Cornerstone

by Misty Provencher

  I hop my gaze all over the dining room in search of anything, besides the wall where Garrett is having his conversation with my arch nemesis. I look at the chairs tucked around the table, the weird collage of broken dishes mounted on the wall, and I still manage to run right smack into Garrett’s eyes, which are staring directly at me. Before I can skitter away, he makes a goofy face. The kind I’d make over a bowl of boiled okra. Or over a conversation with a cheerleader I can’t stand. His grin makes me hold myself down inside, anchoring my legs from spinning around the room on tip toe. Whether or not Garrett is into me, at least I know he is way less into Jen.

  “I’m not really the one you need to apologize to,” he says. He sweeps back his hair and stuffs a finger in his ear to block out the mounting argument going on between Iris and Brandon. Iris comes tearing into the dining room, gripping Brandon’s Hacky Sack as she yanks out a chair and dives under the table. I try to keep tabs on Garrett’s conversation while feigning interest in Brandon trying to swipe back the bean bag from his sister. “Yeah, okay. You’ll talk to her? Mmm hmm…Last senior party, huh?...I’ll have to see...oh yeah?”

  I glance again at Garrett and his eyes are still on me. Thinking all my bad thoughts of Jen seems pretty petty since I’m the one who’s here, seeing him wink at me. I look away, but my cheeks prickle like needles in a voodoo doll.

  “Huh, okay...” Garrett finally says into the receiver. “Okay, I’ll find out...mmm hmm...okay, yeah, see ya.”

  Brandon wrestles the toy away from Iris and she comes out from beneath the table, howling. Mrs. Reese shouts from downstairs that everyone should be playing nice. I try to puzzle-piece the conversation together as Garrett hangs up. It’s against the universal, we’re-just-friends rule for me to even ask what Jen wanted, so I am totally relieved when he tells me anyway.

  “Jen called to apologize for what’s happened. She said she’s going to call your house and talk to you. I guess she doesn’t know you’re staying here.” he says. I wonder if the way his lips curl down at the edge means he wants her to know. Flutter. “And she wants us to come to her party.”

  “Us?” I feel myself gaping. I actually have to concentrate on shutting my mouth.

  “Well, she invited me and she said I could bring a friend. And she knows we’re friends, right?”

  “No way.” I make a sound that sounds exactly like I’m trying to blow a kernel of corn out of my nostril. My cheeks instantly flame again. “I mean, yeah, we’re friends, but you know Jen totally doesn’t mean me.”

  “I think she’s just trying to make peace, but,” he shrugs. “I’m not sure I’d even want to go.”

  Not sure? How can he not be sure? Didn’t he see Cora’s video? What I want him to say is that he’d rather eat nails. Finger paint himself with battery acid. Or that there is no way he’d go without me because he can’t stand to be away from me that long.

  Brandon and Mark start a vicious argument in the living room.

  “It’s over!” Brandon hoots. “It hit your arm! That was sooo your arm!”

  “You’re nuts.” Mark shouts back. “You just don’t want to fork over your allowance.”

  “What did we say about betting, boys?” Mr. Reese booms over the top of them both. Garrett turns to me.

  “Want to go hang out in my room?” he asks, one eyebrow quizzing me. As if I could pronounce ‘no’ when he looks at me. Still, I try to make it sound like it’s no big deal but I’m already thinking of his soft, reclining chair and the concentrated scent of his cologne that makes me feel like his arms are around me.

  “Sure.” I follow him downstairs. Mrs. Reese is reading a book on one couch and my mom is sitting on the other, hunched over, writing. Neither of them look up as we pass.

  I notice the pile of paper, neatly arranged against the far wall, beneath the windows. I can’t help but shudder at the sight of it. The dead, stacked in sheets and starting to fill up the Reese’s lively space. I wonder if the human race could eventually be snuffed out not by nuclear bombs but by the overcrowding of the dead. The entire Earth, nothing but one big storage garage for all of us. I shiver again.

  “You cold?” Garrett asks as we go down the hall.

  “No.” I say and he nods like he understands anyway.

  “Long day.” he says as we enter his room. He leaves the door open. The recognition of how long a day it’s been, mixed up with the concentrated scent of his cologne makes me feel tired and dizzy at once. I stand in the doorway like an awkward totem pole until Garrett pats the bed for me to sit and then slides into the chair himself. I hobble in and take a seat, sinking into his mattress. The scent of him wafts up from the comforter and I inhale so deeply, it feels like stealing.

  “Music?” he asks and I nod, unwilling to open my mouth and miss one dizzying breath. He turns on his old stereo and the music hums from the speakers. “I’ll go grab us something to drink. I’ll be right back, okay?”

  I nod again and he goes. I hear him pad down the hall. I push down on the comforter to send another wisp of his scent into the air. It’s like a drug. My whole body relaxes and my head feels too heavy to stay upright. I listen for Garrett to return and when he doesn’t, I slump down on my elbows, closer to the comforter. It seems like hours are going by, even though looking at his alarm clock, I see it’s hardly even minutes. I let myself sink down into the soft trench, the comforter puffing up around me, trapping my body heat. I yawn.

  That’s the last thing I remember.

  ~ * * * ~

  Waking up on Garrett Reese’s bed is like waking up in the middle of a deserted carnival. I shoot straight up, knowing I have no idea where I am, for exactly three seconds, and then I remember and I’m happy and then I panic because I know I shouldn’t be here. I thump around, half expecting and mostly hoping to find Garrett beside me, but the bed is empty. There’s only me, wound up in a wad of comforter and sheets belonging to the most handsome, best-smelling boy, who is also no where to be seen.

  Everything is quiet until I stumble down the hall and hear the rest of the house, banging cereal bowls and popping the toaster. Everyone is wide awake. There is a cold panic right in the center of my chest, pressing down hard on my lungs, as I feel the humiliation of emerging from Garrett’s room. I mean, I’m not a girl that does that. Especially in a house full of both our families.

  My mom is still at work, in the same place on the couch that I left her last night. She’s hunched over a five inch stack of paper. Garrett is sleeping on the love seat opposite from her. He’s on his back, his feet dangling over the arm. My mom doesn’t look up when I drift to the edge of her couch, but when I reach out and rub her shoulders, she groans with gratitude.

  “Thank you.” she says. “You can’t imagine how much I needed that.”

  Instead of talking, I keep rubbing and let myself sneak another look at Garrett. I’m hypnotized by the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest that seems to keep time with the scratch of my mom’s pen on the paper. His hair has dropped back from his face. My eyes slide over his profile. His nose is so smooth and straight that my fingertips tingle with the urge to touch it. I stand there, floating in the idea of what it would feel like, both on my skin and in my heart, to be able to trace the bridge of his nose whenever I wanted.

  “Garrett said you fell asleep pretty hard, huh?” my mom asks. Even his name scrambles my breathing a little.

  “Yeah. I guess so.” I knead her left shoulder with my free hand so it doesn’t interrupt her writing.

  “He said he couldn’t wake you up.” she says. I think of him standing over me, watching me sleep and I feel a spark of excitement followed with a pang of anxiety. I hope I wasn’t drooling on his comforter. She grins dryly in his direction before resuming her writing. “I think it was very kind of him to let you have his bed, considering he had to sleep on that love seat.”

  I listen to the scratch of her pen on the paper. I know she worries about how much I like him, but by the way she lets the grin stay on her fac
e as she writes, I think she’s having a hard time not liking him herself.

  ~ * * * ~

  Garrett is up and showered by the time I finish breakfast. Mr. Reese takes Brandon and Mark off to the gym with him and Mrs. Reese herds Iris out the door to ballet class, despite all Iris’s pleading to stay with ‘Evanchline’.

  I’m at the table, clinking the palm of my cast against my empty tea mug, when Garrett comes upstairs. Slicked back from his face, his damp hair appears even darker than usual and his eyes are so purely blue, I imagine they would be the exact color of a waterfall in the middle of Eden. It makes me forget that I’m still kind of tired, that I should be sleeping in because it is Saturday, that Jen called yesterday, that I slept in Garrett’s bed, that I need to go back to the Addo’s today, that the world is falling down, that I made a Simple choice and still didn’t, that I am the daughter of a murderer.

  “What’s on your mind?” Garrett asks as he pulls out a box of granola. He dumps some into two bowls and roots around in the fridge for the milk.

  “We’re going to the Addo’s, right?”

  “Yeah.” Garrett splashes milk on the cereal and puts the gallon back. “I can take you as soon as we eat. Have some.”

  He leaves one bowl near my elbow before he grabs us each a spoon and takes a seat across from me. Instead of putting the spoon in my bowl, I lay a finger on the rounded part and push it against the table, lifting the handle. Garrett swallows a mouthful, watching me.

  “So what are you going to tell him?” He looks away when he asks as if he shouldn’t be asking at all. But what I’m going to tell the Addo isn’t personal to me. I let go of the spoon and the handle clinks against the table. I glance back at the stairs and lower my voice.

  “I’m going to say I need to protect my mom.”

  “You most certainly are not.” My mom’s voice startles me as she materializes from the family room downstairs. I drop my forehead into my palm and look across the table to Garrett. He’s just casually chewing his granola, unaware or maybe genuinely unconcerned, that he’s about to see my mom combust. “You don’t need to have this kind of a life.”

  She sits at the head of the table, pushing my bowl of granola squarely in front of me. Garrett puts another spoonful of cereal in his mouth like he’s watching a game show.

  “That was before I knew about Roger.” I tell her.

  “He’ll leave us alone if you stay out of the community.”

  “And what if he doesn’t?” I ask. “What about the others?”

  “What others?”

  “She means The Fury, Alo Evangeline.” Garrett says.

  “What about them? The Fury can’t organize enough to agree on which liquor to get drunk on, let alone create a significant problem for the Ianua. ” my mother tells him. She turns to me, her eyes pleading. “Roger’s the only one we have to worry about, Nalena, and if you’re not part of the Ianua, he’s got no reason to bother us.”

  “He bothered to break her arm, Alo Evangeline.” Garrett corrects her quietly. “Before he even knew for sure that she had the sign. Just like we were discussing the other night...”

  “What we were discussing the other night is an old wives tale, Garrett.” My mother cuts him off.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask. My voice is suddenly a wild thing, beating in my throat. “What were you discussing?”

  “An outdated conspiracy theory.” my mom says. She purses her lips at Garrett and crosses her arms over her chest. “Just a theory, nothing more.”

  “It’s not just a theory anymore. We can’t ignore the fact things are happening.” Garrett says. “If I hadn’t the emergency call to watch over the Addo, Nalena would never have been jumped in the bathroom at school.”

  “You were called in as a precaution! Nothing happened.” my mother argues. “This is not a reason for her to base a decision on.”

  “She wants to protect you.” Garrett’s voice drops an octave.

  “She is my daughter, Garrett!” She stabs her chest with her finger. “And it is my job to protect her. Not the other way around.”

  “She should have the right to choose. She was given the warrior sign for a reason. Their numbers have been growing and look at how close they’ve gotten. Roger never should have been able to lay a finger on Nalena. He said himself that he’s got inside contacts. I don’t think you can argue that the conspiracy theory we’ve suspected might not be a theory anymore.”

  “You give me the name of someone in our community that they’ve killed.” My mom taps a finger on the table. She said killed. I can’t even catch my breath to ask if I heard it right before Garrett answers her.

  “Chloe Henderson.” he says.

  “That was a car accident. They...”

  “Nicholas Gershund.”

  “You think The Fury orchestrated an entire plane crash, just to get rid of Nick? There were thirty-three other passengers killed...”

  “Patty Rickenback, electrocuted in her bathtub.”

  “Patty was ancient and she probably wasn’t thinking straight. She took a bath and the radio was too close to the tub.”

  “Debbie Harris, poisoned.”

  “She used to be an alcoholic. She relapsed and drank the wrong concoction.”

  “Everyone says the deaths are part of a plan, just like the one with Elaina and Steven Mulshevitz, but on a much bigger scale.” Garrett says. “Prey on the weak, make it all look like accidents and slowly whittle down the opposition.”

  “Who? Who’s saying?” my mom snaps. “Because it was not The Fury that killed the Mulshevitz’s, Garrett.” Her laugh is hacked flat at the end. “That was almost eighteen years ago and even though you’re too young to have known Elaina and Steven, I did. They weren’t murdered and there wasn’t any plan. I knew them for goodness sake! They had a terrible marriage and Elaina was cheating on Steven. When he found out that his son wasn’t his, he shot her and then he shot himself. The Fury had nothing to do with it.”

  “I thought you said The Fury wasn’t really a threat.” I say to Garrett. Or maybe I just squeak. That’s what it feels like.

  “In the distant past they weren’t, but in the past eighteen years, the rate of ‘accidental’ deaths has climbed and the accidents keep getting more and more bizarre. There have been five ‘accidental’ Ianua deaths in the last five months, the highest number yet.” Garrett says. “They’re preying on the Alo.”

  “It’s coincidence, Nalena, that’s all.” My mother takes a seat beside me, curling her fingers around my chin so I will look at her. “When people die unexpectedly, sometimes it is easier to explain the senselessness if there is a scandal. These deaths are tragedies, not conspiracies. Don’t make your choice based on this. I don’t need protecting.”

  I drop against the back of the chair. “It’s a lot of people to die tragically within five months. It could be some huge coincidence, but what if it’s not? How many Alo are there?” I ask.

  “Only the Addos know for sure.” Garrett says.

  “There are hundreds of Alo.” my mom says. “Maybe thousands.”

  “There’s more than one Addo?” I ask. Garrett nods.

  “There were thirteen.” he says. “Until one passed away last month.”

  “Addo Chad.” my mother says. “God bless him, he passed in his sleep.”

  “At the ripe age of forty-one.” Garrett adds. “Without any prior health issues. The autopsy pointed to a suspicious cause of death.”

  “The autopsy was inconclusive.” my mom says, smoothing down her shirt. The way she does it, I know she feels she’s lost the battle. She glances up at the clock. “You should get going, the Addo will be waiting for you. Just remember, Nalena, you’ve got nothing to worry about, besides making the right choice.

  I guess she’s right.

  Chapter 15

  “I didn’t mean to scare you, but I thought you should know everything before you make your decision.” Garrett says when we’re in the car and on the way to the
Addo’s.

  “You’re not scaring me.” I lie. After listening to he and my mom go at it in the kitchen, I’m not sure either one of them knows what the truth really is. It seems like they both have suspicions but neither of them can prove any of it. All I know is that my mom wants me to have a Simple Life and that having it still seems the best option to keep us both safe.

  “Do you know what are you going to do?” Garrett asks.

  “Yeah.” I tell him. “I’m going to do what my mom wants and keep my father away from us.”

  Garrett runs the car off on the gravel shoulder and turns to me. “Are you serious?”

  “You said you’re going to keep my mom safe.” I tell him even though I don’t even feel right about saying it out loud. “And I’ll be able to protect myself. Roger won’t bother us as long as I stay out of the community.”

  “Did you get that in writing?” He is so sarcastic that suddenly, no matter how beautiful Garrett Reese is, it’s still not worth taking this from him.

  “Look,” I say, mirroring his sarcasm. “What do you care anyway? Your job is to take care of my mom. I appreciate that you’ve been nice to me because you feel like you have to, but I’m just going to put it out there: you’re off the hook. I’m going to be out of your hair after I talk to the Addo. Okay? So, you can go back to doing your job and I’ll get on with my life.”

  “My job?” Garrett’s whole face puckers up as he says it. “You think I’m nice to you because I...”

  I don’t let him finish. I stick my Ipod buds in my ears and crank up my volume until it drowns him out and makes my ears thump with bass. We don’t speak another word on the way to the Addo’s house. It’s not like Garrett doesn’t try, but I keep the buds in my ears. Garrett grabs the cords and pops them out once, but I just stuff them right back in. After that, he leaves me alone.