You went to school with Z in Arizona?
Yeah.
And were you friends with him?
Who wasn’t? When his grandmother died, I swear, half the people who went to the funeral didn’t know her. They were friends who’d gone to support him. When the school found out that Z was moving to live with other relatives, it was like a national day of mourning.
So he had a profound effect on people. Why do you think that was?
Well, you have to understand something about Z. He was interested in everyone. He made it his job. You’d start off talking about the weather, and two seconds later you’d be telling him your life story. He asked questions… They weren’t intrusive, really. More like the questions you wished someone would ask about you. If you had a problem, he’d try to work it out for you. He had this knack for bringing out the best in everyone.
So he had a lot of close friends?
Weirdly, no. More like admirers. I mean, you’d come out of a conversation loving him, but later you’d realize you knew absolutely nothing about him. He rarely talked about himself.
—Police interview with Rolly Vine, senior at Southwest High School, Phoenix, Arizona
The next adventure didn’t come right away. Z had a knack for timing. He’d wait until you were begging for attention and then spring something on you. But only a little. He’d never give you enough to satisfy you because that would give you control.
Oh no, he always had control. I see that now, Andrew.
But then? I’d only known him a few hours, and already I’d been struck blind. The rest of that day was like all the others that had come before it. The only difference was that instead of paying attention to my studies, I was paying attention to him. I’d peer at him out of the corner of my eye or bend down to get a pencil out of my bag, letting my hair fall in my eyes, and check to see what he was doing.
I won’t bore you with the details, but watching him was anything but boring. You know how people buy magazines with pictures of famous people just walking down the street or whatever, doing their own thing? Watching him was like that, somehow fascinating.
History and trig went by—boring, boring, boring—and I thought he would lean over and whisper something funny, like “When will it end?” or “Kill me now, this is so dull,” or maybe just ask to borrow a sheet of notebook paper, but no.
During lunch, I sat at my lonely spot in the corner of the cafeteria, thinking he might join me, but he sat with a bunch of popular jocks. Baseball players.
In gym, I sat on the bleachers by myself, waiting for Ms. Phelps to call my name to be assigned a locker. Z tipped an imaginary hat at Parker Cole and Rachel Watson as they sat huddled together, discussing something riveting like nail polish colors, but he walked right past me.
Putting himself out there, I guess. Isn’t that what he’d said? Getting to know everyone so he wouldn’t be a ghost like me. By chemistry, he’d morphed into just another one of the kids at school. I started to wonder if our morning excursion together had been a dream. Illusory. When the bell signaling early release rang, Z slid out of his seat and disappeared without so much as a “See you.”
On the bus ride home, I’d pretty much accepted that my breakfast with Z would never be repeated. I wasn’t deflated though. I’d started to think it was better that way. I didn’t need any distractions. My mind cleared, and I began to think of you again. When the bus dropped me off on the corner of Spruce Street and I walked past your house, I could hear you practicing your Chopin. It was hot, and the front door was open to catch the breeze, so I just walked in and sat beside you. Without skipping a beat, you broke into “Chopsticks” for me, and I filled in the “Heart and Soul.”
After our duet ended, you said, “So fill me in. Gory details.”
I shrugged and told you it was the same old story. But you knew I was lying. I was trying not to make anything out of cutting class with Z—because surely it was nothing—but the more I tried to ignore it, the more my mind replayed what had happened. You didn’t have to pry it out of me. The news just slipped out. “There was a new kid at school.”
“Oh yeah?” You were busy studying your sheet music. The light streamed in through the blinds, and I could see that you’d really been going to town on the side of your head. The hair was plucked clean in a large, round patch behind your ear, leaving red, raw scalp. “Is he hot?”
“I didn’t say he was a he.”
You didn’t look at me. Your long fingers grazed the keys. “I can tell by your voice.”
“What?”
“It went up an octave. You’re pretending like it’s no big deal, but you think he’s hot.”
I both love and hate how you know me so well. I thought about denying it, but I knew you wouldn’t believe me, so I told you that he was kind of cute, which you probably knew was the understatement of the century. You sighed, the same sigh I’d heard a zillion times before when you wished we could go to school together.
“How were things here?” I asked.
“Same old, same old.”
But for you, I knew it was. Your mother had your routine down to a science. Caring for you was your mother’s vocation, what filled her days with purpose. I don’t recall a single day that I’ve come home from school and not found you at your piano. Piano practice was from one to three. Which was probably why I knew she’d come in with iced chamomile tea and homemade sugar-free cookies. Snack time.
“Oh, hi, Victoria!” She usually prefaced everything she said with an “Oh,” as if seeing me there was a surprise, which it totally wasn’t. She handed me a glass with a swirly, twirly straw. Mrs. Quinn didn’t want to accept that you were too old for such things, and I loved that you never argued. You just let her go on with her delusion.
You never faulted your mother for anything. Just yourself.
I hated that about you.
“Hi, Mrs. Quinn. Thanks,” I said, taking a cookie from the plate. I bit into it, and when she offered me another, I shook my head. I know your mother was strict about your diabetes because she had to be, but damn, her cookies have the texture of cardboard.
Then she just stood there and stared at us.
You cleared your throat, hoping she’d get the hint, but she didn’t. She said very carefully, “Did you have a nice day at school, Victoria?”
I nodded.
“First day, right?”
“Yep. I was just filling your son in on all the excitement,” I said in a hushed voice, so maybe she’d get the idea that our conversation was private.
Her smile faded. “Oh. Right.”
I remember that lingering look you gave her, long after she’d left. You just kept staring at the doorway to the kitchen, guilt evident on your face. You always thought you were your mother’s ball and chain, her biggest nuisance, didn’t you?
You swung back to the piano and started to play for me. You know all my favorite songs. Frank Sinatra has nothing on you. Someday, when I’m old and gray…
“Those aren’t the right words,” I whispered.
You grinned, that way you do when you’re poking fun at me for being a know-it-all. Then you started from the beginning, screwing up the lyrics again. I cringed as tears started to fill my eyes. I don’t know why; I guess I’m always emotional on the first day of school. “Stop it.”
You stopped, took my hand, and kissed every fingertip in apology. Then you wrapped my hand in your own and squeezed. Your hands were warm too. I loved them—so graceful. I loved watching your long fingers glide across the keys. And your singing…oh, your singing. Sometimes I would dream of you performing in a big, packed concert hall, like Carnegie Hall. You’d have gotten me front-row tickets, and I’d have a pile of crumpled tissues in my lap from crying my eyes out. Even the funny songs you played made emotions ball up inside me, pushing their way out as tears.
We sat down on your couch, that ugly, flowered one, under your giant family picture. The walls of that room are covered in every picture of you ever taken, framed, and matted, from the day of your birth right on up, like a shrine to the Only Quinn Child. But that family portrait…wow. The Picture from Hell. That’s what you called it, right? Your mom is smiling like a debutante; your eyes are bulging like a deer caught in headlights; and your stepdad’s mouth is set in a straight line, like he’d rather be anywhere else. Your mom blew it up extra big because she’s weird like that. There were other, better pictures, but your mom liked that one because “it shows our souls.”
I always wondered what my soul would look like if I were in that picture. Now, I think it would be entirely black because of the things I’ve done to hurt you.
“Got your meeting with Leary tomorrow?” you asked me.
I winced at the thought. “At three,” I grumbled, thinking of Father Leary, the unofficial guidance counselor at school. He was quite the jokester, so most students loved him. I wasn’t one of them. My once-a-week meetings started when I began at St. Ann’s, to “ease the transition into a new school,” but nothing about meeting with him had made the transition easy. Even though I complained every week that the sessions were worthless, my parents still thought they were beneficial. “Necessary,” my dad had said, but that didn’t change my opinion.
Your stepdad always came home at four thirty. You ushered me out before then. You were at your weakest when he was around, and you didn’t like me seeing that. We made plans to meet that evening at our place in the backyard.
I was late that night because I’d been covering all my textbooks with contact paper. There were still no fireflies.
“Want to do something with me for my birthday?” you murmured in the darkness when I’d slid down against the fence.
“Of course. I’ll have to check my busy social schedule though.”
You chuckled softly. Back then, we were each other’s social schedule. “Murray Perahia. You in?”
“At the Center for the Arts? You know it,” I said right away. I’d seen the ad in the Central Maine Express Times, and you’d been talking about those tickets for months. You were willing to brave Bangor for the concert, which shows how much it meant to you. Perahia was your God. Me? Music lost its allure when you weren’t the one playing it.
You said something then like, “That is, if you haven’t dumped me for your Hot New Student.” I laughed at the preposterousness of that idea.
Except now, when I think about it, Andrew, I see that you knew it was destined to happen all along.