Gifts and Consequences (5 page)

#####

“He just left the Halloway residence,” said Marcus.  “Is that enough confirmation for you?”

“No,” Jonathan answered.  “We need to be sure he drives toward the concert.  He could be alone in the car.  There’s still a slight chance he goes to the other girl’s house.”

“Some people would mistake your thoroughness with faith in the integrity of mankind,” said Marcus

Jonathan grinned.  “We don’t make choices for them, Marcus, but we do give them the benefit of the doubt until they officially screw up.  Then we give them a little more rope to see how bad they screw up.”  They watched the blip on the map from the tracking device Oscar had placed on Tyler’s car.  Right on Lake Avenue, left on Como Park.

Jonathan asked, “Is Charlie in place?”

“That’s him right there, exactly where he’s supposed to be,” said Marcus pointing at a mark on Katherine’s monitor.  She wore a brown sweater with an obnoxious teal collared shirt underneath.  Jonathan smirked.

“OK, if he takes a right on Aurora, make the call and I’ll contact Oscar.”

The whirr of the CPUs filled the room as the blip stopped a few car lengths short of the intersection.  The motionless blip taunted the observers.  Eventually, it started forward at a crawl, then accelerated quickly to the right.  Marcus was dialing before Tyler even made it out of the intersection.

The phone only rang once.  “You’re in, Charlie,” said Marcus.

#####

The clock on the wall was the only adornment in the room.  6:46.  Lisa Knapp peeked past the flannel blanket that covered her front window into the parking lot.  No new cars.  It had been a set up from the beginning. 

At 6:50 she gave in and dialed Tyler’s number.  Each ring grated more sharply in her ear.  Just when she expected to hear voice mail, Tyler’s answered and said, “Yeah?”  There was a lot of background noise.

Lisa didn’t know what to say. 

“Hello?” he said again. 

“Tyler?  It’s Lisa.”

“Oh, hey.”

“Are we—going out?  On a date?”

“Oh, yeah, no.  I, uh, have a thing.  Sorry.”

The background noise ended with a click and she was left holding the receiver.  She didn’t bother to put it back on the hook.  Her hand moved to the computer’s On switch and she stared at the monitor. 

Lisa was surprised there were no tears in her eyes.  Surprised that the embarrassment and pain were minor emotions.  Overshadowing them all was relief.  Not because the date had been a sham, but because of what she would now allow herself to do. 

The Windows start-up tone brought her back to the apartment.  Her image was visible as a reflection on the screen and she was embarrassed at her former optimism. 

She opened Microsoft Works and started a new journal entry.

Saturday, May 7, 2011 – My Last Diary Entry

At the beginning of the school year I wrote this:

 “My senior year lies ahead of me.  I don’t want to face it but I will.  I don’t want to graduate.  I don’t want to keep trying.  But I will.  Until the day I graduate I won’t give up.

But if my life hasn’t improved by the time graduation comes I refuse to keep playing a game that has been set against me for 17 years.  This life has never held anything for me and I feel like saying “I told you so.”  I never should have expected to be happy.

If there is no one I can count as a friend and I have still never been on a date with a boy I will end it all before graduation.”

That was nine months ago.  I am three weeks short of graduation.  I’m done holding my breath.  I’m done fighting with myself, trying to convince myself that I am worth anything.  I’ve proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’m no good.  Hannah Baker had TH1RTEEN R3ASONS WHY, I have more like a hundred.

Tonight I dressed up for the first time in my life to go on a date.  My date stood me up, but I’ve received a better offer of a date with death, and I will go on a date if it kills me.

My graduation date has arrived three weeks early.

Lisa saved the document, but didn’t close it.  It no longer mattered.  She withdrew Buck’s pistol from the drawer in the computer desk, walked into the bathroom, and sat in the tub.

Finally
, she thought, pulling the shower curtain to the wall. 
Finally
.

Her teeth clattered against the metal of the barrel in anticipation.  Like waiting for her turn on a roller coaster.

Her breath echoed in her ears.  The gun was cold in her hands; the barrel smooth along her lips and tongue.  A metallic taste filled her mouth.  Lisa closed her eyes, drew in one last breath and put her thumbs against the trigger.

Tyler O’Hara clicked his phone shut.  He would have forgotten the call if Lisa Halloway hadn’t yelled over the wind, “Who was it?”

“Nobody,” he answered.  “It was nobody.”

Forgot to call her.  Oh well.

Lisa helped him forget about it by asking, “So where’d you really get the tickets?”  She held her straight blond hair in one hand.

He answered, “I bought ‘em.”

“Where did you get two thousand bucks?” she insisted.

“OK, I found ‘em.”

“Where?”

“Someone gave ‘em to me.”

“Who?”

“A dude.”

She slapped his arm playfully with her free hand.  “A ‘dude’ walked up to you and said, ‘Hey, how’d you like some free tickets to the most awesome concert in Buffalo history?’  Do you think I’m stupid?”

He earned a harder slap by responding, “Do I have to answer that?” 

The date was going perfectly.

Acting as casual as possible he handed the parking lot attendant a crisp five dollar bill.  He always made sure the cash he spent on dates was crisp and new-looking, even if it meant a special trip to the bank.  He pulled into a parking spot and they joined the mass of people walking toward the arena entrance. 

As they got closer to the ticket gate he and Lisa were jostled in the crowd.  He took her hand to lead her, thinking the gentleman excuse was a good chance to start touching.  She held his bicep with her other hand to keep from getting separated and he worked to keep the muscle in a constant state of flex.

They were close enough to hear the
beep beep
of the ticket scanners as people were admitted into the show.

“This is gonna be so cool,” he told Lisa as he handed the priceless tickets to a four-foot-something lady. 

“I know!” said Lisa.  “You’re the best.”  She squeezed his flexed arm.

The ticket attendant scanned the ticket, and Tyler held out his hand for the souvenir stubs, but heard a lower sound than the high-pitched beeping that came from the other scanners.  It sounded like the letter X.

The short woman scanned the ticket again, producing the same unpleasant sound.  She tried the other ticket with the same result.

“These tickets are no good,” she said, sounding pleased.  She handed them back and reached for someone else’s tickets. 

“No, try them again!” Tyler insisted, placing them under the small machine in her hand. 

She seemed to grow six inches, and even though she stood a foot shorter than Tyler, she stared him down.  “You wanna tell me how to do my job?” 

“You
have
to try them again, we have to get in!” 

“I don’t
have
to do anything,” she responded, still looming under him.  “Try the box office or your mama if you wanna cry to someone.”

She swept Tyler and Lisa aside and accepted the tickets of the couple behind them.

Not daring to look at Lisa’s face, Tyler stormed toward the box office.  His efforts to cut the line were met by angry shouts.  Resigning himself to the wait, he picked the shortest line.  He knew deep down this night was not going to end well for him.

“What’s going on, Tyler?”

He couldn’t put it off any longer.  Tyler met Lisa’s eyes and wished he hadn’t.  She looked more like a snake than a girl.  “I’ll get this figured out,” he promised, but couldn’t bring himself to believe it.

“If you made me miss my senior prom…”  She didn’t finish the sentence, just kept glaring at him as the line moved at a crawling pace.

When he reached the window, a grungy twenty-something year old sluggishly demanded, “Name.”

“I have my tickets already, but the scanner screwed up.  It didn’t recognize them.”

“Let me see them.”  The heavy-lidded clerk examined the tickets then passed them under his laser scanner and tabbed through some fields of a computer screen.  “These tickets were cancelled.”  He handed the worthless scraps back to Tyler.

“Cancelled?  What do you mean?  I thought tickets were non-refundable.”

Neither irritation nor interest showed on the man’s face.  “I didn’t say refunded.  I said cancelled.”

“Uncancel them,” demanded Tyler.

That brought a dull grin to the attendant’s face.  “You want me to un-cancel them?”  He looked at his screen and chuckled.  “Do you have the credit card you paid with?”

“No, I—”  At the mention of a credit card his hand reflexively brushed against his back pocket where he kept his wallet.  The denim was flat against his butt.  Tyler stuck his hand in his pocket.  “My wallet’s gone!”  He let out a string of expletives as he retraced the short path to the back of the line. 

The next customer was stepping up to the window but Tyler pushed past him and asked the attendant about lost and found. 

“Yes, we have a lost and found.  Would you like me to see if anyone has turned in any un-cancelled tickets?”  He laughed so sharply he snorted. 

The guy behind Tyler in line laughed as well and Tyler felt his face flush.  Lisa’s glare had somehow grown even sharper.

“No, Asshole.  My wallet’s gone.”

Still chuckling under his breath the droopy-eyed man stood and walked to a cabinet behind the ticket counter.  He was back in no time and said, “No wallet.  Sorry.  And I checked for un-cancelled tickets.  Didn’t find any.”  The clerk snorted again and the guy in line laughed. 

Tyler punched the glass but it didn’t budge. Despite his rage the pain was immense. 

The ticket agent was still snorting and repeating, “Uncancel them.”

Nursing a broken hand, Tyler walked back to the parking lot.  Lisa followed a few steps behind, glaring a hole into his back.

When they got past the crowd, Tyler turned and said, “Hey, it’s still early enough to catch prom.  What d’ya say?”

“What do I say?”  Her icy voice made Tyler wish he’d worn a jacket.  “You are the biggest loser I have ever met.  Did you do all this just to get me to dump Kaden and go with you?”

“What?” he shouted.  “I missed the concert too!  I lost my wallet and broke my effin’ hand!”

“Take me home.”  She turned like a tempest toward his car, muttering, “Loser.”

Tyler was itching for a fight.  When he saw his car a minute later he was ready to kill.  His prized 1992 Mustang sat four inches lower than it was when he parked it.  All four tires had been slashed.

His true expletive vocabulary came out.  While kicking the tires repeatedly he ran out of words and started to repeat the string of curses.  He raised his hand to punch the car, or anything else near, but the pain reminded him to be careful.

“Where are you, you son of a bitch?”  He thought of the man who had set him up and imagined his fists bashing the bastard’s head, broken hand or no.  “Where are you?” he shouted, but the only ones in the parking lot were a few late comers to the concert rushing toward the entrance. 

“What’s the matter with you?” Lisa asked.  “You’re acting crazy.  Just change the stupid tire and take me home.  I swear.”  She rolled her eyes.

“Oh sure, I’ll pull my four spare tires out of the trunk and change those right now.”  He kicked the nearest tire once more and took out his cell phone.  He dialed 411 and pressed the
Call
button.  A message told him he had no cell service.  He tried again with the same results.  Brennan’s number resulted in the same message.  Even when he dialed customer service he couldn’t get through. 

Tyler swore at the phone, threw it on the ground and stomped it into the asphalt.  He felt his face burning even redder than his hair.

Lisa’s eyes were wide.  “Missing the prom for this?  What a freak.”  She took her own cell phone out of her purse and dialed.

Thirty minutes later the two sat in the back seat of her dad’s Chrysler.  Lisa’s mom rode shotgun and was somehow even more upset than her daughter.