Bang by Lisa McMann
She continues. “So I’ll need a ride to O’Hare Airport while Mom and Dad are at mass.” She’s never flown before, and she says it like she’s bored.
“Impeccable timing. When do you come back?”
“I’ll be back Friday before dinner service. You’re welcome.”
I laugh. Sometimes Rowan just leaves me speechless. “Okay,” I say. “What do you want me to, like, say to Mom and Dad when they get home from mass to find their youngest child missing? I mean, can I tell them the truth? Are you going to give me all the information about where you’ll be and stuff?”
“I’ll have my cell phone with me. That’s all they need to know. But yeah, I’ll give you the address and stuff too in case Charlie is secretly an ax murderer. But don’t give it to them. Please.” She licks her pinkie and smooths her eyebrows, then deposits the tweezers back into her bag as I turn down the alley behind our home and park a few buildings away so nobody sees me—I don’t want my dad to force me to come inside. “Maybe we can talk tonight.” She gets out and waves, then saunters down the alley toward the restaurant like she owns the world.
And I totally want to be her.
• • •
I meet Trey and Sawyer at the library. They’re up in the loft on the corner couches where you can see everyone approaching but still have a private conversation. I plop down next to Sawyer, kick off my shoes, and curl up into him, and he slips an arm around my shoulders and kisses the top of my head. And I feel like this exact moment right here, this feeling of warmth and love, is what I have been waiting for my entire life.
Trey watches us. He smiles a small smile and doesn’t look away. And then he sighs and leans forward, elbows on his knees, and says, “All right. Number one: Nobody here gets hurt.” At first I think he must have new information from Sawyer that I haven’t heard yet, but then I realize it’s a command.
Sawyer nods. “I hear you, bro. We hear you. No crazy stunts. No matter what.”
“Of course,” I agree.
While I was gone, Sawyer filled Trey in on a few of the minor but important details—the tree, the grass, the tiny stop sign, the old building with ivy on it.
I pull the note Sawyer gave me this morning out of my pocket and hold it out. “We need to destroy this or something,” I say. “Yours, too.”
Sawyer pulls his note out and takes mine. “We have a shredder in the office. I’ll take care of it. From now on, only verbal communication, and we don’t talk about g-u-n-s in school. Does Trey know about your secret phone?”
Trey raises an eyebrow.
“It’s just a temporary throwaway,” Sawyer says. “Don’t bother trying to text her.”
I give Trey my new cell number and watch him enter it into his phone. “Sawyer, can you get away from the proprietors long enough to drive by some schools? The list is in your hand—can you memorize them before you shred that?”
“Yeah,” Sawyer says. “I’ll drive around tonight and tomorrow morning before school.” He looks at the addresses. “Some of these are way out there.”
“Are you safe to drive?”
“So far.” Sawyer squinches his eyelids shut and rubs them. “The vision keeps playing in the windows down there, though, and it’s giving me a headache.” He points to the wall of glass on the main floor below us. “And in the face of that clock.” There’s an old school clock on the wall opposite our couch.
“What about your windshield and mirrors?” I ask, worried, knowing how distracting that is, and how much worse it could be for Sawyer going out into city traffic.
“Not bad,” he says lightly. “But . . . things are getting worse. The noise is driving me insane. I think—I feel like it’s happening very soon.”
Trey lifts his head. “I’ll go with you to look at schools,” he says. “I’ll drive.”
I bite my lip. I want to go, but I haven’t been pulling my weight at the restaurant. “That’s a great idea,” I say. I glance outside and then at the clock. “Maybe you guys should go now before it gets dark. Do the close ones. It’s rush hour.”
Trey gets up and blows out a sigh. “If we’re going to do this, let’s do it hard, fast, and often.”
“Dot-com,” I mutter, getting up. “Okay, be safe.” I give them each a hug. “Talk it through from the beginning, maybe. Trey might have some good questions that will trigger something—anything—about day, time, place. Maybe identifying features of the . . . ” I almost say “shooters,” but now I’m scared to use the word. “Bad guys,” I say. And that triggers my memory. “Oh,” I say, turning to Sawyer. “Can you zoom in on a close-up of the, ah, weapon and the whiteboard? I’m not sure if the weapon’s information will help anything, but I thought of it earlier when Officer Bentley was at school. I could see a logo on his. Is there a way to trace something like that? Or, like, figure out how many bullets a . . . thing . . . can shoot just by looking at it?”
Sawyer looks at me with this face dotted with little hints of surprise—in his eyes, the corners of his lips. “Good one, gorgeous,” he says. “I’ll check them both out in slo-mo tonight when I get home and I’ll call you.”
Big sigh.
And a question. Why does danger make love so much more intense?
Twenty
I hit the computers after Trey and Sawyer are gone so I can do my tree research, and my best guess is that the bush-tree in Sawyer’s vision is a redbud. I pay to print a few pages of examples and take off. I make it home before five and get to the restaurant early to help set up for dinner.
“How was your tree research?” Dad booms when I glide through the kitchen. He looks good today. Clean shaven, a smile on his face. At school a few hours ago I thought he might have killed himself, but staring at him now, it’s hard to imagine he’s ever depressed.
“Good. Successfully identified a redbud tree. But teachers are hitting hard with assignments. I’m going to have to spend more time at school and at the library, where I can use decent computers.” I cringe, hoping he doesn’t see that as a slam, because it’s just a fact. Our computer sucks. And I need to establish that I’m going to be gone more. But bringing up chess club again is a bad idea.
He lets it go. Even makes a joke about typewriters. Today he is my favorite kind of dad. I realize just how seldom this dad comes out these days, and I wonder what triggers it. When I catch a glimpse of Rowan, I know my dad’s up days are numbered. As soon as he realizes what she’s doing, it’s going to be shitty again.
Part of me wants to tell them what she’s up to. But I can’t. I owe her. I owe her big, and she is well aware of that. In fact, she probably planned it that way. I shake my head and watch Rowan with new respect. She arrives on time every day. She kisses Mom and Dad on the cheek when she sees them, and greets Tony the cook like he’s family. She tells them just enough about her day that they never say “You never tell us anything” to her. She treats everyone with respect and she’s the one who gets the most customer love on the restaurant comment cards.
And it’s all a big screen. A ruse. Well, that’s not really fair to say, because she truly is a thoughtful, respectful, punctual person. But she also knows how to use her strengths to her advantage, and when she goes to New York, Mom and Dad are going to be absolutely gobsmacked—they’ll never see it coming. Because if anything, Mom and Dad are looking at me to be the one to disappoint them again.
She’s a freaking genius.
• • •
With Dad working at 100 percent tonight, Mom sends all three of us upstairs early. I grab Trey and drag him into his room, which is mildly messy. He has posters of famous people on his walls and weird gadget-like stuff between the books on his bookshelves.
I close the door. “Well?”
“Nothing. We got to three of the schools on your list before dark, and I thought of another one on the way home, but none of them looked right.”
I flop down on his unmade bed. “Crap.”
“He’s picking me up at dark thirty and we’re going to
“Ugh, that’s going to be horrible at that hour.”
He shrugs and sits next to me. “We don’t have a choice. He thinks we’re running out of time.”
We both lie back on the bed and stare at his ceiling. “Anything new?”
“Still no. I asked him some questions that he thought he could find answers to in the vision.” He sighs.
“Thanks for doing that.”
“No, it’s cool. He’s a great guy.”
I smile and look over at his face. “You sure you’re not in love with him?”
That gets a laugh. “I’m in love with something, I guess, but not Sawyer, though I still think he’s a total hottie. I guess I’m in love with this cute little relationship thing you guys have.” His lingering smile is wistful. “And, like, you know, Rowan and . . . what’s his name?”
“Charlie.”
“Yeah, Charlie. I heard more about him the other day when I drove Rowan home. Seems like they’ve got something good too.”
My throat catches a little. “You’ll have it too. You will. I mean, maybe just not in high school. Maybe college. For sure college—things will be better.”
He folds his hands behind his head. “I hope so, Jules. I really do.”
There’s a soft knock at his door.
“Come in,” he hollers.
Rowan peeks her head in. “Hi. I heard my name and came running.” She comes in and closes the door. She wrinkles up her nose and sniffs tentatively as she surveys Trey’s mild clutter, and then she approaches the bed.
I sit up and shove Trey over so Rowan can sit too. “The only way you could have heard your name is if you were standing with your ear pressed against the door.”
“It was a short run,” she says agreeably.
My eyes grow wide and meet Trey’s alarmed look. What else did she hear?
She sits down and lies back on the bed next to me. “So, guys,” she says. “Isn’t it about time you fill me in on this whole vision thing?”
Twenty-One
“Um,” Trey says.
“Um,” I say, and then add in a weak voice, “What?” I lie back down again.
She sighs. “Oh, please. Just come out with it already.” She looks at her cell phone clock. “I’m leaving in a few days.”
“Maybe we should talk about that,” Trey says.
“Nice try.” She sits up and scoots back so that she can lean against the wall between Trey’s posters of Johnny Depp and Adele.
I tilt my head back so I’m looking at Rowan upside down. “What exactly do you think you know?”
“Well, I know you have a phone, I know you talk to Sawyer at night when you think I’m sleeping, I know somebody’s having a vision of some kind of . . . shooting, and you all seem to think you have to do something about it.”
Trey snorts and sits up. “Well, that about sums it up, Ro.” He shakes his head, laughing. “Thank you and good night, everyone—I’ve got an early morning, so, uh, Jules? You wanna take this one in your office?”
I just stare dumbfounded at Rowan.
“Oh!” Trey adds, standing and fishing inside the pocket of his jeans. He pulls out a familiar key chain. “Just remembered. Great news. Dad says it’s time to start advertising at school again.” He gives me a patronizing smile and hands the keys to the new meatball truck to me. “Don’t crash it. Have a ball.”
“Har har. Don’t forget my ten bucks,” I mutter, taking the keys, and then I get up and shuffle toward the door, dragging Rowan by her pajama collar. “Come on, you little weasel,” I say. “Girls’ quarters. Immediately.”
Mom and Dad are still in the restaurant. Ro and I go into our room and close the door. Rowan pulls her terry cloth robe from the closet, rolls it up, and presses it against the crack under the door as a sound barrier. I stand at the closet, take off my clothes, and put on some booty shorts and my “Peace, Love, Books” shirt, which I got from this dope bookshop called Anderson’s. Ever since the visions, I started wearing it to bed because it made me feel calm, and bed plus calm equals sleep. Which I can always use more of.
Rowan turns out the light so when our parents come upstairs there’s no chance of them seeing any light through the door cracks and barging in, and we climb into her bed. I lie on my side and sling my arm over her waist like I used to do when we were younger, and we talk about what the hell she’s about to do.
“I guess I want to meet him,” I say. I feel like the mom.
She’s quiet for a moment. “Well, come to the library during second hour, then. Tomorrow. I’m always in that little study room with the door shut.”
“I have class.”
Rowan sighs. “Honestly, Jules. You’re supposed to be the bad child.”
“What, you want me to skip class? They’ll call home.”
“Not if you have a note from Mom.”
“Right, and that’ll be easy.”
“Oh, Jules. Tsk.”
“What, you forge her signature too? Do you even go to class at all?”
“I’m pretty good at it, actually.”
I shake my head in Rowan’s pillow and almost laugh. “One day you are going to get so busted.”
“Nope,” she says. “Because I have you taking the focus away.”
“At least you admit it.”
“Why wouldn’t I? I’m nothing if not grateful.”
I pinch her upper inner arm in the soft spot that hurts about fifty times more than it should, and she stifles a yelp and jabs her elbow into my boob.
“Ow, loser,” I mutter.
We nurse our injuries. “Okay, fine,” I say. “Write me a note and I’ll find you.”
“In my mind it’s already written,” she says.
“Okay, Gandhi.”
“That was Yoda.”
“Not even close.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a little young for Star Wars.”
“You’re a little young for having a long-distance boyfriend.”
“You’re a little young for stalking a serial killer.”
“It—he—they’re not serial killers,” I say. “It’s a school shooting.” I spend the next ten minutes giving her the whole explanation of the past months, including my crash vision and how everything happened with that, and everything that’s now happening with Sawyer.
And she just listens and doesn’t seem surprised or incredulous or anything. All she says is “I wonder what the shooters’ motivation is?”
“So you believe it?” I ask.
“Why wouldn’t I? You, Trey, and Sawyer can’t all be nuts.”
What a relief.
Later, when I’m in my own bed, falling asleep while waiting for Sawyer to call me, Rowan whispers, “Jules?”
I open my eyes and stare at the blinking neon light on the wall. “Yeah?”
“You said Sawyer thinks it’s happening soon, right? And the weather forecast has the snow gone by early next week?”
“Yeah.”
“Next week is spring break for all public schools around here. Nobody’s in school. Every classroom in Chicago will be empty.”
My heart clutches and I suck in a breath. And then my pillow starts vibrating.
Twenty-Two
“Hey,” Sawyer says, his voice a husky whisper that slides down my spine. “Sorry it’s so late. Did I wake you?”
“No, Rowan and I were just talking.”
“Hi from me.”
I look up and see Rowan propped up on one elbow in the dim light. “He says hi.”
She grins, and then falls back on her bed and puts her pillow over her face and says, muffled, “Go ahead and do your oogy talk, I can’t hear you.”
I breathe out a laugh and put my mouth against the phone again. “Rowan knows,” I say.
He hesitates. “Um, okay . . . ?”
“She was onto us for a while. Don’t worry, she’s good with it. And she just discovered something big for us.”
“Oh. Well, in that case, cool. What?”
“If this thing happens early next week, or anytime next week, it won’t happen at a public school because we’re all on spring break at the same time.”
He’s silent, and for a minute I think I lost the connection. And then, “Well. Damn. How did we not think of that?”
“Fresh ears and eyes are good,” I say, remembering. “And don’t worry about her. She keeps more secrets than a tomb.”
“I’m not worried,” he says, and his voice totally has me convinced that he’s got this whole thing under control. But I know better.
“So that leaves private schools?” he asks.
“That seems to be the logical conclusion, though I imagine some of them have the same spring break as us.”
“How many private schools are there?”
“I’m not sure. But instead of wasting time in the morning going to check out the two public schools you were planning to look at, maybe we three can meet somewhere to do research?”
“Four,” Rowan says, still muffled.
“I thought you couldn’t hear me,” I whisper.
“What?” Sawyer says.
“Nothing. I mean, Rowan wants to help, if it’s cool with you.”
“Hell yes. I’ll take all the help I can get. Meet me at the coffee shop, North and Twenty-Fifth. Five thirty?”
“Sure.” I turn to Rowan. “You’re in. We’re leaving here at five fifteen in the morning. Don’t be late.”
She lifts her arm from the blankets and gives a thumbs-up.
I turn away from her and face my wall. “We’re going to figure this out,” I say, softer.
He’s quiet. I picture him in his bed, nodding.
“Jules,” he whispers.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
I smile. “Sure.”
“Jules?”
“Yeah?”
“I wish you were here with me so I could hold you.”
My eyes close and a wave of longing rises through me. I remember middle school and my Sawyer pillow. “Hold your pillow. Pretend it’s me. I’m here. Right here with you.”