“I don’t know,” Mark said.
I got chills, thinking about the phone call to my father. How right before I’d called, I had known and hadn’t known what would happen, all at the same time. Mark looked like that, like the knowing and the not knowing were battling it out somewhere dark in his head. I snuggled up and he kissed my neck and I tried to concentrate on what it felt like to lie in the grass with Mark Elliott. Because: awesome.
Except this weird idea kept trying to creep in and make my stomach hurt. It felt like I was getting ready to face something I’d been avoiding a long time. But I wasn’t as brave as Mark thought, because all I wanted to do was run away.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
It was the last day of winter break and we were on the bus again. Mark was taking me somewhere special before school started. He poked me in the ribs with his finger. “Quit it.” I laughed. He poked me again and it made me squeal. A lady two rows up made a noise like she could go bulimic on all the flirting, but I didn’t care. It was a perfect, warm, puffy-cloud day, despite the fact that it was January.
But as the bus wound through the residential streets again, it was like someone pulled a plug and all the giggles in me swirled down a drain and disappeared. When Mark got up at the same bus stop as last time, I resisted.
“Do you think this is a good idea?” I asked him.
“C’mon,” he said. “We’ll miss our stop.”
Mark grabbed my hand and we walked the same way as before. Only in my mind, I’d hopped back on the bus and gone back to school. Two nights ago I’d been fantasizing that Mark and I got married, and horrifying myself with the idea I’d have to meet his mom again. It was bad enough to imagine it ten years in the future.
“Let’s go to Salinas Street, huh?” I smiled at him, wondering who was working the controls for my face. “We could catch a movie.”
“I want to show you something,” he said. I had a crazy thought: He doesn’t remember last time. I brushed it away. Of course he did. How could he forget?
“I don’t think your mom …” I said. He tugged my hand again. I stayed where I was. Slowly, like he was forgetting I was there, he let go and walked up the path. He didn’t look back. After a few seconds I followed him to the doorway.
The house was the same as before, except I could hear music from the kitchen. A Mark-sized guy stood in front of the fridge, drinking from a carton. Mark’s brother, John, I figured. They studiously ignored each other. John shivered like a wet dog and shut the fridge door. Too much cold milk, I guessed.
“Hi,” I began. But Mark tugged me into the living room, away from his brother.
“We don’t get along,” he whispered in my ear. He took me through the house to the hallway where their bedrooms were. Mark opened the door to the right again, the guest bedroom. I glanced in. His mother was asleep on top of the covers.
Next to me, the muscles in Mark’s arm tensed. All the way down, like a series of goose bumps, until he was squeezing my fingers too tight again. I squeezed back.
Mrs. Elliott was curled up on the bed with her eyes closed, mascara all over her face. Like she’d cried herself to sleep. Her arms were folded up against her chest, holding a piece of clothing under her chin. Mark sat down next to her. The bedsprings creaked. He let go of my hand and gave her shoulder a little shake.
Mrs. Elliott opened her eyes and looked right at Mark. I wanted to bolt. Her eyes were red and bleary, and to be perfectly honest, she seemed a little out of it. But then she smiled. She uncrossed her arms and held out the cloth, like she was sharing a private joke with Mark. It was baby pajamas. Mark laughed. She grinned and a tear slid down the side of her nose. She opened her arms and Mark lay down next to her, his back to her chest. She nestled her face in his shoulder and closed her eyes.
If I were her kid and she treated me like she’d treated Mark that first time, I wouldn’t have the guts to come back. But then again, there were probably a lot of things about their family I didn’t understand. And snuggling infant clothes was on the top of that list.
Then it hit me: Maybe Mrs. Elliott had lost a baby. And then an even worse idea snuck into my head. Maybe Mark had been responsible, somehow. The thought punched me in the stomach. Was that why my boyfriend was exiled from his own home, why it was so painful for his mom to have him around? I didn’t think I could ask him about something like that. My heart burst like a water balloon, flooding everything inside me with sadness.
I stumbled back to the kitchen. Mark’s brother sat at the kitchen table, with a bowl of cereal.
“Hi,” I said to him again.
I could see the tendons in his jaw working. That guy could shovel in the Cap’n Crunch. He grunted, although whether it was a greeting or part of his choking-down-food ritual, I couldn’t be sure.
“Great day for the beach,” I mumbled, wishing I were anywhere else that very moment. Actually, even arriving for an algebra final in my underwear sounded fantastic in comparison.
John scanned the room, like he was searching for the obnoxious bug pestering him with conversational tidbits. Like he wanted to swat me away but couldn’t be bothered to look at me, I was so insignificant. Guess it was his way of letting me know his dislike of Mark meant I was persona non grata.
“Too cold in here.” He dumped his half-eaten meal into the sink, spoon and all. I was trying to figure out a clever way to respond, something about it still being a great day outside the House of Awkward, but John walked away before I could say anything at all.
I stood there, thinking variants on the theme omigod-what-a-jerk! When I had done that to my satisfaction, my thoughts turned toward slipping out the front door. I wasn’t too keen on waiting around while “Marky” had nap time with his mommy. I was kind of irritated that he’d just left me on my own. If Mark caught up with me at the bus stop, that was fine. Otherwise I’d see him at school.
My hand was on the doorknob when I heard shouting from the bedrooms upstairs. I didn’t catch all of it, but this part echoed through the house loud and clear: “I’m the one who’s still here!” It might have been Mark or John — that whole brother thing made it hard to tell. A second later, Mark ran past me. I stumbled on a throw rug, trying to get out of his way. When he opened the front door, it sounded like he cracked the frame. Like a sonic boom when it hit the back wall. Then he was gone. I heard sobbing upstairs. Their mother, I guessed.
I ran out, not so much chasing Mark as escaping as well. I didn’t bother closing the door behind me. I just ran. It really was a great day outside. The sunlight was so bright gold and sparkly it blinded me. I didn’t care. I ran blind.
By the time I got back, campus was alive again. Kids dragged duffle bags like fat, little, legless sausage dogs behind them. Dorm lights that had been dark for two weeks glowed warm yellow through open windows.
There was no sign of Tamara in our room, but I could tell she was back, thanks to her unmade bed and clothes strewn across the floor. I was ready to flop onto my bed when I saw it, up on the shelf above Tamara’s bed: this big, framed photo of Tamara, with her parents and older sister. Judging from how young Tamara was in it, the picture was an oldie but goodie. The whole family was squished together on a wide lawn, with big smiles and squinty eyes. It practically shouted in Tamara’s annoying voice, “My parents love me!” It was just a stupid photo, I told myself. But it was more than I could take after watching Mark’s family blow up. I tried to calm down. All those squinty, grinning faces leered at me. I could feel their smug, happy-family eyeballs searing into the back of my skull. How was I gonna live in this room and see that every day?
The next thing I knew, I was standing up there on Tamara’s bed. I grabbed the picture off the shelf, ready to send it flying. But what I saw stopped me. There was Tamara stuff I’d never seen before on the shelf, like a secret hidden out in the open.
It wasn’t a treasure trove or anything. A couple of shells and two pieces of sea glass. A bit of fine, brown baby hair tied with
a lavender ribbon. A ripped red ticket stub admitting one. And another unframed photo lying flat.
I breathed out. Dust and sea-salt smells blew back in my face. The unframed photo showed two skinny adolescent boys with curly dark hair, smiling these sad smiles into the camera. Behind them, in the photo, white bedding and a little bit of stainless steel.
My legs got wobbly from trying to keep my balance on Tamara’s lumpy mattress. I knew those guys in the picture. Except I didn’t recognize them from school. At least I didn’t think that was how I knew them. It was like a sneeze hitching around in my nose, trying to escape.
There was something under the photograph of the two boys. When I lifted it up, I could feel the dust on the photo getting into the ridges of my thumbprint. I think I must have known what it was going to be before I saw it, because for a second, I thought I was going to pass out.
Underneath the photo was the coin that Barnaby Charon had given me.
I stumbled back and hopped off the bed, my thumb still dusty from where I’d touched the photograph. Tamara stole my coin. I didn’t know why it shocked me so bad. I mean, she’d been a sucky roommate to be sure, and I hated her and everything, and she probably didn’t even know what that coin meant to me. But still, I could hardly believe that Tamara had gone into my closet and stolen it. It wasn’t even my coin. It was Brynn’s. I was furious. I was amazed I’d lucked out and found it. My brain didn’t know which way to go.
I stumbled to my closet, knelt down, and put my hand into the toe of my black dress shoe. But there, where I’d hidden it, was the gold coin Barnaby Charon had given me. Not stolen at all. Even though I’d just seen it up there, with Tamara’s junk. There were two coins. Counting the coin on Jessie’s desk, maybe even three.
You remember who those boys in the picture were, right? my brain asked me. Yeah, I told myself right back. They’re the ones who snuck into our room that night. They’re the boys Tamara said didn’t exist.
My roommate walked in, with Sasha the junior right behind her. Tamara was saying, “Omigod you will not believe what she said next. WILL. NOT. You will freak. You will totally, freaking die laughing.” Tamara took her flip-flop off her foot and threw it to the floor to underline the freaking that was going to be happening.
“What?” Sasha was already laughing.
They both saw me at the same time and stopped mid-cackle. “Uh … Never mind,” Tamara said. Her toe slipped back into her flip-flop. “I’ll tell you later,” she added, in a fake whisper, like I couldn’t hear them a whole three feet away.
I flew out of the room, desperate to get away. Tamara’s snotty “Was it something I said?” followed me out the door.
I went to Nora’s room. She wasn’t there, but her luggage was. I knew where to find her.
When I crawled into the secret room, she fumbled around for her penlight, turned it on, and set it on the floor. I was glad — alone in the dark was fine. Alone in the dark with another person was weird.
“You OK?” she asked. I nodded. And then, of course, I bawled. It was stupid, but the idea that I’d almost lost Brynn’s coin had shaken me up. Or maybe it was just the cherry on top of the stress cake of what had happened with Mark. Whatever it was, it left me a blubbering mess.
“Oh, jeez.” Nora sighed and sat next to me. I slumped over and she patted my back. She took a few strands of my hair and made braids. There was no Kleenex, so I wiped my nose with the front of my shirt.
“Attractive, huh?” I said.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “You’d be a real catch for a guy with a mucus fetish.”
I tried to laugh, but I kind of honked instead. Nora sat there and I sat there and she just waited, I guess, until I was ready. Then I told her what had happened with Mark’s family. I told her about Tamara’s coin. I told her about the picture of the boys. The words poured out of me like I was a widemouthed pitcher and someone tipped me until everything slipped right out and spilled everywhere. Finally I said, “I don’t think I like Mark anymore.” That was the last thing I had to say, because I waited and no more words came out.
“I had a bad vacation, too,” Nora said.
“Yeah?” I was embarrassed to hear the hopeful tone in my voice. I guess I didn’t want to be alone in having a complete disaster day. “What happened?”
She tugged on strands of my hair, twisting them into a careless design. I nudged her when she didn’t answer me.
“Nothing,” she said.
“Nothing happened?” I raised my eyebrow even though she couldn’t see my face. She still didn’t say anything. I reached over and grabbed the penlight. I was going to interrogate her, faux-cop style, pry out what had happened. Even though I was clearly going to win the gold, Nora could at least medal in the Sucky Winter Break Olympics.
“Drop it,” she warned, pushing the light away. “I’m not ready to talk about it.” Something in her voice was worse than unhappy. Whatever nothing had happened, it must have shaken her up.
“I got a permission slip from Mr. Graham,” I said instead, remembering it at the exact same time as it came out of my mouth. “For the archives.”
When Nora didn’t say anything, I turned the tiny flashlight on her. In the small circle of light, she smiled. She was wearing a thin, old Rolling Stones T-shirt with a big tongue on the front. It had been washed and worn so many times the print was faded and peeling and the shirt itself was pretty much see-through. Anyone else would have retired it to jammies.
There was a Y-shaped, caterpillar-looking thing under her shirt, like a crazy, fuzzy, black necklace. Except when I saw it, I knew it was stitches. They went up each shoulder and met at her breastbone. The stitches themselves were uneven and thick — the kind they give you when you’re not around to complain about what the scar is going to look like later. A little pinkish fluid blotted the Stones’ emblem. It looked like Nora’s bad vacation had been spent on an autopsy table.
I closed my eyes and thought about how maybe it was time to accept that I was losing my mind in a way that was more serious than a series of freak-outs caused by leaving home, or school pressure, or whatever else might explain it.
I heard faint knocking. Let me in, Nora! Let me in! It was a man, screaming, frantic. Why did you lock the door? The sound left shivers all down my arms. In my mind’s eye, I saw a bathroom door shaking in its frame, clear as day. It wasn’t locked. It wouldn’t open because Nora was face-down on the floor in front of it.
Come back, reality, come back, I thought to myself. When I opened my eyes, Nora had no stitches.
It was like the returning students brought the January weather with them, because when Nora and I left the theater, darkness had fallen and a sharp chill had settled over campus. Nora took off to run laps under the lit track field, and I shivered all the way back to the dorms, the air cutting right through my thin lavender sweater.
It wasn’t much warmer in our room. There was one thermostat for all of Kelser House. It was covered with a bubble of Plexiglas, and there was a big handwritten sign taped over it that said DO NOT ADJUST THERMOSTAT. I wasn’t too worried about freezing, though, because everybody knew that Faye Rosen would be out there soon enough, with her nail file jammed between the wall and the edge of the Plexiglas, tickling the gauge over toward 80. Faye was a touch on the anorexic side, and those skinny chicks got two things fast: cold and cranky.
Tamara was in her bed, asleep, the covers pulled up under her armpits. I had half a mind to wake her up and yell at her about that picture I’d found. Proof that I had been right. I’d make her explain the coin, too. And I’d make her take down that smug family photo. I glared at it for a while before it occurred to me again that it was really an old photo. Not necessarily proof that Tamara had had fun over winter break. Only that, once upon a time, there had been a moment of goodness. Thinking that, I wasn’t so bothered by their dumb smiles.
My mind kept turning back to the dust on the boys’ photo. Maybe Tamara had her coin long before I got mine. I mean, she had
already known who Barnaby Charon was when I asked her. Keep him away from me, she’d said.
Tamara’s eyes fluttered in her sleep. Her lids peeled up, revealing two lines of white eyeballs. I heard Faye in the hallway, cursing. A minute later, the heater kicked on.
I sat at my desk for a while, thinking. Outside, there were occasional screams of laughter or shouts, but it was quieter than usual. On her side of the room, Tamara moaned in her sleep. It snapped me out of my thoughts, and I went to the bathroom to wash up. On my way back, I noticed a piece of notebook paper folded and taped to my door. It had my name written in red pen on the front. Inside, it said:
Come find me!
—Brynn
PS: I think I know what Jessie meant about the seat belt.
Brynn’s room was empty. Where had she gone? Back in my room, I lay on top of my covers, worrying. But I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up the next morning, still wearing my clothes, on top of my bedcovers. Tamara was gone again.
The next afternoon, Nora and I presented our permission slip to Abby Claremont. She held the paper at arm’s length, frowned, opened a drawer, and pulled out a set of keys. She marched us down the hallway and unlocked the door to the archives.
I guess I was expecting some huge thing, but it was just a converted office with a bunch of books in it. No city of gold or Oompa-Loompas dancing around. To our left, a wall of yearbooks — bright ones with sharp spines at eye level, faded and rounded ones down on the bottom shelf.
When I opened one yearbook, it wasn’t the standard mug-shot rows of freshmen, sophomores, or juniors. There were only pictures of maybe twenty students, identified as graduates. The seniors, I supposed, although a few of them looked pretty young. Each kid had a page detailing their accomplishments at Lethe. We Will Miss You! each page read. I closed the book.
The Last Academy Page 15