Ada’s suggestion, that Lucas was saving me once again, made me wonder what I had ever done for him. I couldn’t remember a single time when I helped him out by giving him a ride somewhere or by defending him from some ass-hat punk or by consoling him over the loss of his cousin or the disappearance of his brother. I couldn’t remember Lucas Cader ever needing me for anything save for my unique ability to constantly need rescue from one thing or another.
“Lucas,” I said toward the floor from my bed one night.
“Yeah?”
“Why are you my friend?”
“That’s a stupid question.”
“Why? Because there’s no answer?”
“No, because that’s like asking why people stretch when they wake up or jump when they’re scared,” he said sternly.
“Huh?”
“These things just happen, Cullen. You just are my friend. That’s that. No explanation needed.”
“So, you’re my friend just because you’re my friend?” I laughed.
“That’s right. I just am. It’s the simplest thing in the world.”
Book Title #81: The Nightmare Bed.
“Do you remember when Gabriel decided he didn’t like toys anymore?” Mom said to me one morning in that I’m-talking-about-the-past-and-being-eerily-nostalgic sort of way.
“Yeah.”
“We bagged up all those action figures. There must have been, I don’t know, a hundred of those things,” she said.
“At least,” I added.
“I think we sold about twenty of ’em in a bag for fifty cents at that garage sale. And he didn’t cry a wink. He was ready, I guess.”
“Ready for what?” I asked.
“Ready to be grown,” she answered.
“I guess so.”
“You never played with toys much when you were young. You were always out in the yard making up these strange scenarios and fightin’ imaginary pirates and monsters. It was the cutest thing.”
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Like watching someone with multiple personalities,” she said, laughing.
“Thanks, Mom.”
Before Lucas Cader moved to Lily and became my friend, I spent most of my time either with my brother or completely alone. Gabriel, though, didn’t really like going outside or swimming or anything like that. He liked to stay in, read books, watch TV, and pretend that he was grown up. I never wanted to feel grown up, to be like an adult. I wanted to scream until it hurt my throat and made me talk funny for the rest of the day, and I wanted to run through my neighbor’s sprinklers and track mud into the house and shake my wet hair like a dog would in the middle of the living room. In church, I used to try and get my brother to play tic-tac-toe on the bulletin, but he always refused, shushing me and pointing to the preacher. My brother once told me that God was like the best musician in the world, because he put together all the sounds of nature and gave people like Jimi Hendrix his fingers and John Lennon his brain.
“And he’s the best writer, too,” Gabriel said to me.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Because he gives every good writer something to struggle with and try to work out by writing it down. That’s genius.”
My brother stood at about five-eleven and had brown, shaggy hair. He never used a comb, but always just dried his hair furiously with a towel until it seemed to all fall down in the right places. He usually wore some band T-shirt or a shirt that he’d found at a thrift store or something. I never remember seeing him in any pants other than his faded blue jeans or his brown Dickies, which I think were meant to be work pants. He did not skateboard and he never once even tried to play the guitar. His eyes were about like mine, blue not like the sky but like plastic Easter eggs. He had dimples, too, just like mine, and if it hadn’t been for his somewhat thicker eyebrows and smaller nose, we would have been able to pass for twins. Because I was just about one inch shorter than him and my uncle Joseph had died, Gabriel was the tallest member of my entire family.
Since he had been gone, I had taken to wearing my brother’s T-shirts almost every day. I’m not sure exactly what compelled me to do so, but then again, I’m not sure exactly what ever compelled me to do or say any of the things I did and said back then. Because my brother didn’t have any friends except for Libby Truett, I decided to visit her one afternoon seven weeks after he’d been missing. The last time I’d seen her was a couple of weeks earlier, when she was sitting in front of me in church and, turning around slowly, had asked me how I was doing. During the preacher’s sermon, she drew a picture of an aardvark and passed it back to me.
Knock-knock.
The door opened and Libby stood before me, her hair pulled back in a ponytail and her green eyes fixed on my face. She looked surprised, but not in that I-can’t-believe-you-are-at-my-house sort of way. It was more like Oh, Cullen, please don’t tell me bad news.
“Cullen!” she said enthusiastically.
“Libby, how are you, my darling?” I said, because I always called Libby Truett my darling.
“I’m fine,” she said, laughing. “Come in, please.”
She stepped aside, holding the door open for me, and followed me into the living room, where I took a seat on the pale green sofa. She sat across from me in a recliner that seemed unable to stop rocking back and forth after she’d sat down. It squeaked, too, and as we stared at each other and waited for the other to speak, it was beginning to annoy me.
“Are you still working at the store?” she asked me.
“Oh yeah. I’m sure I’ll be there for the next forty years or so,” I joked.
“Been thinking about college much? I heard Lucas was goin’ to U of A, you goin’ with him?”
“I’m not sure yet. Maybe. Maybe not. I can’t seem to ever think about it too long without getting a headache,” I answered.
“Yeah. It’s a big decision, I guess.”
“Yeah. And we know I’m not good at those.”
I wasn’t sure when exactly to bring up my brother to Libby, who I assumed was thinking the same thing. We talked for a while longer about whether or not I was going to study writing or just be like everyone else who wanted to be a writer and become a teacher instead. I told her that I didn’t have the patience to be a teacher, and she began to talk about how she had briefly considered going to nursing school but couldn’t bear to be around blood. It was the mention of blood that, sadly, brought us to talking about Gabriel.
“Can you try not to cry?” I asked Libby as nicely as I could manage.
“I can try,” she answered, nearly laughing.
“Okay. Thanks.”
“You’re not going to either, are you?” Libby asked me.
“I rarely do.”
“So, what did you want to talk to me about?”
“Was my brother happy?” I asked her bluntly.
“What do you mean?”
“Was he happy?” I said again.
“He seemed it.”
“He seemed it to me, too but was he really happy?”
“I think he was as happy as a fifteen-year-old in Lily can be. I think he wasn’t unhappy, just content, ya know?” Libby said, picking at her fingernails.
“Are you happy?” I asked her.
“I was.” Her face turned pale. Her eyes lost life. Her tone changed to that of a girl trying not to start crying.
It was at that point that I had to, contrary to my normal behavior, hug my brother’s best friend. What you need to know about me is that I don’t like to hug people with whom I’m not romantically involved. I also don’t really like to shake people’s hands, sit close enough to touch someone else, or feel other people’s breath on my skin. If you’re the type of person who likes to do any of those things, then I won’t pretend to understand you. Libby was tougher than I had imagined she’d be, never once breaking down or even shedding the first tear. She hugged me tightly, her face pressed firmly against my neck, and sat there still and quiet until I finally patted her twice on
the back the way a boy does when he is ready to stop hugging.
When one is driving home from Libby Truett’s house and there is nothing worth listening to on the radio, he imagines his little brother sitting on the floor of Libby’s room and trying to convince her to kiss him. He sees Gabriel lean in and, gently resting his hand on Libby’s knee, close his eyes and wait for her to meet his lips. He imagines Gabriel flushed with embarrassment when nothing happens, standing up and then sitting as far away as possible and trying not to look up at her. He sees Libby walk across the room, wrap her arms around Gabriel’s neck, and squeeze him tightly. He hears her say she loves him. He hears Gabriel say it back. His brother, he thinks, was in love with everyone he knew.
My mother does this thing when she is cutting someone’s hair where she sticks half her tongue out of her mouth, the tip of which is folded back behind her lips like she is biting down on her tongue and forcing the leftovers out. Had Gabriel been sitting beside me on that afternoon in the salon as I witnessed her doing this, he would have quickly said, “Mom, tongue,” and she would have, with a slightly embarrassed look on her face, coiled her tongue back into her mouth and continued spraying Mrs. Elmore’s hair.
Similarly, when my dad focuses on something, he bites his lower lip and squints his eyes, as if to suggest that whatever he’s doing is extremely complex. He does this while making pancakes, changing the oil in my mom’s car, or reading the morning paper. He was also doing this on the day that Agent Perry sat across from us on the couch to talk about the investigation.
“We are following up on a few leads, but to tell the truth, we’re pretty sure they’re dead ends.”
“Dead ends,” my dad repeated back, also something he did when focusing.
“Yeah. We’ve exhausted our resources, Sam. We’ve followed every lead, every phone call, every letter. This is just a tough one.” Agent Perry’s face was filled with sincere disappointment.
“Y’all have done a great job, Mr. Perry. We’re just trying to stay hopeful, ya know? We’re still positive about this,” my dad said.
“Sam,” my mom said, looking at my dad as if he’d slapped her, “they haven’t done a damn thing.”
“Sarah, please. They’ve done what they can do. We thank them for their efforts,” he said, nodding toward Agent Perry and wrapping an arm around Mom.
“Well, ma’am, this case is not closed by any means. We’ve got several of our best agents assigned to it and we, too, believe it or not, are very hopeful. But I’ve done all I can do here.”
“We know, we know,” my dad said as my mother’s eyes welled with tears and I stood quietly at her side.
“You’ve all been so kind to our crew. We appreciate it. Under other circumstances, I would have very much enjoyed my stay here in Lily,” Agent Perry said, standing up to shake my dad’s hand.
We walked, my parents and I, with Agent Perry out to his car, and as he backed out of the driveway, we all seemed to have the same sort of look about us; one of disillusionment and lightness. It was that sort of feeling in your head when you think about how the air feels on your skin and how the sidewalk sounds under your feet. It was the kind of feeling that makes you jump at the touch of your mother’s hand on the back of your neck as you step onto the porch. Less a state of mind and more a physical reaction to something. This was our physical reaction to my brother’s case seeming completely unsolvable.
Lucas Cader’s first response when I told him about Agent Perry’s visit was to walk over to the store’s freezer, open it up, and stick his head inside. After a few seconds, Lucas walked back over to the counter where I stood, and said that this meant nothing. We didn’t hug or say anything else that you would expect to hear in this strange sort of daytime soap opera moment, but instead we began to laugh and continued on with a detailed discussion of Ada Taylor’s intentions with me that we’d begun that morning at breakfast.
“So, do you think she really likes you, or is it all just for sympathy?” Lucas asked.
“I think she really likes me. But that’s what I really want, so I dunno.”
“I think it’s real. She doesn’t seem the type to play games.”
“Yeah. She’s pretty straightforward,” I agreed.
“Cullen, I’m just glad you’re not dead yet,” he said, laughing.
“Well, I have been avoiding cars and the river, just in case,” I joked back.
“So, does she ever mention those guys? All of that mess. The rumors?” he asked.
“Just once. One day at the park, we were on the swing set, and she asked me if I was scared of her.”
“What’d you say?” Lucas asked.
“I said, ‘Why would I be?’”
“And?”
“And she said, ‘Because I’m cursed.’”
“Cursed,” Lucas whispered, as if he’d had a revelation of some kind.
“Yeah, and I couldn’t tell whether she was being serious or joking, because her next move was to lean over and kiss me on the cheek. I dunno. She’s hard to read.”
It was then that Lucas Cader suggested we all go out that Friday night, him and Mena, me and Ada. It would be “awesome,” as he put it. Lucas uses the word “awesome” when he’s trying to convince me to do something he knows I don’t want to do. Cleaning his room and working on his transmission are also “awesome.” And so we planned it, and I was all ready to go that evening when the phone rang and my mom tossed it toward me in the kitchen.
“Cullen?” Ada said from the other end.
“Yeah?”
“Did you sleep with Alma Ember?” she asked plainly.
“What?” I said, stunned.
“Did you, Cullen? Just tell me. It’s not a big deal, I just need to know.”
“Yes,” I said, feeling as if I had little to lose.
“Okay. Umm, are you almost ready?”
“Yeah, Lucas is just pulling up, we’ll be there in five.”
“Okay. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Click.
At the drive-in, which is where the sober teenagers in Lily went on Friday nights, we all waited in line for popcorn and swatted away mosquitoes. I was trying my best to watch the previews while Ada kept asking me questions about Alma Ember. Lucas looked at me from the corner of his eye; he was amused. So was Mena, who kept trying to use her unique ability to never shut up to egg Ada on with her questioning.
“Were you two in love?” Ada whispered in my ear.
“No, Ada,” I said back.
“Did she love you?”
“Ada, I don’t know. Leave it alone.” I was getting angry.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“No. It’s fine. Just, can we talk later?” I asked, turning to face her.
“Yeah.”
The movie was just interesting enough to stay focused on until Ada took it upon herself to start making out with me. This was the other thing teenagers in Lily did on Friday nights—Lucas and Mena were engaged in the same sort of behavior in the front seat. It was when she tried to take my shirt off that I asked Ada to take a walk with me. Once we’d reached the top of a nearby hill, I sat down on the dirt. She sat down beside me.
“Ada,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“I need to know what this is.”
“What what is?”
“This. Us,” I said.
“Isn’t it better not knowing? Like, just liking each other and seeing each other all the time without any definition to it?”
“No?” I said dumbly.
“Cullen, are you in love with me?” she blurted out.
“Umm.” I struggled to come up with something to say that wasn’t a lie.
“Are you?” she asked again.
“Yes?” I said, as if asking her permission.
“You’re not,” she said, beginning to laugh.
“Huh?”
“You just lied to me,” she said, standing up in front of me.
“Ada, what’s it matter? We’ve
just been going out for a couple of weeks. Quit being so serious,” I joked, in an attempt to distract from my own melodramatic ways.
“You’re the serious one. You’re the one with lies and secret hookups all over town. What happened to innocent Cullen Witter?”
“Who?” I joked.
“The gas station boy who stared at me through the window?”
“Oh. I guess he died.”
“That’s not funny,” she said, sitting back down.
“I thought it was,” I said, leaning my head down on her shoulder.
“You’re a jerk,” she said.
“I’m the nicest guy you’ve ever met, and you know it.”
“Even so,” she said, “you’re still a jerk.”
Waking up in Ada Taylor’s house was nothing like doing the same thing in Alma Ember’s. Ada whispered, “Get up, get up,” into my ear as I stretched my arms and legs and let out a groan. I sat up, my contacts glued to my eyes, the air conditioner blowing uncomfortably onto my face.
“You have to leave now,” Ada whispered.
“How?” I whispered back. “I don’t have a car.”
“You’ll walk. I don’t know.”
“Walk? It’s, like, four miles,” I said, breaking my whisper.
“Shhh. You’ll wake my mom up.”
“What time is it?” I asked, returning to my whisper.
“It’s five thirty.”
“A.M.?”
“Yes. Now get up!”
“Okay, okay.”
When one is sneaking out the window of the girl he just slept with, he immediately remembers all the movies in which he’d seen this very thing happen and thought about how these things never happen in real life. He begins to laugh until he realizes that there is no way on Earth he can walk the four miles home. He thinks momentarily about calling his father, who would be the only person in town awake at that hour, but dismisses the idea after trying to come up with an explanation to give him. “Umm, Dad, I just had to sneak out of a girl’s house,” he says to himself as he walks down the sidewalk and past a house with plastic lawn ornaments of geese and deer. Then, no surprise, he decides to call Lucas Cader to save him one more time. This seems the easiest solution until, stopped in his tracks, he remembers that he has no phone and that turning around and crawling back through Ada Taylor’s window is out of the question. He thinks of knocking on someone’s front door and making up some sob story about being stranded but knows that he would never go through with it. And so, with a better attitude than most about something he really can’t change, Cullen Witter walks down the street and is home an hour and fifteen minutes later.