by Emma Young
The cover reads: Adopt-a-Turkey Project. Start a new Thanksgiving tradition and save a life!
“Every year, three hundred million turkeys are slaughtered,” he says. “They’re crowded together in these nightmare conditions. They have their beaks cut off without anesthetic.”
“I—I don’t eat turkey,” I say.
“You’re vegetarian?”
“Actually, I just don’t like turkey.”
I hold out the leaflet for him to take it back.
His extremely green eyes narrow. “Are you on the Ultimate Frisbee team?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“You’re British. Obviously. You’re at the high school?”
My pulse throbs a little harder. Again, I shake my head.
“So, what, are you new in town?”
“Visiting,” I manage.
“What—family?”
“Kind of.”
I know: A robot could do a better impersonation of a human than I’m accomplishing right now. I don’t think I could be more off-putting. But he just smiles and says, “Mystery . . . I like it.”
I glance past him, at the counter. Still, I can see only two women at work with the machines and the blenders.
“So, I don’t want to get between a girl and her coffee. You’re a guest in my town. Let me get it. I’m Brandon.”
I blink at him. “Thanks, really, but—”
Only I don’t get to finish my sentence because a hand’s clamping my shoulder and Joe’s voice is in my ear. “Rosa, let’s go.”
Brandon gives me a questioning look, which I think means, Is everything okay, or do you want me to step in?
I twist myself free.
“Let’s go,” Joe says quietly again.
I don’t want a scene in this Starbucks. So I say to Brandon, “Good luck with the turkeys.” And I walk around Joe and out, onto the sidewalk. I go a little farther down the street so Brandon and the women in the window can’t see us.
Joe’s holding my sunglasses. “Maybe you want these?” he says. “Or maybe you don’t care anymore who might recognize you and call Sylvia’s parents?”
“I guess that’s up to me,” I say, knowing how stiff I sound, but taking the glasses.
“You were supposed to wait for me. I had no idea where you’d gone.”
“That’s why you’re mad?”
He frowns. “I’m not mad. I thought—what if her dad had found you? Or you were upset over something you’d read in the book, or you were still in a kind of shock after the woman with the dog, and you’d wandered off and fallen over, like you did at the reservoir.”
I’m not sure what to say to this.
I take a step toward him. Then another. I’m close enough to touch him, but I don’t.
If he was worried, I am touched. But perhaps there’s another reason why he’s not happy.
“I guess it feels like I’m always locking you out of my head,” I say.
“It doesn’t feel like that,” he says, nodding a little. “That’s how it is.”
“I told you I signed a legal document,” I say. “But it’s not even the legal side I worry about.” I look him in the eye. “Someone did something huge—beyond huge—for me, and in accepting it, I promised to keep it secret. I’m sorry I left the library. I’m sorry I can’t tell you the truth. If you want to go back to Boston, you should, and if you can lend me some money, I can get it straight back from my brother. I’m really grateful for everything you’ve done.” If I could stop my tears, I would. I wipe them away. “I’m also sorry I’m crying.”
He says, “I guess if I go, if anyone is searching for my car, I’ll lead them away from you.”
“No! That’s not even vaguely what I’m thinking.”
“It’s very hard to know what you’re thinking most of the time.”
“. . . I know.”
I reach out and wrap my arms under his. I press them tight around him. As I feel his arms close around me, the mess of emotions inside me resolves into relief.
We stand there, together. A huge part of me wishes I could stay like this, and never move.
He gently brushes hair from my ear and says quietly, “So do you want me to go?”
“No.”
After a moment, he says: “Why Starbucks? Did you want coffee?”
I shake my head. And I press my face harder against his shoulder.
“I don’t think coffee would be good, anyway,” he says. “You seem to be shaking.”
I think of the dad and the boy with the textbooks. “Maybe I just need sugar,” I mumble into him.
He holds me a little tighter. “At last,” he says.
I realize we haven’t eaten since last night. “Are you really hungry? Sorry—”
“No,” he says. “I mean at last, you have a problem I can easily solve.”
After I finally, reluctantly let go of Joe, I see a store across the road. It’s not the name I notice first but the window boxes, which are planted with ornamental cabbages and purple parsley. I recognize them from a photograph on Althea Fernando’s Facebook page. It was of Sylvia, Althea, and another girl smiling, tongues out over cups of ice cream.
This is Rancatore’s.
It has the slightly mismatched feel of a non-chain place. The fridges and freezers are different sizes. On the wall is a bulletin board pinned with all kinds of community ads—for yoga classes and kids’ math tutoring and guitar lessons.
My sunglasses in place, I join Joe, who’s peering down at the glass-fronted counter. It’s packed with tub after tub of chocolate chip, kulfi, pistachio, black raspberry, banana walnut, butter pecan, butterscotch ice cream . . . If there’s a flavor that makes you think delicious, it’s probably here.
“Can I get a small cup of chocolate mousse frozen yogurt?” I ask the aproned boy behind the counter.
Joe asks for a cup of butterscotch. “Sit down if you want,” he says. “I’ll bring them over.”
Actually, I do want. Because I still feel pretty shaky.
I sit at a round wooden table. At the next table, a group of kids are fawning over a silky spaniel puppy.
“I want the dog!” a girl in a purple hoodie shrieks. “I want the dog!”
Another laughs so hard at her phone, ice-creamy saliva hits the screen. She grabs her friend’s arm. “We are, like, the worst class ever!”
Hannah—Althea’s cousin—isn’t here. But it’s a relief. I didn’t come into Rancatore’s to find her.
I have to balance the risk of someone thinking they recognize me and calling Sylvia’s parents against the benefits of the entire reason I’m here: to find out about Sylvia.
I’ve seen where she lived, and where she went under the ice. I know she could sing like Elle King. Maybe when I’m feeling brave—and I’m alone—I’ll properly try singing. Apart from singing along to music in my room, it’s not really something I’ve tried since the surgery. What will matter most, I wonder—her vocal cords and lungs, or my brain?
Other achievements, if you can call them that, since being here: I read so much in the memorial book. And my most important goal—to talk to a close friend of Sylvia’s—is within reach.
Joe comes over. He puts my cup of frozen yogurt in front of me, with a little spoon.
“Thank you.”
“You are welcome,” he says.
“It’s on my tab.”
“If you like.”
He sits down with a larger cup of glistening golden ice cream piled with miniature purple nuggets.
“What are those?” I ask him.
“Nerds. Don’t tell me you don’t know what they are.”
"Nerds? . . . I wouldn’t have guessed you’d go for an ice cream like that.”
“Like what?”
“I’d have said vanilla, strawberry, or chocolate. No gimmicky flavors, no sauce, no topping.”
He makes a face. “Butterscotch is not gimmicky. I don’t like sauce.”
"Nerds?”
“D
on’t you like candy?”
“Not really.”
I dip my spoon into the slick, melting top layer of chocolate. Slip the frozen yogurt into my mouth. It’s not too cold as to be a shock. Not too sweet. Joe is watching.
I force myself to take a proper spoonful and swallow it. Then another.
When I’ve emptied half the cup, I put the spoon down. My heart’s still racing. Perhaps partly from the sugar. But I’m thinking about Sylvia’s memorial book.
A green wristband printed with GOVERNORS BALL was taped to one page, with this comment underneath: Such good times, Sylvia. So much love.
“Do you know what the Governors Ball would be like?” I ask Joe. “Like a proper ball? With long dresses?”
I watch him try to hide a smile. “It’s a music festival in New York.”
“Oh. Have you been to it?”
He shakes his head.
“What’s Ultimate Frisbee?”
“Frisbee with teams that compete. A sport.”
“A sport?”
“Why not?” he asks.
“I thought Frisbee’s just something parents do on holiday with their kids. It seems like a strange thing to make into a sport.”
“Says the girl from the island that invented hitting a tiny ball into holes.”
“Is golf a sport?”
“So,” he says, that smile still lingering, “sports really aren’t your thing.”
And he glances—I watch him—at my hand. My right hand. I take this as confirmation that he has noticed my weakness on that side. I can’t help it; I drop my hand under the table, like it’s burned.
“Sports aren’t really my thing, either,” he says quietly.
But they were Sylvia’s.
At least they were three years ago, according to the Massachusetts Ultimate Frisbee girls’ state championship silver medal certificate that I found in the memorial book.
I force myself to return my hand to the table. It’s like lifting lead.
“What’s wrong?” I ask him, because he’s stopped eating. “Have you gone off Nerds?”
He looks a little relieved. “Now you’ve questioned them. Now you’ve said they mark me as a not-serious person. I’ll only ever eat plain vanilla, strawberry, or chocolate.”
Then he reaches out. Takes my hand. My right hand. Holds it in his.
His fingers are cold from holding the cup of ice cream. Maybe that’s why chills start to unfurl through me. And he’s looking at me so intently. But then the puppy squeals, and I glance over. It’s wriggling, suddenly desperate to escape the hoodie girl’s grasp. On the wall behind her, I notice a framed cover of a New Yorker.
The illustration is a simple drawing of an apple, an orange, and a pear. This triggers thoughts of Elliot, of course, and I do not want to think of Elliot.
The moment is gone. I looked away when I shouldn’t have, and I saw something I didn’t want to see.
I want to be the person who was standing on the street entwined with Joe, and who can still feel the tingle from his touch in her skin. I want to focus on being that person.
The most beautiful thing he has ever experienced.
The girl who Joe sees.
A sudden wail from the street halts my thoughts. A siren. It stops, then starts again. Louder. Closer.
Joe locks eyes with me. Shakes his head.
I whisper, “If they’ve found your car—”
Right outside the window now is a rapid-fire wail from what must be a police car.
“They’re not after you,” Joe says intently.
Maybe I should think “most likely.”
But, as I know so well, most likely isn’t always right.
27.
Either that police car was looking for me and didn’t find me, or it was after someone else.
I guess Joe was right. But just hearing that siren puts me even more on edge. Going into Starbucks without my glasses wasn’t smart. Even being in Rancatore’s, in disguise and with Joe, perhaps pushes me too far into “risks” and away from “benefits.” I can’t let anything jeopardize my meeting with Althea.
So, after we leave Rancatore’s, I ask Joe to leave the car on a back street. Then we walk around places that would have meant something to Sylvia.
Like her school.
It’s Saturday, so it’s deserted.
It’s windy, too, and dead leaves are blowing across the central courtyard, between the buildings.
“Empty schools make me feel kind of the same way as empty swimming pools,” I say.
“Peaceful?” Joe asks.
“Not exactly.”
When I notice the little loudspeakers mounted on the walls, the sinister vibe only intensifies. I imagine they must be used for announcements, but to me they give the place an abandoned-prison-camp feel.
After the high school, we stop by the playing field outside the nearby Bridge Elementary School, because, according to Joe’s web search, this is where the Ultimate Frisbee team trains.
Another empty school. This one even has a silent playground, which doesn’t exactly lessen the post-apocalyptic atmosphere.
After that, we drive to a mall in nearby Burlington. Lexington itself doesn’t have much in the way of clothing stores. I guess Sylvia would have come here to shop. Joe buys a plain black T-shirt and maybe some underwear. I don’t keep too close an eye—I’m too busy watching the girls out shopping with friends, or their mums, or their boyfriends. I’m one of them—a part of this world.
Then we head back to the motel.
I don’t know what counts as going-out clothing in Lexington, Massachusetts, but I do at least have a fresh pair of skinny jeans and a loose, low-cut, chalk-colored top I can change into after showering. While I get ready, I listen to Elle King on Joe’s phone. “America’s Sweetheart.” “Ex’s & Oh’s.” Over and over.
And now we’re driving.
It’s 8:12 P.M.
Joe spins the wheel, sending us across four lanes, off the highway. Ahead, a green glow lights up the trees.
We pull into a parking lot. It’s packed. At last, we find a space between an old sedan and a pickup truck, a bloody-mouthed ghoul tethered to the roll bar.
Joe looks at me. “Ready?”
I nod.
At the far side of the parking lot, backed by trees, is a colonial-style building. The emerald walls and the lighting, and O’Neill’s Bar & Restaurant in Gaelic script above the porch, make it seem a little like something from a theme park.
Joe’s heading for the steps that lead up to the entrance. I join him.
When I meet Althea, I’ll tell her what Joe must be thinking: I’m Sylvia’s estranged identical twin. By the time I leave O’Neill’s, I’ll have everything I need.
The thought of it starts to fill me with a kind of righteous elation.
I think:
We both were buried alive—and now I’m digging us out.
As we walk through a lobby, down into the bar and restaurant area, my senses kick in.
Music. That’s what I notice first, and I recognize the song. It’s by Mumford & Sons.
Then my sense of smell joins the party. I detect perfume. People. Beer. Pizza. Saturday-night release, if that’s something you can smell.
O’Neill’s is all dark wood and brass, and it’s crowded. On a mezzanine level off to the left, men and a few women in military fatigues are spinning darts at a board. To my right, restaurant customers are tucking into burgers and salads, listening to the band. A cover band.
It’s playing on the far side of the square-shaped bar. I can just about make out a small stage, and people dancing. Did everyone dance when Sylvia sang? Was Althea here, cheering her on?
Around the bar itself, mostly men are sitting, talking, drinking, and watching the TVs, which are showing sports. Men in chinos, in aged leather flying jackets, in faded T-shirts, with beards.
My attention’s caught by a flash of green at one of the long tables. Every one of a group of ten or so girls is we
aring a little green net veil pinned to her hair. A bachelorette party, I guess.
As I glance around, I’m cautious. I’m wearing the wig, of course, but sunglasses in here, at night, would only draw attention. If anyone who knew Sylvia really looks, they’ll see her, and there’s nothing much I can do—except keep my head down.
I let my eyes skip from face to face to face . . .
Everyone seems to be having a good time.
I feel a little like an alien, analyzing the room and making my estimations. But if you don’t count going with my parents, which I don’t, this is the first time I’ve ever been in a bar.
“Over there,” Joe says.
He veers over to a high table with two bar chairs. These might just be the only unoccupied seats in the place.
Joe takes off his jacket, slings it over the back of his chair. I sit down opposite him, but so I’m half facing the wall, which is decorated with coats of arms of the counties of Ireland. A waitress in black spots us, comes over.
“Hi, folks, are you dining with us tonight?”
Joe says, “Sure.”
“Okay, I’ll bring menus right over. Can I get you some drinks?”
“A Diet Coke, thanks,” he says.
“Yeah, the same, please,” I say.
As she leaves us, she smiles.
“So what do you think?” he says, glancing around.
“I quite like it.” It’s true. From the outside, it looked a little cheesy. But it’s full of all kinds of people. And the atmosphere’s upbeat.
The waitress returns with heavy black menus.
“Here you go,” she says. Another smile.
Joe opens his up. His eyes focus, I guess, on the appetizers and entrees. Mine are tracing the shallow-cut-marble muscle of his arms. I let my gaze trail up to his chest.
There’s half an hour until I’m due to meet Althea.
“So, if I was going to tell my cavegirl friends about you, I’d like to have more to go on,” I tell him.
He looks up. “What kind of more?”
“I’m wondering: What’s the least cool thing about you?”
I’ve surprised him. I can see it.
“The least cool thing?”
I nod.
Looking thoughtful, he closes the menu. “I thought you weren’t going to be satisfied with stories.”