Hiding Page 4

  I stood very still, lightly brushing my hand on the stones, when a thought occurred to me.

  If I lived in this house, I’d be happier.

  I couldn’t help thinking that.

  Anybody would be happier in this house because it was just so great, so stately and magnificent. I looked up and saw these box windows hovering over me, about ten feet above me.

  To just sit in there looking out the window.

  You could never feel trapped.

  You couldn’t hide in this house; it wasn’t that kind of place.

  No—you were really kind of on display in this house.

  You’d always feel alive inside.

  I mean you could breathe.

  Up here it seemed there were no rules except for the ones you make yourself, but just down the hill you always felt exhausted trying to follow everybody else’s rules, which they never even bothered to explain to you. My dad calls it the difference between the freedom of luxury and the burden of maintenance. I call it a launch pad instead of a trap.

  I bet everybody in there, Laura especially, but probably also her entire family, woke every morning happy to jump out of bed, to go down to the kitchen—the kitchen that I’d never seen but knew must be amazing—to eat breakfast and talk with the family and get ready to go out for the day. And when they were out they’d know the house was always there, waiting. But not waiting in a bad way, in a foreboding way like my house was always waiting, because the people here moved on a lot like I said, to even newer houses in even better places. Yet while they were here their house was bright and clean and new and pleasant, with all these cool new things in it, in the kitchen especially, I bet, all these gewgaws that do everything for you, not like the old crap from the 1950s you see in kitchens down the hill that you get from your great-grandmother. It was a house for people who take trips to the Bahamas, I thought, like Laura had done lots of times with her mom and dad. The first night I met her she told me she’d just come from the Bahamas, and she was smoothing lotion on her peeling nose because she’d gotten too much sun. Probably everybody on her street went there as well; they probably saw one another every summer down on some sunny island in the sea, whereas people just down the hill where I live were always stuck in their houses, or at best out doing something in the yard or piling boxes of old junk in their basement or garage.

  I rubbed my hand on the wall, lightly. I wanted to scrape the dirt off my fingers respectfully; I really didn’t want to mess up the stones. The truth is, I kept thinking about how perfect life must be in this house, and the silly thought came to me that it would be impossible to have problems in this house.

  I know how that sounds. I mean, of course there would be problems; I’m not naive enough to think everything would just be bliss. So I suppose I meant that in this house I couldn’t possibly have my problems, the same old problems I’d always had that were never going away, like hearing my parents gripe about money or feeling stuck forever in the same place. Houses like mine were made for people who want to get morose about their problems—witness my dad back there, lying on the couch.

  I’d still have problems. Sure.

  But different problems. I’d probably have a whole new set of problems that I’d probably get excited about. And it occurred to me right then that the happiest people must be those who are excited about trying to solve their problems, who see them as challenges, you know, like it says on those posters guidance counselors hang up on the walls of their offices.

  But some problems, I’m sure you’ll agree, are pretty hard to get excited about.

  I’d never been excited about mine even in the least. So of course my problems never went away.

  But here—in this house—I thought I’d like my problems. I bet I’d even take a crack at solving them.

  I mean, seriously, what problems could Laura have?

  True—I was her problem—but she solved that one quick enough.

  I stood silently, gazing up at the shadows of the bushes on the wall. I felt so close to her, closer than I’d been for months.

  She was in there.

  I knew it.

  It’s like I could feel her presence.

  I wondered. If I listened hard enough, might I hear her breathing as she slept?

  I shook my head slowly. Okay. That’s getting weird, I thought.

  I took my hand off the wall. I took a deep breath of the cool breeze and grinned, looking down into the dark at my feet.

  What’s funny was I had never even gone into her house.

  Not even once.

  She never took me in; she always made me wait outside. I haven’t known too many girls—as girlfriends, I mean—but I saw this habit of Laura’s as sort of like a trait probably shared by many very special girls. We went out for three months and all I ever saw was just part of the entrance hallway when she’d leave me standing at the front door, because she’d run inside to get something for “just a minute!” but always took, like, at least twenty minutes.

  When I think of her house, I mean if I associate any particular house with her, I always think more of where I saw her when she baby-sat, which was just a couple blocks down the street. That house wasn’t too much different from her own; I mean at least in terms of its size and how fancy it was.

  Laura had let me come into that house plenty of times, but I always had to wait outside awhile. I’d stay in the dark until after the parents left and she’d put the kid to sleep. That usually took at least an hour, and I’d always hide out back—in the alley, actually, where there weren’t any lights at all. I’d just sort of hang around waiting, near all the dark garages, and feeling the breeze blowing through the alley, but also feeling this terrific sense of expectation, you know, so I never felt bored or lonely. I’d wait until I saw the parents drive out of their garage—I’d hide there in the dark—and after they were gone I’d sneak into their yard.

  Of course, Laura really would take an extra long time to let me in, not because she was ignoring me—I mean, I knew she was just as crazy to make out as I was, and she’d even send me these sexy little texts to keep me from dropping dead out there—but the truth is, she totally loved this little kid she baby-sat for. His name was Joey and she talked about him all the time and told me how wonderful he was—like even when he peed his pants it was the most charming thing in the world. I must say she was sort of a sucker for always reading him one more bedtime story, which of course meant, like, five more, and giving him snacks and whatever else he wanted to eat, and sometimes I would sneak up and watch through the window as she played clappy games and stuff with him, and I swear it was like she was Joey’s frickin’ mom or something, though to tell the truth, I had never seen a real mom love a kid that much. Maybe a few moms, but not too many, and because I had nothing to do but wait I would even sort of fantasize that Laura and me were actually married and she’d, like, given birth to our son, who of course was supposed to be Joey, and that would keep me sort of occupied while I waited at the window, until she actually put him to sleep and shut out the lights in the house.

  Then my phone would buzz and she would whisper, “Come in now. Meet me around back.”

  She loved inviting me there because she loved secrets; she told me she loved knowing that nobody would ever find us out.

  When I came up to the back steps, she’d be standing there with a big smile on her face. The lights would be off. She’d take my hand and pull me inside. We’d stand there in the living room and start making out. I’d kiss her like I was glued to her, smelling the crazy good perfume she wore. It was incredible.

  And then I’d start.

  I’d start telling her how wonderful she was.

  I must have told her ten thousand times.

  “You’re wonderful and beautiful; you’re wonderful and beautiful. . . .”

  I hope sometimes I was just thinking it and not saying it, because I know how tiresome it can get hearing the same compliment over and over. That’s another thing my mom had told me.
She said it might be good if I came up with something fresh once in a while, because you know, always saying the same thing kind of wears it out.

  But I couldn’t help it. It was true. And even now, standing under the windows, I still said it.

  You’re wonderful and beautiful.

  Some of my friends—well, my friend Carol, who I’ll tell you more about later on—had asked me what I saw in her.

  “Everything,” I told him.

  He looked surprised.

  So did my mother, when I told her.

  But my mother actually understood; she wasn’t reacting like my friend, who maybe saw some flaw in Laura I couldn’t see or just didn’t like her because, you know, she was always pretty quiet and serious, and that could make her seem sort of superior.

  Not that he ever really said what the flaw was, because of course I asked him. He agreed she was pretty, but he said he knew how to read people—he was always bragging about this intense ability he had to read people—and he said it was her personality that had the flaw, not her face or anything, but he could see it in her face every time he looked at her.

  The flaw, I mean.

  I swear, I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  I’ll agree she had a withering look. She really did have, sometimes, what people call a withering look. Once she shot a look like that at Carol, and he said to me afterward, “Whoa, man! Does she think I’m nothing?”

  My mother never even met Laura, I mean except maybe once in a hallway for, like, ten minutes, because my mom was rarely around my house. Things were already pretty bad with my dad, and on a couple of occasions, after big fights, she’d leave for a few days to stay at her mom’s, my grandma’s. I talked the most to my mom during those times—I’d go over there, and talking about Laura kind of got her mind off things with my dad.

  I did have a picture of Laura, and my mom agreed she was beautiful. Very beautiful. You see, my mom has an open mind about beauty and isn’t hung up on stupid garbage like my idiot friend, who was probably just jealous anyways.

  My mother told me a million things.

  It was late now. I didn’t know how late. It had that after-midnight feel, though, with no cars coming by. It was even cooler, too, almost cold. The soil felt damp under my feet, and then I realized my feet were wet.

  I tried moving, very slowly.

  Then I stopped.

  My feet were tangled in a garden hose.

  They had a gardener, I bet; I remembered Laura mentioning something about having one. And he’d left his hose right down there in the soil at my feet, and he must have done plenty of watering in the afternoon, because by now my shoes were completely soaked.

  I was getting pretty cold. The last thing I needed was to get sick, too. It would be a nightmare to be stuck in the house with my dad when I was sick.

  I bent down, pretty slowly, and in a few seconds I was unraveling this immense hose, which I’d noticed when I stepped on it but had thought it was those roots I mentioned. Except the more I tried to unravel it, the more I succeeded in only sort of tying up my feet; I mean tying them together even worse.

  Finally I had to bend down really low—and that’s when it happened.

  This thing I’ve been waiting to tell you.

  The thing with my elbow.

  My elbow tapped the window at the bottom of the stone wall—I mean this sort of narrow transom window that’s maybe actually called a hopper window, now that I think about it.

  It was open. I could see that the hose at my feet disappeared into the window.

  When my elbow hit it—tapped it, I mean, and very gently—it swung back and forth like the hinge was oiled. It sort of really flopped back and forth, and I couldn’t help thinking what a great hinge it was, and not like the ones at my house that sound all haunted and creaky, or just let out a rip when you yank them shut—I mean a huge ripping horn sound like an elephant fart.

  But this hinge was perfect and silent.

  For a while, I just looked at the open window.

  My first thought was that I should go home.

  But I didn’t want to go home.

  My dad would still be up.

  Not waiting for me.

  Just lying there.

  Maybe wanting to talk.

  I didn’t want to talk. I’d had enough of that, believe me.

  Maybe, I thought, he’d be asleep with the TV on. You know why I thought that. I already brought it up before. But I doubted it. He was feeling too stressed to sleep. He’d be brooding, waiting to talk.

  My feet were, like, glued in the soil. In the muck, really, because the gardener or whoever must have forgotten to close the faucet wherever it was, and the thinnest little trickle was coming out of the end of the hose, which was one of those new hoses that stretches really long and contracts really tight, which is exactly what it had done around my feet. But I managed to get it off, and the sill of the window was just high enough for me to sit on.

  So I sat.

  And I thought, Why not go inside?

  It was just a simple thought at first, and as soon as I had it, I got scared. Really petrified. I’d tapped the window and it swung on some sort of spring-loaded or oiled hinge, and I knew it was only a matter of seconds now before an alarm would go off. I’d probably get stuck in the bushes and it would be just a few more seconds before the whole house would be awake and that woman cop would come cruising back with her siren on.

  I was really feeling very nervous.

  But then I realized that the window was already open.

  I mean unlocked.

  If there was an alarm—and I remembered Laura telling me how there was, and it was hooked up to this roving squad of vans you see driving all over the neighborhood day and night—it was not connected to this window. Or it was just turned off.

  So why not go inside? I thought.

  I wasn’t going to do anything.

  I just wanted to get warm.

  I’d never seen inside Laura’s house, anyways.

  Why not take a look?

  It was probably a club basement. There was one at the house where she baby-sat; we’d made out down there lots of times on the sofas. A huge club basement full of games and stuff. It’d be the same here, I thought. It’d be neat to just take a quick look.

  A quick look, and then go.

  I took off my shoes and, using the coils of the hose, scraped the mud off them as best I could. I swiveled around, which was tough to manage on that narrow sill, but I’m pretty skinny.

  I went in face first. I was so quiet, the breeze made more noise than me.

  I was halfway inside when I realized it was a straight drop in the pitch dark. I could scale down, though, because the wall was covered with jutting stones that felt sandy and gave me plenty of handholds. And there was a big metal sink right under the window, which gave me more to hang on to and balance myself.

  I made my way down, turned myself around, dropped my feet until they touched something solid, and stood.

  I was standing in front of the sink, one of those big sturdy ones like metal boxes you see in basements sometimes. I could already tell just by the smell in the air that this was no club basement, but a storage basement; it had that dead grass and gasoline smell.

  I reached up, got my shoes, and reached farther to close the window.

  But then I did something I can’t explain.

  I didn’t close the window.

  I knelt up on the sink, put my hands out the window, and patted down the soil where I’d been standing, so no one would ever know I’d been there. And when I was done with that I cleaned my hands and my shoes with the thinnest trickle of water from the faucet in the sink and wiped them with an already dirty rag that was sitting there, which I could barely see, except by the dim rays of light coming down through the window from the street lamps outside.

  When everything seemed clean enough, I stepped off into the dark, holding my shoes in my hands.

  Chapter

>   Five

  Now, I know you think I’m crazy.

  Maybe like a sicko.

  Up to now I don’t really know what you thought about me. I suspect you thought I was just some sort of lame, ordinary kid, and I won’t argue with you there, because my whole life, to tell you the truth, hasn’t given me much to work with to keep me from seeming lame and ordinary. I don’t mean I think I’m lame and ordinary, but the point is, I can see how people around me do—I mean people in the neighborhood—because I just go to public school and I don’t, like, have a car or even know how to drive because my school doesn’t offer Driver’s Ed, and I must admit I never did sports much or won, like, debates or anything. So I can actually understand why other people might think that about me, and I know lots of them do, but really it’s just because they don’t take any interest in me because I can’t show them a car or trophies or prizes or scholarships, and they never tried to get to know me at all.

  But now I go and sneak into my ex-girlfriend’s house, and I realize that based on what I’ve already told you about myself, and because of the opinions you’ve probably already formed about me—which by the way I don’t blame you for, because like I said, I’d probably be the first person to understand your opinions about me, even if they just boiled down to my being lame and ordinary—I think you must be thinking, Why the hell did you go into her house?

  Are you weird? Are you a stalker?

  I stood in the dark asking myself just those same questions, because to tell you the truth, I’d sort of confused myself by doing it—I mean by actually having the nerve to go in. I mean, I’d never done anything like it before, not even remotely like it. I’d never spied on anybody or followed anybody around, or crank-called anybody, even.

  What I told you I had done a lot of was hiding, and that’s actually the opposite of being a stalker, if you get what I mean. I mean, a stalker is really trying to pursue people, but a hider wants to stay as far away from them as possible.

  So I want you to know that I think it was wrong to go in.