Crying Wolf Read online

  “Play it again,” Izzie said.

  “Isn’t there anything else?” said Grace.

  Nat checked a compartment at the base of the player, found a bill from a record store in Albany for $4.45, dated October 6, 1919, and more records, a few by Caruso, the others by singers he’d never heard of. They played them all, Nat operating the machine while Grace and Izzie sat in high-backed purple chairs they dusted off and drew up. The candle burned down, the bottle went around and around until it was empty.

  “Time travel happens,” Izzie said.

  “Whenever we want,” said Grace, “if we keep this our little secret.”

  “But what’s it all about?” Nat said. “No one’s been here in eighty years.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The booze would be gone. The question is, who left it like this, and why?”

  “Maybe there was an earthquake or something,” Izzie said.

  “In New England?” Grace said.

  “Possible, isn’t it, Nat?”

  “Who cares?” said Grace before he could answer; a good thing because he didn’t know. “The point is we’ve made an amazing discovery.”

  Nat found himself nodding in agreement. He didn’t know exactly what the discovery was, or its implications, but he knew she was right.

  “Let’s try another bottle,” Grace said.

  They tried another bottle, found a few more candles, lit them, put “Caro Nome” back on the turntable, explored. There were no other rooms, and just one other door, directly under the Greek writing. They opened it, saw a stone staircase, followed it up ten steps-Nat counted them for some reason-came to another leather-padded door with brass studs. “This is so much fun,” Grace said, turning the knob, “like one of those interactive-theater evenings, only for smart people.”

  The leather-padded brass-studded door opened onto a brick wall.

  Izzie did something then that made an indelible impression in Nat’s memory. She gave the wall a push with the fingers of one hand, just a little push, as though it were a prop that would topple at the slightest touch. The bricks were real; it didn’t.

  There, at the top of the stone stairs, the bottle went around again. Grande Champagne Cognac, Berry Bros. amp; Rudd, 1908. Nat, trying to remember what furniture he’d seen, building a mental tower that would allow them to climb out of the hole in the bedroom ceiling, realized he was a little drunk.

  Grace said: “I could get on your shoulders and Izzie could get on mine.”

  “That’s not as easy at it sounds,” Nat said.

  “Let’s try it,” said Izzie.

  Nat smiled. There was something about her that made him smile, smile right at her in a way he didn’t think he’d ever smiled at anyone else. But she didn’t smile back, didn’t even meet his eye for more than an instant before looking at Grace. Grace was looking at him.

  Nat stopped smiling, was about to mention the furniture idea, when he felt a current of warm air flowing past his face. He glanced around, noticed a square metal grate high up in the wall opposite the bricked-in doorway. A big grate, but the wood around it was old and rotted. He got a grip on the bars and tugged. The grate came free in his hands.

  Grace laughed, that excited little laugh of hers, full of pleasure. Nat took a candle, stood on his tiptoes, peered into the square hole. He felt the warm air-it fluttered the candle flame-saw down a tin-lined duct, perhaps just big enough for him to squeeze into. Standing the candle on the floor of the duct as deep in as he could reach, he pulled himself up and inside. Just big enough. He felt one of them giving him a little push from behind, heard them talking:

  “Did something like this happen in those Alien flicks?”

  “It was James Bond.”

  But there was nothing frightening about this, and it didn’t require courage. Nat had already spotted a little pool of light not much farther ahead. He wriggled toward it with the candle in front of him.

  The light came from above. Nat reached it, squirmed over onto his back, looked up through another grate. High above he saw a dark wooden ceiling, laid out in squares and decorated with carved scrollwork and bunches of grapes. It seemed familiar. Nat was trying to place it when he heard voices. He blew out the candle.

  Silence. Then footsteps approached, two sets of footsteps, Nat thought, on a hardwood floor. A foot came into view above him, and another, shod in Birkenstocks with heavy socks underneath; the Birkenstock feet walked over the grate and out of sight. Then came two more feet, these in tassel loafers. A woman said, “I only want to do the right thing.” She stepped forward, a wiry woman with long hair, gray and frizzy.

  The tassel loafers stopped, planted right on the grate. Paper rustled. The woman said, “Oops,” and something fluttered down, came to rest on the grate: a hundred-dollar bill. The tassel loafers shifted slightly, and the man wearing them stooped to retrieve it. His face, his furious face, came within two feet of Nat’s: Professor Uzig. He picked up the bill, thrust it at the woman. The footsteps, both sets, moved off. A heavy door opened and closed. Nat waited for a minute or two, heard nothing more, then pushed up the grate and raised himself into the ground-floor lounge of Goodrich Hall. Through the tall windows he saw the night sky, full of stars. The clock on the wall said 3:30. That wouldn’t have been his guess.

  15

  Anyone interested in extra credit will receive a one-third grade step-up for any citation from life undermining the following Nietzschean precept: “The will to overcome an emotion is ultimately only the will of another emotion or of several others.”

  — Standing offer, Philosophy 322

  Nat slept through a dream in which he stood at the foul line, shooting one and one, with no time on the clock and his team down by a single point. He had actually lived such a moment in his senior high-school year against their big rival, Western Tech. But in the dream, he wore the red and white of Western Tech, instead of Clear Creek High’s burgundy and gold. He stood at the foul line bouncing the ball, bouncing and bouncing it, but never taking the shot. An uneasy dream made more so by the hardwood floor that looked like any other court but made cracking and splitting sounds with every bounce; still he remained inside it, sleeping through the ringing phone in the outer room-dimly aware of it, sleeping on. Sleeping on through biology class, the first class he’d missed, unaware of missing it, although as class time came and went the anxiety of his dream might have increased. Then someone’s lips touched his, and he woke up.

  Izzie.

  “Morning, sleepyhead,” she said.

  “What time is it?” He tried to sit up; she rolled on top of him; was already in his bed.

  Izzie gazed down on him. “Going somewhere?”

  “Biol-” Nat started to say, but from the intensity of the light coming through the window, he knew it was too late.

  “Biology-the science of living things, correct?” Izzie said; raising an eyebrow the way she did, her right eyebrow, questioning, mocking.

  “Correct.”

  “Then you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  “Why is that?”

  “This counts for extra credit.”

  “A — plus,” said Izzie, after.

  After sex, but still under its spell. They lay in Nat’s narrow bed, the room quiet except for their breathing. Nat noticed that the period of their breaths seemed similar. He held his until her next inhalation, and inhaled at the same time. After that, they breathed in unison, a coincidence, of course, and maybe a bit sappy, but there it was.

  “What’s that word,” Izzie said, the vibrations from her voice buzzing against his ear, “when bad beginnings have a good result?”

  “Serendipity.”

  “Then what happened to Wags was serendipitous for us.”

  “Because he’s not around?”

  “What else?”

  Nat couldn’t agree; on the other hand, his scruples were dwarfed by the power of that us. It seemed to toll in the room, like a steeple bell at the beginning of a
story.

  “Or am I being too pushy?” Izzie said, sensing but misinterpreting his resistance. “Maybe you don’t want me to come here.”

  “I do.”

  “Then give me a kiss.”

  He did.

  From beyond came all the normal sounds of Inverness: voices raised across the quad, maniacal laughter in the hall, music from everywhere, someone’s barking dog. “Grace thinks this is like living in the projects,” Izzie said after some time.

  “Do you?”

  She thought. “I don’t know. Maybe not. Grace doesn’t really think so either. She’s got a big personality, that’s all.”

  “It must be interesting,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Living two lives at once.”

  She looked at him, didn’t speak. He leaned forward-he was on top now-his gaze on her whole face, then her eyes, then only one of them, then on those gold flecks in the iris, as though a really close examination of them would reveal everything about her. Her eyelid closed just as his lips touched her. The softest thing. He stayed right there. Had time ever slowed down like this for him before? He got the feeling that he and Izzie had entered a powerful circle of some kind, impermeable. Was this what all that poetry he’d had to study was about, all those novels? Maybe not, because something permeated the circle right away, at least his part of it: the image of Mrs. Smith’s and Miss Brown’s happy faces on the Fourth of July, an unwelcome image that let in unwelcome thoughts: the effort it had taken to get him here, the missed biology class. And Patti.

  “What’s wrong?” Izzie said.

  “Nothing.”

  She opened her eyes-he felt the eyelid’s tiny struggle against his lips-and turned her head so she could see him. “You’re thinking about something.”

  “No.”

  “Is it Grace?”

  “Of course not. Why would I be thinking about Grace?”

  Izzie didn’t speak.

  And Patti. Now messy memories from the Thanksgiving party threatened to spill out in his mind, but the most important, more important than how drunk Patti had got, or the way she’d vomited in bed that night, all over both of them, was the way he’d seen everyone back home, his old friends, changed. He was the changed one, of course. The cliche at the heart of so many coming-of-age stories, but that didn’t make them false. He would call Patti today. He’d changed. It was normal. Out of the corner of his eye, he was suddenly aware of her picture on the upside-down crate at his bedside. Something writhed inside him.

  “Then what are you thinking about?” Izzie said.

  “Nothing.”

  “That’s not true. I can tell.”

  He was wondering whether to drag her through the whole thing, or to simply answer you, which was true-his mind was full of her-if not factually correct at that exact moment, and also might sound a little buttery, when he heard someone entering the outer room. Izzie went still.

  “Nat,” called a voice. Grace. He saw fear, real fear in Izzie’s eyes.

  “Just a sec,” he said, hurrying out of bed, pulling on sweatpants. He stepped into the outer room, closing the door, he hoped casually, behind him.

  Grace looked up from reading something on his desk as he came in, her gaze going to his bare chest first, then to his face. “Morning, sleepyhead,” she said. “And hung over, too.”

  “A bit.”

  “Moi aussi,” she said, although she didn’t look it. “But isn’t it great?”

  “What we found?”

  “And the way we found it,” Grace said. “Defines serendipitous.” She glanced around as though someone might hear. “You haven’t mentioned it to anybody?”

  “No.” He noticed she was wearing overalls, with a hammer, screwdriver, pliers sticking out of the pockets.

  “I’ve already been down there today,” she said. “It really is like Alice-through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole.”

  “What have you been doing?”

  “Fixing up.”

  “How?”

  “You’ll see.” She pulled a book from her back pocket. “And look at this-plot summaries of all the major operas, so we’ll know what we’re listening to. For example…” She flipped through the pages. “Rigoletto: Gilda-she’s the one who sings that song, ‘Caro Nome,’ means ‘dear name,’ she sings it to her lover, but it isn’t even his real name… and then it looks like there’s some kind of kidnapping-her own father, that’s Rigoletto, helps without knowing it.”

  “Helps who?”

  “The kidnappers.”

  “Why?”

  “Doesn’t say,” Grace said, running her eyes over the page. “She dies at the end, by mistake.”

  “What kind of mistake?”

  Grace checked the text again. “It’s convoluted. And not very believable. But the music makes all that irrelevant, I guess.”

  “Last night it did,” Nat said.

  “Exactly,” said Grace, closing the book. Her eyes went to his chest again, then back to his face. “I guess it’s my fault,” she said.

  “What is?”

  “That we got off to maybe a bad start.”

  “What do you mean?” he said, wishing she’d talk a little more quietly.

  “You and me. That night in New York. At my da-at my father’s. Too much to drink and smoke, et cetera. And I was probably a little too forceful. For you, I mean. For other men, though…”

  Her voice trailed off. Nat thought of Paolo, and the married man Izzie had told him about. He felt a little sorry for Grace. “Forget it,” he said.

  “You mean that?” The way she asked that little question, the words, the intonation: pure Izzie; he revisited the most obvious fact about them, one he’d been leaving behind, the fact of how alike they were.

  “Yes,” he said. “I mean it.”

  “A clean slate, then?”

  “Sure.” Who could say no to that?

  Grace smiled a bright smile. “See you in class,” she said, and left the room; very light on her feet, almost skipping. He went over to the desk to see what she’d been looking at and found Patti’s letter.

  Nat went into the bedroom. No Izzie. He opened the closet and, as though it were a children’s game, there she was, hiding behind his Clear Creek letter jacket, worn once at Inverness and never again.

  “Has she gone?” said Izzie.

  “Yes. What’s this all about?”

  “I told you-I just don’t want her to know right now.”

  “Know what?”

  “That anything’s happening between us.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just give me time.”

  “But why not?”

  Izzie watched him over the letter jacket. “I never did better than Grace in anything, not a single race, a single essay, a single exam, not ever.”

  “So what?”

  “Until the SATs. I scored twenty points higher on the verbal.”

  “Do we have to talk about the SATs?”

  Izzie smiled. “I never met anyone like you.”

  “That’s because you haven’t led a sheltered life.”

  She laughed. “You see? Every time you open your mouth you prove it.” Her eyes went to the Clear Creek jacket. “Can I wear this?”

  “You want to wear that?”

  “It’s not something Wags left behind, is it?”

  “No. It’s my old high-school jacket.”

  “Then I want to wear it. Just for a while,” she added when he was silent.

  “Okay.”

  Izzie put it on. She wasn’t wearing anything else. “Now close the door.”

  “We’re in the closet.”

  “That’s right.”

  Nat closed the door. In the darkness she leaned against him.

  “But you’ve had boyfriends before,” he said.

  Izzie knew what he meant. “Only ones she’d rejected or didn’t want in the first place, like Paolo,” she said.

  “What makes you think she’s interested
in me?”

  “I know it.”

  “How?”

  “I just do.”

  “But-”

  But she grabbed the back of his head, pulled him close, kissed his mouth, deeper and deeper. He had sex in his closet with Nat, Clear Creek Basketball, number 8. He’d never had sex three times in a row before-except for Patti hadn’t had sex at all before Izzie-but for some reason this time was the best of all.

  After Izzie left, Nat reread Patti’s letter. He held it up to the light, tried again to see what she’d crossed out, with no success until he thought of turning the page over. Then, reading backward, he was able to make out a bit more: what he’d thought might be kissed, pissed, or missed was definitely missed; and the next word was my. The rest remained obliterated. His gaze went to the PS: my present should be there by now.

  He’d forgotten all about Patti’s present; last seen on his bed before Christmas. Nat searched the bedroom, found it under the bed. A small package with reindeer wrapping and a card with a reindeer, candy canes dangling from its antlers, on the front: Merry Christmas to the very best person I know. Love, Patti. He sat slowly on the bed, the present in the palm of his hand.

  The phone rang in the outer room. He let it. Slowly, more slowly than he’d ever unwrapped a present, he unwrapped Patti’s, taking great care not to rip the paper, also not like him. Inside was a little cardboard box, and on it the words Assad and Son. Assad and Son was the jewelry store on the main street in his town. Nat opened the box, pulled aside some tissue paper, and exposed a small gold number 8 on a gold chain.

  Eight, the number he’d worn at Clear Creek. And a gold chain. He’d never worn a gold chain or had any desire to. Nat closed the box without touching the pendant or the chain.

  He went to the phone, called Patti at her mom’s. With the time difference, she might not have left for her classes at Arapaho State. I wish I didn’t have to say this on the phone, Patti, but: his mind rehearsed as it rang at the other end. The answering machine took his call. He listened to Patti’s mom’s taped message-she said “God bless” at the end-and at the sound of the beep, hung up.

  You’ll meet all kinds of girls, prettier than me. Prettier and smarter. And richer. And richer: she’d said that too. He had a funny thought: what else does she know about my future?