The Unquiet (21 page)

“Nate, it’s exactly like you told me. Everything bad that happens to people happens
after
they’re in there.”

Nate says wearily. “I never should’ve told you that stuff. Those are
stories
, Rinn. Urban legends. Whatever.”

“What about the dead cat?”

“You’re the one who said it might’ve been sick in the first place.”

“That’s before I put it all together.” I inch closer to him. “Look, we’re in the tunnel, right? And Lacy goes nuts and attacks me. Then she starts with the migraines. Meg’s ears ring constantly, plus she’s different, Nate. She’s
down
all the time.
Then Cecilia gets locked in there and now she can’t sing. Now look what happened to Dino.”

Nate stays silent.

“You don’t see a pattern here?”

“We all use that tunnel,” he reasons. “All of us, every day.”

I blow out my breath in increments. “Why’d I know you’d say that?”

“Because it’s true. The rest of us are fine.
I
never noticed any funny air. And hey, what about Bennie? He’s in there more than any of us, cleaning and stuff. Why doesn’t something happen to him?”

I study my folded hands. I forgot about Bennie.

Nate slides closer, too. “You’re talking about earaches and headaches and people losing their voices. But then Dino dies? That’s a pretty big leap.”

“Maybe he saw something.”

“‘Something’?” he repeats. “A ghost, you mean?”

“Yes, a ghost!” I rush on over his explosive sigh. “That séance, Nate. Before that, it was like you said: things happened to people, but nothing serious, right? Aside from that drunk teacher, I mean. But then we had the séance, and—oh, I don’t know! But what if we did something in there? Released some kind of power?”

Something strong enough to hurt. To kill, even.

Nate responds with an incredulous head shake. Stubbornly I insist, “You weren’t there. You didn’t see how
eerie
it was, how they all sat there like dummies. Not moving. Not talking. Then when I ran for help, they strolled out like nothing happened.”

“They were playing you, Rinn.”

“I thought of that, too. Except now Dino’s dead.”

“Yeah, Dino’s dead. But you can’t tell me that has something to do with that séance.” Nate pats my leg. “Look, all those things, they’re like random nothings. Shit happens, surfer girl. Every day, every minute.”

His touch, through my jeans, quenches my frustration. I throw up my hands, resigned. “Fine—I’m crazy.”

“Look,” he says impatiently. “We all make jokes about Annaliese. But to believe in ghosts and think they can actually hurt you? What do you think this is? A Poltergeist movie?”

I remember the shadows in the cafeteria that day, the way they didn’t match up to the table legs. My imagination? Or something supernatural?
Either way, it sucks.

“What sucks?”

Holy crap, did I say that out loud?
I think fast. “Okay, say ghosts do exist. Then why Annaliese? Why not my grandmother?” My voice breaks, frustrating me more. “Why can’t
she
come back? Why can’t people be haunted by the people they love? Not by stupid people we never met.”

His hand creeps up my leg, reaching for mine. I watch, entranced, as he takes my fingers and presses them to his lips. Then Nate, who possesses radar far more acute than mine, drops my hand one millisecond before Mom pops up.

“Not to intrude,” she calls sweetly over Gilmour’s guitar. “But your dad’s looking for you, Nate.”

Muting the music with the remote, I wait for Mom to leave us alone to say good-bye. When she doesn’t, Nate politely excuses himself and clomps off downstairs.

“Well,” Mom notes, “I can see he likes
you
.”

I smile. “I like him, too.” My glow fades when Mom’s
forehead pinches with disapproval. “Spare me the lecture. I’ve heard it before.”

“For all the good it did. This is your
bedroom
, Rinn.” Ignoring my blaze of indignation—
is she always going to suspect me of screwing around?
—she disappears back down the stairwell.

Saturday, November 8

Barton’s Funeral Home is packed, even with people you wouldn’t expect to show up. Like some of the football jocks, because of Jared, of course. Tasha, Lacy, and Meg are all here. Nate, too. Even Mr. Solomon and most of the teachers.

Dino’s dad, in an outdated black suit and minus the bandana, looks strangely calm. I figure out why when I smell the liquor on his breath. His wife, Deb—silent, unfocused—hangs on his arm like she’s drugged on downers. Maybe she is.

In front of the casket, Mr. Mancini’s dark eyes, identical to Dino’s, meet mine first. Then they rest on my mother’s outstretched hand.

“Joey, Deb,” she says. “I am so sorry.”

He accepts her shake with his own grease-stained hand. “Monica, Monica … been a long time, ain’t it? Y’know, I told
your little girl here to tell you I said hi, to stop by sometime. She ever give you my message?”

Mom looks at me. “I forgot,” I say reluctantly. It’s true. I never thought about Creepy Red Bandana Dude again.

Mom extricates herself from Mr. Mancini’s grip. “You’ve already met Rinn?”

“Yep.” He flashes yellow teeth.

I nod back. Then, impulsively, I touch Mrs. Mancini’s sleeve. “I’m sorry about Dino.”

Dino’s mom, thin and plain, works her mouth like she wants to smile and can’t remember how. Mr. Mancini chuckles humorlessly. “Me, too, honey. Now I gotta run that damn garage all by myself.” He shoves his hands into his shabby suit coat. “Monica Parker. Well, well.”

Mom’s smile never wavers.

Mr. Mancini sways, knocking his spooky wife off balance. Uncaring, she fiddles with a sweater button. “Know what my momma used to say to me, Monica? ‘What goes around comes around,’ that’s what she said. Reckon I’m just now figurin’ out what she meant by that.”

Mom, after a dreadful pause, murmurs some nicety. Then she draws me away, leaving the Mancinis to mingle with the next victims in line.

“What was that all about?” I hiss. “What did he mean?”

“It’s a saying, Rinn.”

“I
know
it’s a saying.”

“I have no idea what he meant.”

“And what’s wrong with
her
?”

“Car accident, ten years ago. Joey was driving drunk. He
spent two years in prison for it. Poor Deb was in a coma for nine months.”

So this is Dino’s family: a drunk, obnoxious dad and a braindamaged mom.

I should’ve been nicer to him when I had the chance.

Mom brightens as Nate and Luke Brenner approach. So do I.

“Closed casket,” Nate notes with some relief.

Nana had a closed casket, too, although at the time I’d wished it was open. I even asked Frank to lift the lid so I could see for myself that people weren’t lying to me, that she really did die from the smoke and not from the flames. Frank’s reaction to that made
me
want to crawl into that casket.

Nate notices my shudder. “What’s wrong?”

I will not panic. I’m sick of being such a baby. Sick of popping a pill when things get to be too much.

I unclench my clammy hands. “Too stuffy in here.”

Nate weaves me around the milling visitors. Tasha waves, but I’m too distraught to wave back. On the way outside we pass Lacy, too, slumped and sullen, hemmed in by her parents. I ignore her as well.

On the freshly shoveled and salted porch, Nate opens his jacket wide, draws me in, and folds the leather around me. I forget my panic. I forget I’m at a wake, pretending to grieve for a dead boy I didn’t care for much. Engulfed by Nate’s warmth, sheltered by his arms, I’m exactly where I want to be at this moment. When his lips touch my hair, I lift my face. Like magic, those lips find mine and my arms slide around his waist. We kiss, and we kiss, while I wonder, dazed, why I can still feel the rock salt crunching under my boots.

By now I should surely be floating to the sky.

Sunday, November 9

It’s a cold, bleak, wet day for a funeral. After Reverend Kessler, Lacy’s dad, delivers the final blessing, one by one we drop roses on the casket. Bennie Unger, his neon orange cap squashed over his head as usual, squints at me. I wave halfheartedly. He then wipes sleet off his face and lumbers over to toss his flower at Dino’s casket. He misses.

I huddle by a tree while Mom and Mr. Brenner talk to the Mancinis. I don’t think Dino’s father had a chance to hit the bottle today; he looks haggard and miserable. Mrs. Mancini, as lifeless as yesterday, drifts through the snow like a rag blowing in the wind.

Lacy stands with her family, her shoulders convulsing, tears dripping endlessly. I know she and Dino had a thing going on, but I never expected
this
reaction out of her. Before I can decide whether or not to walk over, I notice Mr. Mancini pass something to Mom. Over the wind, and other
conversations around me, I make out two words: “Dino” and “pool.”

Then he collapses, sobbing, to his knees in the muddy snow. Dino’s mom picks at her gloves, ignoring the anxious onlookers who gather around her husband.

Stomach fluttering, I trudge off toward the cemetery gate. All I want is to go home, grab a book, and crawl into bed. But Nate sloshes over and catches my hand. “Hey.”

I know by his smile that he’s thinking about how we kissed. My mood spikes. I smile back and squeeze his hand. “Hey.” That’s as far as it goes, because Mom and Luke hurry to join us. I drop Nate’s hand and ask Mom, “What did Mr. Mancini say about the pool?”

Mom shifts her Jimmy Choo boots while Luke shakes out a cigarette. “Oh, that. Well, what he said was”—she gazes longingly at Luke’s Newports—“he knows why Dino was by the pool that night.” With great care, Mom rearranges her scarf before reaching into her coat pocket. She hands over the mysterious item, adding in a peculiar, distrustful tone, “They found this in his pocket.”

Speechless, I finger the broken ceramic shard. It’s the base of my candleholder, my name plainly carved into the jagged red disk:

Rinn Jacobs

I know it wasn’t my idea that Dino climb that fence. But I didn’t go out of my way to discourage him, either. Yes, he did tell me to leave if anyone showed up. But what if I’d stayed?
Aside from what happened to Nana, I’ve never felt so guilty. Or so afraid.

There are “doings” going on back at Barton’s, coffee and cookies, nothing fancy. But Lacy begs Meg, Tasha, and me to come home with her instead. “I gotta talk to you guys in private. No boys allowed,” she adds to Nate.

I hesitate. Mom and Luke are a half a block ahead of us, heading toward the funeral home. But Nate says, “Go on, go. I’ll let your mom know. Call me later?”

I nod, deflated, cupping the pottery shard in my coat pocket.

“So what’s up?” Meg asks as we turn to head toward Lacy’s street.

Congested from crying, Lacy croaks, “I’ll tell you when we get there. I have to show you something.”

Lacy’s house is unoccupied except for one fat striped cat stretched across the center hall stairs. Lacy boots him out of our way. “I told my folks I have a headache. They’re so used to hearing me say it they don’t even question me anymore.”

This is the first time I’ve seen Lacy’s room. Surrounded by lace, fluff, and various shades of pink, it’s like plunging headfirst into a cotton candy machine.

As soon as we settle, Lacy starts sniffling again. Meg hugs her. “Aw, Lace. We know you’re sad about Dino. But if you don’t stop crying you
will
get another headache.”

“I’m not crying over Dino! I’m crying about Chad! I e-mailed him again, like you said.” She throws me an accusatory glance.
“He still didn’t answer me. So I kept
on
e-mailing him, like a thousand times. Then last night”—Lacy reaches for a stack of papers on her desk—“I get
this
.”

She hands the first sheet over. We crowd around to read the message:
Hey, sweetie, sorry I missed all your e-mails. Some of the guys and me got a few days off and went to Shanghai. Don’t worry, I been thinking about you every second! I’ll read the rest of your e-mails and get back to you ASAP! Love, Chad

“But that’s good,” Meg proclaims. “It means he’s not blowing you off.”

“Wait.” Lacy thrust a second paper at us. “Then
this
one came this morning.”

No “
Hey, sweetie
” this time. Instead:
Well I finally finished going through your last 39 e-mails. Let me just say that I’m glad I found out NOW what a crazy bitch you are before I did something stupid like MARRY you. You sure that’s my kid? I want proof—because you’re SICK! You need a shrink! Am I the only person who ever told you this? I can’t believe you wrote that stuff. All I can say now is: do not EVER contact me again. FYI, I reported this to my C.O., who says he’ll notify your family if you write me again. P.S. Keep the damn ring.

“What?” Meg howls. “You e-mailed him thirty-nine times? What did you
say
?”

Lacy, face scrunched, hands over the rest of the papers, all but one. We pass them around, and it’s pretty dramatic stuff: Lacy begging Chad to answer her, demanding to know where her plane ticket is, pleading with him to tell her if he still loves her or not. Nothing bad enough to make her look “sick”—only possessive, frantic, and
really
annoying.