by Jenny Goebel
I did remember having the impression that not all the etchings were complete as I swung them through the air and struck them hard on the side of the table. In fact, I recalled that some of them, or at least one in particular, was really just a rough outline of a person.
Once I’d exhausted myself tugging every last detail I could out of my brain and then putting it onto paper, I carried my drawing pad down to the den. I knew it was a long shot, but I figured if Mr. Stein had plucked one of his targets right out of a photograph behind Mimi’s desk, he might try it again. Not surprisingly, none of the features I had to go off seemed to match those of the people in our photographs, and I just got spooked while I was down there, anyway.
As I held my wretched drawings up next to Mimi’s photo frames, Mr. Stein walked in the back door. I immediately dropped the pad and my gaze, but he leered at me until I finally raised my eyes to meet his. Then, certain I was paying attention, he poked his head through the archway and into the garage. My stomach leaped into my throat as he very loudly said, “Jonathan, mind if I trouble you for some more granite tiles?”
I had one last pitiful idea for identifying Mr. Stein’s other victims. I waited until the night before garbage pickup, then took a flashlight down to the end of the drive. While everyone else was (hopefully) sleeping, I dug the heaviest bag out of the can. I stretched and tore the plastic until the side ripped open and the broken pieces of granite fell to the cement with a quiet clatter.
I wish I could say it was like putting together the pieces of a puzzle, but it was much, much harder. There were all these tiny shards that didn’t seem to fit anywhere. Plus, not only was I trying to fit four different portraits back together, all the tiles I’d smashed — including the blank ones — had wound up in the same garbage bag. And did I mention it was nighttime and that I couldn’t see very well even with the flashlight? (It might’ve had something to do with the fact that I was trembling so bad, I couldn’t hold it steady.)
At least the whole thing confirmed that my impression had been right. Some of the etched lines were indeed so vague that even if I could’ve told whether I was holding a man’s or a woman’s chin and which nose it belonged with, it wouldn’t have mattered. The portraits didn’t seem to be far enough along that I actually could’ve identified familiar faces, even if I somehow managed to put all the pieces back together. It was hopelessly impossible.
Just as I was giving up and was sweeping the jagged pieces back into a pile with my hands (wishing I’d also brought out a broom), I pricked my finger on a sharp, pointed edge.
I knelt down to get a closer look. I’d been hunting for facial features (thinking they’d be the easiest to identify), so I must’ve ignored this piece until it jumped out of the pile and bit me. The etching on it resembled a hand, and although the minor details had not been chiseled in, something about the fingers seemed youthful. I dropped the flashlight. It landed heavily, but the sound it made seemed far away.
No, no, no, no, no, nooooooo! PLEASE, no! I picked up the light and shone it on the piece. I ran my finger across the granite scarred by Mr. Stein’s chisel marks and tried to wipe away the drop of my blood that now smeared it. My worst fears were true. The etching was of a very familiar hand, and the odd proportions of it were unmistakable. Five fat popsicles on a stick.
“Oh, God. Please, no. Not Michael!” I whimpered in prayer and in shock.
I nearly lost it. I nearly became just one more broken thing in the garbage that surrounded me. The only thing that kept me from turning into one big, blubbery mess that would still be gasping for air and sobbing when the trashman came in the morning was knowing that if I did, I’d never be able to save my friend.
IF MICHAEL HADN’T SOMEHOW MANAGED TO WRIGGLE HIS way into my life in the first place, he never would’ve fallen into Mr. Stein’s crosshairs. So when he showed up just after the garbage truck in the morning, I made Mimi turn him away at the door. I wouldn’t answer any of his phone calls, either — all seven of them. If I could make Mr. Stein think I’d forgotten all about Michael Romano, maybe he would forget about him, too. It was a long shot, but it was all I had. Besides, I thought Michael would be better off without me, anyway.
All I ever did was make things harder on those around me. And discovering part of Michael’s incomplete portrait proved that I needed to handle things alone. I’d push Michael away, and I wouldn’t tell anyone else about Mr. Stein. I couldn’t be responsible for causing any more harm or danger than I already had.
By Saturday morning, Michael still hadn’t taken the hint, so I met him myself at the door. The hugely relieved smile he greeted me with made it impossible to look at his face. “I’m not going to Silverton with you tomorrow,” I mumbled, unable to let my gaze fall anywhere but on his giant, scuffed-up shoes.
I could tell by his feet that he wasn’t taking the news well. They shuffled and shifted around on the ground until finally he said, “But, Bernie, you have to!”
Taking a deep breath, I glanced up slightly. His hands. The sight of them and how clearly I’d been right about them being the ones in the etching chilled my heart. I dropped my gaze back down to his shoes. “I can’t,” I said, nearly choking on those two short words.
“Bernie?”
The way he said my name — so tender with hurt — completely sunk me. I didn’t want to back down, especially when I’d just resolved to go it alone. But even though I didn’t think we’d find much in Silverton, and I worried it wasn’t worth the risk, I hadn’t been able to come up with anything else. I had to give it a shot, and I needed Michael to do so. At least in Silverton, we’d be far away from Mr. Stein. It had to be safer for him there than it was here, right?
I peered around one of Michael’s shoulders and then the other. The street behind him was clear. “Okay,” I whispered, “I’ll go, but you’re not coming in for breakfast.” Then I quickly shut the door before he could say my name again and make me change my mind on that, too.
Mimi and I sat two rows behind Michael and his mother on Sunday. I nervously scanned the crowd, but not a single churchgoer was wearing an overcoat — wise choice since a normal person would have probably sweated to death in the heat.
After the final blessing, Father John announced Mrs. Evans’s rosary service. It was scheduled for Thursday evening followed by her funeral and burial on Friday. As Father John spoke of the arrangements, Michael rubbed his eyes. It might’ve been that a bead of sweat was running down his forehead and he was merely wiping it away, but I tend to think he was remembering Mrs. Evans’s wink and watermelon candy, and that he was hurting for her, too.
After mass, Mimi walked me outside to where Michael and his mom were waiting by their car. We wouldn’t be riding to Silverton in a police cruiser as I’d secretly hoped (something about riding in a police car made the journey seem far more protected), but in Mrs. Romano’s beat-up green Jeep Cherokee instead.
Mrs. Romano leaned against her old SUV and discussed the funeral reception with Mimi. She planned on bringing spaghetti, and Mimi would bring Dad’s favorite, barbecue meat loaf. Michael stared at me the whole while. I gazed up at the purple-and-red stained glass windows on the steeple so I wouldn’t have to meet his eyes. I thought about how if Mrs. Evans were still alive, a small group would be meeting nearby. I also thought about all the poor community people who would be missing out on her kindness that day, and every day thereafter.
Finally, Mimi grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze. Mass — which had seemed so long it felt like it would darn near kill me if I didn’t die from the heat first — always did have a way of putting her in a better mood. I climbed into the back of the Jeep. Michael and his mother climbed in the front.
Mrs. Romano turned to smile at me before twisting the key in the ignition. I smiled back. Michael turned around and smiled, too. I waved out the side window at Mimi. I still couldn’t look at Michael. Not with the secret I was keeping, aching to pop.
I’d learned my lesson in the cemetery: Michael
had a way of making me talk. Maybe it was his endlessly dark eyes. They’d sucked me in like two black holes, untied my tongue, and made it flap it around carelessly. I’d said too much about Mama and Thomas. But a funny thing happens when you share a hidden part of yourself and the person you share it with doesn’t laugh or quietly excuse themselves and then take off, full sprint. You start to care about that person.
I cared about Michael. A lot. I might not like admitting it to myself, but I did. As we drove away, I said a silent prayer for his life and for Stratwood to have the exact same population count when we returned.
After ten minutes of Michael maneuvering his head around the seat, trying to catch my eye, he finally seemed to take the hint that I didn’t want to look at him, let alone talk. He spent the rest of the car ride fiddling with the radio — tuning in new channels as we lost others to static. Mrs. Romano asked about my summer and if I was looking forward to school starting next month. “Summer’s good,” I said (a lie). “And school, no” (the truth). She stopped asking questions after that. I guess she’d left her interrogation skills behind, along with her police cruiser and her gun.
Mostly, I watched the passing view outside the car window. The road to Silverton was winding and, for the most part, the land beside it was building-bare. One single highway connected the two towns with spurts of cabins and other one-gas-station towns in between. Everything else was what Mimi called “God’s canvas.”
The aspen trees were ripe with green leaves and they tore through the denser, darker pines in light-colored patches. Every now and then I’d catch sight of a trickle of water running down a hillside — proof that the tip-tops of the mountains were still spiked with snow, even this late in July.
The farther we got from Stratwood, the brighter the sun seemed to shine and the lighter my heart began to feel. It was good to get away. It felt like we’d slipped beyond the reach of Mr. Stein’s chisel markings. Michael was alive and well in the seat in front of me, and I could actually do something as simple as breathing without looking over my shoulder. By the time we arrived in Silverton, everything going on back home had the feel of one of my nightmares — real and horrifying, but escapable.
Anyone could tell just by the looks of it that Silverton brought in more tourists than my hometown. It, too, cropped up around one main street, but all the Stratwood shops were a heck of a lot different. Outlet stores and boutiques as far as the eye could see. Stratwood had one main street ’cause there weren’t enough businesses to fill up any others. Silverton looked like it was designed that way so out-of-towners could get stuck at a traffic light, maybe see something they like, and decide to pop in and spend some money.
Mrs. Romano’s Jeep stopped at a red light, and I inventoried all the fancy glass window fronts. Flytraps, I thought, to lure in tourists and hold them captive until their pocketbooks are empty. Then my eyes rested on one glass-windowed shop in particular. I saw Michael stiffen in the seat in front of me. National Insurance had a closed sign hanging in its window. I could only hope it was closed due to the fact that it was Sunday, and not for any other reason.
Finally, the stoplight released us, and we took a left turn. A few blocks down we arrived at the home of the Silverton Romanos. Michael’s mom parked in front of a small Victorian-looking house. It was tall and narrow, and it had lacy shutters and a white picket fence.
As soon as Michael’s mom stepped out of the Jeep, Michael turned around in his seat and smiled. “One thing,” he whispered. “When you meet Giovanna, think ‘wiener dog.’”
“Huh?” I said as I stepped out of the Jeep. But by then Michael’s mom was ushering me through the gate and up the steps, face-to-face with Michael’s cousin — Giovanna herself.
I hate to liken people to dogs, but Michael’s comparison was spot-on. If Giovanna walked on four legs, she’d most definitely be a dachshund puppy. She had short, stylish dark hair and a long nose. And even though she wasn’t very tall, she was somehow long-bodied, and muscular, too.
Giovanna’s parents were too busy kissing Michael’s mom on the cheek and making merry to pay me much attention. Giovanna, on the other hand, got right close to my face. Still thinking about what Michael said (the part about her being like a wiener dog), I thought for one terrifying moment she might stick out her tongue and lick my cheek or something. Thankfully, though, she just studied me real hard and probably counted all my clogged pores.
Michael broke in between us. “Hey, Giovanna, this is Bernie. She’s majorly interested in learning some cheer moves.”
Giovanna threw her arms up in the air, and I let out my breath. Just like that, I was Alice through the looking glass, and Michael and I were sitting on a red leather couch in her living room watching the choreography from last year’s state championship performance, the one that took them to nationals.
The couch was just about the only piece of furniture in the entire room. I guessed the reason for that was to leave plenty of space for dancing and cheering about. There weren’t a whole lot of decorations, either; however, one shelf above the fireplace housed a mishmashed collection of cheer trophies and religious statues. Porcelain members of the Holy Family (enough to make Mimi jealous) surrounded by cheap brass figurines holding pom-poms. It was like they were all cheering, “Go Baby Jesus,” or something.
While the adults sat in the kitchen chatting, drinking coffee, and eating cream-filled pastry shells, Michael and I continued watching Giovanna’s third-place-in-the-nation-worthy routine. And as soon as she finished it once, she started in all over again. “Did you see that, Bernie? How I got my leg so high up in the air? Watch closely this time. I’ll show you again.”
And she did. She was almost cartoonish in the way she tore around the room. Besides looking like a wiener dog, Giovanna also shared the pup’s uncontrollable urge to yap, boundless energy, and … really bad breath.
I scrunched up my face and stared over at Michael. Here, far away from Mr. Stein, I finally felt safe enough to discontinue my freeze on him, and I wasn’t about to let Giovanna’s outstanding display of team spirit go on. There was no way to know what was being said in the kitchen with all her yelping. We’d probably already missed what we came to hear, and my ears were hurting from all the other noise I had no desire to listen to.
Michael caught my glare at last, and his eyebrows waggled a little. Obviously, he didn’t know what to make of my finally paying him some attention. But he caught on quickly and turned back to his cousin. “Hey, Giovanna. Cut it for a sec, will ya?” he yelled.
“What?” she barked. “Okay. Rude! I could have hurt myself stopping midsplit like that, and summer camp starts next week,” she huffed.
“Sorry, Giovanna. It’s just, well … Bernie and I really enjoyed looking through those papers you sent, and we saw that story about Isabella Freemont. But you probably don’t know anything about her, anyway. So where were you?” Michael drummed his fingers on his flagpole of a leg. “Oh yeah, ‘Go Silverton Stallions,’ right?”
“I know everything that happens in Silverton,” Giovanna scoffed. I guess Michael knew just how to insult her — which came as no surprise. He knew how to insult just about everybody. Luckily, the only thing Giovanna seemed to love as much as herself (and, of course, cheerleading), was town gossip. Breathing heavily and sweating a bit, she plopped down on the couch, carving out a space between Michael and me. “Ask anything,” she said. “What do you want to know?”
“Do you think someone killed her?” I asked. I wasn’t gonna waste any more time getting to the point.
“Nah.” Giovanna studied her chipped purple nail polish. “If you ask me, she died of a broken heart.”
“What about the fire?” Michael said.
“The fire didn’t kill her; everyone knows that.” Giovanna rolled her eyes. “Dad thinks it was started by some kid pulling a prank. Probably a dare. I’m sure once school starts up again, some wannabe thug will start bragging about lighting the crazy old maid’s house on fire and get himsel
f arrested for arson.”
“You said she had a broken heart,” I reminded Giovanna.
“Yes.” Giovanna made her eyelids go heavy so as to match the gravity of the matter.
“But you also said she was an old maid.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So who broke her heart?”
Giovanna sighed like it was me who wasn’t making any sense. “Lots of men chased after her.” She leaned in close to my face again. “I don’t see why. I mean, she was okay for her age. But she did have crow’s-feet, and limp hair, and … oh yeah, she wore really cheap clothes.” Giovanna looked down at my outfit — an old powder-blue sundress Mimi had picked up at the secondhand store — and cleared her throat.
I sunk back as far away on the couch as I could get from Giovanna. “Okay, and?” I said.
“Anyway, she never seemed to show much interest in any of them. Never got married. Then, a few months ago, a rumor started going ’round town that she was engaged. I saw the ring on her finger myself. Can’t believe she would’ve said yes to a tiny rock like that.”
“So you don’t know who she was planning to marry?” Michael asked.
Giovanna turned her body toward him. “Nope.” She exaggerated the p sound so that a puff of air blew right in Michael’s face.
“What’s that, Giovanna?” Michael said, leaning back now, too. “I thought you knew everything.” It was no small wonder Giovanna detested him … and he, her.
They both made unpleasant faces, and Michael said, “Want some gum, Giovanna? I really think you should have some.”
Missing Michael’s hint, but taking a piece anyway, Giovanna chomped while she talked. “Nobody did, but it didn’t last long. I saw Isabella a few weeks before she died. Her finger was bare and her heart was broken in pieces for sure.” Giovanna cupped both hands over her own heart. “You can just tell those sorts of things, ya know?”
I nodded my head in agreement. I thought I could, but I had my doubts about Giovanna’s sensitivities.