by Bryan Bliss
“Yeah?”
“I could come over to your apartment,” Annie said.
“Yeah.”
Luke hadn’t intended it to be funny, but Annie laughed. Suddenly she looked at him shyly, as if this conversation was making her nervous.
“Do you know any other words?”
“Um, yes? That would be amazing.”
The shyness dropped away, and she grinned big.
“Amazing. I like that,” she said. “Say more things like that.”
All Luke could say was, “Okay.”
She leaned forward and gave him a kiss, way longer than a peck. And then she was gone.
Luke needed to find Toby. To get his read on the situation with Annie. This meant sex, he was pretty sure. But then, he could be totally wrong, and he didn’t want Annie to walk into his apartment planning another trip to Wilco. Not that he wouldn’t walk anywhere with her.
But he was kind of freaking out, and he needed Toby’s advice.
He walked into a hallway he only set foot in when he was lost. Behind the doors of the classrooms, the kids seemed smarter. Better looking, even, as they studied for AP tests and talked about GPAs and class rank. A world Luke didn’t know anything about. Toby told him that when he graduated, he could’ve had almost a year’s worth of college credit if Jimmy would’ve sprung for the test fees.
Luke was pretty sure Toby had physics this period, so he peeked into the classroom as the room began to fill up. The teacher was at his desk, oblivious. Luke stood outside, nodding when people recognized him and said hello. One of his teammates slapped him on the shoulder. When the bell rang, Luke looked into the room one last time, as if he could’ve missed Toby. There was one empty desk, all the way in the back.
Of course there were reasons Toby wouldn’t be in class. But just to be sure, he feigned an excuse for the school police officer, who used to wrestle years ago and, as a result, liked Luke. Luke didn’t need to go more than a few feet into the parking lot to see the El Camino sitting just where they’d left it that morning.
Luke relaxed as he walked back inside. On his way back to class, he stopped at the office to get a pass. As soon as he walked inside, the principal smiled.
“Hey there, Luke,” he said. “Next week’s the big match, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you ready?”
He nodded. “Coach O thinks so.”
“I wrestled my freshman year,” Mr. Townsend said. “But then I hurt my shoulder and decided to become a hall monitor instead.”
Luke didn’t realize it was a joke until the principal smiled. Luke gave him a gracious chuckle.
“I was looking for Toby, and I need a pass,” he said. “If that’s okay.”
“Toby?” Mr. Townsend said. “Oh, he left for the weekend.”
Luke’s mouth dropped open. “He . . . left. With who?”
Mr. Townsend smiled big, leaning against the big desk that dominated the room. “With his cousin, Lily. I suppose you know her.”
Luke went cold. He should say something, but nothing came out. Every instinct told him to run out of school, hot-wire the El Camino, and chase them across the entire state of North Carolina if he had to.
But what would that do?
He’d apologized to Toby. He’d pushed him up against a tree and gotten in his face. Short of chaining him to his side, Luke had done everything he could to keep Toby from making the mistake he seemed intent on making. And even though it killed him, Luke couldn’t do it anymore. If Toby wanted to chase Lily around, getting drunk and skipping school, that was on him.
He took the pass from Mr. Townsend and said, “I don’t know her. At all.”
When he saw Annie at lunch, he was still surprisingly calm. He didn’t even tell her about Toby until she looked around and said, “Are we going to be graced with his presence today?”
“He left,” was all Luke said.
Annie stopped picking at what was left of her pizza and stared at him. “Like, he ditched school? Again?”
Luke nodded and took a bite of the apple he’d gotten from Coach O earlier.
“Are we going to find him?” Annie asked.
“No,” Luke said.
This wasn’t about Jimmy anymore. Right now Toby’s biggest threat was himself. Annie still looked worried, like she thought Luke was going to run out of the school in a craze.
“He met this girl,” Luke said. “Or woman, actually. She’s like twenty-something, I’m sure. Lily.” He spit out her name like a piece of spoiled meat.
“Whoa. I never thought the little guy had it in him,” Annie said, giving up on the pizza.
Normally that would’ve cracked Luke up. Because it was true: for all the shit he talked, neither of them would’ve ever dreamed he could pick up an older woman at a bar. Of course Toby would’ve told you all about his plans, his destiny—because that’s a word he’d use—but it would be bullshit. Something Luke would eventually laugh away.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go look for him?”
Luke thought about this for a long time, or at least it seemed like a long time. He’d never understand why Toby left. But like every other fascination Toby cultivated, Lily was ultimately temporary. Something that would be gone from their lives in weeks, if not days.
He shook his head and stood up.
“No. This is on him.”
18
THEY drove through the afternoon until the sun dipped into the Blue Ridge Mountains. Toby watched Lily the whole time. As she turned up the radio. Fought with her hair, pulling it into a ponytail and letting it go countless times. They were somewhere near Conover when she turned up the music and sang loudly, then looked to see if Toby was laughing, a dash of embarrassment in her eyes.
It was only when they stopped moving—at a lonely stoplight close to the county line—that the adrenaline of leaving school with Lily released its grip on Toby’s brain. Enough to question what he was doing. Luke would be pissed when he figured it out. That much was certain. And it’s not like Toby didn’t know skipping school with a woman he barely knew could bring unintended consequences. But he liked it. He liked finally feeling like he was risking something that didn’t end with a possible fist to the face.
He reached over and turned up the radio a little louder, matching Lily’s volume. She raised her eyebrows, impressed, and they raced away once the light changed to green. Lily pulled off the road and guided the truck into an abandoned parking lot. An empty building, crumbling and covered in kudzu, sagged in front of them. Toby laughed. She pushed her sunglasses down on her nose, as if she’d been expecting this response for hours.
“You’re going to like this,” she said.
He wanted to tell her it didn’t matter where they were going, what they were doing. He wanted to turn up the music so loud that Luke could hear it back at school. Instead, he nodded at the building.
“If I had to pick a place somebody was going to kill me . . .”
“Stop. I want to show you something.”
She drove around to the back of the building. When they got out of the car, a few birds rose up, disappearing into the bright sky. Other than that, everything was still. They were in the sticks, completely isolated from everything. Toby looked around.
“You sure you didn’t come out here to take advantage of me?”
“Well, maybe that.” She nodded toward one of the doors. “C’mon.”
Lily wiped years of dust and dirt from the window. The graphic underneath was at least twenty, maybe thirty years old. A cartoon sun sat underneath a palm tree, holding a coconut drink. The dialogue bubble above its head read TANNED, TONED, AND READY!
“What . . .”
“Trust me,” Lily said, looking around before forcing the door open.
The inside was dusty, maybe simply dirty at this point. Every step they took kicked up more. Posters hung on the walls everywhere, yellowed by the sun. BERMUDA! JAMAICA! EVER THOUGHT ABOUT AFRICA? BOOK TODAY! Each one w
as more ridiculous than the next. Toby turned around, confused.
“This is like the time my mom told me having an imaginary friend was as good as a real friend,” he said. “But really, thank you for bringing me to see all . . . this.”
“This isn’t it. I mean, it is. But just the beginning.”
She reached out and squeezed his arm before leading him across the room to another door Toby hadn’t seen. Lily opened it, kicking away empty bottles and crumpled newspaper. When Toby walked through, he couldn’t help himself—he laughed. There was a huge, ancient-looking tanning bed.
“I trust you. I really do,” Toby said. This time, Lily hit him.
“Still not it. Jesus.”
Yet another room was filled with what looked like boxes of uninflated Mylar balloons. When they came to the final door, Toby had no idea what to expect—a video store filled with VHS tapes? A miniature zoo? But this door was different from the others. There was a new knob, a new deadbolt. Lily pulled a set of keys from her pocket, turned the lock, and pushed the door open. Inside, the room was bigger and lighter than the previous two. On the wall read IREDELL COUNTY TRAVEL MUSEUM. There were boxes and glass cases everywhere.
“What the hell is this place?”
“I found it once when I was . . .” Lily trailed off, running a finger across a dusty display case filled with old steamer tickets, diner car menus, and various advertisements for trips around the world. “I thought it was the coolest place ever. The kind of place that could lead you anywhere, you know? I used to come up here, always telling myself I was going to leave. And then one day I did.”
Toby looked around. He wanted to tap into whatever nostalgia was taking over Lily’s entire body, but it was just a room full of old shit.
“You’re not impressed,” she said.
He nodded half-heartedly. “I mean, it’s interesting. I have no idea why it’s out here.”
Lily drew a heart in the dust, an arrow through the heart. When she looked up at Toby, she smiled.
“It’s my plane,” she said.
They sat on the tailgate of the truck, the air already beginning to cross over from chilly to cold. Lily wrapped her arms around her body and pushed herself closer to Toby, who was freezing too. She shivered once and stood up, walking up the bed of the truck and reaching through the cab window to pull out two blankets. The first one she placed flat on the bed. The other one she wrapped around her shoulders as she sat next to Toby.
“I wanted to go to Ford,” she said absently. “I went to Tabernacle instead. You know, the Christian school? Anyway, Dad didn’t want me having any bad influences.”
“Purity,” Toby said.
Lily chuckled. “Making sure kids didn’t listen to rock-and-roll music since Moses.”
“When did you graduate?”
Lily shook her head. “You’ll think I’m old.”
“I already think you’re old,” Toby said, smiling up to the sky. There were stars. “C’mon. Like I care. What are you . . . twenty-seven?”
She laughed. “Well, I didn’t think I looked that old!”
Toby’s body went hot, and he tried to explain. Lily shook her head, graciously stopping him from doing any more damage.
“Twenty-two,” she said. “At least for a little longer.”
Toby shifted sideways, so he could see her better. He stared at the side of her face, thinking.
“We could’ve been in school together. If you’d gone to Ford, that is. We might’ve known each other.”
“Like I would’ve ever given your skinny ass the time of day,” she said, trying not to smile. When she failed, she rolled her eyes and leaned back into the bed. Toby froze as she playfully tapped the side of her foot against his hip, tapping it again and again like she was keeping time. He took a deep breath and slowly lowered himself down next to her, one hundred percent sure she was going to yell, or worse—laugh. Instead she scooted closer to him, their ears almost touching.
He could feel her breathing next to him, could see the puffs of steam rising from her mouth before disappearing into the cold sky. Suddenly Toby was very warm. And he decided to push it.
“You could probably still go to jail for all this,” Toby said.
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Lily said.
Toby turned onto his side, his mouth open. “What—how? Are you saying I’m not the first guy you’ve brought here?”
Lily smiled, her face lit by the stars. “Yeah, because I totally go around picking up high-school dudes on the reg.”
“I don’t know your life,” he said, laughing.
She turned and hit Toby, which he took gracefully. Anything to connect. Anything to feel her against his body.
Lily was staring at him, the same smile playing on her lips. “Jesus. You’re cute as hell.”
Toby coughed. Tried to say something smooth. Nothing came out.
“Have I finally got you speechless?”
And he was. The way she was looking at him right then—nobody had ever looked at him like that, like she was going to keep him forever. Like she could devour him. Instead, she leaned forward and kissed Toby lightly on the lips.
It was the single most erotic thing Toby had ever experienced.
“Oh shit. You look freaked out,” Lily said. “I thought you wanted me to do that.”
Toby kissed her back, pushing himself closer to her body, which was so warm. The entire kiss was messy, but glorious. Lily pulled back slightly, their noses still touching.
“Are you okay with this?”
“Oh my god, yes.”
The words were barely out of his mouth when she dove on top of him.
January 25
T—
Marilyn came in today, armed with her usual stack of papers and folders, like a hurricane of white and yellow. She was picking through some file and making small talk while I sat there thinking about Eddie.
Dudes in here have a way of isolating you, a sort of passive violence. Like they’re already erasing you from their minds, from the world. Once people found out about Eddie’s date, they immediately started treating him like he was infected. As if those judges and prosecutors would catch a whiff of them too. Start handing out dates like they were candy.
Anyway, I was off in some other world when I realized Marilyn was staring at me. Waiting for me to answer a question I hadn’t heard. Before she could ask the question again, I was like, “What’s going to happen to Eddie?”
She looked down at one of her folders, picking at the corner. When she looked up, she smiled politely and told me it wasn’t the best use of our time to talk about other people’s cases.
She opened her folder, but I was like, “How long is it going to take? You know, how long does he have?”
This time when she smiled, it wasn’t polite. It was the way the woman at the gas station would smile at us, knowing we were stealing. Maybe knowing that we needed it. It wasn’t pity; more like a patient empathy. She closed the folder and cleared her throat.
“Well, when an execution warrant is signed . . .”
She paused, like she wasn’t sure I could take hearing it. But man, she has to know—I’ve been hearing this stuff my whole life. Maybe not these words, but second, third cousins to them.
“When that happens, they’ll typically move the client . . . um, Eddie, to a death-watch area.”
I nodded. She hesitated but kept talking.
“That could happen immediately, but it might also take a few days, because this is the first execution in North Carolina in, well, in a while.”
A few days, man. It hit me hard. Eddie would be here, and then he wouldn’t. There would be a hole in the world, and there wasn’t any reason for it. It’s not like he’s sick or had an accident. And if that weren’t fucked up enough, people would be happy he was gone. This is a dude who hasn’t done shit to anybody in fifteen years. And they’re going to kill him.
It doesn’t make any sense, T.
My entire body felt ov
erloaded. I couldn’t get enough air, and every time I opened my mouth, I felt like I was going to choke. Like somebody had put a giant block of ice in the middle of my throat. Marilyn stopped talking and cleared her throat one more time, picking up my file like she was ready to get started. But what she said next, man, that’s what really killed me.
“I’m sorry, Luke. I really am.”
Luke
19
ANNIE and Luke were already in the kitchen cooking spaghetti when the boys’ bus dropped them off and they came rampaging up the stairs. If being left alone yesterday had affected them, it didn’t dampen their excitement for the coming meal. They jumped around, asking if there was garlic bread. Telling Annie that she was the best cook they’d ever met. They didn’t seem to notice that Doreen and Ricky still weren’t back. When Luke tried to help, Annie pushed him into the living room and told him to find a movie.
She brought the plates out to them, and the steaming pasta was met with oohs from the twins. Annie handed Luke his plate last. It had a single noodle on it.
“We can’t take any chances,” she said, knocking his knee with hers. He stood up and went to get a small helping. He skipped the garlic bread, though. When he came back into the living room, Annie put a hand to her heart.
“Are you sure? What if your tights don’t fit for the match Monday?”
“It’s called a singlet,” Luke said. “And it will be fine.”
She leaned close to Luke and whispered, “Maybe you can put it on for me later.”
Luke’s entire body went flush and he stammered, “It’s at school. In my locker.”
“Too bad for you,” she said, leaning back on the couch and taking a bite of her garlic bread.
Once dinner was finished, the boys sat between Annie and Luke, talking nonstop about the movie Luke had put in. Had she seen it? Did she have a DVD player, because they’d gotten this VHS player at a thrift store for only five dollars—Five dollars! The movie was something Luke hadn’t seen yet, animated and fifty cents from the same store. Instead, he watched Annie, doing it as subtly as he could. Still, she’d catch him every so often, smiling as she played with Petey’s hair. Nodding her head as she listened to Jack-Jack explain how he thought girls should have been allowed to be soldiers back in ancient China.