“Oh my fucking God.”
It was Pablo. I hadn’t seen him since that night in his truck outside my house. I hadn’t really even thought of him. He took a stool at the bar and said something to the bartender, but she didn’t move. She just went on staring intently at the television above the bar. The nightly news was showing footage from Jenny Moore’s ninth birthday party for the ten thousandth time. Finally the bartender reached absently into the cooler for a Rolling Rock and slid it over to him. She kept her eyes on the television for another few moments and then turned and said something to him. Then they both looked back up at the screen. The bartender shook her head sadly.
“Who’s that?” Lucy asked.
“That’s Pablo.”
“
That’s
Pablo? Your ex-not-boyfriend?”
“Yeah.” I couldn’t stop staring at him. I was having problems breathing and speaking at the same time. It was like all the air had been sucked out of the room. “That Pablo.”
Even though he was wearing a hat, I could tell his hair was longer than it’d ever been. Thick black waves crept out from under the edges of his cap, the beginnings of bigger curls that would come if he kept letting it grow. He took a big drink of his beer and looked around the room. He had his lips arranged in the slightest beginnings of a smile, like he was ready to spring a full one for anyone who might suddenly appear in front him. He adjusted the brim of his cap, pulled it down a little lower, and took another drink of his beer.
“Look at him,” I said. “He’s so nervous.”
“Where’s his so-called girlfriend?” Lucy asked.
“Probably at the mall drinking the blood of an incoming freshman.”
“Are you gonna say something?” she asked.
“Should I?” I asked.
“He sounded like he has some issues.”
“It’d be awkward not to,” I reasoned.
“I think any way you play this, awkward is pretty much unavoidable at this point.”
I thought back to a night two springs ago. He’d picked me up and we cruised around town. He was in a weirdly good mood that night. He let me pick out what music we listened to. He kept cracking lame jokes, and even though most of them weren’t funny, I laughed anyway. He drove me to the deserted Cedarville High parking lot and attempted to teach me how to drive stick. The lesson ended with us parked in the back row with our shirts off and us taking turns kissing over each other’s stomachs, the smell of the day’s rain filling the car.
“I’m going to say hi.”
“Do you want me to go with you?” she asked.
“It’ll be fine,” I said. “We’re at a bar. It’s cool. I’ll be right back.”
I grabbed my beer and went over. He did a double take as I approached. His eyes grew wide and he opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He grabbed his beer and took a swig. He gave a quick glance to the left and then the right, and finding nothing to rest his eyes on, his shocked gaze settled on me.
I motioned to the empty stool beside him. “Can I sit?”
“Sit, don’t sit. Do whatever you want.”
I climbed up on the seat. On the television a hot blond guy was surfing on a tidal wave of orange soda. We sat there drinking our beers in silence until the commercial break ended and the news came back on. It was the weatherman’s turn.
“Rain on Thursday,” Pablo said. He was trying to act all nonchalant, but I could tell he was nervous, terrified even. “Sucks. I was gonna hit the links.”
“Hit the links?”
“Go golfing.”
“You golf?” I asked.
“Yup,” he said, not taking his eyes off the screen. “Been goin’ with Bert and the guys out at the country club. Good thing to learn before you get into the business world. Some of the biggest deals are made during a game of golf.”
I thought back to all the times I’d hung out with him and Bert and the rest of the popular jocks. They would all go out of their way to ignore me. I’d be driving home afterward, feeling empty and on the verge of tears, and I’d get a text from Pablo asking me if I wanted to come over and fool around. I’d turn around in the nearest driveway, hating myself the entire time.
I rolled my eyes. “Golf is frickin’ boring.”
He gave me a sideways glance. “I don’t remember asking you.”
“Well, it is.”
“If Johnny freakin’ Morgan played golf, you’d be all about it.”
“How’s that beer?” I asked. I tried to give it sort of an edge, but there was nothing I could do to turn a line like that into a comeback. It just ended up sounding lame. Pablo didn’t reply. He just kept on watching the TV.
“Where’s Judy?” I asked
He turned to me. “Why? You got something to say to her?”
“I’m not gonna tell your stupid girlfriend I saw you here or anything.”
“Don’t talk about my girlfriend,” he said. He took a drink of his beer and leaned toward me. “Do you want an apology? Is that what you want?”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“Well, why did you come over here if you don’t want anything from me?” he asked. “What do you need me to do?”
“I don’t need you to do anything,” I said. “I saw you over here and thought I’d come talk to you since a couple of weeks ago you came over in the middle of the night and basically asked me to get back together with you. I’m just trying to be nice.”
“Well, don’t do me any favors.”
“Fine,” I said. “I guess I’ll leave you alone.”
“You know, man,” he said. “This is really giving me a headache.”
I should’ve walked away then, but I didn’t. We watched the weather and sports on mute. The bartender brought us two more beers without us having to ask, and when Pablo put down just enough money to cover his, I did the same. I glanced over at Lucy. She gave me an inquisitive look as if to ask how things were going. I smiled weakly and gave her a little nod to let her know that I was okay. Side by side, Pablo and I sipped our beers in silence. The local news ended and some national news program came on. The screen alternated between various images of the war in the Middle East. There were tanks rolling across the desert and a marketplace where bodies were strewn around a charred sedan. A woman cried into a camera and then the picture went to a group of government officials giving an update from a clean blue room.
“I’m gonna go,” I said.
“You said you were gonna go, like, ten minutes ago,” he said.
I didn’t know what to say. I just stood up and walked away. I was almost to the door when I turned and went back over to him.
“You’re a coward,” I said. “Remember that.”
“Oh, and you’re so honest about what you are,” he said.
“At least I’m honest with myself,” I said. “Which is more than you can say.”
He gave me a look like he was about to say something else, but I walked away before he could.
Lucy ran out after me.
“Screw him,” she said as she held me at the end of the alley. “You’re too good for him.”
We stopped by a liquor store and tried to buy a bottle of whiskey with our fake IDs, but got turned down. We bought some root beer instead and drove to the Lot, the empty parking lot of an abandoned hardware superstore on the edge of town. It was a popular nighttime hangout for Cedarville’s more nocturnal crowd. Homeless people, restless thugs, and trailer park drunks all stumbled through the paved expanse at some point in the evening. Meanwhile my suburban peers marinated in the safety of their darkened cars, the orange glow of their lighters like signs of life viewed from across the galaxy. We were all watching each other in the dark, feeling one another’s energy and canceling each other out with our own brands of lostness. Pablo and I had gone there to mess around a few times before, but I’d always been terrified, afraid we’d inadvertently stepped into an urban legend where I’d get home and find a hook hanging from my car door.
Lucy put on some French hip-hop and shook her shoulders back and forth along to the music. “French hip-hop makes everything better. I mean, how can you be sad or angry when some French dude with a Casio is rapping about loving your body down?”
“Pablo and I used to come here,” I said. I was slouched in the seat, a stream of smoke from my cigarette snaking out my cracked window.
“It’s hard to believe they haven’t busted this place yet,” Lucy said. “It seems like the perfect subject for a local new exposé. Maybe we should call the channel nine tip line. Do they pay for tips?”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“I’m just joking.”
“I’m not in the mood for jokes.”
“Oh, dude,” she said. She took my hand. “I’m sorry. What can I do?”
“Nothing. That’s just it. There’s nothing anyone can do.”
“Don’t cry over him.”
“I’m not crying.”
“You look like you’re going to.”
“I don’t understand him,” I said. “Simple as that. I just don’t understand.”
A rush began in my torso and moved up into my head. She was right. I was going to start crying. I reached over and took her hand. She gave mine a good squeeze. I pinched the bridge of my nose as if that could stop it. She rubbed my knee and hushed me, told me it was going to be okay. I wiped my nose with the back of my hand.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Cry if you want. Let it all out.”
Let it all out. If only I could. Letting it all out would involve me exploding like a firework, a beautiful riot of rainbow sparks bouncing around the car and lighting up the entire lot. Everyone would look over to see what was going on, and one by one they would understand everything I had inside me.
Chapter 9
I woke up the next morning with a vague hangover and an aching sadness in my gut. In my first waking moments I couldn’t place where it had all come from, but then the previous night came back in an avalanche of thought. I went into the bathroom and snagged an Advil and then went downstairs and ate yogurt, granola, and raspberries in my underwear at the kitchen table. My parents were nowhere to be found. Every now and then I glanced up at the television. News of Jenny Moore’s disappearance had reached a national level. A tabloid journalist was interviewing a psychic in Portland who specialized in missing children. The newswoman asked her if there was any way, after such a long period of time, that Jenny Moore could possibly still be alive.
“It’s possible,” said the expert after a strange pause. She had an Eastern European accent and a short symmetrical haircut. “There aren’t any rules for this sort of thing. When you cross certain borders, there is no telling what you may find. Anything is possible. Both the best and the worst thing about situations like these is that there is always room to be surprised.”
The newscaster leaned forward in her chair. “Are you getting strong vibes one way or another about the fate of this young girl?”
She said, “I don’t feel comfortable saying. Not here. Not on television. But I have been in touch with the police and the Moore family. And they are always in my prayers.”
I didn’t have to work that day. I put on my swimming trunks and went out to the pool. It was humid, at least ninety-eight degrees according to the heat index. A lawn mower buzzed from a few yards over and the scent of freshly mowed grass tickled the inside of my nostrils. I swam back and forth, forcing myself to stay under until my lungs felt like they might burst. After a while I got out and fell asleep on one of the chaise longues contemplating whether or not I could ever have the courage to drown myself, if maybe filling myself with water was the only way to fill the void.
I woke up sensing a presence. I assumed it was my mother coming to make me clean my room or ask me to change a lightbulb. But instead it was Fessica Montana standing just a few feet away. She looked guilty and lost, like she’d suddenly appeared in my backyard and didn’t know how she got there. She was wearing khaki shorts, a frilly pink T-shirt that was a size too small, and a sequined yellow belt.
“The door was open,” she said before I could say a thing.
“What are you doing here?”
“I thought I’d drop by. That’s what friends do, right? They drop by.” She looked over her shoulder at the water. “You have a pool.”
There was something so pathetic about the way she said it. I felt embarrassed for her, but a part of me recognized her cluelessness. I thought back to riding in Alex’s car, how every word that came out of my mouth sounded incredibly lame.
“Yeah,” I said. I was already trying to figure out how to get rid of her. “We do. It’s more of a hassle than anything, though. Leaves in the drain. Dead things. I need to take a shower, so you should probably—”
“What dead things?” she asked.
“Um, we’ve found a couple of mice. A bird once.”
“Dead?” she asked.
“Yes. Dead.”
“It just fell out of the sky?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “All I know is I had to get it out, and it was disgusting.”
“Are there bird snipers in your neighborhood?”
“Bird snipers?”
“There are bird snipers in my uncle’s neighborhood in Washington. They do it for fun. They hide in attics and shoot from the windows.”
“Fessica,” I said before she could say anything. “Why are you here? What do you want?”
“I wanted to see how things with Alex are going,” she said. “See if there’s anything else I can do to help you. I still feel bad about what happened. I didn’t mean to start any rumors.”
“That’s very nice,” I said, “but you should probably go. My parents get weird if I have friends over.”
I stood up and led her into the house, my hand on her arm.
“Friends over?” she asked. “So we’re friends, right?”
“Sure. We’re friends.”
“I help you, you help me.” I was pulling her through the kitchen. “We help each other out.”
“Yeah,” I said, not really getting what she was saying. “For sure.”
“I mean, maybe someday we could sorta be more than friends, right? That’s possible.”