Maybe attracting guys just isn’t what she was put on this earth to do. By some bizarre genetic irony, she, the only biological child of her admittedly attractive parents, has turned out to be the ugly duckling of the bunch. Except in real life ugly ducklings don’t turn into swans. They turn into hideous adult ducks, their malformed features only emphasized with age, disgusting creatures that no one will even toss a piece of stale bread.
Maybe she’s a lesbian. That might explain, like subconsciously, why she put off going the distance with Thomas for so long. She’s just not into guys, and she gives off such a vibe of not being into it that it turns guys soft. She might make a good lesbian. Apart from never having been attracted to a girl, she pretty much fits the bill, right? She’s got like a no-nonsense appeal, and she’s into sports…
It doesn’t matter. Whether she’s into guys or girls—she’s got to stop defining herself by what other people think of her. She’s got to be true to herself from now on, like that dude in Hamlet says. Except, she doesn’t even know what that means in her case. She’s devoted an embarrassing amount of time and energy to worrying how other people look at her, and trying to improve her image. Like the hours she’s spent on YouTube, learning make-up tricks to make her nose look smaller. Or that afternoon last spring when her sort-of friend Rich (who’s annoying, but basically harmless) asked her to the end-of-the-year bonfire, and she shot him down way more harshly than she needed to, just to score some points with the girls at the lunch table. For the past year at least, she’s been thinking about nothing but what people may think of her, and as a result she has no idea what she really wants or who she even is.
A terrible sinking feeling creeps into Clara’s gut. What she is, she realizes with a sudden crushing clarity, is generic. Indistinct and undistinguished, a somewhat skilled athlete with pretty good grades—a barely noticeable background player in someone else’s movie.
Thomas’s hand finds its way onto her thigh again, and she knocks it away. It’s happened so many times now, it’s becoming a reflex, like brushing off a blackfly.
“Seriously,” he says, “I’m sorry.”
Oh God, he’s back in apology mode.
“I was just trying to connect with you on a deeper level.”
This is so tedious.
“I’d really hate to think that this is gonna change anything between us. ‘Cause you know I—”
On it goes, a droning in her ear. She might be able to tune him out entirely if it weren’t for that head-cold-y quality to his voice. Has Thomas always sounded like a surfer? Or is this something he just picked up over the summer, lounging too long at his parents’ other vacation house in Kennebunkport? Either way, it’s a huge turnoff now.
No. Check that. She is impervious to being turned off or turned on or turned anything at all by Thomas now. She is done with him. It’s as simple as that. She’ll save the tricky conversation for later, but there it is. That’s where they stand. It’s not even something she has to contemplate. No deliberations are in order. Body-dysmorphic insecurities notwithstanding, Clara has never been the type to agonize over her decisions. If she got her big, knobby proboscis from her dad, her decisiveness at least she inherited from her mom.
She’s so inured to the whole thing at this point, so zoned-out used to the idea of her and Thomas being kaput, that for a minute her epiphany about her own lack of identity loses its edge. It feels almost blandly comfortable. Then a chill runs through her as the knowledge once again bares its fangs: she is no one at all.
Her eyes glaze, and for a moment she doesn’t even see the animal standing in the road, turning to look at the oncoming car, its eyes in the headlights making mercilessly real the cliché.
“You look surprised,” Tess says when their lips have parted.
“Should I not be?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve been vibing you the whole way up here.” She puts a hand on his arm. His muscles reflexively stiffen. “You sure you don’t want to come in?”
He looks at her, her cheeks turned dusty rose in the early-morning chill, and then back at the rental car. Shit. He does want to go in. He’s exhausted and thrilled and aching with desire. He wants to go in badly.
“I’m just worried about your safety,” she says. “I don’t know if I could forgive myself if you fell asleep and went off the road.”
“How would you even hear about it?” he says. “We don’t have each other’s numbers.”
“Fine,” she says, reaching down to pick up her bag, “spurn my advances. See if I care. I’m freezing. I need to get inside.” She pulls her keys from the pocket of her overalls and turns to the door.
“It’s just…”
“Yeah?” she says, not turning to face him but not moving the key to the lock either.
What is he supposed to say? Sorry, I really like you, but I kind of see you as the literal embodiment of worldly attachment, manifesting at this critical moment to throw off my spiritual development. So it might not be the absolute best time for us to hook up. But call me in a few years! Yeah, see how that goes over.
He sighs and shakes his head. “You met me at kind of an odd time in my life. I’m sort of at a crossroads, and I’m trying to stay focused.”
“You mean all that ‘citizen of the universe’ stuff you were spouting earlier?”
He nods.
“I thought you said all that got started in the first place by spending the night with someone.”
“Uh… yeah, I guess.”
“Sooooo… is it like totally improbable that I could be similarly inspiring?”
“It’s not you. It’s—”
“We are not even dating yet, much less breaking up, so there is no way you’re allowed to say ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’”
He laughs. She turns to face him. “Can I tell you about an idea I’ve been tossing around in my head lately? I call it the Bobby Frost Theory of Transcendence, because it’s based on a loose reading of a Robert Frost poem. There’s a line in one of his poems that’s basically, ‘The only way out is through.’ It’s actually more ambiguous and complicated in context—but regardless, I think there might be something to that, the idea that you’ve got to engage with the facts of your life, work with them, wrestle with them, and ultimately move through them if you ever want to reach a higher plain. If you ever want to evolve for real. ‘Cause if you just check out, there will always be this residue, this shadow of everything unresolved that you left behind. But if you do the opposite—you double down on your investment in your experiences, really dig in, deepen those bonds, strengthen those relationships, face people directly, live the fullness of all the messy shit in your life—then that itself takes on a spiritual dimension. Your experience becomes elevated by the tenacity of your engagement with it.” She smiles a little, then shakes her head, her cheeks turning a ruddier shade of pink. “I don’t know… maybe I only think that way because I don’t have another option. It’s the only path to wisdom I can afford.” She shrugs and turns toward the door. “Good luck to you, Matty.”
He catches her arm as she reaches for the door. He spins her around and kisses her again—harder this time, deeper, his lips greedy for the fullness of her being, eager to take whatever portion of it they can. If this girl is some devil, then he’ll have to be careful, because there’s no way he’s getting back on the road tonight.
The grey-haired woman’s suspicion seems to be battling with her boredom as she regards Jacob from behind the counter. It’s the rock-fucking-bottom of the night, and god he must look like hell. Then again, working third shift in a place like this, the woman has probably seen a lot worse.
“I need a credit card,” she says, “or a two-hundred-dollar deposit if you’re paying cash.”
“Yeah sure,” he says, nodding, having heard all this already. He reaches in the pocket of his hoodie. Oh shit. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
“What did I tell you about that kind of language?”
“I’m
sorry. It’s just, my wallet’s missing. Fuck!”
“I’ll tell you what,” she says, “if you don’t have any money and you’re gonna use language like that, then you can just get out of here.”
Yeah. That’s exactly what he’ll do. Double back to Declan’s friend’s apartment and try to get his stuff back. The thought of it is miserable, showing up at this unseemly hour at a place he shouldn’t have been in the first place. Declan might not even be there. The guy might not open the door. He might even call the cops, which would leave Jacob in kind of an untenable position: a young black guy out on the streets of Burlington, half-drunk, dirty, no ID…
He pulls his phone out to check the time and finds two missed calls from Clara, along with a cluster of text messages, mirroring those he sent her earlier in the night:
“Call me ASAP.”
“J please I know its late, but you need to call me”
“I GOT IN AN ACCIDENT I NEED YOUR HELP”
The woman behind the counter snaps her fingers to get his attention. “Sir, you’re going to have to leave or I’m calling the police.”
“Sorry,” he says, heading for the door.
Halfway out, though, he stops and turns back to the woman, his expression hardening. “The fuck you woulda said if I was white?” he says. He waits just long enough to see her deer-in-headlights look, then takes off.
He speed dials Clara, raising the phone to his ear as he turns right onto Route 7, heading in the direction of his car. Fuck the wallet. Fuck Declan and his roommate, fuck this whole fucking gentrified city. He’s getting back to Maine right now.
Officer Nadeau emerges from some behind-the-scenes place in the hospital. (There are so many doors to so many discreet places here that Clara can’t keep track of where anyone is coming from or going to.) He stalks over and takes a seat kitty corner from her in another of the just-shy-of-comfortable waiting room chairs. Clara clutches the wooden handle of her own chair, rubbed raw by untold years of anxious family members awaiting news of their loved ones’ fates.
“Well,” the officer says in a high, soft voice that’s an odd fit with his amateur-body-builder’s frame, “as far as I can tell, you didn’t do anything wrong. Deer seems to have come out of nowhere, and the young man—Mr. Drake—confirmed that you had no knowledge of the presence of the drugs in the vehicle.”
Thomas told him that? Huh. That was nice of him. It doesn’t change anything fundamentally between them, but still…
“I don’t think it’s a great idea you kids being out so late,” the officer continues, “but as long as you get a clean bill from the doctor, I’m not gonna keep you here.”
“The doctor says I’m fine,” Clara tells him. “Just a couple of bruises. I’ve gotten worse on the volleyball court.”
“All right. The thing is, that car is in no shape to drive. Have you called your parents? Can they come pick you up?”
“They’re not answering. But my brother’s on his way from Vermont. He should be here in a couple hours, tops.”
The officer nods and leans in, his coat and the chair’s synthetic upholstery rustling and straining with each other, making bilious sound effects. “I’ll tell you what… there’s a diner about a half a klick down the road. It’s not bad. What do you say I treat you to a plate of pancakes while you wait for your brother?”
“Oh, no thanks,” she says, trying not to retch at the idea that this dude, who looks like he’s about thirty, might be trying to pick her up. “I’m pretty tired. I should probably just stay here, try to rest.”
“You sure? They make a real mean pancake.” He smiles at her, baring a row of coffee-stained teeth, and for a moment she is struck dumb by the probability that someone, at some point, has voluntarily had sexual intercourse with this man. He’s not ugly per se, just kind of sweaty and goofy, like the boys at her school.
“Yeah, I’m not such a big maple syrup fan,” she says, trying to ease the conversation to a close.
“Oh, you know what you gotta do…” Fail. “… this is gonna sound weird, but you gotta try having your pancakes with a smear of peanut butter. They give me looks at the diner, but I’m telling you, it’s the best.” He’s still smiling, nodding, leaning in. Clara gets the sickening feeling that this guy isn’t going to let this go.
“Uh, yeah… thanks. But I think I’ll stay here.” She raises her voice slightly as she adds, “I’D REALLY LIKE TO BE ALONE.”
A couple of nurses nearby glance at them. Officer Nadeau knits his lips together and squints. “All right. You suit yourself.” He pulls out his notepad and pen, all business all of a sudden. “What’s your brother’s name?”
“Jacob.”
“How old is he?”
“He’s nineteen.”
“Would you mind if I took his phone number? Just in case something comes up.”
She gives him Jacob’s number and takes his card, assuring him that she won’t hesitate to call if she needs anything—anything at all. When he’s out the door, Clara sinks into her seat with a heavy sigh, her face contorting with the pain in her chest.
It’s not just a couple of bruises. She might have cracked a rib, or worse. She should have told the doctor how much it hurt, but she couldn’t bear the thought of staying here tonight. She needs to get home. She needs to be with her family. She needs to find out why her parents haven’t been answering their phones, and why the landline isn’t even ringing. In the midst of her burgeoning identity crisis, the one thing she knows for certain is that she is a Lavando. They are there for one another—always. So where the hell are they now?
She pops a couple more ibuprofens and vainly searches for a comfortable position, hoping that Jacob drives faster now than he used to in high school. Hurry up, J, she thinks, please hurry.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Sound the Alarm!
3:30 a.m.
RICH: How long has it been since we lost contact?
ELLIOT: One hour and fifty-two minutes.
RICH: And Agent #2’s phone is definitely out of commission?
ELLIOT: It looks that way.
MARCUS: I gotta say, dudes, I’m getting kinda bored. They’re just sitting there, the big dude pacing. Maybe we oughta—
RICH: The next thing to come out of your mouth had better have nothing to do with calling off the mission.
MARCUS: I’m tired, brah! I need like a nap or something.
RICH: Drink another Red Bull and suck it up.
ELLIOT: Might I propose that we take shifts? Each of us watches them for an hour apiece while the others rest. If anything changes, we send out a call to wake the other players up.
JAY: Sounds good to me.
RICH: Said your mom to my Hot Carl.
MARCUS: Damn, dude…
RICH: Frogger10 is right, though. We’re kind of in a holding pattern. We may as well—
ELLIOT: Oh, goodness.
RICH: What?
ELLIOT: Take a look at camera 2. The side door.
MARCUS: No way…
RICH: What the fuck is that?
ELLIOT: It looks like a kid.
MARCUS: In some kinda costume.
RICH: Wait a second. Jay… is that your little brother?
JAY: I thought we weren’t calling each other—
RICH: Frogger11! Is the kid on camera 2 your creepy-ass-rain-man-lite of a brother?!
JAY: I’m not sure…
ELLIOT: My my my…
JAY: I can’t tell if it’s him.
MARCUS: Uhhh…
JAY: He’s wearing a costume!
MARCUS: That is weak, brah.
RICH: Frogger11, I am going to ask you something, and you had better have a goddamn good answer for me. Is it possible that your eagerness to abort the mission earlier was due to your having some knowledge about the security breach we experienced?
JAY: …
RICH: Is it further possible that you contributed to said breach? Possibly by giving unauthorized access to a dime-sized little shit who is now attemp
ting to enter the premises and possibly tip off the marks?
ELLIOT: I knew I heard someone coughing.
RICH: Frogger11?
JAY: …
RICH: I’ll take your silence as a provisional confirmation. Does it occur to you, frogger11, that you have seriously compromised this mission? Does it occur to you that a safe extraction might not be possible at this point? Does it occur to you that at the same time, we cannot risk that little fucker turning over sensitive information like, you know, WHO WE FUCKING ARE? Does it occur to you that, as a consequence of the heretofore mentioned facts, you might have just killed your brother, along with everyone in that house?
JAY: (quietly) I told him not to…
RICH: Mmmm? Sorry, I didn’t catch that.
JAY: I said, I told him not to.
MARCUS: Uh, hate to interrupt, but it looks like the kid’s going in.
ELLIOT: The door’s not locked?
MARCUS: Agent #2 must have left it open when they came back in.
RICH: Frogger11. We have important business to attend to. But before we do, just let me say this: When this is over, I am going to ass rape your whole family with the business end of a baseball bat. I want you to know that. In the meantime, let’s focus on reestablishing contact. Frogger10?
ELLIOT: I’m on it.
RICH: Frogger12?
MARCUS: Roger.
RICH: Frogger11?
JAY: …
It was a difficult time when, earlier this year, Shane spent over a month painstakingly constructing a replica of a Throndice battle suit, the kind Arun’dh’aile wore in the final chapters of the first installment of the Cosmic Wheel Saga (following [so far as earthly materials allowed] the exact specifications given to Arun’dh’aile by the great Throndice warrior B’hath’talon on a sheaf of Caragian parchment, a document reproduced in full by creator Rogen over 17 pages in the original hardcopy edition of the book).
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