I choose the handicapped parking spot front and center. Nine minutes at least are added while lowering the ramp, getting Matt’s wheelchair onto it, and reloading the mechanism back into the van so that we can lock it. Like with babies, it is definitely frowned upon to leave paralyzed people in the back of your car, but I wouldn’t say I don’t think about it.
Matt shuts up a bit when he gets inside. Maybe the coffee smell is enough to sober him up. But actually I think that Neville’s is the type of place he’d go if he were in that other life, the one in which he isn’t broken. As for me, I’m already at home around the tattooed, bespectacled, and tight-shirt-wearing patrons who take notes in their paperback copies of Tolstoy and listen to vinyl records, and I bet Matt doesn’t expect this either.
I find the coffeehouse gang in the back corner. My gait slows when I see Ringo. It was just a song, I try to tell myself. It doesn’t mean that I am Anna.
Except I’m pretty sure it does. And the singer still has feelings for Anna. Does that mean Ringo has feelings for me?
It’s awkward enough, after the way we last left things, that we now stop short of hugging, and I’m full of a mixture of gratitude and longing for that. Instead, Ringo introduces himself to Matt. “Hi.” Unlike Jeremy, Ringo’s too smart to extend a hand. “You must be Lake’s brother.”
He’s wearing a denim shirt unbuttoned over a soft heather-colored T-shirt, a pair of sunglasses hanging from the neckline. Is it just me, or does he look particularly handsome and not at all fragile today? I glance away to stop thinking about it.
“Pleasure,” Matt says lingering only a moment more than necessary over Ringo’s mismatched face and purpled skin.
I breathe a sigh of relief. “Matt,” I say, since my brother is either too high or too dismissive to offer the name on his own. “His name is Matt.”
I slide in next to Margaret, who has yet to look up from her computer. “Ringo tells me you wanted to talk?” she says.
My palms are sweating. My knee jiggles. “More like I need a favor.” I wince at the word.
“Ah.” She punctuates with the space bar. “Are we talking party, all in say aye or may the odds be ever in your…?”
I wince. “More like The Godfather, calling in a…favor, that is. A very big one.”
“Hand it over.” Still she doesn’t look at me, but she does flash a quick grin. Her glasses reflect her laptop screen. The rest of Ringo’s friends—my friends, are they my friends too?—seem to give us space, but I cast a nervous smile over at Kai, who offers me a thumbs-up.
“Shit.” Matt curses, too loudly. “My buzz is wearing off.” He glances around at all of us, wearing a look of total disappointment. “Is it supposed to be so fleeting?”
“Matt,” I hiss. Then, when I realize that there’s no way to hide his state, given what he’s just said, I add, “No one who does drugs uses the word fleeting.”
“Guess it’ll just have to be this once, then,” he grumbles.
Ringo rubs his neck and gives me a What can you do? look.
I slide Will’s computer onto the table next to Margaret’s laptop. She keeps typing with one hand while simultaneously opening the screen to Will’s computer. I tell her the password and she makes a grunting noise in response as if this information is completely unnecessary. She’s already hooking a cord between the two machines.
“What are you doing?” I ask, peering over her shoulder.
“Downloading some software to this computer. It only takes a second.”
My heartbeat thumps. “Will someone be able to tell that it’s been, like, tampered with?”
“Done,” she says, and untethers Will’s computer. “Not unless they really know what they’re looking for.” She stops typing for the first time. “Don’t worry, you’re good.” She scoots her chair over and then strikes a few keys on Will’s keyboard. The blank screen fills with several boxes, each containing typeface too small for me to read. Margaret scans them.
“So, how’s school going?” I ask, trying to make conversation, since that seems preferable to all of us watching her hack into my dead boyfriend’s computer.
“Okay, I guess.” She clicks on one of the screen boxes and scrolls through its contents. “Working on my thesis on resurrection ethics in Asia. Mongolia, China, Indonesia, mainly. The computer skills are coming in handy too. Lets me do a lot of the graphing, charts, quantitative analysis–type stuff. I get some good gigs that way. Professors are always wanting people who are good with computers and then, hello, fellowship recommendations.”
Matt scoffs. Loudly. “You think you can learn about resurrections in a classroom? So you can, what, sit there in your ivory tower and judge people?”
For the first time, she stops typing. She frowns at him. “I think I can keep an open mind so that I can learn something,” she says, and then she picks back up again.
Ringo leans into my ear. “Did we do something to offend him?”
I don’t say anything. I only have room in my head for the one thing and that’s for whatever Margaret’s going to find in that computer. I’m counting down in my head, but I don’t know to what.
“Okay, what am I searching for?” Margaret asks. Her fingers hover, poised for action.
“A ChatterJaw account. A conversation that went private about a month ago.”
Margaret lets out a low whistle, but types in whatever it is she needs to type in. A string of subject lines populates the screen. “Anything else to narrow it?”
I chew the inside of my cheek hard, like it’s a piece of ice. “Penny,” I say.
Five taps. Enter. The list collapses.
“So,” Margaret says, folding her arms across her chest, visibly annoyed, “I have to ask: Is Penny the mystery user on the thread?” Margaret had never been able to break through the encryption used by the ISP until she had Will’s actual computer to work from. Now I know why.
I nod. “I think so…yeah.”
She shakes her head. “Well, I have to hand it to her, this girl seriously knew her firewalls.” It wasn’t Penny, it was her protective techie father, Simon, but I keep my mouth shut because I don’t think Margaret would consider this any consolation. “You want to do the honors?” Margaret asks me. She rolls to the side and I take her place.
The surroundings of the coffee shop disappear. From this moment on, it is me and the computer. Tunnel vision. I lick my lips. My fingers dance in the air over the trackpad. This is the last second that I can turn back. I won’t be able to un-see it. If this changes anything—and maybe it won’t—I won’t get a do-over.
But…I have to know.
I open the messages like I’m leaping off the high-dive platform. Headfirst and into deep water.
At 9:01 p.m., the conversation goes private:
Twenty Questions
How about we start with five?
Less ambitious, but fine, five
Boy or girl?
Lady ;)
When I’m alone I ____________________.
Worry less
Another poem?
I told you, they’re not poems
Now you’re just being difficult
Maybe I shouldn’t have let the ugly parts through
Disagree on premise alone
You’ve got two more
Why did you post your poem-nonpoem to ChatterJaw?
The real me needed a place to live in the real world
Does this count as the real world?
I can see it. I can say it. So it must be so
So things are only real if you can see them
or say them, not if they’re just inside?
Sorry, you’ve already gotten your five ;) ;) ;)
That’s when the ringing in my ears starts up. I have a vague sense that perhaps someone is saying something behind me. Perhaps to me. I don’t really know, though, or care.
That day is only the beginning. There are pages of messages. Pages and pages. I hear Penny’s voice in them. And then I hea
r Will’s. But neither is a comfort. And then there’s this:
Text me one of your cartoons that you’re always telling me about
They’re dumb
Cop out
I don’t have your number
I don’t even know who you are
What would you do if you did know who I was?
What would you do if you knew who I was?
Pray you weren’t a child molester or a serial killer
After that
I don’t know
I don’t know…
So put it in a drawing for me
I don’t know your number
That can be fixed
267-823-9936
Now you have it. No excuses
There is a pause in the stream of thought and the two talk about other things. I’ve lost track of how long I’ve been scrolling. Five minutes? Fifteen? An hour? It’s a blur.
I imagine Will at his desk typing. Hitting send.
I just punched your number into my phone…
A contact came up…
I didn’t get anything???
Penny?
Black creeps in at the edges of my vision—darker, darker, darker still. I lean on the table. My head is heavy. I can’t look away. I wish I could say that the messages stop. Right then, right there. But the damage is done, so who even cares?
There is no point in wishing. We wished three years ago. We were a family. No secrets.
When I finally look away, my eyes burn like I’ve been swimming in chlorine. I’m numb while at the same time wanting to scratch the skin off my bones. It’s a strange, unreal sort of sensation.
I turn to find that Matt is the only one there. “Where’s everyone else?” I ask.
“How should I know?” he asks.
I stand up out of the chair. I want to move. Moving is good. My hand is on my forehead. It’s hot. I might even be running a fever. Calm down, Lake. Calm down.
“Well, you were sitting right here,” I snap.
The retort changes him, abracadabra. I recognize the hardening of his face. The return to the Matt I’ve known for the last few years. I register it only vaguely. Like a slight change in temperature. But it’s there. Bubbling beneath the surface.
“I’m not a lapdog for you to carry around in your purse,” he says.
“Shut up.” Try to concentrate on your breathing, I tell myself. Because I want to run. I want to take off. Leave him. Be anywhere but here.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he says. “Look, Matt, look at Ringo, look how okay he is with his lot. Look what you could be if only you tried. You could go by Stiff—no that’s not as catchy, whatever—and show everyone how okay you are with it. Why can’t you be more like him?”
He goes dark. “This shit is not the same, Lake.”
I can’t handle one of Matt’s rants. Not right now. “Just…just let me think.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway. All this is pointless. Your birthday is in a couple of days and I’ll be dead.” It’s a challenge. His brow is lowered, casting a deep shadow over his eyes so that they practically disappear.
I whirl on him. “Stop reminding me.” I raise my voice without meaning to. I hear it echo. Duke Ellington looks up. I whisper at him, “Stop saying you’re going to be dead, Matt.”
“I’ll be dead either way.” I watch Matt close off piece by piece until his face is as still as the rest of his body.
Just then, though, Ringo reappears with Margaret carrying a tray of four coffees. Ringo stands still. Did he hear Matt? Does he know?
“We have to go,” I say. “Thanks, Margaret.”
I shove the computer into the back pocket of Matt’s wheelchair without caring whether I cause any damage, grab the handles, and start pushing as though there’s a gas pedal on this too. We make it out into the open air and that at least begins to alleviate the black dots floating everywhere. I press the button six times in a row, trying to hurry the van into opening up and letting out Matt’s ramp.
I don’t care if people stare at me. I stuff Matt in the back of my mom’s car like he’s shipping freight. I am so done with him and with everyone and…
As I’m going around to the driver’s side, there is Ringo. His eyes stop me dead in my tracks. Of course the tears are now flowing steadily from mine. It’s not fair. I have nothing and I’m breaking, but I can’t break like Matt, and nobody will feel the right kind of sorry for me because I’m alive and I’m healthy and Will and Penny and Matt, they’re not.
So why do I feel like I’ve just been stripped apart bone from bone?
Will would have chosen her. Eventually. I know it the same way I know that the earth is round and that the sun rises in the east. I know it and I don’t think I would have Penny’s grace to wait, to be the understanding friend.
A man should choose a friend better than himself, she’d written. She shouldn’t have chosen me.
“Lake,” Ringo says. Unreadable the same way Matt is. I hate the buried parts of people. Why can’t everyone put themselves on the surface the way I do?
I want to stanch the blood that is pouring out of my arteries and into the rest of my body. I see Ringo and feel my heart pulsing for him, for all the days that I’ve thought he was a type of handsome that could never be replicated, for all the times I’ve wished his hand would linger longer on my knee or on my back, for the long moment when he held me in the car and told me he was sorry, sorry, sorry.
I walk over to him, clench my fists around either side of his denim shirt that hangs unbuttoned, and pull his mouth into mine. I kiss him with hot tears pouring onto my lips and the taste of salt that reminds me of seawater, that reminds me of Will, but it’s not Will. It’s Ringo and Ringo likes me. I’ve known he has for days or weeks or I can’t remember how long. But I work my tongue against his and smash my nose into his cheek and he smells good and real. This is real life.
He wrenches away and I press my fingers into my bottom lip, stunned.
“What are you doing?” he asks. He’s not happy.
“Kissing you. You were right. About…about everything.”
There is a crease all the way across his forehead, from one side to the other. “What are you talking about?”
“I listened to the song, to ‘Anna.’ It says ‘Go with him’ and I know you meant Will, but I don’t think it’s supposed to mean Will. Not now, not after…Will loved Penny and Penny loved Will or if they didn’t they would have.” I shake my head and I realize I sound like an insane person, but I press on. “I—I just wanted to kiss you because maybe I don’t have to resurrect Will, you see. It doesn’t have to be him.”
He grabs me by the shoulders. His chest is rising and falling fast. His eyes flit between mine like it’s hard to take me in all at once. Then his eyes leave my face altogether and they look past me to the van where Matt is waiting. “At Penny’s you said: What if there was a third option for your resurrection choice.” I don’t say anything. Penny knows my secret. Penny is dead. “Matt said in there that by your birthday he’s going to be dead. You’re saying not Will. I’m guessing not Penny. You’re kissing me. You’re acting crazy. You’re saying that this is because of everything I said.”
He heard Matt.
“So here’s what I think. You would help Matt kill himself? You would—you would do that—and—then…?” He blinks. “And that’s because of something I said?” He pinches the bridge of his nose and I wish he’d hold on to me again, even if out of anger. “Resurrections ruined my life, Lake. Have I not made that clear? Why do you think I’m in therapy twice a week? Because it’s fun?” He spins away from me and circles back. “This is sick. You are acting sick. Every part of this, the way you’re doing this, the way you’re treating me, like I’m a security blanket to make you sleep better at night, it’s sick. I keep trying to convince myself otherwise, but it’s clear you don’t really give a damn about what I think or what I’ve gone through. I thought you got it, Lake. I thought you were coming to
it on your own, but look around at what’s going on in your life and why it’s going on. Ask yourself the answer. What are you missing?” He’s practically shouting now. It scares me. “I think I need to back away now. I’m sorry for raising my voice. I think I just…This isn’t healthy for me. You’re not healthy for me. I apologize if I gave you the impression that I can handle this. Turns out, I can’t.”
I cry all the way home. Matt and I don’t say a word to each other. We both have too much on our own minds and also, I feel like I’ve taken a bath in boiling water.
Everyone I love has been picked away from me—Will, Penny, Matt, my parents, Ringo—and without them I’m not sure how there can possibly be anything left.
Mom must sense something’s wrong because she’s waiting for us, and I leave her to take care of Matt, pushing past her to get inside and to my room. I read an article once explaining that sick animals hide when they’re ready to die. I imagine myself hiding beneath the covers and never waking up.
Instead I fall asleep at some point, but it’s a fitful sleep and I keep having dreams about losing my virginity, about holding Penny’s pinky, about Matt falling so far that he never hits the bottom and about Ringo—What are you missing, what are you missing, what are you missing?
Hours and hours later the tendrils of morning light come for me, snaking their way into my bed and peeling my eyes open against my will. My eyelids are crusty. There are dried salty streams coating my cheeks, and my face is swollen.
The world is still here, though. My mattress is soft underneath my weight. Sunshine bathes the landscape. The saliva in my mouth is sour and stale and my stomach grumbles for food. In the last month I’ve learned a few things about grief, and my least favorite one is that the universe doesn’t quit turning just because a corner of it is crumbling.
I’m nauseous this morning, but not terribly. Actually, I wish I was sicker so that I could curl myself into a ball and melt into the bed. Time is stupid and weird. It never moves at the pace I want it to and it makes things better, even the worst things, even if only by a hair, even if just enough to get up, for instance, even when I don’t want it to.
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