Fade to Blue Read online

  “Three-pointer!” someone yelled. Everyone laughed. Coach Dhushbak heard it and tore out of his office. On the wall behind him was a poster of a football player helping an old woman and her groceries across the street. Underneath it said Sports Don’t Build Character, They Reveal It.

  “All right, ladies, listen good!” Coach Dhushbak yelled, kicking a few chairs before giving one of his three speeches: Injured Teammate, God and Country, or Mel Gibson Wearing Kilt. The team barely paid attention. Everyone knew the game was already locked. And even if it wasn’t, they had Fade. Some miracle comeback? They had Fade. Meteor attack? They had Fade. What was there to worry about?

  Only the numbers racing through my head, Kenny thought. Only the dead raccoon in my stomach and the rotting mayo in my veins.

  In the hallway outside the locker room, Dan Sellers’s mother reached over and slapped Kenny’s butt. Then she tried to hand him a slip of paper with her phone number on it. Coach Dhushbak frowned, hustling the team back into the gym. At the end of the bench, Kenny put his hand on Dan Sellers’s shoulder. “Hey, don’t worry about it.”

  “I can’t believe her,” Dan Sellers said. “Okay, for one thing? My father’s funeral was six months ago.”

  “I remember.”

  But did he remember? Kenny wasn’t sure. He might have been there in a suit, head down, nodding with the eulogy. He might have sneezed because of the freshly cut grass. On the other hand, maybe he was never there at all. Kenny’s brain felt like a gray sponge. If you squeezed it with two hands, a bunch of dirty water would come out. Sometimes when he blinked there were double exposures, scratchy film of someone else’s vacation playing behind his eyes. Still, he felt bad for the Sellers kid. “Listen, you want to come by the house sometime and talk, you’re always welcome.”

  Dan Sellers looked up and sniffed. “Really?”

  “Sure thing,” Kenny said, scratching his elbow.

  Dan Sellers wiped snot with the back of his hand. “Wow, I—”

  “Besides, if you’re really feeling bad, check that out.” Kenny pointed to the wheelchair chick, sitting by herself under the bleachers smoking. “Remember her? Back when she was hot?”

  Dan Sellers nodded.

  “There’s always someone else got it harder, you know?”

  The whistle tweeted and the crowd cheered. Kenny gave Dan Sellers’s shoulder a little punch and ran onto the floor. By the end of the third quarter Upheare High was ahead by thirty-three and Freckle Agar was dribbling in circles, running out the clock. When Coach Dhushbak pulled Kenny from the game, the crowd stood and clapped in unison. Dayna, absurdly pneumatic, blew kisses like an Italian starlet boarding a cruise ship. Coach Dhushbak slapped Kenny five and the guys on the bench slapped him five and all the dads in the first row slapped him five. Kenny belched greenly before parking it between Freckle and Zac, his two best friends. He’d finished with thirty-nine points.

  “Could have had sixty if you wanted,” Freckle said, a wisp of stubble on his chin.

  “It’s just sound marketing,” Zac said, his gelled hair standing straight up. “K-dog knows scouts like to see a team player. A man who shares the ball and scores? That’s a man belongs in Division One. Or hell, maybe just straight pro.”

  “C’mon,” Kenny said, unlacing his size thirteen Dikes. Zac had the same pair. Freckle had the same pair. “Don’t be a renob.”

  Zac raised an eyebrow. “Renob?”

  “Will you remember us?” Freckle asked, leaning over and pretending to fawn. “When your limo pulls up outside the LA clubs and Zac and I shuffle by for autographs? Will you at least let us touch your sweats?”

  “Dude,” Kenny said.

  “Dude,” Zac said.

  “Seriously, dude?” Freckle said. “How ’bout you front us a couple supermodels?”

  “You asshats already got girlfriends.”

  “Not like Dayna, we don’t,” Zac said.

  “It’s Fade’s world,” Freckle agreed. “We just live in it.”

  Kenny sat back, scratching his elbow, which had gone numb. It could have been a good game if he hadn’t spent it riding out waves of queasy foam.

  “Hey, you look a little green there, Kenny,” Freckle said, lowering his voice. “Maybe you should go see the nurse?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  SOPHIE BLUE

  IT’S JUST LIKE A HORROR MOVIE, EXCEPT NO CAMERAS OR LIGHTS OR ACTORS, AND ALSO, IT GOES ON FOREVER

  Ring. Ring. Ring.

  Sophie (whispering): “Hello?”

  Lake (whispering): “Hey, it’s me.”

  Sophie: “Thank God, I was lying here so not sleeping. You wouldn’t believe what…”

  Lake (yawning): “Me, too. What’s that noise?”

  Sophie: “Trish’s flat screen.”

  Lake: “They have game shows on at midnight?”

  Sophie: “I guess there’s lonely people in every time zone.”

  Lake: “It’s true. Dad’s downstairs reading Siddhartha or something.”

  Sophie: “Wouldn’t it be funny if we hooked Herb and Trish up? Then we’d be half sisters. Or stepsisters.”

  Lake: “I don’t, ah… I don’t think Dad’s quite ready for Trish.”

  Sophie: “Yeah. Even with a six-month crash course, he’d still—”

  Trish (picking up the extension and breaking in): “What a surprise. And with school tomorrow. Say goodnight, ladies.”

  Lake: “Sorry, Miss Blue.”

  Trish: “Sorry, my dear, is in the ear of the beholder.”

  Click.

  Lake (whispering): “What does that even mean?”

  Sophie: “It means someone’s dosage needs to be upped.”

  Lake (giggling): “G’night.”

  Sophie: “Wait, I—”

  Click.

  My room is on the third floor, in the attic. Trish’s is in the middle, and O.S.’s is down in the dungeon. The house is an old Victorian, big and pointy, like Leather Face signed up for some design courses and drew it himself. After Dad left (kidnapped by opium cartel? spontaneously combusted?) we all sort of claimed our own floor. You can go days without seeing anyone. Hearing them is another matter. My brother’s half-digested Hot Pocket, for instance, tends to boom up through the floorboards. Then there’s the banging that comes from Trish’s room: Put Upon (throwing one shoe) and More Put Upon (throwing two shoes).

  Clonk, clonk.

  The double stiletto is code for Turn that stereo down, Sophie, I can’t hear my show! What it isn’t code for is Don’t worry, hon, I understand your stereo is way up because my show is so ridiculously loud two-thirds of our neighbors know which contestant just won the keys to a brand-new Dodge Flatus.

  I lowered the CD, Rosie and the Pussybats Live at Budokan, and then tiptoed down the stairs. Trish was standing in the hallway with a cup of tea like she was trying to remember what she was there for.

  “You went for a cup of tea.”

  She jumped a little, spilling some on the floor, then wiped it with her furry slipper.

  “What are you doing down here?”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “Do you have a headache?”

  Headache was Trish code for period. “Sometimes girls get headaches,” she’d told me the first time as I stood there horrified while she wadded up toilet paper in the bathroom stall of a restaurant. O.S. sat out in a booth by himself, chomping breadsticks for an hour.

  “It’s not that,” I said. “I think the house was broken into again.”

  Someone kept punching in the downstairs windowpanes. We’d come home and find papers strewn, boxes upended, junk in my room tossed around. The police had concluded it was just local kids since nothing was ever stolen, but it kept happening.

  Trish made her It’s All Just Greek to Me face. “Anything else?”

  I cleared my throat. “Well, there’s this Popsicle truck. Outside my window. It makes noise all night.”

  Trish raised the pencil line where her eyebrow used to be. “
Popsicles? Sophie, why didn’t you say so? I’ll dial the authorities first thing in the morning.”

  “Great,” I said. “Thanks.”

  I walked downstairs, holding my nose. My brother was sitting in the kitchen. O.S. stands for Old Spice. It’s been his name since he was six and found a bottle in Dad’s drawer and poured it all over himself, a habit he still hasn’t broken.

  “Hey, O.S.”

  He looked up from his comic book, Suck Me Twice, issue twelve. Nude vampire chicks frolicked on the cover. There was also a copy of Splickity Lit #4: Splickity Learns Farsi. O.S. pushed his glasses up his nose and coughed. In front of him was an actual plate, instead of a clump of dirty napkins and Hostess wrappers. On the plate sat three stalks of celery.

  “You on a diet?”

  O.S. picked up a stalk and sniffed it. He made a face and rubbed his shaved head. “Oh, man, it’s hard to explain. I’ve been having a new urge?”

  “Puberty,” I said. “Try saltpeter.”

  O.S. didn’t laugh. The gut under his T-shirt looked like he was smuggling hams out of East Berlin. O.S. used to be skinny. He used to have hair. When Trish asked why he cut off all his beautiful curls, O.S. said, “Um, the ladies wouldn’t stop running their fingers through them?”

  I found a clean mug and dumped in three packets of cocoa powder. My brother held his celery out like a pointer. “Well?”

  There was also a time, before Dad, that O.S. didn’t phrase every single thing he ever said as a question.

  “Well, what?”

  “I know something bad is coming?”

  I jumped. Literally straight up. “You do?”

  “Yeah. I can tell by the look on your face, so you might as well spill it.”

  I leaned against the sink. Water began to wick along my back and down my skirt, but I didn’t move.

  “Have you, sort of, by any chance, been hearing weird noises?”

  “Noises?” he said.

  “Like, outside? Whispering, or jingling or static or whatever?”

  “All I hear in the basement is the pipes whoosh every time you flush, which, unless you’re destroying state’s evidence, is way too often.”

  “Good one. Evidence.”

  “Thanks for coming,” he said. “I’ll be here all week.”

  “Seriously,” I said. “I’ve been having dreams.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Really? Because—”

  O.S. sucked in his gut. “Yeah, I keep having a sort of sci-fi one where I’m tall and muscular? But ironically, I now live on a planet where everyone’s secret fantasy is to be a bald fat kid.”

  “Don’t you hear that ice-cream truck jangling all night?”

  He stopped smiling. “Ice-cream truck?”

  “Outside. Waiting.”

  I could tell he was trying to decide whether I was sort of full of crap or really packed all the way to the rim. There was a click in the hallway that could have been Trish’s door. O.S. put a finger to his lips.

  “Listen,” I whispered. “Something bad is coming. I can feel it.”

  “Maybe something bad has already come?” O.S. whispered back. “I mean, have you looked around here lately?”

  “I know, but—”

  “Maybe you should go see the nurse?”

  “What?”

  “You know? Like, tomorrow? At school?”

  My mouth opened, but there was nothing there, not even a whisper. My brother wrapped up his comics and tiptoed down the stairs. The celery he left where it was.

  I slipped back into my room and closed the door.

  Ring. Ring. Ring.

  Sophie:

  “Hello?”

  Lake:

  “Hey, it’s me.”

  Sophie:

  “Yeah, I figured.”

  Lake:

  “I forgot to tell you about your birthday present.”

  Sophie:

  “You’re still early. Forty-eight more hours.”

  Lake:

  “I’m not early, I’m ramping up. First, there’s the congratulatory call. That’s what this is. Then I say it in person. That’s tomorrow. Then the huge Styrofoam cake gets wheeled into class. A Styrofoam cake, which, incidentally, Aaron Agar jumps out of naked.”

  Sophie (inhaling too obviously):

  “Naked?”

  Lake (sly giggle):

  “Well, no, not entirely.”

  Sophie (abject disappointment):

  “How not entirely?”

  Lake (just the facts, ma’am):

  “He’s wearing a bowtie. And freckles.”

  Sophie (an unhappy shopper who knows her rights):

  “That’s way too much coverage.”

  Trish (picking up the extension and breaking in):

  “This is the very last time, ladies. Then we move into stage three.”

  Lake:

  “Totally my fault, Miss Blue.”

  Sophie:

  “Stage three? I thought we were in code yellow.”

  Trish:

  “I am not kidding. Why are you acting like I’m kidding?”

  Click.

  Sophie:

  “Listen, I need to tell you—”

  Lake:

  “Anyway, I’ll see you in PE.”

  Sophie:

  “… something—”

  Click.

  By midnight, my room was dark and silent and cold. My candles were all melted. It was too late for Lake to call again. O.S. was asleep. Even Trish’s TV was quiet. It was just me. In the attic. With the ringing bell and the jangling clowns and the buzzing static.

  Dong, dong, dong.

  I shimmied out the window in the corner of my room, which was a tiny wooden oval with a broken latch. If I hooked my legs onto the trim, I could swing my body just enough to reach the eaves and lever myself over the lip of the roof. A long time ago, my father hammered a two-by-four into the shingles so you could brace your heels and lean back against the mansard and stare into the sky. The two-by-four was old and brown. The nails were rusty. Sooner or later it was going to come loose. I got a swervy feeling in my stomach thinking about it, so I made sure to think about it more. I could practically see the entire town. I spread my arms like wings.

  “SO COME AND GET ME ALREADY!”

  My voice echoed. A dog barked.

  “THE POPSICLE MAN HAS A HOOK FOR A HAND! HE EATS BROKEN GLASS AND RUSTY TACKS AND STACKS OF LIGHTLY SEASONED ORPHANS!”

  My voice faded away, carried by the wind, not even an echo this time. The Popsicle Man did not yell back.

  Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not still after you.

  Jangle, jangle, jangle. Buzz buzz buzz.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  KENNY FADE

  IT’S PRONOUNCED “FA-DAY”

  Kenny Fade was the last one in the showers after the game. He stood with his head under the far spigot. Hot water coated his hair and face, running down his legs and into the large drain in the middle of the floor.

  “Dude, stop staring at my junk!”

  “Whatever, Mini Me, you can’t stare through a microscope!”

  Kenny scratched his elbow, the skin raw and sensitive, listening to the guys talking smack, how they stole a ball or blocked a shot, how they schooled their man or were slick under the basket with a pass.

  “Mother of God, did you see the thong on Kirsty White?”

  “All that ass? You could feed, like, two starving countries on that ass.”

  The stories were all the same, the inflections the same, the laughs the same.

  “Move over, dirt merchant, I don’t want you within a yard of my towel.”

  “You, my friend, are a total homo-sexer. I advise you to apply to college and major in fashion.”

  Eventually, someone would crank up the boom box and someone would toss talcum powder, and someone would run around in their jock fake-punching people and going: “Hey, where the party at? Hey, where the party at? Dude, where is the par-tay a
t?”

  Kenny stayed in the shower with his eyes closed until there were no more lockers slamming, voices echoing farther and farther down the hall.

  Across the room came an ugly metallic scrape.

  Kenny figured it was Zac, dragging a chair to make some freshman stand on and sing the fight song, but when he looked over, there was no one there. Kenny turned off the tap and reached for his towel. Lockers popped and pinged, the aluminum cooling. On the far wall was a poster of a skinny kid with this colossal rash on his thighs. Underneath, it said Make Hygiene Your Best Buddy.

  “Hello?”

  The spigot at the other end of the room swiveled on. By itself.

  “Zac?”

  The room began to fill with steam. Kenny thought he heard a tiny whisper, like radio static. Purse. Or Nurse. Faint and then gone.

  “Freckle?”

  No answer.

  “Coach?”

  gotothelabgotothelab

  Kenny walked over and shut off the tap. His elbow itched. He scratched at the scar, the size of a quarter, red and raised. His gym bag, which had been on the bench in front of his locker, was now on the floor, his stuff tossed like someone had rooted through it.

  “Hey!”

  The spigot on the opposite wall snapped on. Kenny jumped, literally straight up.

  “Not funny.” He turned the tap back off. “Ass-hats?”

  Wind blew through the cement hallway. Kenny was ready to just grab an armload of clothes and run up the stairs naked, when all the showerheads came on at once. He yelped, retreating to the drain cover, the only place the jets didn’t reach. The water was scalding. His toes burned as the water changed color, at first pink, then darker, Popsicle red. A big syrupy lip bled toward him, dark enough that he could see his reflection.

  It almost looked like he was wearing a skirt.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  OLD SPICE BLUE

  O.S. SPEAKS, YOU LISTEN

  How PE works? The upper echelon, sport-oriented males and attractive females, sit on the bleachers near the windows. Those of us overweight or otherwise damaged, dingy, unwashed, cave-chested, stork-shaped, nonathletic, or generally female-resistant sit by the jockstrap barrels.