A Thief in the House of Memory (15 page)

He couldn't believe his mistake. “Vivien?”

“You thought it was someone else, didn't you?”

“No,” he lied. “I'm just slow.”

“Sorry to be calling so late. Is your mother really mad?”

He was going to correct her, but it was too late to start explaining things. “No, it's cool,” he said.

“And I'm sorry about the whole guess-who routine. God, that is so lame.”

Dec smiled. It was a crazy lady, all right, but good crazy.

“Did you just phone to apologize?”

“Oh, what a goof,” she said. “I mean me, not you. I'm… no, I won't say it.”

His grin widened. He hoped she could feel it when he spoke.

“We don't take any classes together,” he said, “so I'm guessing this isn't about homework.”

“Right. You're absolutely right. This is not about homework. I was talking to Ezra the other day about his scholarship.”

Dec laid his head back on his pillow. “Uh-huh.”

“It's brilliant,” she said. “I mean, for him. But, well, I saw you later that day in spare and I thought how hard it was going to be for you when he's gone.”

Dec was taken aback. Was he that transparent? Or was Vivien just that tuned in? “That must have been when I was spray-painting the big sign on the wall, ‘Don't go, Ezra!'”

“Well, sorta,” she said, laughing. “I remember how hard it was leaving my friends when I moved here. There was this one girl, Pixilene. We were like tight, really tight. And I got to this place where I couldn't breathe thinking about her not being around. You know?”

“Yeah. I think I do.”

“And that's why I'm calling,” said Vivien. “Well, sort of. Pixilene and me — we're
still
tight. I mean, she's out in Saskatoon but we're, you know, in touch. She's probably even
going to come out this summer, which is totally cool. I hope you'll meet her.”

Dec settled his head into his pillow. “Is this a set-up for a blind date?”

“No way!”

He smiled. “I think I know what you mean,” he said. “Life goes on.”

“Exactly. And this is good practice.”

“For what?”

“Life. I don't know about you, but I plan on seeing a lot of the world and so it might end up that all my friends are somewhere else. You know what I mean?”

“I think I do.”

There was a pause of about twenty years. Then Dec said, “Thanks for calling. I was feeling down.”

“Good,” she said. “I mean
bad.”
Then she laughed and her voice seemed to relax a bit. He hadn't really noticed how coiled up she had sounded until then. “That isn't the only reason I called. I was watching you, like I said, and I…well, I wrote this poem. Don't worry, I'm not going to read it to you.”

“Thank God,” he said, laughing.

“You looked so alone. So kind of…deserted? Anyway, I wrote this poem. And I liked it a lot. I
always
like a new poem a lot. You need to, if it's going to, you know, not
die
. You need to adore it into existence. Then, later, you can tear it to shreds or fix it or whatever. So, as I was saying, I really liked this poem and I thought I might send it to you.”

“Cool. I'll look forward to it.”

“You don't have to,” she said. “You can just chuck it, if you like. I won't mind. You may
hate
it.”

“Why?”

“I don't know. You may think it sucks. I almost put it in the mailbox, and then I went, no way!”

“So, let me get this straight… you didn't send it.”

“No, but I still might.” She laughed nervously. “I just don't want you to think I'm this freak who's like stalking you.

Just then there was a knock on his door. He raised his head enough to see Birdie in her bathrobe pointing at her watch.

“I'm getting dirty looks,” he said. Birdie made a face but backed out of the room. He waited until she was good and gone. “I'll see you tomorrow,” he said into the phone.

“Cool,” she said, as if it wasn't just school. As if tomorrow was this idea they both shared.

E
ZRA PICKED UP
Dec at four on Saturday. He drove a decrepit Toyota Tercel he called Ran.
Ran
was the name of a Japanese movie by Akira Kurosawa but, as Ezra liked to say, it was also the past tense of
run
. The Tercel was a washed-out red with rust like an old lady's liver spots on all its extremities. He pulled in between the silver Rendezvous and the jet-black Beetle, and Dec watched Bernard and Birdie grimace at the sight of it.

“Are you sure you can afford the time with exams so near?” his father asked.

“Give the kid a break,” said Birdie. But the look in her eyes suggested that she might be the one who needed a break.

On the journey into town, Dec recounted his father's story, recalling his itemized memory of the event.

“Well, that clears up a whole bunch of things,” said Ezra.

“Maybe,” said Dec. “If you believe it.”

Ezra glanced at him inquisitively.

“Well, look at the facts,” said Dec. “Isn't that what you
always tell me? This book he was reading for instance,
At the Edge of History
. He didn't say whether it was hardcover or paperback, whether he borrowed it from the library or bought it. I mean, how am I supposed to trust a guy who can't remember important details like that, huh?”

Ezra's smile was wry. “I get your point,” he said. “He's got a fanatically good memory. But then, he's into history, right?”

“Lost in it,” said Dec.

“The devil's in the detail,” said Ezra with a shrug. “Tell me more about this full moon night.”

They arrived at Ezra's place to a clamorous reception from his dog, Schmootz, kisses and hugs from Mrs. Harlow and a riddle from Mr. Harlow.

Brothers and sisters have I none,

But that man's father is my father's son.

“Easy,” said Ezra. “It's you.

“My son, such a smart cookie,” said Mr. Harlow, beaming.

Ezra's room was a fabulous mess. Dec made his way to a blue chair shaped like an egg on a silver swivel. It was sixties kitsch, something Ezra had rescued from the dump. You didn't sit on it, you sat
in
it, enveloped in a blue shell. Ezra went immediately to his desk and switched on the computer, while Dec pushed himself around. The egg wobbled precariously.

Ezra drummed his fingers on his desk, waiting for a connection. “Something is bugging me,” he said.

“Something is always bugging you,” said Dec from the shadows of the blue egg. “It's congenital.”

Ezra tapped at his keyboard. “When in doubt, ask Jeeves.”

“Ask him what?”

But Ezra's attention was absorbed by what he was doing. Dec reached down from the egg and lifted a book that lay open on the floor. There was a half-finished bag of corn chips underneath. He picked it up, shook a few into his hand, tasted one. Ancient.

“Interesting,” said Ezra. He punched Print. The printer buzzed and beeped and, a moment later, spat out a single sheet. Ezra looked it over and then handed it to Dec.

Dec wasn't sure what he was looking at. “Web Magician Wizard's Realm? Is this an online game?”

“It's a full moon calculator,” said Ezra. “You enter the year and month, and the calculator tells you the full moon for any date between 1600 and 2199. Like for instance, November 1997.”

Dec looked down at the printout. The moon was full November fourteenth. “At 14: 13,” he said. “That's like two in the afternoon.”

Ezra nodded slowly but made no comment.

“And that would mean…” said Dec. But he wasn't sure what it meant. Except that November first was almost two
weeks earlier. He looked at Ezra again. “There wouldn't have been any moon at all the night Lindy left.”

Ezra returned his gaze with a sober expression Dec didn't entirely like. He looked at the printout again. “It would have been pitch-black the night of her party,” he said. He looked at his friend. Behind him, the computer went to a screen saver of flying toasters.

“Dec,” said Ezra quietly. “You knew it yourself. You said you stood at the hallway window waiting for your mother to come home, worrying about how dark it was.”

Dec was too stunned to nod.

Ezra shrugged. “It just seemed odd to me,” he said. He scratched his head, averting his eyes. And in the gesture, Dec was suddenly struck by the enormity of what Ezra was telling him. His father's elaborately detailed story wasn't true. It was a lie.

He didn't go home that night. He needed time to think. When he phoned Camelot, he was glad it was Birdie who answered.

“Ezra's helping me with my physics,” he said. “Tell me another one,” she said.

“Actually, we scored some crack and we're just about to do up.”

“That's more like it,” said Birdie. “You want to talk to your dad?”

Dec could hear the TV on, some show they were watching
from their side-by-side matching chairs. It seemed as far away as the moon.

“No,” he said. “No, I don't.”

Dec sat with a popcorn bowl in his lap, picking through the kernels for edible remnants. The TV was on,
Saturday Night Live
. Lots of laughs, but only from the studio audience. Ezra sat beside Dec, stretched out, his feet up on the coffee table.

There's probably a totally rational explanation,” he said.

“That's what I was thinking,” said Dec. “Like he murdered her and buried her in the basement.” Ezra groaned. “Not this again.”

“Well, what am I supposed to think?” Dec stared at the tube, daring the actors to make him laugh. “He's a fake. Everything he does is fake. He fights fake wars. He tells fake stories. Maybe he's not even my real father.”

Ezra picked up the remote and pressed Mute. The laughter stopped.

“Want to run that by me again?” he said.

Dec gave up on the popcorn. “I was thinking about Denny Runyon,” he said. “About what happened when he dropped me off that day.”

“The Look,” said Ezra.

“Maybe what it meant was, ‘Hey, kid, you are looking at your daddy.'”

Ezra peered at Dec. “Maybe you
are
on crack.”

Dec shoved him away. “Think about it. Runyon and my mom were together at the spring prom. My birthday's in March.”

“Yeah, which means that you were conceived in July. We've done the math. Runyon was out of town by then.”

“According to
who?

“Your father,” said Ezra.

“I rest my case.”

Ezra leaned in very close. “I don't want to rain on your paranoid parade, Dec, but you really look like Bernard Steeple.”

“Thanks a million.”

Ezra leaned close again. “It wasn't an insult.”

“Mr. Rogers the Second.”

“The new improved version. Better sneakers.”

Dec clammed up. There was no real question in his mind that Bernard was his father. That was why the whole thing was so infuriating. He thought of his father's long face, his sincere face.

And that was it. That sincere face had lied to him. Outright.

Dec reached for the remote and punched the Mute button again. The show burst back into life. More laughs. Mindless. Perfect.

Ezra fell asleep curled up on the couch. Dec turned off the tube, threw a blanket over his friend and headed upstairs to Ezra's room. Mrs. Harlow had changed the sheets for him.

He stripped down to his boxers and crawled into the coolness, snuggled under the comforter. He was exhausted. Way too tired to sleep. He kept going over his father's story, again and again, drifting through the no man's land between wakefulness and sleep so gradually that he didn't notice when he crossed the border.

His father is still talking, still telling his story, but suddenly the account of Lindy's last night at the big house has a laugh track. Some of the biggest laughs come from Lindy herself. And when that doesn't get enough attention, she blows on her toy whistle, which drowns out everything that Bernard is trying to say. Dec wishes she would stop. It is impossible to think straight with her around
.

Suddenly, his father loses his patience and turns on her
.

“You're driving me around the bend,” he says
.

“That would make for a change,” says Lindy. “Around the bend is farther than we've been in years.”

More laughter
.

A comedy sketch, except that it isn't funny
.

“Please, Mom,” Dec cries, grabbing at her arm, but she is made of dream material and he can't hold her
.

“I'm going crazy,” says Bernard, covering his ears
.

“That makes two of us,” says Lindy. Then she blows her whistle — loud— and marches around the room. Bernard grabs for her but he can't hold her, either
.

“Give that thing to me, or else!” he shouts
.

“Or else what?” she shouts back
.

The shout woke him. He looked around and for a moment had no idea where he was. Then he saw the shadowy shape of Ezra's egg.

Just a dream, he told himself, as he gathered his comforter back off the floor. Was it a dream? Had there been a scene like that, so horrible he had repressed it? You heard stories about such things. Maybe it had happened like that. Maybe his father had snapped. Was that what he was covering up?

Dec tried to summon up such a memory, but it wasn't there. You had to go with what you knew — what you knew in your heart. You had to distinguish between what was real and what was imaginary, separate the data from the interpretation. So what did he know?

He lay there quietly, calmly, going over it all again, turning over every stone, trying to find the missing piece of the puzzle. And then he dreamed again.