"So, then ... what's up?" I pretended to be all interested in a blade of grass.
"I don't know. For one thing, I really love to piss off my dad. As flirty as my mom is? He's, like, the opposite. He's sort of pristine."
"So ... he knows?"
She looked at me like I was crazy. "No way! It would kill him. I want to piss him off for leaving me and Greg to cope with Mom. I don't want to send him into cardiac arrest or something."
"So ... what's the point?" I couldn't see how she planned to make him mad if he never even knew.
She sighed. "I guess it's just the point that if he knew. It makes me feel like laughing sometimes. It's like ... the only way in my life I've ever been mean to somebody."
"Ali..." I trailed off, thinking she was being a lot meaner to herself.
"Yeah, I know it's hard to understand," she admitted. "It's hard for me to understand, and I'm not even perfect like you."
"Christ's sake, Ali." I didn't feel like starting up on that again. My life wasn't perfect anymore, so she was going to start in on my character. No way. "You don't have a clue how weird I am. Nobody does. I'll lie on my bed for hours just thinking."
"Well, I don't think that's so weird," she said with a shrug.
"I do," I argued. "I mean, I'm not sleeping, I'm not moving. I'm just lying there, thinking. And it's about stuff that nobody else would care about."
"Like what?"
I shrugged, recalling the morning last week I woke up at six and lay in bed until seven.
"What it would feel like to be drawn and quartered between four horses," I confessed. I had seen some old movie on late-night, where this fifteenth-century guy had been tied between four horses. At the same time, the riders all took off galloping in four different directions. I had to lie there figuring the thing, from six until seven, where he got separated—at the waist or the legs or the arms—and how long he could have stayed conscious.
"God, that's terrible," Ali breathed. I guessed she knew what drawn and quartered meant.
I kept going. "And especially since all this came down with Creed? I just feel different from everybody else all of a sudden. Nobody else seems to think about how he is. Did you ever notice that? Everybody wants to know where he is, but I haven't heard one person wonder about how he is. Unless they're saying that he's dead. I feel like the only one—and then I figure it must be me; I must be weird. I feel like a secret weirdo. Like it's this giant secret, and one day somebody's going to realize and spew it all over the cafeteria in megavolume. 'Everybody take a long look at Torey Adams! He's weird! And we just never realized it!' And the truth will be out."
I could feel her turn, but I was too embarrassed to look at her. I wished I hadn't said all that.
Finally she said, "Torey, everyone around here has a secret. You know that girl I was talking to on the bus this morning? That brainy one that's so quiet and gets all those straight As? Her mom is an alcoholic. The girl keeps her head chronically in a schoolbook because it's not as weird as the real world. You know Mike Healy from football? During the off-season his dad makes him swim behind a rowboat while he keeps track of Mike's time. If Mike doesn't do good enough, his dad hangs the stopwatch in front of the TV in Mike's bedroom so he'll swim better the next day."
That's sick, I thought. I wondered how she knew that stuff. Before I had a chance to ask her, she went on. "You know Lyle Corsica? You think he doesn't have friends because he's skinny and small. Well, Mark Fein is skinny and small, but he's a catcher on the baseball team and everybody thinks he's okay. Lyle Corsica doesn't have friends because he still wets the bed. And he's afraid to get too close to people because somebody will find out. Everybody feels weird, Torey—"
"Whoa!" I stopped her. I was seeing how deep her bank of secrets went. I had thought it was just Creed and Bo that she kept quiet about. "How do you know all this?" I asked her.
She was pulling grass out by the tips, but there was getting to be a whole clump of ground there. I grabbed her hand to stop it.
"Because..." She sighed. "My mom slept with all their dads. And they told her, and she told me."
She collapsed backwards on the grass and stared sadly at the sky. I collapsed backwards, too.
Bo called after dinner, and I let Ali take my cordless phone into her room. I went down to see what was on TV. I had to pass my mom's office, and she was in there, writing at her desk.
My mom has been writing with a feather pen since I can remember, and as a little kid I used to sit on her couch and watch that feather waggle as the pen flew across the paper. Once I asked her why she didn't e-mail Grandma, or something more practical. She gave me some spiel about how writing letters to Grandma had become her tradition, and that traditions gave you a feeling of sanity and security, even if they weren't practical. I felt like everything was changing in the world, except my mother and that stupid pen.
"You feeling better?" she asked without looking up.
"Yeah. Some." I watched the feather bob, kind of hypnotized by it.
"Ali's mom went to the spa in Florida." I caught a click in her voice, like she was intentionally trying not to sound too concerned. "It's about two miles up the road from where Ali's grandmother lives. About ten miles from your grandma. She'll be there for two weeks. I told her that Ali and Greg could stay with us. I hope that's all right with you. None of us really wants ... Ali staying alone."
I wondered what that meant. I wondered if she'd found out about Ali's sex tricks. Maybe Mrs. McDermott knew and spilled the beans to my mom. I wasn't about to ask.
"It's fine." I shrugged but wondered how I could stand having some little kid in my room all that time. For Ali, I could do it. "What's a spa? Like a health club?"
"Actually, Mrs. McDermott and her mother call it the spa. But there's a drug and alcohol rehabilitation unit in there, and that's where Mrs. McDermott is."
I glanced at her and watched that pen move again. "Mrs. McDermott is addicted to drugs? I guess that's good ... I thought she was just crazy."
My mom let out a slight laugh. "I've been with the DA's office a long time now. Ninety percent of the time, inappropriate behavior and crimes are linked to two things: drugs and alcohol."
I guessed that made good sense. "So, what did you say to her today?"
She squirmed uncomfortably. "Not a whole lot. Some people know when the game is up. Some people want the game to be up, and they're just waiting for someone to step in and blow the whistle."
I stared at the wood floor until the slits became double slits somehow. "Everybody in town has a skeleton in the closet."
"True," she said.
I was just repeating Ali, but I was surprised how quickly Mom agreed with me.
I watched her and toyed around with telling her that I had made the phone call, not Bo. I knew I had to get Bo off the hook, but I got scared Ali would start in like she'd promised and say that she had made the phone call. I had disguised my voice when Mrs. Creed answered—half snarl, half whisper—and I wasn't sure you could tell it was a guy. I got to the point where I was ready to blurt it out to my mom, when I heard a noise behind me. Ali was standing there looking kind of awkward. This wasn't the time.
I sighed, feeling hungry all of a sudden. My dad had made chili for dinner, and all those spices gave it the appeal of a pile of thumbtacks. I had basically pushed it around in the bowl. "Can I walk down to Wawa for some of that macaroni and cheese?"
My mom reached around for her handbag and pulled out a five. "Ali, do you want anything?"
Ali shook her head as I stood there looking at the five, feeling a little strange. I didn't want to take money from my mom, not while I was lying about that phone call and Ali and I were lying about the diary—all these lies. But I took it, anyway.
I felt Mom watching me as Ali and I put on our jackets and headed out the door.
Sixteen
"You have ESP," Ali said as we walked down the road. "That's where Bo called me from. I just have to see him. I don't know ho
w I'm going to do this for two weeks, but I'm afraid to ask your mom, you know, if he can come over."
"Yeah, I don't know what she would say." I tried to think about it. "I don't think she's as prejudiced as a lot of people around here. But after just confessing to making that phone call—God, why did he do that? ... I wonder if she believes him. At any rate, I don't know if she wants him all hanging out in the basement with us yet."
We got to Wawa, and Bo was out there pacing and huffing on a cigarette. No other kids were there, but he pushed us around to the side of the building, anyway.
"Listen to me. You're not doing six months in Jamesburg for that phone call," I told him.
"You got a better idea?" he asked. "Do you want to do six months in Jamesburg?"
"No." But I couldn't take the thought of how many people depended on him: Ali, Greg, his brothers and sisters.
"Look, six months is the max. I won't get the max," he reasoned. "I ain't never been actually sent up before. Fortunately, all those robberies I pulled? I never got caught with anything in my hands, and I always got caught before I could leave the property."
He laughed like that was something hysterical. "So I never been charged with robbery, only breaking and entering. That ain't worth the taxpayers' money. Besides, if we find Creed, his old lady will be so happy she'll, like, wet herself and forget I'm such a bad guy. Let me see the diary," he mumbled, and Ali pulled it out of her jacket.
I got so caught up in that thought, I actually let the phone-call thing go for the moment.
Ali opened the diary to a page where she had a match-book stuffed in it, and held it open to him. She pointed to a line. "What do you think it says?" she asked him.
He looked, and I looked beside him, where she pointed. She took the cigarette from Bo, and I could hear her inhale to her toes.
"Stupid things," she muttered. "I've got to be addicted to them. I felt like I was going crazy, hearing you smoke over that phone."
Bo pointed to a word that followed the word Isabella.
"Karzan? Tarzan? What do you think it is, Adams?"
It must be the girl's last name, I figured, staring at the letters. Creed's handwriting was awful.
Bo cursed in frustration, and I said, "Wait. Let's back up and read a little bit. Maybe it'll just back into our heads after we've looked at his handwriting long enough."
I went along as best I could. "We sat down on the beach and stared into the evening ... stars," I read aloud. It looked like stirs. "I lay down thinking that she would lie down, too, but she was too shy." I sighed in disgust, and Bo cracked up.
"Come on, Adams. Two virgins rolling around under the stars. That's sweet, you know?" He was trying to be serious but was laughing a little.
I tried to be serious. "I finally reached for a strand of her ... long bland hair—blond hair"—I cleared my throat—"and pulled her backwards. She was very shy and did not want to at first, but after a moment she did. I kissed her lips, and before I knew it my hand was cupping her breast—"
Bo nudged me, half knocking me off my feet for laughing. I quit laughing but had to find my place again. "Her breast. And I said to her, 'Isabella Karzden, I love you...' Karzden. It's Isabella Karzden." I spelled it and handed the book back to Ali quickly. That was a death-defying feat in not laughing anymore.
Ali threw down the cigarette and said, "Wait here." She disappeared around the corner and came back a few minutes later with the Wawa phone book. "Manager said I have to bring it right back, so hurry."
She flipped open the pages to the Ks, and we looked down them. There were four Karzdens in Margate. No Isabellas. None of us had a pen, so Bo and Ali each memorized one number, and I memorized two. After Ali returned the phone book, we tried three of the numbers, which turned out to be the wrong people. We ran out of change. I went inside to get more by buying my macaroni and cheese. I didn't really feel like eating it at this point, but I needed dimes and quarters. As I was standing there, lo and behold, Alex and Renee came in.
I waved at them, trying to act casual. Alex came up behind me in line, and Renee went to the candy aisle.
"Hey," Alex said.
"Hey. Wha's up?"
I could feel him staring at me. "You left school sick today, so I figured we had no band tonight."
"Right," I said. For once it was me totally forgetting.
"I don't suppose it's any coincidence that you're in here and Ali McDermott is outside."
He didn't mention Bo, and I hoped that meant that Bo had seen them coming and cut out into the darkness.
"No," I said honestly. "Her mom is in Florida for two weeks, and she's staying at my house. Her little brother, too. Our moms worked it out, or something."
I could see his eyebrows shoot up with a look of apology wafting off his face.
"Oh," he said. "Well ... do you think it would be nice to explain that to your girlfriend? I heard you blew her head off on the phone today. She was a mess. You could have told her what was up."
"She accused me without giving me a chance." I started in but didn't want to blame the whole thing on Leandra, either. It sounded wimpy.
Renee had come up beside Alex, with a bunch of candy in her hands, and she said, "Why in the hell does Ali have to stay with you? She could have stayed with me. You're a guy."
"So?" I asked for lack of something better. She had big ears, hearing all that.
"It just doesn't look very good, that's all. How do you think Leandra feels?"
It didn't feel very good, thinking I had to run my life around this relationship that was starting to seem kind of annoying and small.
"You know what? I just don't think I can be with Leandra right now, you guys. I'm going to tell her tomorrow, so don't butt in and tell her first, okay?" I just blurted it out, but after I did I felt some great relief. I couldn't believe it. Last night, lying in bed, I was all afraid of losing her. Now I was saying I would break it off.
"What is up?" Renee asked. She started in with how they were my friends.
"If you're really my friends, you'll just have to hang back from me right now. I can't explain."
They were pissed. The manager was waiting at the register, and Renee burst past me, pushing me hard in the shoulder. I wanted to grab a clump of her hair and pull it out. She paid and stalked away.
"She's precious," I muttered to Alex.
"Yeah, well, you always said you never wanted to get on her shit list." He grinned, all smug. "You're on it. Leandra's her friend."
"Yeah, well, so am I. Maybe you guys could grow up, thank you." I flipped the five onto the counter and watched the manager reach into the drawer. "I need quarters and dimes for the phone booth, please."
"Oooo, that's grown-up," Alex said. "What're you guys calling, nine-hundred numbers?"
"Bite me," I said under my breath, took the change, and walked out.
Outside, Renee was big-time in Ali's face. Bo was nowhere I could see.
"...could have stayed with me and Ryan. You have to butt in on Leandra's turf? Are you stupid?"
"No, and it's none of your business!" Ali came back.
"Leandra's my business, she's my friend—"
"Oh, get a life," Ali said, backing away from her. "It shouldn't matter to you where I stay."
"Your stupid sex life makes it a problem where you stay!" Renee hollered. "I didn't cause your legendary rep, Ali! You caused it! If people think you're a slut, that's because you practically begged them to! My dad told me about your mother. Well, guess what? You're no better."
Ali balled up her fist, and before I knew what was happening, Renee went flying into me, all screaming. Ali screamed next, surprised at het own punch, I guess. I grabbed Renee, and Alex was hollering, "Ladies! Hold up!"
Renee elbowed me in the gut, and I thought my whole chest had caved in.
"Renee, Jesus!" I yelled, trying to keep from slinging her into the wall.
"Maybe you don't know her mom is a major slut, Torey."
I grabbed her by
the hair to keep her off Ali. That got Alex bear-hugging me from behind, which wasn't helping my aching gut.
Renee spat out, "Well, I know about her mom! My dad told me!"
An enormous hand reached from behind the wall and gripped Renee's wrist, keeping her from swinging. As Bo came walking out, Renee walked backward and he continued walking forward. He finally slung down her wrist.
He said, "God, you look funny when you're scared, Bowen. You don't get scared too often, I guess. Not with that big fat mouth of yours always flapping along in front of you."
"I'm not scared of you, you 'tard," she croaked.
He jumped forward at her, hollering, "Rahhh!" or something. She screeched.
I started laughing under my breath. It was funny, watching her piss herself, considering she just sent my gut halfway to hell with that elbow job.
"Why you so scared, Bowen? Let's see. Is it because I'm a boon? Or is it because you think I'm a murderer? What, you think I did Creed? And I'm coming to do you next? Raaahhr
She screamed again and worked her way over to Alex, who said, "Maybe we should all just ... make like a tree and leaf."
"My dad's a cop." Renee breathed nervously. "Don't fuck with me."
She looked so ridiculously scared, and it was pissing me off that she could assume Bo might kill someone without even knowing him. She could be just as vicious as he could sometimes, and no one was accusing her. Bo was laughing.
"Oh! Oh yeah, right, Renee! I killed him! I—" He looked at me with these huge laughing eyes. "How did we do it, Adams? I forget."
I wanted to frame her face to remember the day Renee Bowen got scared. Who knows, maybe I still had the Digger Haines story in my head.
"We took a gun and shot him?" I asked. I felt guilty right away. I didn't really want to make fun of them. I only wanted Renee to know what it felt like to be on the receiving end.
"Oh, that's right! I forgot! I took a gun and shot him and left him for dead in the woods," Bo said. "And as for your dad, it's way funny that he should be calling Mrs. McDermott a slut. What does that make your dad?"
Ali grabbed his arm and croaked his name out with wide eyes. She had looked ready to croak since she'd hit Renee. That was so out of form for her. But now her eyes looked ready to roll back in her head.