There’s a rustling in the trees, a quick, rolling breeze, and Caden feels like he could float away on it, like he’s not really there. His body feels like a lie, a hologram, patched together from memories that aren’t really his. After a few moments he pushes himself out of the chair. His fingers feel light and tingly, and there’s a dull buzzing at his temples. The wine. “I’m gonna lie down,” he says. He feels Arthur turn to watch him leave. The screen door slams abruptly behind him.
The kitchen is quiet except for the gentle gurgle of a pot on the big antique stove. It smells like fresh herbs and tomatoes. Hanging on the wall is a rotary phone, the old-fashioned kind that takes forever to dial. Caden walks past it without a second look.
ZAN
“I have bad news, and I have more bad news.”
Nick and Zan are huddled around the hood of Nick’s car. Zan rubs the tops of her shoulders, bruised and sore from sleeping on the hard tile floor in the cramped room behind the convenience shop. The old woman—her name is Octavia, but she insisted they call her Miss Tavi—set them up with scratchy blankets and some cushions from the tattered couch, turning down the volume on a small black-and-white TV, propped high on a stack of cardboard boxes.
Miss Tavi had tried to convince them she needed to tidy up, and picked up a broom from the corner. But Nick tucked the broom away, warming her a cup of Lipton’s tea and insisting she lie down and rest. Sometime in the middle of the night, Zan woke to the sound of running water, and saw, through the windowed door, Miss Tavi mopping the linoleum floor. She wondered if she should keep the old woman company, but Miss Tavi looked strangely at peace as she worked.
As Zan dozed back to sleep, Nick tossed and settled in, one arm resting softly against her back. She thought about moving, but she didn’t want to wake him. And it felt nice to sleep so close to somebody again.
When they woke it was nearly dawn, and Miss Tavi’s son had returned.
Over a quick breakfast of weak coffee and Peanut M&Ms, the man introduced himself as Dwayne Robert. Zan wasn’t sure if Robert was his last name, or if he always went by two first names, and so she did her best to avoid addressing him directly. Which wasn’t difficult. Aside from asking a few questions about the trouble with Nick’s car, Dwayne Robert had very little to say, and soon excused himself to get to work in the garage.
Now he looks at them, his forehead glistening with perspiration, a pained grimace twisting his face. He wipes his hands on the dirty rag hanging from his back pocket and slams the hood shut. “Your water pump is shot,” he says, leaning against the driver’s side door.
“I know that,” Nick says. “What’s the other bad news?”
“The other bad news,” Dwayne Robert says slowly, with what Zan suspects is the tiniest bit of satisfaction twinkling in his black, almond-shaped eyes, “is that everything else is shot, too.”
Nick crosses his arms over his chest. He seems to be trying to stand taller. Zan could tell when she’d suggested they wait for somebody to look at the car, somebody other than Nick, that he hadn’t quite warmed to the idea of a second opinion. “What do you mean, everything else?”
Dwayne Robert chuckles. “I mean everything, man,” he drawls, taking a long sip of his coffee. His accent is less pronounced than his mother’s, but it’s clear he was born somewhere else. “It’s a miracle this car got you anywhere. Where you say you come from again?”
“Martha’s Vineyard,” Zan offers. Dwayne Robert whistles through his teeth, and Nick gives her a sideways look. Zan wishes she’d kept her mouth shut.
“Well, you have somebody looking out for you, to get you so far,” he says, shaking his head. “I can take it apart if you want, but, you know.” Dwayne Robert trails off, glancing wistfully out through the open garage door. “Maybe we don’t have that kind of time.”
Nick tugs at the ends of his short blond hair. There’s something about seeing him—usually unflappably calm and reserved—now so visibly concerned, that hits Zan, the weight of worry quickly settling into her bones. For all she knows, they could be stuck on the mainland for good. Forget about Vanessa. How will they ever get home?
Zan takes a few steps toward the door, grateful for a cool breeze that has picked up, turning the intense midmorning heat almost bearable. She closes her eyes and tries to remember the way she felt yesterday, when it had all been an adventure, a game, and Leo had seemed close by. Now, she can’t find the fun—or Leo—anywhere. She thinks about what Dwayne Robert said. If it was true, and Leo had been looking out for them, what does it mean that they’ve ended up here?
Maybe this is what she deserves. Maybe Leo hadn’t been watching them, guiding them, at all. Maybe, instead, she’s being punished for wasting her time, Nick’s time, hot on the trail of something that has nothing to do with her. Who said Leo wasn’t entitled to secrets? Does she really have the right to know absolutely everything about him?
As if through a fog, she hears low voices, Nick and Dwayne Robert talking in the shop. Suddenly, she’s crying. She hasn’t cried once since the predictions started coming in. It seemed too abstract, and far away. And then, with the announcement, when it started to get closer and feel more real, she was already too lost in Leo’s mystery to fully appreciate what it all might mean.
Is this really how it works? The end of everything, and they’re stuck, miles away from home, without a car or a plan? She hasn’t even called her parents. And Joni, her sister. What about Joni? It’s been almost seven years since they’ve spoken, and even longer since Joni has been home. Could the world really end without her ever seeing her sister again? All of a sudden, finding Vanessa, unraveling Leo’s truth, whatever it was, doesn’t seem so important.
Nick sits down on the hard concrete beside her. Zan hurries to wipe the fresh tears from the corners of her eyes. She can feel Nick averting his eyes, giving her space and time to clean herself up. “Are you okay?” he asks softly.
Zan nods and sniffles. “Yeah.” She smiles. “Just, you know, taking it all in, I guess.”
She feels Nick’s arm hovering somewhere in the neighborhood of her shoulder, before his hand settles onto the top of her back. She feels his hesitation, but also his warmth, his relentless need, like an involuntary twitch, to make everything all right. She can’t believe how long it’s been since she’s sat this way with somebody, not talking but together, understanding. It makes sense, she thinks. Leo chose both of them to be in his life for a reason. They are connected, and Zan suddenly remembers what it’s like to have a friend.
She lets her head fall on Nick’s shoulder, feels him tense and then soften.
“He says he’ll give us a ride,” Nick says eventually. “Wherever we want. He thinks there might still be buses running, out of Chinatown. We could go check.”
Zan stares at the lonely gas pumps, the deserted highway stretching endlessly before them. “What do you think we should do?” she asks. She knows what he’ll say. She can’t blame him. It was crazy, what they did, leaving home at a time like this. Who wouldn’t want to go back? Still, she’s relieved not to have to make the decision herself.
“Honestly?” Nick sighs. “I think we should keep looking.”
Zan sits up. “Really?”
Nick nods. “We’ve come this far,” he says. “And, I don’t know … I know it sounds crazy, but isn’t this exactly the kind of thing that Leo would have loved? Running around on some wild adventure, not turning back, not giving up, no matter what happens?”
Zan smiles. She feels the tears prickling behind her eyes again, but they are new tears, tears of relief. Relief, not just that they can keep going, that there’s still a chance they might find what they’re looking for, but also relief that she was right:
Nick isn’t just her friend. He’s the one person in the world who knew Leo almost as well as she did.
* * *
Dwayne Robert pulls his car around front, a restored old station wagon that could comfortably fit a family of ten and smells vaguely of ripe frui
t and incense.
Nick stands near the curb, a pile of blankets and a cooler at his feet.
“What’s all this?” Zan asks as he pulls open the creaky back door.
“Just some stuff my dad keeps around, for camping and stuff, or when we miss the last boat and have to sleep in the car.” Nick shrugs. “Thought it might come in handy.”
Zan peers at him, holding back a smile. Of course he’d be prepared. She imagines Nick and his dad roasting marshmallows at a campsite in one of the state parks on the Cape, or curling up with scratchy blankets in different parts of the clunker car. She knew Nick spent every hour that he wasn’t in school (and many hours when he should have been) on his dad’s boat, but she’d never really understood how much time they must have spent together. She can’t imagine being that way with Daniel or Miranda, who prize independence above all else. She knows it’s why Miranda never really warmed to Leo. She hated that her daughter was so wrapped up in another person, especially when that person was a boy.
At the thought of her parents, Zan’s heart sinks. It’s been over twenty-four hours. She knows she should get to a real phone and call. But the only thing worse than leaving for so long, without letting them know where she is, would be the horrifically strained and awkward conversation they’d have to have when they finally spoke. There wouldn’t be screaming, or crying, Zan knows. There would be shame, and disappointment, and quiet.
Lots of quiet.
After loading them up with bags of pretzels and bottled water, Miss Tavi waves goodbye from outside the garage. Zan feels a surprising lump in her throat as she waves back. The asteroid, the rocket, the entire Northern Hemisphere, it had all been too much to make her feel much of anything. But Miss Tavi is different. She isn’t a continent. She isn’t even an island. She’s just a frightened old lady who cleans to stay calm. Zan watches her shrink beneath the high neon sign and hopes with everything she has that somehow, Miss Tavi will be all right.
The receipt with Vanessa’s address flutters on the long bench seat between Zan and Dwayne Robert. Zan pins it down with the palm of her hand. Dwayne promised he knew the way, but Zan is suddenly aware that they are, technically, being held hostage in a weird-smelling car with a strange man, driving empty streets on a day when the whole world has better things to do than come to their rescue.
Things like pray, apparently. As soon as they turn off the commercial strip of highway and into the clustered streets of two-family homes, they are forced to stop behind what appears to be a parading church sermon. The muffled voice of a pastor is shouting through a bullhorn, and Zan can barely make out the shape of a van far ahead, rolling through the streets, a Sunday service-on-wheels.
Dwayne throws the car into reverse and ducks down a side street as the crowd continues to file in behind them. They are people of all ages and races, some holding their hands to the sky, their eyes closed as they shuffle slowly forward. Others seem to be there just for the spectacle; a few younger kids are laughing and joking around. Zan thinks of the handful of times she’s been inside a temple—her mother’s family was Jewish and there were a few times when Miranda had dragged Joni and Zan to the Hebrew Center on the island—how the congregation always seemed to be divided between those who truly believed, and those who, like her, were there for the free doughnuts. She’s surprised to find that it doesn’t seem to be any different now. As the pastor’s voice fades out behind them, she realizes she hasn’t heard a single thing that he’s said.
Dwayne Robert shakes his head thoughtfully. “I just can’t believe it,” he says. “You know? First, they say this thing is coming, and now there’s a rocket, going to blow it up. What are we supposed to believe? How are we supposed to know the truth?”
Nick clears his throat in the backseat. The questions are clearly rhetorical and Zan feels a sense of panic that Nick is going to try to answer them anyway. “What about your friend?” she asks, quickly changing the subject. “Your mother said you were picking somebody up, last night.”
Dwayne Robert purses his lips and Zan fears she may have stumbled onto a sensitive subject. “I try everything with that girl, man,” he says. “I told her come back with me, the kids, too, you know? I love those boys like my own. But she says they need to be with their daddy now. They going to be a family now, because who knows what could happen.”
His voice gets soft and sad and he’s still shaking his head, as if it’s all too much to make sense of at once. “He never do nothing for them, but now, he’s family.” Dwayne Robert blows air through his teeth.
“I’m sorry,” Zan says, because she can’t imagine saying anything else.
Dwayne Robert shrugs. “You learn about people, you know?” He smiles, halfheartedly. “What about you two? Your families know where you are?”
Zan catches Nick’s eyes in the wide rearview mirror. “Sort of,” he says.
Dwayne lifts an eyebrow, not convinced. “This some kind of Romeo and Juliet thing?” he asks. “You running away or something?”
Zan shifts uncomfortably in her seat. “No,” she says quickly. It feels urgently important to clarify that she and Nick are not a couple. “No, we’re just, we’re not…”
“We’re looking for someone.” Nick saves her. “She lives here, at this address.”
Dwayne Robert turns onto a smaller side street, lined with nearly identical two-family houses. He takes the receipt from Zan and holds it up to a brown, vinyl-sided house with a small, neglected garden out front. “Well,” he says. “I hope you find her. Before it’s too late.”
Zan closes the heavy station wagon door as Nick unpacks the back. Dwayne Robert waves as he pulls slowly away, and Nick crosses the street first, pulling open a low, iron gate. They start up the shallow stoop to a small, covered porch. Between the two doors is an intercom, and Nick scans the faded yellow tabs. “V. Kent. You think that’s her?”
Zan swallows hard. She hears the last thing Dwayne Robert said to them: Before it’s too late, and she feels a new sense of purpose. It’s simple, really. They might not have much time. And no matter what they’re going to find out, no matter what it means, or doesn’t mean, they have to do it now or they may never get the chance.
She closes her eyes and waits. This time, he’s there. Leo, on the trail to the beach, his towel dragging behind him. She searches his face, his eyes, bright blue and convincing. Whatever it is, he wants her to know. He’s brought them here for a reason.
Zan pushes the button with her thumb. The bell, sharp and clear, cuts into the quiet.
CADEN
Arthur looks ridiculous in an apron.
Caden stands in the doorway to the lodge kitchen, looking out through the open porch doors. The sky is lit up over the mountain, orange and spooky gray. He’s groggy from his nap and it takes him a minute to decide if the sun should be coming or going.
“What are you doing?” he mutters sleepily, stretching his neck. He’s still not used to so many pillows.
Arthur hovers near the stove, moving quickly back and forth between a bubbling pot on a burner and the yellowing pages of a cookbook, propped open on top of a wooden butcher’s block. “What does it look like I’m doing?” he asks, distracted by a frenzied search for some type of utensil.
“It looks like you’re wearing an apron,” Caden replies. The apron is dirty white and tied with a delicate lace string around Arthur’s waist.
“It was all I could find.” Arthur stirs the pot with a chipped wooden spoon. “It probably belonged to one of my great-aunts. Must be ancient.”
From the other side of the counter a timer beeps and Arthur’s eyes go wide. He rushes to the oven and pulls the door open, as a cloud of bitter smoke engulfs his upper half. “God damn it!” Arthur panics, scanning the nearby surfaces for a potholder or cloth. He settles for the sleeve of his button-down shirt. “Shit. Ouch. Shit!” He slides out a steaming tray of singed dinner rolls and all but throws it on the table. A few of the blackened rolls tumble off the edge and skid like hocke
y pucks across the floor to Caden’s feet.
“Yum,” Caden says, a short laugh escaping before he can help it.
Arthur runs the faucet and sticks his hand beneath it. After a brief interlude of incoherent mumbling, he turns back to the pot on the stove. “Russell left.”
“Russell?” Caden asks, before remembering the disgruntled butler-type who served him breakfast in the den. “Where did he go?”
Arthur shrugs. “He says he met a lady at the Info Center near the peak. They’re going camping.”
Caden smirks. “Go, Russell.”
Arthur shakes his head in exasperated silence. A wet steam rises from the pot and the thick smell of stock and sautéed vegetables fills the air. Caden’s stomach grumbles. He’s hungrier than he thought.
“What? You expected him to keep sulking around here, baking you muffins and wiping your ass, when the world is about to explode?” The words are out of him, sharp and fast, but he can hear a shift in his voice. It’s teasing, and light, like he’s back on the docks, messing with one of his friends.
“I wipe my own ass, thank you,” Arthur says with a sly grin. He clinks the spoon against the side of the pot and flips off the burner. “Hand me a few of those bowls?”
Caden spies a few stacks of ceramic dishware on a high open shelf. He moves carefully around his father, suddenly aware of how close they are standing. Arthur serves up two hearty portions of stew and sets them on the counter. “I thought we’d eat in the dining room.”
The dining room table is an imposing slab of mahogany, comically enormous. Caden finds it already set for two, with a white tablecloth and red gingham napkins, goblets for wine and water, antique silverware, and a—now unnecessary—woven basket for bread. He pulls out a chair and feels a twinge between his lower ribs. He can’t remember the last time he ate dinner at an actual table, let alone one that was so carefully set.
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