The Reckless Club Page 9

  “Reckless?”

  Agnes smiles. “Acting without knowing what happens next. Maybe I wouldn’t have so many scars, but”—she looks around the colorful room full of treasures—“I wouldn’t have so many stories, either.”

  “Mr. Hardy said we had to be here because we made reckless choices,” Jason says.

  “How wonderful! A whole club of reckless story-makers! Would you like a sucker?” She plucks a lollipop from the bowl beside the bed and hands it to him. Mystery flavor.

  “No, thanks,” Jason says.

  Agnes shrugs, unwraps the candy, and tucks it in the corner of her cheek. Jason clears his throat. “Um, did you know that mystery flavor is just a mix of all the leftover flavors from other batches?”

  Agnes pulls out the sucker and studies it for a second. Then she pops it back in her mouth. “I made a quilt once. Sounds kind of like that. Take a little bit of this, a little bit of that, stitch it all together, and you have something good.” She sucks on the candy, then pulls it back out, using it as a pointer to direct his attention to the patchwork quilt on her bed. “Next time, I’d probably skip that square, though.”

  “Is that snakeskin?” Jason runs his fingers along the leathery square.

  “Copperhead. Makes a great stew.” She sighs. “But they’re better left alone.”

  “Did you get bit?”

  “Heavens, no. I’m too careful for that. I just feel bad whenever I see it. It wasn’t bothering me none, but I killed it anyway, just to say I had. I was thinking about my quilt and about my lunch, and I saw the snake. Thought it’d fit the bill for both. But some things can’t be undone.”

  “It’s just a snake,” Jason mutters, but the words are clumsy on his tongue.

  “I think the snake probably feels differently. But I’m not sure, of course. My metaphysical studies never really panned out.” Agnes’s head tilts to the side as she peers into the hallway. “That girl over there, talking with Opal? Is she your girlfriend?”

  Jason’s cheeks burn. He shakes his head and blurts out, “No!” Suddenly the words aren’t stuck in his throat. Here in this little room, with this woman who has seen and done so much more than anyone ever would’ve guessed, his words aren’t clunky and sharp. His words, for a second, are almost too slippery. “I’m not…” He stops himself, but new words trickle out. “I mean, I don’t even know…”

  Agnes smiles, but not the usual older-person smile after an exchange like that—the ones that teachers give with a wink when they see a boy and a girl partner for a project, or the smile with the nudge-nudge Mom or Dad might give if they saw him sketching Ally’s portrait. It’s just a smile. “Tough, isn’t it?” says Agnes, now gnawing a little on the lollipop.

  “What’s tough?” Jason asks.

  Agnes throws a lollipop at Jason as she helps herself to another. This one’s peach flavored. She throws another—grape. “Waiting for feelings to happen when they just seem to come so easy for everyone else.”

  Jason takes both lollipops and places them back in the bowl. His stomach is churning too much at what she’s saying, at what he might say, to even think about candy.

  “And then”—Agnes laughs—“there are folks who just don’t know what they like, except that they don’t seem to have a taste for anything.”

  Jason clears his throat. His head hangs forward, letting the curtain of hair hide his blazing cheeks. “They find out, though, right? I mean, at some point they figure out that they’re… I mean, what they like. They figure it out, right?”

  Agnes shrugs. “I think who—I mean, what—you love is like embarking on an adventure. You can’t go until you’re ready. You can try to force it. See an empty patch in a quilt and fill it with something regretful just to have it complete.” Slowly Agnes unwraps another lollipop. She leans forward and presses smooth the waxy wrapper over the snakeskin patch. Then she pulls the other crumpled wrapper out of her pocket. She spreads that one next to it and nods.

  Jason shuts his eyes, thinking about all the times he’s sketched Ally. He sketches her because he sees something in her; something about her makes him feel something. But what? Curiosity, maybe. He hopes it is because part of him likes her, as in likes her likes her. He worries he sketches her only because he’s lonely and sees that in her, too. Why can’t he be more like Wes? He seems to have it so easy, knowing just when to smile and what to say and how to be. Shame fills him, shame at not knowing what everyone else seems to have been born understanding.

  “Or,” Agnes continues, “you can wait.” She pulls a pair of scissors out of the table drawer and clips the corners of the wrappers to fit the snakeskin patch. “You could give yourself that blank spot and not worry about it being blank. Maybe one day it’ll be filled up with something easy. Something expected. And it’ll feel just right. Maybe it’ll be something unexpected—a lollipop wrapper stitched into the quilt of your life. And that will feel just right.”

  Agnes smiles as she grabs some tape and covers the snakeskin patch with the wrappers.

  Jason nods. “Are we still talking about quilts?”

  “Then again,” Agnes adds as if Jason hasn’t spoken, “maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll find your life is warm enough and you don’t need a blanket after all.” Jason ducks his head, trying to sort out Agnes’s words. The old woman leans forward in her chair, close enough that her breath rustles the hair hanging across Jason’s face.

  Snip!

  “What the—”

  Agnes’s laugh cuts off his exclamation just as quickly as her scissors chopped off his bangs.

  “I always wanted to be a hairstylist!” She claps.

  “What did you do?” Jason gasps as he jumps to his feet. He rushes to the little mirror in Agnes’s tiny bathroom. The scream that rips out of him makes up for years of being too quiet. “No!” Jason’s hair hangs like it always does—straight and thick to the middle of his neck. That is, except for a blunt line across the middle of his forehead, which has been clipped neatly away.

  Agnes appears behind him. She pulls the lollipop out of her mouth with a pop. “I could clean it up a little.”

  “Clean it up a little?” Jason shouts. “I have a mullet!”

  Agnes tilts her head. “Hey, now! You’re right. Back in the eighties I bought a Harley and—”

  “Stop!” Jason yells. “Stop! I don’t want to hear about the time you were in a biker gang!”

  “Well, not a gang. A group of motor enthusiasts,” she responds in the same cheery voice. She leans forward with the scissors in hand. Jason dodges her. “Let me just…” Agnes manages to snip another chunk of hair over his right ear.

  A strangled sort of cry bubbles out of him.

  “If you’d just sit still, dear!” Agnes guides Jason to sit on the closed toilet seat and then shakes out a towel around his shoulders. He realizes numbly that he’s whimpering. “My first haircut!” Agnes says. “Isn’t it exciting to try new things?”

  A few snips and the whirl of an electric razor later and Jason’s mouth flops open and closed in front of the mirror. “I have to go.”

  Agnes waves him away and starts sweeping up the hair in the bathroom with a handheld vacuum.

  At Agnes’s doorway, he pauses. Ally is saying good-bye to Opal, too. He breathes out; part of him is surprised she hasn’t run away already.

  Opal reaches below her mattress and cups something in her hand. She shuffles toward Ally, opening her hand and pressing something into the girl’s palm. Opal closes Ally’s fingers around the small object. A chain slips from her palm, and Opal tucks it back into Ally’s hand, placing a finger against her mouth. A secret. Her mouth, lopsided where it droops to the left, slowly forms silent words that Jason can just make out. For you.

  Ally starts to open her hand, but Opal closes it again.

  Ally nods and drops the object into her pocket without looking at it. Opal smiles and closes her door as Ally exits.

  In the hallway, Ally tilts her head at Jason. She rubs at her
eyes. “Jason?”

  “Yeah,” Jason says, sighing. He rubs his hand across the back of his now stubbly head.

  “When? How?” She reaches up to touch the longer swoop of hair going back in a crested wave from Jason’s forehead to blend with the shorter hair along the sides and back of his head. There’s a straight, sharp part where the longer hair begins, and while Jason’s hair used to swing in front of his face, now it’s gelled into position. He looks like he stepped out of a 1940s movie. “Is there a barber here?”

  “No,” Jason says, then smiles.

  Again Ally blinks.

  “It was Agnes. She always wanted to cut hair and so…”

  “You just let her?”

  “Well, not exactly.”

  “Wow,” Ally says, then blinks at him.

  “What?” Jason’s face flushes.

  “You look—”

  But whatever Ally is going to say next is cut off as Rex barrels between them.

  “Is she holding a spatula?” Jason asks.

  “Let’s go!” says Ally, already sprinting after Rex.

  11:50 a.m.

  LILITH “The Drama Queen”

  Be the lead.

  In third grade, Lilith’s parents made her go to a therapist once a week to deal with her “personality.” That’s how they put it: “We need help dealing with your personality.”

  One of the first things the therapist said was that Lilith didn’t need therapy. “She needs a diversion, a way to channel her energy,” he had said. He was the one who suggested she attend acting classes. And some day, Lilith thinks, when I accept my first Oscar, I’m going to rub the bald head of the statuette with one hand and say it reminds me of the therapist who first told my parents that their daughter didn’t need help; she needed a stage.

  Okay, so that’s not exactly how therapy went. How it honestly went was the therapist pushed her again and again to be “authentic.” Whatever that is. No one is authentic. “I’m concerned that you spend all of your efforts molding yourself into a character, so you’re never focusing on you,” the therapist had said, then added, “And it kind of annoys people when your mouth makes the words they’re saying even as they’re saying them. The way you are right now.”

  “You should work on being less predictable, then,” Lilith had said.

  What. A. Doofus.

  How could he not realize that people behave and do what they do because of influences, whether they’re their own influences or someone else’s? Like right now, for instance, Lilith is scouring the halls of this retirement home, allowing her skin to muddle under the fluorescent lights, all the while missing opportunities to focus on her portfolio. And while Jason, Ally, and Wes would say they’re doing it for Rex, they’re really doing it to feel good about themselves. Wes is helping so he can have one more person in his fan club; Jason because he doesn’t have any friends thanks to his all-emo-all-the-time approach to life; and Ally is doing it because she can’t stand to be left behind—ever.

  Lilith knows all of this because it’s her job to know people. Everyone assumes Lilith is selfish. (“You only think of yourself, Lily,” Mom says at least three times a day.) But it isn’t true. Lilith’s never thinking of herself. She’s thinking of her outward portrayal, maybe, but she’s mostly thinking of everyone else. All. The. Time. And maybe wondering what it is about her that doesn’t make anyone else think of her unless she forces them.

  How would she portray them? First step: pinpoint their motivations. This, if Future Academy Award–winning actress Lilith is being honest, is another reason to thank the therapist. He’s the one who told her everyone has a motivation to be who they are. He’s the one who said she should root out others’ motivations.

  Once you understand a person’s motivation, you can figure out how to center yourself smack dab in the middle of those motivations. And, voilà. The story is now about you.

  Be authentic was the therapist’s suggested mantra she should repeat to herself every day.

  But Lilith made her own mantra.

  Be the lead.

  Yet Rex, with all of her bitterness and bad hair, steals the spotlight every time she’s anywhere near the group of nobodies Lilith is stuck with today. They all turn to Rex, cater to her, want to help her.

  And that means Lilith has to make sure she is the one most important to Rex. Lilith has to be the one to solve this mystery. Which will never happen so long as oatmeal-loving old ladies keep cornering her to show off button collections.

  Lilith strides as fast as she can in her platform sandals and vintage Harper’s dress. (Okay, strictly speaking, the dress isn’t actually vintage but definitely is made to look like a Harper’s and that’s close enough.)

  Wes and TBN couldn’t have gotten too far. She’d find them, trail them, and figure out TBN’s motivation. Once she discovered that, it would just be a matter of seconds before she’d find the loot and win the admiration and respect of the entire Northbrook facility and, most importantly, Rex Gallagher.

  Not that, from the sound of the shouts coming from the cafeteria, Rex will appreciate it. She’ll probably be too busy complaining about being left alone to handle all the residents while Lilith and the rest of the crew do all the messy work of tracking down TBN.

  Mrs. Mitchell’s high-pitched, “Where is everyone?” drifts into the air, so Lilith risks bodily injury to sprint away, down the next hallway. Jackpot! Wes and TBN are talking. Lilith pauses a moment to take in the scene. Wes is supposed to be buttering up the nurse, getting her to divulge information, but for some reason, Wes is the one spilling his life’s story.

  “I have to be the one who keeps everything together, all the time,” Wes says. “I mean, even at school, everyone looks up to me, thinks I’m the one who’s got to handle things. But the one time I mess up…”

  “You don’t get to mess up,” TBN snaps back, not taking her eyes from the iPad chart in her hand. “That’s the thing. Once people count on you, you’re responsible forever.”

  “But it’s not like I wanted to hurt her. It’s not like I even knew what they were going to do.” Lilith has to creep closer to hear Wes’s voice, which has dissipated to a whisper. Who is he talking about?

  TBN lowers the iPad. With it still in her hand, she crosses her arms and cocks an eyebrow at Wes. He just blinks back at her and somehow manages to flash the dimple even while looking sad and pathetic. TBN raises the other eyebrow and taps her foot. “You didn’t know what they were going to do?”

  “I swear,” Wes almost whines. “I swear, I didn’t know—”

  This is getting juicy. Lilith holds her breath and sneaks a little closer. A tall artificial plant is right next to where TBN and Wes are talking. If she can get there and hide behind it… but just as Lilith is about to dart across the hall to the plant, it moves. The fake plant gets up and moves a few steps closer to the pair. Lilith spots purple pantsuited legs beneath it.

  Luckily, TBN and Wes are too caught up in their little heart-to-heart to notice the roving ficus. TBN shakes her head at Wes. “Maybe you didn’t know exactly what they were planning, but you knew whatever it was wasn’t going to be nice. Wasn’t going to be good for her—or anyone.”

  Wes slumps. All his charisma seems to leak through the toes of his shoes. He rubs the top of his head. Lilith realizes she’s copying the pose without even trying. Humility isn’t something she’d played around with much. Quickly she scurries behind the plant.

  “He’s mine,” comes a hiss from the plant. The tiny woman seeking a prom date is huddled behind it. Lilith spots her brown eyes blinking out at her from behind the branches.

  “You can have him,” Lilith snaps back. “I just want to know what they’re saying.”

  “Oh,” says the woman. Her tone is sweet as honey now that she doesn’t view Lilith as a threat. “That nurse is telling Travis—”

  “You mean Wes,” Lilith interrupts.

  “Travis,” the woman repeats. “She’s saying it isn’t his job to ta
ke care of everybody. That he’s not the nurse; she is. She’s telling him to stop now before it gets so far gone that everybody’s always up in his business needing help. Before too long, he’ll be ugly and alone.” She shifts, making the branches rustle. “Fool. No way Travis will ever be ugly and he for sure isn’t going to be alone. Not with me around.”

  Lilith nods. “That seems to be the case.”

  “It is,” the woman says, and she (and the tree) slide toward the pair.

  “But wait,” Lilith whispers. “Did the nurse say anything about herself? About, I don’t know, where she puts things?”

  But the woman shushes her as TBN starts walking down the hall away from them, Wes trailing her.

  “How do you just stop?” Wes says. It’s not his usual booming, about-to-laugh voice. This Wes is quiet. Diminished. “I mean, I want to. I’d love to be someone else for a while. Anyone else. But everyone turns to me all the time. Like, if I wear a jersey to school, two days later, everyone’s wearing that same jersey. And if I say something is cool or have an idea, then boom, everyone wants to do the same thing. Even if I like a girl, suddenly she’s, like, the girl.” The tree rustles at the mention of a girl, but Wes doesn’t notice. “Either I think only about myself or… like, everyone. Take on everything, all the time.”

  TBN snorts. “Wish I knew. I mean, I’m not exactly setting the standard of cool around here—or anywhere else I’ve worked before. But I do end up being the one keeping it running.”

  TBN sort of smiles. The side of her mouth jerks back half an inch and, for a second, the crease between her eyes softens. Lilith stands upright in order to practice that face, using the darkened window near the ficus plant as a mirror. Reluctant smile she decides to call the expression. She relaxes her features and practices again. The tiny woman reaches out and grabs Lilith by the wrist. “Get down!” she hisses, just as TBN and Wes turn their way, but they fail to notice her or the plant.

  TBN taps out patient details on the iPad. Wes stares at the carpet. TBN takes a deep breath and says, “Listen up, kid.” She lets the hand holding the iPad drop a bit to her side. With the other hand, she lifts Wes’s chin so he’s forced to look at her straight on. “You’ve got to take care of yourself, too, before you forget how. Soon, you’ll be letting some kid spill out his whole life to you and you’ll find yourself giving him advice you should’ve given yourself a decade ago.”