The Last Kid Left

by Rosecrans Baldwin

  U wont believe this

  Typically wrote back instantly.

  Wassup

  The girl I told u abt

  Continue

  Total no show

  Ahhh

  F that

  Good reason to get wasted tho

  Headlights. The 4Runner. The lights didn’t extinguish. Two girls hopped out, one stepped forward. Her front was black due to the lights behind.

  “You’re Nick.”

  “Hey.”

  He couldn’t tell which one it was.

  “It’s Emily.”

  “Cool.”

  Cool? Shit.

  “I mean, hey,” he said.

  Shit!

  The girl fidgeted with her dress, she wore it over jeans.

  “How’s it going?” he tried. She didn’t answer. “Where’s your friend?”

  “Do you want to take a walk?” she asked.

  They marched out into the darkness, away from the parking lot. Fifty yards across the sand, dead silence. He had to do something. What if he held her hand? Then he took it, just like that, almost unconsciously. It was smooth and small, cool to the touch, like a shell. He couldn’t help but smile.

  She let go a second later and walked away toward the water, arms crossed, legs stepping slightly left and right, off balance. He could hear the sound of a stereo somewhere. Okay, so she hadn’t liked the hand thing. Shit. He caught up.

  He said, “The other night was so cold.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you go up there a lot?”

  “What, the quarry?”

  “I’d never been up there before.”

  He wondered if it was some type of trick question. “I mean, not much.” Total lie. He and Typically went up to Whitehall all the time. Why was he lying? What difference did it make? Did it mean something bad, to go to the quarry a lot? Why’s he so wrapped up in what she thought?

  “I thought it was beautiful,” she said quietly.

  He shook his head in agreement. With zero confidence this could end well. He was doing it wrong, whatever “it” was.

  They walked down the beach, toward the boardwalk lights. A minute later, he saw the hand dangling again. This time she let him hold it a minute longer.

  “I was delivering pizza last night,” he said. “It’s pretty good, for a job. You set your own schedule. So this guy answered the door. He’s going to pay me, he’s getting out his wallet. Then his wife, I mean I think it’s his wife, she shows up, she’s got a baby strapped to her chest in a sling. You know what I mean? And in the other hand she’s carrying a bong. I was like, holy crap. With smoke coming out of the top. I mean, that can’t be good for the baby. The guy’s like, ‘I don’t have money for a tip. Do you want a hit?’ Like, instead of a tip, he grabs the bong and holds it out to me. And the whole time I’m thinking, Hey, how about not in front of your genetic offspring?”

  The girl laughed. Thank god. The story was so much more stupid than he’d realized. But she had a nice laugh, smooth and easy. He felt a tight feeling in his chest. This girl just got him.

  She asked what he liked to watch, in terms of movies, after all he’d mentioned movies in his letter. The letter! He’d watched something like two hundred movies when his leg was banged up. So he talked a little about that, listing favorites. Was he showing off? What if she hated Inception?

  He asked, did she like movies?

  She liked movies.

  But all he could think about was how much he wanted to kiss her. Her hair was swept backward by a strong gust of wind. If only there was some way to let her know how he felt. To know how she felt. Maybe she wanted him to kiss her? God, he was a coward. The desire was so strong.

  She said, “How old are you?”

  They stopped near a lifeguard chair. His heart raced. Up the beach, the Sundial spun slowly, a spinning pink and green rose.

  “Nineteen,” he said.

  “I’m sixteen.”

  Her eyes were closed for some reason. Deliberately? Was it a sign? Should he kiss her now? Kiss her lips, then her neck? At least she wasn’t looking at him, he probably looked desperate and girls hated that, they wanted you to act decisively. Quit stalling. But his impulses refused to connect to his thoughts, his cascading thoughts. He should kiss her, he knew that. That’s why she’d closed her eyes! So what held him back? They were standing two feet apart. He remembered something he’d read in a book, that you can’t combine being afraid with being sure.

  She said a second later, eyes open, “Are you too old for me?”

  His heart pounded grumpily.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t really care,” she said formally. She sighed, adultlike. Her voice was matter-of-fact. “I was just asking, in case it mattered to you.”

  Then she sat down on the sand, like he wasn’t even there.

  He was totally confused. He stood there grimly, gripping the lifeguard chair. He was out of his depths. He should go home. She was more intelligent than he was, probably a lot more intelligent. Maybe he was missing out on an entire level of communication.

  “I remembered everything you said the other night,” she said, after a long silence. “After I got your letter. I wrote it all down.”

  He snorted quietly. “Why would you do that?”

  She didn’t say anything. He was amazed. He really didn’t understand this girl. He looked for eye contact, but she wouldn’t look up. He stared at his boots, coated with sand. A long thirty seconds. Did she want him to sit down?

  “I liked the story about your leg.”

  “It wasn’t a story.” He sat, clumsily adjusting his knee. “It’s just something that happened. I don’t know.”

  Emily stared at her feet and picked at her jeans.

  “I was on mushrooms. The other night. In case I acted weird.”

  He laughed into his fist. This girl!

  “No shit?”

  “Yeah,” she said, and laughed. He laughed, too.

  “I mean, that’s cool. Do you do that a lot?”

  “I stopped.”

  “I stopped drinking. I mean, I cut back. Not like I was alcoholic or anything.”

  “That’s good.”

  It was true, he’d gotten tired of Typically’s adventures. Tired of trying to re-create episodes of It’s Only Sunny. Tired of Typically, to be honest.

  The breeze off the water got intense. He noticed the girl had pockets sewn into her dress. Her hands were grasping the fabric inside, but not from cold. She leaned against him. It was awesome. They bullshitted for a while. He felt better, he put an arm around her. She didn’t seem to mind.

  “What do you want?” she said softly. “Like, from life.”

  “You mean now?”

  “Forever.”

  He wanted to kiss her so badly. She was different from any other girl he’d ever met. Definitely stranger. But in a good way. Wind swept down the beach. The dark was frigid. Nick didn’t say anything for a moment, he needed to say the exact right thing, but what was that?

  Then she got up and walked away.

  “Hey. Hey!”

  “I’m sorry,” Emily said roughly. “We should go back.”

  “What happened?”

  “Never mind,” she called back, “I’m stupid. I don’t know what I was talking about.”

  “Wait, hold on,” he said, and stumbled to catch up. What was up with this girl? “Let me at least answer.” She paused. He didn’t have anything. What a loser. No wonder she’d run away.

  “I want to be remembered,” he said, above the wind. Really? But it was true. He felt it in his gut. Then, of course, the wind stopped. His words hung in the air.

  “What about you?” he said. “You can’t leave me hanging like that.”

  She stared over his shoulder at the Ferris wheel. It was tough to feel like he’d done anything right in the last half an hour. Maybe she hadn’t heard him. I want to be remembered. What a
creep.

  She said formally, “What do your parents do?”

  “My mom gives piano lessons. I don’t know about my dad.”

  “Maybe I could take lessons. I always wanted to play an instrument.”

  “With my mom?”

  “Could I?”

  “I guess so,” he said, laughing. “Why not?”

  He wanted to say how much he liked her. How much he liked her little eyes. He should make his move, he knew it, yet he was frozen again.

  She said, “Do you want to kiss me?”

  Her hair was dark. As if her hair was outer space, her face the moon.

  He put his lips on hers.

  Her lips parted and pulled him in.

  It was amazing.

  * * *

  Dear Nick,

  I’ve got to tell you something and it’s so weird but please don’t worry, I’m totally fine and nothing’s wrong. I just want you to hear about it from me before anyone else tells you, even your mom. Hopefully she gives you this letter but doesn’t read it. I trust her not to.

  I closed up the shop last night (Sunday) and went over to Denny’s. I wasn’t hungry but I didn’t want to go home. I had that Willa Cather book in my bag so I just planned to get some tea and read. And then this guy in a black baseball hat stops by my booth, sort of floats up like a ghost and asks me if I’m Emily Portis. I was like, “Who are you???”

  And then he started asking me questions, like what I thought about you, what really happened, if I was involved in whatever happened, if I felt embarrassed. I honestly had no idea who he was, I was just scared. But then it was so awful because I started answering him, I knew I shouldn’t but I couldn’t help it, I felt like such an idiot but I was afraid. He was really creepy, standing there, and I didn’t know what else to do.

  And then I noticed he had a bag on his arm, like a computer bag. One of his hands was sort of hiding it. I totally figured it out because I saw a camera, he was filming me. I was so mad! I asked what he was doing. He got red in the face, totally weird, shouting stuff, and then he called me the c-word. What a sicko! I told him to leave me alone. A manager came over and kicked him out.

  Anyway, I wanted you to know, but please don’t go thinking anything about it. I’m a lot happier today, or at least I’m not as scared as I was. The world’s full of jerks, that’s what Alex said at breakfast this morning. It all just makes me miss you that much more.

  Nick, I love you with every single part of my body. You’ll get out soon and this will all go away, and then we’ll be gone. Do not let anything change the way you think about me.

  Do you remember the day you took me shopping at the mall? You never knew how happy it made me feel. It’s dumb but you were so cute, you tried to be awkward about it, but I could tell you knew exactly how you wanted me to look. To look for you. I liked that. All I wanted was for you to say what you wanted, I would have done it. I would have done anything. I still will. Anything. I will always be a hundred percent honest with you.

  I think what makes us different from other people is that we say and do exactly as we please, no matter what people think. “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” I read that today. God my feelings are so raw. But I’ll dream about you tonight and we’ll be together.

  Nick, please forget everything I told you that night. None of it’s real, it doesn’t exist. All that matters is us, right now, and what comes next.

  And never doubt and never forget how much I love you, forever and ever.

  All my love, Emily

  * * *

  Monday afternoon, a little over a week into Martin’s time in New Hampshire, the day is more fall than summer, the sky is grainy, a churning wind shakes down branches from rickety old trees. And back to the doctor’s house he’s pulled by magnetic yearnings, a rippling dissatisfaction in his gut that makes him drive through Dunkin’ Donuts along the way and order a cruller.

  In the parking lot afterward he pauses to brush his hair, brush the crumbs off his chin, see if anyone’s paying him attention.

  It’s not just vanity. Lately he’s gotten the feeling he’s being watched.

  The night before, the boy from the restaurant brought him dinner again, the black kid with blond hair, Demeke. He’d stood in the doorway, stared for a moment. On a whim Martin asked him to stay for Jeopardy! The boy gave him a funny look but sat down.

  Martin asked where he was from.

  “Here,” the kid said. “Claymore.”

  “Sorry,” he said, “I mean originally.”

  The kid’s tone twisted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He nearly said that the kid as sure as hell wasn’t from Claymore originally. Unless the New Hampshire accent included French and/or West African influences. But it had been a long day. He apologized and held his tongue. They watched TV.

  “My parents own this place. I live upstairs.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be a detective?”

  He laughed.

  “So where are you from?” Demeke said. “Originally.”

  “Nowhere,” he said. “Absolutely nowhere.”

  The kid laughed. “You are seriously weird.”

  The next morning, Martin parks in front of the doctor’s house. He stayed up the whole night worrying about his marriage. No husband in the world wants to imagine what he imagined. But the kid’s laugh makes him smile. Time to go play detective.

  He unlocks the front door. Spends a minute in study of the walls. Traces the wallpaper with a fingernail, over apple bushels, bouquets of yellow flowers. The furniture, the table, the jar of potpourri, he studies it all. For the first time in Claymore he feels strangely calm.

  Something right’s going to happen. Not something wrong.

  A phone rings, the house phone. From upstairs and somewhere else. The kitchen. Once. Twice. After the fourth time, it goes to voicemail. Then his own phone rings, on his belt. Brenner, the boy’s attorney.

  “I was planning on visiting Nick today,” she says. “But something’s come up.”

  “You want me to go?”

  “Yes. But I need you to have a soft touch, New Jersey.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “We’re not connecting. Me and the kid. Something’s in the way. It could be I’m a woman. Anyway, so it goes.”

  “You want me to connect with him.”

  “We know his father ran away.”

  “You’re saying you want me to go play Dad.”

  “Soft touch, Martin. I’m serious.”

  In crime, secrets are always plain. You just have to look in the right spots—even in New Hampshire. The previous week, Brenner had explained that, in the southern half of the state, they basically only saw assault, property, and fraud. Plus the opioid epidemic: heroin, fentanyl, overdoses in public. With copper stripping on the rise as a result, and synthetic weed, spice, K2. Prostitution was tolerated, assuming narcotics didn’t also get a hand job. But her bread and butter, Brenner said, was repeat customers passing bad checks and robbing places. Husbands and wives who beat up on their husbands and wives after a binge on something cheap and powerful. Making her clients mostly two-swallow types: they did something stupid, then they did something else that was stupid.

  And meanwhile her office was underfunded, overworked, taken for granted. The boss had checked out. Her assistant was a burgeoning alcoholic. They got by.

  Martin leaves the scene to go see Nick. At the courthouse, he’s escorted by the same guard as last time, max age of nineteen. Did he graduate high school? The room’s all concrete, vinyl, and plastic. Two heavy tables, four old chairs, the small cutout window. Not a single happy color.

  Three minutes later, Nick strides in eagerly, and Martin feels strongly emotional for no good reason. Then the kid’s eyes go dark. He isn’t the expected.

  “Where’s Brenner?”

  “She couldn’t make it, sorry.”

  “I told my mom, I
want my lawyer.”

  Martin feels hot. His lower back has been threatening to spasm. He shoves up backward and props himself against the wall.

  The kid says, “Are you okay?”

  “Let me tell you where I want to start.” Be paternal. “Why don’t you tell me what really happened that night.”

  “You know what happened.”

  “Let’s pretend I don’t have a clue.”

  “I wrote it down.”

  “Nick. We both know it’s bullshit.”

  “It’s what happened.”

  “No, it’s crap,” he says. He breathes through his mouth while the queasy feeling in his stomach seeps upward. “But for some reason you’re sticking to it. When in fact you’re being an idiot, you realize that.”

  “This is awesome. Anything else?”

  “Do you know where you’re going? Because this only goes one way. The state attorney, she doesn’t screw around with double homicide. Prosecutors I know back in New Jersey, they’d kill for this woman’s conviction rate. Stalin didn’t have her conviction rate. You’ve heard of Stalin?”

  A buzzer goes off somewhere—the cold breath of jail. Nick doesn’t notice, he’s so accustomed.

  “This state has capital punishment,” Martin says quietly. “It’s on the books. Now, they don’t use it often, it’s sort of fallen out of favor—”

  “Like Stalin.”

  He laughs, caught by surprise.

  “Why don’t you go get us something to eat?” Nick says flatly.

  “We’ll do a trade. I’ll pick up lunch, but first you give me something.”

  The kid’s leg beats up and down.

  “What are you hiding from us, Nick?”

  The kid looks around everywhere. Innocent as can be. Which may mean Martin’s on the right trail. “Nick, please,” he implores. But nothing more. He leaves, goes out, lies down in the backseat of his car. Chomps Motrin like they’re heroin breath mints. His thoughts slosh around, to no avail. Fifteen minutes later he buys a bag of cheeseburgers at Wendy’s, baked potato for himself, returns and feeds the kid. But even then the kid still doesn’t talk.

  He remembers, soft touch.

  “I’m staying at an inn in town,” he says, while the kid chews his sandwich. “The Crow’s Nest. Did I tell you that? It’s not bad. A little too antiquey for my taste.” No response. “They do a good breakfast. There’s a kid who works there, African kid, he goes to your high school. Demeke. Smart kid. You know him? Skater type.” No response. “When I was your age, you didn’t have diversity in the schools. You had Catholics and Jews, that was about it. We thought about adoption, me and my wife. For about a minute. I guess we decided we’re too old. I mean, she also didn’t want them. I probably could have gone again. I have a daughter, from a previous marriage. Camille. Her mother wanted something French; it would ‘help her value herself.’ I’m not even joking.” No response. “My wife’s cheating on me. The current wife. It took me a while to figure it out. Not sure what that says about my investigative skills. It is what it is. To be honest, it’s probably one of the reasons I’m up here. In addition to your case. My daughter’s in California. We’re not in touch these days. Which is my fault, I’m sure.”