Hiding Page 3

  Suddenly, it occurred to me that it was a pretty dumb idea to take a walk. It was late and it was getting cold. I mean, it was probably only sixty-five degrees outside, but compared to the heat of the day that was bad enough.

  I wrapped my arms around myself—I suddenly felt so cold and it seemed so late. True, tomorrow wasn’t a school day or anything. Some of the local schools had already started, especially the private ones—during the day I’d seen kids in uniforms walking home. I was still on vacation, but it was pretty late to just be roaming around.

  Through the hedge I could see the street. I tried to consider my options. I could go down through the woods to the farm store; it was still open. My house is on a hill—at the bottom there’s this strip of woods with a stream, and beyond that the street rises up another pretty steep hill crowded with more houses. If I went to the farm store I could go through the woods, which would be spooky as hell, but at least I wouldn’t be seen by anybody. My friend Carol and I had done that a few times, on these nights when we’d sneak out together just for fun. The woods are maybe a mile long and there’s this open-all-night farm store I mentioned pretty much right at the end of them.

  But I’d never gone through the woods alone, and to tell you the truth, it sort of spooked me, because there’s the usual empty wooden sheds and stuff along the trail, and even this old abandoned church graveyard that totally freaks me out, and freaked out Carol even more, because he used to be a Catholic school kid and was still very susceptible to those kinds of fears surrounding graveyards and stuff.

  But the truth is, I didn’t have any money, and anyway, without having Carol around I wouldn’t have anybody to talk to, which was really all the fun of why we ever did it in the first place. So that option was out.

  Next I thought about how if I went up the hill in the dark, I’d pass through this richer neighborhood called Oaks, or The Oaks if you want to get really technical about it. If I passed through there, I’d finally get to this business district about two miles away, with sub shops and gas stations and this whole sort of poor, rundown neighborhood of flimsy houses beyond it called Greenway Terrace, which has an atmosphere I sort of like—don’t ask me why—except that I’d been there scads of times to visit my grandma. My grandma still lives there in the same house my mom grew up in, and never sold it, even though my grandpa died, like, almost sixteen years ago, just a few months after I was born.

  I spent my whole childhood with my grandma—I mean my mom’s mom—and she’s like a classic grandma and really pretty nice, with those wire glasses and white hair that’s like a cloud because she goes to those beauty parlors, and when I was little she always used to baby-sit me.

  She usually came to my house, but sometimes—especially on weekends, because this was back when my parents used to go out pretty late together on sort of dates, and my grandma didn’t want to get home too late—I’d spend the night at her house, sleeping in my mom’s old room, which still had some of her stuff in it, dolls and pennants and things, from when she was a kid.

  My grandma’s house is pretty small and sort of cramped, but full of sofas and raggy quilts, so it’s super cozy. I’d sit in this crazy recliner chair that went all the way back, and she’d bring out these old lacy photo albums full of pictures of my grandpa before he died, from a long time ago when he was in the army, and she would put them in my lap. She even had some pictures of my mom when she was a teen, and Grandma told me there used to be lots more of them. But my mom had torn up a bunch because she hated how she looked with one of those big hairdos that Greenway Terrace girls had back then, though I thought she looked really pretty.

  We always had a great time, Grandma and me, but the big event was that right before it got dark, we’d take a walk down to the street where the shops were, and she’d buy me a Coke or something before we walked home.

  I know it sounds silly saying it was a big event, but Greenway Terrace seemed like a whole different world to me. It was like I was on vacation. I remember thinking how different and simpler it all was from my neighborhood, where life felt like a game of hopscotch you had to play with a blindfold on. I’ve always been pretty sensitive to how people look at me. But up there in Greenway Terrace I never felt like everybody was sort of staring at me and wondering what I was all about. I always felt freer in Greenway Terrace, like I could do what I wanted and just be myself. I mean, I did sort of feel pretty anonymous, but in a really good way. And my grandma without even trying was, like, really supportive with all that, because unlike the people down the hill, she never put any pressure on me to be anything other than what I already am. I mean, for some crazy reason she seemed satisfied with that.

  Anyways, I thought about how we always had a great time together, my grandma and me. I thought I should probably go visit her again soon, to let her know she still had a grandson.

  I didn’t have to worry about visiting my dad’s parents, though. They moved away right after I was born and let my dad have their house, which, funny enough, is the same one he grew up in.

  I sort of got the idea that my dad never really liked his parents too much, but I must admit he never actually talked about it. He would talk a lot about some things, especially the neighborhood, because he really did like dissecting the neighborhood into what he called all its levels, which is something he sort of infected me with, because I know I do that a lot too. But other things he never talked about and never tried to figure out—I mean like his parents. Of course, nobody ever tries to figure out that sort of stuff too much anyways, so I can’t really blame him.

  But it was never like that with my mom’s mom. We always got along great.

  So I decided to go to Greenway Terrace.

  Well, I won’t say that I exactly decided to go there, but that was the direction in which I headed, just sort of ambling along without a plan, and running between the streetlights to get warmer after I’d scoped out the house windows to make sure no one was watching and checked the street for cars.

  Now, I know you’re going to think I’m lying right now.

  I mean about my intentions.

  You’re definitely going to think I’m lying, especially after I told you about me going to the funeral, because I’m sure you’ve realized that I walked exactly the same way that day.

  But before I say anything more about what I did, all I can really say is, I didn’t have any intentions at all.

  None whatsoever.

  Like I already said, I was going up the hill past all the watching houses to go through The Oaks to get to Greenway Terrace, which was a dumb name for the place, because I don’t think a single house on any street up there actually had a terrace, and if it did, it was probably littered with junk like old washing machines and spare tires.

  I was just going up the street, and I finally got to the big intersection that’s a four-way and all lit up, and there was nothing I could do to not get seen except just wait for the light to change, which I did, and I was lucky no cars came by and nobody saw me.

  I got over into The Oaks, and I’ve got to say that I liked it there—I always have. For one thing, it smells really good. When they picked the name The Oaks they weren’t kidding, because in the air there’s this very verdant sort of smell, like in a forest, heavy and green, because the trees up there are so thick that’s where you think you are. And unlike my neighborhood down the hill, most of the houses in The Oaks—which by the way are these really big houses made of stones, almost like castles in France—they don’t stare, but just sort of peek out behind these big trees and bushes, and all you can see are the edges of them, even though they are so damned huge.

  I knew I’d be in trouble if I got spotted here—because believe me, these people up in The Oaks are sort of extra special cautious about looking after their property—so I started going through yards, behind bushes. I went through yards on Whitley Avenue and then cut over through a back alley to White Oak Lane, and then when some dog started barking behind a fence I cut back to Whitley.
r />   I started walking slower.

  I looked over, and saw a certain house.

  And I stopped.

  It was Laura’s house.

  Chapter

  Four

  All right. You think I’m lying.

  Well, maybe I am.

  It’s true I thought about her all the time. I mean, like I said, even seeing my dad lying on the couch made me think of her, because of the similarities, you know, between my situation and his, which I certainly did relate to, and was one of the reasons, and probably the big main reason, I’d gone out in the first place, just to escape that sort of claustrophobic feeling in the house, that mopey feeling my dad always had.

  But if I did have any intentions, believe me, they were buried.

  They were subliminal.

  I mean subconscious.

  I really hadn’t had any foresight in the matter at all. It’s just that this was the path I’d always taken to get to her house on the days I’d walked there, the same path I used to walk when we were still together. I mean, I was used to it. So it was probably just some sort of osmosis that made me take the same path again, even though it was, of course, the same thing I had done on the day of the funeral.

  I wasn’t—and you’re, of course, probably thinking I was, and you have every right to think it—just some nut kid who sneaked up the street to spy on his ex-girlfriend’s house late at night.

  But you can go on not believing me. That’s okay, because I’m pretty sure you’ll change your mind when you hear the whole story.

  Of course, I have to admit that once I saw the place, I didn’t want to leave.

  Now you’re probably laughing at me. But that’s okay too.

  Her house just looked so peaceful. In every home on the street the lights were out—hers too. And I had to get closer to her house. I couldn’t just stay in the street. Some weird patrol car might come by. They had that sort of thing up there.

  I ducked aside to get a better look and even see that cast-iron furniture we used to sit on some nights when I came over. It was still there, just beyond some smaller trees in her yard—her huge, huge yard—all the furniture like a little cast-iron haven, surrounded by bushes and vines tangled through the frame of this nifty domed gazebo.

  I came right up under the gazebo and stood there looking at the table and chairs for a minute, all of it painted black and barely visible in the dark. I bet there’d been a sprinkler on in the yard earlier, because I gently ran my hand over the cast-iron table and felt it was beaded with water.

  I stepped out and walked across the yard very quietly, dodging from tree to tree. Next to the house was a big swath of bushes, maybe fifteen feet high, and they cast a wide shadow over the grass. I stepped into the shadow. I looked both ways first. Across the front street there was nothing. Just some parked cars shining under a street lamp, and a mailbox on the corner. The houses across the street were just as quiet. Some blue light in a single window, maybe somebody still up watching TV.

  A car drove past. I froze. I didn’t even duck down.

  It was a police car.

  I was wearing dark stuff, blue jeans that were new and still very dark blue and stiff, and a black T-shirt with long sleeves. In the shadows I really couldn’t’ve been seen. I knew it. I mean, I felt pretty confident about that. I was standing too still. They say ninjas do that, just as I was doing it. I read about it in a magazine, one of those karate magazines you find in some places, magazine racks in grocery stores. You can also see it in karate movies. They stand very still in the shadows—ninjas, I mean—beside a bush, and unless someone is very observant, they think the ninja is just part of the bushes. He might even angle his arms a little, just to look more like a bush. When I froze I was sort of midstep, and I bet I looked just like a bush.

  The cop drove on, slowly. He didn’t use his spotlight and shine it over the grass. If he looked in my direction at all, he just saw bushes and didn’t notice me.

  But I looked hard at him. I was staring at the car—my head was turned that way—and when it got to the intersection about fifty yards up the street I could see the driver through the open window, because the lights at the intersection were all pretty bright.

  It wasn’t a man at all, but a woman, a woman cop I’d seen around a few times in the neighborhood and up at the grocery, this woman cop with a young-looking face that’s kind of round and pretty, but with a blunt nose that makes her look sort of tough.

  I kind of knew her. I mean, I’d talked with her once. I’d said hello to her in the line at the grocery a few months ago, but she just nodded at me with this strange sort of smile. I’d said hello because some guys I know, when we get to talking about such things, said that women cops are meaner than men cops, because maybe they have something to prove. But that wasn’t true at all with this woman cop. She didn’t seem mean at all, just tough, and I wanted to thank her for looking out for the people in the neighborhood. I thought she might like that.

  We didn’t get a talk going. To tell you the truth, her smile was sort of weird, that kind where she thinks maybe it’s all a trick or not sincere or she’s being made fun of. I figured she didn’t really trust me wanting to talk to her at all, so I just sort of dropped it. But she wasn’t mean or anything, at least to me. She had copper-colored hair, the same color as copper wire. Right now, sitting in the car, her hair was up in a bun, and she turned her head a little, and then the light changed and she drove off into the darkness across the intersection between rows of houses on both sides of the street. All I could see were her taillights receding into the dark, until even they went away down the hill and I was totally alone again.

  So like a ninja I just waited and listened.

  I didn’t hear a thing.

  The blue light went off in the house across the street.

  I smiled at that.

  Sometimes in my house my dad falls asleep on the couch with the TV on and it stays on all night. If you try to turn it off he’ll wake up and get pretty angry, so I never even try anymore. To turn it off, I mean. But obviously this person was in bed, probably, because the light had been on the second floor, and it went out.

  After a minute I thought it was safe to move, so I moved very slowly, dropping down to my knees and crawling into the bushes planted right alongside the house in a trench of black soil. I kind of crawled on my fingertips and shoe tips, keeping my knees off the ground, even though it felt pretty awkward, so as not to get muddy, because the soil was pretty moist, and I could smell it, heavy and cold and ashy in the wind that was blowing lightly through the yard.

  I passed as quietly as possible through the bushes. My back scraped the leaves. They were these hard little conifer leaves like tiny green shells—I think they’re called conifers, because I did some gardening once for a lady who had them in her yard, and that’s what she called them. Whatever noise I made scraping through them, anybody listening would have thought it was the wind, which was moving the bushes up top where the branches spread out a little, making just the same sort of quiet, rustling noise.

  When I was all the way through I stood straight. There was a space about a foot and a half wide between the bushes and the house. I could stand in it, completely hidden. It even blocked the breeze that was blowing. I felt warmer. The truth is, it was getting pretty cold. That happens sometimes here at night, even in August, and it means autumn’s coming early.

  I stood on a tangle of roots and wiped my fingertips on the stone wall of the house. I didn’t want to get the wall dirty, but I had to clean my hands. Anybody looking in my direction would never have seen me. Only the closest observer might have looked down and seen my pants legs—the shadow of them, I mean. But they were so dark, and my sneakers were black. I was totally ninja, blending completely into the bush.

  You have to know about the stone wall, though. This house was great.

  Laura’s house.

  It was twice the size of mine, maybe three times. And it was made of a zillion of these big s
late stones, held together with concrete. It was totally unlike the houses where I live, just a few blocks down the street—the same street the woman cop had driven down. The houses there are all made of shingles, some in better repair than others, and there’s nothing worse than bad shingles to make a house look beat-up; they look like broken teeth. The shingles on my house are okay, I guess. My dad does pretty good upkeep.

  But this stone wall was amazing.

  I’d always wanted to live in a house made like this. Down where I am it’s true that the houses are older. They’re much older, and some of the people have a sort of attitude about that, like it makes them more a part of the neighborhood, the original part, by which they mean the better part.

  I must admit my dad’s like that, because he’s third generation, and he’s pretty proud of that, and in fact when my mom gets on him for not having made much money, he always says that even though that’s true, he did get her out of Greenway Terrace, which to him is, like, the biggest deal in the world, but really only serves to piss her off. And she always says he should have moved, because the neighborhood sapped his ambition—she always says that, that it really sapped his ambition—and he never has much of an answer to that at all, because I think he actually agrees with it.

  But up here across the intersection the houses are stone and the people are richer, all of them are richer. I’m sure you know what I mean. But also everything is newer, and people come and go a lot—some families stay only a few years and you never even get to know their names, whereas where I live, just a few blocks away, you can meet people like Mr. Reynolds, whom I’ve done yard work for, and he’s been living in that old dump of his for his whole life. He’s sixty or something and wears a wooden leg, and his father lived his whole life there too, and the whole house is crammed floor to ceiling with boxes of junk from both their lifetimes, because Old Man Reynolds—that’s what we call him—he’s a hoarder. That’s my neighborhood. But here people come and go a lot, and renovate a lot, so things always look perfect.