We Can Only Save Ourselves Page 19

  “So I finished the job,” Wesley went on. Alice was surprised to hear him share so much about his life, his past, even without that cassock, outside of the protection afforded by the rules of the made-up game. She had done this, somehow, cracked him open like a nut, and a warmth spread through her. “It was a stupid, short job,” he was saying, “but I got paid, and I decided to walk around the neighborhood. It’s much nicer than where I grew up. Everyone was outside. There were kids playing in the street, and I watched a car approaching, and the kids just parted. Like a miracle. And the grass was so fucking green. What’s that about? It looked like carpet. Every single yard. I just kept walking, and I was starting to feel kind of down because I thought about what it would be like to raise my baby there, if it was me and Hannah Fay in one of those stupid fucking houses with a pool in the backyard. Anyway, I started looking at the houses, and I realized the windows were like eyes, you know? They were all shut. No real life there. I remembered what I knew was true. These people are blind. They’re asleep. They aren’t like us. And someday things are going to come crashing down around them, and we’ll be the last ones standing. Then I started feeling sad again, and I couldn’t tell why, because it’s the natural order of things. But you know the feeling you have when you’re positive you’re forgetting something? It felt like I couldn’t leave yet, so I kept walking, and that, Alice, is when I saw you, and I knew what I was forgetting.”

  “But you didn’t ask me to come with you,” Alice said.

  Wesley nodded. “It wasn’t time. You weren’t ready.”

  “You were just going to let me stay there?” she asked. “What if everything came crashing down while I was still there?”

  “Don’t you trust me more than that? I know when these things are going to happen. And look.” He waved his hand at what was before them: a street intact, houses with people and dogs and children, and then just out of sight, around the corner and down another street, people teaching classes and writing papers and sprawling out on the university quad. And then farther still, in another world, her own neighborhood still stood. Her friends, her mother. Nothing had fallen apart yet.

  “Today’s the day,” Wesley said abruptly. “Now’s the time. They’re leaving.” She looked over to see the elven couple easing their van out of the driveway. They backed out into the street and then the van lurched forward, taking a right at the stop sign. “Go,” said Wesley. He stood up.

  “Hang on,” said Alice. “By myself? What about Kathryn?”

  “Look,” he said, and he took her hand and pulled her up too. There was Kathryn coming swiftly down the sidewalk. She was in her work clothes, a black skirt and a dowdy, cream-colored blouse that Hannah Fay said used to be hers, but it was hard to imagine her ever having worn. Her purse was slung over her shoulder, and bounced against her hip as she walked.

  “How did she know?” Alice asked. She watched as Kathryn slowed down in front of the house next door and looked down the driveway and then continued on toward Alice and Wesley.

  “I called her at work,” Wesley said. “I told her to come home.”

  “When?” Alice looked at Kathryn, who waved at her solemnly from the bottom step of the porch.

  “Ready?” Kathryn asked. “I’m going to change clothes so I don’t get these dirty.”

  “It doesn’t matter when,” Wesley said. “It just matters I knew enough to call.”

  “Dirty?” asked Alice. “Aren’t we just letting him out?”

  “We’re going to hop the fence,” said Kathryn. “Okay, I’m going to change.” She walked up the steps and squeezed herself between Wesley and Alice and through the door. Alice heard Apple saying, “Oh no, look what the cat dragged in,” before Kathryn shut the door behind her.

  “Did you two plan this already?” Alice asked. “What have I even been doing for the last few days?”

  “Come on, Alice,” Wesley said. “How else were you going to get over there? If you went in the front door, people would see you.”

  “Well,” she said, “I guess I’m not destined for a life of crime.”

  “This isn’t crime,” Wesley said, putting his hands on her shoulders. “You’re doing everyone a favor. I guarantee everyone hates that fucking dog.” He leaned in and kissed her, quick and light. “You’re definitely doing me a favor, at least.”

  She sighed. “Okay.” She gestured down at her clothes. “Are these fine?”

  “Yes,” said Wesley.

  “Does it even matter what I wear?” she asked.

  “No,” said Wesley. “You know how Kathryn is.”

  “I’ll go wait in the backyard,” she said, turning away, but Wesley caught her before she could open the door.

  “Listen,” he said, and his voice was gentle. “Someday soon, your old home is going to be destroyed. Like everything, everywhere. It’s going to crumble, and then it’s going to burn.” He reached toward her and touched her cheek, then pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That night, when I came back here after I met you, I couldn’t sleep because I worried I was wrong, and that it would happen before I could get you out.” She looked up at him. Once in a while, Wesley could be soft and tender; Alice loved his roughness because it was a part of him, the way his dark hair was, his blue eyes, but she treasured the gentleness when she saw it.

  “You rescued me,” she said. She believed it, that he had saved her from a life she didn’t want, but she also said it to soothe him. She moved closer and leaned against him, and he wrapped her up in his arms. (We picture her in this same embrace, but with someone different, somewhere different. A boy like Ben Austin, sturdy, stable. But wishing for a different Alice is like Alice wishing for a different Wesley—this is the one we got, the one we always had.)

  “Okay,” he said into her ear. “Kathryn will be waiting for you. Go serve your fellow man.”

  Alice pulled back and laughed, saluting him, and went inside to find Apple and Hannah Fay on the couch with her swollen feet on the coffee table. Janie was gone, hired by a friend of Wesley’s to babysit her children. “Kathryn’s ready to rumble,” Apple said. Kathryn came out of the kitchen with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing a stretchy pair of knit pants and a long-sleeved shirt that said SKI NEW MEXICO on it. Alice had never seen the shirt before, and wondered who had gone skiing. “Let’s go,” Kathryn said.

  Alice looked at the other girls and rolled her eyes. “You volunteered,” Apple said.

  “Okay,” Alice said. “Come on.” A baseball bat, something else she had never seen at the house, leaned against the wall by the door, and Kathryn swiped it in a single fluid motion and opened the back door. “Seriously?” Alice asked.

  “Protection,” said Kathryn.

  “There’s no one home!” said Alice.

  “Alice, maybe you need something too,” Apple said, and Alice didn’t react—it was better to ignore Apple sometimes—but she heard her hurry into the kitchen and open a drawer.

  “Here,” Apple said breathlessly, and Alice turned around to see the little knife she had stolen on their first midnight run.

  “Fine,” she said, unsure if the knife was Apple’s idea of a joke. “Let’s just go.”

  Outside, the girls dragged the patio chairs across the grass and positioned them next to the fence. Kathryn pulled out two sets of gloves she had kept tucked into the waistband of her pants—the large wool pair was clearly Wesley’s, and the other was a pair of stained gardening gloves, which she tossed to Alice. She dropped the baseball bat over the fence, where it landed with a muffled thud in the grass, and reached up to the top of the fence, gripping it. Kathryn hesitated for only a minute, and then suddenly she was up, toes against the fence board, then one leg over and then the other, and then she was gone. “Just like that, Alice,” she said from the other side.

  “I’m impressed,” Apple said. “And a little surprised.”

  “Honestly,” said Hannah Fay, “I’m not.”

  “Off I go,
” Alice said and climbed up on the chair.

  “Drop your knife over first,” Kathryn instructed her. “I’m up on the back steps.” The volume of Charlie’s barking had increased, and the sound was urgent and excited. He sensed visitors. Alice stood on her tiptoes and gingerly tossed the knife.

  “All clear,” said Kathryn.

  Kathryn was taller than she was, so Alice had to jump a little to get her hands on the top of the fence, but then she was up, too, and it felt good to be doing something physical, and she thought again of Kathryn, how she lived in a physical world of movement and action. A buzz of adrenaline zipped through her as soon as she landed, like she was absorbing energy from the ground itself. Inside the house, Charlie was still barking. She looked around until she found her knife, winking like a hidden diamond, and she picked it up. Kathryn’s baseball bat was still lying where it had fallen, near the base of the fence.

  “I’m guessing their back door is unlocked,” Kathryn said in a low voice. “I climbed over a few nights ago and checked it.”

  “Oh my God,” Alice said. “Kathryn! Didn’t Charlie bark?”

  Kathryn smiled. When she smiled, it was always because she was genuinely happy or pleased. When she had to smile for pictures but didn’t feel like it, it always came out wrong somehow, her lips too loose. Alice could see this being attractive to Wesley, too, the purity of being unable to fake happiness.

  “If your dog barks all the time, you wouldn’t be able to check on half the things he was barking about!” Kathryn said. “At least that’s what I was banking on, anyway.” She went up the back steps to the house and twisted the doorknob and cracked open the door. Immediately, Charlie’s black nose poked through the open sliver. He sniffed, his nostrils flaring, then disappeared behind the door again to bark, and Kathryn pulled it shut. “Ready?” she asked.

  “Not really,” Alice told her.

  Kathryn’s gloved hand was still on the doorknob, and Alice watched, hanging back, as she began to turn the knob. “Come on,” Kathryn said. “We’ve been inside strangers’ houses before.”

  “But Wesley is always with us,” Alice said. “And it’s nighttime.”

  “Which is arguably creepier,” said Kathryn.

  “It’s different,” said Alice. Darkness made everything feel exciting and fantastic, like she was dreaming. And though she knew Apple would make fun of her if she could hear this, having Wesley there made her feel like she was invincible.

  “Wesley told me eventually we’re going to be doing all nighttime activities outside the house on our own,” Kathryn said. Alice opened her mouth to protest—it wasn’t even safe for them to go out without him, was it? But Kathryn held up her hand. “People are watching him, and it’s getting too risky for him to be out and about. So think of it as practice.”

  “Okay,” Alice said. “Open it.”

  Kathryn opened the door and grabbed ahold of Charlie’s collar as he bounded toward them, lifting him up a little as she did. His bark sounded raspier as the collar pressed against his throat, and his nails scuttled on the wooden floor as Alice slipped inside and shut the door behind her. Kathryn dragged Charlie through the laundry room and into the kitchen and down the hall and into the living room. His feet were scrabbling fast against the floor, and he was, of course, barking, but he didn’t seem upset, just kind of eager, like they were playing a game. Alice walked toward the front window and peeked through the blinds. There was the van, ready and waiting. “Apple’s in the van outside,” Alice said. “Ready?”

  But then as Kathryn adjusted her grip on Charlie, she stepped on a purple rubber ball, and the toy let out a frightened squeak, and Charlie’s ears perked up, and he pulled away from Kathryn, who instinctively stepped out of the way, and Charlie pounced on the ball, grasping it between his jaws and biting so the toy cried again and again. “Fuck,” said Kathryn. She went to grab the dog, but he darted away again, still holding the ball. She took another step toward him. His tail wagged. He dropped the toy to the floor and waited for Kathryn to do her part.

  “He wants you to throw it, Kathryn,” Alice said.

  “I know that,” Kathryn snapped. “Shit. What can we do? Wesley is not going to be happy if we don’t get rid of this dog.”

  “We could just leave and come up with another plan,” Alice suggested, but even as she said it, she knew they couldn’t go back to the bungalow without taking care of the problem.

  Kathryn shook her head. “We need a new plan now.”

  “All right,” Alice said, thinking. They couldn’t get him to go outside on his own. They couldn’t pick him up and carry him out. She looked around the room. “Okay,” she said. She walked over to the doily-covered end table, where she had left the knife next to a pewter dish filled with potpourri. Blood will be spilled, Wesley had promised them once. Violence. Alice held up the knife.

  (In the weeks following Alice’s disappearance, when we all struggled to reconcile the Alice we knew with the one who left us, Susannah found herself returning to the memory of Alice punching Randy Neely. She’d tapped him on the shoulder, and when he turned around, she punched him right in the gut, knocked the wind out of him. Everyone laughed, and Alice felt a swell of pleasure.

  But it was what came next that Susannah thought about: how they had walked home together, and it was spring, and her eyes were itchy from the pollen in the air, and Alice had laughed so hard about Randy Neely. Head thrown back so her long hair nearly reached her bottom. “Susie,” Alice was saying, “it felt so good to do it! It was like punching a pillow. Or like a big tub of melty butter! My hand went right into it.”

  “You didn’t need to,” Susannah said. “I could’ve handled it myself.”

  “You couldn’t have,” Alice said. “Do you want a tissue for your eyes?”

  “No,” Susannah said, simultaneously hurt and touched her friend had noticed the swollen skin around her eyes, the pink blooming in the corners.

  “When I punched him,” she said, her eyes wide, “I loved it. I felt good doing it, and then everyone loved me for it.”

  “Not Randy,” said Susannah.

  Alice waved her hand dismissively. “Someday he’ll tell people Alice Lange punched him,” she said. “And it will be a good story.”

  In fact, he told no one, not even his mother, until Alice disappeared, and Randy said, “Did you know that once Alice Lange socked me in the stomach?”

  It was such a strange conversation that Susannah thought about it for days after and found it troubling in a way she couldn’t articulate, but eventually it crossed her mind only occasionally, until after Alice left. “You didn’t know her the way I knew her,” Susannah said to anyone who would listen. One summer night, at a party before everyone left for college, she found Randy Neely, and they talked about Alice. Then they disappeared into the bathroom in the master bedroom, and she let Randy put his hands up her shirt and then inside her pants, and they both thought of Alice Lange.)

  “Okay,” said Kathryn, nodding at Alice and the knife. “That’s good. You’re right, that’s what we’ll do.” Charlie took a step closer to Kathryn, as if he wanted to remind her they were playing, and she suddenly lunged toward him, grabbing him by the collar.

  “What about the body?” Alice asked, watching the dog strain to get away. “It’s going to make a big mess.”

  “Well, we can’t clean it,” Kathryn said. “We’ll leave it. We’ll take some things, anything small and valuable we see. It will look like a robbery, and that we had to kill Charlie to stop him from attacking us.” Charlie, hearing his name, looked up at Kathryn, who was still holding him by his collar. The collar was red leather, slim as a ribbon around his neck.

  “Okay, yes, right,” said Alice, wishing Kathryn wouldn’t call the dog by its name anymore. “He’s just an animal. We eat animals.”

  “I’ll hold him,” said Kathryn. “And you just stick him, I guess. I think you’ll have to push really hard.”

  “Me?” said Alice. Kathryn nodded
. “Oh no,” said Alice. “I don’t think I can.”

  “Quit wasting time,” said Kathryn. She crouched down next to the dog, one hand still grasping the collar, but now she had one arm around his body, too, like she was hugging him, posing for a picture with a beloved pet. “He’s nice and calm,” she said, looking at Alice with serious eyes. “This will be easy. One day, one day soon, we’ll be asked to do things a lot harder than this.”

  Alice thought of what Wesley said about the shaking and cracking of the earth, the blazes to follow it, but she couldn’t conjure up the image of her own home splitting wide open; all she could picture was Pompeii, that video they watched in class, with Vesuvius spewing in the background, angry or maybe not angry—maybe just careless, heartless, unfeeling.

  And so Alice walked over to the dog. Kathryn’s fingers clenched tighter around the collar and her other hand pressed harder against his body to keep him still. He started to bark. He wanted to go, he wanted to run, he wanted to play. A warm-up. This was a warm-up. Wesley would love her. Wesley would thank her. Wesley would know he could count on her. She was a girl who was constantly distinguishing herself. She was meant to be here. She was meant to do this.