Echoes in the Walls Read online

  “Yes. He wasn’t interested. Until I mentioned you were trying out for Lucy,” she added, and ordered a pizza.

  “What?” I glanced at Dillon quickly and moved forward. “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said. When I told him about the play, he shrugged and looked disinterested, but when I mentioned you were trying out, he asked me when the auditions were.”

  She didn’t sound bitter, jealous, or disappointed about it. Instead, she sounded amused. Now I was sure of the reason she had invited him to see the movie with us. Suddenly, she had become a little matchmaker. I wasn’t convinced I liked the idea, but whatever, this was turning out to be a much different night out from the one I had anticipated.

  Dillon followed us with his tray to a table toward the rear. Until tonight, even though I admitted at least to myself that he was intriguing, I hadn’t said two words to him, actually, not even one. A few times, when he was passing me in the hallway, going in the opposite direction, I almost said “Hi” but didn’t, maybe because he didn’t give me as much as a passing glance. Why was my going out for Dracula suddenly important enough to him to drive his auditioning for it as well? I always had assumed that I was as invisible to him as he was to almost everyone else.

  “How’s your brother?” he asked when we were all settled at the table.

  It wasn’t something I had anticipated he would ask immediately, despite the sensational aspects of the boat accident and the revelation of my real father being Ryder’s. At the start of the school year, it was on the lips of everyone in the high school almost daily, but other things began to take almost everyone’s attention away; that and my refusal to talk much about any of it drove it off the headlines. Hardly anyone asked about Ryder anymore. Andy Warhol was credited with saying that in the future everyone’s fame would be fifteen minutes long. In my school, at least, it was five. A deep, long conversation was Snapchat.

  “He’s better, but he has a long way to go.”

  “Who doesn’t?” he said, and began to eat his hamburger. “What?” he asked when he saw my clear expression of dissatisfaction. He continued to eat, not waiting anxiously for my response.

  “I don’t think it’s the same thing, whatever it is you mean. We haven’t lost part of our memory.” I couldn’t help sounding defensive, even angry.

  “Forgetting things isn’t always bad,” he said, unaffected by my sharp tone.

  I looked at Ivy, who had this amused little smile on her face. It was as if her bringing Dillon and me together was some sort of behavioral experiment.

  “Things you might want to forget, yes,” I said. “But Ryder didn’t have that choice.”

  “Here’s a question,” Dillon said, nodding. “If you were struggling to regain your memory, would your mind censor those memories you always wished you’d forget? It could be like starting with a clean slate. You know, like an Etch A Sketch.”

  He wasn’t smiling, so I wasn’t sure if he was kidding or not, but I assumed he was. “You really think it’s funny?” I asked.

  He didn’t look embarrassed or frightened by the directness of my question. He looked thoughtful. “Not funny, exactly. More like ironic. You know, like that expression ‘Every cloud has a silver lining.’ ”

  “Well, I haven’t seen that silver lining yet. Ryder was a top student, an athlete, and very popular both with students and with our teachers. He had a wonderful future ahead of him.”

  He shrugged as if my pointed comebacks were like flies on an elephant. “Maybe he still will,” he said. “Don’t be so quick to be pessimistic.”

  Despite how quickly I had been annoyed, I felt myself relax. His calm manner made me feel a little foolish getting angry and annoyed. I guess I did have a hair trigger when it came to talking about Ryder. “Hopefully, you’re right,” I said.

  “Of course he is,” Ivy said.

  “What do his doctors say about it?” Dillon asked.

  “His doctor, a therapist, is optimistic. Actually, you weren’t far off with what you said. The theory is that he does fight the memory of unpleasant things, and we were advised not to make reference to any that could upset him.”

  “Logical. Sometimes the experts get it right,” he said.

  I laughed. “Well, they’ll be glad to hear you approve.”

  We all ate. I felt Dillon’s eyes on me, but when I looked at him, he looked away.

  “You ever think about how much food we eat in our life, how much liquid we consume?” he asked. “Twenty-one meals a week, eighty-four a month, one thousand eight a year. Say you live to be eighty. That’s eighty thousand six hundred and forty.”

  “Not counting popcorn,” I said.

  “Exactly. Or cookies and candy.”

  “Is this what you’re doing when I see you scribbling in your notebook? Figuring out how much we do things?” I asked.

  “Dillon writes poems,” Ivy said before he could attempt an answer.

  “You do? About what?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Everything. And don’t say you’d like to read one.”

  “Okay. I wasn’t going to say it. Lately, I have more than enough to read.”

  Anyone else would have probably been annoyed, even insulted, but he looked pleased. We were nearly finished eating.

  “Do you want to be a writer?” I asked.

  “I’m thinking of it. I was accepted to Michigan State and might pursue journalism. Our guidance counselor recommends it. He said it would be a perfect fit, as if a career was the same as a pair of shoes.”

  “Well, good luck,” I said.

  “Yeah, luck, that ever-present ghoul of fate. Speaking of which, Ivy says you’re thinking of going out for a part in Dracula,” Dillon said, sitting back and drinking his soda.

  “Maybe. Why?”

  “I’ve always been intrigued by Dracula. I don’t think he’s as happy being who he is as most readers think. The part should be played with a little sadness, a sense of tragedy. It’s bad enough that we normal human beings have to eat nutritiously and sleep seven or eight hours as it is, as I explained. Tons of food and drink. I guess I could compare his lust for blood to our need for water, but I don’t think vampires enjoy food the way we do. The experts on horror characters tell us they have a heightened sense of pleasure, but an emotion like love makes no sense to them, unless the one you love will live as long and share what you have. So he pursues Lucy. She’s in great danger, but you have to feel sorry for him, too. I mean, what’s the point in living forever if you’re living only for yourself and everything you do is redundant?”

  I realized I was sitting there with my mouth wide open, looking stupid, and quickly regained my composure. “Do you always think so deeply about everything?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Is that why you write poems?”

  “Why would that be a reason?”

  “I imagine it’s a form of release,” I said. It was like we were playing ping-pong with ideas and words.

  I looked at Ivy, who was still sitting there with that silly smile on her face.

  “How so?” Dillon asked.

  “Feelings can build until you want to explode. It’s good to have a safety valve.” I shrugged. “Poetry might be yours. Music was Mozart’s.”

  He nodded. “Talk about being deep. So? What about you? What’s your release?” he asked.

  “Maybe I don’t need one,” I said, “as much as other people do.”

  “Yes, you do,” he countered.

  “How do you know?”

  “What’s that expression? It takes one to know one.”

  “You don’t know me. We’ve never even spoken in school.”

  “I know you,” he said confidently. “And I don’t mean through Ivy or hearing gossip.”

  “Then you should go out for Dracula. You have superpowers,” I said.

  I wasn’t sure if I was irritated or flattered again, but not being sure made me uncomfortable, left me feeling disadvantaged.

  H
e smiled. “I always thought I had superpowers.”

  “Goody. Shouldn’t we leave for the movie?” I asked Ivy.

  She checked the time and nodded.

  “You’re not going to write a deep analysis of the film, are you?” I asked Dillon as we rose to go.

  He didn’t smile, but I didn’t think he was annoyed. I thought he was really considering it. “Maybe,” he said. “Let’s see whether it’s worth it first.”

  I walked ahead with Ivy.

  “He’s interesting, isn’t he?” she asked.

  “Now that I’ve spoken to him, he’s more like infuriating,” I said.

  “So? That’s interesting, too, isn’t it? He’s worth investing more time in to see, right?”

  I looked at her and smiled. “Who would have thought you could be so wicked, Ivy Mason?”

  “I have no idea why you would say that,” she said, smiling.

  I bumped her shoulder with mine. “Sure you don’t.”

  Dillon rushed to buy popcorn as soon as we entered the movie theater, smiling like an impish raccoon. When it came to choosing seats, he waited for us to sit and then sat beside me.

  “I figured I’d better not get between two girls,” he said, and offered popcorn.

  “I really don’t know what this movie is about,” I said. “Ivy said it got good reviews.”

  “I think it’s better if you don’t know too much. That way, you form your own independent opinion.”

  “I just said I don’t know anything at all. Forget too much,” I said.

  “It’s about a stepbrother and stepsister who run away from his horrible father and hide out in an old, run-down hotel, not knowing someone or something lives there. That enough?”

  “Just,” I said. He sat back but placed the popcorn on the arm of the chair.

  I leaned over to Ivy. “Have you ever been anywhere or done anything with him before tonight?” I whispered.

  “Not really,” she said. “But now that he’s been with you a little, I can tell he really likes you.”

  “And exactly how can you tell that?”

  “He’s already said more to you than anyone else I know.”

  “I’m overwhelmed with gratitude,” I replied, glanced at him, and sat back as the screen lit up.

  The movie was so good that none of us said a word until it ended. I felt like I had been on a real emotional roller coaster, grasping the arm of the chair and then sinking in my seat. Once I grabbed Dillon’s arm. He turned, surprised, and I apologized. He simply shrugged.

  The moment it was over and we got up from our seats, both Ivy and I began chatting about the movie, how tense we had been and how surprised at the outcome. We started up the aisle toward the lobby. Dillon walked behind us, listening but not saying anything, his hands in his pockets, his head down, looking just the way he did when he walked through the halls at school. I paused when we stepped out in front of the theater.

  “So?” I said. “What did you think of it?”

  “You’ll have to wait for my review,” he said.

  It was nearly impossible to tell when he was serious and when he was not. Nothing changed in his eyes, and there was barely a movement in his lips. He stared at me, too, almost daring me to complain.

  “You’re really writing a review? So you decided it was worth it?”

  “I’ll do it for the school paper. I give the editor something now and then.”

  “I don’t remember seeing your name on anything.”

  “It’s not. I’d rather be anonymous.”

  “You are that,” I said.

  He smiled much more warmly than he had previously. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Thanks.” He turned to Ivy. “Thanks for inviting me to join you.”

  “We can have a soda or something,” she said. “It’s not that late.”

  “I’ve got to write while my ideas are fresh. See you.” He started to leave and then turned back. “Oh. I’m going out for Dracula.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “Good? What if I really was a vampire?”

  “Then you’d know better than anyone how to act like one,” I said.

  He gave me that outline of a smile again, nodded, and walked off.

  I turned to Ivy. “Let’s go somewhere to have something so you can tell me everything you know about him,” I said.

  She widened her smile, hooked her arm in mine, and led me on. We found a booth in a Marie Callender’s and ordered some apple pie and coffee. I couldn’t help looking at my watch and thinking about Ryder. Had he gone with our father and Samantha to Jolly Joe’s, and if he had, how did it go?

  “So?” I said. “Is he really a vampire?”

  “We’re neighbors, but I don’t know all that much about him,” Ivy began. “No one introduced us or anything. One day, I just started to talk to him, and after a while, I think he grew more comfortable talking to me. Before he could drive, we’d walk to the bus stop together. Usually, I’d do most of the talking.”

  “You said he wrote poems. Have you read any of them?”

  “No. He doesn’t show them to many people, as far as I know.”

  “Really? What’s his family like?”

  “He never talks much about his parents. I get the feeling sometimes that they don’t have all that much to do with him. I don’t think he’s that much different at home from how he is at school. I’ve met his parents. They seem nice. I mean, I don’t think there’s trouble. There’s just . . .”

  “Silence?”

  “Yes, maybe,” she said, nodding. “I guess parents can have trouble understanding or knowing their own child. He’s a challenge to them.”

  “To everyone, I imagine.”

  I thought about my relationship with Dr. Davenport, the man I was told only recently was my father. All the previous years, we were a little more than strangers. I was always afraid of him. He rarely smiled at me or spoke to me. Maybe I was a challenge to him. It occurred to me that perhaps he was afraid that somehow he would reveal the big secret without my mother’s permission. So, yes, I knew what it was like to live in a world where there were long, deep silences. It got so I longed for echoes.

  “I know. But maybe that’s what makes him interesting,” Ivy said.

  “His parents would rather be bored, I imagine. They can be challenging. Is he friends with anyone at school, or does he have friends who don’t go to our school? There is that rumor about him hanging out with older boys.”

  “I never saw him with anyone from our school or elsewhere, but I don’t watch him night and day. I know he’s hard to like, maybe, but I like him,” Ivy said. “If anything, there’s something sad about him at times. Join the club, huh?”

  “Yes. I won’t rave about him, but yes, I’ll agree that he’s interesting, more interesting than most other boys at school. Although maybe that isn’t saying much.”

  Ivy laughed and then told me she’d decided to try out for Dracula, too. She had been thinking of the part of Renfield like I had suggested.

  “I’ll practice talking in a deeper voice.”

  We talked more about the play and Dillon’s interpretation of Dracula himself, and then we left the mall. I was heading to call a taxi. Ivy’s mother was waiting for her. She had texted her a little while ago. We hugged, and she got into her mother’s car. Her mother waved to me, too, maybe as happy as my mother was that I had a friend.

  Despite some of the earlier tension between myself and Dillon, I thought the night was quite successful. It had been a long time since I had felt so content. It was as though I had decided to return to the living. My mind was sizzling with possibilities, the lead sizzle being built around the question of who was this Dillon Evans. What had made him like he was? Was he habitually angry or sad?

  I surprised myself.

  I really wanted to know. It wasn’t just mere curiosity, either.

  Before I reached the taxi parked at the curb, a familiar pickup truck pulled up. Mr. Stark looked out at me, a smile as big
as any splattered like an egg across his face. I stood there with my hands on my hips, looking indignant.

  “I just happened to be passing by,” he said, hoisting his shoulders.

  “Sure. And fall just happens to follow summer.”

  I went around and got into his truck.

  “Before you say anything,” he said, putting up his right hand, “your mother did not send me to get you. She was quite willing to let you do your own thing.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “I’ve always been a worrywart,” he said, then shifted and started away. “Have a good time?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m glad you went out with friends. I was beginning to worry that you were becoming one of the antiques in Wyndemere.”

  “Very funny. Do you know if Dr. Davenport took Ryder with Samantha to Jolly Joe’s?”

  “He didn’t,” Mr. Stark said. “Your mother told me they’re cutting back on his medication. He wasn’t up to going out. He could barely stay awake.”

  “I’m sure Samantha made the doctor’s night out with her miserable, then.”

  He nodded. And smiled. “I’m sure she did. She’s a pip.”

  “A pip? My mother’s already gotten you to drink warm beer,” I said. “Soon you’ll be singing about the queen.”

  He laughed. “So what did you do? Who were you with?” he asked, the way a parent might.

  I described Ivy and the movie. When I mentioned Dillon, he nodded.

  “Possibilities?” he asked. I guessed I was a little more than exuberant.

  “No. Well, maybe.”

  He laughed. All my life, Mr. Stark really was the father I never had. Even now, even though I knew Dr. Davenport was my actual father, Mr. Stark remained in that place in a young girl’s heart reserved for her dad. I still couldn’t imagine being as warm and casual with my father as I was with Mr. Stark. The one time just recently when my father described the crush he’d had on his cousin came the closest to something warm, but he didn’t carry that change into our daily lives. My mind still went to calling him Dr. Davenport. Even though I had done it, I still felt a little uncomfortable calling him Daddy.