Aunt Dale
Still no allusion, as of yet, to Shelby visiting. Coffee or ice water. Shelby’s aunt was a very busy individual with an ever-changing schedule. She was probably wary of inviting Shelby and then having to cancel, or having to work the whole time Shelby was visiting. Late for a flight. Shelby wished she were late for a flight. Aunt Dale was casual about these things, that was all. She wasn’t a person who had to plot everything out way in advance. That’s why she hadn’t married that guy she’d been seeing forever; she didn’t like to be hemmed in.
But Shelby didn’t like that Aunt Dale seemed to struggle to find something to write. None of her previous e-mails had felt that way. Maybe Shelby ought to e-mail less often; maybe she was burning Aunt Dale out. It just wasn’t Shelby’s way to play hard to get. Her way was to hint, and if that didn’t work, to come right out and take what she wanted.
She jostled the mouse and clicked on Reply.
I’ve been wishing I could ride a train through the countryside, not one of our musty Amtraks, but a train where they serve soft cheese and pressed coffee and there’s a lounge car full of fascinating people with red lips who all speak different languages and you sleep in a pitch dark bunk and in the morning there are snowy mountains out the window that make you feel small and safe.
One morning when Mr. Hibma had arrived at school early in order to map out his next few basketball practices, Mrs. Conner appeared in the doorway of his classroom. He had a notepad in his hands full of Xs and Os, new drills that would help his guards defend against backdoor cuts. He put the notepad down and looked up at Mrs. Conner and she invited him to come over and look at her books, to see if there were any he wanted. The lot of them were destined for a shelter her church supported, but she wanted to give Mr. Hibma a chance to pick them over first. She was making a gesture. Mr. Hibma had made his gestures and now she was making one.
He followed her into her classroom and it smelled like soap and coffee. It was a big corner room, windows on two sides. She pulled back the doors of a towering cabinet and a thousand spines spied out at Mr. Hibma. As he scanned the shelves, she told him she was honored that he’d chosen to entrust his possessions to her and her husband, that West Citrus U-Stor was the best facility in their region of Florida. She thanked Mr. Hibma for the calendar he’d bought her, one of those where you peel a sheet off for each day. The theme was little-known grammar rules. Mrs. Conner had it on her desk at home.
Most of the books in the cabinet weren’t really books. They were books about books, manuals that instructed one how to teach certain books. There were collections of writing exercises, guides for building a curriculum. Mr. Hibma’s eye was caught by a thick poetry anthology. He worked it out a couple inches and then pulled it off the shelf. Another anthology, essays about Florida cuisine. There was a Complete Works of Shakespeare. It was a fancy edition — probably a hundred bucks in a bookstore.
“I’ve never been able to understand Shakespeare,” Mrs. Conner said. She whispered, but not like she was hiding anything. “I can follow the plots because it’s right there in the teacher’s edition, but I can’t follow it line to line.”
Mr. Hibma set the Shakespeare on top of the stack he had going near his feet. Mrs. Conner’s face was deeply reflective.
“And those are the first ones you go for,” she said. “The Shakespeare and the poetry. I kind of gloss over that unit every year. I show the movies.”
Mr. Hibma looked at Mrs. Conner and he could imagine her dead without much effort. He didn’t hate her. He didn’t feel anything as strong as hate. That was good; he didn’t want to murder someone because he hated them. He didn’t want to commit a crime of passion. She would be quiet after Mr. Hibma killed her, and she would be a bluish color. Mr. Hibma had even less regard for her, seeing how easily he’d gained her confidence. She had no loyalty, not even to her own grudges. Mr. Hibma was a pet of hers, another of her successes.
“I’m not like you,” Mrs. Conner said. She tapped Mr. Hibma on the forearm. “I’m not smart like you are.” She tipped her face to his and then left the room, trusting Mr. Hibma, giving him time to look her books over in private.
A biography of the author of The Yearling. A biography of Dickens. Mr. Hibma couldn’t concentrate on the titles. He didn’t want any more of these books. He felt he had to take some, though. He felt like a child, alone in Mrs. Conner’s classroom. He felt like a child who was being given too much slack.
Toby was not wandering the wilderness. He was taking a stroll like any reasonable person. He had made up his mind. At the end of the week, on Friday night, the same night of the week he’d taken her, he was going to bind Kaley’s wrists and ankles, tape her mouth, stuff her in his rucksack, and return her to her home. Toby would be a failure, but he would be free. He’d be doing the right thing. Toby remembered when Shelby’s father had spoken to the cameras. He remembered forgetting his thermos, the smell of the Register house. He hadn’t been back inside it. He was afraid of that house. The last thing he wanted to do was bully Kaley again, be forced to physically move her. And this time he’d do it with open eyes, he’d do it without the strange trance he’d fallen into when he’d taken her. This had been the only answer all along, he saw. There was no more room for cowardice. He had to undo what he’d done. He had to cover the same tracks in the opposite direction, lugging Kaley, lighter on his back though older. Whatever he’d done to Kaley would be over. He could end this and she could begin recovering. And then Toby could be with Shelby. He’d been Shelby’s greatest enemy and now he’d be her greatest ally, and she’d never know about any of it. They could start over. They could be themselves. They could find out what their selves were.
Toby wouldn’t have to go in the house; he could leave Kaley on the porch or even the edge of the yard. He would leave her at the edge of the Register yard, and in case she didn’t work her way free of the bag, he would leave an alarm clock resting nearby on the grass. He would get one of those extra-loud alarm clocks meant for old people — steal it from the drugstore, he supposed. He would never have to wear the mask again. He would burn the mask, burn it to get rid of it but also burn it because he hated it. He’d worn it to hide his identity and now he wore it out of shame. Toby kept strolling. Things were coming clear. He felt a little like his old self, resourceful and lean, nothing to worry about but getting caught. He felt simple again; he had an operation to execute and he would either be caught red-handed and take what was coming to him or he would get away with it. But Toby knew no one would catch him. He knew the woods. He knew the night.
Earlier that day, after school, he had carried his mother’s mirror out to the delivery bay. He’d knocked it against a steel corner of one of the dumpsters hard enough to run cracks through the glass, reached his arm into the dumpster, held the mirror as far down as he could, and released it. The mirror couldn’t help him and he didn’t want help. His mother couldn’t help him. Mr. Hibma couldn’t help him. Nothing could. Toby was a shade of gray, like the rest. And maybe now he could be happy like the rest. He could be an idiot punk with just enough poison in his heart to make a fool of himself. He could be another punk with a girlfriend who was too good for him. Toby wasn’t evil and he wasn’t meant to get Bs and pole vault. His real self was the petty vandal who broke bird eggs and made prank phone calls. His real self wanted to flirt with the world like everyone else, flirt with trouble and flirt with Shelby and flirt with whatever else came along. He wasn’t meant for damage, only damage control. Someone else should’ve found the bunker.