(Don't You) Forget About Me (9 page)

SIX

NORMALLY, I CUT THROUGH SIDE STREETS AND
across lawns to get around town. Today I take the main road. It runs from the north side of Gardnerville, where we live, through the center of town and then continues over the tracks to the school.

For the second day in a row, I'm going to visit Jonathan at the double-wide. He can't just hand me a note like that and not expect a few follow-up questions. My feet falter for a moment when a memory blooms inside my mushy brain of a sodden and bloodied polo shirt.

I decide not to think about that, which is easier said than done.

Trying to push the image from my brain, I begin to hum an old favorite of mine and Piper's—“Over the Rainbow.”
The Wizard of Oz
is one of the movies that plays as part of the constant rotation on our one and only TV station. We know all the songs and almost every single word of dialogue up until the part when Dorothy starts clicking her red heels near the end of the movie. That's when we turn it off. It's our tradition, going back to when I was four years old and began sobbing, crushed by Dorothy's choosing boring old Kansas over the Technicolor glory of Oz. “That's not the ending,” you announced, desperate to comfort me. After that, whenever it came on TV, we turned it off before she could utter, “There's no place like home.” Then, using props and funny voices, you'd perform the new ending so that Dorothy stayed over the rainbow.

I grin, remembering one of those imagined endings. You acted out Dorothy training the Wicked Witch's flying monkeys to be her pets. My chest suddenly aches, and I press a hand against my heart, trying to silence it. This is why it's better not to remember.

Unfortunately, once started, it's hard to stop.

Ten minutes later, I am still so lost in the memories of Dorothy's alternate futures, I don't even notice the car creeping up behind me as silent as a lion stalking prey—until it is almost on top of me.

It's Elton in his damn Prius again. Not many people have cars here. That's because a gas tanker only comes on the train every other month. During a fourth year, it might be longer than that. It's been this way ever since Marilyn Bingham turned the old gas station into a fireball thirty-six years ago.

The tinny horn beeps at me. I stare straight ahead, pretending obliviousness. Wishing he would go away.

He doesn't. Instead, I hear the soft whir of his window rolling down.

“Hey . . . ,” he calls out, and it is the strange hitch and hesitation in his voice that finally make me turn. The moment my eyes meet his, I understand.

His widen and—within the space of a long, slow blink—dim. I remember then that Elton has not always been cool, calm, and calculating. Or perhaps he has always been all those things, but there was a time when he was also something else. Something more. It was there in his eyes, I saw it. It only disappeared when he realized that the girl in the yellow rain slicker was not Piper, could not possibly be Piper, and was, of course, only me.

He recovers quickly. “Skylar. I've been looking for you. Let me give you a ride.” Leaning across the passenger seat, he pushes the door open, out toward me, inviting. Or, to be more accurate, commanding. An invitation can be declined.

I get into the car without saying a word. No Foote today, which is odd. Elton usually tries to avoid being alone with me.

“Where you headed?” Elton asks. One hand is on the steering wheel, the other on the gearshift, ready to move without hesitation at my say-so.

I wonder what he would say if I told him about the note burning a hole in my back pocket. What would he think about LuAnn using Piper's name as if it were her own? Would he feel desperate to get closer to LuAnn, just to feel some sort of connection to Piper no matter how tenuous it might be? Of course, the last time he connected with Piper, he lost both his legs. He's adjusted well to his prosthetics, moves on his silver limbs like he was meant to be made of steel. Still, it's obvious to anyone who knew him before that the train took more than just Elton's legs.

Elton's thumb taps impatiently.

“The school,” I say, deciding to stick with the half-truth . . . and then embroider it around the edges. “Lost my stash of forget-me-nots yesterday; I'm hoping there'll be some left.” I scrub at a bleach stain on my shorts, pretending obliviousness.

Elton says nothing as he drives us up the street, but I can feel his gaze on me. Heavy. Waiting. Urging me to say something. To blurt the truth out into the silence.

It doesn't work. I turn away from him to stare out the passenger window and watch my own reflection in the glass. I look tired. And sad. If I had a purple pill inside me right now, I'd be looking at that girl in the window, wondering who she was and feeling sorry for her.

At last, Elton coasts through the mostly empty school parking lot, heading toward the stadium. I reach for the door, wanting to get away already. Elton stops me with a hand on my knee. His bare hand. On my bare knee.

Elton never touches me. Won't even get close enough to lightly brush against me.

I remember then, visiting Elton in the hospital after he lost his legs, months before he was reborn with prosthetics. He radiated sorrow. And loss. He'd tried to save Piper. But no one had tried to save him. I admitted it in that moment: maybe I was a little bit in love with him.

I leaned forward to kiss his cheek. My hair fell forward, a coconut-scented curtain between Elton and me. He turned his head and our lips met. It was not the kiss I'd intended. Or maybe it was. I didn't pull away.

“Piper,” he breathed against my mouth, and then grabbed hold of my arms, pulling me closer. That was when I finally shoved him into the mattress and pushed myself back with so much force my sneakers squealed against the linoleum.

I wanted to hurt him then. And I knew exactly how to do it. “I have all your secrets now,” I told him, while making a show of scrubbing my lips with the back of my hand. “Touch me again and I'll know you better than you know yourself.”

Elton has been very careful around me since then. Most people think I need touch to take their secrets. They don't realize that it is so much easier than that. Sometimes I can see secrets in the very air someone breathes. Sometimes I find them waiting in a chair long after its occupant has stood up and walked away. And sometimes, just sometimes, when I am sitting quietly with nothing much on my mind, even if there is no one around, secrets come searching for me, desperately wanting to spill themselves. Elton knows this, or he should since he's seen me work enough times in the back of his car, but he still keeps his distance.

I study him now, focusing on his true-blue lying eyes, straight nose, and lush lips. Oh, I can see why Piper fell for him. I could always see that. But I can also see the thousand damning secrets practically oozing from his pores.

I don't want Elton's secrets anymore. Not on purpose or accidentally.

I push his hand away. “What do you want?”

“I wanted to say I'm sorry,” Elton says, leaning back just enough so there is more space between us. “About last night.”

“Last night?” I give nothing away, hoping he'll fill in the blanks.

Elton is equally cagey. “I'm not sure what you remember.”

I take a stab in the dark. “I remember you knocking on the library door, scaring the hell out of Ozzy.”

“Good. He had no business hanging around you like that.”

Saying nothing, I stare at Elton. Hard.

He doesn't blush—I think he's become too cold-blooded for that—but he does at least have the decency to look away.

Good. One small victory for me.

It is short-lived, though, as Elton quickly recovers and tosses this little grenade my way as reprisal: “He's dead, by the way.”

“I know,” I reply, trying to match his blasé attitude but failing utterly when the words come out a watery whisper. As horrible as Ozzy and his wandering hands might have been, he was my connection to Piper . . . even if the information he'd given me about her over the last four years was barely enough to fill a thimble. “I'm getting close to finding something out,” he'd say. “It's been tough. The guys don't wanna risk their necks to help me. When I mention Piper, they pretend to not even know who I'm talking about. Then they tell me there's nothing in that locked room, and to stop talking crazy. But if it's empty, why lock it, right?”

“I never see her on the walks. How would that even be possible?” I'd press.

He'd shrug. “It's Piper, you know?” It wasn't an answer, but I'd still nod and agree.

Then he'd tell me it was okay and not to worry.
Okay, don't worry
was an Ozzy phrase that covered all situations. Piper was okay, don't worry. The reformatory was okay, don't worry. “It's okay, don't worry,” he'd assure me as his hands slid under my shirt.

“You shouldn't feel guilty.” Elton's words pull me back into the present, and I realize that in his own cold way he's trying to comfort me. “You know, it's not uncommon for reformatory workers to kill themselves.”

It wasn't suicide. No way. No how. I almost laugh at the idea. Sure, reformatory workers kill themselves sometimes. And they're not the only ones. Suicide is common in Gardnerville. Distraught parents. Kids who can't stand the pressure of waiting to see whether they or one of their friends will implode during a fourth year. Old-timers who decide to create their own expiration date.

“Yeah,” I say to Elton, since he seems to be waiting for some sort of answer.

“I can see you're upset,” Elton replies. “Why don't you take some time off? Or should I say, time out? I thought these might help. A gift from the lab boys.” Elton produces a plastic Baggie full of little purple pills. He must have had the quints up all night producing them.

“Shit,” I say, my hand reaching out before I remember that I can't have one today. Maybe tomorrow though. Or later, after I talk with Jonathan. A reward of sorts. My fingers close around the bag.

“I promised Piper I would look after you and I mean to keep that promise.”

“Uh-huh,” I say, only half listening, trying to count the pills.

“And I want you to know I never would have gotten you involved in that Jonathan situation if I'd known he would react that way.”

My fingers go slack and the bag of pills drops to the floor between my feet. I have this terrible feeling that I'm falling too, but I can still feel the cold leather seat slick beneath my bare legs.

The bloody shirt. The knife. I see it again, and this time something else. We are in the pool room at school. Jonathan rushes at Elton with an army knife. But suddenly Foote's between them, getting stuck with the knife instead. It doesn't even scratch Elton, who is now punching Jonathan until blood pours from his nose. Jonathan pulls his shirt off and throws it at Elton, all the while shouting about how this is all going to blow up in Elton's face, that he's playing with fire. He repeats
playing with fire
. Once. Twice. The third time, flames shoot from the tips of Jonathan's fingers. Elton rushes him then, with enough force to send them both into the pool. Foote jumps in after them. The water begins to foam and then giant bubbles appear. It's almost as if the pool water is building to a full boil. I try to count, wondering how long they've been under, but keep losing track of the numbers after I get past fifty. The whole room is hot and steamy by the time Elton comes up gasping for air. Around him the bubbles pop, disappearing as quickly as they appeared. Foote surfaces several long moments later. At first I don't even recognize him; every bit of visible skin is red and blistered. Elton pulls Foote into the locker room, and I am left to wait for Jonathan to pop up next. But, of course, he never does.

“He's dead,” I say, still not quite able to believe it.

“Yes, it's unfortunate,” Elton replies, but I think the word he wanted was
inconvenient
, because he continues, “I have some other people minding the press box for now. You won't have to worry about that, though. Those pills should keep you for a while, and the next time you run out, I want you to come straight to me. I know we've had our differences, but I think we both know how important it is for you to stay out of trouble during a fourth year. We wouldn't want to repeat the mistakes of the past.”

“Why?”

Elton chuckles, and the sound is about as musical as our garbage disposal chewing up eggshells. “I think that should be obvious.”

“No, why did you—” I was going to say “kill Jonathan,” but Elton's eyes stare at me hard and cold. I wouldn't say that I've ever felt safe with Elton, or that I trust him. Elton was bad news from the moment I met him. But he loved Piper. I always thought that was enough to protect me from the worst of him. Now I can't help but wonder if the opposite is true. “You had me read Jonathan, didn't you? What did you find out? What did I tell you?”

“It was a betrayal,” Elton says. “One I envy your ability to forget.”

I am ready with my follow-up question, but the hell with that. Enough dicking around. I take a deep breath and in the same instant swipe the answer straight out of Elton's skull.

And I find out something that Jonathan apparently didn't feel was necessary to divulge in his letter. When LuAnn regained her voice she didn't just say “Piper.” She also told Jonathan, “The reformatory is the center. Don't be afraid. We'll go together. You and me and everyone to the top of the hill. We'll call it the uprising. It's the way Gardnerville was always meant to be, everyone gathered together in the reformatory.”

There's not a lot there to freak out over. Mostly just a crazy girl's ramblings. But that word
uprising
is surrounded by flashing neon lights in Elton's head. In his mind that was enough for him to lock her up again.