State of Grace (15 page)

Adelle was in the living room when I arrived home, breathless and agitated. She looked up as I rushed inside and slammed the door behind me. She was sitting on a giant, purple pillow on the floor. Her algebra homework was spread around her. The
BBC World News
was
blaring from the stereo speakers. Something about my expression must have alerted her that something had happened, though, because she leaned over and turned down the volume.

“Rebecca, are you okay? You look freaked out.”

“I'm fine,” I said quickly. “I just—” I struggled to stop my legs from shaking.

“Jesus.” She rose and walked to me. “What happened?”

“Nothing. There was—I saw—” I hesitated. “It's nothing. I just don't like walking back from night classes.”

“Did someone . . .?”

I shook my head at the unasked question. “No. Nothing like that. I just saw Count Bob and he freaked me out talking about sacrificing virgins and—” I shook my head. “He just looked so . . .” I faltered, searching for the right word. “Crazy,” I finished lamely.

Adelle nodded and reached out to squeeze my shoulder. I pulled away, not wanting to be touched. She looked surprised, but said nothing.

“Sorry,” I said quickly. “I didn't mean to snap. I'm just tired and want to go to bed.”

“Okay.” Adelle nodded, but I could tell her feelings were hurt. She gave me a weak smile and then gestured to the stereo. “I'll keep the radio down.”

“Thanks.”

I opened my mouth to apologize again, but she was already back on her pillow, her head bowed to her textbook. I turned and walked down the hallway to the safety of my room. Once inside, I leaned back against the closed door. My heart continued to thump heavily and I tried to breathe slowly. It was ridiculous, I told myself. Count Bob was harmless. It had been a trying day. I had overreacted. I told myself these things, but I knew that the truth of the matter—the thing that I didn't want to acknowledge or think about—was that Grace wasn't gone. She probably never had been. All this time she had been there, watching and patiently waiting. I'd been a fool to think I had escaped my burden. My responsibility was now, as it always had been, to Grace.

To think anything different was foolishness.

If I were honest, I would have to admit that there's a part of me that has always questioned if the voice really was Grace's. On nights when I couldn't sleep or had been awakened by nightmares of her murder, I stared at the shadows on the ceiling and wondered about the voice. I tried to imagine how it was that Grace spoke to me from the in-between world in which she was present, but also not? Was it heaven? Purgatory? An alternate plane of existence? I also considered the very real possibility that the voice was simply my own—a manifestation of my own guilt, shame, and ineffectuality.

I discussed it once with Roger who, despite our rocky beginning, became one of my few friends. He had, indeed, taken me on as a project. A human redecorating challenge, if you will. True to his word that first day, he appeared the following class period with an agenda in mind. I had reclaimed my seat in the empty classroom and was rereading my tattered copy of
A Separate Peace
when the doors closest to me were thrown open. Unlike before when he had been dressed for work, the second time I saw Roger McManus, he was dressed in black Cavaricci pants, a black T-shirt, and a black jacket with a shocking red velvet lapel and a heart sewn onto the left chest pocket. His hair, which had been neatly combed two days before, was now wild and curly.

“Ready?” He spread his arms wide.

I blinked, unsure how to answer. He looked down at his outfit and then back at me.

“You like? It's my homage to Fred Schneider of the B-52's. I modeled it after his ensemble in the ‘Love Shack' video.” He pronounced
ensemble
as if he were speaking French. “So, are you ready?”

I swallowed, unsure if I wanted to go anywhere with him.

“Ready for what?”

He put his hands on his hips and said dramatically, “For today. Let's go.”

“But, I don't even know your full name,” I said.

“Ah.” He placed his hand over the velvet heart. “I'm Roger McManus. And you are . . . ?”

“Birdie.” I used my childhood nickname out of habit and then corrected myself. “Sorry. No. I'm Rebecca. Rebecca Holloway.”

“Great.” Roger grinned. “So, now that the formalities are out of the way, let's go.”

I shook my head. “I really need to stay for the lecture.”

“Come on,” he cajoled. “What else is college for if not to blow off class?”

“We can't. We'll miss information we need for the test.”

His smile was condescending. “Really?” He tipped his head to the side and frowned exaggeratedly. “Will we
really
miss anything?” He began to walk down the aisle to where I sat. “Are you following his lectures? Are you learning anything from them? It's early in the semester, they don't take attendance, and honestly, we can get this information from the book. And it would probably make more sense.” Roger now stood in front of me. He leaned down and grabbed my backpack from where it sat next to me. “Lunch,” he said as he turned and headed back up the steps toward the doors. “Now. It will be fun.”

I had no choice but to follow.

It was the beginning of our friendship and the first of many classes that we skipped together. Though his flamboyance scared me at first, over time I came to understand that Roger was, like me, making the best of an unhappy life. And, like me, he was hiding his true self. He gave the impression that he was worldly and experienced, but in fact, he, too, was from a small town—Shelby, North Carolina. Growing up gay, in the South, had proven to be a challenge—a “nightmare from which I am still recovering,” he said frequently. As he talked about his childhood, I began to understand why.

Though he was from the South, Roger's parents were originally from Des Moines, Iowa. His descriptions of them suggested a strange combination of Midwestern values and Southern sensibilities. His father was an insurance agent, a conservative Republican, and a card-carrying member of the NRA. His mother was a stay-at-home mom who used her spare time to craft the handwoven gift baskets that constituted the
base of their part-time business—custom order
Baskets o' Bullets.

“It's nouveau-niche,” Roger laughed. “I don't know how they come up with these ideas, but during the week, my mother weaves these baskets that they fill with cedar shavings and whatever bullets or gun supplies the person who's receiving the basket needs.”

When he told me about his parents' part-time business, I laughed.

“Oh, you'd be surprised at how popular they are. I mean, really, what do you get for the hunter or handgun owner who has everything? Bullets and cleaning supplies and accessories, of course.”

The concept stemmed from his parents' own love for firearms.

“Oh, yeah,” Roger said. “They have, last I knew, twenty-three guns that range from rifles and handguns to antiques. My mother's favorite is her Smith & Wesson double action Model 29 .44 caliber Magnum revolver. It was an anniversary gift from my father.”

Coming from his mouth, the words
Smith & Wesson double action Model 29 .44 caliber Magnum revolver
sounded ridiculous.

“I can't believe you know so much about it.”

“Honey,” he laid his hand on my arm. “How could I not? She only talked about it nonstop when Dad gave it to her. It's just like the one Clint Eastwood used in the
Dirty Harry
movies. My brother is in love with it and already has asked to inherit it when she's gone—which is fine because, even if I hadn't been disowned when I came out to them, he still would have inherited all the guns. I don't want anything to do with them.”

Even though he said it with his usual aplomb, his smile was sad.

“You were really disowned?”

“I was.” He lifted his chin defiantly. “Lock, stock, and barrel, if you'll pardon the expression. I think my folks always suspected I was gay, but when they walked in on me and my boyfriend one day, well . . . let's just say they knew. And they didn't like it—which is why I moved out after high school and haven't been home since.”

It was another similarity, because I hadn't been home to Edenbridge since moving to Lincoln.

“I moved to Des Moines to live with my mom's mom.” He
grinned. “You would have liked her. She was a pagan, worshiped Mother Earth and all that. Anyway, I started school there, met a guy, followed him here, blah blah blah. And now, four years later, I'm still here, single and finally getting back to school.”

“What do you do for holidays?” I asked. His grandmother had, I knew, died the year before.

“The same thing I do most of the time—get together with all my fag friends who have nowhere else to go, cook elaborate dinners, and get so drunk we don't care that our families don't want us.”

Over time, I would learn firsthand just how much of this Roger did with his friends. And, it was on the heels of one of these nights after his friends had left that I confided to him that Grace spoke to me sometimes. We were lying on his living room floor, our heads on the throw pillows from the couch. Between us sat an open bottle of wine—our third. Miles Davis played on the stereo and I was well into the warm buzz of wine. I had been hearing Grace more and more frequently and drinking seemed the only way to drown her out.

“Do you ever wonder if you're crazy?”

He was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. “Only all the time. I think it's part of the human experience—at least, for those of us who
feel
. It's part of the package.”

“I think I'm crazy sometimes,” I said impulsively and then added recklessly. “I hear a voice in my head—the voice of my friend who was murdered when we were kids. Once I even saw her.”

I had his full attention now. Roger sat up and stared at me. He had changed into a silk dressing gown and pajama pants after the party. As he moved, the robe gaped open, exposing the smooth skin of his chest. I looked away, embarrassed.

“You've never told me you had a friend who was murdered. In fact, you've never talked about your past. I was beginning to think you just dropped out of the sky.”

“You don't think it's . . . weird?”

“Which? That you never talk about your past, that you have a friend who was murdered, or that you hear voices?” He shrugged. “I don't know. I'd have to hear more first.”

“It's not voices,” I clarified. “It's just one voice. Grace's.”

I took a gulp of wine and began to tell the story, the words tumbling out of my mouth. As I spoke, I felt a huge weight being lifted along with the simultaneous desire to take them back.

“I found her.” I could hear the slurred sloppiness of my words. “I lied to my mom about going to play at a friend's house. And I snuck into the woods and I found her there. In front of the tree house. Naked. Dead.”

Roger exhaled, and I realized he had been holding his breath. He leaned forward.

“I ran to the town store and told them. They called the sheriff's department and my mother. I don't actually remember a lot of what happened next.”

I took another swallow of wine. Although I was staring at the glass, my mind was a million miles away, seeing all over again Grace's body and hearing the deafening silence of the clearing. I could tell I had had too much to drink. I worked hard to pronounce the words.

“And since then, Grace has talked to me. It's why I left Edenbridge—why I never go back. I'm vulnerable there. Grace knows it and she . . . you know.” I waved my hand around my head. “She haunts me. She warns me. It's like she's watching over me or something. I hear her in my head.”

I swiveled my head to gaze blearily at Roger. He looked shocked.

“Wow,” he said. “That beats having gun-collecting, ultra-conservative parents any day.”

“Roger,” I said, irritated, “You missed the point. Do you think I'm crazy? For hearing her talk in my head? Do you think it's her or is it just me wanting to think it's her?”

He was silent, considering how to answer. “Well, I guess I see it like this. There's no reason why it couldn't be her. I mean, there's lots of things you can't see or explain. Ghosts. UFOs. Psychics. I don't see how this is any different.”

I felt relief wash over me. Maybe I wasn't crazy after all.

“But, why you?” he asked. “I don't mean that in a bad way, just . . . why you?”

I shrugged. It was a question I had asked myself as well. “I don't know. Maybe because I found her. Or . . . maybe it's her job? I don't know.” I hesitated and then plunged forward. “I think it's because she thought I was her best friend. I mean, that's what the boy in the woods told me.”

Roger frowned. “What ‘boy' in the woods?”

“After she died,” I explained. “There was this boy. He was her friend, sort of. He said that they talked a lot—that she told him I was her favorite. So, maybe that's why she chose me.”

Roger took a measured sip of wine. Even intoxicated, his movements were deliberate and precise. “Did they catch the guy?” he asked. “The one who did it?”

I shook my head. “No. And, I think that made it even scarier . . . 'cause . . . there was part of me that thought he might come after me next, you know . . . 'cause I found her . . . or had clues or something.” I was silent, dreading the words I knew I was going to blurt out. “I feel like it was sort of my fault—what happened. I mean, maybe I could have done something. Maybe helped her. I knew things were bad for her at home, but I didn't do anything. You know?” I looked up to see Roger nodding his head. “I didn't help because . . . I guess I was scared I
couldn't
help. And now, she's punishing me or something. She protects me . . . sorta. Even though I didn't protect her. And I feel her getting stronger.” I hung my head miserably. “I know that's twisted and makes absolutely no sense, but maybe she would still be alive if I had, I don't know, done something. Invited her to stay at my house that night. Told someone about Don Wan's drawings.”