The Outliers Page 3

  That they see her, I want to say. In a way you never did. But then, I’m hardly one to talk. At the beginning, Cassie tried to hide how proud she was that she’d been invited to join the Rainbow Coalition at one of their “hangouts.” Not “parties,” because that would be “so basic.” (And yes, they actually talk like that.) She pretended that she was doing it for research purposes only. It was at the very first Rainbow Coalition “hangout” that Cassie met Jasper. And after that, she seemed to care a whole lot less about pretending anything.

  It was exciting for her. I did get that part. But I also thought Cassie would get over it pretty fast, that she’d come to her senses. Instead, she just got more and more drunk at more and more parties. More than once, I played back to her what she had always told me about her dad: that she never wanted to end up like him. I told her again and again that, as her friend, I was worried. But what did she need me for when all I did was make her feel bad about herself? She had the Rainbow Coalition to fill her days and, at night, she was falling in love, hard. I could see it, but I was trying hard to pretend it wasn’t happening. Because Jasper Salt didn’t lift Cassie out of the gutter the way a real friend would, the way someone who really cares about you does. No, he grabbed Cassie’s hand and leaped with her right down the drain.

  “You know, Jasper really is a good person, Wylie,” Cassie had started in the Monday after Thanksgiving. “You need to get to know him.”

  We were eating lunch at Naidre’s, the one coffee shop near school where upperclassmen were allowed to go off campus. Soup and a sandwich for me, a dry bagel for Cassie, which she was busy tearing into small pieces and rearranging on her plate so it seemed like she was eating.

  We’d only been together five minutes after not seeing each other for four days and already we were back in a fight. But really, things had been off between us since Cassie came home from fitness summer camp at the end of August. “Fat camp,” Cassie had called it when her mother had forced her to go the summer before eighth grade. But this time had been Cassie’s idea. Even though it was hard to see how she had any more weight to lose. When she got home, she was absolutely skeletal, a comparison that delighted her.

  It wasn’t just the weight loss, either. Cassie also had new hair, longer and blown straight, and stylish clothes. It was hard to believe she was the same person who’d hunched over that toilet with me. I wasn’t surprised weeks later when the Rainbow Coalition had come knocking or even that somebody like Jasper—popular, good-looking, an athlete (and an asshole)—had noticed Cassie. I just couldn’t believe how much she’d liked them back.

  “I know everything about Jasper that I need to know,” I said, then burned my mouth on my tomato soup.

  Rumor was he had knocked some senior out with a single punch his freshman year. In one version, Jasper had broken the kid’s nose. I still couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t in jail, much less still in school. But I hadn’t liked Jasper even before I’d heard about that punch, and maybe some of those reasons were shallow—his body-hugging T-shirts, his swagger, and his stupid, put-on surfer lingo. But I also had proof that he was an actual asshole. I had Tasha.

  Tasha was our age but seemed way younger. She hugged people without warning and laughed way too loud, always wearing pink or red with a matching headband. Like a giant Valentine’s Day card. But no one was ever mean to Tasha; that would have been cruel. No one except for Jasper, that is. A couple of weeks after he and Cassie started hanging out—the beginning of October—I saw Jasper talking to Tasha down at the end of an empty hall. They were too far away to hear, but there was no mistaking Tasha rushing back my way in tears. But when I told Cassie about it afterward, she just said Jasper would never do something mean to Tasha. Which meant, I guess, that I was lying.

  “Jasper might not be perfect, but he’s had a really hard life. You should cut him a break,” Cassie went on now, readjusting her bagel scraps. “It’s just him and his mom, who’s totally selfish, and his older brother, who’s a huge asshole. And his dad’s in jail,” she added defensively, but also kind of smugly. Like Jasper’s dad being a criminal was somehow proof that he was a good person.

  “In jail for what?”

  “I don’t know,” she snapped.

  “Cassie, what if it’s something really bad?”

  “Just because Jasper’s father did something doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with him. It’s actually really messed up that you would even think that.” Cassie shook her head and crossed her arms. The worst part was that she was right: it was pretty awful that my mind had jumped there. “Besides, Jasper understands me. That matters more than his stupid dad.”

  I felt a flash of heat in my chest. So here it was, the real truth: Jasper understood her and I did not.

  “Which you, Cassie?” I snapped. “You have so many faces these days, how can he even keep track?”

  Cassie stared at me, mouth hanging open. And then she started gathering her things.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, my heart beating hard. She was supposed to get angry. We were supposed to have a fight. She wasn’t supposed to disappear.

  “I’m leaving,” Cassie said quietly. “That’s what normal people do when someone is awful to them. And in case you’re confused, Wylie”—she motioned to herself—“this is normal. And you are awful.”

  “Anyway, I did speak to Maia and the other girls,” Karen goes on. “They said they last saw Cassie in school, though none of them could seem to remember exactly when.”

  “Have you talked to Jasper?” I ask, trying not to sound like I’ve already decided that he is—in spirit if not in fact—100 percent responsible for every bad thing that has ever happened to Cassie.

  Karen nods. “He exchanged texts with Cassie when she was on the bus on her way to school, but that’s the last time he heard from her. At least, supposedly.” She squints at me. “You don’t like Jasper, do you?”

  “I don’t really know him, so I’m not sure my opinion means anything,” I say, even though I think just the opposite.

  “You’re Cassie’s oldest friend,” Karen says. “Her only real friend, as far as I’m concerned. Your opinion means everything. You don’t think he would hurt her, do you?”

  Do I think that Jasper would actually do something to Cassie? No. I think many bad things about Jasper, but I have no reason to think that. I do not think that.

  “I don’t know,” I say, being vague on purpose. But I can’t even half accuse Jasper of something that serious just because I don’t like him. “No, I mean. I don’t think so.”

  “And Vince hasn’t heard from her either?” my dad asks.

  “Vince,” Karen huffs. “He’s hanging out with some new ‘girlfriend’ in the Florida Keys. Last I heard he was going to try to get his private detective’s license. Ridiculous.”

  The insane part is that Cassie might actually call her dad. Cassie is crazy about Vince, despite everything. They email and text all the time. It’s their distaste for Karen that unites them.

  “You should probably try to reach him,” my dad suggests gently. Then he heads over to the counter, picks up his wallet, and peers at the little hooks on the wall where we hang our keys. “Just in case. And you and I will go out looking for her.”

  Karen nods as she looks down at her fingers, still working them open and closed around the mostly shredded tissue.

  “He’s going to blame me, you know. Like if I wasn’t such a hateable hardass, Cassie would still be—” Karen clamps her hand over her mouth when her voice cuts out. “And he’ll be right. That’s the worst part. Vince has problems, but he and Cassie—” She shakes her head. “They always connected. Maybe if I—”

  “Nothing is that simple. Not with kids, not with anything,” my dad says as he finally finds his keys in a drawer. “Come on, let’s stop back at your place first. Make sure there’s no sign of Cassie there. We’ll call Vince on the way. I’ll even talk to him if you want.” My dad steps toward the front door but pauses when he
notices Karen’s feet. “Oh, wait, your shoes.”

  “That’s okay,” she says with an embarrassed wave of her hand. Even now, trying to reclaim a small scrap of perfect. “I’ll be fine. I drove here this ridiculous way. I can get back home.”

  “What if we end up having to stop someplace else? No, no, you need shoes. You can borrow a pair of Hope’s.”

  Hope’s? So casually, too, like he didn’t just offer Karen a sheet of my skin. Of course, it’s not like he can offer Karen a pair of my spare shoes. After a panic-fueled anti-hoarder’s episode after the funeral, I only have one pair of shoes left. The ones I’m wearing. But it’s the way my dad said it: like it would be nothing to give away all my mom’s things.

  Sometimes I wonder if my dad had stopped loving my mom even before she died. I have evidence to support this theory: their fight, namely. After an entire life of basically never a mean word between them, they had suddenly been at each other constantly in the weeks before the accident. And not really loving her would definitely explain why he hasn’t seemed as broken up as me in the days since she died.

  Don’t do it, I think as he moves toward the steps for her shoes. I will never forgive you if you do. Luckily, he stops when his phone buzzes in his hand.

  He looks down at it. “I’m sorry, but this is Dr. Simons.” Saved by my dad’s only friend: Dr. Simons. The one person he will always drop everything for. That never bothered me before. But right now, it is seriously pissing me off. “Can you take Karen upstairs, Wylie? See if there’s something of your mom’s that will fit her?”

  I just glare at him.

  “Are you okay?” he asks, when I still don’t move. His face is tight.

  “Yeah,” I say finally, because he’ll probably use me being angry as more proof that we shouldn’t be helping Karen. “I’m awesome.”

  But the whole way upstairs, I still try to think of an excuse not to give Karen the shoes. One that doesn’t seem crazy. One that my mom would approve of. Because my mom would want me to give Karen whatever she needs. You can do it, she’d say if she was there. I know you can.

  Soon enough, Karen is behind me in my parents’ room as I stand frozen in front of their closet. We’re only lending them, I remind myself, as I pull open the closet door and crouch down in front of my mom’s side of the closet. I close my eyes and try not to take in her smell as I feel around blindly for her shoes. Finally, my hands land on what I think are a pair of low dress boots that my mom only wore once or twice. But I feel sick when I open my eyes and see what I’ve pulled out instead. My mom’s old Doc Martens, the ones she loved so much she had the heels replaced twice.

  “I know Cassie misses you,” Karen says while I’m still bent over my mom’s Doc Martens like an animal protecting its last meal. “Because I still know how she really feels. Even if she thinks I don’t. And I know that right now, Cassie’s totally lost and what she really needs is a good friend. A friend like you.”

  Karen comes over and kneels next to me. I feel her look from me to the boots and back again. Then she leans forward and reaches into the closet herself. A second later, she pulls out a pair of bright-white, brand-new tennis shoes. The ones that my grandmother—my dad’s mom—gave to my mom years ago, probably because my mom always hated tennis.

  “What about these instead?” Karen asks.

  Yes, I would say if I wasn’t so afraid my voice would crack. Those would be much, much better.

  “Do you think Cassie at least knows how much I love her?” Karen asks, rocking back to sitting, her eyes still on the sneakers. “Because things haven’t been easy between us lately. Let’s face it, they’ve never been easy. And I know I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I could have done so many things, so much better. But I was always trying. And I really do love her. She knows that, right?”

  Cassie has said so many awful things about her mom—selfish, self-involved, fat-shaming, judgmental, superficial. But the thing that Cassie said most often was that she didn’t think Karen loved her. Not in the way a mom should.

  “Yeah,” I say, before I wait too long and it sounds like the lie that it is. “Cassie knows that, definitely.”

  “Thank God.” Karen sounds so relieved that it kind of breaks my heart for her. “That’s really—that’s good.”

  Karen puts the sneakers down, then reaches over to take my hand in hers, rubbing my knuckles in a mom-ish way that makes my throat squeeze tight. Her other hand moves to the hacked remains of my wavy brown hair, her fingers drifting away before they reach its most jagged ends.

  The night before I’d glimpsed myself in the hallway mirror and for a second—one fucked-up second—I thought I was her. My mom. That she was there, warm and alive and well again. With my hair longer, I was starting to look exactly like her. And last night I needed not to. I needed to know I’d never again mistake myself for her. Never again would I believe for one awfully beautiful moment that she had come home.

  So I grabbed the scissors and leaned over the bathroom sink to cut my hair. So that it, that I, looked nothing like her. I nailed the different part. That’s for sure. I’d been avoiding mirrors ever since, but I could tell it was bad from the freaked-out look that had passed over my dad’s face when he first saw me. But even worse, actually, was the way Gideon—always up for making me feel bad—didn’t say a word.

  When I look up at Karen, she smiles, her eyes glistening as she wraps a hand gently around my head and pulls it to her neck. And I’m pretty sure it’s because she needs to be holding someone. Even more, maybe, than I need to be held. She strokes my hair. Don’t cry, I tell myself as my eyes start to burn. Please don’t cry.

  “You’re going to be okay, you know,” she whispers. “Not now, but someday.”

  When Karen and I get back downstairs, my dad is just hanging up the phone. But instead of putting it down, he keeps it gripped in his hand, so tight his fingers are white at the edges. Something is wrong. Something new. Something bad on top of whatever is wrong with Cassie.

  “What did Dr. Simons want?” I ask, because it was the conversation with him that freaked my dad out apparently.

  Dr. Simons was my dad’s professor at Stanford. He’s a psychologist and a professor like my dad, but he studies peer pressure, not EI. Similar enough, I guess. And he has no family of his own anymore, so my dad is like his surrogate son. He’s always off teaching this place or that—England, Australia, Hong Kong—which is why we haven’t seen him since we were super-little kids. Lack of geographical proximity is probably part of what my dad likes about Dr. Simons. They are as close as two people, forever thousands of miles apart, can possibly be.

  “He was just calling back to answer a question, something about my new data.” My dad waves a hand: nothing for you to worry about. And I so want to find that believable. But it is not. At all. My dad forces a bigger, even less convincing smile as he turns to Karen. “We ready? Wylie, just be sure to lock up once we’re gone, okay?” He says it casually, like it’s an ordinary, everyday request.

  “Lock up?” I ask.

  My dad has never thought to lock a door in his entire life. If it hadn’t been for my mom, he would have left for our annual two-week vacation on the Cape with our front door hanging wide open.

  “Wylie, please,” my dad snaps, like he’s fed up with me and my obsessing, and fair enough, I guess. “Just lock the door. Until we know what’s happened to Cassie, I just—we should exercise all due care.”

  That explanation would be a lot more believable if he didn’t look so freaked out. He hasn’t looked that spooked in ages. Not since the day the first baby came.

  We were at the breakfast table a couple of days after Halloween when my mom found the first one. It was sitting there on our front porch when she went out to get the newspaper.

  “I guess they get points for creativity,” my mom said as she came inside, holding up a plastic baby doll. Her nose crinkled as she peered at the red splattered all over it, which one could only hope was paint. “Much more vivid
than the usual emails. I guess that’s the price you pay for page one. I should probably call Elaine and see if she got one, too.”

  Elaine was the journalist my mom had been working with on a story about a coalition bombing in Syria. It had run that day on the front page of the Sunday Times, and it was my mom’s photographs of a bombed-out school that had stolen the show. She had always gotten her fair share of hate mail. A couple of times even left at our house. But nothing like a plastic baby.

  “Why are you even touching that!” my dad shouted. And so loud. “Put it back outside!”

  “It’s not contagious, honey.” My mom smiled her beautiful, mischievous smile and raised an eyebrow. She was going to let the shouting go, apparently. She’d been doing that a lot lately—letting everything with my dad go—but I could tell she was starting to get annoyed. “You’ve got to keep your sense of humor, Ben. You know that.”

  And my dad did used to have a sense of humor. He used to be really, really funny actually. In a way, that was even funnier, because of his whole stiff science-guy thing. But these days, he was so wound up. First, because he’d been working around the clock at the university trying to finish his study, then I guess his results were kind of disappointing. It wasn’t going to be officially published until February, but it was already finished. The icing on the cake, though, was him having to fire his favorite postdoc, Dr. Caton, because—according to my dad—he’d let “personal bias cloud his judgment.” Whatever that meant. We’d never met Dr. Caton—my dad wasn’t big on socializing—but from the day he hired him, he’d talked about the supposedly very young Dr. Caton (twenty-four and already with a PhD) like some kind of precious, unearthed jewel. I didn’t care, but it drove Gideon—our other resident science boy wonder—totally crazy. He was delighted when Dr. Caton got the ax.

  My mom shrugged as she stepped over to pick up her half-eaten toast. She took another bite, the doll still gripped in her other hand, then placed the toast back down delicately, brushing the crumbs from her fingers as she walked back toward the foyer with the baby. She opened our front door and calmly tossed the doll outside. We all heard it go thud, thud, thud down the front steps. Gideon and I giggled. So did my mom. My dad did not. Instead, he headed for the phone.