“Hey, did you hear about the PTA meeting?”
“Yeah, my mom and dad just got home,” said Retta. “Penalty or no penalty? Poor Mr. Masters.”
“Sounds like they’ll let it go this time,” said Lottie, “but not if he screws up again.”
“Lottie,” said Retta, “why are we even interested? We’re graduating. We’re out of here. If I want to talk to a vampire, I can. We’re adults, aren’t we?”
There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment. Then Lottie said, “You are so hot for that kid! I can’t believe it!”
“Shut up!” said Retta. “You’re not even listening to me.”
“You’re not even listening to yourself!” said Lottie.
“Whatever,” said Retta. “Anyway, what are you going to do this summer? Or next fall, for that matter?”
“I’m thinking about finding work as one of those people who do sleep experiments,” said Lottie. “They’re always advertising for those. Seems like a steady job.”
“Hmm,” said Retta, “sounds as good as anything I’ve got.”
“College?” said Lottie.
“Oh, yeah, that. My mom brought home an application for the community college the other day, said I could stay here if I didn’t feel like trying school somewhere else. I don’t know. Don’t British kids go on something called gap year after high school? Where they go to some poor eastern European country or some island in the Mediterranean for a year and help people out and stuff? That’s what I’d like to do. Maybe.”
“Retta, you’re not British.”
“I know,” said Retta. “It’s a figure of speech.”
“No, it’s not,” said Lottie.
Retta was about to ask if Lottie was going to pick her up on the way to school tomorrow, then maybe they could go to the mall afterward and stare at things and people, but as she opened her mouth to speak, a spray of pebbles rattled against her bedroom window. “Hold on a sec,” she told Lottie, the mall forgotten, and got up from her bed to look out.
It was night out, but beneath the big oak in front of the backyard’s mercury light, she could see him, his face covered in leafy shadows, the hands that had tossed those pebbles up to her window like he was out of some 1950s movie now stuffed in the front pockets of his jeans. He pulled one out when Retta showed up at the window, lifted it into the air to flick her a wave.
She told Lottie it was her mom calling her, and clicked the phone off before Lottie could argue. Then she pulled up the window, stuck her head out, and whispered, “I can’t come out there. My parents would see you.”
“Then can I come up?” he whispered back.
“How?” said Retta. “Do you have a ladder?”
The next instant he was climbing her mother’s rose trellis, hand over hand, the tips of his shoes seeking purchase. In a minute he was three feet beneath her window. “Can you give me a lift?” he said, reaching with one hand, holding on to the trellis with the other.
“Are you serious?” said Retta. “I can’t lift you.”
“I’m lighter than I look.”
She sighed, leaned out, stretched.
He was telling the truth. He was light, so light, in fact, that she pulled him over her windowsill not quite like a rag doll, but not far from it. It made Retta want to diet. “What are you?” she said. “On a hunger strike or something?”
“No,” he said. “I’m empty.”
They sat down on her floor, and Trevor folded his legs beneath him like an Indian guru. “So what are you doing here?” asked Retta, trying to keep things business formal.
“I missed you,” he said.
She said, “You don’t even know me.”
“Sure I do,” he said. “I know you better than you think, remember?” He tapped his temple like he did the day he’d given her a ride.
“So you read minds?”
“A little,” he said. “Enough to know you’ve been wondering where I’ve been for the past week.”
“Everyone’s been wondering where you and your friends disappeared to for the past week,” said Retta. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“But you’ve been wondering more than everyone else,” he said. Retta made a face that said, You are so stupid.
“You have,” he said. “Admit it.”
“Okay,” she admitted. “Maybe.”
“Loretta,” he said. “Loretta, Loretta, Loretta,” he said, like her name was something musical.
“What?”
“I was just thinking about your name. Do you have a nickname?”
“No,” she said.
“Doesn’t anyone call you Lo?”
She shook her head.
“Then that’s what I’ll call you. Lo.”
“Loretta is fine.”
“But Lo is much better,” he said. “Can’t you feel it?”
“Feel what?”
“The sadness in Lo. The anguish.”
“I don’t feel it,” said Retta. “No.”
“Because you don’t like feeling,” he said. He stood and went to her mirror, primping his fauxhawk, which wasn’t really out of place. “You don’t like feeling because it hurts too much,” he said. “You numb yourself to feelings. But you feel more than you ever let yourself know.”
“Okay, Trevor,” said Retta. “What am I feeling right now?”
“You feel like you’re going to tear this town down. You feel like you’re waiting for something to happen, for someone to tell you what you want. You feel all that and more. You feel a lot, Lo,” he said. “You feel so much.”
Retta looked down at the carpet and didn’t say anything. He left the mirror and came over to her, his red Chuck Taylors inching into her vision. She looked up, blinked, unsure whether to be angry or relieved that he’d said all that. That he’d known.
“I can help,” he said. “We can help each other.”
“How?”
“I can take some from you, if you let me.”
“Take what?”
“Some feelings.”
“You know,” said Retta, “I’ve been very tolerant and accommodating about your condition, but at this point I think I should probably say that I never quite believed you and your friends. Nor the old woman on CNN this past week, nor the librarian, nor the blind musician downtown.”
He sat down across from her again and said, “Let me show you.”
“Really, Trevor,” said Retta, ready to protest, but her next words surprised even her: “Okay, sure. Show me.”
He reached over and grabbed her hands from her lap, his fingertips brushing against her palms, tickling. Then he closed his eyes, and Retta felt something move inside her, displacing her organs, shifting around. She shivered. Then it was in her chest. She tried to say, “Maybe this isn’t something I want to do after all,” but she couldn’t. By then it was in her throat. She gulped, trying to swallow down whatever it was. Then she opened her mouth and began huffing and puffing. Tears formed, trembled, rolled down her cheeks. She couldn’t stop them. She couldn’t take her hands away from him either, even though Trevor barely had hold of them. She was stuck, breathing in short, sharp bursts, whimpering. Then he opened his eyes, licked his lips, and said, “Thank you.”
She took her hands away and wiped the tears from her face, stood up, and almost fell over. Her center of balance was nonexistent. The room spun, then slowed to a stop. She felt like she could lift off the floor, drift over to the window and out into the sky if she wanted. “I think you should go,” she told him.
“I won’t be able to go down that trellis now,” said Trevor. He stood, put his hands in his pockets again, sheepish. “I’m full now,” he said. “The trellis probably won’t hold me.”