by Bill Cameron
If he wants to play pretend, the only way to make it work is play along.
Clever, indeed.
I pop out of my daze at the sound of a crack, gunshot loud. Mrs. Petty snaps her head around at me from inside the closet. She has one hand on the back wall. With her eyes glued on me, she pushes and the crack sounds again, quieter now. Maybe it wasn’t all that loud to begin with. Nothing happens, but she can feel the give on the top latch. The deranged smile on Wayne’s face loses some of its gusto as she leans into the back wall. She moves her hands up and down, pressing at different points. Click…click…click. Finally she happens on the combo, hand pressing upper left, foot lower left. The latch releases. She steps back and lets the back wall swing open to reveal the compartment behind.
Wayne shuts up. That’s something. Mrs. Petty inspects the space behind, running her fingers along the latch release and the countersunk screws of the frame. After a moment she steps back and lets out a low whistle.
“I gotta hand it to you, Joey. You do good work.” Up in cabinetmaker heaven, Mr. Rieske must be so proud.
Wayne can’t seem to decide how to react. He wants to be pissed, that much is obvious. But his desire to maintain the status quo wars with default outrage across his brow. Finally he figures out how to use his words. “What’s in it?”
She’s looking at me when she answers. “Tools. Screwdrivers, a hammer, a couple of saws. An auger.” The same auger I used to make Trisha’s hidey-hole. I bought a one-and-a-quarter-inch bit, a foot long, just for her project.
She turns to him. “We’ve always known he was a builder, Wayne. It’s a quality job.”
He sputters a bit, then manages a weak grin. “Yeah. And not full of bomb-making supplies, right?” His attempt at a joke falls flat.
Mrs. Petty turns a hand over. “What do you say, Joey? Is this it?”
I surprise everyone in the room, myself included, by answering. “Yeah. That’s it.” I can hear the truth in my own voice. I’m not sure if it’s Duncan’s death or Wayne’s fear that has knocked me more off balance.
“Well, I think we’re done here.”
“Of course, Hedda. Of course.” Wayne follows her down the stairs. I find myself swept along in the wake of his jabber. At the front door, he shakes her hand and thanks her for looking out for me—a chilling fiction. She turns to me and says, “Joey? A moment?”
I follow her down the steps, stop next to the Impala. I pray she doesn’t suggest another ride. “I can only protect you from the police so far.”
A shiver runs through me. She either doesn’t notice, or ignores it. “I don’t know what to tell them.”
“Try the truth. It won’t kill you.”
After Mrs. Petty drives away, Wayne steps out of the open front door. The oily smile is gone. His eyes are hard and empty. Same old Wayne, back again. “Well?”
“Can I get my tools?”
“Tools?”
I feel like a tire with a slow leak. This can’t last. Even Wayne has to recognize that. But his expression remains dead.
I have no idea what the story is with the Huntzels, but the uncertainty there feels safer than the reality here. I turn and walk away. He doesn’t try to stop me.
2.8: Huntzel and Huntzel
Thursday—upstairs public areas and finished parts of the basement—is blown. I return to the Huntzels after dark, sneak into Kristina’s room without bothering to pretend to show up for work. I don’t even know if Philip and his mom are home.
The night passes in a wash of sweat and dark dreams. Trisha ignores my texts. I awake exhausted, shower as a substitute for rest, and escape the house before anyone else is up.
The old barista is working with Marcy. He fills a cup without asking what I want, offers me two chocolate donuts and a stack of napkins. I pay without argument. Trisha isn’t there, so I pull out my phone.
Are you coming to UC?
A crushed donut later, she responds.
dad is driving me to katz
She usually buses.
Anything wrong?
I destroy another donut without hearing from her, then gulp coffee and rush to school. It’s early, but breakfast starts at seven. I can’t remember the last time I ate something other than room temperature pudding and donut crumbs. The food tastes like ass, but it fills the hole in my center. While I eat, Trisha walks in with Denise and Beth. They sit in a huddle, talking in hushed tones. At one point, I make eye contact with Trisha, but her expression is a shadow. The Commons fills around us, the chatter achieves full-tilt cacophony just as the warning bell for Day Prep rings. Duncan’s name is on everyone’s lips as we pass through the halls to our classrooms. I lose sight of Trisha without ever speaking to her.
After a shortened Day Prep they drag us to assembly, begun by Cooper but turned quickly over to Harley May. She talks us through the five stages of grief, a clinical lecture easy enough to tune out. But, when she suggests we find a sharing partner, I slip out the back of the room and make for the exit. Sean Ferrell chases after me and thrusts a sheet of paper into my hand.
“What’s this?”
“Krokos is throwing a wake for Duncan tonight.”
“You are fucking kidding me.”
“Dude, you gotta show. Deets on the flyer.”
I don’t know whether to be horrified, or burst into tears. I pick door number three and sprint to the coffee shop under sunlight filtered through high clouds. My phone is already in my hands as I drop into a seat at the fish table.
Join me at UC?
Marcy gives me a look from the counter. I realize I haven’t ordered anything.
“Is it okay if I just sit here a minute?”
“Stay as long as you want.”
I smile gratefully, then feel my face fall when the phone vibrates.
Can’t. sorry
I’m staring at the empty chair across from me when Marcy slides a steaming mug in front of me, then sits down in Trisha’s chair. It feels like an invasion.
“What’s this?”
“Vanilla steamer. Drink up. You’ll feel better.”
“I’m fine.”
“You are definitely not fine. I don’t know if it’s something with your girlfriend, or your buddy who got hit by the car, or what. You look like someone bit your dog. So, do what Doctor Marcy says and drink your goddamn steamer. Don’t make me cut you.” She’s smiling, but I take her at her word. The steamed milk is warm, sweet, soft in my mouth. It pisses me off that it also soothes my turbulent gut. I sip slowly and watch bubbles rise in the fish tank.
“You wanna talk about it?”
If Reid asked the same question, I’d clam up, or toss some him some bullshit. Marcy doesn’t sound like she’s probing my secrets for her own—or the State of Oregon’s—ends. I realize I do want to talk about it—the only question is what it is. Trisha’s poem? Yes, but not here, not now. She didn’t write the poem for Marcy.
“Duncan died yesterday.”
The words come out surprisingly easy. Probably because they’re not a betrayal of trust, or a confession. It’s all over the news.
She nods in sympathy. “That sucks.” My lips compress and she raises an eyebrow. “Or does it?”
I shake my head, then nod. Shake my head again.
“You’re confused.”
No kidding. I feel like the punch line in an xkcd comic. “Everyone says he’s my friend. Was my friend.”
“Everyone but you.”
“His brother claims he liked me.”
What Reid would say, or Cooper—maybe even Mrs. Petty—is, “Well, you’re a likable boy, Joey.” I’m the handsomest and the smartest boy ever too. Vomit.
Marcy is quiet for a long time, then turns a hand over. “The way I see it, you have two choices. You can let it go. Or you can earn it.”
“I don’t
know how to do either of those things.”
“So? Figure it out.”
Why can’t Reid ever talk like that?
After a while, Marcy leaves me. I finish my steamer and, belly soothed if not my spirit, slink out into watery sunshine.
And walk. I’m hungry, which makes my bust out of school idiotic. No way am I going back, so I make for the Fred Meyer at Cesar Chavez and get a couple plates of conveyor belt sushi. When I come out of the store, the 14 is just pulling up. Without thinking, I climb aboard. Based on the smell, it’s the same bus I rode yesterday. Eyes watering, I pull out my phone. I can’t think of what to say.
Hey.
Lame. Her reply comes almost immediately.
u left in a hurry
I can’t tell if it’s an accusation or an observation.
Couldn’t deal. You want to get together?
Early release Friday, she wouldn’t even have to stage a breakout. The poem looms between us. She showed it to me for a reason, but I’m starting to wonder if she regrets the decision.
sorry. got a drs. appt downtown.
I imagine us running into each other, which makes me think I’m starting to get a little creepy. Once across the Hawthorne Bridge I jump off the bus at a random corner. My brain feels like mush as I crisscross downtown streets. After a while I find myself at Pioneer Courthouse Square. A dude in silver body paint and spray-painted cardboard armor stands dead still on the corner, but when a passerby drops a buck in a can at his feet, he bows like a robot. HAVE A HEART 4 THE TIN MAN, his hand-lettered sign reads. As I stare at him, my phone vibrates.
gonna hit duncan’s wake. c u there?
The last thing I said to him looms in my mind.
Sure.
Somehow I manage to transmit my reluctance via text.
promise?
I want to go anywhere else.
Promise.
The Square is a city block of brick, with a raised section on the west and south sides, creating a kind of amphitheater with a fountain under the Starbucks at the northwest corner. It’s the kind of place where they put on art festivals, non-threatening musical acts, and light a giant Christmas tree every year. Most everywhere I look are homeless teens of the sort everyone’s afraid I’ll become. Begging spare change and cigarettes by day, taking it in the rear for a fin at night.
Portland’s Living Room, they call it. Whatever.
I grab a seat at a table beside “Umbrella Man,” a bronze statue supposedly emblematic of the city. Good a place as any to try to make sense of my life.
But there are no answers, and too many questions. What was Mrs. Huntzel doing at the hospital, if that was even her? Is that where she’s been spending her days the last week? She wouldn’t be there out of concern for Duncan—she’s hated him as long as I’ve known her. Unless it’s guilt, not worry, that took her there.
Unless I imagined the whole thing. Jesus.
As I search for a coherent thought, Kristina appears at the far corner of the Square. Her face is unreadable, but she seems in a hurry as she crosses the bricks and climbs to the upper level, barely a dozen feet away. She stops at the Honkin’ Huge Burrito cart, then—burrito in hand—turns toward the cluster of tables.
Her eyes lock on mine.
For a moment, she looks like she wants to run the other way. Race you. A breeze blows her green hair across her eyes. “What are you doing here?”
Something in her tone pisses me off. “It’s a public place.” It’s not like I’m in her bedroom.
She closes her eyes for a second. When she opens them again, her gaze has softened. “You’re right.” She sets her plate on the table and sits down. “Sorry.”
“Do you live near here?”
She scans the crowd. “Sometimes.” An approaching MAX train toots and she flinches. I’m about to ask what she means when she reaches across the table and grabs my hand.
“Listen, I’m meeting someone.”
Your boyfriend? I don’t know where the thought comes from. At least I have the sense to keep it to myself. “Don’t let me keep you.”
Her eyes jump to the Umbrella Man. “Here.”
“Here what?” I try to pull my hand back, but she hangs on. Heat pulses between us. For a moment I picture her green bra. I blink the image away.
“I’m meeting them here.”
“At this table?”
“Joey. Please.”
I’m being a dick. I survey the Square, trying to guess who her meeting might be with. No clue, but a weird thought boils through my head. Trisha, she’s here to meet Trisha. My jaw clenches. Obviously I’m insane. Even so, my nerves seem to buzz.
Trisha has a doctor’s appointment downtown.
And? So what?
Kristina is what. Everything about her, from the emerald highlights in her hair to the red Chucks on her feet, knocks me off-kilter. Sitting here next to her, the world feels upside down.
“Okay. Whatever.” I jump to my feet, free my hand. Kristina looks startled, but I mumble something about seeing her around and dart down the steps. Some gray-hair swears at me when I clonk into him and spill his coffee, but I don’t stop until I’m across the Square. When I turn around, Kristina is looking the other way. I’m forgotten, just like that.
Fine.
But as I turn away, I spy a figure who stops me in my tracks. He approaches Kristina’s table from Broadway and gestures at the chair across from her. She nods, and he sits. Mr. Huntzel.
I can’t remember when I last saw him, but it’s been at least a month. Now he appears out of nowhere for a secret confab with my mystery host. He’s the father of a family he doesn’t live with—a fact no one seems to acknowledge. She’s the daughter who lurks in the shadows, doesn’t talk to her parents, and sleeps in the same bed as a stranger after sneaking into her own house in the middle of the night. That she’s eating a Honkin’ Huge burrito with her old man shouldn’t be weird.
Right.
They talk for a few minutes, the conversation clearly heated. At one point, he points a finger in her face and seems to be almost shaking with anger. I wish I was close enough to hear, but then Mr. Huntzel looks my way. I can’t tell if he recognizes me, but paranoia floods through me as Kristina turns to look too. I take a step back, stop at the sound of bells and a horn. The MAX arrives at the stop behind me. It’s going nowhere I want to be, but I jump aboard before the doors close.
I sit down across from a girl engrossed in a copy of Us Weekly. Brangelina is either dying or pregnant—not sure which, but that’s not what interests me. A familiar face looks out from the lower right hand corner of the cover. Bianca Santavenere apparently up to shenanigans again. Idly, I wonder if the story will make it into Philip’s folder.
But, now that I think about it, the real question is why Philip has that damn folder in the first place.
2.9: Stravaganza del Talento
Huntzel Manor is empty when I arrive. I should work—Thursday on Friday: upstairs public areas and the finished parts of the basement—since yesterday got blown. Friday on Friday too. The way I’m burning cash on street tacos and conveyor belt sushi, I need the hours. Instead, I scout the house from basement to second floor. Philip is supposed to be with his mom, off playing chess, but I’m starting to wonder if anything is what it’s supposed to be. Once I’m satisfied no one’s home, I head for Philip’s room.
You’re the one who knows them.
I don’t know if such a thing is even possible.
But I do know a place to start. In the dresser, under the socks. The folder of clippings is still there. I sit down on Philip’s bed and go through each page, one by one.
It makes no sense.
Bianca Santavenere is a has-been, once an actor now turned into a reality TV spaz-twit. Near as I can tell, the only thing she does is show up places where cameras are li
kely to be. The stories in the folder cover appearances at Hollywood parties, run-ins with cops, her efforts to stay in the public eye. For a while she had a perfume, a line of shoes, a workout program, but all that seems to have died. Her TV show was so long ago it might as well have been in black-and-white.
I’ve seen stories over the years—you can’t miss them if you’re ever near a TV or grocery store checkout lane—but nothing that would explain Philip’s interest. The folder doesn’t help. I tuck it back under the socks and make my way to the master suite.
Mr. Huntzel’s bed remains crisp and unused, Mrs. Huntzel’s still a mess. This time, I skip the bathroom and closet, as well as the armory in the nightstand. I’m interested in the DVDs.
Bianca on E, Bianca Red Carpet, others. A shared interest, mother and son.
The DVDs are right where I remember. Mrs. Huntzel must not have been watching TV the last few days. Too busy lurking at the hospital?
I take a moment to figure out the remote, then power up the TV and DVD player. The first DVD auto-plays on insertion, a spot from E! News. Bianca mugs for the camera at the opening of a club in Miami Beach, makes kissy faces. Her hair is oily black, her flesh orange, her lips fat as slugs. I can’t make much sense of the story. Something about her husband opening the club for A-List celebrities, though we never see him. There’s a shot of LeBron James, but it looks like he’s somewhere else. After a minute or so, the video cuts off.
O-kay.
The next DVD is a bit slicker, since there’s an actual menu and a PLAY icon on screen. Some iDVD theme. Only one selection. Bianca on the Red Carpet at the Grammys. More kissy face, this time with a lot of attention on a gown that looks like it’s made from banana peels. The show host pretends she loves the dress, but I’m not convinced. Bianca’s date is a slickster in a shiny suit. Her husband, I gather. A nobody—but a rich nobody.
The rest of the videos seem like they’ll be more of the same. Bianca TMZ, Bianca Press Conference. Press actually show up to listen to this woman talk? I stick the DVD in, curious in spite of myself. The quality is shitastic. If it’s a press conference, it’s happening on the run. She’s crying as she trots along a palm-lined walkway next to the man in the shiny suit, tossing out lots of “I’m sorrys.” Questions pepper her, but the sound is too choppy for me to make them out. Then, she stops and faces the camera, and for a moment I can hear. “My addiction kept me from being there for my family when they needed me most. For them, I promise to get clean. For them, I promise to do whatever is necessary to help the police in their investigation. For them,” dramatic pause “I will be whole again.”