Memento Nora (2 page)

“And since you’re a minor, we not only like you to be accompanied by a parent or guardian for the first time”—he turned to Mom—“but we also like said parent or guardian to set an example, when possible.”

Mom swallowed hard and clutched her Louis Vuitton purse in front of her.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. James,” he said almost kindly. “The young lady won’t remember what you say.”

She nodded, still clutching her purse.

“Please describe the event you wish to erase,” the chubby doctor said more briskly. “This will activate the memory so the drug will work appropriately,” he told me. Then he added some standard legal blah-blah-blah about the session being recorded for our protection.

Mom started talking. I braced myself to hear the gruesome details. The explosion. The body. The ash. Instead, Mom said something about Dad. This time he was angry with her for taking me downtown, for exposing his princess to the death and violence in the world, for letting me see what I saw.
Wife, you’re always disappointing me
, he’d said. Then he’d called her a stupid cow and slammed her face into the door frame.

Mom looked as gray as I felt. She didn’t look at me. She washed down the pill the doctor handed her with greedy gulps of water. Her face went slack. Glossy. Not all there.

Then the doctor turned to me. I told him about the body falling and the ash covering everything, but all the time I was thinking about Mom. And Dad. She came to the clinic at least once a week. Now I knew why. How long had this been going on? And this time it was because of me.

Would she have put up with her life if she remembered? Would anybody? Would I?

I stared at the white pill in the doctor’s fat, pink hand.

“It doesn’t hurt, Nora,” Mom said. Her nonglossy smile told me I wasn’t getting out of here without taking the pill.

I put it in my mouth and took a tiny sip of water.

On my way out of the clinic, I spat the pill in the trash can.

Therapeutic Statement
42-03282028-12
Subject:
WALLENBERG, MICAH JONAS, 15
Facility:
HAMILTON DETENTION CENTER TFC-42

It all started with a girl. Sure, I tagged some walls and boarded-up windows with a goofy word I’d found in some old art books. Memento is Latin for “remember,” like a command. Remember! And Memento Mori is this kind of art that’s supposed to remind you you’re alive by reminding you that you can die. Memento Mori! Remember you must die! Crazy cool. Lots of skulls and shit. I thought it would be all rebellious and rage against the machine to graffiti it on some nice, clean, vertical surfaces.

And I did. I tagged that Home Security Depot billboard on Market Street the day the bookstore blew up. Actually, I tagged it before its pyrotechnic number. I was skating away from the scene of the crime—the billboard, not the bomb—when this black van sideswiped me. Broke my arm in two places. The van didn’t have any plates or markings, and the windows were totally blacked out. When I told the cops in the emergency room about the van, they put away their mobiles and told Mom I ought to go to TFC.
For his own good
, they said.
He’ll have nightmares
.

Mom buys that shit. I don’t.

I’ve learned not to fight her on TFC, though. It does a lot of good for her patients, she says. She’s a nurse. And she’s seen people go either all manic or zombielike after something bad happens. She’s always telling me about Mr. So-and-So at Sunny Oaks who still has night terrors decades after he saw the World Trade Center collapse because he refuses to take the pill. Or Mrs. Such-and-Such who was watching the news and saw her daughter’s car slide into the San Francisco Bay when that plane struck the Golden Gate Bridge. So Mom insisted I go to TFC. She always insisted. Plus, we needed the points. And I planned to do what I’ve always done before—at least that I can remember—spit it out.

When in doubt, spit it out.

Damn. I wish I’d thought of that earlier. It would’ve made a killer T-shirt.

So there we were at TFC-23. Mom, still in her purple scrubs, tired and annoyed with the world. Me, sporting a fresh cast and five stitches above my eye from where I caught the hot dog cart with my head after the black van hit me. I was sketching this little kid watching the bloodiest cartoon I’d ever seen. Then I saw her come in.

Nora James.

I’d seen her in school plenty. She’s one of the pretty, bourgeois crowd. You know, the pretty people with money—but not quite enough money (or smarts) to be in a better school. The kind that look right past you if you’re not in their clique.

Here she was, sitting with the rest of us losers, watching us like we were bugs. I couldn’t resist messing with her head a little.

I got out my pens and wrote that word on my cast in bright red. I flipped it in her direction before I followed Mom into the treatment room.

I did the whole blah-blah-blah thing, telling the doc about getting hit by the van. Then I stuck the pill under my tongue. All the while I was thinking about that girl. I have to confess; I’ve always thought she was cute in this little-girl-lost kind of way. She’s probably never had to sleep in a car in her life. I felt the pill lying under my tongue. And that’s when I decided I’d really mess with her. Wake her up, you know.

Mom was out the door as soon as I sipped some water. I followed at a safe distance. And just as I was passing by that girl—and I was sure no one else was looking—I stuck out my tongue with the pill on it and mouthed “remember” all mysterious-like at her. Priceless. Those big green eyes of hers were as big as hubcaps though she was trying to play it cool. But I saw a glimmer of something else there, too. Disgust for me, yeah, but something more. Something that made me sorry I’d done it.

She looked at me like she
saw
me. Like I wasn’t just some skater kid with delusions of artistic grandeur. I can’t really explain it.

I tossed the pill in the trash can and ran to catch up to Mom just as the bus rolled to a stop.

Mom slumped into a seat by the window and closed her eyes. I slid in next to her. She’d pulled a double shift just so she could take me to TFC today. I felt bad that she didn’t trust me to go by myself, but she was right. I wouldn’t have bothered going. Still, I felt bad. Bad for Mom. Bad for Nora James. Bad for me for being such a douche all the time.

I stared at some government ad playing on the window by Mom’s head.
Consumption is one of our freedoms
, it said. Then the ad flipped to one for Home Security Depot. They were having a sale on surveillance and spy cameras this week. One of the cameras looked just like a pair of expensive sunglasses. I clicked the icon, and the scene shifted to a backyard pool party. A woman wearing shades hands a man a plate of hot dogs. The tag line said,
Think your neighbor’s not a Good Citizen? Capture the proof, and look good doing it.

Okay, in the grand scheme of things, I wasn’t the douche.

That ad rolled right into another government PSA, this one about the quote-unquote Coalition.
Anyone can be an extremist
, the bold type said as a sea of faces flashed by. Each one looked oh so innocent until they turned to the camera with a knowing, villainous smirk that said they wouldn’t have any trouble blowing up your car or the occasional coffee shop.

The smirk dissolved into the ever-lovely face of Channel 5 Action News reporter Rebecca Starr. She is hot, especially when she’s wearing a really tiny shirt. You can just see the hint of a tattoo—a tiger claw—reaching over her shoulder. I imagined the beast climbing up her back, one paw sunk into her shoulder, head turned and fangs bared, ready to fend off the world.
Today, the Coalition claimed responsibility for a hijacking attempt on a flight into Geneva. Press Secretary, Aurora Adams, renewed the president’s call for stricter European regulations. . . .

Blah-blah-blah. It all made me so tired. And didn’t it seem odd that every so-called extremist in the world banded together into this Coalition thing? It came out of nowhere back when I was a baby—at least that’s what Mrs. Brooks said. Some guy plowed a plane into the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Coalition took credit for it. Then shit started blowing up all over the place. The Coalition was like some supervillain syndicate or terrorist Legion of Doom, but no Justice League had arisen from the chaos to combat the baddies. No, it was like the superheroes had abandoned Gotham, and we citizens were just supposed to pop a pill and forget all about it, until the next time the villains struck our fair land.

Yet these baddies never seemed to do anything massively destructive anymore—they didn’t seem bent on destroying the world. These days it was mostly car bombs and the occasional store. I’m not complaining. It’s just hard to figure out what this Legion of Doom really wants. To make life suck even harder than it already does? For some people, at least.

And speaking of sucking, the next ad was for that soccer-mom war-wagon monstrosity called the Bradley. All of Black Dog Village could sleep in there—with room left over for the dog.

Then I had another thought—the kind that, believe me, doesn’t happen often enough or soon enough to keep me out of trouble. The thought was this: what if Nora James tells someone I spit out the pill?

I can be such a douche sometimes.

I didn’t know if they could do anything to me. You never know these days. And I didn’t want my mom to find out. It would kill her to know she went to all this trouble for nothing.

When we got home, I called my friend Winter to see what she thought. She thought I was a douche, too.

I can always count on Winter to back me up.

Therapeutic Statement
42-03282028-11
Subject:
JAMES, NORA EMILY, 15
Facility:
HAMILTON DETENTION CENTER TFC-42

As we walked past the old Starbucks, I stumbled over a piece of broken concrete. Catching myself on the window, I came face-to-face with the graffiti again, that word,
MEMENTO
, in bright red paint, the color of socks, sprawling across the graying plywood. I wondered if the kid with the broken arm had done it. Or if he’d just copied it onto his cast.

I also wondered, as I eased into the backseat of the car, another green-field blue-sky TFC ad staring me in the face, how I was going to even look at my father when he got home. I could barely look at Mom sitting next to me, so relaxed, reading an old romance novel from the beginning. I knew I had to act glossy. Otherwise they’d know I knew. And how could I have not known something so huge? Staring at the fluffy white sheep dotting the green TFC field, I did think about going back, maybe to another clinic, confessing it all and taking the pill.

The ads changed about a half-dozen times on the way home, but I couldn’t have told you what they were.

“Arlington Court, ma’am,” the driver announced.

Again someone—this time the Home Defense guy, the rent-a-cop hired by the homeowners’ association—scanned our mobiles. We walked up to our house in silence. Mom lagged behind as if she were trying to enjoy the scenery. We do live in a pretty area. Eighteenth-century town houses in alternating blues and creams and grays. Tree-lined streets with big oaks and maples forming a canopy over the pavement. Cobblestone sidewalks.

“So empty,” she said, sad. She pulled her coat tight around her and walked a little faster.

I hoped she wasn’t going to go off on one of her rants about how things were in her day. She was forever saying she’d loved this neighborhood when she was a kid, when there were always kids playing outside on the streets and people sitting on their stoops talking.

I stepped up to our front door and let the scanner read my face. I said my name and password while Mom lingered on the street.

These streets used to make me feel safe. And inside the foyer, the gleaming hardwood floors so shiny you could see your face in them and the historic-trust sage green walls with wide antique white molding—all of which Mom had painstakingly restored—used to make me feel safe, too. Now I wasn’t so sure.

I ran upstairs, yelling that I had tons of homework to catch up on. Maybe I said I had an exam to study for. I don’t really remember. I just remember collapsing on my bed, willing my body to sink deep into the cushiony recesses of the foam mattress, hoping it would swallow me whole. I stared at the white lace canopy over my antique bed. At the pale pink walls. At my yearbook clippings from freshman year—the blurbs I’d written about the new tennis coach and the boy most likely to conquer the corporate world—taped to the walls like so many leaves fluttering in the lazy breeze from the ceiling fan. I stared without really seeing anything until I heard voices downstairs.

Mom and Dad were talking, laughing easily with each other. I’d always loved that sound. It was like ice tinkling in a glass. And I knew that he’d probably given her flowers or her favorite bottle of wine. Dad has connections. That’s what he always says. I also knew he’d be supersweet all evening, calling her Siddy. I knew this because that’s what he did every time she came home from TFC. I just never put it all together. Why hadn’t I?

I tried to study, but the words wouldn’t sit still on the page.

Dad brought up dinner to my room later.

“Hi, Princess. Mom told me you have an exam tomorrow,” he said, sliding the tray in front of me. He’d brought me tuna salad and diet soda. No cocoa.

“History,” I said, pretending to be absorbed in the book. I wasn’t even sure it was a history book.

“How was today?” He sounded genuinely interested. He sat down on the bed and waited.

I looked up at him. He’d changed into his usual khakis and golf shirt and the old flip-flops he wore around the house. His “beachcomber wear,” he liked to call it. He looked like the same old Dad he’d always been. The same guy who’d told me fantastic bedtime stories about pirates when I was small. The same guy who’d sat up with me last year when both Mom and I had the flu. How could that guy do what Mom said he did? He looked at me so innocently and so full of Dadness that I began to doubt what I’d heard.

“Okay,” I finally answered. “Kind of boring actually. A lot of waiting,” I added, knowing he’d expect me to say something clueless and glossy like that.

Dad pulled something out of his pocket. A small, greenish blue box that I instantly recognized as being from the best jewelry store, the Tiffany’s downtown next to his office. Inside was a silver bracelet with one charm on it. A purse. It was, I had to admit, very glossy.

He fastened it onto my wrist. I couldn’t help smiling.

“No little girl of mine should have to see what you saw,” he said, full of seriousness. “But the world isn’t a safe place anymore, and I can’t always be there to protect you. So every time you need to forget something bad like you did today, I’m going to buy you a new charm to remind you that you’re still my little girl.”

I did the only thing I could think to do. I hugged him.

With his arms around me, I breathed him in; his familiar scent—a dab of Father’s Day cologne, a whiff of cigar, all mixed together with the smell of him—had always made me feel safe. But now it only confused me.

Later that evening, as I was feeding my untouched plate of food into the disposal, I heard Mom and Dad talking in the media room. They were watching that spy ’cast
Hearts and Minds
on the big screen. The hero always saves some village in the nick of time with only a wad of gum and a paper clip, winning the undying love of the locals and turning them against the Coalition. Dad loves that stuff.

“Oh, so now you’re the security expert?”

“Keep your voice down, Ethan.”

“So what if she hears? You can take her with you now.”

That night the dream came again. The bones rattled. The ash rained down. The socks were bright red. But the air smelled of expensive cigars and cheap cologne.

Afterward I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed afraid of what I might see if I closed my eyes. When I did, I saw flashes of red and the look on Mom’s ashen face in the cold, white room. I wished I’d taken that pill.

As I tossed and turned, I could feel the coolness of my new charm bracelet on the skin of my wrist. A silver purse was a great charm, very me, but something bugged me about it.

I crawled out of bed and scanned the ID chip in the bracelet with my mobile. Since the bracelet was a gift, the purchase price was blacked out, which I didn’t care about. And I didn’t care about the warranty or materials, either, so I touched general history and skimmed through the two paragraphs there.

Though charm bracelets go as far back as ancient Egypt, and charms themselves even farther, charm bracelets like the one I had were first big in the 1950s. It was all the rage to have charms to commemorate a girl’s rites of passage. Sweet sixteen. Graduation. Wedding. Baby.

Now they were back in style, although jewelers had never stopped making them. And each charm was still some kind of a reminder of a key event in a girl’s life. A memento, you might say. The entry ended with a cheesy ad of a dad giving a girl very much like me a new charm.
Remember
, the ad said.
Remember the milestones in her life.

Apparently my milestone was an explosive shopping trip. Dad was more right than he knew.