“I’ll hide them under your porch swing tonight,” I tell her. “Get them before the morning.”
Her smile comes back, even brighter than before. “Thank you for coming.” Her voice is loud and happy again.
The line moves. I go forward. She walks back. I can focus on Nia again. Nia, with her curls brushed into a high, bouncy ponytail. Pink nails. Pink lips.
When I get to the front, I set the markers on the table in front of her. All except the purple one. I keep that in my hand.
She doesn’t look up at first. Too busy writing important notes about the bucket of crayons she just trashed.
I wait.
Then Nia looks up. Her head jerks back a little, surprised. “It’s you! Mandi said you’d come.”
A big smile settles on my face. She’s talking to me. And she’s beautiful, even if she almost looks like all the others. “You’re not going to run away, are you?”
“No, I’m working. And Mandi said—never mind.” Her cheeks flush red. I’ve never seen her blush before. “Do you have crayons?” she asks.
Looks like Mandi has done her job. Now it’s my turn. I push the box of markers closer. “For you.”
Her eyes stay on me. She licks her lips. Remembering M&M’s? Or another time? Then she takes in a deep breath and tips the markers out onto the table. Her long fingers nudge them across the table as she counts them.
Then I uncap the purple one. “Forgot this one.”
It’s easy to wave it under her nose. She’s busy being busy.
She does exactly what I want her to do. Closes her eyes and moves her face closer to the marker. “It’s lilac,” she says.
The smell that used to whisper from her skin. I’ll never forget it. How could she?
“Do you remember?” I ask.
Nia’s eyes snap open. She shovels my markers into the trash bag without looking at me.
“Keep the purple one,” I tell her.
But she makes a big show of capping it and tossing it into the bag. “Art is a disease,” she mutters.
“That’s what all the kids are saying these days.” I mean it to sound like a joke, but it comes out serious.
Nia slaps a silver calculator in front of me. “Thank you for coming.” Her voice is flat.
I bend over the table so she’s forced to look at me. “If it makes you remember, I’ll be waiting at our place. Every night.”
“Stop bugging me.” Her voice is low but intense.
“Then start remembering.”
She gestures to the kid behind me. I step away. For now I’ll give her more space. More time.
And pray she decides she doesn’t need it anymore.
Maybe as soon as tonight.
I WAIT AT the shed, five nights in a row. Jittery. Sure she won’t come. But hoping anyway.
She doesn’t.
When I get home, I stare at my books and pretend nothing is wrong. But all I can do is ask the same questions every night: Why doesn’t she come to the shed? Is it the TAG patrols? Her parents? Maybe she can’t sneak out. I should have picked an easier way to meet.
Or she still doesn’t remember.
One night I fall asleep at my desk. I wake up when Dad opens my door.
It’s not even light out yet.
“Come with me,” he says. “She needs you.”
I stare at him. Pretend everything’s normal, I remind myself. Don’t give anything up. “Who?” I ask.
“Your little friend is sick. She’s asking for you.” He turns and I hear him thump-thumping down the steps.
Nia remembers. She must be asking for me.
But she’s sick. And Dad’s seen her—knows where she is, too. That means she must have done something stupid again.
I look around my room, as if there’s something I can grab, some magic powder or elixir that will save her. But all I’ve got is my Yale calendar and a stack of textbooks.
“Hurry up!” Dad yells.
Maybe it’s the flu. Or she broke her leg. That would be good news, in a sad way.
He drives. I ask questions he mostly ignores. “What’s wrong with her?”
He shakes his head like it’s impossible to explain.
“Does she have the flu? Did she break something?”
This time he just squints ahead. Grips the wheel, like he’s driving us through a snowstorm.
“Will she be okay?” My voice cracks.
Dad glances at me. “She’s in the best care. We won’t let her stay sick.”
That makes me shiver. Maybe I don’t want to hear more.
We pass Nia’s street, but we don’t stop. Straight through downtown, too, past the Listening Room. There’s only one place left. A bad news place. I force the words through gritted teeth. “Where are we going?”
“Hospital.”
Fear rockets through my body. I remember Sherman stumbling into the ER. Drooling, talking crazy. Is that what’s happened to her? I want to ask more questions. But I’m afraid it will make him change his mind. He won’t let me see her.
And I have to see her. Even if there’s nothing left.
Dad’s muttering to himself under his breath now, like a crazy man. He does that when he’s stressed. Like he’s talking himself into something, or out of something. An entire whispered conversation.
I hear bits of what he’s saying.
“Fool girl. Everything going for her.”
We pull into the hospital parking lot and he presses his lips together. They’re sealed so tight, the skin is white around them.
“Why would she ever want to leave?” he asks.
“Leave? Like, run away?” My greatest fear before they changed her. And she tries it now?
“We don’t say ‘run away.’ Especially in front of her folks. They’re taking it hard.” Dad sets toward the doors in a fast walk. I have to break into a half-jog to keep up.
This is the worse thing she could have done.
Running away, leaving, taking a long walk in the woods: whatever you call it, they’re all suicide in Candor without my help. Once you leave the reach of the speakers, you can’t hear the Messages. We’re all hooked. Some people only need a few quiet hours before the withdrawal sets in. That’s why my clients get an MP3 player and an extra set of batteries.
Without it, they’ll go crazy.
We hurry past the welcome desk, the gift shop, the fountain with pennies covering the bottom. The water is too loud. This is serious, I want to shout. Stop making noise.
Dad opens a janitor’s closet and motions for me to follow him.
“We need brooms?” I ask. Not trying to be funny. Just not understanding.
He sighs and yanks on my elbow. I stumble in and he shuts the door.
Dad pushes open a door on the other side of the closet. Hurries ahead.
I follow him down a short, wide hallway to a round nurse’s station. Four doors sit in the wall behind the station. They’re all closed. No windows.
The man behind the desk doesn’t even look up. Dad steps to the second door from the left. He walks in, but I stay behind.
Seeing her changed is torture. But seeing her sick—crazy sick—will be worse. Especially since it’s my fault, at least partly. I don’t know if I can handle it.
I close my eyes and picture her. That night I saw her on the skateboard. When we kissed in the pool. Her face when she saw the museum I made for her. If I can remember, she’s not gone.
Then I walk into the room.
There’s music playing, piano and flutes. I see two people sitting in chairs—my dad and someone, someone that doesn’t matter, someone not worth looking at. My eyes shoot to the hospital bed, but I don’t know where to start looking.
Start at the bottom. Her feet are strapped down with thick black rubber over white sheets. My eyes travel up, slow, slow. Her wrists are strapped down, too. Hands bunched into fists. They’re trembling. Now I see her whole body is trembling under that sheet.
All the pictures from the black folder
fill my mind. I can’t look.
“Say hello, Oscar,” Dad barks.
“Oscar’s here?” Her voice is high-pitched and crackly.
It startles me enough to do it. I look. Golden hair fanned over a pillow. Perky nose. Scratches down her cheeks. Lips split and bloody, with bits of pink lipstick around the edge.
Familiar, yes.
But not Nia.
Mandi’s eyes open, slowly, slowly, like there are weights attached to her eyelids.
The relief makes me want to laugh. Grab my father and dance a jig around her hospital bed. Sorry to see you here, Mandi. But it doesn’t matter, not as long as it’s not Nia.
“I’m sorry you’re sick,” I say. Sounding too happy. Or hysterical.
Her lip lifts in a snarl. “I’ll kill you,” she growls. “You think you can beat me?”
Psychosis isn’t just about hurting yourself. I take a step back.
Now I understand why Dad’s confused. Why would Mandi run away? She’s the Candor mold, the one they make all the other girls match.
“We found her in the woods,” a woman’s voice says. It’s Mrs. Able, Mandi’s mother. The woman who has made me a thousand oatmeal cookies and poured me a swimming pool’s worth of milk to go with them.
“Where’s Daddy?” Mandi giggles.
“Getting his tetanus shot, you little monster,” her mother snaps. Then she lets out a gallon of tears.
“It’s natural to be angry.” Dad’s voice is folksy, soothing, like he’s seen this a hundred times. I guess he has. Is this what he does all those late nights and Sunday afternoons, when he has to “go to work”?
Of course it is. I always knew it. I just hadn’t seen it before.
“Why was she in the woods?” I ask.
Mandi’s mother stands up and steps closer to her daughter. Staring at her like she’s a stranger. “Mandi had a suitcase with her. Sashes, her state crown, her baton … I thought we’d thrown it all away.”
Mandi tries to sit up. “Only three weeks until states!” she shouts.
“You don’t compete anymore, honey.” Her mother reaches for her. But Mandi bares her even, white teeth. Mrs. Able jumps back.
“You said I couldn’t win,” Mandi growls. “You lied to me.”
“Pageants are a waste of time, honey.” Her mother gives Dad a nervous look. “Right? Don’t you remember?”
“I am worthy. I am worthy!” Mandi shakes her head from side to side. “WORTHY! WORTHY!”
I am worthy. The little gift I put on Sherman’s new CD. It was only for him. It was just supposed to make him happy.
But Mandi must have listened, too. That Message meant something very different to her. I wonder if her parents used boosters to counterprogram her, to make her hate pageants.
All it took was one Message to push her back to her old self. My Message.
My screwup.
“How did this happen?” Mandi’s mother asks. She looks at me before she continues. The next words come slow, like she’s choosing them carefully. “This isn’t what we … expected.”
Dad’s answer makes me wonder if he forgot I’m in the room. “You’re right. It’s not what you paid for. And it’s not what we delivered.” Dad crouches by Mrs. Able and stares into her eyes. “Someone’s … influenced your girl. Someone unauthorized.”
“You’ll fix her. You’ll fix my Amanda.” She swallows hard.
“I promise,” he says. “And when I find the culprit, we’ll fix him, too.”
When he realizes what I’m hearing, what will he do? They’re talking about the Messages. Doesn’t he think I’ll ask questions? Put things together?
Or maybe he’s used to being safe, too.
“Oscar.” Dad looks at me.
My heart beats so fast it hurts. “Yes?”
“Mandi’s been asking for you, telling us strange things.”
That’s why he wanted me to come. This isn’t a visit. It’s an interrogation. I feel his eyes steady on me. Watching everything.
“Like what?” I ask, keeping my words slow and steady. Not like my heart. It’s pounding.
Mandi barks out a loud laugh and licks her lips fast, over and over. “Silvery round secrets!”
“What’s that mean?” Dad asks.
“I have no idea.” Mandi’s a new kind of threat now. Between her and Sherman, how will I fix things?
“Sherman shared his secrets.” Mandi licks her lips. “Don’t be mad, Oscar.”
“What do you know?” Dad asks. Not do you know anything? or can you help? Those are his usual questions.
That tells me everything. It’s not safe for me anymore. He’s suspicious. He’ll start looking for things. Watching everything. Did I hide it all well enough? What happens if he finds something, anything?
Keep it casual. Swallow my fear. “All I know is, she’s been weird lately.”
“Weird how?”
“Kind of mean, I guess. Grouchy.”
Mandi is pulling her hands up, fighting the restraints. “Free Miss Charm Texas!” she shouts.
“You know nothing about these … secrets?” Dad asks. “Your name keeps coming up. So tell me the truth, son.”
His commands used to work. But now it’s like another Message. Washing over me. It doesn’t last. Doesn’t matter.
So I take a second to listen to the Messages. Find out what I’m supposed to believe. And I feed him a few Messages. “Never keep secrets from your parents,” I say. “Trust your parents with everything.”
Dad lets out a loud, long breath. His face relaxes. Almost looks proud.
“I wish I could help,” I add.
“You can go,” he says.
I look at Mandi. Her crazy bloodshot eyes stare back.
“Always share with your friends,” she croaks.
I put my hand on the knob.
“I am worthy!” she yells.
Me and my guilty conscience walk out the door.
DAD LETS ME leave without him.
“I’ll stay with Mandi’s mother awhile,” he says. Hands me his keys.
I don’t ask how he’ll get home. A guy like my dad can’t walk five feet down the street without some good listener wanting to drive him somewhere.
“Better go make some rye toast,” I say.
“Good man.”
The suspicious look has left his eyes. Why? Because he suddenly trusts me again? Or because he already has a plan for watching me? Or changing me?
Mandi got him thinking. He’ll watch me more now. All the time, maybe.
I have to see Nia before that happens. No more waiting for her to come to me.
So I go to her house. It’s early, just past breakfast time. But I know all good Candor citizens have been up for at least an hour.
Her father answers. Tense smile. But he shakes my hand like we’re two old farts meeting on the golf course. “Oscar Banks,” he says. “Nia’s out back, skimming the pool.”
He leaves me alone to walk through the house to the back doors. It’s that easy. All this time I was watching her, waiting for an opportunity. I could have just knocked on her door.
But she still might kick me out.
Nia’s dad is washing dishes in the kitchen. Go slow, I remind myself. Act like you don’t care. I force myself to look around. They bought a Rockdale model. One of Dad’s most popular houses. He designed it for our old family: four beds, three baths, a study for him, and a sunroom for Mom’s art.
Their furniture looks old—not antique, just worn out. Nia told me once that they only bought new stuff for the front porch, because that’s where people would see it.
I get to the sliding doors and stop to look out.
Nia is skimming the pool and dumping out bugs in the bushes. Her head is covered in an old-lady flowered hat.
It’s not a huge pool like ours. But it’s deep, with no shallow end, like it was made just for jumping in.
I open the doors. Shut them. We’re alone together.
I didn’t plan
any of this. There was no time to decide what to say. Now I don’t know where to start. I need her. I want her. I’m sick of waiting.
But all those things will scare her.
“How are you?” I ask.
“Oscar! Why are you—what—I’m, um, wonderful,” she says. Her voice is girly and high-pitched.
“Mandi is sick,” I say. It’s not why I’m here. But it pops out. I have to tell someone. “She tried to run away and now she’s in the hospital.”
Now Nia takes off her sunglasses. She furrows her brow. “That’s so sad. Why would anyone want to leave Candor?”
“Are you pretending?”
Her eyes look so blank. She shakes her head.
I should have planned before I came over. Figured out the right words and brought more things to help her remember. I don’t have anything to bring back the real Nia.
Except for me.
Nobody’s watching. I look up at the windows that overlook the pool. The white blinds are drawn against the sun. Check again through the glass doors. Nobody.
I’m so sick of being careful.
So I step close to her and take her face between both my hands.
She freezes, her eyes big. But she doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t move.
I kiss her. Soft, slow, like our first kiss. For a second I feel her muscles give in. Everything relaxes. But she doesn’t respond. Just sits, passive. Letting me do it.
It doesn’t feel right. I’m not kissing my girl. She’s a rubbery nothing.
Nia rips her lips away, turning her head to the side. “Stop that,” she says, her voice shaking.
“You have to remember.” I pull her head close with one hand, gentle, careful. And I kiss her again.
This time she takes a step back. “Respectful space in every place!”
She’s really gone. All those tricks—the art, the chocolate, the lilacs—didn’t really work. I only imagined something was left inside.
“Why don’t you want me?” I ask. My face is wet. I’m crying, without even knowing. As soon as I notice, a sob rips through my gut. I grip my stomach.
“Are you sick?” She reaches out a hand, then pulls back. Touches her lips with the tips of her fingers.
“I love you,” I tell her. “I have to save you.”