“That’s how I felt about Noe, too,” I said. “Like she saved me from myself.”
“Hear my soul speak,” quoted Steven. “Of the very instant that I saw you, did / my heart fly at your service.”
“I’m glad you’re alive,” I said, and hugged him.
“I’m glad you’re alive, too.”
124
DAFFODILS WERE UNFOLDING THEIR YELLOW trumpets in the flower beds in front of my house. At school, we had a motivational speaker come in to talk about the K.E.Y.S. to success. He was thick-necked and greasy and sweated a lot. I sat near the back and read the poem that Loren sent me.
I read while the speaker jabbered and ranted, and while he had the whole auditorium shout the four keys like a cheer, and while the Senior Leaders presented him with a gift bag and shook his hand.
Afterward there was a draw to win a copy of his new book, The K.E.Y.S. for Students. I had the winning ticket. I folded it up into an accordion and dropped it on the floor on my way out of the auditorium.
in castles of wind, went the poem. in halls of rain.
125
THAT NIGHT I WROTE AN EMAIL to Loren. I didn’t know Wilda McClure wrote poetry.
He wrote back, I can send you the book.
I wrote back, How was the hike to Garramond Lake?
By the end of the week, we were emailing two or three times a day.
126
I WENT TO STEVEN’S HOUSE MOST days after school. He gave me his key so I wouldn’t have to talk to Darla when I came in. She had figured out that I was the girl Noe had told her about, the one who had refused to die.
“When are you coming back?” I said. “I miss you in Art. My collage sucks. Win and Dominic miss you, too. Margot Dilforth sends her love.”
“I’m not going back,” Steven said.
“What do you mean?” I said. “You can’t drop out of school. What about graduation?”
“I’m going to move in with my uncle,” he said. “I can finish my classes online.”
“But why?” I sputtered. The thought of finishing the year without Steven was preposterous. School would be so empty without him. I couldn’t imagine graduation without Steven there to make a Royal Society of Pee Sisters salute. “Everyone loves you,” I said. “We can figure things out so that you don’t ever have to cross paths with Noe and Alex.”
“Do you know why I’m lying here?” said Steven.
“Why?”
“It is taking every ounce of effort I have not to kill myself.”
“Steven.”
“It’s okay. I’m not going to do it. I just need to focus.”
“Focus on what?”
“Not doing it. And I think that will be a lot easier once I’m living in a place where being myself isn’t going to make anyone hate me.”
“How will you do it?” I said. “I mean, how is your mom letting you?”
“I’m eighteen,” said Steven. “That means nobody has to let you anymore.”
“When are you going?”
“Tomorrow. My uncle was all set to come up and get me tonight, but I wanted to say good-bye to you.”
“Today’s your last day here?”
He nodded. “Hopefully forever.”
“In that case,” I said. “Let’s go. There’s something we need to do.”
127
WE DROVE TO MY HOUSE TO get the finger out of my freezer. At my house, I put on Nan’s old wedding dress, an armful of beaded necklaces from the Halloween box, and the straw hat Mom wore to mow the lawn. We made a shrine out of tinfoil and birthday candles and laid the finger inside it. It was wrinkly at the knuckle and flat and dull at the naiclass="underline" a stubby gray saint on its way to a resurrection.
As we drove away from my house, Steven lit the birthday candles. They cast a warm glow on the finger. Presently the tinfoil was spotted with dots of pink and blue wax.
We went to the Botanical Gardens first to get some flowers for the shrine. It had rained in the morning and now warm air heaved up from the ground in damp waves. Children in frilly socks were chasing geese across the lawn while their parents strolled along the stone pathways. I led Steven through the labyrinth and past the sundial to the rare plants section to pick some blood lilies and African moonflowers for his finger, but Steven thought they were too pretty to kill so we ended up scooping out handfuls of soil and fertilizer instead, as if Steven’s finger were a bulb that could grow a whole new Steven underground.
At the SkyTram I bought him a hot dog. We rode over the river in the shuddering red car. A pair of tourists from Milwaukee asked what happened to Steven’s finger. We told them he lost it in the war.
“You look too young to have been in a war,” the tourists said, shaking their heads like the world had truly hit the pits. The man of the couple gave Steven a hug and thanked him for his service, and we stood by the gift shop for a long time while they told us about life in Milwaukee.
After the SkyTram we followed the river upstream, parking the car when we got close to the waterfall and going the last half mile on foot. This part of town was always noisy with tour buses and school groups. People were always looking for the bathroom. Still, if you could imagine it without the knickknack shops and overpriced restaurants, it was an awesome sight.
The waterfall was churning out rainbows. Tourists in gauzy yellow rain ponchos floated along in the mist.
We stood by the railing and said a prayer and threw the finger over. It tumbled down, down, down in its tinfoil coffin like a tiny daredevil in a canoe.
On the way up the walkway, a pair of Australian tourists asked to take our picture. We posed with our arms around each other’s shoulders, the waterfall behind us. I think someone said “Cheese” but I couldn’t hear it for the roar.
128
A FEW DAYS AFTER STEVEN WENT to New York, I got my first letter from him. It was in a plain white envelope that someone had stepped on; there was a dusty footprint on top of the address.
Dear A, the letter said.
How goes the Society of Pee Sisters? Have you gained girth? I miss your furrowed brow. Send me some artwork.
Steven McNeil
I wrote back:
Dear Steven,
Please find enclosed a Pee Sisters ID card, valid for entry into any opposite-sex bathroom in the Western world. While my brow remains furrowed, the nutritionist assures me I am now eating almost as much as three beavers, six raccoons, or one medium-size deer, which is apparently an improvement. I miss you.
A. Schultz
129
WIN AND I STARTED WRITING OUR one-act play together. We mostly worked at her house. Win had a nice room. We’d get lost in our ideas for hours, thinking up all the details of the set and costumes, writing and rewriting the script. Somehow, bits of other conversations always snuck in.
Win had brown hair that curled on its own. She had a button collection. She was obsessed with anime. She had an older sister who lived in Chicago and was in a band, and a half brother and half sister who lived with their mom in Virginia. She had once spent the night in a cave during a rainstorm. She had a boyfriend, Felix, who was a professional juggler. He was homeschooled, so he could do whatever he wanted, and he traveled around with this juggling troupe and did shows in schools. He had invented a juggling pattern and named it after her: it was called Win’s Wiggle and it involved six balls. She showed me a video. It looked hard. The balls went so high, and the flow of them really did seem to wiggle in the air.