The Forgetting (8 page)

“No. I want to do the audition in March. I don't want them to think I'm making excuses.”

“Good girl.” Mom smiled. “You've been working for this for so long. I'm proud of you for not letting anything get in your way.” She folded her paper down. “And I think we'll have Mr. Blount start on Monday. Sound good?”

“Mr. Blount?”

“The tutor your father hired,” she said. “We're very lucky he could fit you in. He'll come for three hours a day. Mostly in the mornings so you can have the afternoons to practice and study. And rest,” she added.

“Perfect,” I said. And it was. Nate had told me he was usually at All Saints every day after three. My hand tightened on my spoon. Except…I really would need the afternoons to practice. But what was more important—that or keeping my memories intact? I set my spoon down and pushed away my half-eaten cereal. These were the choices I had to make now. A month ago, the biggest decision I'd faced was what to wear to the winter formal. I plucked a dried flower from the vase in the center of the table and toyed with it.

“Hey, do you think it would be okay if Ella and Toni came over tonight? They said they'd bring over notes from school.” I needed to surround myself with as much of my old life as possible.

“That's nice of them.” Mom glanced up and smiled at me. “It's good to see you getting back to normal.”

I slumped low in my chair.
Normal
. If she could see into my heart, she would know that I was anything but. As good as playing my oboe felt, as much as I looked forward to seeing my friends, something inside me still pulled me back to Annabel. To retrace her footsteps and learn what she had to tell me. To see Nate again. I balled my hands into fists and dug my nails into my palms. Nate…I couldn't get him out of my head, couldn't get him out of my heart. Those were
her
feelings, not mine…but the lines were blurred now. I didn't know where Annabel ended and I began.

And that scared the hell out of me.

Ella came to the front door bearing cupcakes. “I know you're not supposed to have chocolate,” she said as she squeezed past me, the bright pink box balanced on her palm, “but I couldn't resist.”

I kissed her cheek. “You're a goddess. My parents have interpreted ‘heart-healthy' to mean ‘totally bland and completely disgusting.'” We'd just finished a dinner of brown rice pasta with sauce devoid of flavor. I needed to have a conversation with Dr. Harrison the next time I saw her.

Toni followed Ella inside the house and closed the door behind her. “Hey, I paid for half,” she said, tapping her finger on her cheek. I laughed and gave her a kiss too.

We smuggled the cupcakes up to my room and sat on the floor to eat them. Toni and Ella spread their notes out. I held a red velvet cupcake in one hand and flipped through the notes with the other. “You guys finished
Crime
and
Punishment
? I'm only halfway through,” I muttered, glancing at my nightstand where the book lay. I hadn't opened it since I got back from the hospital.

“I don't know why you're stressing,” Toni said. “Only a heartless monster would fail you.”

“Ha-ha.”

Ella licked frosting off her fingers and tapped my knee. “So, I have a surprise for you.”

“Are you sure my heart can take it?”

She smirked. “The first oboist with the Roslindale group flaked. I told the conductor about you, and he wants you to come in next rehearsal.” She clapped her hands together. “Isn't that awesome?”

“It is.” I bit my lip and looked at Toni's calculus notes in my lap. “But I don't think I can do it.”

“What? Why?”

I glanced up. Ella's eyes were narrowed at me, her face filled with questions I couldn't answer. My insides squirmed. “I'm just—so behind with everything. And I need to prep for Juilliard. That
has
to be my main focus. I don't think I'll have time.”

Ella sighed, long and dramatic. “Crap. I went on and on about how amazing you are.”

“I'm sorry, Ella!” I reached out and flipped her long hair behind her shoulder. “I'll talk to the conductor so you don't have to. I would love to do it, but I can't.” I looked at the window and the reflection of my room on the glass. A month ago, I would've loved to do it. I would've pushed myself to do it. But now…I knew I should want to, but I didn't. I was torn in so many different directions that I'd lost my way. “I mean,” I said, turning back to Ella, “I'm sure he'll understand once I explain the situation.”

“What situation?”

I let the notes in my hand flutter to the ground. “Uh, just the fact that I had major heart surgery a couple of weeks ago?”

“Oh.” Ella waved her hand. “Whatever. It's not like playing the oboe is stressful or anything.”

“Ella, I get winded walking to the bathroom. It's hard for me to be out and about.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Then why were you gallivanting all over Jamaica Plain?”

Toni shifted, her eyes fixed on the floor. I swallowed hard. “How did you—know about that?”

“Well, your mom called my house looking for you.” Ella cocked her head. “Next time you use me as your alibi, let me in on the secret.”

“I'm sorry.” I nudged her with my toe but she didn't soften. “Look, I was working on something. An article that I'm writing for the
Banner
.” The lie had become so comfortable that it was almost truth now. “I went there to do some research. I just knew that my parents would never let me go, so I told them I was hanging out with you.”

“I don't mind covering for you,” Ella said, “but you gotta tell me first. Deal?”

“Deal.” I picked up the notes I'd dropped. “So what's after
Crime
and
Punishment
on the syllabus?”

“What's the article about?” Toni asked. I looked at her. Ella and I didn't fight often, but when we did, Toni usually disappeared. She stretched her legs out in front of her and flexed her feet.

“Oh, um…” The images of that lonely street corner, the silver sports car, Char…
Nate
…streamed across my mind. “I decided to do a report on human trafficking. There's an organization at a church in J.P. that helps trafficked girls. That's where I went.”

Ella shuddered. “Ugh. That's so depressing.”

I shoved the notes at her. “Just because it's depressing doesn't mean you should ignore it. And it's a real problem. Even right here in Boston.”

“Look at you, all humanitarian.” Ella shimmied her shoulders. “How's the air up on that high horse?”

“Did you find out anything useful?” Toni cut in before I could say anything. “At the church, I mean?”

“Oh.” I drew in a long breath and decided to let Ella have that one. “Um, no. I'm gonna have to go back.”

There was a knock on my bedroom door. Ella shoved the cupcake box behind her in the second before Mom peeked her head in. “You girls need anything?”

“No, we're good,” I told her.

She opened the door wider. “Well, I have a surprise for you.” We all looked up at her expectantly. She leaned on the door frame. “Your dad and I just booked the same house we stayed at last year on Nantucket. Not just a month this time, the whole summer. Won't that be wonderful right before you head off to Juilliard?” Her eyes danced as she smiled at me.

“I haven't even auditioned yet—”

“Oh, you'll get in. We're counting on it.” She looked past me to Toni and Ella. “And you girls are welcome to come up for a few weeks again, like you did last year.”

They both squealed and pounced on me. “Thank you, Mrs. Kendrick!” Ella yelled as she hugged me around the neck.

“This year will be even more epic than last year,” Toni said in a rush.

Beneath their shrieks, I heard the Catch. The room was shrinking, the walls closing in. “Air, air,” I mumbled, shoving them off me.

“Oooh, sorry,” Ella said. She peered into my face. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. Just heart surgery, remember?”

“Well, I figured you girls would be excited about it,” Mom said. “Georgie talks all the time about how it was the best summer of her life. She deserves an even better one, after what she's been through.”

“Definitely,” Toni said.

Mom shot us one last smile and slipped out into the hall. Ella and Toni leaned in, their heads almost touching mine. “We'll all be eighteen by this summer,” Ella said, “so we'll be able to get away with a lot more.”

“I bet some of the bars might even serve us,” Toni said.

Ella rolled her eyes. “Good luck with that.”

“What? I—”

“I just hope that ice cream stand is still around,” Ella said. “I've been craving their cookie dough all winter.”

“I think I gained ten pounds from that place,” Toni said. “We went there, like, three times a day.”

“I wonder if your next-door neighbor will be back,” Ella said, elbowing me hard.

“Ow! What next-door neighbor?” I asked without thinking as I rubbed my side.

Ella rolled her eyes. “‘What next-door neighbor?' she asks.” She tickled the spot she'd just elbowed. “Um, only the guy you were making out with all summer.”

“Oh, yeah. Him,” I said.

“
Him
,” Toni laughed. “She doesn't even remember his name!”

“Sure I do—”

“
Evan!
” They both gave a loud sigh and mock-swooned into each other's arms.

I forced a laugh. “Evan. Yeah…he was…hot.” I dropped my eyes from their shiny faces and pushed myself up to standing. “I gotta pee. Be right back.”

“Georgie!”

I looked back at Ella from the door, my hand resting on the frame that my mom had just vacated. “Yeah?”

“You okay?” Her eyes searched my face, like she could see beneath its lie.

“Sure. I'm psyched. Last summer was epic, right?” I ducked out into the hall and hurried to the bathroom. I shut the door behind me and leaned over the sink, pressing my forehead against the cool tile.

Last summer had been the best summer of my life.

But I remembered none of it.

All Saints looked completely different in the light. At night, it had looked formidable and imposing. During the day, it looked sad and dingy. There were cracks in the stone steps and faded graffiti on the gray walls. I followed the little path around the side until I found the door that led to the basement.

Inside, I found a loud room full of life, totally different from the darkened, empty place I'd come to with Nate. Kids lounged on the couches, stretched out on the floor rugs, sat in chairs turned backward. There was a handful of adults too, but from the loud music that blared from an iPod docked on the long table near the kitchen, this was the kids' territory.

I stood in the doorway, scanning faces for the one I would recognize. I finally spotted him at the far end of the room. He was leaning over a chair in which a pretty black-haired girl sat. Her face was turned up to his and she was smiling. She tipped the chair backward, and he put his foot up on the edge of it to keep her falling over. She laughed.

Angry heat shot through me. I squared my shoulders and marched halfway across the room before I realized I had absolutely no reason to be jealous. Gritting my teeth, I turned away. That jealousy was
hers
. Just like my memory of last summer. It belonged to her now. Everything belonged to her.

“Georgie?”

I whirled around. Nate had left the girl in the chair and stood a few feet from me. A ghost of a smile shadowed his face. “You came back.”

I hunched my shoulders a little. “You didn't think I would?”

“Honestly? I wasn't sure.” He stepped closer to me. “I figured you were probably pretty freaked out by what happened the other night.”

“I was,” I admitted. I started to unbutton my coat. “But that wasn't going to prevent me from coming back.”

“Anything for a story, right?”

“Oh—right,” I said, forcing a laugh. As if my life didn't depend on what I found out.
Or
at
least
my
memories
, I thought as Nate led me to the back of the room.

I had known the memory of Nate—of Annabel's feelings for him and all she knew about him—would not be free. It just seemed completely unfair that I didn't get to choose what memory I could exchange. Like, why couldn't she take the memory of the time I peed in my pants in the middle of the Aquarium on a second-grade field trip? Why did it have to be the memory of what was supposedly the best summer of my life?

Off to the side of the kitchen was a quiet corner with two unoccupied armchairs. Nate dropped into one and turned on the banker's lamp that sat on the end table between the chairs. I tossed my coat over the back of the other chair and sat, pulling my backpack up into my lap.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spied the girl Nate had been talking to. She was watching us from across the room. I nodded toward her. “Who's your girlfriend?”

Nate followed the line of my gaze and burst out laughing. “Um, Tommy is not my girlfriend.”

“
Tommy?
” I squinted. Now that I was looking for it, I could see the angular shape of Tommy's jaw and, yep, an Adam's apple when she swallowed. My face grew hot. “Uh, my bad.”

Nate winked. “Tommy's great, but not my type.”

“I knew that.”

“Oh?” Nate raised an eyebrow. “How?”

“I don't know...you just don't seem...” I chewed my lip. I had to be careful.

“You can't judge a book by its cover,” Nate said. “You'd be surprised how many girls on the street are as clean-cut as you. There's a real misconception out there that trafficked kids are all from bad homes or runaways or drug addicts.” Nate leaned toward me a little. “I'd even wager that at least one of your Hillcoate classmates is being trafficked.”

My mouth went sour. I shook my head. “No way.”

“How would you know?” Nate asked. “You wouldn't believe the double life some of these girls live. Most of the time when they finally get free, their family had no idea.”

“That's awful,” I whispered. I wanted to think that if Ella or Toni or one of my other Hillcoate friends was in real trouble, I'd know about it. But would I? Suddenly, I wasn't so sure.

But Annabel…Annabel couldn't have been from a good family or have had close friends. If she had, someone would've claimed her. She wouldn't have been a Jane Doe. “But some of the girls are runaways, right?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Nate said, “or foster kids. They just don't have anyone who cares enough to keep them off the streets.”

I tried to imagine what that would be like, to not have a family who cared about me, and failed. The thought was like a foreign country I had never heard of. I pressed my lips together and swallowed hard. From the other side of the room, Tommy laughed again, long and loud. I nodded toward her. “Is Tommy a…prostitute?”

Nate smiled. “Not anymore. She's been off the street for almost a year now.” He tilted his head to the side. “Her parents kicked her out when she told them she wanted to transition.” At my quizzical look, he added, “From male to female. A lot of parents have a hard time accepting that. So she was on the streets, and a heroin dealer was nice enough to take her in.”

“And get him—sorry, her—hooked,” I finished. “Right?”

“Yeah. But she was lucky. She had friends who pulled her out of the abyss and brought her here.”

I pointed to one of the banners that adorned the walls. A bright rainbow arced the length of it with the words “EMPOWERING LGBTQ” underneath it. “How do they,” I jerked my chin up to indicate the church above us, “like having heathens and sinners hanging out in their basement?”

Nate laughed. “You didn't read the sign too closely out front, did you? This is a Universalist Unitarian church. They'll take anyone who walks in the front door. Which is the truly Christian thing to do anyway, right?” He nodded toward my backpack. “Don't you want to take notes or something?”

“Oh. Yes.” I had actually come prepared. The sight of Nate's scruffy blond hair and blue eyes had just made me forget to play the part of the journalist. I pulled a pen, a notebook, and a little tape recorder from my bag.

“Do you mind?” I asked, holding up the tape recorder. Nate shrugged. I pressed the record button and set it down on the table in between us. “So did, um, Annabel come here a lot?”

Nate narrowed his eyes at me. “You just want to talk about Annabel?”

“No,” I answered quickly. I flipped to a blank page in my notebook, not looking at him. “I wanted to use her as the, you know, cautionary side of the story. And then maybe we could—I don't know—use, um, Tommy as the hopeful side.” I chewed on my pen and glanced at him. “What do you think?”

“I guess that makes sense.” One corner of his mouth turned up. I couldn't stop looking at it. “You're the writer.”

I snorted and turned it into throat clearing. “Uh, yeah, I guess. So, Annabel. She came here a lot?”

Nate looked down at his lap. “Often enough.”

“But not enough to get her off the streets,” I said softly.

“No,” he said, his voice as hushed as mine. “No, I guess not.”

“Tell me about her.” I tucked my legs up underneath me. “Why was she special?”

Nate leaned his head on the back of the chair, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. “She was special because—because—she was
infuriating
.”

I jumped a little in my chair. “What?”

Nate straightened up and leaned over the arm of his chair toward me. “Ever since the other night, when you told me that she was…” He swallowed. I nodded so that he didn't have to say the word. “I keep thinking about the last time I saw her. It was in December, right before Christmas. FAIR Girls always has a holiday party here, and all the girls show up. It's catered,” he explained. “Free food is a powerful attraction.”

“I get that,” I said. “I can't tell you how many times I've let my dad drag me to a boring work party just for the buffet.”

He smiled at me, his eyes crinkled at the edge. I tore my gaze away and focused on a tear in the leather armchair, trying to ignore the warmth that spread through me.

“Anyway,” he went on, “Annabel was there. We were talking, and she got a call. And I knew it was Jules, telling her to go to the cemetery to meet someone, and I just…I got angry with her.” Nate's voice was hoarse. His head bent so that I couldn't see his eyes anymore. “I told her she didn't have to do this anymore, that I—we—would take care of her, get her some place safe. And she just looked at me and said, ‘Nowhere is safe. Not for me.'”

“What did she mean?” I asked. I wanted to reach out and stroke his hair. Instead I clenched my hand into a fist.

“I don't know exactly. She wasn't talking about, you know, the world not being safe.” He glanced up at me through his eyelashes. “I think she meant that she wasn't safe from
herself
.”

“She wasn't…” I murmured, thinking of the cold pavement outside 826 Emiline Way.

“Anyway, I followed her,” Nate said. I watched his face as he talked, noticing how he avoided direct eye contact with me. “I followed her out of here and toward the cemetery. And around the corner, there was a homeless woman huddled against a building. She greeted Annabel by name—they obviously knew each other from the area—and Annabel stopped and gave her a whole bag of food she'd gotten from the party.”

“Wow,” I said.

“And her coat.” He met my eyes. “Annabel took off her coat and gave it to this woman. She was wearing this tight little sleeveless minidress, but she stood there in the cold like it was nothing and would not take the coat back even though the woman tried to refuse it. Then she walked off and met her—client—and I never saw her again.”

I shifted in my chair so that I faced away from him and dug the heels of my hands into my eyes. Who
was
this Annabel? Why did she stay on the streets? What had driven her to jump off that balcony?

“That was the saddest thing about Annabel.” Nate's voice floated to me. I looked back at him. His blue eyes were clear but faraway. “Everyone who knew her could see how beautiful and brave she was, but she couldn't see it herself. That's why she kept going back to Jules. It wasn't drugs. She was one of the few who never took drugs.” He blinked and only then did I see the whisper of a tear. “It was because she didn't think she deserved any better.”

I sat very still. Even my insides felt frozen. Pain clenched my heart, a strong, sweet pain that made me want to weep and scream and curl up in a ball. For all the memories I'd gotten of Nate, for all I knew about how she'd felt about him, there were no memories of how he'd felt about her. This was the closest he'd ever come to telling her, and I felt it deep inside me, deep inside
her
. I drew a shuddering breath. “Um—”

“Yeah.
Um
.” Nate ran his hands over his face. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to unload that all on you.”

“That's okay.” I slid my hands beneath my legs so that Nate wouldn't see them shaking. “I asked.”

“You didn't ask for
that
.” Nate shook his head. A lock of hair fell across his forehead, and he brushed it aside with an angry stroke. “It is really hard to come here day after day and see these girls… You want so bad to help them, but for every one that you help, there are ten more that you've failed—ten more that
disappear
or wash up on the banks of the river or overdose on heroin or…” Nate stopped and let the silence fill in what he'd left unsaid.
Or
jump
off
a
balcony
. He took a big breath and let it out. “But I've found that sitting around moaning about how sad it is gets no one anywhere. That's why I got involved.”

“So, what do you do exactly?” I repositioned the tape recorder to make it look like I was actually doing some reporting. “Do you just come here after school?”

Nate shook his head. “I don't go to school.”

“You don't? Did you graduate?” He didn't look much older than me.

He shrugged. “In a manner of speaking. I dropped out when I was sixteen and got my GED instead.”

“But why?”

“Why?” He pressed his lips together. “I guess because I hated sitting in class every day when I knew it was all bullshit out in the real world.”

“And you just…dropped out? Your parents let you?”

“Please.” Nate rolled his eyes. “My parents didn't know what end was up back then. I put the paper in front of them and told them to sign and they did.”

“So you just work here now?”

“Nah. I would, but unfortunately saving lives doesn't pay the rent.” Nate tilted his head toward the door. “I work at the Starbucks a short walk from here. I work mostly mornings so I can come here in the afternoons.”

“Oh.” I toyed with the tape recorder. “That's…cool.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “You've never known anyone who dropped out of school, have you?”

I tossed my hair back. “I—what makes you say that?”

He laughed. “No offense, Georgie, but you look like a red button on a black coat in this place.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” I grabbed my pen and uncapped it with unnecessary violence. The cap went flying straight into the air.

Nate pointed to the pin on my coat's lapel. “I highly doubt anyone drops out of Hillcoate.”

I gritted my teeth. “So?”

“You know what?” Nate held up his hands. “I shouldn't be judgmental. It's not your fault that you were born into privilege.”

I stared at him. Privilege? Was that what he thought of me? My life was
not
—I scrunched my forehead and thought about my old Victorian house on a leafy street in Brookline, about Hillcoate's gated drive and spotless hallways, about the trust fund that sat waiting for me in the brick-building bank in Harvard Square.
Huh
.