anightwithoutstarsfinal Read online

  The phone rang once. Twice. Three times—

  “Hello?”

  I clutched the receiver to my ear so hard the back of my earring dug into my skull. “Travis?” I said incredulously. “Is that… Is that you?”

  “Yeah. Who else would it be?”

  I was rarely at a loss of words, but for once I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. “But you… At the house, you… That guy… How did… What happened?”

  A long pause, and then: “What are you talking about, Lola?”

  I bobbled the receiver. Almost dropped it. “Are you serious right now?” I hissed, darting a glance out into the living room to see if my dad was listening. He wasn’t. “You went into the house, Travis! You stupid moron. How could you do that? Who was that guy? What did he do? What did you do? How did you get out?” One question tumbled out on top of the next as I struggled to make sense of Travis’ calm, detached tone.

  Why wasn’t he doing the weird, breathy whine he always did when he was really upset? Why wasn’t he freaking out? Why was he pretending like nothing had happened?

  On the other end of the line Travis laughed. He laughed. And this time I really did drop the phone. I picked it up in time to hear him say, “…was Mr. Livingston. He saw what we were doing in the car and he was just playing a prank on us. No big deal, Lola.”

  “No big deal?” I sputtered. “NO BIG DEAL? Travis, that—”

  “Could you keep it down?” Dad yelled. “I’m trying to watch Jeopardy!”

  He bumped the volume on the TV up a few notches. I bumped my voice down.

  “Travis, I don’t think that was Mr. Livingston.”

  “Then who was it?”

  “I don’t know. I DON’T KNOW!”

  “Lola…” Dad’s tone held an unmistakable warning. He took Jeopardy! very seriously, even though he was always too drunk to get the questions right.

  I tried again, forcing myself to whisper. “Something was wrong with him, Travis. Did you see his teeth? He had fangs or… something.”

  “Fangs? Come on, Lola. I think the adrenaline from trying to steal the car got to your head. He was messing with us. That’s all.”

  “But we heard that scream—”

  “That was all part of the prank. Listen, I should get going to bed. It’s late, and we have SAT prep in the morning, remember?”

  A prank? Was that really all it was? Somehow I didn’t think so. “Travis, listen to me,” I said urgently. “When I tried to call 9-1-1 this woman picked up the phone and she sounded crazy and she… Travis? Travis, are you there?”

  He was gone.

  For the first time since we became best friends in the second grade when I stole his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, prompting him to burst into tears and me to give him the noogie of all noogies, Travis had hung up the phone on me.

  I walked back into the living room in a daze. My head still throbbed, and my right knee burned. Glancing down, I saw I’d ripped a hole in my (sort of) brand new jeans.

  Great.

  “Dad, can I talk to you for a second?”

  He didn’t even look up. “Can it wait until the commercial?”

  I perched on the edge of the chair overflowing with magazines and waited. Some woman was trying for the double jeopardy, but time was running out.

  “Do you have an answer?” Alex asked.

  “No,” the woman said sheepishly.

  “What are the Rocky Mountains.”

  “Dumbass,” Dad said. It didn’t escape my notice that he hadn’t attempted to answer the question either. Turning the volume down to a dull roar, he set his beer aside, sat up on an elbow, and squinted across the room at me. “What’s up?”

  A year or so before my mom left him, Dad was a regular guy. He only drank while he was watching football. He didn’t call random women dumbasses on TV. He shaved more than once a week. He even – although it was hard for me to imagine it now – went to a blue collar job from nine to five every day and brought home enough money to afford actual groceries instead of the dollar menu at McDonalds. Then the economy did whatever the hell it did, he was laid off work, and everything went to shit.

  Eighteen months. That was all it took for my life to go from normal to… well, to this.

  Coming home every day to a filthy apartment. Eating dinner out of a bag every night or, sometimes, not even eating at all. That was the real reason I was hungry all the time. Greasy cheeseburgers and fries weren’t exactly the most nutritious or filling of meals.

  It happened so gradually I didn’t notice what was going on until Mom walked out the door, plane ticket in hand, and never looked back. Dad really fell apart after that. He started calling out from his temp jobs so he could stay at home and polish off his six-pack from the night before. Six turned to twelve. Twelve jumped to twenty-four. Then he just stopped going to work all together.

  Somehow he qualified for unemployment – way to go, government – and we were scraping by, but I didn’t want to think about what would happen when his year of free money ran out.

  I know what you thinking. But Lola, you’re practically shouting, why didn’t you clean the apartment? Why didn’t you make dinner? Why didn’t you get a part time job to earn extra money?

  To which I say: shut the hell up.

  Just kidding. I can’t say that, because then you won’t care if I die, and I sort of need you to care. I need someone to care. Because you’ll hate me by the end of this. You’ll hate me so much you will wish I was dead, but that’s okay. I’ll wish I was dead too.

  I used to clean the apartment every day. It was an uphill battle I wasn’t prepared for. After all, despite my awesome swagger and my cocky know-it-all attitude I was still a kid. A kid who has deep down has serious Mommy issues and blames herself for her parent’s divorce and doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing or why she’s doing it.

  I could barely take care of myself, let alone a forty-two-year-old alcoholic.

  “What’d you want to talk about?” Dad slurred. “Homework or somethin’?”

  “It’s summer vacation,” I reminded him.

  That confused him for a second before he sat up a little straighter and said, “Yeah, but aren’t you takin’ one of those classes at the school?”

  “SAT Prep, but Dad that’s not what I wanted—”

  “How’s it going?”

  I stared at him, genuinely shocked. When was the last time he’d asked about anything even remotely related to school? When was the last time he’d asked me anything? Back when he was only drinking six or seven beers a night and still making a half assed attempt to be some sort of father, that’s when. “It’s going okay…” I said slowly. “I mean, it’s kind of a pain, but there are only two more classes left.”

  Travis – surprise surprise – had been the one to talk me into signing up for the prep course. It ran the length of the summer, once a week every week for three hours. Tomorrow was our second to last session. Thank God.

  Dad took a swig of his beer, crumpled the can, and popped open another. His eyes were squinty and red, his facial muscles slack. Another beer or three and he would pass out on the sofa and sleep until noon the next day. Then he’d wake up, scrounge around for some food, and start drinking again before two.

  And so the Ferris wheel went round and round.

  “Is that class supposed to get you into a fancy college or somethin’?”

  “Or something.” The truth of it was I had no illusions of completing any sort of secondary education. For one thing, I didn’t have the money. For another, I didn’t have the money. Even the local community college was a pipe dream.

  I didn’t really know why I was bothering with the prep course. If I wasn’t going to college, what did it matter what I got on my SATs? But it gave me something to do, and I got to do it with Travis, so it wasn’t horrible.

  I opened my mouth, prepared to blurt out the night’s events in their entirety, but Jeopardy! came back on and Dad’s eyes went to the TV and
I lost him. Just like that he was gone, more interested in a 50” screen than his own living, breathing daughter.

  “Travis and I stole a car,” I said.

  Nothing.

  “Then we heard this crazy scream and when we went to check it out a really weird guy answered the door.”

  Nothing.

  “He had fangs. Silver fangs. And he invited Travis into the house and the idiot went inside. Weird guy tried to get me inside too but I ran all the way back here. I called Travis’ house and he was there and he acted like nothing strange had happened.”

  Nothing.

  And the Worst Parent of the Year Award goes to… my dad!

  The final round theme music was playing. I glanced at the question.

  In 2013 Britain marked this show’s 50th Anniversary

  with a series of stamps of the eleven actors

  who have played the lead role.

  “Sherlock Holmes,” Dad mumbled.

  “What is Doctor Who.” I waited a beat. “Dumbass.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A Serpent, A Shrink, and A Snob

  I didn’t sleep well.

  I’ve never been a big dreamer – I always figured my brain was so busy thinking up random shit during the day that it had to take a break at night – but let me tell you: last night I dreamed some crazy stuff.

  They say dreams are part of your subconscious. That every image and sound is drawn from something you’ve seen or something you’ve been thinking about.

  Giant Man was in my dream. No surprise there, since he was all I’d been able to think about.

  He stood on a hill in front of a door. The door wasn’t connected to anything. It was just there, as if it’d been dropped from the sky and somehow landed standing up.

  “Want to come inside?” he asked me, all friendly like as though he was inviting me in for a cup of tea. I stood ten feet away, my feet planted firmly on the ground. A light breeze rippled through my hair, and I brushed a few loose strands away from my mouth with an impatient flick of my wrist. The sun was out, but it hung heavy in the sky and shadows were beginning to slide up the side of the hill.

  The air tasted stale.

  “What’s in there?” I asked, nodding towards the door.

  Giant Man smiled. “A surprise.”

  “I don’t like surprises.”

  His smile grew, stretching across his face like an elastic band being pulled tight. “You’ll like this one.”

  “Doubtful.” I felt something brush against my ankle. Something cold. Something with scales. When I looked down and saw the snake, black as pitch and easily as thick as my arm, I couldn’t contain the scream. It flew out of my mouth in a violent burst of sound that rocked me back on my heels. The snake didn’t flinch. It’s long body undulating, it traveled leisurely through the grass and when it reached the man it slithered up his leg, vanishing inside the cuff of his black pants.

  When it popped out of his shirt collar like some horrific jack-in-the-box I almost screamed again. A dream, I told myself. This is only a dream, Lola. It can’t be real. Get your shit together! And if it was only a dream, why couldn’t I go through the door?

  “Open it,” I said. I stared at him in straight in the eyes, purposefully keeping my gaze away from the snake that was now wrapped cozily around his trunk sized neck. I’m sure the snake was supposed to signify something – weren’t dreams all about secret meanings? – but to me a snake was a snake. They were all gross, real or imagined. “Let me see what’s inside.”

  Giant Man beckoned me closer with the crook of a finger. “You are either very brave,” he whispered into my ear when I stopped in front of the door, “or very foolish.”

  “Open it,” I repeated through gritted teeth.

  Cold was emanating from the door. Goosebumps rose on my exposed skin and I hugged my arms tight to my chest, belatedly realizing Dream Lola was wearing the same thing as Real Lola: a gray t-shirt two sizes too big and a ratty pair of pink sweatpants.

  I could dream up a massive snake but I couldn’t manage to put myself in a rocking outfit? Thanks a lot, subconscious.

  The door slowly opened without being touched. I tipped forward onto my bare toes. I saw the steel walls, walls that shouldn’t have been there since from the outside it appeared as though the door led to nowhere. A single bulb hung from the ceiling. It swung back and forth, sending streaks of light skittering across the small room and catching on long, rolled up rugs stacked ten high.

  In hindsight, I should have seen it coming. I really should. I mean, I wasn’t a horror movie maniac like Travis, but even I knew standing in front of an open door with a bad guy at your back is a really, really lame idea. I was basically asking for him to shove me inside and slam the door, which is exactly what he did.

  I tripped over one of the rugs. Another one caught my fall. The naked bulb continued to spin in crazy circles, never letting light settle in one spot for more than a second, and my eyes were slow to adjust to the darkness. I stood up, rubbing my palms dry on my sweatpants. The rug I’d landed on must have been wet. This was, officially, the strangest dream ever. I was locked inside a freezing cold steel room with a pile of wet rugs.

  Except they weren’t rugs. Not really. But you knew that already, didn’t you?

  All at once the light stopped swinging. I glanced down automatically at the floor and that’s when I saw the bodies.

  And the blood.

  Bodies wrapped up in rugs with heads and feet sticking out. Lifeless eyes, staring at nothing. Mouths, open and gaping, some with the tongues hanging out to the side. Blood, red and wet and sticky, staining the floor, the walls, the ceiling.

  I attacked the door. I beat at it like a wild animal, kicking and clawing and screaming until my voice was hoarse. Blood splattered. It dripped down my face. Coated my eyelashes. Slipped inside my mouth. The taste of it was salty and metallic. I spat it out in disgust.

  “Wake up,” I whimpered. “Lola, wake up. Wake up. WAKE UP!”

  But I didn’t wake up. Because nightmares don’t work like that. If you could remove yourself from the horror of your deepest, darkest thoughts with the snap of your fingers what would be the big deal?

  The next morning I brushed my teeth for a good ten minutes. Still the taste of blood lingered, and even though I knew it was impossible, even though I knew it had just been a dream, I checked the sink anyways, half expecting to see the white porcelain bowl streaked with red.

  The high school was a fifteen-minute walk from the apartment. I reached for my cell to text Travis before I remembered it was lost, and made a mental note to retrace my steps after class. I would much rather have bought a new one than go anywhere near the Livingston’s house again, but that would require money; money I didn’t have.

  I seriously needed a job. Then again, I needed a lot of things.

  A mother who remembered she had two daughters, not one.

  A father who gave a shit.

  A good shrink.

  I’ve actually been to therapy (I know, shocker, right?). Well, we’ve been to therapy. Me, Mom, Pops, and Big Sis. One big, happy, dysfunctional family.

  I didn’t mind it that much. Big Sis and I got to wait in a separate room filled with decent magazines while Mom and Dad duked it out with the therapist, a mousy looking woman in her early thirties who was fond of phrases like “how does that make you feel?” and “maybe if you asked that differently”. She was nice enough, I guess.

  For a shrink.

  The real entertainment came when Mom and Dad started yelling. I learned some of my best curse words from those therapy sessions. After they were done screaming how much they hated each other Big Sis and I were allowed to come in and contribute to the discussion. She bitched a lot about not having the same things as her friends and her early curfew (which was, to her credit, pretty lame).

  I was fond of the silent and stoic approach, which the therapist found particularly interesting. Once she kept me after and we had a little one on one
session. I must not have impressed her all that much because when it was over she called my parents back in and said she was very “concerned” for me.

  “Lola can take care of herself,” Mom said. “She’s not the one I’m worried about.”

  Some people really shouldn’t have children.

  Suffice it to say the therapy didn’t really take, and we stopped going after a few more times, which was too bad because, like I said, the magazines were pretty cool.

  Travis was already in his seat by the time I got to the classroom. I was ten minutes early, and only about half of the thirty or so students taking the prep course had arrived. They sat in bunches of two and threes, quietly talking amidst themselves. One girl, her long blond hair flawlessly straightened and her polo t-shirt and wrinkle free khakis screaming Preppy Bitch, looked up when I sauntered in and rolled her eyes.

  I supposed she wasn’t very impressed with my tangled braid, black tank with a silver skull embossed on the front, and faded jeans. Like I gave a shit. Our eyes met, our stares saying two very different things.

  You shouldn’t even be in here, you Goth psycho.

  I will punch you in the throat, you skinny Barbie bitch.

  Okay, so maybe my thought was a little violent. I couldn’t help it. I was unsettled. Agitated. Anxious. The nightmare was still lingering in the back of mind, not to mention what had happened in real life.

  Zeroing in on Travis I slid into the orange plastic chair next to his, slapped my number two pencil and notebook on the desk, and spun to face him.

  “Tell me again what happened after I left,” I demanded.

  He lifted his head slowly, as though the weight of it was heavier than he was used to. His eyes were bloodshot. His skin pale. Well, his skin was always pale, but today he was extra pale. Like ghost pale. The freckles on his nose and cheeks stood out in sharp contrast to his white skin, and when he frowned the freckles pulled and stretched, moving across his face like little fleas. “I told you what happened. Mr. Livingston saw us trying to steal his car and he decided to scare us to get even. When you left he sat me down, gave me a lecture, and let me go. That’s it, Lola. There isn’t anything else to tell.”