Rona Jaffe - Mazes and Monsters

“Nobody killed whatever went into this hamburger,” Robbie said. “It died of natural causes.”

“In this place I can believe it.”

Robbie reached across the table and took her hand. “Kate … I’m not the kind of person who hurts other people. I might do something stupid by accident, but I would never lie to you.”

“I don’t think you would.”

“You don’t act like that’s a very big plus.”

She was playing with his fingers. “People seem to think telling the truth is such a big deal,” she said. “Like you should get a medal for it. There are a lot of things people would never want to hear, never, but other people don’t think about that because it’s so worthy to be honest. ”

“I know.”

“I was going with someone last year,” she said. “He told me he wanted to move on. He was being honest. I didn’t like hearing it.”

“I guess that hurt.” He wanted to give her something, tell her something bad that had happened to him too, as a way of sharing and making her feel less alone. “I’ll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me,” he said. “I have this older brother, Hall junior, my only brother actually. He’s three years older than I am, and he’s terrific. But he used to fight a lot with my parents. They never got along at all. He ran away when he was fifteen, and my dad sent the cops after him. The police brought him back. He was going to be sixteen then, it was his sixteenth birthday, April Fools’ Day. My parents had a big party for him, a combination welcome home and birthday party. And in the middle of it, when nobody was paying attention, he ran away again and never came back.”

She was looking at him with such softness and understanding in her eyes that he almost told her the rest of it … but he couldn’t, not even to her. “Never?” she said.

“Never. We never even got a letter or a postcard or a phone call. It was like he disappeared off the earth. It’s been such a long time, and I keep wondering what happened to him.”

“That must be so terrible,” Kate said.

“Not knowing is the worst part,” Robbie said.

“I’m so sorry …”

She got up and led him into the shadows by the jukebox, and they danced slowly and closely together, her head on his chest, their arms wrapped around each other, both of them being very gentle. They looked at each other then and kissed.

“I love you,” Robbie said.

They left Fat City and drove back to the dorm, and went up to her room. She drew him inside and locked the door. Since he had last been in her room she had painted rainbows on her walls. She turned on the music, very softly, and they stood there in that rainbow room and began to touch each other with wonder, as if this had never happened before for either of them. He was so filled with love for her he thought he would die of happiness. She led him to her narrow bed, and they made love perfectly and easily. For one moment, only one, she seemed to be frightened and drew back, and her body stiffened; but then she smiled at him and relaxed again. He felt as if he were dreaming, because he had dreamed of this moment so often in the past weeks that now it seemed as if the fantasy and the reality blended into something that he was only wishing would be.

“I love you too,” she said.

Afterward, lying in the darkness, holding her, he was unexpectedly plunged into the deepest depression he had ever known. He felt that he had betrayed her, had lied already, and betrayed Hall, because it was Hall’s story that had touched her enough to make her love him. A small part of him had been glad when Hall left — some evil, deeply hidden part — and he had always felt guilty for it. But, Robbie tried to tell himself rationally, Kate had already decided she wanted him when she came back. His story hadn’t won her; it had only been a further way of sharing, to become closer to her. He tried to fight off the depression, holding her tightly, trying to synchronize his breathing with hers.

He remembered that April night with such clarity it seemed to be happening all over again … the party guests making noise downstairs, music playing, moonlight shining through the branches of the big tree outside his bedroom window and making patterns on the floor. He had gone upstairs to be alone for a while. He was thirteen, and the people downstairs were older, none of them his friends, and he was bored. He was lying on his bed in the dark, still dressed because he might want to go back downstairs to the party, and wondering if everyone would be so glad to see him if he had run away. His parents were pretending that nothing bad had happened, and they were celebrating, trying to make it all up to Hall for whatever had made him miserable enough to leave.

Then the door opened and his brother came in. “Robbie?”

“Hi.”

Hall junior, tall, handsome, blond, the older brother Robbie had always worshiped and been jealous of, sat down on the edge of his bed and put his hand on Robbie’s shoulder. “Do you have any money?”

“Money?”

“Yeah. I know you hoard it.”

“What do you want money for?”

His brother’s voice was hoarse, strained. “I need it.”

“Okay. I’ll lend you some. How much do you need?”

“It’s not a loan,” Hall said.

Robbie stared at him then in the moonlight, the perfect, classic features, the dark shadows underneath his eyes like those of a sick person, and he felt his throat close. He understood. “Don’t …” he said helplessly.

“I have to. This time I’m never coming back.”

“Why?”

Hall’s fingers closed tightly on his wrist. “You won’t tell? You promise me you won’t tell? They’ll kill you if they find out you helped me.”

“Don’t go.…” And he was getting up, taking the money he had saved from its hiding place in his desk drawer: one hundred and sixty-two dollars, allowance and money he had earned doing odd jobs, and he was handing it to Hall.

“Thank you.” His brother looked at him and smiled a thin little smile, and then the money disappeared into his jeans. “I’ll keep in touch.”

But Hall never had. He did in Robbie’s dreams, walking into the room just as vividly as if it had been real, and he said he had been unhappy but it would be all right now. Then Robbie would wake up and remember it was not all right at all.

He didn’t tell his parents about the money, nor that he had even spoken to his brother before the second and last disappearance. Hall was gone before anyone realized he had left. Robbie remembered his mother screaming, that long, shrill scream of the bereaved, as if she had just been informed of her son’s death. He knew he wouldn’t forget that sound as long as he lived. Then she started drunkenly smashing all his father’s expensive watches, as if to tell him that all the things he’d worked so hard to get were meaningless and vain.

Robbie was doubly guilty. Guilty for helping Hall to run away, and for being a little bit glad. Later, when Hall didn’t write or call and Robbie realized what “never coming back” really meant, he began to feel the sorrow and the pain. What had seemed, at the time, to be part of an exciting adventure, now had turned into the most terrible thing that had ever happened to him in his life.

Daniel was seeing twins, on different nights of course. Their names were Cindy and Lyndy, and they were so spectacularly beautiful that one of them would have been enough; two seemed like wretched excess. And they were bright. He had met Cindy in his math class. She wanted to be a doctor. When he had seen Lyndy in his American History class, naturally he’d thought she was Cindy, and he’d sat down next to her and started talking to her, until he realized she was laughing.