Then she switched to anger. Reckless, who-gives-a-fuck anger. That’s also something I know about. But you don’t start down that path unless you’re ready to go all the way. Unless you can really bring it.
“Does Manny know?” I said.
She shrugged.
“I bet he doesn’t,” I said. “I bet he’s in the dark, like you. That’s the only way the plan works.”
“Fucking bastard.”
“No, I’m saying Manny’s not a bastard. He’s been misled.”
“I’m not talking about Manny.”
Right.
She lay down, curled up.
I rubbed her foot. And I felt—I would never tell Meili this—excitement. Possibility. Her collapse, the betrayal, it all made me relevant, necessary. Cause whatever else my fucked-up life had done, it taught me how to survive when the adults won’t protect you.
She was silent so long I thought she was asleep.
I slid away. Leave her be. She stays up most of the night, must be exhausted.
I got halfway to the kitchen.
“What’s wrong with our parents?” she said, as if we’d been talking the whole time.
“Our parents? Different things.”
“No, it’s the same.” Her eyes were open, bloodshot and staring at the floor. “They’ve thrown us away. Walked away from their fucking child cause they’ve got more important things to do.”
“Look, I’m not defending your dad, but he does take care of you. He sent Manny, he found you a family to stay with, I assume he sends money.”
“That’s not taking care of me. It’s the opposite. It’s hiring people so he doesn’t have to.”
She sat up, grabbed her tobacco.
Say something, Jason. “You’re right” didn’t seem helpful.
“Can you imagine?” she said. “If you had a child, can you imagine sending her away, not speaking to her for a year? It’s unthinkable.”
A drop of water landed on her half-rolled cigarette. She tossed it all into the ashtray, put her head in her hands.
“A year, Jason. A fucking year.”
I sat back down, and she spun around.
“All for some money? Money? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Her shoulders shook, the tears streamed.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Could I imagine a parent thousands of miles away from a kid, not knowing or caring what’s happening in his life?
Yes, Meili.
I could.
* * *
Meili’s conversation with her dad did not bring us closer.
That night, we had a long, surreal argument. Much of the argument was about (a) whether we were having an argument, and (b) if we were, what the argument was about.
My position was that we were having a discussion—not an argument—about the pros and cons of meeting with Anthony Holt, a guy sent by that Hong Kong lawyer. I thought it was a terrible idea. If your dad ships you off to another continent to hide money, there must be real danger. I suggested alternatives. How about I meet Holt first and check out whether he’s legitimate? I didn’t know how I would do that exactly.
Meili said if your dad ships you off to another continent to hide money, you get to do whatever the fuck you want. When you’ve been thrown away, you don’t owe anyone anything. She said we were arguing about who gets to make decisions in her life: her or “all you men,” meaning, as far as I could tell, her father, Manny, me, and her uncle. At one point she included Ms. Davies, who, though technically not male, was “part of the whole power thing.” First and only time I’ve been accused of conspiring with my guidance counselor.
Topics we covered: Whether using your child to hide money was cruel but possibly understandable, or just cruel. Whether Manny had put me “in charge” of Meili or “in service” of her. Whether the name “Anthony” indicated a sneaky or reliable person. Whether owning a bunch of disputed real estate made Meili powerful or vulnerable. Whether being in jail, something I knew about, was worse than hiding your identity, something Meili knew about. Whether it was harder to have a drunk mom a thousand miles away or a devious dad ten thousand miles away.
Here’s how ridiculous it got. I said, “I don’t even know what we’re fighting about” so many times that Meili started lip-synching it.
We switched rooms, closed doors on each other, paced, came roaring back with: “But how can you say…”
When she could no longer bear the repetitions, the infuriating dead ends, she went to sleep on the couch. It was agony. I lay in bed, facing away from the door, replaying and continuing our argument. She moved to the bed at 3 a.m. With her near me, though not curled around me, I nodded off a couple times.
I crawled out of bed in the morning to shower. When I came back in, she sat up sharply, peered around the room. She never liked what she saw when she first opened her eyes. She lay back down and pulled the blanket over her head.
I’d learned not to reach out in the morning. Let her initiate, especially after last night.
I got dressed and searched my bookcase for The Forgotten Sea, sequel to The Last Fortress. Having a great series helped in the Rubber Room.
“You going?” she said from under the blanket.
“Every day.”
“Seems a bit much.”
I found The Distant Island, two books ahead in the series, but it would do.
Don’t initiate. Let her talk first.
“You going to miss me?” she said, eyes open, covers down by her chin.
A brutal question. The brutal question. God, could she leave? I dodged it.
“Technically, between 8:07 and 2:41, I will miss Melissa Young, not you,” I said.
“Can’t stand that one. Such a snob,” she said, smiling slightly. “Looking for more great literature?”
“I like my series. Piss off.”
“No, it’s great. Better than watching TV. I really don’t want to watch TV again. So depressing.”
“Maybe you should … not watch it then,” I said.
“You scholars are so rational. That’s not how it works.”
“Scholar’s gotta go.”
“No! Get over here, Bug.”
I lay down next to her. She put my hand on her chest and turned so I was spooning her, the thing I’d wanted all night. I felt her heartbeat, urgent and sturdy.
“What happened last night?” she said. “Did I call you a Nazi?”
“Among other things.”
“God, what are we like?”
“I think I called you a nightmare,” I said.
“A fucking nightmare, ’s what you said.” She craned her neck around and looked at me from the corner of her eye.
“Sorry.” A smarter boy would make a joke: But really you’re a dream come true. But a smarter boy wouldn’t be exhausted, hungry, and late for the Rubber Room. “Nazi’s gotta go,” I said.
She gripped my hand tighter. “Don’t.” I slid out of her grasp, and she groaned. “I can’t believe you’re going to school again.”
In the kitchen, I scanned for the fastest breakfast and lunch. She yelled from the bedroom, “Go to school again, hooligan!”
That was the last calm thing she said to me.
Before I left, I looked in. Meili was on her back, head tilted to the left, mouth open. On each exhale, she made a tiny “huh.” If I was completely still, I could hear it from the doorway.
* * *
Here’s how it started.
It was Frosh-Soph Field Day at UHS: goofy outfits, relay races, and hollered chants. I was really out of the loop. While freshmen screamed through an obstacle course outside the Rubber Room windows, I thought about Meili.
And her buildings.
Significant assets gave me a tingle. Whatever was screwed up in Meili’s world and my world, significant assets could fix. It was like that stack of fifties from Manny, like those manic moments when my mom got a windfall. The money tilted me, made me imagine.
With money, w
e could … what?
Leave. We could go. No Manny, no UHS, no probation officer, no Aunt Sophie, no Ronny, no cold mac and cheese. Our whole situation could be bought out, replaced.
My mistake, or maybe my question, was thinking of our situation. Did we have a situation? Or did we have two separate, shitty situations that intersected in the Rubber Room?
Eating my lunch (crackers, jar of peanut butter, two bananas), I thought about Manny coming back. Do we tell him? Manny would know what to do. He could handle himself. But maybe he was in on it. Meili definitely wasn’t trusting anyone, except, insanely, this Anthony Holt guy. Once she calmed down, I’d convince her not to meet Holt. And then, who knows, maybe we take those significant assets and live some other place, some other way. Maybe we smash our problems together and solve them both. But I had to convince her there’s—
“Jason, you have a phone call in the office,” the aide said, sandwich in one hand, intercom in the other.
That’s how my time in the Rubber Room ended.
Phone call. My probation officer sometimes called the school when my phone was shut off. But my phone was working. I rooted through my backpack for the probation form, the kind of compliance that kept him happy.
I walked through the echoing, scrubbed halls, face-painted Field Dayers hustling past.
I passed my old locker, which was so close to Ronny’s my locker privileges had been revoked. Right then, I didn’t care. And not in a fuck-Ronny way. I was above it. I was beyond this claustrophobic school, this small-minded town. Too tight, Meili said. Such a big world out there. I felt sweet toward UHS, almost nostalgic.
We had assets. Meili and I could—maybe—leave together. I would actually miss this place.
I should have savored it, should have strolled laps around the school, since Field Day meant the hall monitoring was relaxed. And since it would be the last time I was permitted inside the building.
“Hi, I’m Jason Wilder, I have a phone call.”
The secretary brought out Ms. Davies, who had her serious face on.
“Jason, a doctor called concerning your mother.” What? She guided me into her office. “They need to speak with you directly. It’s line two. I’ll be right out here.”
They. That word got me. Permission to take her off life support, donating organs. Those are the things “they” ask you about, right?
I sat in the soft blue chair facing Ms. Davies’ desk. No school district furniture for kids who came to talk with her: this was puffy and leaned back. Made you want to stay.
I pressed LINE 2.
“Hello?”
“Jason, it’s me.”
“Meili?”
“Oh god, Jason,” Meili said, out of breath. “I’m so sorry. I just—it’s all messed up.”
“What’s going on? Where’s my mom?” I said.
“No, it’s nothing to do with your mum. I’m sorry, I just had to get you on the phone. I’ve got a meeting with the guy, but it’s all wrong. I needed to hear your voice. I’m scared, Bug.”
“What guy?”
“The guy! Holt, the guy from the lawyer, he came to meet me.”
I caught Ms. Davies watching me through the door, and she looked away.
“I thought that was next week.”
“He just showed up, and he kept calling, like: ‘I’m here now, you have to come talk to me.’ He says I’m in trouble, the buildings aren’t really mine, there’s lawsuits, and, I dunno, I’m scared.”
“You don’t have to—”
“He shoved these papers under the door and said I’d been served. What does that mean?”
He came to the house? Was he still there?
“Hold on, Meili. You don’t—”
“I’m scared of leaving, Bug. I’m scared they’re gonna, like, take me with them. This guy’s not playing around. And I’m scared of these papers, Jason, I don’t even want to touch them.”
Papers, right. I knew about papers. “You can touch them. Once he says those words, it’s over, so you might as well read them.”
In retrospect, maybe those papers were the whole story. The idea that there were—what, assassins? kidnappers?—looking for Meili seems pretty over the top when you think about it. I don’t know much about real estate, but I know a silly amount about serving papers. If you avoid being served, you avoid a lot of legal problems. Maybe the scary stories and the fleeing from town to town were her father’s way of making sure she never got served. How messed up is that?
“God, I don’t want to read them.” I heard her lighter flick. Must have been rolling a cigarette this whole time. “He wanted to come in, kept pounding the door, but I was too scared. I told him to go to Stewart’s, and I got in the car, but I freaked out and came back in and called you. I’m sorry. It’s all fucked. Manny called, and I’m scared he knows about it, too.”
Sometimes my vision shakes. Fights won’t do it, even getting arrested didn’t. But when those guys put bottle rockets in my house, threatened my family, everything wobbled. It happened during this call, same feeling: don’t come after my people, my home.
“I’ll be there in five minutes,” I said. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“I’ve gotta go, I’ve gotta talk to this guy. I’ve been putting him off, and he’s really angry. I just didn’t want to, you know, have them whisk me away, and I never said goodbye or anything.”
“I’m coming, Meili.” I was on my feet. “Don’t go anywhere.”
I opened the door so quickly I startled Ms. Davies.
“Jason, is every—”
“I have to go.” I was already hustling toward the hall. “It’s my mom, she’s in the hospital.”
Ms. Davies tried to slow things down. “OK, Jason, what hospital? We can get you there.”
“No, I have to go.”
I was down the hall in full sprint, my shoes slapping the shiny floor.
I had my keys with me, so I ran right past the Rubber Room and out the double doors to the parking lot. Please, god, let my bike turn over.
It didn’t.
I pushed it hard till I was running alongside. I jumped on, and it started. I kicked into gear and roared out of the parking lot.
I pulled off onto my road, gunned it into my driveway, and left the bike running.
Manny’s car was gone. Shit.
“Meili!” I shouted. Inside, the phone was ringing.
I banged on the back door, which, turned out, was unlocked. Not good. I never left the door unlocked, even when I was home. I entered the house braced to meet someone I didn’t want to see.
Kitchen was empty. Meili’s notebooks and pens were gone.
“Meili!” I raced through the house, looking for her but careful. Each door I opened, I had both flavors of adrenaline in my muscles: hope that Meili was there and fear that someone else was.
Phone still ringing.
Her stuff was gone. All of it, even the clothes Stephen brought. Like someone had swept in and erased her presence. Whatever papers that guy served, she’d taken them. My vision wobbled.
At least the kitchen still smelled like tobacco, the smell that nauseated me back on Brandt Hill.
Phone still ringing. Could be her.
I picked it up. “Hello?”
Static and a voice in the background.
“Hello?” I repeated louder.
The phone cards were gone. And the scribbled-on takeout menus.
“Jason? It’s me.” Not Meili. Manny.
Shit. Of course.
“Jason! Is that you?” Definitely Manny’s voice.
I looked for evidence of Meili: a pen, a hair tie, a fucking cup of tea. Nothing.
“Yeah.” Goddammit.
There: her shark-tooth necklace under the couch. I pocketed it.
“What’s happening? What is she doing?” he said.
OK, which lies was I telling Manny again? And Manny was … bad? No, just misled? I was too jacked-up to remember how to talk to him.
“Are you
there? Listen, Jason, she’s—”
I hung up.
I just hung up on him.
I couldn’t listen to Manny, couldn’t add more layers to this fucked-up moment.
Out the back door to my bike, still idling. No helmet, just go. The phone started ringing again. I turfed the lawn and shot out into the road.
Breathe. Focus. What was happening? Stewart’s, a meeting. What if she wasn’t there? Gone, erased, “whisked away” was the phrase she used. That would be a disaster. The end of everything.
Oh, god.
She had to be there. Had to. And then, really, how bad could it be? Some scary guy was threatening her, bullying her? Worst case, I take him on and Meili runs. If you don’t mind getting hurt, you can solve most problems.
It was a fast fall from the glory of walking past my old locker. Manny’s voice, my fear that someone had broken in, Meili’s stuff gone. I was doing sixty on Black Rock Road. My insides were speeding up, too.
Then I saw the parking lot.
A bunch of cars and pickups, a medium-size lunch crowd. Manny’s Ford was on the side of the building. Thank god, she’s here.
But then, parked right up against it, pinning it in so it couldn’t leave, was a silver SUV with someone in the driver’s seat.
That settled it.
When I think back—something I did a lot in the weeks after—that was the moment everything became inevitable and, in a way, easy.
Because if there’s some argument in Stewart’s, all messy and debatable and he said/she said, I can’t really help.
But if this is how it is? You park your SUV behind Meili’s car? You pin us in so there’s no turning back? Then I can be very useful.
Useful and dangerous. That’s what she called me.
SIXTEEN
I parked on the other side of the lot. No hurry, no drama. I played innocent, checking my bike for a moment, then letting my gaze casually drift over. The guy in the SUV was clocking me.
I didn’t mind. I just thought: you should be worried about me, asshole.
Out-of-state plates. Somebody drove a long way for this meeting.
I walked to his driver’s side, stood there, didn’t say anything.
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