Temptation: A Novel (3 page)

4. Memories

Middle of the morning, we have a fifteen-minute break where kids can go check all their social sites on their phones (as if they weren’t already doing that for the last hour and a half), or go to the restroom, or go smoke if you’re Brick. He offers me a cigarette every time he’s ready to go. I always politely decline.

There’s this crazy hope that I’m going to somehow find myself talking to the golden-haired goddess. Then again, I know I’d sorta stammer and say something stupid like the last couple of times we’ve talked.

After coming out of the restroom, I see her leaning against the wall while Harris, Roger, and Shawn circle her.

There’s really no room for someone else. What’s that called?

Fifth wheel?

I walk slowly and hear Roger talking about some party. Suddenly it’s my junior year again.

Seven people, and I’m still on the outs.

“You should come. Meet some more of the wonderful people who go to this school.”

Shawn laughs, says something. I’m almost past them when I hear Roger say, “You can come too, Harris. Hey—Chris—you, too.”

I stop and give my best
Oh you guys are talking about something ’cause you know I’m so cool I didn’t notice.

Lily glances at me, and the glance stays for a moment. She smiles.

No, I take it back. She’s amused. She finds this—probably all of this—comical.

“Go where?” I ask.

“Big party Saturday night,” Roger says. “Del’s having it. His parents are gone, and they don’t care anyway.”

“I’ll only go if Harris goes,” Lily says. “Wanna be my date?”

I think all of us want to be your date.

Harris, of course, looks blown away. If he was as pale as me, perhaps he’d be blushing, but he just beams and acts like his day has been made.

It’s funny, because Roger runs in different circles from the other popular senior I got to know. Ray didn’t talk much about him. But I know Roger normally wouldn’t invite people like Harris and me to his party. It’s because Lily is standing there. He’s finally figured out a way to get her to come.

We talk and laugh and then see Mr. Taggart walking past us in the hallway. He stops and looks over at us, his droopy eyes looking tired and sad.

“Don’t ever have kids, I’m tellin’ you straight,” he says, then keeps walking.

We wait until he’s in the room before bursting out laughing. It’s funny.

I follow the gang into the room before remembering I left my notebook in the bathroom.

I jog back down the hallway.

The lights are on in the school, and it strangely feels like it’s just the start of a regular day.

I slow down before getting to the restroom.

I slow down, and I remember.

“Good. We’ll take you. You fit with us. Plus … you’re cute.”

That meeting in the hallway with the three girls. Jocelyn, Rachel, and Poe.

All gone in one way or the other.

I shut my eyes as if that can shut out thoughts. But memories are hard to keep contained.

“Don’t say anything. Okay? Not now. Just wait for later.”

Jocelyn’s words after she found the note that I wrote but probably never intended to give her. Her words in these very same hallways.

I think of Joss, and Poe, and Newt, and Kelsey.

You can’t just shut the book on them. They’re still out there, even if they exist only as ghosts or memories.

I open the door to the bathroom and try to escape from all those names and faces and voices.

The school year is over.

The stuff that happened—it happened yesterday.

I find the notebook and grab it.

You can’t just bury it.

I laugh and look at the guy in the mirror.

“Let’s see if I can’t.”

5. Keys

“When are you going to find another job?”

I’ve managed to make it home minutes before Mom is ready to head out the door.

That is not so coincidental.

“My last one burned to the ground.”

Mom is all made up and is running around like she always does before she goes to work at Brennan’s Grill and Tavern.

“What’d they ever find out about that?”

“It probably went in the same file as everything else does.”

Some big fat file in a dark abandoned room.

“Poor Iris. I hope she had insurance.” Mom stops and thinks about things for a minute. “Have you ever heard from her?”

I shake my head.

Iris.

I don’t tell my mom that every day since summer school has started, I’ve gone hunting for the scorched remains of the Crag’s Inn. And every day, I’ve come home without even finding the road that leads to it.

A road can’t just disappear.

But the road leading to the inn, along with the inn itself and its keeper, have just suddenly and mysteriously
vanished.

Hey, if a mysterious island can do that, maybe so can an inn …

“Well, when you see her, tell her if there’s anything I can do …” Mom says.

I’m wondering what she has in mind. Replenishing the bar?

“Did you ask the teacher about getting your license?” she continues.

I laugh. “Mom—you don’t ask Mr. Taggart anything to do with … well, anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you saw him, you’d understand. He just walked off the set of a zombie movie.”

“You have to get your license, Chris.”

“I know.”

She gives me a look. With the sun spilling into our small cabin, I can see her up close. Her eyes are red and watery. No amount of makeup can hide that.

“I’ve got some leftovers in the fridge. Half a chicken sandwich and some spinach dip.”

“Together?” I make a face.

She shakes her head and starts for the door, then realizes she doesn’t have her car keys. I find them on the counter and hand them to her.

“Get that smirk off your face,” Mom says in a feisty tone.

“What?”

“You know
what
.”

I shrug.

“Just because you’re able to ride around on that motorcycle doesn’t mean you’re grown up. I’m not going to keep paying for gas, you know.”

Uh-huh. She’s one to talk about being a grown-up. And part of me really thinks she likes paying for the gas. It keeps my smirk and her guilt far away.

Mom looks at her watch. “I’m gonna be late.”

Exactly.

I see the door shut. And suddenly, there it comes again.

That lightweight feeling.

The quiet. The

dare I say it for fear of rats morphing into bats crawling out of the closets

peace.

It’s close to one o’clock on a Friday afternoon on a summer day. I make sure Midnight has a bowl of food, then give her a good-bye pat on her head. The little black Shih Tzu seems content to sleep the day away on the couch.

I find the other set of keys and pick them up.

It’s time to find the woman who gave them to me. Or at least find the place where she’s buried.

6. Trying to Outrun Reason

“Hi, Chris.”

I see Mr. Page’s face as I’m just finishing gassing up the motorcycle, and a feeling of guilt tears through me. I can see his truck behind him at another pump, and I just know that Kelsey’s sitting in the passenger seat. Sitting and watching. Wondering whatever happened after I last saw her at prom, after our dance to the last song of the night.

“New bike?” he asks me as he admires it.

“Uh, it was a gift,” I say.

“Wow. Some gift. How’s your summer going?”

“Good.” I can’t exactly see into the truck, but I just know—I have a feeling—

“Kelsey just left for Florida to visit her cousin. She’ll be there a couple of weeks.”

I hear the
phew
go off inside my head.

“Sounds like fun,” I say.

“Yeah. She begged me, and her cousin came up here last summer, so we decided she could do it.”

I think of the couple of times she’s called and left messages. Of that last message still on our answering machine at home. Asking me to call, telling me to call soon if I can.

“Everything all right?” Mr. Page asks me.

Both of Kelsey’s parents are just plain nice. No wonder she’s such a sweet girl.

And no wonder she needs to stay far away from your life.

“Yeah. Everything’s great.”

“Maybe we’ll see you sometime this summer. We’d love to have you over for dinner again.”

“Yeah, sure,” I say with a forced smile and interest.

If it’s up to me, I won’t go.

Nothing against Kelsey, or Mr. Page, or their nice little family. It’s just—that’s not for me. I don’t belong in that picture.

I belong in another picture. Rated R for violence and horror. The kind where kids get killed off one by one.

I mount my bike and try to start it up. For some reason, it won’t go.

I try again. And again.

I glance over at Mr. Page, who’s smiling at me.

I feel like such a tool.

Finally, after a few more tries, I start it up. I wave to him and take off down the road, not really sure where I’m headed but just getting away from the niceness of that man and his family and especially his daughter, who I’ve been avoiding thinking about because it’s easier that way.

I ride for a while, getting out of the town limits of Solitary. Sometimes it seems the farther I drive the easier it is not to think about everything. But today, it all comes back. Maybe it’s because I saw Mr. Page and was reminded that just because I’m not answering doesn’t mean they’re not out there.

If I close my eyes and think about it, I can still picture Kelsey’s glance while we danced at prom. I can still remember feeling lost and free. Of course, I can’t shut my eyes at this very moment, or I’d probably end up wrapped around a tree in the woods I’m passing. Maybe that’s another reason I like this bike. No time to daydream.

Then I think of Poe, of her telling me not to bother stopping by to say good-bye. Of her telling me that she’ll contact me at some point down the road. But every day I don’t hear anything, and I wonder when exactly “down the road” is going to be. Will I end up at a nursing home one day and see her sitting across from me in a wheelchair?

Think you’ll live long enough to see a retirement home?

The whole Poe-Kelsey thing that happened last semester—I still don’t know how to make sense of any of it. There was never supposed to be a Poe-Kelsey thing to start with. It kinda creeped up on me, and then when I realized it, the mouth of the beast swallowed me in. Things got too dark too fast for there to ever be Team Poe shirts and Team Kelsey pages.

This reminds me of my current predicament. No, not predicament. Situation.

The latest pretty girl I can’t stop thinking about.

The road winds around, and I keep going faster, trying to outrun reason. I’m getting the hang of riding this motorcycle even if I don’t have a license and don’t know exactly why I was given the bike in the first place.

I’m trying not to think so much these days. But I’m not doing that great a job.

7. Back Roads Party

The following evening, I show up to Del’s home, using the directions that Roger scribbled down for me. His house is really just a one-bedroom shack, to be honest, but it’s got a huge yard that everybody seems to be parked on and hanging out in. There are probably a hundred people that I can see when I pull up and get off the bike.

As usual, I get people admiring the bike and commenting on it.

I can’t lie. It feels good to be noticed in a positive way.

I go in search of any of the summer school students, hoping to find someone I know to stand near instead of looking like a kid lost at a busy mall. It doesn’t take me long to see Shawn, but he just nods and keeps going in search of something. Maybe more beer.

The backyard has more people just standing and listening to music and drinking beer. Someone hands me a cup and I thank him, and then he tells me it’s ten bucks. Instead of telling the guy I’m not going to drink, I just give him a twenty, and he says thanks and disappears.

I stand there with an empty cup, waiting for my change. Then wondering if the guy knows I needed change. Then just giving up.

I see Roger talking with a group, and he says hi to me. I walk up, and he asks if I rode my bike, then asks about riding it later. I tell him sure but plan on forgetting about it the same way the guy forgot about my change.

“Dude, you need a refill,” he says.

He grabs my cup and then tells someone to get me a beer. Suddenly I see Shawn, and he’s saying hi to me and bringing me a full beer.

Gotta love high school and cliques and popularity.

Some of the people standing around here look like they’re in their thirties. Others, like me, look well under the legal age limit. But getting caught for underage drinking seems so yesterday, so Illinois-suburbs-where-people-aren’t-sacrificed.

I take a sip but don’t like the taste of the beer. I don’t even like the idea that I’m drinking.

Mom’s been doing enough of that for the both of us.

But I sip to fit in.

And that’s exactly what I do. I fit in. I suddenly morph into the crowd, listening to awful hard rock and even more awful country. I wonder what they’d do if I suddenly threw in some Arcade Fire. Torch it? I listen to Roger talking and talking more, and I feign laughter and find myself doing nothing better than I would have been doing back at the cabin. I still feel isolated and out of place even though I’m surrounded by all these kids.

What am I doing here?

But eventually, as the sun disappears and the tiki torches surrounding the backyard glow and that first beer I was going to sip has turned into my third cup, I see a streak of golden sunlight split the sea of students and strangers. Lily.

I realize why I’m here.

She doesn’t have to see me. I don’t mind.

She’s a sight to behold in this mass of ordinary people.

“Girl, you look
fine,
” Roger says in a way that makes me hate him.

I only wish I could say something with such ease.

Lily and her golden dress give Roger a hug. Thankfully I’m not the only guy standing here looking like a dog with its mouth open, staring at a bone.

“When you said back roads, you really meant
back roads
,” Lily says.

“It’s better that way,” Roger says. Then he whispers something in her ear, and she laughs.

I hope I’m not going to have to watch them all night.

“Hey, Chris,” a voice calls from behind me.

It’s Harris. He’s getting just as many looks as Lily did, but for a whole different reason.

“How’s it going?” I say with a nod.

Harris stays and talks to me. Either he’s oblivious to the stares, or he just doesn’t care. Nobody offers him a cup, but he doesn’t mind.

“Did you come with Lily?” I ask.

“Yes, definitely.”

“Like a date?”

Harris just laughs at me. “That was funny.”

I nod and smile but wonder why he thinks I was making a joke.

A popular country music song begins to play, and some of the crowd start dancing. I look for Lily or Roger, but they’re nowhere to be found.

“You look almost as out-of-place as I do,” Harris says.

“Really?”

He nods. “Come on—let’s go to the front of the house. Where it’s not as loud.”

Back on the front lawn, there are several groups of kids hanging around the backs of their trucks, drinking beer and dancing and listening to bad music. Harris and I watch them for a while, amused by their antics.

“So you’re the guy who set the record in hurdles, right?” Harris asks.

I nod.

“They keep asking me to go out for track. I try not to make it a racial thing, you know, but it’s hard to understand why year after year they keep asking.”

“You like any sports?”

“If I tell you I don’t, will that break all stereotypes for you?”

There’s a redneck song blasting that says something about the singer getting “whiskey bent and hellbound.”

“No. But if you tell me you like this song, I’ll be worried.”

Harris laughs so hard that he almost chokes. I guess that’s a good thing.

After a while he asks another question, this one not so funny.

“You were the guy hanging around Jocelyn Evans, right?”

I nod but don’t say anything else.

“The thing about this place—the most interesting people always end up leaving. It’s a known fact. That’s what I told Lily. That’s what I told her she should know. She’ll be here for a while, and then she’ll be gone. Just like that. It always happens.”

He says this in a matter-of-fact way, not in any spooky bedtime-story way.

“I liked Jocelyn,” Harris continues. “She was wild, you know, but still—there was something about her. Something authentic.”

Suddenly I want to finish this beer and have another. So I do.

I don’t want to talk about Jocelyn. Or hear how wild she might have been. Or how authentic she might have appeared to be.

I don’t even want to hear that name.

So I grab another beer.

And I stand in the glow of the warm flickering lights. And I hear the strumming of warm flowing music. And I suddenly see a warm smile facing my way.

Not long after that, I’m gone.