“Hey, can I ask you a question about my speech?”
“Shoot.”
“I’m between two different Albert Einstein quotes and I’m not sure which one is better.” He pulled out a stack of note cards from his back pocket. His handwriting was very neat and precise, but there was a kidlike quality about it too, like someone practicing their letters. “Okay. Which do you find more inspirational?” He cleared his throat. “ ‘The important thing is not to stop questioning.’ Or ‘Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.’ I’m kind of leaning toward that one.”
“You want my honest opinion?”
He winced. “Umm, maybe not.”
“I think both are boring as hell. Also hackneyed to the point of being completely devoid of meaning.”
“Jesus, don’t hold back or anything.” He groaned. “I’ve been working all week on this thing.”
“Why are you so stressed about this speech?”
“Because it’s the culmination of everything I’ve worked for my entire high school career.”
“So?”
He stared at me, slack-jawed. “So? Isn’t it obvious how important that would make it?”
“Levi, listen. Our principal bailed, so has half the school. And here’s the thing. No one’s really going to be listening.”
Levi frowned. “Gee, thanks a lot.”
“What? Don’t take it personal. Speeches are boring, Levi. I bet I could guess some of the other things you’re going to say.” I tapped my lip with my finger. “Do you make some kind of mention of how we’ve all grown so much since freshman year?”
His face flashed with shock. He pulled his hoodie over his head. “I don’t want to play this game.”
“Wait,” I said, cracking up. “Do you also say how nervous and scared we all were to start high school?”
Levi broke into a jog and ran into a bathroom and closed the door. Through it, he grumbled, “Thanks a lot for your help. So glad I asked you.”
“I’m not trying to make you mad. I’m trying to take the pressure off. There’s a formula to these big-moment speeches, and you’ve clearly got it down. So don’t worry about it. Take the night off. Do something fun.”
He was quiet for a second. “Hey, I thought you said you checked this bathroom. The lights are still on.”
“Forget it.”
• • •
We finished the last house on our list as the sun was going down.
“Fifteen. That’s a new record for us.”
I shook the can of red spray paint. It felt too light, the little ball inside clanking hard against the sides. I made the X but the stream sputtered toward the end. I tried not to think about what that meant for my dad.
Levi started packing up. While he did, I texted Morgan. Just finishing up work. Do you want to hang?
I’m video chatting with Elise tonight. She’s going to walk me around her new town.
I waited for her to invite me, but she didn’t. Which, if I’m being completely honest, kind of pissed me off. Elise leaving was supposed to bring us closer together, but I’d never felt like we were farther apart.
Then again, maybe it was just the bummer of everything that had been happening that was bringing me down. And seeing Elise’s new life would be a distraction for her like Jesse was for me.
Before I really thought it through, I asked Levi, “Umm, what are you doing now?”
“Going home and throwing my speech in the trash. Why?”
“Let’s do something. You should have one last stupid adventure before you graduate, especially since you aren’t going to Secret Prom.”
“You’re right about that.”
I shook my head. “Levi, your problem is that you don’t know how to have fun.”
“I do too.”
I folded my arms. “I dare you to have fun. Right now.”
“What? Like now now?”
“Yes. Like . . . ready . . . set . . . Fun!” Levi stood there, staring blankly. “See. I was right.”
“Quit it. I just don’t know what’s fun that we could do right now.”
I pulled at his belt, his ring of keys. “You’ve basically got access to anywhere in town. Isn’t there any place you want to go? Something you want to see?”
“No place that we’re actually allowed to be.”
My eyes went wide. “Now you’re talking! Come on. Where?”
He dropped his head back. “I don’t know. I guess, if I had to pick something, I’d pick, maybe . . . the movie theater.”
We had a single-screen movie house in Aberdeen, down near the mill. They’d built it for the workers, and my grandpa said he used to go as a boy for a buck.
Aberdeen Cinema didn’t exactly keep up with the times. The sound was pretty shitty and the seats totally uncomfortable. The popcorn was stale and too salty, and sometimes the fountain soda tasted weird and chemical-y. But we’d still go, especially on rainy days in the summertime, when there was really nothing else to do. My favorite was the week before Christmas, when the theater would play an old print of It’s a Wonderful Life and let people in for free, so long as they brought a can or two for the town food bank.
But once Morgan got her license, we started going to the megaplex in Ridgewood, with stadium seating and Dolby sound and a counter full of different fancy flavored shakers you could put on your popcorn. I felt bad about that now, abandoning our hometown spot for the shinier, newer thing.
“Let’s go.”
“The workers started diverting the river, so the water’s backed up down there now. ”
“Well, if we can’t get in, we can’t get in. But let’s at least try.” He kicked something on the ground, a rock maybe. “I promise I’ll wear a hard hat and a reflective vest and a life preserver . . . whatever.”
He climbed on his bike. “All right. But if anyone’s down there, we have to go, okay? If my dad found out I was doing this, he’d kill me.”
I nodded. “Absolutely.”
• • •
It became a much bigger production than we’d thought. Levi took me on his bike. The street the theater was on was flooded, just like he said it would be. We couldn’t even get close. I figured he’d just turn around, but instead he put down his kickstand near a shed. Opening the padlock, he pulled out a kayak and two life jackets.
“How’d you know this was here?” I asked.
“It’s rescue stuff. For the construction site.” He held up the life vest. “Come on,” he said. “You promised.”
There would be no getting in the front door of the theater. Water was halfway up the glass. But Levi paddled us around to the back, where it was all brick wall. With his paddle, he was able to pull down the ladder of a fire escape. And we both climbed up. The door on the first landing was locked, so we went up to the next one. We were at least three stories high at that point, but with the water below us, I told myself it wasn’t as dangerous.
Still, my heart was pounding.
Levi was able to open that door. After clicking on his flashlight and shining the beam around, he let me go in.
A long hallway with old movie posters led to a tiny door. It opened into the projection room. There were two folding chairs there, along with a big metal block where the projector had sat. It was gone though.
There was a glass window that looked down on the theater. I cupped my hands to the window and tried to see in. Levi came and shined the flashlight down like a projector beam, and it caught the dust in the air. There was half a white screen, and only half the seats in the very back. Everything else was underwater.
“Good call,” I said. “This might be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Levi was quiet for a minute. “My mom and I watched every single Harry Potter movie here.”
It made my heart hurt. “How did she die?”
“You don’t know? I thought everyone did.” I shook my head. “Car accident. It’s why they put up that red blinking light.”
r /> Oh my God. I thought back to our conversation where I said everyone ran that light. I wanted to curl up into a ball and die.
“It’s fine. It actually feels good, talking about her. My dad never does, so I really don’t have a chance to much.”
The flashlight whipped up to his face as Levi wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “Didn’t think I was going to cry.” I doubt he’d wanted me to see that, but he wasn’t ashamed. With Levi what you saw was what you got.
I hadn’t expected any of this. I only wanted Levi to have fun. But now, here he was, crying over his dead mom in front of me. I reached out and gave him a hug. I hugged him like Morgan had hugged Elise when she saw her destroyed house. Like a friend who just wants to be there for you. I didn’t let myself think in that moment about the people I’d let down on that front lately. I just focused on being there for Levi, and tried to make that enough.
• • •
It seemed like every day, Mom came home from work with some weird artifact of another person’s life. Something they couldn’t bear to throw out but that it didn’t make sense to take with them, and everything had a vintage sheen to it because almost all of her patients were older people. A set of crystal candlesticks that wouldn’t look out of place on any grandmother’s dining table. An old record player that came with its own carrying case. A framed collection of state quarters.
I remember holding up a comforter in a plastic bag. “This thing is brand-new. I can’t believe someone just threw it away.” I thought it would look good in my room. It was baby blue with these beautiful illustrations of different birds all over it, like pages from an Audubon Society field guide.
“Every Macy’s in America has that for sale. But an afghan knit by their grandmother? That’s what you can’t replace.”
“I guess.”
At first, the stuff began to collect in odd places around our house. It snuck up on me. I’d be walking through the living room on my way upstairs when a thing would catch my eye. And I’d stop and think, How long has that painting of a tropical sunset been there? That ceramic crane?
Every item was presented to my mother as a gift with a story. How a certain thing was acquired, what it had meant to them, and how glad they were knowing they could pass it on to her. I knew that made it even harder for Mom to get rid of. It was like throwing away someone’s memory. Even if they were trivial things, they had stories. That comforter, I learned, was bought for someone’s college-age daughter who ended up dying of an overdose. After that, I couldn’t have it on my bed. I put it back downstairs.
I didn’t love the feeling of taking on this stuff, especially not when we hadn’t made any plans of our own. It seemed like a bad omen. All our eggs were in this basket, saving Aberdeen. We didn’t have a backup plan.
I should clarify that. We didn’t have a backup plan that was shared with me.
• • •
I found out that afternoon, when I was hunting for an old dress of my mother’s to wear to Secret Prom. I hadn’t found anything in her bedroom closet, so I pulled down the attic ladder and started climbing up into the crawl space.
“Where are you going?”
“To the moon,” I said.
She folded her arms. “What do you need up in the attic?”
“Why? Can I not go up there?”
“I just don’t want you digging through everything and making a mess. If there is something specific you want, let me know and I’ll grab it for you.”
“I won’t make a mess.”
Mom looked annoyed, but what could she do? Forbid me to go?
I ransacked a few boxes of old clothes but found nothing fancy, nothing dressy inside. Then I checked the cedar closet. There was Mom’s wedding dress, Dad’s corduroy wedding suit. And then I spotted a pale pink dress. The top was strapless and fitted, the bottom was a short bubble skirt with crinoline underneath to make it extra poufy. It was the one she’d worn to Spring Formal. I recognized it from the pictures.
I pulled off my shirt and slid the dress on over my jeans. It mostly fit, except I had trouble getting the zipper up in the back. Morgan would help me with that, or else safety-pin it. How cool, I thought, that Morgan and I would be wearing our moms’ dresses.
Before I headed back downstairs, I picked up my copy of A Wrinkle in Time from the bookshelf. I wanted to finish rereading it. When I did, I noticed a white piece of paper tucked between two books on the shelf below. Everything on that shelf was old and yellowed, but the paper was crisp and bright white. It had been folded in threes. I opened it up.
It was an offer from the government adjusters for our home.
Five hundred thousand dollars.
The two signature lines, with my mom’s and dad’s names printed under them, were blank.
I immediately imagined my mom at City Hall, helping one of her patients meet with an adjuster. And afterward, she’d linger until she could be sure no one else was around. Then she’d duck in and ask one, confidentially, what they might expect for a settlement.
If Dad found out, he’d never forgive her. If the people who were still supporting Dad found out, that’d be even worse. They’d never forgive him. He’d managed to get a page and a half of signatures. Not much, but it was still something. And there were still a few people in the balance, like Mrs. Dorsey and Jesse’s mom, who hadn’t signed but hadn’t made any moves yet either.
Obviously, I wasn’t going to tell anyone what I had found. But who else could? One of the adjusters? Mom? Mrs. Dorsey probably knew. Which meant Morgan did too. I really hoped my mom wasn’t that stupid. But the fact that I was there, holding that offer in the first place, didn’t give me much hope.
31
* * *
Friday, May 27
Extended Weekend Forecast: We are tracking a band of severe thunderstorms moving up from the south. Current models project Aberdeen County receiving significant rainfall beginning in 36–48 hours. Please stay tuned for further updates.
* * *
The graduation ceremony for the final senior class of Aberdeen High was held first thing in the morning. Underclassmen were excused for the day, our last day, but a lot of us showed up anyway.
Not Morgan. She’d decided that yesterday would be her last day. She said good-bye to all her teachers, took pictures of us in front of our lockers. I was surprised, especially considering the guilt trip she gave me over my supposed nonappreciation of Mineo’s, but I wasn’t about to call her out on it, since that fight was over and done with and things were okay between us again.
I remembered from years past that graduation tickets were a hot commodity. Each senior was allotted four, and in the days leading up to graduation, a lot of trading and wheeling and dealing went on to score extra tickets for grandparents or aunts and uncles.
Not this time.
The front three rows were filled with seniors, obviously. Behind them, there were maybe ten rows designated for family. And then the middle of the auditorium was empty, just a smattering of underclassmen until the very last rows. Some kids even had their feet up on the vacant chairs in front of them.
You couldn’t really tell any of the seniors apart, because they had on the same hunter-green gowns and matching caps with gold tassels. Some people had decorated the very tops of their caps, which was a loosely embraced tradition. Usually they said SENIORS RULE and that sort of thing. There were a few of those here. But other kids had taken a somewhat more depressing view and wrote things like RIP ABERDEEN and I CAN’T SWIM.
Our high school band was basically dismantled, so a saxophonist, a trumpet player, and a flutist were the only ones onstage, and they played the processional march as loudly as they could, so it would fill the room.
I was pretty distracted. Secret Prom was tomorrow, and the forecast wasn’t looking good.
Actually, it was looking terrible.
Supposedly another big storm was coming our way, and for the first time, there was talk of another potential flood. I turned myself into a
n amateur meteorologist. I was cross-referencing different forecasts, refreshing the radar apps on my phone.
The vice-principal introduced Levi as class valedictorian. Levi walked up and shook the vice-principal’s hand, then took his place behind the podium. He had his stack of note cards with him, just as he had yesterday. He flipped nervously through them as if he’d discovered they were out of order or written in a different language.
“Hello,” he eventually said. Too loud.
A few people snickered.
I watched Levi stare out at the crowd. He put his note cards down and then gripped the sides of the podium as if it were his seat on a roller coaster.
“So . . . I’m going places.”
It took a second for some kids to make the connection to the article, I think. Of course, I got it right away. Jesse, too, because he spun around in his seat and gave me a wide-eyed look. Levi helpfully held a copy of it up for the people who didn’t. “See,” he said, tapping the headline. “It says right here. Levi Hamrick, A Guy Who’s Going Places! ”
He took a deep breath. “I have to say, I was pretty embarrassed when this came out. But honestly”—he shrugged—“that’s who I wanted to be. I’ve been preparing to leave Aberdeen ever since . . .” He paused, and I was almost hoping he wouldn’t say it. “Umm, ever since my mom died. And so when we got the news about the dam, I thought to myself, Good. Now I won’t have to drive through the intersection where my mom was killed ever again.”
You could have heard a pin drop.
“But then yesterday, while I was out with a friend, I found myself thinking that once Aberdeen is gone, I’ll never ever get to stand in a place where my mom and I were happy together. Even though I normally try not to look, I can see her everywhere if I want.”
My phone buzzed. A text from Jesse. Wait. Are you his therapist?
And then another. Seriously though, wtf is this speech? Dead mother = major graduation downer.