Chapter 11: Go Figure

When Melissa and I returned to the house after dropping off the order for the necklace, nothing much had changed. In the cabin I found Lara and Tommy at the table, intently studying a sheet of paper. They didn’t even glance at me as I closed the door. I could hear Muireann’s muffled fiddle playing from the darkroom, the sound of a slow Irish melody permeating the warmed air inside.

“How’s it going?” I announced, taking off my coat.

After scribbling something down, Lara turned to me, smiling broadly.

“Really good! We got a ton done while you were out. How did it go with you?”

“Fine, I went, I did my thing, I came back,” I replied vaguely. “Nothing to report. What song are you working on?”

“The new one.”

I laughed. “They’re all new, Lara. You mean Masks?”

“Yeah ... but it’s called Shell Game now!”

She looked at me expectantly, as if that explained everything about it.

“Um...”

“You know, that game where you have three shells, and you have to shuffle them around and then people guess where the hidden pea is?”

“Oh, I think I know what you mean.”

“It’s like a magic trick,” Tommy added.

“Yeah, got it.”

“I told Tommy your idea, about it being like a mask seller and it made him think of these guys in Dublin that were playing the shell game on the street, fooling people and taking their money.”

“Nice,” I said. “Even grimier!”

“Aye, it was fascinating, how bad people were at the game. I think I would’ve had a better chance than some of those clods that were playing. Seemed like every single one of them guessed wrong.”

“Well, I’m sure those street guys are tricky as hell,” I said.

“Indeed, lad. But the people made out worse than one out of three! My blind arse would have bested them just by guessing.”

We all laughed, even as Muireann’s plaintive melody serenaded us.

“Here, check it out,” Lara offered, handing me two sheets of paper.

I took them and started reading the lyrics. The writing was a mess of cross-outs, edits, and arrows, so it was hard to follow. What I could read was interesting, and a bit ... weird even.

“Thimblerigger?” I read, dubiously.

Tommy laughed. “She needed something to rhyme with ‘figure’.”

I joined his mirth. “And that was really the only word you could come up with?”

“It’s a perfect word, though,” Lara explained excitedly. “That’s what you call the person who works the shells!”

“I’m not going to ask how you knew that.”

“Blame Tommy,” Lara declared.

He held his arms up in innocence but said nothing.

“So, what about the music for it?” I asked.

“I think we have the lyrics pretty much set, so we could start working on that now.”

“They’re set, huh?” I gave the sheets back to her. “A clean copy would be nice. Just to be sure, you know?”

“On it!”

“All right, I’m going to give Heather a quick call and then we can figure out the song, okay?”

“Didn’t you call her earlier?” Lara asked.

Oops...

“No, she was busy after all,” I said without missing a beat. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon.”

“Yeah, right. I think we should say goodnight now, bro,” Lara joked.

“Whatever!”

That evening, after we all said goodnight and retreated to our rooms, I picked up the phone again.

“Back again already?” Heather answered on the other end of the line.

I laughed. “Damn it. I thought I finally would hear you just say ‘Hello’!”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because we already talked this afternoon.”

“I still knew it was you,” she dismissed.

“I’m starting to think that no one ever calls your house except me.”

Heather giggled. “Okay, you got me,” she admitted.

“Either that, or everyone who does call your house ends up with a strange greeting meant for me!”

“Ooh, got me again!”

I sniffed. “I’m going to go with the first one.”

“You’re right,” she teased. “I have no friends, so ... How did it go with the new song today?”

“Pretty good, actually. We came up with some good riffs. Lara’s really getting into writing this stuff.”

“So her lyrics are good?” Heather asked.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Let’s hear some of it.”

“Um ... I don’t know them well enough yet. But you heard her song at the talent show. It’s that kind of stuff. Moody.”

“Okay, I’ll hear it when I come up. So ... Are we pausing the world after all?” she asked, the hope ripe in her voice.

“Don’t tempt me!”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ll get in trouble. You know I was useless the other day.”

“Fine,” she pouted. “Why did you call back then?”

I hesitated, as my reason seemed rather silly. But an odd feeling had been nagging the back of my brain for some days, and a short while ago it had made itself clear. Lara’s lyrics had gotten me thinking again, and now I had to ask Heather, silly or not.

“When did you take that picture?”

It only took Heather an instant to follow my thoughts.

“I don’t know, sometime last month,” she replied.

I stared at the strange shot again, the dilapidated bowling alley that now carried our three sets of initials on it. She took it before her visit... But that was already obvious to me, because she hadn’t been home between Lara’s breakup and the revelations of Truth.

“I don’t ... get it.”

“It was an idea that didn’t pan out,” she finally offered.

“Oh ... Okay. Like for the treasure hunt ... I guess that makes sense. Was it instead of the Trilogy thing with the film strips and stuff? Since the Chinese characters are there too?”

“Something like that.”

“Something like that?” I echoed, dubious. “I’m not believing you again!”

Heather laughed gently. “Why not?”

“You’re acting funny about it. And now that I think of it, you took my Trilogy picture for the hunt on the river, when you visited in the fall. Before you took this one ... I guess what I’m saying is...”

Again there was some silence. “What do you want to know, Matt?” she finally asked. Her voice was unusually subdued.

“Why did you write all three of our initials up? How long ago did you think of, you know, Lara and us?”

I could hear Heather breathing on the end of the line.

“Please tell me,” I added quietly. “And I’m not upset, not at all. I’m just trying to figure things out.”

“A few days after you were here for Thanksgiving break, I had a dream.”

“And?” I urged, when she paused for longer than my patience could handle. For some reason my heart was beating rather fast.

“And for a couple of days I wondered ... what it would be like. Even though I knew it couldn’t work.”

“What do you mean, couldn’t work?”

“You’re her brother,” she said simply. “Or half-brother, but you know what I mean. I had no idea, of course, that it could ever be something. Still, I went to this place that day, the bowling alley. I was just going to take some pictures for a project, and there was a can of spray paint lying there ... I don’t know what got into me. Maybe knowing that this place was extremely secret, and that hardly anyone would ever see it ... Maybe it felt safe to try it out. To make it real, in some hidden little corner of the world. Because I thought it could never be more than that.”

“Okay, I kind of get that. What exactly was your dream about?”

“I don’t remember. Only that I woke up with the idea that you and Lara and me were ... together, somehow. But it didn’t make sense to me.”

I sighed. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about it?”

“Are you being serious now?”

I contemplated. “No, I guess you’re right. It would’ve been weird to bring up something like that back then.”

“Plus it ... It was different. It was only when we were in your room that night, you know, after your show, that it actually made sense. That dream was just a dream. And the initials were just that too. Trying it out, but just a dream.”

“So why give me the picture?”

Heather sighed heavily. “I don’t know why. I just threw it in there the morning I left ... Maybe it was my way of telling you all this.”

“Seems unlike you.”

“What?”

“To just throw something in like that. Everything you do seems planned down to the last detail.”

Heather laughed and the life returned to her voice somewhat. “Oh, Matt, you think way too much of me.”

“No I don’t.”

“Doing random things is the story of my life.”

“Yet somehow it all works like a perfect machine.”

“Maybe the world does that, but not me.”

I shook out of my state. “All right, I understand more about the picture now.”

“Don’t forget, I was working on the hunt like crazy back then, so all kinds of ideas were on my mind. So that also had something to do with it.”

“Okay,” I murmured. “Anyway, that’s why I called. Thanks for telling me.”

“Of course.”

I sniggered. “Of course, she says. Like she ever tells me anything.”

“I just told you this. And I told you about it the other day too!”

“I know, I was just teasing you. And I hate to say it, but I should probably get to bed.”

“Don’t go,” she pleaded gently.

I winced at her tone. It wasn’t the lusted confidence from the other evening, but rather a vulnerable invitation to be let in on some small secret, to be allowed a glimpse of unknown territory within Heather’s heart. My pulse raced again as I glanced at the clock. Late, as usual...

“I can stay on a little longer.”

“I’m sorry about the picture,” she murmured.

“What do you mean?”

“About leaving it in the box with you. It should’ve stayed hidden. I wasn’t thinking.”

I closed my eyes. “Come on, Heather. Don’t say that.”

“I didn’t mean to remind you of ... everything.”

“Of Truth?”

“Yeah. I know it’s not happening.”

“Not for now,” I clarified. “But that’s okay.”

“So forget the picture. It was the wrong thing to do.”

“Don’t sweat it. I wasn’t asking because I was feeling weird about it. Just was wondering how it came about, that’s all.”

“Okay.”

“I mean, you still want to be with me, right?”

“Matt, you mean the world to me! Of course I do,” she said earnestly.

“And I want to be with you too.”

“Sorry that I’ve been a bit down. It’s ... been a hard week, since I left for home.”

“Yeah, same here,” I agreed.

“And I know I’ll see you sooner than it feels, but it seems that each time we visit, it gets harder and harder to split.”

“We really need that bullet train,” I murmured.

“Even that wouldn’t be enough. But at the same time...”

I waited a bit. “What?”

“I don’t know. I just miss you, Matt. And Lara too, and everything.”

“I’m doing my best to keep you in the loop on what we’re up to with the twins.”

“Oh, and you’ve been amazing,” she cried. “I feel like I already know them. I don’t feel left out of that at all. It’s weird ... It’s more like...”

Again I held still, heart racing a bit. This time I said nothing, digging for patience.

“Like I feel left out of what I’m doing,” she finally said.

This unexpected statement made me frown. “What do you mean by that?”

“I don’t know how to explain it.”

I pondered for a bit. How can you not be included in what you’re doing, if you’re doing it?

“Are you like, distracted?” I asked.

“Sort of? But not exactly. More like, I’m watching myself do stuff. I went out to take pictures in town today, and it was really hard. Like, I knew there were good pictures all around me, but they were hiding. I just couldn’t find the angles or the lighting.”

“That happens a lot, though, conditions not being right and all.”

“No, it’s not that. It was all there, the light, the angles, the subjects. I could tell they were there, but I couldn’t see them no matter what I did. Like, if you’d been there, you’d have been snapping all kinds of cool shots, but I was left out of it.”

I laughed gently. “Well, now you know how I feel when we fish together. You’re reeling them in left and right while I stand there, waiting. Even though it’s the same exact water!”

Heather laughed a little. “I feel bad now. But the difference is that you’re not here. I’m not catching anything this week, even though I can see the fish right there. But they can’t see me.”

“Hmm ... Maybe you’re just a bit worn down. Last month was pretty intense, Heather. I don’t even want to think of how much work you put into the hunt, plus everything else. Maybe it’s just a little break you need. Things always feel a bit sad after a good time.”

“Yeah, that could be.”

“Just relax, ease back into the photography and stuff. You can’t go full on all the time.”

“I always could before. It’s weird.”

“Give it a little time.” Then I laughed.

“What’s funny?”

“You probably just need to find your next project.”

“Mm ... Yeah, that’s not been working out too well, so far ... Oh, I so wish you were here,” she murmured.

“So do I, Heather, so do I.”

“But we have to wait a month.”

“I know.”

“Sleep with me, Matt. Please. Tonight.”

“What do you mean?”

“Stay on the phone with me.”

“Like ... all night?”

“Yeah,” she breathed.

I hesitated. As much as I wanted to, the idea of a phone call stretching into the wake-up hour of a school morning was probably well beyond what my parents would tolerate. Already the phone bill discussion was going to be interesting, since I had no cash to cover the call from the other night. Another one, even longer, could ruin everything—

“Okay,” I replied, surprising myself.

“I’m going to call you back,” Heather said.

“No, it’s fine. I’ll tell my moms we just fell asleep by mistake.”

“I’m calling you back,” she insisted.

“You’ll wake everyone.”

“No I won’t. Do you have a second hand on your watch?”

“Yeah?”

“Then do exactly what I say. Start counting when I say go ... Three, two, one, go.”

One, two, three...

“Don’t stop counting. Hang up now, and when you get to exactly thirty, pick up the phone again. If you hear a dial tone, you call me back, okay? My parents won’t hear it.”

... fourteen, fifteen...

And with that she was gone. I hung up, imagining her dialing nine numbers and then her finger hovering over the last one...

And ... press...

... twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thir— I lifted the receiver.

“Did it ring?” she asked.

“Of course not,” I said, laughing a little as I shook my head. A randomly perfect machine...

“Good,” she cooed. “Then let’s get to sleep. I’m beat.”

“Are you sure this is okay? It’s going to be a huge phone charge.”

“I don’t care. I just really want to be with you, and this is the best we can do.”

“All right. Let me get in bed.”

We were soon settled, phones on our pillows near our ears and mouths. I could hear Heather’s quiet breathing over the slight airy noise of the line. The night was still, no breeze to rustle the trees outside. Only the stars made any sound outside as they traversed the great blue sphere.

Everyone went through ups and downs, I knew, but it was hard to hear Heather suddenly struggling with the long-distance aspect. She was always melancholy after we visited each other, as was I. But as she’d noted, it seemed to be a bit harder each time. Well, really it was especially hard this time around. Something deep had been uncovered between us. It wasn’t even Truth, necessarily. But that night in my room after the talent show, when she’d crept through my window and slept with me until morning ... She and I had gone somewhere, traveled far away from the simple life of a couple of kids just out to have a little sneaky fun. But there hadn’t been nearly enough time, in the end.

Her mood and tone pulled at me, tendrils that seemed to reach into forgotten places within my mind. I wanted to be with her, but now we were stranded, apart again, limited to these copper coils that connected us as best they could. A poor substitute for holding her in my arms, but as she knew, it was better than nothing.

Heather’s breathing accompanied my descent into slumber.

At some point, I heard a whisper. “No one knows me like you do, Matt.”

I felt a tingle rise through my spine, and it brought me out of sleep for a moment. “I’m happy about that...” I murmured. “And there’s so much more I want to know.”

“Yes ... Goodnight Matt.”

“Sleep well.”

I heard the sound of a tear melting into a pillow far away from my room. And then my girl and I released ourselves into the clutch of deep night.

In study hall a few days later, I was trying to read a book for English class. Since it was pointless for the twins to start a novel halfway in, it was the one bit of school that Lara and I were on our own for, besides a few end-of-term exams. I’d been putting off reading, having been too busy with the twins, but now I was forced to finish it in a couple of days.

It wasn’t going well, though. Carmen and Tommy were chatting next to me and I was drawn into the conversation repeatedly. Eventually, with only ten minutes of the period left, I forced myself to buckle down. Just as I dug into the chapter, a hand slapped a piece of paper down on top of the pages. I looked up in annoyance, surprised to find Pete standing over me.

“We should totally do this again!” he declared.

I glanced at the sheet, finding it to be an announcement for upcoming talent show auditions. Warm memories flooded into me, standing in the lights of the auditorium stage and playing Please Don’t Stop, the roar of the crowd...

I shook out of it, the absurdity of Pete’s intrusion quickly outweighing the fond recollection. There was no preamble to his strange statement. No greeting for a tenuous but long-time friend, no discussion of whether a decent band was still alive, no apology for fucking everything up by swapping spit with a random redhead at the expense of my sister. Apparently he’d swept all of that under the rug since we’d last spoken a week earlier, and now he was ready to jam.

“Uh, what are you talking about?” I asked, as Tommy and Carmen’s conversation petered out.

“We should enter!”

“Are ... you okay?”

“Dude, I know we’ve been taking a break from the band, but it’s time to get it together again.”

“What is it?” Tommy asked.

I handed him the paper before thinking. He held it idly as he grinned at me.

“Sorry,” I muttered, even as Carmen grabbed the sheet from him.

“Auditions for the school talent show,” she explained.

“Fantastic!”

I turned to Pete again. “So you’re saying you want to jam again?”

“Me and the guys were talking about it, yeah. Maybe this weekend. I’ve learned a bunch of new songs in the past few days. Some cool stuff!”

“When are you getting together?” Tommy asked.

I frowned at him, but of course that wouldn’t do anything to warn him off.

“Saturday after lunch we were thinking, but whatever. Do you play too?”

“Aye, guitar. I’m Tommy.”

“Yeah, I know. They introduced you and your sister plenty last week. I’m Pete. Matt and I are in a band together.”

Are we now?

Tommy chuckled. “I figured that much out, lad. Pull up a chair.”

I tensed up a bit more as the odd moment got weirder. Pete accepted the invite and sat down, so I closed my book with a quiet sigh. It was awkward enough hanging out in study hall with Carmen, a person I’d had a relationship with that ended badly and was never really resolved. Now that situation was precisely doubled.

“We played the talent show last month, and it was fucking awesome,” Pete gushed. “Right Matt? It was killer, you have to admit.”

“It was,” I agreed uneasily.

“This one’s in June, the night of the Spring Fling. It’s like a school dance thing. I don’t know. I’ve never been to that part of it. Not really a dancer myself—Hey, what kind of music do you like?” Pete suddenly asked Tommy.

As the two of them went back and forth a bit, my mind raced. I wasn’t sure what worried me more: Tommy’s growing interest at wanting to play with the guys, or Pete’s abrupt and assumed revival of the band, as if nothing had happened besides a short hiatus for Christmas vacation.

Carmen wasn’t helpful, since she praised our talent show performance effusively. Pete got more and more worked up about the possibilities, excited rather than put off by the idea of having three guitars in the band. Tommy, already familiar with much of our old repertoire from our recent jam sessions in the cabin, only egged him on with enthusiasm for the music Pete was discussing.

I spent the entire conversation wanting to ask Pete who the fuck was going to sing, but the possibility that Tommy would volunteer kept me from voicing it. Lara will kill me if I let those guys invite him to join their band and he agrees. I was surprised at Tommy’s general eagerness, given our discussions of forming a band ourselves, but then I realized he probably didn’t know that this was Lara’s ex-boyfriend. I knew we’d mentioned it once, briefly, but we could hardly expect Tommy to remember everything that had gone on with our lives before they arrived.

Until I could let him in on the awkwardness of the situation – since Pete sure as hell wasn’t feeling it – I decided to keep things noncommittal. No reason to start a scene. Besides, Lara would have an easier time shooting this whole thing down with Tommy than I would.

“Do we have plans this weekend?” he asked me.

“Uh, I’m not sure.”

“I can let you know what time,” Pete offered.

“Yeah, sounds good, let us know,” I managed.

“We’ll just jam, see what happens,” he continued. “This audition thing isn’t until February, so it’s not like we have to be ready tomorrow or anything.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” I muttered.

Pete returned to his blabbering about what songs to play. The bell, which during my attempted novel-reading had been approaching far too quickly, now couldn’t come soon enough. I eyed the clock as the minute hand clicked the last notch and announced the end of the period.

“We better get to class,” I interrupted, stuffing my books away and rising.

Pete walked out with us, but I was able to shepherd Tommy away from both him and Carmen before we met up with Lara and Muireann. Unfortunately, Lara had spotted us from a distance after all, because she whispered to me, “Were you just hanging out with Pete?”

I nodded and widened my eyes in a bit of exasperation. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

Lara was clearly impatient to know, because no sooner had I closed the back door of Alice’s car than she turned in her seat and looked right at me.

“So what’s up with Pete?”

“Now?” I said, giving her a look.

She frowned. “Why not?”

I shrugged. “All right, well ... he came over to us at study hall today.”

“And?”

I dug through my pockets, finding the folded paper and handing it to Lara. She took a second to open it and see what it was.

“What about it?” she finally asked.

“He, uh, kind of made it sound like the band was still alive, and wants to audition.”

“For what?” Alice asked, glancing at me in the rearview.

“Talent show,” Lara explained.

“Oh, okay. And hey, can you sit down so we can leave?” Alice chided.

Lara dropped to her seat and buckled up.

“He invited us to play some tunes this weekend,” Tommy said. “Saturday, I believe he said.”

“You could ... go, if you want to,” Lara said. “Sounds like it would be fun.” Her voice was rather devoid of enthusiasm, though.

“We should all go!” Tommy suggested. “Could be a good session.”

Muireann gave his arm a swat and spoke in Irish. Tommy gave a short reply.

“If Muireann is reminding you that my ex-boyfriend was in that band,” Lara said quietly, “then you should know that Pete was the ex.”

“Feck, I didn’t know!” Tommy cried, reaching over Muireann to pass her swat on to me. “Lad, you never said this was him!”

“Sorry, but he kind of barged in, and it didn’t seem like the right thing to say out loud with him right there.”

“But is he not in the study hall? The lad who always sits in the corner?”

“Yeah, that’s him,” I admitted, a bit surprised Tommy could recognize him. I glanced at Lara. “I haven’t talked to him lately, and then suddenly he’s sitting with us and acting like nothing happened. Kind of caught me off guard.”

“Did he ask about Lara?” Alice piped in.

“He didn’t,” I replied. “No idea what he was thinking with this band thing, really.”

“What a weirdo,” she spat.

“Anyway, that was that. We kind of just left it open.”

“We’ll call it off,” Tommy declared. “I didn’t know, lass. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t sweat it. And you can still go jam if you want,” Lara said. “I just don’t think I can go.”

Tommy waved her suggestion away. “Never mind that. But we should do the tryouts nonetheless, with our own band. Lad, have you talked to Colin?”

“No, was kind of just waiting until ... I don’t know.”

“Until there was reason,” he finished. “This seems reason enough to make a go of it, now.”

I laughed silently at how quickly Tommy could spin on an idea. I glanced at Lara, noting that she was less droopy than she’d been a minute ago. She gave me a small raise of her eyebrow, which turned into a positive gesture.

“All right, I’ll call him tonight,” I said. “As for Pete...”

“He can fuck off until he gets his head out of his butt,” Alice supplied.

I winced, even as everyone else laughed a bit.

“I’ll tell him on Thursday that we won’t be jamming with them after all,” I finished.

I left unsaid that I thought it would be a blow to my old friend, because I got the feeling that no one in the car would be sympathetic. Then again, Pete was simply reaping what he’d sowed.

The next few days were a mix of anticipation, annoyance, and surprise.

The anticipation was due to my phone call with Colin. Although I’d seen him around the school since the twins arrival, we hadn’t really talked about jamming since he’d come over the night that he and Shannon had ended up getting together. In fact, both of them had made themselves pretty scarce since then. Can I blame them, though? They clearly had lots of, um, driveways to plow.

When I called him that night, he was quite eager to come over and play, and it took but a minute to set up a rehearsal for Sunday. I mentioned the auditions, and he sounded all for it. Still, I decided to keep my own expectations low. As fun as the sessions with the twins had been, it was all still very loose so far. There was no telling if we had the makings of a decent band.

Colin’s always-positive spirits were infectious as usual, but my good mood soon gave way to the annoyance of the exams we had for the end of term. It wasn’t the outright torture of the finals we’d have in June, but it still entailed several long nights of studying. Since the twins were exempted, it was lonelier work. They hung out in the cabin, while Lara and I slaved away, every so often glancing across the back yard. We’d sometimes catch the silhouette of Muireann playing her fiddle as she’d wander in front of the cabin window.

“I’m tempted to just bomb the exams and go up there and play,” I muttered at one point.

“Is that so?” came the unexpected scold.

I turned and winced, finding Sarah raising a brow at me from the kitchen.

“Sorry,” I said sheepishly.

“Sorry that you didn’t know I was here, or sorry that you said you were willing to bomb the exams?”

“The last one,” I pleaded, though I was laughing a bit. “Definitely the last one. It was a joke!”

She rolled her eyes and served herself a glass of water. Once she was back in her room, Lara sniggered at me.

“Good one,” she said.

“Like you’re not thinking the same thing.”

“Of course I am. But if you fail the tests, goodbye rest of the year.”

“I said it was a joke,” I drawled.

“Yeah ... Although we could sneak up there and at least hear what they’re playing.”

“You’re wondering if it’s one of your songs,” I teased.

Lara grinned at me. “Yeah. But I doubt it.”

“All right, let’s go.”

She only looked at me for a second before standing. She started for the back door, but I stopped her with a sharp hiss.

“Let’s go out the front, so they don’t see us coming.”

Soon we were walking toward the cabin, keeping to the edge of the forest. The faint strains of the fiddle grew a little louder.

“Damn,” I said, stopping abruptly in surprise.

“What?”

“Listen...”

Lara cocked her ear, and then grinned at me. “Of Course...”

On Wednesday after school, things grew frantic for me. Alice had just dropped us off at home. As Lara took Tommy around the house and straight to the cabin, Muireann fell in beside me to grab some snacks from the kitchen.