before lunch, and Patrick or I — whoever got out first — would wait so we could walk up to lunch together. Now, alone, I stopped before going up the hill for lunch and watched Peter walking into the distance so steadily that he appeared to be gliding. When he reached the middle of the field, he stopped. He stood very still, as if rooting himself into the ground. Then, after a minute of absolute quiet, he lifted his face and screamed.

I recognized it immediately. It was the same scream I had heard the night Patrick was expelled for heroin. Standing alone by the road in the dark, suddenly there was that scream. It was the scream that had jolted me back to my senses. I had run up the hill to the dorm, and Gwen had told me the truth about Patrick. I had claimed the disembodied scream as my own. I felt that scream in the bottom of my soul. It was Peter’s scream.

His high, clear voice echoed. When it faded, he turned around and glided in my direction.

‘Hello,’ he said in a mild voice, completely devoid of the passion of his scream.

‘Are you all right?’

A faint pink colored his ivory skin. ‘I have released myself,’ he said.

Then and there, I decided to help him build his crazy dome.

A
t best, the dome was oddly meaningful; at least, it was something to focus on besides Patrick or myself. Patrick. I worried about him, and especially I missed him. His sea blue eyes. His carrot top. His damp palm pressing against my back. His gravelly voice, whispering,
Kate, Kate. A
fountain of laughter, loud and free. Sudden anger. He was always there, in the back of my mind. But as the days and weeks passed, I grew less tormented by his absence. The single thing that caused me stinging, unending pain was the memory of New Year’s Eve. That memory, more than anything else, aggravated my loneliness. It was like a light shining on a well of darkness on the edge of which I stood, alone, staring down. The image I conjured up to help me sleep was of a dome covering the mouth of the well, preventing me from falling in.

The setting sun drew a veil of orange and purple over the science field. The air was biting cold, but there was a feeling of great calm.

‘The first thing you have to do,’ I told Peter, ‘is figure out exactly how much it’s going to cost.’

‘It will cost what it will cost,’ he said.

‘Yeah, okay, but you need an idea of what it’s going to amount to. I mean, who’s going to give you the money to
build it if they think it might cost a million dollars in the end?’

‘It probably won’t cost that much to build.’

‘Well? How much
will
it cost?’

‘Less than a thousand dollars, certainly.’

‘How much less?’

He thought. ‘I would calculate that it could be as much as seven hundred dollars less.’

‘You’re telling me the dome would cost about three hundred bucks to build?’

‘Possibly. Approximately. Yes.’

Peter was far from practical enough to deal with the nitty gritty details. No wonder he never got his dome built! I
was
practical, so I took over the planning. I became Vice President of Dome Inc., in charge of fundraising and development. Peter was President, in charge of vision and spirit.

I called local lumber yards and plastics manufacturers from the pay phone in the school building. Based on Peter’s assessment of what he would need to build the dome, I came up with an estimated cost of two-hundred thirty-seven dollars. Since we would build it ourselves, there was no cost for labor.

Ted suggested we speak with Silvera about requisitioning funds from the activities budget. When I told Peter, it struck him like a revelation. I was amazed that he had been so sure his dome would be built without ever considering how.

It was faith, he told me. He said, “There was never any doubt in my mind that the dome would be constructed. The karma of the project had been waiting for you to become ready to help.’

‘Me? You mean, you knew all along I’d get involved?’

‘The dome’s karma knew.’

I hoped the dome’s karma had also gotten through to the man, because I didn’t expect him to dig right into the school’s pocket on my account or Peter’s. He had known
about Peter’s idea all along, as had everyone else, but had never offered to help.

Silvera held court every afternoon after activities. I was taking dance in the gym and dashed up to the dorms afterwards to change. I wanted to be the first to Silvera’s room; otherwise, someone else might grab his attention until dinner. I was peeling off my leotards, when Gwen and Rawlene came in wearing wire baskets over their faces. They were taking fencing. I thought they looked like bees.

I bent over and gave my hair a few whacks with the brush from underneath, then flipped back to standing. ‘How do I look?’

‘Why are you getting dressed so soon?’ Gwen asked. ‘What time is it?’

‘Just past five,’ Rawlene said.

‘Got a date with Peter?’ Gwen asked.

‘Peter?’ Rawlene echoed. ‘That skinny weirdo kid? I’ll box his ears if he thinks he’s gonna get in Kate’s pants.’ She crossed the room and stood in front of my dresser, where Patrick’s framed picture sat. Leaning her elbows on the dressertop, she gazed at the photo.

Gwen flashed a wink at me. ‘Kate wants to help him build that dome thing,’ she said. ‘But don’t spread it around. We don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.’

‘We?’

‘I am not ashamed to say,’ Gwen said, ‘that I have been considering joining the team.’

No way. The dome was mine, it was not for sharing. I pulled on a pair of black pantyhose and shoved my feet into my shoes.

‘I have to go.’

‘Kate, wait a minute.’

I turned in the door and looked at her. She was smiling: innocent, kniving Gwen. What was she up to now?

‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘I want to help.’ She stared at me through her face net. I could just barely see the expression
that had so often persuaded me. That face guard made her look so ridiculous, I laughed.

‘Please?’

She’d probably bring the BHBs to sing and dance and distract us. Plus, I was sure she didn’t understand Peter Prentice. No one did, maybe not even me. But I, at least, wanted to protect him from the loony-mongers. I no longer thought he was so strange.

‘Maybe,’ I said.

‘You’ll think about it? Really?’

‘Sure,’ I lied. ‘I’m late, gotta go.’ I clipped my hair back with a barrette, then spirited out of the room.

Peter met me in the lobby of Lower Girls. We had agreed to wear good clothes, thinking Silvera might take us more seriously dressed up. Peter’s pants were huge, with a canvas belt pinching them around his waist. His white shirt was buttoned all the way to his Adam’s apple. He had wetted and combed his hair so it lay perfectly flat.

‘You look very pretty,’ he said, and offered me an arm. ‘Shall we?’

We walked down the hall like a prom couple, nervous and overdressed, trying to contain our anxious breathing in the slow rhythm of our steps.

Silvera’s door was cracked an inch and we pushed it all the way open. There he was, lying on his back on the floor with his arms spread wide, as if he were flying. His eyes were closed.

‘Hello?’ I said.

His nostrils flared. He grunted.

‘It’s Kate Steiner and Peter Prentice.’

The man’s eyes snapped open, and he twisted around to look at us. I think he was more interested in the fact that we had come together than what we had come about. He sat up clumsily. He nodded his head rapidly, nostrils flared, dark eyes burning with life.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘very interesting.’

Peter spoke nervously in a high, nasal voice. ‘We are here —’

I cut him off: ‘Can we come in?’

Silvera gave one quick nod of his head.

I sat crosslegged on a bean bag and Peter stood like a pole at my side.

Peter said, ‘We are here —’

“The dome, right?’ Silvera broke in. ‘Why are
you
here?’ he asked me.

‘I’m going to help Peter build it,’ I said. ‘We need to buy some supplies. We wanted to ask if we could get some money from the activities fund.’

He looked at Peter, then back at me. ‘Where do you want to put it?’

‘The science field. We figured that would be the perfect place, plus teachers could use it in their courses.’ The thought had just occurred to me, but it seemed like a good selling point, so I threw it in.

‘How big?’ Silvera asked.

Peter answered, ‘Life size.’

Silvera smiled. ‘How much will it cost?’ he asked Peter, though he must have known better than anyone that Peter would not have come up with a figure. That was when I realized that Silvera had never been against the project, Peter had simply never asked.