The Gatekeepers by Jen Lancaster
“Do we try the bluff or somewhere else first, like her house?” I ask, more to myself than to Kent. We sit in my driveway for what seems like a lifetime, but in all actuality, it’s about thirty seconds. “Screw it, we’ll head to the bluff.”
I gun the car and arrive at the scenic overlook in minutes, but there’s no sign of either of them. I didn’t think she’d stick around, but I’d hoped. “Where does she live?” I ask. “Maybe we can retrace her steps if she’s on her way home?”
“Cottonwood Avenue. Spruce Street seems like it would be the most direct route to Cottonwood, let’s try that,” he says.
“On it.”
I take the corner at Lake Ave so fast that I can feel one of the LR4’s wheels leave the ground and we tilt dangerously to the side. Kent grasps the Oh, Jesus bar over his head, all the blood having rushed from his face. He doesn’t complain, possibly because he’s too terrified to speak. His knuckles are white as he braces himself between the dashboard and the passenger side door, stomping hard on the imaginary brake pedal.
We careen around town like this for another fifteen minutes until Kent finally suggests, “We might have a better chance of spotting her if we don’t go Mach 10. Like, what if we don’t drive your car like we stole it?”
He makes a valid point, especially since the sun’s gone down. Simone’s been all about dark colors lately, so she might be lost in the shadows if we zip by too quickly.
“How fast is Mach 10?” I ask.
“About seventy-six hundred miles per hour. I mean, Mach 6 or 7, sure, that’d be great for our purposes, but I feel like Mach 10 is pushing it.”
I shoot him some side-eye. “How do you feel about me driving twenty miles an hour, Miss Daisy?”
He nods vigorously. “I feel real good about it.”
After I slow down, Kent releases his kung-fu grip. I glance at his profile and realize there’s something extrafamiliar about him. He reminds me of someone.
“Hey, Kent, has anyone ever told you that you look like—”
He interrupts me, his tone terse. “Like Farmer Ted, the kid in the oxford from Sixteen Candles? Um, yeah, a million times. And no, I’m not going to scream JAAAAAKE for you, so don’t ask.”
I was going to say the nerdy kid in The Breakfast Club, but same diff. But I feel like Kent could use a win today, so I say, “Actually, no. You look like a younger version of the guy who plays Owen Hunt on Grey’s Anatomy. Kevin McKidd?”
Kent visibly straightens up in his seat and the corners of his mouth twitch up into the grin he’s trying to suppress. “Oh. Yeah, I like him. He’s kind of a badass. He was great in Trainspotting.”
I say, “Never seen it. What’s it about?”
“A bunch of guys on heroin.”
“Oh. Then it’s apropos for today.”
Now Kent gives me the side-eye. “You have a twisted sense of humor, Mallory.”
I wasn’t trying to be funny.
I slow to fifteen miles an hour and we cruise up and down the quiet streets of North Shore. Everyone’s already decorated for the holidays and it’s like a winter wonderland up here, with all the giant lights and the urns full of decorative pine branches. The moment it snows, the whole town will be transformed into a Currier & Ives greeting card. I can’t wrap my mind around how anything bad can happen in a place so besotted with beauty and perfection, yet here we are.
“So...how’s Noell?” I ask, crawling along, eyes peeled for Simone. My anxiety level is ratcheting up higher and higher the longer it takes us to find her. This whole situation is as fucked-up as a soup sandwich. How did we even get here? How did Liam go so off the rails? He should be going through, like, fraternity rush, not withdrawals.
“I’m sorry, what?” Kent says, looking at me as though I’ve just sprouted a supplemental head.
I explain, “I’m a nervous talker. I need frivolous conversation right now. I need banal stories about how high school should be, you know, with sock hops and soda fountains.”
“Sock hops? Did you drive so fast we broke the space-time continuum and it’s suddenly the 1950s? Have we gone back to the future?”
“Fine, sock hops are a bad example.” I clutch the wheel. “I just need to escape reality for a minute. In an alternate universe, you and I? We’re in a movie montage, decorating the gym for the Christmas formal. We’re caroling dressed like people in a Dickens novel. Or we’re having a flour fight while we ice sugar cookies. Maybe there’s frosting on my nose. That’s where we should be. We’re not supposed to be tracking down a girl who’s been abused by her smacked-out boyfriend. Who may or may not be so triggered by the event, who may be so upset, so fragile that she reflects on her good friend’s suicide and suddenly sees it as a viable option. So I need you to distract me because I am freaking right the fuck out.”
“Oh, if you’re gonna put it like that, then Noell’s the best. She’s awesome. We’re totally in luff.” He folds his hands over his heart and sighs, his face wreathed in smiles.
I glance toward him. “Aw, happy endings give me life.”
“No,” he says, scowling and dropping his hands to his lap. “I was being facetious. I didn’t get a happy ending. She dumped me when I needed her most after Stephen. You didn’t notice she was never at a Gatekeepers meeting? Said she couldn’t handle it. Said it was ‘too real,’ whatever that means. She’s banging Weston now.”
I cluck my tongue. “Typical. She’s perpetually trading up.”
Kent mumbles, “Love life advice from Mallory. And I thought today couldn’t get any better.”
“Listen, I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, just pouring the tea,” I explain. “Noell falls out of love as quick and easy as she falls into it. Sorry you didn’t know that. I feel like the relationships you don’t have to work to establish aren’t worth having. Plus, I always say the secret to love is less about who you meet, and more about when you meet.”
Kent’s expression is stony. “Please share more of your clichéd wisdom, it’s really boosting my self-esteem.”
“My point is, you can do better. Set your sights on someone less attainable. Ultimately, you’ll be more satisfied.”
He snorts audibly, but offers no explanation.
We drive on in silence, heads on a swivel, cruising up and down the streets we think Simone may have taken.
“You mind if I turn on the radio?” Kent asks. “I can hear myself think and I need that to stop.”
“Knock yourself out. Wait, do you know how to work the controls? Lemme show you.”
I reach for the radio, but he waves my hand away.
“Um, Mallory, I just got early decision to Princeton. For Physics? I can explain derivations within String Theory. Pretty sure I can figure out your stereo.” He smirks.
I inadvertently kick the brakes and we both lurch forward. “Whoa, hold up, you already heard from Princeton? You’re in?”
“Yeah, but it’s my safety school.”
Princeton is his safety? FML.
I say, “I thought Princeton only lets you apply for early decision if you’re sure you want to go there.”
“The Ivies are all different, but with Princeton, you’re allowed to apply anywhere with nonbinding admission. I’d planned on MIT, but now without Stephen... Eh, I don’t know, I’m not into it anymore. I mean, Princeton was good enough for Richard Feynman, right?”
“Did he go to North Shore?”
Kent snorts. “That’d be a no. He won the Nobel Prize for his work in subatomic particles. Yeah, he did his undergrad at MIT, but a lot of Nobel Prize winners were Tigers first. You know, their mascot? There’s Stephen Weinberg, John Bardeen, Arthur Compton, Clinton Davisson... I’m sure I’m forgetting some. Anyway, you’re hoping for Princeton? Majoring in? I’m assuming physics is off the table, what with your nonexistent knowledge
“Definitely. I’m looking at finance or economics.”
“Cool. What would you do with that degree?”
“Investment banking.”
“Huh.”
“What huh? What do you mean by huh?” I demand.
“I dunno. Feels like you’d be better working with people, like as a psychologist or therapist or something.”
Hearing the truth spoken from such an unexpected source gives me pause. While it’s not at all the same, this reminds me of the time Braden, Theo, and I were at the mall. I told them I’d seen a dress in a magazine and I wanted to try it on. I didn’t say where I was going; I’d just planned to text them when I was done. But when I came out of the fitting room, Braden was sitting right there waiting for me. I was all, ‘How’d you know where I’d be?’ He pointed to the mannequin in the window and said, ‘That dress has lemons on it. You love anything with a lemon print. Knew this was the place.’
I steal a glance at Kent. Have I been missing something here?
Kent begins to fiddle with the dashboard, first activating the seat heaters and then the hazard lights.
“Earn yourself a scholarship to Princeton, didya?” I ask, stifling a laugh. “You know, I’m happy to help you, the sound system’s more complex than it appears.”
“I’ll figure it out,” he says.
He turns another knob.
“And now we’re in four-wheel drive,” I say, pulling over briefly to put the car back into two-wheel drive. As I ease onto the road, he touches a few more controls.
“You hot there, pal? You just flipped on the AC.”
Kent exhales heavily out of his nose. “Mallory, will you please turn on the radio for me?”
I hit the switch and music begins to play. “I have satellite radio. You scan up or down using these buttons,” I say, and then I give him a quick tutorial on the various functionalities, concluding with, “...and this one controls the volume.”
He monkeys around with the stereo, jumping from station to station until he finds what he’s looking for. Suddenly, the car’s reverberating with the sounds of old, terrible gangster rap.
“All of that effort for this?” I ask, wrinkling my nose in distaste.
“What have you got against classic hip-hop?” he asks.
“What do you have for it?” I counter.
“Let’s see...um, everything?”
“It’s just noise. Everyone swearing and throwing around the n-word.”
“Oh, you could not be more wrong, Mallory,” he says, so disgusted that he curls his lip. Curls his lip! At me! I invented the lip curl. I made the lip curl happen, not him.
“Then educate me.”
“Okay, take this band, for example? Public Enemy is arguably one of the most important musical acts of all time. Chuck D., the lead singer? He’s not swearing and ‘throwing the n-word around.’” His expression is that of total disdain. I think I’ve offended him and, for some reason, that kind of bothers me.
He continues his explanation. “He’s as much a philosopher as he is an artist. His music spoke to a generation and a group of people who’d never had their struggles represented before. His words brought the disenfranchised together, let ’em know their stories deserved to be heard. And he encouraged activism—not through violence, but through social change.”
“Huh.” I’m unsure how to respond to that, less because I can’t negate his point, and more because I can’t recall the last time someone challenged me. “What’s this song called?”
“‘Fight the Power.’”
I snicker. “‘Fight the Power’? Um, I hate to break it to you, pal, but you’re a white male from North Shore on his way to the Ivy League. You are the power.”
“You think I don’t know that?” he replies. “Like that thought never occurred to me?”
“Seems pretty hypocritical is all.”
He clucks his tongue at me. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
“Okay, present your argument, like we learned in Mr. Canterbury’s debate class. Hit me with your best case for why you’re not all hypocritical for listening to this music, I would really like to know.”
His expression is...smug?
He says, “Easy. What I connect with, what I understand, what moves me so much about this particular song is Chuck D.’s anger. He is pissed off at how the world is. But he’s not all enraged and unfocused. He channels his feelings into a message. That’s why it’s so powerful. See, it’s his intention to educate everyone about what’s going wrong and what’s unfair and unjust to make positive change.”
“I don’t know his music, but I’m guessing you’re not the one being targeted by what’s unfair. You do watch the news on occasion, yes? Catch the Daily Show? Do you even read Twitter hashtags?”
“Listen, Mallory, I can’t claim to know what it’s like to be hassled for the ‘crime’ of walking down the street in a hoodie.” He plucks at his own hoodie beneath his jacket for emphasis. “For those who are hassled? That’s bullshit. Their lives matter. And, yeah, I do watch the news and it’s enraging. The comments sections everywhere are even worse, makes you wanna weep for humanity sometimes. I’m not trying to co-opt what Chuck D’s audience is going through, to be something I’m not, acting all, ‘Me, too, my brother,’ from the comfort of my parent’s six-bedroom, three-car-garage home.”
I reply, “Then I give you an A-plus for checking your privilege. Still, don’t you feel like kind of a poseur, hearing these guys rap about how hard life is on the streets? When you live here?”
I point out the ten thousand-square-foot Georgian manor we’re driving past, where fifteen landscapers in cherry pickers are putting the finishing touches on the tall trees’ holiday lighting scheme.
I add, “How do you relate to all that old Bloods and Crips stuff when the biggest beef up here is Brooks Brothers versus Vineyard Vines? Where the neighborhood planning associations send out letters stating No coloreds, meaning white holiday lights only, without any clue exactly how offensive, like, how tone-deaf this directive comes across?”
“Then strip away the specific actions and words—just examine the feelings.”
I look over at him. “I don’t follow.”
“Break down not what Chuck D.’s saying, but why he’s saying it and what’s behind it. Like, I understand the feeling of being trapped by circumstances. Granted, my circumstances are way different up here in North Shore, but feeling like I don’t control my own destiny rings true. Look at how we live right now, all the bullshit hoops we jump through daily —how much of that’s by choice? Have you ever been mad about how things are? Felt desperate? Needed to escape to a place where things are different? Wanted to make the world better? I get it. Don’t you? Aren’t these feelings what ultimately consumed our friends? Aren’t we in the Gatekeepers to address them?”
I nod and he continues. “When things are bad, when it’s all too much—and it’s been way too fucking much lately—I put on my headphones and I listen to my music so loud that it makes my teeth vibrate. I’m talking about a baseline that rattles my vertebrae. And then I feel better. Like a little bit of that pressure escapes and my lid’s not gonna blow anymore. Because someone else has been here before. Not here here,” he points to another mansion, “but metaphorical here.” He points to his chest.
Okay, so I get it now. I fight the urge to not ruffle Kent’s hair, so instead I say, “You just won your debate.”
“Not surprised. I’m a really smart guy. Got in to Princeton, you know.”
All conversation stops when we think we’ve spotted Simone going down Arbor Cove Lane, but it’s a false alarm.
“Stairs,” I say.
He cocks his head. “What? Stairs? Is this a word game? Am I supposed to say something random? How about—potato. Inde
“When it’s too much for me, I run the stairs in the stadium. Over and over, until I’m ready to drop.”
“Do you like doing that?”
No one’s ever asked me that before. So I answer him honestly. “Not particularly.”
Kent sits with this information for a moment. “Tom Skilling’s predicting snow later this week. You can’t run the stairs in the snow. I’ll put a playlist for you on Spotify, if you want to try something different, something that won’t give you shin splints. Who knows? Ice Cube may work better for you than cardio.”
I can feel my lips curve into a smile. “I’d like that.”
He smiles back.
I tell him, “Fingers crossed Princeton takes me, too. If we’re there together, we should hang out.”
Kent’s whole face lights up before he catches himself and tries to play it off. “It’s a date. See you in September.”
“Easy there, it’s not a date date,” I caution him. “Don’t get the wrong idea. You’re just a worthy adversary...and a decent friend.”
“Okay,” he replies affably. After a long pause, he adds, “Yet by your logic, you’re exactly who I should aspire to be with, right? Did you not ten minutes ago tell me to set my sights on someone unattainable? Yes or no?”
“Is shut up an option?” I ask.
He laughs. “No, it’s not. All I’m saying is, who’s less attainable than you? Don’t flatter yourself, I’m not saying you’re what I want. I’m only going by your own logic, which points to you being the right person for me, the highest-hanging apple on the tree. Way I see it, you have to either agree that we’d be perfect together or admit that your theory on dating is wrong. I’m comfortable with both eventualities, although I’d prefer to have been right.”
I glance over at him again. Between the play of shadow and light, he sort of looks his age in here, which surprises me. Is it possible he’s not going to get carded for PG-13 movies his whole life?
If so, how would I feel about that? I’ve gone the perfect-guy route and it did not work out. What if I opened myself up to interesting, to quality? The last time I had my chance to do just that I didn’t and I’ll forever regret it.