Not Quite Dead Yet, page 8
Jet’s stomach twisted, the toast suddenly tasteless in her mouth.
“Do you, whole family?” Jet announced across the table. “You think I don’t get to make decisions about my life, about my death? That you know better than me? You can’t understand for one fucking second what it’s like to have to make a choice like that. Fuck. And Sophia, I swear to god if you say anything about my language…”
None of them would look at her, except Mom, and the baby.
“I’m not choosing to die on the operating table. The answer is no. Sorry, whole family.” The answer was no, and the other answer was that pain above her right eye—new this morning—which might mean it was too late anyway, the choice out of her hands. Certainly out of her mom’s hands.
“Fine.” The chair screeched on the oak floor as Mom stood up, marched over to the sideboard.
“I went to the funeral home this morning, picked these up.”
She came back to the table, dropped two brochures in front of Jet with a slap.
Jet looked down at them.
One for caskets, every shade of wood, varnished and shining.
The other for urns.
“What the fu—” Jet began.
“—Mom.” Luke buried his face in his hands. “You can’t do th—”
“—Go on,” Mom cut him off, pointing to the catalogs. “Make a decision, Jet. That’s what you care about, your choices? So make another choice. Go on. What’s it going to be? Burial or cremation? Pick one.”
“Mom, there is something really fucking wrong with you.” Jet shoved the brochures away, a plate sliding off the table, shattering on the floor.
Cameron started to cry.
“This is what you’re doing to me!” Mom screamed, hysterical now, tears merging with lines of snot. “Why won’t you listen? I can’t lose you—I can’t bury another child, Jet. I won’t do it. It’s not fair.”
“Not fair?” Jet asked, incredulous. “I’m twenty-seven. I’m the one who has to die before I’ve even had a chance to live.”
“So don’t!” Mom pleaded. “Don’t die, Jet, please! I know you think I’m being the bad guy, and I don’t care—if it saves your life then I’ll do anything! Please, Jet, don’t do this!”
“It’s already done, Mom!”
“I can’t do this.” Mom’s face folded, came undone, hand pressed over her mouth to hold it together. She hurried out of the room, blindly, bawling into her hands, crying so hard she couldn’t breathe, coughing around them. Up the stairs, a thunder that shook the whole house.
Dad sighed, got to his feet. “Now you’ve upset your mother,” he said, eyes downcast.
“Hold on.” Jet rounded on him. “I’ve upset her? Unbelievable. She put a fucking catalog of coffins in front of me, Dad. For fuck’s sake! For once, I wish you would just pick a fucking side, the right side.”
“Luke, let’s go,” Sophia whispered, picking Cameron out of his high chair.
“No, no, no,” Jet said. “You stay, enjoy your nice family breakfast. I’ll go. I’m going.” She sniffed, wiped her nose on her sleeve. “I’m leaving. Can’t live here anymore.”
“Jet, don’t say that.” Dad stepped toward her, arms open. Eyes kind, but his kind wasn’t good enough now.
“I mean it, I’m not doing it. I have six days until I die, and I’m not doing that here, like this. I’m going!”
Jet was out of the room before any of them could call her back, not that calling would have made a difference. Her mind was made up. She had something important to do, the last thing she would ever do, and she couldn’t do it in this house. It was hard enough.
In her room, she grabbed two backpacks and headed to the drawers. Hey, at least she didn’t have to take too many clothes, right? Like packing for a week’s vacation. Less than. She grabbed a handful of underwear, a couple bras. A few T-shirts. Sweatpants and jeans, stuffed them in. Into the bathroom to grab her hairbrush, her toothbrush. Her makeup bag—would she even need that? Did the walking dead need concealer? Left the white bottle of Lotrel, the pills she took every day for high blood pressure, for her kidneys, because what was the fucking point now? Didn’t need them anymore.
Grabbed her notebook from the bed, and the pen she’d stolen from Jack Finney, put them in the second backpack, along with her MacBook. She went to the socket to pull out the—the—the—what’s that fucking word, the white wire thing that gave it more battery. Never mind. She grabbed it, unplugged it, shoved it in the top of the bag. Hoisted both up onto her shoulders, still wearing her pajamas.
Downstairs, she slipped on her shoes and her jacket.
“Bye, Reggie. Love you.” She bent to kiss the top of the dog’s head. Not even her dog, really. Her parents’ empty-nest dog, when Jet left for college. But he was her dog now, and they all knew it. Reggie most of all.
“Jet.” Dad came around the corner. “You’re not really going.”
“I am really going.”
“Don’t,” he said. “Your mom wouldn’t want this.”
“It’s not always about what she wants, Dad. I have to go. I’m going.”
He reached for her backpack, held on to one strap. “But, Jet, you can’t…you’re not—”
“—Not what, Dad? Responsible? I can do this on my own. I can.”
Just then, the mail slot crashed open, a handful of letters scattering to the Welcome mat. Footsteps on the drive, doubling, the mailman hurrying away from the yelling inside.
Reggie rushed toward the mail, but Jet beat him to it.
“Look, see, Dad,” Jet sniffed, hysterical too now, in her quieter, flippant way. “Here I am picking up my mail. Ah, see, two letters for Margaret Mason. Picking up my mail like a responsible fucking adult.” She stuffed the letters in the open backpack, ripping it away from Dad’s hands. “Might even be able to wipe my own ass soon.”
Cameron wailed, Luke and Sophia coming to stand in the hall.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get there too, bud.”
Jet grabbed her keys and her wallet from the wooden bowl on the side table.
“Where are you going?” Luke asked, because he felt like he had to. Jet knew her brother.
“Literally anywhere that isn’t this fucking house! I’m not going to die in here again. Tell Mom she can choose the casket. I really won’t care, I’ll be dead.”
Jet opened the front door and struggled through, flipping off the doorbell camera as she passed. Unlocked her truck and climbed inside, starting the engine, hitting the steering wheel just once, with the heel of her hand. Fuck, that hurt; she wouldn’t do that again.
She checked her mirrors and backed out, waving to Dad and Luke and Sophia in the open doorway.
A curtain twitched in the upstairs window just as she reached the street.
Mom’s blotchy face pressed to the glass, watching her leave.
* * *
—
Jet knocked. Three times. Waited two seconds. Knocked again. Waited. But she’d waited long enough, sitting in her truck, wondering what the fuck she should do, where the fuck she should go. She really only had one answer, only one person in this whole fucking town, so she knocked again and again and again. He’d forgive her for the hostility; he always did.
A click and the door swung inward, Billy’s confused face in the crack.
“Jet.” He pulled the door the whole way. His eyes looked swollen, hiding underneath those dark curls.
“I asked at the bar downstairs, they told me you lived in 1B,” Jet explained.
“You OK? Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean that. Stupid question.”
His gaze settled on her bags, another question forming on his lips, skirting his teeth.
“Yeah, so,” Jet said, sucking in a breath. “I was wondering…can I stay with you? Here? In your apartment?”
Billy’s mouth didn’t move but his eyes did, tracking across her face, a flash of his old light behind them.
“Probably won’t be much of a roommate,” she laughed. “I definitely won’t be paying any rent, might keep some strange hours, eat your food. And I know I come with baggage.” She gestured to the backpacks on the floor, but they both knew that’s not what she meant. “But it’s not like it’ll put you out that much, ’cause, you know, um, like, I’ll be dead by the end of the week.”
Billy swallowed.
“Is that a yes?”
Eight
“Billy, really, it’s fine. Don’t worry.”
Jet raised her legs from the coffee table, so he could get past with the vacuum cleaner.
“I’ve put the sheets in the wash,” Billy said, over the whir, the crackle, as the machine found a stash of crumbs. “You take the bed, I’ll have the sofa.”
“I’m not kicking you out of your bed, Billy.” Jet’s eyes returned to her screen, to the Google Street View of River Street, clicking up and down, hunting, a digital stalker. As though she might somehow find her phone there, hiding in the past, in the grass or the dirt.
“I like the sofa. Sometimes I sleep there anyway.”
Billy Finney was the worst liar. And this sofa was a piece of crap, lumps of springs digging into Jet’s thighs already.
He disappeared with the vacuum into the bedroom, kept it running as he reached for a can of deodorant, spraying it around the room, into every newly tidied corner. Coughing as he inhaled the fumes.
Jet smiled, kept her teeth to herself, started back at the top of River Street again.
More cursing from the bedroom, more rustling.
“Billy, stop worrying.” Again. It was hard to concentrate with all the worrying.
He reemerged, a small box in his hands. “Got this for Christmas last year. Never opened it.”
He opened it now, a green candle in a glass jar. A scent described as Cedar Delight. Billy placed it on the coffee table, grabbed a lighter from a kitchen drawer, and bent low to light the wick, the baby fire reflected in his glassy blue eyes.
“Lovely.” Jet grinned up at him. “I can see myself living here, for the rest of my life.”
Billy retracted his thumb, gave her a look.
“What? That’s funny.” Jet gave a gruff laugh, if he wouldn’t. Billy normally laughed at all of her jokes.
“I’ll just grab this,” he muttered, reaching for the photo frame that lived in the middle of the coffee table. It had been blocked by Jet’s screen before, but she saw it now as he picked it up. A woman with dark curly hair and glittering eyes, an ice cream melting over her fingers. Billy’s mom. Mrs. Finney. Beth. Three names for the same person. There was a boy in the photo too, same hair, same ice cream, same cool blue eyes. The Billy Jet knew best, about twelve years old. Billy averted his eyes and Jet averted hers too, pretending she hadn’t noticed, watching out the side of her eye as Billy took the photo and shut it away, on the top shelf in the closet.
“You don’t have to put everything away just because I’m here.”
“Oh,” he said, remembering something else to worry about. “I keep a spare key under the mat outside the front door. You should have it. I’ll get it for you.”
He got it for her, almost breathless when he arrived back at her side, putting the key down on the table, between her feet. His eyes caught her screen, mirrored it back.
“That’s the street where your phone was turned off?”
Jet nodded, craned to look at him, towering above her. “You know anyone who lives there?”
Billy chewed his lip. “Don’t think so. You think that’s where they live?”
“Well, they went straight there, after the attack,” Jet said. “Turned my phone off in this spot.” She pointed to the street view, where River Street passed North Street.
Billy thought about it. “Could have been on their way home, then realized it was a bad idea to do that with your phone still on. Doesn’t mean they live exactly there, right? Just that it was on the way.”
“Maybe.” Jet nodded. “So maybe they live north of town.”
That was a lot of maybe.
“What else do you have?”
Jet glanced at the scribbles in her open notebook, Billy following her eyes.
“Not a lot. The police think it’s JJ, I can tell.”
Billy bent lower, leaning on the back of the sofa, his head hovering over her shoulder.
“Do you think it’s JJ?”
“No. JJ’s not like that. But I’m trying to keep an open mind.” She paused. “Well…someone bashed it open for me.”
That one almost got a smile out of him, a lopsided twitch in his cheek. His eyes still didn’t look right, though: haunted, but also busy somehow, ever moving, too much going on behind them. He was the one who’d seen her dead—well, almost dead. Maybe that took a while to go away. Jet hadn’t had to see it, hadn’t had to live it after those first few seconds, but she wondered if her eyes looked haunted too. Felt like it, that deep pain behind her right eye, the dull ache and itch beneath the bandages. Not dull enough; she should take more codeine. At least Dr. Lee gave her the good stuff.
She winced.
“What’s wrong?” He bent even lower, to meet her eyes. “You need your painkillers? Food? I can make you something, anything you want.”
“Billy, it’s OK. Stop doing stuff for me.”
“I like doing stuff for you.”
He always had.
Billy was nine months older than her. Jet didn’t know a world he didn’t exist in. Always right there, next door.
Hey Billy, wanna ride bikes? I’ll race ya. Hey, did you let me win because I’m younger and smaller? Don’t let me win, Billy.
Hi Mrs. Mason, is Jet in? I found a frog and I need to show her. Jet loves frogs.
Only stopped when Jet turned fourteen, when Sophia became her best friend instead, took all Jet’s time and attention, because Billy couldn’t come over if Sophia was already there—that would have been weird, two worlds that didn’t mix. Jet and Billy had outgrown each other, no more bike races, no more frogs. Billy was right, though; Jet did love frogs. It was a fucking awesome frog.
A notification pinged up on her screen: low battery.
“Shit,” Jet said. “I need my—fuck sake, what’s that word? The white wire thingy?”
“Charger?”
“Yes!” Jet clapped him on the shoulder. “Charger, that’s it.”
“I’ll get it.” Billy straightened up, because he couldn’t not do stuff for her. For anyone, really. He was just like that, made like that. Jet was made a different way.
She pointed him toward the red backpack. “In there.”
“You got some mail here,” Billy said, digging through, pulling the envelopes out to reach the charger.
“Oh yeah. I was proving a point. Let me see.”
Jet lowered her feet to the floor, MacBook on the table, and took the letters out of Billy’s hands. The first was a red envelope, handwritten address. Jet flipped it over and ripped open the tab, while Billy moved his guitar case so he could reach the wall socket, plugging her ch-ch—white wire thingy in.
“It’s a card,” Jet said, pulling it out.
A white card, with a vase of flowers drawn on the front, in garish colors. Below the vase and its little shadow were the words: Get Well Soon.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
She held it up so Billy could see. He winced.
“Who’s it from?” he asked.
Jet opened it, scanned the handwriting inside.
“From Gerry Clay.”
“The village trustee guy?”
Jet nodded, clearing her throat to read aloud. “So sorry to hear about your accident. Accident, Gerry? It’s called premeditated murder. Sending all of our thoughts and prayers. Well, Gerry, you can shove your thoughts and prayers up your—”
“—What’s this one?” Billy asked, picking up the other envelope from her lap. “Looks official.”
Jet swapped the card for the letter. It did look official, her name and address in a type so neat it looked almost aggressive, through a thin plastic window. PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL in bold capitals across the top.
She ripped it open, pulled out the folded letter.
“Late Notice,” she said, reading it out. “Wait, what the fuck?”
“What is it?” Billy sat next to her, the sofa cushion dipping toward him.
“It’s from one of those online loan companies, LightFi. Dear Margaret Mason, you have defaulted on your monthly repayments for the secured loan detailed below.” Jet scanned the page. “What the fuck? Thirty grand?”
“What did you need thirty grand for?”
“I didn’t need thirty grand, Billy,” she said, the annoyance shifting to him. “I didn’t do this. This wasn’t me.” She pointed at the letter, to the series of numbers listed after Bank Account Number. “This isn’t my bank account. I didn’t get this money, didn’t take out any loan.” She read on. “As the loan was secured against the below personal asset, this will be seized unless we receive repayment…blah, blah, blah…or we will have to proceed with filing a lawsuit…wait, what asset?” She scanned lower. “Vehicle Ford F-150, 1986, registration: HB—that’s my truck!” Jet shook the letter, mouth falling open. “Someone took out a loan against my fucking truck, in my name!”
“You sure you didn’t—”
“—I think I’d remember getting and spending thirty grand, Billy. How many lattes and avocados do you think I buy?”
He nodded, taking her heat, cooling it down by blowing out his lip. “Then it’s identity fraud,” he said. “If someone took this out in your name. Spent that money.”
Jet slumped back against the sofa, forgetting about her broken head, hissing when the bandage made contact. “Talk about kicking me when I’m down.” She waved the letter, sharp edges carving through the Cedar Delight–scented air.
