Following Christopher Creed

  "I can do that sometimes," Torey agreed. "Generally, I look into a person's eyes. There's this saying I've always loved: 'The eyes are the window to the soul.' I can read things in eyes. Greed. Lust. Happiness. Inner peace."

  "Me, too," I said. "I can even tell what drugs people have been doing."

  He was watching me still, and I got the feeling if I didn't let him find my trustworthiness by looking at my naked eyes, this interview might be short. I raised my glasses, but I felt overexposed. I talked about my accident, my surgeries.

  "If you look closely, you can see that my pupils are no longer entirely round. It's scar tissue, but my girlfriend says my pupils are flower shaped." He looked intensely into my scar tissue. I finally dropped my shades again and he grinned, sufficiently convinced that I wasn't hiding a viper's personality behind my glasses. "My eyes are a rose garden. What can I say?"

  "You're pretty amazing. I've heard of singers and musicians who can't see. I've never heard of a writer."

  "And you're famous. What's that like?" I got into it.

  "I'm not famous," he corrected me. I got the impression from his confused grin that he found his recent life mystifying. "I mean, I would like to be famous. I mean," he stammered, "I hope this album will bring a lot of people a lot of happy moments. To me, that's famous. But I'm in this passage when everything is set up so that I could become famous, and I'm about to go on tour, and people who know me think I am famous. Things can get comical, especially where money and fame meet up. Because the big checks don't start rolling in until the close of that tour, and so while crowds are applauding and cheering me on, I'm still scraping it together for a one-room apartment sublet in Santa Monica."

  I smiled. This stuff would work well on the page eventually. I made sure to jot down only abbreviated sentences so he would feel confident that I wouldn't quote him. I could swing back around to his music later, but I was dying to ask some Chris-related questions.

  "Where do you think the man is?" I asked.

  He looked down, spinning his beer glass around and around on the table, biting at his lip. He finally said, "I have no idea. That's the beauty of the thing, isn't it? A troubled guy says, 'Fine, if you want to pick on me so much. I don't need you. I'll make my own way.' And off he goes into the sunset, and the people who were so grand—grand enough to laugh at him—don't even get a postcard. That's how little he remembers, how little he cares."

  "There's been a lot of talk over the years that one early post to your website might have been Chris himself."

  He downed his beer, then signaled the waitress with the empty glass. "Again, I don't really know. Again, that's the beauty of it."

  "What's beautiful about unanswered questions?" I asked.

  The waitress dropped another draft in front of him, taking a crumpled five-dollar bill he'd pulled out of his pocket. Crumpled five from the pocket. I had to smile again at Mr. Almost Rich and Famous, and he smiled back. Torey Adams was a combination of what guys would think of as a marble statue and girls would call adorable. I'd have to work on that before I wrote it, but I was getting the gist. He would turn heads anytime he entered a room—and not just girls' heads. Some people have a born-to-win aura, and his was radiant. But up this close, you could see his frailty. He looked perplexed and greatly amused as the waitress walked off with his crumpled five.

  "See?" he asked. "Do famous people mooch five bucks off their mom before heading out for a night?"

  "You should have gone for twenty," I chided.

  "She tried. Moms, you know? If you took all the nights I spent in my house over the past five years, it would probably string out to be less than four months total. But hardly a day goes by that she doesn't call about something. I ... don't know what I'd do without that."

  I cleared my throat, wishing I knew the kind of life he was talking about. He watched me, sensing, I think, things I didn't want him to sense. I hated when interviews turned on me and I became the focus. He drummed on the table and mercifully jumped back to the subject.

  "I guess unanswered questions are good because of how they feed people's imaginations. I think imagination is the most beautiful defense we have in a world that can be insanely cruel at times. Once all the questions are answered, the imagination runs out of fuel, has to shut down. We're back in skeptic mode. Everything's limited again."

  It was amazing to hear Torey Adams's website wisdom pouring out of a mouth that happened to belong to Torey Adams. It took everything I had to keep from doing a victory yell at the ceiling.

  "You like your questions served without answers," I noted with as mild a grin as I could form.

  "Like good ol' roast beef, without the canned gravy." He let the silence run on for a minute, like maybe he'd done enough interviews to know that silence could be a part. But it went on too long. He suddenly asked, "What do you think happened to him?"

  "I don't think he's dead," I said. "I think he did like he said in his letter to the principal. He became somebody else. He went after his happiness."

  Adams nodded in agreement, then tilted his head to one side, obviously curious. "I've said as much myself. But I've always wondered ... how do you do that? Does that mean his memories of life in Steepleton are gone from him? I had to take this boring Abnormal Psych class my freshman year in college..."

  A laugh squirted out his nose as I raised my hand and chuckled along with him. "I took it as a junior. My girlfriend took it as a freshman. We're all looking for the elective that won't be dull, and it turns out to be horrifyingly so," I said, my smile fading momentarily, wondering if I should still be calling RayAnn my girlfriend. I forced my mind away from it. "I think the word you're looking for is repression. As in, maybe Chris repressed all his memories."

  "Thanks," he said. "Repression. But is that even possible?"

  "Probably not," I said. "Not if he's sane. I'm going with the thesis that he's not sitting in some psych ward picking his toes and thinking he's five years old. I think it's more like this creative writing class I took this year. We started out writing in first person—I did this, I did that—and in the end, we were writing in third person—he did this, he did that. I'd imagine he remembers his life here when he has to, but he remembers it in third person."

  Adams grinned. "That's an interesting take ... even if it's over my head."

  I sighed, wondering how big a compliment I should give. I didn't exactly want him to know I was a worshiper. "I'd say a lot of tormented guys read your website and afterward were able to see their lives through your eyes instead of their own. You've got merciful eyes."

  His grin turned to a smile, though his gaze was far off. "I've often had this daydream of Chris reading my pages over and over and at least getting it that he needn't see himself the way people saw him in high school. I hope you're right."

  While I wanted to keep Adams all to myself, my eyes caught Bo hugging some girl who still had a coat on and a handbag over her arm. I poked his elbow and pointed, bowing to the inevitable.

  Adams turned to look and quickly excused himself. He hugged Ali McDermott next, swung her around, and despite my horrible luck earlier this evening, I focused on this jackpot of potential quotes until I was chuckling softly, pounding my fist softly on the table. Adams hailed the waitress for her, then headed back my way, while Bo was embracing some burly guy with a crowd of other people waiting to hug on him. I wondered if he came down here for therapy. A lot of sympathy ran around, and a lot of people seemed happy to see him after what could have been a couple years.

  Ali and Torey sat down across from me, and Torey introduced us.

  "My God, Torey." She beamed at me. "You come riding into town with the newspaper chasing you down and everything. You're becoming Mr. Something Else."

  They both snorted softly as if they knew otherwise. Their foreheads came together, and she laid an affectionate kiss on his nose. He merely blinked a couple times, then turned back to me, leaving me wondering what it would be like to have a female friend affectionate
ly kiss my nose. I hadn't made that big a dent in anyone yet, except RayAnn, who was too young to give nose kisses. It was a sophisticated move. I would not have had the composure he did if I'd been on the receiving end. So used to being loved ... so mentally healthy.

  "So, what do you want to know about Torey?" Ali asked me, and her famed dimples showed up. She looked about the same as her high school photo otherwise. Some beauty can't be improved upon. "He's my only friend from childhood that I still keep in touch with. I can tell you he got caught cheating off me on a sixth grade science exam, and the teacher gave him an ultimatum. Go home and tell your parents you cheated, or take a zero."

  Adams's eyes could have lit the room as he smiled. "A truly low moment in my history as a son."

  Ali pinched his cheek and refused to let go. "I would have taken the zero. Around my house, who would have noticed? He 'fessed up to Mommy and Daddy. Awwww, so adorable."

  Adams finally freed himself and sighed. "Okay, you can print that. You happy?"

  "I'll give you the background scoop," Ali said, growing very loyal and serious. "Torey graduated Rathborne. With honors. Then he went for almost two years to the University of California at Berkeley in the music program. But ... again, his genius exceeded people's abilities to amuse him."

  "That's a very nice way of saying that I almost flunked music theory because I was too busy writing music," he said. "I felt burdened with classwork, dropped out during my sophomore year, found my current band a year and a half ago. I felt really lucky, because they'd been session players, professionals for a couple years, but they liked my songs, my right hand. We won a battle of the bands—held at Berkeley, ironically—and my current agent came up to me that night. Introduced himself. I've had an amazing couple of years. I don't think college is for everyone."

  Everyone who dropped out said that, but in his case, who would argue?

  "And where have you been?" I turned to Ali.

  She nodded. "My only claim to fame was doing emotional damage to myself in Torey's web story. But I'm tons better. I'll have my master's in social work in another two years, and I want to work with runaways. I'm engaged. To another MSW. "

  She held out a ring, not a big diamond but sweet-looking. I raised my glasses to look at it, congratulated her, and I felt a plop beside me. I slid over for Bo, and he settled in, sighing contentedly at his two friends.

  "So, boys and girls," he said, looking at the two of them. "Here we are. How long has it been?"

  "A year and four months for me and you." Ali pointed at Bo. "And a year for me and you." She pointed at Torey, then looked at me. "Bo came up to my engagement party in Boston the Christmas before last. Though he wasn't happy."

  They had been an item at the most climactic points of Torey's web tale. Obviously, they weren't now. She grinned at him teasingly, and he pointed a finger in her face. "I told you I would beat you up the aisle. I so wanted to beat you," he said. His tired eyes mixed with his smile and told me he was looking for a conversation to distract from Darla.

  "Do you have a girlfriend?" I asked him.

  "I wish. There's nothing in this world I want more than four or five kids. And I'm a hopeless romantic underneath these blasts of solid manhood." He made a firm muscle with his bicep. "Unfortunately, Kenai is basically a giant forest, and the Kodiak bears are friendlier than the women in my unit." He shuddered. "Change of subject needed. Go on, Ali. Tell him when you saw Adams."

  She went on with enthusiasm. "I went out to see Torey play in Anaheim. It was amazing."

  I wanted to add, Yeah, it was. But I didn't want Torey knowing I'd sold almost everything I owned to get to his first big concert—or that I was the journalist he wouldn't let backstage because I wanted to talk about ChristopherCreed.com.

  Bo asked, "Were you born without eyes? I mean, vision? You know..." He shifted, with a nervous laugh. "I don't know what I'm asking tonight."

  "I only needed reading glasses like everybody else until I got hit in the head with a baseball two years ago. But I try to steer conversation away from it. I honestly don't feel different than anybody else, until something happens ... I get jostled in a crowd and then can't see at all for a couple moments. Then, I get annoyed. Other than that, I can almost forget about it."

  "So you were a baseball player," Adams said, trying politely to turn the conversation like I'd asked them to.

  I couldn't resist. "No. If I'd been a baseball player, I'd have moved a hell of a lot faster."

  They followed my lead, grinning after I did, watching me like crazy. I sipped iced tea, stunned at how calm I was with my three foremost web heroes staring.

  Bo finally said, "That's amazing, man. You're blind, and yet you're just going for that writer thing and college. What's your big secret? What's the difference between you and my sister? Were you rich or something?"

  "No," I admitted. "Small-town boy. My dad wasn't in the picture ... I left home at seventeen."

  "So why do some people make it and some people don't?" he asked.

  He was still making a comparison between me and his sister. I didn't feel it was my place to answer, though I could have spoken for hours. He didn't expect an answer, I guess.

  "And ... what is up with Justin? Is he a druggie or are my ears catching things wrong? People out in the boondocks are talking up a storm."

  Ali looked stricken, and he said to her, "He's been doing everything shy of crack from what I hear."

  "Oh, damn..." she said, resting her forehead on her fingertips. "I'm learning about this in my classes right now. How siblings are often coeternal opposites."

  "And here's what's worse." Bo leaned over the table. "You ready?"

  They said they were.

  "Justin thinks his brother is out in the woods."

  "His ... brother Matt?" Ali asked, confused. Adams froze in a way that, I guess, only I could understand. The weirdness strikes you hard enough to freeze you only if you spent an inordinate time thinking about the kid.

  "Not Matt," Adams guessed when Bo didn't answer.

  Bo sucked in a deep breath and blew it out again. "There was a whole crew of kids down in the Lightning Field after I left you, Adams. I stopped by to check on Justin like I said I would, thinking maybe I'd lecture him, give him a few needed swats on the head. There must have been, like, nineteen of them ... all brewed out and smoked up, all waiting for Chris Creed to show up across the swamp."

  "Do we ... have any reason to believe that Chris might actually be around here?" Ali asked, casting a cautious glance at Torey, who suddenly looked depressed. He could never 314 stand the way kids created a circus out of Chris's disappearance. He said nothing. He just stared into the table, thinking God knows what. I wished he would blog it so I could read it tomorrow.

  "Come on, Ali," Bo said, shifting impatiently enough to bounce me once. "Look at the reality of it. If Chris were coming home? Chris would go to his house. He's either twenty-one like us, or he's close. He'd go see what was up with his family. He's not going to show up at the Lighting Field to juggle balls of fire for the loadies. Jeezus. I should have known I'd come home to something like this."

  "You think it's Justin's drug use that's making him think this?" Ali asked with a grimace. She obviously had liked the kid.

  Bo jerked his head my way and his eyes landed on the napkin on my plate. "Mike would know better than me."

  I was back to my journalistic conundrums. Was Justin an interview, and hence, did I protect his privacy? Or was Justin a hurting person and these people might help him?

  I felt my heart melting, my career choices turning into sludge yet again. "Uh ... Justin seriously needs to go back to rehab. But, as is sometimes the case, drug use is a symptom. He's been diagnosed as bipolar."

  Ali said thoughtfully, "I've long suspected that about his mother..."

  "The drugs, her alcohol—I'd humbly submit they're self-medicating. He needs to work the shit out that's in his household. It's ... pretty unbelievable."

  "You saw hi
s mom tonight?" Bo asked.

  I shuffled around in my seat until the urge to spill left me. I felt proud of myself for not announcing that the woman had all but raped me. But I got an idea. I wasn't working on the dead sister angle. Without spilling, maybe there was something I could imply to Bo about his sister and my suspicions...

  "Can I ask you a question?" I looked at Bo and laid down my pen.

  He looked glazed. "Sure."

  "Did your sister, um, write anything to you? About Justin?"

  He chuckled sadly. "She IMed me, like, twice, and both times it was something like 'I love you, but stay the fuck out of it. Luv, Darla.' That was in response to my five dozen IMs to her, to leave Danny alone and shit. She knew I sicced Justin on her, which amused her greatly, and to get even, she threatened to come on to him also. Hey, wait a minute."

  He leaned away from me, staring suspiciously, and I suddenly saw a streak of Bo's wild-and-crazy eyes from the myths in these parts. I put my hands in the air, showing they were nowhere near my pen.

  "This isn't part of my story," I said defensively. "All this is off the record. I just thought it might help you ... I just spent a good part of the day with your man Justin."

  "What did he say?" Bo asked. "Something about Darla?"

  I wished I hadn't started this. For one thing, my suspicions had not been confirmed by Justin. But I plodded on. "Actually, he talked a lot of stoner rot all day and refused to talk about Darla at all. Maybe that's my problem. He signs himself out of rehab for a funeral and he refuses to say one word about the deceased. It's, shall we say, odd, especially considering he's still slightly manic and talks a hundred miles an hour about everything else in the world. I'm just suspicious he knows more than he's saying—that's all. I don't know if that helps you."

  Bo drummed on the table, his eyes growing wider and wider. He finally shut his eyes and said, "Oh my God. I just had a terrible thought."

  The waitress came and gave me my check, and I sent her off with the money. It gave Bo time to collect his words, which apparently he needed.