“Hello,” I said. “How nice to hear—”
“Walk into the wall or your dad falls off the ladder.”
Deep breath.
“It’s two p.m. I’d really rather you spoke to me only after—”
“He’ll break both his legs. Walk into the wall. Right now.”
I don’t know why I did it. I really don’t. Maybe because the voice told me to eat the candy bar, and it really could have killed me? Anyway. I said, “No.”
“What?” said the voice.
“No. I won’t walk into the wall.”
“Are you ****** serious? Both legs, Cass. You want to hurt him like you hurt your mother?”
Rage filled me suddenly. I pictured it like redness rising up my eyes, flooding them. “Fuck you,” I said.
“Last chance,” said the voice.
Fear was fingers clasped tight on my body, shaking it. “No,” I said.
I waited.
The clock on the wall—Peter Rabbit, from when I was small—ticked and ticked, chopping up time into seconds.
I could hear Dad whistling as he painted. The Beach Boys. “God Only Knows.” He and Mom had it at their wedding. I smiled a little. I listened for the sound of his ladder slipping, him falling, the scream when he hit the ground.
Nothing.
“Are you there?” I asked the voice.
Silence.
The voice was gone.
AND SUPER UNSURPRISING CAPS-LOCK SPOILER ALERT: Dad did not fall off the ladder.
DR. LEWIS: (eating a cookie) Of course, the voice didn’t threaten you.
ME: Huh?
DR. LEWIS: It threatened your father.
ME: Yes.
DR. LEWIS: The next test, I think, is to resist the voice when it is you it’s threatening.
ME: I … I …
DR. LEWIS: You’re still afraid of it, yes?
ME: (silence)
DR. LEWIS: You still believe it could hurt you.
ME: I guess.
DR. LEWIS: So what happened when your father didn’t fall off the ladder?
ME: Maybe the voice decided not to do it.
DR. LEWIS: No. It couldn’t do it. Because it’s part of you. It has no supernatural powers.
ME: (thinking of the compasses, of the moment when Shane rolled over and scratched himself and I saw his junk, all wrinkly and gross) Hmm.
DR. LEWIS: What I want you to do is, next time the voice threatens you, suggests some specific punishment … I want you to call it. Like in a poker game. Call it, and see if it can really do it. If it can’t, you start to get your life back.
ME: You make it sound so easy.
DR. LEWIS: Oh, no. No, it won’t be easy. But what is?
It wasn’t all bad though.
I didn’t see you apart from a couple of glimpses out of the window, and that sucked. And I didn’t hear much from Paris, and that sucked too.
But then one day she texted me like five times.
Hey hun come to the roller derby tonite it’s the final & Julie is skating. It’ll be fun! I promise.
I know your dad’s working tonite b/c I asked in the restaurant. I pretended that I wanted a job as a server. HAHAHAHAHAHA. Once I worked in a burger joint & I got fired b/c I kept eating the burgers and I accidentally kissed the short-order cook.
Hello? OK it wasn’t an accident it was totally deliberate but he was hot.
Hun? OK OK OK also I sprayed MEAT IS MURDER on the front window. I was confused, I was going through some stuff, OK?
And, okay, that made me laugh. Then the last one dropped the joke:
Roller derby. Tonite. Be there. I want you there. Please?
I wanted to reply. I wanted so badly to reply. But there was my dad, and my work with the voice and … and I didn’t.
But Paris wasn’t going to take no for an answer that easily, and maybe half an hour after my dad went out that evening, there was a ring at the door. I went to it thinking it would be Paris but it wasn’t, it was you.
“Hey,” you said. You looked super awkward.
“Hey,” I said.
(I have just had a call from Spielberg saying he wants to option this conversation for a tentpole movie next year. I have said yes. Hope that’s okay.) “Um, Paris sent me,” you said. “Is your dad here?”
“No.”
“Oh good. Um …”
“She sent you to take me to the roller derby, right?” I asked.
“Yeah.” You shuffled a bit. You looked good. You were wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, and your hair looked like you’d slept on it but still … you looked good. Hot, actually. God, I am curling up inside writing this. “She’s totally amped up about it,” you said. “She really wants you there. I’m supposed to drive you in the pickup.”
I looked over at the road, where your white Ford was parked under a streetlight. I sighed, but only inside, so you wouldn’t hear. “Well, I do love that pickup,” I said. “But my dad …”
“Is out till late, right? He told me earlier.”
“I’m supposed to be grounded.”
“Why?” you asked. “What did you do?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Mysterious,” you said.
“Yeah.”
Then one of our classic awkward silences.