What We Knew (15 page)

Lisa sat up, surprised. “Who?”

“Foley!”

Lisa shrugged. “He was in the neighborhood.”

“It’s my neighborhood, too. He didn’t come to my house. Why are you in your pajamas?”

“I’m kind of sick.” She pulled the sheet up over her legs. “My period’s been all messed up. I had to have this thing done, a D and C.” Her upper lip curled. “It didn’t hurt, but it was weird.”

I scooped up Lisa’s eyeballs from the nightstand and shook them like dice.

“Seriously,” I said. “Why was Foley here? Did you guys talk about me?”

Lisa turned away. “Not everything’s about you.”

“C’mon. Yes, it is. What did he say?”

“He loves you, stupid.”

I let that sink in and then sank my head in her pillow.

“He has a retarded way of showing it,” I mumbled.

A knock, and then Larry poked his head in the door. He was thinking barbeque chicken for dinner. Was that okay? Lisa nodded. Had Lisa taken her antibiotic? She nodded again.

“I don’t have the energy to deal with your little drama right now,” she said, rolling out of bed. “You’re making this way more complicated than it has to be. Adam’s gone. Foley loves you. You love Foley. Simple.”

“It’s not simple,” I said. “Everybody loves him. Everybody needs him. You know Foley. If somebody sends out an SOS, he drops everything. It’d be like dating a superhero. I’d always be fighting for his attention.”

“Poor you,” she said, faking a frown. “It’s tough being Tracy, isn’t it?”

I slammed the eyeballs on the nightstand. “What is wrong with you?” I asked. “Why are you being such a bitch?”

Lisa threw a pillow at me.

“Fine.” I shrugged. “Call me when you feel better.”

The whole way home I wondered what I’d said to piss her off. Lately, Lisa was getting harder and harder to read. We’d been through rough patches before, but this felt different, deeper.

“I thought you were going out with Lisa?” my mom said.

“She’s sick,” I said.

“Then I guess I’ve got to feed you,” she said, pulling leftovers from the fridge.

I sat at the counter and poked at a bag of hamburger buns until my mother took them away.

“What’s a D and C?” I asked.

The wrinkled brow of suspicion was her response.

“That’s what Lisa had to have,” I explained.

My mother looked stunned and then tried hiding it by messing with the keypad on the microwave. Fear blossomed in the silence. Flashback to health class—alphabet soup diseases and cysts and cancer. “What?” I asked. “Is it bad?”

My mother’s face pinked. I had the strange sensation that she was about to spring something awkward on me. The microwave dinged. She pulled out one plate and stuck in another. “Is Lisa sexually active?” she asked.

“Mom!”

I couldn’t say yes. I know how my mother’s mind works:
If Lisa’s having sex, then Tracy must be, too.
I wasn’t about to open that door.

My mother started cutting the food on my plate like I was a toddler again. “Are you sure? It’s just … that’s a procedure,” she stammered. “That’s a clinical term for … sometimes … for abortion.”

My brain wheeled erratically, like a kite in the wind. It explained everything: Lisa’s moodiness, her absence, her total lack of interest in my problems. “She’s not having sex,” I said defensively. “So you’re wrong.”

My mother shrugged, the worry lines on her forehead softening. For some reason I wanted her to force the truth from me, grill me until I weakened and confessed everything. But the issue was dropped. She set the table, but I wasn’t hungry. I went for a walk instead. Not far, just the park with the hippo and the duck where Adam and I fed muffins to pigeons after we spent the night in his dad’s car. Wrapping myself around the cold, hard ostrich, I rocked back and forth, the creaky spring drowning out the sounds of me missing Adam. There should be an expiration date on grieving—like milk, so you have some clue how long it’s going to last—because I didn’t think I’d ever stop feeling sad and sorry and miserable.

I kicked off my flip-flops and dug my toes in the dirt. I was about to call Foley when a toddler waddled over, offering me a fish cracker. The mother was sitting on a bench with a baggie in her lap. She smiled at her son like he was the most precious thing on the planet, and then she smiled at me like I was supposed to think he was precious, too.

I babysat once and I hated it. I called Lisa every five minutes for help. Why didn’t she tell me she was pregnant? I would’ve made the same choice had the second pink line bloomed on the test stick hidden in my trunk.

I rested my head on the steel beak, hoping the kid would disappear. When I opened my eyes, I was alone. It was that time of evening when everything turns shadowy. Something had set the swings rocking—invisible legs pumping, kicking the bruised sky. My ear caught the warped music of an ice cream truck in the distance. I slid off the ostrich and frisked my pockets for change and then froze as something small and hard and shiny rolled from the shadows and stopped at my feet. A glass eye. My hands tingled.

He’s here.

Another eye followed, clacking against the first.

“Who’s there?” I hollered, trying to sound tough.

Giggling erupted behind the slide. A shadow stole across the playground.

“Lisa?” I called.

A second shadow exploded into view. Mangled hair. Light reflecting off lenses.

“Trent?”

More laughter and then Lisa was rushing headlong, arms raised, fingers clawing the thick air. Crashing into me, she tickled my sides and pecked at me with her nose. I tried wrestling out of her hold, but my limbs were still quaky. I grabbed her wrists and squeezed.

“We need to talk,” I said.

“Not now,” Lisa said. “I’m on a mission.” She plucked an eye from the dirt and wiped it on her shirt. “Come out, stupid!” she called behind her. “She knows it’s us!”

Trent sprang from the jungle gym, his long legs making longer shadows.

“We’re going back,” he said. “One last time.”

“I’m returning these.” Lisa scooped up the second eye and tossed both to Trent. “I don’t want them anymore. They’re useless.”

“Can’t we do it during the day?” I pleaded.

“I’ve got work tomorrow,” Trent said, vaulting the fence. Lisa used the gate. I checked my phone. The battery was dead.

“C’mon,” Lisa called, and I followed, the two of us skipping along to the ice cream truck music until it was replaced by sirens. We were nearing the hospital. The huge lighted EMERGENCY sign seemed brighter than usual, eerie almost. Suddenly, the pop-pop-pop of firecrackers sent me ducking for cover. Lisa and Trent laughed, but it wasn’t funny. My nerves were shot. I shuddered through the brush and vines and clinging branches thinking I’d never make it down those rickety stairs, not with my legs like rubber. Lisa took my hand. “One step at a time,” she said gently.

At the bottom, just beyond the boulder, a bulging black trash bag twisted from a limb. The guy’s food, probably. Scott used to do that, too, when he camped in the backyard. Hang his snacks to keep the skunks out of it. Trent grabbed a stick and swung. The thing burst like a pi
ñ
ata. A black buzzing cloud ascended as hundreds of white twigs and white rocks scattered at our feet. Rice followed, raining down like confetti, squirming over the twigs and rocks. No, not twigs. No, not rocks. Tiny bones and tiny skulls squirming with maggots.

Lisa screamed.

My head hit something hard.

The ostrich.

I looked up at the stars and looked down at my feet, trying to loosen the kink in my neck. My cheek was numb. I shakily crawled off the ostrich and scanned the empty park, labeling everything—slide, jungle gym, swings, bench, trees—until my eyes stopped on something familiar but nameless. Long and dark and thick, cocoon-like except for the way the light shining through suggested arms and legs. It was a shape I’d seen before, in pictures. The shadowy figure Lisa kept posting. A low metallic throbbing sounded from the edge of the park. Danger of a different kind. The blue neon of under car lights swept the street. The cocoon receded, shrinking into murky darkness. Before summer started, I would’ve shrunk, too. Alone after dark, in a park surrounded by decrepit houses and shady bars and homegrown churches. It’s funny the way fear can shift, how the thing I used to dread most—gangbangers cruising the streets, flashing cryptic signs from smoky windows—made me feel strangely safe.

nineteen

Teetering on my toes in Lisa’s driveway, strumming the window screen with my fingers, I called in a singsongy whisper, “Rapunzel, darling, let down your hair.” Slowly, the blinds levered open. Lisa squinted against the sun. She was wearing eye makeup—a good sign.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Wooing you,” I said. “I was kind of a jerk yesterday. I brought you a present.”

I held out the lone cherry tomato I’d picked from our garden.

Lisa snorted. “Dork.”

“I grew it,” I said. “Sort of. I didn’t let it die.”

Lifting the screen, she snatched it from my palm and popped it in her mouth.

“Was I supposed to share?” she mumbled through her fingers.

“No. That’s okay.” I smiled. “Is it good?”

She nodded. “Are you going to hang outside my window or come in like a normal person?”

“I’ll use the window,” I said. “Give me something to stand on. You got a crate or something?”

Lisa reached for my hands. “Put your feet on the siding and climb.”

“Don’t let go,” I pleaded, the thought of my head cracking open on the driveway making me shiver. With Lisa pulling, I scrambled up until my shoulders were through the window. My belly followed. I wanted to rest, but the metal tracks were digging into my skin.

The last thing I needed was an audience, but Katie drifted in with a bag of chips as Lisa was dragging me by the belt loops up onto the sill. I don’t know how gymnasts do it. My body seesawed, pitching toward the floor, but my hands flew forward before my face met the carpet.

“You are the weakest person ever.” Lisa grunted, drawing my legs through the window.

“I know, right?”

Lisa pulled down the screen. I pulled down my shirt. Katie flopped on the bed.

“My window’s easier,” Katie said matter-of-factly. “You can stand on the hose thingy.”

Lisa shot her sister a threatening look. “I better never catch you sneaking in or out.”

Hand on her chest, eyes wide, Katie pantomimed innocence.

“I’m serious,” Lisa said. “Don’t make me kick your butt.”

The doorbell rang and Lisa ran to answer it before it woke their mother. I sat next to Katie and examined my shins, scraped all to hell.

“It’s my emergency exit,” Katie said, crunching a chip. “I’ve never had to use it. Not yet. I’ve done drills, so I know I can do it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, going through the lotions on Lisa’s nightstand.

Katie licked her greasy fingers and wiped them on Lisa’s comforter.

“You know,” she said. “Like if I ever wake up and he’s actually
in
my room. I’ve got an escape.”

I fumbled the brightly colored bottles and tubes and then set them straight.

“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” Katie asked.

I absently opened Lisa’s nightstand. There was my dad’s jackknife—the one I’d lost in the woods. Did I think Katie was crazy? No. Because the paranoid part of me was wondering if that’s how he’d gotten in that night. The night he left me those eyes, the ones hidden in the bottom of my trunk.

“You should keep your windows locked,” I said, closing the drawer.

Katie shook her head. “That won’t help.”

Before I could ask why, Lisa stormed in with finger pistols firing. Smiling slyly, she shot her sister in the heart. “Ry-an’s here!”

Katie bounced off the bed, scattering chips everywhere. She frowned at the mess, but Lisa just rolled her eyes and told her to go. A squealing Katie twirled out of the room.

“Young love,” Lisa said dreamily. “It’s official now—sealed with a kiss just last night.”

“Aww,” I cooed, grateful to talk about something normal. “I remember my first kiss.”

Lisa shuddered. “Wasn’t it that spaz, Joel Shoemaker?” she asked, picking chips from the carpet and putting them back in the bag. Knowing Lisa, they’d find their way into Larry’s lunch.

“Joel wasn’t bad,” I said, defensively. “For a nerd. Is Ryan cute?”

Lisa hooked her finger for me to follow. Creeping down the hall, she pressed her finger to her lips. Joel Shoemaker was my first boyfriend, but not my first kiss. That distinction belonged to Foley. He had tasted like hot cocoa. From the shadows, we watched Katie and Ryan standing close. Not touching, just talking. Katie was describing some viral video when she stopped and said: “I know you guys are there. I can hear you breathing.”

Lisa elbowed me like it was my fault.

“We just came to see … yeah, um,” Lisa stammered, searching for an excuse. She threw out her hands. “You, Ryan. Okay? We came to see you.”

I showed myself and waved. Ryan smiled shyly. He didn’t look homeless. His clothes were clean and his hair was combed. He even smelled of soap.

“It’s Dollar Day at the Dog House,” Katie announced. “Can we go?”

“Go,” Lisa said. “But don’t go crazy. Mom’s making that cheesy chicken thing for dinner.”

While Katie ran to find shoes, Lisa told Ryan that there was enough if he wanted to stay for dinner. His face lit up in a way that made me sad and angry all at once. Sad that he lived in a van with his dad and sisters. Angry that all over the city perfectly good houses were sitting empty. I wondered when the last time he ate in a kitchen was.

After Ryan and Katie left, I kicked back in Larry’s recliner. Lisa sprawled on the couch and fanned herself with her hand. “You seem like you’re feeling better,” I said.

“Yeah. A lot.” Lisa chewed her thumbnail. “It’s crazy, I slept like thirteen hours last night. I don’t think I’ve slept all summer. Not like that.”

I wasn’t surprised. Dr. Dan said stress can disrupt sleep, and Lisa had been under a lot of stress. How many nights had she struggled with her choice before reaching a decision?

“If you ever need to talk,” I said, “and I’m being a total jerk, you have permission to slap me.”