by Ally Condie
I put straws in our chocolate milk and went in to sit next to him.
Harley came up on the screen. She was still in the box, wearing the white silk dress they’d buried her in when she was unconscious. Harley’s long dark hair spread out on the satin pillow under her head. Her makeup was still perfect—plum lipstick, mascara, eyeliner that seemed to have sparkles in it. She beat her hands against the top of the coffin. “Celeste!” she said. “Let me out! You know this isn’t fair to Rowan!”
(Rowan was the man that Celeste and Harley both loved. He was the reason Celeste had put Harley underground. Celeste wanted Rowan all to herself.)
“Do you think that this time they’ll tell us how she goes to the bathroom?” Miles asked.
“Be quiet,” I said. “You have to listen.”
We thought today might be the day she would get out.
It wasn’t.
But they couldn’t leave her there forever.
19.
That night at work none of the Hellfarts came by and I sold thirty-three programs, which made me so pleased that I bought myself a lemon tart at the end of the night when they went on sale for half price.
Miles waited up so he could tell me that he had sucked his way through an entire Fireball. “Mom saw,” he said. “So it’s documented.”
“What will you do with your life now?”
“Uncle Nick told me that when he was my age he could put one Fireball in each cheek,” Miles said. “And suck on them until they were both gone.”
“That’s insanity,” I said.
“It’s awesome,” Miles said.
I ate Leo’s mom’s lasagna for dinner.
And when I went upstairs, there was something on my windowsill again.
It was a purple toothbrush. It wasn’t in a package but the bristles weren’t dirty.
Just like the screwdriver, the toothbrush was about the size and weight of something that Ben would have liked.
A dark shape flew past the window.
Maybe the birds are bringing them, I thought, as the breeze moved through the room. Sometimes Mom opens the windows in the evenings to let the air in.
I imagined the birds landing, black and swooped, on the windowsill. Looking around my room without me there to say, Go away.
The birds were like ghosts. Coming and going.
I’d never seen a ghost.
But some people believed they saw Lisette Chamberlain’s ghost in the tunnels.
I had a weird thought. What if Lisette Chamberlain’s ghost is leaving things?
I slowly turned around and looked at the door of the room I’d chosen. Purple. Purple was Lisette’s favorite color. And I had chosen this room, even though purple was not my favorite color.
And our initials were the same, but in reverse. Cedar Lee, Lisette Chamberlain.
CL-LC.
You’ve been hanging out in too many cemeteries, I told myself. Giving too many tours about people who are gone. And watching too many shows about people being buried alive.
Birds or ghosts. Neither one made it easy to sleep.
But when I did, my brain kept dreaming about things I should save up for with my money from work. What if I bought boxes and boxes of Fireballs for Miles? What if I bought an entire set of silver spoons for Ben to flip back and forth? Or a brand-new baseball mitt for my father? I didn’t dream about anything for my mom. Or for me.
ACT II
1.
One of the Hellfarts got a job selling concessions a few days later.
His name was Cory.
All the girls our age liked him except for me. Maddy and Samantha laughed at everything he said, even though nothing he said was funny.
“I need the money to get shocks for my bike,” Cory told everyone when he first started. “This is the only place in town that will hire kids our age.”
It was like he had to make sure we knew he was too cool for this job.
Cory had connections, according to Maddy.
“His dad knows everyone,” she said.
When Cory walked by, I made vrrt-vrrt sounds, like he was farting with every step. I did it when he was too far away to hear. Every time I did it I kept a straight face and Leo would turn red from trying not to laugh. Leo thought I was funny. Like it was one of my main characteristics. It felt great.
It also felt great when Gary got mad at Cory for not wearing his peasant hat during part of his first shift. “You’re in England!” he told Cory. “One more stunt like that and I’ll fire you.”
“I guess Cory’s dad doesn’t know Gary,” I said to Samantha, and she laughed too. So maybe more than one person thought I was funny.
2.
Leo and I were vrrt-vrrting past the concession stand when he stopped all of a sudden and grabbed my arm. “Look,” he said. “Right over there. Daniel Alexander.”
Daniel Alexander was the man who had founded the Summerlost Festival almost fifty years ago. He knew everything about the festival and was still involved with running it. Every now and then he came across the courtyard and if you were close enough to say hi to him he would always say hi back. To anyone, even though he was famous. He actually reminded me of Leo, the way his face lit up.
Leo had said hi to Daniel Alexander five times.
I had said hi to him zero times.
“This way,” Leo said. “Today’s the day.”
“The day I finally talk to him?” I said. “Or the day you ask if you can interview him about Lisette Chamberlain?”
“The day you talk to him,” Leo said.
“I can’t believe you’re such a chicken about this,” I told Leo. “It’s almost like you’re scared of him.”
“Oh, I’m definitely scared of him.”
“But he’s so nice.”
“Exactly,” Leo said. “It’s worse when nice people get mad at you. And he’ll be mad if he finds out I’m giving a tour about his friend.”
“But he could probably tell you so much.”
“Shut up,” Leo said. “He’s right there.”
And he was. Daniel Alexander had stopped near us to look at the signboard with the day’s Summerlost Festival activities on it. I could already see people around the courtyard turning his way, preparing to swarm. Now was our chance.
“Hi,” I said, and I must have said it loud, because Daniel Alexander jumped when he turned around, and his purple drink went all over my skirt and blouse.
“Oh no,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Is that wine?” Leo asked.
That made Daniel Alexander laugh his wonderful laugh and more people looked in our direction. Including Cory the Hellfart. Including Gary. Oh no.
“Heavens, no,” Daniel Alexander said. “It’s my special health drink. I have it every morning. Tastes awful, but it’s supposed to keep me young.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to me. “But I’m afraid the berries in it probably stain terribly.” He blinked. “Well. Nothing to worry about, my dear. You go down to the costume shop and they’ll fix you right up. Ask for Meg.”
I hesitated. Hadn’t Gary said something about making sure to stay on Meg’s good side? And wouldn’t my showing up in a stained costume be a bad thing?
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Gary moving our way.
I could let Gary get mad at me or take my chances with the unknown.
“Go,” Leo whispered.
3.
The stairwell down to the costume shop smelled old, like my dad’s elementary school, which he showed us once when we went to Portland. The floor at the bottom was speckly linoleum. The ceiling felt low and the lights hummed.
I walked past doors that said WIGS and MAKEUP and kept on going toward the end of the hall and the sign that said COSTUMES. Every sound I made seeme
d to echo. I tried to make sure my sandals didn’t squish or slap.
When I got to the costume shop doorway, no one looked up. So I stood looking in. Rows and rows of clothes on racks, all around the room. Shelves at the back. Sewing machines and ironing boards and long tables with chairs. A mini-fridge near the door. Four or five college-aged women and men moving around doing different things. One woman sitting at a computer in the corner. And an older Asian lady with short white hair sitting at one of the tables using a tape measure. She had glasses on a chain around her neck, and she wore a black apron over her blouse and pants.
She was the one who looked up first. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Meg,” I said.
“That’s me.”
“Daniel Alexander said to come see you,” I said. “About my costume. He spilled his drink on it.”
“Of course he did,” Meg said. “Wait here. I’ll find you something to wear.”
She came back out with an outfit that was completely different from the white peasant blouses and patterned floral skirts. It was a deep green dress with a full skirt and ribbons woven through it.
“You can tell Gary he’ll have to live with it for today,” she said. “I don’t have any concessions costumes left in your size. This was from the children’s act in the Greenshow, years ago.”
“Okay,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Come back tomorrow and I’ll have the other one washed for you. I don’t want you taking it home and doing it wrong and getting the stain set in for good.”
“Okay,” I said again. I resisted the urge to spin around and see what the skirt would do. The dress felt old but it didn’t smell that way. And then I had an interesting thought. If Meg had been making costumes for so many years, maybe she knew Lisette Chamberlain.
“You’re a Lee, aren’t you,” Meg said. “Ralph and Naomi Carter are your grandparents.”
“Yes.” I felt surprised even though I shouldn’t. My grandparents had lived in Iron Creek for years and my mom grew up here and the town wasn’t that big.
“I heard you bought a house here,” she said.
I nodded. “The old Wainwright house.”
“Ah,” she said. “That’s a house with some skeletons.”
I must have looked taken aback because Meg said, “I didn’t mean that literally. It’s a nice house. And I bet your mom is doing a lot of work fixing it up.”
“She is,” I said. “She’s building a deck.”
“Good for her,” Meg said. “What’s your name?”
“Cedar.”
“And you’re working for Gary.”
“Yes.”
“We could use someone to help out in the costume shop too.” Meg gestured around her at the shop, the people working in it. “We’ve got a lot of extra projects this summer. But we’ve already hired everyone we have the budget to hire. I don’t imagine you’re a juvenile delinquent who needs community service hours.”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so,” she said. “Bring that dress back tomorrow.”
4.
“Nice,” Leo said when he saw me. “Are you supposed to be a princess or something?”
“Obviously,” I said.
“Wow.”
“They didn’t have anything else in my size,” I explained.
“So how was it in the costume shop?”
“Fine,” I said. “Meg was pretty nice, actually. Maybe she’s only scary to Gary.”
“I guess it kind of makes sense that you guys get along,” Leo said.
“Why?”
“She’s Korean.”
I stared at him.
“Like, she has Korean ancestry,” he said, as if I only needed him to explain.
“I don’t have Korean ancestry,” I said. “Just because Meg and I aren’t all white doesn’t mean we automatically have things in common. That’s a stupid thing to say.”
I’d had stuff like this happen to me before. Iron Creek was a small town and even in our bigger town I’d had things said to me, usually not meant to be mean, usually just because people are stupid.
And sometimes people asked me if I was adopted, which I extra hated. I had straight dark hair like my dad’s and my eyes were the same color as his. It felt like I didn’t belong to my mom because I didn’t look like her to people who weren’t looking closely enough. Because if you do, you see that my mom and I actually look a lot alike even though she has blond hair and blue eyes.
I hated that Leo had said what he did.
“I’m sorry,” Leo said. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
I could tell he was really sorry because, for the first time since I’d known him—even when the Hellfarts were bugging him—he looked pale. And for the first time since I’d known him he didn’t know what to say.
But I was still mad.
Right then Cory walked past and knocked off Leo’s hat. “Better let your girlfriend get back to work,” he said. I hated his stupid light eyebrows and his sunburny skin.
Leo bent down and picked up his hat. A lady came by and asked him for a program. He sold it to her without any accent at all.
I watched Leo and I realized that he also knew how it felt to be different. To want big things in a very small town. To get made fun of. He wasn’t as different as I was. But he also wasn’t one of those lucky people who fit in all the time. And I thought of the first time I worked with him, what I’d seen. He did like the world—that was the thing about him that I liked the best—but the world didn’t always like him back.
“Do people think we’re going out?” I asked Leo.
He looked (mostly) relieved at the change in subject. “Most people don’t,” he said. “I’ve been telling people that we’re cousins so that they won’t think it’s so weird that we’re always together.”
I groaned. “Leo, that’s a terrible idea,” I said. “People will think we’re cousins who are dating.”
“That’s disgusting,” Leo said.
“I know,” I told him. “Plus, we don’t even look alike. Why would you say that?”
“We do look alike,” he insisted. “A lot alike. We’re both short. We both have dark hair and freckles. And our eyebrows are the same.”
“They are?” Did mine look devilish too?
5.
On the ride home we stopped by the new theater construction site.
They were pouring the foundations.
“Just big craters filled with cement,” Leo said. “No tunnels there. No mysteries.”
“What is it with you and those tunnels?”
“They’re the only place we know Lisette went that we haven’t been,” Leo reminded me. “Maybe we’ll see her ghost.”
“You can’t really believe that,” I said.
“Other people say they did,” Leo said. “And even if we don’t, this is our last chance to know for sure. At the end of the summer, the old theater and the tunnels are going to be destroyed. We’ll never know.”
When the policeman came to follow up with my mother about the accident, I hid out in the hallway by the living room and eavesdropped on their conversation. She asked him so many questions. Some she’d asked before. How could this happen? Did they suffer? Why was that driver on the road?
He said he thought it happened fast, both for my dad and Ben and for the drunk driver who hit them, but for the rest of the questions he said, We just don’t know.
We just don’t know.
Some things are gone for good. You can’t get them back. You can’t know what happened. Ever.
“Meg wondered if I wanted to volunteer,” I said. “Maybe if I worked in the costume shop I could find something out about the tunnels. Maybe about Lisette too. Meg’s been working here for a long time.”
“That would be great.�
�� Leo looked impressed.
I decided to take advantage of that.
“But you have to pay me equally for the tour stuff from now on,” I said.
“All right.”
“And never, ever say that we’re cousins again.”
“Got it.”
“And—”
“Come on. Don’t you think that’s enough?”
“There might be more,” I told him. “I’ll let you know when I think of the rest.”
6.
My uncle Nick came over that night to help my mom with the deck. I was always glad when he did because then my mom wasn’t alone out there. She wanted to finish the deck before we left for the summer and it was taking longer than she’d expected, so she often worked late, when the night cooled things off.
Nick had strung up a light in the back so they could see in the dark while they worked. I hoped it would scare the turkey vultures away but they didn’t leave. Sometimes I’d hear the sanding stop and when I looked down either Nick would have gone home or he and my mom would be talking.
Ben and I could never really talk the way Miles and I did, but I got to understand Ben anyway. At first, during the earlier years, he would scream and yell and you couldn’t say a lot to him. But then when things sort of evened out, when he’d had some therapy and my parents knew how to help him more, you could have short almost-conversations with him. Like he would say, “Do you want a LEGO set for Christmas?” and I would say, “No, I want a camera for Christmas. Do you want a LEGO set for Christmas, Ben?” He would grin really big and say yes and I knew I’d said what he wanted me to say.
Also when we went skiing together I could tell from the look on his face that he felt the way I did. Peaceful. Good. I saw him breathing deep when we went on the trails and I knew it was because he smelled the pine trees. We looked a lot alike when his face was at rest. I had never noticed it until I saw a picture that my dad showed us from one of the days we were up on the mountain.
We didn’t deal with skiing last winter. My mom didn’t get out the ski rack or the skis. She wasn’t as good as my dad, and driving in the snow scared her, even though she was the one who had lived in it all her life and my dad was from Portland, where it didn’t snow nearly as much. We didn’t even talk about going skiing. And I wasn’t mad. I didn’t want to go either. Maybe Miles did, but if so, he didn’t say.