Dead Wrong

by Kristi Belcamino

  With the book on ravens tucked into my bag, I decide to stop and try on a few tops at Urban Outfitters, tempted but also knowing that same money will buy four tops at the Goodwill. Although I’m window-shopping, I’m really keeping an eye out for Raven. As I pass the street to his block, I’m tempted to go talk to him and confront him about Danielle, but something stops me.

  I walk up and down the sidewalks watching people and wishing I had money to go see a movie. I start my new job at the pool on Monday and am excited because I just found out I’ll be working with Curtis and some other people I know from school. I can’t swim well enough to be a lifeguard like Curtis, but they hired me to do secretary stuff in the office. I can’t wait. Every penny I earn is going to go toward my college fund. My grandmother left some money in her will designated for my college fund, but who knows if my dad has spent it or not.

  I waste the entire afternoon wandering around, not wanting to admit to myself that I’m there because I’m hoping to run into Raven. I even head down to the clothing store where I first talked to him and walk around. Everyone is out on the sidewalks on this sunny summer Sunday. Near the Uptown Theater, I cast a glance toward the direction of his apartment. I see a group of kids and my heart starts to pound but within seconds I can tell it’s a group of college guys.

  I debate walking over to the Lake of the Isles, but decide if I run into Raven that will only come across as desperate. He will see right through me. And I can’t shake the foreboding feeling I have after reading about ravens being bad omens.

  The entire time I’m out, I imagine what Danielle did walking the streets of Uptown. Was she by herself? I can’t ever remember in all the years I knew Danielle seeing her alone. She was always, always with someone, either one friend, or a group of friends. Again, exactly the opposite of me. I spend my entire life alone, it seems.

  How did she ever meet Raven? I make a note to call Beth and ask her. I feel like we have reached a truce, but I wonder if she would ever want to really be friends with me. It would ruin her reputation for sure. Definitely.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Working at the pool is not as great as I had envisioned.

  For instance, the shift I work sucks. I start at noon, which is awesome because I can finally sleep in every day, but it ends at nine and my mom pretty much has decreed that I come home straight after.

  The lifeguards and swim instructors have it made. But me, not so much.

  I sit there, sweat dripping down my brow and watch Curtis and some of the other lifeguards roughhouse during safety breaks, tossing each other about in the water or shooting a few balls into the basketball hoops set up in the pool.

  This first week of summer, I’m mainly dealing with frustrated parents trying to sign up for swim lessons that were full months ago. Occasionally, I have to deal with a kid with a bloody nose or something while the lifeguards find his parents. I’m pretty isolated in my little office. Unless someone comes up to my window, I answer phones and do paperwork.

  Yesterday, I spotted Danielle’s brother, Darren, across the pool. His friends were laughing and shouting and he seemed like he was trying to join in, but an air of sadness surrounded him. It made me cry. I ducked my head and wiped my tears before the next person came up to my window.

  The work week drags. I’m so tired at night I fall right asleep. I can’t wait for the weekend. I’m anxious to head to Uptown and find Raven and try to find out what he knows about Danielle’s death.

  He must have some answers about Danielle. I need to steel myself to ask him.

  On Thursday night, I’m in my underwear and a long tee shirt when my mom calls up to my room.

  “Emily, your friend is here.”

  My friend?

  My heart pounds and I race to the mirror to check my hair and then look frantically around for something cute to wear. I strip and throw on a striped maxi dress, stuff my sketchpad under my bed, and race down the stairs.

  It’s not Raven.

  “You left this in the break room,” Curtis says, thrusting my Joelle Charbonneau book at me.

  “How’d you know where I lived?” I can’t help but be a little embarrassed for him to see my shitty neighborhood.

  “You wrote your name and address inside the cover,” he says, rolling his eyes.

  I laugh. “Dorky habit from being a kid.”

  We stand staring at each other. Today he’s wearing a fake fur vest with tight green and gold lizard-print pants.

  “Emily, why don’t you invite your friend in? I have some cinnamon rolls I can throw in the oven for a snack.” My mom’s simpering voice makes me realize she thinks Curtis is here because he likes me — in a boy-likes-girl way. My cheeks instantly feel hot.

  Curtis notices and winks and turns to my mom. “Yes, please, Mrs. Dawson. That sounds wonderful.”

  My mother starts bustling in the kitchen, banging pots and pans around.

  “We’ll just be up in my room,” I say. All the noise in the kitchen stops.

  “Uh ... Emily, can you come here for a second. I need your help with something.”

  I raise my eyebrows and give Curtis a shrug, pointing to the stairs. He starts to go up.

  “Yes?” I say, standing in the doorway of the kitchen.

  “It’s not really appropriate for a girl your age to have a boy up in your bedroom.”

  Now my neck and cheeks are both burning. “Mom. It’s not like that.”

  She just stares at me so I try again.

  “You know ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell?’”

  “Huh?” My mom’s nose crinkles in confusion.

  “He’s gay, mom.”

  She can’t hide the disappointment that fills her face even though she quickly turns it into a wry smile. “Okay, I guess it’s all right then.”

  I walk out wondering if I am really so pathetic that my mom gets super-excited thinking a boy likes me.

  Up in my room, Curtis walks around examining everything. He thumbs through my books on my dresser and then moves to the ones on my nightstand. I try not to cringe as he messes up the way I have them perfectly aligned.

  When he moves over to my vanity table, I subtly try to straighten the books behind him while he checks out my stash of make up. He occasionally wears black eyeliner, which I secretly think is hot.

  He checks out my dresser and mirror above. He pauses at the picture of me and Danielle stuck in a corner of my mirror.

  “Do you mind?” he says and tugs at it.

  He flops on my bed and examines the photo so carefully for so long I start to grow uncomfortable.

  “What?” I finally say when I can’t stand it any longer.

  Looking up, he says, “Nothing.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Okay. Okay.” He throws up his hands. “I had a crush on you when we were in sixth grade. This was taken right about then, wasn’t it?”

  “What?” I can feel my eyes grow wide. A crush on me? Impossible. He’s holding the picture where Danielle looks like a movie star and I look like a fat little kid and he says he had a crush on me? Plus, isn’t he gay? “Don’t you ...” like boys? My voice trails off. There’s no way to ask it without sounding like a jerk. And if I’m wrong, he’ll probably be a little insulted. Or will he?

  “This was before,” he said looking me right in the eyes without a shred of embarrassment. “I mean I still like girls and all that, but I like dudes more. I wouldn’t ever rule girls out, but I’m less confused about it than I used to be. I just stick to guys now because it’s easier. It’s too confusing to like everyone, you know?”

  I laugh.

  “But,” he says, his voice growing quieter. “I had a crush on you from like fourth grade to sixth grade.”

  “And then what? Did I get a face full of zits or something to change your mind?” I say it in a teasing voice but his response is serious.

  “I met Robby,” he says and looks down.

  The name is familiar. Then I remember — that was the nam
e of his friend from another school that died in a car crash in ninth grade.

  “That kid from De la Salle that died? He was your boyfriend?” I swallow hard, asking, my heart hurting for him before he even answers.

  He presses his lips together tightly and nods slowly. Walking over, I reach down and hug him. “I’m so sorry.”

  We stay there for a few minutes and I hear him sniffling a little but when I draw back his eyes are glistening but there are no tears.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” I ask, flopping down on the bed beside him and throwing my arm across his chest. He lies back beside me and stares at the ceiling.

  “Okay.”

  He tells me they met at some coffee shop and became best friends. But one night, they had smoked pot and were listening to Led Zeppelin by candlelight in his room. Curtis leaned over and kissed him. Robby kissed him back.

  “It totally fucked with us. Scared us half to death. We actually got into a fistfight about it. I gave him a black eye. I didn’t want to be gay. He didn’t want to be gay. But then finally we both just admitted we were.”

  They kept it secret because Robby was afraid for his dad to find out.

  “His dad is a total conservative, you know?”

  But then something happened. Robbie was driving home one night in January and hit a patch of black ice. His car ended up in a ditch and he died.

  I rub Curtis’ arm as he says this. He is still staring at my ceiling, but big tears are dripping down the sides of his face onto my bedspread.

  “Check this out,” he says, sitting up. “When I was walking out of the funeral, his dad came up, grabbed my arm and pulled me off into this hallway. I was scared shitless. I thought he must have found out about us and that he was going to kill me. That’s all I could think. So, he looks me right in the eye and says he knew about Robby and me. I thought I was a dead man, but then he said, ‘I’m glad my son had a chance to experience love.’”

  I sit up straight, too. “No way!”

  “Yes way.”

  “Oh, my God! You just never know, do you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “Nah. He looked like he was about to cry. He gave me this little punch in the shoulder, I think he was trying to be like, ‘Hey, we’re pals.’ But it totally hurt like a motherfucker and then he turned around and left. I never saw him again.”

  “Whoa.”

  “I know.”

  “Later his mom called me and asked me to come over. She was in her robe still and it was like two in the afternoon. Her face was all red. I felt so bad for her. It was awful. Robby was their only kid. She told me to go up to Robby’s room and to take anything I wanted because they were going to donate all his things, but she knew how close we were.”

  Curtis told me he stayed in Robby’s room for two hours. He lay on the floor and cried, burying his face in a stack of Robby’s clothes.

  “What did you take?” I’m almost afraid to ask. I wonder if there is anything of Danielle’s I want. I can’t think of anything really, but it doesn’t matter, does it? I wasn’t given that chance.

  “He had this old Twins hoodie he wore all the time. I took that and basically have slept with it as my pillow every night since.”

  Curtis says he also grabbed a mix CD he’d made for Robby with all their favorite songs.

  “That’s it?”

  He nods.

  “What about you?” he asks. “Is there anything special to remind you of Danielle?”

  Just a few pictures, I say.

  “Do you really think she drowned?” he asks.

  I shake my head very slowly. I spend the next few minutes confessing everything to him. How I think the gutterpunks had something to do with her death. How I’ve started to get to know Raven a little bit.

  When I finish, Curtis exhales loudly. “Dude, those kids, you know they might have killed her? You can’t just traipse into the guy’s lair like it’s nothing. I don’t care how smoking hot he is, there’s a reason he’s homeless. You don’t just decide to sleep in some back room or on the beach instead of with your family or in a house. Something is seriously fucked up with that dude and his friends. You better watch your back, Emily. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  On Friday night, I tell my mom I’m hanging with Curtis. Now that she’s met him, she’s even more excited that I have a friend. It’s so embarrassing.

  Especially since I’m lying.

  I’m going to go to Raven’s. I’ll just show up. I’ve thought about it all week.

  I wait until my mom is busy watching TV and give her a breezy goodbye in case she can tell I’m lying.

  On the bus, I fish the picture of Danielle and me out of my bag and study it. Trying to imitate the nonchalant, confident look she has on her face. I catch an older woman across the bus staring at me, so I quickly stuff the picture back into my bag and turn my red cheeks toward the window. But when I turn, I knock my bag on the floor of the bus, spilling most of its contents. I am even more embarrassed as I crouch on my hands and knees scooping my sketch book and all my other crap back into my bag. Thank God the next stop is mine.

  At Hennepin and Lake, I jump out as soon as the bus driver opens the doors.

  FROM THE END OF THE long driveway leading to Raven’s place, I can already see the door is flung open and hear music and voices coming from inside. He’s home. I wasn’t sure he would be. Now, it’s on for real. I pause, closing my eyes and breathing deeply. You got this.

  I open my eyes and almost turn around when I see a couple people have come out into the driveway and are smoking and talking. But instead I pull back my shoulders and head their way.

  When I get to the group they stop talking and give me a look. I swallow hard. Shit. Then remind myself.

  You’re here for Danielle. I step inside.

  Raven is sitting at a tiny table in the corner playing some dice game with that rat-faced kid, Scrap. Beer bottles crowd the table. As soon as I walk in, that stupid dog stands up on all fours and growls at me, his lip curling back, showing yellow fangs.

  “Hey,” I say. My voice squeaks a little. Raven stares for a few seconds. Jazz and her boyfriend, Flip, sprawl on Raven’s bed. She’s reading a book and is using his stomach as her pillow. Flip is staring at the ceiling and bobbing his Mohawk to the music coming from the little radio beside him. I take it all in, holding my breath, waiting for Raven to do or say something. Finally, he smiles.

  “Hey,” he says it softly and it makes me smile involuntarily. So much for playing it cool.

  The rat-faced kid sneers at me and doesn’t do anything to stop his dog, which is tugging at his heavy chain leash trying to reach me. Fear spurts through me.

  Scrap stands, fists balled at his sides. I see him let go of the dog’s leash at the same time Raven swoops down and grabs it. The dog’s lunge with barred teeth is stopped inches from my thigh. Raven doesn’t take his eyes off me as he turns to Scrap, handing him the chain.

  “Why don’t you take Rambo for a walk?”

  Scrap scowls as he walks by.

  Raven walks over to the bed and lightly taps Flip’s shoe with his own.

  Flip and Jazz grumble but get up. They take over the spot at the tiny table. Flip starts dealing cards. The girl, Jazz, slants her eyes at me, but she seems more curious than hostile.

  Raven flops down on the bed, propping up some pillows and pats the spot beside him.

  I sit beside him so close our thighs touch, sending tingling through me.

  Scrap comes back in. The dog, which must be chained up outside, whines. Scrap sits by the open door trying to soothe the dog and mumbling. Probably talking shit about me. I see his knee right by my bag and wish I could move it away from him. I don’t want him near my stuff.

  Then all my attention focuses on Raven. It’s as if every hair on my body is standing up straight, attuned to his every move. He turns, his face a few inche
s from mine, making me catch my breath.

  “You look really pretty.” He says it so low that nobody else in the room can hear.

  “Thanks.” I smile and then realize I’m staring at his lips.

  He leans in for a second and then moves away.

  “What?” The word escapes before I can stop it.

  “This has nothing to do with you,” he says and then grits his teeth.

  “What?” I hold my breath.

  “This girl I was seeing ...”

  He stops, looks down and away.

  “What about the girl you were seeing?” I prod, holding my breath waiting for his answer.

  He swallows and closes his eyes for a second. When he opens them, he stares straight at me. “She died.”

  I nod, hoping he’ll say more.

  “It’s really fucked me up. Her parents didn’t know we were seeing each other. She said they wouldn’t approve. It was a secret. She’s from this Pleasanton family and they would’ve never let her date me. I couldn’t even go to her funeral. I mean, I could’ve, but I didn’t out of respect for them, you know. But now I wish I would’ve gone. Maybe it would’ve made it more real. Right now I keep expecting her to knock on my door ...”

  “And instead I do.”

  He presses his lips together and stands. I scramble to my feet and grab my bag.

  “You’re a really cool chick and all that, it’s just too soon.”

  I hover in the doorway.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” I ask. He shakes his head and his body is half turned inside.

  Here’s my chance to fess up. To tell him I followed him to find out what happened to Danielle. But instead I turn and leave.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I spend the rest of the night and next day torn. I can’t pretend anymore.

  I have to tell Raven about Danielle and me. If he doesn’t hate me after, I need his help in figuring out what happened to her. I need to know if he really thinks she drowned. I need to know what happened that night and if he was there.