by Kij Johnson
She gave him a puzzled look. “You wouldn’t want to see it.” She paused in the doorway. “I’m off shift in an hour. Do you have anywhere to go? Anyone you can call?”
Ephraim didn’t want to return to his apartment. He would have to wipe up his mother’s vomit, crawl around and pick up every one of those purple pills from the kitchen floor.
“Not really. Can’t I just stay here?” he asked.
“You’ve done enough for her tonight, no? We have a spare room. My oldest son is working at his university this summer.”
Ephraim almost smiled at the thought of telling Nathan he’d slept at Mary and Shelley’s house. But he wanted to be close to his mother in case she woke up. She might need reassurance that he was still all right. He should have been there for her today, and he wasn’t going to risk leaving her alone while she still needed him.
“No thanks,” he said. “I want to stay here.”
“Then I’ll ask the other nurses to let you know if anything changes. At least you won’t miss anything important at school tomorrow.”
Ephraim didn’t need the reminder. He’d been dreading the last day of school more than anything—until he’d discovered his mother at the kitchen table.
Mrs. Morales left to finish her rounds and Ephraim sat still in the waiting room until his stomach gurgled loudly. He had missed dinner, of course. He didn’t have much of an appetite, but felt he should eat something. The hospital cafeteria was closed now, but he’d seen a vending machine down the hall. Unfortunately he didn’t have any money for it.
Ephraim picked up his mother’s purse. He’d grabbed it when the paramedics came, in case they needed her ID or credit cards or something at the hospital. He looked for change, rifling through balled-up Kleenexes smeared with mascara, tubes of lipstick, and an empty two-ounce plastic bottle of rum. He threw the bottle across the room; it clattered hollowly behind a row of seats.
Shoved down to the bottom of the purse was a clear plastic bag with “Summerside General” printed on it. He fingered the wrapped contents and felt a prickle along the back of his neck. The bag contained a wallet, a key ring, a black digital watch, and a single quarter.
Ephraim dumped the bag out on the orange plastic seat beside him. He counted the keys on the ring. There were exactly five, matching the ones in his pocket: one for the lobby door, two for the apartment, one for the AV Club storage space at school, and a little circular key for a bicycle lock.
The watch was a cheap Casio like the one around his left wrist, but the plastic face was cracked. Faded pixels danced across the shattered LCD screen when he pressed his thumb against it.
He hesitated before prying open the Velcro of the gray canvas wallet. It felt comfortable in his hands, well-worn and familiar, just like his own. If he’d closed his eyes, he would have thought it was his. He flipped through a few pieces of paper that looked like foreign bills or Monopoly money in assorted colors, faded receipts, and business cards from comic book shops he’d never heard of. It also contained a membership card to a new video game store; a ticket stub from the multiplex cinema for something called Neuromancer; an expired coupon for a free ice cream; three fortune cookie fortunes; and, in the zipped inner pocket, a sealed condom.
Ephraim’s library card was tucked into the plastic sleeve, exactly where he would have put it himself. He tugged out his own wallet—similar but made of black canvas—from his jeans and looked inside. The card wasn’t there. He hurriedly checked through all the sleeves and compartments, but his library card was definitely missing. He’d lost it after all.
Ephraim let out a breath. His palms were cold with sweat. He had really worked himself up, had halfway expected to find another library card. But it was all just an amazing, terrible coincidence.
Just one item left in the bag. The quarter gave him a static shock when he pulled it out. It was one of those commemorative U.S. quarters: the back of it said “Puerto Rico 1998” at the top, with the mint date of 2008 at the bottom. The picture showed a little frog in front of an island with a palm tree.
He had a jar of those state and territory quarters back in his room, but he’d never come across one for Puerto Rico. They’d been released in limited quantities, making them rarer than the rest of the series. But the territory coins had all been minted in 2009, which meant this one could be a prototype that somehow had made it into circulation. Guiltily, he slipped it into his back pocket, reasoning that it was better off with someone who knew its value so it didn’t end up in a parking meter or vending machine. He imagined if the hospital managed to contact the other boy’s family, he could return it to them and explain why he’d held onto it.
Ephraim retrieved his library card, too, and dropped the rest of the things back into the plastic bag. He stuffed the bag back into his mom’s purse and tucked it under his arm as he walked down the hall.
His mother only had a few dollars tucked into the plastic wrapping of a carton of cigarettes, so he picked out a bag of chips, Twinkies, and a can of soda. On his way back to the waiting room, he spotted someone rounding the corner ahead of him. It looked like Nathan.
“Nathan? Nathan, wait up!” Ephraim ran to the corner but his friend wasn’t anywhere in sight. A nurse at the station looked up at Ephraim and frowned. “Sorry. Thought I saw someone I know,” he said.
It couldn’t have been Nathan anyway. Ephraim hadn’t told him he was going to the hospital.
Maybe the stress was finally getting to him. Ephraim turned around and noticed a door near the corner. He wandered over and read the small sign mounted above it: MORGUE. That was where they had the body that supposedly looked like Ephraim. He actually reached for the handle before he stopped himself. He wasn’t really going in there, was he? He glanced back at the nurse’s station. She wasn’t paying attention to him anymore.
It was probably locked anyway. But when he nudged it slightly, it opened. It would just take a second to slip through.
No, he wasn’t going to sneak into a hospital morgue. As morbidly curious as he was, he couldn’t see himself doing something like that. He pulled the door shut and went back to the waiting room. He dropped his mother’s purse on the seat beside him with the chips and Twinkies.
Ephraim popped open the soda can, and it fizzed all over his right leg before he could move it to arm’s length over the floor. He’d shaken it too much when he ran down the hall.
“Perfect,” he muttered. The dark wet patch on his jeans quickly grew cold and sticky against his skin in the air conditioned room. At least that would keep him up for a while. He had a long night ahead of him.
The last day of school was just one long assembly where they handed out awards and gave drawn-out speeches. Ephraim had never had much school spirit. As soon as it was obvious there wouldn’t be news about a local teen dying in an accident, he tuned out the rest of the announcements. He kept falling asleep and Nathan would jab him in the ribs to wake him up.
When Ephraim wasn’t drifting off, his mind wandered. He pictured his mother unconscious in the kitchen. He wondered who had been killed by that bus; he could understand if the administration didn’t want to make a statement before the student was identified, but it was strange that none of his classmates were gossiping about it either. Someone must have known the victim, even if he went to another school.
After the assembly, Ephraim and Nathan ran into Jena and the twins outside the physics classroom. The halls were emptying quickly.
“Hi, Ephraim,” Jena said. The twins simply nodded. Few people could tell the willowy girls apart, so they were jointly called “Mary Shelley” most of the time, which didn’t seem to faze them. They practically encouraged it, usually wearing matching outfits the way they had in junior high, though it was more sexy than cutesy now.
“Hey,” Ephraim said. He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “Congratulations on all your awards, Jena. I think you collected them all.”
“All but one.” She pointed at the rolled-up paper in his hand. “How m
uch you want for it?”
Ephraim grinned.
The twin on Jena’s right spoke. “Sorry to hear about your mother, Ephraim.”
“Thanks,” he said, worrying over how much they had been told. Wasn’t there some kind of doctor-patient confidentiality?
The one on Jena’s left nodded. “Our mother’s dropping us at the train station on her way to work. I’m sure you could ride with her to the hospital if you’re going back there for visiting hours.”
“Um, yeah. That would be great.” Ephraim still hadn’t told Nathan about his mother. His friend was uncharacteristically silent, as if the conversation didn’t register. He looked dazed and his hands were locked tightly around his camera. Ephraim knew what was affecting him: the identical brunettes had the best figures in school, and they weren’t shy about flaunting them.
“Where are you guys going?” Ephraim asked.
“Dinner and dancing in the city,” Jena said. “To celebrate.”
“A girls’ night out,” Mary and Shelley said quickly.
“Will your mother be all right?” Jena asked.
“She’s fine now.” Ephraim was embarrassed, even as he was pleased at her show of concern. “No big deal.”
“Oh! Before I forget,” Jena said. “I have something for you.”
“You do?” Ephraim’s heart started pounding and he felt something quiver in his gut.
She rummaged in her bag then held out a white plastic card.
His library card.
He closed his hand over it, the hard edges pressing against his palm and fingers. Blood rushed in his ears.
“Where did you get this?” he asked.
“You left it at the circulation desk the other day. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Thanks . . . I didn’t know I’d lost it.” He pulled out his wallet and snuck a glance at the one he’d recovered at the hospital. They were identical. He tucked the two of them inside together, then snapped his wallet shut and squeezed it tightly.
“I figured you’d need it, since I see you at the library a lot,” Jena said. “I’ll be working there again this summer, so I guess I’ll run into you.”
He nodded. Was that an invitation? Did she actually want to see him there or was she just being polite?
“Coming, Ephraim?” said the twin on Jena’s right.
“I need to empty out my locker,” he said. “Meet you outside?”
“Don’t be long.” The twins spoke in chorus. How did they do that?
“I’ll be right out,” he said.
The three girls split around Ephraim and Nathan as they passed, and then smoothly merged back into a row as they walked down the hall. Nathan turned and stared after them as they left, then he joined Ephraim at his locker.
“What was that about Madeline?” Nathan said.
Ephraim didn’t know when it had started, but Nathan called Ephraim’s mother by her first name. She actually enjoyed it.
“She’s in the hospital. Nothing serious.” He couldn’t bear to go into the details right now.
“Shit, no wonder you’re such a mess. Sorry to hear it. I’ll drive you over there. I’d like to see her, too.”
“No no, that’s okay. Mrs. Morales is taking me, and I think my mom doesn’t want a lot of attention at the moment. Thanks, though.”
“Hey, I bet this’ll take your mind off your troubles!” Nathan said. He showed Ephraim a picture of the three girls on his camera. They were cut off just below the shoulders and above their thighs.
“Your framing’s off,” Ephraim said.
“No, it isn’t.” Nathan grinned and pointed out Mary and Shelley’s impressive cleavage in their blue summer dresses. “It’s a shame Jena doesn’t have much up there, but she isn’t bad. Especially when she isn’t wearing those frumpy shirts she usually has on.”
Ephraim had to agree. It was nice to see Jena in a skirt. The growth spurt she’d had the summer before their freshman year of high school had distracted Ephraim into almost failing Algebra, the one class they’d shared that first semester. A lot of guys paid more attention to her that year, until she began covering herself up. Now they all wondered what she was hiding.
“She’s hot the way she is,” Ephraim said. “How did you sneak that picture anyway?” Ephraim was unable to tear his eyes from it.
“I turned off the shutter sound. But wait, there’s more.”
Nathan clicked over to the next picture, a shot of Mary, Shelley, and Jena from behind.
“Pervert,” Ephraim said. “You should be ashamed of yourself. Make sure you e-mail me a copy of that as soon as you get home.”
“I could charge for these!” Nathan leaned his wiry body against a locker and gazed blissfully at the camera screen. His long blond hair fell over his eyes. “Listen, when you get in their car, try to sit between them—”
“I’m not going to cop a feel. Their mother will be in the car.” Not to mention Jena. He wondered if he could sit close to her, though he supposed he’d be forced to ride shotgun.
“That’s what makes it extra naughty. They probably won’t say anything in front of her. Come on, look at those calves!” Nathan exclaimed. Ephraim rolled his eyes.
When he opened his locker, a piece of paper fluttered out. He bent to retrieve it from the floor.
“Make a wish and flip the coin to make it come true,” he read. It looked like Nathan’s handwriting. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” He tossed it to his friend.
Nathan read it. “Weird. I don’t know.”
“That isn’t your handwriting?” Ephraim was sure of it.
“I did not leave a note in your locker. That’s so elementary school.” Nathan scrunched up his eyes as he looked at it again. “It does look like my handwriting. A little. But I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean. What coin? It doesn’t make any sense.”
He handed the note back to Ephraim.
Ephraim stared at it. Could it be referring to the quarter he’d found last night? He hadn’t even mentioned that to Nathan yet. This was as unsettling as the duplicate library card and the idea of another kid who looked like him. But what did it mean? And who had written the note?
He pulled the quarter from his back pocket and reread the note one more time.
“You’re actually going to try it?” Nathan snorted.
Ephraim shrugged. “No harm in it.” He held the coin flat on his palm and cleared his throat.
“I wish . . .” He glanced at Nathan. “I wish my mom wasn’t in the hospital.”
Nothing happened, of course.
“Flip it,” Nathan said. “Like the note said.”
“Never mind. This is silly,” Ephraim said. He moved to put it back in his pocket and felt a jolt in his palm, as if someone had stabbed it with a pin. He dropped the coin, and it rolled away on the uneven gray tiles.
“Ow,” he muttered.
“What happened?”
“It . . . shocked me,” Ephraim said, glancing around. The coin had landed under the locker across from him. He crouched and picked it up, shaking off clumps of dust. It had come up heads. The metal felt hot for a second, but it quickly cooled in his hand. His vision swam and he suddenly felt nauseous. He clutched his stomach.
“Ephraim?” Nathan said. “What are you doing on the floor?”
He had to get to the bathroom. “I—” He wasn’t going to make it.
Ephraim turned and stuck his head into his locker.
“Dude!” Nathan said. He moved to the other side of the hall while Ephraim vomited.
Ephraim wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Sorry,” he said. He held his breath and closed the door of his locker, deciding he didn’t really need the papers and comic books that had accumulated at the bottom throughout the year. He walked to the water fountain at the end of the hall to rinse out his mouth. The water was warm and tasted metallic.
“Are you all right? The nurse might still be here,” Nathan said.
“I feel fine now.
” It was as though nothing had happened. Ephraim stuffed the quarter and the note in his pocket and grabbed his backpack. He suddenly realized how lucky he was. If that had happened while he’d been talking to Jena . . .
“But you just barfed in your locker. I mean, at least tell the janitor.” Nathan turned his camera so Ephraim could see the screen. It was a blurry shot of Ephraim with his head tucked into his locker. It was enough to make him feel queasy again. He pushed the camera away.
“I’m so glad I have you around to document my greatest moments,” Ephraim said.
“The camera doesn’t lie,” Nathan said. “You really are that much of a tool. You sure you’re okay?”
“Maybe I caught a bug at the hospital,” Ephraim said. He’d been sitting there all night, after all. But who’d ever heard of a twenty-four-second stomach flu?
“When were you in the hospital?” Nathan asked.
“I just told you, my mom went in last night.”
“Oh no!” Nathan’s eyes widened. “Is it serious? How’s Madeline?”
“Did we not just have this conversation?” Nathan must have been more distracted by the twins than he’d thought. “She’ll recover. I’m catching a ride with Mary and Shelley to the hospital now,” Ephraim said slowly. “Remember?”
Nathan seemed even more surprised by that. “You’re kidding. I’d love to share a back seat with them. Man, I wish my mom were in the hospital.”
“Careful what you wish for,” Ephraim said.
Wait a minute. Wish?
He’d just made a wish that his mother wasn’t in the hospital. Now Nathan didn’t remember it . . .
This is Cat Rambo’s first nomination for the Nebula Award; she has also been nominated for the World Fantasy Award.
Over the years, Tikka’s job as a Minor Propagandist for the planet Porcelain’s Bureau of Tourism had shaped her way of thinking. She dealt primarily in quintets of attractions, lists of five which were distributed through the Bureau’s publications and information dollops: Five Major China Factories Where the Population of Porcelain Can Be Seen Being Created; Five Views of Porcelain’s Clay Fields; Five Restaurants Serving Native Cuisine at Its Most Natural.