Crossing (18 page)

My face twisted into something unrecognizable. “Listen, you can hear them already. The accusations. Can you hear them?”

She cocked her head to one side. “What are you talking about? What accusations?”

“You slitty-eyed, urine-complexioned Chink!”
I shouted, my voice hoarse.
“You dour-faced, inscrutable monkey, you yellow-faced toothy smile with fortune cookie in hand running with evil intent around town at night. Oh, China-boy, what have you done to our children? What have you done to our children?”

She retreated into the corner as if each of my words pushed her there. For a few moments, she stared wide-eyed at me, slightly bent over as if she’d just taken a blow to the gut. Then she spoke, finally. “Xing,” she said, her voice hitching with grief, “why do you hate yourself so much?”

Just then, her cell phone rang, blaring out a popular love song. It startled both of us. “It’s Jason again,” she said, turning her back to me. “Hold on.” Naomi had always stood with excellent posture, but as the seconds went by, her back straightened and stiffened into a razorblade. She murmured into the phone, one hand cupped over the mouthpiece. She started whispering in frantic hushes.

A wailing siren, faint, cried out in the night outside. Naomi didn’t hear it. The phone in her hand started to tremble. She stole a quick glance at me, then walked into the kitchen, whispering into the phone.

I waited for her in the living room, snow dripping off my clothes, the way I’d waited for her all my life. With utmost patience. Waited, even as the snow kicked up outside, even after I sensed she’d already hung up. Waiting for her to come back to me.

The kitchen was dark when I walked in five minutes later. She was sitting in the corner, cradling the phone, her face contorted and drained. She did not notice me at first, did not see me observing her trembling lips, her closed eyes, her shell-shocked face. Her left arm, almost a separate entity, hung draped across her chest like a consoling snake. Snowflakes on the window dotted shadows on her face, splattered spiders across the bridge of her nose and cheeks.

“What did he say?” I asked.

She jumped at the sound of my voice, out of her chair. Her eyes flicked to me then quickly away. “It’s all over the news now.” Her voice was sapped of life but jittery with alarm.

“About Jan Blair. Accusing me?”

“Not only that,” she said. She paused for a long time, leaning against the window, still unable to look at me. Her next words, though whispered, dropped out of her mouth like heavy burdens. “The police, they found blood on that gravity knife they confiscated from you. The one they found in your backpack. Bloodstains on the handle, on the blade. Blood with a DNA match with at least two of…them, the victims.”

“And I told you about the knife. Didn’t I just tell you about the knife?”

She shook her head.

“No, I did,” I insisted. “I told you…” My voice trailed off with uncertainty. “I did, you weren’t…” I paused. She was staring down, keeping her eyes away from me. But watchful.

And so, in my fear, I started to ramble. Gooey bands of saliva stretched between my chapped, ranting lips. My arms flailed, I remember that, gesticulating up and down. Snow in my hair had melted, and water dripped down my face like nervous sweat.

“Jan gave it to me as a gift. I didn’t want—”

Naomi put her hand up, stopping me. Her fingers trembled slightly.

“You didn’t hear a thing I just said, did you?” I asked. She half turned away. “I’m just trying to process all this. I don’t know—I don’t know what to think.”

“You need to know. About the knife. It’s not mine. Jan gave it to me as a gift.”

“But I asked you,” she said. “That very night after the police found it, I asked you about the knife, and you said you had no idea how you got it. You never said anything about Jan giving it to you.” She spoke with a strained, raspy voice. “In fact, Xing, why didn’t you ever tell me about Jan? What were you trying to hide?”

A muscle under my right eye jerked. “Nothing,” I said, wary. “There’s nothing between us.”

“She’s been going around the past few weeks, telling the girls. In the locker room after gym class. About how you and her got it on.”

“She’s lying.”

“About how you’re smitten with her. Always wanting to kiss her. Even going to her home in the middle of the night to make out with her.”

“That girl has been chasing
me
since day one.”

“It’s not just her saying so. Mindy Burns was saying how she saw the two of you necking in the auditorium.” Naomi ran her hands down her face, pulling the sides of her mouth down. “We used to tell each other everything. Even stupid, insignificant stuff. Why didn’t you tell me about Jan Blair?”

“I tried to,” I blurted, suddenly recalling. “The very day she first…acted weird on me. I went over to your place to talk to you. Later at night. I wanted to unload, just talk.”

She frowned. “When was this?”

“Several weeks back. You won’t remember it. You were just going to bed. I didn’t want to wake you. So I stayed on the tree.”

Her arms folded loosely but quickly across her chest. “You were in the tree? Watching me?”

“I…I…it’s not like that—”

“From outside my window?”

“Naomi—”

“How long were you out there for?”

I should have lied. I should have just punched out a rough number, two minutes, three minutes. But stupidly I told her the truth. “Two hours.”

She stepped back, away from me.

It was a slow, cautious step.

Her left hand slowly rose to her chin, shaking, trembling. She did that whenever she was scared, from the time she was just a little girl. I’d seen her do that dozens of times, but never, not once, on account of me. Her eyes were wide and incredulous. “And you were just watching me for two hours?”

I stammered, I spluttered. But she’d stopped listening.

“Xing,” she said. She could hardly get the next words out: “I barely feel like I know you anymore. The way you’ve been acting.” She was blinking fast now. “Let’s call the police. Let them know you’re here. They just want to talk.” I hated that modulated, clipped voice. She was learning to use it now to cut people off in Sunday school or to command the undivided attention of a noisy church youth meeting. She would no doubt later use it to turn down college dates or invitations for a drink on business trips, her voice pert and professional in every inflection. But oh so condescending and patronizing.

“What the hell just happened?” I glared at her. “Ten minutes ago, you wouldn’t believe I had anything to do with this. Now you’re ready to handcuff me yourself.”

“It’s not like that.”

“No, no. I get it. I totally do. I can scream and rant, and not sway you. The way it’s always been.” I smirked. “Then one phone call from honey buns, one sweet whisper from your goody white boyfriend, and he has you at hello. Just like that, a total one-eighty.” I nodded my head. “I get it.”

“Xing, please, just let me call the police, OK?”

“No, that’s fine, don’t believe me, Naomi,” I said. “Others will believe me. Like Miss Durgenhoff.”

“Xing,” she said, remembering something, her eyes widening.

“She’ll speak up for me; she’ll tell everyone that I had nothing to do with the murders.”

And one last time, Naomi said, “Xing.”

I looked at her. Tears were brimming from half-closed eyes. And she began to speak, softly, her wavering voice just barely under control. “I stopped by your home after school today,” she said. “I wanted to wish you luck, that even if I couldn’t be there…” She sniffed and ran the back of her hand against her nose. “But when I got to your home, everyone was gone except Miss Durgenhoff. She invited me in for some tea.”

Sirens in the background, getting louder.

“You know,” she continued, “she told me a few things that really surprised me.”

I blinked.

“She told me that she’s seen you sneak out of the house late at night, only to return hours later. Lots of times. That she’s seen you come back caked in dirt and mud, seen you come back disheveled, like you’ve been in a fight. She tells me that you roam the streets all the time, early in the mornings, in the middle of the night, the only person in the whole town unafraid to do so. I didn’t think much of what she said until now…you’re acting so weird, you’re not yourself. You’re scaring me.”

I should have said something, some kind of self-defense: That Miss Durgenhoff is old and greatly exaggerates. That although I have been out late at night—and yes, on one occasion I did go to Jan’s house in the middle of the night—I did not kill anyone. That I have been leaving home in the morning dark, but only for my voice lessons at school. That I have roamed the streets at night, but only because I hate my own home, only because I’m still trying to find my home.

Naomi’s eyes, brown and morose, pierced into me. “What have you been doing?” She whispered it in a slurred hiss, all her syllables spilling in messy overlaps. “Where have you been going at night? You say you’re busy practicing, but what have you been doing, really?”

My arms dropped to my side. I hadn’t realized I’d folded them taut against my chest. I closed my eyes, pleading for this world to disappear. A pressure began to pound the back of my eyeballs.

I wanted to scream. Instead, I opened my eyes.

“Even you, Naomi?”

She stood there, a waif silhouetted against the bleeding darkness of the night outside, the snow tattering down behind her, unable to answer me. Naomi, like the world, had made up her mind about me.

I went to her now, for the first time, the last time. I placed my hand in the small hollow of her back, just above her hips. It surprised me, the sudden dip then rise of her curve there in my palm. A hint of how she would mature; a person I would never be a part of. I lowered my face into the enclave of her neck and held her. She was stiff and unyielding, and I waited for her to relent, soften. She never did. Past the fresh fragrance of her hair, I smelled something more indelible: the warm waft of her body heat, the raw musk it carried. I never forgot that smell.

I wish you could have seen me tonight, Naomi. I wish you could have seen me at the police precinct. For a couple of hours, I was a hero. The cameras clicking. The handshakes. The pats on the back. And I wish you could have been at school to see me perform. I was magical. I made the angels listen. I was beloved.
These were my unwhispered words.

I moved past her and opened the door. And just like that, I walked out.

Snow. So much of it coming down, white specks flickering in the dark night like fireworks in disarray, without color, sapped of passion, drained.

And so I pedaled, even when going downhill, even around the tight corners. The snow hurtled into my face. Once or twice, I felt the tires give under me, skidding a foot before they found traction. I sped over branches and rocks and potholes, my teeth knocking together like a chattering fool, the slicing cold raw against my face. I heard sirens breaking into the night air, howling yelps of urgency. This is what you do, this is how you feel, this is how you maneuver through a snowy night when all that you have ever prized is irretrievably lost.

T
he house was dark and cold and empty.

“Ah-ma?” I asked into the darkness, knowing full well that only silence would answer.

I walked through the living room, up the stairs, down the short hallway, letting the silence seep into me, the darkness bleed into me.

I stumbled into my room. This was the room, which had over the years borne a loneliness never meant to be shouldered by only one person. The walls, the bed, the ceiling, the desk, the cluttered books, the discarded clothes—all drenched with the witness of unwept tears.

I heard the wail of sirens, nearer to me than they’d been all night, the screeching of brakes, the shout of voices. Soon they would break into the house, smashing the windows, splintering the front door with a battering ram. Then boots would pound up the stairs. They’d flow into my room like a black river, pull me to the floor, twist my arms back. I would offer no resistance.

They’d tell me I had the right to remain silent. But I would not be silent. I would speak; I would confess to a lie.

Dorsey had screamed.

Barnes had cried.

Hasbourd had pleaded.

Logan had fought back, viciously, like a stray dog.

Jan’s father was easy as slicing warm butter.

From downstairs came loud thumps against the door. Only a few moments more now. Let them come. Let them come and get me. I’d give them what they wanted, what they’d already concluded. If even Naomi would not believe me, then how could I ever expect them to?

I walked across the room towards my father’s painting.

I took the painting down. Exposed now on the wall was the thin, L-shaped wood panel. My fingers, still frozen, felt clumsily for the edges and loosened the panel. I took out the pouch with my getaway money and poured the contents on my bed. Loose change and cash spilled out, all the folly and futility of a pipe dream. And Logan’s gold chain. The gold chain permeated the gray hues of the room, a living color. The initials
TL
on the small plate glowed with radiance, twinkling. As if still alive, alive even after it had been hidden in the dark so many months before. It wrapped itself around my wrist, between my fingers, a sickly embrace. And I closed my hand gently around it, then tighter, into a fist where the chain would no doubt be discovered. It was all they would need, the smoking gun they were slobbering to find.

I placed the painting back up on the wall. And I heard the splintering of wood downstairs as the front door exploded inwards. The shouts of police as they poured in. Mere seconds more now. I stared at the painting in front of me. And it drew me in, as I somehow knew it would. I caressed the encrusted paint, frozen like the waves of an arctic sea. I closed my eyes. Gently now, my fingertips roaming over the canvas. Touching. Slowly. The scent of flowers, the aroma of wet rocks, even the faint sound of willows brushed lightly by the wind. These all came to me, the place of my home. I kept my eyes closed. The sounds and smells grew stronger, more vivid now; soon I felt the rays of the China sun intensifying upon my face, warm and beckoning. My fingers pressed harder into the canvas. I inhaled and shuddered.