Deadly Design (9780698173613)

by Dockter, Debra

  17

  Don’s Diner has one specialty on the menu: grease. Breakfast is probably the worst. Greasy eggs, greasy bacon, greasy hash browns. Plates glisten with the stuff, and I’m pretty sure that the bottoms of the tables have drips of solidified grease growing like stalactites on cave ceilings. It’s heaven.

  Mom doesn’t want me eating unhealthy shit. It’s all vegetables and fiber and fish rich in omega-3’s at home. But what else am I supposed to do? It’s 7:48 A.M. The girl of my dreams is getting farther away by the minute. No bar is open, and they wouldn’t serve me if they were. In two days, I’m going to be in Dallas eating nothing but cholesterol-free powdered eggs, and I still haven’t gotten a friend request from James M.

  If I can’t drown my sorrows in bourbon, I’ll drown them in bacon. And it’s damn good too.

  Mom will smell it on me, and the smell of grease will rile her up more than a shirt reeking of marijuana smoke would. I could lie, tell her I stopped at Don’s for an unbuttered slice of whole wheat toast, but I won’t do that. I won’t lie to her.

  It’s just that I’ve come to the conclusion that what I eat probably doesn’t matter. Connor was a health freak. He ate flaxseed and tofu, and he died anyway. If by some chance my DNA is messed up and I’m going to die, I might as well eat what I want. I need something, something bad for me. Something to fill the hole in my soul, the hole that’s growing wider and deeper with every passing minute.

  I stab the center of an over-easy egg and watch the orange slime spread like lava over the glistening whites. I’m about to dip my buttered white toast into it when the door opens, and Cami walks in. She scans the tables and booths, a hopeful smile on her face that slowly turns to disappointment.

  I take a drink of orange juice and wave her over.

  “Have you seen Emma?” Cami asks. “She was supposed to leave this morning, but her car’s right there.” She points to the metallic green car that looks like a bloated package of spearmint gum.

  “My car,” I correct her. “We traded this morning. She definitely got the better deal.”

  “You gave her Connor’s Jeep?”

  “My Jeep.” I say the words, but I don’t believe them. It was never mine. It was always Connor and Emma’s, and now it’s just Emma’s.

  Cami sits on the other side of the table and stares at me. “You hate that car.”

  “I hated Emma driving it. It’s not that bad, as long as I remember to feed the hamster that runs on that little wheel in the engine.”

  “Did you tell her about—”

  “Hell no.” My voice is casual, like we’re talking about something trivial, something normal.

  I offer her a slice of toast, and she takes it. She tears off a small piece but doesn’t put it in her mouth. “It would have never worked with you and her. You’ve got to know that.”

  There is still a small mound of grease-glistening hash browns on my plate, but my stomach has put out the NO ENTRY sign. “Why? You didn’t care that I had a crush on her when Connor was alive. So now that he’s . . . gone, I’m just supposed to turn my feelings off? We could work. I mean, besides the whole ‘your heart may have an expiration date stamped on it’ thing. What did Connor have that I can’t get?”

  “Emma,” she says, putting the toast down like she’s lost her appetite too. “You’d never know if she was with you because of you or because you remind her of Connor. Every time she kissed you, you’d be wondering who she was thinking about. Every time she told you she loved you, you wouldn’t know if she really meant you, or if she thought in some weird way, Connor’s spirit could share your body.”

  I think back to this morning, to less than an hour ago, when she’d kissed me. “Sometimes you have to take what you can get.”

  Cami scoffs. “Do you know why I used to call you Connor?”

  “To piss me off.”

  “No, but that’s not a bad reason. I did it because every time you flipped me off, you’d smile. Not a big one. Barely noticeable, as a matter of fact, but still there. You never smile. It’s like you’re always beating yourself up because you don’t measure up to Connor, but you’re not Connor. The world never needed two Connors. It needed one Connor and one Kyle.”

  The waitress comes with the ticket. I reach for it, but Cami snatches it up. She shakes her head, her soft brown curls shifting against her forehead. “This one’s on me,” she says, digging in her purse for her wallet.

  “Give that back.” I reach again, but she stands and holds the ticket close to her chest.

  “You’re unemployed, remember. Besides, what you did for Emma, giving her the Jeep . . . And now you’re driving that.” She motions toward the car that only takes up half of a parking space. “That was an awesome thing to do. You’re . . .” She looks away, concentrating on counting out the right number of bills. “Connor would be proud.” Cami tucks an s-shaped curl behind her ear. “Feel free to flip me off whenever you want.”

  I don’t feel like flipping her off. “Thanks. You ever run out of gas money for your truck and need a ride to work, let me know,” I offer.

  She leaves the money with the cashier and comes back to the table. “You know, I heard that boys who drive big cars are compensating for small penises. I wonder what that says about a guy who drives a tiny car.”

  I can’t help but smile, and she gives me a “gotcha” look, like getting me to smile is her mission in life.

  “So . . . I get off at eight,” Cami says. “How about I come over after that? I know something we can do to get your mind off of things.”

  “I may be vulnerable, but I do have some self-respect.”

  “You wish,” she says.

  I start to say something, but then I see a man sitting at a corner table. He’s drinking coffee and reading the newspaper.

  Cami follows my gaze. “Who’s he?”

  “I don’t know, but I saw him at Connor’s track meet. He was taking pictures of Connor right before Connor jumped. I figured he was a scout from a university. But why would he be here now?”

  “I’ve seen him at the Sak & Save a few times. Never buys much. Gum mostly. Occasionally milk.”

  “So he’s from around here?” I stare at his down-turned face, at the dark hair that hangs over his forehead. His phone is sitting next to a plate of half-eaten pancakes.

  “He must be. Why so interested?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, wishing he’d look up from his paper and meet my eyes. There was something about how he’d looked at me that day.

  “Maybe he works for the Gazette. You know how much they loved running stories about Connor. Or he could have been a fan wanting to remember Connor’s last meet.”

  She’s right. I know she is, but I keep thinking about Dr. Mueller—about how, if he is alive, he’d want to know if his genetic manipulations were a success. But there were so many people at the track meet. So many people were always watching Connor. And I wonder how many people went to watch Alexis Warren’s soccer games or her performance in her school’s production of Godspell. I wonder how many people went to hear Triagon play the piano or to see Hannah Welch dance.

  “So I’ll see you around eight?” Cami asks.

  I nod, but I can’t take my eyes off the man who doesn’t lift his head to look at me.

  18

  I’ve spent the last three hours scanning websites for anyone at fertility or genetics conferences who resembles Dr. Mueller. He’s probably dead. He was already middle-aged when he created Connor and me. But he might be alive. He might be out there somewhere, lecturing at conferences all over the world about genetics and what can go wrong if you try to tweak too many genes at once.

  Between looking at sites for Dr. Mueller, I go back and forth to Facebook, hoping desperately the little person icon will have a tiny 1 over it. Then I check Triagon’s blog. I look at his picture, then at Alexis Warren’s profil
e picture, then Hannah’s.

  Hannah Welch was a beautiful girl. Of course she was. Dr. Mueller would have designed her that way. I can’t tell from her profile picture if her eyes are blue or not, but I bet they are. She’s sitting on a stage in a sleek black costume. One leg is crossed over the other and her arms are wrapped around her bent knee. Her pink-tinted hair is cut short. There is a diamond stud in her right nostril, and I can just make out a tattoo on her wrist: a small red rosebud.

  I wish I could get past her profile picture, but there’s no sense in sending her a friend request. I wish they had Facebook in heaven. I could message Connor, tell him I might be coming to see him before too long. He could tell me about the place, things that everyone wants to know, like do people eat in heaven, and if so, what’s the food like? Are we required to spend a certain number of hours a day singing God’s praises with the angels, or is God more laid-back? What is He like, anyway? Does He intervene in our lives? Does He give a shit? Does He just sit back and watch us like we’re ants in an ant farm?

  “She’s pretty,” Cami says, scaring the shit out of me.

  “Fuck eighteen,” I say, grasping my chest. “You’re gonna kill me now. Ever hear of knocking?”

  “Your bedroom door was open,” she says, sitting down on the edge of my bed. “Is that Hannah?”

  I nod and click to close the tab, but the obituary I’d been reading pops up. I move the mouse to close that tab, but Cami grabs my hand.

  She leans forward and starts reading. “She had a scholarship to study at Juilliard. She danced in Paris last year. In Italy the year before that. Think what her life was going to be like. What all their lives . . .” She stops herself and forces a smile. “So, are you ready for a distraction?”

  I close the Internet page. “Hell yeah.”

  • • •

  I look through the window into the bed of Cami’s small pickup truck. She’s raided her uncle’s firework stash, and I can’t imagine there’s much she didn’t take.

  “There must be two hundred dollars’ worth of stuff back there,” I say. “Is he going to be pissed that you took all that?”

  “No,” she says, pulling onto one of the roads that leads out of town. “Uncle Jimmy has tons more. He has connections, so he gets a great discount. And now that he’s living with us, his disability check goes a lot further.”

  “Disability?”

  “He was injured in Afghanistan. He’s a marine. He got hit by an IED. Shrapnel went into his head and one of his kidneys. He lost his kidney, but they managed to save most of his brain.”

  “Most of it?”

  Cami shrugs. “Okay, all of it, but he’s a little different now. Sucks too, because the whole reason he went into the military was so they’d pay for his college. He didn’t get the best grades in school. It wasn’t until seventh grade that a teacher finally realized he was dyslexic. He got help, but by then it was hard to catch up. He wanted to be a teacher, one that wouldn’t just assume somebody was dumb or lazy. He wanted to make a difference, but now . . . his mind kind of wanders, and he can be very animated when he’s excited. Plus, he’s got the standard PTSD.”

  I look back at the cardboard box filled with Blackcat M80’s and odd-shaped containers labeled Neighbor-Hater, Night-Fire, and TNT. “Why would somebody with PTSD want stuff like this? Don’t noises freak him out?”

  “Jimmy did one tour in Iraq and three in Afghanistan. Tomorrow night, when the sky starts to darken and everyone starts shooting off fireworks, Jimmy will be out here somewhere. He’ll be setting off his own miniature explosions. That way he’ll be in control of the noise.”

  “You’re sure he’s not going to be pissed?”

  “He’s medicated now, so we don’t have to worry. Besides, he hasn’t killed anybody since that barroom brawl in Colorado last year.”

  I stare at her, waiting for her to tell me that she’s joking, but she drives on for almost a mile before she looks at me and smiles.

  “He’s living with you now?”

  Cami turns down a dirt road. “Yeah. He’s been in and out of the VA hospital. He tried living on his own for a while, but it didn’t work out so well. He’s my dad’s little brother, so we’re helping him out. It’s going okay. We just have to keep an eye on him. He doesn’t always take his meds, and sometimes when he does take them, he takes them with beer. And occasionally he goes outside and smokes a joint and thinks that we can’t smell it when he comes back in. But he’s family, so . . .” She shrugs and smiles again.

  We keep driving. Evening is falling fast, but I don’t want it to. I want the sun to hover a little longer, to dig its rays like claws into the approaching shades of night and stay a while. I want to be able to see Cami’s face, the strength in her brown eyes and her unwavering smile. She’s already been saddled with taking care of her little brother, and now she’s got her uncle to worry about too. And she’s babysitting me, distracting me from the countdown hanging over my head.

  “This is the place,” Cami says, pulling the truck over onto the side of Tornado Road. They call it that because of the 1999 tornado that took out half of the nearest town and a couple of farms. It’s creepy as hell. The tornado was an F4. The trees still haven’t recovered. In the winter, they look like deformed skeletons with various bones snapped and hanging. In the dark, with their branches clothed in thick leaves, they look like slumped, aging giants.

  We start with the little stuff: firecrackers, fountains, and Roman candles. I love holding the Roman candles in my hand and seeing the baby fireballs fly out. Cami was so right. This is exactly the distraction I need. We light some rockets, lame ones that shoot out parachutes we can’t see in the dark and others that zoom away so fast we have no idea where the hell they’ve gone. We find a package of sparklers that he must have bought for Josh. We light them and run around in the dark like we’re five. We even try to write our names in light across the black air, but by the time the last letters form, the first letters are gone.

  Eventually, we run out of the little stuff. We set up the hard paper tubes and start lighting fuses. Cami keeps yelling for me to run every time I light a fuse, as if she’s afraid I’m going to do something stupid like stick my head over the tube to make certain the fuse really lit. But I do what she wants. I light the fuse, then run, and together we wait for the initial heavy sound as the explosive ball rockets high into the sky. We hold our breath and wait for the second explosion, the one that sends showers of blue or red or silver cascading over the black canvas. And together, we gasp.

  We save the best and the biggest for last. It’s slightly larger than a shoebox, and on top of it, there’s a picture of a blonde with big tits and tight red shorts. Her legs are straddling the fuse. I know this one will be amazing. It’s probably the biggest explosive a person can buy without being reported to the CIA as a possible terrorist. It will blast explosive ball after explosive ball into the air, and the force from the explosions will make our stomachs vibrate.

  “Be careful,” Cami says again as I bend over to light the fuse. It’s a long fuse, to give the sucker lighting it plenty of time to back away.

  The fuse ignites, and tiny, almost microscopic, sparks leap away from it. I run to the blanket Cami has spread out across the road and we lie down, our shoulders touching as we watch bursts of fire launch into the sky. It’s so loud, but I don’t care. We watch as brilliant lights spit and crackle against the darkness. They fall and melt away and are replaced by another barrage of sounds and lights.

  Tomorrow is July Fourth. Connor loved fireworks and Dad’s homemade ice cream and going to the park to watch the town’s budget being blown into the sky to the sounds of Aaron Copeland music.

  Dad won’t make ice cream tomorrow. We won’t go to the park for the fireworks show or comment on how much money the neighbors must have blown—literally—on fireworks. We’ll pack our bags for our early morning flight to the ca
rdiac hospital in Dallas and then try to sleep with our pillows pressed on top of our heads to block out the sounds of celebrations.

  July Fourth will never be the same again. Neither will Thanksgiving or Christmas.

  I stare at the black sky and the explosions of color, and suddenly every spark seems to represent a way our lives will be different, will be empty, because Connor’s gone and he’s never coming back.

  My shoulder trembles against Cami’s because I want Connor to be here. My chest aches, it burns like the tears in my eyes because I want him back. I want to see him and hear his voice. I want to let him drag me to the fireworks show with our parents because it’s a tradition.

  Flecks of sparkling gold fill the night sky and for a second, I think I can almost see his face. My shoulders tremble even more.

  Cami doesn’t say anything. She just slips her hand into mine, and we watch until the sounds and the colors stop.

  19

  “Can I get a few more towels?” I ask the man at the front desk of our hotel in Dallas.

  “Sure.” He smiles, then disappears through a door marked STAFF ONLY.

  Usually when we travel, Mom and Dad get one room and Connor and I share another. Last year, traveling meant my folks and Connor going somewhere for the weekend because of a meet or a tournament. They didn’t like me staying home by myself, but if it was only for one night, they’d let me. They weren’t worried about me inviting all my buddies over for a beer-drinking potfest. I didn’t really have any buddies to invite over.

  With Mom, Dad, and I sharing a room, we need more than the standard two towels, and I am more than happy to volunteer to run down to the front desk. I love my parents, but too much of a good thing is still too much. We were at the airport two hours before our flight, which got delayed for another two hours. Then we were crammed together for an hour-and-a-half flight followed by a fifteen-minute cab ride. I’m so ready to breathe some parent-free air.