White Cat (17 page)

“I have to get going,” I say, standing. I’m uncomfortable; I feel like my skin is too tight. I have to get out of this conversation.

“I want you to know that when you’re ready, I can help you,” she says. “You could save a lot of boys from towers.”

“I’m not who you think I am,” I say. “I’m not a worker.”

“You don’t have to be,” Mrs. Wasserman says. “You know
things, Cassel. Things that could help people like Chris.”

“I’ll walk you out,” says Daneca.

I head toward the door quickly. I have to get away. I feel like I can’t breathe. “That’s okay. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I mumble.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE RICH ODOR OF garlicky lamb hits me when I open the door to Philip and Maura’s apartment. Despite giving me all that crap about getting right over, Grandad is asleep in a recliner with a glass of red wine resting on his stomach, cradled in the loose grip of his left hand and tipping slightly toward his chest. On the television in front of him some fundie preacher is talking about workers coming forward and volunteering to get tested, so people can touch hands in friendship, ungloved. He says that all people are sinners and power is too tempting. Workers will give in eventually if they’re not kept in check.

I’m not sure he’s wrong, except about all that hand touch
ing with strangers, which sounds gross.

I hear the clink of plates as Philip walks out of the kitchen. I flinch at the sight of him. It’s like having some kind of surreal double vision. Philip my brother. Philip who’s probably stealing Barron’s and my memories.

“You’re late,” he says.

“What’s the occasion?” I ask. “Maura’s going all out.”

Barron comes out behind Philip, holding two more glasses of wine. He looks thinner than the last time I saw him. His eyes are bloodshot and his lawyer-short hair looks grown out, shaggy, curling. “She’s freaking. Keeps saying she’s never thrown a dinner party before. You better get back in there, Philip.”

I want to feel sorry for him, thinking of all those crazy notes to himself, but all I can see is the small steel cage on a floor made sticky with layers of piss. All I can imagine is him turning up his music to drown out Lila’s crying.

Philip throws up his hands. “Maura always makes a big deal out of nothing.” He heads back toward the kitchen.

“So why are we doing this?” I ask Barron.

He smiles. “Mom’s appeal is almost over. We’re just waiting for a verdict. It’s happening.”

“Mom’s getting out?” I take the glass from his hand and drink the wine in a gulp. It’s wrong that the first feeling I have is panic. Mom getting out of jail means her back in our lives, meddling. It means chaos.

Then I remember I’m not going to be here. On the drive over I gave up on the idea of getting a car. Tomorrow I’m going to use one of the school computers to book a train
headed south.

Barron looks over at Grandad and then back at me. “Depends on the verdict, but I’m pretty optimistic. I asked a couple of my professors, and they thought there was no way she wouldn’t win. They said she had one of the best cases they’d ever seen. I’ve been doing work on the case as an independent study, so my professors have been involved too.”

“Great,” I say, half-listening. I’m wondering if I can afford a sleeper car.

Grandad opens his eyes, and I realize he wasn’t passed out after all. “Stop with all that crap, Barron. Cassel’s too smart to believe you. Anyway, your mother’s getting out and—God willing—should be happy to come home to someplace clean. Kid’s been doing nice work.”

Maura ducks her head out from the other room. “Oh, you’re here,” she says. She’s got on a pink tracksuit. I can see her collarbones jutting out just above the zipper on her hoodie. “Good. Sit down. I think we’re ready to eat.”

Barron heads into the kitchen, and when I start to follow, Grandad grabs my arm. “What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I know something’s going on with you boys, and I want to know what it is.” I can smell the wine on his breath, but he looks perfectly lucid.

I want to tell him, but I can’t. He’s a loyal guy, and it’s hard for me to picture him having a hand in the kidnapping of his boss’s daughter, but my lack of imagination isn’t a good enough reason for trust.

“Nothing,” I say, roll my eyes, and go sit down for dinner.

Maura spread a white tablecloth over the kitchen table and added a couple of folding chairs. On it are the silver candlesticks that a guy that goes by Uncle Monopoly gave Philip at his wedding, ones I’m pretty sure were stolen. The lit tapers make everything look better, mostly by throwing the rest of the kitchen into shadows. A lamb roast with slivers of garlic sticking out from the meat like bits of bone rests on a platter beside a bowl of roasted carrots and parsnips. Grandad drinks most of the wine out of a glass that Barron keeps refilling, but there’s enough for me to feel pleasantly tipsy. Even the baby seems happy to bang a silver rattle against his tray and smear his face with mashed potatoes.

I recognize the plates we’re eating off too. I helped Mom steal those.

Looking at the mirror in the hall, it’s like I’m watching us all in a fun house glass, a parody of a family gathering. Look at us celebrating our criminal enterprises. Look at us laugh. Look at us lie.

Maura is just bringing out coffee when the phone rings. Philip gets up and comes back a few minutes later, holding it out to me.

“Mom,” he says.

I take it from him and walk back into the living room. “Congratulations,” I say into the receiver.

“You’ve been avoiding my calls.” Mom sounds amused rather than annoyed. “Your grandfather said you were feeling better. He says that boys who feel better don’t call their mothers. That true?”

“I’m tip top,” I tell her. “The peak of health.”

“Mmm-hmm. And you’ve been sleeping well?”

“In my own bed, even,” I say cheerfully.

“Funny,” she says. I can hear the long exhalation that tells me she’s smoking. “That’s good, I suppose, that you can still be funny.”

“Sorry,” I say again. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“Your grandfather said that, too. He said you were thinking a lot about a certain someone. Thinking leads to talking, Cassel. Other people were there for you back then. Be there for them and forget about her.”

“What if I can’t?” I ask. I don’t know what she knows or whose side she’s on, but some childish part of me wants to believe she’d help me if she could.

There is a moment’s hesitation. “She’s gone, baby. You’ve got to stop letting her have power over—”

“Mom,” I say, interrupting her. I’m walking farther from the kitchen, until I stand near the picture window in the living room, close to the front door. “What kind of worker is Anton?”

Her voice drops low. “Anton is Zacharov’s nephew, his heir. You stay away from him and let your brothers look out for you.”

“Is he a memory worker? Just tell me that. Say yes or no.”

“Put Philip back on the phone.”

“Mom,” I say again, “please. Tell me. I might not be a worker, but I’m still your son. Please.”

“Put your brother back on the phone, Cassel.
Right now.
”

For a moment I consider hanging up. Then I consider chucking the phone against the floor until it breaks. Neither
option will give me anything but satisfaction.

I walk through the house and put the phone down next to Philip’s plate of pie.

“In my day,” Grandad says. He’s in the middle of one of his speeches. “In my day workers were still respected. We kept the peace in neighborhoods. It was illegal, sure, but the cops looked the other way if they knew what was good for them.”

He’s clearly drunk.

Barron and Grandad go into the living room to watch television, while Philip talks to Mom on the extension in the loft. Maura stands at the sink, scraping food into the whirring garbage disposal. She scrubs a pot, and her lips draw back from her gums like a dog before it bites.

I want to tell her about the missing memories, but I don’t know how to do it without pissing her off.

“Dinner was good,” I say finally.

She spins around, relaxing her features into some pleasant and vague expression. “I burned the carrots.”

I put my hands in my pockets, fidgeting. “Tasty.”

She frowns. “Do you need something, Cassel?”

“I wanted to thank you. For helping me out the other day.”

“And lying to your school?” she asks with a sly smile, drying the pot. “They haven’t called yet.”

“They will.” I pick up another dish towel and start mopping the water off a knife. “Don’t you have a dishwasher?”

“It dulls the blade,” she says, taking it from me and sliding it into a drawer. “And the pot had too much gunk stuck on the bottom. Some things you still have to do by hand.”

I set the rag down on the counter with sudden decision. “I have something for you.” I walk out to where my jacket is hanging and reach into the inside pocket.

“Hey, come sit down,” Barron calls.

“In a second,” I say, walking quickly back to the kitchen.

“Look,” I say to Maura, holding out my hand to show her the onyx charm. “I know what you said about a worker’s wife and being—”

“Very thoughtful of you,” she says. The stone shines under the recessed lights like a spilled droplet of tar. “Just like your brother. You don’t understand favors, just exchanges.”

“Get a needle and sew it into your bra,” I tell her. “Promise?”

“Charming.” She tilts her head. “You look like him, you know. My husband.”

“I guess,” I say. “We’re brothers.”

“You’re handsome with all that messy black hair. And your crooked smile.” They’re compliments, but she doesn’t sound complimentary. “Do you practice smiling like that?”

Sometimes in intense situations I can’t help grinning a little. “My smile’s naturally crooked.”

“You’re not as charming as you think you are,” she says, walking up to me, so close that her breath is warm and sour on my face. I take a step back, and my legs bang against the edge of her counter. “You’re not as charming as him.”

“Okay,” I say. “Just promise me that you’ll wear it.”

“Why?” she asks. “What kind of amulet is so important?”

I glance at the doorway. I can hear the television in the other room, some game show Grandad likes.

“A memory charm,” I say softly. “It’s better than it looks. Say that you’ll wear it.”

“Okay.”

I try a smile, as non-crooked as I can make it. “We nonworkers have got to stick together.”

“What do you mean?” She narrows her eyes. “Do you think I’m stupid? You’re one of them. I remember
that
.”

I shake my head, but don’t know what to say. Maybe it’s better if I wait for the charm to show her the truth before I try to argue with her over things that don’t matter anyway.

“Grandad’s passed out,” Barron says when I walk into the living room. “Looks like you’re going to have to stay over. I don’t think I’m going anywhere either.” He yawns.

“I can drive him,” I say. I feel suffocated by all the things I can’t say, about all the things I suspect my brothers of doing. I want to get home and start packing.

“What did you tell Mom?” he asks. He’s drinking black coffee from one of Maura’s good cups, the kind with a saucer. “It’s taking him a while to calm her down.”

“Just that she knows something she’s not telling me,” I say.

“Come on, if we had a dollar for everything Mom never told us, we’d have a million bucks.”

“I’d have a lot more money than you would.” I sit down on the couch. I can’t just leave without at least trying to warn him. “Can I ask you something?”

Barron turns toward me. “Sure. Shoot.”

“Do you remember when we were kids and we went to the
beach down by Carney? There were toads in the scrub brush. You caught a really tiny one that jumped out of your hands. I squeezed mine until it puked up its guts. I thought it was dead, but then when we left it alone for a moment, it disappeared. Like it sucked in its guts and hopped away. Do you remember that?”

“Yeah,” Barron says, with a shrug of his shoulders. “Why?”

“How about when you and Philip got all those
Playboy
magazines out of the Dumpster and you cut out all the breasts and covered a lamp shade with them. And then it caught on fire and you gave me five dollars to lie to Mom and Dad about it?

He laughs. “Who could forget that?”

“Okay. How about when you smoked all that weed that you thought was laced with something? You fell in the tub, but you refused to get out because you were convinced the back of your head was going to fall off. The only thing that would calm you down was reading out loud, so I read the only book in the bathroom—one of Mom’s romances, called
The Windflower
, cover to cover.”

“Why are you asking me about this?”

“Do you remember?”

“Sure, yeah, I remember. You read the whole book. It was easy to clean up the blood once I got out. Now, what’s with the interrogation?”

“None of those things happened,” I tell him. “Not to you. You weren’t there for the toad thing. My roommate told me the story about the boob lamp fire.
He
paid
his
little sister to lie. The third story happened to a guy, Jace, in my dorm. Sadly,
no one had
The
Windflower
on hand. Me and Sam and another guy on our hall took turns reading
Paradise Lost
through the locked door. I think it actually made him more paranoid, though.”

“That’s not true,” he says.

“Well, he
seemed
more paranoid to me,” I say. “And he still gets a little weird at the mention of angels.”

“You think you’re so funny.” Barron sits up straighter. “I was just playing along, trying to figure out what your game was. You can’t play me, Cassel.”

“I did play you,” I say. “You’re losing your memories and you’re trying to cover it up. I’ve lost memories too.”

He gives me a strange look. “You mean about Lila.”

“That’s ancient history,” I say.

He looks over at Grandad again. “I remember you were obviously jealous that I was dating her. You had a crush or something and you were always trying to get me to dump her. One day I walk into Grandad’s basement and she’s lying on the floor. You’re standing over her with this stunned expression on your face.” I suspect he’s telling this story just to needle me, just to get me back for embarrassing him.