Night Owls

by Jenn Bennett

  I quickly considered my options. Oh, that’s right: I had none. I was exhausted and had just spent the last ten hours, give or take, breaking my Howard Hooper sex record with Jack in a single night.

  “I was with Jack,” I admitted.

  “Where?”

  “At his house.” Should I say we fell asleep, or would that clue her in to what we were doing? I couldn’t decide, so I didn’t elaborate.

  “And his parents were fine with you staying there until seven in the goddamn morning?”

  Oh, boy. “They weren’t home.”

  “That’s wonderful, Bex. Just wonderful. You’re sneaking around behind everyone’s back, then?”

  “It was just this once.”

  “Oh, really?” The color of her face matched the apples scattered over her nurse’s scrubs. She was pisssssed. “Just this once, was it? Guess who I ran into tonight, Beatrix? Go on, guess. Nothing? Your mind’s a blank? Well, let me help. I ran into Dr. Denise Sheridan, head of the anatomy lab. Ring any bells?”

  Uh-oh.

  “Oh, she was all kinds of familiar with you,” Mom continued in the Most. Sarcastic. Voice. Ever. “Her mother has been in and out of the ER this summer because of heart problems—”

  What do you know. Guess Dr. Sheridan really had been caught up with a family emergency that first night she stood me up.

  “—and when I talked to her in the waiting room, she asked how your cadaver drawings were coming along. I, of course, looked like a complete fool because I remember that the last time we’d talked about you doing that, I specifically said you could not under any circumstances do any such thing. That it was gruesome and inappropriate for a girl your age to be sitting in a room full of dead bodies.”

  It was at this point that I noticed my sketchbook of Minnie sitting on the seat next to Mom. Hard evidence. No getting around it. I looked to Heath, quietly begging: Help a sister out, dude! But he just stared at the floor.

  “And what’s more, you got Mayor Vincent to call up Dr. Sheridan and ask her to bend her rules for you?”

  “I didn’t do that!” I argued. “Jack did that without me knowing. He was just trying to be nice. At the time, I didn’t even know his dad was the mayor.”

  “I told you no,” she snapped. “I am your parent—not Mayor Vincent!”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just wanted to win the scholarship money, and I needed authentic art. I wasn’t out drinking or smoking weed—”

  “No, but you were running around town with a wanted vandal.”

  I stilled, arms clenched against the back of the sofa as my heart galloped against my rib cage. There was no way she could’ve figured that out. No way, unless . . .

  “I’m sorry, Bex,” Heath said, sounding defensive. “It just kind of came out.”

  “You promised!”

  “And I also told you he sounded like bad news!”

  “He’s the farthest thing from bad news. He’s sweet and caring, and he likes both of you, and you threw him—and me!—under the bus?”

  Heath grimaced and shifted uncomfortably.

  “I never said a word to Mom when you were cruising bars in the Castro at the beginning of the summer.”

  “I stopped,” he said angrily. “Did you?”

  “Did I what? I never spray-painted a single line. And the two of you have no idea why he’s doing it or what he’s been through.”

  “A police officer came to question you, and you lied to his face,” my mom shouted. “Jack Vincent is a felon!”

  “He’s the most moral person I know. And I’m in love with him.” There. I’d said it. Out in the open. But what I thought was the biggest news flash of the evening only elicited cruel laughter from my mother. The sound struck my chest like a hammer.

  “You don’t know what love is,” she said. “And Jack doesn’t, either, because you don’t drag someone you love into the muck with you. You don’t commit crimes and talk your girlfriend into sneaking around and lying to her own family.”

  She really shouldn’t have said that. I completely lost it. All the bolts holding my brain together fell out and dinged against the floor-boards. “Oh, and you’re an expert? That must be why you told Heath and me all those lies about Dad, like how his new wife owned a strip club when it was really a jazz club. And how Dad refused to pay child support when you were the one who refused to accept it, because you cared more about your stupid pride than your own children’s well-being.”

  Dead silence. Nothing but a police siren wailing somewhere in the distance.

  Mom’s anger-red face drained to white while Heath’s mouth fell open.

  Too late to take it back now.

  “Yeah, I went and saw him in Berkeley that afternoon,” I said defiantly. “He sent me a birthday present—the one you said you’d throw in the trash. He’s been trying to see us, and you refused.”

  Mom’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I’m your mother!” she said in a voice that was out of control, anguished and broken. “He cheated on me. He left me for her. He left all of us.”

  “He might be a bastard, but he’s still our father. And you lied to us.”

  “What? You’re on his side now?”

  “No,” I said. “I gave him the gift back, and I had a huge fight with him. But you could’ve told us he’s been trying to see me and Heath. You could’ve told us he’d moved right across the Bay.”

  “He ruined my life. Made me feel worthless,” she said, a single tear running down one cheek. She quickly wiped it away. “I used to tell myself I didn’t want him to make you two feel that way, too. But if you want to know the truth, you were the only thing I had that he wanted. And by withholding you from him, I had control over something. I could make him suffer.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. Heath, either. He put his hands atop his head and paced into the kitchen. Everyone was miserable now.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the anatomy lab,” I said after a time. “But we both know I can’t afford to go to college if I don’t get scholarship money and grants. As far as Dad goes, I’m not sorry I went to meet him. He’s still an asshole, if that makes you feel any better. And I don’t know if I want to see him again or not. But I’m not sorry about Jack. He’s going through something you can’t even imagine—”

  “I don’t care,” Mom said, suddenly snapping out of her pain. “He’s a wanted felon, a troubled—”

  “Please don’t say ‘Troubled Teen.’ ”

  “Okay, smart-ass. But if you want to get into college so badly, think about this. You won’t be getting in anywhere if you have a police record.”

  “I won’t—”

  “That’s right, you won’t. You won’t be seeing him ever again. The only time you’re leaving this house is to go to work.”

  “You can’t do that! I’m eighteen, not eight.”

  “My house, my rules.”

  “Fine. I’ll take my things right now and leave.”

  “You even think about it, and I’ll go ring the Vincents’ doorbell and tell the mayor that his precious son has been vandalizing the c it y.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Try me, Beatrix. I would and I will.”

  How could she be so unbelievably cruel? “All that talk about wanting me to be happy, but when I finally am, you just couldn’t stand it, could you? You had to ruin my life, too, because if you aren’t happy, nobody is.” I stalked off toward my room and swung around for one last dig. “Maybe that’s why Dad left you in the first place.”

  The X-ray doors shuddered when I slammed them closed. I fell onto my bed, sinking into misery and hopelessness, and buried my head beneath my pillow to shut out the sound of Mom’s crying.

  27

  I SOMEHOW MANAGED TO SLEEP UNTIL NOON. WHEN I woke, I stayed in bed and texted Jack to let him know I’d sent him an email about what was going on. He didn’t reply, but I figured he was probably asleep or dealing with his parents’ coming back from Sacramento. I listen
ed for sounds of life outside my doors, and when I determined that the coast was clear, I made a beeline for the bathroom. When I got out of the shower and was combing my hair, a knock sounded on the door.

  “Go away.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Heath’s voice said through the wood.

  “Me too,” I called back. “For trusting you.”

  “Please, Bex. I want to know what happened with you and Dad.”

  “You should’ve thought about that before you betrayed me. Go away.”

  I turned on the shower again to make it sound like I was getting back inside, and he finally left. He didn’t make another appearance while I got ready for work, but Mom did. I saw her petite silhouette under the arch of the kitchen as I was headed out the front door. “I work from three to seven,” I said to her. “If you don’t believe me, you can call Ms. Lopez and verify my work schedule from now on.” And with that, I shut the door and left.

  Much like my life, work was a disaster. I was preoccupied and a total klutz, and I nearly started crying when a twenty-something snot of a woman yelled at me for dropping her organic eggs. I think Ms. Lopez took pity on me or something, because she quietly told me I was overdue for my break (I wasn’t) and took over my register, sending me to the count-out room. Once there, I tried Jack’s breathing trick, but it didn’t help.

  As if he knew I was thinking about him, my phone dinged with a Jack text, asking me to call him ASAP, so I did.

  He answered right away with a breathless question: “Where are you?”

  Relief rushed through me upon hearing his low voice. I wilted into a folding chair and answered, “At work, on a break.”

  “Has your mom said anything to you today?”

  “Not a word.”

  “Think she’s serious about telling my folks?”

  “If she catches me sneaking out to see you, yeah. She might do it. I’m so sorry, Jack. I didn’t mean to tell Heath.”

  “Dammit, Bex. You were the only one who knew. I trusted you to keep it secret.”

  He was angry with me? Worry tightened my chest and gummed up my throat. “It was after Jillian’s seizure, and I didn’t know if you were blowing me off, so I asked Heath for advice. He just guessed because I’m a terrible liar, and I never thought he’d betray me—”

  “What’s done is done,” he said.

  I covered my eyes with hands, as if he could see me through the phone. “I’m so sorry. You’ve got to believe me.”

  “Look, I have to go. I’ll think of something.”

  “Jack—”

  He’d already hung up.

  DREADED GOING HOME AFTER MY SHIFT. MOM wasn’t working, which made me anxious that she’d be waiting for me. Usually on days like these, she’d hold off eating dinner until I got back, and even if it was just salad or the Ultimate Sin (what she dubbed homemade guacamole and chips when we sometimes ate it as a meal), we’d watch something trashy on the DVR and eat together.

  That wouldn’t be happening tonight, not after everything I’d said to her. But it wasn’t like I could just text and say I was going out. My sneaking-around days were over. So I kept my head down and strode into my room, quickening my pace when I heard movement in the kitchen. But before I could hunker down and wall myself away, her footsteps stopped outside my door.

  “Hey,” she said, pushing inside as I stripped out of my jacket.

  “Hey.”

  Something bounced on my bed. I glanced up to see my sketchbook of Minnie.

  “You can finish up your work in the anatomy lab,” she said. “But that’s not a license to run around wherever you please afterward. Just to the lab and back home.”

  I was a little shocked. I tried to answer, but it came out as a grunt.

  “Dinner’s in the kitchen,” she added, and then walked out. I listened to her shuffling back to her room, and the door closed.

  Whatever small hope this gave me was crushed when Jack called me again later that night in lieu of our usual good-night texts. My heart raced as I answered the phone.

  “I can’t talk long,” he said in a rush. “Mom’s coming back any second.”

  “Okay.”

  “I told them.”

  “What?”

  “I told them about the graffiti.”

  “Oh no. Jack? Why?”

  “It was time.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Mom cried, which sucked. Dad is furious. At first I thought he was going to make me turn myself in to the police, but he wouldn’t want the bad publicity. Now he’s threatening to send me to a boarding school in Massachusetts for my senior year.”

  “What?” Surely this was a joke or some kind of invented cover-up story, like Jillian being sent to boarding school in Europe. Only . . . it wasn’t.

  “Some elitist prep school,” he said angrily. “It’s a gateway to Ivy League colleges, but I don’t want to go to Harvard or MIT, and I can’t leave San Francisco. God only knows how Jillian will react—she doesn’t do well with change, and Dad knows that. I can’t believe he would even consider it. But I guess it’s what he does with everything he doesn’t know how to handle. He shoves it out of sight. First Jillian, now me.”

  “This can’t be happening,” I whispered. “This is all my fault.”

  “Hey stop that. It’s not. I’m glad I told them. It feels like a weight off my shoulders. And I’m not mad, so don’t even think that. You hear me? I’m sorry I got upset earlier. I was just shocked. But I did this for both of us, so your mom can’t hold it against you. I thought it would help, but I guess it only screwed things up even more.”

  I suppressed tears and sagged against the headboard of my bed. “Oh, Jack.”

  “You are the only thing good in my life. If he forces me to move across the country . . . ? Jesus, Bex. I’m already dying over here. One day apart from you feels like an eternity. What will happen if I can’t see you for months?”

  Months. I couldn’t even fathom it, but I already felt the potential loss impaling my chest, a hint of things to come.

  IT HAD BEEN WEEKS SINCE I’D POSTED ON THE BODY-O-RAMA blog. Not to sound tragic, but in a way, it was pretty much the only outlet I had for conversation right now, because no one else was talking to me. Well, Jack would if he could, but before he hung up the previous night, he’d warned me that his parents were watching his every move, and they knew about his trick with their home security cameras. They were also threatening to monitor his texts. In a way, I guess I was happy for once that I paid for my own phone. Mom couldn’t shut it down or anything.

  With all this hanging over me, I drew a quick sketch of a human heart and added diagram labels for all the parts. It was no Max Brödel—I’ll tell you that much. And maybe because it was so sketchy, or maybe because my life had been upended, I dug through the bottom of my wardrobe and found my plastic tub of Prismacolors. The scent of wood and wax wafted out when I opened the lid. I sharpened the Scarlet Lake pencil and, blowing out a long breath, set the lead against the paper.

  I only meant to outline what I’d already done, but half an hour passed, and I’d softly shaded the contours of my entire sketch. I was worried all that color would look garish, but it wasn’t so bad.

  “Imagine that, Lester,” I said to my one-armed skeleton.

  A few snips in the shape of a square, and the heart, along with its diagram labels, was neatly unmoored from the paper. I carefully ripped it in two and pasted the pieces on a sheet of black paper. Done. Before I could chicken out or second-guess anything, I slapped it on my desktop scanner and uploaded the file under my BioArtGirl profile with only the date and time for a title. And, you know, it actually made me feel a little better.

  That night Mom wasn’t working, so she dropped me off at the anatomy lab and told me she’d be back to pick me up at 8:00 p.m. She didn’t add “sharp” to the end of that, but I felt the implication clearly enough.

  We were communicating only on a need-to-know basis, but at least that was better than
screaming at each other, and it was certainly more communication than Heath and I had. Conveniently, he was spending the night at Noah’s. Mom told me this—not him. She also told me Heath had set a move-out date: the day after my art show.

  I didn’t see Simon Gan in the anatomy lab lobby, but after I’d signed in and clipped on my visitor’s badge, I headed into the cadaver room and spotted him in his usual spot. He saw me putting my stuff down and waved. The stand I used to prop up my sketchpad wasn’t around, but several extra ones sat across the room. I headed over to retrieve one but stopped when I noticed that something was . . . off.

  Laid out on Minnie’s metal table was the body of a skinny old man. His leg had been opened up for dissection near a pair of bloated testicles.

  “Miss Adams,” Simon called out.

  “There’s been a mistake,” I answered, scanning the other sheet-covered bodies. “This isn’t Minnie.”

  He stopped on the other side of the cadaver and caught his breath. “That’s what I was going to tell you. Minnie was cremated two days ago. This is Mickey.”

  “Cremated? Why?”

  “They were finished dissecting her, and she’d been in the lab for nine months. It was her time.”

  “But I wasn’t finished,” I argued. “How come no one told me?”

  “I asked Dr. Sheridan’s assistant to let you know, just in case you wanted to be there for the cremation.”

  “I never got an email.”

  “Sorry about that,” he said, looking genuinely apologetic. “But look at the bright side. At least this new body will give you someone different to draw.”

  I didn’t want someone new. I wanted Minnie. I wasn’t finished! And who was this guy, anyway? Mickey? I didn’t know him. He was old and gross, and he stank strongly of formaldehyde. I didn’t want to invent a new backstory for his life, and I didn’t want to draw the dissection of his leg. It felt like a blasphemy—a slap in the face to Minnie.

  Tears blurred my vision. I snatched up my things and raced out of the lab. I didn’t stop running until I’d taken the stairs down, story after story after story, and finally ended up on the building’s front lawn, planting myself against the tree where Jack had taught me the breathing trick. And I fell to pieces.