Love Over Matter

by Maggie Bloom

  We wait until the Brookses’ garage yawns open like the mouth of a drowsy bear and the Camry, Mr. Brooks behind the wheel, begins its Monday-morning journey to the lab—NewTech BioPharm, I think it’s called—where its driver works as a molecular geneticist.

  Mrs. Brooks, as usual, plays the doting housewife, waving energetically from behind a bow window—is that bulletproof glass?—as the car disappears around the block.

  “Okay, go,” I say, giving Haley an encouraging shove off the porch.

  “If I’m not back in ten minutes, send a search party,” she quips. She pulls a bouquet of carnations to her face, the delicate pink petals clashing with her stark, exaggerated makeup. “Remember,” she says, giving the flowers a shake, “you’re going to have to replace these.”

  “Mom won’t care,” I argue, even though this is a lie. “Now get out of here.”

  Aleks and I watch breathlessly as Haley saunters up the Brookses’ front walk and rings the doorbell. In a matter of seconds, she has gained entry, Mrs. Brooks’s pale forearm risking a moment of sun exposure to beckon my sister inside. “Wow, that was easy,” I mumble, more to myself than Aleks, who is preoccupied with the nozzle of an aerosol can—our secret weapon in avenging George—which he’s poking at with a green stick. “Where’d you get these, anyway?” I ask. There are three cans altogether, one each for Aleks, Haley, and me.

  “From another sleeper,” he tells me with a chuckle.

  The joke hangs in the air for a few seconds before hitting me. “Ha-ha,” I say. “Sleeping gas from a sleeper? How punny.”

  “Technically, that’s not a pun,” he says. “But it is kind of ironic.”

  “Does it work?”

  “It better.”

  I pick up one of the cans and roll it from hand to hand. It’s heavier than I expected. “But you’ve never tried it?”

  “Never had to,” he admits, “until now.”

  Aleks’s full confession last night revealed that he had, in fact, slipped Mrs. Brooks a mickey, though it wasn’t anything as harmful as the poison I’d imagined, causing the reaction she’d had to the tea. “This won’t hurt her, right?” I ask, holding the can on display as if I’m a TV spokesmodel. “I mean, after yesterday . . . She’ll be able to handle it, won’t she?” The last thing I want to do is accidentally overdose—and potentially kill—a Russian spy.

  “It’s not lethal,” he tells me in a sure voice. “The most that’ll happen is, when she wakes up, she’ll be kind of disoriented. She might have a headache, a sore throat, dizziness. That’s why we’ve gotta wear the masks.”

  Masks? Now I feel like a secret agent. My mind circles around another question. “How do you know the sleeper? The one who gave you the gas?”

  “There’s a network,” he says, his gaze tunneled on the Brookses’ front door. “I’m not involved in anything, but I do have contact with an old friend of my mother’s from Columbia. She’s the one who told me about Anatoly. About the kidnapping. But even she didn’t know where they’d taken him.”

  “And then I showed up?”

  He nods.

  “Sorry about that,” I say. “I didn’t mean to stir up so much . . .” Pain, I think. That’s the right word. But before I get it out . . .

  Aleks bolts to his feet, makes a beeline for his motorcycle, which is parked lazily in front of our garage; meanwhile, Haley moseys toward us. “So . . . ?” Aleks says, jimmying the bike’s saddlebag open.

  Haley: “It’s a go.”

  I can’t help laughing. Suddenly we’re talking in burglar code? “You got the windows? And the door?” I question.

  My sister pulls a face. “Despite what you may think, I’m not an idiot.”

  “I never said that.”

  “Do you have a stepstool? Or a ladder?” Aleks asks. “The windows might be too high.”

  “You know, it’s pretty hot out here,” Haley says, squinting into the sun. “If we don’t hurry, she’s gonna notice the temperature difference.”

  I hate to say it, but my sister is right. The Brookses’ house it hermetically sealed. Even the tiniest bit of hot air wafting in through those slyly cracked windows will draw attention. “I’ll get the ladder,” I say, just as Aleks produces the gas masks from the saddlebag. “Meet you around back?”

  “Yep,” he confirms with a nod.

  I hustle past the Prius for the corner of the garage, where Dad stores a small aluminum ladder. I wiggle it away from the wall, nearly spilling a can of paint he’s been using to touch up the window sills.

  Haley was the prep person on this mission, and she’s done a fine job. Two of the windows on the back of the Brookses’ house (and one on the side, if Aleks’s instructions were followed to the letter) are pried open six inches each.

  “We can reach these, I think,” Aleks says, motioning at my sister’s back-of-the-house handiwork. He nods at the ladder. “Maybe bring that around . . .”

  I’m on it (and Aleks and Haley are on my trail). We round the corner and stop below the third window, where I carefully lean the ladder against the vinyl siding. “Here you go,” I tell Haley. “You’re the shortest, so . . .”

  She doesn’t bother arguing. “Is there a signal?” she asks as she ascends.

  “Count to sixty,” Aleks replies. “And only use half. We’ve gotta save some in case she wakes up later. And put this on.” He passes her one of the masks, and suddenly we become as conspicuous as flies in a sugar bowl.

  I can’t believe we’re doing this, but soon Aleks and I are lined up, elbows bent, nozzles set to knockout. The masks give the impression of a nuclear holocaust. He shoots me a thumbs-up and we start the onslaught, unleashing enough sleeping gas to incapacitate . . .

  A spindly old lady?

  When Aleks stops, I do too. Then we clamp the windows shut and wait for the gas to work its magic.

  I’m busy marveling at our boldness when Haley comes around the corner, her mask shoved to the top of her head like a pair of forgotten sunglasses, the ladder tucked under her arm and clunking along unevenly behind her. “Be right back,” she says, rattling past us for the garage.

  Aleks and I unmask ourselves. “How long before we can go in?” I say.

  “There’s no such thing as standard when it comes to this stuff,” he responds, wagging the sleeping gas through the air. He shrugs, his expression not betraying an iota of nervousness. “Probably ten minutes.”

  Spending one minute paralyzed by fear is enough to send me groping for the eject button, but ten?

  Haley trots back to our sides and, in silence, we await the inevitable. Finally, Aleks slinks alongside the building, climbs over a shrub and peers into the Brookses’ library. And he must like what he sees, because with a cowboy swagger, he heads back our way. Then, bam!: the mauve door twists open under his grip, permitting us entry to the scene of the soon-to-be crime.

  We rejigger our masks and form an orderly line. I’m the last one in, so I secure the door. There’s no turning back now, I think. It’s sink or swim.

  Even with the mask, I sense something ominous in the air. A fusion of potpourri and nicotine. “Where do we start?” I ask, my words swallowed by the breathing apparatus cupped over my mouth and nose.

  “This way,” Aleks gurgles, beckoning me upstairs with a wave. We peel away from Haley, but not before turning over the remainder of the sleeping gas. The plan is for my sister to act as a lookout and babysitter. From a cushy perch in the Brookses’ library (since that’s where Mrs. Brooks has collapsed, it seems) she will monitor the driveway and the garage—not to mention Mrs. Brooks herself—for unwelcome signs of life. If Mr. Brooks should rear his head, Haley will alert us; if his wife begins to stir, Haley will give her the gas.

  The second-floor landing is foggy, or so it appears through the goggles hovering in front of my eyes. As if by instinct, Aleks cuts a path to George’s room. He doesn’t hesitate at the door, but I do.

  Take a breath, I tell myself, though it’s difficult to accompl
ish in my constricted respiratory state. You can do this. You have to, for George.

  The room is just like George left it, giving me a jolt of compassion for the Brookses. I mean, even if they’re spies, they must’ve loved him in some small, indiscernible way to leave this shrine in his honor.

  And now we’re violating it.

  I let Aleks take the lead in defiling George’s possessions, since he doesn’t have the burden of history holding him back. Soon he’s got the place swimming in chaos. “Would you mind, uh, taking a look in that nightstand?” he asks without missing a beat in his routine.

  “Tell me again,” I say, “what I’m supposed to be finding.”

  “If I knew that, it would be easy,” he says, a grin in his voice. “You’ll recognize it when you see it. I promise.”

  I shuffle over to the nightstand, pull the drawer open and sigh. The first thing I find, of course, is a twisted Funyuns wrapper. I shove it to the back of the drawer and keep looking. A lighter? That’s weird; George didn’t smoke. Baseball cards? Other than clamping one to the spokes of his bike to give it that badass rumbling sound, I can’t see him owning these either. A comb? Well, okay, that one made sense; his hair was always in a state of mutiny. In fact, there’s still a mahogany strand threaded heartbreakingly around the comb’s plastic teeth. I send the comb sideways and wade through a mass of random papers. “Nothin’ here,” I eventually announce, finding no evidence of the Brookses’ clandestine activities.

  Aleks urges me to look under the bed, where I come up with zilch. Zero. Nada. Not even the furball traces of Otto that have been known to haunt the corners downstairs.

  Oh my God! The cat! I think, panic rising into my throat. I hope we haven’t murdered him with the gas. Before I get too far gone over the possibility, though, George’s voice mercifully intervenes. He’s like a vagabond, he tells me, an echo of a conversation long past. Stops in for a bowl of kibble and a fresh drink. Takes a nap in the window, and then he’s gone again.

  I give a quick prayer for Otto’s safety and move on. There’s nothing I can do for him now. But maybe there’s still something I can do for George. “You got anything yet?” I try calling over my shoulder as I paw through a rolling cart full of action figures and toy cars. The thought of George playing with these brings a bittersweet smile to my lips and an ache to my heart.

  Aleks approaches while I’m distracted, his muffled voice surprising me. “It’s too clean in here,” he says. I’m not sure if he means clean as in free of dirt and clutter, or clean as in lacking the proof we’re seeking. Either way, he’s probably right. “You know of any hiding spots?” he asks. “Secret chambers or trap doors or anything?”

  What does he think this is, a game of Clue? The temptation to wisecrack is too great. “Like a squeaky floorboard, you mean?” But then . . . “Oh, wait,” I say, suddenly remembering. “The closet.”

  His shoulders pop into a shrug. “Checked it already.”

  I shake my head, the mask sticky with breath as it rocks across my face. “The ceiling? You checked the ceiling?” Once when George and I built a fort in that closet, he accidentally rammed a broomstick through the ceiling, causing a tile—and a mysterious wooden doll—to rain down upon us.

  I imagine the same glimmer of excitement in Aleks’s eyes that must be in mine. “C’mon,” he says, waving me ahead. “I’ll give you a boost.”

  The closet isn’t really big enough for both of us, but we shimmy around George’s possessions anyway, first our masks rubbing together, then our bodies. I don’t want to feel the jolt of electricity when we touch, but I do.

  Aleks cups his hands between us and says, “Here.”

  I climb the front of him like a cliff, eventually getting a knee on his shoulder and a hand on his head, which means that a certain below-the-equator body part of mine is right in his face. “I don’t know,” I groan, trying to jimmy a ceiling tile loose. “It doesn’t seem to . . .”

  “Punch it,” he mutters into my crotch.

  My first jab is too weak and off-kilter, so I try again. And . . . jackpot! The tile pops out, allowing me to jam my arm into the ceiling and grope around. “Um . . .” I say, not feeling anything. His muscles start to quiver under my weight. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” he replies, strain in his voice.

  I sweep my hand back and forth, up and down. Finally, my fingers hit something. I stretch for it—whatever it is—rolling it into my grip. “All right,” I gasp, my muscles turning squiggly too. “Coming down.”

  My heel collides with a crate full of books as I descend, toppling it. Once I’ve landed, Aleks grips my waist and steadies me. I shoot a glance downward. “The doll,” I say, dumbfounded. Even through these bug eyes, I recognize the colorfully painted plaything.

  He leans me against the doorframe and takes the doll, turning it over in his hands. “You know what this is?” he asks.

  “Uh-uh.”

  He pokes a thumb at the doll’s midsection, magically wiggling it (the doll, not his thumb!) in half. Inside is another smaller doll, similar to the first. “Nesting dolls,” he says. He passes the outer doll to me and pries the inner doll apart, exposing a hollow cavity instead of a third doll as I’ve come to expect. He tips the bottom half of the doll toward his hand and out tumbles a wad of rubber-banded documents.

  “Holy—” I start saying, but a ruckus downstairs interrupts me. It’s Haley, calling for our help. Screeching, actually.

  Aleks stuffs the bundle back into the doll and heads for the exit. When we reach the library—and Haley’s ever-louder shrieking—we’re hit with a bizarre-yet-comical scene.

  From the settee where Aleks and I sat only yesterday, Mrs. Brooks is struggling—bleary eyed and dopey looking—to her feet, never quite making it upright before Haley fogs her with the sleeping gas, my sister teetering on the edge of a coffee table as if she’s in fear of a mouse. Or a spider. Right now, though, Haley’s the one who resembles an insect; Mrs. Brooks just looks drunk.

  “Hey, hey,” Aleks says, his voice struggling to overcome Haley’s panic as he gestures at the door. She stops screaming and uses his shoulder as a crutch to climb down. “We’re done,” he tells us. “Let’s get out of here.”

  And that’s exactly what we do.

  chapter 17

  It was a stupid fight. If I’d known what was going to happen only ninety minutes later, I would’ve dropped the subject altogether and let him have his way. But, of course, I couldn’t have predicted the rain-slicked roads, George’s excessive speed (or so the police claimed, though he’d always driven responsibly with me in the car), or that final law-breaking text he’d been compelled to fire my way.

  As impossible as it seems now, I was only in the eighth grade. George was a sophomore in high school. And he was popular—not in the stuck-up, arrogant way some people are, but in the natural-center-of-attention way. People were drawn to him like planets to the sun. The girls, in particular, were smitten, giving me on more than one occasion fits of wild jealousy I masked with cold, hard indifference.

  On the morning of the accident, though, I learned I wasn’t the only one pretending not to care. Because for the first time ever, George had a rival for my affections: a nice—if somewhat boring—hockey player named José, who wanted to whisk me away for my first real date. A movie. Dinner. A romantic stroll. The whole enchilada.

  I’d been yammering about the offer for days, vacillating over whether to accept or decline.

  “You like him?” George asked when I brought up José for the umpteenth time, hoping to resolve the matter before my hair started graying. We were in my living room, watching old episodes of Scooby-Doo, each of us hogging an end of the couch, our feet flung carelessly on the coffee table, our legs intertwining.

  I plucked a runaway rainbow marshmallow from between two cushions and handed the box of Lucky Charms to George. “He’s nice,” I said.

  He thrust his arm into the box and came out with a colorful mass of cereal. “I
guess,” he replied, popping the whole handful in his mouth at once. He chewed for what seemed like forever, then cleared his throat. “But he’s old.”

  What a hypocrite. Unlike me, George had dated plenty. And he’d done so on both ends of the age spectrum. “Not really,” I said, taking the cereal from him. “He’s like a few months younger than you, I think.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  I gave his foot a little kick. “Oh, nothing. Obviously.”

  “Come on, Cass. Don’t be like that.”

  “You want some of this?” I joked, waving in the direction of my chest, though there wasn’t much to be had in that vicinity.

  He kicked me back. “Be serious.”

  Why not? I wanted to ask. Why not me and you? Instead, I said, “Well, I think he’s cute.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Yeah, right. You have no idea if a boy is good looking?”

  Again, the cereal went to him. “I can tell if they’re ugly,” he admitted, shrugging.

  I let out an involuntary groan. “Please. So now José’s ugly? Just because . . .”

  He must’ve known what I was about to say: Because you’re too chicken to make a move? Because you’re afraid that if you and I don’t work out you’ll lose me? “I don’t want you”—he sighed in a sad, defeated way—“getting hurt.”

  What a copout! my brain squealed, whirling with anger. You’re hurting me right now.

  The mature thing to do would’ve been to tell the truth, confess my feelings in a calm, rational manner and hope he reciprocated. Unfortunately, though, I took the low road, because it promised to soothe my aching heart.

  “I bet he’d be good for my first time,” I said lightly, as if I was deciding between sneakers and high heels instead of contemplating losing my virginity. “He seems gentle.” In reality, I had no intention of doing anything sexy with José, regardless of his disposition. But if the idea gave George the kick in the pants he needed, so be it.

  He pulled his legs from mine and sat up, rod straight. “You’re fourteen for Christ’s sake,” he spat, rage flashing through his eyes. “Are you nuts? You’re gonna let this guy . . . ?”