Some of the Parts

by Hannah Barnaby

  “Oh.” I can’t say much more without saying too much. It feels like there’s a dam at the back of my throat, and the more I talk, the more likely it is to burst and let everything rush out.

  “Yeah,” Chase says. “Hey, we missed you at Bridges yesterday.”

  “You went?”

  He shrugs again. “I’ve been trying out some different things. So far, Bridges has the best snacks. Margaret had some kind of breakthrough, apparently. Confessed to lying about all kinds of stuff. Bethany wanted to kick her out of the club or whatever, but Ms. Doberskiff said she could stay and ‘mourn her loss of truth’ or something.”

  “Yuck.” I can just picture it, the whole morbid scene. “I’m thinking of quitting.” In fact, this thought has not occurred to me until just now, but it seems obvious that I should follow through on it. Even at the risk of getting in trouble with Principal Hunter, who will get me in trouble with my parents, who could get me in trouble with Dr. Blankenbaker. The fact is, I can hardly sit there and talk about Nate without this new secret bursting out of me like confetti. It’s as if my tragedy has been rewound and redirected somehow. It wouldn’t be right, acting like nothing has changed. Even if that’s kind of what I have to do with Mel and Chase and my parents—to lie to the Bridges kids would be on a karmic par with repeatedly kicking a puppy.

  “Yeah,” Chase says.

  “So,” I reply, the words I will not say still hammering at the wall in my throat.

  He cocks his head and squints a little, and he seems about to say something, but doesn’t. He just points down the hall and then follows his own finger until the crowd swallows him whole.

  —

  Mel finds me eventually, as she always does, and it’s round two of acting normal. We are walking down one of the many hallways toward one of the many, many stairwells of our school. Sometimes I wonder if the architectural plans for this building were inadvertently swapped with an Escher drawing.

  “Hey,” Mel says. “Want to help me drive Zoey and Fiona completely insane?”

  “What now?”

  “I’m starting a band called Scud. I need a bass player.”

  “I don’t know how to play bass.”

  “Who cares? It’s not like we’re ever going to play any gigs. I just need people to be in a picture so I can set up a Tumblr page.”

  “Scud is a terrible name for a band,” I tell her.

  Mel looks at me with an expression of deep pity. “Obviously,” she says. “If I was actually starting a band, it would be called Muskrocket.”

  “Um,” I say. “That is also kind of terrible.”

  “Yes,” says Mel. “But in a totally different way.”

  “What about your project at the barn?”

  “That’s a weekend thing. Uncle Enoch has dibs on the workshop during the week. And anyway, the cat’s done. I just have to finish the cape and the hat for the raccoon’s costume. And find a raccoon.”

  We stop at the bottom of the stairs and allow ourselves to be brushed against by the passing hordes. It is not unpleasant. Every once in a while, I realize how little human contact I have, physically. They’ve done studies with rats that are socially isolated, and the rats get all sad and their immune systems fall apart. I know this because we read about it in biology last year, and Mr. Cunningham felt compelled to remind us that humans are much more resilient and even if someone has, for instance, just gone through a painful divorce and only sees his children twice a month, he would still be okay. (Mr. Cunningham is now dating Ms. Pace, the fiber-arts teacher. They park next to each other in the faculty lot, and their vanity plates read, respectively, ORGNC MTR and SEWIN LOV.)

  I see that Mel is looking at me and that she appears concerned, in her way, and I realize that she is waiting for me to answer a question I didn’t hear.

  “What?” I ask.

  She hikes her backpack up onto her shoulder. “Go to the Grounds after school? I want to ask Cranky Andy if I can post a flyer for my band.”

  “Can’t. I have a doctor’s appointment.”

  Mel smirks. “Head doctor or regular doctor?”

  “Regular.” I’ve never talked to Mel about Red Circle Day or about Dr. Blankenbaker, but somehow she figured out that I’d been to a therapist. I guess that’s just standard practice for trauma these days. Another layer in the tragedy cake.

  Mel starts to say something but someone bumps into her, pushing her into me, and our bodies are touching for just a second before she recoils as if she’s been electrocuted. I have this sudden urge to hug her, to make her uncomfortable, as uncomfortable as I am in my own skin.

  “I could pick you up after,” she offers. “Your new fanboy might be there.”

  Something crackles between us.

  The bell rings.

  “Whatever,” Mel says, and disappears down the next flight of stairs while I stand there, watching everyone disperse like birds.

  Dr. Balder is my pediatrician. He was also Nate’s pediatrician, of course, and he is one of the only people who didn’t say anything trite or hollow the first time I saw him after the accident. I had come to get my stitches taken out of the cuts on my arms, where the windshield had spit its broken glass into my flesh, and Dr. Balder was so patient and gentle and did not mind that I cried the entire time. At the end, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, “It’s a damn shame, my girl. You both deserved better than that.”

  I felt, in that moment, like Dr. Balder and I were soldiers in the same platoon and had just lost an important battle. I felt fortified and, at the same time, really sad. For both of us.

  My mother picks me up outside the school’s front door. I’m still not used to seeing the silver SUV she got after the accident. I still look for the green station wagon and I have to remind myself that it’s gone, too. We drive to Dr. Balder’s office in nearly perfect silence, which is broken by only a few words: hi how are you fine.

  She signs me in, like she always has, even though I’ve been able to write my own name for a while now. The waiting room is meant to look warm and comfortable, but no number of couches or floral prints can hide the fact that it’s a doctor’s office. The smell of antiseptic cleanliness, the surgical masks and hand sanitizer offered to protect you, the promises made by a wall full of brochures. I wish there was one that would be relevant to my circumstances. I wish it was as simple as chicken pox and personal hygiene.

  I look at a magazine and listen to the music threading itself through the tiny wall-mounted speakers, a dramatic orchestral arrangement of a Billy Joel song my parents used to like. I keep my breathing very regular, and then the nurse calls my name. My mother looks at me, eyebrows raised, asking without asking if I want her to come with me. I shake my head and follow the nurse down the hall.

  Dr. Balder is, in fact, bald. He often makes a joke about it, as if he feels it necessary to remind me that he has not forgotten about his baldness and the cruel irony of his name.

  “Good thing my parents didn’t name me Harry, hmm?” He guffaws and pats his stethoscope.

  This comment makes me think of Harry Houdini, which makes me think of Chase, which is rather inconvenient right now because Dr. Balder notices me blushing and thinks I’m embarrassed for him. “Well,” he mumbles. “How have you been?”

  I trace my river scar with my finger.

  “Fine. I mean, I’ve been kind of distracted lately,” I tell him. And then quickly add, “It’s probably just…stress.” I pause before the word stress because I want to give it some gravity. I have read that almost every human ailment is caused by stress and that doctors are very receptive to this word.

  “I see,” says Dr. Balder. He looks down at my chart and rubs his head. I wonder if he did that when he had hair. “Can I give you some advice?”

  “Okay.” Maybe this will be like the verbal version of the brochure I wish I had.

  “You’ve been through a lot, my girl. Your body and your mind are catching back up to each other. It might help to step back and gi
ve them a chance to do that work.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Have you tried meditation?”

  The rituals. “Sort of.”

  “Good, good. It can be scary sometimes to let yourself be open to what’s happening, but the only way to get past something like this is to go straight through it. No shortcuts. You understand?”

  I nod. Because I do understand. Or at least, I’m beginning to. I can’t think my way out of this, or meditate out, or will something to happen. Finding out about Nate has derailed my back-to-normal mission. Can I have both? Can I move on, knowing that he’s still around, or do I have to choose?

  I found out the truth because I broke a rule. I can do it again. I can make something happen. It feels like trying to let go of the handlebars on a bike that’s going seventy-five miles an hour. Against my instincts. Almost impossible.

  Almost.

  “Thank you, Dr. Balder,” I say, and then, surprising both of us, I throw my arms around him. He smells like Old Spice and coffee, and his doctor’s coat is softened from years of wear.

  “You’ve been through a lot, my girl,” Dr. Balder says again quietly, and before I let go, I tell him, “We all have.”

  As I’m walking out the door, something else occurs to me. Another way he might be able to help.

  “I’m writing an article for the school paper on organ donation. You know, trying to get the kids to sign up to be an organ donor when they get their driver’s license. Anyway, do you know anyone I could talk to? About how it works?”

  Dr. Balder taps his pen against the manila folder with my name on the tab. Upside down it looks like hieroglyphics, something written in a lost language. “There’s a new doctor at the hospital who might be able to help. Came from Boston. Dr. Abbott. I think his son may go to school with you. Jason, is it?” Tap, tap, tap. “No, Chase! That’s it. Chase.”

  You’ve got to be kidding me.

  “Yes,” I say. “I think I may know him.”

  “Wonderful! Let me know if you have any trouble getting in touch with him. And I’d love to read the piece when it comes out.”

  “The what?”

  Dr. Balder chuckles. “Your article. Bring a copy by the office, would you? We can put it up on the bulletin board.”

  “Absolutely,” I tell him. “I will.”

  Another lie on my to-do list. And now I have to figure out a way to ask Chase for help without asking him for help. He shared his secret hobby with me, inducted me into the Society of the Memorial Binder. I could play into that, even though I know the truth: No one can really preserve anything. There are too many variables. The minute you dodge the speeding bus, a piano falls from the sky. This used to bother me, the unpredictability of things, but now, well, I think it can be very motivating to know you’ve only got so much time to do what you want.

  And what I want is to find my brother.

  wednesday 10/1

  At the YMCA, there’s an indoor pool under a huge glass atrium, and you can stand on a balcony above it and watch the kids take their swimming lessons. It’s like a human aquarium, small creatures in brightly colored swimsuits, oblivious to my presence. Suspended in the water, arms and legs spread in all directions, the children look like they’re parachuting from a great height. They are unafraid. They are free.

  We used to take lessons in that pool, and Nate would stand on the balcony after his were over and sometimes I would wave to him as I floated around on my back. So trusting. So sure he would be there when I looked up.

  After the accident, I went there a few times when my mother wanted to walk around the indoor track but wouldn’t leave me home alone. No one ever asked me what I was doing. I guess they assumed I had a little brother or sister in the pool. If they had asked, that’s what I would have told them.

  Now—hoping for another boy-in-the-bleachers moment—I catch myself looking for him again: through store windows as I walk by, in passing cars, behind trees in the park. Despite the lump in my throat, the jumpy heart locked in my chest. I want to make it work, find a way to keep him and get over it at the same time. Can I have both? I ask myself again.

  Mr. Cunningham says there is no randomness in the universe, only the illusion of randomness. Patterns that we cannot detect because they are too large, or too small.

  He reminds me of this when he hands back my mollusk essay after class.

  “Sometimes nature fools us,” Mr. Cunningham says. “Sometimes we convince ourselves that nature needs our help, when all along nature has a bigger plan that we can’t see.”

  “Sounds like what people say about God. That there’s this big master plan and we’re just too small or too stupid to understand it.”

  Mr. Cunningham shrugs. “I’m not a religious man. But I do believe there are forces at work on a scale that I cannot fully understand. Maybe biology is my religion.”

  “You should write Ms. Pace a song about that,” I tell him. Mr. Cunningham pinkens. Mel told me that Mr. Cunningham uses his free periods to practice medieval love chants on the guitar. She also told me that Mr. Cunningham has a terrible singing voice. I don’t want to seem cruel.

  “Or a poem, maybe,” I offer.

  “Yes, well,” he says. “In any case, I’m going to ask you to rewrite your essay. There’s no rush, take your time. But the assignment was about shared characteristics of freshwater and terrestrial mollusks.” He dips his head to the side a little as he says this, as if he’s apologizing for trying to teach me. “I like what you wrote very much. But it’s a bit…philosophical.”

  I tell him that I understand, and politely decline his offer of a late pass for my next class. There isn’t a teacher in this school who will give me detention. I’m not as squeamish about their pity as I used to be. I’ll take any kind of advantage I can get, especially now.

  Dad flipped the calendar page this morning. It’s October first.

  Red Circle Day is on full display. If I want Chase’s father to help me, I can’t put this off any longer. It doesn’t have to be weird, I tell myself. Just keep it simple.

  I happen to know that Chase has calculus this period, so I saunter casually past his classroom and linger for a moment in the door’s tall rectangular window. It takes about ten seconds for him to look up. Mel sees me, too. I shake my head and point at Chase, who quickly raises his hand and asks for a bathroom break. Dr. Monroe is about five hundred years old and probably spends most of his day in the bathroom. He will not deny any of his students the same privilege.

  “What’s up?” Chase asks after closing the classroom door behind him. He is wearing his BOOM shirt again. Mel scowls at us through the window, so I take a few steps backward and Chase follows. As we huddle against the water fountain, my keep-it-simple plan suddenly seems all wrong, and instead I say, “Do you believe there are universal forces that operate according to natural laws we cannot comprehend?”

  His brown eyes widen. “Just a casual inquiry?”

  “I’ll rephrase. If Harry Houdini wanted to come back, do you think he could choose how he appeared, or who he could talk to? Are there operational rules for the afterlife?”

  Chase strokes an invisible beard. “My best guess is that the connection between our realm and that one would be subject to some kind of structure, yes. But it might not be constant. It might not be the same for everyone.”

  “That’s not a whole lot of help,” I tell him.

  “Sorry,” he says. “I’m just a guy who’s supposed to be going to the bathroom.”

  I can’t for the life of me figure out how to steer the conversation properly, and even Dr. Monroe has limits on how long he’ll let a student disappear. Then I notice that Chase is looking at my mouth. Either I have something on my face or I have just discovered that even this strange boy with the binder is not immune to hormones. My various inner voices can debate this discovery later. “What are you doing after school?” I ask.

  “You tell me.”

  “Can I come over?”

 
He looks startled, and then pleased. “Sure,” he says.

  I see tiny Tallies in his pupils, like the angel and the devil on the shoulders of a cartoon hero. “I’ll ride over later,” I tell him. Whatever he is about to say in return is cut short by a set of sharp staccato taps on the door. Dr. Monroe is glaring at us through the glass.

  “Later,” I repeat.

  And Chase echoes me. “Later.”

  I take out my phone as the door closes behind him and compose a text to Mel:

  walking home

  My thumb hovers over the send button. I have never lied to her before. I have never needed to. Is this what happens to secrets? They split like atoms and create lies as their offspring? Mel doesn’t expect me to tell her what I do or where I go, and yet I feel like I owe her an explanation for why I just pulled Chase out of class instead of her. A reason, even if it’s an untrue one. Because I am starting to realize that, all this time, I’ve been expecting her to leave on her own, for our strange friendship arrangement to run its course, for her to move on to some other cause or passing attachment. And now I think it is not going to happen that way. Our moment in the stairwell yesterday taps me on the shoulder and whispers, I can’t tell her, not yet. She’ll take it. She’ll turn it into something else.

  Mel has been my companion in limbo.

  But I’m climbing out of limbo, or trying to.

  I send the text, and then I start for home. I walk through the empty halls, my footsteps calling out through the endless air, daring someone—anyone—to find me.

  The Invasion of the Mollusk: An Essay

  by Tallie McGovern

  The pearl begins as a parasite, a microscopic invader, irritating a mollusk’s slippery mechanisms like a deep itch so that the mollusk must cover it up. Layers upon layers of calcium carbonate trap the offending particle, held together with an organic compound called conchiolin, until whatever it was that snuck into the mollusk’s shell—probably when it opened up to eat, or breathe—is contained, and made beautiful.