Welcome, Caller, This Is Chloe

by Coriell, Shelley

  My throat convulsed. “Any news on Duncan?”

  Haley and Taysom shook their heads. Frick and Frack joined them. I pushed the bag of tamales into the center of the table. “How about some comfort food?” I asked with half a smile, all I could muster today.

  Clementine snapped her head my way, her crinkly hair whipping like hundreds of spikes on a dragon tail.

  “Clem . . . ,” Haley warned.

  “What? You want me to play nice?” Clementine asked with her fiery dragon snarl. “Well, I won’t. I’m mad as hell, and it’s her fault.”

  Her was a bad word. Like mean and Parkinson’s and meth.

  “You told that idiot to send that girl one of his love poems. You told him to open his heart and jump into the fire. You had no freakin’ idea who he was or who she was. You torched the station. You.” Each time she said you, her finger dug into my shoulder.

  Frick and Frack each picked at a tamale. Taysom fiddled with his iPod. Haley stared at her stomach.

  Clementine gave me one final push. “Get the hell out of here.”

  Dead air settled around us, but not just radio dead air. This was black-hole dead air, cold and without life. I could hardly breathe.

  Frack spoke up. “It’s p-p-probably best if you g-g-go.”

  Best for whom? For Clementine, who was about to explode? For Duncan, who was missing? For me, who couldn’t breathe?

  I stumbled out of the lunchroom, the different clans blurring as the tears gathered in my eyes. Clementine was right. They were all right. I wanted more listeners, more fans, more adulation. It was my fault KDRS was now silent.

  Wanting comes from the head and heart. Your heart whispers you want that shiny pair of black-and-red 1934 ankle-strap stilettos. Your brain hears and sets in motion a plan to add a new hot pair of heels to the shoe tree.

  Need is an entirely different beast. It still involves the head and heart, but it goes deeper, to a primal place without a name. Let’s say you’re swimming and a riptide grabs you by the ankles and sucks you under. The primal place, the one that deals with life and death, tells you that you need air. Without air, it screams, you will die.

  As I walked away from the lunchroom, I needed someone. Three months ago that would have been Brie and Mercedes. Three weeks ago it would have been Duncan or Haley or even Clementine.

  Now I had no one.

  I walked through the quad, past Our Tree, and toward the auto-shop building. Behind an old Ford truck was a small hole in the fence stoners used to get off and on campus so they could do what they do. I slipped through the hole in the fence.

  For a while I thought my Keds would take me to Dos Hermanas, where I could sit under the shadow of Larry, Moe, and Rizado and listen to the wisdom of two women who decades ago walked barefoot across the Sonoran Desert and now owned one of the most successful small businesses in town. I also thought they’d take me to Grams to celebrate the demise of the black hole.

  They did neither. My dorky tennis shoes headed east toward Duncan’s duplex because I needed Duncan, but not just for me. Even though I’d been cast out by a bunch of outsiders, I needed to know he was safe.

  When I reached the duplex, I saw his bike, his wonderful duct-tape-covered bike, leaning against the house. Running to the door, I knocked.

  Surely Duncan was home. He rode his bike everywhere. When he didn’t answer my fifth knock, I turned the door handle. Inching the door a crack, I called, “Duncan, are you here?”

  An image of too-slick Stu flashed through my head, but my need was greater than my fear. I pushed open the door. “Duncan? It’s me, Chloe.” Not queen of the universe. Not the queen of hearts. Queen only of her screwed-up life.

  I’d been to Duncan’s house twice. The first time it smelled of eggs and cheese and buttery toast. The next time a strange metallic smoke hung on the air. Today it smelled of stale air and neglect.

  “Duncan?” I called louder. “Are you here?”

  A soft clicking sound, one decibel above silence, came from the back of the house. My rubber-soled shoes silent, I followed the noise. The clicking didn’t come from Duncan’s room but from the other bedroom, where the door was open a crack.

  “Hello?” I tapped on the door. “Duncan, are you in there?”

  The clicking sped up, like a ticking clock on speed. Meth. My blood froze. Was snake-eyed Stu behind the door? Could it be Duncan’s mom? Was she hurt? Dying? Did she need help?

  I pushed open the door and thankfully didn’t find Stu, but a woman.

  “Mrs. Moore?” I asked. Was this Duncan’s mom? Hard to tell. She sat on the floor in the corner of a messy bedroom. She wore an oversize men’s T-shirt, and greasy black hair hung over her face. Her bird-thin hands and arms moved at a frantic pace as she dipped and clicked a pair of worn knitting needles. The bizarre thing was, she had no yarn. She was knitting air.

  “Have you seen Duncan?” I asked.

  Clickclackclickclackclickclack.

  “Mrs. Moore, please listen to me. There was a fire at the school. In the radio station. Duncan was the last one there. We’re all looking for him.”

  Clickclackclickclackclickclack. “I know. Cops came by.”

  “And did you tell them where Duncan was? Do you know?”

  Clickclackclickclackclickclack. A line of yellow rot streamed from the open sore on her arm. “I’m out of yarn.” She jerked her head, whipping the greasy hair from her face. “I need some yarn.”

  “Where’s Duncan?” I kept my voice calm. One of us needed to stay calm.

  “Where’s my yarn?”

  Clickclackclickclackclickclackclickclackclickclackclickclacklick. “Where’s my god-damned yarn!”

  Beeeeep.

  Hey, Mom, it’s Chloe. Give me a call. I need a ride. I’m okay, but a friend of mine, well, a friend of a friend needs some help.

  Beeeeep.

  Beeeeep.

  Dad, it’s me. Are you there? Call me.

  Beeeeep.

  Beeeeep.

  Uh, Ms. Lungren, this is Chloe Camden. I need some help.

  ASAP.

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER MS. LUNGREN, WHO STILL THOUGHT she could make a difference in my life, did. After picking me up from Duncan’s duplex, she dropped me off at home. She didn’t ask how I got off campus in the middle of the day, although as I hurried out of her car, she strongly suggested my mom or dad call the school ASAP.

  I agreed.

  When I reached my house, I grabbed the handle of my front door and burst into the entryway, the rubber soles of my shoes squealing across the marble. Strangely enough, that was the only sound. Unlike this morning when I left, there were no student movers hauling in furniture and boxes of DVDs, no Grams giving orders, no Mom running around and replacing batteries in smoke alarms and installing bathroom railings.

  “Grams?” I called. “Mom?”

  No signs of life. I rushed up the stairs. Had something happened to Grams? Did she fall down the stairs? Did she and Mom exchange nuclear missiles?

  I calmed my heart. Now was not the time for drama. If something had happened to Grams, Mom or Dad would have let me know.

  That’s when I heard the steady squeak, familiar and strangely comforting, coming from the backyard.

  On the porch I found Grams, swaying on the swing, her arms crossed over her chest as she watched something on her portable DVD player. I peeked over her shoulder and smiled. It must have been an ugly morning with Mom, because she’d pulled out the big guns, Brad Pitt with a bare chest.

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  “We haven’t killed each other. Yet.”

  “Hmmmmm.”

  Beyond the fountain, pool, and terraced flower beds on the side of the house I found Mom pumping away on my old swing. “How’s your endorphin level?” I asked.

  “Not quite high enough. Yet.”

  I gave her a push. “Keep swinging.”

  With Grams and Moms moving forward, albeit slowly, I headed for the garage and my car.
/>   I’d never been in a craft store before. Mom and Dad weren’t crafty types. Ditto for my five brothers. And Grams, she was born without the bread-baking-sewing grandma gene. The famous Question Bag was a brown-paper lunch sack. But I figured a craft store would have yarn.

  “Can I help you find something?” the clerk asked.

  One Duncan would be nice. You wouldn’t happen to have any in aisle fourteen, would you?

  According to Mrs. Moore’s muddied memory, Duncan had stopped by the duplex early that morning to check on her. “Or maybe not,” Mrs. Moore had said as she gripped the sides of her head as if trying to hold her brains in place. “Maybe it was yesterday or the day before. Hell, it was probably last week. God, I’m a mess.”

  And because Mrs. Moore was a mess and Duncan was still missing, I nodded at the craft store clerk. “Yarn, please.”

  The clerk led me to the back wall, where tubes of soft, lumpy yarn lined five rows of shelves. My fingers slid over the brilliant chili greens, orangey reds the color of poppy petals, and blues and yellows like the feathers of Larry, Moe, and Rizado hanging over the salsa bar.

  So bright, so bold, so Chloe.

  But they’d probably hurt Mrs. Moore’s bloodshot eyes.

  I reached for a soft black and gray tube shot with silver, like Duncan’s eyes. I picked two, frowned, and grabbed another four. I had no idea how many tubes of yarn it would take to knit Duncan a new scarf, but I wanted to make sure Mrs. Moore had enough. She’d explained that when coming down off the meth, she knitted like a maniac. “Keeps my hands busy and my mind off what I really want.”

  I was no doctor, but something told me Mrs. Moore was going to need more than yarn and knitting needles to get straight. Again I wondered where Duncan was. Was he so disgusted with his mom that he wanted, no needed, to get far away? Or would he dig deep past all his disappointment and anger and fear and decide to stick by her side?

  Over the past two months I’d discovered Duncan was a lousy communicator and not in touch with his emotions, but I also learned he was loyal to those he cared about. He took care of the KDRS staffers, his mom, even that girl on the beach, who was probably coming down off a major high that night and needed Duncan to keep her feet on the ground.

  By the time I left the craft store, the sun had begun to set, and I wasn’t sure what I’d find lurking behind the dark eyes of the closed windows of Duncan’s duplex. No light shone. This was a smaller version of the black hole.

  I knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” a voice croaked.

  In the kitchen I switched on the light and found Mrs. Moore at the tiny table. She’d taken a shower. Her dark hair was combed back from her pinched face, and the musty, sour smell was gone. Despite her baggy blue jeans and oversize sweatshirt, she was shaking. In one hand she held a half-crushed cigarette, and in the other a lighter that refused to light.

  “Let me help.” I took the lighter and lit the end of the cigarette, which flared, then dulled to a crackly red.

  She took a long, shaky draw. “Thanks.”

  I set the yarn bag on the counter. “Are you hungry?”

  She pointed a trembling finger at the refrigerator. “Not for anything in there.”

  I knew little about withdrawal, but logic and my recent painful experience told me if you can’t have what you want, you need to focus on something else. “Well, I am. How about eggs and cheese on toast?”

  Mrs. Moore’s upper body convulsed, as if she were trying to keep from throwing up. “Yeah, fine.”

  Recalling Duncan’s movements from a few weeks ago, I took out the frying pan and spatula, then started digging ingredients out of the refrigerator. Had it been only a few weeks since Duncan started wreaking havoc with weird body parts, including my heart?

  Mrs. Moore shot a crooked stream of smoke toward the ceiling. “Do you know where he is?”

  I dropped a pat of butter in the frying pan, where it sizzled and popped. “No, I was hoping you would.”

  She’d smoked the cigarette to the filter, which she dropped onto the table, missing the small glass plate I’d set in front of her to use as an ashtray. She reached for another cigarette and this time managed to light it on her own. “Is it true?” she asked with trembling, puffing lips. “Did he sleep in that storeroom when things got out of control around here?”

  “Yeah.” I cracked an egg and dropped it into a bowl. “The staff made it kind of homey. He didn’t seem to mind.”

  “Duncan’s a great kid.” She puffed and puffed, and the line of ash on the end of her cigarette grew into a long, gray, powdery worm. “He makes do with so little. Always has. He was always thankful for everything. One Christmas all he got was this red butt-ugly plastic bear I think I got from the dollar store. You know what he did? He hugged me and said it was perfect, that he always wanted a red butt-ugly plastic bear.” She looked at her cigarette with loathing and smashed it in the dish. “Duncan had nothing to do with the fire. He wouldn’t hurt the radio station. He loved that place.”

  “I know. The police aren’t looking for him because they think he started the fire. They’re more worried about his safety.”

  My vivid imagination kicked into high gear: Brad the love scribe storming into the station seething with anger at me. Duncan trying to calm him, to fix the mess I made. Brad hurting Duncan.

  I cracked three more eggs, then whipped. With the eggs officially dead, I poured them into the sizzling butter and made toast.

  “You need to eat,” I said when I set the sandwich before Duncan’s mom.

  Her mouth quirked in an attempt at a smile. “You sound like Duncan.” Her trembling fingers clutched the sandwich. Clumps of eggs spilled onto her lap. Cheese oozed onto the table. She clutched the sandwich tighter. The toast crumbled, egg clumps falling onto the ash worm. “I can’t stop.” She glared at her hands. “Dammit! I can’t stop.”

  I took the remnants of her sandwich from her shaking hands and set them on the plate. “You don’t need to.” I knelt next to her and put my arms around her shoulders and started to rock. Back and forth. Together.

  Sometime later the back door swung open. I turned, expecting Hetta.

  “Chloe?” Duncan walked through the door, that deep vertical line bisecting his forehead as he set a bunch of bags on the kitchen counter. “What are you doing here?”

  A happy cry clogged my throat. This was my nice, sexy, broad-shouldered Duncan, who was clearly safe. As I rocked with his mom, lyrics joined our rhythmic swaying. Dune’s okay. Dune’s okay. Dune’s okay. I gave him a smile meant to outshine any sun in any universe. I’d changed, but not entirely. Need a friend? Call Chloe. How about a laugh? Enter Chloe with joke book in hand.

  “I’m talking with your mom,” I said.

  Mrs. Moore looked up. Her eyes didn’t meet his but strayed to the bags on the counter. She pressed her bird-thin body into mine, then pushed off. “You up to trying again?” Her reedy voice quaked.

  Duncan swallowed. Three times. “Yes.”

  She stood. “Okay. Let me get my stuff together.”

  With Duncan’s mom shuffling down the hallway, I threw myself across the kitchen and into Duncan’s arms. I ran my hands over his beautiful face and broad shoulders and strong back. “You’re okay? Brad didn’t hurt you? You escaped the fire?”

  “I’m fine.” He cupped my face with his hands, my cheeks heating in a warm-sizzling-butter kind of way. “What’s going on? Who’s Brad, and what’s this about a fire?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  “About the station.” He shook his head, and I told him about the fire, the investigation, and the suspicions about Brad.

  “The poet guy?” Duncan asked. “They’re blaming him for the fire?”

  “Technically, everyone on the staff is blaming me.” I unwound myself from his arms, picked up the frying pan, and took it to the sink. “And you know what? They’re right. It’s my fault. I invited Brad to share a piece of his h
eart. I encouraged him to give his crush the poem. I—”

  “Shut up.” Dunc snatched the frying pan from me and tossed it in the sink. “Am I to blame for my mom’s addiction?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then why would you blame yourself for Brad’s actions?”

  “It was my show, my stupid advice—”

  “You didn’t tell him to burn down the station.” Duncan placed both hands on my shoulders. “You may be the queen of the universe, but you can’t control the way the minions act. If Brad really did burn down the station, then it’s his fault, not yours. Just like it’s not Clem’s fault because she’s the GM or Mr. Martinez’s fault because he’s the sponsor or the underwriters’ fault because they’ve kept the station on the air the past month. Got it?”

  I breathed in his words, took comfort from him just being close. “You know, Dunc, for someone who doesn’t know how to communicate, you’re doing a lot of talking.”

  With a grin, he pulled me into his arms, and I rested my cheek on his chest and matched my breathing with his. I thought about his words, and, yes, he was probably right. I wasn’t to blame for Brad’s actions, but I would have a hard time living with myself until the rest of the staff accepted that, too.

  “The fire investigators need to talk with you,” I told Duncan when I finally pulled away. “They want to know if you saw Brad that night near Portable Five.”

  “No. After we kissed and you drove off”—his finger slid along my lips—“I couldn’t make myself go to work. I didn’t want to be alone with my toasters or garbage, so I decided to check on Mom. I found Stu in the driveway, and he was mad as hell, because Mom had thrown him out and threatened to call the cops. And you know why? Get this. Stu broke one of the toasters on the kitchen counter. He got pissed off and chucked it across the room. Hetta said Mom came unglued. Anyway, last night Mom said she was ready for rehab. So Hetta and I spent all day checking into inpatient rehab facilities, and we found one in San Diego.”