Rooms (21 page)
Authors: Lauren Oliver
T
renton still felt woozy, even after puking twice. He splashed cold water on his face, getting his shirt collar all wet in the process. He didn’t care. In the medicine cabinets he found a few miscellaneous toiletry items that Minna had skipped over or missed, among them a half-used tube of toothpaste and a travel-size bottle of mouthwash. He scrubbed his teeth and tongue with his finger, nearly puking again. Then he rinsed four times with mouthwash. The whole time, he was expecting the ghost to start badgering him—
hurry up, please Trenton, you promised me
—but she was, uncharacteristically, quiet.
By then, Katie had texted again.
You didn’t tell me you were having a party.
Before he could write back and correct her—not a party, a memorial service—she had texted again.
Where are you?
The room was still revolving a bit. Trenton eased the bathroom door open and peeked into the hall, which was crowded with people—all of them were shuffling slowly out of the living room in unison, like zombies gearing up for attack. Minna had booted up the speakers, and soft music intermingled with the sound of murmured voices and repressed laughter. Someone had farted.
Trenton had missed the whole service.
Mrs. Anderson, his first-grade English teacher, spotted him and waved. Trenton ducked quickly back into the bathroom and closed the door.
Go toward the music,
Trenton texted.
I’ll watch 4 u.
This is the worst party I’ve ever been 2,
she texted back.
The song was an acoustic version of “Born to Run,” by Bruce Springsteen. Trenton had to admit: Minna was a genius for picking it. Trenton’s dad was a Bruce fanatic, partly, Minna said, because Richard Walker identified with his story: the everyday, working-class guy who makes it big on his own steam. Trenton remembered being five or six years old and sitting in the passenger seat of his dad’s new Mercedes, summertime, windows down, sunlight streaming so brightly through the windshield it was practically blinding, the bass reverberating so hard through the dashboard Trenton could feel it in his teeth. And Richard was singing along, and drumming with one hand on the wheel, and Trenton had felt very old, then: like his father’s best friend.
Trenton checked the hall again and saw her: red hoodie cinched tight, sunglasses on, a bright spot of color in a sea of blacks and grays, startling, like a spot of blood on a clean floor. He started to move out into the hall to greet her, but she put a hand on his chest and piloted him backward into the bathroom again and closed the door behind her.
“Look,” she said, taking off her sunglasses and wrenching off her hood. “I don’t have much time.”
She had changed her hair color again. It was dark brown now, like his.
He was filled with sudden joy. The world shrank down to the size of a single room: Katie was here, with him. “I thought you ran away,” he said.
“That’s funny,” she said.
“Or your parents shipped you off.”
“My parents don’t know where I am,” she said. A brief look of pain, or maybe worry, passed across her face. “Listen, Trenton. I need you to listen to me. I have to explain a few things to you, okay?”
“I’ve been up shit’s creek since the fire,” he said. He was still dizzy, but now he thought it might be because they were standing so close. He could see individual freckles under her makeup, like tiny stars. “But I made sure Amy didn’t tell.”
“
Listen.
” She grabbed both of his arms. Surprised, he sat backward, onto the toilet. Thankfully, the lid was closed. “Just shut up for two seconds, okay? I have four things to tell you.” She released him and straightened up. He said nothing. She began pacing. The bathroom was so small she could only take two steps in either direction before having to pivot and return. “One. I have to go away soon.” She was ticking off items on her fingers.
“Where are you going?”
“Just
listen,
for Christ’s sake. Two. I’m a liar. I’ve lied to you about a lot of things. But I’m not a bad person.”
“Okay.” Trenton wondered if he should stand up again. He didn’t like how she was pacing. It was making him nervous. But he didn’t want her to yell at him, either.
“Three.” She stopped in front of him. Her eyes were like an animal’s—big and pleading. “I like you. You’re kind of an idiot, but I do.”
Trenton was going to protest, but then the weight of her words hit him—
I like you
—and he felt like something had just knocked into his chest. He couldn’t even breathe. He was afraid that if he so much as moved, he would send the words scattering back into nonexistence, into untruth, like cockroaches startled by a sudden light.
But Katie was watching him, expectant, clearly anticipating a reply.
“What’s the fourth thing?” Trenton asked, in a voice that barely sounded like his.
For the first time, Katie smiled. “This,” she said, and dropped onto her knees on the rug in front of the toilet, and put her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him.
For a half second, he was seized with terror; then, just as quickly, his anxiety passed, and when she slipped her tongue into his mouth, he found he wasn’t worried about what to do, or whether he was using too much pressure or too little. He just let go. It was like falling into a warm bed after an exhausting day. It was dark and sweet and soft. Now even the room disappeared. Now there was only her mouth and her breathing, her warm hands on his shoulders.
The kiss lasted for minutes, hours. He was dimly aware of a growing crescendo, as if applause were swelling from an unseen audience. At a certain moment, the crescendo crested, and a sudden flood of awareness passed over him, and he realized he was hearing not applause but footsteps and shouting.
The bathroom door swung open, smacking hard against the tub.
Katie accidentally bit his lip.
Trenton drew back, wincing.
Minna was standing in the doorway, gripping Amy’s hand. Crowded next to her were two cops. Trenton recognized one of them as the guy Minna used to date.
Danny was breathing hard, as if they’d come from a long distance. “Vivian Wright?” he said.
Katie looked at Trenton and sighed. “Busted,” she said.
Amy touched a finger to her lips and said, “Shhh.”
“I
knew she was a liar.” The new ghost is bitterly disappointed: Trenton is still alive. She begins to cry, and Sandra hushes her sharply.
“Stop it,” she says. “There’s no use blubbering. It won’t do you any good.”
“Nobody
asked
you,” she says. Then: “I told you I wasn’t Vivian.”
“You told us different things,” I say gently. I feel a momentary ache of sadness for her: the ache of an empty room after a party has dispersed. Every minute, she forgets how to be alive. She loses her lines and separateness; she is drawn into the air, blown apart on the wind coming through the open windows. “Who are you, really?”
She sniffles, a sound like the faint stirring of mice in the walls. “My name’s Eva,” she says at last. “It
was
Eva. I don’t know what I am now. I—I don’t even know why I’m here.”
“Join the club, sister,” Sandra says, but without conviction. I can tell that she, like me, is tired of pretending.
Trenton, Minna, Amy, the two policemen, and Katie—or Vivian, rather—have returned to the living room, which is now empty of other mourners. The cops have placed six chairs in a semicircle and everyone is seated.
“Detective Rogers will be here any minute,” the cop with the bad complexion says. “Everyone just sit tight.”
“What I want to know,” Danny says to Vivian, “is why you picked the Davison house. How’d you know they’d be away?”
“Can I see your badge?” Amy asks him.
“Shhh, Amy,” Minna says. But Danny passes the badge over.
“Internet,” Vivian says. She almost—
almost
—sounds embarrassed. “Their house was listed on vacation rentals.”
“Why did you do it?” Trenton asks her in a low voice.
She looks down, picking at the hem of her jacket. “I don’t know. Just to get away for a while. Be somebody else. It felt kind of nice to have everybody looking for me, though.” She looks up at him. “Will you?”
“Will I what?” Trenton says.
A smile flickers over Vivian’s face, moving so quickly it doesn’t touch her eyes. “Will you look for me?”
“Yes.” Trenton’s voice cracks. He clears his throat and tries again. “Yes.”
“Are we done here?” Minna directs the question to Danny. “In case you’ve forgotten, we were in the middle of a memorial service. We’re burying my dad today.”
Danny looks embarrassed. “We’re still going to have to take your mom down to the station.” Then he looks around, as if for the first time noticing her absence. “Where is your mom, anyway?”
That’s when the gun goes off.
H
ere’s Caroline:
Gripping Richard Walker’s pistol tightly in one hand, while a man tries to wrestle it away from her; ignoring the crowd of people shouting instructions, pushing past her, calling for the police. There is a small hole in the ceiling, and a fine sift of plaster raining down onto the assembled guests. The front door hangs open like a mouth; standing on the front porch is a woman.
The man with the black hair has Caroline in a bear hug. “No, Caroline. Caroline,
stop
.”
“What the hell is she doing here?” Caroline’s voice is shrill. “Get her out. I want her
out
.”
“
Mom.
” Then Minna comes tearing around the corner, and Trenton, and Amy, until Trenton seizes her around the waist and forces her to stay back. The cops follow, eyes bulging and chests puffed out like they’re about to cream in their pants with importance. Vivian hangs back.
“Move aside,” Danny says, squeezing through the knot of people. “Everyone clear out. Move aside.”
The other guests hang back, conversing in whispers, trying hard not to show their excitement. They look like scavengers tailing a dump truck.
“Mom, come on. Come with me.” Minna puts an arm around her mother. Caroline is trembling like a wire about to snap.
“
Get her out.
” Her voice crests to a high shriek, like steam out of a kettle. Everyone is frozen and horrified. One woman has a smile plastered on her face, as wide and ugly as a Halloween jack-o’-lantern.
Minna puts an arm around Caroline’s shoulders. “Shhh, Mom. Come on.” Caroline doesn’t budge.
“She shouldn’t be here,” Caroline says. “She has no right, do you hear me?
No right.
”
“It’s okay, Mom.” Minna glares at the woman on the porch. “Who the hell are you?”
She’s dressed in black, and for a moment, backlit by the sun, her features are all in shadow. Then she takes a step into the hall. She looks like a dog that’s been kenneled and only half groomed: she has a bewildered, panicked look, like she has no idea where she is, and even though she’s dressed for a funeral, the hem of her slip is showing beneath her skirt and her black top is stained. She has dark red hair, frizzy, graying at the temples, hanging in a long braid down her back.
Her jaw is moving soundlessly—up and down, up and down. It takes me a second to realize she’s saying
I’m sorry,
barely breathing it, so quietly I’m sure no one else can hear.
Danny unhooks a pair of handcuffs from his belt and takes two steps toward Caroline. Trenton steps quickly in front of his mother.
“You must be fucking kidding me,” Minna says.
“I’m sorry, Minna,” he says quietly. “I really don’t have a choice.”
“No way.” Now Trenton steps up.
Amy starts to cry.
“Look.” Danny leans in close to Minna. “I don’t like this any more than you do. But your mother just fired a gun at someone. And we have a complaint about her on file already. I don’t want to have to cuff her. If she’ll just come with me quietly—”
“Screw you, Danny.”
“Don’t make this worse.” Danny moves Minna forcibly out of the way. “Caroline Walker, you’re under arrest for aggravated assault—”
“My fault.”
The two words, spoken quietly from the doorway, make even Danny go silent.
The woman clears her throat and tries again: “It’s my fault. I’m sorry.”
“Who
are
you?” Trenton says.
Her big eyes keep traveling over everyone, like insects refusing to settle. “My name is Adrienne,” she says. “Adrienne Cadiou.”
“D
rink,” Minna said, refilling Caroline’s coffee.
“I don’t want any.” Caroline took her coffee with sugar, cream, and preferably a nip of something stronger. This coffee was black and very strong; Caroline had already forced down a cup, while Danny and Minna watched her with identical expressions of concern, as if she were a child and they were the overattentive parents. Between them was a vast array of used cups and plates smeared with mustard, platters still piled with sandwiches arranged on wilted lettuce leaves.
“Just drink it,” Minna said. Caroline was too tired to argue. She was still drunk, but not drunk enough. The gun in her hand, the sudden, blinding fury that had gripped her, the sound of screaming—it was achieving reality, floating out from the dream-fog in which it had been comfortably encased.
Minna had gotten rid of all the other guests, thank God, and they’d convinced Danny to delay Caroline’s arrest, at least until after they had buried Richard’s ashes. Caroline couldn’t have faced a crowd. She couldn’t bear to see her former neighbors and so-called friends staring at her, whispering, the hiss of their insinuations about Richard and the woman.
The Woman.
Adrienne was sitting on the far side of the dining room. She hadn’t moved or spoken since she had announced her name, except to ask for some water. Caroline should have ordered her out of the house. She should have commanded it. Instead, she was forced to sit and watch Minna try to appease her, offering her cookies or a glass of wine, speaking in the voice she reserved for when Amy was sad or injured: a voice meant to say
Please, please, don’t be angry at my mother
.
She’s harmless, she’s drunk, she didn’t mean to.
But Caroline had meant to.
“So you’re telling me”—Danny and Minna were conversing in low voices, but not so low Caroline couldn’t hear them; they probably thought she was too drunk to understand—“that this is a
different
Adrienne Cadiou? That she’s not the one your mom’s been calling?”
“She’s not the one,” Caroline said. It was the first time she’d spoken to Danny since he’d attempted to place her in handcuffs, and he turned to her in surprise. She deliberately avoided looking at him.
This was, in fact, the last and final insult: Adrienne was not the Adrienne Caroline had expected. Caroline wished she’d read more about
this
Adrienne. She remembered only an article she’d barely skimmed—a hit-and-run, a drunk driver. Now she fought vainly to recall details. She had the sense that it would make her feel more secure, less like she was drowning in open air, as if by knowing a person you could avoid being hurt by them. You might at least anticipate which way the blow would fall.
Suddenly, Adrienne turned to Danny and Minna, who were still standing by the windows, silhouetted in light. “Can we have some privacy, please?”
Neither Danny nor Minna moved. But it was as though Adrienne believed they had. Now she turned and spoke directly to Caroline, pleading with her almost. What had she come for—forgiveness? Understanding? Caroline wouldn’t give her any.
“I didn’t ask for any money,” Adrienne said abruptly. “I haven’t spoken to Richard in ten years. He never answered any of my e-mails. I’d stopped calling a long time ago.” Now that she had started speaking, it was as if she couldn’t stop. She was trembling like someone in the grips of a bad fever. “It’s blood money. I don’t want it.”
“I don’t understand,” Caroline said coldly. She was playing the part of the queen. Adrienne was the penitent. Except that the part felt wrong. Caroline was the one who felt like begging—for Adrienne to go away, for Danny and Trenton to go away, too, for everyone to leave her in peace. She wanted to curl up in her bedroom—the bedroom that had been hers and Richard’s—and drink until the world started to soften and forgive.
“My daughter, Eva.” Adrienne’s voice broke on the name. “She was . . . his.”
For a moment there was silence. Minna turned away, rubbing her forehead. Caroline heard the seconds ticking forward, and then remembered that the big grandfather clock in the hall had been wrapped up and shipped off to the auction house, along with everything else of value.
She was seized by a sense of the absurdity of the scene: the big dining room table and the litter of food and plates and glasses; the narrow wedge of sunlight shining between the curtains; and Danny stuffed into his ridiculous uniform, like a sausage in a too-small casing.
The kitchen door slammed, and Trenton came into the dining room, stamping dirt from his sneakers. “We’re burying Dad under the weeping willow,” he said. Then, seeing Adrienne, he froze in the doorway. “Sorry. I thought she was . . . ” He trailed off before he could say
gone
.
When Adrienne turned to Trenton, her expression was full of such open hunger that Caroline’s stomach rolled. “How old are you?” she asked.
His eyes ticked temporarily to Caroline, as though requesting her permission to answer. “Sixteen,” he said.
“Eva would have been thirteen in July,” Adrienne said. A smile flickered over her face, but her eyes remained empty, huge, like open wounds. “She wanted—she wanted to go to Six Flags for her birthday.”
Trenton stiffened, as if a current had gone through him.
Caroline said. “Is she . . . ?” She couldn’t bring herself to say dead.
“I called Richard from the hospital. I don’t know why. We only met once. It was a mistake. We both knew it.” Adrienne’s voice cracked again. Caroline felt like spitting at her. She, Caroline, was the one who should have been crying. All this time, this other person, this phantom-child, had been running parallel to Caroline’s life, waiting to destroy it. “Still, I sent him pictures. Letters. A cutting of hair.” She didn’t stop herself from crying this time; she picked up a napkin Caroline was sure was dirty and wiped away the tears when they came. “My poor Eva. The doctors told me she would never make it. I—I thought Richard could make it untrue.” Adrienne’s face was white, like the center of a very hot flame. “But Richard was dead. Someone answered. ‘Don’t call back,’ she said. ‘He’s dead. He’s dead and he left you nothing.’ ”
Minna inhaled sharply. Trenton pulled a chair out from the table, letting it scrape on the floor, and sat down heavily.
“They were going to bury her,” Adrienne said, her expression wild, begging. “They were speaking her favorite psalm.
The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures . . .
I couldn’t watch. I couldn’t bear it. I was in Buffalo before I knew where I was going—before I knew I was coming here.” She was shaking so hard that the ice cubes rattled in her glass. “It was my fault. All my fault. I was driving—I should have seen the other car. I should have known . . . I should have saved her.”
“Holy shit,” Trenton whispered. “My sister.”
“Minna,” Caroline said sharply. “Get Adrienne something to drink.”
They sat rigidly, in silence, until Minna returned with whiskey. She had to physically remove Adrienne’s empty water glass from her hand, as though Adrienne had forgotten how to move her fingers. Caroline watched her drink. She remembered, now, that she had seen pictures of Adrienne’s daughter: a girl with a wide, frank face, freckled and grinning, like a child you would see on a commercial for pancake mix. She’d had bright blue eyes, like Richard’s. Like Trenton’s.
She remembered, too, the phone call from the police the night of Trenton’s accident; the blind drive through the dark, when the sky had seemed like a lid that might suffocate her.
People, Caroline thought, were like houses. They could open their doors. You could walk through their rooms and touch the objects hidden in their corners. But something—the structure, the wiring, the invisible mechanism that kept the whole thing standing—remained invisible, suggested only by the fact of its existing at all.
Caroline stood up. Adrienne froze, as if she expected Caroline to lean across the table and strike her. But Caroline wasn’t angry anymore—not at Richard, not at Adrienne. All at once, in one second, the past and its ruin of promises and disappointments had released its hold on her. She was filled with a golden warmth that made her limbs feel loose and light; it made her forget her swollen ankles and the fact that she was not drunk enough to ward off the beginnings of a hangover.
She didn’t have to forgive him—the idea came suddenly, like a deep breath of air after a long submerging. It was all over now. She didn’t have to forgive him, and she could love him and hate him at the same time, and it was all right.
She closed her eyes and felt, for a split second, a hand pass across her neck; and in that moment she had a vision of rooms like atoms, holding a universe of secrets; and she, Caroline, gripped in the small bounded nucleus of the past.
Now she was free.
She reached across the table to take Adrienne’s hand. “It’s not your fault,” she said.
“My sister,” Trenton whispered again. This time he spoke quietly and addressed the word to the walls.