Duplicity Read online

  “I said it’s optional. For me.” That’s the most I want to talk about that. I make an early left so we have to take the long way around, stalling in case Rachel’s still there. “And c’mon, I want to hear what you think’s more tantalizing than girls.”

  “Hmm…” She peers around the seats. “Fast cars. Bet I’d get a whole flock of you at once.”

  I smile because she’s got a point. Middle of the zombie apocalypse, shiny Ferrari, I’d bite. And be dead, apparently, if Beretta’s the one hunting.

  I finally turn the Z back into Ponderosa’s lot. Beretta picks at her collar. Today’s outfit is undead Catholic schoolgirl.

  “Brandon, do you think I’m a … a gremlin?”

  I’m really the worst person to have this conversation with. But I dragged her into this, so I stop the Z in the drop-off area and try to put a sentence together that isn’t sarcastic.

  “Of course not,” is what I come up with. “Your ears are too small.”

  Beretta makes a face at me, then jerks open the handle. “Yeah. Okay.”

  I sigh because it’s literally hurting me to think of nice things to say. “Hey, girls like Rachel only say crap like that when they’re jealous. Don’t worry about it. You think I care what people think?”

  Beretta eyes my undyed hair. “Well…”

  “The correct answer is no. You do what makes you happy, you keep people around who make you happy, and you don’t second-guess yourself when some jerk makes a pissy remark. Though a little advice, you might want to lose the zombie teeth. I saw Deathrow checking you out, but I don’t think he likes those.”

  The last part is somewhat of a lie. I have no idea if Deathrow prefers zombie teeth or not, but I’d like to avoid future biting incidents. It works, though. Beretta beams her set of brown-stained dentures at me, flushes, plucks them out, and slips them into her backpack.

  “Better?” she asks, flashing me a new smile that’s perfectly white and perfectly straight and so startlingly normal that I don’t say anything.

  She hops out of the car. “I’m going to take that as a yes. Thanks for the ride.”

  She skips up the stairs. I breathe out and crank Nirvana’s “Lithium” as I turn the Z out to the street, and think that’s enough Nice Guy karma to last me a month.

  * * *

  Or not.

  I’ve barely closed the garage door when Dad confronts me in the kitchen with a turbo lecture about taking the Z (“No arguing, gotta be quick, conference call from China in ten minutes”). I kind of listen, substituting the nice things Principal Myer said for any sentence Dad says that includes “irresponsible” or “immature.” About halfway through, Dad pauses, one hand gripping the granite island counter.

  “Did you dye your hair?”

  “This is my normal color, Dad.”

  “Oh. Are you getting over that rebel thing?”

  Like it’s a cold or the flu.

  “No. Just, um, experimenting.” I shrug. “Project at school. Testing the impact of social image.”

  “Oh, well, good for you,” Dad says, looking uncomfortable at having to praise me. “That’s why you took the Z? If you need it for class, Brandon, you just needed to say.”

  It’s all I can do not to laugh. I thank Beretta, I thank karma, and I say, “Yes. Yes, I need it for class. And I did ask this morning, and you said okay.”

  Dad paces again, then points an important finger at the ceiling.

  “All right, can’t argue with that. This week only, though. I’m not driving your Corolla to the office. And if you get pulled over even once—even once!—I don’t care if it’s because you paused at a stop sign, I’m taking the keys. Are we clear?”

  “As glass.”

  “Good.” He straightens his tie. “Now, go do your homework or something.”

  Like that’s going to happen. I trudge up the stairs, pull my phone out to text Sniper about playing Call of Duty, and freeze at the top. Seven feet away stands the paneled bathroom door.

  It’s open.

  “Hey, Dad, have you been upstairs today?” I yell.

  Twenty full seconds later, “What?”

  “I said, have you been upstairs?”

  “No. Why?”

  Echoes of crinkling glass shiver through my memory, and when my cell beeps I jump so bad I have to catch the railing for balance. Sniper’s reply: Can’t, out w/Ginge;)

  “Lame,” I say. Not that I’m doing much better, shaking on the stairs, afraid of my own bathroom. I inch toward the door with my thumb over the emergency call button. If Obran did break the glass, I’ve got to clean it up before Mom gets home and fillets me. Skip class, get a new tattoo, fine. But for heaven’s sake don’t make a mess of Mom’s perfect house or you’ll be sorry.

  I swing the door a little farther open with one finger. If I reach around, I can thumb the lights on without entering. I do so, back pressed against the wall like James Bond, iPhone armed. A yellow rectangle pops into the hallway.

  It’s quiet.

  I peek into the room.

  No icy splinters on the seashell-inlaid floor. No shards reflecting off the sandy counter.

  No broken glass. The mirror’s intact, perfect and whole and silent, hiding any evidence that it’s actually a demon portal. I don’t poke my head in far enough to see my reflection. I snap off the light and close the door like it’s an Olympic event.

  I click my phone and check the clock. Three-fifteen. Plenty of time to jet into town, grab some new dye and earring spikes, and start fixing the things Obran messed up. I’ll wait on the tattoos until I figure out a way to get rid of him. I am not doing whatever that was in the locker room again.

  I turn the music up on my phone, shut my bedroom door, pull off my sweatshirt—

  “ARRRRGGGG!”

  Obran smiles at me from a new, full-length mirror standing near my window. My entire room reflects inside it. I lurch for the door, smash shoulder-first into something hard, and bounce back onto the floor. My dresser? I glare at the mirror. Obran shakes his head and waggles a finger. On both sides of the glass, the dresser blocks the exit.

  I’ve got to break the mirror. I search for something to break it with, but it seems Obran’s thought of that already. I can’t find the knife I keep in my desk, or any of my dusty textbooks, or even my boots. It won’t fit out my windows without jacking up the screens. Maybe I can hit it. I study my scabbed knuckles and think that’s not the best idea. Obran paces on the other side, but he’s not doing anything (why?), and finally I snatch a steel letter opener off my desk and go for the glass.

  Like my piercings, the handle vanishes in my fist. Obran clutches it instead, and for a blood-freezing moment I think he’s going to stab himself and I don’t know what that will mean. He doesn’t. He flings it at me. I duck, but the opener doesn’t get that far. The glass shatters, sliding to the floor in jagged shingles.

  Slowly, I inch around the bed toward the wreckage. My reflection—my real reflection—stares at me from a mosaic of silver-blue shards on the carpet, looking scared and pathetic but looking like me. I nudge a few with my toe. No Obran. I pick up one of the larger pieces. Make a face into it. It mimics me perfectly. Has Obran … destroyed himself? I doubt it’s that easy, but I should check one of the other mirrors—

  “Brandon?”

  Mom. I heave at the dresser in front of my door. It doesn’t budge.

  “Brandon, what was that crashing?”

  I shove again. It yields no more than an inch. How did stupid Obran move it so quickly? I’ll have to take the drawers out.

  “Mom, go away,” I say.

  “I’m not going to go away, I’m—” She tries the door. “What are you doing in there? That Ginger better not be over again. I thought you two broke up!”

  “We did, like a year ago! I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

  “You let me in this instant or I’m going to get your father!”

  I yank out the bottom drawer, full of jeans (Folded? Did
Mom fold them?) and shove it aside. Pull out the next one. Gape at its contents. Boxer shorts and socks, all in neat rows, and none of them mine. Tommy Boy, Calvin Klein, Lacoste. All plain colors. No AC/DC lightning bolts or skulls. My mismatched camo socks have changed to dull argyles of brown, black, and white.

  “Brandon, I’m going to count to three…”

  “Mom, chill.” I rustle through the pairs, trying to find anything that’s mine. “Did you take my socks?”

  Pause. “Why on earth would I take your socks?”

  I jerk another drawer out, one that used to hold my old Goth things from my days dating Ginger: belts with poison symbol buckles, spikey collars, chains, armbands, and my small but loud collection of weird ties. Now expensive watches and cufflinks fill the space, tidy as the other drawers.

  Not mine not mine not mine—

  “One,” Mom counts.

  “One sec, geez.”

  I toss the drawer away and throw my shoulder into the dresser. This time it yields, jogging reluctantly along the carpet and back into place.

  “Two.”

  I pull open the door, out of breath. “Mom, I’m not twelve anymore. Quit with the counting thing.”

  “Could have fooled me,” she says. She strides past me and surveys the drawers, starts to ask about them, then shrieks.

  “You broke your new mirror? That was two hundred dollars! What is wrong with you?”

  “Mom, I didn’t—”

  “I can’t believe this! I try to do something nice, I thought you must be upset about something since you broke your last mirror and that pretty girl hasn’t been over yet this week—”

  “But—”

  “So I bought you a new one. Per usual, Brandon, my hard work is repaid with your knack for destroying everything.”

  “Mom, if you’d just listen—”

  She waves me off. “You know what? I’m done. I give up. Fail out of school, tear up your room, lose your license. I just can’t … no time to deal with this…”

  She stomps out, smearing angry tears off her cheeks, and slams the door behind her. I lose track of how long I stare at the handle. I thought she gave up long ago, but hearing it … hearing it stings on a level I didn’t think I had anymore. It makes me think of burning things. It makes me think of lighting my room on fire, stealing the Z and my laptop and my lava lamp, and calling it my official emancipation.

  I flip a lighter out of my pocket and thumb it on.

  “This is why I don’t care,” I tell myself. I tell the weak part of myself, that keeps trying to come out, that keeps hoping for things I have no business hoping for. I don’t need Mom concerning herself with me. Or Dad, or Emma, or Principal Myer. I’ve made it this far alone. I’ll make it farther.

  The ache fades.

  I watch the flame shiver and flick the lighter shut.

  8. THEN LET’S TRADE

  SINCE MOM DOESN’T CARE anymore and Dad’s still chatting it up with China, I snatch the Z’s keys and peel down the street. Like nothing happened.

  And, I tell myself firmly, nothing did. Nothing that matters, anyway.

  I navigate through The Pinery’s overpriced custom homes, out onto the highway where I let the Z open up. I press twenty over the limit, thirty over, then screech onto a side street and circle around in the hills for God knows how long before I somehow end up in Stroh Ranch, which was probably a real ranch ages ago but is now covered in cookie-cutter houses so close you could reach from your window to your neighbor’s.

  I stop across the street from one very particular cookie cutter, with gray-blue siding and white trim and a black F250 pickup in the drive.

  I shouldn’t be here.

  I don’t leave.

  On the second floor is a room full of Emma’s toy horses and picture books and clay handprints from when she was three that have been in that exact room since she got them, because she’s never known anyplace else. Through the first-floor windows, Mrs. Jennings grabs a steaming roast out of the oven and disappears around the corner where the dining room is. Where the whole family will be.

  The ache starts again.

  I take the long way home.

  * * *

  Wednesday morning, six forty-five A.M. I haven’t moved the drawers from the floor or cleaned up the spilled glass by the window. Or done any of my homework like Dad ordered after I got home yesterday and asked when we were going to eat. I did, however, invest three very important hours into Call of Duty on Sniper’s personal account, which I hacked just to make sure I still could. Not really eager to try anything on my laptop yet.

  Someone knocks.

  “You awake?” Dad asks from the other side.

  “Yeah, Dad. Getting up.”

  The contents of my drawers haven’t changed overnight. Since Mom said nothing about shopping, I blame Obran and his stupid quest to turn me into Justin Timberlake. I step over the drawers and pull open my closet.

  And snarl out a chain of words that would make inmates blush.

  Pink, peach, lavender, and ivory hang in a hideous display everywhere I look. I’ve never seen so many collared shirts in my life. Vineyard Vines. J.Crew. Ralph Lauren. All in freaking pastel. I finger through them, desperate to find anything black or grey or even just blue, and whoop in triumph when I catch a glimpse of dark fabric. I yank it out and fling it to the floor like a spider when I see it’s a pair of slacks.

  I yell another word Dad shouts I should never say again.

  Obran’s gone too far. Wristbands? Fine. Dye? Whatever. Tattoos? Well, I’m still pretty pissed about those. But corner me into Calvin Klein.… And This. Means. War. I storm into the hallway, ignore Dad asking me what’s wrong, and shove open the bathroom door. I stand in the way so it can’t close on me and flip on the light.

  “Give me back my clothes!” I yell at the mirror.

  Obran blinks innocently and tugs at the collar of a nauseating baby blue polo he’s wearing over tan slacks, and … God, no … under an argyle sweater vest. Hair combed. Hair gelled. The room gets hot, and I touch my head. Needle-fine hair meets my fingers.

  “Brandon, what are you—oh, hey, son, you look good!”

  Dad stands at the top of the stairs, smiling like I haven’t seen … maybe ever. I look down at my polo, slacks, and that freaking sweater vest and a funny cross between a shriek and a laugh comes out of my mouth. I brace myself on the door frame.

  “I will find a way to kill you,” I growl at my smirking reflection, and I slam the door.

  “What’s that?” Dad asks.

  “Nothing. Last day of the project, enjoy it while you can.”

  I spend the next ten minutes tearing up my room, trying to find a scrap of dark clothing Obran has overlooked. No such luck. Not so much as a black undershirt or boxers. I rip off the sweater vest, undo the first two buttons on the shirt, and roll the sleeves sloppy to both elbows. Swap the slacks out for a pair of “7 For All Mankind” jeans (whatever the hell those are) and fume out the garage door. I hop into the Z, tear the glass out of the rearview mirror and the side mirrors, and toss them next to the trash cans. The engine churns to a satisfying roar.

  It’s not going to be a good day.

  * * *

  Suck factor one appears, predictably, in the form of Rachel Love, who’s parked her yellow Cobalt at the far edge of the lot in anticipation of my arrival. I wheel the Z to the first row to avoid her. She can’t trot across the pavement fast enough in her hooker heels to catch me before I push through the front doors.

  Suck factor two: everyone else. Yesterday I got a few double takes, a few raised eyebrows, a few snorts of laughter as people read the rumors on Twitter. Today books drop, jaws drop, kids run into walls, and conversations cease when I pass. The president of student council welcomes me to the school and says a very unpresidential word when she recognizes me.

  Suck factor three: Spanish class.

  First of all, I’m pretty sure Mrs. Barreto hits on me. She says something in Spanish under her br
eath when I walk in that I Google and hope I spelled wrong, because the only readable word in the translation is “yum.” Then Jason takes two minutes to remind me that if Emma’s going to homecoming, she’s going with him, back off.

  Then Emma arrives.

  I get out my iPad as fast as possible and pull up a game. Emma stands in the doorway so long that someone else comes in and runs into her. She sits next to me. The bell rings. I’m killing my eighteenth zombie when my phone buzzes.

  What’s going on?

  From Emma.

  I almost put my phone away. But I’m in a pissy mood so I type back, Some people have an evil twin, I have a good twin. It’s not for you, don’t get excited.

  Emma scowls when she reads the reply. My phone buzzes again.

  TOO BAD EVEN YOUR “GOOD” IS ONLY SURFACE DEEP.

  Ouch. I glare at her, and she stuffs her phone in her bag and looks pointedly away.

  I spend the rest of the day offending curious classmates, ignoring Twitter, and disabling friend requests on my Facebook account. There’s no way I’ll let the kids in The Corner see me in my current state, so I take the long routes between classes to avoid it. I crack the mirror in the east wing bathroom to keep Obran out while I do my business. I don’t get my loser sheet signed, and I don’t report to the front office at the end of the day.

  I skip seventh period. Instead I use that time to zip to the mall and scour the stores for new hair dye, three pairs of ripped jeans, ten band shirts without a hint of pastel on them, and a collection of grunge stuff that would make Nirvana proud: flannels and old gas attendant shirts, the world’s sickest leather jacket, two pairs of combat boots so I can hide a pair in my locker. I swing back home, testing the volume capacity of the Z’s speakers with Bullet for My Valentine’s “Your Betrayal,” which rattles tools off the wall of the garage when I pull in. Smiling, I kill the engine and hurtle the door, reach into the convertible’s backseat to grab my bags and—

  “Brandon?”

  I start, and every muscle in me stiffens as I face the girl who’s resting against the frame of the garage. I didn’t notice the gold Camry parked across the street until now.

  “What are you doing here, Emma?” I say.