Good and Gone

by Megan Frazer Blakemore

  “That almost sounds like a plan that almost sounds like it makes sense,” I tell him.

  Zack raises his eyebrows at me, and I think he’s asking if I’m still just playing along. I don’t know. Charlie’s fingers traced miles and miles of driving, but at least we’re moving in some sort of rational direction.

  Charlie clumsily folds the map. “Three hours to Shangri-La!”

  And with that, we head to paradise.

  FOUR

  Once upon a time, a princess was born in a kingdom on a cliff. The view was so magnificent that no man could go to the edge of the cliff without throwing himself from it. The king was losing his finest knights and soldiers to the ocean. The only way to break the spell of the cliff was for a man to resist its pull. The only beauty more powerful than that of the sea was that of his daughter, the princess. And so the king issued a proclamation: any man who could go to the edge of the cliff and resist its pull would have his daughter’s hand in marriage.

  NOW

  My phone buzzes. We must be driving through a service bubble because my phone buzzes again and again as a slew of messages are delivered.

  Gwen, 9:17 a.m.: Do you have the English homework?

  Gwen, 9:19 a.m.: It’s just I left my notebook at school.

  Gwen, 9:23 a.m.: DeWitt didn’t put it on the portal. Again.

  Gwen, 9:28 a.m.: I tried to call Torrance and Jude, but they didn’t answer.

  Gwen, 9:29 a.m.: And Hannah, well, you know what she’s up to. ;)

  Gwen, 9:37 a.m.: Listen, you don’t have to be a bitch about it. Just let me know if you have the English assignment.

  Gwen, 10:03 a.m.: So maybe the Hannah comment was a little uncalled for. And calling you a bitch.

  Gwen, 10:04 a.m.: Calling you a bitch in the text above, I mean. Still not sure about past instances. :D

  Gwen, 10:05 a.m.: That was a joke, in case you weren’t sure.

  Gwen, 10:13 a.m.: I’m trying to make a move here. Like an opening parlay.

  Gwen, 10:14 a.m.: Are you going to ignore me forever?

  Gwen, 10:37 a.m.: Just called your house. Your mom told me you went to look for Adrian Wildes. WTF?

  Lexi, 10:39 a.m.: It was Charlie’s idea.

  Gwen, 10:40 a.m.: You should’ve called me. I would have gone, too.

  Lexi, 10:41 a.m.: It wasn’t exactly planned.

  Lexi, 10:42 a.m.: Anyway, my phone is about to die.

  Gwen, 10:43 a.m.: If you find him, give him a big, fat kiss for me.

  Lexi, 10:44 a.m.: Definitely not.

  I have the English assignment. I could tell her. I already did it. It was a textual analysis of the opening chapter of The Catcher in the Rye because of course Dewey DeWitt loves good old Holden Caulfield. But there’s three days left of vacation and she’ll figure out what she needs to do.

  Also, my phone has a good charge on it for now, so I lied about that. But then, she lied about coming with us. She never would have come, and probably would have mocked me openly. Maybe that’s all we do now—lie, lie, lie. I wonder if you can lie yourself back around to the truth.

  I pick up my phone again and send a message to my parents: On the road again. Heading to Pennsylvania. All limbs still attached. No new tattoos.

  The phone is warm in my hand, like a stone that’s been sitting in the sun. At the start of the school year my parents read this article about how kids shouldn’t have their phones in their bedrooms at night because they were staying up to all hours and also maybe radiation. So they bought this fancy charging dock and put it in their bedroom and I bitched and complained about it. But it meant that when Gwen stopped texting me, I could pretend it was because she knew I wouldn’t answer in the night.

  My mom texts me back: No NEW tattoos?

  Lexi, 10:56 a.m.: Oh. You didn’t know about Charlie’s tramp stamp?

  Mom, 10:57 a.m.: Lexi, that is not funny.

  Lexi, 10:58 a.m.: It’s really very tasteful as far as tramp stamps go.

  Mom, 10:59 a.m.: I wish you wouldn’t use phrases like “tramp stamp.”

  Lexi, 11:00 a.m.: It is a very tasteful lower back tattoo.

  Mom, 11:01 a.m.: ROFL

  Lexi, 11:02 a.m.: Literally?

  Mom, 11:03 a.m.: Just stay safe, okay?

  Lexi, 11:04 a.m.: Of course.

  And then I add the emoji of two girls and a heart, which I guess is not meant to be a mom and her daughter, but I think she’ll get the point.

  “Jesus Christ, Lexi, can you at least mute your phone?” Charlie sighs from the front seat.

  “For your information, I was texting Mom and letting her know that we weren’t eaten by wolves.”

  “You could be texting from inside the wolf,” Zack says.

  “I don’t think I would fit inside a wolf,” I say. “And if I could, and if I had my phone, I would not lie and tell my mother I was okay. I would say, ‘Help, help, I’m in the belly of the wolf!’ And then a kindly woodsman would come and chop me out.”

  “You are so messed up,” Charlie tells me.

  “Hey that’s a nice glass house you have there. Want me to gather some stones for you?”

  The car makes a clunking noise and gives a little shimmy like it’s tired of hearing me and Charlie argue, too.

  “We’re going to need to top off the oil again soon,” Zack says. “We’re also going to need to fill the tank.”

  My phone buzzes one more time. I think it’s going to be from Mom, one last plea for us to stay safe. Instead it’s from Gwen: When you get back, maybe we could talk.

  I want to respond, but we drive around a corner and down a gentle hill and my service cuts out.

  BEFORE

  October

  Gwen and I met at Ruby’s before school. It was a couple of weeks before Halloween, and Seth and I still hadn’t figured out what famous couple we wanted to be. Ruby’s was already decked out with tiny fake pumpkins on each table and a mannequin dressed like a witch behind the counter. Gwen and I chose a booth near the front—a two-seater—and the stuffing in my seat was pushing out of the pink vinyl. She got a grilled muffin and I got their egg sandwich and I had ketchup on the corner of my mouth, edging toward my cheek, but she didn’t tell me that and I didn’t notice until second period when I went to the bathroom. Instead she said, “I never thought you’d be the kind of girl who got a boyfriend and just disappeared.”

  I held up my hand right between us. “I’m still here.” I smiled. She didn’t.

  “We’ve had to reschedule this three times.”

  “That’s because my mom’s on this, like, no trans fat thing. She thinks Ruby’s is a hellhole. I think it’s an oasis, actually. The mythical place, not the band.”

  “I’m aware.” She had asked for a separate cup for the frappe we ordered to share, and now she poured in her half. She took the only straw and sipped in hard. “The Harvest Fest is in town this weekend. Sophomores are doing a booth with face painting for kids. You coming?”

  “I’m not a very good artist,” I said. The truth was, Seth and I were supposed to be working on a video this weekend, and maybe going into Portsmouth.

  She stirred the frappe. We used to always share the same cup. First we’d drink the plastic cup down to the bottom, then we’d dump in the extra that they always served to you in the metal frappe-making cup and drink that down, too. So fast sometimes we’d give ourselves headaches.

  “It’s really thick today, don’t you think?” I asked, and slurped some out of my plastic cup.

  “Banal,” Gwen said, looking past me toward the window. Then this kick to the gut: “Turns out you’re as bad as your brother.”

  I had the egg sandwich in my hands, mouth open, ready to take a bite. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. You’re making small talk about the thickness of Ruby’s frappes, now? Oh, okay, nice chatting with you, Penelope.”

  “Take that back,” I said.

  She smirked. “No take backs.”

  “I’m not like Charlie and I
’m definitely not like Penelope.”

  She looked out the window behind me. “I think the frappes are actually just the same as always. And the weather is really lovely. And did you catch the latest episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos? I think the ones where the guys get hit in the crotch are hilarious, but you also can’t beat a good old-fashioned dog-falling-down video.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Then again, I also do like babies being surprised by their world.” She still wasn’t looking at me. Her pale cheeks flushed pink.

  “Stop it.”

  “Did you hear it’s going to be an exceptionally cold winter?”

  I put my egg sandwich down on the plate that showed signs of wear. The egg was sliding out to the side, taking the ketchup with it.

  “What do you want, Gwen?”

  “This is an ultimatum.” She stirred her straw through her half of the frappe, and it left a rivulet behind it. It was thicker than normal. “You stop being a fucking succubus and spend some time with us.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or you won’t be spending time with us.”

  “No one likes an ultimatum.”

  “No one likes to be ditched for a guy, especially a guy with YouTube aspirations.”

  If I’d been able to be honest with myself or if I had known then what Hannah and Seth were doing—maybe even at that very moment—maybe I would have acted differently. But I doubt it.

  I let the YouTube comment slide. I let it all slide. “You’re right. I guess I was just excited. It was so new and—”

  “I’m not looking for an explanation.”

  “Do you even want to spend time with me?”

  “I think so.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “I haven’t seen you in three weeks. Maybe you really have been turned into a pod person.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “We’ll see.”

  The waitress came over, looked at our plates, and said, “Gals, you’re going to be late for school.”

  “Can we have our check then, please?” Gwen asked, all sugar again.

  How would I rewrite this now? She was right.

  She was right about all of it and I was stupid.

  Later that week, they made us fill out a survey during homeroom. Ms. Blythe, my homeroom teacher and also the librarian, perched on the edge of a table next to her coffee. “To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure these surveys are truly ethical. There’s nowhere here telling me to tell you that you don’t need to participate. Only to instruct you to be perfectly honest. What is perfect honesty, anyway?”

  “So we don’t have to participate?” Tooley asked.

  “I’m certainly not going to make you,” she said. “Then again, it does gather useful information.”

  She passed each of us a folded paper with bubble dots like a standardized test. We scrambled to find number two pencils. Ms. Blythe had a bunch of golf pencils near the computers for writing down the call numbers for books. They made me feel like a giant. Argh, I growled in my head at the pencil.

  The questions at first were simple.

  How often do you smoke tobacco cigarettes?

  Never. I filled the bubble in edge to edge. In fact, I had smoked two times in my life. Once as an eleven-year-old, then again the summer before my freshman year, both times with Charlie. I hated it both times. The first was exploratory for both of us. Just what are these cigarettes like? Will we die instantly? The second time was a pre-Penelope attempt at edginess. That was one good thing she squashed.

  How often do you chew tobacco?

  Eww. Never.

  How often do you smoke marijuana (cannabis)?

  Tooley laughed. “Ms. Blythe, some of these scales don’t go high enough.”

  “Silent survey taking.”

  Next it went into questions about alcohol. I hesitated over the questions about frequency, then chose two to three times per month.

  Approximately how many alcoholic beverages do you consume in a session (party, etc.)?

  I chewed on the edge of the golf pencil. It was woody and gritty all at once.

  “Will you join me for an alcoholic-beverage session?” Gwen whispered.

  “A party or an et cetera?” I whispered back, peeking at her from the corner of my eye to catch a sly smile.

  I lightly colored in the circle for one to two and noticed that she chose five to six. Was that true?

  Next were questions about diet and exercise. Easy.

  Then: Are you sexually active?

  Without meaning to, I wrapped my arm around the survey like I was afraid people were going to try to copy off of me.

  Yes.

  If yes, continue to question fourteen. If no, skip to question sixteen.

  14. What age were you first sexually active?

  The choices went all the way down to seven. Seven! I filled in fifteen.

  How many sexual partners have you had?

  The choices went up to “More than ten.” I colored in the bubble under the one.

  Okay. Done with that. On to question sixteen with the virgins.

  But, no.

  Have you ever been pressured into sexual activity?

  Yes

  No

  Not sure

  How could you be unsure?

  (No, thank you.)

  Well, there is pressure and there is force. Charlie would probably say that they were not the same thing physically speaking, that force is directional and pressure is—pressure. So, yeah, maybe Seth pressured me. There wasn’t anything inherently wrong with that. He was just letting me know what he wanted. I could’ve said no.

  Gwen flipped the page.

  Screw it. I colored in No. Ms. Blythe had said this survey wasn’t even ethical.

  The questions moved back into safer territory.

  Have you witnessed an act of physical violence in the last year, such as one student shoving another?

  No.

  Have you been in a physical fight in the last year?

  No.

  Is there an adult at school you feel you could trust to talk about a troubling issue?

  I glanced up at Ms. Blythe. She was standing back at the circulation desk of the library, flipping through a magazine.

  Yes.

  When we finished, Ms. Blythe picked up a piece of paper and read, “‘We understand that some of the questions in this survey might have made you uncomfortable or raised concerning issues for you. Your school guidance counselor could help you—’”

  Gwen snickered and Tooley said, “Mr. Wilkins, right on. Roll that cadaver out of storage.”

  “Michael.” She cleared her throat, then continued: “‘We have provided informational brochures which cover the topics in this survey. We ask your teachers to dispense them to all of you at this time. We ask each of you to take one for reasons of privacy.’ So here you go.” Ms. Blythe passed the tri-fold brochures around in a stack. We each took one dutifully. I flipped through. They were printed in purpley-pink ink on gray paper so the stock-image teens—smoking pot, hugging a bottle, kissing—were all purple hued. Drug Use: Flying High to Rock Bottom. Alcohol: How Much Is Too Much? Sex: Saying Yes or Saying No. I shut the brochure and shoved it into my bag.

  “Was that so traumatizing that you need to keep your brochure, Lexi?” Gwen asked.

  “I just think it’s funny. And anyway I don’t want Ms. Blythe to get in trouble.”

  The bell rang and we all started to leave. Most kids threw their brochure in the recycle bin. Ms. Blythe gathered up the surveys while I stood in the doorway.

  “Everything okay, Lexi?”

  “Sure.” I hooked my bag onto my shoulder. “They asked if there was an adult in school we could trust, and I thought of you.”

  She smiled. “Thanks, Lexi. That’s nice of you.”

  I waited for her to ask me if there was something I wanted to talk to her about. I left this big garage door wide open. She didn’t ask.

  “Anyway
, you were right,” I said.

  “Was I?”

  “It’s hard to be perfectly honest.”

  NOW

  “Wait,” Zack says. Charlie is driving. He doesn’t slow down at all. “Wait,” Zack says again. “That sign says Guilford. There’s an exit for Guilford in three miles.”

  “What’s so special about Guilford?” I ask.

  “Adrian Wildes spent a summer there. It was the hometown of Smoky Walker. Adrian came here before he was famous and spent a summer working in one of the fish restaurants during the day and playing with Smoky Walker at night. But here’s the really important thing—Smoky Walker came here to escape. It’s this quaint little seaside town and he came here to get away from everything.”

  Charlie glances over at Zack. “Really?”

  “We need to get off here. I didn’t realize how close it was to New London.” His voice rises with excitement, and I think maybe he is actually on to something. Like if Adrian Wildes is actually hiding out somewhere, this place could make sense. The two of them could be in some hole-in-the-wall joint playing blues guitar and drinking cheap beer and just communing or whatever it is guys do when they’re trying to be all deep.

  I guess that’s what Seth thought he was doing when he went to stupid cons and waited for hours to get some YouTube guy to sign his laptop or whatever. Jamming. Shooting the shit. Riffing off one another and just, like, you know, spinning ideas. Creating.

  “Does Smoky Walker still live here?” I ask.

  “He’s dead.”

  Well, that deflated my hope balloon real fast.

  But Charlie is crossing over into the exit lane, his blinker flashing right, right, right, so I guess this is the next stop on our search for the magnificent Adrian Wildes.