What Remains Read online

  For one brief second, Ally glances over her shoulder and our eyes lock. Whatever Lizzie is saying is eaten by the buzzing that overtakes my brain. I’m completely frozen in place. Unable to move. Pretty much unable to breathe.

  Eventually, Ally moves away and it takes a minute for me to realize I’m just staring at a now-empty space. I stand there numb and mute while Spencer jokes around with the rest of the cast and crew, who start leaving one by one.

  “Noon tomorrow,” calls out Mr. Brooks, who isn’t only our English teacher but head of the drama club.

  “We’re running through a couple of those tricky dance numbers,” Spencer explains as we follow him to the door. Then, over his shoulder, “See you, Mr. Brooks. Cal and Lizzie are going to help me put all this stuff away.” He gestures to the pile of discarded clothes. “And then I’ll lock up.”

  All three of us hold our breath, expecting Mr. Brooks to come up with some reason why we can’t be here, but instead he nods and ushers everyone else out of the room. We quickly clean up like we promised and then slink down the stairs to a windowless little basement theater affectionately known as The Cave. The Cave is where the more alternative student productions take place. The name comes from the fact that the stage, walls, floor, and seats are painted black. Everything in the room is formed by moving around a series of identical cubes.

  As soon as we get in, Spencer locks the door from the inside. I open my backpack and start taking out a load of candles I borrowed from my mom’s strangely endless stash.

  “You’re sure this is a good idea?” I ask no one in particular. In my head I’m making a list: fire, alcohol, trespassing. I’m pretty sure we’re breaking every rule the school has. I wonder how long they can legally suspend someone; there must be laws about that sort of thing.

  “I promise we aren’t the first to spend the night here,” Spencer says. I watch as he grabs a cooler from under one of the black cubes and starts pulling out bits of food. “Just mind the ghost.”

  Not surprisingly, this gets Lizzie’s attention. “What ghost?” Unlike the slightly sick feeling I get at hearing that this place is haunted, she looks excited about it. Figures.

  I glare at Spencer. I’m pretty sure he didn’t mention this particular detail earlier. He knew I wouldn’t have come had I known that The Cave was home to a ghost.

  Spencer just shakes his head, obviously appalled at our reactions. “Come on, guys. You can pretty much bet that all theaters are haunted.”

  “Yeah, it’s all you angsty theater types who stick around because you’re afraid of leaving and having to find real jobs,” I say. He throws a roll at my head, which I whip back at him. If I had more control I’d be a pitcher instead of a shortstop, but it’s good to know I can throw a roll when I need to. It whizzes by his head and he just manages to duck so that it bounces off the wall.

  “When you boys are done acting like boys, can someone fill me in here?” Lizzie lights the candles, each one casting more and more interesting shadows against the black walls.

  Spencer sits on one of the blocks, his eyes flashing in the candlelight. He’s in his element, getting to tell a story to an attentive audience. I’ll be the one who won’t be able to sleep, afraid of what might be haunting the place.

  “In the late ’70s, there was a sophomore named Alice Tyler. She had the lead in Romeo and Juliet,” Spencer begins in his hushed actor voice.

  “Why do these stories always start out with Shakespeare?” Lizzie asks, her voice bouncing loudly off the empty walls. “I mean, we’re meant to think he was the greatest writer of all time, but doesn’t it seem like every traumatic theater story starts out with Shakespeare?” I know she’s baiting Spencer. He knows it too, but can’t resist.

  “Shakespeare is the best,” he insists. “But Alice’s problem wasn’t Shakespeare. Right before the show opened, she found out she was pregnant. And then her boyfriend left her. I don’t think that was Shakespeare’s fault.” He gives Lizzie the same look Mr. Brooks gives kids when he’s confiscating their cell phones for texting in class.

  “Okay, okay, don’t get your knickers in a twist. I was just wondering,” she says, but I know she’s joking.

  “Anyhow … ” Spencer gives Lizzie a look that’s all eyes and makes it clear further interruptions won’t be appreciated. In return, she sticks out her tongue at him. He continues. “Anyhow … of course, the show sucked. She broke down crying halfway through the balcony scene and they had to bring the curtain down. The rest of the cast was apparently sympathetic, but the director was a total jerk to her. The next morning, they found her hanging from that rafter.”

  Personally, I don’t really care one way or the other about Shakespeare. I’m just thinking about Alice and how horrible it must be to feel so alone that the only thing you can think to do is off yourself.

  Spencer points towards the corner of the room. I can see how Alice would have climbed up on the black boxes and jumped. In my mind I can see her legs kicking under the hem of her skirt.

  “Gee, Yeats, you really know how to throw a party.” I swallow down the lump in my throat. “I feel all warm and cheery now.” I try to turn it into a joke. But I’m really hoping Spencer will take my hint and drop the story. More than that, I want this prickly feeling on the back of my neck to stop.

  “Sorry,” he says. I also hope he remembers how much this stuff freaks me out. In seventh grade, he brought his brother’s Ouija board over and I couldn’t sleep for a week after he and Lizzie tried to contact the spirit of her dead grandmother. Knowing that Lizzie was moving the pointer didn’t even help to make me feel any less unsettled.

  “They say Alice haunts this place. Things get moved around all the time and there are problems with the lights. People have camped out here specifically to try to see her.” He finishes his story quickly, the words all flying out in one breath. “And some apparently have.”

  I look over at Lizzie. She’s clearly into the story, probably planning some ghost-hunting expedition to try to lure Alice out of the grave. I vow to keep one eye open at all times, not only because I don’t really want to see a ghost, but because I don’t trust Lizzie not to try to scare the hell out of me just for fun.

  Then they exchange a look that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up even more than the ghost story did. I can’t seem to keep from watching them and cataloging each glance they share and the way they always seem to be touching, like planets orbiting each other.

  I get up and go over to the cooler, tapping Spencer on the shoulder on the way over. “Come on, let’s see what you brought. I’m starving.”

  Spencer follows and brings out a plastic Tupperware thing and takes the top off. Six individually decorated cupcakes sit nestled in their own spaces. Each has a theme. One has tie-dye frosting and a little peace sign drawn on it, one is green with little white squares that I assume is a baseball diamond, one has the drama/comedy masks on them, and so on. Leave it to Spencer never to do anything halfway.

  “Nice, Betty Crocker. That isn’t clichéd or anything,” I say sarcastically, but really I’m damned impressed and hungry to boot. My stomach rumbles and both of them laugh.

  “Hey, not like you were going to bake her something,” Spencer shoots back.

  “Yeah, I could have made birthday toast,” I admit. “Or maybe scrambled eggs.” My parents both have crazy work schedules. I don’t remember the last time they were both home to eat dinner at the same time much less show me how to cook it. Recipes in my house consist of mixing something from Whole Foods with something that can be delivered.

  Spencer grabs a corkscrew out of his bag and hands it to me along with the bottle of wine. “Here, do something useful.” I take them, but I fumble around for a little bit before Lizzie grabs them out of my hands and opens the bottle herself. She has a lot of experience with this sort of thing given that drinking is her mom’s favorite hobby. Still, it c
reeps me out to see her in action.

  Spencer sticks glittery little candles into the cupcakes while Lizzie pours red wine into three glasses. I look at Spencer because he’s the word guy and I’m sure he’s prepared something to say.

  “You guys are my best friends in the entire world and I don’t know what I’d do without you. Anyhow, I’m so glad we’re doing this and, Liz, that you wanted to spend your very special seventeenth birthday with us. I hope you know how much we love you.”

  She does a little curtsey and hugs both of us while trying not to spill her wine. Spencer goes to the back of one of the black cubes and pulls out three sleeping bags. Then we light the candles and sing happy birthday.

  Singing with Spencer Yeats is like singing with John Lennon or someone. I can’t even take my tone-deaf voice seriously so I kind of mouth the words and let him carry it until he slaps the side of my leg with the back of his hand. I let go on the “happy birthday dear Lizzie” part just as she blows out the candles.

  “So what did you wish for?” I ask, even though I’m not supposed to.

  “I want this,” she says, looking very sincere and not like herself at all. “I want this never to change.”

  There’s a pause while we both stare at her. I know we’re both thinking about how much she must be feeling to actually say that. And then, as if we’re sharing the same mind, Spencer and I lean in at the same time and hug her.

  Who knew that they turn the freaking heat off in schools at night? I’m sure some people might have thought about that, but not us. I have a light jacket with me and Spencer is in a thin T-shirt. Lizzie is wearing something gauzy and fairy-like that definitely isn’t warm.

  We pull the sleeping bags together and huddle inside them, each holding candles to keep our hands from shaking. The wine helps a little, but we’re almost done with the bottle and I think shivering is keeping me unfortunately sober.

  I get up and grab another cupcake. “So when did you find time to make these?”

  “I stayed up late last night,” Spencer says. “I was waiting for an email anyhow.” Lizzie and I share a look; neither of us has to ask who it was from.

  After telling us for years that he was “just too busy to worry about relationships,” Spencer met a guy from Seattle when they were in a show together last summer. Because of the distance, they aren’t really involved, but from what Spencer told me Rob has been trying to change that. Spencer has been resistant in a cagey, un-Spencer-like way, and I know we won’t get any more details out of him tonight.

  “Well, thanks,” Lizzie says and leans over to kiss him. I force myself not to look away and when she shivers, I throw her my coat.

  Spencer collects most of the candles and puts them in the middle of the room. There’s one bunch he’s left in the corner and I stare at them, trying to figure out what makes them different until I realize they’re those little LED candles that won’t burn out. They’ll stay lit all night long.

  It isn’t as if I’m afraid of the dark. It’s more the things that hide in the dark that get to me. I mean, I’m sixteen; I know there are no monsters under the bed. But there’s other stuff that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up and my stomach clench: ghosts, aliens, predators, muggers, all those parts of our brains that we don’t use and don’t know why we have, things that can’t be explained by science or by reason. It’s the not knowing that makes me feel like a silly kid who needs his mommy to leave on the light. I hate that I’m like that, but I am and my best friends know it.

  Spencer motions for us to gather our sleeping bags around the real candles, the ones that will burn out in the middle of the night, but that also might share some of their warmth with us first.

  “Come on, Liz,” he says, pulling her over and rubbing his hand up and down her goose-bumped arms. “You’re freezing. You’re like the walking dead.” They unzip their bags and then zip the two together into one giant one and huddle under it.

  This is what happens when you’re three best friends. Two are always together and one is always on the outside. Not that I want to be in there with them. And not that it’s a bad thing. Spencer and I jog together and Lizzie most decidedly doesn’t exercise for exercise’s sake. Or she and I bum around art museums and I listen to her tell me why people like paintings made up of tiny dots or the tragic stories about the painter’s lives. So when they huddle up together, I don’t feel left out. Not really. This is just what happens.

  Or what happened.

  Now that I know they’ve had sex, everything feels different. I don’t want it to matter, but it does. Not just because I feel like they’re forming a club I’m not invited to join, but because Spencer should have known better and I’m not really sure how to call him on it. Or if I even should.

  “Do you think we’ll see her?” Lizzie asks me.

  “Who?” I ask, distracted.

  “Ally Martin,” she answers and I’m glad that they can’t see the expression on my face. “No, you know … ” She pauses for effect. “The ghost.”

  “ARGH,” I say and put my hands over my ears like a little kid. “I’m not listening.” I’m only half joking, but I’m not sure which topic I want to avoid talking to Lizzie about more.

  “Give him a break, Liz,” Spencer says. “Besides.” He points at the LED lights. “That’s what the ghost lights are for.”

  “The what?” Lizzie turns to him. It’s clear she’s not buying this at all.

  “Ghost lights are the lights left on in theaters after the cast and crew have gone. They’re meant to keep the muse in the house when there aren’t shows going on and keep bad spirits out when there are.”

  Lizzie’s face contains every color of fascination now and she doesn’t see Spencer turn and wink at me.

  “They’re also so that people don’t trip over things when they come back to the theater in the morning,” he explains.

  This practical explanation makes Lizzie smirk, but she says “fine” to him and then mouths “wimp” dramatically in my direction.

  Spencer brushes some hair out of Lizzie’s eyes and puts his arm around her. “So you’re sure your mom didn’t have anything planned for your birthday?”

  It’s a sensitive subject. When we all met in first grade, I remember her mom coming to pick her up from school and knowing there was something wrong. Her dad ran off right after she was born and her mom went through a series of crappy relationships until she settled on the loser she’s with now. Even at seven I knew that the smell of alcohol and her unsteady gait made her mom something different, something bad. The idea that she would have planned anything for Lizzie’s birthday was pretty absurd. She never had before. She wasn’t going to start now.

  “Wow, Spence. No more wine for you, it’s making you hallucinate,” Lizzie says and elbows him in the ribs. “Yeah, Mom had a huge party planned with ponies, and a Ferris wheel, and fireworks.”

  Spencer winces. I know he wasn’t trying to hurt her. It’s just hard to tell where all of Lizzie’s unprotected nerve endings are; they seem to move around a lot. I can’t tear my eyes away as he squeezes her tighter and whispers “sorry” so softly I can barely hear it.

  She takes a gulp of wine. “What? It’s no big deal. Not like I expected anything from her. Besides, what could she possibly give me that would be better than freezing my ass off with my two favorite boys?”

  “I don’t think anyone has ever said that they prefer me to a pony before,” I say, trying to lighten things up. “I’m not really sure how to take it.”

  “Oh, Cal.” Lizzie purses her wine-stained lips and while I don’t know exactly what she’s thinking, I know that it’s something that would make me squirm if she said it out loud. “I am so not even going there.”

  I catch Spencer’s eye and we dissolve into cold, tired laughter. For the moment, my questions and fears, my doubts and jealousy, fade and all I can think is: t
his, this, this. This is right.

  Four

  I wasn’t made for standardized tests. Spencer is all over these things, but then all of his life has been about studying lines and regurgitating them at exactly the right time. I’m better at stuff like science because the answers are always the same. If you mix chemical one and chemical two they’ll always react the same way even if that means you’ve created something that will blow up. The point is you know that’s going to happen. The planets tonight will be just where you left them last night so long as you take into account the Earth’s slight rotational shift.

  But they can ask virtually anything on those tests and I can’t possibly study everything to prepare. And don’t get me started on writing essay questions for the English part of it, where the right answer is a totally subjective thing based on what the person reviewing the answers had for breakfast that day or whether they got laid the night before.

  In reality there’s only one good thing about taking the SATs today, on a Monday no less. It means that we’re exactly one week from the official start of baseball practice. My Detroit Tigers’ calendar, the one with the pictures of the 1968 World Series team, hangs on the wall. I have all our practice times highlighted in yellow on the little calendar squares. The SAT reminder sits in somber black in today’s space, right over that first practice. From then on my calendar is full of baseball, baseball, and baseball.

  But I have to get through this version of hell first.

  I throw my last-minute study notes in the trunk, crank up the radio, and head over to the school. When I pull into the parking lot, it’s filled with a large chunk of the junior class. Half of them, like me, are checking their scribbled notes, trying to memorize things they somehow forgot to learn in the previous sixteen years.