The Fever (9 page)

Mike Meister, that was his name. Always a new boy, even last week, Lise at the lake, whispering in Deenie's ear. How could you believe any of it was real?

Lise, her head, her body, her flighty, fitful heart, were like one thing, and always changing.

But it was different with Gabby. Deenie knew all her beats and rhythms, had seen her through everything with her dad, her mom, her bad breakup. And this was not the way stresses played themselves out on her body. Everything stayed inside, her body folding in on itself.

“Well,” Deenie said. “You're home now. That's good.”

“I guess everyone was talking about it,” Gabby said. “The whole school saw.”

Deenie didn't say anything. She was thinking of Gabby on that stage, the way her body jerked like a pull-string toy. Like a body never moves, not a real body of someone you know.

“Deenie,” she said. “Say something.”

“What did it feel like?” Deenie blurted, her face feeling hotter on the pillow.

Gabby paused. Then her voice dropped low, like she was right there beside her. “There was this shadow,” she said. “I could see it from the corner of my eye, but I wasn't supposed to look at it.”

Deenie felt her hand go around her own neck.

“If I turned my head to look,” Gabby continued, “something really scary would happen. And I couldn't look. I could not look.”

Deenie pictured it. That smile on Gabby's face after, when everyone surrounded her on the stage. Like something painted on her face. A red-moon curve.

“I didn't look, Deenie,” Gabby whispered. “But it happened anyway.”

I'm okay
, she'd said.
I really am. I'm fine.

That smile, not a real thing but something set there, to promise you something, to give you a white lie.

He waited until he couldn't hear the hum of her voice anymore through the floor. Then he knocked on Deenie's door.

“Hey, honey,” he said, poking his head in.

“Hey,” Deenie said, cross-legged on her bed.

As ever, her bed like a towering nest, always at least two or three books tufted in its folds. Deenie never fell asleep without a book or her phone in her hands. Probably both. When Georgia used to make her clean, Deenie would hoist the bedding over her head, shaking all the books, folders, handouts onto the carpet.

“They told her it might be stress,” Deenie said. “Like you said.”

Walking toward her, his foot caught on her white Pizza House shirt, ruched in the quilt where it hit the floor.

“Well,” he said, picking up the shirt, sprayed with flour and forever damp, “when things like this happen, they can really knock around your body.”

“I guess,” she said, watching him closely. He wondered if he wasn't supposed to pick up her things. He tossed the shirt onto the bed lightly.

“What about you?” he asked. “What do you think?”

“I don't know,” she said. “That doesn't seem like Gabby to me.”

“I know, Deenie,” he said. “We just gotta wait and see.”

He sat down at the foot of the bed. She looked expectant, like she wanted something from him, but he had no idea what. He'd seen that look a hundred times before, from her and from her mother.

Then, nodding, she fumbled for her headphones, and he could feel her retreating, her face turning cloudy and inscrutable.

“Dad,” she said, sliding the headphones on, “maybe I shouldn't go to work on Saturday. With everything that's going on.”

He looked at her.

“I think maybe I just want to be home.”

He didn't know what to say, her eyes big and baffling as ever, so he said yes.

The minute her dad left the room, Deenie wanted to jump up and throw the shirt in the laundry basket. She didn't know why she hadn't already.

But she didn't want to touch it or look at it.

It reminded her of the car, and Sean Lurie, the shirt wedged beneath her on the seat.

And then all the other things she didn't want to think about.

Lise's face. The lake. Everything.

There was too much already, without thinking about that.

Thursday

Just after six
in the morning, Eli stepped into the dark garage, slung his gear bag over the front handlebars of his bike.

As the garage door shuddered open, he saw something move outside, in the driveway.

For a drowsy moment, he thought it might be a deer, like he sometimes saw on the road at night if he rode far out of town, into the thick of Binnorie Woods.

But then he heard a voice, high and quavery, and knew it was a girl.

He ducked under the half-raised garage door and peered out.

All he could see was a powder-blue coat with a furred hood, a frill of blond hair nearly white under the porch light.

“Who's there?” Eli asked, squinting into the misted driveway.

With a tug, she pulled the hood from her head.

Except it wasn't a girl. It was Lise Daniels's mom, the neighbors' floodlight hot across her.

“Eli?” she called out, hand visored over her eyes. “Is that Eli?”

“It's me,” he said.

He'd seen her at the house dozens of times to pick up Lise, had seen her at school events, hands always tugging Lise's ponytail tighter, always calling after her, telling her to call, to hurry, to be on time, to watch out, to be careful. But Eli wasn't sure she'd ever said a word to him in his life. He knew he'd never said a word to her.

“Eli,” she said, loudly now. “Tell your father I'm sorry I haven't called him back.”

The halo of her hair, the pink crimp of her mouth. It was weird with moms, how you could see the faces of their daughters trapped in their own faces. Mrs. Daniels's body was larger, her shoulders round and her cheeks too, but somewhere in there, the neat prettiness of Lise lay half buried.

“Okay. Mrs. Daniels, are you okay?” he asked, and she moved closer to him, coming out from under the flat glare of the floodlight. “Did something happen at the hospital?”

For a moment, the vision of Lise fluttered before him, twirling in her turquoise tights, skirt billowing as she bounded up the school steps.

“I'm not supposed to talk about it,” she said. “I've been advised not to speak to anyone associated with the school, and your father is a school employee.”

He wondered how long she'd been standing out here. He thought of her looking up at the second-floor windows, waiting for a light to go on. Once, back when he played JV, he spotted a girl doing that after one of his games. A freshman on her bike, one sneaker flipping the pedal around, gazing up at his bedroom window. Until then, he hadn't thought girls did those things. When he'd waved, she jumped back on her seat and rode away.

“Oh, Eli,” Mrs. Daniels said, shaking her head hard, her hood shaking too. “You're going to hear things. But I'm telling
you
.”

“Maybe you should come inside,” Eli tried, the wheels of his bike retreating from her as if on their own. “I can wake Dad up. I bet he'd want to talk.”

But she shook her head harder, shook that pale nimbus of hair. “There's no time for that. But I need you to pass along an important message. I've always thought of Deenie as a daughter.”

She was moving close to him, as if to ensure they were quiet, though her voice wasn't quiet but blaring.

“What does this have to do with Deenie?”

“Oh, Eli,” she said, nearly gasping. “It has to do with all of them. All of them. Don't you see? It's just begun.”

Before he could say anything, before she could get any closer to him, he heard the door into the garage pop open behind him.

“Eli, who are you—”

“Dad,” Eli said, relieved, waving him over. “Lise's mom is here.”

“My Lise,” she said, not even acknowledging Eli's dad, her eyes, crepey and sweat-slicked, fixed on Eli. “It's already over for her. Now all we can do is hope. But it's not too late for the others.”

Arm darting out, her red hand clasped him. “What if we can stop it?”

“Sheila,” his dad said, walking toward her. “Did something happen?” He reached out to touch her shoulder gently, but the move startled her. She tripped, stumbling into Eli.

He tried to steady her, feeling her cold cheek pressed into his shoulder, a musky smell coming from her.

“Sheila,” his dad was saying, more firmly now.

“Oh, Tom,” she said, whirling around. “I need to tell you about Deenie.”

“What about Deenie?” Eli thought he heard a hitch in his father's voice.

“They want us to believe they're helping our girls. They're killing our girls. It's a kind of murder. A careless murder.”

“Sheila, why don't you come inside?” his dad said in that calm-down voice that used to drive his mom crazy. “Let's sit down and—”

“I can't do that, Tom,” she said, her voice turning into a moan. “Our girls. I remember when I took Lise and Deenie shopping for their first bras. I remember showing them how to adjust the training straps. Those little pink ribbons.”

“Sheila, I—”

“Who would ever have thought in a few years we'd be poisoning them?”

His dad was saying something, but Eli wasn't listening, couldn't stop looking at her, her mouth like a slash.

As if sensing his stare, she turned to Eli again.

“The things we do to our girls because of you.”

Eli felt his hands wet on his bike handles.

“Me?”

Something was turning in her face, like a Halloween mask from the inside.

“The dangers our girls suffer at your hands,” she said. “We know and we'll do anything to protect them. To inoculate them.
Anything
.”

“Sheila, have you slept at all?” His dad put his arm on Eli's shoulder, gave him a look. “Let's get you some coffee and—”

She shook her head, eyes pink and large and trained on Eli.

“No one made
you
shoot yourself full of poison,” she said, voice rising high.

She pointed her finger at Eli, below his waist.

“All of you,” she said, eyes now on Eli's dad. “Spreading your semen anywhere you want.
That's
the poison.”

“Sheila, Sheila…”

“Don't say I didn't do what I could.” She turned and started walking away. “I hope it's not too late.”

It had been a night of blurry, jumbled sleep. Deenie woke with a vague memory of dreaming she was at the Pizza House, standing in front of the creaking dough machine, Sean Lurie coming out slowly from behind the ovens, looking at her, head cocked, grin crooked.

What?
she'd said.
What is it?

It's you
, he said, standing in front of the blazing oven.

And she'd stepped back from the machine suddenly, the airy dough passing between her hands, soft like a bird breast.

It fell to the bleached floor, flour atomizing up.

Hands slick with oil, and Sean's eyes on them. On her hands.

And she looking down at them, seeing them glazed not with oil but with green sludge, the green glowing, the lights flickering off.

Deenie stood at the kitchen island, phone in hand.

Mom wont let me go to school tday,
Gabby's text read.
Sorry, DD.

After everything Gabby had been through, she was still worried about Deenie having to navigate the day without her. Because these were things they maneuvered together—school, divorces, faraway parents who wanted things. Boys.

The side door slammed and her dad came into the kitchen, shoving the morning paper into his book bag.

Something in the heave of morning air made her remember.

“Dad,” she said, “did you hear something earlier? A noise.”

Vaguely, she remembered looking out her window, expecting a barn owl screeching.

He turned toward the coffeepot.

“Mrs. Daniels came by this morning,” he said. “She couldn't stay long, but Lise is doing okay. No change, but nothing's happened.”

“Why didn't you wake me up?”

“There wasn't time,” he said, lifting his cup to his face. “She couldn't stay. She had to go back.”

“But can we go over there now?”

“No,” he said, quickly.

Deenie looked at him, the way he held his coffee cup over his mouth when he spoke.

“I mean,” he added, “we'll see.”

Outside, it was bitter cold, the sky onion white.

Eli came with them on the drive to school, which never happened.

Riding together, it felt like long ago, fighting in the backseat until Dad would have to stop the car and make one of them sit up front.

She felt a wave of nostalgia, even for the times he kicked her and tore holes in her tights with his skates.

“Eli Nash, skipping practice. I bet you broke Coach Haller's heart,” Deenie said, looking at her brother in the backseat, legs astride, the taped knob white with baby powder, like Wayne Gretzky's. But he wouldn't look at her.

“I bet they didn't even have practice without you,” she tried again. “I bet they all took their helmets off in your honor. I bet they hung black streamers over the rink and cried.”

“I overslept,” he said, facing the window. He didn't look annoyed. He didn't even seem to be listening to her.

She waited a moment, for something, then turned back around. The sky looked so lonely.

The car turned, and there was the lake.

“Deenie,” her dad said, so suddenly his voice startled her, “Lise and Gabby haven't been in the lake lately, have they?”

He regretted it the moment he said it, and a hundred times more when he saw her body stiffen.

Wrung out from scant sleep, he wasn't sure his mind was quite his own. All of Sheila's ravings, he hadn't quite pieced them together, but he could guess. It had something to do with vaccinations, a predatory attorney, the teeming Internet. She needed an explanation, badly, and he couldn't blame her.

Driving, though, he couldn't shake the feeling of something, some idea.

Then his eyes had landed on the lake, its impossible phosphorescence, even in the bitter cold, still half frozen over, the algae beneath like a sneaking promise. Remembering Georgia, her mouth ringed black that night years ago. She said she'd dreamed she put her own fingers down her throat, all the way down, and felt something like the soft lake floor there, mossy and wet and tainted.

She was never the same after that, he'd decided. Though he also knew that wasn't true. She hadn't been the same before that. No one was ever the same, except him.

So, his head still muddled, he'd found himself asking Deenie that ridiculous question about the lake, no better than Sheila's speculations.

He could see her whole body seize up.

“We're not allowed in the lake,” she replied, which wasn't really an answer. “Why are you asking me that?”

“No reason,” he said. “I guess I'm just getting ready for today's rumors.”

“Sometimes kids go in anyway,” Eli said from the backseat. “I've seen it.”

Deenie turned around to face him. “Like you, you mean. You and me.”

“What?”

“We used to go in it, before. We used to swim in it, remember?”

“That's right,” Tom said. “We used to take you.”

When they were little, long before the boy drowned. Tom had a memory of pushing the corner of a towel in Eli's ear, hoping it wouldn't be another ear infection, that milky white drip down his neck. Why did he ever let them in that lake, even then?

He could hear Eli twisting his stick left and right. “But something happened to it. It doesn't even seem like the same lake. And it smells like the bottom of the funkiest pair of skates in the locker room.”

“You mean yours?” Deenie said, like they were ten and twelve again, except there was a roughness in their voices Tom didn't like.

And Deenie's chin was shaking.

Tom could see it shaking.

He found himself watching it with exaggerated closeness, until she noticed him and stared back, her face locking into stillness.

“Dad!” she said. “You missed it. You missed the turn. It was back there.”

You're a careless person
, Georgia once said to him. He didn't even remember why. He didn't remember anything. She was always coming out of the water to say things, her mouth black.

@hospital did they ask u abt lake,
Deenie texted Gabby. She was standing by the window in the second-floor girls' room, the best place in the school to get reception. But it still wouldn't go through.

It had been a week ago. Deenie and Gabby and Lise and Skye all in Lise's mother's Dodge with the screeching heater and the perennial smell of hand lotion. Lise said the steering wheel always felt damp with it.

As they drove along the lake, Skye told them she'd seen two guys in the water the week before, the first flicker of spring and their speakers blaring music from open car doors. One had a tattoo that began on his chest and disappeared beneath his jeans.

“Maybe they're there now,” Lise had said, leaning forward eagerly, laughing. Boy crazy.

They all knew they wouldn't be, really, and they weren't. It was just the lake in front of them, its surface skimmed bright green.

And soon enough they were all in the water, just barely, ankle-deep, then a little more, all their tights squirreled away on the bank.

Wading deeper, Lise pulled her skirt high, and her legs were so long and skinny, with the keyhole between her thighs like a model.

You couldn't help but look.

She had a moon shape on her inner thigh that Deenie had never seen before. Later, Lise would say it happened when she lost weight, a stretch mark that wouldn't go away.

And then Gabby and Skye left, their calves slick with the water, thick as pea soup.