Tumble & Fall (9 page)

She takes a few thirsty breaths of summer air. With every heavy step, she feels sturdier, less off-balance. Past the post office, she cuts into one of the Land Bank trails, the one that winds through a dense patch of forest and opens at the entrance to the Arboretum.

The Arboretum was one of Leo’s favorite spots. He knew everything about every tree. He’d memorized all of the engraved bronze plaques, the long Latin names for scraggly shrubs that Zan would never have looked at twice. Leo’s memory was nearly photographic, a fact that Zan admired but also secretly found a little annoying, especially since he was constantly on academic probation at school. It was as if he stuffed himself so full of fictional characters and random statistics and the names of small villages in countries most people couldn’t point to on a map that he didn’t have room for things like the periodic table or vocab lists. She was mostly jealous, she knew, but sometimes she wished he’d just get it together long enough to pass the tenth grade.

She was jealous because he didn’t need her for anything. He was always the one taking her places she’d never been, dropping names of people she pretended to know. She never questioned that he loved her—he told her constantly, in quirky and meaningful ways. But sometimes she found herself wondering why.

And ever since she’d found the receipt, that half-forgotten wistful wonder had turned to nagging curiosity, and maybe even doubt.

She ducks through the tangled vines of wisteria that cling to the wooden Arboretum welcome arch, pounding into the mossy earth with a new, raw energy. She refuses to let herself think this way. For ten months, Leo has been gone, and for ten months the certainty of their love for each other has been all that’s kept her going. Now, now that nothing is certain, anywhere, for anyone, now she is going to start asking questions?

Of course he loved her. Wasn’t he always underlining passages in books that made him think of the two of them together? Didn’t he surprise her dozens of times after school, with a single wildflower under her windshield wiper, or steal her away on a Sunday afternoon for a just-because picnic at their spot on the cliffs? He loved her. There was a lot she didn’t know, a lot she needed him to explain, but this much she knew for certain.

So why was she being so insane? Why was she torturing herself over something that clearly, like everything else she’d ever wondered about Leo, had an explanation, an explanation that would probably just make her love him even more?

Ahead, Zan spots their tree, hidden by the more popular magnolias and purple-blossomed rhododendrons.
Enkianthus
, “the Showy Lantern.” She can hear the jump in Leo’s voice as he talks about the different phases: the bell-shaped flowers that fall near the end of spring, replaced first by miniature brown berries and later by ragged leaves, like golden paper flames.

She settles into a dip in the trunk, just enough room for two people if they sit close together. She waits a moment for her breath to even out, her pulse to fade from her ears. She unplugs the headphones and pulls the Grumpy’s receipt from the pocket of her hooded sweatshirt.

She exhales and feels a new calm in her blood, her bones. Leo is still Leo. They will always be the way they were, tucked against this tree, everywhere attached and breathing the same, newborn air.

She navigates the boxy screen of her phone, dialing the number with careful taps. The phone crackles and rings. She’d forgotten that cell service on this part of the island can be spotty, but each ring sounds more confident than the last. Zan drums her fingers against the curve of her kneecap.

After the sixth ring, there’s a mechanical click, a stuffy pause. A man’s voice answers, rehearsed, as if reading from a script:

“Thank you for calling Lulu’s Lounge. We are located on the corner of Tremont and Dartmouth in Boston’s South End. For reservations, please press one. For hours of operation, please press—”

Zan cancels the call and stares at the phone in her hand. Lulu’s? The South End? There’s a flutter in her throat. She isn’t sure if it’s a laugh or a cry. It’s a bar. In Boston. What could a bar in Boston have anything to do with Leo on the day that he died?

Whatever it is, whatever it means, it’s not Vanessa. There is no Vanessa, today. Today, there’s only Zan. And Leo. Still together, still sitting in a tree.

*   *   *

“Zan!”

A dusty blue truck slows beside her. The front wheel tucks into the bike path, leaving her no choice but to jog in place. She tears the headphones from her ears and props a hand on her hip as she catches her breath.

“Hey, Nick,” she pants. Ordinarily, she might feel embarrassed to stop and chat, with the collar of her sweatshirt damp and sticking to the bottom of her throat, her hair caught in frizzy loops like spiral antennae attached to her head. But for some reason, it’s different with Nick. Maybe it’s because she knows he looks at everyone the same way, his eyes so direct and unwavering. It’s easy to wonder how much of anyone he actually sees.

“Hey.” He shoves the gearshift into park and leans across the passenger seat. The door swings open. “I was just on my way to your house.”

“You were?” Zan squints. The sun is higher now, and breaking through the early fog. She checks the time on her phone. Just after nine. “Why?”

Nick pats the cracked vinyl of the bench seat beside him. “Hop in,” he offers.

Zan wipes a layer of sweat from her forehead. “Oh,” she manages, gazing at the bike path stretching out beyond the nose of the beat-up truck. “Um. That’s okay. I’m not far and I took a long break. I should keep going.”

Nick grips the steering wheel with both hands and stares ahead through the glass. She’s never noticed how steep the slope of his nose is from the side, how perfectly arched like a ski jump.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” he says. He keeps his eyes trained ahead and the fact that he isn’t looking at her, that he
won’t
look at her, makes her stomach twist. Everything in her wants to run, and keep running. She wishes she’d never said anything about the receipt. Not to Nick. Not to anyone. “I have an idea. At least hear me out?”

Zan clenches her teeth and forces a deep breath. “All right,” she agrees reluctantly, hoisting herself into the cab. She lugs the door shut and Nick turns the heavy wheel, pulling the truck back onto the empty road.

“What’s going on?” she asks, trying to steady the tremble in her throat. She looks down at her feet. The truck is surprisingly tidy. Leo’s truck was constantly littered with trash. In order to sit down she’d have to wipe aside sticky candy wrappers, half-empty bottles of soda, surf keys, mysterious tool parts, and handfuls of loose change, all caked in crusty layers of sand.

In Nick’s truck, a full bottle of Gatorade sits patiently in the center console, and something that looks like a catalogue for specialty boat parts flaps around on top of the dash. Otherwise, it’s spotless.

Nick rests one freckled arm on the open window, his fingers drumming against the outside of the door. “Nothing, really. I was just … I was thinking about what you said. About … Leo. And what happened that night.”

Zan feels her hands starting to shake and squeezes them under the sides of her spandex shorts. “You were?” she asks, turning to stare out the window. They pass Dana Duffy’s flower shop, boarded up with a “Closed” sign hung out front. Dana had been one of the first to leave the island, wanting to get as far away from the water as possible. Zan had overheard her in line at the library. Back then, everyone thought she was being hysterical. Now Zan wonders if maybe Dana had the right idea.

“Yeah.” Nick nods, reaching for the bottle of Gatorade and twisting the cap with one hand. “And I just wanted to say, you know. I can help. I mean, I know you’re not going to leave this alone. And I guess I feel kind of, I don’t know, responsible…”

“You’re not,” Zan interrupts. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It has nothing to do with you, Nick.” Her words are sharper than she means for them to be. She tries to smile, but knows she’s not doing a very good job.

“Well, but it does, kind of,” Nick insists. He takes a sip, glancing at her sideways. Zan shifts uncomfortably. “If I hadn’t lied for him, or if I had at least told you sooner that I did, you wouldn’t be…”

“I can handle it.” Zan tugs the sleeves of her sweatshirt down over her thumbs. Her mouth is dry and sticky. “Really, I can. But thanks.”

Nick slows at the corner, behind a catering van. A big piece of cardboard has been taped to the back window, with the words “Jesus Loves You” scrawled across it in red block letters. There’s something about the chaotic slant of the handwriting, or maybe the dramatic hue, that leaves Zan not entirely convinced.

“Well.” Nick clears his throat. “I think we should call that number, at least. I’m sure it’s nothing, but won’t it feel better to—”

“I called it,” Zan blurts. She feels her heart pounding in her ears and sits forward in the front seat, as if they might reach her house faster that way.

“You did?”

Zan swallows. “It’s nothing.” She shrugs. “Just some bar in Boston. And you’re right. I do feel better.”

She puts on her best, most reassuring smile, and hopes it doesn’t look half as forced or foreign as it feels. Nick tries to hold her gaze but this time she looks away.

“Really?” Nick asks. “A bar?”

“Lulu’s,” Zan says, with another, bigger shrug. “In the South End.”

“We should go!”

Zan sinks deeper into the seat, the muscles in her legs suddenly limp and exhausted. She can’t tell if it’s from the run or from trying so hard to look normal. “Yeah, right.” She smirks. “I’m sure that’s exactly what you want to be doing with your last week on earth.”

“Don’t say that,” Nick says. He digs into the brakes as they reach her road, taking the corner slow and wide. There’s something new and severe in the blue of his stare.

Zan looks at him. His mouth is set and serious. “You’re not kidding.”

“No,” Nick says. “Somebody at the bar has to know this Vanessa person. Maybe she worked there.”

Zan stares at the skin around her nails, dry and cracked. No matter how many times she tells herself it’s nothing, hearing the name
Vanessa
still nags at her heart.

“We have to find out,” Nick continues. They bump up the dirt road to her driveway and the truck lurches as he rolls to a stop. There’s power in his voice. He sounds almost mad. “I mean, Leo lied to me, too. In a way. He could have easily told me what he was doing that night. But he didn’t. He made me promise to cover for him, and I did it, no questions. That’s the way it always was with us. He was my best friend. I told him everything. But I always got the feeling he didn’t want it to go the other way. Like he was keeping some part of himself separate from everything else.”

Zan stares at her front porch, her eyes soft and out of focus. She’d never thought about Nick. She knew he felt bad for not telling her the truth about what happened that night. But she’d never thought about what all this might mean for him. That he might be trying to find something, too.

“How would we get there?” she asks. The boats would stop running, if they hadn’t already. The better question was how would they get back.

Nick fans out his hands across the steering wheel, stretching the tight skin over his palms until it looks like it hurts. “My dad finally called it quits,” he says. “Says there’s no use going out fishing when nobody is buying anything he hauls in. I think my mom made him feel guilty for spending so much time away from home.”

Zan pulls at her hair, twirling a few dark ringlets down around her chin. She can hear the loss in his voice, the empty hopelessness. She thinks of her mom, the way staying busy keeps her from feeling left behind. Maybe Nick needs to be needed, too.

“We could take our boat,” Nick explains. “And we still have the car parked off-island. It barely runs but it should get us to the city and back.”

Zan stares at the dashboard, the print on the trade magazine blurring as her mind wanders. For some reason, she thinks of the last time she saw Leo. They were on the path to the beach. He had just gotten out of the water and was wrapped in a threadbare towel printed with pictures of red and gold parrots. He shook water out of his ear and nuzzled his salty hair against her cheeks. He said he’d pick her up for the movie at six-thirty. He’d pack the snacks; the popcorn they sold at the theater was always stale and cold.

When he walked away he tripped over an exposed root and jogged it off a few steps, like he did it on purpose. He turned back and gave her a goofy wave. There was a ribbon of muddy sand wrapped around the back of his ankle.

She always thought he was waving goodbye. But maybe she was wrong. Maybe he was asking her to follow him.

She remembers what Amelia said on the cliffs.
“Do you ever feel like he’s telling you things?”

Maybe the receipt was a message. Maybe he’d wanted her to find it all along.

“I was thinking about what you said.” Nick leans over the console, so close she can smell the salt on his skin, sweet citrus on his breath. “And you’re right. We’re the ones left. And we deserve to know the truth.”

There’s a ball of tightness in Zan’s stomach, like a fist. She wishes, not for the first time, that she could go back. Back to before Amelia gave her the book, before she found the receipt, before she started asking questions. Back when Leo’s memory was simple and true.

But she can’t. She’s opened something, a door that leads to another door, a trail that twists her farther away from what, and who, she thought she knew. Or maybe the trail is a loop, and she’ll end up believing for certain what she’s known all along.

He loved her. He did.

“So,” Nick says, one hand frozen on his key, turned in the ignition. “What do you say? Are you in?”

CADEN

So far, being kidnapped has its perks.

After a convincing sit-down with George, his father’s thick-necked bodyguard, Caden resigned himself to an afternoon of soaking in the outdoor hot tub, drinking smoothies made-to-order, and watching pay-per-view movies on the forty-inch flat-screen tucked into an antique armoire in his room. If he was going to spend his last days on earth as a prisoner, he might as well try to enjoy it.