- -
- 100%
- +
First published in the USA by Dial Books 2015
This edition published 2015 by Electric Monkey,
an imprint of Egmont UK Limited
The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN
Text copyright © Huntley Fitzpatrick 2015.
Published by arrangement with Dial, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
First e-book edition 2016
ISBN 978 1 4052 8039 6
Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1739 7
www.egmont.co.uk
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.
Stay safe online. Any website addresses listed in this book are correct at the time of going to print. However, Egmont is not responsible for content hosted by third parties.
Please be aware that online content can be subject to change and websites can contain content that is unsuitable for children. We advise that all children are supervised when using the internet.
To my mother, who knew how to love. And had a weakness for troublemakers with hearts of gold.
To my father, who has always loved and admired strong women.
And to Georgia Funsten and Patricia Young, the smartest and strongest women I know.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Epilogue
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Back series promotional page
Chapter One
I’ve been summoned to see the Nowhere Man.
He’s at his desk when I step inside the gray cave of his office, his back turned.
“Uh, Pop?”
He holds up his hand, keeps scribbling on a blue-lined pad.
Standard operating procedure.
I flick my eyes around the room: the mantel, the carpet, the bookshelves, the window; try to find a comfortable place to land.
No dice.
Ma’s fond of “cute” – teddy bears in seasonal outfits and pillows with little sayings and shit she gets on QVC. They’re everywhere. Except here, a room spliced out of John Grisham, all leather-bound, only muted light through the shades. August heat outdoors, but no hint of that allowed here. I face the rear of Pop’s neck, hunch further into the gray, granite-hard sofa, rub my eyes, sink back on my elbows.
On his desk, three pictures of Nan, my twin, at various ages – poofy red curls, missing teeth, then baring them in braces. Always worried eyes. Two more of her on the wall, straightened hair, expensive white smile, plus a framed newspaper clipping of her after delivering a speech at this summer’s Stony Bay Fourth of July thing.
No pics of me.
Were there ever? Can’t remember. In the bad old days, I always got high before a father/son office visit.
Clear my throat.
Crack my knuckles.
“Pop? You asked to see me?”
He actually startles. “Tim?”
“Yep.”
Swiveling the chair, he looks at me. His eyes, like Nan’s and my own, are gray. Match his hair. Match his office.
“So,” he says.
I wait. Try not to scope out the bottle of Macallan on the . . . what do you call it. Sidebar? Sideboard? Generally, Ma brings in the ice in the little silver bucket thing ten minutes after he gets home from work, six p.m., synched up like those weird-ass cuckoo clock people who pop out of their tiny wooden doors, dead on schedule when the clock strikes, so Pop can have the first of his two scotches ready to go.
Today must be special. It’s only three o’clock and there’s the bucket, oozing cool sweat like I am. Even when I was little I knew he’d leave the second drink half-finished. So I could slurp down the last of the scotchy ice water without him knowing while he was washing his hands before dinner. Can’t remember when I started doing that, but it was well before my balls dropped.
“Ma said you wanted to talk.”
He brushes some invisible whatever from his knee, like his attention’s already gone. “Did she say why?”
I clear my throat again. “Because I’m moving out? Planning to do that. Today.” Ten minutes ago, ideally.
His eyes return to mine. “Do you think this is the best choice for you?”
Classic Nowhere Man. Moving out was hardly my choice. His ultimatum, in fact. The only “best choice” I’ve made lately was to stop drinking. Etc.
But Pop likes to tack and turn, and no matter that this was his order, he can shove that rudder over without even looking and make me feel like shit.
“I asked you a question, Tim.”
“It’s fine. It’s a good idea.”
Pop steeples his fingers, sets his chin on them, my chin, cleft and all. “How long has it been since you got kicked out of Ellery Prep?”
“Uh. Eight months.” Early December. Hadn’t even unpacked my suitcase from Thanksgiving break.
“Since then you’ve had how many jobs?”
Maybe he doesn’t remember. I fudge it. “Um. Three.”
“Seven,” Pop corrects.
Damn.
“How many of those were you fired from?”
“I still have the one at –”
He pivots in his chair, halfway back to his desk, frowns down at his cell phone. “How many?”
“Well, I quit the senator’s office, so really only five.”
Pop twists back around, lowers the phone, studies me over his reading glasses. “I’m very clear on the fact that you left that job. You say ‘only’ like it’s something to brag about. Fired from five out of seven jobs since February. Kicked out of three schools . . . do you know that I’ve never been let go from a job in my life? Never gotten a bad performance review? A grade lower than a B? Neither has your sister.”
Right. Perfect old Nano. “My grades were always good,” I say. My eyes stray again to the Macallan. Need something to do with my hands. Rolling a joint would be good.
“Exactly,” Pop says. He jerks from the chair, nearly as angular and almost as tall as me, drops his glasses on the desk with a clatter, runs his hands quickly through his short hair, then focuses on scooping out ice and measuring scotch.
I catch a musky, iodine-y whiff of it, and man, it smells good.
“You’re not stupid, Tim. But you sure act that way.”
Yo-kay . . . he’s barely spoken to me all summer. Now he’s on my nuts? But I should try. I drag my eyes off the caramel-colored liquid in his glass and back to his face.
“Pop. Dad. I know I’m not the son you would have . . . special ordered –”
“Would you like a drink?”
He sloshes more scotch into another glass, uncharacteristically careless, sets it out on the Columbia University coaster on the side table next to the couch, slides it toward me. He tips his own glass to his lips, then places it neatly on his coaster, almost completely chugged.
Well, this is fucked up.
“Uh, look.” My throat’s so tight, my voice comes out weird – husky, then high-pitched. “I haven’t had a drink or anything like that since the end of June, so that’s, uh, fifty-nine days, but who’s counting. I’m doing my best. And I’ll –”
Pop has steepled his hands and is scrutinizing the fish tank against the wall.
I’m boring him.
“And I’ll keep doin’ it . . .” I trail off.
There’s a long pause. During which I have no idea what he’s thinking. Only that my best friend is on his way over, and my Jetta in the driveway is seeming more and more like a getaway car.
“Four months,” Pop says, in this, like, flat voice, like he’s reading it off a piece of paper. Since he’s turned back to look down at his desk, it’s possible.
“Um . . . yes . . . What?”
“I’m giving you four months from today to pull your life together. You’ll be eighteen in December. A man. After that, unless I see you acting like one – in every way – I’m cutting off your allowance, I’ll no longer pay your health and car insurance, and I’ll transfer your college fund into your sister’s.”
Not as though there was ever a welcome mat under me, but whatever the fuck was there has been yanked out and I’m slammed down hard on my ass.
Wait . . . what?
A man by December. Like, poof, snap, shazam. Like there’s some expiration date on . . . where I am now.
“But –” I start.
He checks his Seiko, hitting a button, maybe starting the countdown. “Today is August twenty-fourth. That gives you until just before Christmas.”
“But –”
He holds up his hand, like he’s slapping the off button on my words. It’s ultimatum number two or nothing.
No clue what to say anyway, but it doesn’t matter, because the conversation is over.
We’re done here.
Unfold my legs, yank myself to my feet, and I head for the door on autopilot.
Can’t get out of the room fast enough.
For either of us, apparently.
Ho, ho, ho to you too, Pop.
Chapter Two
“You’re really doing this?”
I’m shoving the last of my clothes into a cardboard box when my ma comes in, without knocking, because she never does. Risky as hell when you have a horny seventeen-year-old son. She hovers in the doorway, wearing a pink shirt and this denim skirt with – what are those? Crabs? – sewn all over it.
“Just following orders, Ma.” I cram flip-flops into the stuffed box, push down on them hard. “Pop’s wish is my command.”
She takes a step back like I’ve slapped her. I guess it’s my tone. I’ve been sober nearly two months, but I have yet to go cold turkey on assholicism. Ha.
“You had so much I never had, Timothy . . .”
Away we go.
“. . . private school, swimming lessons, tennis camp . . .”
Yep, I’m an alcoholic high school dropout, but check out my backhand!
She shakes out the wrinkles in a blue blazer, one quick motion, flapping it into the air with an abrasive crack. “What are you going to do – keep working at that hardware store? Going to those meetings?”
She says “hardware store” like “strip club” and “going to those meetings” like “making those sex tapes.”
“It’s a good job. And I need those meetings.”
Ma’s hands start smoothing my stack of folded clothes. Blue veins stand out on her freckled, pale arms. “I don’t see what strangers can do for you that your own family can’t.”
I open my mouth to say: “I know you don’t. That’s why I need the strangers.” Or: “Uncle Sean sure could have used those strangers.” But we don’t talk about that, or him.
I shove a pair of possibly too-small loafers in the box and go over to give her a hug.
She pats my back, quick and sharp, and pulls away.
“Cheer up, Ma. Nan’ll definitely get into Columbia. Only one of your children is a fuck-up.”
“Language, Tim.”
“Sorry. My bad. Cock-up.”
“That,” she says, “is even worse.”
Okeydokey. Whatever.
My bedroom door flies open – again no knock.
“Some girl who sounds like she has laryngitis is on the phone for you, Tim,” Nan says, eyeing my packing job. “God, everything’s going to be all wrinkly.”
“I don’t care –” But she’s already dumped the cardboard box onto my bed.
“Where’s your suitcase?” She starts dividing stuff into piles. “The blue plaid one with your monogram?”
“No clue.”
“I’ll check the basement,” Ma says, looking relieved to have a reason to head for the door. “This girl, Timothy? Should I bring you the phone?”
I can’t think of any girl I have a thing to say to. Except Alice Garrett. Who definitely would not be calling me.
“Tell her I’m not home.”
Permanently.
Nan’s folding things rapidly, piling up my shirts in order of style. I reach out to still her hands. “Forget it. Not important.”
She looks up. Shit, she’s crying.
We Masons cry easily. Curse of the Irish (one of ’em). I loop one elbow around her neck, thump her on the back a little too hard. She starts coughing, chokes, gives a weak laugh.
“You can come visit me, Nano. Any time you need to . . . escape . . . or whatever.”
“Please. It won’t be the same,” Nan says, then blows her nose on the hem of my shirt.
It won’t. No more staying up till nearly dawn, watching old Steve McQueen movies because I think he’s badass and Nan thinks he’s hot. No Twizzlers and Twix and shit appearing in my room like magic because Nan knows massive sugar infusions are the only sure cure for drug addiction.
“Lucky for you. No more covering my lame ass when I stay out all night, no more getting creative with excuses when I don’t show for something, no more me bumming money off you constantly.”
Now she’s wiping her eyes with my shirt. I haul it off, hand it to her. “Something to remember me by.”
She actually folds that, then stares at the neat little square, all sad-faced. “Sometimes it’s like I’m missing everyone I ever met. I actually even miss Daniel. I miss Samantha.”
“Daniel was a pompous prickface and a crap boyfriend. Samantha, your actual best friend, is ten blocks and ten minutes away – shorter if you text her.”
She blows that off, hunkers down, pulling knobbly knees to her chest and lowering her forehead so her hair sweeps forward to cover her blotchy face. Nan and I are both ginger, but she got all the freckles, everywhere, while mine are only across my nose. She looks up at me with that face she does, all pathetic and quivery. I hate that face. It always wins.
“You’ll be fine, Nan.” I tap my temple. “You’re just as smart as me. Much less messed up. At least as far as most people know.”
Nan twitches back. We lock eyes. The elephant in the room lies bleeding out on the floor between us. Then she looks away, gets busy picking up another T-shirt to fold expertly, like the only thing that matters in the world is for the sleeves to align.
“Not really,” she says in a subdued voice. Not taking the bait there either, I guess.
I grope around the quilt on my bed, locate my cigs, light one, and take a deep drag. I know it’s all kinds of bad for me, but God, how does anyone get through the day without smoking? Setting the smoldering butt down in the ashtray, I tap her on the back again, gently this time.
“Hey now. Don’t stress. You know Pop. He wants to add it up and get a positive bottom line. Job. High school diploma. College-bound. Check, check, check. It only has to look good. I can pull that off.”
Don’t know if this is cheering my sister up, but as I talk, the squirming fireball in my stomach cools and settles. Fake it. That I can do.
Mom pops her head into the room. “That Garrett boy’s here. Heavens, put on a shirt, Tim.” She digs in a bureau drawer and thrusts a Camp Wyoda T-shirt I thought I’d ditched years ago at me. Nan leaps up, knuckling away her tears, pulling at her own shirt, wiping her palms on her shorts. She has a zillion twitchy habits – biting her nails, twisting her hair, tapping her pencils. I could always get by on a fake ID, a calm face, and a smile. My sister could look guilty saying her prayers. Feet on the stairs, staccato knock on the door – the one person who knocks! – and Jase comes in, swipes back his damp hair with the heel of one hand.
“Shit, man. We haven’t even started loading and you’re already sweating?”
“Ran here,” he says, hands planted hard his on kneecaps. He glances up. “Hey, Nan.”
Nan, who has turned her back, gives a quick, jerky nod. When she twists around to tumble more neatly balled socks into my cardboard box, her eyes stray to Jase, up, slowly down. He’s the guy girls always look at twice.
“You ran here? It’s like five miles from your house! Are you nuts?”
“Three, and nah.” Jase braces his forearm against the wall, bending his leg, holding his ankle, stretching out. “Seriously out of shape after sitting around the store all summer. Even after three weeks of training camp, I’m nowhere near up to speed.”
“You don’t seem out of shape,” Nan says, then shakes her head so her hair slips forward over her face. “Don’t leave without telling me, Tim.” She scoots out the door.
“You set?” Jase looks around the room, oblivious to my sister’s hormone spike.
“Uh . . . I guess.” I look around too, frickin’ blank. All I can think to take is my clamshell ashtray. “The clothes, anyway. I suck at packing.”
“Toothbrush?” Jase suggests mildly. “Razor. Books, maybe? Sports stuff.”
“My lacrosse stick from Ellery Prep? Don’t think I’ll need it.” I tap out another cigarette.
“Bike? Skateboard? Swim gear?” Jase glances over at me, smile flashing in the flare of my lighter.
Mom barges back in so fast, the door knocks against the wall. An umbrella and a huge yellow slicker are draped over one arm, an iron in one hand. “You’ll want these. Should I pack you blankets? What happened to that nice boy you were going to move in with, anyway?”
“Didn’t work out.” As in: that nice boy, my AA buddy Connell, relapsed on both booze and crack, called me all slurry and screwed up, full of blurry suck-ass excuses, so he’s obviously out. The garage apartment is my best option.
“Is there even any heat in that ratty place?”
“Jesus God, Ma. You haven’t even seen the frickin’ –”
“It’s pretty reliable,” Jase says, not even wincing. “It was my brother’s, and Joel likes his comforts.”
“All right. I’ll . . . leave you two boys to – carry on.” She pauses, runs her hand through her hair, showing half an inch of gray roots beneath the red. “Don’t forget to take the stenciled paper Aunt Nancy sent in case you need to write thank-you notes.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Ma. Uh, forgetting, I mean.”
Jase bows his head, smiling, then shoulders the cardboard box.
“What about pillows?” she says. “You can tuck those right under the other arm, can’t you, a big strapping boy like you?”
Christ.
He obediently raises an elbow and she rams two pillows into his armpit.
“I’ll throw all this in the Jetta. Take your time, Tim.”
I scan the room one last time. Tacked to the corkboard over my desk is a sheet of paper with the words THE BOY MOST LIKELY TO scrawled in red marker at the top. One of the few days last fall I remember clearly – hanging with a bunch of my (loser) friends at Ellery out by the boathouse where they stowed the kayaks (and the stoners). We came up with our antidote to those stupid yearbook lists: Most likely to be a millionaire by twenty-five. Most likely to star in her own reality show. Most likely to get an NFL contract. Don’t know why I kept the thing.
I pop the list off the wall, fold it carefully, jam it into my back pocket.
Nan emerges as soon as Jase, who’s been waiting for me in the foyer, opens the creaky front door to head out.
“Tim,” she whispers, cool hand wrapping around my forearm. “Don’t vanish.” As if when I leave our house I’ll evaporate like fog rising off the river.
Maybe I will.
By the time we pull into the Garretts’ driveway, I’ve burned through three cigarettes, hitting up the car lighter for the next before I’ve chucked the last. If I could have smoked all of them at once, I would’ve.
“You should kick those,” Jase says, looking out the window, not pinning me with some accusatory face.
I make to hurl the final butt, then stop myself.
Yeah, toss it next to little Patsy’s Cozy Coupe and four-year-old George’s midget baby blue bike with training wheels. Plus, George thinks I’ve quit.
“Can’t,” I tell him. “Tried. Besides, I’ve already given up drinking, drugs, and sex. Gotta have a few vices or I’d be too perfect.”
Jase snorts. “Sex? Don’t think you have to give that up.” He opens the passenger-side door, starts to slide out.
“The way I did it, I do. Gotta stop messing with any chick with a pulse.”
Now Jase looks uncomfortable. “That was an addiction too?” he asks, half in, half out the door, nudging the pile of old newspapers on the passenger side with the toe of one Converse.
“Not in the sense that I, like, had to have it, or whatever. It was just . . another way to blow stuff off. Numb out.”
He nods like he gets it, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t. Gotta explain. “I’d get wasted at parties. Hook up with girls I didn’t like or even know. It was never all that great.”
“Guess not” – he slides out completely – “if you’re with someone you don’t even like or know. Might be different if you were sober and actually cared.”
“Yeah, well.” I light up one last cigarette. “Don’t hold your breath.”
Chapter Three
“There is,” I say through my teeth, “an owl in the freezer. Can any of you guys explain this to me?”
Three of my younger brothers stare back at me. Blank walls. My younger sister doesn’t look up from texting.
I repeat the question.
“Harry put it there,” Duff says.
“Duff told me to,” Harry says.
George, my youngest brother, cranes his neck. “What kind of owl? Is it dead? Is it white like Hedwig?”
I poke at the rock-solid owl, which is wrapped in a frosty freezer bag. “Very dead. Not white. And someone ate all the frozen waffles and put the box back in empty again.”
They all shrug, as if this is as much of an unsolvable mystery as the owl.
“Let’s try again. Why is this owl in the freezer?”
“Harry’s going to bring it in for show-and-tell when school starts,” Duff says.
“Sanjay Sapati brought in a seal skull last year. This is way better. You can still see its eyeballs. They’re only a little rotted.” Harry stirs his oatmeal, frowning down at what I’ve tried to pass off as a fun “breakfast for lunch” occasion. He upturns the spoon, shakes it, but the glob of cereal sticks, thick as paste, stubborn as my brother. Harry holds the spoon out toward me, accusingly.