Shackled

by Tom Leveen

  Neither of us said anything as David drove us to the Hole in the Wall. He turned the radio on, a little loud, something playing Top 40. Then when we pulled into the dirt parking lot, my body stiffened in the seat and I sucked in a breath.

  “What now?” David said.

  I shook my head. Stared at the entrance. Even in broad daylight the building I’d come to appreciate as a home away from home looked like an ancient dungeon, waiting to consume me.

  “I don’t know if I can go back in there,” I said. My stomach felt the same way it did a few years back when I started ditching school. Cramped and fluid. My chest constricted, my breath quick and tight. I swallowed and shivered, hearing the creep’s keys jingling in my head.

  David didn’t say anything for a minute. I saw him shaking his head a little. Then he said, “Guess you better call out sick, then.”

  With that, he got out of his truck and shut the door, heading into the Hole. I watched him go, feeling absolutely useless and stupid and petrified. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t dig out my phone, or get out of the car and walk home, and I sure couldn’t go to work.

  So when David reappeared from the Hole a few minutes later and walked back to the truck, I assumed it was to tell me to get the hell out of it. Go walk home, or come in and go to work, but definitely and certainly get out of his truck.

  He climbed in, his mouth drawn tight. “Home?” he asked.

  “What are you . . . what did—”

  “Told Eli you were sick and I’d take you home. But I don’t care if you actually go home or not, I’ll drop you off wherever you want, I do not care.”

  I was not attracted to David Harowitz. But right then I came perilously close to kissing him. No one had done anything like that for me before. He was pissed, yes. And I didn’t blame him. I had that effect on people. But still. He’d gone to the trouble.

  “Um, sure,” I said.

  “Sure, what.”

  “I mean home, sure.”

  David pulled out of the parking lot without another word.

  I said, “Aren’t you going to get in trouble with Eli?”

  “Who knows, who cares,” David said. “I just like to live dangerously. I’m a real adrenaline junkie.”

  Clearly he was joking, but he didn’t smile.

  I decided silence was my best option. I watched the city go by, grateful I wasn’t out in it. I wondered what Tara was doing, where she was. Truthfully, I’d hoped for more from Detective Larson. There had to be some way to make him understand I wasn’t out of my mind. Or no more so than usual, anyway.

  And I knew what I had to do.

  “Um, David?”

  “What.”

  “Can I ask you for another favor? And you can say no.”

  David barked a mirthless laugh. “Oh, may I?” he said. “Trust me, I know I can say no.”

  He ground his teeth for a couple seconds, then said, “What is it.”

  “Could you maybe take me up to Paradise Valley? I need to talk to someone.”

  “Wow,” David said. “You must think I am the world’s biggest pushover weenie doormat.”

  “No. No, it’s not that.”

  “Well, I think I am.” He switched lanes. Signaled and everything. He was a really careful driver. “I don’t know why I’m doing this. Where are we going?”

  I wiped my hands on my jeans. “To see Tara’s parents.”

  SIX

  Tara lived—I mean, her family lived—in a newer development where the houses looked like they’d been manufactured at some mansion factory and shipped here. You could practically walk from red-tile rooftop to rooftop. The Homeowners Association ensured every lawn was green and fresh. Every street clean and smooth. Every flower expertly clipped. A pretty place to live, I guess. But also kind of sterile.

  “Nice neighborhood,” David muttered.

  “Yeah.”

  “What do her parents do?” David asked after I pointed to the next turn we needed to make.

  “Her dad’s an architect. Her mom teaches college classes from home. Like, online. History. That’s what they did when we lost Tara, anyway. I haven’t talked to them since Tara’s older sister, Carla, went out of state to college. That was a few years ago now.”

  “Well, at least we’ve gotten everyone’s attention,” David said, kind of low, like the neighbors could hear.

  I saw what he meant. David’s rusty red pickup stuck out, as my mom once said about an old dress, “like a turd in the caviar.” Any car older than three years in this area was cause for alarm.

  “Where do you live?” I asked. For some reason I felt like I needed to know.

  David shook his head quickly. “Not like this,” he said, his eyes darting around at the large houses. “Not here. Not in a place like this, I mean.”

  He blew out a breath. I’d never seen him nervous like that before. Funny that it would take a sort of rich part of town to make him respond like that.

  I had David park on the street in front of the Jacobses’ house. Or what I hoped was still their house.

  “What’re we doing here again?” David asked as he kept glancing around the neighborhood. “I mean, what exactly is your big plan? You sure you want to open this up with them?”

  “No, I’m not entirely sure,” I said through closed teeth. “It’s just that maybe something will trigger a memory for them, like maybe that guy used to work for her dad, or coached soccer when Tara used to play. Something. I don’t know. I just know that I can’t sit around waiting.”

  “You don’t have to do it,” David said. “I mean, it was spur of the moment.”

  “I know,” I said, turning to stare at the house. Just seeing it again was making me chilly beneath my skin. For a moment I imagined Tara coming bounding out the front door, summer-tan and sixteen, ready to jump into a Jeep and conquer the world. I ran with her, smiling, squinting at the sun, thinking, You can’t stop me, you can’t stop me.

  I sucked in a breath. I’d never been that girl. I could never be that girl. Not unless I got Tara back.

  I sat motionless as David drew in a long breath through his nose. He still didn’t look comfortable being here. But then to my surprise, he said, “So you want me to come with?”

  “No,” I said. “It’s probably better if you wait. Do you mind?”

  David shut off the engine and said, “Nope.” He leaned across me and opened the glove box. He took out a book and sat back in his seat. I grabbed it away from him and looked at the title.

  “Tai Chi Classics?” I said, recognizing it from the café. “You really are into this whole cage-fighting thing?”

  “Hardly,” David said. “Wing chun and tai chi don’t have much to do with MMA.”

  “But you really do study it?”

  “Sure. Since I was little. Seven or eight.”

  “Are you, like, a black belt or something?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “That’s cool.”

  “Thanks,” David said. “Are you stalling?”

  “Kind of.”

  “You okay?”

  He’d been asking that a lot lately. I nodded. Let the breath out. “If it was your kid, you’d want any information that was out there, wouldn’t you?”

  “Probably.”

  “And if I tell them what’s happening, they might be able to make the cops do more. Right?”

  “What is it that you think the cops are not doing?”

  “I don’t know, but . . . well, you saw Detective Larson this morning. He doesn’t believe me.”

  “That’s not what I saw, Pelly.”

  “I mean he doesn’t think anything will really come out of it, that’s all,” I said, squeezing my hands into impotent fists. “Not that I was, like, lying or anything. God.”

  “No, I—sorry,” David said. He s
hifted around in his seat. “Well, if you’re gonna go, go.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Okay. David?”

  “What.”

  “Thanks.”

  I climbed out before I could see or hear a response. I was afraid I wouldn’t have liked it.

  A pale brown stone path curved to the front door. I followed it, wondering if an alarm would sound if I stepped onto the grass. I rang the doorbell and waited.

  Mrs. Jacobs opened the door and gazed down at me.

  “Yes?”

  It felt like someone had jabbed a needle into my heart. She didn’t even recognize me.

  “Mrs. Jacobs? It’s me. Penelope Wells? Pelly?”

  Her frown stayed in place for another long moment, lips drawn down, eyes tired. Finally she straightened up a bit and almost smiled.

  “Pelly,” she said. “My God. How are you? Come in.”

  Relieved, I walked into the house and Mrs. Jacobs shut the door behind me. She walked—or shuffled, really—to the kitchen. A coffee scent not as good as our Hole in the Wall blend filled the room. It smelled burnt.

  “Please, sit,” Mrs. Jacobs said, gesturing weakly to a kitchen chair.

  I sat down and folded my hands tightly in my lap. Now that I was here, I didn’t know how to tell her what I’d seen. I should have given myself time to rehearse.

  “How have you been?” Mrs. Jacobs asked, sitting across from me. A laptop sat open on the table in front of her. “It’s been so long.”

  Her forehead wrinkled when she said it, like there was more than one meaning to her words. I suppose there was. Wondered suddenly if my being there hurt her. If I reminded her too much of Tara.

  Everything on the planet probably reminds her of Tara, just like everything reminds you of how things used to be and how you can’t drive past that mall without looking for Tara like she’d still be—

  Snap. I used my rubber band, keeping my hands under the table. Focus, Pelly. Focus.

  “I need to tell you something important,” I said carefully, staring at the tabletop. It was the same table as when I’d been here last. I recognized a knot and crack in the wood that reminded me of an old oak lollipop.

  “And I don’t know how you’re going to take it,” I went on. “I tried talking to the police this morning, but . . .”

  Her forehead wrinkled again. I’d always thought Mrs. Jacobs was a pretty woman. Elegant and put-together. After Tara disappeared, though, day by day her appearance had deteriorated. Either her hair had turned gray or she stopped trying to cover it up, I don’t know which. Fine wrinkles that had made her distinguished six years ago had grown into deep creases that didn’t flatter her skin. Even her beautiful brown eyes seemed to have a film over them.

  “All right,” she said. “What is it? Are you in trouble?”

  “Oh, no, I’m fine,” I said. “It’s just that . . . I got this job at a coffee shop in downtown Phoenix a few months ago, and yesterday I saw . . . Mrs. Jacobs, I saw Tara.”

  Her jaw went rigid, eyes unblinking.

  “I know how that must sound,” I added quickly. “I didn’t believe it myself at first, but it was her. She had that mole on her neck and everything. She was with this old guy, this creepy older guy, and she was so pale and skinny . . .”

  I babbled on and on while Mrs. Jacobs sat rock-still in her chair, staring at me.

  “So I called the police, and this morning I went to the station and talked to Detective Larson, you remember him? And I ID’d the guy I saw, at least I think I did, but . . .”

  I trailed off as I looked into Mrs. Jacobs’s eyes.

  This was a bad idea, my coming here. A terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad idea.

  Mrs. Jacobs rose from her chair and walked stiffly to a cabinet near the fridge. She took out a prescription bottle, and I couldn’t help but notice several others on the bottom shelf. She shook out two small pills and placed them on her tongue, then splashed them down with a half-empty glass of water nearby.

  Her hands shook the entire time.

  “So, yeah. That’s it, that’s everything,” I said. I had to fill the silence. It was giving me goose bumps.

  She hadn’t moved since taking the pills. Just stood by the counter, gripping its edge.

  “Mrs. Jacobs? Are you all right?”

  “No,” she growled. “I am rather far from all right.”

  I sucked in a breath and bit down on my lower lip.

  Mrs. Jacobs whirled on me but kept a hand on the counter as if to steady herself.

  “Six years,” she said. “Six years I’ve waited and prayed for my little girl to come home and she hasn’t. How dare you come in here saying this kind of nonsense? Penelope, how could you?”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “I never blamed you, I always blamed myself,” Mrs. Jacobs went on as if she hadn’t heard me. And it kind of looked like she hadn’t. “I thought that was clear, I thought you understood that . . .”

  “I did,” I said, and immediately it sounded wrong. Like I was saying it was her fault.

  “Get out,” Mrs. Jacobs barked, pointing a sharp finger toward the front hallway.

  I dropped my head and raced out of the kitchen, out of the foyer, and out the front door, not stopping to bother closing it behind me, all but running down the stone path to David’s car, climbing in, and slamming the door shut. My eyes had irised halfway shut, like tunnel vision.

  “Go,” I said.

  David set his book aside. “How’d it—”

  “Stupid,” I said out loud. I was saying it only to myself.

  Winter sunlight warmed the interior of the car. I gazed slowly around at the neighborhood; at the various shades of tan paint coating all the look-alike houses, the cloudless sky overhead, the shiny cars parked on pristine white carports. The Jacobs home sat in a cul-de-sac.

  A dead end.

  This neighborhood, the Jacobses’ house, the calls to the cops. All of it.

  “So stupid,” I whispered.

  I could feel David wanting to ask, wanting to know, wanting to do something. Finally, he did the absolute right thing: he tossed his book under his seat, started the car, and took me home.

  I didn’t say thank you. But I did try.

  SEVEN

  I had David drop me off at home. We shared mumbled good-byes, and that was it.

  I scurried into the house alone. Closed and locked the door. Rushed to my room. Sat on my bed, got my gear, bared my leg. Drew the razor north to south down my calf, close to my knee pit.

  Burn, burn, burn.

  My heart stopped. Considered. Started up again, slower. Slower. Slowing . . .

  Better.

  I cleaned the blade and put it back into its case, which went back into my pocket. I dabbed the slice with tissue from the travel-size pack I kept in my bag. Never toilet paper, never a napkin. It’s got to be my own personal stash. Couldn’t say why. Maybe I was afraid of germs.

  Once the blood stopped draining, I plastered it with a bandage three fingers wide, rolled my pant leg back down, checked myself in the bathroom mirror, and, finally, tried to do math problems until Mom and Jeffrey would be home.

  It’s a lot of work being me anymore.

  A few hours later, as I was trying to get something ready for dinner, Mom arrived home with Jeffrey in tow, muttering about having to leave work early to go pick him up, and why couldn’t I just get my driver’s license like a sensible teenager so she wouldn’t have to drag not one but two of us around all the time. . . .

  So instantly my mood perked up.

  Just kidding.

  “Why didn’t that guy David come get me?” Jeffrey wanted to know as soon as he walked in the door behind Mom.

  “Because he had things to do,” I said, trying unsuccessfully to boil pasta for dinner.

&n
bsp; “What kinds of things?” Jeffrey wanted to know.

  “The world doesn’t revolve around you!” I shouted.

  Jeffrey blinked up at me, wounded. He set his jaw and said, “You suck.”

  He marched out of the kitchen just as Mom marched back in from dumping her bag in her bedroom.

  “What on earth?” she said.

  “Nothing,” I said, dumping mashed pasta down the disposal. It’s a mystery to me how I could fail to boil pasta correctly. I slammed the colander into the sink. “You’ll have to order in.”

  “What is the matter with you?” Mom asked.

  “What isn’t?” I said back. “I just want to feel better, you know, just go back to how everything used to be, but no one will let me, and I miss . . . I just miss . . .”

  I suppose the most logical way to finish that sentence was with the name “Tara.” Only that wasn’t the first thing that came to mind. The first thing that came to mind was “me.”

  Mom listened to all this with her eyebrows raised.

  “Have you been taking your meds?” she asked. Just a polite inquiry. Just wondering, you know, just curious, no biggie either way.

  “No,” I said as defeat dragged my shoulders down. “No, Mom. I haven’t. I got tired of being tired. I got tired of not being able to think at all.”

  That was no lie. Then again, thinking hadn’t gotten me very far lately.

  “Well, maybe they need to change them up,” Mom said. “It’s not an exact science, you know. Maybe you need a new dosage, or a new kind . . .”

  I stared at her, long enough and in a silence so cold she couldn’t miss it.

  “What?” she said.

  “Change the dosage,” I said slowly. “Okay.”

  I walked out of the kitchen and into my room, ignoring Jeffrey and his video game in the living room. I closed my door, squatted on the floor, and screamed into my elbow.

  After screaming for about three or four years straight, my vocal cords as raw as rancid hamburger, I stayed hunkered on the floor, wishing for the little yellow pills my doctor had prescribed after Tara was taken. They’d usually knock me out cold, and if they didn’t, I could at least spend the next six to eight hours comfortably numb to the world. That’s what I wanted more than anything right then.