Nevermore

23 Dearly Departed

“So how did you know to look for me at practice?” Isobel asked as he opened his trunk. “I told you I quit.”

He took her gym bag and threw it in, then relieved her of her backpack as well. His trunk was remarkably clutter free, she noticed. Besides her stuff, there was only a set of neatly wound jumper cables tucked to one side and a case of CDs, which he traded out for his satchel.

She kept sneaking glances at him out of the corner of her eye while she waited for him to say something, but where it had been hard enough to read him without the sunglasses, with them on, it felt like trying to gauge a block of stone.

He reached into his satchel and retrieved the Tupperware container from lunch. He held it up. “Little bird told me.”

Gwen. Isobel found herself smiling at the thought of her newest, most unlikely friend as she climbed into the passenger side of Varen’s car.

He got into the driver’s seat, sweeping aside his wallet chains and turning the key in the ignition. The Cougar rumbled to life, and the portable CD player sitting between them began to spin. A racing beat surged through the car speakers, complete with electric guitars, crashing drums, and someone screaming a ragged plea to please save their soul.

Isobel picked up the Discman, eyeing the scraped casing and the patch of black duct tape holding it all together. “How do you still have one of these things, anyway?” she asked.

“Because I have car payments,” he said. “Seat belt.”

“Oh,” Isobel mouthed, and deciding to leave her inquiries there, she drew the old-fashioned seat belt across her lap and clicked it into place. He handed her the case of CDs, instructing her to put in “the one with the trees.” She flipped through the discs while he toggled the stick shift and put the car in reverse.

Conquering the urge to watch him drive (she’d never thought anyone could make the act of operating a car seem graceful), she finally found the album he wanted, one with a white background and the silhouette of twisted, bare-limbed trees. Isobel recognized the band’s emblem right away on the outer rim of the CD. The image was of the same upside-down dead bird on the back of the green jacket he always wore. She pressed the eject button, and for the moment it took her to exchange albums, the car went blessedly silent.

“You’re grounded,” he said before the new CD could start wailing out a soulful, darkly angelic ballad. “Why?”

Isobel recognized this as an opportune time to lie, or at least practice some good truth omitting. “Because of yelling outside last night,” she said. There. She hadn’t had to lie at all. She’d just leave out the part about her originally being grounded for returning home past curfew in a strange car the previous Friday— his car, to be exact.

She frowned suddenly. What was she going to tell her mom when they got to her house?

“Your parents pretty strict?” He asked this like he already knew the answer.

“I guess,” she admitted. “Why?”

She turned to watch him now, glad to have the excuse of conversation. The brakes squeaked as they slid to a gradual halt at a red light.

“I want to ask you something,” he said.

Isobel was startled by the abruptness of that statement. It didn’t help that his focus remained forward, either. It gave her that plummeting feeling inside, the one she always got when she knew she was in trouble for something even though she couldn’t think of what. The light turned green, he shifted, and they were moving again.

“Yeah?” she said. She tried to ignore the flood of internal questions that assaulted her, while at the same time, she racked her brain for anything she might have done or said.

“There’s this thing happening on Friday night,” he said, “something that happens every year, but not everybody knows about it.”

Isobel tensed. She turned her head to stare forward, trying her damnedest to keep from turning either ash pale or fire truck red. There was no way this could be happening. He could not possibly be asking her out. It had to be something else. Whatever it was, she knew without a doubt that there was absolutely no way on this earth he could be asking her—

“I want you to go,” he said.

Her mouth popped open. She shut it quickly, before he could see.

“With me,” he added.

There it was.

He shot her a quick glance before pulling past the fountain and into her subdivision, and it was only when she caught a glimpse of her own dumbstruck expression in his glasses that it occurred to her that he was waiting for an answer.

“I—we have a game on Friday,” she said, her mouth seeming to move on its own. The words just jumped out, as though her alter ego, the obsessive cheerleader, had taken upon herself to overthrow all motor skills. For a moment she almost regretted having rejoined the squad that afternoon. Almost.

“It doesn’t start till late.” He stole another glance at her.

“You mean . . . sneak out?” It wasn’t until after she’d uttered the words that she recognized them as composing the most duh question of the year.

She thought he smiled.

He pulled up to her mailbox and shifted the car into park. When he still didn’t say anything, she knew that for sure must mean yes—it was going to be a sneak-out kind of deal.

He turned off the ignition and reached into his back pocket, tugging from it a red envelope, one just like the envelope she had seen Lacy give him. Like the one he’d pulled out of his pocket at lunch today, only this one was addressed to her. He handed it to her.

“What sort of thing is it exactly?” she asked, opening the envelope.

Inside, she found a cream-colored card, laced with a red ribbon. She recognized it as some sort of ticket, though it took her a moment longer to realize that it had been fashioned to look like a mortuary toe tag. Ew.

“The Grim Facade” it read in ornate lettering across the top. The date was listed simply as “All Hallows’ Eve,” and below that, on the “Case No.” line, it said, “Admit one.” Where the tag called for a name she saw hers, printed in his elegant hand (in purple ink, of course), and underneath, she saw his name filled in on the “Tagged By” line.

“It’s not exactly a school-sanctioned function,” he said, “so think about it.”

She looked up from the tag. “Uh, news flash. Your friends hate me.”

“They don’t know you,” he said. Opening his door, he climbed out. He turned back, though, and leaned in on the door frame, peering at her. “Besides,” he said, “you’d be with me.”

Isobel gaped after him as he shut the door and went around to the back of the car, the tag almost slipping out of her fingers.

Did that just happen?

She stared down at the little card again, at their names printed together like that.

Isobel fumbled for the door handle and let herself out.

She found him at the rear of the car. From the open trunk, he handed her her gym bag and then her backpack. Then he turned and leaned against the bumper, hands stuffed in the pockets of his black jeans. She stood, watching him, once again faced with his hidden gaze, masked by her own duel reflections. Her heart stumbled. Her mind groped for something to say.

“Are—are you coming in?” she asked, the words sounding so stupidly simple in her own ears, like something a little kid would ask a friend they knew was too cool to hang out with them.

He removed the glasses. His eyes, those jade stones, locked with hers. “I don’t know,” he said, “am I?”

“Mom!” Isobel yelled into the house. Behind her, she held open the storm door for Varen. He stepped in and then politely to one side, next to the umbrella stand and in front of the coat rack, his hands folded neatly in front of him, where he looked slightly uncomfortable and very much out of place. She felt a sudden lurch of panic at seeing him there like that, her mom’s embroidered framed copy of the Lord’s Prayer partially visible behind one safety-pin-studded shoulder.

“Mom!” she turned to shout again. “Uh, wait right there,” she said. Dragging her gym bag along, Isobel pounded up the stairs to her room.

Her mom wasn’t in her room or in the bathroom, though.

Isobel dropped her gym bag off in her own bedroom. Quickly she peeled off her practice gear and wiggled into her favorite pair of jeans. She threw on a clean T-shirt and rubbed on some deodorant. Next, while she was thinking about it, she grabbed The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe from her nightstand.

It was strange how far away the dream with Reynolds seemed now. She shook her head, holding the book between her hands, suddenly glad she hadn’t had the chance to finish telling Varen about the dream, or about the book reappearing, or that she’d thrown it away in the first place. Or thought she’d thrown it away.

All that seemed to matter now was that she had the book and that they were going to finish the project. That is, if she could find her mom and tell her not to freak.

Isobel raced back down the stairs. She stopped before she reached the foyer, startled to find the space in front of the coatrack and umbrella stand empty.

She rushed to look out the front door, relieved to see Varen’s car still parked outside.

“I actually did a study on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle during my undergrad when I was at Wash U,” Isobel heard her mom say as she drew nearer to the kitchen. “But when I found out that Poe’s Dupin was the inspiration for Doyle’s Holmes, I tell you, I really got swept up in reading Poe’s detective stories. I remember wishing I’d done my term paper on him instead.”

Isobel stepped through the archway of the kitchen to find her mother at the sink, cutting chunks of boiled chicken with a pair of red-handled culinary scissors. Varen stood farther down the counter, slicing stalks of celery into thin crescent shapes. He glanced up as she walked in and, catching her eye, smiled faintly.

“Oh, Isobel,” her mother said, “there you are. I hope you don’t mind that, while you left your guest waiting, I enlisted him to help with supper.”

Isobel moved farther into the kitchen, not knowing whether to be relieved that her mother hadn’t had an atomic meltdown, or mortified that she’d taken it upon herself to play head chef with the nearest thing Trenton High had to a Dark Lord.

Well, at least it looked like he hadn’t minded. In fact, Isobel was surprised to note how adept he seemed to be at chopping celery. Practiced, even.

“You’ll stay to eat with us, won’t you?” her mom asked. Varen flicked a quick glance at Isobel.

“Yeah,” she said, “you should stay for dinner.”

Could this day get any weirder? She tried to picture Varen at her family’s dinner table, and she only hoped Danny wouldn’t embarrass the hell out of her. She could just hear her little brother asking all sorts of stupid questions, like if his underwear was black too.

She stepped up to stand next to Varen, placing the Poe book on the counter.

“Varen says you’re doing a project together,” her mom said. “Isobel’s never been a big reader,” she added in an aside to Varen, who shot Isobel an amused smirk. She was glad he was enjoying himself so much.

“I was just telling Varen how I studied Poe in college,” she continued. “I mostly read his detective stories, though. ‘The Purloined Letter,’ ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’—I think I had a crush on Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin,” she prattled on, pronouncing the name with the worst French accent ever. Isobel felt her ears go hot.

“Varen, would you like some iced tea?” her mother asked. “I just made some about a half hour ago. Ginger peach. There’s some lemonade in the fridge too.”

“Mom,” Isobel cut in before he could answer, “can we please go study now? If that’s all right.”

“Okay, okay,” her mom said, and stepped aside from the sink so Varen could wash his hands.

“Why don’t you two go in there on the dining room table so I won’t be in your way? There’s plenty of room to spread out.”

Isobel, her ears still burning, didn’t wait for a second invitation to vamoose before her mom could find anything else embarrassing to say or do. Picking up Varen’s satchel, which she found on one of the kitchen chairs, she hauled it into the dining room, knowing that if it held his black book, then wherever it went, he would follow.

He was still smiling that “I am silently amused by your quaint home life” smile by the time she set his bag down on one of the tall-backed dining room chairs. She pulled out another for herself and sat.

“What?” she said, waiting for whatever dry quip he’d been preparing to throw at her.

“Your mom’s nice” was all he said. He moved his satchel and took the seat she’d inadvertently designated for him. She found herself wishing that she’d thought to position him closer, but it would look weird if she got up and moved now.

Isobel set the Poe book out on the table between them. She sighed, deciding to get the worst over with first and confess. “I haven’t read anything you told me to read,” she blurted, proud of herself for looking him straight in the eye while saying it.

He nodded, like a doctor whose suspicions about a patient’s diagnosis had been confirmed.

“Don’t worry,” he said, his fingers flipping through the pages, “skim through the ‘Red Death’ and write down the quotes you think are the more memorable ones. After that, find the poem ‘Annabel Lee’ and do the same with it. I’ve got to finish up the conclusion for our paper, and then we can start organizing the presentation stuff into categories.”

Isobel took the book as it was rotated and scooted toward her, too humbled to even try to find the right words to thank him, grateful for his uncharacteristic show of patience.

Eventually she settled into a process where she allowed herself to sneak upward glances at him every time she copied down an acceptable quote in its entirety. At one point, her mom drifted in to deliver a pitcher of her peach tea, two glasses, and a plate of raspberry sandwich cookies, for which Varen set down his pen and stood to thank her, not taking his seat again until her mother was out of the room. He didn’t seem to be aware that the gesture had come off as being totally old-fashioned, which made it all the more strange—because it made Isobel realize that he’d done it without thinking.

Almost an hour passed before Isobel finished compiling excerpts, and it was the sound of the front door opening that made her look up.

She saw her dad step in and set down his briefcase. Instantly she stiffened, but she told herself to take it easy. If her mom had been cool about Varen, then why should she expect any different from her father?

“Hey, Dad,” she tried, testing the waters.

“Hey, Izzy,” he said breezily enough, but when he looked up and into the dining room, something in his eyes darkened. His expression changed.

That’s okay, Isobel thought. Varen’s appearance can be a little jarring at first. Just keep playing it cool and he’ll relax.

“Dad,” she said, “this is Varen, a friend from school. We’re working on a project together for English class.” She gestured to their spread of papers and books on the table. See, Dad?

Exhibit A.

Varen rose again and extended a ringed hand out over the dining room table, toward her dad. “Sir,” he said.

Isobel held her breath. Awkward dot com.

Her dad frowned, his face going hard. He stepped into the room, and Isobel watched as her dad grasped Varen’s hand in what she thought might have been a tighter-than-necessary grip.

Anger shot through her, but she kept her seat, still waiting for the moment of tension to slip away.

The handshake lasted about half a second. Her dad broke from it, saying, “Is that your car parked out front . . . Varen?”

“Yes, sir.”

Her dad’s hardened expression now deepened with a layer of suspicion. “So then, is it safe to say that you were the one who brought my daughter home past midnight the other night?”

Isobel shot to her feet. “Dad.”

“Yes, sir,” said Varen, his tone admitting yet, Isobel dared to think, unrepentant.

“Dad.”

Ignoring her, her dad brushed past both of them and into the kitchen, calling for Isobel’s mom. “Jeannine,” he said, “can I talk to you for a second?”

Isobel stared after him, appalled. So, yeah. Hadn’t part of last night’s lecture been about the treatment of guests? Still dazed by her father’s behavior, she became only partially aware of Varen gathering his things and loading them into his satchel.

“Oh, no,” she said, having to stop herself from placing a hand on his arm. “Please don’t go,” she pleaded. “It’s okay. He’s just—”

“Walk me out?” he said, shouldering the satchel. His words had been little more than a low mutter, which Isobel heard distractedly, her ears half tuned to the sound of her parents’

urgent whispers in the kitchen. She thought she caught the word “hooligan” (one of her father’s favorites), and, afraid Varen had heard too, she nodded, pressing forward through the dining room, into the foyer, and then outside. She held the storm door for him again, and they stepped onto the front porch. A chilling wind swept up around them, stirring wind chimes somewhere in the distance—a ghostly sound.

Isobel wrapped her arms tightly around herself. They descended through her yard and to his car without words. He opened the passenger-side door and threw in his satchel, then, rounding to the other side, opened the driver’s-side door. Isobel stood helplessly by on the edge of the lawn, able only to shiver and watch as she waited for him to climb in and drive off.

He paused behind the car door, holding it open. Standing in the glow of the cab light, he seemed to be waiting for her.

Isobel stepped carefully off the curb and around the car, trying her best to keep her teeth from chattering from the mix of cold and anger. She moved around the car door, not wanting it to be a barrier between them. She kept her gaze downcast at first, drawing as near as she dared, surprising herself as she scooted the toes of her shoes to within inches of his boots.

She focused first on the design of his T-shirt—a wilting rose gripped in the jaws of a skull—and worked her way up to the collar of his green jacket and the light wisps of his hair. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She looked up at him. His eyes, once again partially lost in the dark, jagged recesses of his hair, stared down into hers.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said.

“Varen . . . I don’t think there’s any way I can go with you this Friday,” she said, blurting the thought out just as it occurred to her. Her throat constricted, and she turned her attention once more to their feet. “I want to go,” she went on softly, “but . . .” She shut her mouth quickly, before she was able to make herself sound any more pathetic.

“Don’t worry about it,” he repeated, so gently that she had to look up at him again, to make sure she hadn’t imagined the faint note of amusement there. “Listen,” he said. He leaned down close to whisper, the sensation of his breath against her cheek nearly causing her eyes to flutter shut. “I’ve got to go,” he said, “’cause right now, your dad’s watching every move I make.”

Isobel’s eyes popped open. Over his shoulder, she could see her dad standing in the orange-yellow light of the dining room, squinting at them through the window like some great ogre, his arms folded, his face grim.

She felt the brush of Varen’s knuckles against her jaw. Startled, her eyes returned to his. Then, before she could stop him, he sank away from her and into the driver’s seat of the car.

He turned the ignition, and the sound of his softly wailing stereo broke the silence.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said. Isobel stepped back from the Cougar so he could shut the door. Her skin seeming to hum from where he’d touched her. She saw him shift the car into gear and then he drove off, his headlights crossing beams with another car that was just pulling onto her street. Isobel stood and stared after the Cougar until its taillights—like two demon-red eyes—vanished around the next turn. The approaching car pulled into her driveway, and when Danny climbed out from the backseat, she heard him murmur a quick thanks to his ride before calling out, “Hey, Isobel! Who was that?”

Her arms still tightly wrapped about herself, Isobel ignored her brother as she made her way toward the house. She stormed through the front door to find her father in the foyer, waiting.