All These Things I've Done

  “Or I could tell you all my secrets,” Win said. “You wouldn’t have to worry about me talking because you’d have enough information to ensure my silence. We’d be in it together.”

  I shook my head. “It’s an interesting theory but I think I’ll go with the wait-and-see approach.”

  “Not very bold,” he said.

  I told him that I wasn’t very bold. That, appearances to the contrary, I was deeply old-fashioned.

  “Yes,” he said, “I can see that about you. Shame, because I don’t think I would have minded you being the keeper of my secrets. I don’t have that many friends in this town yet.”

  Standing in that hallway, I could definitely see how it might be nice to kiss him. How I could gently plant one on his bruised cheek and then work my way to his mouth. But this wasn’t in the cards. So, I cleared my throat and apologized again for the insanity of the previous night.

  “Anytime,” he said as he turned to walk down the hall.

  I don’t know why, but I watched him walk away. Maybe I wanted a last look at what I was missing? As he got in the elevator, I called out, “Good night, Win!”

  “Actually, it’s morning!” he said as the elevator doors closed.

  Scarlet left after lunch. “Thanks for going along with my doomed plan to seduce Win,” she said as I waited with her for the elevator. “You’re a really good friend, you know.” She cleared her throat and then she spoke quickly. “It’s okay with me if you go for him. He obviously likes you.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I’m not exactly looking for a boyfriend right now.”

  “Well, when you are, I wanted you to know that I’m not some stupid girl. Our friendship’s not gonna be destroyed if you end up going for Win. I know how hard you have it, Annie—”

  “Please, you don’t have to say any of this, Scar!”

  “I do. You need to know how important you are to me. And that I’d never get in your way over a boy that didn’t like me back anyway. You deserve a really nice boyfriend—not necessarily Win, but definitely not someone like Gable Arsley either.”

  “Scarlet! You’re being absurd.”

  “I deserve a nice boyfriend, too,” Scarlet said just before the elevator swallowed her up.

  The rest of Saturday was quiet, and I was finally able to make a dent in some of my schoolwork, which included reading a massively long article on teeth. The one thing I learned was that Win was probably right about the wear to the enamel. Our subject had been sick, and based on the amount of damage, she’d probably been sick for a very long time. I thought about calling him to say he was right about the teeth, but then I changed my mind. The information would keep until Monday, and I didn’t want to give him the wrong idea.

  VI.

  i entertain two unwelcome guests; am mistaken for someone else

  ON SUNDAY, WE HAD TWO visitors, and I could have gladly done without either of them.

  The first was Jacks. He showed up after I’d gotten home from church, and he didn’t call ahead.

  I opened the door. “What do you want?”

  “Is that any way to greet family?” Jacks was carrying a one-cubic-foot wooden crate. “And here I am making a special trip just for Galina. She said she was running low on Balanchine Special Dark.”

  “You know you’re not supposed to carry that stuff out in the open,” I admonished him. I took the box, then basically chucked it into the foyer.

  “Worried I’ll get arrested?”

  “It’s sloppy,” I told him.

  Jacks shrugged.

  “Well, I’ll give the chocolate to my grandmother,” I said in a tone meant to indicate that he should feel free to leave.

  “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  “No,” I said. “Leo’s resting as is Nana. There’s no one here who wants to see you, Jacks.”

  “Why so angry, cuz? I thought you and I were finally making some progress back at Little Egypt.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “We were. Then you pulled your disappearing act.”

  Jacks asked me what I was talking about.

  “I mean, you basically abandoned Leo!”

  “Abandoned him? Stop being such a schoolgirl!” Jacks shrugged, which seemed to be his favorite gesture. “They were shutting down the club. Everyone had to get out. I assume Leo made it home fine, right?”

  I realized then that Jacks didn’t know anything about Leo’s seizure and I debated whether to tell him: Would it convince Jacks to leave my brother alone, or would it reveal weaknesses to a person I didn’t particularly think I could trust? I decided to keep my mouth shut. “Yeah, he made it home. No thanks to you. Personally, I like to make sure I leave with everyone I came with.”

  He shook his head. “You’re way too protective.” He paused to look me in the eyes. “But I get it. Life’s made you the way you are, am I right, cuz? You and me are both creatures of circumstance.”

  “Thanks for bringing the chocolate by,” I said.

  “Fresh off the boat. Tell Leo that they’ll be needing him down at the Pool on Wednesday,” Jacks said.

  “Could you make it next week instead? Leo caught some sort of cold. Wouldn’t want to pass it to everyone in the bravta.” I tried to pass this last part off as a joke. This was a mistake, by the way. I never joked with Jacks so, of course, my joking had aroused his suspicions. Daddy always said a person had to present a consistent character in business and that any changes in tone or manner should be carefully considered. “Be intentional,” he would say. “Lapses won’t go unnoticed by your friends and especially not by your enemies.” The funny thing was, I hadn’t understood half of what Daddy meant at the time he was saying this stuff to me. I’d just nod or say, “Yes, Daddy.” But now that I was older, his words came back to me all the time, much more often and easily than Daddy’s face did.

  Jacks looked at me curiously. “Sure, Annie. Tell Leo next Monday’s fine.”

  The second visitor showed up at eleven o’clock at night, far too late for a Sunday. He didn’t call either.

  I saw Gable through the peephole and after everything that had happened only one week earlier, I decided against opening the door. “Go away,” I hissed.

  “Come on, Annie,” Gable said. “Let me in.”

  I made sure the chain was on the door before cracking it open. “No. I honestly don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said. “You need to start heading home if you’re going to make curfew anyway.”

  “Look, just let me in. I feel dumb standing in the hallway,” Gable said, leaning his face into the crack of the door. We were so close, I could smell the coffee on his breath. “Don’t worry,” he continued. “There’s no hard feelings from my side about what happened. You were upset I broke up with you. I can totally understand that.”

  “That’s not what happened!” It was like he didn’t even realize he was lying.

  “The specifics are beside the point, Annie. I just stopped by to tell you that I want to stay friends. I still want you in my life.”

  “Fine!” I said. “Now go home!” How had I tolerated this loser for so long?

  “How about a bar of chocolate for the road?” Gable asked.

  I shook my head. So that’s what “staying friends” really meant, I guess.

  “Come on, Annie. I’ll pay you.”

  “I’m not your dealer, Arsley.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the fresh crate Jacks had brought over. I tore open the lid and pulled out two bars. I slipped the bars through the space between the door and the frame. “Enjoy,” I said as I closed the door.

  I could hear him tearing open the wrapper before he even got into the elevator. He was such a pig. Not for the first time, I considered the notion that a significant part of Gable’s attraction to me had been based on my access to chocolate.

  I picked up the case and carried it to the safe in Nana’s room. I had just unpacked the last bar when I heard Nana call my mother’s name. “Christina!”

  I didn’t answer. I as
sumed Nana was having a nightmare.

  “Christina, come here!” she said.

  “It’s not Christina, Nana. It’s Annie, your granddaughter.” Mistaking me for my mother was getting to be a more and more frequent occurrence for Nana. I walked over to her bed and Nana took my hand. Her grip was unusually strong. With my other hand, I flipped on the light. “See, Nana, it’s me.”

  “Yes,” Nana said. “I can see that it’s not Christina now.” She laughed. “I’m glad you’re not Christina O’Hara. I never liked that slut mick, you know. Told Leo not to marry her, that she was trouble. She was a cop. The whole thing made him look weak. Stupid, love-struck little boy. Such a disappointment he turned out to be.”

  Yes, I had heard all this before. I reminded myself it was the combined effect of drugs and illness, not my grandmother.

  “I hope you never have to face a disappointment like that, girl,” she continued. “It’s … It’s …” A tear fell onto her cheek.

  “Oh no, Nana, please don’t cry.” I could see Imogen’s novel on the windowsill. “Would you like me to read to you?”

  “No!” she yelled. “I can read myself! Stupid whore, what makes you think I can’t read myself?” She tore her hand away from mine and though I don’t think it was intentional, she ended up slapping my cheek with the back of her hand. For a moment, I couldn’t move. It’s not that the pain was much of anything, but still … She had never struck me before. No one in my family had. I had been in fights at school, but this was so much worse.

  “Get out of my room! Do you hear me? I don’t want you in my room! Leave now! Leave!”

  So I turned off the light and I left. “Good night, Nana,” I whispered. “I love you.”

  VII.

  i am accused; make matters worse

  BY MONDAY MORNING, I was definitely ready to go back to Holy Trinity. Compared to my home life, school was a vacation.

  Scarlet had saved a place for me at lunch. Win was there, too—I guess we were the only people he knew. “Bet you’re glad to be out of that hairnet!” Scarlet called.

  “Nah,” I said. “I was kind of getting used to it. Lunch duty, too. I was thinking I should go find Arsley and pour another bowl of … What’s on the menu today anyway?” I looked at Win’s lunch tray. Lunch was a whitish blob with a chunky brownish sauce and a side of purplish blob.

  “Thanksgiving in September,” Win reported. “Not particularly good for pouring over boyfriends’ heads.” He took a forkful of whitish blob. “Too starchy. It’d stick to the tray and then he’d be able to dodge.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right. I should shoot some over, slingshot-style, instead.” I looked across the cafeteria to where Gable usually sat. He wasn’t there. “Oh, well. Arsley isn’t here anyway.”

  “He wasn’t in homeroom either,” Scarlet reported. “Maybe he’s sick?”

  “Skipping more like,” I said. “I saw him last night and he was fine.”

  “Did you?” Scarlet asked.

  “It wasn’t like that. He wanted—” I stopped myself. With Win’s father being the unofficial top cop, I really wasn’t sure it was that great an idea to mention the family business.

  “What did he want?” Scarlet asked. Win and Scarlet were both waiting for me to finish.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I was thinking about something that happened with Nana. To talk. All he wanted was to talk.”

  “Talk! That’s not like Gable. What did he want to talk about?” Scarlet asked.

  “Scarlet.” I raised an eyebrow. “About closure. And stuff. I’ll tell you later. Win doesn’t want to hear any of this.”

  Win shrugged. “I don’t mind.”

  “Well, I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, standing up from the table. “Besides, I should claim my Thanksgiving blobs before they get cold.”

  I didn’t see Scarlet (alone) again until Fencing the next morning.

  “So what did you talk about with Gable?” she whispered as we were stretching.

  “Nothing,” I whispered back. “He wanted chocolate. I couldn’t say it in front of Win.”

  “Gable is such a tool belt!” Scarlet yelled. “I honestly can’t believe him sometimes!”

  “Ms. Barber,” said Mr. Jarre. “Let’s keep it down during stretching, shall we?”

  “Sorry, Mr. Jarre,” Scarlet said. “Seriously,” she whispered to me. “He is just loathsome. By the way, he wasn’t in homeroom again.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Beats me,” she said. “Probably off drowning kittens or something.” Scarlet giggled. “Why are the cute ones always such sociopaths?”

  “Win doesn’t seem like too much of a sociopath,” I replied without thinking.

  “Oh, really? So, you think he’s cute, do you? At least you’re admitting it now.”

  I shook my head. Scarlet was incorrigible.

  “Admitting it is the first step, Annie.”

  I was in FS II on Wednesday morning when I heard the news that Gable Arsley was in the hospital.

  Chai Pinter, who always seemed to know everyone’s business, made a special trip to my lab table to tell me. “Did you hear about Gable?” she asked. I shook my head, and of course she was delighted to tell me. “Well, apparently, he fell ill on Monday morning, but his parents didn’t think it was anything serious. They just told him to stay home. And then he was, like, throwing up all day Tuesday, but they still thought it was stomach flu or something. When it didn’t stop by Tuesday night, they finally took him to the hospital. And he’s still there! Ryan Jenkins even heard he had surgery!” Chai looked over-the-moon at the prospect of one of our peers having possibly had surgery. “But I don’t know if that’s true. You know how people make stuff up.”

  I did.

  “I figured you might know more than me about Gable’s condition, since you guys went out for such a long time. But I guess not,” Chai said cheerfully.

  Dr. Lau clapped her hands to start class, and Chai returned to her seat.

  The lecture was something about the different ways illnesses can affect the manner in which a body decays, but I couldn’t really pay attention. It’s not that I particularly cared about Gable, but the news was still shocking. And I couldn’t help but wonder whether I had been the last person to see him Sunday night. And if that were true, I couldn’t help but wonder if that coincidence was going to cause problems for me down the road. Or sooner. I couldn’t afford any more problems. I was probably being paranoid, but … Life really had taught me that smart people anticipated the worst. That way, there was time to make a plan. At some point, Win whispered, “Are you okay?”

  I nodded, but I wasn’t okay. I wanted to go call Mr. Kipling. Like, right then. I decided that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for me to be seen running the heck out of class to call my lawyer. So, I sat in my seat, and I folded my hands in my lap, and I looked at Dr. Lau, and I didn’t hear one word she said.

  Win whispered, “Can I help?”

  I shook my head, annoyed. What could he do? I needed quiet and time.

  As soon as the bell rang, I started walking straight to the phone booths that were in front of the main office. I needed to call Nana and I needed to call Mr. Kipling. I moved briskly, but I made sure not to run.

  Before I got there, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Headmaster. “Anya,” she said, “these people need to have a word with you.” When I turned, I was not particularly surprised to see several police officers standing behind her. They weren’t wearing uniforms—plainclothes detectives, I’d guess—but I could smell the policeness of them all the same.

  “Headmaster,” I said, “how long is this going to take? I have an English test. Beowulf.” Down the hall, I could see my peers looking curiously at me. I did my best to ignore them. I needed to concentrate.

  “Don’t worry about any of that. I’ll see to it that you’re able to make it up,” she said, placing a hand on my back. “Officers, let’s move this discussion to a more private locati
on.”

  On the brief walk to the office, I was trying to decide whether to assert my right to refuse questioning without a lawyer present. Because I really would have felt better with Mr. Kipling in the room, and yet, I knew how these things worked—requesting his presence too soon could make me seem guilty. Even though it was my right, if I asked for Mr. Kipling, they could demand to question me at the police station instead of at school. That would definitely be worse. Calm down, Anya, I told myself. Wait and see what happens first.

  There were three police detectives—a woman and two men. The woman was in her thirties with short, frizzy blond hair. (Despite my predicament, I couldn’t help but think she could benefit from a few hair-product vouchers.) She introduced herself as Detective Frappe. The two men looked nearly identical (crew cuts, doughy faces), only one had on a red tie (Detective Cranford) and the other a black one (Detective Jones).

  Detective Frappe seemed to be the boss, as she did most of the talking. “Anya, you’d really be helping us out today if you answered a few questions.”

  I nodded.

  “I assume you’ve heard about Gable Arsley,” Frappe said.

  I carefully considered my reply. “People have been talking but the only thing I know for sure is that he’s been absent from school,” I said.

  “He’s in the hospital,” Frappe said. “He’s very sick. He might even die. That’s why it’s very important that you tell us everything you can.”

  I nodded. “Can I ask a question?”

  Frappe exchanged a look with Cranford. Cranford nodded slowly, so maybe he was the boss. “I don’t see why not,” Frappe said.

  “What’s wrong with him?” I asked.

  Frappe exchanged another look with Cranford. Cranford nodded again. “Gable Arsley has been poisoned.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Poor Gable. Jesus.” I shook my head. “I apologize for my language, Headmaster. It’s just so shocking.”

  “How does that make you feel?” Frappe asked.

  I thought shaking my head and taking the Lord’s name in vain and saying it was shocking had pretty much expressed that, but … “I feel bad, of course. Until recently, he was my boyfriend.”