40

TATE.

I hate Tate. I’ve always hated Tate.

The years have stretched between us, but his memory is still there, vivid enough to leave an acrid taste in my mouth.

I want to spit it out, but there’s no place to spit in Marcy’s bedroom. Instead, I swallow something gooey and take a deep breath. My heart starts thumping faster and faster in my chest.

Is Tate out? How the hell else would there be a pizza from Pizza Depot in Bellingham in Marcy’s house? Her parents, sure as shit, didn’t bring it. They’re not even home. They’ve been gone since yesterday, down at the Indian Casino.

If not Tate, who else would bring a pizza from an hour away and leave it in Marcy’s kitchen, three quarters eaten?

For all I know, Tate could be in the house right now, hiding in a closet or squirreled away downstairs with Marcy’s goldfish, ready to jump out at any moment, holding a butcher knife and more than willing to cut.

I feel scary invisible eyes at my back.

This time, I don’t whip my head around. I know that Myers is still there, murmuring to himself, lost in clouds. Instead, my fingers glide across Marcy’s keyboard again, but this time I don’t look for pizza. I look for something much, much worse.

The Bellingham School.

A bunch of stuff comes up all at once, along with images of the town of Bellingham and the Quabbin Reservoir, the largest body of water in Massachusetts. The Quabbin provides most of the drinking water for the state. It touches the edge of Bellingham at one corner, before running alongside Apple, Hollowton, and some other places that I would never be caught dead visiting.

I scroll through the entries, my eyes jockeying back and forth as the words spill out of the screen, until I find what I need—the Bellingham School’s main phone number.

I pick up Marcy’s house phone again, and for a second time, I make a call to a town that I haven’t thought about in years—until today.

The phone rings four times before somebody answers. “Bellingham,” says a woman on the other end of the line. “How may I direct your call?” At first, I don’t know what I’m going to say, and the silence lingers between the two of us until it starts to have heft and weight.

“Um . . . ”

“Hello?” says the woman. She sounds a little rushed and even more annoyed, like the man from Pizza Depot. “Can I help you?”

“Hi,” I say, and then I lie, because lying is something that we have all perfected. “My brother is a . . . a student there. I was hoping I could talk to him?”

I’m tempted to hang up the phone. I don’t know what I’m saying. I don’t know what I’m doing. Still, I need to know if Tate is there, all comfy and cozy with his spork and his pudding, or if he is somehow here in Meadowfield, a twisted Michael Myers who has escaped from his maximum security mental health facility, killing a dozen people along the way, all so he can bring a pizza to his sister.

The woman at The Bellingham School sighs and recites a practiced line. “Students are not allowed incoming calls. They can only make outgoing calls between 10am and noon or 5pm to 7pm.”

“Oh . . .” I say. My eyes are squeezed shut. I don’t want to see Tate rush into Marcy’s room, a bloody knife in his hand because he’s already gutted her and Anders. I don’t want to see him swing his arm wide. If he’s going to kill me, let him kill me. I don’t want to fight. I want it over with.

“It’s important,” I breathe into the phone. Part of me wants to blurt out that I’m in Meadowfield, an hour away, and I think that Tate is no longer in the building with her. He’s in the house with me.

“Who is your brother?” the woman asks, but she does it in a hushed voice like she’s breaking the rules and if she gets caught, then she’ll lie, probably as effortlessly as me.

“Tate Cole,” I breathe into the phone. I can feel the awkward untruth slithering out of my mouth like one of those slimy earth worms that squirm at the end of fishing hook owned by a master baiter.

“I’m going to transfer you over to Tate’s counselor,” she says. The words don’t make sense at first—Tate’s counselor. Why would he have a counselor? Is he at camp?

The phone on the other end goes quiet except for a gentle humming. After a moment, I hear a click and someone picks up.

“Guidance,” says a man’s voice. “This is Eddie Bick. How may I help you?”

“I . . . I was hoping to speak to my brother,” I lie into the phone. Every fiber of my being is screaming for me to hang up right now, but I don’t.

“Call-out hours are between 10am and noon or 5pm to 7pm,” says Eddie Bick like the receptionist before him. “We don’t allow incoming calls.” I must sound like a 10-year-old girl to him because he punctuates his standard riff on calling privileges at The Bellingham School by saying, “Do your parents know you’re calling?”

I don’t know what to tell him, and once again, every cell in my body screams for me to hang up right now, but I don’t. Instead, I say, “It’s really important.”

“I’m sorry,” he says “Thems the rules.” Those last three words are uttered in such a flippant way, all I can think is that he sounds more like his name should be Epic Dick instead of Eddie Bick. Thankfully, Epic Dick makes an epic gesture of good faith. “What’s your brother’s name?”

“Tate,” I delicately whisper into Marcy’s house phone.

“Tate Cole,” he says. “And you are?”

I don’t stop to breathe. I don’t stop to think. I say the first lie that crawls onto my tongue. “Mark Cole.”

“Okay, right,” says Eddie Bick, not missing a beat. “Sure. I’ll leave a message for Tate to call home at the normal calling hours. He’s playing ping pong right now and killing it.”

Eddie Bick uses such choice words that I almost flinch.

“Okay,” I say into the phone and slowly hang up. Only then do I realize that I’ve been holding my breath through that whole brief conversation.

Tate’s not in Meadowfield. He’s not here.

He’s not gripping the handle of a bloody knife in his fist.

He’s far away playing ping pong and ‘killing’ it.

During call-out times, about the only thing he’s doing is making prank phone calls to local pizza shops to ask if they have Prince Albert in a can, because if they do, they should let him out.

At least I know one thing for sure. Tate didn’t bring pizza from Pizza Depot in Bellingham here to Meadowfield and Primrose Lane.

Still, if not Tate, then who?