Twisted Fate

by Norah Olson

  “Oh my God!” Tate said, turning pale.

  “We just saw him last week,” Declan said, trying to sound calm. “Talking to Graham.”

  I started getting rides home with him every day after school. Syd was usually in detention so she wasn’t there to hassle me. He’d pick me up in the Austin and we’d drive home along the harbor looking at the ocean, sometimes stop at the beach. Sometimes we’d get out and walk along and collect stones. And he always brought his camera. He’d ask me questions or film the ocean rolling in. I got used to being with him and to being on film and to the quiet times we had.

  He did take drugs for his ADHD and for the stuff he had gone through. I didn’t pressure him to tell me what had happened back in Virginia. But he told me most of it and I knew those were things I should keep to myself. He’d been hurt enough without everyone in Rockland finding out what happened. I knew he had different conversations with Syd than he had with me and I didn’t care. I knew she was interested in the drugs he was taking and the problems he’d had but I was interested in how things could be better for him. I believed in him and I believed in his art. And I liked being independent of Syd. I liked what knowing him was doing to me. How it was changing me.

  We were at the pier and the ocean breeze was blowing my hair and my skirt. The salt air and ocean smell at once familiar and exotic. Graham put his arm around me and pulled me closer to him to keep me warm and we listened to the waves and to the stones clacking together as the sea washed over them

  “I had a dream about you last night,” he said. “I had a dream we were out in the Austin driving along these winding roads and I was filming you and your hair was whipping around in the wind and you were laughing. You were standing up on the seat with your arms stretched out. It was like you could fly.”

  I nestled my head against his chest as we walked. “What else happened?”

  I didn’t look up but could feel him smiling beside me. That way he had where he would go quiet and just grin. He was always some strange combination of shy and confident, I couldn’t quite explain.

  “You said you wanted to go visit Eric, to meet Eric.”

  I nodded. “I do want to visit Eric,” I said. “He sounds really cool.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe we can. And then in the dream I pulled you back down into the seat and then suddenly we were out in this field of red flowers by this bridge and there was fog and smoke everywhere and we were kissing and . . . you know, we were, uh . . . it was . . .”

  I knew what he meant. I’d had dreams like this about him too. I would never think to tell him about them though and I felt like he was really brave to bring it up, to even be able to talk like this.

  “Did you have a girlfriend back in Virginia?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No. I mean, I had crushes on people, but really I spent all my time with Eric. I didn’t take things very seriously, I guess. I didn’t know how to ask a girl out. What about you? Did you ever have a boyfriend?”

  I said, “Nobody all that important, I guess.”

  “What about Declan?”

  “What?” I asked. “Declan?” This was just weird. I mean I know he saw Declan probably coming and going from our house all the time but clearly he had to know who he was visiting.

  “Declan is Syd’s friend,” I said.

  Graham looked really uncomfortable to have even brought it up.

  “I think he’s more than her friend,” he said. “Uh . . . so . . . you’ve never been interested in him?”

  He started to sound a little jealous and I really couldn’t figure out why.

  I said, “Declan? No. Of course not. I wouldn’t even think of it.”

  Uh, hello? Can you tell me why we are sitting in the Laundromat?”

  “Shh. Don’t be fucking stupid. I’m trying to think. And can you come up with a better place to meet?”

  “Um . . . ,” Becky said, “how about anywhere else?”

  “Brilliant,” I said. “That’s a brilliant and creative suggestion.”

  I went over to the vending machine and got a Coke and a bag of Fritos and then sat back in one of the rolling metal baskets and hung my legs over the side. And Becky did the same. She fiddled with her nose ring and then held her hand out for the Coke and I passed it to her.

  “Remember when we put Declan in the dryer and turned it on?”

  I laughed. A few years ago Declan was shorter than Becky and super skinny and we used to hang out in the Laundromat eating candy and taking turns going for a spin in the dryer. But once we got more into skateboarding and could drive we didn’t hang out there anymore. We’d get high and walk out to Friendly’s and eat ice cream and then skate in the parking lot until they kicked us out.

  But I still liked the Laundromat; there was something about it that reminded me of simpler times and I liked to go there to just watch people or think. When I was little sometimes my parents weren’t home to make dinner because of work and I’d get change out of the big jar in the living room and walk down to the Laundromat and get lots of candy from the vending machine and sit there, watching people do their laundry. It was kinda comforting just watching people fold clothes as the sun was going down. I didn’t usually know them, they were just adults doing household stuff and it was nice to talk to them sometimes. Like we kept each other company. I remember one time my parents came home and couldn’t find me and I was at the Laundromat. After that Ally got all freaked-out about me going there and told me to stay home. Anyway. It was a place I came sometimes to clear my head a little when things got stressful or confusing.

  “It’s so fucked-up about Brian,” Becky said. She’d been really worried about the kid and I guess the whole town was and maybe that’s why we were back there eating junk food and sitting in the rolling baskets. Maybe it made the town feel normal and boring again. Or it would have felt normal and boring if there weren’t Missing posters with Brian’s picture on them hanging on the bulletin board. What had happened was starting to change us. Make us grow up a little I guess.

  “Maybe we can do something to help find him,” I said.

  “Listen, Tate,” Becky said. “Don’t even start in about Graham being some kind of stalker creep child molester or something. He made one of those films of me and I’m fine, and besides, you said the cops were already over at his house. If there was something to find, don’t you think they would have?”

  “No, no, no. I know, I’m not saying he kidnapped Brian. I’m saying maybe we can help find who did it. Graham talked a lot to the kid. Maybe he knows something or figured something out, some clue.”

  I was thinking about this one time me, Becky, and Declan hitchhiked far out into the country and pretended we were lost and then knocked on people’s doors to ask them for directions. We weren’t lost. I don’t know why we did it. We were just curious about what the insides of people’s houses looked like. And as usual we were bored out of our minds.

  This got me thinking about how the cops would be searching for Brian.

  “Hey, that’s it!” I said.

  “What’s it?” Becky said with a mouth full of Fritos.

  “We’ll do the ‘We’re lost, can we use your bathroom?’ thing.”

  “You really think this is the time to do something like that? God, Tate, stick with something. I thought you wanted to try to find Brian.”

  “Duh. This is how I want to try to find him,” I said. “The cops can only cover so much ground and regular people aren’t allowed to snoop around people’s houses.”

  “You want to go looking for a missing kid by walking into people’s houses? Why are you so crazy? I mean, really, do you even know why you are so crazy?”

  “It’s not crazy, Becks. Better yet, we can be all like, Hey, I’m lost, can we use your computer to email my mom, and then we check what websites they’ve been on.”

  “So okay, we’re going into the house of someone who may, like, molest or kidnap kids. That’s a place we’re trying to get into? And the
y’re just going to let us on their computers based on a really, really dumb idea.”

  I said, “It’s worth a try. Otherwise we just sit around here feeling weird and freaked-out, and I am not about feeling weird and freaked-out.”

  She sighed and drank more of the Coke and then looked again at the Missing picture. He was wearing his X-Men T-shirt in it and smiling. Becky’s eyes filled with tears.

  I reached over and held her hand. “What is he like?”

  She shrugged. “He used to come with his mom and hang out and read comics when she was cleaning. I remember he was really sweet. He came up to my room once and I showed him how to make things on the computer. We used to get him to talk about stuff because he had such a cute little voice. I dunno. I always thought he was a cool little kid, you know?”

  “IS a cool little kid,” I said. “And we can help look for him.”

  “Okay. Yeah.” Becky’s voice was hoarse and she wiped her eyes. “It’s better than doing nothing. Do you think Graham can really help with this?”

  I nodded. I didn’t tell her about all the feelings I had about Graham or about the fact that he was already trying to get with Ally. My feelings about him were all mixed-up. But if there was a chance to help this little kid I was going to take it.

  If there’s one thing I’m good at it’s taking chances.

  We left the Laundromat and walked through the winding roads back into our neighborhood and headed to Declan’s. I remember feeling like we had a sense of purpose at last. Not just about finding Brian, but in general. I remember thinking that Brian going missing somehow revealed what our lives were really like. We generally didn’t do much. We listened to music and skated and went to school and got stoned. Sometimes my parents decided I should go sailing with them or go to a party.

  I suddenly had this sense that maybe all the nothing we did wasn’t really our fault. The cutting class and doing nothing and sitting in the Laundromat or at the beach or out in the woods just waiting for whatever—waiting for our lives to begin. Those things weren’t entirely because we were bad kids. It’s just that there wasn’t much to do unless you were like Ally and got a kick out of baking muffins. There was a whole world out there that we were going to inherit and it wasn’t a very good one.

  I know Ally saw the good in everything—even in the end she saw the good in everything. But me, I wanted to change things so that when I finally got out of Rockland and made my own way it would be in a better place. The problem was I didn’t know how to do it. And every time I felt like I might be figuring it out something came up that swept it all away. It might not be our fault we were like this, but we were the only ones who could do anything to change it. If we wanted things to be better we had to do it. We had to work together and do it. The AMBER Alert for Brian and everyone coming together made me feel something I had never felt before and that was part of a community. Part of a big group of people who look out for one another.

  That evening with Becky and Declan, I felt like we were good people. Like we were the children of this town and we were trying to help other children in the town. The adults may not be doing a great job all the time and some of them were probably actually dangerous. But other people were doing so much and felt so touched and hurt by what happened. It was all one more thing that made me want to change. Made me want to understand Ally, made me want to do what Richards wanted. I guess when Brian went missing it was another turning point for me. Made me think in ways I never had or never had to before.

  Declan was sitting on his porch waiting for us. His house was an enormous rambling Victorian with stained-glass windows, a porch swing, and several comfortable wicker chairs scattered about the overgrown lawn, which was full of wildflowers. As usual he was sitting on the floor on the porch surrounded by a pile of books, looking like he didn’t even notice us until we were standing right in front of him. And at that point he said, “Greetings, earth women. According to your eight texts, a Facebook chat, and five voice mails, we are endeavoring to discover some information from a handsome arty dullard about a sweet little boy.”

  Becky rolled her eyes and shook her head. But when Declan looked up he looked serious and worried.

  “That’s correct,” I said.

  “Sadly,” he went on, “I am preoccupied with some reading for my AP history class, which I have not attended in some weeks. So I don’t know that I’ll be all that much help.”

  “Of course you will,” I said. “Ditch the studying for tonight. We’re just going to go over and see if Graham has any movies of Brian that might help us out and then maybe go around and do the fake ‘We’re lost’ thing so we can get more information.”

  “The fake-lost thing might be a challenge,” he said. “But I’m up for screening the handsome Art Dullard’s movies. Let’s go.” He grabbed his jean jacket off the back of the chair, slipped his bare feet into his black Vans, brushed his long black hair out of his eyes.

  “Can you guys not call him Art Dullard?” Becky asked.

  “Why?” we said in unison. Then, “Jinx,” which we also said in unison.

  “Because he’s cool as hell, that’s why. And he’s going to help us.”

  “Fair enough,” said Declan. “I’ll let up on the nicknaming until we have further information about his character and intentions.”

  We walked through the neighborhood and even though we had a purpose and Declan had been trying to keep things light with his usual joking around, things felt terribly heavy and sad. I could tell Becky was having a hard time not thinking about Brian. And I knew the three of us had probably pictured some awful thing happening to him.

  When we got back to my driveway, we expected to see Graham on the other side tinkering around in the garage with the Austin. But he wasn’t there so we rang the doorbell.

  A tall very handsome old guy—Graham’s dad, David—answered the door. And smiled.

  “Is Graham home?” I asked.

  “Oh, hey, Tate, sure, just a minute.” He took out his phone and texted something, then asked us to come into the house. Apparently yelling up the stairs wasn’t done around here—or maybe Graham just wouldn’t be able to hear him. We stood in the front hall and looked around. As usual the massive weird paintings by Graham’s stepmom, Kim, seemed to take up all the space around us.

  “Would you guys like something to drink? Or a snack?” David asked. He had sweet kind worried-looking eyes.

  I said, “No thanks,” thinking about all the junk food we’d eaten earlier.

  But Becky said, “Yes please,” at the same time. Then his phone buzzed and he looked at it. “Graham will be right down. I’ll go get some refreshments.”

  When David headed down the hall to the kitchen, Kim came around the corner holding a glass of wine. She was wearing khaki pants with paint all over them and a man’s button-down shirt. Her hair was up in a loose bun. She smiled when she saw us standing there. I remember thinking how smart she looked. Like she had a look on her face where she seemed to understand everything that was going on and to be deep in thought. Studying us as we stood there.

  “Hi, Tate,” she said. And then she reached out to shake Becky’s hand. “I’m Kim,” she said. She nodded at Declan.

  These people were very different from other people’s parents that I knew. They seemed somehow more there. They really looked at you and asked you questions. And they seemed to be very concerned, but they also treated you like an adult, didn’t ask a bunch of silly questions about school but just talked about regular stuff.

  Graham’s dad came out of the kitchen with a plate that had fancy crackers and cheese on it and a bowl full of tiny black olives. He set it on the coffee table in the living room and then pulled three little bottles of San Pellegrino from the pocket of his sports jacket and handed them to us. We sat in a row on the couch under Kim’s massive painting of a jellyfish. The house was so immaculately clean and bright and smelled good. I remember thinking how weird it was that this place was right next door to my own
house, which felt more cavernous and dark and dusty, like the hold of an antique ship. And except for the rooms where Mom entertained historical society people, it was always filled with one construction project or another. Pretty much the only thing that made my house feel like a home was the smell of the muffins Ally baked all the time.

  We were not used to this kind of snack or this kind of hospitality from adults and it was like I could hear Becky’s voice in my head saying, “See? They are so cool,” but that’s probably because she said it about Graham once an hour.

  David sat down across from us and Kim stood in front of the bookcase near their grand piano, still holding her wine. And then Graham came downstairs looking like he’d escaped from some completely other world. His hair messy, his expression slightly dazed, his clothes rumpled. He looked high.

  “Looks like someone’s been making art,” Kim said. “He’s got the unmistakable halo of creation about him.”

  Graham laughed and looked a little embarrassed. He took a couple olives out of the bowl and popped them into his mouth.

  “You guys want to come upstairs?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  David said, “We’re ordering Thai food later—is there anything special you’d like us to get?”

  Declan and Becky and I looked at each other. We didn’t even know you could order Thai food in Rockland. Or really what it even was.

  “Maybe just four pad thais?” Graham said.

  “Gotcha,” his dad said, and nodded.

  “Could we eat it in the screening room?” Declan asked.

  “Of course,” Kim said. “Wherever you’re going to be working, we’ll bring it up.”

  I remember thinking how funny it was Kim thought we would be working on something instead of just hanging out. She thought of everything as some kind of art project or the planning for some kind of art project. But actually I guess we would be working. Strategizing, and even I had to admit it was very cool of them to see it that way.