Call Out

by L. B. Clark

  I got lucky. The flight was nearly full, even on a random Tuesday in mid-April, but I managed to get an aisle seat. I'm not a big fan of window seats, at least not during takeoff or landing. And being squashed between two strangers is a special kind of hell. While we taxied, I said a little prayer for a safe journey. As we left the ground, I squeezed my eyes shut to block out the site of Houston falling away as we defied the laws of gravity and mouthed the words to the first song that popped into my head in order to keep from thinking about all the things that could go wrong during takeoff.

  As soon as the 'you may switch on your electronic devices' announcement sounded, I scrambled for my iPod and headphones. Listening to the engines and the murmur of passengers I could handle, but there were whining kids on my flight. And I could hear the flaps on the wings whirring and clunking. Yeah, no. No thanks. Flying scares me enough without hearing weird noises coming from vital parts of the plane.

  I spent most of the three hours between takeoff and landing worrying: about Dylan, about crash landings, about missing class the next day. If worrying were an Olympic event, I'd gold medal, no doubt about it. The funny thing about worry is that it makes time spin out and out and out. Those three hours felt like three days.

  We landed ten minutes ahead of schedule, and by ten o’clock I had wrestled my luggage down the jetway and through the gate area to catch the train to the main terminal. Two minutes later, I stepped out into the chaos of Orlando International. I found a clear space of wall to lean myself and my suitcase against and switched on my cell phone. I was scrolling through my call history looking for Brian's number when someone stepped just a little too close to my personal bubble. I snapped my head up, and then looked up...and up. The guy who'd invaded my space towered over me. I knew in that moment how the Ewoks must have felt standing next to Chewbacca.

  "Elizabeth?" Tall Guy asked.

  I frowned up at him. "Do I know you?"

  "We hacked your friend's email earlier," he replied, flashing me a wide grin.

  "London?" I asked, as if I'd been hacking emails with a lot of strange men today. I admit, I was thrown. This guy looked more like your typical college kid than a hell-raising rock star. He couldn't look less like Mick Jagger. I shook my head to clear it and shifted, trying to find a more comfortable way to lean. Backpacks full of electronics do not make good cushions.

  "I thought Brian was here alone. If you were here, then why all the phone tag?"

  The grin faded and London looked away. "I wasn't here. I was in Denver when I talked to you, on a layover from LA. I...it's a long story."

  I shrugged out of the backpack and let it drop to the ground at my feet. "I'll make time."

  London sighed and rubbed his eyes. "The short version, then. I just had a feeling Brian needed me. So I jumped on a plane. I figured it couldn't hurt."

  I opened my mouth to ask about the long version, but a familiar voice called my name. I turned to see Brian making his way toward us. He hadn't changed much in the months since I'd met him, though his dark, wavy hair had gotten long enough to tie back. I stepped around London and hugged Brian hard.

  "No word?" I asked, though I knew what the answer had to be.

  Brian just shook his head. I hugged him again and didn't pull away when he held onto me. Sometimes when the world goes to hell, you just need to feel someone's arms around you.

  I turned my head so I could look at London without letting go of Brian. "What now?" I asked.

  London opened his mouth, closed it, took a breath. "Now, we go find food. I'm starving."

  With that, he slung my backpack over his shoulder, grabbed the handle of my rolling case, and made an 'after you' gesture. Brian moved away, taking the lead. I took my suitcase from London, and to his credit, he didn't argue.

  Brian led us to the parking garage, and London managed to squeeze my suitcase in beside his gear in the tiny trunk of Brian's rental car. The backpack stayed with me. I stared out the window, not really seeing anything, while London adjusted his seat and Brian dug out a pair of mirrored sunglasses.

  "What do you want?" Brian asked, and I turned my attention from the window.

  "Food," London said. "Anything that's not airplane food."

  Brian leaned back in his seat, but didn't start the engine. I knew this game. I played it myself sometimes. The good old 'we'll-just-sit-here-until-I-get-a-real-answer' game. Apparently London had lost this game a time or two, because he sighed and leaned his head back, too.

  "What's near your hotel?" he asked.

  "Disney World."

  London sighed. "Food, Brian. What food is near your hotel."

  "The hotel's right in the middle of fucking Disney World. That's all I can tell you."

  "That's pretty vague, actually," I chimed in. "Which hotel...wait, are you at the Dolphin?"

  "Yeah. Dylan mentioned wanting to stay there."

  "It's an awesome hotel. We both fell in love with it," I said. "Let's see...there's a sushi place in the hotel. Well, in the Swan, but they're connected. I don't know how good it is, though. I didn't like sushi when I lived here. And there's...” I paused to think for a second, aware that I was babbling but unable to stop myself. “There’s a steak place nearby. Pizza by the slice on the Boardwalk. And...I really don't remember. We were too freakin' poor to eat anywhere near the Dolphin. We mostly did the fast food thing when we weren't eating sandwiches. But I know there's a few choices in the hotel."

  "Hotel it is," Brian said and started the car.

  “So after food, what then?” I asked.

  “Then we find a private place to talk about what happens next,” London said. I opened my mouth to reply, but it was like he knew what I was going to say before I said it. “Yeah, I know that we’ve got about as much privacy here as we’ll get anywhere else, but trust me on this. We don’t want to be in traffic during this discussion.”

  I gave a little nod and sat back in my seat, trying my best to be patient. It wasn’t easy, but what could I do? I wasn’t the one calling the shots here.

  London switched on the radio to fill the silence as we drove across Orlando. I tried Dylan's cell again, with no luck. I checked my voice mail and found the expected rant from my brother. I texted him back, telling him where I was and that I was okay. I promised to call him when I had a chance, but right now I didn't have it in me. I didn't want to tell Alex about Dylan, not yet. She was his friend, too, and he'd kill me for not bringing him into this. But he had a job and a boyfriend to worry about. All I had were a handful of classes that I could skip for a couple days without missing too much. Worst case scenario, I'd retake them in fall semester and put off graduating for a few more months. Worst case scenario for Alex could end with him unemployed and alone. I'd handle things myself.

  Brian had checked into the hotel earlier in the day, so we went to his room to stow our gear so we wouldn’t have to tote it while we scrounged up food. After dinner I'd figure out what to do about my own place to stay, but for now, we needed to eat - and to figure out what to do next.

  London decided on one of the cafe-type places in the hotel, the kind that has open seating and serves burgers and fries. It would be a lot quicker than any of the nicer restaurants, allowing us to eat and then get on with whatever we were going to do about finding Dylan. I sat across from the boys, feeling like the new kid in school while they made small talk about London's flight and what their band mates were up to. Being the third wheel, I didn't have much to do other than chew and stare, so that's what I did.

  Even though Brian kept up his end of the conversation and seemed cool and calm, I could see the strain of worry around his eyes. He and Dylan had clicked from the start. I'd never believed in love at first sight until I'd watched the two of them fall ass-over-teakettle for each other in the space of a week.

  In a very different way, Brian and I had clicked as well. From the first, he'd struck me as a truly nice guy, the kind that I, jaded as I was, had decided didn't exist. I've never liked talking t
o strangers, especially men who looked like Brian - long, wavy hair; dark, soulful eyes; abs you could break bricks on; killer smile - but I found him easy to kid around with. Add to that the fact that he treated my best friend like a princess. Yeah, Brian was good people; I had no doubt about that.

  I'd had a hard time reconciling my mental image of London with anyone who could be best buds with a guy like Brian. Faced with the reality, I could picture it just fine. I could imagine people placing London in the role of little brother, even though he couldn't look less like Brian. Where Brian was dark – dark hair, darker eyes, and deeply tanned skin - London had icy blue eyes, a peaches and cream complexion most women would kill for, and hair like sun-darkened honey.

  London smiled at me, and I realized he had caught me staring. I looked away for a second, but then made myself meet his eyes.

  "So. Which one of you wants to tell me what the hell is going on." Yeah, I get belligerent when I'm embarrassed. Sue me.

  "Not here," London said, polishing off the last over-sized bite of his burger.

  I wanted to kick him. Instead, I pushed back from the table and stood. I couldn't give into the temptation to kick if I was standing. The boys stood, too, and after we dealt with trash and trays, we headed back to Brian's room.

  London sat cross-legged on the foot of the king-sized bed, giving no thought to putting his shoes on the white duvet. I pulled the chair out from the desk and turned it to face him. Brian stood near me, leaning against the desk.

  Silence stretched out until it seemed unbreakable. London appeared to be at a loss.

  "Sometimes," Brian said, his hushed voice crashing like a wave into the quiet, "sometimes London has these hunches. He just...knows things."

  London shook his head and looked up at Brian. They managed to carry on a whole conversation without saying a word, but I had no idea what was said. London looked down, like he suddenly found the carpet fascinating, and Brian moved to sit beside him on the bed. For moral support, I figured.

  "I don't know where to start," London admitted. He sounded young and tired and sad. I rolled my chair a little closer so I could lay my hand on his knee. He managed the barest hint of a smile.

  "Maybe at the beginning?" Brian suggested.

  "It doesn't matter where you start, London," I disagreed, trying to keep the impatience out of my voice. "My best friend is missing. I'm sitting here with my hands tied, waiting for you guys to clue me in to what the hell is going on. Just start talking and see what comes out."

  He came a little closer to a real smile this time, but it still didn't touch his eyes. He took a deep breath, and then he said, "I haven't told very many people what I'm about to tell you. My family knows, of course. Brian knows. And Kent and Adrian," he said, naming two of the three other members of their band.

  “Not what’s his name?” I asked, trying to remember the other band member.

  “Jimmy,” London said. “And no. He’s kind of a new addition to the band. I haven’t known him nearly as long as the other guys, and...I guess I just haven’t felt right telling him."

  Now that he’d mentioned it, I remembered Dylan telling me that Jimmy had only been with the band the past couple of years. He was kind of their jack-of-all-trades: taking over rhythm guitar to leave Adrian free to work the crowd, chiming in on keys or percussion when needed, that sort of thing. Dylan had also told me that he was quite a bit younger than the rest of the boys in the band. Given how young London looked, I figured Jimmy had just graduated from Huggies. I figured his youth didn’t do much to inspire London’s confidence in whatever secrets he had.

  “Whatever it is, it's okay," I assured him. And somehow, I believed it.

  London covered my hand, his fingers curled lightly around mine. I moved so that we were really holding hands, and he gave a little squeeze as if to say 'thank you'.

  "My mom says I used to say and do some pretty strange stuff when I was a little kid. I'd talk to people who weren't there, or talk about things I shouldn't have had a clue about. My parents thought I was just imaginative and observant," he said, making air quotes with his free hand. "The older I got, the weirder I got. I stopped talking to invisible people, but sometimes I would just...know things. Like, one night I woke up crying, because I knew my granddad had died. Mom didn't get the call from Grandma until a couple of hours later. Heart attack, out of the blue. But I'd known about it before Mom did."

  I squeezed his hand. I'd heard enough stories about this sort of thing that it didn't shock or surprise me. Hell, I'd had a couple of similar experiences myself.

  "When I was fourteen, Jerry disappeared."

  "His brother," Brian explained.

  "He was 18, and the police thought he had just run away. But my parents are awesome. I mean, we fought with them, yeah, but...run away? From what?" London shook his head. "We were all pretty freaked out. No one had heard anything from him - his friends, his girlfriend," he closed his eyes, remembering.

  "His girlfriend came over, just needing to hang out with the family, you know? And she showed me the ring he'd bought her. A promise ring, because he couldn't afford an engagement ring yet. She showed me that ring, and I had one of my feelings. I asked her to hand me the ring, and the second she laid it in the palm of my hand, I knew Jerry was more or less okay. I didn't know where he was, but I knew he was alive."

  London swallowed a couple of times, and Brian got up without being asked to grab a bottle of water from the minifridge. He uncapped it and handed it to London, who gave a little nod of thanks before sucking down a couple of gulps of water.

  "The police found Jerry the next day. He'd been in an accident a couple of towns over, and he hadn't woken up yet." He gave me a little smile. "The story has a happy ending. I'm telling you because you look nervous."

  I laughed. I couldn't help it. In the middle of retelling a traumatic story, and the guy's quoting The Princess Bride at me. Or maybe misquoting. I wasn’t sure. "Maybe a little concerned," I quoted back at him.

  He smiled. "Jerry made it through just fine. Didn't marry the girlfriend, though."

  I said the first thing that popped into my head. "How did your brother manage to end up with a normal name like Jerry?"

  It was London's turn to laugh. "It's short for Jericho."

  I grimaced. "I'm sensing a theme."

  "Oh, yeah," London said. "Florence, Jericho, London, and Holland. I got lucky."

  "Wow. And I thought being called 'Liz' was bad."

  "Not 'Liz,' huh?"

  "Good God, no. Elizabeth. Or Morgan. If that's still too long, it's Em. But never Liz, or Liza, or Libbie, or Emmy, or...just about anything else anyone's ever come up with."

  "Good to know."

  Brian made a small, amused sound, drawing my attention. He smiled at me, and I finally got a hint of the man I remembered. "That bloke on the boat," he explained.

  It took a moment for me to figure out what he was talking about, but when I remembered, it surprised a laugh out of me. "I'd forgotten about that. The creepy old guy who serenaded me that one night. The one who kept calling me Lisa."

  We'd managed to clear the tension in the room, at least.

  London stretched out on the bed. His hair brushed the headboard, and there were only a couple of spare inches at the foot. The guy really was freakishly tall. Not, like, Yao Ming tall, but still.

  "Come on," he said, patting the bed beside him. "It's still storytime."

  With a mental shrug, I kicked off my shoes and crawled up onto the bed to sit with my back against the headboard. London wiggled around to pillow his face against my thigh. It should have been an uncomfortably intimate gesture coming from someone I had just met, but this felt...different. It reminded me of Dylan’s niece curling up on my lap during a scary movie. I hesitated for just a second before reaching out to brush the hair back from London’s face. For a moment he just lay there, eyes closed. Then he scooted back to his own space, lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling.

  "So,
yeah. The whole thing with Jerry. His girlfriend spread the story around school, the whole ring premonition thing. I was already a geek, and now I was a freak, too. I tried to pass it off as a coincidence, that I was just trying to make Celia feel better. And the other kids bought it, mostly. But one of my teachers knew it was bullshit. She'd seen the signs before."

  "What signs?" I asked.

  London didn't answer. He just stared at the ceiling, avoiding my eyes.

  "Signs of magic," Brian explained.

  "Magic?" I gave Brian my best 'are you shitting me' expression.

  "I prefer psychokinesis," London said. "Makes me sound like less of a crackpot."

  He had a point. Psychokinesis sounded a lot more credible than magic.

  "So...you're like...a seer...or something?"

  London sighed and sat up. "Something like that. It's...more than that. And it's hard to define, or explain. But I have certain natural abilities. After my teacher figured that out, she convinced me to learn how to control it. That lasted right up until one of the kids at school found out, and started rumors about me trying to start a cult. I wanted to fit in more than I wanted to learn to deal with my freaky powers."

  "I get that," I said, and I did. "But you did learn a little, right? That's why you wanted me to bring something of Dylan's, so you could...do whatever it is you do."

  "Yup."

  I scrambled off the bed and dragged the garment bag out of my rolling case. London stepped up beside me just as I pulled the dress out of the bag, but it was Brian who reached out to touch the soft fabric.