Head Rush

by Carolyn Crane

  I’ll give Gumby to Shelby to give to Packard, with instructions that he has to keep Gumby exactly like this, because that is how things ended up.

  The dashboard clock ticks. Here in the closed car, it’s like the only sound in the world. Seven forty-five. It’s going to be an insane day, even without the predicted fight to the death. I’m tired just thinking of it all, or maybe that’s the exhaustion setting in. The Dowagers’ luncheon, as Shelby calls it, is at nine-thirty—she’s the only one of my bridesmaids going to it. Then I will accompany school children to the Midcity graveyard to honor the dead. Shelby will have to find an excuse to duck out—she needs to get to the storage locker with Packard, but Ez, Simon, and Ally will have to go with me. The school children are to sing songs.

  Otto will be with the Midcity Mavens at that time; they’re holding an honorary wedding ball game in which Otto is expected to play for an hour. At that point, I’ll be in my final fitting for the dress, and then having my hair done. Otto’s club, the Merovingian Club, is holding some cigar-and-cocktail event for him during the early evening. Dad is invited too, but he won’t go. That’s around the time I’m to attend the Midcity Fashionista Club’s champagne event where I will give them a sneak peek of my dress, alongside my bridesmaids in their dresses. At seven, I’m to show up at the courthouse steps with Dad for the horseback procession. Dad and I and some Midcity guardsmen will lead it, along with my bridal party, followed by a band, some classic cars carrying dignitaries of the city and other guests, then baton-twirling brigades, more horseback riders. Otto and his groomsmen and best man, Fancher—his detective partner from Otto’s time on the police force—will join the parade at the rear, once it begins. In keeping with tradition, I won’t even see him for the parade. We will enter the church at seven-thirty. The reception is set for eight-thirty.

  I get out of the car, shutting the door softly.

  A deep voice. “Hello, Justine.”

  I jump and spin around. Otto leans on a nearby concrete pillar.

  “Otto! What are you doing here?”

  “What are you doing, skulking around in a parking garage on your wedding day?” Lazily, he pushes off the pillar, comes toward me. “I thought you weren’t going on any more secret skates.”

  I study his face. How much does he know? Does he know I pulled off the tracker? There’s something held back in his gaze, as though he’s refusing to connect with me.

  “I didn’t think you were going to track me anymore.” I regret saying that the instant it leaves my mouth.

  He stops in front of me—too close. This is not the way he usually acts, and not the way he usually looks at me, either—there’s a tentativeness, as though he’s unsure about me now. I wonder if somehow he’s sniffing out Packard, if he knows. Men have a kind of canine sense about other men. Maybe he’s intuiting the night of sex from my expression—people can do that. Or maybe he’s plain old smelling Packard. I’m drenched in Packard on so many levels.

  “Where were you?”

  “Skating.” I try a smile. “Not all of us get to go out and play baseball today, you know. Some of us will be sitting around being endlessly primped over.”

  He looks away. There’s too much contained in the sudden pause. He’s not confident of me anymore. I hold tighter to Gumby, keeping him down by my leg. I don’t want Otto to see Gumby.

  “How’s your father?” he asks suddenly.

  My father? “He loves his room.”

  “Did he sleep well?”

  I shrug. Is this a warning question? Should I be worried about Dad? “We’ll see when I get back,” I say. “I should start getting ready for the Dowagers’ breakfast.”

  “Wait.”

  “What?”

  A pause. Fighting with himself. Then, “What do you have there?”

  I smile. Barely convincing, I’m sure. “Huh?”

  He tips his eyes down to my hand. “There.”

  I lift Gumby up by the legs. The way I’m holding him in the space between us, it’s like Gumby’s a cross I’m using to ward off a vampire.

  Otto takes this stricken breath, just staring at Gumby. And then he shifts his gaze to me, with the weirdest expression, like grief. Like it really is having a vampire-cross effect on him.

  “Justine,” he says.

  I swallow, give him my best poker face.

  He comes to me, pulls me into a hug, and then he kisses me on the forehead. “You are so precious to me. You’ll never know.”

  I pull away after an appropriate time span. He still seems grief-stricken. I give him a curious smile.

  “You’ve made Gumby this way on our wedding day.” Otto nods at Gumby. “Happy Gumby. To know this, to see this, it’s better than any other gift I could have gotten.”

  I nearly collapse with relief. I have him back—Gumby assuaged whatever concerns he had.

  He says, “After all this work to clear our path…there’s not a lot I wouldn’t do for you, Justine. Not a lot I wouldn’t take on. And the fact that I’ve made you this happy…” He thumps his fist onto his heart.

  I feel this thump in my heart too. Pity. Sorrow. “Oh, Otto,” I say.

  The worst thing is, I don’t hate him, and I truly don’t want him to die. I’m just…disillusioned with him. And I can't let him destroy my friends.

  “It’s all going to be worth it.”

  “I hope so,” I say.

  “You were going to bring him? To the wedding?”

  “Gumby?” I swallow. Collect myself. “Riding in my bouquet? What would the Fashionista Club say?”

  “They would say you’re the loveliest bride on the planet.”

  His smile gives me shivers. He rests his hands lightly on my shoulders. “Everything is clicking into place. Everything is turning out perfectly for this day. Sometimes, Justine, the best laid plans do work out.”

  I feel a little sick, imagining Packard’s severed head. But no, Packard will grow old. I’ll make sure of it. Otto regards me thoughtfully. “I wish it were tonight right now, Justine. I wish this day were behind us.”

  “It will be,” I say. “But Otto, it’s bad luck to see your bride on the wedding day.”

  “The hell with luck.”

  I roll my eyes and give him a quick kiss. “It will be tonight soon.”

  With that, I skate off from the man who once was my hero, leaving him there in the dark parking garage with all his plans and hopes and dreams. This man I will betray and attack tonight. The man I just might die with.

  Outside, the sun is higher, the air crisp and cool, skies endlessly blue. The day seems blandly happy and sure of things, as if it’s preparing for the wedding too. The day doesn’t know.

  I continue down to the Midcity Arms and enter the lavish, chandelier-laden lobby just before eight-twenty. I spy Shelby in the far corner-seating area, ensconced in a velvet couch. She stands and waves and I wave back, then smile at the desk clerks. I move across the floor in a way that hopefully looks like walking, and not skating.

  Shelby’s wearing a black dress with white polka dots and a black hat, chosen, no doubt, out of some sense of irony. With a knowing look, she watches me approach. I meet her gaze. So much is there in the space between us. My best friend.

  “Out all night.” She raises one eyebrow. “I trust it was worth it.”

  I don’t even know what to say to that. I just hug her.

  She looks at me too long when I finally let her go. “What?”

  “Come on,” I say.

  Up in my hotel room, I set Gumby down on the table and collapse on the couch, unlacing my skates.

  Shelby picks him up. “I think that you must have had excellent night. But why remove him from his home?”

  I toss my skates on the floor.

  “Justine, we have not vanquished Otto yet. However,” she raises a finger, “we know where glasses are. In Self-Store Village out by suburb of Wild’s Way. Packard told you, no doubt.”

  “He did.”

  “So very p
erfect that Avery would choose Wild’s Way. Finding these glasses, being sleuth of Avery’s mind, it has made me love him more.”

  “Wild’s Way.” I peel off my damp exercise clothes.

  “There is new problem now, though,” she says.

  “It will take longer to get them than you originally thought?”

  She looks surprised. “Yes. Your wedding has triggered city to have holiday. Owner of Self-Store Village has gone on overnight fishing cruise. Out on Lake Michigan. We will get glasses, Justine, but we must hire speedboat to track him. Simon wants to break in, but I do not think that is best way, and I know Packard will agree. I know we will get glasses, Justine—” She tilts her head, twirls Gumby by his arm.

  “Don’t change him,” I say.

  “How did you know it would take longer?”

  I pull a hotel bathrobe around me. “I saw Fawna.”

  Shelby’s mouth falls open and she stops twirling Gumby. “And?” Gently, she sets Gumby on the table. “And?”

  I swallow, unsure where to begin. Her eyes fall back on Gumby. She turns back to me, alarmed.

  I give her the story of how Dad’s comment led me to find Fawna, and I tell her Fawna’s prognostication: if I fight Otto at the ceremony, my friends will walk in the sun again and Packard will grow to old age. But I will die.

  “Justine!”

  “But if I don’t fight Otto at the ceremony, Packard dies. I’m going to do it. Don’t try to talk me out of it.”

  “But, Justine—” Her eyes brim with tears.

  “Don’t try to talk me out of it.”

  She sinks to the bed. I sink next to her.

  After a long moment, she says, “If I could go back to be shot in place of Avery, I would do so.”

  “I know,” I whisper.

  “Not merely that I would do so, I would exalt to do so.” She purses her lips, stares into nothing. “In both a dark and a bright way, I would exalt to take that death as my own. Do you understand what I mean, Justine?”

  “I know exactly what you mean.”

  She watches me, brown eyes grave. “I do not exalt in this, however.”

  I touch her arm, feel the tears come. “I know.”

  She shakes her head. Sucks in a breath. “You did not tell Packard, of course.”

  “Definitely not,” I say. “He wants to move in together after this.”

  “Oh, Justine.”

  “It was really hard, Shelby. He wanted to talk about the future, and it was horrible. Even the idea of going to the movies tomorrow.”

  “Packard hates the movies. After being imprisoned, the space is too dark and enclosed for him.”

  “That’s just like him. To go just because I wanted to. To push through it.” I smile bitterly. “Well, that’s what I’m doing. I worried before that I wouldn’t be able to step up to the challenge, but I’m not worried now. Something’s different. He trusts me, and I trust myself, but it’s not just that”—I pause, trying to put my finger on what feels so different inside of me—“it’s like I trust life too. Things seem more solid somehow.”

  “You have found your feet.”

  “Yeah, and I’ll do this thing and if I die, okay, I’ll trust that’s how it had to be. But I’ll tell you something else—I know Fawna’s supposedly so powerful and has this perfect record, and I’ve made my peace with that. But other times, I think, Screw it! You know? I’ll make my own future. Nothing is written in stone! I want to step up and save everybody and after that, I want to live with Packard. I want to have dogs together.”

  Shelby gives me a pitying look. “The bad things are almost always written in stone, Justine. I am sorry…” she shakes her head. “Oh, Justine, I do not exalt in this at all.”

  I can’t help but smile. Of course Shelby would accept Fawna’s dark and dire prediction. “On the bright side”—I point at her—“I think I’m going to eat the most fried and potato-ey breakfast possible. And I already had one breakfast. But why not?”

  Shelby sniffle-laughs. “Then I will too.”

  “And, today, after I zing Otto, you’re supposed to zing him. You and Simon. You have to follow up right away. We’ll make him let everybody go, possibly even confess. Packard thinks he will confess. Jordan will be at the fun house, and she’ll call us as soon as they’re free.”

  “Is your zing that will do it.”

  I don’t feel quite as pleased about this as she does. “Packard was very keen on the combo,” I say.

  Shelby nods. “Otto will have combo. But your fear, that is true weakness for Otto. Your fear is our cannon. And I will make sure that he pays. I will be there with you, like the second in old-fashioned duel. And I will help you get him and make him pay.”

  “I don’t think making the other guy pay is what seconds in old-fashioned duels did. Seconds made sure the weapons were in order, and that the rules were followed, and sometimes they fought the other seconds.”

  “I am different kind of second, for different kind of duel. And he will pay. In tears of agony he will pay.”

  “You don’t need a death on your conscience, Shelby. And our friends don’t need it—”

  She crosses her arms, clearly insulted. “I know.” She doesn’t appreciate my reminding her that if Otto dies, our friends are stuck in the fun house forever. But she doesn’t seem entirely in control.

  I smile. Poke her arm. “I think this is the only wedding in history where the maid of honor considers herself to be just like a second in a duel.”

  She narrows her eyes. She likes that. “You know, Otto will sense antihighcap glasses. As soon as I bring them into church, he will feel fields weakening.”

  “But he won’t know who has the glasses. And once I put them on, his fields will be completely down.”

  “You will render him pitiful.” Thoughtfully, she touches a finger to her cheek. “Packard must be nowhere near church.”

  “He promised me he wouldn’t go in.” I tell her about his promise.

  “His promise will not be enough if he believes you are in danger. I will hire somebody to detain him.”

  “He’ll hate you,” I say.

  “He will hate me already when he finds out I knew what Fawna saw. He will hate me for not telling him, not allowing him to die in your place. He will be right to hate me for that, but you are my best friend.”

  I take her hand. She allows it. I say, “You have to give him Gumby, from me. Okay?” I pick Gumby up. “Gumby has to stay just like this. This is what Packard gave to me. You tell him that. This happiness. It was all worth it.”

  She closes her eyes. Her coal-black lashes shine with moisture.

  “It’ll all work out.” I stand. “I have to take a shower.

  Shelby settles back in the couch. There’s nothing more to say. I look down at the table, at the Midcity Eagle. The headlines are all about Stuart the dream invader being captured, and then escaping again. Conspiracy theories abound.

  It seems like somebody else’s story. Somebody else’s newspaper.

  The shower is warm, and I let it pound my back and neck and head, washing off all that sex and sweat. It feels like I’m washing off a little bit of life.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The day passes like a fever dream. I wear my favorite green-wool dress, and I eat an outrageously fattening breakfast with the Daughters of Midcity Industry while they ask me questions about our planned Caribbean honeymoon and discuss the new port.

  Shelby trades home décor tips with the women at her end of the table. They think she’s joking when she tells them she prefers holes in the walls, so that she can see the lathing and mouse nests, because that is what is really there, so why conceal it? She informs them that she paid extra to get the best view of the Tangle. I can very nearly mouth along with her at this point: “Do I want view of beauty? No! Pfft. I say, do not give me lies.”

  Afterwards, I bundle up in the hat and coat that go with the wool dress and head out to the sunny, snowy Midcity graveyard with my bridesm
aids, minus Shelby. The schoolchildren who meet us there are so fascinated with Simon, so taken with his strange fur coat, not to mention his bruised face, his tattooed chest, and his top hat, that they can barely remember the words of the songs to honor the Midcity dead.

  The look of rapt wonderment Simon wears on his face while listening to the song makes the children giggle, and, judging by their facial contortions, has Ally and Ez dangerously close to hysterical laughter.

  After that, there’s the laying of the flowers and the reading of the names. I don’t laugh at any part of this ceremony; I think it’s all lovely, and kind of meaningful. And the air is crisp and sweet, and the walks are shoveled so that they’re clean and dry; the snow elsewhere is new enough that it sparkles in the light. Even gnarled, old hickory trees look more glorious than usual, with their craggy, black fingers grasping at the sky. At the top of one of the hillocks I catch sight of the blue, blue lake, and I wonder if Shelby and Packard have caught up to the storage place owner yet. And I wish fervently that it was me on that boat with Packard.

  The fitting of the wedding dress goes quickly, since there’s really nothing much to fit or alter. Even after that mammoth breakfast, my dress hangs just right; it’s a simple, elegant, tulle silk empire-waist dress with tiny straps, winterized by long gloves that stretch clear up over my elbows, and the white faux-fur coat that I’ll wear for the horse procession. The seamstress alters the length of the gloves, and there are last minute adjustments to my jeweled tiara. Ez and Ally have tagged along, plus some of my old friends from the dress shop.

  I try not to think about what will happen. Unsuccessfully. I can feel my fear building, hot and grating inside of me. Well, there’s nothing I can do about it, except not let it stop me. That’s my thinking as I sit there with people buzzing around, asking me questions, showing me glittery jewels, and worriedly informing me that Shelby is nowhere to be found.

  We do my hair opera-style, piled on top of my head and cascading down in ringlets behind my tiara. Sometimes I wish the wedding were finally on, so that it would all be over with. Other times the clock seems to be moving far too fast.