Fade to Blue

by Sean Beaudoin

  Sophie snatched the comic from her brother, practically tearing it in half.

  “Why is that one your favorite?” I asked as he thumbed his glasses back in place.

  “There’s only one of them. None of the comic shops have even heard of it. Is it extremely valuable? Definitely.”

  “Like, on eBay?”

  “Yeah, but I would… but I would never sell it.”

  “Why not?

  He took an enormous bite of sandwich. “Because my father gave it to me?”

  Sophie almost threw a gear. “Wait a minute. This is important. When did Dad…?”

  Donk.

  It was classic Zac, showing off for the Kirstys, trying to embarrass me without doing it directly. He gave me a wink and then did a little cheerleader routine. The entire caf erupted in laughter. Sophie stood, about to say something. And then froze. She was staring over Zac’s shoulder. Everyone waited. Sophie began to blink, slowly at first and then really fast. She finally turned and lurched out of the cafeteria.

  “Later for you,” Zac said, twirling his finger around his ear. I put my palms against Kenny’s thigh, which turned him maroon, and pushed as hard as I could. My chair slammed into Zac’s knee. A few trays went flying, beans and cheese, a tortilla, some hot sauce. Zac yowled, jumping up and down.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “You bitch” he growled. I smiled sweetly. Miss Last got up from her pimiento loaf and chips and walked over from the faculty table. Zac swore under his breath and limped toward the opposite door.

  “Say hi to Tinky for me,” I called.

  “It’s the anniversary today?” Kenny explained as people went back to their business. “Of my dad and everything?”

  I stared at him for a minute. “Is there a reason you phrase every single thing you ever say as question?”

  He thumbed his glasses. “Poor nutrition?”

  I laughed. “I didn’t realize you and Zac were such pals.”

  Kenny swirled his milk philosophically. “He spit on me once? Last year. On my favorite shirt. I mean, who spits on someone? What part of the brain does that impulse even come from?”

  “I don’t know, hon. Maybe he had a hard upbringing.”

  “That seems unlikely,” Kenny said, chewing. “I believe his parents live in a rather large house and, you know, given the cost of new pairs of Air Dikes and so forth…”

  “I was being facetious.”

  Kenny’s eyes widened. “Oh, I…”

  The bell rang. He formed a V with the pizza crust and snowplowed the entire thing into his mouth, then slid his Death-Bot magazine back into its plastic sleeve.

  “Um, about this field trip to the lab? Are we really going?”

  “We?”

  His entire head flushed red. “Um…”

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s a date.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  SOPHIE BLUE

  DON’T FORGET TO CLAMP THE UMBILICAL

  The soda coats my throat like oil, like burning ammonia. I close my eyes and there’s a wetness, a slickness, a sickly warmth. I am naked, in a tube, compressed, tightened, like being inside a long, thin Ziploc, stretched and filled with warm syrup. But it hurts, too, being pulled, being pushed, being dragged. I cannot breathe, and yet I can, big gulps of liquid that is somehow air, somehow numbers, all of it flashing by. I cannot open my eyes, but I can see, my lids not thick enough to block out the red glow, the pink glow, the wet glow, and then I am hurtling along in the tube, ten miles an hour, fifty, a hundred, a thousand, slick, weightless, dizzy-sick.

  And then I howl.

  It’s like sliding between metaphorical legs.

  Like being born again.

  0001010100101010.

  I opened my eyes in the hallway outside the caf, shaking. Through the heavy glass doors, I could see Zac Grace standing in front of our table, the one with O.S. and Lake, except I wasn’t with them. I was and then I wasn’t. It was like blinking and then being a mile away. Bang. I could see Zac waving his arms and laughing, then Lake did something with her chair, moving backward. Zac swore, holding his knee while Miss Last walked over. O.S. laughed. Lake batted her eyes. Neither seemed to notice I was gone. I leaned against a row of lockers, sick to my stomach and sweating. I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t anywhere, except where I’d always been.

  Right here, from head-to-ass crazy.

  I couldn’t go back in. I couldn’t go to class. I couldn’t go see…

  Wait a minute.

  I turned and walked down the hallway, at first slowly, so as not to jinx anything. But my legs couldn’t help themselves, moving faster, my feet moving faster.

  Please be there, please be there, please be there.

  My boots clomped on the tiles. They echoed in the doorways.

  Please be there, please be there, please be there.

  I took a left by Biology, down the long corridor, clomp. Squeak. And then a quick right. Clomp. Squeak.

  I was full-out running, one more left, sliding sideways at least ten feet before banging into a locker, hard. I was in the middle of the hallway.

  It put me directly in front of Mr. Puglisi’s office.

  And there was nothing there but a cinder-block wall.

  Not even a door.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  AARON “FRECKLE” AGAR

  FREKLEO MONTAGUE AND SOPHELET CAPULET

  He followed her between the tables, through the pointing and laughter, then through the big metal doors into the hallway. He stood for a moment at a safe distance, while she bent over as if she were going to collapse, wondering what to do. Say something? Not say something? Give her space? Rush over to help? She suddenly turned and began to walk. He kept up while she jogged and then practically sprinted in her big, clompy boots. He followed until she stood in front of the wall across from the bio lab, staring at a row of whitewashed cinder blocks.

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  She didn’t answer, so he gently put his hand on her shoulder. She whirled around like a cat ready to sink fang. Her face was sweaty and confused. He stepped back.

  “I just, um… I thought…”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes, which smeared mascara sideways. It was actually sort of hot.

  “It’s okay,” Aaron said. “What were you looking at?”

  Sophie turned away from the wall, embarrassed. “I thought there was a door here.”

  Aaron rapped his knuckles against the cinder block. “Feels pretty solid.”

  “Don’t bother pretending,” Sophie said. “I know it doesn’t make any sense.”

  Maybe she really was as loony as everyone said, he thought. But so what? He couldn’t stop staring at her face, now that he was finally this close. He’d been working on finding excuses to be near her for a year, but she never gave any sign she wanted him to, always hunched over her drawings or kicking something with her boots. He considered putting his arm around her, since she was still shivering, but offered his jacket instead. Sophie took it and slid it over her shoulders.

  “Listen, I just wanted to come and say… you know. I thought that whole thing in there wasn’t… I guess, cool. I mean, I didn’t think. And then when? I guess mostly…”

  He knew he sounded like a fool. Mumbling on and on. Get down to basics, guy! he told himself. Grow a sac and just say it!

  “Okay, for one thing, Zac is a total asshole.”

  She smirked. “But you’re on the team together.”

  “I know. I think I’m gonna quit.”

  “Really?”

  Aaron shrugged. “Yeah, really.”

  Sophie straightened her skirt. “You sure you want to be seen standing here?”

  “In the hall?”

  “With me. Next to me.”

  “I don’t care,” Aaron said. “What people are. You know. Thinking.”

  “Oh, you don’t?”

  “No. Do you?”

  Sophie stared for a minute, waiting for the whole thing to be a
setup. Waiting for Aaron to burst out laughing or make a joke, say something ironic and then call his friends over.

  “You left this in there,” he finally said, holding a piece of paper rolled into a cone. Sophie took it and let it fall open. It was the picture she’d drawn of him.

  “Oh. My. God.”

  She crumpled it up and threw it onto the floor.

  “But I like it,” he said, smoothing the paper over his thigh. “You’re freaking talented.”

  The bell rang, clanging in the empty hallway, incredibly loud. Kids began to scramble out of the cafeteria, out of classrooms. In a minute, they’d come rushing around the corner. The hallway would be teeming. Sophie didn’t want to go to class. She didn’t want to go anywhere that wasn’t exactly where Aaron was going. She hoped he was thinking the same thing.

  “Hey,” came a voice from behind them, and then again, a little louder. “Hey!”

  Sophie turned to see a janitor motioning from a supply closet down the hall. “C’mon. Gotta be quick, or I’m gonna close this back up!” Sophie looked at Aaron, who shrugged. The sound of students jostling and laughing rolled toward them. Lockers slammed and banged. Aaron grabbed Sophie’s hand and pulled her through the cracked door, which shut behind them as a wave of noise crashed through the hallway.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  LAKE MCLEAN

  YODELAYHEEHOOYODELAYHEEHOOYODELAYYODELAY—HEEHOO

  I left before the bell and waited at the edge of the parking lot where the buses lined up, watching teachers and parents walk by. Watching them stare and pretending not to. They all wanted to know, and they were all afraid to ask.

  What did it feel like?

  I close my eyes and I’m up in the air again, as high as the bleachers. Football players mill below. The band is booming, a big bass drum counting time. Two-two three. Three-two three. The air is crisp and cold. Leaves crunch under booted feet. Two boys are throwing a Frisbee. Parents sip coffee and cocoa and whisky. The sky is a deep fall blue, gnarled clouds looming. I raise my arms, raise one leg, complete a routine. Every routine is the same, a variant of: Our team is good, your team is bad, we’re gonna win if we try super hard. I’m smiling serious kilowattage, being held by male cheerleader Raffy, who stands on the shoulders of male cheerleader Justin, who stands on the shoulders of a pyramid of Kirstys. It’s like being on the prow of a ship. It’s like being at the railing of an observation deck.

  And then there’s the slightest tremble. Keep smiling. There’s a sickening wave. Keep smiling. There’s no longer anything gripping my thigh, no hand, no support, no innocent squeeze. It’s almost like I’m weightless for a full second, just aloft. Isn’t aloft a funny word? It sounds sleepy. And comforting. And then I am un-aloft. Bam. The doctor comes running. The ambulance comes running. The nurse comes running.

  The thing is, and it’s embarrassing to admit, Zac Grace was my boyfriend freshman year. We’d hang out at his parents’ house every weekend, a brick-and-ivy Colonial, and we’d fly to Vail on ski junkets, and we’d fly to Hawaii on volcano-hiking junkets, and we’d drive around in their yellow Range Rover. His parents, with no apparent irony, were named Chad and Tinky. Well, I don’t believe it immodest to say that Chad and Tinky loved me. I was part of the family. Until the day I wasn’t. Sorry, no more Vail, hon. Give us a jingle when you get this regenerative-tissue mess cleared up. In the meantime, ciao!

  Which was ironic, since I once asked Chad where all the lucre came from.

  “Biotech, hon. Stocks. We own parts of a few companies. A start-up or two.”

  “Or three,” Tinky laughed. “We’re a big part of the town renewal.”

  Chad shushed her and poured another martini.

  “See, the rich and the infirm just don’t mix,” Daddy said after they dumped me, when I was busy crying with my head on his lap. He’d just been fired from his security guard job. Some supervisor he didn’t get along with. I tried to laugh but didn’t. He tried to laugh but didn’t.

  Zac was the first person I knocked boots with. I mean for real. In a bed, like a movie, looking in each other’s eyes. Also, the last one. His parents were always jetting to Basel or Stuttgart or Cannes, giving us the run of the vacation home. Chad and Tinky out having dinner with Salman Rushdie or Sean Penn or Prince Somebody, while Zac and I are lying on a vicuña couch that overlooks the Matterhorn. Where do you go from there? How do you say no, thank you to glasses of champagne and six-thousand thread-count sheets?

  Judge me if you must, but I’m glad. Life Is Short is a Hallmark poster, but it’s also true. People are always falling out of planes or being run over by Jet Skis or being diagnosed with Ebola, so why wait? I just wish it was someone less blatantly a tool than Zac. True personalities surface when things get difficult or even just inconvenient. As it turns out, Zac has no personality to surface. He has a jump shot. And a yellow car to match his yellow haircut and yellow Dikes. The only thing he really has to offer the world are baby-in-a-blender jokes and hallway fondling. But as long as we’re being honest here, I did sort of like the fringe benefits. Deep down, I knew exactly what Zac was, but how many times have you flown to Europe in a Lear? I spent that time spending his parents’ money.

  Thank gosh something happened to snap me out of it. Thank gosh I started to see things as they really are. Daddy knew all along but was too cool to give me a hard time. Or call me shallow. On the other hand, sometimes I wish Daddy was a little less nice. Daddy being sort of a prick now and again might really come in handy.

  “You ready?” he said as the van pulled up in front of the cafeteria.

  “Completely.”

  “Good.” He scratched his sideburns. “We have a lot of work to do.”

  The bell rang. School buses were starting to arrive, parking in long rows. Daddy lowered the gate and strapped my chair in before pulling away from the curb with a chirp.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  SOPHIE BLUE AND LARRY

  PAST GLORY IS PROLIX GLORY

  Aaron let go of my hand as we stepped into the darkness. I almost tripped over a broom. Aaron banged his head against some spray bottles hanging from hooks. “Is this the room you were talking about?”

  “Quiet,” the janitor whispered, ducking his head. He was a huge slope-shouldered guy with thick glasses. “Gotta wait a minute. Make sure no one saw us.”

  When a few minutes had gone by and no one knocked on the door, just the usual yelling that swept through the hallway, the janitor said, “S’probably okay now.” He inserted a rusty pry-bar into a seam in the wood. There was a whispery creak, and the back wall pushed away. The second room was a little larger, with higher ceilings, but still snug. It had a cot and a heater and a coffeemaker. There was a small TV showing a basketball game, and a desk with some books and papers on it. It was warm and comfy. On the wall there was a poster of 1980s Danny Ainge slamming a basketball in some guy’s face. Underneath, it said No Stopping Chocolate Thunder.

  “You guys can sit over there,” the janitor said, pointing to the cot. He unfolded a rusty lawn chair that was leaning against the wall and folded himself back into it. He had weird orangey hair that sat in big curls.

  “Wow,” I said. “This is… wild.”

  The janitor nodded, pointing to the name in cursive sewed above his breast pocket, Larry, Head of Maintenance. “Name’s Larry. I don’t really know why I asked you in here. Guess it looked like you needed a minute to get your breath.”

  “I know what you mean, Larry,” Aaron, said, reaching out and holding my hand again. “I mean, in terms of why I’m here. And not knowing. Exactly why. I’m here.”

  I’d been fantasizing for a year about various scenarios in which Aaron might end up holding my hand, and I still had the urge to pull away. Why? Why did I have to force myself to relax, to just let my hand sit there and accept being held? You don’t need to run, I told myself. Unless it’s running toward something for once.

  “Coffee?”

  Larry pulled the pot from a hot plate
. Even though we both shook our heads, he poured three mugs. “You’re on the basketball team,” he said, blowing steam toward Aaron. His teeth were coffee stained. It was like he was embarrassed about it, trying to keep them closed as much as possible, which gave him a weird way of talking. Pursed, like a fish.

  “Yeah, for now,” Aaron admitted.

  “Used to play a bit of ball myself,” Larry said. “You know, a million years ago.”

  “You went to Upheare?”

  “Sure did,” Larry said. “Some of them trophies in the hallway cases? They’re mine. Or was.”

  “Go, Toros,” Aaron said.

  “Go, Toros,” Larry said, and they bumped knuckles.

  “Larry?” I asked. “Is there—was there ever an office across the hallway? A counselor’s office?”

  Larry chewed a cookie thoughtfully, crumbs falling to the side because he wouldn’t open his lips up enough to let it all the way in. “No, ma’am. Behind that wall is pipes, mostly. No room for an office, counselor or otherwise.”

  “What exactly are you two talking about?” Aaron asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I guess I’m just being paranoid.”

  Larry held out one finger. “Paranoia will get you through times of no enemies better than enemies will get you through times of no paranoia.”

  I smiled, tempted to write it down. I was tempted to get it tattooed across my back. Instead, I stuck out my hand and Larry and I bumped knuckles.

  “You got anything to read?” Larry asked. “I get real bored. Any magazines or whatever in your book bag?”

  “Magazines?”

  He sipped his coffee. “Or whatever. Comics. Sometimes people leave them behind. Or sometimes, you know, they get confiscated.”

  “How long have you been working here, Larry?” I asked.

  He held up one finger as a pager went off on his belt. He pressed a few buttons and sighed. “Looks like vomit near the library again. Can y’all explain why no one makes it to the porcelain anymore? What’s so great about the rug outside the library?”