All For One

by Ryne Douglas Pearson

  Some, though, chose to do other things.

  PJ knocked on the door to Jayhawk 2 and waited for it to open. Joey came out alone.

  “Where’s Jeff?” she asked. When she’d suggested they go for a walk instead of hanging out at the camp fire, Jeff had been included. She knew that he knew that. He was acting way too weird.

  “I don’t know. I’ve been waiting for him for twenty minutes. He didn’t come back after dinner.”

  PJ shook her head. “I didn’t think Mike and him were that good of friends. Why’s this making him act this way?”

  “I don’t know.”

  PJ looked around, rising up on her toes again and again, feeling awkward, wondering if she should just say ‘Oh, okay. Goodnight.’ She didn’t want to do that, and, after all, Jeff didn’t have to be with them. Did he?

  “So,” Joey began, and PJ’s heart fluttered. There was that sound in his voice. Like he was as scared inside as she was. “Do you want to walk out to the log?”

  PJ made her mouth shut so she couldn’t say anything stupid, and just nodded. A pretty emphatic nod it was, still.

  They started off toward the dining hall, where they would pick up the trail to the fallen log in the clearing. It wasn’t far at all, PJ knew, but if you sat on it you could look out over the valley, and sometimes see shooting stars streak bright over the next range. Joey had told her that last school year.

  As they neared the dining hall they could hear music. Piano music. Loud, happy, the kind that a thousand people could dance to without knowing how to dance. When they got a little closer they could see through the windows. Miss Austin and Elena were sitting side by side at the old upright, their hands attacking the keys in tandem, their voices rising in song to compete with the music.

  Joey and PJ stared at the ground and smiled.

  “Elena looks happy,” PJ commented. She crossed her arms as the breeze picked up.

  “Yeah,” Joey agreed. “Do you think she’s over it?”

  PJ shrugged.

  They walked on, the music fading behind, and off to the right Ballard was on the camp fire stage, probably telling some old, creepy ghost story by the sound of the silence coming from those in attendance.

  The breeze kicked up good and PJ shivered. Joey pointed off the trail toward the log and asked, “Where’s your jacket?”

  “In my cabin,” she lied. It was at home, on purpose. She decided that sweatshirts would do, that she’d rather be a little cold than a lot embarrassed around a bunch of people who didn’t know her and weren’t her friends.

  She knew that Joey wouldn’t have teased her like Walter Curtis, but she also felt better not wearing it around him. Better, but much colder.

  “It’s freezing out here,” Joey said. The log was ahead, flat and dark, the distant glow of the camp fires tickling it with furtive highlights.

  “Ballard has shorts on.”

  “Ballard is an alien from another planet,” Joey said, then stopped as they reached the log and took off his jacket. “Here.”

  “What?”

  “Put this on.”

  She stared at it. “Your jacket?”

  “Unless you don’t want to.”

  PJ shook her head, then nodded, then got even more confused and took a steadying breath. “No.” She reached out for it. “I’d like to. I mean... Thanks.”

  Joey smiled and helped her into his jacket, then sat on the log and swung both his legs over so he could watch for shooting stars. She did the same, sitting close to him. He didn’t seem to mind, so she scooted close enough that their elbows were touching. He looked at her and she put her head on his shoulder.

  The twin fires burned far behind them, but PJ felt as warm as she’d ever felt.

  They sat there together waiting for stars to fall.

  * * *

  “Who taught you to play?” Mary asked Elena as they left the dining hall, little hand clasped to big.

  “My mom.”

  “You play as good as you sing. You should play at school sometime. Maybe in the spring talent show.”

  Elena shrank into a self conscious smile. “I’m not that good.”

  Mary stopped and squatted, turning Elena to face her. “You’re good enough to do anything you want. I watched you come across that bridge today. I was scared of doing that.”

  “But you did it,” Elena said.

  Mary put a finger soft on the little girl’s nose. “And so did you.” Steam hissed from the camp fires as Ballard and some helpers dumped buckets of water on them. It was late. “You need to get some sleep, young lady.”

  Elena hugged Mary around the neck and let go with a burst of energy that carried her toward her cabin.

  Mary watched her until she was swallowed by the night. Then she headed for the staff building, taking the same path as the day before. Determined this time. Determined not to let the voices vex her.

  At the spot where the voices had seemed to split from her being the previous day, Mary listened and walked slowly. Purposely slow. Challenging them to come again. Daring the mean one to say things like it had said at the gorge. Vile things. Sickening directions.

  “Come on,” Mary muttered to the darkened path, giving the dare voice. “Where are you now? Huh? Afraid of the dark?”

  Mary walked on, eyes confidently forward, silence at her back and in her head.

  At the side of the staff building she stepped into the half shelter of the phone vestibule and dialed both numbers from memory, hers and her calling card number. She had more trouble with the first. How often did one call themself?

  Dooley answered on the second ring. “Austin residence.”

  “Austin residence?” Mary kidded him. “That makes it sound like I have a staff or something.”

  “Hey. How are you?”

  “Good. Is Chester giving you any trouble.”

  “He likes to watch me and lick himself. I think he’s gay.”

  “Tell that to the neighbor’s calico.”

  Dooley laughed quietly. “Is it cold up there?”

  “Freezing. There?”

  “The same.”

  “How’d you sleep?”

  “Fine until I rolled and a piece of glass jabbed me. You didn’t get it all out of the couch.”

  “You slept on the couch? I do have a bed, I’m sure you recall.”

  “I know...”

  “Sleep in the bed, Dooley.”

  “Strange beds, alone...”

  “Dooley...”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “I’ll be back about five tomorrow. Would plans be out of the question, still?”

  “Sunday’s are bad. I have a commitment.”

  “That’s all right. Can I call you tomorrow night, though?”

  “You can call me. Sure. Are you outside? I heard an owl?”

  “It might be there, but, yes, I am outside.”

  “Get inside, Mary. Don’t freeze on account of me.”

  “Can I say something?”

  A wary pause, then, “Go ahead.”

  “Well, when I was younger I guess it would have gone like this: I think you’re really rad, Dooley Ashe.”

  “Rad? I’m rad?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Well then, you’re bitchin’.”

  “I’m bitchin’?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to my cabin now.”

  “Sleep tight.”

  “I will,” Mary said, and waited for the click from the other end before she hung up.

  She clasped her hands together and held them low in front as she walked away, a bounce in her step, her own thoughts in her head. She heard little laughter far off. Real laughter, made by real children. A happy sound. A happy day. A happy night.

  In the shadows near the phone, Jeff watched her stroll merrily away. He had a rock in his hand, but let it drop next to his foot. Happy? She’s talking to him and she’s happy?

  Jeff waited until she was gone, far gone beyond the cabi
ns, then fell to his knees, tears falling freely.

  * * *

  Dooley hung up and smiled at the phone for a very long time. He was embarrassed by his feelings, the childish simplicity of them in such a complicated matter. He liked Mary. He liked her a lot. He liked looking at her, and though they hadn’t had many conversations unencumbered by the realities of his being here, he truly believed that he would enjoy talking to her. Stoking a fire, pouring some wine, and just talking.

  And maybe make love after that.

  Dooley blushed to himself and went to the kitchen for something to drink.

  Chester followed him and watched as Dooley found a plastic jug of orange juice in the door of the fridge. He unscrewed the lid and took a long drink from the container as he stood in front of the open refrigerator. The tabby seemed intensely interested in this.

  “Don’t tell me, Chester; Mary doesn’t do this?”

  Chester ogled him.

  “Uses a glass, does she?”

  One hairy orange leg came up and Chester started to lick himself again.

  “To be as limber as a cat,” Dooley observed, then twisted the lid back on the juice and put the jug back in the door. He closed the refrigerator door and walked away.

  He only took a few steps before backing up in his own tracks to stand before the big, boxy appliance once again. His eyes played over it, every possible space covered by childish drawings stuck to the door by dozens of little magnets. He hadn’t noticed the display the night before. Hadn’t even come into the kitchen at all then, having opted for a really bad pizza delivered all the way from Bartlett. It had cost him a five dollar tip to get the driver up to Holly Village, but he hadn’t wanted to cook. Hadn’t wanted to enter the kitchen at all.

  Now he was sorry he hadn’t.

  The pictures were quite interesting, coming from a kid. There was one of a big, arching multicolored rainbow. And one of a little girl skipping. And one of a little girl with brown hair holding hands with a little boy with orange hair. One had bluebirds flying across the sky. Picture after picture after picture. Gifts to Mary, obviously. And from a very serious little artist. Every picture was dated this year, and signed very properly.

  Dooley leaned close and read the name. Mandy Fine.

  “Hmm,” he grunted. They must be from an old student, or maybe one that Mary tutored. Dooley had gone through the files and seen the class roster countless times. There was no Mandy Fine in Room 18.

  * * *

  Jeff hadn’t been the only one listening to Mary’s call.

  “She wants him for her boyfriend,” Mandy said to herself as she walked in the dark along one of the trails cutting through Camp One Wing. “She wants to hug him, and kiss him, and she wants to fuck him.” She looked straight ahead, her face as dead as Charlie’s. “Hmm.”

  Somewhat up the trail, deeper into a stand of lush, mossy trees, Mandy spotted movement off the path and stopped. She peered into a small clearing that was faintly lit by the moon and saw what the movement was. It was a raccoon, nibbling at something it had in its front paws.

  Her face brightened and she stepped off the trail and sat on a log at the edge of the circular bald spot in the forest.

  “She’s getting her hopes up,” Mandy said, then looked up to the sky and the hollow crescent moon hanging over the camp. She stared at it for a long moment before bringing her eyes back down. “Do you agree, Charlie?”

  Charlie, standing near the center of the clearing, shrugged his shoulders and wiped at his face again and again with his hand. His hair had changed. It was gray and black.

  “Oh, Charlie, why doesn’t she just listen?” Mandy shook her head at her friend.

  Charlie’s fingers batted at his cheek. “I don’t know, Mandy.”

  “I mean, she knows that she should. Everything has worked out fine until now. Why, Charlie? Why?”

  “Hi there!”

  Mary bolted up from the log and spun toward the voice.

  “It’s pretty out here, isn’t it?” the woman, well bundled in jacket and scarf and woolen cap asked. Mary remembered her. She was a teacher from Bravehill Elementary School. They had met at the opening session.

  “Jan, is it?” Mary checked.

  The woman nodded and smiled. “Jan Peters.” She pointed at Mary. “Mary....Austin, right?”

  “Right,” Mary said. A flutter moved through her heart, and she told herself that everything was just fine. That she must have just gone for a walk and gotten so caught up in the beauty of the woods at night that she couldn’t remember getting to this spot.

  ...losing time...

  It wasn’t losing time. It wasn’t.

  Jan Peters stepped close to the log she’d seen Mary sitting on and marveled visibly at the little creature in the clearing. “The camp manager was right, wasn’t he?”

  “Right?”

  Jan pointed to the raccoon and Mary looked. “He told everyone not to feed the raccoons because they’re too tame as it is.”

  “Right,” Mary lied. When had he said that? Did I miss that?

  The raccoon was no more than ten feet from them and looked like it had nary a care in the world, nibbling as it was on something hard and dark, and scratching its face so cutely every few bites or so. “I’d say that is pretty darned tame.”

  “Yeah,” Mary agreed, pushing her hands deep into the pockets of her jeans.

  “I didn’t know they had names, though,” Jan Peters said to Mary.

  “Names?”

  “Yeah. You were calling that one Charlie when I walked up. Is that his name?”

  Mary stiffened, her skin crawling instantly, and one very old recollection coming back, dodging the hound and its vigilant, hot eyes. This memory very suddenly clear, very pointed, very, very true, she knew. Something she had forgotten, had been made to forget, but which now was back, and as real in her present memory as the feeling now that she was going mad.

  “I had a friend when I was little,” Mary explained to Jan, a shimmy deep beneath her words. “And this friend had a friend, and his name was Charlie.”

  Jan Peters looked quizzically at the sixth grade teacher from Windhaven. “Really?”

  Mary nodded. Mandy,please,no,Mandy,pleasedon’tbebackagain... “I guess that’s why I was calling...it Charlie.”

  * * *

  Joey was staring at the ceiling, mentally kicking himself for not kissing PJ. He’d wanted to, and he was pretty sure she wanted him to, but the butterflies in his gut had made even breathing difficult after she put her head on his shoulder. Talking? Damn near impossible.

  Now he wished he’d just done it. When would this kind of chance come again? When he was thirty?

  “Joey.”

  He rolled to the side of the top bunk and looked over. “Jeff?”

  “Yeah,” he whispered, standing right below, still in his clothes. Everyone but his friend was asleep. Guns was snoring like a buzz saw.

  “Where’ve you been?” Joey asked quietly. “I didn’t even hear you come in.”

  “Joey?”

  “Yeah? What?”

  “Mike told me something the other night.”

  Joey leaned over the edge, as close as he could to Jeff’s face. “Have you been crying?”

  “He told me something, Joey. I’ve gotta tell you. He told me not to, but I’ve gotta.”

  “Tell me what?”

  After Jeff had, Joey cried into his pillow.

  Forty Six

  When the phone rang early, Dooley rolled the way it should have been at his house and ended up on the floor next to Mary’s couch. Now he thought maybe he should have just slept in the damn bed.

  He scrambled to his knees and reached over the coffee table to the table by the chair and snatched up the cordless. “Hell— Austin residence.”

  “Good morning, Dooley.”

  It was Joel, sounding cocky and judgmental. “I didn’t tell you I was staying here precisely because of that tone you can get. Wait. How did you find me?”
>
  “After your home phone took ten of my messages and your pager ignored me, I took a shot. Call me a good detective.”

  Dooley wiped the sleep from his eyes. “My pager’s in the car. I hate that thing. That’s one damn good reason to retire early. I’m gonna page myself and chuck it into the Sound.”

  “Well, I got you.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Your idea, about the news search. Well, one of my eager young rookies here did the deed on Friday night. This morning I stop by and find the results on my desk.”

  “Anything interesting about the kids?”

  “Michael Prentiss won a little league trophy for best batting average.”

  “Funny.”

  “This next thing may not be.”

  “What?”

  “We got an interesting hit.”

  Dooley leaned back against the sofa and asked, irritated, “On who?”

  * * *

  Breakfast was over. Only Elena and PJ had eaten. Now, standing with Joey and Jeff in one of Camp One Wing’s two empty cabins, they wished they hadn’t.

  Elena ran to the cold stove and threw up into the ash can. PJ held her forehead and put a hand on her back, just like her own mother had done for her, and helped Elena wipe her mouth when she was done.

  When they turned back toward Joey and Jeff, Elena looked like the rag doll she’d been the day Guy had died, clutched to PJ like she was a life preserver.

  “Michael saw what?” PJ asked for confirmation.

  * * *

  A crease dug into Dooley’s forehead when he heard Joel say the name. “Mary?”

  “The only instruction I left for the news search was to run the names on the class roster. Her name is on there, too. At the top.”

  “What about her is interesting?” Dooley asked.

  “Three twenty-two year old articles from some dirtwater daily in Illinois. The Chicago papers picked up the story and ran a few blurbs.”

  “About Mary?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What does Mary when she was...” He did the math quick in his head. “...eight...” ‘Eight was a rough year.’ “...have to do with anything?”