(Don't You) Forget About Me (16 page)

The plan is the plan.
That was the one thing I sort of understood. Because I'd heard it before. Four years ago, the plan was the plan, but then Piper went away and I forgot about it the same way I did everything else. It would be helpful if I could remember that plan, but all I remember is the sick feeling I got in my stomach every time Piper said the plan was the plan. That sick feeling is back now.

Crumpling the paper into a ball, I throw it out to sea and watch the waves curl around it and carry it away.

LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE BOY

Four Years Ago

WE WAITED ON THE FRONT STEPS OF MILLY'S. FROM
there we could see the bus and everyone who got on or off. School was ending in a few months, and you said this was the best time to find the new people who'd be working at the reformatory—this was when they started recruiting. Every year at least half of the high school graduates would take the bus up the hill to apply for positions. “We'll be able to pick the new workers out right away,” you assured me. “They'll be the ones carrying uniforms instead of wearing them.”

As usual, you were right. About ten people got off the bus at 4:00 p.m., and among them were two girls and four boys, each carrying a stack of clothing. You eyed the new workers as they walked past us in a silent clump. There was no excitement or happy chatter about their jobs like I'd expected. Instead they were morose and silent, as if they'd just been sentenced to serve time at the reformatory instead of work there.

“I feel bad for them,” I whispered to you after they were a few feet away.

“Hush. The plan is the plan.” You tugged on my hand, pulling me to my feet. We followed them for a few moments, and then you pointed to one of the boys. “Him.”

I studied the one you'd marked, trying to see what made him so special. His shoulders slouched and his greasy dark hair was short in the front, but long enough in the back to touch the collar of his wrinkled button-down shirt. He took shuffling little steps like his feet were shackled, and his too-long dress pants were already frayed. Maybe this was what you liked about him, that he looked a little sloppier and more beaten down than the rest of them. Maybe you had some thought of wanting to help him out, give him a new purpose in life. Or maybe you just saw an easy target.

As if feeling the pressure of our eyes on his back, the boy stopped and turned. You smiled at him. It was like having a flashbulb go off in his face; he was left half blind with spots of light dancing in the space between your smiling face and his own. He looked around, stunned, trying to figure out who that smile was for, unable to believe it might've been for him. You began to walk toward him with your hips swinging and that smile still there but turned down a few notches from
stun
to
confuse
.

The others kept going, not even noticing they'd lost one of their own.

As he watched you coming, his eyes got bigger and bigger while his Adam's apple bobbed with each gulp of air so that it looked like he was choking on something. When you finally reached him, you placed your arms around his neck like you were hanging a medal on him, and then you pressed your lips to his cheek. As you pulled away, I finally understood why you'd bought that tube of red lipstick instead of your usual shimmery pink lip gloss. Stamped on his cheek, in candy-apple red, was the perfect bow shape of your mouth.

“I'm Piper,” you said, your voice pitched so low that I had to lean in to hear.

“Oh.” He finally smiled back at you, a big, goofy grin. “I think I know you from school maybe?”

I almost laughed at the question. Was this his idea of trying to be cool? Even in a school three times bigger than ours, everyone would know who you were. You weren't someone who would ever go unnoticed.

“I'm Oswald,” he added. “But my friends call me Ozzy.”

“Well, maybe we should get a little friendlier, so that I can call you Ozzy too.” You laid it on thick, like you were imitating Marilyn Monroe or one of the other glamorous actresses from the old movies we constantly watched. Then you led him away, down one of the dark lanes that broke off from Main Street.

For a second I thought of following, but if you'd wanted me to come along, you would've made it clear you were including me. Later that night, though, you climbed into bed beside me and shared all the details. You told me his kisses were sloppy and that he kept asking, “This okay?” No matter how many times you assured him it was just fine. I asked if you thought you'd fall in love with him, and you laughed.

“No, Pollywog,” you said. “This isn't about love. This is strategy.”

ELEVEN

I DRAG MYSELF HOME FROM THE SALT SPRING
thinking I will crawl back into bed and ditch Foote. But I want a fuller escape than sleep can give me. I want to let a forget-me-not slide down the back of my throat and make the world slowly dissolve. For the first time in longer than I can accurately say, I am 100 percent forget-me-not-free. I wouldn't say I'm suffering from withdrawal, but I am finding reality to be a little too real for my taste. It's like somebody has cranked all the control buttons so that everything is too bright and too loud and too pushy, wanting me to notice every fucking little thing.

It's making me more than a bit cranky, and it doesn't help that the early-morning overcast skies have burned away so that the sun is now beaming down at me, brighter than I remember it ever being before on any other day of my life. And, of course, I can't remember where my sunglasses are, or even where I last saw them or what they look like.

Without the forget-me-nots dulling my memory, I'm starting to remember other things, too. And those other things take my feet away from the front door and around the side of the house to the garden shed. The building that was once Piper's and my sanctuary now leans forward like a hunchback. Or maybe the roof is getting ready to slide off. Either way, I have to lean all my weight against the door to open it, and when it finally gives, I half fall inside. A streak of sunlight illuminates the dust and spiderwebs that have claimed the small space as their own. I am content to let them have it as long as the place holds together; I just need to retrieve something I left behind and half-forgot. My old bike. They say nobody forgets how to ride a bike, but those people have probably never tried any of the quints' pills. After falling off one too many times, I put mine into permanent storage.

I wheel the bike from the shed, and then go in one last time to rescue the air pump as well. After brushing the worst of the cobwebs away and inflating the tires, I grab hold of the handlebars and start walking.

Foote is already waiting for me. Although, maybe
waiting
isn't the best word. He sits on the curb, elbows balanced on his knees and a book in his hands. Whatever he is reading must be good because he doesn't even notice me until I am almost on top of him.

“Hey,” he says, hopping to his feet and tucking the book away in his jacket pocket before I can catch what it is.

“Hey,” I reply. “I brought my bike, thought it'd be faster to get up there that way.”

Foote looks at the bike and then back at me. “I don't know if I'll be able to keep up with you.”

I shake my head. “One of us pedals and the other sits on the handlebars or rides the back bar.” I point to the long bar poking out of the center of the back wheel. “After Piper and I outgrew our kid bikes, we couldn't get another until the next shipment came in, and who knew when that would be. So we frankensteined our two bikes together to make one that we could share.”

Foote gives a low whistle. “That is some crazy-good mad-scientist work right there.”

I grin at him, unable to stop myself. “Thanks.”

Foote grins back. “Okay, so since I outweigh you by at least fifty pounds, I think I'm obligated to volunteer for pedaling duty. Which leaves you to choose the stern or bow.”

When I rode with Piper, I almost always used the bar on the back wheel. Putting my hands on her shoulders, I'd sometimes lean forward so far that Mom said we looked like a two-headed girl riding down the street.

“Handlebars,” I tell Foote.

It takes us a few minutes to get situated. First Foote has to raise the seat, then there is a series of shifts after I take my place on the handlebars so that Foote's hands aren't touching my butt. Then, at last, we are moving. The wind grabs hold of my hair, sending it into Foote's face. I hold it back with one hand and keep the other on the bike, to do my part in helping us balance. The red, white, and blue streamers at the ends of the handlebars, which Piper insisted on keeping even though I thought they were too babyish, create a crinkly, crackly sound that makes it feel like we are going much faster than we actually are. At the first corner we almost wipe out, but Foote gets a foot onto the ground and we are quickly righted and moving along once more.

A couple guys I recognize from school, who are clearly full of scarlet runners, come up behind us, their feet pounding the pavement in unison. Foote pedals harder, and they pick up the pace too, the pills inside them urging their bodies to go faster.

“This is awesome,” Foote shouts into my ear, and I nod in agreement, but what I really want to say is that I had forgotten how much I love this. I've never been a fan of cars. They are too climate-controlled and cushy. Riding in one is as much fun as taking a living room couch out for a ride. Walking is not especially thrilling, and I've never seen the point of running unless you're in a hurry to get away from or to something. But a bike is a brilliant form of transportation. On hot, sticky days like this, it creates the perfect amount of wind to keep you cool. If you're feeling lazy, you can turn the gears down so low that you're practically pedaling in place. And on days when you just need to escape and know that there is none available, you can at least have the pleasure of pushing the pedals as hard as they will go until you reach the farthest edge of town.

When we begin climbing the last big hill leading up to the reformatory, Foote stands up to pedal.

“Want me to jump off?” I yell back at him.

“No,” he answers immediately.

I throw a glance at him over my shoulder. He looks so intense and focused and—

I face forward again, staring straight ahead.

“Everyone falls eventually,” Piper told me. “You think it'll hurt. But it's falling with no bottom. You just keep going and going forever, just falling deeper and deeper. And once you stop being scared, it's kind of fun.” It was after she'd met Elton and I'd asked her what the angle was. I'd been certain that he was just another part of the plan. I'd never thought Piper would be distracted by something as stupid as a cute boy.

The pleasure of this moment drains away. The sun is in my eyes, and the breeze is no longer cool but scratchy against my skin. Staring at my knees, I hunch forward and try to make myself as small as possible, so that we can get to the top of this hill and I can get off this bicycle and stop feeling Foote's hot breath against the back of my neck. I don't want to fall. It's a distraction I can't afford right now. And also, I'm afraid.

Just before the front gates come into view, I point to the dirt path that runs through the overgrown grass and weeds that edge the road on the right side. “That way,” I shout back to Foote.

He immediately turns the bike, and we begin to bump along the narrow trail. I grab hold of the handlebars with both hands to keep myself from sliding off and am about to shout that maybe it is time to walk when we hit a rut and the bike slips out from underneath us.

The ground comes up at me, hard and fast. My arms go out to absorb the blow and then quickly give way so that my face—with my nose leading—smacks into the dirt.

I lie stunned for a moment and then sit up, spitting out dirt and expecting to see a few of my teeth too. I wait for the pain . . . that never arrives. No blood and broken bones either. Somehow, I've come through the crash totally unscathed.

Foote groans behind me. Apparently, he has not been as lucky. He and the bike lie together in a tangled pile.

“Foote?”

He looks up at me when I call his name. Blood streams from his nose and drips down his chin. The arm underneath him sits at an unnatural, twisted angle. Instinctively, I reach down toward him but then stop, uncertain if there is any place I can touch him that wouldn't cause him additional pain.

“Foote, what can I do? Should I get help?”

“No. Just . . .” Foote pauses to use the back of his good arm to wipe the blood from his mouth. “Give me a minute, okay?”

“But—” I start to protest feebly.

“Go!” Foote barks the word at me, and it is more than enough to convince me to take a few steps away and then a few more, until I turn and start running. I play chicken with the trees, darting at them, and then at the last second, when I am about to collide, I feint left or right. I get so close the bark skins my arms. The trees never flinch.

I am veering around a gigantic oak when suddenly a chain-link fence, and beyond it the brick walls of the reformatory, looms before me. For a second I am tempted to run at the fence, but unlike with the trees, this time I won't give way. I know the layout of the reformatory. I could get inside and find Piper. And then I would . . .

As the fantasy gives way to reality, I feel that old fear the reformatory always awakens in me. My palms sweat, my throat closes, and my heart starts doing jumping jacks in my chest. When you're a kid, the reformatory is the boogeyman and the haunted house on the hill all rolled into one. It's a scary story you whisper at night under the covers. But as you get older, it becomes something else. It is the worst day you can ever imagine and it is coming straight at you, as unavoidable as destiny.

“So this is it, huh?” A low voice speaks into my ear.

I scream a high-pitched shriek that you'd expect from a toddler, and then whirl to find Foote.

“Damn it,” I say, punching his arm. “Don't do that.” Then, realizing I've hit his bad arm, I wince. “Sorry. I just . . . You scared me. Are you okay?”

“Right as rain.” Foote grins at me.

“You've got blood on your teeth,” I tell him.

The smile fades. “I'm fine. Just got the wind knocked out of me.”

“And blood.”

“I get nosebleeds from stress. Sucks, but I've learned to always carry tissues.” Foote holds up a hand clenched around a fistful of bright-red tissues.

I squint at him, unable to believe he's fine after looking so beaten up only moments ago. “You're sure?”

“Look.” He stretches his arms over his head, then brings them in an arc back to his sides. “Like I said, right as rain.”

“Okay, good,” I grumble, not even sure why I care. “You're right as rain, whatever the hell that means. Now c'mon and follow me. There's a spot around the back where we can get a good view of the yard.”

“Would you prefer ‘fit as a fiddle'?” Foote sounds amused, which only annoys me further.

“I'd prefer you to be quiet,” I hiss at him. “If anyone sees us poking around back here, they'll send the guards out to chase us away.”

Foote says nothing in response, and for a moment I am disappointed. I realize then that I sound like GG during the lectures she used to give Piper and me. One minute she'd be telling us to keep our mouths shut if we knew what was good for us, and the next she'd bellow, “Answer me!” There was no winning with her.

I stop and turn to tell Foote I'm sorry, but his head is down and he keeps plowing forward, crashing straight into me. I nearly hit the ground for the second time, but Foote grabs hold of me, pulling me back and bringing my body against his. I twist my head so that my nose isn't pressed into his chest, breathing him in, but then my ear is right over his rib cage, which cradles his heart and broadcasts its frantic beating. I jerk away, feeling like I've taken a secret.

“Sorry,” I say, taking a few shuffling steps backward, needing a little more space. “If we want to get closer, we should probably crawl. That's what Piper and I used to do.”

Foote nods. “Okay. I'll follow your lead.”

Feeling silly, I get down on my hands and knees and begin to crawl through the weeds. Dust rises and I can feel it sticking to my sweaty face and arms. I glance back to see Foote behind me, in a bloodied and ripped white tee, looking similar to the other day when I caught him at the train station. I never did get a straight answer from him about why he was on that train, which should remind me to be more careful around him. To stop trusting him. To stop wishing that when I was pressed against his chest I had leaned my head back and waited for his lips to touch mine. I can see it so clearly that for a minute it almost feels like it actually happened. Then my hand hits something cold and hard and metallic.

It's an old Zippo lighter that Piper found at the secondhand store. For a while she used to say she was going to use it to burn the reformatory to the ground. The lighter was cheap because it was broken, so Piper never even bothered to put lighter fluid in it, but just the same, every time she flicked it open, I expected a flame to come shooting out. This lighter. Piper. They are real. And Foote; Foote is just a newcomer. Even if he lives here for the rest of his life, I'll never see him as anything but temporary.

I collapse onto my belly and motion for Foote to come lie beside me.

“Now what?” he whispers, his gaze caught on the bricks and steel bars that make up the reformatory. At this moment it looks like a deserted building. The sun bounces off the iron-barred windows, making it impossible to see if anyone is peering out. The grounds are empty. But not for long. I pull out my cell to check the time. It's 1:15. The walk is usually right around now. After everyone has finished lunch.

“Just wait,” I tell Foote.

He sighs and then is still. But not quiet. “I don't like this place.” He whispers the words so close that they tickle my hair.

Hiding the movement behind an arm stretch, I shift a few inches away from him. “Nobody does.”

“It's funny,” he says, leaning in closer to me. “I've been to some terrible places, but this, the feeling here . . . It's like nothing I've felt before.”

“Terrible places like where?” I can't stop myself from asking.

Foote shrugs. “It's not that interesting. Just your run-of-the-mill people-doing-terrible-things-to-other-people stuff. Tell me about Piper instead.”

“You could just say you don't want to talk about it.”