Annie and the Wolves

by Andromeda Romano-Lax

  Reece’s phone sat on his thigh, the screen darkened, but she could feel his fingers wanting to go to it again, not used to delaying gratification or tolerating uncertainty. Ruth had stopped reading.

  “Head-on train collision. Ouch,” Reece said. “Did she die?”

  “I thought you read her Wikipedia entry.”

  “Skimmed. Maybe not to the end.”

  Ruth fought the urge to scoff. “No, she didn’t die. She lived twenty-five more years. But it was a devastating accident. It led to the Wild West show’s eventual downfall. A hundred and ten horses killed. Injuries to performers. Huge financial loss.” Silently, Ruth reread the page from the top. “Fuck.”

  Reece was smiling, amused by her profanity. There was nothing to smile about.

  “She,” Ruth said.

  “Yes?”

  Ruth closed the book, fingering the velvety cover. “It’s not a journal.”

  “What do you mean it’s not a journal? It’s old. It’s handwritten. With ink.”

  “It’s not her journal. It’s written in the third person. She.”

  “Yeah, I know what third person means. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a journal. It could be someone’s journal.”

  “But not hers. Annie Oakley didn’t write many letters. She authored only one unfinished autobiography. A more candid, first-person journal would have been a significant find.”

  “And this isn’t significant, why?”

  “Because,” Ruth said, “it could be someone’s ridiculous novel, handwritten and sandwiched between notes that have no relevance. It could be anything. The sender’s email was antfarm@aol.com.”

  “Ant farm? Kinda weird.”

  “The AOL part is weirder. Who on earth still has an AOL address?”

  “That’s an excellent question.” Reece’s fingers crawled toward his phone. “First, tell me: What’s AOL?”

  Ruth shook her head. Not now.

  “Annie’s own words,” Ruth muttered under her breath. These weren’t Annie’s own words. Nieman—if that was even his name—had deceived her.

  In graduate school, where digital sleuthing had become all the rage, Ruth had learned about the recent discovery of a lost diary of David Livingstone, the explorer in Africa. Written with berry ink that had faded to illegibility, the old pages were stored away, practically forgotten. Then a scholar from the University of Nebraska—Nebraska!—realized he could use high-tech spectral scanning to render the faded ink visible, revealing a completely unknown side of the explorer.

  “People aren’t honest when they’re speaking or writing to others, only when they’re writing for themselves,” Ruth said. “Finding or decoding an authentic diary—something the public was never meant to see—is what a historian dreams about. This isn’t that.”

  “It could still be something interesting,” Reece said. “It could be an account—an honest third-person account that Annie Oakley gave to someone, like a reputable newspaper reporter.”

  “And that would be less valuable, but still neat.”

  “Just ‘neat’?”

  “Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s what this is.”

  “That’s just your hunch.”

  “Yes. But it’s a highly informed hunch.”

  “So you’re not going to read the rest?”

  “Of course I will. Even as a complete hoax, it might hold some interest. At the very least, I want to know why this guy Nieman sent it to me.”

  “Did he ask for anything in return?”

  “Only my time—and not much of it. He’s on some sort of deadline.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Reece’s phone squawked.

  “That would be my dad.”

  “He must be expecting you home.”

  “No, it’s all right.” He looked down at his phone. “A friend stopped by the house. Well, not a friend, really. This guy, a new Rockets member. Hopefully not coming by to quit.” Reece looked up. “Can I use your bathroom? The laptop should be ready to restart soon.”

  “Sounds good. Down the hallway on the left.”

  In the kitchen ten minutes later, Ruth wrote out a check as Reece closed the laptop lid.

  “If it ever takes more than ninety seconds to boot up, just give me a call.” He nodded toward her phone and read his number aloud, watching as she punched in the numbers. “Aren’t you going to give me yours?”

  Ruth hesitated. “That isn’t weird?”

  “No. How else am I supposed to find out any news you have on the journal?”

  “There may never be news.”

  “Come on, you promised I’d learn something interesting. Are you a historian or a member of the overprotective parents’ committee?” Reece reached into his jacket pocket for something—oh yes, that nasty cigarette habit. But he didn’t light up yet. “Hey, why did you lie about Mr. Webb?”

  “Lie?”

  “You told the guard he was your fiancé. But everybody knows Mr. Webb is single. Last year, he joked about not having a date for the prom.”

  “I misspoke. We were engaged a long time ago. Anyway, Reece, please don’t mention that or the journal to anyone.”

  “I won’t,” he said, holding out his phone to her. It was a deal, evidently. She entered her details and pressed “save.”

  5

  Reece

  The sophomore they’d been calling Kale, like the vegetable, was on the porch and just about to leave when Reece got home. Another few minutes and they would have missed each other completely.

  “How’s it going, Kale?”

  “Caleb.”

  “Sorry,” Reece said. “I didn’t know the nickname bothered you.”

  “It was a freshman thing.”

  Reece held the door open, but Caleb refused to enter first, following only after Reece passed him into the house and down the hall toward his bedroom. For his part, Reece was still distracted, mulling over his discussion with Ruth. He hadn’t told her everything. He’d tried to muster the nerve, right at the end, but faltered and failed to tell her he recognized her, and not because they’d ever met.

  He’d also given her that line about zinc, and she’d bought it. Just from the look of her house with its untended yard and all those boxes inside, along with the dust and the gloom, he could tell Ruth was a fellow depressive.

  In the bathroom—first stop for any snoop—he’d opened her dark-wood, apothecary-style cabinet with its twenty or so tiny drawers. He’d found some interesting items, not only single keys and fortune cookie slips, but prescriptions filled and not taken. (Fill date from over a year ago, expiration date passed, and yet the bottle of lemon-yellow pills was three-quarters full. Bad patient.)

  Reminder to self, Reece thought. If you ever stop taking your meds, don’t be so obvious about it.

  He’d also found three white bar-shaped pills—Xanax—in a separate drawer. They were nestled against the dark, sweet-smelling wood like eggs in a nest. The lemon-yellow pills hadn’t called to him, but these did. The only other thing he’d ever stolen was eyeliner in fifth grade, because he’d wanted to try it out but was too embarrassed to pay the cashier. Just one. Or two. But leaving a lone pill would only call attention to its missing partners. Reece pocketed all three.

  It wasn’t like him to have done that. He wasn’t into tranquilizers or antidepressants—not even the ones personally prescribed for him. It bothered Reece even now, fingering the pills in his pocket as he passed his own bathroom on the way to his bedroom at the end of the hall with silent, morose Caleb still walking behind him.

  “Actually, I gotta use your bathroom,” Caleb said.

  “Make yourself at home. I’ll wait for you in here.”

  In his bedroom, Reece stood by the window, checking his phone. For what? That was the perennial question. He hadn’t gone out with anyone for over
six months, which eliminated one entire category of possibility and distraction. Aside from a new exchange student who’d shown zero interest, the pickings at Horizon High were slim. Nothing to be done about it.

  Reduced libido was one of the side effects of the prescription Reece was taking—though, of course, depression itself wasn’t great for sex drive. His parents certainly believed in medication, and he didn’t want to burst their bubble, which had been stabbed mercilessly already. Summer had been shitty for everyone.

  By September things had started feeling better. Classes starting, everyone busier, and at least a few dinners when Reece’s father forgot to stare meaningfully into his eyes and ask, “And how are you feeling today?”

  In truth, he felt good, but also on edge, keyed up. Two or three days ago, Reece had started sensing it: something was coming, forcing him to be on high alert. He’d had trouble sleeping. His scalp tingled; when his mother noticing him scratching, she asked if he needed dandruff shampoo. He kept thinking he had to pee, but then he’d try and nothing would come out. If he told anyone, they’d think he had some kind of venereal infection. For obvious reasons, he knew that wasn’t the case.

  Reece found himself reading headlines with greater interest. North Korea ready for a nuclear attack? Zombies spotted somewhere? Not according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

  He kept studying faces and expressions, wondering if anyone else noticed anything unusual. Finally, this morning at school, he saw a woman with a limp and blue cowboy boots out of the corner of his eye. Then he got a closer look at her face. And he knew. Forget history class. He’d stepped back and stared. It was her.

  Reece knew her name without asking. Ruth. He thought he needed a clever plan, but it all fell into place: her forgotten ID, her shitty—sorry, poorly maintained—laptop, and as always, the helpful interference of his math teacher, who never failed to involve himself in things that weren’t his problem. No complicated stalking necessary.

  Reece remembered her from the dream, looking at him—from above, to be specific—worried, giving him instructions. What else? He needed to calm down and make himself remember—let himself remember—as much as he wanted to forget.

  Some parts of the dream were pleasant, even blissful. Others, not at all.

  The setting—Griffin Memorial Hospital—was likewise not so congenial. Worst of all was the face of his mother crying when he emerged from sleep, groggy and half-drugged, barely able to focus on her anguished lament while he tried to hang on to that confusing dream, which had seemed of utmost importance, even then.

  Reece tried not to think about the day of his hospitalization or the embarrassing family fallout, only about Ruth’s spoken message in the dream: It didn’t work. Draw the symbol. Don’t give up. Be firm. And just—be honest, Reece. I’ll believe you.

  But that was dream Ruth.

  Real Ruth had been another story: indecisive, suspicious, the very last person to trust Reece. Then again, she didn’t seem to have the information dream Ruth had. Which was, at least partially, his fault. He had to get a handle on his own dream and tell her everything he knew, even if it was confusing. He wasn’t like Caleb, a timid rabbit who thought you could hide behind a bush and be safe.

  “Hey,” said Caleb, pushing the bedroom door open.

  “You can sit down if you want,” Reece said, pointing at his made bed.

  “That’s all right.”

  Reece waited for Cal to explain himself. If he was coming by to quit the Rockets, it would sabotage their routine.

  “So,” Reece said, beginning to lose patience.

  “Is that a poster of a male model hanging over your bed?”

  “Dumb shit, that’s not a male model. It’s Sergei Polunin. I thought you knew something about dance.”

  No reply.

  “Unreasonably gorgeous,” Reece said, “but he’s an athlete. The Royal Ballet’s youngest dancer, but he crashed and burned a couple years later. Supposedly he’s more stable now.” In response to Caleb’s frozen expression, Reece softened his tone. “I can text you the link to a great documentary about him.”

  “Not my thing.”

  Reece really wasn’t in the mood. “Polunin’s girlfriend is a beautiful ballerina, if that helps.”

  He didn’t know if Caleb was trying to get across annoying homophobia or fake bravado. All of it seemed like a cover for something else. He’d heard how much Cal/Kale/Tool/Caleb had been harassed at school. It had started freshman year, and it probably wasn’t Caleb’s fault. He seemed confused. Like an easy mark. And he still hadn’t explained why he was here.

  “Look, is somebody bothering you at school?”

  Caleb coughed into his hand, sat down on the edge of the bed, then thought better of it, standing up with his hands crossed over his crotch. Absurd.

  “Then what?”

  Caleb pulled his phone out of his pocket and barely looked at it.

  “Look,” Reece said. “We need you in the Rockets. You’re good. And more important—sorry—but you’re short and light.” And graceful, which Caleb probably didn’t want to hear. Most guys couldn’t tell where their arms and legs were, flying through space. They bumped into other people just walking down the hallway. “The show’s coming up soon. We’re counting on you.”

  It was going to be a halftime spectacle for the last football game of the season. After that, they’d do an end-of-semester holiday thing and then gear up for talent show in the spring. But this was the important one with the big crowd: jocks, parents, alumni, people from town. It would be held outside on the football field. A welcome change from the stale auditorium.

  “Besides,” Reece said, trying another strategy, “it’s a fun group. Mikayla is going to start training with us. Didn’t you go out with her last year?”

  Caleb tucked his chin into his chest. “Not really. One school dance.”

  Mikayla was meek, but also tiny: definite potential to replace Caleb as a flyer. Reece had to keep his options open, but he wasn’t going to make it that easy for a member of the team to quit. And maybe Caleb was here for something else. Sometimes they asked questions about math, which Reece was good at. Other times it was about Reece’s suicide attempt, especially if they were thinking about their own early-exit plans.

  Reece thought about the red marks he’d seen on Caleb’s neck last year. Caleb claimed they were hickeys. If so, that was one wild weekend. To Reece, they’d looked more like rope burns. But maybe that was only his own morbid imagination.

  “You played soccer last year, right?” Reece asked. “Why’d you stop?”

  “Injury, at first. It healed, but my parents still said I couldn’t do after-school activities until I got my grades up.”

  “But zero hour’s okay?”

  Caleb laughed for the first time. “They’re fucking amazed I get out of bed at all.”

  “But you know that next week we have afternoon practice, too? It’s only a week, though. Just for the show. But you gotta be there, or our choreography will fall apart. If you do have to stop coming, for any reason, tell me ahead of time. All right?”

  “Why do you care so much about this show, anyway?”

  “Because I do.”

  Caleb squinted over Reece’s shoulder. “I gotta run. You got a cigarette?”

  Reece walked toward the bedpost where he’d slung his jacket and dug around slowly in the pocket, thinking maybe Caleb was just trying to get up the nerve to say more. As he pushed his fingers around the lining, he stared up at the Polunin poster and thought about school—not the time-wasting, low-bar school he attended, but the early college private school with the national-caliber dance program that he hadn’t gotten into. He’d been crushed.

  Luckily, he hadn’t googled how to slash your wrists properly. He’d ended up with only three faint scars, bare white threads against the pale skin of his wrist, which he now ke
pt hidden under a wide leather band with metal snaps and faux Navajo styling.

  They say you can’t erase the past. But you can accessorize it.

  Returning to school in September after that act of despair, he knew he faced a choice: give up on dance or find a way back in. Taking over leadership of the Rockets had been the right move. Coaching others had given Reece a way to stop thinking about himself and to be reminded, watching novices, that repeated failure was necessary in life. Get over it.

  That was why this show mattered, even if Reece wasn’t going to spell it out to a guy like Caleb. Because you had to start somewhere.

  Reece withdrew the crumpled pack and handed it over. Five cigarettes.

  “Keep it. I’m trying to quit. You need a ride home?”

  “No, I want to walk.”

  “All right. Offsets the unhealthiness of the smokes.” Not really, but whatever.

  Reece didn’t feel guilty adding to Caleb’s smoking habit. It was the least of the guy’s problems. Underclassman, small for his age, pretty face, bad grades, former jock desperate enough to try tumbling, butt of the other jocks’ jokes, not enough attention from his parents, too much attention from creeps.

  Reece asked, “Didn’t I see you get a ride from Vorst the other day?”

  “That asshole? Are you kidding me?”

  Vorst was the volunteer coach who hung around the Rockets’ practices. They weren’t allowed to use the gym equipment at all without him, but he didn’t know a thing about their act. Most of the tumblers just learned to tolerate him without engaging.

  “So why did I see you near his car?”

  “You saw me keying his car.”

  “Wait, really?” Reece laughed. “You messed up his car?”

  That made Caleb half-laugh.

  “My mistake,” Reece said. “Anyway, the offer’s still good. I could give you rides home from afternoon practice, if that helps.”

  “Maybe,” Caleb said, serious again, all the light gone out of his face. “But I like to walk.”

  Out on the front porch, where they said their goodbyes, Caleb lit up a cigarette, blew out a stream of smoke and with it, a mumbled confession. “I might not be at school some days coming up.”