Mr. Tate still sat in the big leather chair. He hadn’t looked at me yet, not once. I felt free to stare at him because he refused to acknowledge me. His hands were shaking. The chair seemed to swallow him up, and I thought about how all alone he was, more alone than anyone I knew. Except for Jonah.
“Can I do anything for you?” I asked.
“No, thank you.”
A clock ticked on the wall across the room.
“You may go now,” he said.
But I couldn’t leave yet. I saw Jonah in his face, and I couldn’t leave him.
“Why did you do it?” I asked. “Why did you keep them apart?”
“Jonah was just a boy,” Mr. Tate said. “I thought he’d forget.”
“But he didn’t,” I said. “He couldn’t.”
“No, I suppose he couldn’t. But I hoped that he would. I was trying to free him. I was trying to give him the life I would have wanted. Unencumbered. Matthew was a burden on Jonah. It warped him.”
“He didn’t think Matthew was a burden,” I said.
“He was foolish.”
“You were foolish.”
He pressed his feet on the floor as if trying to rock the leather chair, but it wasn’t a rocking chair. He pretended it was, anyway, and leaned forward and back, forward and back.
“You were foolish,” I said again.
He stopped rocking. “I was foolish too.”
I wiggled my fingers and toes. The feeling was spreading back into them, slowly.
“He’s trying to hurt you,” I said.
“He’s trying to hurt us all,” Mr. Tate said. “But it’s too late. We’re already wrecked.”
CHAPTER 27
I didn’t know what to do with myself. So I painted my room. Black.
“Oh, Bea,” Mom said. “What are you doing to your room?”
“Decorating,” I said. I climbed the ladder and daubed black paint on the ceiling.
“It’s like a cave in here.”
“It’s eternal night.”
She sat on my bed. “Do you feel like talking?”
“No.”
“I don’t care,” Mom said. “I feel like talking.”
My hand jerked, and paint dripped on the floor.
“Did Jonah say anything to you? Leave you any kind of explanation? How could he do it?”
She’d been asking this question since the day Jonah disappeared. I gave up trying to answer her. I didn’t have an answer, anyway. I just wished she’d stop asking the question. It was like being stabbed in the neck with a safety pin, over and over again.
“Leave me alone,” I said.
“No,” Mom said. “I can’t leave you alone. I won’t. Your father won’t, either.” She reached toward the ladder and touched my bare foot. “You’re not going to do that to us, are you, Bea?” From above she looked as fragile as a leaf. Her bony hand reminded me of Mr. Tate. I climbed down the ladder and sat next to her on the bed.
“You’re not going to leave us like Jonah did, with no word, no explanation?” she continued. “You’re not going to break our hearts?”
I thought about it for a minute, remembering all those times I thought I saw that look in her eyes begging me to leave. And lots of times I did have an impulse to run away. I imagined boarding a Greyhound bus headed west, to somewhere, to nowhere, I didn’t know where or care. Someplace bigger, wider, and more open than anyplace I’d ever lived. And I’d be free somehow…to do what I didn’t know.
I remembered how, before I met Jonah, I used to dream of being dead. I didn’t find that comforting anymore.
I told my mother I’d never do that, never abandon them, and when I heard myself say the words, I knew I meant them.
“Thank you,” she said. She got up to leave. I climbed the ladder and started painting again.
“Won’t it be depressing?” she said. “All this black?”
“I’m going to add stars,” I said. “Glow-in-the-dark stars, all over.”
That night, I crawled into bed and turned out the light. The room glowed with tiny stars. I closed my eyes and saw pinpricks of light against my eyelids. I opened them and saw the same thing. I felt like I was floating.
It was twelve-thirty. I turned on my radio and prepared to lose myself in Night Light Land.
Myrna:
Herb, did you see that story in the paper about the boy who disappeared? Jonah Tate? That’s our Ghost Boy!
Herb:
Is it? I thought the description sounded familiar, but there wasn’t a picture, so—
Myrna:
The composite the cops drew was terrible. Looks nothing like him. The poor boy. I wonder what’s become of dear Robot Girl.
Herb:
Perhaps she’s listening. Maybe she’ll call in and tell us what happened and how she’s doing. I hope she’s all right. I hope they both are.
Myrna:
Me too. What a cute couple! Such nice kids. I was looking forward to seeing them at my God Bless Elvis party in August.
Herb:
Maybe they’ll be there. Maybe by then everything will be all right.
Myrna:
I sure hope so. If anyone hears any news, please call in.
Herb:
I’ll second that. Nighty-night, Myrna. Next caller, you’re on the air.
Larry:
Herb, it’s a good night for a Flying Carpet Ride, don’t you think? Moon’s out. What do you say?
Herb:
Good idea, Larry. Pile on, everybody. Who’s coming with us? Caller?
Myrna:
It’s Myrna again. I know I just called but I want to go out tonight. To look for Ghost Boy.
Herb:
All right. Who else is coming?
Dottie:
This is Dottie. I want to find that boy too.
Herb:
Welcome aboard, Dottie. We have room for one more.
Caller:
[using high-pitched girl’s voice] This is Helen Wheels. I’d like to go look for that poor, sweet, darling boy.
Herb:
We’re not in the mood for jokes tonight, Don.
Helen Wheels:
Who’s Don? I told you, my name is Helen. Helen Wheels.
Herb:
If you insist. All right. Here we go. [Ding-ding!]
Larry:
The city looks extra beautiful tonight.
Myrna:
I see a skinny blond boy on a boat in the Inner Harbor. On one of those peddle boats!
Dottie:
Are we flying over Annapolis yet? I bet he’s sleeping on somebody’s sailboat, under a canvas cover.
Herb:
Over the Bay Bridge—
Myrna:
We’re up so high now, I can’t pick out any people .
Larry:
It’s too dark. And we’re so far away from the earth.
Helen Wheels:
La la la la la…I love flying high like this.
Myrna:
Let’s fly low when we get to Ocean City. Runaways like to sleep under the boardwalk.
Larry:
I wish Robot Girl was with us. She could help us find him.
Myrna:
I hope she’s okay. Call in and let us know you’re all right, okay, honey?
Herb:
We’re coming into Ocean City now. It’s awfully crowded tonight—
Dottie:
Fly low, like Myrna said. Maybe he’s playing skee-ball or miniature golf.
Myrna:
He’s not wasting his time with that. He was a good boy. A smart boy. But I don’t see him on the boardwalk. I don’t think he’s here.
Larry:
I don’t think we’ll find him. Even if he’s down there somewhere, we could look right past him.
Herb:
Should we stop and see Morgan?
Myrna:
Herb, I’m just not in the mood.
Dottie:
Me neither.
Helen Wheels:
Me, either. [Voice changes from high to low] Don Berman! Don Berman! Don Berman!
Myrna:
Why do you always have to ruin everything, Don Berman?
Don Berman:
Don Berman!
I was crying.
The phone beside my bed gleamed in the light from the window. I stared at it. Watched it. Willed it to ring.
What if I dialed Jonah’s number and he answered? Wouldn’t that be funny? Maybe I’d dreamed this whole thing. He hadn’t gone anywhere. He was still in his bedroom, in his house on the other side of school, listening to the radio like always.
I reached for the phone and dialed his number. I listened to it ring. It rang on and on. I imagined the phone crying out in his empty room.
I didn’t count the rings, but it felt like hundreds. Could Mr. Tate hear them echoing through his house? Was I torturing him? Making him scream in frustration, pressing his hands to his ears to block out the noise?
If he wanted to make the ringing stop, all he had to do was pick up.
Maybe he had unplugged Jonah’s phone. Maybe he couldn’t hear the ringing at all.
I hugged the receiver to my chest and let it ring. Ring, ring, ring…He wasn’t there. He wouldn’t answer. Face it, I told myself. Just face it.
I dropped the receiver in its cradle and turned up the volume on my radio, turned it up loud.
The next morning, someone knocked on the front screen door. Mom was in the kitchen making ratatouille.
“Bea, can you get that?”
I went to the door. It was Walt.
“Hey,” he said. The screen blurred his face. “How are you doing?”
“Okay.”
“Um, can I come in for a second?”
I glanced back at the kitchen. Steam puffed out of a pot on the stove. “I’ll come out.”
We sat on the porch swing. “You haven’t been to the pool lately,” Walt said. “I wanted to see if you were okay.”
“Here I am. I’m okay.”
“You broke your promise. About returning my calls.”
Mom kept telling me Walt had called, and I told myself to call him back. But I couldn’t keep that thought in my head. I couldn’t keep anything in mind for long. Jonah crowded everything out.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t blame you, though. I mean, stuff came up, right?”
“Right.”
“I’m sorry about Jonah.”
“Me too.”
“I wanted to tell you something. I haven’t been able to sleep much. It’s funny, because usually I’m asleep before my head hits the pillow. But not lately. So I started listening to that radio show you told me about—”
“The Night Lights?”
“Yeah. I heard them talking about Ghost Boy and Robot Girl, and looking for him on that Flying Carpet thing. And they said Ghost Boy was Jonah. So Robot Girl…it’s kind of a funny show, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“I like it, though. The only bad thing is, it keeps me up half the night listening and then I’m tired at work the next day. But I can’t stop.”
“I’m the same way.”
He reached for my hand. His felt warm and dry.
“I’m always looking for him,” Walt said. “Isn’t that weird? I wasn’t even friends with him or anything, really. Not like you. But I still find myself, like when I’m riding the bus down-town, scanning all the faces on the streets, thinking, Is that him? Is that him? Do you do that?” He paused. “You must do that.”
“I do. I don’t want to. I can’t help it.”
I looked out at the yard, at the street. Someone had tossed a pair of sneakers over the telephone wire. They dangled in the air, abandoned and unreachable. I wondered how long they’d been there.
“Walt,” I said. “Let’s go downtown tonight. Want to? I know a place you might like.”
His smile was a jolt, a jump start. My pulse quickened a bit. Walt was a boy who knew how to be happy.
“I’m up for anything,” he said.
I smiled. Up for Anything. I wanted to be Up for Anything.
“I could learn a thing or two from you,” I said.
“I could learn a thing or two from you too,” Walt said. “I’ve always thought so.”
JULY
CHAPTER 28
I imagine Jonah alone in his room, on his bed, staring at the ceiling. Matthew is dead. Jonah has buried him. School is over. The long hot summer stretches before him like a desert. Nothing to do but go to silly boat races and dusty bookstores. Art school beckons, but Jonah is immune to its call. He doesn’t need to go to school to make art. He doesn’t want to paint or draw anymore, anyway. Art has lost its meaning. Everything has. He’s incomplete, and he can never be whole again.
And so he begins to float, weightless, up toward the ceiling. There’s nothing in his family or home, nothing in the whole city of Baltimore, to ground him. A mere girl, one single friend, is not enough to tether him here. How can he stay in that house? Those who love only half of him do not love him at all.
His flesh drops away from his skeleton; his spirit, uncaged from his bones, flies right through the ceiling, through the roof, past the ancient elms and into the sky, the cold ether, where it fades and disappears, lost to the warm, human world forever.
I still listened, hoping.
Kreplax:
I think I know what happened to him. I always got an eerie vibe from him, you know? And now I understand—he was from the future too. Like me, only from a different time thread, even further ahead, deeper into the future than I’ve been. And he went back. It’s the only explanation.
Herb:
I thought you’d left for the future yourself.
Kreplax:
I did, but I came back. I like it here too much. You can’t stay away from your own time for long. It warps you. It gets harder and harder to go back. I’m afraid all this time travel is taking a toll on my soul. Once I felt this whoosh, like something flew out of my body. Do you think I lost my soul, Herb?
Herb:
I don’t know. Do you feel different?
Kreplax:
Not really.
Herb:
Do you feel…evil?
Kreplax:
No, not evil. Just kind of vacuumed-out.
Herb:
I don’t know, Kreplax. I don’t think you lost your soul.
Kreplax:
I did, Herb. Why don’t you ever believe me?
Herb:
[Music]Nighty-night, Kreplax. Next caller, you’re on the air.
Caller:
Hello. My name is Casper.
Herb:
Welcome, Casper. First-time caller?
Casper:
I have a message for someone. She knows who she is. I hope she’s listening. I want her to know…I left something for her. She can find it in a box behind Iceland. She’ll understand. I want her to know I’m okay. I’m always thinking about her. I’m sorry if I hurt her. I love her. But I’m never coming back.
Herb:
I hope your friend is listening, Casper, and gets your message.
Casper:
She’s a faithful listener. Also, I wanted to tell Kreplax that I believe him. About losing his soul. And I wanted to ask him: Do you ever get used to it?
Herb:
Okay, Casper. Nighty-night.
Casper:
Nighty-night.
The sign on the door of Carmichael’s Book Shop said they opened at noon. I got there at five to twelve. The gray, potbellied man arrived at twelve forty-five.
“I thought you opened at noon,” I said.
“It’s a target,” the man said. He unlocked the door. I went inside. The musty smell made me sneeze.
“Looking for something in particular?” the man said.
“I know what I’m looking for.” I walked to the back and found Dreaming of Iceland. Stashed behind it was the hidden treasure Jonah and I had wished for on his
birthday—a cigar box wrapped in newspaper.
I put the Iceland book back, in case Jonah ever wanted to leave me another message. I slipped the cigar box into my bag. Then I went to the used record section and picked out a copy of Engelbert Humperdinck’s A Man Without Love.
“I’ll take this, please.” I placed the record on the counter.
How to Say Goodbye in Robot Page 22