The Yearbook (3 page)

“No one knows for sure.” She took the book and leafed through. “You’ll find a lot of other important things here, you know. Like Wetherby’s role in the Underground Railroad during the Civil War — which will never be looked at the same way after the artist in the lobby is done.…” She sighed and shook her head. “We were a spy post during the Revolution, too. Lord, the Pilgrims set up the first college in the country here — but try telling that to the snobs down at Harvard. You know, we also have some wonderful microfilmed material.…”

Obviously Mrs. Klatsch was proud of her collection. I was impressed, too. I never expected Wetherby to have such a glamorous history.

Mr. DeWaart described my hometown best: “It’s a small town, but ugly.” Wetherby looked like Last Place in a town-design contest of nearsighted architects. Houses were old and drab, office buildings and stores were rundown, and the hottest nighttime hangout on Main Street was the Arby’s (the Methodist church on Sundays being a close second).

But Mrs. Klatsch knew all the town’s secrets, and she let me photocopy everything I needed for free.

I was there for three hours — on a Saturday,
voluntarily.
I, David Kallas, in the spring of senior year, after class ranks were set and college applications were in, and it didn’t matter if I’d got a D in everything — I was
working.
It was sick.

Ariana was the cause of my disease. Or the cure. Depending on how you looked at it.

She and I worked well together — except when I wanted to use the picture of the burning of Annabelle Spicer in “Student Activities” as a joke. She thought it was sexist, and also irrelevant to the theme, even though I argued the crack in the ground looked earthquakish.

Sometimes she can be too serious.

Fortunately, that was the only blot on my record. I worked like a dog right up until D-Day.

D-Day was Deadline Day — Monday, April 11. We had to get our “mock-up” to the printer — which meant blocking where every single photo and caption was supposed to go, on cardboard sheets the size of yearbook pages. Getting this done in time was brutal. I don’t think anyone did a homework assignment for weeks (except Smut, who doesn’t sleep, I guess).

We finished just before midnight at Ariana’s house on Sunday, April 10. Mr. DeWaart took the mock-ups and dropped them off at the printer’s before the next morning.

We spent the rest of the week recovering. On Friday the fifteenth, we had a party at Mr. DeWaart’s apartment.

“Abandon hope, all ye who enter!” Mr. DeWaart greeted Ariana, Smut, and me at his door. We had all come up the apartment stairs together. “Welcome to the ship of party fools!”

“Hi, Mr. DeWaart,” I said.

“Say
what
?” he replied. “It’s Richard to you, my boy.”

“But your name is Joel.”

“Details, details. Come on in.”

Mr. DeWaart was weird. No question. His nickname was Wartface, because of his last name and two large moles on his right cheek and left hand. His image: tweed jackets and wrinkled shirts, a thick salt-and-pepper beard, mismatched socks, and Top-Siders. He hardly ever smiled; sometimes you didn’t know he’d told a joke until about five minutes after you heard it. He’d graduated college four years earlier, which made him about twenty-five, but he looked older. He was both a genius and an awesome athlete. He coached the crew team and organized some of the team members (and other achiever types, including Smut) into a small group called “The Delphic Club,” which sat around after practice and had heavy, top-secret discussions. (No one knew what they were about, or cared.) Between all that, advising the yearbook, teaching history, and working toward his Ph.D. at night, he didn’t have time for much else.

Still, I figured: mid-twenties, unattached, athletic, smart — he must have had a social life. I half-expected some knockout grad student to come jiggling out of the bedroom — or at least a few tell-tale signs of bachelor life, like a rumpled camisole tossed on the floor, or some female-type perfume in the bathroom.

No such luck. He lived in a small, one-bedroom apartment with piles of books and papers in every corner, shabby furniture, and some crummy artwork on the walls — mostly pictures of ancient Greece, philosophers in togas, stuff like that. (Bo-ring.)

But, hey, a party’s a party.

John Christopher, the
Voyager
sports editor, waved to us as we walked in. He was by a large fruit bowl, along with Rachel Green (our business editor) and Liz Montez (activities editor).

“Wai— her — gluzb — ” John gargled, his jaw working like crazy.

A moment later, he reached into his mouth and pulled out a perfectly knotted cherry stem. With a huge, satisfied grin, he sang, “Ta-da!”

John is large and competitive. If you walk to school with him, he will not let you get there first. If you eat with him, he has to have more than you. Because of that last habit, he’s too …
cumbersome
for most sports, so he writes about them for the school paper and the yearbook.

“You did that with just your
tongue
?” Rosie asked.

“That is gross,” Liz said, her smooth, round face puckering in disgust.

John looked disappointed. “It’s supposed to be sexy.”

“Puh-leeze!” groaned Rachel. “Give it up.”

Rachel and John have been going out for years, but you’d never know it. They’re always picking on each other. Rachel’s as petite as John is big. She has huge, dark eyes that can be vulnerable or furious at a moment’s notice.

Of course, all the guys in the group had to try the trick. I managed to choke on my cherry stem, and Rosie chewed his into a limp string. Smut, of course, pulled out a perfect knot.

“Let me try.” Ariana picked a stem and put it in her mouth. Her lips moved up and down rhythmically. Her eyes became half-lidded and mischievous. Her jaw hollowed and thickened. A tiny drop of saliva moistened the left corner of her mouth.

I thought I was going to faint.

When she took out her knotted stem, I was a basket case. I was sitting upright in a chair, but my soul had to be scraped off the floor. Eight weeks of working side by side with her had taken its toll.

“That was
great
,” Smut said, grinning.

Ariana smiled. “Mmm. I know.”

“Make me puke,” Rachel remarked.

“Eat your heart out,” John said.

“I do,” Rachel retorted. “Every time I realize I’m with you.”

“Who-o-o-oa!”
cried Liz, laughing.

Ariana and Smut started giggling about something. Slowly they made their way to the couch in the corner of the living room. It was threadbare and stained, but they didn’t seem to mind. They sat right down, holding hands and whispering.

Smut was lucky. If he’d been in front of an open window, I think I would have pushed him.

Rosie was in charge of the CD player, and he put on some dance tunes. I danced a little with Rachel and Liz. But after awhile I caught a glimpse of Ariana and Smut kissing, and my motor stopped running. Liz asked me if I was okay, and I said yes, I was just tired.

But all I was thinking was: Why didn’t they just go off and park somewhere? Why torment the rest of us, who had to sit and watch?

Well, maybe not the rest of us. Maybe just me. Everyone else seemed to be having a great time.

For the first time in my life I wished I had a vice, like drinking or smoking or writing terrible poetry. But I don’t, so I consoled myself with elaborate murder schemes.

At one point Mr. DeWaart went into his bedroom to answer a phone call. When he came back, he turned off the CD player and announced, “Okay, listen up, guys. Time for a reality check. I just got a call from Mr. Brophy at the print shop. The proofs are ready.”

“All
riiight
!” Rosie said.

“The bad news is, someone has to go check them.”

A big groan went up from the room. ‘Tonight?” Liz asked.

“Or first thing tomorrow morning. Mr. Brophy’s projects piled up while he was gone, and he’d have to put them all ahead of us if we waited. The other alternative is to let
him
do the proofreading, which I don’t recommend — not with some of the last names in our school.”

He was right. Since joining the yearbook, I had learned to my horror that people I’d known on a first-name basis had last names like Xarvoulakis, Wojcechowsky, Orailoglu, and Nwogalanya.

Mr. Brophy was good, but not that good.

Under his breath, to the tune of the Mickey Mouse Club theme song, John Christopher started singing: “X-A-R, V-O-U, L-A-K-I-S …”

“Ah, John, your mnemonic system rivals your glossal coordination,” Mr. DeWaart said drily.

Rachel burst out laughing.

“What’d he say?” John asked.

“Your memory’s as good as your tongue control,” Rachel informed him.

“So I can count on you to go, Mr. Christopher?” Mr. DeWaart went on.

“Uh-uh, not tonight,” John said. “I have to take care of my little bro while my ’rents go out.”

Liz, Rachel, and Rosie all chimed in with excuses.

Finally Mr. DeWaart turned to Ariana. “What do you say, editor in chief?”

Ariana looked as if she wanted to say yes, but I could see Smut squeezing her hand.

“Um, I did have plans,” she said, “but I guess …”

Her voice trailed off. I couldn’t believe everyone was chickening out. And, Smut — he was trying to
force
Ariana not to do it. I thought they were all selfish, lazy jerks.

“I’ll do it,” I said.

And that was how I became Ariana’s knight in shining armor. And why I was curious about Ariana’s whereabouts after the party. And how I ended up in the Ramble with a human Gumby.

Fast-forward to that night. In the shower, rewinding that party in my mind, wondering why I’d been so curious about Ariana and Smut. Why I couldn’t have walked to the print shop the regular way. Not to mention the yearbook. It was still sitting there, unproofed, because I was off having the worst night of my life.

My skin began shriveling, and I turned the water off.

In the bathroom’s misty silence, questions continued to pound me: What next? Should I call the police? How would I explain the body to them?

If I were a cop, who would I suspect?

Me. I was the only person at the scene. I had no weapon, but I could have ditched it somewhere. At the very least, I’d have to explain what I was doing in the Ramble.

I could see the headlines now. Seventeen-year-old Peeping Tom from Nice Family Caught in Bizarre Killing. The TV news would show cops escorting me up the courthouse steps in handcuffs with a windbreaker over my head. Neighbors would insist I was a good kid, a gifted boy, but with a suspicious quiet streak.

As I slipped upstairs to my bedroom, I could hear Mom coming out her bedroom door. “David — ?”

“I’m beat, Mom. See you in the morning, okay?”

I heard her exasperated sigh. I plopped on my bed, looking up into the blackness. All I could see was the face. The hollow, spongelike person who’d been left to die. He’d come home with me and wasn’t going to leave me alone.

I jumped out of bed and felt my way across the room to my closet. Pulling the door open, I flicked on the overhead light. Years ago, after my dad died, I became scared of just about everything. I turned on that light every night for months. It had made me feel safer then, and it did now.

Still, I had terrible insomnia. But I know I must have slept. Because that night I had yet another bizarre dream.

“… G
HOULISH STORY … BODIES
discovered side by side … possible double suicide … both sought cures for neurological disease… retired police chief … cannot explain disappearance … police incompetence … county-wide search … possible vandalism.…”

Marky hears the words in his sleep.

They are grown-up words but he understands some of them yes he does because he is a smart boy a gifted boy Miss Cramer his kindergarten teacher said so.

VANDALISM is what some kids did to the car and INCOMPETENCE is what the checkout people have at the A&P, plus he’s heard of NEUROLOGICAL, which has something to do with Mommy and Daddy’s sickness and

Mommy and Daddy have the TV turned up too loud.

But no, silly Marky, Yiayia is downstairs, sheesh don’t you remember? Mommy and Daddy are at the faraway doctor’s in New York for treatment Oh and YIAYIA is a Greek word he knows, too, which means grandmother. He can call her that even though she’s American Greek and not Greek Greek.

And he knows POSSIBLE and GHOULISH (Mommy Daddy) and SUICIDE and (Mommy Daddy!) and DISAPPEARANCE and

“Yiayia!”

Marky wakes up with a scream. The TV is blasting in the den downstairs, and Yiayia is crying. Much worse than the time she got a phone call from Greece when her mommy died. It sounds like she is watching the news, which he hates, and besides it’s TOO LOUD. He gets out of bed, even though he is not supposed to after bedtime. But this is an EMERGENCY so Mommy and Daddy would say it was all right. Yiayia could call them in New York to ask them if she wanted.

“Yiayia?”

She doesn’t hear him. Her cries sound like big gulps now. Marky feels nervous. He walks into the den and sees Yiayia doing her cross. Her shoulders are shuddering up and down. On TV he can make outa familiar-looking office building. It looks like the place where Daddy
a
nd Mommy work. Then Yiayia turns to him. Her eyes are red and wet and scary. She says his name and holds out her arms to him.

Marky wants to turn and run. He knows what has happened. But his body cannot move. Instead, he bends over and gets sick right there on the den carpet.

“N
O!”

I sat upright in bed. The closet light was still burning. Outside my bedroom window a bird skittered by, looking almost liquid in the silver-gray morning light.

My body felt clenched up, my legs ached where they’d been cut. The dream was fading, but pieces of it still clung to a cobwebby corner of my brain. I shook my head, as if I could fling the dream away like droplets of water after a shower. I was actually shivering with fear. But why? I didn’t
know
the people in the dream. Did I?