Compulsion Read online

  8:20

  Eight plus two is ten minus eight is two. OK. Eight divided by two is four times eight is thirty-two minus eight is twenty-four minus eight is sixteen minus eight is eight minus two is six.

  The numbers spin in my head.

  “Eight twenty-one, people. Time’s up.” We pass our papers forward.

  8:21

  Eight plus two is ten plus one is eleven. OK. I watch the clock until it’s 8:21 and 59 seconds, then turn my back to it.

  Tick-tock.

  It’s like the tree-in-the-forest thing. If I can convince myself the clock isn’t there, then I don’t have to look at it. I don’t have to think about the numbers. Then my mind can rest.

  Math class can be a fucking nightmare.

  I don’t turn around for the rest of the period, even when somebody throws a balled-up paper at me. It ricochets off my desk onto the floor behind me. I hear giggles and Tanya’s soft voice. “Pick it up,” she purrs.

  I feel a familiar stirring and concentrate on Ramón the Chihuahua and blue-painted claws. It’s easier to imagine that when I look at her. But she has one of those husky voices that chicks usually have on the Spice Channel. And that’s hot. Really hot.

  Chihuahua Ramón. Chihuahua Ramón.

  I don’t pick up the note. I don’t have time to turn around and get stuck on the clock. Plus it’s about the most archaic way of sending notes ever. Can’t she just text me?

  I sigh and rub my temples, trying to semiconcentrate on Mr. Adams’s lecture about American industrial economy blah blah blah.

  During nutrition, I dodge the courtyard frenzy and hide out near my locker, gulping down Mom’s turkey sandwich, skimming through our assigned chapter in East of Eden. Mera walks down the hall toward me, hugging her violin case to her chest. I shove my nose into the book.

  I look for the words to—what’s the word? Transpire. Yeah. Transpire through her skin and fill the hallway. I bang on the side of my head. Christ.

  “Hey, Mera,” I say, not looking up.

  “Crazy morning.”

  “Yep.” Don’t look. Don’t look. Bad luck.

  I can feel her standing over me. Goddamnit. What did I say? What if she knows about me? I clear my throat. “Do you wanna at least sit down? You’re hovering.”

  “You’re in front of my locker.” Her voice is flat, detached.

  “Oh. Yeah. Um, sorry.” I move over and she takes out some books, pulling out East of Eden, reading aloud. Steinbeck’s words bounce off the lockers.

  I sigh. Relieved.

  “You are one of the rare people who can separate your observation from your preconception. You see what is, where most people see what they expect,” she says. Then she repeats it, saying it just a little louder.

  I look up and regret it instantly, because I can’t stop staring into her eyes. Hazel with flecks of gold. But like one of those store mannequins. Because her hair is so pale, it looks like she has no lashes, like Kasey’s dolls when she was a baby. Kasey used to pluck the lashes.

  I’m not usually into the makeup thing, but I think Mera should use mascara.

  “Huh?” I finally say, pulling my eyes away, staring at the floor and its zigzag design. Blue pentagons. White tiles. The hallway is a perfect geometrical symmetry of color and shapes. I like this hallway the most. It makes the most sense. I stare until the lines of color blur, then get sharp again. Seventeen times.

  “Page one hundred sixty-one. I like that line.” Mera’s voice cuts through my thoughts.

  “Sure,” I say. “Maybe.” One sixty-one. Six plus one is seven minus one is six. No. Six times one is six plus one is seven. OK. I skip to page 161 and find the line: You are one of the rare people who can separate your observation from your preconception. You see what is, where most people see what they expect. “What is,” I mutter, and think about Mera playing violin or running seven hours straight. That’s real, right?

  And the magic that sweeps away the sticky webs that cover my frontal lobe? The magic. Is that real?

  I shrug it off and take another bite of my sandwich and try to chew quiet. Hearing people eat sends Mom over the edge, so we’ve become masters at great silences at the table. No chips. And no pudding. She hates that squish, squish sound.

  One, two . . . seven, swallow. And again. Left side, right side. Balance. There’s time. Always.

  “You, um, want to sit down?” I ask.

  She moves to sit down, then stops. “What? The Great Jake lowers himself to my level? Does Magic Martin, the M&M, want to be seen sitting next to UNICEF?”

  “Ouch,” I say. “I don’t figure your orchestra-slash-band-slash-ultramarathon friends are too into my soccer accomplishments. So any reputation ruining will be bilateral.”

  “Touché,” she says, and laughs. She sits down—her stick-figure arms and legs collapsing at my side. She smells like gingerbread cookies. My stomach growls. “It’s a good book,” she says. She has a nice voice. I offer her half my sandwich and she pushes it away. “Vegetarian,” she says. “Not a pesca vegetarian or vegan. More lacto-no-ovo vegetarian.”

  “Huh?”

  “I eat dairy, no eggs though. Not into scrambled pre-embryos.”

  “Thanks for the visual,” I say.

  “Call it culinary consciousness.”

  “Sure. Whatever.” I swallow another bite of turkey sandwich, kind of relieved I’m not that socially, or food, conscious. “So that’s what the Stormtrooper getup was all about this morning?”

  She nods.

  “Wow. What do your parents think about the vegetarian thing?” On top of owning Hartman Meats on Carson Street, Mera’s dad is one of those champion big-game hunters, and half their house is decorated with stuffed animal heads. One of them is even an African antelope. She has four big brothers who smell like flanks of steak. Major carnivores.

  “Well, at first I tried to hide it. But you know how hard it is to hide something like that?”

  I clear my throat. “I can imagine.” I think for a bit. “So when’d you tell them? I mean, how?” If she told her big secret, maybe I could tell mine. But what do I have to tell? It’s not like anything’s really wrong with me.

  “When our dog, Max, choked on a chicken bone I fed to him during dinner and died, I told them.”

  “Uff,” I say, and try to stifle a laugh. “Sorry. Don’t mean to laugh. That’s, um, so sad.”

  “The irony is not lost on me,” she says. “It was a long time ago, anyway. Nobody can keep a secret that big for long. It’s bound to leak out.”

  “How do you still work at your dad’s? Isn’t that against some kind of lacto-no-ovo vegetarian principle?”

  “Yep. But my dad feels like I need a reminder of where my clothes, violin, and everything else he does for us financially comes from, so every now and again, I get to work in the shop. This morning was one of those days I needed that valuable reminder. So to answer your question: They think I’m weird.”

  “That sucks.”

  She laughs. “What about you?”

  I look at her. “What about me what?”

  “Do you think I’m weird?”

  “A little.” I nod.

  “Thanks.”

  I shrug. “Well, you asked.”

  “I did.”

  “You still watch the Home Shopping Network when you can’t sleep?” I ask.

  She cocks her head to the side. “Good memory.”

  I blush. “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Nah. Now it’s the Travel Channel. Or I play violin.” Dark rings circle her eyes.

  The notes from her violin music form in my head—her latest work. I wish I knew the name of it, that she’d play it here in the hallway. Now.

  I wonder if she knows how good she is. I almost tell her.

  “There’s gotta be more than Carson City, you know?” she says.

  I shrug. I’m not one of those get-out-of-Carson City types, and next year I’ll be sent away to some fucking college, probably end up rooming with t
he biggest slob on the planet who doesn’t keep his clock wound. My stomach burns, and I shake the thought away.

  What if I can do college correspondence?

  What if I could do my whole life correspondence?

  I’m seriously wacko.

  “Out of Carson?” I say. “Half the time I don’t even want to leave my room. But Anthony Bourdain’s show is good.” I can’t believe I admitted that to her, and I hold my breath.

  She raises her eyebrows. “Oh yeah, traveling and eating with a cynical bastard.”

  Exhale.

  “Two o’clock a.m.,” we both say. She smiles. She looks pretty when she smiles. Real pretty.

  “You still don’t sleep either?” she asks.

  “Good memory,” I say, and shrug. “Just lots on my mind, I guess.” Fucking numbers.

  “I guess.”

  She pulls out a sandwich. Sprouts and mushy white things stick out of the sides. It smells like onions and old socks. She takes a big bite. “Want some?” she asks between gulps.

  “Not a chance.”

  She laughs. We’re quiet. And I feel okay. Like her silence isn’t bursting with ugly words. Like we can just be, and having Mera sit next to me is a good thing.

  My mind is still.

  When we were little, Mera, Luc, and I built a fort in Luc’s backyard. And we’d all hang out there on Saturday mornings just doing kid shit. Like nothing in the world mattered. Mera would bring her violin and we’d invent songs. Luc would be lead ’cause he’s a really good singer. I’d write most of the lyrics with Mera and sing backup. He’d shit if anybody knew about the singing part.

  It all seemed easier back then. I guess when we’re little pretending is okay. But when we grow up, pretending is more like lying. I don’t know.

  “Remember the song game?” I ask.

  She looks up from the book and nods. “Yeah. I haven’t thought about that for a while.”

  “Today’s category: country-western song titles for every profession. I’ll start with butcher: ‘Stand By Your Ham’ or ‘Go-Lean.’ ” I half laugh and turn to Mera’s pale-eyed stare. “Well?” I ask.

  “Jake, we’re not twelve anymore, you know.” She tucks pale strands of hair behind her ear.

  I return to the hallway, the way things are, kind of wishing for then. “Yeah. I know. I just thought—”

  She shrugs and goes back to reading.

  I think about the line from the book again: You are one of the rare people who can separate your observation from your preconception. You see what is, where most people see what they expect. “It’s not about what’s real and what we expect to see,” I mutter. “I think it’s the doubting, the wondering about it all. Like how nothing makes sense unless—I dunno. Always doubting, wondering. What if—”

  Why don’t I just shut up? Now. Christ.

  Mera closes her book, picks at a hangnail, and waits. “What if what?” she asks.

  What if the numbers aren’t prime? Now that sounds crazy. I rub my eyes and pull my fingers through my hair. I know I’ve said too much, like a little part of me just hangs there in the hall. But it’s just Mera. UNICEF. Ultramarathon Mera, who has been categorized as social untouchable since seventh grade.

  She doesn’t matter. She’s not supposed to, anyway.

  “What if” doesn’t matter. It’s a kid game—a stupid thing I do. So I tuck that piece of me back inside—way down deep where nobody will see it. The magic is protected. Everything is right again.

  “Jake?” She looks at me hard—a long, blinkless stare. “I mean, this morning at the shop, during the rally. You seem—”

  Blink, I think. Just blink. And I count.

  She breaks my concentration saying, “The doubting?” Blink. Blink.

  “Christ, Mera, it’s nothing,” I say. The peaceful bubble fissures and explodes, and I feel like my chest is being compressed again; my airways are constricting. The tingling begins and explodes into my brain. I rub my temples and push on my forehead.

  I’ve been caught. She knows.

  Fucking Mera. I tap my pencil on the book and look back down the hallway at the patterns.

  “Do you talk about it?” she asks. “I mean, not with me. Do you, um, talk to Luc about this stuff?”

  Yeah, sure. Hey, Luc, did you know that it can take me up to two hours to leave the house some days because the numbers don’t work? That’s exactly what I want to talk to the ever-macho, ever-okay Luc about.

  I shove my books into my backpack. I can’t hear her words over the hammering in my ears. My breath quickens, so I count, bringing it back, keeping it cool. Tuck. Tuck. Tuck. Put the piece away.

  The bell rings and I jump up, relieved. I throw my backpack over my shoulder and hurry down the hallway toward English, feeling her eyes bore into the back of my neck. I guess I could’ve waited for her. Walked together. Sometimes I feel like a total asshole.

  But she breaks the magic. I need to stay focused for Saturday. I don’t have time to get caught up in what used to be and what is now. I can’t go back. I can’t look forward. I just need now. That’s all.

  I can feel Mera’s stare—like the prickle of hot sun on the back of my neck. I scratch it away.

  What if she knows about me?

  I shake my head. No way. Focus. Just focus. The game. Getting to class on time. Focus.

  I walk away, leaving her again.

  Twenty-nine The Future

  Thursday, 2:15 p.m.

  Two fifteen. Two plus one is three plus five is eight minus five is three. OK.

  Before practice Coach calls me aside, holding a copy of the tardy-notice letter Dad showed me this morning. I want to tell him he should photocopy it and send it to nine people or else his balls will fall off or something equally horrible if he breaks the chain. Keep the tardy chain going.

  But I like Coach too much to be a total smart-ass. And those are only thoughts.

  I pause and stare at him, waiting for a reaction.

  Good. I didn’t say it out loud.

  Just thoughts.

  Coach shows me the letter. “Martin, you can’t afford to be late again. Take this seriously.”

  Tick-tock, tick-tock.

  I nod, my body itching to get out there and run. Get the release. When I’m out there, the spiders disappear.

  “Jake,” he says, “Principal Vaughn doesn’t mess around. He’s here and ready to prove a point—no exceptions. Eight tardies and you’re benched—state final on Saturday or not. Don’t mess it up.”

  “I won’t, Coach.” Only one day of school left before the final game anyway. I only have to be on time one more day. That won’t be hard.

  Coach is still talking, so I start counting his words, my mind racing to keep up.

  “You’re the best team player we’ve got. Scouts . . . college scholarships . . . teamwork . . . Martin, are you listening?”

  “A hundred seventy-three.”

  “A hundred seventy-three what?” Coach asks.

  Numbers. Words. One hundred seventy-three. One plus seven is eight plus three is eleven. OK.

  “Okay. Just—yeah, I’m there, Coach. You can count on me.”

  “We need you here,” Coach says. “Now.”

  “Is there any other place?”

  He smiles. “Okay then,” he says. “Get out there and let’s have a good practice.”

  We group up seven-on-seven to play short-sided, practicing skills, going over plays. The fog melts away, the itching disappears. The field is a crisp, glossy photo—the kind in which every blade of grass is in macrofocus. Everything is clear, and the only thing I have to worry about is getting around a few guys who don’t know their asses from their elbows, tripping over themselves to stop me.

  But they can’t.

  It’s a dance. I flick the ball around Kalleres, push past Keller. Diaz comes forward. He’s the best fucking goalie in Nevada—but not good enough. So I lob the ball over a stunned Diaz, who’s stranded on the edge of the area, prepared for a p
ower kick. It floats into the net like it was filled with helium, pausing in the air before dropping to the ground with the earth’s gravitational pull.

  It’s magic out here. This is my fairy tale, my Neverland. No tick. No tock. Just me, the ball, and the goal.

  After Saturday, it has to end. Because Saturday is the magic number three. Everything I’ve done has built up to this because it’s my thirteenth year of school, third championship, the end of the cycle, the beginning of real life. We’re playing the game on Saturday, November 5. Saturday is the seventh day of the week. November is the eleventh month. Seven plus eleven is eighteen plus five is twenty-three.

  The game is at three o’clock in the afternoon.

  Perfect.

  When we win, everything will be okay. The spiders will go away, the shimmering white light of migraines and drilling pain in my temples will disappear. Saturday will be magic.

  I’ll get to keep that magic with me forever because I did it right.

  We’ll all live happily ever after.

  “Practice is over!” Coach hollers across the field. “Give Diaz a break already.”

  “Three more,” I say between breaths, and power in three more goals—left, right, left. All get past Diaz. He doesn’t even try. “C’mon, man,” I say.

  “I’m wrecked, Martin. Christ, it’s like you’re some kind of goddamned Energizer bunny.” I pull him up. “Nice scoop back there. I never expected that. Mierda.” He pulls off his goalie gloves and almost bowls me over with the stench.

  “Can’t you wash those things?”

  “Not all season, M&M. These babies get me through the game.”

  “Probably because they can block on their own,” I say.

  “Dude, why do you think we win?”

  “Magic,” I say, laughing. Diaz smirks. Magic. We all have a little bit of it.

  Luc sleeps with his uniform on the night before a game. Keller never washed the socks he wore in our first championship win three years ago and has them buried in his backyard under a weird shrine he has to Lionel Messi—an autographed soccer ball he got when he saw Messi play in Barcelona.