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Her daughter was in trouble. That’s all they’d tell her. Milena hadn’t received a call from the school since the time Kasey was in second grade when she’d accidentally mushed the class tadpole trying to “watch” metamorphosis. Now, as Milena and her husband Doug approached the high school office grumbling about hysterical teachers, uninformative phone calls, and dramatic power displays, she thought surely the news would be the tenth grade equivalent of the tadpole.

Kasey slouched just outside the office on a worn oak bench, incongruous within the school’s gleaming hallway. A sepia-tinged photograph of the school’s founder hung above her head, the founder’s expression slightly displeased, hard eyes glaring above a Hitler-esque mustache. Wells of wet mascara folded under Kasey’s blue eyes and she studied the wall beyond her, her expression resigned.

The bell buzzed. Classroom doors scraped open and students shuffled into the hallway. They traveled in packs, globs of spilling cleavage and exposed skin, shrieking as they poked and slapped at each other, clouds of hormones floating over their heads.

“What happened?” Milena asked Kasey.

Her daughter retreated into her sheath of shoulder-length blonde hair, her fingers pressed to her forehead and her jaw rigid. The tadpole theory wasn’t holding up well.

When the Principal’s door opened, Milena kissed Kasey’s forehead, reluctant to leave her there, but she clasped Doug’s hand nonetheless and entered the office. The decor screamed: Welcome to the inner sanctum of one of the most elite private schools in the country. Bathed in natural light. Rounded wood furniture. Stained a warm honey color. Dotted with brushed nickel hardware.

Mr. Frazier greeted them with a practiced smile, his breath tinged with coffee and the courtesy mint he used to conceal it. He leaned back in his ergonomic chair. “Would you like a drink? Juice, tea, water?”

Doug squeezed Milena’s hand. “We can just get to it,” he said, youthful despite the grey flecking his temples. His eyes swelled with purpose, like he still thought he could fix anything.

“We had an incident this morning,” Mr. Frazier said. “Kasey was discovered being intimate on school property with two seniors.”

And there it was, Milena’s worst fear. She picked at a hangnail, wishing she could grip it with her teeth and yank. Mr. Frazier had peered into Milena’s soul and extracted its ugliest secret, that Milena had been a sex addict since high school, and that this fact, which had pulverized her own existence, had spread to Kasey, even though she knew nothing of Milena’s past.

Doug rocked forward in his chair. “Excuse me?”

Milena kicked over her purse, spewing sunglasses and packages of sanitizing wipes onto the floor. She scooped the mess back into her bag, apologizing for no reason. She hated when she apologized for no reason.

“Define intimate,” Doug said.

“I’m afraid she was having sex on school property,” Mr. Frazier said.

Milena hadn’t even known Kasey was sexually active, so non-standard sex in a public place seemed impossible. But she couldn’t bring herself to protest, to offer explanations to this man about her daughter’s body.

Doug laughed. “How does that even happen? Wasn’t someone…watching her?”

Mr. Frazier cocked his head as if he hadn’t heard correctly. “We don’t run our school like a detention center. She was absent from Biology class and discovered under a stairwell shortly thereafter.”

“What happened?” Doug asked

Mr. Frazier tapped a pen against his desk. “According to your daughter and the two other parties, it was consensual. In fact, Kasey insists it was her idea.”

Doug eased back into his chair, as though lowering himself into a boiling hot bathtub. “Using viruses to cure cancer is an idea. A threesome on school property is an administrative fuck-up.”

“Is she okay?” Milena asked. “Is she in trouble?”

Doug pinched between his eyebrows. “Which seniors?”

“I’m afraid it’s illegal for me to disclose names.” Mr. Frazier delivered the statement fluidly, as if practiced before a mirror. Or a lawyer.

“It isn’t illegal for older boys to take advantage of a young girl?” Doug asked.

Mr. Frazier folded his hands. “Certainly, you can speak to an attorney, but there’s a Romeo and Juliet exemption to the age of consent in New York. Typically, if the defendants can prove the victim’s age is at least 14 and the age difference is less than five years, it’s considered legal.”

Milena touched Doug’s arm. “We don’t intend to sue.”

Doug snorted. “The fuck we don’t.”

“What’s her punishment?” Milena asked.

“In public schools, the police are usually summoned and the parties are charged for indecent exposure. Being a private school, we have some leeway and I chose not to take that path. They’re all good kids. I’d prefer to do what’s best for them, not worsen a bad situation. I’d recommend a two week suspension.” He straightened his tie and held Doug’s gaze. He never uttered the word scandal, although it seemed clear to Milena that he didn’t intend to suffer one.

“I’m sure Kasey has an explanation,” Doug said.

Mr. Frazier rocked in his chair. “Nevertheless. It’s behavior we can’t encourage.”

Milena’s heart thrummed in her chest hard enough to pulse her shirt.

Mr. Frazier suggested guidance counselor sessions as well as outside therapy. He shook their hands and smiled encouragingly. “I’m sure with the right support at home, Kasey will rebound from this in no time.”

#

Outside, Doug trudged along beside them, his hair blown back from the late autumn breeze. “Wow, Kase. I wasn’t expecting that.” He spoke without inflection, though his voice caught on the last word.

Over the past half hour, Doug’s understanding of their daughter seemed to have broken off and drifted far enough away that he couldn’t retrieve it. Kasey sniffled.

He leaned in and hugged her, his arms stiff and his hands floating just above her skin, as if touching her had become problematic. “Come on, now. No need to cry. Just tell me you’re okay.”

Kasey wiped her eyes and nodded.

“Great. Now tell me their names.”

“Enough!” Milena shot him a dirty look and hooked her arm around Kasey, steering her toward their loft in Riverdale, just a few blocks away.

“What? Am I the only one who thinks this is pertinent information?”

“It was consensual,” Kasey said.

Doug sunk his hands into his pockets. “So I’ve been told.”

They turned down a tree-lined street and Milena squeezed Kasey’s shoulder. “It’s going to take your father time to process.”

On this block of the Bronx, the old maples formed a tunnel overrun with birds. The caws, cheeps and trills rivaled any “Relaxing Sounds of the Rainforest” compilation. Milena always imagined herself somewhere tropical as she passed through.

Kasey pounded her head with her fists. “Fuck!”

A jogger veered to the other side of the street. Milena eyed the throngs of passersby, as though the women pushing strollers cared about anything beyond Kasey’s profanity in front of their newborns.

She yanked Kasey’s arms down to her sides. “What’s done is done.”

“I’m so stupid.”

Milena shook her head. “You’re 16, you’re supposed to be stupid. Within reason.”

“No, Milena,” Doug said. “She’s not supposed to be stupid. She goes to the best school in the country. Let’s not forget who we’re talking to, here.”

Milena’s face flushed. It was the first time Doug had referenced her problem since they’d married. They met shortly after she’d finished her degree in music production, and was enmeshed in the kind of recovery that entailed consistent and predictable fuck-ups. She’d convinced him her rehabilitation had transpired, even though she still didn’t even own a computer for fear of what she’d do with it. Still, she was honest about her past. “I attend SLAA meetings,” she’d said. “I have a sponsor.” She told him she no longer drank or did drugs or even shopped because an addict’s addictions could change. He dismissed it all as harmless promiscuity. He never even asked how many men she’d slept with. He saw her the way she wanted to be seen. The “new and improved” Milena with the yoga mat slung over one shoulder, armed with a cold-pressed juice and a purse filled with organic protein bars.

Kasey sighed and looked out over the filtered skyline. “I guess I never thought I’d be able to do it. I didn’t think they’d want to.”

Milena remembered thinking certain guys were out of her league. It didn’t take her long to learn that impossible unions happened all the time when it came to sex. Such achievements were unremarkable.

“Did you use protection?” Milena asked.

Kasey rolled her eyes. “Of course.”

“Maybe we should go to the hospital to get you checked out,” Doug said.

“Dad. Stop.”

#

At home, Milena changed into a belly shirt and harem pants while Doug finished some work and Kasey called friends. “Damage control,” she’d said. Milena perched atop a pillow to meditate. She visualized herself as a tree in an ancient forest, roots stretching down into the damp earth, leaves unfurling toward the sky and pushing through the open door of her cranium. The wind rippled her leaves and the sun melted her body into the tree’s trunk. She tasted the brown of her bark. Then, a vision of Kasey leaving for her Spring Formal last year; skintight strapless blue dress, the rounds of her boobs squeezed and protruding, small braids interspersed through her hair, a confusing mix of innocence and brazen sexuality, a lovechild of Marcia Brady and Paris Hilton. When Kasey came home at three a.m., Milena hadn’t questioned her daughter. She’d told herself she didn’t want to be a hysterical parent. That she was proud to be “on the level.” That it was a conscious choice, not a survival tactic. Either way, she’d blinded herself to the possibility of their current predicament.

What if her daughter had inherited her promiscuity like it was encoded in her DNA? Milena pictured two strands coiled together, a twisting staircase stretching to infinity, repeating the same mistakes and unfortunate tendencies ad infinitum. Milena had been adopted and never knew her birth parents, or whether her addiction was inherited. And now she wanted to know whether the addiction gene was real and if she’d passed it on, or if Kasey was just experimenting the way, say, an All-American Girl with an edge might.

For Milena, it had started as a healthy appetite, then moved to her best friend’s dad when she was 16. Later, in her NYU dorm room, AIDS hysteria in full swing, unable to study, sneaking out to Washington Square Park, finding a stringy-haired boy in the dark, his jeans smeared with dirt, and wondering as she blew him if he was just skinny or a drug addict or actually infected, and whether it even mattered because she’d do it again anyway, countless times, whether she’d live long enough to expect anything different from herself, for her life. And then there was Ben Lumas, whom she’d loved, and whom she managed to live with for four whole months before she got caught. The consequences were never high enough.

Yet, she never parsed her motivations, other than sometimes she used sex as a weapon and sometimes as a shield and sometimes as a confidence boost and often as a knife to her jugular. She was more certain of all that came after: the meetings, her sponsor, the program, a shrink. The nagging suspicion that her addiction had simply morphed to meditation, yoga, smoothies, a healthier existence.

The doorbell rang. She’d forgotten that Sean, the film director for whom she was compiling a soundtrack, had promised to deliver the dailies so she could study the scenes she was to set to music. It was the standard indie fare – part drama, part comedy, limited release, film festival bound, probably direct-to-video.

Sean wore a silk scarf tied in knots around his neck. He loved vintage suits and accessories, each piece chosen for its ironic reference to someone or something else. But he could never pull off these wardrobe choices with the ease of a John Huston or a Fritz Lang. He smiled at Milena, his receding hair inexplicably parted in the middle.

He handed her the DVD, holding onto it a moment too long. “Come to the set. I can’t stand you watching this bullshit.”

The tapes were boring; the same scenes shot again and again, sometimes over 20 times. Milena bit back an apology. “Things are hectic. I’ll get there.”

Sean peered into the emptiness beyond Milena and raised his eyebrows, unconvinced. He took her in, his eyes drooping with sensuality. He twisted a lock of her hair around his finger and inhaled. She pulled back from him, but he seemed unfazed, smiling as the hair dropped from his fingers, misinterpreting her disinterest as reluctance. A family member rustled, footsteps and a creaking door, and Sean retreated, leaving just the ghost of his smirk.

Later, in her home office, she ran her hands over papers, speakers, wires, a lifetime in music and she felt the old restlessness. The fidgeting, uncomfortable twisting of her body. Without thinking, she palmed her phone and dialed her sponsor. Straight to voicemail and appropriately so; it had been at least five years since she’d called. Almost as long since she attended a meeting. She’d made the mistake every addict makes, the mistake of thinking her problem had shrunk to a manageable size.

#

Later that night, Doug relayed his conversation with their lawyer, who didn’t agree with Mr. Frazier’s conclusions, but believed the boys could get some jail time, or at least fines and a lifetime listed on the sex offender’s registry. He grinned when he told her.

Milena’s heart beat in her throat. “You act like you never had underage sex.”

“You of all people should understand. How would your life have changed if that pedophile that preyed on you had been locked up?”

“This doesn’t say what you think it says. It’s something else. Low self-esteem, Daddy issues, I can’t be sure, but whatever it was, I promise you it had nothing to do with those boys.”

“So it’s my fault.”

Doug slid his veined feet into slippers and stalked out of the room. She wondered if he’d changed his opinion about her past, if she were now to blame.

When Milena retrieved Kasey for dinner, the girl’s eyes were swollen to slits. Blotches of pink surrounding her lips stretched her mouth into a thing with no borders. Kasey’s room felt foreign to Milena, like she hadn’t seen it in months. A bookshelf scattered with fiction mostly assigned by school. Animal Farm, The Things They Carried, Native Son. Heavily doodled notebooks. A pair of Converse (also doodled, resembling a yearbook page more than a shoe), a pair of platform heels, thigh-high boots. Lace underwear she didn’t recognize wadded into a ball. A Justin Bieber poster with a penis drawn in. She should’ve seen this coming.

“What did your friends say?” Milena asked.

Kasey sighed and pushed past her.

They’d ordered Thai and, seated at the dinner table, Kasey reconfigured her food, tucking her chicken into her rice and disemboweling her spring roll. Doug took Kasey’s hand and she climbed into his lap the way she had when she was little. Then she lost it.

He lifted her chin to meet her eyes. “I wanna help, but I don’t know how.”

Beautifully chosen words, and as Milena smiled, Doug reached for her, and a murmur of hope swished inside her.

Kasey swiped the back of her hand along her nose and sniffed. She looked away, probably wondering how a father might help with such a thing.

Milena scooted closer to them and ran her fingers through Kasey’s matted hair. She wanted to confess her past, to apologize for her role in this, but when Kasey turned those big, watery eyes on her, she froze. What if their shared transgressions didn’t console Kasey, but sent her over the edge? What if she didn’t want to hear about it or, worse, what if she did?

Milena struggled to keep her voice even, the discourse flowing. “Let’s focus on why this happened. How well did you know those boys?”

“Not well.” Kasey slid off her father’s lap and dropped back into her seat. She trained her eyes on the wall.

Doug made a triangle with his hands and rested his forehead against it. “Did they talk you into it?” His voice sounded high and stretched, like a man reaching for things outside his grasp.

Kasey’s eyes darted to her mother and she stilled, an animal sensing danger.

Milena steered the conversation. “Think about what you were trying to gain. Did you want to feel prettier? More accepted? Were you feeling rebellious?”

“Sometimes boys can hurt a girl,” Doug said. “And at first it may not seem like it.”

“They didn’t fucking force me, Dad.”

Doug pressed his fingertips into the table. “It can be hard to understand when you’ve been hurt.”

Kasey sprung up from the table, nearly toppling her chair. “It was all me, okay? ALL. ME.” She seemed to reconsider a dramatic exit and instead leaned on the table and hung her head.

“And how do you feel now?” Milena asked.

Kasey bit her lip and closed her eyes. “Gross.”

#

In their bedroom, Doug leafed through his closet, laying out a suit for the next morning. “What reason does she have to act out?”

“I don’t know.”

“What if there’s a baby or an STD?”

“Then we’ll deal with it. But she used protection.”

“I just hope this doesn’t screw up her life.”

“It’s a short-term screwing. She’ll graduate and never hear about it again.”

“But there’s social media. And the Internet. Those things don’t go away.”

Milena considered this. “I’m not saying it’ll be easy.”

Doug clicked on the TV and settled in to watch his favorite show.

Milena turned her back to the TV. “I’m thinking about telling Kasey. Maybe it would help her confide in me.”

Doug squinted at her. He left the TV on. “I don’t think you want to do that.”

“No?”

He stole a quick glance at the screen, then patted the bed beside him. She crawled next to him.

“Don’t you think it would upset her?”

Milena swallowed raggedly, her mouth dry. “Our mistakes don’t define us forever,” she said softly.

He turned off the TV and tossed the remote onto his bedside table. Gathering the soft folds of her into his hands, he kissed her. “Of course not.”

#

Milena and Doug ate breakfast at the kitchen table. Milena, cross-legged in her chair, sipped a green smoothie and looked at the sunlight glinting from the forehead of a small jade Buddha in the middle in of the table. Like it was having an epiphany that might someday rub off on her.

Dressed in his suit for a day of futures trading, Doug shoveled cereal into his mouth and scrolled through his laptop. “You’re still not on Facebook?”

Milena shuddered at the thought. “Nope.”

“Kasey’s profile is private.”

“I don’t even think they use Facebook anymore. It’s something else now.”

“Do you remember what?”

“You’re not back to the names again, are you?”

Doug drank the milk from his bowl and placed it in the sink. “I’d feel better knowing who these kids are. I bet their parents know. I bet everybody knows.”

“You can’t cyber-stalk her.”

“She’s not telling us shit.”

“You could be making her a therapist appointment. You could be reading books or articles. You could be talking to her right now. And instead, it’s this.” Milena slammed her glass down with more force than she meant to use.

“I’m gathering information.”

“The wrong information.”

“Now you’re schooling me on appropriate behavior?”

Instead of hurling her glass against the wall or, say, Doug’s face, Milena rinsed it, attempting to steady her hands as she watched a whirl of residue gag the drain. “Turning on each other isn’t going to solve this.”

“But you let her do whatever she wants,” he said. “I don’t even think you see a problem with any of this.”

“Why don’t you just say it’s my fault.” She strode back to her chair but was too angry to sit. Doug continued to scroll and tap and before she could stop herself, she snapped his laptop screen shut. “Don’t fucking ignore me.”

He stood. “Grow up.” A moment later the front door slammed.

She was still staring at the door when Kasey shuffled in wearing a t-shirt that read, “Feed me and tell me I’m pretty.”

Milena didn’t greet her. “I’d like to know when you lost your virginity.”

Kasey groaned, plopping herself into a chair. “You don’t need to try to be my friend, you know. I have friends.”

“I can help.”

“What? Psychoanalyze me?”

Milena plucked an apple from the fruit bowl and sliced it thinly. “Sex isn’t love. It’s not respect, either. It won’t give you what you need.”

“Stop lecturing me. Can’t you just be my mom?”

Sixteen years of supposedly filling the role of mom, and she’d never even read the job description. Her throat tightened.

“Maybe it’s time for a curfew, then.”

“I’ve never had a curfew my whole life.”

“Things change when you get caught having sex with strangers.”

Kasey poured herself a bowl of cereal. Milena couldn’t see her face, but could tell she’d started crying.

Kasey slammed the refrigerator door. “Fine. I won’t have anyone to go out with anyway.”

Milena’s phone buzzed. A text from Sean: “Come to the set or you’re fired,” punctuated by a winking emoticon.

“A mistake is a mistake. But was it just a one-time thing?”

Kasey nodded and stirred her cereal.

“You don’t want to ruin your life,” Milena said.

“Does anyone ever want to ruin their life?”

#

Milena opened Doug’s computer to check the weather, but his browser showed a list of articles about a senior from Kasey’s school, Gallagher Astor. This is one of them, she thought. She squinted at the face beneath the caged Lacrosse helmet and tried to interpret it. Dark eyes, nice skin, Roman nose. Athletic and popular. Probably the kind of guy who partied hard, who hosted people at his penthouse every time his parents stole a long weekend in the Hamptons or Nantucket. The kind of guy who ignored a girl until the bottles were drained and the rooms began to empty. The kind Milena would’ve slept with once, searching for something in the encounter she knew she wouldn’t get. She snapped the cover shut, cursing Doug.

An hour later she exited a cab in Coney Island where Sean greeted her wearing a ridiculous plaid bowtie. The place was like something trapped in another era when carny kitsch was an attraction, when seaside resort areas were marked by Ferris wheels and vaudeville theaters rather than McMansions.

Sean squeezed Milena’s shoulder and winked. “I thought I’d never get you here.” A nearby cooler contained several airplane-sized bottles of champagne. Sean handed her one.

“I don’t drink.”

He crimped his face at her like she was insane. “You’re going to have an aneurism if you don’t lighten up. It’s just life, Lena. Enjoy it, would you?”

She tried to hand it back, but Sean refused. One by one, the crewmembers turned to watch. She was making a scene, when she only wanted to feel invisible for a few hours. To leave her house, transcend her brain, and hone in on something she was good at.

Sean sighed and shifted his stance. He was impatient, annoyed, possibly embarrassed. The idea that she’d systematically eliminated all pleasure from her life bloomed within her like an ancient truth. She hesitated, then popped the cork.

She hadn’t had a drink since she met Doug and became tipsy immediately. She tripped over a microphone and giggled like an idiot afterwards. Her shoulders loosened. Her nerves and muscles seemed to unfurl, a delicious sensation that almost tickled.

Sean introduced her to the leads. The actress chewed gum with her mouth open, hair pulled back in a ponytail, barely older than Kasey, and chattered on about music and how in high school she listened to Pop but was into EDM now. Last year she’d met David Guetta when she was “tripping balls” at Coachella and “hung with him” at a “fucking off the hook” after party. The actor tried to interrupt, but only managed a word or two. He smoked a cigarette, his mouth wetting the filter and tongue curling against the smoke. Milena laughed, pausing each time she glanced at the actor, whose face she’d transposed to Gallagher’s obscured visage beneath his Lacrosse helmet.

When filming resumed, Milena watched from a plastic chair close by. Each time the clapperboard snapped, the man and the woman changed everything about themselves; their posture, mannerisms, expressions. As if they’d received an electrical jolt, the man became more assertive, and the actress morphed from a gum-chewing child to a woman, seductive, her movements languid, her lips parted. She practically shimmered. If only real change was that easy.

The performance unsettled Milena, as if some delicate membrane separating fantasy from reality had been compromised and she no longer understood her own struggle. She got herself another bottle of champagne, knowing she shouldn’t, but no longer convinced it mattered.

Afterwards, Sean offered to drive her home.

“It’ll take you half the night this time of day,” she said.

“I insist.” He nodded toward a white trailer. “Let’s grab my keys.”

Milena knew why he wanted her inside the trailer. His keys were probably in his pocket. Still, she followed him.

He motioned for her to enter first. Her fingers danced above the door handle, toying with the feeling, the old sensations, being swept up in something larger than her, a gust of irresponsibility. She was conscious of the remorse then, conscious it would grow, conscious of its crippling power, and yet, she opened the door anyway. She did it all anyway.

During, he kept his eyes open, scanning her face, searching for hers, which were trained on the fluorescent lights overhead. The sofa, rough like burlap, chafed her back. The sound of water sloshing back and forth in a dispenser with each thrust, gave it the whiff of comedy, though Milena no longer laughed. Afterwards, he kissed her wrist and told her she was beautiful.

#

Milena walked Kasey to school for her guidance counselor appointment. It was the last day of her suspension.

“Maybe we should talk about next week,” Milena said.

Kasey pulled a leaf off of a tree and shredded it. “I just go back and take the abuse and try not to kill myself. I mean, I already know what people have been saying. They’ll just say the same shit to my face.”

“It’s all over social media.”

Kasey snorted. “Are you kidding me?”

“Can I see?”

Kasey crossed her arms. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

Her pace quickened. She was walling herself off, the iron latches of her defenses locked tight. It opened Milena’s heart in a way she hadn’t expected. With the imprint of Sean affixed to her, a film on her skin she couldn’t wash away, she felt the same impulse. Hide. Deflect. Run.

Milena blinked back tears. “People are called sluts all the time. They’re called sluts because they have big boobs or because they flirt or while they’re being raped. It’s not who you are.”

“Maybe it is. I got passed back and forth between two guys.”

“We are more than our mistakes.”

The school came into sight and Kasey took a deep breath, facing the entrance.

She yanked her off-the-shoulder shirtsleeves farther off-the-shoulder. “Let’s just do this. Okay?”

Milena waited on the worn oak bench beneath the founder’s picture. She didn’t want to stifle Kasey, or align herself with the mothers who were too much of a good thing. Who wouldn’t let up. Who weaseled their way into the places they were least wanted. And yet. She had to be there for her. There had to be a way her experiences could help.

Doug, who’d agreed to meet them, slid onto the bench next to her. They’d been avoiding one another since the fight.

He touched her knee lightly. “Sorry about how things have been.”

“Don’t be.”

He hitched her closer, his leg touching her leg, his eyes searching hers. “I shouldn’t have made you feel like it was your fault.”

“Please. Don’t.”

“I’m her parent, too.”

“Doug.” It was a prelude to so much more, yet saying what followed felt like too great a distance to traverse. And then Kasey emerged from the counselor’s office and Doug had jumped up, peppering her with questions. How was it? What did she say? Are there things we should be doing? Does she want to speak with us? How can I help? They’d gone from lovers to parents, from people to ideas. Or maybe they’d always been ideas to each other.

Kasey took a deep breath. “Can I just get a hamburger?”

They entered a burger joint around the corner and ordered milkshakes. Kasey talked about summer break. About how they’d go to their house in Maine again this summer, where she had different friends, a different identity.

Milena bit her cheek as she listened. She rung her hands, cracked her knuckles and cleared her throat. She had to tell them everything and refuse to let them dismiss the problem that didn’t go away no matter how she dressed or colored her hair or carried her yoga mat.

“I have to speak and I need you to listen.”

Kasey and Doug stopped talking mid-sentence and stared at her as though she was a stranger, as if they had no idea what she’d say next.

Kasey reached out to her, resting a hand on her shoulder and squinting with concern. “Mom, what is it?”

And Milena thought she saw a spark of recognition in her daughter’s eyes.

 

-THE END-

 

---

Michele Lombardo is a Pennsylvania-based writer of fiction and screenplays, as well as Co-Founder of Write Now Lancaster. Her work has appeared in Permafrost Magazine, Youth Imagination Magazine, The Journal of Crime, Law and Social Change, and others. She is a graduate of UCR Palm Desert’s MFA Program and is married with one daughter.
Learn more at michelelombardowrites.com.

The parameters of the assignment were not at all clear. The only thing I knew for sure was that I was to live alone in a house outside of Buffalo. The unspecified length of my stay worried me. I thought perhaps after awhile without human contact I would begin to unravel. I’m a social creature. During the first few days I drafted a checklist, which, if adhered to, would help stave off any peculiarities of the mind. Some were obvious. Others seemed silly.

#1: Avoid pacing to and fro. Madness is always accompanied by pacing to and fro.

#2: Refrain from talking to myself. At times it might be comforting but it is a risky business.

#3: Don’t cut corners. For example: continue to pee standing up.

#4: Engage in mental exercises. For example: think of ten green things before breakfast.

#5: Steer clear of OCD-like behavior, touching knobs and faucets only when necessary et cetera.

The list went on. I was happy with the first twenty-four rules and I would add to them when necessary.

The two bedroom, two bath house, replete with hardwood floors and white walls, boasted a single mattress, no box spring, in the master bedroom, and a single collapsible chair in the living room.

On the wall in the kitchen hung a clock, a calendar and an old phone with a coiled cord. Those were the essentials. A yellow tennis ball and a children’s coloring book had been thoughtfully provided for diversion. Unfortunately no crayons were included. The rumor had it the Agency was experiencing cutbacks.

I was not to leave the house. They were clear on this point. They said the full extent of my mission would be made known to me when it became necessary for me to know. I dreamt up different scenarios but none of them seemed plausible. The closest I got to anything at all realistic was imagining there could be a sleeper cell of local housewives who were all set to be activated in the near future. It wasn’t much of a hypothesis as far as they go.

I bounced the tennis ball against the wall for hours thinking about the Agency and what my mission might be. The Agency liked to be mysterious. No one knew exactly what they did. I guessed this was what gave them the peculiar amount of clout they seemed to command. The mystery was what drew me to them right out of college. The sense of adventure had tantalized me. Now I was starting to wish I had gone in another direction.  I wouldn’t quit mid-mission though. I was afraid to. They might make me pay for it.

Having an unknown job to do at an unknown time provoked anxiety. I couldn’t help but feel on edge. I felt the Agency was toying with me unnecessarily. I didn’t understand it. I started to curse them under my breath but I always caught myself before breaking my ‘no talking to myself’ rule.

On day eighteen I emptied out some cereal on the kitchen counter in the hopes it would attract mice. I thought if I could get one to hang around it would give me an excuse to hear my own voice. I’d name it Jerry and chew the fat. “How are you? What’s it like living in the walls?” That sort of thing. A mouse infestation would greatly increase my quality of life, I thought.

Before this I had always wanted more time to sit and think, but now I longed for something to do. Even the most monotonous, mindless chores would have been welcome. I would have gladly scraped the barnacles off a ship’s hull with a spatula, or counted the cars in a train station’s parking lot. Even cleaning the kennels of an inner city animal shelter wasn’t out of the question. I would have done all this for free. Instead I was getting paid to throw a tennis ball against a wall.

Once, I bounced the tennis ball against the wall five hundred and thirty-four times without dropping it. This record stood for weeks. Afterwards whenever I reached four hundred I got nervous. Once I got really close to breaking the record. I got to five hundred and twenty-nine and I bobbled it. As the ball rolled away from me I put my face in my hands and cried.

At precisely 2:22 pm on the thirty-fifth day the phone rang. I dropped the tennis ball mid-throw and ran to the kitchen. I yanked the phone from the receiver before the end of the second ring.

On the other end of the line I heard a man’s voice. “There will be a job for you at 19:42 on the eighty-fourth day,” it said. The man’s voice was chilled like a glass of ice water. “In the meantime,” he said, “you are to learn Spanish.” I felt I had missed a beat.

“How do you expect I do that?” I queried. But just then, true to the cliché, the doorbell rang. I asked the man on the phone to hold on and answered the door. I was wringing my hands. I opened the door wide, glad to see another living soul, and said hello.

 

The woman wore a frown with a pouty lip. She was either in a bad mood or didn’t like the look of me because she didn’t offer me a single word. Still, being snubbed by her was far better than not having had anyone to be snubbed by. She gave me a yellow box with big black letters on the top that read “Rosetta Stone” and piled an old, used laptop on top—a real clunker.

I went back to the phone to question the man further, but the line was dead. I wasn’t at all surprised and I was too excited to be very disappointed.

Like a kid opening up a new, much-desired toy, I tore open the box and started on the Rosetta Stone immediately. I sat in the corner of the small room off the living room, which I had decided was the study, and plugged right into it. In a few hours I had mastered Level 1.

Rosetta Stone said, The woman is pretty, and I said, La mujer es bonita.

Rosetta Stone said, Asparagus is a vegetable, and I said, Esparragos es un vegetal.

Rosetta Stone said, The bus arrives at seven, and I said, El autobus llega a las siete.

Rosetta Stone had several things going for it. One was that it proved to be considerably more rewarding than bouncing a tennis ball against a wall. Two, it had a pleasant female voice which spoke to my loneliness. And three, it allowed me to use my voice without technically talking to myself. I was immediately hooked. I just hoped my tennis ball wouldn’t feel too neglected.

During study breaks I fantasized about moving to South America and living a simple life near a beach someplace. I’d marry a forty-something woman with thick black hair and a thick rear-end. I’d have a grown stepson and we’d become friends. It would be a simple life but it would be a full one. I’d think about this for several minutes each day and it conjured up a very pretty picture.

On the fifty-sixth day I leafed through the children’s coloring book like I had dozens of times before. This time I imagined using mostly a blue crayon to color it as if I were a big shot like Picasso. It started off with a blue car and a blue house, which was plausible enough, but ended with a blue bear and a blue lobster. I told myself that I was an artist and that this was artistic license. I imagined smiling happily at the scathing critiques of my debut gallery.

The food in the cupboard was plentiful but there was little variety. Whoever had made the selections had little imagination. After awhile you stop looking forward to meals. Clam chowder ceases to make the mouth water. The thought of baked beans makes the stomach feel queasy. Dried banana chips trigger a gag reflex. When I was studying food items on the Rosetta Stone I experienced hunger pangs. Yo quero hanburguesa con queso y papas fritas. Por favor, por favor, por favor… I hugged my legs and rocked back and forth.

I took to spying on my neighbors. I didn’t want to think of myself as a Peeping Tom but I was too desperately bored to worry about whether I fit the label or not.

In the house on my left lived a young woman who I decided was a widow. The middle aged man in the house on my right tooled around in a sports car. And directly across the street a young couple and their two young children made their home.

I spent a good chunk of my day spying on them. I took the mirror from above the bathroom sink to ensure I wasn’t caught. I would lie on the floor and hold up the mirror at a good angle sometimes for an hour or more just to catch a glimpse of the man backing out of his driveway or the two children playing games in their front yard.

Sometimes I felt like a creep. The first few opportunities I had to see the young widow undress before getting into bed I looked away. I commended myself for my fortitude. Eventually I started looking of course. It wasn’t hard to justify—I convinced myself I was watching with an artistic eye.

The eighty-fourth day came and my eyes were glued to the clock. I couldn’t wait for it to read 7:42 when the Agency was supposed to call with the job. At one point I took the clock down off the wall for inspection. I held my ear up to the back where the battery was. I heard ticking but only faintly. I would have hoped for a stronger sign of life. As it was I continued to eye the cheap clock with a certain amount of skepticism.

I played the Desert Island game to kill time. If I had to limit myself to one movie I would choose Castaway. If I could listen to only one song I’d choose Message in a Bottle. If I were stuck with one book I decided on Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not. I went down the line pretty far. Eventually I chose a kind of car, a brand of sneaker and a type of scented candle. I went as far as I could then started over and chose the next best whatever. This killed thirty-eight minutes, which wasn’t as much as I had hoped.

The phone rang at 7:41, and I was alarmed. The Agency was a minute early. This type of sloppiness was unheard of. I let it ring several times and contemplated the development. After several harrowing seconds I decided not to answer until the clock read 7:42. That way it would be like the mistake had never been made. I let the phone ring and ring.

When I finally took the phone off the receiver the same man’s voice as before said he had a job for me. A warm sensation washed over me. It felt as thought I had just been plunged feet first into a heated pool. I thanked him and asked him how his day was going. I was starved for human interaction. I would have been grateful for any small personal remark, but none came.

“Assemble the crib,” he said flatly.

I would have asked ‘what crib?’ but instead I just waited for the doorbell to ring, which it did momentarily. I padded barefoot to the door. As before when I picked the phone back up the line was dead.

I put the large rectangular box in the corner and regarded it from the corner of my eye. Learning Spanish I didn’t mind, I had always wanted to learn a second language, but where there was a crib there was likely to be a baby and that troubled me. It seemed a messy business. I had no desire to be a single dad. For the moment I left the disassembled crib where it was.

A few days went by with the box sitting there. I continued on with my normal routine. I studied my Spanish, I bounced my ball, I spied on my neighbors and I colored the coloring book with my imagination. For exercise I decided to take up yoga. I knew nothing about yoga however so the poses I did were all completely original. I invented a pretty serious routine with a series of twists and stretches and named all of the poses after my favorite comedians. I always ended the routine with a pose I named The Bill Murray. It was essentially a crab walk but with twisted arms and legs. You knew you were doing it correctly if your shoulders felt on the verge of dislocating.

From day one I had taken it as a matter of course that a camera had been installed in the fire alarm. For a long time I just ignored it but sometimes I found myself standing there in the hall gazing up at it. Often I lost track of time in that position.

As time went on my relationship with the fire alarm progressed. I began standing in front of it gesturing with a series of intricate hand movements that I imagined could be interpreted. If there really had been a camera there, and if there was someone watching, the only thing he or she would have gleaned by my hand contortions was that I was losing it, which I myself already suspected.

Eventually I made up a new rule concerning the fire alarm. I was to start ignoring it again. If I gave it no power it wouldn’t matter if there were a camera or not. Still, if I had had a ladder I would have torn the thing apart in an instant. I tried the chair, but it was too short. I could just graze the circular box with my fingertips but I couldn’t get ahold of it. It still troubled me. Either I was clever or I was paranoid—I had a vested interest in knowing the truth.

Another day started with me rolling off the mattress onto the floor and beginning to count green things in my mind automatically. Mostly I used the same ones over and over. Trees, grass, leaves, celery, Granny Smith apples, marijuana, my Puma’s, Irish Spring soap, the Incredible Hulk… Often I didn’t make it all the way through. I kept getting lazier. I gave up easier and easier. I thought maybe I should change the color but that would mean changing the rules and if I changed one rule there was nothing to stop me from changing another and another and I would wind up with total anarchy on my hands. The rules were all I had to hang on to.

Finally I couldn’t ignore the contents of the cardboard box any longer. The idea of a baby still hung in the air like a bad omen, but the prospect of having a project to immerse myself in trumped all forebodings. I cracked my knuckles and danced around the room like a boxer warming up for a bout. I felt relatively well physically.

I took out all of the pieces and spread them out on the floor. The instructions outlined fifteen steps with pictures included. It looked misleadingly complicated. Everything “male” about me cried out to crumple the paper up in a ball and toss it into the corner. I fought off this urge and instead folded the instructions into an airplane and sent them sailing into the kitchen. It was the mature thing to do.

I put all of the pieces into categories, sorted by size. I saw a picture of how to proceed and put pegs into holes and bolts into smaller holes to hold the pegs in place. I progressed quickly through the steps. I had to backtrack once, but it seemed to come together okay afterward. When I finished there were two pieces left over, but in my experience that often happened and it didn’t worry me. I threw them into the kitchen to where the instructions had landed and put the crib in the guest room. I felt satisfied to have put it together, but looking at it there gave me the willies. I turned away and shut the door behind me. I decided to keep it closed.

My one hundred and seventeenth day in the house came without any more missions. I was up to Level 4 on the Rosetta Stone. I became more and more attached to the woman’s voice. If I was being honest with myself I was completely in love. I feared it would be an unrequited love.

The woman’s voice said, Mi hermana esta ordeñando la vaca, and I said, My sister is milking the cow. The woman’s voice said, Hace mucho tiempo yo solia jugar al futbol, and I said, A long time ago I used to play soccer. Eventually I built up the courage and asked the woman her name. I waited several moments for a reply but none came. In spite of the ridiculousness I found it to be heartbreaking.

On sunny days butterflies flew around, and on rainy days my neighbors left their houses in raincoats and carrying umbrellas. The weather didn’t concern me much. I bounced my ball against a spot on the wall to the right of the clock and scratched my long, scraggily beard rain or shine. If I could have traded five cans of clam chowder for a razor and some shaving cream I would have gladly done so. Having a shave would have greatly helped my morale.

In my former life I would normally drink coffee and eat toast and jam in the morning. Now I drank questionable tap water and ate dried banana chips. I paged through the coloring book as I popped the chips in my mouth. If I could have had only one color crayon I would have chosen purple. On page seven, a unicorn’s mane was just dying to be made purple. I would have gladly offered up a month’s salary for a purple crayon. I would have taken half a crayon, or even taken a nub. Anything to put a mark down on paper. Anything to prove I wasn’t a ghost.

I felt cross with the calendar. It wasn’t being completely honest with me about the way time was passing. Sometimes it careened too fast. Eventually I took it off the wall and put it in the kitchen with the crib instructions and left over crib pieces. We would be spending some time apart.

Somewhere around the one hundred and forty-third day my doorbell came alive and spoke to me. I almost tripped on my dash toward the door. I pulled the curtains aside a crack and saw a pretty, strikingly-pregnant young woman standing on the porch. I took a deep breath and opened the door. I was surprised by her presence but I was not surprised when she greeted me in Spanish. She handed me a note and smiled. I smiled back and opened the note. It said, Look after the pregnant woman. She speaks Spanish.

I was glad for the company, of course, but I wished I had had a little notice. I had been experimenting with degrees of filth, and she found me at an all-time high. I hadn’t showered for more than six weeks. My odor was stiff. I saw that it had hit the woman as soon as I opened the door but out of politeness she had fought the urge to pinch her nose.

I gestured the woman into the house and ushered her into the chair. I hadn’t learned much Spanish vocab about babies and pregnancy, but managed to work out that she was nine months pregnant and that the baby was due any day. We shared a chuckle about her size, but I wasn’t sure about much of what she said. She didn’t yet realize how little Spanish I actually knew and threw out too many words at a time.

“Mi nombre es Inez,” she said with big wide eyes. I had never met anyone with that name before. It matched her face well, and the combination struck me as painfully beautiful.

I told her my name was Joe, but it sounded like a lie. I felt changed from the Joe who had existed before starting on this mission. Maybe I’d go by Joseph once I finished here. Maybe I’d take myself more seriously.

In a lull in the conversation I said, Hace mucho tiempo yo solia jugar al futbol. Inez nodded and smiled. I offered her some banana chips and she said they were one of her favorites.

“Chips de platano son mi favorito,” she said and blinked twice. She was indeed very young.

When the phone rang I ran to it hoping for some kind of instructions. What was I supposed to do with this pregnant girl? Instead all the man said was, “open the front door,” and hung up. I did as I was instructed, and in an instant two men were carrying a queen size mattress up the stairs into the guestroom. I was jealous of the size and I wondered if it had lumps like mine. It was clearly used but looked close to new.

I didn’t want Inez to know I had been spying on the neighbors so while she had a lie down testing the mattress, I put the bathroom mirror back on its hinges to avoid suspicion. I would miss the spying. Though we had never spoken I felt as though my neighbors and I were close friends. Giving them up would leave a big gap in my life. My eyes moistened. I hand tightened the bolts of the mirror as best I could.

The day after Inez’s arrival I got another call from the Agency, and they told me to take notes. I had no writing implement, as they well knew, and did my best to listen carefully as I could. They communicated four items to me.

(1) I was not to speak English to the woman or the infant. (2) I was to ration food for the sake of the new residents. (3) I was not to, under any circumstances, have intercourse with the woman. (4) I was not to use the crayons as they were for the infant.

Three things happened in the next few moments. First the line went dead, then Inez started moaning and, lastly, the doorbell rang. I went to Inez first but found her to be screaming strings of unintelligible Spanish words so I went to the door. I swung the door wide and found a short bespectacled man standing there. I could tell he was a doctor because he was dressed in blue scrubs, he wore a surgical mask and said, Soy médico. Given the situation I decided to let him in without interrogation.

He crossed the threshold and slapped a pack of crayons into my chest. I took a glance at the box then clutched it to my heart. Not sleeping with the woman would be difficult to be sure, assuming she was into it, but not using the crayons would be nothing short of torture. Things were looking up though. And I was beginning to get an idea of what the Agency had in mind for me. My guess was the mission would be another eighteen years. Others should be so lucky, I thought.

 

---

Pete Able’s work has been published in Forge Journal, Lost Coast Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, Prime Number Magazine, and Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, among others. He is 34 and lives in Philadelphia.

On the day the others left, we’d all been watching from inside the gates. They didn’t open anymore, and even back then, they had been rusted shut at the seams of their locks. They made our hands smell like blood. The others, maybe ten of them, climbed under the gates where swampy trees had uprooted the concrete where the soil was soft and new. They didn’t look back at us from the outside, holding hands, and their Nostalgia Town t-shirts were stained with sweat and dirt. They disappeared into the parking lot, and we hadn’t seen them since.

Once Petey disappeared, though, everyone started to act funny. They talked about going outside the gates to look for him, because that’s the only place Petey could’ve gone. A lot of them would talk about what would be on the outside, about leaving the inside. I couldn’t let that happen because we were safe here. Our Moms and Dads left us here because we would be safe. We’ve been safe.

We could’ve been worse off. We could’ve lived somewhere cold, or too hot, but we’re lucky. A swamp can never fool you: It’s just a swamp. Nostalgia Town, where we’ve been living, is surrounded by a thick marsh. We’d taken shelter in-between mossy roller coasters and rusting whirly rides. The park used to be lit up and loud, always screaming – happy. Now the rides ache and howl against cool, marsh breezes at night – moaning, and we all cry with them. We used to cry for something, for someone. Maybe for all the Moms and Dads, but I don’t think we know why we’re crying anymore. Maybe it’s just nice to cry sometimes.

We didn’t go on the Outside. That’s where The Bad lived. In the Before Time, we all used to live on the outside. We used to go to school, and we had friends. We used to go on vacation to fun places like Nostalgia Town, or we went to the mall, bought new clothes and shoes. We had video games and dolls and plastic dinosaur action figures. On the inside there were only memories and us.

Only a few of us lived in Nostalgia Town. We’d all been in the same class together at school, so we were sort of friends before The Bad Time. We were grateful for that.

There were several of us left.  There had been more, but after a while in the sun, our faces sweaty and oily, the others decided to go on the outside. They went looking for their parents by themselves, because the seven of us didn’t want to go out there. It was still early on, when The Bad was new, and Nostalgia Town was less rust colored.

But we didn’t bring that up anymore.

Our timekeeper, Peg, used to put up one mark on the back of a popcorn shed at the beginning of each day. The wood on the shed was full of slashes and checks, for each day, each month, each year. We’d almost run out of space, but Peg was the only one who seemed worried about it. I don’t think anyone thought about it anymore. No more Christmas or Halloween. No more tooth fairy, or Easter bunny, or summer break.  We made things fair by having one birthday for all of us at the end of Peg’s calendar. The swamp was bad at telling time, and we all had just turned thirteen, so we weren’t interested, either.

Darla, Peg, Francis, June, Petey, Bug and I, we were family. We’d watch each other’s backs. That’s what a family does.  We gave each other jobs to so we woudn’t be bored, hungry, or dumb. We’d sleep inside of the old First Aid building on bunks with worn, wool blankets. Despite everything, the park keeps us safe from the wind and rain. The spider web moss clinged to the water-warped boards and gives us shade. Some of the rides still moved if we tinkered long enough. We could be safe here, and we all knew that we should’ve been – no, that we were definitely grateful for Nostalgia Town. We just wanted to make this work.

Francis and June were twins, real smart, and they did all of the scavenging because they were good at finding things. The swamp had tiny flowers and berries for us to eat. Petey was our cook, mostly because he was the only one who knew how. His Mom had to work all the time, he said, so Petey and his brother would make themselves dinner. He’d take the scavenged things from Francis and June, canned food and un-popped popcorn kernels, cotton candy sugar, uncooked pretzels, and the like, to make us two meals a day. If we wanted a snack we decided it was best to forage on our own. Sometimes Francis and June would talk about growing plants, but we could never figure it out. We would eat wild flowers and stale M&M’s, but everything always changes—stuff ran out.

Bug made us fires, and had already built some of the other stuff that we needed or wanted. He made us a table once, and chairs, too, and he always had a magnifying glass. Bug really liked to catch ants on fire, and we’d do that too, when the sun was hot. Lately, he was teaching everyone how to sew so that we could mend blankets and clothes, all of which were starting to become worn.

Then there was Darla. She had said once that we were lucky to all be friends. Darla liked to remind us that we could always be alone, or worse off, and then she liked to give us hugs and shush our crying.

If we didn’t get along together, or someone said something not nice, she’d say out loud, “No Mommies. No Daddies. No friends,” and that scared everyone just enough.

After a while, everyone decided it was just easier to help out, to stay friends, to be here rather than leaving. The outside was where The Bad lived, and we knew that nothing could be worse than that. We’d been managing, though. Like I said before, we’re a family, and family is important. That’s what they didn’t understand. They said that finding our real families, going home, that would be most important. They never asked what was most important to me. We never talked about it out loud, but I knew that the Bad would swallow them whole.

*

The day before Petey disappeared, we were all standing underneath a mushroom cap. The mushroom cap had moss on the top, and vines growing up its metal trunk. I remember it felt cool, listening to everyone breathing out hot air, picking at the ground like you would a scab. That’s when they brought it up again.

“But, maybe The Bad is gone now.” Bug said idly, his lips were chapped.

“They said that they’d come back, Bug. My Mom and Dad said so,” Petey had a knife in his hand, and had it stuck inside of a lizard, but nobody said anything when we all saw it move, “I just don’t think our Moms and Dads are even out there.”

Darla shot Petey a look. “That’s not nice to say,” she scolded him. Petey didn’t say anything, finally killing the lizard and wiping the blade on his shorts – red guts outlined his pocket.

“Well, if our parents said that they’d come back when The Bad is gone, then they’re gonna come back. They never lied to us.” Darla always said stuff like this, always rung her index finger around a curl in her hair, like she was sure.

“They lied about Santa, and The Tooth Fairy, too,” Francis looked up finally, and June met his gaze, looking at Darla. Bug, Petey, and Peg were all looking too, for an answer, or for Darla to get upset, or say that he was wrong. Darla smiled at all of us, a knowing smile, “They wouldn’t lie about the big stuff,” and with that it was decided we would stay.

It was a real hot, sweltering day when we realized that we hadn’t eaten yet. Petey hadn’t made us anything, hadn’t rung the bell for us to meet up for lunch. Darla and Francis were teaching us to wash clothes. I walked up on Peg, Bug and June setting ants on fire near the mossy water slides. Petey’s normal spot was around the bend in the first bunch of food stands. That was where he was able to use the burners and stuff as long as he made the fire first. It was empty though, the smell of grease and potatoes hung around. I kicked rocks around the overhang in the shade, wiped sweat from my forehead, but I didn’t say anything about Petey being gone. It was normal for some of us to go out and wander. It was good to wander because sometimes you found stuff, or sometimes you thought about stuff. Maybe Petey just had a lot to think about. When the others found out he was gone, though, they weren’t happy.

June tied her hair back in a messy ponytail, her forehead crinkled and beading, mud outlining the creases; confused. “Where’s Petey?” As I looked around, I realized that all of our hair was pretty long, and maybe we should’ve learned to cut hair.

After a while everyone got the same look on their faces, shielding their eyes from the sun, looking towards where I was standing in the shade.

“Elliot…” Darla’s voice carried well into the humidity.

“Yeah, Elliot, where is Petey? Is he over there with you?” Peg rubbed his stomach, kicking a piece of gravel away.

“If he was over there, h-he would’ve heard us,” Bug glared at Peg underneath a ratty dinosaur hat, one from the before time, “Elliot, he isn’t there, right?”

“No. Maybe Petey took a walk, to think about stuff.”

That seemed to rile them up. They shuffled amongst one another, and I found my place in their group circle. June began braiding her hair, a nervous habit, I thought. Bug and Peg were kicking dirt onto one another, while Francis and Darla exchanged a look.

“You haven’t seen him.” Darla reminded me of what my Mom might’ve been like for no particular reason, “June? Francis?” Her head swung to meet me, but I was quiet, my thumbs running over the dry cracks in my hands. They decided to look for Petey for the rest of the day, only coming back when they were worn out and tired. They then decided that maybe Petey went on the outside. Maybe Petey found a way out. I said that maybe The Bad was starting to come on the inside, but June told us that Petey would come back; he wouldn’t have left without telling us, and that helped everyone go to sleep that night.

*

June was the next to go. It had been a few weeks since Petey had gone, enough time for us to feel comfortable again, even if we were sad. We checked the insides of cabanas near the green tide pool, the ride houses, the offices near the front gates. All the windows were boarded up or broken because we liked throwing rocks or playing stickball, but otherwise the park was empty and abandoned and creaking as usual. Nostalgia Town never kept secrets from us.

Francis had been real upset about it, tugging on his fingers until his knuckles were red and raw. He and June had never been apart before, and Francis was half of a whole now. Darla was upset, too; the only other girl was gone, her best friend. Bug had lost his magnifying glass and we couldn’t figure out fires. Peg lost track of the days after he ran out of space on the back of the shed a few days ago.

“She wouldn’t have just left,” Francis’ eye twitched, “She would’ve said something to me. Darla, she would’ve said something, and if she wanted to run away she would’ve taken me too. We would’ve gone and looked for our parents together.” Francis kept running his hands through his thick hair, kept licking the corners of his lips. Bug and Peg stood silently. Darla looked to me again; her brow was stern, like a mother who wanted to scold you.

“Elliot.”

“What?”

“You’ve been real quiet.”

“I don’t have anything to say.”

“Why not? Aren’t you sad that June and Petey are missing?”

“Well, yeah of cour –“ Darla grabbed Bug’s hand, who grabbed Francis’ hand, who grabbed Peg’s hand, and I grabbed my own hand.

“You’re the one always talking about family. How we gotta be a family, and I don’t see you sad. Francis lost his sister, Elliot!”

“I am sad!”

“Oh, yeah? Sure seems like it. You’ve been real quiet.”

“I just am sad and I don’t have anything to say. I don’t gotta say something all the time.”

“You always got something to say,” Darla tugged on the connected hand chain, and Bug spat on the ground in front of me while Francis and Peg began to cry. She looked back at me with something similar to disappointment, “If you were really sad, Elliot, you’d say something.”

 *

That night the wind was bad. The carousel horses spinned and groaned, and the fallen Nostalgia Town mascot in the middle of the park whistled as the breeze caught in his neck. A piece of Sky Tower, the biggest roller coaster in the park, fell off and made a loud thud into the muddy waters of the swamp. The huge bang gave Bug, Francis, Peg and me a reason to climb into a nest of blankets. Our blanket nest was warm and comforting while the windows rattled and shivered, plush toys littering the inside. We briefly mentioned that Darla had gone. In between strands of Bug’s hair, my eyes caught onto her empty bunk. June’s empty bunk. Petey’s empty bunk.

It became more of a problem when we woke up in the morning and Darla wasn’t back, and Peg had gone, too. Francis hadn’t stopped crying, his lips were chapped and his face was red-stained, caked with snot and dirt. Bug started to rip off pieces of his shirts and I could feel my stomach get hungry and nauseous. We walked outside, leaving the safety of the blanket nest of the night before, and out into a cool humidity. The willow trees had shed much of their dead growth; branches had made homes out of the upturned gravel and muddy swamp silt. Planks of wood had fallen from the windows in the surrounding village buildings. Bug and Francis stood opposite of me, holding hands and shaking, and not just for lack of food.

“Elliot.”

“What, Bug?”

“Where is Darla,” We were all standing around kind of stupid-like, “Darla wouldn’t have left us.”

“Peg, too,” Bug chimed again.

It was true, and a good question, but it was too hot. Francis was crying so hard his body shook and no tears were coming out. I shrugged them off. Bug spat at the ground in front of me again, t-shirt threads hanging from his fingernails.

“El-Elliot we gotta find them,” Francis stuttered.

“I know that.”

“Well, you know how Darla said yesterday you’ve been real quiet. You have, ok! You have!” Francis picked himself up out of a crouching position in front of me; his nose and my nose were real close. Bug looked up from a hole in his shirt.

“You’ve been real quiet, Elliot.”

“And all you’ve been doin’ is crying,” I shoved him.

“Hey!”

“No, you hey!

“Seems real funny that you’ve been quiet. You don’t care, do you?” He shoved me back.

“Francis! Sto-stop!” Bug pulled on him; pulled him so hard he almost made him fall. Francis’ face was real red, and Bug’s knuckles were white. My fists felt like bricks against my sides and I said, “You wanna say what Darla said, fine! I hope you disappear just like her,” He shoved me back again, I was spitting, “You can disappear just like Darla and June, Petey and Peg. Ok! I don’t even care.”

Bug had pulled Francis towards him and the two of them stood shoulder to shoulder in front of me. We were all sweating, mad and hungry and sad.

“You care, Elliot.”

“Oh yeah, funny. Cause it was just you saying I didn’t.”

“Shut up. You aren’t funny or cool,” Francis kicked dirt at me.

“You better take that back.”

“No, Francis is right. You’re being mean.” Bug doesn’t have anything left to spit at me now.

“I’m not trying to be cool or funny or anything at all. You all won’t stop.”  I couldn’t stop tugging on my fingers. The others hadn’t moved. They were united against me.  All I could do was whisper, loud enough for them to almost hear, “I hope the Bad gets you!”

*

The blanket nest was lonely with all of the empty bunks and stuffed animals hanging around. A storm had picked up early yesterday afternoon, and it hadn’t stopped raining. The thunder shook the entire building; the lightening was the only source of light. Bug and Francis hadn’t come back last night, and instead the shadows kept me company, while somewhere outside I felt like The Bad lurked. I was too afraid to go out in the rain by myself, but I had to look for them now that they were all gone.I kept thinking about Darla, how she said they’d never lie to us about something this big, and it was true. Our parents always said they’d be back, “Once the bad is gone, Elliot. Mommy and Daddy will be back. Before you know it!”

I think I made that part up. I don’t know. It’s so hard to remember. It was pouring rain and sticky, but it felt good, like a really hot shower. It soaked through my clothes as I made my way past the calendar shed, the mud getting under my toenails. I knew where I had to go because there was one place in the whole park that would give me the answer.

When I made it to the gates, the rain seemed especially hard, almost like hail. It was coming down on me so hard that I had to keep my eyesclosed for a little while. I just stood in front of the gates with my eyes closed for a long while. I knew that when I opened them the answer would be there, I would just have to see it, but it made my head hurt. The rain slowed down, though. I was soaked through my clothes, but my eyes were open.

Everything looked the same. The same empty parking lot. The same empty park. The same rusty lock that kept the gates together, that sealed out The Bad outside, and the answer. My fingertips were orange, everything smelled like blood. Rust just smelled like that when it was wet, someone told me that once. Maybe it was Petey. I was looking for their footsteps, truthfully. Looking for a sign that they had left willingly, or at all. The mud around the gates was too sloppy now to tell.

Maybe they were just playing a prank on me, hiding somewhere deep in the park where the grass is waist high. That’s what it had to have been, one big, fat joke. They wanted to make a point. I didn’t talk enough. I didn’t stick up for them. I was mean. I didn’t look for Petey, or cry about Darla or June and now they had to play a prank on me because of it.

Maybe they had all gone on the outside. They thought Petey had gone there, and maybe that was where everyone went. My foot squeezed between the iron gates, but I stopped. My hands were shaking, but if they were out there, I needed to be, too. For a brief moment I thought about how they would’ve told me, or should’ve told me. Maybe they didn’t want me with them. I began to slide through the opening in the gate; I remembered a time when I couldn’t do this. I stopped.

“Guys?” It was still raining, but my voice echoed pretty far, “Hey, guys. Are you out there?” It was just a prank, they knew The Outside was bad, “This isn’t a funny joke, ok.” I’m saddled between two iron bars, not even sucking in, “I’m sorry, ok?” Nothing. Not even swamp noises, just rain and the smell of blood, “Darla…June…Francis…” I listened to the quiet, sucking on my bottom lip until I tasted blood too. I felt like crying.

“Petey? Bug?” There was mud in between my toes, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I didn’t cry. I’m sorry I didn’t try harder….” The Bad was close. I could feel it on my right side, the side out of the gate. “You can come back now. I’m sorry…” A thick fog had come up from the ground, swallowing up the rain and the parking lot with empty cars and vacant ticket booths, “I’m sorry, please, please, I’m sorry.”

I slid myself through the rest of the way, on the outside of Nostalgia Town. It felt like static on the outside. The pavement had started to crack from dandelions and new grass, “Hey, you guys…” No answer still, just the rain and the fog and the whistling from the wind against the rides. Maybe I’d go back inside. Maybe I’d wait for them and they’d turn up.

My bare feet felt raw on the pavement, hot. My stomach ached, and my wet t-shirt was covered in orange rust. I started to cry as I leaned my back up against the gates and shouted for them. They were my family. The fog settled, and the sky continued to spit rain. I slid down the bars, sat in the mud. “I’m sorry,” was all I could say.

I waited for The Bad to tell me what to do.

---

A current student at The University of the Arts, Emily is also a writer for Halfbeat Magazine, an online music publication, as well as an editor for Underground Pool. She is available for contact at emily@halfbeatmagazine.com.