The Impossible Knife of Memory

  “Dad?” I asked. “Did you stay home again?”

  “It’s been a bad day, princess.”

  “What did your boss say?”

  Dead. Silence.

  “You called him, right?” I asked. “Told him you were sick? Daddy?”

  “I left a message on his voice mail.”

  Another lie. I leaned my forehead against the door. “Did you even try to get out the door? Did you get dressed? Take a shower?”

  “I’ll try harder tomorrow, princess. I promise.”

  5

  Death deals the cards. They whisper across the shaky table.

  Hernandez sticks a cigar in his mouth. Dumbo tucks his wife’s letter in his helmet. Loki spits and curses. Roy sips his coffee. We pull the cards toward us and laugh.

  I don’t remember what my wife looked like, but I recognize Death. She calls for our bets, wearing a red dress, her beautiful face carved out of stone. My friends laugh and lie, already deep in the game.

  I remember what my little girl looks like. I remember the smell of her head. The scar on her left knee. Her lisp. Peanut butter and banana. I don’t think she remembers me.

  Death rattles bone dice in her mouth, clicking them against her teeth. She spits them on the table and they roll.

  We bet it all, throw everything on the line because the air is filled with bullets and grenades. We won’t hear the one that gets us, but it’s coming.

  She tells us to show our hands.

  We have never been so alive.

  6

  Lunch. First period.

  Lunch served at o-dark-thirty. I couldn’t figure out why more high school students hadn’t risen up in armed rebellion. The only explanation was that the administration put sedatives in the chocolate chip cookies.

  The eraser end of a pencil was shoved into my left ear.

  “Leave me alone.” I pushed away the pencil and the hand holding it, turning my head so that my left ear lay flat against the cafeteria table.

  The pencil attacked my right ear.

  I gave the classic one-finger salute to my tormentor. “I hate you.”

  “Twenty vocab words.”

  “I’m sleeping, watch. Zzzzzz.”

  “Just my Spanish, Hays. And a little English help for Topher. Pesadilla. A quesadilla with fish, right?”

  I sat up with a groan. Across the table sat Gracie Rappaport, the casserole-and-muffin-girl. Draped over her was her boyfriend, Topher, Christopher Barnes. (You might have heard of him. When he dumped some girl named Zoe on Labor Day weekend she blasted a disrespectful description of his man-parts all over the Internet. Topher responded with photographic evidence that Zoe was lying. When I asked Gracie about it, all she did was giggle, which was way more information than I wanted.)

  “What is ‘denotation’?” Topher asked.

  “Denotation is when a plot blows up,” I said. “And yes, a pesadilla is a quesadilla stuffed with fish. You are a genius, Gracie.”

  “Don’t write that down.” A shaggy-haired guy with expensive teeth and dark-framed glasses sat down next to me. “She’s messing with you.”

  Topher looked at the newcomer. “Where you been?”

  The guy pulled a ring of keys out of his pocket and dangled them.

  “You got it running?” Topher asked. “What was it this time?”

  “I don’t know, but Mom said it cost a ton of money. I’ll be doing chores forever to pay her back.”

  “Dude,” Topher said.

  “Right?” answered the guy. “So, I’m broke. Feed me.”

  Topher handed him a ten-dollar bill. “Bring me back a bagel, too.”

  “Why don’t I get paid for doing your homework?” I asked.

  Topher handed me a quarter. “Denotation. For real.”

  “Denotation: a noun that describes the action of a student refusing to take notes during class,” I said.

  “Denotation,” said the new guy. “The precise meaning of a word, without any pesky implications attached to it.”

  Topher took the quarter back and tossed it to his friend. “Butter, not cream cheese.”

  “That’s it,” I said, laying my head back down. “I’m done.”

  Gracie lobbed a crumpled napkin at my nose. “Just my Spanish, Hayley, puleeeeeze.”

  “Why, exactly, should I do that?”

  She pushed her books across the table to me. “Because you’re awesome.”

  Along with tuna noodle casserole and the muffin basket, Gracie had been carrying a photo album that day she came to our door. In it were pictures of her kindergarten class—our kindergarten class, because I had been in it, too. Looking at mini-me in a hand-knit sweater and braids gave me goose bumps, but I couldn’t pin down exactly why. The only memory I had of kindergarten was peeing my pants during nap time, but Gracie said that never happened. Then she asked if I still liked peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

  (Which, I will admit, freaked me out because they were my favorite and there was no way she could have guessed that.)

  I did her vocab and handed it back to her as Topher’s friend returned to the table carrying a tray loaded down with bagels and cups of coffee.

  “Seven and eighteen are wrong on purpose,” I told her. “To make it more realistic.”

  “Good call,” she said. “Thanks.”

  The flat-screen televisions mounted in the four corners of the room finally roused themselves and blinked on, tuned in to one of the all-news stations. The students who were awake enough to notice gave a halfhearted cheer. I watched for a minute, reading the words that crawled across the bottom of the screen to see if there had been any disasters overnight. Nothing, except for the latest celebrity-worship crap and suicide bombers who blew up a market and a kindergarten on the other side of the world.

  “Can I go back to sleep now?” I asked.

  “You need to eat your breakfast,” the new guy said, handing me a bagel. “Nice hair, by the way. Is electric blue your natural color?”

  “I don’t do breakfast,” I said. “And yes, I come from a long line of blue-haired people.”

  “What’s a ‘motif,’” Topher asked, mouth filled with bagel.

  “At least have some coffee,” the guy said. “You look like you could use it.”

  “I didn’t ask for coffee,” I said.

  “Motif: a recurring object or idea in a story.” The guy pulled a handful of assorted fake and real sugar packets out of the pocket of his green-and-brown-plaid flannel shirt and set them in front of me. “Wasn’t sure what you liked.”

  “None of them. If I want coffee, I’ll get it myself. And you forgot structure.”

  “What?”

  “A literary motif is a recurring object, idea, or structure. You forgot structure.”

  He looked at Gracie, then me, then back at Gracie, a smile slowly spreading across his face. “You were right, Rappaport.”

  “What about me?” asked Topher. “I seconded the idea.”

  Gracie said “Shhh” as the boys bumped fists.

  “Right about what?” I asked. “What idea?”

  “I sort of promised Finn that you would write an article,” Gracie said. “For the school newspaper. I told him you were good at English and stuff.”

  “Is this a joke?” I asked.

  Finn (what kind of parent names their kid after the body part of a fish?) pointed his bagel at me. “How long will it take you to pull together two hundred words on ‘World of Resources at the Library’?”

  “Forever,” I said. “Because I’m not doing it.”

  “What’s an unreliable narrator?” asked Topher.

  “Come on, Hays,” said Gracie. “You haven’t signed up for anything, even though you promised you would. You need more friends, or at least a couple of people who will say hello to yo
u in the hall. Writing for the newspaper is the perfect solution.”

  “I don’t need a solution,” I said. “I don’t have a problem.”

  Gracie ignored me. “Plus, you two have a lot in common.” She counted on her fingers. “You’re both tall, you’re both quiet, you’re both strangely smart, and you are both a little weird. No offense,” she quickly added. “Weird in, um, an adorkable way.”

  “Is ‘adorkable’ a word?” asked Topher.

  “Weird, quiet, and strangely smart?” I asked. “That describes people who make fertilizer bombs. Maybe he does, but not me.”

  “Fertilizer bombs?” Finn asked.

  “Unreliable narrator?” Topher repeated. “Anyone?”

  “I’m not writing the article,” I said.

  The flat screen blinked and pixelated, and the school’s mascot, Marty, a white guy with bulging biceps holding a hammer in each hand (we were the Belmont Machinists, God knows why) appeared.

  “All hail the demon overlords!” Finn called loudly.

  I shot him a glance because I had been thinking the exact same thing, but when he looked back at me, I pretended I was doodling on the back of my hand.

  The screen scrolled the morning announcements:

  . . . THE FOLLOWING COLLEGES WILL HAVE REPS IN THE CAFETERIA THIS WEEK . . .

  . . . MEMORY STICK TURNED INTO THE LOST AND FOUND . . .

  . . . NO LOITERING AROUND THE FLAGPOLE . . .

  And finally a list of the sorry souls who had to report to the Attendance Office, the Counselor’s Office, or go straight to hell and see the principal.

  Finn punched me in the shoulder.

  “Ow! What was that for?”

  He pointed at the monitor. “You made the Doom List, Miss Blue! In trouble with the authorities this early in the year? You’ll make a great reporter.”

  7

  The halls surged with a parade of beautiful strangers. They laughed too loud. Flirted. Shrieked. Raced. They kissed. Shoved. Tripped. Shouted. Posed. Chased. Flaunted. Taunted. Galloped. Sang.

  Fully assimilated zombies.

  I could laugh at them when I was with Gracie. When I walked through their herd in the east wing hall—alone—I was transformed from my confident freakself into a gawping pile of self-conscious self-loathing. Their shiny-teeth smiles made happiness look easy. They never tripped over their own feet. They could laugh without snorting and tease each other without sounding dumb. They could remember being six years old together and eight and eleven and giggle about all of it.

  The flaunts, the taunts, the poses, they were all part of the lie. My brain understood this because I’d heard the whispers. The Honor Society officers who started their day off with a little weed that melted stress like chocolate. The cheerleaders who cut themselves where the scars wouldn’t show. Debate team members busted for shoplifting. Mommy’s pills being shared like cookies, and the way Daddy’s vodka made first-period Latin fly by.

  As I walked down the east wing hall, I could feel their sticky fingers reaching for my brain. Puffs of yellow smoke curled toward my ears, my eyes, my nose and mouth. The hivemind wanted to penetrate and infect. Colonize. The danger was so real, so close, I didn’t dare open my mouth to ask directions. Or to howl.

  8

  The school counselors shared a waiting room that held uncomfortable chairs, overloaded bulletin boards, a secretary named Gerta with blood-red talons, and a coffeepot that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since the turn of the century.

  When I walked in, the doors to all of the counselors’ offices were closed. I stood in front of Gerta’s desk. Her fingernails had worn off most of the letters on her keyboard. Only the Q and the X had any pigment left. A girl behind one of the closed doors was sobbing, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying.

  Ms. Benedetti stepped into the office carrying a cup of coffee from the gas station closest to school. Good call.

  “My name was on the list,” I said.

  “We have a few things to discuss,” she said. “Let’s talk in here.”

  I followed her into her private office, a box barely big enough to fit her desk, a file cabinet, and two chairs. It did have a window, however, that looked on to the student parking lot. Some people said that Benedetti filmed the activities out there with a secret camera. Given that her computer looked older than me, I doubted that.

  Ms. Benedetti hung up her jacket on a hook, sat at her desk, and took the lid off her coffee.

  I sat in the chair by the window, mouth shut.

  The trick to surviving an interrogation is patience. Don’t offer up anything. Don’t explain. Answer the question and only the question that is asked so you don’t accidentally put your head in a noose.

  “How are things going?” she asked.

  I stared at her through the dust that hovered in the air. “Fine.”

  “I didn’t see your name on the community service list for September,” she said.

  “So?”

  “You can’t postpone your service requirement, Hayley. All students are required to perform two hours a month, every month. You signed up for,” she glanced at her screen, “for St. Anthony’s Nursing Home.” She handed me a sheet of paper. “There are some sweet old people living there, you’ll like it. A staff member needs to sign this attendance log. Be sure to turn it in to Gerta so you get credit for your hours.”

  “Mandatory community service” seemed like hypocrisy, but Benedetti cared more about attendance lists than philosophy. I took the paper without committing to anything.

  “Can I go now?”

  “Not yet.” She picked up two packets of sugar, the real stuff, and shook them. “You’ve had detention eleven times since school started.”

  That was a statement, not a question, so it did not require a response.

  “It seems like you’re struggling a bit with the adjustment to traditional schooling.”

  Another statement. She was making this easy.

  She ripped open the packets and poured them into the coffee. “Particularly in calculus. How is that going?”

  “Precalc,” I corrected. “It’s fine.”

  I was fluent in practical math: checkbook balancing; gas mileage calculation; how many gallons of paint it would take to make the living room look nice. Precalculus was taught in dog whistle, a pitch too high to hear. I generally spent the class drawing predatory zeppelins and armies of bears in my math notebook.

  “Mr. Cleveland thinks you may need a tutor.”

  Some statements beg for a response. I shrugged.

  “He’ll talk to you about it.” Benedetti pried the foil top off three plastic containers of chemical milk, poured them in her cup, and changed her angle of approach. “How is your father doing?”

  This time, she let the silence draw out, waiting for me to become uncomfortable enough to open my mouth. The sobbing of the girl next door soaked through the drywall and filled the room.

  “I can’t remember if he played football or basketball,” she said. “I’m pretty sure he knew my little brother. Was he with that group of guys who got in trouble for the party at the quarry after the championship game?”

  I shrugged again. Dad rarely talked about growing up in Belmont, but I wasn’t about to let her know that. The first time we met, Benedetti told me that I could trust her and tell her anything. People who have to announce that they are trustworthy deserve to be lied to.

  She waited, eyebrows up, wanting me to say more. I counted the seconds, one after another, watching them drop like heavy rocks down a deep well. Benedetti caved after one minute, twelve.

  “The thing is, I’m having a hard time getting ahold of your father,” she said.

  I did not respond.

  “I called his work number, but they said he quit a couple weeks ago. Does he have a cell phone?”

  Qu
it? He quit?

  She leaned forward, like she sensed that something was wrong.

  “What do you need him for?” I asked.

  She stirred her coffee with the black plastic stick. “We need contact information for all of our parents. Where is he working now?”

  We had reached that point in the interrogation where I had to cough up some information or risk unnecessary aggravation.

  “He’s taking time off to write a book,” I said.

  “A book?”

  It wasn’t a great lie, but in my defense, I was tired and I really should have eaten that bagel back in the cafeteria. I folded my arms over my chest and watched a red Sentra and a black Mustang scream into the student lot. The Sentra drove up and down the aisles, looking for a spot close to the building and finding nothing.

  “About the war,” I added.

  “Perfect.” She stopped stirring. “I want to invite him to be a part of our Veterans Day assembly, too.”

  “Save your breath,” I said. “He hates that stuff.”

  The Mustang headed straight for the back row, the only row with empty spaces, and parked under a maple tree with leaves so orange it looked like a glowing pumpkin.

  “That’s what your stepmother said.”

  The word exploded in front of my eyes and set the ceiling on fire. I forced myself to turn my head and focus on that tree and to count, two, three, four, five, before I answered.

  “I don’t have a stepmother.”

  Benedetti nodded. “The first time she called, I checked your records. I was pretty sure you hadn’t mentioned her. But she was persistent. After several calls, she emailed me the paperwork that proved she had been your legal guardian during your father’s deployments.”

  “He never married her.”

  “You lived with her,” Benedetti checked her screen again, “from the time you were six until you were twelve.”