(Don't You) Forget About Me (11 page)

KARMA CHAMELEON

Six Years Ago

I STOOD AT THE FRONT GATES OF THE REFORMATORY.
Waiting. It felt strange to be there out in the open, instead of hiding in the tall grass around the back side. I pressed the button to announce myself and, in a trembling voice, spoke into the black box. “Skylar Gardner here for Piper Gardner.”

“Relation?” The disembodied voice crackled through the speaker.

“Sister,” I said, although they already know. It wasn't a question asked to gain information; it was a reminder of who was in charge.

“Discharge papers?”

I looked down at my empty hands, as if the papers might have magically appeared. “Sorry, I didn't get anything,” I finally answered.

I waited, but there was no response. My mouth was dry, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. What if they didn't let you out? What would I do then?

For the millionth time, I wished that you hadn't fought with Ms. Van Nuys. She was just a dumb newcomer, so who really cared if she gave daily lectures on how every kid in town should be tagged and monitored? Yes, I got that you were pissed, but you could've just stopped after calling her an idiot. That would have been enough for most people. But not you. You had to take it even further and tell her to do herself a favor and either leave Gardnerville or jump out a window.

As if that wasn't bad enough, a day later you actually made her jump out a window. She was on the first floor, so she wasn't hurt, but Daddy still had to ooze a whole lot of charm to keep you out of the reformatory. And then after all that, you walked up to the reformatory, pressed this very same intercom button, and said, “My name is Piper Gardner and I'd like to commit myself for two weeks.” I stood at your side, dumbfounded and hoping they'd send you home with a sharp warning about messing with things you didn't understand. But, of course, they didn't. Instead the gates opened up. I tugged at your hand, begging you not to do it. You pulled away. “See you in two weeks,” you said to me with a brave smile, and then you disappeared inside the reformatory for the first time.

I pressed the button once more. “Hello?”

A long moment passed. I reached toward the button, ready to push it again.

“WAIT.” The command blasted out. I snatched my hand back.

I didn't have a watch, but it was a long time before anything else happened, and when it did, it happened all at once. A buzzer shrieked, the front door swung open, and then, at last, you stepped out into the sunlight. I tried to see past you, to the interior of the reformatory and your home for the last two weeks, but it was pitch-black inside.

Everything about you sagged. Your shoulders and neck bent forward, giving way to the weight of your head, which hung at such a low angle you seemed to be studying your own belly button. Instead of walking, you shuffled along, not lifting your feet but sliding them through the dusty yard.

“Piper,” I called out. “Piper!”

You didn't look up. Maybe you didn't hear me. Maybe you were angry. Or lost in your own thoughts. I couldn't bear for it to be anything else. I couldn't stand to think they broke you in only fourteen days.

At last, you reached the gate, and after several long moments of making you wait in front of it—never looking up, not even seeming to notice me only inches away on the other side—someone inside deigned to buzz it open.

A few more shuffling steps brought you to my side, while behind you, the gate slammed shut once more.

I stared at you, waiting, wanting to follow your lead. You drooped like the bouquets of roses Dad sometimes bought for Mom, which she held on to for so long that they began to rot.

“C'mon,” I said, slipping my hand into yours. It took only a gentle tug to get you moving alongside me down the hill. “Chance is waiting at the bottom. He wouldn't come any closer, that chicken dog.” You knew this already, but I needed to fill the silence. “Ms. Van Nuys is okay. If you were worried.”

I didn't add that Ms. Van Nuys had also left town, but not before she visited us. She stood in the doorway of our house screaming at Mom and Dad, while I hid in the stairwell, hugging Chance close to keep him from barking and giving me away. “Your daughter is a menace. She should be locked up permanently.”

I waited for our parents to say something. To defend you and your strange powers. But they were silent. I wanted to step forward then, but I was afraid she might recognize me. That would only bring more trouble. The day before Ms. Van Nuys jumped, you and I had seen her in Al's Grocery, pushing her little cart through the store with her nose in the air, probably annoyed that it wasn't like the big grocery stores she was used to. “Touch her and tell her something awful about herself,” you'd said. I didn't have to ask why. You'd already told me about your ongoing feud with Ms. Van Nuys. The worst of it wasn't the stuff about tagging and monitoring. No, what you could never forgive was Ms. Van Nuys saying that she'd seen dozens of girls like you during her teaching career and, despite your notions to the contrary, you were nothing special. Even now, thinking about it, I felt the same outrage I did the first time you told me. Holding on to that outrage, I marched toward Ms. Van Nuys and wrapped my fingers around her arm, forcing her to stop.

“You came here because your baby died and your husband couldn't stand to look at you anymore,” I told her.

I felt her skin prickle and go cold beneath my fingers. And then I ran. I had hoped never to see her again, but there she was at our house, demanding in her screechy voice, “Well? Don't you have anything to say?”

I knew the exact moment Dad unleashed his smile on her. There was this strange high-pitched titter from Ms. Van Nuys. Then in his Mr. Smooth voice I heard Dad say, “It's a good thing you were only on the first floor.”

Instead of slapping him, Ms. Van Nuys tittered again.

“I heard you're leaving town. I'm real sorry about that. How about I walk you over to the train station? I'm sure you could use an extra hand to help carry your things.”

“Oh. Why . . . thank you,” Ms. Van Nuys answered in a breathy voice. Mom said nothing. She never did, not even when Dad walked out the door arm in arm with Ms. Van Nuys. Neither of us was surprised when he didn't come home that night, or when we heard that Ms. Van Nuys had waited to take the train out the following week.

Now, as we walked home, I made myself be patient and wait for you to talk to me, instead of reaching into your head to find out for myself. About halfway down the hill, where it curves and the reformatory becomes hidden from view, you skidded to a stop.

“Sky,” you said, grabbing my other hand. At last, your eyes met mine. They were shining. Radiant. Burning with a victorious light. “I was right, Sky. It's a terrible place. Worse than we ever imagined.”

“Are you okay?” I couldn't help but ask.

“Silly.” You gave me a little shake. “That doesn't matter. What matters is that I figured out what I'm meant to do. What we're meant to do. The reformatory began with the Gardners and it will end with us too.”

I said nothing. For years you had said the reformatory was our destiny, and I'd believed you. I'd thought you meant doing time. Getting drained. But this . . . this was a different plan entirely.

“Sky, you're with me, right?”

I hesitated. Taking down the reformatory was about as impossible as shooting the sun from the sky, but that wasn't the problem. If you had wanted it, I believed you could have shot down the sun, the moon, and a couple of stars too—you'd collect the whole set. The problem was imagining Gardnerville without the reformatory. How would our town even work?

“Sky?” You interrupted my thoughts, wanting an answer. I must have looked as panicked as I felt. A part of me was afraid that I'd agree and you would pull a pack of dynamite from your pocket, and then rush back up the hill, ready to blow the whole thing to kingdom come.

“I need this, Sky. It's what I was meant to do.” You shook your head, correcting yourself. “No, it's what
we
were meant to do.”

Piper, you never really needed powers to make others do your will. Not with me, at least.

And that was why there was never any choice to make.

“Yes, of course I'm with you,” I said. “Always.”

EIGHT

STILL SHAKY AFTER ESCAPING FROM GG'S AND
uncertain about where to go or what to do next, I end up back at school. In the girls' room, I use the cheap brown paper towels to scrub the residual dirt from my skin. They're like sandpaper, which is usually a bad thing, but right now I welcome their ability to remove several layers of skin with a single swipe. After tossing the last wad of towels into the trash, I turn to the mirror for the first time. I could blame the green tile and fluorescent lights for my sickly gray color, but who am I kidding? I'm a wreck.

Enough. Nothing good ever came of staring into a mirror and wondering who was the fairest of them all. Still, while great beauty has never been something I've been terribly interested in, I do try to avoid looking like a corpse. With this thought in mind I give my cheeks a few hard pinches until two patches of dull pink color bloom. It'll have to do.

I march toward the door but hesitate before opening it. I roll my shoulders back. Wiggle my hips. Tilt my head back and forth, then left and right. Residual fog lingers somewhere behind my eyes, making me feel dull and heavy. Otherwise, though, everything is back to normal. Relatively speaking.

On my way down the hall, I check the time, wanting to make sure I haven't lost a whole day like yesterday. It takes me a few minutes to remember how to read the clock. Sometimes even hours after a pill, when I think everything's back to normal, little things like this trip me up. Right now, it's the meaning of the big hand that has momentarily stumped me. Then it comes back, suddenly. 2:45. If I hurry, Jonathan will still be at the double-wide. There was something I'd wanted to ask him about. . . . My hand reaches toward my back pocket, and paper crinkles beneath my fingertips. All at once I remember. Jonathan is dead. LuAnn is missing. She and Piper are somehow connected.

And I've lost hours.

The forget-me-nots have been a crutch allowing me to hobble through my days. Now, though, I need to move faster. It's time to go cold turkey. Not forever, but until I find Piper and know for sure if she's dead or alive or something else in between.

The thought is enough to hurry me down the hallways. I burst through the front doors and into the merciless afternoon sun that has replaced the earlier rain. I have time to feel only the shortest moment of relief at my escape before I catch sight of Angie. She is tapping on her phone with bright-pink fingernails, while her foot jiggles a bedazzled baby stroller holding a wailing child. Angie spends her life clinging to Elton, or—after he's managed to shake her loose—trying to hunt him down again. I should hate her for being the girl Elton cheated on Piper with, but I've never been able to do it.

Hoping that if I ignore her, she'll return the favor, I stare straight ahead as I stride past.

It doesn't work.

I can feel her gaze on me as I draw even, and then a moment later she calls out, “You seen Elton?”

The question stops me in my tracks. I have seen Elton. He gave me pills. Made me take one. And he told me Jonathan was dead.

I hear the clatter of her wooden heels clomping against the sidewalk, and then the stroller pulls up next to me, the kid screaming louder than ever. I stare at the red-faced monster, wondering why it's still in a stroller at almost four years old.

I throw a dark look Angie's way. “Make it stop.”

She returns my look with interest. “Right. 'Cause it's that easy.”

“It's crying 'cause it wants something. Whatever it is, give it what it wants.”

“
It
is a she,” Angie snaps. “She wants her daddy. You might know him. Handsome guy. Metal legs.”

“Sounds familiar. Is he also cold and incapable of feeling?”

Angie turns her fingers into shotguns and aims them both at me. “Bang. Bang.”

I shake my head. “Don't shoot the messenger 'cause the truth hurts.”

Her guns turn back into hands and she places them on the stroller to push as we start up the hill toward Main. “Actually, I was saying you were dead-on. But yeah, the truth hurts. Hurts every damn day.”

“Yeah” is the only comeback I have. We continue to trudge up the hill. The little girl doesn't stop crying for a second, not even to take a breath.

“Hey,” I snap when we reach the top of the hill. The kid's wide eyes snap toward mine, curious. Not curious enough to stop howling, but enough to look. Leaning down, I press my index finger against the tip of her nose. “Knock it off.”

She gasps, shudders, and breathes in like she's gonna start all over again, but then pops her thumb into her mouth instead.

“Well shit,” Angie says. Our eyes meet and she shakes her head. “She usually goes for hours. I'd never have guessed you were good with kids.”

If that's being good with kids, you're an even worse mother than I already thought. The words are on the tip of my tongue, but I don't say them. Angie looks tired in a way that goes beyond the sag in her shoulders and bags beneath her eyes. She looks to have the type of exhaustion that goes bone deep. I remember before she took Elton from Piper, when she was just a girl in Piper's class with a sassy, hip-swinging walk that ensured everyone would notice her. I liked her then. Admired her in the same way I did Piper or anyone else who lived life bright and loud, unafraid to be seen, not concerned that the next words to come tumbling from their mouth might make everyone hate them.

“I saw Elton a few hours ago. He dropped me off at school.”

Angie nods. “He was supposed to meet me an hour ago. I told him to pick us up, but he said we should walk, that it would be good for us. Good for us. In this godforsaken heat. And during a fourth year. It's like he wants his daughter to be taken by whatever terrible thing happens. That's what I said to him, and then he said that we needed to set an example for everyone else. To show them how not to be afraid. To show them fear didn't have to win. So then I said, ‘And what about when your daughter's dead? What's that gonna show everybody?' You'd think that woulda shut him up, but it didn't. ‘She won't be dead,' he says. ‘She'll be fine 'cause there aren't gonna be any more fourth years.' And I said, ‘Bullshit.' And he told me to drink more water.” Angie throws her head back and laughs with a complete lack of mirth. “You believe that?”

I shrug and look away.

“I don't even like water,” Angie mutters beside me, still replaying her argument with Elton. “He knows I prefer my beverages carbonated.”

I stare at her, unable to believe that she doesn't know. That Elton wouldn't tell her. Then I turn away once more, reminding myself it's none of my business.

Angie doesn't say anything else as we hang a right onto Main Street. You'd think I'd be happy for the silence, but instead I hear myself asking, “Why don't you just leave?” I gesture to the kid, who is now happily singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” to herself. “Go somewhere you'll be safe, somewhere without fourth years.”

Angie looks at me in this measured sort of way. “And where would that be?”

I shrug. “Anywhere the train stops that isn't here.”

“Uh-huh.” Angie nods slowly. “Don't you ever read the newspapers the newcomers bring in? Out there, in all the other places the train stops, are school shootings and starvation and drownings and cancer and five thousand other horrible ways to die. Bad stuff happens everywhere. There is no safe place.”

“Yeah,” I say, unconvinced, but not wanting to hear the rest. I've heard this argument before. Hell, I've used this argument before. The joys of small-town life, fresh air unpolluted by the smog that plagues the big cities on the other side, and the biggest bonus of all—if you survive puberty—the chance to live well into your second century.

“Is this about Jonathan?” Angie asks as she reaches over and gently pats my arm. “I'm sorry about what happened. Elton was really upset about it too. He did everything he could to save him, but he blames himself, I think.”

I slip my tongue between my front teeth and bite down to stop myself from telling Angie that Elton was the reason Jonathan needed saving.

Oblivious, Angie keeps prattling along. “Anyway, with you and Jonathan being close, I bet you're pretty upset about it. Just remember, it's okay to cry.”

I stare at Angie, certain she's joking, but when she gives me another sympathetic pat, I realize she isn't. “Jonathan and I weren't friends. Where did you get that idea?”

“Oh.” Angie wrinkles her brow in confusion. “I forgot, you probably don't remember—you were pretty out of it last night. You weren't feeling too good, so I sat with you for a while. I mentioned that Elton wanted you to talk with Jonathan, and you got kind of upset. Then you pulled out this piece of paper from your pocket, said it was a note from Jonathan. You tried to read it, but . . .” Angie trails off, looking embarrassed for me.

I save her with a shrug. “I couldn't remember how to read. It happens.”

“Right,” Angie says. “Well anyway, I offered to read it to you, but you kept it folded up all neat and careful and told me it was private. The way you acted, I figured it was, like, I don't know, a love note or something.”

I want to make barfing noises like a third-grader at the idea of exchanging love letters with Jonathan. Instead, I widen my eyes, hoping it comes across as innocent instead of scared shitless, and ask in my sweetest voice, “Don't tell anyone, okay?”

“You poor kid,” Angie says. “Of course, I wouldn't tell anyone. You've been so unlucky in love. First with Elton and now—”

“Elton?” I interrupt. “No.”

Oh, the pity on Angie's face as she looks at me, like I am the saddest, most delusional person on the planet. Somebody needs to get this girl a mirror. “Sky, we've never talked about it, but I know you and Elton had a thing. For a long time I thought you hated me because of it. But maybe you've realized that you were just a kid then, and Elton was much too old for you. . . .” Angie reaches out to give my shoulder a comforting squeeze. “Anyway, for a long time, I've wanted to apologize. So here it is. I'm sorry.”

I step away so that Angie can't touch me again. And so that I don't punch her in the face. “I'm not the person you need to apologize to,” I tell her, trying to keep my voice even.

“You're right,” Angie quickly agrees. “A lot of people got hurt because of my thoughtless actions, and I probably owe a lot more apologies. But I'm not the only person responsible for that, Skylar, and I really don't appreciate the guilt trip.”

She's right, of course. What Piper did . . . All those young lives just over. No matter how many forget-me-nots I take, I can still hear their screams—and the deadly silence after so many of them drowned.

“I gotta get out of this heat,” Angie says, interrupting my dark thoughts. I realize we are standing in front of Milly's. The old-timers stare down at us from the wide front porch. They don't say hello or smile. They just stare. Piper used to charm them. She'd go into Milly's, steal the coffee pot, and insist on refilling everyone's cup. Then we'd sit at their feet and beg them to tell us their stories. And they would. They would tell us about every fourth year they could remember. The more interesting first-, second-, and third-year anecdotes too. We soaked them up and made them our own.

Somehow I get wrangled into dragging the stroller up the stairs and inside, while Angie pops the kid onto her hip and sashays past. I consider telling Angie I need to use the bathroom, and then escaping out the back door, but the AC blasting from the vents is so icy cold and refreshing, I can't help but enjoy the way it almost immediately raises goose bumps up and down my arms. An hour later I am still there, drinking coffee to keep the chill away and finishing off my second slice of Milly's famous peach pie. The last bit of murkiness from the nots has cleared and the combo of Angie and her kid—one mushing her own piece of pie into her hair, the other futilely yet repeatedly asking her to stop—has become more annoying than cute.

Outside the skies have once again darkened, and a storm is threatening, but that isn't what's keeping me inside. What holds me here are the posters plastered across every inch of Milly's walls. They've been there since before I can remember, always faded and curling at the edges. A brilliant blue sky is a central motif in most of them. Grinning people in bathing suits or ski gear are another. And they all have the name of a place in big, bold letters. Sometimes it is preceded by “Come See” or “Visit,” but mostly just the name, as if they know that you'll say it out loud and the feel of the word in your mouth—Vail, Cairo, Waikiki, Cornwall, Havana, Grand Canyon, Portugal, Mont Blanc—will be enough to make you want to go there.

Piper loved them. I think they spoke to her, the same way the secrets whispered to me. They said,
Look at all there is to still be discovered
.

I never disagreed with Piper. Not out loud anyhow. We were strange sisters that way. Those posters were the closest we ever came to having a disagreement. When I looked at them, I couldn't help but think about how large and frightening the rest of the world seemed. But Piper saw a treat constantly dangled in front of her, always out of reach. She loved the posters, and hated them too.

The day before that terrible May Day, Piper added her own poster to the wall. Imitating the drawing style of the other posters with their clean lines and bold colors, she drew the trestle bridge cutting through the center of the page. She captured the way a full moon looked hung high in the sky and reflected in the water below. At the top in thick, bold letters she wrote
GARDNERVILLE
so that it stretched across the whole page. She made Milly hang it up on the wall then, but as we had our customary second piece of pie, she kept staring at it all squinty-eyed. That unsatisfied look remained no matter how many times I assured her it was brilliant. “It needs something else,” Piper insisted, pulling it back down. She curled her arm around the drawing, huddling over it as her pencil scratched against the paper, hiding it from my view. It wasn't until she placed it back on the wall that I saw her addition. And she was right. It did complete the poster. In smaller, right-slanting letters, she'd printed in the bottom corner,
Where magic happens
.