Know Not Why: A Novel

by Hannah Johnson

  I shake my head ruefully. “Don’t I know it.”

  Cora stares at all of us. Kristy lets out a pitiful little sigh.

  “Okay,” she says abruptly. “Get ready to enter the belly of the beast, kiddos.”

  She grabs my arm and starts dragging. Kristy and Amber trail after, although Amber kinda looks like she’s ruing having ever sat with us in the first place. We go through a door with a ‘DO NOT ENTER’ sign on it.

  “But it says—” Kristy starts.

  “If it’s not locked, then they don’t really mean it,” Cora replies bluntly.

  She leads us through a long, narrow hallway. After a couple minutes, we reach another door. Cora pushes it open, and we step out into darkness. I realize that we’re in one of the wings.

  “Welcome backstage, bitches,” she whispers smugly.

  Backstage passes at a middle school choir concert. I hang with a crew who knows how to live.

  We hover at the side of the stage. Arthur looks up and catches sight of us at one point in between songs. He heaves a slight sigh, like he can’t really bring himself to be surprised. We wave back.

  The concert goes on for about forty minutes. We get to bear witness to a Charlie Brown Christmas medley, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer (Cora, Kristy, and Amber all laugh at me during this one; even Arthur throws a smirk across the stage), and, in one of those tragic but inevitable middle school choir attempts to be hip, a snappy little ditty called We Text U A Merry Xmas. That one even has dance moves, which mostly consist of the kids miming texting. It’s grim stuff. There’s a background track on that one, so Arthur just sits at the piano and looks vaguely sickened. They finish off with a jaunty Joy to the World, and then it’s the end.

  There’s a lot of bustling around, and Mrs. Fitzgerald makes an announcement about everybody congregating in the cafeteria for a reception. Amidst all the confusion, Arthur slips backstage. I head over to meet him.

  “Now, was that really worth all the hype?” he asks, beleaguered.

  I grin at him. “Fuck yeah.”

  “No,” he corrects, “would be the right answer.”

  “Do me, piano man.”

  He smirks. “Get in line.”

  “Wow. That badass red sweater sure makes you sassy.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I just learned from the—”

  “Best?”

  “Most annoying, I was going to say.”

  “Yeah,” I say, smiling, “sure you were.”

  “I was—”

  “Arthuuurrr!” Kristy exclaims, and we step like a foot apart. She and Cora are moseying over holding the poster in all its sparkly glory. Amber, I see, has been relegated to flower duty. Ha ha ha.

  “Oh, Lord,” Arthur says.

  “You’ve got quite the fan following, Arthur,” Mrs. Fitzgerald says, coming over.

  “I can’t dispute that,” Arthur replies, smiling.

  “Thank you again for doing this, you did such a wonderful job,” Mrs. Fitzgerald praises. I feel a little surge of pride. “Oh, look, we have some familiar faces here. Dennis?”

  “Howie,” I correct, trying not to radiate lameness.

  “Oh, of course. The other twin. You never were in band, were you?”

  “I tried the tuba,” I reply oh so winningly. “For … a week.”

  “Right,” she says, clearly not remembering at all. Which is probably the best for all of us. Including the tuba. “Amber, how are you?”

  “Not much with the flute playing these days,” Amber replies, smiling. “But I’m well.”

  She and Mrs. Fitzgerald spiral off into small talk.

  Meanwhile, Arthur shakes his head in mock dismay. (Or at least, I think it’s mock.) “Band quitter.”

  I stare at him. “It was the tuba.”

  After a few seconds, he relents. “Yes, all right.”

  “Cora Caldwell,” Mrs. Fitzgerald says then, registering her presence.

  “Hiya, Mrs. F,” Cora replies, positively dulcet-toned. “It’s been awhile.”

  Mrs. Fitzgerald crosses her arms. “I can’t help suspecting that you were responsible for that bout of enthusiastic shouting right before the concert.”

  “I’m pretty sure that was the people behind us,” Cora says smoothly.

  “You mean Mr. and Mrs. Holland and their new baby?”

  “Kids say the darndest things, right?”

  And that is how we get wrangled into moving every damn chair, instrument, speaker, and prop off the stage and downstairs.

  +

  Somehow, it becomes just me, Kristy, and Amber. Arthur does one round before Mrs. Fitzgerald whisks him away to the reception with her. Cora gets hungry and sneaks off to it, because she is the devil’s tiny much-pierced mistress.

  The auditorium’s deserted by the time we finish. That’s not exactly surprising. The reception has cookies. The auditorium has heavy lifting. You do the math.

  We’re about to finally set off, triumphant and maybe a little wheezy. Achy. Okay, fine, maybe I’m the one who’s wheezy and achy. Since when are dainty females so tough, huh?

  “Wait,” Kristy says, her eyes drifting back to the stage. “What about him?”

  I follow her gaze to see … oh, Christ. It’s this huge, hideous five-foot-tall statue of a Christmas elf. It’s got big, vacant elf eyes and a dopey elf grin. A jaunty little elf cap. It’s frozen mid-skip. It’s just there in the corner of the stage, hangin’ out.

  It stares at us. Mocking us.

  “I don’t think it really matters,” I say.

  “I don’t know,” Amber says. “Mrs. F seemed pretty upset.”

  “Yeah, well, Mrs. F can go missus eff herself, because I—”

  But I can’t even tack a quippy ending onto the sentence, because Kristy and Amber are already off to move the stupid thing. And, well, it’s huge. Clearly not a two-lady operation.

  Curse my man-being.

  We fight the elf into the prop elevator. It is maybe the hardest thing I’ve ever have to do. There’s swearing, there’s clumsiness, there’s feet nearly being crushed into fine powder. Finally, we get him in there and we get the elevator shut. I press the button and sink down onto the floor as we start moving. Just, ya know. Quick rest.

  And then, out of nowhere, there’s this horrible grinding sound and a lurch that shakes the whole elevator. Elfy McElferson crashes to the floor and misses me by like six inches.

  “FUCK!”

  Then I realize we’re not moving anymore.

  Amber groans. “Are you kidding me?”

  I get up, my legs kinda shaky. I press the button. Nothing. I press it about eight more times just to make sure.

  We are so not moving.

  “Oh, you guys,” Kristy says, with boundless optimism, “we’re not trapped.”

  +

  We’re trapped.

  +

  “Well, let’s just call somebody,” Amber says reasonably.

  “Yeah!” I say, relieved. This girl, there’s a reason she’s like my own personal genius. “Yeah, let’s.”

  We all stare at each other. For a really long time.

  “My phone’s in my purse,” Kristy finally says.

  “Mine too,” Amber says.

  “Mine’s in my coat,” I contribute.

  Not a great turn of events, considering all three of those things just so happen to be tossed on a chair backstage.

  “We could call the old fashioned way,” I finally say. “Like, shout. Someone’s gotta be around.”

  “Yeah, okay!”

  So we shout.

  Nobody’s around.

  +

  “It’s totally okay, you guys! Someone’ll realize we’re gone soon. Like Arthur. There’s noooo way Arthur won’t come looking for us. I bet he’ll even bring us some cookies and punch from the reception! It’s okay. It’s good.”

  +

  It is apparently the longest reception of all time. Arthur is dead to me.

  +
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  Somehow, in a twist of fate that defies logic and science, the glitter from Kristy’s Arthur (and April) poster got into my hair. She starts trying to brush it out with her fingers, and I laugh a little, and she laughs a lot, and then I realize that there’s one person in this elevator who’s not laughing.

  For the first time all night, I remember that Amber thought I ditched her to go spend all night with Kristy. It’s like getting hit with a hammer. Or having a humongous elf statue fall on you.

  Shit. Shit. Please don’t mention it, Amber. Please, please, please don’t mention it.

  “You have a boyfriend, right, Kristy?” Amber asks.

  Goddamn. It’s like she’s psychic, and using said powers for evil.

  “Yeah,” Kristy replies, getting all smiley. “Reddy! Well. Clifford.”

  She is so not a portrait of a lady in a recently jeopardized relationship. Damn it. Damn it.

  “How is he?” Amber continues. There’s this edge to her tone that makes it really clear that this ain’t just friendly girl chat. Incredibly, Kristy isn’t picking up on it.

  “He’s great! He’s going to come back home with me for Christmas, and I’m so excited. My parents really really love him, and my little brothers just think he’s like the greatest. There’s this great hill by my house and we’re going to go sledding, like, all day every day.”

  Amber looks at me. I look at our collapsed elf friend.

  “You know, actually, I was meaning to bring him up to you!” Kristy continues. “You see, he’s got this friend from his band, John, who’s been sort of down in the dumps lately because he broke up with his girlfriend awhile ago, and Reddy and me decided it’d probably be best if he just started dating again, and Howie told me that you were single, so I was thinking that maybe if you ever wanted to do a double date sometime, that would be so—”

  WHY. WHY.

  “I don’t think so,” Amber interrupts.

  “Oh.” Kristy’s face falls a little. “Howie said you’d say that.”

  Shit.

  “He did?” Amber asks, narrowing her eyes.

  No. No. Oh no oh no oh no.

  “Yeah,” Kristy replies, missing every one of my spastic facial tics that mean ‘STOP TALKING.’ “And I get that it is totally weird and nerve-racking, but John is such a nice guy! And he’s really smart, and I think you two would hit it off. Sometimes it’s fun to try new things! Who knows, it might really help to get your mind off stuff.”

  Shit. Why did I tell her about Dennis? What was I thinking?

  “What stuff?” Amber asks, deathly.

  Kristy finally catches on. “Like … other … boys, or something. I don’t know. Just stuff!”

  Amber doesn’t say anything.

  Maybe it’s because she’s just not that bothered about the whole thing.

  “You told her,” she says at last, her voice totally flat. She stares at me.

  I think I’m supposed to say something back. Fuck. What do I say back to that? No? Amber’ll see right through that with her friggin’ bullshit x-ray vision.

  I just stare back at her. It’s pathetic.

  “You told her?” she says then. This time, inflection comes out to play. “Howie, nobody knows that. Mitch didn’t even know that.”

  “I—”

  “I’m sorry!” Kristy jumps in immediately, wincing. “Gosh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s just – it’s not bad, or anything! He was just worried about you and he needed to talk.”

  “Worried about me,” Amber says flatly.

  “Well, yeah!” It’s painful to watch her like this. “I think it helps a lot when you’ve got a problem like that to talk to someone who doesn’t know the other person, because that way, you get an outside perspective, and that’s really—”

  But as far as Amber’s concerned, Kristy might as well not even be talking. All her attention’s on me. “Jesus, Howie, it’s one thing if you’re ditching me for them left and right. Like, I get it, far be it from me to deny you your harem of crafts store hotties, I’m sure I’m really boring to you in comparison, whatever. But you don’t get to just go talk to strangers about my private—”

  “It’s not like that!” Kristy protests.

  “Kristy,” I groan. “Don’t—”

  “What do you mean?” Amber asks. Oh, God.

  “He’s going through a lot of stuff, you know!” Kristy says. She sounds so goddamn sincere. “And he feels like he can’t tell you about it! He’s not hanging out with us because you’re boring! And we’re definitely not his harem—”

  Amber lets out a dark, disbelieving laugh. “Um, wow, okay, Pollyanna, color me chastised. You definitely, definitely know him better than I do.”

  “I’m not saying that! It’s just that there’s this one thing that—”

  “Kristy,” I say, panicking, “seriously, fucking don’t—”

  “Yeah, yes, what a brilliant, romantic, mysterious secret. ‘Cause I definitely can’t figure out on my own that he’s sleeping with Cora, or with you, or, hell, both of you, taking turns—”

  Kristy’s jaw drops. “Oh my gosh, what are you talking about?? He’s not.”

  “Yeah, okay, sure he’s not. He’s absolutely not.”

  “You know what, I think it’s terrible that he feels like he has to hide this from you,” Kristy declares, with the tiniest bit of bite, “and I didn’t even understand why he was at first. I thought you were his best friend, so you’d want him to be happy no matter what. But now I’m totally starting to get why—”

  “Oh, yeah, you’ve got him all figured out,” Amber snaps.

  “He’s a wonderful person.”

  Oh, Jesus Christ.

  “Oh, yeah, he’s Prince Charming, he’s absolutely goddamn wonderful! Do you even know why he took this job?”

  “I know it was to meet girls. He told me.”

  “To meet girls?” Amber snorts. “Wow, that’s adorable. He took it because he wanted to fuck you.”

  It’s awful. It’s so fucking awful. I can’t remember the last time I heard Amber swear, really swear. I realize that’s probably because it was never.

  “Meet girls,” Kristy says again, obstinately, like she can’t comprehend what Amber’s just said.

  “No, not so much. He hatched this really fine, really genius idea that it’d be great to work in an arts ‘n crafts store because it’d mean he was surrounded by girls all the time. And apparently these girls would, I dunno, have nothing better to do than have sex with him twenty-four seven? Personally, I thought the plan was flawed, but him, he really believed in it. He went in there for the interview, and he met you, and he decided, ‘Damn, she’s fine, better tap that ass!’ ‘Tap that like a spine,’ I believe, was the exact phrasing. Poetry, right? Keatsian splendor. And so he got the job, and he said everything he said to you, because he figured you were into him and you were the easiest thing he could get.”

  Kristy looks at me. I feel totally numb. For some stupid reason all that really registers in my brain is how blue her eyes are.

  After what feels like forever, she looks back at Amber. “He might have said that to you—”

  “He did say that to me.”

  “—but it doesn’t matter how he felt about me when we met, anyway. We’re friends now.” She lifts her head higher, tilts her chin up.

  I feel like my heart might collapse. It doesn’t even make any sense, but it’s just – it’s like if she does one more thing, one more thing to prove what a good person she is, how much I don’t deserve to even know her, it’ll be the fucking end of me.

  “Oh, yeah,” Amber agrees scornfully. “You’re best buddies. And the reason he’s still hanging out with you is because he’d like nothing more from you than a whole bunch of fun, hearty, pure, platonic friendship. He’s definitely not waiting around ‘til the one day when your boyfriend slips up and you decide—”

  “Amber—” I croak, just wanting her to shut up.

  It’s searingly quiet
for a few seconds.

  “I feel really sorry for you,” Kristy says.

  “That’s touching,” Amber spits. “Thank you.”

  Kristy swallows. “I mean it. It must be really hard to love somebody so much for so long and have it not matter.”

  I think I’m going to pass out. Whatever Amber’s gonna say back to this, I can’t handle it, I just can’t. I look at her, and there’s something new coloring her whole face. I can’t begin to predict what it’s gonna turn into.

  And then – holy fucking miracle – there’s a clanging from outside, an unfamiliar voice. “Hey, somebody in there?”

  “Yeah,” I yell, coming to my senses a little. “Yeah, we’re stuck.”

  It’s the janitorial staff, and they get us out somehow. I’m a little fuzzy on the details even as they’re happening. I feel like I’m about to die or something. I’m so shaken in every centimeter of my body, like I can’t even remember what it’s like to feel steady. Amber and Kristy both stare straight ahead at nothing.

  As soon as the doors open, Kristy bolts.

  We don’t move. Just stand there next to each other.

  “Amber,” I finally say, “what the fuck?”

  I expect her to go off on me again, but she doesn’t. All of the venom’s out of her. She sounds nothing besides tired. “I just want you to stop lying to me. Jesus, Howie. Just – tell me if it’s Cora, or if it’s Kristy, or what the hell ever. I just want to know the truth, okay.”

  “It’s Arthur,” I say.

  She lets out this quiet, disgusted noise. “Don’t mess with me, Howie.”

  “I’m not,” I say, louder. “It’s Arthur.”

  She laughs a little. A profoundly unamused laugh. “What?”

  Then she meets my eyes, and the mean laughter leaves her face.

  “I know,” I say. I think I might pass out, I feel so fucking lightheaded. But, I don’t know, I’m saying it and it’s like it doesn’t even matter right now. “But – it is. It’s Arthur. I’m with Arthur, okay?”