Noggin (23 page)

“Resistance is futile,” Hatton added in a deep voice, slowly backing away into the darkness outside.

I was already shivering by the time I got from my front door to Kyle’s truck, so when I was inside, I pressed my cheek right up against one of the dashboard heating vents. Hatton had crawled into the backseat, and instead of saying anything about the arcade, he simply reached up and patted me three times really hard on the back and said, “Travis Coates!”

“Where are you taking me?”

“Secret.” Kyle never took his eyes off the road.

“Hatton, tell me,” I said.

“He’s in charge,” he said.

It took us about twenty minutes down the interstate to get to wherever we were going. It ended up being a neighborhood, not unlike the ones we all lived in, but with a little less light on the streets and a little more junk in each front yard. I started getting anxious when
we pulled into a driveway and Kyle turned off his ignition.

“I knew it,” I said. “You guys are murdering me. Damn it.”

“Why would we murder you in a stranger’s house?” Hatton asked.

“It’s the perfect crime, really,” Kyle said. “Drive someone to a random stranger’s house, kill them, disappear. Confuse the hell out of everyone.”

“Okay. No, but really. What’s going on?” I was looking out every window, not knowing what to expect.

I followed Kyle and Hatton to the front door, and we waited after knocking three times. Eventually a little kid holding a toy gun opened the door. He was wearing Spider-Man underwear and nothing else.

“Mom!” he yelled, running away from us.

Kyle stepped inside first and we followed. The small living room was covered in red and green wrapping paper. It was a Christmas war zone. There were toys everywhere, some put together and some not even partially. There were other kids too, at least three of them. And one teenager with half-open eyes, sitting on the couch playing a video game. I wondered how many houses all over town looked exactly this way inside . . . one big simultaneous holiday hangover. The present-less Christmas tree made me sad. They always did.

Finally, a woman in a nightgown stepped out from a darkened hallway and gave us a silent stare. Then she put her hands up quickly and said in a high-pitched voice, “Oh! Yes. The listing!”

“Forget we were coming?” Kyle asked.

“I guess I did. You know how Christmas goes. It’s been crazy here all day. Did you remember our deal?” She grinned.

“Yes, ma’am,” Kyle said.

“Boys, get up and come over here for a picture,” she said loudly toward the couch.

“Do we have to?” the one playing the video game asked.

“Yes, you have to! I’m framing this and putting it up on the wall. Hell, we might use it for our Christmas card next year.”

She picked up the Spider-Man–underwear kid and held him on her hip while the other boys got up and stood in front of the Christmas tree. She walked over and stood beside them.

“Well, come on, then,” she said, waving me over.

I looked at Kyle and Hatton, who both shrugged, and walked over to stand with the family. She pulled at her sons’ arms to move them in closer and started combing the tallest boy’s messy hair with her hand.

“Okay. Ready.”

“Everybody smile,” Kyle said, holding up his phone and trying not to laugh.

“Cheese,” I said.

When we were all done, the kids took their places back on the couch, and the woman started walking toward the kitchen.

“Okay, let’s go out back and I’ll show you where they are.”

“Where
what
are?” I whispered to Hatton. He ignored me. He was busy dodging things scattered all over the floor.

We followed her through the kitchen and out the back door. She flipped on a light and the entire backyard, which had even more junk in it than the front, lit up with a dull, dirty yellow. I looked up at the porch light to see hundreds of dead bugs collected in its glass. My mother would’ve insisted on cleaning it out for them. She wouldn’t have taken no for an answer. I just cringed and kept walking.

We got to the back corner of the yard, and the woman opened up the heavy metal door of a rusted shed. Kyle helped her prop it open with a half-broken cinder block while Hatton looked at me with this really excited expression.

“There you go, boys. If you can haul ’em, you can have ’em.”

She pulled a string that was dangling down from the ceiling, and the little metal shed lit up much brighter than I’d expected. And right there in the center was a set of two theater seats with red cushions standing perfectly on faded green metal legs that led up to dark wooden armrests. They looked nearly identical to the ones I’d had before, except there wasn’t a single wad of gum on either one.

“Merry Christmas, buddy,” Kyle said, walking over and sitting down in one of the seats.

“Boom! Surprised?” Hatton held up his hand and gave me a high five.

I knew it was possible that I might cry in front of them and in front of this woman who I’d never seen before in my life. But I didn’t. I just watched as they both lifted
the seats and started carrying them across the yard and then around to Kyle’s truck. They loaded them into the back, and Kyle used a couple of ropes to tie them down so they wouldn’t fall over or slide around on the way home. Inside the truck I was afraid to say much because I had that lumpy feeling in my throat, half due to amazement and half to trying not to blubber like a baby.

When we’d gotten them safely up to my bedroom and in their rightful place, in the corner by the window, facing my TV, I sat down in one of the seats and looked up at my two best friends. They wanted me to say something. Thank you, maybe. But that didn’t seem like enough, I guess. Hatton threw himself onto the bed and grabbed the remote control off my nightstand. He tossed it over to me. Kyle sat down beside me and stared across the room at the black screen.

“Yeah,” Kyle said. “This feels just about right.”

“It’s perfect,” I said. “Better, even.”

“Better than what?” Hatton asked.

“Than before.”

I suddenly realized I hadn’t gotten either of them anything. Here they’d obviously schemed in secret to do this amazing thing for me, to make me feel at least a little bit normal in my own room again, and I hadn’t done a thing for them. I was suddenly overwhelmed with guilt, so I stood up quickly and said I had to pee. I didn’t.

My mom and dad’s door was shut, so I was careful to be extra quiet when I walked down the stairs and into the
guest bedroom. I went into the closet and rustled around in a few boxes, but I didn’t see what I was looking for. I wasn’t all that sure what it even looked like anymore, but I knew it had to still be there, somewhere.

And then I saw it. Right in the back corner of the closet on the floor, covered by a couple of old throw pillows. I grabbed it and crept back up the stairs and into my bedroom. I held the green tin cookie jar in both hands and walked right up to Kyle and Hatton.

“Merry Christmas, guys. You wanna see something weird?”

They stared down into the cookie jar, both speechless and not moving. I thought they might even be holding their breath, afraid, perhaps, that one little stream of air could cause the ashes to explode all over the room. Hatton couldn’t help himself and eventually started easing one finger into the jar. Kyle slapped his hand away.

“Why are these here, Travis? Oh my God.”

“I think my parents are having a hard time figuring out what to do with them.”

“This is the creepiest and coolest thing I’ve ever experienced in my entire life. Thank you, Travis.” Hatton went to stick his finger in once more, and Kyle, once again, slapped it away without a word.

“What’re you gonna do with them?” Kyle asked.

“Well, I was hoping maybe you guys could help me figure that out.”

“I can’t believe they didn’t toss them out or something.” Hatton leaned down, almost putting his face against the top of the jar as he spoke.

“Me neither. But they don’t know I have these. So mum’s the word.”

“We should probably find something else to put them in, huh?” Kyle raised an eyebrow and looked around the room.

“I guess. But what’ll we replace them with?”

“I have an idea,” Hatton said. “But we can’t do it today. Actually, I’ll need a few days, maybe, but it’ll work.”

“What will work?” I put the lid back on the jar and set it on my desk.

“We can’t leave it empty and we can’t just fill it with dirt or something. That’s real ash in there. I figure your folks are keeping it around for some reason. Say they look inside and find us out. You don’t want to deal with that, right?”

“Right,” I said.

“Right. So give me a couple of days and I’ll get you some replacement ashes.”

“You gonna have a bonfire somewhere?” Kyle asked him.

“My dad’s a vet.”

“Oh no,” I said. “Hatton, I don’t think—”

“It’ll work. Trust me. They won’t be able to tell the difference.”

They both left well after midnight, and I quietly put the jar back in its hiding spot downstairs. If I’m being
totally honest, I should tell you that the ashes really didn’t mean anything to me. I wasn’t looking at them as some haunting symbol of my former self. They weren’t like the score at the arcade—they had nothing to do with my old life. I didn’t feel the need to do something with them, to find them some special final resting place. That wouldn’t change anything about my situation. But to Kyle and Hatton, it was different. It’s like they instinctively needed to rid them from my life. That’s the thing about having friends like the two of them—sometimes they know what you need way before you realize it yourself.

The next night Cate called me on her way over. She said we had to clear the air and get some things straight. I knew that couldn’t be a good sign, but still, it was a chance to be alone in a car with her and I’d take it, no matter the consequences.

I met her in the driveway, and it felt a little like she was mad, like maybe she’d been rehearsing some long speech to deliver to me on her ride over.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. I just . . . we have to talk about what happened the other day.”

“Well, we don’t
have
to. I mean, we could just chock it up to science if you want.”

“That’s not funny,” she said, trying not to smile.

“Okay . . .”

“How was Christmas?” she asked, punching me lightly
on the arm.

“It was good.”

“Your mom and dad must’ve been over the moon, I’m sure.”

“Over the moon? What’re you, fifty?” I laughed.

“Shut up.”

“They seemed happy, yeah,” I said. “It’s starting to feel normal again. Everything is sort of falling back into place, I guess.”

“About that,” she said. “I told Turner we’ve been hanging out. I had to. He thought it was just the one time, but I couldn’t keep lying.”

“What’d he say?”

“He was a little pissed at first. Of course he was. I would be too. Then he was glad I’d told him. He said if it was important to me that I see you, that we stay friends, then he was okay with it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, Travis. He’s a really nice guy. I told you that. He just wants what’s best for me.”

“That’s all I want too.”

“I know. But the other night. You can’t just do things like that. You can’t just come at me like that and expect things not to be weird. You just came back
from the dead
, Travis, and as much as I’d like to put myself in your shoes and imagine what that feels like, I can’t. I just know there are certain things you can’t control that you just have to learn to deal with. The world isn’t going to end if you don’t get exactly what you want. Trust me, I know.”

“How do you know?” I was stunned at this suddenly serious tone she was using with me. Maybe a few days away had given her time to figure out what I was up to.

“Because until I lost you, every little thing seemed so important to me. Then you were gone, and I was left wondering why I’d given a shit about any of it. For me, the world became something completely different, and I had to just deal with it and learn to get over it.”

“How can you expect me to hear you say things like that and not feel the way I feel about you, Cate?”

“I don’t know, Travis. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Turner wants to meet you before we can hang out again. That’s cool with you, right? I don’t ever want to be the kind of person who keeps secrets from my husband.”

Husband? Wow. This was the first time I’d ever heard her say it. It took all I could do not to open the door and roll out onto the pavement.

She pulled down my street again, having just made a long loop around the block. As we got close to my house, I saw my dad walking out to his car and getting inside. It was eight in the evening.

“Hey, hang back a second, okay?” I said to her.

“Why?”

“Just . . . hang back, okay? Where can he be going this late?”

“Pick up dinner?”

“No. We already ate. Follow him.”

“Travis, we are not following your dad.”

“Please. You and I both know that his weird late nights are not okay. Something is up. I have to find out.”

So we followed him. And maybe Cate’s five years without me were a little more exciting than she’d let on, because I swear she was a pro at this. She even let him go through a stoplight or two and caught back up, so he wouldn’t notice us. After we tailed him for about ten minutes, he turned into an apartment complex called the Villas at Red Oak. It was a fairly generic place, one of those two-level faux brick and aluminum siding buildings with exterior doors that all look identical except for their shiny gold numbers.

“Shit,” Cate said, almost whispering.

“Pull in over there. I don’t think he’ll see us.”

We parked on the other side of the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the swimming pool and separated it from the parking lot. The pool was covered by a large gray tarp that had a puddle of dirty water collected in its center, making it sag. We peered through the fence to where my dad had parked and saw him walking up the metal and concrete stairs to the second level. Neither of us said a word. I imagined it twenty times before it could happen, some strange young woman opening the door and greeting him with a kiss or a hug or both. Maybe, I thought, she’d take his hand and lead him inside, and I’d never be able to look at him again without wanting to cry.