“Spring 2024.”
“Yeah.”
“What happened after he left?”
“I didn’t hear from him for a few days. I was worried, but also relieved. It felt like a wake-up call. I texted him that I needed a break.”
“How’d he take it?”
“Better than I expected. He apologized. I told him we could be friends. He didn’t text for a week or two. Then it was nonstop.”
“Do you have the messages?”
“I erased them when I blocked him.”
“He began sending real letters.”
She nodded.
“Do you remember what they said?”
“I only opened the first one. I started to read it, but it was too upsetting. The rest I put straight in the trash. I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for, Maddie.”
She bit her lip. “I just wanted it to stop.”
“Of course. And this went on till the night of the fight with Alex.”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay to talk about that?”
She started to go for her cuff but caught herself. “I think so.”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
She drew the hem of the sweatshirt over her knees. “Okay, so. It was late. I’m asleep, Alex’s studying in the kitchen. He and I had gotten back together. Naomi heard a knock and saw it was Nick through the peephole. She told him to go away, but he kept banging. Alex opened the door, and the two of them started arguing. It woke me up so I came out of my room. I almost didn’t recognize Nick. He’d shaved his head, and he was sort of sticking through the door, trying to force his way inside. It was like that scene from that movie. The guy with the ax?”
“The Shining?”
“Yeah. I was afraid someone was going to get hurt. I said I could talk to him, but only if he calmed down. He goes, ‘I’d never hurt you, I love you.’ Alex heard that and went ballistic. He pushed Nick into the hall, and they started wrestling. Now I’m trying to calm him down, too.”
She’d crossed her arms protectively over her chest and was staring at the door, as if she could see them rolling around.
“What a thing to go through, Maddie.”
She swallowed. “Yeah.”
“Do you remember what Nick was saying?”
“Not really. More of that destiny crap. Basically he wanted me to come with him.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. He was babbling, not making any sense.”
“This might sound strange, but did he mention the writer? Prado?”
“I... There was a lot going on. No, I don’t think so. I was just trying to say whatever I could to get him to calm down. All of a sudden he stops and looks at me. ‘You’re not wearing it, why aren’t you wearing it?’ ”
“The necklace.”
She nodded. “I couldn’t tell him the real answer, which was that I never wore it anymore. I didn’t want him to lose his shit. I said I took it off to sleep. His whole vibe changed, like that. He sort of... deflated? It was awful. I thought he would start crying. He asked me for it back. I gave it to him and made him promise he would leave.”
“After that?”
“I never talked to him again.”
“He never tried to contact you.”
“No. Well — he put up a TikTok, flipping me off.”
“You think that was directed at you.”
“I mean. Yeah. Who else would it be?”
“Do you recognize the location in the video?”
She shook her head. “Do you?”
“Mendocino County. About a five-hour drive north of here.”
“What was he doing all the way up there?”
“Good question. Did he ever talk about heading that way? When he was trying to persuade you to come with him?”
She bit her lip again. Hard enough to leave a rosy crescent. “I’m sorry, I really don’t remember.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Everything was so chaotic.”
“You’re doing great,” I said. “And you can always call me later if something comes back to you.”
She nodded.
“One last question. Do you know the date of the fight with Alex?”
“Not off the top of my head. But... Hold on.”
She took out her phone, began scrolling. “I couldn’t sleep ’cause I was so shaken up. I texted my coach and told her I wasn’t feeling well. One second, I have to find it... Okay, I wrote to her at four a.m. on June 12. So the night before.”
June 11. The day after Nicholas’s last message to his mother.
I thanked Maddie and left her looking forlorn.
Chapter 28
Octavio Prado was the writerly equivalent of a one-hit wonder. Lake of the Moon, first published in the fall of 2005, was long out of print. I browsed reviews left by a tiny, loyal following.
My favorite book of all time
Why is he not more famous?
Unsung master, so much better than today’s “literature”
Used hardcovers went for a penny, plus shipping and handling.
I ordered one, expedited.
Two thousand five. Prado had had the good or bad fortune of making his debut immediately prior to the advent of Web 2.0 — that brief window when the internet held nothing but promise and privacy still existed. His Wikipedia entry was a stub, and he didn’t maintain a webpage or use social media. The bulk of the links about him were broken. More recent pages referred to him in the past tense and regurgitated the same set of factoids.
Wunderkind, published at nineteen to raves and nominations. Hollywood knocking.
He didn’t win the awards. There was no movie, no cushy post teaching creative writing at a liberal arts college. No heroic sophomore effort.
A supernova, there and gone.
My copy of Lake of the Moon arrived two days later. The cover depicted a hybrid creature: eagle’s head, human body, dressed in baggy shorts and smoking a limp cigarette.
I opened to the back flap.
A young Latino man glared at the camera, doing his utmost to compensate for a baby face. Shaved head, pencil goatee, a soft bulge beneath his chin. But for the bare scalp, no resemblance to Nick Moore.
Octavio Prado was born in Fresno. This is his first book.
It ran to 166 pages, written in a terse, crackling style and covering three weeks in the life of its adolescent protagonist, Félix Santiágo de Jesús y Tlalolín. Aka Grillito, aka Cricket.
In the first scene, he woke up in the bedroom he shared with three brothers. Over breakfast he endured merciless teasing from his three sisters. He rode his skateboard to school. He got a B on a creative writing assignment. He talked shit with his friends in the hallways.
During lunch, a white girl flirted with him unexpectedly. Her name was not Sandra, as Maddie Zwick remembered, but Sarah.
After school he rode his skateboard to his grandfather’s house. He and the old man were rebuilding a Rolls-Royce from parts. When they were done, Abuelo gave him ten dollars from a coffee can under the kitchen sink.
At home Cricket couldn’t stop thinking about Sarah. He went into the bathroom to masturbate but forgot to lock the door. His sister walked in. She screamed and called him disgusting.
Fleeing the house in shame, he rode to a local skatepark, gliding over the ramps till nightfall.
Someone called his name. Sarah was walking toward him. They sat alone at the edge of a lake-shaped pit, talking and kicking their feet. She said she was driving home from tennis practice and saw him. She said she liked Mexican guys. She didn’t know why, she just did. She leaned over and kissed him. They went to a secluded corner of the park, lay down in the weeds, and had sex.