The Last Boy and Girl in the World (35 page)

“Eighteen is totally impossible.”

He crouched down. “I know. But maybe fifteen is possible, if we bust our humps?” He must have seen me frowning because he pleaded, “Just help me get caught up and then you can quit. Remember, you owe me. You needed a job, I gave you a job. And I haven't worked you hard at all. I've basically let you do nothing.”

“I don't know,” I said, keeping him dangling. I liked him begging me.

“What if I give you my pay too? You'll make double today.”

Fifteen houses at twenty bucks a house was three hundred bucks for the day. And since I'd spent all my money yesterday at Walmart, I said, “Fine.”

“I'll see you after school,” he said quickly. And then walked away. I wondered why he'd made such a quick escape, but then Jesse came up.

“What'd Hamrick want?”

“For me to work today.”

“Please, Keeley! Quit that stupid job already!”

“Think of it like this. So long as I stay on Levi's good side, there's no way he'll tell his dad about our Secret Prom.”

Jesse nodded. “Good point. But after that, just quit, okay? We've only got so much time left. I don't want you blowing it with Hamrick.”

I kissed him. “Promise.”

•  •  •

I think I would still have been annoyed with Levi if I hadn't seen the work wearing on him. Not in the same way it wore on me, which was directly tied to my dad. But his own stress. He wanted to please his father. And he was worried about his graduation speech. He kept mumbling lines of it to himself. Whether or not he wanted to admit it, he had to have feelings about graduating. There was no way he was going to Secret Prom, so Friday would be the end of Aberdeen High for him.

So, for his sake, I tried to be a better worker. I bagged up people's discarded possessions faster. It wasn't even that hard, because I was less interested in the things I found. I had long since stopped counting points for weirdness. It was all trash, trash that was sinking my dad's efforts, and the faster I threw it away, the less it got to me.

“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.”

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.