Oblivion, page 6
“I’ll bet Lindsey has her own share of problems.”
I ignore him. “I want the biggest concern of my day to be my French exam. I want to worry about which brand of eyeliner doesn’t smudge by third period, push the limits by hemming my skirt an extra inch, and wonder if the guy in my calculus class likes me.”
John Fogel’s note taunts me from my pocket.
The trouble is that I don’t know if I’d recognize normal, even if I were to do all those things. My life has never been mainstream.
“That’s good,” Ewing says, at last releasing my hand. “Deciding what you want is often the first step.”
On impulse, without consciously deciding to do so, I reach into my skirt pocket and extract the note. I start to unfold it. “I think I’m starting to remember something.” I glance up at Ewing, and this time don’t mind when he gives me the expectant stare. “Something about digging.”
He nods.
“You know there was mud in the drain that night. The night I was in the apartment above the Vagabond. The night the police found me there and were asking me about my father.” I swallow hard, awaiting Ewing’s reaction, which of course doesn’t come. I wonder if he allows himself to react later, when I’m gone. Does he go home to his wife and say, “I have a whack-job of a patient”?
“Suppose I buried his body,” I say. John Fogel’s note becomes an origami worry stone in my hands.
“Suppose you did.”
“I had to have had help. I mean, he’s … was, maybe … a big man.” I don’t want to voice this next theory, but I have to: “Suppose I buried Hannah. I could’ve done that on my own.”
“Could have. But would you have? Your comprehensive history gives us no indication that you’re a violent person, or ever have been.”
“Neither did my mother’s,” I mutter. “Until she shoved a dagger into Palmer’s thigh. I mean, what if he just … makes us do things? What if I was following a commandment in burying Hannah’s body? Honor thy father, and all.”
“Callie, I want you to recognize these thoughts as possible memories, sure. But sometimes the human mind works in obscure ways. These thoughts and images could be nothing more than an avenue through which you’ll remember what really happened. Like your graphomania. How many notebooks have you filled since you were here last week?”
I almost don’t want to tell him. “Three and a half.”
He presses his lips together. “You’re already writing more as the anniversary nears.”
“Not always. Sometimes I … sometimes I don’t.”
“Have you been bringing them to the detective, like they asked?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes I drop them off, but usually they call and come get them, then bring them back after they’ve copied them.” I feel a little violated, and exposed, when I think about anyone reading what I’ve written in my notebooks, let alone a group of cops dropping doughnut crumbs over them, laughing at my insanity. Once I caught Elijah sneaking a peek, and I went ballistic. But if I want to help find Hannah, and I do …
The paper in my hand crinkles, draws my attention. Subconsciously, I’ve opened John’s message. I should fold it back up.
“Do me a favor. Leave this one with me.” Ewing’s hand lands atop my notebook. “I want to comb through it. See if I can’t find a clue.”
As if he senses my hesitation, Ewing reminds me: “I’ve read through them before, yes?”
I nod.
“Have I ever judged you for what you’ve written?”
“No.” I refold John’s note. God, don’t read it. Don’t.
“Trust me?” Ewing asks.
Finally, I give the notebook a shove in his direction.
Ewing offers me a closed-lip smile and juts his chin toward the note I’m unfolding again. “What’s that?”
“Something I shouldn’t read.” He’s Lindsey’s guy. I shouldn’t care, even if he wants to offer me the world on a string. But instead …
His words call to me, like the beacon of a lighthouse. I meander through the foggy waters, fighting the waves of my better judgment, until the choice is no longer mine. I’m used to the feeling of coercion, in regard to my own words but not in regard to others’. This, in itself, is hypnotic, magnetic. I follow the pull.
Scan the words.
My jaw drops.
John wrote: I found your rosary.
Simple in structure. Four words, and only four words, loaded with complicated questions. Since he gave me the note last week, John and I have been locked in glances that last longer than a blink, practically daring each other to make the first move toward a conversation.
I ruminated, and avoided him, Friday and all weekend. Yesterday, I decided he needed to explain what he wrote, but I really shouldn’t be talking to him about anything but Lindsey. She’d flip if she knew John had something to say to me that didn’t involve her.
Now, in the moments before American Lit begins, he traipses over to me and leans a hip against a desktop. Rubbing the palm of his left hand with his right thumb, gives me a quick smile. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“You read my note?”
“Yeah, I got it. You got Lindsey’s?”
He shrugs, glances away for a split second. “Did it make any sense to you? Look, this is a complicated conversation to have in the midst of To Kill a Mockingbird, you know? I mean, I don’t even know if you own a rosary, let alone if you’re missing one.”
I barely get out a shake of my head, when Mr. Willis walks in and bellows, “Places, please.”
John’s eyes shift toward our teacher. “We should talk sometime.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
He rattles off his phone number. “Want me to write it down? Or do you think you can remember it?”
“I got it.” Already, I’m running through excuses to give Lindsey as to why I have it, should she find out: we’re working on a school project together, he wanted me to pass it along to her.… Or maybe she doesn’t have to know I have it. It’s not like I’m going to be regularly using it.
“So give a call or”—he shrugs—“I can call you.”
Lindsey. She won’t understand.
“Maybe we shouldn’t …” But I allow my words to trail off. Definitely we shouldn’t, but I need to know why he wrote to me about a rosary.
Ewing helped me understand that the rosary was part of the dream sequence in Ritchie’s office through the power of suggestion. Because my mother had been drawing a rosary, it makes sense that it would hold a place in my subconscious.
But what does John know about it?
“Places,” Willis says again.
“What’s your number?” John taps the corner of my desk as he backs away.
I give it to him.
“I’ll call you tonight after practice. Five thirty or so, okay?”
My heart kicks up its pace. “Actually …” It’s a Tuesday. I’m going to be with Elijah tonight. Assuming he shows. “Actually, can you meet up at the Vagabond?”
His lips part into a wide grin. “Sure.”
“I’m meeting my boyfriend there, and Lindsey’ll come, too.” She’ll be thrilled. I’ll tell her the meeting was John’s idea. Which isn’t exactly a lie.
“Okay.” His brow knits a little, but he quickly recovers. “Five thirty?”
Elijah, if he shows, should come at six, so that’s when I’ll set it up with Lindsey, too. Forgive me, but … “Yeah. Five thirty.”
Lindsey’s late, and I never heard from Elijah, so I don’t know if he’s coming.
John’s phone buzzes with a text message, which is the ninth or tenth to come through in the past half hour since he joined me here.
“Sorry.” He apologizes every time he has to check his phone, and punches answers immediately, this time with a sigh and a shake of his head. “My sisters.”
“Sisters? As in more than one?”
“Try four.” He offers a shrug and a shy smile as a supplemental apology. “I’m the youngest of five. The girls are planning a bash for my parents’ thirtieth anniversary.”
“Thirtieth? Wow.” I wonder what that might be like, having a big family to text with, to celebrate with.
“Do you have brothers or sisters?”
“Just Lindsey.”
His frown begins to take form—“How are you and Lindsey …”—only to be relieved by his text alert. “In all honesty, all they have to do is tell me when and where, you know? Theoretically, my responsibility begins and ends with showing up. Not like they’d trust me to actually do something anyway … One second.” He replies again. “There. That oughta do it. So.” He smiles.
We’re in a cozy booth at the Vagabond on the west side of the shack, overlooking the water. John’s sitting across from me, sipping a coffee, black.
“Let’s cut to the chase,” I say. “That note. The rosary reference.”
“Yeah.” He looks up at me, smiles, then glances down toward his mug. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”
“Doubtful.” I think of my recently refilled prescription of Ativan, which is hidden in the front pocket of my backpack, and remember my mother’s commentary on the subject. “Crazy is relative, you know?”
“Interesting that you wanted to meet here.” John Fogel glances again at his watch, then trips his gaze around the room, as if searching for something that used to be there. “Ever come here on Fortune Night?”
Suddenly, my throat is dry. “Yeah. They don’t do it anymore.”
Not in just over a year, but I don’t want to talk about the reasons why their mystic is imprisoned at a mental health institution. When I glance over at the bar, I imagine my mother sitting at the end, flipping cards.
A strong sigh slips from between his lips. “You remind me of the woman who used to read cards here.” He clears his throat. “Look, Callie.”
I’ve never heard him speak my name before. It sort of stuns me for a moment, the natural intonation, as if he’s spoken my name a million times before.
A nagging sensation rises from somewhere in the back of my mind, as if I’ve forgotten to do something, or bring something of importance somewhere. Just as I’m about to let it go, the word arises from the clutter: Cobblestone. Cobblestone. Cobblestone. I press my hand against the front pocket of my backpack, feel the small, cylindrical container stashed there. Maybe popping an antianxiety pill would be better than graphing out in front of him. Discreetly, I unzip the front pocket, open the vial, and extract a pill. I don’t have to take it. But if I want to, I can. I’ll bite it in half, maybe. Just take half. I rub my temples to ease the pressure building in my head. “Lindsey’ll be here soon.”
“I’m going to level with you,” he says. “I don’t care if Lindsey shows up or not. I didn’t come to see her.”
“Of course you did.” I don’t know who I’m trying to convince more, him or me. “She wrote you a note, and—”
“Did you write it? The note from Lindsey?” He squints a little, challenging me. “You spelled my name wrong.”
“Well, I know how to spell your name, and I have better things to do.”
Although he keeps fidgeting with his watch, his stare is unrelenting. I know he doesn’t believe me. But it’s not entirely a lie. I do have better things to do. Just not better enough. The Hutches are good to me. I’d write Lindsey’s doctoral dissertation, if she asked, even if I had a to-do list a mile long.
“I have better things to do, too,” he says.
My heart beats more intensely. Cobblestone paths, cobblestone paths, cobblestone paths. I feel like someone’s watching me, watching us. It’s a foreboding presence, one I felt on the altar moments before Palmer caught me with Andrew Drake. I scan the sparsely populated café, searching for the familiar glance of my father.
But of course he isn’t here. I’m safe, I remind myself. He wouldn’t come back here, and even if he did, I wouldn’t have to go back to Holy Promise with him. Guidry would see to that … I hope. I’m just paranoid. Probably because I’m doing something I’m not sure I should be doing.
John’s mug clinks against the tabletop, which is scarred with carved initials and penned witty one-liners.
Memories flash:
my mother spinning through the place, her hair flying. Clink, clink, clink as she serves. I’m four, maybe five, coloring pages of a Disney princess book in a booth, reading the graffiti on the wall: I’d follow half your smile for thousands of miles. Cobblestone, cobblestone, cobblestone, cobblestone.
This isn’t going to be good. I should take the pill.
When John glances toward the door, I stick the bitter medication into my mouth and bite off half of it, which I lodge under my tongue. The other chunk I allow to fall to the floor.
I don’t drink coffee, but as my water glass has been empty for an age, I reach for John’s mug and take a healthy slurp to wash down the Ativan.
Cobblestone paths, cobblestone paths, cobblestone paths.
The meds will kick in. It’ll just take some time. Relax.
He’s staring out the window now, across the murky waters of the bay. He blinks slowly, and when he opens his eyes, he’s looking directly into mine. A surge of energy zaps me—such power in his stare. It’s intense. Intimate. “The mystic who used to work here …” His fingers graze against mine, as he takes the mug from my hands. He lowers it to the table. “She predicted I’d meet you.”
I freeze.
“Not you, specifically, but you in the ethereal sense. She described things about you, things that would help me recognize you when I met you—specifically that you’d resemble her, and God, do you ever—and she told me to give you a rosary.”
“It’s called a cold read.” I don’t tell him that my mother was teaching me how to do it, too. “Vague details made to sound specific. Let me ask you something. Do you have a scar on your left knee?”
He frowns; he begins to nod.
“Okay, then,” I continue. “It’s simple ergonomics. Most kids, when they fall down, have landed on their left knees at some point or another. Do you know the crazy percentage of people walking around with scars on their left knees? She mentions it, and she’s hooked you. She’s playing the odds.”
“Look, I don’t usually believe in this stuff, either. But she called out the rosary. Specifically. She told me where to find it and said I should give it to you. Not you you, but—”
“Ethereal me. Right.”
“Don’t you ever want to blindly believe, Callie?” A smile slowly spreads over his face. “In something? Anything?”
I force a swallow over the half pill lodged in my throat.
“Hey, baby.”
I startle, but manage a smile by the time Elijah is nudging me farther into the booth. Sitting next to me now, he leans toward me, presses an open-lipped kiss to my mouth, and squeezes my leg. “Sorry I’m late. Missed the train.”
He smells like fresh air and antibacterial soap. There’s a smudge of dirt on the inside of his left elbow. I’m guessing he came directly from the soccer field, after too quick an attempt at washing up.
John offers his right hand. “John Fogel.”
Elijah gives my thigh another squeeze before releasing me to shake John’s hand. “Elijah Breshock.”
The two of them remain locked in the gaze, hands firmly grasped, like they’re involved in some sort of showdown. I wonder what Elijah overheard. Although the conversation was cryptic—anything incriminating happened only in my mind—discomfort courses through my veins like polluted water through a faucet.
I close my fist around the tiny marquise ruby ring hanging from the gold chain around my neck.
At long last, their hands part. “What are you drinking?” John asks, signaling again for the wait staff, which has effectively avoided his previous summonses.
Elijah slaps his fake ID down on the table. “I’ll take a Miller.”
“Omigod, I am so sorry!” Lindsey—wearing jeggings, an off-the-shoulder black sweater, and over-the-knee, five-inch-heel, black suede boots—slides into the booth.
Suddenly, I feel uncomfortable in my worn jeans, T-shirt, and hoodie. I wonder why Lindsey didn’t clue me into the fact that she’d be dressed to the nines when she arrived here after the homecoming committee meeting. The ambrosia of mary jane and Vera Wang’s Princess wafts in her wake, but her blue-green eyes are clear. Her black hair is twisted up in a claw clip, with a few tendrils framing her ivory face.
“Hello, Jon.” Her lips curl into half a pucker, like a bow she’s daring him to untie.
After a quick acknowledgment—“Hi, Lindsey”—he glances down into his mug, then back up at me, only to again look away.
Elijah gives her a nod. “What’s up?”
Her eyes flash their jade brilliance. “Ooh, we’re drinking.” She must’ve seen his ID. Her yellow Fendi shoulder bag lands with a thunk in the center of the table, concealing a green Musicians Do It with Rhythm sticker. She digs into her bag and produces her own fake before nudging her way into the booth.
As John scoots in farther to make room for Lindsey, one of his feet bumps into mine. We share a glance, but I quickly look away.
Elijah’s hand returns to my leg. “Want a drink?”
Cobblestone paths of her memory.
“Just more water.”
Someone onstage is singing a bad cover of Eric Clapton’s “Bell Bottom Blues.”
It’s a song I’ve heard a hundred times or more throughout the course of my life, a song my mother sang when I was a little kid. The memory is misty at best, but I remember her voice echoing through a long white hallway. Afternoon sun slanting through the windows and warming my cheeks. Me, stringing beads on a thread: blue, purple, pink … blue, purple, pink.
The image attempts to fill me with a cozy feeling, not unlike the way I feel the first moment Elijah closes his arms around me, but I can’t quite grasp the warmth. I tighten my hand into a fist, but the comfort slips away. I sprint down corridors in my mind, searching for the right door, the one that will lead me back to that safe, carefree moment, but I can’t feel it, can’t find it.
“And the best part about it,” Lindsey’s saying, “is that the staff will decorate the ballroom for us. So we homecoming committee members don’t have to get there early.”
