No Such Person

by Caroline B. Cooney

  Her sneakers rest on a floor that looks clean, and yet seems layered with filth, as if urine has sunk into the concrete and been painted over.

  Her sneakers are fashionable. The soles are orange, the canvas lavender with a scroll of silver and orange. The laces are silver, but a policewoman pulls the laces out and keeps them. Her socks are footies: thin white cotton with a little purple trimming. They do not keep her feet warm. The colors of her shoes and socks seem irrational; seem hideous.

  She wants to vomit.

  She wants the lights to dim. Bulbs glare at her. Even with her eyes closed, the light gives her a headache.

  She cannot remember being without her cell phone. At night, at home, she does not even put her phone on the bedside table, but nestles it next to her pillow. She sleeps around it, like a partner, never letting it fall to the floor. She prefers clothing where she can tuck her phone into a pocket. Otherwise, she has a tiny case that can snap on a belt or hang on a thin strap. Sometimes she resorts to a purse, although there’s something cluttered and annoying about handbags that she despises.

  They ask about his phone. They ask over and over. She could answer, but she doesn’t.

  She soothes herself with sweet safe memory.

  Last Saturday morning, six days ago, when the state trooper says that Jason Firenza can go, she follows him down the steps from her yard to the dock, planning to say some comforting good-bye. Offer some hopeful thought. But he takes her hand and looks at her almost with fear.

  “Would you come with me?” he asks. “Please? This whole thing is so…” He searches for the right word. She is touched that he is not tossing out some swearword, but is trying to find the adjective that fits this nightmare.

  She has always wanted to be a physician; to cure by cutting or prescribing. Standing there on the narrow dock, holding his hand, she wants to be a nurse or a mother to him; to cure by kindness and caring.

  Poor Jason doesn’t want to be alone with his fears. She will keep him company; ward off his guilt. They are together for hours, dealing with the marina, trying to get into the hospital to see Derry. But Derry is in surgery. By the time Jason drops her at the cottage, she is in love.

  Jason asks her out.

  Her mouth is dry and her heart rushing at the thought of an actual date. Dates are rare in her world. The college men she knows would rather deal with cancer than commitment. The armor of the college man is the group.

  She is dizzy with wanting to be at Jason’s side.

  Dizzy because this afternoon he needs her to protect himself from the pain of Derry’s accident, but tonight—this will be solely for the pleasure of her company.

  They don’t take the canoe after all. She steps again into the Paid at Last. When she steals a glance at Jason, she blushes. They tie up at a different marina. He suggests that she could powder her nose in the marina office. It’s so sweet that his first thought is her comfort; that he would phrase it in such an old-fashioned way.

  When she comes out, he is waiting for her, smiling. It’s a sad smile, full of his burden: Derry’s injuries.

  They walk through a parking lot for cars, and then a parking lot filled with boats for sale, across an acre of grass in need of mowing and finally over the gravel parking lot of a riverbank restaurant.

  She has eaten here many times. Brightly painted tables are scattered on the deck, porch and grass. There is seating inside, for bad weather or when the insects are intolerable. When her family eats here, motoring over in their Zodiac, they eat out on the pier, sitting on narrow wooden benches, their table a piece of plywood that folds out like a gate. They love dining fifty feet out in the river.

  She and Jason order. The waiter leaves. The two of them talk. Dinner arrives quickly. Or else time flies in his presence.

  She is amazed by the depth of her crush on him. It’s all she can do to breathe, never mind chew.

  He smiles at her—oh, but he has a lovely smile!—and waves his phone. He has to take this call, he apologizes, and he walks out of hearing range. She is mildly surprised. People her parents’ age might search for a private spot, but she and her friends do not care what they say in front of each other.

  When he returns, he is sliding his phone into his shirt pocket. She knows her phones and is astonished. It’s not a smartphone. It is a prepaid, disposable phone. It has no apps. He cannot check Facebook. He cannot play games or read.

  Nobody on a college campus has anything less than the best phone he can afford. Jason has a lot of money; it’s clear from the shoes he wears; the sunglasses; their dinner out.

  But his phone is a cheap throwaway. Perhaps he is also too mature for games and social media. She thinks of poor Stu, across the street, with whom she has had one dull, pitiful dinner. Stu lives for video games. At that restaurant, Stu ate with his fork in one hand and his cell in the other. Lander came in third, after food and phone. Which does not matter at all, because Stu is so useless she doesn’t even rank him.

  But this time? With this man? Lander aches to be first on Jason’s list.

  He returns from his phone call, bends over her, sweeps her hair from her face. She wants to know a thousand things about him. She wants to kiss.

  But in fact, this is a week-old memory. In fact, she is in a cell, surrounded by invisible swearing prisoners, trembling in short sleeves because the air conditioning feels as if it’s set at sixty degrees.

  The police insist that drugs are stashed in that boat of his. Not a little bit of weed, but a serious package of cocaine.

  She cannot swallow. Saliva builds in her mouth, horror in her heart.

  A person dealing drugs uses a disposable phone. Is that what he is? A dealer?

  Is that what he’s done? Left her with that package?

  He didn’t mean to, she tells herself. He meant to come back. He’s afraid of the police. It isn’t his drug package! He’s been forced to deliver it! He’s a good person.

  But she knows nothing of this man she adores. Do her teeth chatter because of the cold or because she spends six days with a man and learns nothing—nothing at all—about him?

  She thinks of her tendency to scorn her little sister, who exaggerates. She is now the opposite: a person of science—who nevertheless does not bother with a single fact once she is in love.

  He’s a good person, she repeats in her heart. And what am I? A good person? Or a killer?

  Please, please, God, don’t let me be a killer. Please don’t let this happen to me. Get me out of here.

  She is on her knees now, in front of the metal toilet that has no seat. She is retching so hard the vomit gets in her hair. Her hands have vomit on them.

  When the last awful sour slime leaves her throat, when she has spit out all that she can, she cannot get up.

  She is aware of somebody lifting her at the waist; standing her on her feet; handing her water in a plastic cup so cheap that if she holds it tightly she will squash it. She manages to swallow some, manages to whisper, “Thank you.”

  She says, “I have to wash my hands and face. I have to wash my hair.”

  She is given a wet paper towel, the brown kind, which dissolves in her hand. The vomit dries in her hair.

  “It’s so cold. Can I have a blanket?”

  They give her a square of fleece, more of a shawl than a blanket. She huddles in it. It is not clean.

  Neither are her thoughts.

  FRIDAY MORNING

  Miranda’s summer days are long and slow.

  Such a pleasure to do nothing after a crushingly hard school year.

  Miranda is given to short-lived passions. This year, in music, she drops violin and takes up bass clarinet, which she played for a while in elementary school, so that she can now join marching band. The hours of rehearsal required for marching band and the Saturday games force her to drop tennis, Spanish club and horseback riding. She lasts through the football season in marching band, but does not continue through the winter with concert band. She means to return to violin,
but ends up in sketching class and competing in math tournaments. She fails to make the softball team and takes up clogging.

  Lander is disgusted. Show discipline! she snaps. Don’t give up so easily. Choose one thing. Work hard. Excel.

  Miranda is never interested in one thing. She is always interested in a hundred. She does not mind doing poorly in anything as long as she gets to try it all.

  This summer, while she is doing nothing, her high school friends commit to fascinating volunteer work, exciting paid work, demanding summer camps and challenging study abroad. Friends who normally visit the cottage for a week, a weekend or a day don’t show up. They are too busy.

  But Miranda Allerdon is lazy and loving it.

  Early Friday morning, six days after the barge disaster, another barge is on the river, coming downstream and riding high because it’s empty. It is pushed by the tug Susan and Jane. For once, Miranda does not race outside to wave. It’s too early. She’s too comfy on the chaise lounge. But it does remind her of that people search for Jason Firenza.

  Having failed to find a Jason Firenza, she decides to find out more about Derry Romaine. Using her iPad is satisfying. She feels less lazy, even though the search engine is doing the work.

  There is exactly one Derry Romaine in America and his first name is Derek, not Derry. He is decades older than the Derry Romaine who nearly drowned.

  Miranda tries to think of a credible reason for two young men who clearly exist, breathe and own a boat to have names that don’t exist.

  Over breakfast—Henry and Hayden show up; really, do their parents ever do any parenting? Is food ever served? Does conversation ever take place?—Miranda’s mother says to Lander, “Are you and Jason going somewhere today?”

  Their mother has planned this question carefully. It must not be too invasive. It must show interest, but not start conflict. Her parents always tiptoe around Lander. Well, so do I, thinks Miranda. We don’t want to be on her hit list.

  “Yes,” says Lander, smiling. Her vision of Jason is so wonderful she can’t sit. She gets up and dances.

  Out the window, Miranda sees Geoffrey approaching the dock stairs. Since Miranda goes to school in West Hartford, and Geoffrey goes to school here, she does not know anything about his high school life or his friends. He does swim a lot but today he doesn’t descend the stairs and slide into the water. He lifts one of the big heavy wooden lawn chairs, moves it closer to the steps and sits down heavily. Is he going to fish off the bluff instead of the dock? Is he taking in the view? Does Miranda care?

  Lander dances on. Miranda tries to imagine herself dancing at the vision of Geoffrey in her life. It doesn’t play. “How is Derry Romaine doing?” she asks Lander. “Do we have news about him yet?”

  “Well, of course, Jason visits him constantly. He’s sitting up and they’re making him walk around, but he’s dazed from medication and isn’t talking much. They’ve done one surgery and another is scheduled. Jason is so thankful that Derry is probably going to be okay.”

  Miranda wonders about this. Is Jason Firenza thankful?

  Lander is certainly spending a lot of time with Jason. Jason himself does not appear; Lander goes to meet him. Once she kayaks across the river. Twice she takes the Zodiac.

  It’s creepy. People throng to the cottage. They can’t get enough of the porch, the view, the dock. Why does Jason never even show up, let alone hang out?

  Even now Stu is carrying his inflatable orange kayak over to the stairs. It’s the only kayak Miranda has ever seen with a cup holder. He’s got the foot pump and the seat under his other arm and a daypack over his back.

  Stu and Geoffrey nod to each other, but do not speak. They are a remarkable contrast: Stu is as thin as a plastic fork and Geoffrey as solid as a baseball bat.

  Miranda believes that Geoffrey will grow into a pretty normal decent guy; he just needs time and maybe fewer pounds. But Stu is twenty-three and probably already is what he’s going to be. Not much.

  One weekend, Stu asks Lander out, and either she’s extremely bored that day or believes Stu has possibilities. It’s a short date. Lander comes home rolling her eyes. “What?” Miranda asks. “Stu,” replies her sister. “We’re talking serious limitations. He’s dropped out of three colleges. Thinks he’s going to develop the world’s best video game, but all he does is play other people’s games. I despise men who don’t make an effort.”

  Miranda is distracted by the word “men,” because she thinks of Stu as a boy.

  Lander can be brusque with people who don’t measure up. Miranda imagines Lander saying to Stu, This won’t work. I associate only with the top one half of one percent. But Stu calls Lander at least two more times, hoping for a second chance. He has the wrong lady. Lander is one tough judge.

  Their father interrupts Lander’s dancing. “So tell us more about Jason. He must be a very interesting young man.”

  Normally, Lander looks like a model in a New York Times Magazine: thin and intensely sulky, as if her best friend just died. Why this should sell clothing is a mystery to Miranda. If the clothing makes you feel that way, don’t put it on.

  Lander giggles at the mention of Jason. The family is scooped up like ice cream at the sight of Lander giggling. They let the interrogation slide. Lander dances.

  Miranda has sworn off exaggeration, but she has not sworn off curiosity.

  Derry Romaine is supposed to be a student at Wesleyan. Perhaps he is. But his name doesn’t show up in Connecticut. Shouldn’t his name exist somewhere else in the nation, then? His parents’ house? His orphanage?

  Why doesn’t Lander tell them anything about Jason? Why doesn’t Jason come to the house, like a normal person?

  Through Lander, Miranda knows quite a few undergrads or recent graduates of Wesleyan. Perhaps Jason Firenza also goes there, or went there, or visits. She could forward the headshot of Jason Firenza to Lander’s Wesleyan friends and ask if they recognize him or if they know Derry Romaine. But if they do know Jason, they’ll text him to ask what’s up, and Jason will ask Lander, and Lander will come home and kill Miranda.

  As far as she can tell, no media covers the story of the near drowning under the barge, probably because it’s not a story; for it to be newsworthy, the drowning has to end in drowning.

  She tries to find a boat registry online and get information about the Paid at Last. But although she can find regulations about boats, she cannot find lists. She wonders whether Jason has gone back to talk to the police again. Has the Coast Guard talked to the tug captain? What did the Janet Anne’s captain put in his report? Did Jason produce his Safe Boating Certificate and his picture ID for the police?

  It’s been several days, but the Coast Guard—understaffed, overworked—is probably not rushing on a situation that’s working out all right in the end. As for the police, a water incident is not under their purview; they just happened to be there as part of the rescue response. It may be that they have already forgotten Jason Firenza.

  Miranda’s father sets out for the office. He takes his vacation in half days so he can doze and savor breakfast on the river. Setting out at eleven or twelve also means he will have no traffic going into Hartford. Since it’s Friday, though, his drive back down here will be in heavy traffic.

  As soon as his car is out of sight, Lander says casually that she plans to spend the whole day with Jason. Maybe the night. Nobody is to worry.

  Miranda’s mother does not want Lander spending the night with anybody, least of all this person who cannot be bothered even to come to the house. Who drops her daughter off in the road, or at the dock! It’s insulting and it’s weird.

  But their mother has not interfered with Lander’s choices in a long time. Miranda decides that when she is a parent, she will be strict. On the other hand, Lander certainly has turned out impressively. Maybe her parents are doing the right thing.

  And this morning Lander is absolutely beautiful.

  She is wearing white shorts that she may actually have i
roned, because they have that crisp-edged look that does not come from a dryer. They are quite long, stopping just above her knees. She has chosen a turquoise shirt, on which she buttons only two buttons. Her flat tummy shows above the waist of her shorts.

  Normally on the water they wear old cheap sneakers that can get wet and who cares. But for Jason, Lander wears lovely expensive sneakers in great colors. Her tote bag is a giveaway from a makeup counter. Although Lander rarely wears makeup, she loves buying it. In this tote, she will have the shoes she is going to wear when they ditch the boat. Because of the turquoise shirt, Miranda is guessing that Lander is taking her favorite sandals, on which bright-blue stones glitter. Lander has beautiful feet.

  Lander has tied her long sleek hair up with a thin turquoise ribbon. At one and the same time, she looks about ten years old and about twenty-five.

  Miranda utters a quick prayer that Jason is a good person after all, or at least can grow into being a good person.

  The green towline image enters her mind again.

  Jason is not a good person.

  She wants to warn her sister again—to cry out, He’s bad news! Stay away from him!

  But her sister is so happy.

  And their mother, seeing this happiness, also lets it go. Lander’s happiness is worth a lot to her.

  Miranda follows Lander off the porch and down the steps and onto the grass. “Lander,” she says softly.

  Her sister turns. She is glowing.

  Miranda whispers, “Be careful, okay?”

  “Oh, Rimmie,” says her sister indulgently, affectionately. This is so rare that tears spring to Miranda’s eyes. “I’m fine. He’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

  Lander runs lightly down the narrow steps. Her cell phone rings. In a voice of sparkle and music, she sings out, “I’m ready. I’m on the dock, Jason.”

  —

  Henry and Hayden are playing on the screened porch as if they live here. They have a playroom larger than Miranda’s cottage, thigh-high with toys, but are entranced by her old Weebles and a tow truck that makes noise when it backs up.