Chapter 7

Ten Days Later

Larry leaned back against the wall, able to relax for a few minutes, as the movie reached a scene without Zeke in it. Laney and I sat beside him on the bed, facing the TV screen: I wanted to take full advantage of the little remaining time I had with Laney. Grant sat on my other side, holding my free hand with his own.

Larry closed his eyes and sighed to drain away some of the tension. He nudged me and grinned. “Got your bag packed?”

I shrugged. “Grant and I threw a few things together. They’ll have laundry facilities at the fraternity, right?”

“Oh, sure. And we’re only staying a few days anyway.”

I bit my lip, trying to decide whether I’d forgotten anything. “I’m so totally out of the habit of traveling anywhere. It’s exciting, but kind of scary.” I laughed. “You and Laney are used to it now. You just finished spending the weekend with both your families.”

Larry looked at me curiously. “You could do that, you know.”

I waved my arm to indicate my surroundings. “This is my family, here. Grant...” I rubbed my shoulder against his, “ ... you and Laney, all the other students.” I looked at Grant. “Hon, you were close to your family. Compared to me, anyway. Do you want to go see them?”

Grant thought about it. “Next year, I think. I want to see my dad when I’m a graduate. I was so focused on getting in. I want to show him I made it through.”

I squeezed his hand. “I want to meet him too. He sounds like a good guy.” I smiled at him.

Grant was about to respond when Larry said, “Hst! Zeke’s back on.” We quieted down, watching the screen nearly as intently as Larry.

After Zeke’s first line in the scene, a slightly cross, “What are you talking about, Frank?” Larry thumbed the PAUSE button on the remote and said, imitating Zeke’s voice, “What are you talking about, Frank?”

I blinked in surprise. “That was good! I think you’re getting better just since the start of the movie! You’ve just had, what, three sessions with the voice coach?”

To our surprise, Steffi Bloom had lined up a coach immediately, someone she had known in college. Bloom was no doubt paying him enough to be discreet. Secrecy was not crucial, as it would not be a tragedy if Zeke found out what was happening—nothing was going to happen to him. Nevertheless, Bloom—all of us—hoped to avoid any complications that might arise from Zeke learning what was going on.

Larry beamed at me. “Yeah, but he gives me a lot of homework. I’ve been driving Laney nuts, listening to Zeke on headphones and trying to sound like him. I’m trying to get the pitch just right, and kind of stretch out my vowels more, the way Zeke does. Oh, and did I tell you this coach is helping me on other stuff besides voice? That’s his specialty, but he’s pointing out some of Zeke’s mannerisms too. Like ... Oh, I think one’s coming up in a few seconds. Hold on...” He set the movie in motion again, then paused it again, and pointed at the once-more frozen Zeke on the screen. “Did you see that little head-turn he did? Like this.” Larry flicked his head to the side without taking his eyes off me. “He does that when he’s mad, which I’ll have to be a lot.”

Laney laughed. “Pretty soon you’ll look so much like him you won’t even need the surgery.” He got serious again. “Really, you’re doing great.”

Larry rubbed Laney’s arm fondly. “Thank you, sweety.” He looked at me again, and leaned forward to include Grant in his line of sight. “I’ll really make you guys crazy after the surgery. By that time I’m going to be trying to use Zeke’s voice all the time. And I want you to tell me if I slip back into my own voice. I need Zeke’s to come out of me naturally in whatever situation Steffi puts me in...” He shook his head, irritated with himself. “I mean Stephanie. Stephanie. Stephanie. Stephanie. Damn it. I need to remember to call her that. That’s what Zeke would call her. She didn’t start going by Steffi until college.”

I was about to tell Larry to go a little easier on himself, but I held back. Larry insisted that the time to catch all mistakes, and edit them out of his behavior, was now. I couldn’t argue with that, and I knew how important this was to Larry.

It was becoming important to Grant and me as well. All four of us occupied many of our free hours going over bios of Zeke from various sources, and Bloom’s own increasingly detailed reminiscences, some of them written, some of them spoken into a recorder. The four of us, whenever we got together, either watched Zeke Hillcrest movies or else had long bull sessions speculating on how Zeke would react to various contingencies, and what he would say.

We knew, now, the origin of Bloom’s grudge against Zeke Hillcrest. That was a great help with the planning. I thought back to what Bloom had said in her notes.

High school junior Stephanie Bloom had just begun emerging from a gawky, nerdy, and rather lonely adolescence, her body beginning to blossom into womanhood, and with her physical development had come a determination to leave the safe havens of Math Club and Chess Club, to meet more people, make more friends, to be regarded as a normal girl. Her pursuit of Real Life had culminated in the decision, unfortunate in retrospect, to try to wriggle her way into the small circle of friends surrounding the most awe-inspiring boy in the school, Stephanie’s classmate Ezekiel Hill—a name Zeke disliked, the last name too pedestrian, the first too long and biblical. Ezekiel, soon to call himself Zeke, had already had small parts in a couple of low-budget films. This already made him a star in the eyes of the other students. Nearly every student at the school, male or female, fantasized about somehow finding themselves in bed with the mega-hot redhead. But his exalted social status meant that relatively few could picture how to make it happen.

Stephanie began hanging around and joining conversations in Zeke’s vicinity, with the goal of getting the movie boy accustomed to seeing her face, and soon was butting into Zeke’s own conversations with the chosen few whose regular presence Zeke allowed. Zeke’s friends seemed annoyed at first, but Zeke himself appeared welcoming. Stephanie had not yet learned to distinguish a friendly smile from an amused, self-absorbed one.

No one could have been more thrilled than Stephanie on the day Zeke approached her, sans entourage, as she walked toward the cafeteria for lunch. Want to come to a party, Zeke had asked? Sure, gasped Stephanie. The party, Zeke explained, would be at the home of Zeke’s friend Amber, whose father was out of town on business. What should I wear, asked Stephanie. We’re all pretending to be burglars, Zeke laughed. Can you wear black pants and a black long-sleeved sweatshirt? If it’s got a hood, that would be perfect. Oh, and black gloves, of course. Quivering with excitement, Stephanie memorized the address and the time. I’m in! she thought. I’m in with the innest crowd in the whole school!

I guess I’m early, Stephanie thought as she arrived at Amber’s house, dressed as required in a black outfit that had almost entirely drained her allowance. Is this the right house? It must be, Amber’s last name is on the mailbox. But it’s dark. And so quiet. No music yet. But the front door is open. I guess I can go right in. Maybe they’re all upstairs. To the right of the door, Stephanie saw, with surprise, that a window was also open, its raised lower pane broken. Seems like Amber would put something over that, he thought. Even if her dad’s not here.

She nearly tripped over a black backpack just beyond the front door, and the backpack, open, spilled some of its contents on the floor as she kicked it. Her puzzlement grew as she tried to stuff the things back into the pack. Household items, some of them expensive-looking, and a small pile of cash. Weird this would just be sitting here in the living room, she thought.

The police arrived hardly a minute after Stephanie had entered, pointing flashlights and guns, ordering her to freeze. Stephanie’s mind spun as her body shook with fear. Maybe some neighbor thought I looked suspicious, she fretted. But how could the police have got here so fast? But it’ll be okay, she told himself, trying to calm down. I’ll just explain.

At the police station, an officer told Stephanie that Amber, contacted via her cell phone, was at her friend Zeke Hill’s house, and had told the officer she knew nothing about a party at her own house. She was staying with Zeke while her father was away. But Zeke invited me, Stephanie wailed tearfully. Mister Hill doesn’t know anything about it either, he was told. I had to describe you before they even knew who you were.

Stephanie was charged with breaking and entering with intent to rob. There was a short hearing, in which Amber and Zeke repeated their denials of any plans for a party, or inviting Stephanie to come to one, and laughed at the idea that their friends would all come to a party dressed as burglars. If Stephanie had been eighteen, as a subling criminal she would have been executed and her body sent for conversion, her anonymous thanerone to be given to those who didn’t have sublings in their families. At sixteen, a juvenile with no previous arrests, she was merely put on probation, her records to be sealed once she turned eighteen.

She was lucky the police and courts were discreet about juvenile records. Her father knew, but no one at school did. Except for...

Stephanie never approached Zeke Hill nor any of his circle again. Seething with fury, she promised herself she would get Zeke back one day.

Her social networking site, which grew out of a freshman class project in college, had been inspired by her motivation to help shy teens with few social skills meet people with whom they shared common interests—and avoid the potential disaster of trying to bond with people who were entirely out of their league.

The sale of her site made her wealthy, able to pursue her heart’s desire. Her heart had just one real desire.

I shook my head. I didn’t want to think about the depth of the anger Bloom must have experienced—still experienced. “Are you sure this fake hanging is really going to be enough for her, Larry? Won’t she go after the real Zeke eventually?” I was amazed that that hadn’t happened yet.

Larry smiled. “That’s why I really want to make this as real as I can. Stephanie is going to have this memory of killing Zeke Hillcrest. She’ll really feel like she did! If I do my part right, anyway. I don’t mean she’ll actually believe it. She’s not crazy. But the satisfaction will be there! That’s what I want to give her. The feeling. The memory! She’ll remember killing Zeke, the rest of her life. And who knows—maybe I’ll be saving Zeke’s life!” Larry’s smile spread into a grin. “If you ever meet Zeke, tell him for me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh yeah, like that’s likely.”

Larry was about to start up the movie again, but stopped at the sound of a knock on the door. After I called, “In!” the door opened and Melissa peeked around it tentatively. “Amy? You really busy? Hi,” she said, nodding and smiling at the others in the room.

“A little, right now. We’re helping Larry get ready for his hanging.”

Melissa gasped, her eyes alight. “Really? That’s great! I hadn’t heard, Larry!”

We had decided to keep the details a secret from the rest of the students, though we did plan to host a party for Larry after Laney’s hanging—before Larry’s surgery. I asked, “Did you need something, hon?”

“Oh, I was just hoping you could help me a little with the sex moves. I’m still having a hard time breathing while I’m doing it.”