Читать книгу Never Look Back - Robert Ross - Страница 9

There she is again, Chris Muir thought.

He was sitting on a bench on Commercial Street, bored out of his mind, drinking a protein smoothie. He’d already been to the gym that morning, lifting weights and riding the bike. His red T-shirt was stuck to his back with sweat, and his curly dark hair was damp from the exertion.

He watched as the girl in black hurried along the sidewalk, sidestepping dawdling pedestrians. Her long dark hair hung, uncombed, in tangles and knots past her shoulders. She had a heavy canvas bag thrown over her right shoulder, her eyes cast down on the redbrick sidewalk. Her skin was pale with dark circles under her large brown eyes, and her face was free of makeup. She was wearing a plain black T-shirt over black jeans and heavy black combat boots that weren’t tied, the laces flapping as she walked.

Don’t be shy, dumb-ass, say something to her.

He sat up straighter, pulling his stomach in a bit. He slid his headphones, blaring the latest Kenny Chesney CD, down from his ears. This time he was going to talk to her. What’s the worst thing she can say? It’s not like she can kill me or anything.

He steeled his courage. Biting his lip, he took a deep breath, stood up, and stepped right into her path.

She stopped, looked up at him, and stepped around him without a word, her eyes dropping immediately back down to the sidewalk again.

Mentally, he smacked his forehead as he turned and watched her continue on her way. Smooth move, stud, he berated himself, and started walking after her. You’re only going to be here for a few more weeks, and if you don’t talk to her soon, you’ll never get a chance.

Almost six feet five, Chris had just turned sixteen a few months earlier. He’d always been tall and skinny, always the tallest boy in his class, and kids who didn’t like him called him “Ichabod Crane” or “Beanpole.” When he was ten years old, he was already six feet. He didn’t understand where the height came from—both of his parents were under five eight, and none of his relatives were tall. I’m just some kind of genetic freak, he thought whenever he was at a family gathering. His relatives always teased him—more kindly than the kids at school, but it was still teasing. Do you play basketball? How’s the weather up there? Can you see the Pacific Ocean? So funny. Har-de-har-har-har.

He tended to slouch, so as not to seem as tall, but his mother, Lois, always made him stand up straight. “Don’t hunch like that, Chris,” Lois lectured, “you’ll end up with a hunched back. You’re tall; be proud of it.” Easy for her to say, he always thought resentfully.

His parents had bought a house in Truro the previous spring. But as beautiful as the Truro beaches were, there was no there there—no downtown, no shops, no anything—so most days Chris hitched a ride on the shuttle and headed into P-town for the day. Here the crowds were crazy to watch: wacky drag queens, leather-clad lesbians, freaky clowns that ogled the tourists and made grabs for the girls’ tits. Chris had spent the whole summer watching the crowds. Especially the girl dressed all in black.

His parents both taught at Boston College—his father in philosophy, his mother in women’s studies—and both were secure in their positions enough to not teach summer sessions. Their little house tucked away into the Truro woods was nothing like the big house in Boston they called home; it was snug and cozy and, in Chris’s opinion, a little cramped. His mother was working on a book about the suffragette movement; he wasn’t really sure what his father was doing, but he spent hours in front of his computer typing away at something.

Chris didn’t pay any attention when his parents talked about things—his mind just drifted away. He’d learned early on that as far as they were concerned, he just had to listen—or at least give the impression he was hanging on every word. Mostly they talked to each other about any number of things, subjects either that he didn’t care about or that went straight over his head. All he to do was just tune in for a little while, nod his head, then tune back out again. They didn’t really want his opinion on anything—their discussions, their work, or his life. He’d heard his mother tell a colleague once how proud she was that she wasn’t “one of those domineering mothers who made her child goose-step along with her decisions about his life. Chris fully participates in every decision about his future.”

Chris couldn’t help but laugh. He’d just rolled his eyes—behind her back, of course—and nodded assent as though it were gospel. But every decision affecting his life had been made for him—all that was required of him was to meekly bow his head and go along with it. He didn’t want to go to Thomas More Prep—he was painfully shy and had trouble making friends, and he wanted to stay with the kids he’d been with since grade school. But going to Thomas More Prep would almost certainly get him “into Harvard,” his mother said, “and then your future will be assured.”

He didn’t really want to go to Harvard, either, but that was another story.

He was also a virgin, a deep secret he kept from his classmates at Thomas More Prep, the all-male boarding school in Connecticut he’d begun attending as a freshman. He was relatively certain that most of the other boys were virgins too—all the talk around the dorm and the locker room was just talk. The boys bragged about their girlfriends back home, about the easiness of the local town girls, or scoring with the girls at their sister school, St. Isabelle’s. Chris was shy around girls, could never think of the right thing to say, and always flushed with embarrassment. Instead, he channeled his sexual frustrations and energies into his workouts. The gym was a release for him, a way to go into his own little world where he didn’t have to worry about having friends or getting laid or what his mother wanted him to do. There, he just was able to focus on what he was doing, on the effort and energy he needed to move the weights, to push the pedals on the stationary bike, and build his muscles up.

He didn’t play any of the sports at Thomas More Prep, either—his mother didn’t believe in team sports (“they don’t teach individuality—just a pack mentality, and no son of mine is going to be in a pack”). That was fine with his father, who was short and overweight and completely blind without his glasses, and who had no interest in sports at all—other than to complain about all the money Boston College poured into its athletics department at the expense of academics. It was one of the few things Chris had in common with his dad, the total indifference he felt toward athletics. Most of the guys on the sports teams at More Prep were the biggest assholes at school. But Chris’s height and his devotion to weight training made him seem desirable to the coaches.

There were times, late at night in his dorm room, wide awake and staring at the ceiling, when he thought it might be nice to belong somewhere.

His roommate, Josh Benton, had no such qualms. Josh played football, was on the wrestling team, and pitched for the baseball team in the spring. Josh spent as little time in their room as possible, which was fine with Chris. Josh was always out with his teammates, and spent as much of his time as possible in the nearby town of Suffolk, trying to get into local girls’ pants—and if he was to be believed, he scored more off the football field than on it.

Josh is okay, Chris thought as he tried to keep his eye on the girl in black as she pushed through the throngs of people, if a little sex-crazy. Josh didn’t tease him or call him beanpole the way some of the other boys did—although, Chris realized, a little smile stretching across his face, since he’d started lifting weights he wasn’t tall and skinny anymore. He was filling out quite nicely, his muscles thickening and hardening.

Too bad the girl in black hadn’t noticed.

He’d seen her the week he’d arrived—saw her walking up the street with her bag and her head down. He’d been exploring, and had just gotten an ice cream cone at the Ben & Jerry’s when she walked by. Something about her stuck in his head; there was something about her eyes that seemed to pierce into his soul. He knew that sounded weird, but he couldn’t help it. It was just a reaction he had; he couldn’t deny it. It wasn’t just that she was pretty—she was, even though she didn’t seem to care about styling her hair. She had a heart-shaped face with a strong chin, a nice little nose, and her eyes were round and big and pretty. More than her looks, however, it was the air of loneliness about her that he recognized. So he’d followed her, just to see where she was going. He had nothing else to do, and it would help kill some time before he had to get back home. Maybe he’d be able to talk to her, ask her out, make a connection with her, and they could date all summer, and maybe she’d be able to help make this summer bearable. He was smiling as these thoughts filled his mind—and then in front of the post office, a group of kids across the street starting yelling at her as she passed.

“Hey, Spook, where you off to?”

“Spook, do you have anything that’s not black?”

“Going a-haunting, Spook? There’s a house on the east end that needs haunting!”

“It’s not Halloween yet, Spook, why ya wearing a costume?”

And then they started laughing. It was a cruel laugh, like the kids who made fun of him. His stomach clenched into a knot.

The girl ignored them, didn’t look at them, acted as if she hadn’t heard a word they’d said. But she walked just a little bit faster.

The laughter made him angry. He wanted to punch the smiles right off their asshole faces. He knew what it was like to be made fun of—which was part of the reason he worked out so hard. When he’d arrived at Thomas More, he’d already been six feet tall and weighed a hundred and forty wiry pounds. His bones showed through his skin, and he could count his ribs in the mirror. Then one of the gym teachers, who heard a bunch of boys calling Chris the “Jolly Green Giant” in the locker room one afternoon, suggested he start lifting weights. It turned out that Chris liked it, and he started getting up early in the mornings to lift before class, when the weight room was deserted.

He liked having it to himself, liked the sound the weights made when he set them down in the otherwise silent gym. He’d grown another three inches since then, but had put on thirty pounds. But getting his mother to buy him a gym membership so he could keep working out during the summer had been a battle.

“Shouldn’t you be spending the summer expanding your mind?” she’d insisted. “I gave you your reading list, didn’t I? I can add more books if you need more things to do. And I thought you were going to be my research assistant.” She’d offered to pay him five dollars an hour to look up information on the Internet for her.

But for once his father intervened. “I don’t see what it can hurt. Come on, Lois, he can’t spend the whole summer cooped in here with a book. He has to keep his body sharp, too—remember? Body, mind, spirit?”

His mother, startled by this rebellion, had stared, her mouth opening and closing. She wasn’t used to being opposed by anyone, and finally she just threw her arms up in the air. “Fine! But if it interferes with your reading or your work, it’s over.”

Chris sat back on the bench and wished again he had worked up the nerve to say hello to the girl. It had been more than a month; the summer was almost over. Would he ever get to meet her?

Why did they call her Spook? Just because she wore black all the time? That’s just stupid. It’s not like she’s ugly or anything. She’s pretty even if she doesn’t do anything with her hair or wear makeup. Why are the kids so mean to her? What did she do to them? Can’t they see how pretty she is?

He wanted to say to her, “Don’t listen to them—they’re assholes. They’re gonna grow up and be garbage-men or something like that, and have rotten little lives with wives who can’t stand them and kids who won’t listen to them.” Chris closed his eyes, imagining himself reaching out and stroking her hair. “They don’t know what they’re talking about. They’re idiots, ignore them.”

He’d practice in the mirror at night before bed, before brushing his teeth and washing his face, trying to see which facial expression would be the most reassuring, the friendliest, the studliest—which one might make the girl respond to him. He’d stare at himself, wondering how she would see him. Would she think he looked like Ichabod Crane? Would the goddamned Adam’s apple that stuck out so far from his long thin neck make her recoil? Would she think he was tall and dumb-looking? Would he be able to get the words out, or would he stammer and blush and make an ass out of himself like he did at the dances at school?

Every day, he’d venture out into the streets, keeping an eye out for the spook-girl, steeling his nerve to actually talk to her. And every day, he’d see her. He’d sometimes walk behind her for a while as she looked into store windows or stopped into a coffee shop. He’d get a cup of coffee himself and sit on the steps of Spiritus Pizza, keeping his eyes on her, drumming up his courage to say something. Maybe she’s gay, he got to thinking. After all, so many people in P-town are. But she never said a word to anyone, male or female.

Not once had she ever acknowledged his presence. Day in, day out, as more and more tourists filled up the town, as the shops and restaurants and cafés filled, as the beach became wall-to-wall bodies glistening with oil.

Now he was leaving in less than three weeks, and he still hadn’t said a word to her. He cursed himself as a dork, loser, jerk, at every missed opportunity. He worked his way through his reading list—Simone deBeauvoir, Germaine Greer, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and all the other books his mother felt were mind-expanding and “important” for him to read.

It’s now or never, you big loser, he thought, getting up off the bench and following her yet again.

She turned in at the library, a narrow three-story building with peeling white paint shaded by an enormous oak tree, and he followed her inside. Up she climbed to the top floor, heading without pause to a section in the back, started scanning the titles in the stacks. Outside he could hear the whoops and whistles of the tourists on vacation, but inside the library all was quiet and still. Keeping his eye on the girl, he fumbled through the magazine rack, scanning the covers of Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, Good Housekeeping, and Oprah. He had to move quickly when the girl headed back downstairs with three books in her arms.

The older lady at the counter didn’t even look at the girl as she processed the books. “Find everything you needed?”

“Yes, thank you,” Spook said so softly that Chris barely heard her. She shoved them into her bag and started back toward the front door.

“Hey,” Chris said as she walked past him, leaning up against the wall in what he hoped was a sexy pose. He forced a big smile on his face.

She stopped, looking at him. “Hey,” she replied. She searched his face for a moment, then turned and walked out the front door.

Feeling stupid, Chris started after her. Nice move, slick, he told himself as he turned to follow her.

She stopped and sat down on a bench, withdrawing a crumpled pack of Parliaments from her bag. She lit one.

Okay, big guy, this is your shot.

Taking a deep breath, Chris sat down next to her. “Those are bad for you,” he said.

She took a deep inhale, blew the smoke out through her nose, and looked at him without expression. “Are you stalking me?” she asked. Her voice was low, quiet, soft, and feminine.

He flushed, losing what little composure he had. “Um, no.” He stuttered a bit. “My name’s Chris.”

She didn’t answer, just kept staring, the cigarette burning between her fingers.

“What’s your name?” he asked, knowing that his face was surely as red as his T-shirt. He wiped sweat off his brow. Come on, come on, answer me, please!

She kept staring, then turned her head and pitched her cigarette into the street. “I don’t know why I smoke. They taste like shit.” She shrugged. “Kind of a stupid thing to do.”

“Well, then why do you do it?” What the hell am I saying? Smooth move, idiot. You’re lucky she doesn’t laugh in your face.

“Jessie,” she said finally, still looking at him. “My name’s Jessie Kaye.”

“Nice to meet you.” He held his hand out, but she ignored it until he finally let it drop back to his side.

“Yeah, whatever.” A group of shirtless men in their midthirties passed, laughing and joking.

“This place sure is full of queers,” he said.

She turned and looked at him. “Queers are people.” She tilted her head to one side. “Everyone’s got something about them that’s not normal.” She barked out a small laugh. “Trust me on that.”

“Oh, I don’t hate gay people or anything like that.” He shrugged, flaying himself mentally for coming off like a homophobic jerk. His parents had long made a point of preaching tolerance. Half of their colleagues were gay or lesbian, and Chris knew them all, even called one lesbian couple Aunt Pat and Aunt Sally. He started to feel again that Jessie might be gay herself. “It’s all good,” he heard himself say. “I just don’t understand it myself, but it’s all good.”

“Nobody’s asking you to understand. Nobody’s asking for anything—except to be left alone.”

Change the subject, quick, before she asks you to leave her alone. “So,” Chris said, “what’d you check out from the library?”

“You are stalking me.” A ghost of a smile flitted across her face. She was really pretty when she smiled. “Don’t you have anything better to do on a nice summer day? Like go to the beach? Rollerblade? Don’t you have a girlfriend or anything?”

“No.”

“I find that hard to believe,” she said, arching an eyebrow.

“Why?”

She sighed. “You’re cute. I’d think you’d be beating them off with a stick. Especially since most of the guys in town are gay, right? Hunky straight boys are in short supply.”

“You think I’m cute?”

“You didn’t answer my question. Why are you stalking me?”

His heart pounding, he wiped sweat off his forehead. “What else is there to do?”

She shook her head. “You can’t find anything better to do than stalk the local freak show?” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t you swim or sail or fish or all the other things guys are supposed to like to do?”

“No.”

She smirked. “Maybe you’re gay and you just don’t know it yet.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“I was joking. Not very quick, are you?”

“Guess not.” He turned his head and watched a sailboat on the bay.

She laughed. Her laugh sounded rusty, like she didn’t use it very often. “Well, Chris, I like that in a boy. Quick is way overrated.”

He relaxed a little, finally. “I’ve always thought so, too.”

“So what brings you to Provincetown for the summer? Since you’re not gay, I mean.”

He tensed, and then realized she was teasing him. “My parents bought a summer place here. Well, in Truro.”

“What do they do?”

“They teach at Boston College.”

“Oh.” She was distinctly not impressed.

They sat in silence for a minute, watching the tourists. Chris was trying to think of something else to say when she said, “So what do you want to be when you get all grown up into a big bad adult?”

He eyed her. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

She held up her right hand, and he noticed her fingers were stained with blue ink. “I swear.”

“I want to be on Road Rules.”

“Road rules?” She stared at him. “What the hell is that?”

“It’s a show. On MTV.” He felt his face starting to turn red again. Why was he telling her this? He hadn’t told anyone; it was his deepest secret. He knew the kids at school would make fun of him if he said anything—and God forbid he tell his mother. She hated MTV—she hated television in general. He could only watch when she wasn’t around.

“They put like six kids in an RV and send them all over the place,” Chris said. “Like South America, or the Pacific Islands, or Australia or Europe. It’s always some place really, really cool, and they have all these really cool but hard missions, like bungee jumping or walking tightropes, or learning how to kickbox, you know, cool stuff that’s really hard to do. They have to face their fears, like heights or bugs and stuff, and if they complete all their missions they win prizes. It’s really cool. They have to learn how to work as a team and get along with each other, and they’re all complete strangers in the beginning, and they’re always really different types, and—”

Her face was completely blank.

“Don’t you watch MTV?” he asked.

She gave him a withering look. “I don’t watch any television.”

“Now you sound like my mom.”

“Maybe she’s on to something.”

Once again they’d hit a stalemate. Her cigarette was almost gone; Chris worried that she’d be getting up to leave.

“So what do your parents do?”

She looked away from him. “My father writes books. He’s away on a book tour now, leaving me with my brand-new stepmother.” Her voice sounded bitter. “She’s probably nice enough—but she’s like only twenty-two or something. It’s gross.”

“Where’s your mom?”

“Dead.” Jessie let out a ring of blue smoke. “She’s dead.”

“Sorry.” He swallowed. Much as his mother annoyed him, he didn’t know what he’d do if she weren’t around anymore. “I didn’t mean to—”

She shrugged again. “It was a couple of years ago.” She sighed. “She was pretty cool. I mean, she pissed me off now and then, but overall, she was cool. We used to do stuff together, you know? Just me and her. She was into all kinds of stuff—like birds and the sea and stuff. She wrote poetry. She liked to play the guitar and sing—and she had the best laugh.” She stared at a man walking his dog for a moment, and then turned back to him. “Do your parents know? About this road show thing?”

“No. They’d think it was stupid. Especially my mom. She’d think it was a waste of my time.”

“Why do you want to do it, then? To piss her off?”

“I just think it would be cool.” He stretched his long legs out in front of him and crossed them at the ankles. “Pissing my mom off would just be an added bonus.” He grinned at her. “What about you? What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Jessie didn’t answer right away. She tossed her cigarette down to the sidewalk and ground it out with her black boot. “Alive,” she said finally. “I want to be alive.”

He searched her face to see if she was teasing him, but he couldn’t read her. She was idly pulling on her lower lip.

She withdrew another cigarette and lit it, blowing out a stream of smoke through her nose. “Do you have dreams?” she asked, turning her brown eyes back to him. “I mean, everyone dreams, but do you remember yours?”

“Sometimes.” Most of them were erotic, about beautiful naked women who kissed him and stroked his chest and let him—but he didn’t want to tell her that.

“What do you dream about?”

“I don’t know.” He folded his arms. “Sometimes they’re really weird, you know, like riding an elephant on the beach or something like that, but usually I don’t remember them.”

“Do you ever have nightmares?” she asked.

“Um, I guess, sometimes.”

“Do you remember them? What are they about?”

Okay, she’s getting weird on me. Maybe she was trying to shock him. Girls like her did that a lot. Tried to come off all weird and alternative and shit, just to be in control.

“Well,” Chris said, not willing to let that happen, “the only one I ever really remember is one where I’m bouncing on a trampoline.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“But I keep bouncing and I get higher and higher, until I get so high that the trampoline is only about the size of a postage stamp and I know that I’m too high up, and then I’m falling, and I know the trampoline isn’t going to be able to hold me and bounce me back up, and it’s just coming toward me faster and faster and just as I’m about to hit it I wake up.”

He shivered. He couldn’t believe he told her about that. He hated that dream. He always woke up sweating and trembling when he had it. He didn’t understand the dream; he wasn’t afraid of heights or anything, but it always scared him, made his heart race, and it took a long time for him to get back to sleep.

“Nightmares occur for a reason,” Jessie said. “I’ve pretty much determined that.”

“What, are you an expert?”

“You could say that.” She shook her head. “I wish—I wish I could forget my nightmares, but they won’t go away. I try everything—my psychiatrist gave me pills once, but they didn’t help.” She shuddered. “I mean, they were supposed to make me sleep without dreaming, but it only made things worse.”

“You were seeing a psychiatrist?” He was starting to think he might be learning too much, too fast, about this strange girl in black.

“Isn’t everyone?” Jessie’s tone was bitter. “My dad thought I needed one when my mother died. Everybody thought I was crazy.” She gave a bitter bark of a laugh. “They still do. That’s why they call me ‘Spook.’ That’s why I’m homeschooled. That’s why I don’t have any friends.”

“Wow.” He felt stupid. “I don’t think you’re crazy.”

“Thanks.” She stubbed out her cigarette. “I’ll give you this. You might not be quick, but you’re kind of sweet.”

He grinned widely. “I try.”

“And now I have this stepmother.” She lit another cigarette, her third. “She’s not even ten years older than me. How gross is that? But I’m the crazy one. Dad goes out and marries some total stranger young enough to be his daughter, for Christ’s sake—and doesn’t even tell me about her until they’re married—but I’m crazy.” Her fingers twitched. “Doesn’t he know—” She broke off and looked away.

“Know what?”

“Nothing.” She stood up. “Nice meeting you, Chris.”

“Can I walk you home?”

“You don’t mind being seen with the town whack-job?” She raised her eyebrows. “Think of your reputation, Chris. Everyone thinks I’m crazy—and everyone can’t be wrong, can they?”

“I don’t care what anyone thinks.”

“Not even your mom?”

He stopped and stared at her. A weak smile twitched at the corner of her lips. He grinned back at her. “Especially not my mom.”

They started walking in silence up Commercial Street. “You wanna go see a movie or something sometime?” he blurted out, his face reddening again. Smooth move, stud man, he cursed himself.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. You’re a nice guy, and there’s a lot about me…” Jessie paused and didn’t continue.

“A lot about you what?”

“Never mind.” She started walking again.

“You never said what books you checked out.” He changed the subject, figuring he’d ask her again later.

“Are you sure you want to know?”

“Why wouldn’t I? They’re just books.”

“Books are very powerful, Chris. The pen is mightier than the sword, after all.” She stopped and opened her bag, pulling the three books out and handing them over to him. He looked at the spines. Demonic Possession. The Golden Bough. By Bell, Book and Candle: Exorcism Rituals. He handed them back to her.

She stared into his face. “Aren’t you glad you asked?”

He just stared at her, not sure what to say. Who was this girl?

A taunting half smile crept across her face. “Do you want to know why I checked these out? Do you really want to know?”

He stood firm. “Yes,” he said.

“I’ll make a deal with you, Chris. I’ll tell you why, and then, after that, if you still want to take me to a movie, I’ll go with you.”

“Deal,” he said.

She leaned close to him. “I think I’m possessed,” she whispered.

She pulled back to look up at him. Her crooked little half smile came back. “So, do you still want to take me to a movie?”

He stared down at her. Who was this girl? he asked himself again.

His face betrayed his thoughts—his feelings of confusion, weirdness, revulsion. What kind of a girl would say such a thing? What kind of a girl would want to check such books out of the local library?

“That’s what I thought,” she said.

And she turned, running away from him.

“Hey, wait, I wasn’t—”

Wasn’t what? he asked himself. Wasn’t just getting a little bit freaked out by you? If that was her intention—to shock him, to freak out—she’d finally succeeded.

He thought about running after her, to prove to her that he wasn’t so easily weirded out.

But somehow, he couldn’t. He just stood there, watching her run down the street with her crazy-ass books.

Possessed? What the hell is that supposed to mean?

He turned, letting out a long sigh of disappointment and heading for the shuttle stop to take him home.