This Must Be the Place: A Novel (53 page)

She had never prepared for the day when Oneida would cease to need
her
.

Not telling her the truth had been Mona’s insurance policy. It was the one thing Oneida would always need, even if she didn’t realize it. It was the one thing Mona would always have to give: the truth, the last trump card. And Arthur had played it, and Mona was livid and frightened and
relieved
, and so ashamed of herself for being too cowardly—always, too cowardly—to act. To choose. She had only known how to accept or resist a situation as she found herself in it. She had not known how to create a life for herself.

That was what Amy did.

A few cars were parked in the south lot, but the north lot, abutting the auditorium, was empty. Which was good, Mona thought; not that a witness would have stopped her from what she was about to do—what she had done, several times, many years ago. There was an old metal door with direct access to the back of the stage, a door that hadn’t been replaced in a good thirty years, and whose lock yielded to a skillfully employed screwdriver just as easily as Mona remembered.

The smell—oh, the
smell
. Of dust and mildew and old upholstery, of teenagers and sugar and sweat. It was so powerful, so familiar, that Mona had to catch her breath. Her nose stung and her eyes teared, and when she closed the door behind her the smell was everything and everywhere. But the smell was nothing compared to the sight of a place Mona hadn’t visited in half a lifetime: she’d come to the auditorium several times since her own graduation, for various school events of Oneida’s, but she hadn’t been back
here
, on the empty stage, with only the heavy curtains to witness her passing. It was different. It was so completely different, when you were alone in the dark on the stage—it was strange and exciting, yes, but it was also safe to be hidden among the shadows.

Up in the loft. High above the stage, like you’re floating in the clouds
, Amy used to say.
Away from the world.

Mona turned on enough lights to see her way and hoisted herself up the metal ladder bolted into the wall. She’d only been in the loft a handful of times, but she
felt
that it hadn’t changed a bit; it was still cluttered with necessary objects, with window dressing for imaginary places and people. There was an overstuffed cardboard box of costumes, dripping sleeves and pant legs, in the rear corner, and when she pushed it aside, underneath was the trap door—just where it should be—and inside—just where
they
should be—were Amy’s movies. Nearly a dozen small reels nestled neatly beside Amy’s trusty Super 8. Mona knelt in the dust, laid her hands on their cold metal canisters, and smiled. “They’re still here, Amy,” she called into the dark. “I’ve got them now. They’re safe.”

Mona had never known what became of the films after Amy left, and frankly she hadn’t cared. After all, it was Amy, not her monsters, that Mona missed; and she’d forgotten all about this place, this safe high haven, until she read Amy’s postcard. Then she’d known immediately: Amy was proudest of the monsters she created, the movies she made, and she kept those movies in the drama loft for safekeeping. She screened them against the large canvas flats—for herself, for Mona, and for Ben Tennant, Mona supposed—and Mona would, of course, know where to look. Despite knowing that the films were exactly what Arthur chased all the way to Ruby Falls, Mona knew they weren’t for him to have. Amy meant them for Mona, even though she’d never bothered
to tell her so directly. But that was Amy to the end: the girl who never told anyone anything at all. Who made you love her because you didn’t know how she did the things she did; because you didn’t really know her but thought one day, if you looked hard enough, if you waited, you might.

Arthur came for the best parts of the person he lost, for the pieces she had left behind when she disappeared. He’d found Oneida. And though Amy had never considered her daughter a part of her, let alone one of the
best
parts, Mona disagreed with her whole heart. Arthur had found exactly what he was looking for.

The Super 8 was even older now but still true to the name Amy had inscribed on its side in silver paint—
Trusty
. Mona selected a reel labeled
Steve the Seamonster
that she remembered filming in one of the Darby-Jones bathrooms, wound and set the film, and plugged the projector into the outlet set high on the wall.

She had to believe Oneida would come back to her. She had to believe that she’d forgive Amy, one day, for everything they’d given and taken from each other. But that night, in the loft above the world, all Mona wanted was to
be
with her friend again: to meet Amy halfway, a reunion of two, held between people who’d once been so close they’d lived the same life. Whose lives since had been their own, and who now saw each other across time and space as real and as distant as opposite sides of the grave. Mona would always see Amy in herself, in her memories. In the things Amy left behind.

They had been there, in that place, at that time, together.

Mona wanted to sit in the dark beside Amy and watch Oneida’s siblings roar back to life. A beam of light shot out of the projector. The electric glow warmed her face and the movie began.

She would share this whole other family with her daughter, when her daughter came home.

“This is how you sneak out at night,” Dani said. She put one hand on the front doorknob and turned it. “Did you see what I just did? There will be a test.”

Oneida’s heart thumped. This was too much revolution for one
day—she was bone weary, and afraid that being caught would mean the loss of everything new and suddenly dear. It would be horrible to be seen in the eyes of the Drakes as anything other than welcome for dinner. Reminding herself why she was taking this risk—to atone, to find out, for Eugene, who deserved more than she’d given him—was imperative.

“Have you done this before?” she asked.

“Only all the freaking time,” Dani said. The door opened soundlessly. Dani grinned. “OK, you got me; this is the first time.”

“I’m not taking any blame for this.” Oneida hugged her bag to her stomach. She was freezing; the scrubs were thin. “This isn’t my idea. This is all your idea.”

“And a mighty fine idea it is.” Dani put her finger to her lips and jerked her head for Oneida to follow: low and bent, soft across the lawn, to the edge of the driveway where she’d parked her father’s car after they dropped the runaway note at the Darby-Jones. It was a Camry, close to ten years old, Dani said. It smelled like her brothers’ shin guards.

“You see how I parked it?” Dani was bursting with pride. She was bursting, period; the nurse costume made her boobs look frightening, Oneida thought. “I’m going to throw it in neutral, and it’s at the perfect angle to just—push it. Back down the driveway.”

“I thought you were kidding about having to push the car.”

Dani shushed her again. “Why would I kid about that?” she whispered.

So Oneida set her feet against gravel and pushed the rear of the car. The hood
was
perfectly angled toward the base of the Drake driveway, and as soon as the Camry’s front wheels coasted onto what was one of the few paved roads in all of Ruby Falls, Dani started the engine. It growled. Oneida leaped through the passenger door, praying nobody had heard; and also praying that someone
had
, and that that someone would run out of their house, brandishing a frying pan or a shotgun, and say,
You stupid kids, what are you doing? Go during normal visiting hours. Look his family in the face and say you’re sorry for being the cause of all this. Like a grown-up. Like a grown-up, Oneida.

But she wasn’t a grown-up. Not yet, at least; she had to keep reminding herself that thinking she was a grown-up, and knowing more than
most grown-ups, still didn’t make her one. She wondered if she would ever be grown up enough to feel like one. She wondered if Mona felt like a grown-up (doubtful); if Arthur Rook did; if Sherman or Anna did; or even Bert. Or her mother, Amy.

To die before you grew up—Oneida could imagine no greater tragedy. No greater loss, no greater unfairness. She hoped Amy had grown up, all the way, before she died.

“I think we’re safe,” Dani said. She turned on the CD player. “Shoot,” she said. “I don’t have any CDs. I keep telling Dad he needs an iPod converter—”

But how would you know? What if you only knew whether you were a grown-up or not in the moment before you died? Oneida imagined—and it struck her that she could think of death, could imagine death now and not freeze from fear—that your last moments of consciousness would be a second that stretched forever, that brought you confirmation, that brought you an answer (good or bad) about the kind of person you had been. That brought you sight. Understanding. Clarity.

Oh, hell, she thought, and actually laughed at the grim humor of it all.
That would be nice, wouldn’t it.

She would have to ask Eugene. She would have to ask him what he had thought, what he’d felt, in that split second.

The drive to Syracuse was uneventful, silent, and companionable. Dani found the oldies station and they listened to a bunch of songs that were hits before they were born. The white orb of the Dome, the covered football field at the university, appeared on the horizon as a low-slung cloud of metal ribbing and fabric. Eugene’s hospital was near the Dome, near the university, on the hill with all the others.

Dani took her ticket from the automated parking attendant at the same garage Oneida remembered walking toward with Arthur, on that night that already felt like a lifetime ago. The arm lifted and Dani drove beneath it, and she parked, crookedly, in the first empty spot she saw. Their footsteps echoed in the empty parking structure. Oneida, still freezing in her scrubs, felt she’d slipped sideways into an absurdly realistic dream. The air flowed around them like liquid, silent and heavy; it was too quiet to be a living city. It was barely midnight and they were close to the university—and wasn’t Halloween just last weekend?
Weren’t people supposed to be running around, making noise, being loud and stupid and a distraction from this horrible solid silence? They crossed above the street on a lighted glass walkway—like hamsters, Oneida thought, like rodents sneaking in. Fluorescent tubes hovering over the elevator lobby droned a fuzzy monotone, and here the silence had a faint chemical edge, an odor that reminded Oneida of adhesive tape, of plastic. They waited for the elevator that would take them up to the fourth floor. Dani had called the hospital earlier and found out Eugene was in room 420, which made her roll her eyes; Oneida felt like it was a joke she was supposed to get but didn’t. The hair on her arms stood straight, charged.

The elevator arrived with a dead-sounding
donk
. The doors parted.

“Excuse me, visiting hours are past.”

Oneida didn’t think the voice was talking to them, didn’t understand what was happening even when Dani pinched her forearm, hard, and she hopped jerkily into the elevator. She propped the already-closing doors with her hand. Dani glared at her.
Go now
, the glare said.
Go now, dumb ass
.

A man in a dark security uniform was walking toward them. The voice, which belonged to a woman behind a front desk Oneida hadn’t even seen when she walked past it—it was beige, like the voice; they both blended into the liquid air—repeated itself. Asked for an explanation. Was now clearly addressing Dani alone.

The security guard was young. He had bright blue eyes, the kind of eyes babies have that are supposed to get darker.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” he said to Dani quietly. “This is a hospital, not a Halloween party.”

Dani snorted, shouted, “Nice
manners
, babe!” Then she gave Oneida a steady gaze
(go go go)
, and Oneida understood: Dani was too capable a planner of impossible missions to ever think she would get past security wearing the nurse’s costume. The entire plan, as originally conceived, had been Dani’s mission alone: she had intended to wear the scrubs, to breeze behind the cotton curtains and visit the boy she thought she loved, after hours (the better to prove that love, Oneida thought). And then today everything had changed, and Dani—who had given Oneida a choice of costume, a choice Oneida now saw as a sort of final
test—sacrificed herself. Gave up her spot, gave up her plan, for a friend (the better to prove her love indeed). Wearing the nurse costume had been Dani’s way of tricking Oneida, of goading her confidence, convincing her to go because she wouldn’t be going alone. And whether she’d done it for Eugene or for Oneida, it didn’t matter. She’d done it. She’d done it for them both.

“Th—” was all Oneida had time to say before the elevator doors closed between them.

She was near tears when the doors opened again on the fourth floor. She felt terrible: terribly alone, terribly grateful, terribly undeserving of such orchestrated kindness, and terribly guilty for having put Eugene Wendell in the hospital in the first place.

Why
did
she feel so damn guilty, she thought as she stepped into the dim white glow of the corridor. She didn’t drop the rock. She didn’t start the fight. The open doorways of patient rooms gaped like missing teeth, unseen occupants muttering and flopping and snoring and smelling faintly of menthol and bleach. What floor was this? Not intensive care, she thought; there was no sense of urgency here, only rest and watchfulness. Oneida passed by a nurse’s station. The nurse, who acknowledged her with a nod and went back to reading her book, was wearing white scrubs with rainbow-colored balloons printed on them.