Random

by Tom Leveen

  Except ghosts probably don’t need ice chests full of food. No, a ghost would be easier. Less frightening.

  The ice chest in the back of his Sentra, the laptop in the passenger seat. Like a . . . my God, like a stakeout. He had been up there since at least midnight, maybe earlier. That part was probably true; I’d heard the rain, and the Doppler-effect truck horn as it whipped past him.

  And how could he have known my cell phone number ended with an eight? After everything that happened, he really still remembered the suicide hotline phone number? No. He knew my phone number, or had it written down. It was that simple.

  But why?

  And once again, for anyone just tuning in: Who? Who is Andy, and/or who put him up to this? A cop, a detective, some investigator or reporter, even a lawyer maybe . . .

  Or—is it revenge?

  The oatmeal cookies rumble in my stomach. Poison, maybe. How easy would it be to get away with that, under the circumstances?

  I curve to the right and onto a downslope straightaway. I don’t see the Sentra. How fast was he going?

  No, no, no! I can’t have lost him, there’s no way, where could he poss—

  Gas station.

  I spot him standing beside the Sentra at a gas pump in a 7-Eleven parking lot. I stomp on the brakes—thank God it’s early morning still and we’re outside the main drag so no one rear-ends me. I feel badass for a second, like I’m on a cop show, as I twist the wheel to the right and onto a side street connecting to the gas station parking lot.

  I pull into the gas station right behind him. Andy—if that’s his name—doesn’t even look up, but I can already see his smirk. He knows it’s me.

  I shut off the car and leap out, racing toward him.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Why, hello, Victoria,” he says, not taking his eyes off the ticking gallon meter. “Nice to see you again so soon.”

  “I should call the cops on you, you bastard.”

  “Oh? And accuse me of what?”

  “I don’t know! Who are you, dammit?”

  The pump stops pumping, and Andy puts the handle back in its cradle. Still not looking at me, he begins screwing the gas cap back on.

  “Who do you think I am?” he finally says.

  “Stop it!” I scream. “Just tell me!”

  Once he has the cap back on and the little gate shut, Andy finally turns to face me. His face is neutral.

  “My name,” he says, “is Andrew Christopher Stein. I’m eighteen years old. I live in Flagstaff. And until tonight, you and I have never met. Does that help?”

  Flagstaff . . . that’s twenty miles north of here. And the name doesn’t sound familiar at all, no more than the name “Andy” did seven hours ago.

  “Why did you do this? You were never really going to kill yourself.”

  “Not tonight, no. But, Victoria, I have to tell you right now, about ninety percent or more of everything I did say tonight was the God’s honest truth. I don’t suppose you’re inclined to believe that, and that’s fine. But, well, there it is.”

  “How did you get Kevin’s phone?”

  Andy smirks again. “Ya know, I thought I heard the phone ring on the way down the mountain. Was that you, by any chance?”

  Whatever he’s doing, whatever he’s up to, he’s sure enjoying it. I fall back against the hood of my car. My shoulders drop, and I can tell my face droops like that of a five-year-old who doesn’t get dessert.

  “You left a message, I assume,” Andy goes on. “Funny thing is, I don’t know Kevin’s password. I don’t think his mom does either. The cops can probably get in there one way or another, I’m sure, but I can’t. I doubt they’d bother, though. It’s really not relevant to the case, or else they wouldn’t have given it back to Cindy. That’s Kevin’s mom, by the way. But maybe you already knew that from court documents.”

  “I know who his mom is.”

  “Ah, right,” Andy says. “From school, yeah? Or maybe you hung out at his house when you were little kids?”

  “No! I did not go to his house, we didn’t . . .”

  I bite my lip. I’ve told him way too much tonight as it is.

  “Who are you for real?” I say. “Please?”

  The smirk disappears from Andy’s face. He moves to lean against the trunk of the Sentra so we’re facing each other.

  “I saw the Facebook posts. But then, I guess, who hasn’t? It’s so funny to me that people think they can take down a page and it’s gone from the Web forever. So lame. There’s copies all over. I also saw your, uh . . . ‘apology’ letter. The one I’m sure someone forced you to write. Maybe your parents, or the principal, maybe even your lawyer, who knows. And yes, you did say you were sorry. But were you really? Are you? Are you really sorry, Victoria?”

  My throat closes up. Spigots whirl behind my eyes and start to leak hot water.

  No. I will not cry in front of him. I will not cry in front of this lying asshole. I don’t even know why I’m suddenly wanting to cry in the first place.

  Except—I do know.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I am sorry, and I’ve said it a thousand times.”

  “Sorry that you played an active role in killing Kevin, or sorry that you got caught?” Andy demands. “Sorry that Kevin will never see another sunrise like we just did, or sorry that this is putting a temporary snag in the rest of your life?”

  “I didn’t kill him!”

  Andy looks like he wants to shout something back but holds it in. After a second, and to my shock, he goes, “I know.”

  I stare at him.

  “I know that,” Andy says. “You didn’t tie the scarf around his neck, which, by the way, was a gift for his sixteenth birthday. And you didn’t shove him over the balcony in the backyard.”

  Andy’s voice now turns sharp enough to shred tires.

  “No, Tori, all you did was add your two-cent little jokes, trying to look cool in front of a bunch of other people. You didn’t know he had issues before this. Maybe he would have done it anyway. Maybe you weren’t the straw that broke his back.”

  I nod. Yes, yes, see? This is exactly what I’ve been trying to tell people since it happened.

  Andy narrows his eyes.

  “But you didn’t help him either. You watched. You just sat there safe on the other side of the screen and watched, and even threw gasoline on the fire. For what? So some senior would text you a smiley face or something? Maybe give you a nod in the hallway sometime?”

  My face, my body, become wax, melting under his words.

  His dead-center words, pointed and perfect as a sniper.

  “Was it worth it, Tori?”

  “No,” I whisper. Because it wasn’t. It isn’t. They were so cool, and—you know. Big. Mature. Marly and Lucas and all them. Gearing up to run the school after the class ahead of them had finished up. I wanted that. I’d seen what happened to the Jacks of our school, and what a waste of four years it had been. I wanted something more for my time. That’s all.

  Andy doesn’t seem to hear that I’d just agreed with him.

  “At the end of the day,” he says, “you don’t think you did anything wrong. Or maybe you do, and you’re just not grown up enough to own it. Which is it?”

  I bring my palms up to my eyes and jam the heels into them. I don’t feel like crying anymore. So that’s something. But I don’t feel real good, either. I twist my hands, burrowing them deeper and deeper into my eye sockets, hoping to rub away whatever it is that’s making my flesh melt.

  “How’s that sittin’?” Andy asks.

  “I’m . . . not sure.” Which is honest enough.

  “Well, lemme know when you figure it out.”

  “What issues?”

  “Say what?”

  “You said Kevin had ‘issues,’ ” I say. “What kind? What was wrong?”

  “Depression,” Andy says. “He was on medication for it. One of those ones that says a possible side effect is suicidal thoughts. Ain�
�t that just a riot? I’m sure your lawyer will figure that out, and it’ll come out in the trial. It’ll probably be enough to get you and your little buddies off scot-free.” He shakes his head. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

  I nod, exhausted. Fair enough. I guess it doesn’t.

  “You still haven’t told me who you are,” I say. “Are you like a cop or something?”

  Andy grins, sort of halfway. “Even if I was,” he says, “nothing you’ve said could be used in the trial. There’s no way. Go ahead and tell your lawyer whatever you want. Tell him everything, in fact. He’ll probably be pretty pissed at you for telling me so much, but he’ll also tell you it’s no big deal. I can’t do a damn thing with anything you’ve said.”

  Just to be sure, I say, “So you’re not a cop.”

  “Wow, I really think you’ve missed the point of this little exercise. I should’ve known.”

  Since I believe him about not being a cop, my anger starts to swell again. “There was a point?”

  “You haven’t gotten it yet, have you.”

  Again with the statement-not-a-question. “I feel like shit, wasn’t that it?” I say. “I feel horrible, okay?”

  “Well, that’s good. I’m glad. But that’s not why I did this.”

  Andy steps over to me and, shockingly, puts one hand on my shoulder. I’m so amazed that he’d make physical contact that I practically do a backflip over Jack’s Civic. Once my instincts settle down, Andy peers at me, making sure I don’t avoid his eyes.

  Andy says, almost kindly, “A few hours ago, a guy you’d never met said he needed help. You couldn’t be sure he was even telling the truth. But you stayed up all night, stole a car . . . went halfway across a city . . . and drove up a mountain in the dark, not knowing what you’d find when you got there. Basically, you did everything in your power to help. You took risks, you didn’t worry about the consequences, or what people might think about you. You just saw that something had to be done, and you did it. So whatever else you may be, I think there’s hope for you, even if you were doing it to cover your own ass. At least it was something.”

  Andy drops his hand. I strangely miss the warmth of it. He takes one step back, still giving me the piercing-eye treatment, and shakes his head a little bit.

  “I just wonder,” he says, “where that girl was when Kevin needed her.”

  I lick my lips. I don’t know what hurts more: the truth, or the shame of it.

  Something else worries me too, even though it really probably shouldn’t.

  “Do you hate me?” I ask.

  “I’m not your biggest fan, no,” Andy says, moving backward till he hits his car again. “But I don’t hate you. Anymore. I did. All of you. All of you on that goddam Web page. But that doesn’t solve anything. I’m getting over it.”

  “Why me?” I ask. “Why’d you pick me? There’s six other people in trouble.”

  “Because you’re special.”

  “Special how?”

  “You’ll see. Eventually. And by the way—it was ‘Fallout.’ ”

  “What?” I say. He’s changing topics so fast. No wonder I bought into his BS. The guy knows how to manipulate people. Or me, at any rate.

  “And,” he goes on, “believe it or not, salami and pepperoni sandwiches. In a pita, with balsamic vinaigrette. It’s like a canker sore waiting to happen.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “ ‘Fallout’ is the name of Kevin’s favorite song. ‘Fallout.’ By a band called Black Cymbal. Like a drum cymbal, not like symbolic. Although I guess a cymbal could be symbolic, I never really thought about it. And his favorite food was salami and pepperoni sandwiches.”

  “Why are you telling me that?”

  Andy looks upward as if at the sky, except the gas pumps are under a tall canopy. The gesture strikes me as melodramatic.

  “Because I want you to think for a second—no, a full minute at least, I think he deserves that—I want you to think for a minute what it would be like to never hear your favorite song again. Ever. Never taste your dad’s garlic mashed potatoes again. Ever. Why? Well, because you’re dead.”

  I swallow hard. Melodrama or not . . . it stings.

  “Because that’s what being dead means,” Andy says. “It’s the zenith of ‘never.’ Never again, never this, never that. You don’t come back from never. You can’t enjoy never. You just sit there, not existing, not listening to your favorite songs or eating your favorite foods. Never.”

  He pauses.

  “You just sit. And rot. And smell.”

  “You are a morbid asshole.”

  I say this because he is frankly scaring the Jesus out of me. But then, Jesus got to come back.

  Andy isn’t impressed. He shrugs. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. Especially after the Tylenol incident. Which, by the way, was very much a true story. Maybe if you’d thought about it, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  For a second I feel like maybe I’m going to throw up, but I don’t. Still, my jaw gets that awful rubbery feeling and my knees tingle.

  “What do you want from me?” I say, like my tongue is swollen and thick. “What did you want me to do, huh?”

  “I wanted you to drive across the mountains in the middle of the night to make a difference.”

  Totally confused, I shake my head and say, “I did that, I did do that, I’m standing right here!”

  Andy lifts his palms. “Then how hard would it have been to write a Facebook response saying, ‘Hey, leave the guy alone’? Instead, you chose to perpetrate a hate crime.”

  And that, as they say, does it. I practically snap in half.

  “How can it be a hate crime if he wasn’t gay?” I demand. “That’s ridiculous, it’s a ridiculous charge!”

  “It was a hate crime because you hated him,” Andy says.

  “I didn’t hate Kevin.”

  “No?”

  “No!”

  Andy shrugs. “Okay, fine,” he says. “So you didn’t hate him. You were just indifferent. Which is actually a lot worse.”

  “Oh my God, who the hell do you think you are, Jesus Christ himself?”

  “Oh no. No. Not at all. Jesus forgave people. I’m under no such obligation.”

  “I’m innocent!” I scream, so loud and hard that I bend at the waist and squeeze my eyes shut.

  It doesn’t seem to impress Andy, who merely blinks back at me.

  “No,” he says, “you’re not guilty. There’s a whole big gulf between innocent and not guilty. You won’t be in court today and plead innocent, you’ll plead not guilty. Two very, very different things, if you ask me. So sure. Maybe you’re not guilty. Innocent?” He gives one shake of his head to the side.

  Which reminds me, with sudden and awful clarity, that I’ll be going before a judge just a few hours from now to give my plea. Oh, God.

  Well, time enough for that later. Right now, I need the truth from Andy.

  “Who are you?” I croak. It’ll be a while before my vocal cords are back to normal.

  “It doesn’t matter now.”

  I keep pushing. “In relation to him. To Kevin. Who are you to Kevin?”

  Andy smiles, but it makes his eyes wince.

  “I’d think less about who I am,” Andy says, “and more about who I was.”

  “Well, that’s nice and stupidly cryptic.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, did you think I owed you more? Suffer.” He opens the car door. “You’ll figure it out,” he adds. “One more thing. I don’t have a girlfriend.”

  “Of course not,” I spit out. “That’s part of the ten percent that was a lie, right? Great.”

  Andy, for the first time since I’ve known him—since midnight—laughs out loud.

  “Wow are you dense,” he says.

  With that, Andy puts a foot into the car, ready to climb in.

  “You should get home,” he says gently. “You look wiped out. Sorry about that. Except, you know, not really
.”

  “Whatever,” I say.

  “Take care, Tori,” Andy says. His face is set in a neutral mask. He climbs into the Sentra and drives carefully out of the gas station, leaving me alone.

  I wait until I can’t see the Sentra anymore before climbing into Jack’s car and heading for home. I flip the sun visor down, only barely considering what Dad’s likely to do to me when he finds out I took Jack’s car, never mind what Jack might do. But then, Jack hates me anyway, so no loss there.

  Mostly I don’t care. I mean, seriously, what could Dad possibly do to make my life worse right now? Take away my phone? He’s welcome to it. Not let me out of the house? Sure—oh, except for court dates, I guess. . . .

  I take my time getting home, and even stop for a coffee and bagel, figuring why not. The bagel is gone and the coffee halfway to being so when I pull up to the house.

  Jack is sitting on our front porch. Uh-oh.

  “Okay,” I say out loud as I park my brother’s car. “Here we go.”

  EIGHTEEN

  I close the car door carefully, gently, knowing Jack is watching my every move. Then I start up the carport and hang a left onto the front porch. Jack’s kicking back in one of the garden chairs Mom keeps out here, and he’s watching me watch him.

  I walk up the three steps to the porch and keep moving toward the front door.

  “Have a seat,” Jack says. His voice is barely within the area code of “pleasant.”

  I hesitate, then sit beside him in another chair. Jack smiles but shows no teeth. He’s not amused, not having fun. I guess the smile is designed to make me feel better somehow, only it doesn’t. No one in my family has smiled at me in a month.

  “Can I have my keys?” he asks me.

  I hand them over. “So, what, are you talking to me now?”

  “Yes,” Jack says, bouncing in his chair as he nods.

  His answer catches me off guard. “What? Why now?”

  “Because there’s a lot to talk about.”

  “Like what?” I ask, taking a drink from my still-hot coffee.

  “Andy Stein.”

  I choke on the drink. “Andy?” I sputter, feeling liquid drip down my chin and scald me. “How do you know about him?”