The Impossible Knife of Memory

  “Another reason to avoid the movie theater and the mall,” I said, taking a step away from the fence.

  “Don’t!” he shouted. “I mean, it’s dangerous, going to the edge.”

  “You don’t have to come with me.”

  “I do,” he said miserably. “It’s a Man Law.”

  “You did not just say that.”

  “I don’t make the rules. I just have to follow them.”

  “That’s ridiculous and patronizing.” I took another step.

  “Stop, please,” he said with a groan. “Can you do it on your butt?”

  “What?”

  “Like this.” He let go of the fence and sat, hyperventilating. “Scootch on your rear end. It’ll be safer. Please?”

  I sat and scootched a few feet. “Will this make you happy?”

  “No, but it’ll reduce my terror to panic.”

  “You can stay there, you know. Guard the fence.”

  He shook his head and muttered, “Man Law,” then sat and scootched behind me.

  * * *

  When I got to the edge, I crossed my legs and took a deep breath, enjoying the view. From one side to the other, the quarry was almost as wide as a football field is long. Scraggly bushes and grass grew on thin ledges in the sheer walls, with a few birds’ nests tucked into them. The surface of the water was at least fifty feet below me. There was no telling how deep it went.

  According to Finn, an underground spring had flooded the quarry decades earlier. The ghosts of the workers killed in the flood still haunted the place, he said, operating the skeletons of the dump trucks and earthmovers underwater. (The ghosts of the people who killed themselves were probably here, too, but I didn’t mention that.) A gravel road sloped up out of the water on the far side. Trees grew through the roof of a building over there, and heavy chains stretched across the road, maybe to protect the ghosts.

  Finn moved a few inches at a time, breathing like he was sprinting.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  I chuckled and inched forward until my legs could dangle over the edge. The smooth rock warmed my butt; the wind ruffled my hair like a giant hand. The quarry water rippled and reflected the dizzy clouds above. The whole place felt alive, somehow, like the ground knew we were here, like it remembered every person who had every stopped to enjoy this view. Or maybe every person left something behind her: fingerprints, DNA, secrets whispered near the rock face and recorded, hidden and kept safe until time ended. Maybe the flood was the rock protecting those secrets so that men would not dig them out with monstrous machines.

  “This place is amazing,” I said.

  Finn scootched once more and, a body length behind me, caught his first glimpse of the quarry. “Oh, God.” He bent his knees and leaned his forehead against them, hiding from the sight.

  “We’re okay. We’re safe,” I said. My heels bounced lightly against the quarry wall. “This rock isn’t going anywhere. Touch it.”

  He didn’t answer but his hands slowly came out of the pouch of his hoodie and spread out across the sun-warmed granite. “How far down to the water?”

  “Not that far.”

  He craned his neck for a brief look and shuddered. “Ohgodohgodohgod.”

  “Don’t like heights?” I asked.

  “What was your first clue?”

  “You’re a swimmer. Don’t you ever jump off the high dive?”

  “Hell no,” he said. “Please don’t tell me you’re the girl who can do double flips off it and come up laughing.”

  “Hell no,” I echoed. “I can’t even swim.”

  “What?” He stared at me. “Everyone can swim.”

  “Not me.”

  And there it was, that awful knife again . . .

  ripping . . . sun glaring off the pool grown-ups crowded I can’t find him music so loud nobody hears when I slip into the deep-end water closes over my face I open my mouth to yell for Daddy and water sneaks in my mouth my eyes watching the water get thick and then thicker and grown-ups dancing . . .

  “Why not?” Finn asked.

  A couple of birds flew by. Their shadows floated across the water.

  “Never learned,” I said.

  ripping . . . in the water above the water flying like a cloud grown-ups screaming grown-ups splashing in the water still can’t find him . . .

  Finn scootched forward a few more inches and wiped the sweat off his face with his sleeve. “I’ll teach you.”

  “Seriously, I don’t do water, except in the shower.”

  “Chicken.”

  “You never hear about chickens drowning.”

  He scootched at an angle to come closer to me. “I’d like to point out that right now I’m confronting my fear of heights, precariously perched on this ledge in an attempt to impress you.”

  “Puh-leez, Finnegan. You’re at least a meter from the edge.”

  “If I make it to the edge will you let me teach you how to swim?”

  I laughed. “Your feet have to dangle.”

  He shot me a dirty look and slowly inched forward, his legs straight in front of him, until the soles of his sneakers were technically inhabiting space a millimeter past the edge of the cliff.

  “I did it,” he croaked, his voice breaking on the last word. Sweat had beaded on his forehead again and he was shaking, even though the rock under us was radiating heat like a furnace.

  “Isn’t it fun?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “The opposite of fun. This is like dealing with subway rats, antibiotic-resistant infections, and the cafeteria’s mystery nuggets all rolled together and magnified to the tenth power. Why aren’t you scared?”

  “The higher, the better.” I yawned and closed my eyes. “When I was little I used to pretend I could fly because I had wings hidden under my skin. I could unfold them,” I stretched my arms out, shoulder height, “lean into the wind and—” My butt shifted on the rock, sending pebbles rattling down the quarry wall. My eyes flew open as Finn yelled and grabbed a handful of my shirt, yanking me backward and sending both of us sprawling.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “You almost went over. I’m not even exaggerating. You jerked forward and I really, really thought you were going to fall. Oh, God. You hate me now, don’t you?”

  I sat up, rubbing the back of my head where it hit the ground. I didn’t almost fall. It felt more like something wanted to pull me into the air, but that was crazy, right? Nothing like that could ever happen.

  “So do you?” Finn brushed dirt out of my hair. “Do you hate me? Should I drive you home now? I don’t want to, but I will.”

  I blinked twice, three times, and pretended I had dust in my eyes so I could rub them hard, trying to rub out the sensation of almost launching myself over the edge.

  “I don’t hate you,” I said. “Do you hate me?”

  He sighed and smiled. “I could never hate you, even if I wanted to.”

  43

  After we left the quarry, we hung out at the library (Finn scoured the Internet for proof that the fear of heights was a sign of intelligence; I read some new manga) and went to Friendly’s for ice cream. I had one scoop of pumpkin. He had a hot-fudge sundae with chocolate-almond ice cream, whipped cream, and sprinkles. After the waitress brought the ice cream to our booth, we got stuck in one of those agonizing silences that are so uncomfortable you start thinking about escaping out the bathroom window.

  “So,” I said. (Brilliant, Hayley. Utterly brilliant, witty, and dazzling.)

  “So,” he agreed.

  I licked my ice cream and said the first thing that popped into my head. “So why aren’t you on the swim team this year? Gracie said you’re not that bad.”

  “That’s boring.” He stuck a straw into the bottom of his sundae and tried to suck ice cream through it. “Tell me about t
he time you met the Russian prime minister while hunting wild boar on the taiga.”

  “Swim team first.”

  “Nearly naked young men, plunging into pools of warm water? Why would you want to hear about that?”

  “What part didn’t you like,” I asked. “The water, the guys, or the nearly naked?”

  “The coach.” Finn plucked sprinkles off his sundae and laid them in a line down the middle of the table. “He turned every meet into a life-or-death situation.”

  “But you won states, right? If you swam this year, couldn’t you get a scholarship and go to college for free?”

  “That’s such bullshit,” he said bitterly. “Mythology repeated by parents because it lets them force their kids into sports and push them too hard by pretending that in the end it will pay off with the holy scholarship. You know how many kids get a free ride? Hardly any. Like, maybe fourteen.”

  “Fourteen sports scholarships in the whole country?”

  “Okay, maybe fifteen. The point is, parents and coaches believe the myth. The Belmont coach made swimming suck, so I quit.”

  I pressed my fingertip against a sprinkle ant and put it in my mouth. “What did you like about it, back when it was fun?”

  He studied me for a moment before he answered. “Exploding off the block at the start of a race. It’d be all crazy noise and I’d hit the water like a missile and then the crowd disappeared. I can swim underwater for thirty-five yards. I hated coming up for air.”

  “Okay, so swimming is great, coaches and parents suck.”

  “Pretty much.”

  He chopped at his sundae with his spoon and we plunged into another excruciating, razor-blades-under-the-fingernails lull in the conversation.

  “You going to college or straight into the CIA?” I finally asked.

  He smiled and—like a dope-slap upside my head—I suddenly realized that I wasn’t the only one feeling totally awkward when we ran out of things to say.

  “I gave the best years of my life to the CIA,” Finn said. “I won’t go back even if they beg me.” He stuck a spoonful of ice cream in his mouth. “The real question is how can I go to college when my parents have no money for it?”

  I held up my right hand and made a circle with my thumb and pointer finger. “Where you want to go.” I did the same thing with my left hand. “Where you can afford to go.” I slowly brought my two hands together until the edges of the circles overlapped a little, then I brought them up to my face and looked out of the smaller circle that they made like it was a telescope. “What college is here in the middle?”

  “You just made a Venn diagram sexy,” he said. “This could make our tutoring sessions so much more interesting.”

  “Shut up. College. Where?”

  “Honestly? Swevenbury, which is totally unrealistic. I couldn’t afford to go there even if I sold my soul. Which is why,” he shoveled in a huge spoonful of ice cream, “I’m going to be a good little boy and visit some SUNY school next week. Mom set it up.” He licked the back of the spoon. “Where do you want to go?”

  “Haven’t thought about it much. Online classes, I guess.” I licked up the pumpkin ice cream dribbling down the back of my hand. “Can’t leave home.”

  “Why not?” he asked.

  The bright lights in the restaurant reflected off the tables and the chrome-plated walls. The hard surfaces amplified the buzz of the conversations around us and the shouting in the kitchen. The noise might have made me wince.

  “You really don’t want to answer that, do you?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Okay, next topic,” he said. “Nostril cams: fascinating biological journey or humiliating fad? Discuss.”

  “Where did you live before you came here?” I asked.

  “The moon,” he said smoothly. “We left because the place had no atmosphere.”

  “No seriously. I want to know.”

  He took a deep breath and tried to balance the saltshaker on the edge of its base. “Outside Detroit. My dad was a marketing guy for Chrysler. One day he got to work and poof.” The saltshaker fell on its side. “No job.” He picked up the saltshaker. “And then poof.” He let it fall. “No house.” He shook salt into a small mound in the middle of the table. “My mom got a job here, that’s why we moved. Dad is a consultant in Boston. We only see him once a month or so. My parents are tired and miserable and it’s mostly a disaster.”

  “What about your sister?” I asked.

  He looked up, startled. “How do you know about my sister?”

  “You told me about her. The first morning you picked me up, remember?”

  He frowned, poked his finger in the middle of the salt mound, and slowly circled it into a spiral. “We don’t talk about her.”

  The sadness on his face was unexpected. I held my cone so that a few drops of melting ice cream landed in the middle of the salt painting.

  “Nostril cams prove that the apocalypse approacheth,” I said in a low voice.

  He chuckled and tossed salt at me. After that, we swapped outrageous lies about our childhoods until the waitress said we had to either order more food or free up our table for new customers.

  * * *

  The gloaming had come and gone while we were in Friendly’s. Night had arrived, held at arm’s length by the bright streetlights and fast-food places. Finn started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot.

  The quiet inside the car made things weird again.

  I couldn’t get comfortable. I kept shifting, looking out the window, checking the side mirror, staring at my phone, willing Gracie to call, and then looking out the window again, wondering what I should say, if I should say anything. The tension built the closer we got to my house until I found myself thinking about bailing out at the next stop sign, the way I had the first time he gave me a ride.

  Finn checked his mirrors and put on his signal to turn onto my street.

  “Don’t go in the driveway,” I reminded him.

  “I have to,” he said as he turned the corner. “It’s dark.” He signaled again. “After a date, even an anti-date, I have to deliver you to your front door. It’s a Man Law. I screwed up last week because I thought your dad’s friends all had submachine guns. Can’t do that again.”

  Before I could say anything, he turned into the driveway, the headlights running across the siding and stopping on a pile of logs in front of the garage. They hadn’t been there when I left that morning. The garage door was open and the lights were on inside, but the only sign of my father was the splitting maul leaning up against the stump he’d been using for a chopping block.

  I relaxed. He was probably passed out on the couch.

  Finn put the car in PARK and unbuckled his seat belt.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I have to walk you to the door.”

  “I know how to walk.”

  The hurt look on his face made me want to pinch myself. We were flirting again. Or were we? Maybe not. Why couldn’t there be a light in the middle of a person’s forehead to indicate flirting status and other confusing social behaviors?

  Finn rubbed his thumb on the worn plastic of the steering wheel. He had strong hands, but no calluses. He bit his lip. I waited. (I should leave.) He opened his mouth like he was going to say something.

  He didn’t say anything.

  I didn’t say anything. (I really should leave.)

  He put his hand on the emergency brake, turned toward me a little. Was he going to kiss me? Tell me I had chocolate sprinkles stuck in my teeth? Why was this so complicated?

  It wasn’t complicated, I scolded myself. It was stupid.

  I pushed the button on my seat belt. It retracted and smacked against the door, making us both jump. I put my hand on the door handle.

  Finn cut the engine and turne
d off the headlights. The dim blue light from the garage barely reached us. Shadows fell under his cheekbones. He raised his eyes to look at me. To look through me. I finally figured it out, late as usual: I did not want him to kiss me.

  I wanted to kiss him.

  My heart pounded so loudly I was sure it was making the windows vibrate, like we had the radio on, booming heavy bass through the best subwoofers on the planet. I put my hand on top of his, horrified by the questions racing through my head. Eyes open or closed? What should I do with my tongue? How bad was my breath? How bad was his? Was I the only seventeen-year-old in America who had never kissed someone before? He’d know it as soon as our lips touched. Why did I care what he thought? And when in the course of the day had I turned into a babbling idiot?

  I couldn’t stop the questions any more than I could stop myself from leaning toward his lips.

  He brought his face close to mine.

  And stopped.

  His eyes grew wide. I hesitated. Had I made a mistake? Was being kissed by me so terrifying that it paralyzed him?

  “Don’t move,” he whispered, staring over my shoulder.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Big guy. With an ax.” His voice was so hoarse I could hardly understand him. “By your door. I think he’s going to kill us.”

  “Hayley Rose!” My scowling father knocked on the window and motioned for me to get out.

  Shit.

  “We studied at the library,” I whispered to Finn. “And we ate ice cream. Not a word about the quarry.”

  Dad knocked again. “Out!”

  I turned and put my face to the glass. “Hang on!”

  “Ask him to put the ax down,” whispered Finn.

  “It’s not an ax, it’s a splitting maul.”

  “I don’t care. Just ask him to put it down.”

  “Drive away as soon as I get out.” I reached for the door handle. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “I can’t,” he said.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “It’s your father,” he said. “I have to meet him, right?”