Twisted Fate Read online

  “It’s not going to break!” she shouted to me. “It’s going to bend with our weight. It’s going to hold us.” And she began swaying back and forth—we were up so high we could look down on other trees and on the top of our house and she had not a moment of fear that our feet would slip.

  “Calm down,” she said, and I did. I let myself sway in the treetop and look out at the blue sky and the rooftops and I didn’t care about the sticky pine tar on my hands.

  Those are the moments when I realize how much she gave me. If only I hadn’t thought she was trying to push me away.

  I watched from the window as Ally stepped out of the Austin in Graham’s driveway. There she was like a princess being brought home by literally “the boy next door.” After the talk with Richards, this made me more sad than mad. But I was beginning to get mad anyway. I bet the main reason Ally decided she liked Graham is because he actually is the boy next door and that fits so well with her tiny-town-blueberry-picking-goody-goody way she decided she had to add him to the list of clichés that she lives by.

  I would also be more angry at her if not for the fact that I had to protect her. It was weird the way Graham talked about Eric; he seemed to want Ally to be his new best friend, his new Eric, and he wanted me to take his drugs. She just wouldn’t see that there was anything shady about Graham. Even if it was becoming plainer to other people. That this is one more way her trust in all people being good will get her into trouble. How on earth could she have had me for a sister for all these years and still think all people are good?

  I slipped down the back stairs as Ally entered the house, and ran across the driveway into the bushes outside Graham’s garage and watched him. He was standing by the car, looking kind of dazed with this grin on his face. His hair looked windblown and I could tell they had been making out. I was sure he had driven her out to the beach and she had told him stories about how our parents used to take us there when we were little or how our dad built all the beautiful old ships you see at the yacht club. I was sure she gave him our whole life story—her version of it.

  The idea of her being so trusting to this weirdo, who moved from the south and who for some reason has been out of school under some questionable circumstances, circumstances that he’d maybe even been arrested for or his parents had been sued for, shocked even me. Ally had always been very selective about the boys she dated. The only thing I could think is that: A) this guy’s looks had gone to her head, B) she had found some way to irritate me beyond telling on me when I smoked and complaining about my music, or C) Graham was a master at manipulating trusting girls. I decided it was probably all three and then walked around the hedge and into the garage. He was startled to see me.

  “Stay away from my sister,” I said.

  “Whoa. What?”

  “You heard me. I said, stay the fuck away from my sister. Or you will pay for it.”

  His face fell. “Hey . . . uh . . . are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. You’re the one who’s not going to be okay.”

  He took a step toward me. Touched my arm—and looked at me with his pale-blue eyes; pale, blue, screwed-up eyes—the pupils wide and black from all the shit he was taking. Some weird cocktail that made him hyper-focused, not afraid of anything, and never upset. I thought, That’s just the kind of cocktail that’s a recipe for disaster. And weed is illegal? Seriously? Something’s not right in this world.

  “Take it easy,” he said. He ran his hand down my arm and then took my hand in his. I was about to pull away. I couldn’t believe the nerve he had.

  “You better—”

  “Shhh,” he said, putting one finger against my lips. I glared at him, but he pulled me closer to him. “I like you.”

  Then before I could say anything he leaned down and kissed me quickly on the mouth. I pushed him away and he just laughed. I stared at him, trying to figure out just why he thought he could get away with this. Who the hell did he think he was? I looked into his relaxed face and thought again about what Richards said about always being tough and I thought again that I’d like to try whatever he was on. Pills weren’t my drug of choice but he was clearly having some kind of wonderful time just being himself.

  “C’mon,” Graham said. “Let me kiss you again. I really do like you. Even when you’re like this.”

  Maybe I would let him kiss me again, I thought. Maybe that was the best way to find out who he really was and what he had going on. Maybe I liked it. And that’s the hardest part to admit now. That maybe, in spite of everything my head told me, every creepy feeling I had about the whole situation, everything I knew about Ally falling in love with him . . . maybe, just maybe, I liked it.

  I felt like that for maybe a week.

  And then it all came crashing down.

  Yeah,” he said. “I don’t think he’s right either. I spent the whole day dragging him around the halls and he acted like . . . I don’t know, some kind of smarmy spaced-out aristocrat. You know what I’m saying?”

  “I do!” I told him. “I totally do! Becky and these girls at school seem to think he’s some artist heartthrob Abercrombie model. Bitches be crazy.”

  “Yeah, well, the boy’s hot,” he said. “I’ll give him that. But yeah. He’s weird, and I don’t mean weird like you.”

  “Hey!” I laughed and he put his arm around me. We were taking the back way home, meandering past the harbor and seeing the tall masts stately rocking in the distance. Walking out to the old pier, the one totally abandoned because the foundation was so badly eroded. The place was a briny brackish barnacle-covered part of the town that time forgot and I loved to walk there with Declan—it was solitary and nostalgic and felt a little dangerous.

  “He is hot,” I said. “But not hot like you.”

  He gave my side a little squeeze. “Let’s go to the old playground.”

  “Yeah. Let’s do it,” I said. We would go to the town hall playground and swing until nearly dusk and when everyone had gone home for dinner we would climb into the sprawling wooden jungle gym that looked like a castle. There were actually little rooms in there. And we would sit and get high and talk and do anything we wanted. After being interrupted by Ally, I was dying to touch him again. Feel his warm skin and his hard muscles.

  We put our boards down and skated so we could get there faster.

  Coasting from a distance we could see Graham’s car parked across the street from the swing set.

  As we approached the park, we could see him sitting there, wearing a red baseball cap, his messy blond hair hanging out beneath it. At first it looked like he was alone, but as we got closer we could see he was talking to a little kid—a boy maybe ten years old who was wearing an Iron Man T-shirt, a blue Windbreaker, and jeans.

  “Sweet shirt that little dude has,” Declan said. “I wonder where he got it.”

  “From his parents, duh. It’s not like he can drive himself to the mall.”

  Declan laughed. “Does Graham have a little brother?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “He strikes me as the ultimate only child.”

  “Takes one to know one,” Declan said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

  “Just kidding, Tate. Wait. Hang on . . . shhh.”

  We picked up our boards and tiptoed quietly to the edge of the trees that flanked the swings and jungle gym. Graham hadn’t noticed us and if the kid did he didn’t think much of it.

  We walked through the trees and stood silently listening.

  “Oh yeah?” Graham was saying. “I had no idea. I always thought that Wolverine got bit by a wolf or something to get his powers.”

  Even from far away you could see the kid give him a little condescending smirk when he said it. The kid’s voice was high-pitched and he talked some more while Graham nodded his head, listening.

  “Spider-Man,” Graham said. “You know, ’cause of the web shooting. He’s pretty much a regular guy, lives with his aunt and all that. I think he’
s the best. When do you usually get out of school?”

  The boy told him and Graham took out a little notebook. The same one he’d used when talking to Becky. At that point Declan and I looked at each other and slunk out from behind the trees.

  “’Sup, G?” Declan asked him.

  “Oh, hey guys.” Graham seemed completely relaxed. “This is my friend Brian. He’s a mutant with a metal-alloy skeleton who fights crime.”

  I was worried for one minute that Graham would act all weird because of what happened in his garage, but there was nothing strange between the two of us at all. He was focused completely on Brian.

  The kid laughed and looked happy when Graham said it. He was obviously proud to be talking to a big kid and thrilled to have an audience for his information about the X-Men. I noticed that he was wearing a necklace. A cord with a piece of sea glass at the end of it. The letter W drawn on the glass with Sharpie marker. Becky’s handiwork, of course. Pretty soon the whole town would be covered in sea glass jewelry and running on apps built by one adorable little stoner with a nose ring.

  “Hey, Brian,” we said.

  He waved at us even though we were two feet away from him.

  “Where’s your mom?” I asked.

  He turned and pointed to a bench at the far end of the playground where a woman was reading next to a stroller.

  “What’s up, kids?” Graham asked us, leaning back on the bench and folding his hands behind his head. “I suppose you have four hundred and twenty reasons you wanted to come to the park tonight?”

  “Nah, we’re just chillin’,” Declan said.

  “What are you up to?” I asked him.

  “Making art,” Graham said. And at that moment I noticed the tiny camera he was holding. The same one he had tried to film me with the other day. It was so small, I had again completely missed it. “Making art and talking to my homeboy Brian.”

  “What kind of art?” Declan asked.

  “Cool stuff. If you want to come over I can show you.”

  Declan and I looked at each other. The playground castle would have to wait . . . or we’d have to sneak out later at night. Whatever Graham was working on, we needed to see it.

  We said good-bye to Brian and got in Graham’s car. Even though it was fall he had the top down. He drove fast through the winding shady roads that wound up the hill to our neighborhood. Declan sat in the front and I sat in the tiny backseat. Graham was a good driver. He took some of the hairpin turns a little fast, but it was fun and he definitely knew what he was doing. I imagined him driving all over country roads down south like some aristocratic hick, even though I knew he was from the suburbs.

  When we parked in the driveway I saw Ally looking out our window at the three of us—but I ignored it and we quickly went inside.

  It was one of those houses that was somehow even bigger on the inside. The whole place was painted white and had high ceilings and perfect track lighting like in an art gallery. And there were huge canvases hanging on the walls. I mean huge. Like taking up most of the room.

  “That looks like it belongs in a museum,” Declan said, pointing to a massive blue painting that looked like some kind of dangerous and mythological aquatic life.

  Graham laughed. “It actually was in a museum for the past six months! Part of my stepmom’s show at LACMA.”

  “What’s LACMA?” I asked. “It sounds like a disease you get if you can’t digest milk.”

  “Los Angeles County Museum of Art.” Graham laughed. “Next week Kim will be sending it to a museum in Florence.”

  And it was suddenly very easy to imagine all the boys at school who liked to hunt and fish and fix boats kicking Graham’s ass in the school parking lot. Maybe he knew this too and it was why he didn’t go to school.

  The rest of the house was equally beautiful and weird. I guess Kim also decorated everything. Because things looked expensive and hard to find. A chandelier made from deer antlers hung above a long rectangular table in the dining room. The couch was upholstered in some kind of beautiful fabric that looked like trees and fire.

  “The couch fabric looks like a forest fire,” Declan said.

  “It is. It’s a screen print of the fires outside Oakland a few years ago.”

  I couldn’t decide if this kid’s parents were a nightmare or the coolest parents in town. There was a large photograph of things I could barely identify; it looked like silk fabric and knives and horses’ hooves all mixed together. Graham saw me looking at it and pointed to the signature in the corner.

  “That’s an original Kate Steciw,” he said. “It’s worth half a million dollars. C’mon, let’s take the back stairs.” We followed him through the long hallway to the back of the house where floor-to-ceiling windows looked out on the woods and a yard that had a tall marble fountain in it. But it was not like a garden fountain, something that shot water or had stones or figures in it. It was shaped like a drinking fountain. A rectangular block of marble that was a complete replica with a little stream of water arcing and falling. You could imagine some giant leaning over to get a drink. It was a visual joke. A play on the idea of fountains.

  “Let me guess,” I said, gesturing to it. “Kim.”

  Graham nodded and laughed and then sprinted up the wide oak staircase, taking two steps at a time. We followed him until we reached the third floor of his house—the attic, I guess—but finished better than any attic I’d ever seen. We have the widow’s walk, which is cool, because you can see the whole harbor from there, but it’s a cold and desolate place to hang out. Here dark curtains hung down from the ceiling and there was a small row of seats like in a real movie theater facing a blank white wall.

  “This is the screening room,” he said.

  “Wow,” said Declan, “where did you get the movie theater seats?”

  “At an architectural salvage warehouse,” Graham told us. “Have a seat.”

  We watched him fiddle around with some kind of digital projector and then he turned off the lights and sat next to us. He was very excited and I could feel the kind of pent-up exuberant energy coming off him. He sat down between us, and his arm touched my arm. I could feel the warmth of his skin and I let my finger brush his wrist for a moment. It gave me goose bumps to touch him and to know he wanted me to touch him. He was shaking slightly, excited about showing us the movie, or nervous that I was there with Declan. The way his body seemed so receptive to everything beside me in the dark, it felt like he was on some kind of speed or maybe even Ecstasy. I pulled myself together and leaned the other way to feel my shoulder touching the solid shoulder of Declan. Then I took his hand.

  Suddenly the wall in front of us was flooded with white light beaming from the projector. And then the images started. Stark and brilliantly full of color. There was a close-up of Becky’s lips while she was talking but no audio and the footage was slowed down. Smoke came out of her mouth and then the footage was reversed and it looked like she was sucking in a big cloud of gray smoke. Then there were shots of girls jumping rope and chasing each other but they looked like they were taken from old movies. Then footage of a cat eating a mouse. A slow cruising shot of the whole neighborhood, the cheerleading squad practicing but shot from far away and it looked like from the top of a building or something. Then Becky’s lips again. Smiling, talking. We could clearly read her lips and she was saying, “Yeah, you should text me . . .” Declan nudged me.

  Next shot was the inside of a medicine cabinet with rows of prescription bottles set up, waves crashing and rolling in and then the same footage backward. All of the sound was mismatched—the sound of the waves accompanied Becky smoking, and the sound of the girls playing went with the cruising shots of the neighborhood. The cheerleading squad had the sound of some kid talking about outer space while they did their drills. Then suddenly on the screen there was Allyson walking up the driveway with her backpack, going inside our house and shutting the door. It was also shot from above—and looked like it was directly above her head
somehow. The last frame was of that kid Brian at the park—apparently today wasn’t the first time Graham had talked to him. He was holding a Wolverine action figure and making it jump around. There was an extreme close-up on the kid’s face, his big blue eyes and smile, and then he turned his head quickly as if he heard something—like he was startled and a little worried. Then there was Allyson again—sitting in Graham’s backyard looking up at him from the grass.

  Graham stood up suddenly and stopped the projector. “You get the idea,” he said. “There’s another hour of this or so . . . other random stuff.” He seemed a little flustered and I couldn’t tell if it was because he didn’t want us to see the footage of Ally, or because he felt weird that I was there with Declan, or maybe just his drugs were wearing off.

  He turned the lights back on and we sat in the weird mini theater not saying anything. I’m sure Declan was thinking what I was thinking, which was that this kid was from another planet.

  “It’s pretty good, man,” Declan said. “Pretty good. You really know how to use that camera. I don’t know how you got some of those shots. Wow. I mean, that’s . . . What the hell is it about?”

  Graham shrugged. “It’s about—”

  “No, wait! Wait!” Declan yelled, doing his typical Declan-nerd-boy thing where he thinks he’s figured everything out and wants to shout it out before anyone else can. He’s been doing this since third grade. “I know! I know, it’s about how everyone is in and of themselves a spectacle. Am I right? How every individual act is also kind of a performed act? That’s it! That’s it! Am I right? Except for Tate walking into her house. Right? Or maybe even that! Wow! That is awesome, actually.”

  Graham looked disappointed. “Um, it’s kind of almost the opposite. It’s about how people are not quite real until they are observed or filmed. You know, like if a tree falls in the woods and no one’s there, does it make a sound?”

  Declan said, “Huh. Sure . . . but—”