Loud Awake and Lost, page 4
“No, no—stop it, Ember!” Mom dropped her needles to clap her hands to her ears. “That’s not what I meant. I wasn’t thinking—I was speaking statistically. I wasn’t referring specifically to you. Not at all.”
But of course she was. The silence stretched accusingly, a distance between us.
“And I really don’t want to watch you lying on that couch,” Mom continued in a bare, thin voice, “with senior year and everything you worked so hard to get just passing you by, while you obsess on the past.”
“Whatever. On this couch, right in your sight, is where you like me best,” I mumbled. Hating myself, hating that I knew how to hurt her so easily.
“Maybe I’m protective. Fine. That’s just a mom’s job. But I don’t want you trapped here, beating yourself up endlessly about this. And nobody can tell me it wasn’t a mistake that you went back to school so early.” Mom spoke with force. “I warned Dr. Pipini. I warned him more than once. You need the comfort of your home.”
Did I? Because home didn’t feel very comforting right now.
I walked back into the kitchen, where I picked up the newspaper clipping that Mom had laid out for me to see when I got home from school. Rereading it, scouring it for anything I might have missed, anything that hadn’t appeared in my Google search—which had brought up the same clip, along with a brief notation of Anthony Travolo’s funeral services, which had been held out on Long Island.
The accident had occurred in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. February 14th at approximately 9:30 p.m. Anthony Travolo of Bensonhurst, aged nineteen. My name was withheld. Both of us had been taken to Weill Cornell with grave injuries.
“He never regained consciousness.” Mom spoke wearily from the kitchen door, where she’d been watching me. “So he went peacefully. He wasn’t from our neighborhood or school district.”
“Nobody knew him?”
“You’d have to ask around. But he didn’t have any overlap with your close Lafayette friends. No drugs, no alcohol. No indication of foul play.”
“Why were we going to Aunt Gail’s?”
“She said you’d called about a week before, and you hadn’t mentioned a guest. That’s why we think you were giving him a lift, dropping him off somewhere before Gail’s. You hadn’t told me you were going to visit her, either—I’d never have let you drive in that storm. Never. I suspect your plan was to call us once you’d gotten there. That bridge was a sheet of ice. The car skidded, you lost control, and that, unfortunately, is the whole story.”
A story with a lifetime of consequences. I dropped the clipping. I was sleepy. Addington-nap sleepy, as if my body yearned to spend a few hours in the dark, healing.
Mom went to the fridge and began to take out options for dinner. Ordinarily I would have helped. Not tonight. I didn’t have the energy to lift a loaf of bread. I wandered back to the living room, to the couch. I wrapped up in the afghan and listened to dinner being prepared. Through closed eyes, I could feel the room gradually turn to night.
Did it matter that I didn’t know Anthony Travolo? Probably not.
It’s not as if knowing him would have changed anything.
One night, one car, one bridge, one survivor. I was here and he wasn’t. The poison of this knowledge was inside me. Now and forever.
6
Because. You Glow.
“Your journey to full rehabilitation is complicated,” Dr. P had told me at our last session, the afternoon before I left Addington. “And not every day will be perfect.”
Perfect was a funny word, when I thought about it later. No way could a whole, entire day be perfect. With or without a car wreck in your past. There were only perfect moments, and those moments were precious. But most moments were flat, or hazy, or sleepy, or boring, or baffling, or just okay.
I got through the rest of the week with no more hope than for “okay,” trying to function in an approximation of normal. But there weren’t many moments when the shadow of Anthony Travolo didn’t claim me. Memory had also cleared a path to those early weeks at Addington, when all I’d felt was the horror of it.
The horror and the guilt. My knowledge was like a vine that had sprung up and tangled around me, clingy and resilient as if I’d learned about Anthony’s death just yesterday.
And now, finally, it was Friday. The last school day of my first week back home. Friday wasn’t perfect, either. But it seemed better. Possibly because I allowed myself a feeling of quiet achievement that I’d crossed the finish line. Or because the day itself was such a bright, shiny apple. Blue sky, newly turned orange leaves, October crispness.
A perfect day? Sure. Was I perfect, spinning inside it? Not a chance.
Friday also meant that the weekend was on its way.
And even if the shock of Anthony Travolo hadn’t receded, at least I was dealing with it consciously again, and his death was mine to drag around with me, along with my own recovery. But I’d bailed on my physical therapy classes. Just couldn’t handle it. Dr. P had sort of conceded Mom’s point—that I needed to take it low-key. Today, though, on his urging before my long weekend rest, I was scheduled to show up for an hour of PT.
“You’re not ready,” Mom had judged as she watched me walk out the door that morning. But at least she didn’t stop me.
After school, I walked to the subway station on Dekalb Avenue, breathing deep, and descended gingerly. It was my first public transit trip in nearly a year.
The moment the L train roared into the station, I felt the familiar cold-hot-cold panic—turn around, turn around! Instead I inhaled like a scuba diver, ready for the plunge. I waited right to the last moment before leaping into the car, its motion detectors bouncing the doors apart at the shove of my shoulder. I found a seat and sank heavily into it. My breath and body were shaking. I plugged in my earbuds and let Weregirl transport me. Okay. For real.
After another minute, when I realized I wasn’t going to implode—that I was, in fact, fine—I reached into my backpack and withdrew some note cards for my Theory of Knowledge course paper, “Individual and Society,” which was due Monday. Might as well get a leg up. I used to love doing my homework on the subway—something about the motion, the quiet, the knowledge that I couldn’t get online…it had been better than the library.
Course work was all a little bit loopy for me, since I’d started the year almost six weeks later than the rest of my class. I knew my teachers were grading me with a softer touch—so maybe that was why I’d been enjoying school more than I’d anticipated.
I uncapped a pen and got cracking on my theory statement.
Creating a high-functioning society does not mean we should become robotic drones that serve only to aid productivity. It is every bit as important to be a thinking member of the majority while learning what makes group dynamics…
The paper was so white. My concentration was melting into sleepiness. Lulled by my iPod and the motion, my eyes unfocused, I yawned and looked around at the colorful blur of Tupperware seats and tired faces. I relaxed, letting my muscles soften and the back of my head come to rest against the window. Slowly but surely, trancing out so deep that I woke with a jolt.
Where was I?
Panic set in. I couldn’t breathe. Because I’d waaaaay missed it—I was out in…Bushwick?
That arty black business card stuck up in my bedroom mirror had a Bushwick address. Earlier this week I’d looked up Areacode online and found a site for some sceney club dance space. Obviously, I hadn’t been planning to come see it today. But if I doubled back on my route, I’d be at least twenty minutes late for therapy class.
Skipping another class was not exactly the way to Dr. P’s—or my brand-new therapist’s—heart. But what if I just got out in Bushwick? What if, instead of therapy, I went to check out Areacode? Maybe something would click. After all, I’d grown up hitting dance performances and concerts all over the city. From Manhattan to the Bronx, from Alvin Ailey to Symphony Space and all the halls and theaters in between. Last year I’d even dragged Rachel out to a couple of clubs, too—not exactly her best environment.
I’d been to Bushwick. I knew it. It was inside the memory pocket. What if I’d met Anthony Travolo out here? What if I started walking the streets and suddenly discovered all those days like easy treasure, a scattering of shells washed up on the beach?
Yes. Do it. I ran up the subway stairs, my backpack knocking my side. There must have been a hundred steps. My breath petered out pretty quickly. Through the exit, I found my cell and made the call to Jenn Stoller, my new therapist, in a whisper.
“Jenn? I’m really sorry, but I missed my stop on Lorimer and now I’m far out and I think it’ll take me—”
“Ember, it’s fine, calm down,” Jenn interrupted. “No damage done. If you feel like this is too much activity in your weekday, let’s think about changing to Saturdays and Sundays, okay?”
“Totally,” I wheezed. “That’s a good idea.”
“Because the thing is, I’m only as committed as you.”
“Right. I know. I’m sorry.” My chest was burning. I stopped and leaned against a building. My lungs were creaking for oxygen.
“You were a dancer, right? So you know about scheduled practice.”
Were. That past tense made me feel strange—even if it was true. Of course I wasn’t a dancer anymore. Not in this body. “Yes. See you tomorrow, thanks, and I promise it won’t happen again.”
“Cool. Okay, see you then.”
I shut off my phone against Mom’s pinging texts (are you there safe? / how do you feel?) and slipped it into my backpack. Then let myself take stock of where I was. Did I really know this place? Had I been here? It wasn’t completely unfamiliar.
Walking along Myrtle Avenue, I turned left and left again. Grimy industrial space. The sun was losing to dusk. My nerves flicked alert as I approached the building, a prewar in an ugly checkerboard brick the color of liver, peaches, and salmon. There was hardly any sign of life. A newsstand on the corner with a blinking Lotto banner, but the rest of the block was warehouses and garages, a gas station, a closed Laundromat, a line of narrow row houses. I felt under-armored and overexposed, as if I were being watched. The woman wheeling her baby stroller around the corner didn’t look scared—but she looked tough.
I squeezed my eyes shut to visualize the card in my room.
Between Myrtle and Evergreen. As in, right around the corner.
The building was nothing to see, but as I drew nearer, I could feel a twinge of something. Yes, I’d seen this before, I’d been here before. Only it had been different. Night, maybe…My sense of it was like a mist, like a dream.…
I stepped across the street, my body zinging with urgency to possess the memory. Though there was no sign, nothing on the building’s cheap door intercom system that gave me an indication that this was the “right” place. It looked vacant, too, with a roll-down grill over the front door and a padlock on the side door. The fire escape was the only means up.
I rubbed my hands together, grabbed the ladder’s rungs, dug a breath, and almost instantly let go.
What was I doing? I stood stone-still, staring at my open hands, the ladder rust streaked across my palms like dried blood. Was this like me? Not like me?
Just do it. A slip-slide of memory, of being outside, night, kids, joking and whispers. We’d been up to something mischievous. Maybe illegal. But what? With who? Not the Lafayette crowd…
It was killing me. Now I had to do it. Had to prove that the adventure still lived in me. Quickly, I began to haul myself up.
Why five floors? If my brain didn’t know, my legs did.
When I arrived, I was sick with exhaustion. My lungs felt as thin as plastic wrap. I leaned against the rails and let myself catch my breath.
The window was a dry film of orange dust. I rubbed a patch clean so I could look in.
Huge, empty. A vaulted crossbeam ceiling and sloppy mortared walls. Was this right? Was this the place? I turned, stepping to the farthest corner of the fire escape, scoping it out.
The sun was setting in harvest colors, outlining the water towers and flat-top warehouses. I was far from home, I was alone, and suddenly I was wiped out. As if I’d depleted my entire reserve of strength. I sat down and wrapped myself into a ball. I felt slow, and yet I was tingling, it reminded me of those first conscious weeks after my accident, and all of those sleep-inducing drugs.
My eyes grew heavy.
At Addington, I’d taken a nap nearly every day, right about this time. Lying quiet as a mouse in my narrow bed, watching the sunset draw away over the smooth fields. Sometimes my sleep would be so deep that I’d wake into blackness, and find out that I’d missed dinner.…
Scrrrritccccch! I jumped up at the sound, nearly losing my balance as I knocked backward slightly and caught myself against the rails.
“Sorry, sorry!”
“You scared me!”
“You scared me, too.” He laughed as he pushed the window up and then swung a leg out, then another, so that he was sitting on the ledge. I could tell he wasn’t nearly as startled as I was as we stared each other down.
“But you really scared me. I’m serious.” My hands flew to my flushed cheeks.
“Sorry,” he repeated. “Once I saw you, I didn’t want to lose you. That’s all, Red. I’m harmless.” He smiled. “I’m Kai.”
I paused. “Ember.” I knew that I’d surrendered my name only because he’d said his. And because he was cute. A different cute than Holden—which I’d always considered to be my type. This guy was nothing like Holden, nothing at all. Kai was caramel skin and prickly dark haircut, with eyes the brown of a stone you’d want to pick up on a beach. He was also thinner—less varsity-athletic than Holden, who’d never met a racquet, stick, or ball that he couldn’t master.
“Ember?” he repeated. “Perfect.”
“Perfect how?”
“Because. You glow.”
“You were watching me?”
“Yeah, for a while. I was sure you’d seen me.”
“Right, okay, look…” I crossed my arms over my chest. This guy had such a slow-motion ease in his speech and movements, it was hard to be on full alert. But easygoing didn’t mean harmless. “There’s a stalker element to you following me onto a fire escape. And believe me, I can scream a lot louder than I just did.”
“Have some faith.” Kai’s smile opened his face as he joined me out on the fire escape. He looked cold—he was shivering. I fought the urge to button his jacket, an olive-drab whipcord, thick but shabby. His clothes were beat-up jeans and lug-heeled boots that were big with the Bowery kids. His T-shirt, visible beneath his jacket, was printed with a graphic of a tree that had been photographed in black light.
“Anyway, I wasn’t looking at the view,” I told him. “I was kind of more trying to figure out where I am.”
“For me, the best view is out here.” He meant his view of me? His tone was casual, but my face burned up again.
“I like it out here,” I said. “It’s a little urban decay, sure, but it’s also got…” I didn’t have the right word for what I saw.
“Breathing room,” he finished.
“Yeah. That’s it, I guess.”
“If you want to know, I’ve already officially declared this an unspoiled fringe area.” He stepped back and raised his voice. “So watch it, gentrifiers—this area is cupcake-shop-protected.” I smiled; but when he reached behind into his back pocket, I was suddenly frightened.
“What’ve you got, a knife?”
“Almost.” Casually, Kai withdrew a flat silver flask.
“Ah.” I watched as he unscrewed the top and took a swig. “Hot coffee?” I guessed. Not hard, since the scent of dark roast wafted in the air.
“Yep. Why else would a person carry a flask?” He leaned forward to hand it to me. As I took it, I saw the initials R.G.O. inscribed.
“Who’s R.G.O.?”
“Roberto Guillermo Ortiz.” But he didn’t offer more, so I sipped and handed back the flask. I thought it seemed cool and un-nosy not to ask. Though I really wanted to know.
“What’s your deal, outside of being the unauthorized protector of industrial Bushwick?” I asked instead. “You go to school around here?”
“Sorta. I’m enrolled in pickup and night classes so far, but it looks like I’ll head to Pratt next semester,” he answered. “With a concentration in silk screen. That is, when I’m concentrating. Check this out.” He pulled a small notebook from his back pocket. “My new inspirational five-by-seven. And”—from his jacket pocket—“a bottle of Parker Super Quink Ink.”
He tossed them both to me.
“You’re a human pack rat,” I joked. But the notebook was tiny, a black marble composition. The ink was contained in a sealed glass bottle, like an exotic indigo perfume.
“I start a new one each year. It’s sort of a datebook, sketchbook, journal type of thing.”
I turned the book over in my hands. “The spine isn’t cracked.”
“The first mark’s the hardest.”
“Or maybe you just don’t know what to write.”
“Maybe now I’ve got something.”
My cheeks went red. Again. He meant me.
“Lately I’ve gotten really into T-shirts,” Kai said, easily switching subjects. “Me and Hatch. We want to start a business: ‘Tao of T.’ We’ve got the name and we know what we want to do with our massive profits, but so far that’s it. No business model.”
“So can you skip to the end? And tell me the post-massive-profits part of the plan?”
The right question. He smiled. “We want to start an after-school arts center, with our T-shirt empire funding it. Underserved youth, some people call them. I just call it kids from where I’m from. I want to give them more than what I had.” He looked embarrassed, even as he laughed. “That’s my dream. You’re up.”
“I don’t think I have one right now,” I told him.
