Invisible

  “Sure. He’s a good guy. They have a little girl, another baby on the way.”

  There, for the briefest murmur of time, hung the way our lives could have spun out, if we’d let them. We could be married, settled, taking turns unloading the dishwasher, carrying out the trash. I leaned my forehead against the cold glass and looked down at the lake, broad and placid below. “You still ice fish?”

  He nodded. “I’ve upgraded some. Got a heater, a TV.”

  All the times we’d lugged sleeping bags and lanterns out to his dad’s ice house, that shack dragged out to the middle of the frozen lake, our breath frosting the air. We’d curl up together inside the cozy space, almost never getting around to dropping a line. I stared at the deep blue of the lake below and pictured it white and gray in a low winter sun. “Remember when I dropped my bracelet?” Though it hadn’t been my bracelet. It had been Julie’s. Joe and I had been playfully wrestling and it had fallen right off. I’d felt the tickle of the chain sliding down my thumb, then immediately pushed Joe away and plunged my hand through the fishing hole, into icy black water. Nothing.

  “You kidding? I thought I was going to have to fish you out.”

  I’d been furious at him for holding me back. Those reckless emotions, over-the-top and played to their full limit. Nothing touched me that deeply anymore.

  The water sparkled. Somewhere among its depths lay the gold bracelet with the dangling heart, the one Frank had given Julie for their first anniversary. I’d stolen it out of my sister’s jewelry box. Julie had been in tears. I’ll get you another, I had snapped, though I never did. That’s not the point, Julie had said, and turned away.

  Apparently, she’d ended up finding her own replacement. Just the other day, Peyton had lifted it from the jewelry box, and it looked almost exactly the same as the original, though the heart was a little smaller and the links a little bigger, and altogether not as pretty. I wondered if it had pained Julie, fastening it around her wrist, if it had reminded her of all the ways in which I’d ended up disappointing her. “The lake’s so blue,” I said.

  He nodded. “You can swim in there now. The town installed a weed puller.”

  Those long, silky fronds would wrap themselves around my ankles and calves, and squish unpleasantly underfoot. “Should have done it long ago.”

  “We didn’t have the money for it back then.”

  Black Bear had been a miserable town on the verge of extinction. But no longer. We banked over the treetops, and below me, as the trees parted to reveal a clearing dominated by a large beige building, I saw the reason why.

  “Gerkey’s.” I’d never seen it from above, never realized how isolated it was amid the trees, perched on the shore. All those hours I’d spent in that building, dipping candles, coming home blistered and nauseated from the sickening fruity aromas.

  “Brian threw some great parties there.”

  I remembered. But the corporate-looking complex below bore no resemblance to its first incarnation as the secret weekend meeting place for all the teens in town. Had Brian’s parents ever once suspected anything when they came to work Monday mornings, opening the door to the lingering aroma of marijuana, or tripping over the forgotten sneakers in a hallway, or finding the empty beer can inexplicably in the supply closet? We could not possibly have been as tidy or careful as we had imagined ourselves. We would have left clues behind. But Brian never said anything to me about getting into trouble with his folks, and Alice Gerkey had never once looked at me with anything but trust and affection. “Do you know how Mike and Sheri’s little boy is doing?”

  “Turned out to be an ear infection. It’s like that every time Logan spikes a fever, or loses his appetite. They’re raw. I worry about them both.”

  “He has the same disease Julie had.” Neighborhoods spun out below, roofs rolling out in branching lines, looking all the same, one dark rectangle after another. Sheets hung from a clothesline. A car crawled beetle-like along a narrow street. A town full of people, going about their regular business. What if something else was going about its business, too, and infecting every one of them? “Seems like a lot of people around here do.”

  He gave me a glance. “That why you were at Doc Lindstrom’s?”

  I looked at him. I hadn’t even said a word about my visit with Doc Lindstrom. He smiled back and I felt something flicker between us. Why had I been so surprised by his perceptiveness? Of course Joe would have guessed why I’d wanted to talk to Julie’s doctor. Joe had always been able to follow the track of my thinking, keeping me going along a certain path or sometimes pulling ahead and stopping me before I did something rash or risky. I looked away. Joe hadn’t always stopped me. “He said the rate’s only slightly elevated. He thinks it’s just a matter of time before it goes back down—”

  “But you think it won’t.”

  The doctors who had taken care of Julie thought so. “What do I know? I blow up buildings for a living.”

  “I don’t know, Dana.” Joe’s voice was thoughtful. “Maybe you’re right. First Julie, then Martin. Logan.”

  “Miss Lainie.”

  “Miss Lainie,” he repeated. “Exactly. Maybe it just takes an outsider to see something the rest of us are too close to make out.”

  An outsider? Was that how Joe saw me? My cheeks grew hot and I turned back to watch the fields ripple gold and green, green and gold.

  The airplane thrummed around us.

  Joe’s voice came through the headphones. “What happened to us, Dana?”

  I stared down at the wheat, alive and dead, dead and alive. Stupidity happened to us, I wanted to say. My own stupid, foolish self. I wanted to confess everything, but doing so would have been the most selfish thing of all. I forced my voice to be even. “I guess we outgrew each other.”

  “You know that’s not true. It sure wasn’t like that the last time we were together.”

  His face hovering above mine, the moonlight slanting through the branches above us, trapping him in light and shadow. “Joe, we were kids. What did we know?”

  “All I knew was I was crazy about you. Then one day, it was over. No phone calls, no explanation. You wouldn’t even talk to me in the hall.”

  I remembered that day. I’d gone to school in a daze and wandered from class to class, unhearing and unseeing, trying to figure out if I could tell that I wasn’t the same anymore. I couldn’t talk to Joe, not until I knew how to tell him. By the time I had figured it out, it had been too late.

  “I came by the place you and your sister rented over in Hawley.” Joe’s voice was low. “You were in there. I heard the TV. But you wouldn’t answer the door.”

  He would’ve seen in an instant exactly why I was hiding. For five interminable minutes, I’d pressed myself against the wall, eyes clenched tight and holding my breath, until at last the terrible pounding stopped.

  The plane droned on.

  Then I nodded toward the dark clouds massing on the horizon. “Storm’s coming. We’d better head back.”

  EIGHTEEN

  [PEYTON]

  ANGLERFISH ARE BONY, LANTERN-JAWED FISH THAT live deep in the abyss. They come magically equipped with their own fishing rod, an antenna that curves from the top of their head and dangles a glowing light right in front of their mouth. Curious fish swim over to check it out, and snap! They don’t live long enough to warn the others.

  These are the female anglerfish. The males are tiny lumps that burrow into the side of the female and fuse, flesh to flesh. They live off the female and give her what she needs to reproduce. The perfect relationship, as long as he doesn’t mind giving up his freedom and she doesn’t mind having something forever jammed into her side.

  Brenna’s house was so new it reeked of paint and carpet. It was worse in the basement, where the smells were trapped and made Peyton’s eyes water.

  “We’ve seen this movie,” Eric complained.

  “Like a thousand times,” Peyton muttered. She tossed a piece of popcorn at the bowl, and it m
issed, landing on the floor instead. Quickly, she scooped it up before Brenna’s mom could appear and stand there, frowning, her hands on her hips.

  “Who’s watching the movie?” Adam snickered. He and Brenna sat bundled in the armchair, her legs across his lap and his arm slung around her shoulders.

  “Shut up.” Brenna pointed the remote at the big screen. “This is the good part.”

  Her boyfriend growled and nuzzled her neck. “I like my women bossy.”

  Brenna giggled, and pretended to elbow him away while letting him slide his other arm across her belly.

  Peyton looked pointedly at Eric. You owe me.

  He made an apologetic face. I know.

  She ate another handful of popcorn. Adam was disgusting and Brenna annoying, but at least they weren’t paying any attention to her. They weren’t looking at her with big sad eyes, or asking questions that were supposed to be sympathetic but were really just plain curiosity. Like Peyton would really tell anyone what it was like to be her. Like she even knew.

  But being here was better than being at her own house, where her dad wandered around like a ghost, and Dana could at any moment walk in the front door and say or do something stupid that only made everything worse.

  The squeak of the basement door, and here was Brenna’s mom clopping down the stairs in her heels. “How are we all doing down here?”

  Adam straightened and put an innocent look on his face.

  “Fine, Mrs. Viersteck,” Eric said.

  She wore makeup that made her skin look orange, and her clothes were way tight and way short. None of the other moms looked anything like her. “Want some chips? I’ve got some baked Lay’s upstairs.”

  “Mom, just go.”

  “Oh, Brenna. Please don’t talk to me like that.” But she didn’t really sound that pissed, more like she knew it was the kind of thing a mom was supposed to say. “Peyton, how are you, sweetheart?”

  Peyton’s cheeks burned as the other kids eyed her. “Fine.”

  “How’s your dad doing?”

  “He’s okay.” Peyton turned the string bracelet around on her wrist. The brightly colored threads cycled around. Orange, yellow, red, green.

  “It’s nice your aunt is going to stay and help out for a little while.”

  Brenna groaned. “Mom.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Brenna. Just pause the movie.” She returned her attention to Peyton. “She came in to see Dr. Lindstrom today. I hope everything’s okay.”

  Peyton was the daughter of a nurse. She knew that wasn’t the sort of thing Mrs. Viersteck was supposed to tell people, and it certainly wasn’t the sort of thing she should be asking about. “I guess.”

  “I was surprised when she called to set up an appointment. I thought Dr. Lindstrom had stopped being her doctor long ago.” When Peyton didn’t respond, she reached up to adjust an earring. “It’s just that she was supposed to go to him for her college physical, but she never showed.” She shook her bracelets around her wrist. “I have no idea how she got into college without one.”

  “Fascinating, Mom,” Brenna said.

  So what was she saying, that Dana had been up to something, that she wasn’t what she appeared to be? Mrs. Viersteck had been a sometime friend of her mom’s, but Peyton could always tell her mom didn’t really like Mrs. Viersteck. Whenever Mrs. Viersteck called to say she was dropping by, Peyton’s mom always put the phone down with a little sigh of resignation.

  “Well, it is fascinating. I’ve always wondered.” Mrs. Viersteck patted the front of her skirt, smoothing it over her hips. “I guess she and Joe Connolly are still an item, huh?”

  “People don’t talk like that anymore, Mom.”

  “I’m people, and I do.” Her mascara was so thick it clumped. She smiled and Peyton was pretty sure she’d just reapplied her lipstick. Who did that, put on lipstick to check the kids in the basement? “I saw her get into Joe’s car. It was sweet, actually, reminded me of the good old days.”

  “Sweet,” Adam said.

  She gave him a look as if trying to gauge whether he was sincere or mocking. “Make sure you use that coaster,” she told him, and smiled at Peyton. “Let me know if you change your mind about those chips.”

  The moment her mother’s trailing hand on the banister disappeared around the curve of the stairs, Brenna dipped under Adam’s arm and snuggled against him. “Can we get back to the movie, guys, or what?”

  “Or what,” Adam said.

  He thought he was so original. Peyton could have seen that line coming from a million miles away.

  Eric held open the door, and Peyton pushed past him onto the front porch into the cool night air. Rocking chairs sat lined up along the railing as if something was about to happen out on the grass and they didn’t want to miss the show. Clouds had rolled in to cover the face of the moon, and everything smelled damp.

  “I know what we can do now,” she said. “Stick needles under our fingernails.”

  “Come on. It wasn’t so bad. I thought you liked Brenna.”

  She snorted. Right. Brenna was the kind of person who assumed friendship, who confided in Peyton and asked her to be lab partners, blah blah blah, but Brenna was like that with everyone. It didn’t mean anything. “You can be so dumb sometimes.”

  Why was she so mad? Was it because of Brenna’s stupidity, Mrs. Viersteck’s insincerity, or the pressure of sitting beside Eric for two hours and knowing he wanted to kiss her like Adam was kissing Brenna. Or maybe it was that Brenna still had her mom around. Brenna was so secure that she could treat her mom like dirt, right in front of Peyton.

  “I guess.” His voice was mild.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. She could call him a major dork, and he’d shrug. It just made her madder. “Whatever.”

  He unlocked the car and Peyton climbed into the passenger seat. Eric’s car, technically one he shared with his older brother, was a total beater, with rusted doorframes and sagging seats, but it rode low to the ground, and she loved watching the way Eric drove with one arm on the windowsill and the other hand on the steering wheel. He’d hung the big green fuzzy dice she’d given him from the rearview mirror, and now she reached up and tapped them to send them swinging.

  Thunder rumbled distantly as he backed his car out of the driveway. “Did you Google your aunt after you got her phone number?”

  His voice sounded a little too casual. “Why would I?”

  He shrugged. “It’s just that they’re saying she killed someone in that building implosion.”

  That was ridiculous. She frowned at him, but he wouldn’t look at her. “Oh, come on.”

  “For real. There was someone in the building when she blew it up.”

  Peyton slumped in her seat and frowned at the dashboard. “I don’t believe you. Dana hasn’t said anything.”

  “Well, but would she? Come on. Think about it. Your dad would be pissed.”

  Eric was right. Dana was playing them.

  “Sorry.” Eric glanced over. “I just thought you should know.”

  “Great. It’s just one more freaky thing about my family.”

  “Everyone’s family is freaky.”

  “No, they aren’t. Yours is really, really not freaky.”

  The light turned red and Eric braked to a stop. Lightning flared.

  The whole world was outside, and it was just the two of them inside the small space of the car, the air tinged with the musty odor from the discarded fast-food wrappers on the floor, and the tang of Eric’s cologne. “How come you hang around me?”

  He laughed a little. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.” The dice had stopped rocking and now hung straight. “Lots of girls like you.” Everyone liked him. “You’re a normal guy. I’m all . . . twisted.” Saying it hurt, a stabbing pain that lingered.

  “Peyton. You’re not that way.”

  So much wonder in his voice. The red glow from the stoplight slanted into the car; his gaze was steady on hers.

&nb
sp; “When I look at you, all I see is this halo around you, like you’re glowing,” he said.

  “You telling me to get a tan?”

  He shook his head, no amusement there. Was he blushing? “You’re just . . . it.”

  A car behind them honked, telling them the light had changed. The rain started, a soft patter at first, then a steady rapping on the glass. Eric switched on the wipers. She watched the street blur and sharpen, blur and sharpen, all the quiet houses massed around them, the people inside them coming together and moving apart. Two letters that spelled the world. It.

  NINETEEN

  [DANA]

  A RAINY NIGHT IN A SMALL TOWN WITH NOTHING TO do. No one to visit, and neither of the two movies playing downtown sounded appealing. Neither did hanging around a bar, watching other people connect. It used to be a game, to see if I could get the guy in the corner to come over, or the girl on the stool beside me to tell me her life story. Now I knew just how shallow those interactions really were.

  Rain pattered against the windowpanes as Frank worked at the dining room table, sliding papers around with abrupt crispness, as though he were searching for something and not liking what he was finding. A glass of amber liquid sat by his elbow. So he’d moved on to the hard stuff. He didn’t glance up when I came to stand in the doorway.

  “Where’s Peyton?” I had arrived to find supper dishes piled in the sink, and Peyton’s bedroom door hanging ajar to an empty room.

  “Why?” He looked over at me, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose.

  For a moment, I saw him, the brother I could have had. “I’m going to go through my stuff in the basement, and I wanted to see if she wanted any of it.”

  “Doubtful.” He went back to his papers.

  And there he went, the brother I would never know.