Rooms(28)

“Wait.” Trenton licked his lips, which felt very dry. “Why did you come? If you didn’t think there’d be anyone home, why’d you come?”

Katie hesitated for a fraction of a second. “Fritz,” she said, making a face. Her two front teeth overlapped a bit, and one of her incisors was very, very pointed. It gave her a lopsided look that was almost reassuring. “My cat. He got out.”

“What does he look like?” Trenton said.

Katie blinked. “Like a cat,” she said. She turned to go and then stopped, pivoting slowly back around to face him, seemingly struck by an idea. “Wait a second . . . Richard Walker . . . I saw something about a funeral.”

The word funeral sent an unpleasant vibration through Trenton’s chest. “He’s my dad,” he said, and then quickly corrected. “Was.”

“Shit. I’m really sorry.” She was staring at him in that way again—like she was trying to decode him.

“Thanks,” Trenton said shortly, crossing his arms. He turned away, slightly, letting his hair swing forward; he was aware that he had a particularly angry pimple on his left cheek, and he didn’t want her to see it. “We weren’t that close,” he added, so she wouldn’t feel sorry for him. “We’re just here for the funeral. And to clean up.” He paused. “The house is mine now.” Immediately, he didn’t know why he’d said it.

“Oh, yeah? That’s pretty sweet.”

Trenton jerked his head up to look at her and she blushed. “I mean—sorry. Sorry for your loss,” she said. “That’s what you’re supposed to say, right?” She shook her head, and her short spiky hair shook with her, like alien antennae. “I’m the worst at this stuff.”

“It’s all right,” Trenton said. He was relieved, actually, that she wasn’t pretending to be sad and solemn and knowledgeable. Like Debbie Castigliane, his mom’s next-door neighbor, who’d come over bearing a tray of take-out lasagna like it was myrrh, sitting wide-eyed in the kitchen and patting Caroline’s hand, and all the time counting the vodka bottles in the trash, feeding on the grief like a human mosquito.

“I mean, here I am, just running off at the mouth and you’re in the middle of some big family tragedy . . . ” Katie was still talking, still moving around the room, poking things.

Trenton had a sudden memory of the time when he was eleven and his dad had come out to the island. They’d met at Walt Whitman Mall and stopped in front of the Macy’s for a bit and watched a woman with a tight red apron and a smile as white as plastic demonstrate the latest advances in nonstick pans at a big booth. She flipped and slid and swirled and all the time, she never stopped talking or smiling. His dad had bought a complete set of eight pans.

Katie reminded him a little of the woman with the pans. It was dizzying to watch her, even harder to keep up with what she was saying.

“Hey.” She bent forward and, before Trenton could stop her, snatched up the rope from where he’d stashed it. “What’s with the noose? You weren’t about to kill yourself, were you?”

“What? No.” Trenton realized, too late, that the note to Minna was still sitting out.

“Come on, ’fess up. You were.”

Trenton felt a flicker of irritation. “Even if I was, do you think I would tell you?”

“I don’t see why not. Can’t see what difference it would make.” While she was looking down at the rope, studying it, Trenton quickly shoved the note to Minna in his back pocket. “Hey—you know what you could do with this?”

“No,” he said.

“Autoasphyxiation.” She reached up and coiled the rope once around her neck. As Trenton took a quick step back, horrified by the look of it, he stumbled on a box and had to sit down to avoid falling. Katie laughed again and unwrapped the rope from her neck. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of it. People choking themselves while they . . . Oh, man. There I go again. Sorry. God forgot to give me an off switch.” She reached out and punched him in the arm. “You don’t mind if I keep it, right?”

This was why he never talked to girls: it was like following a maze where the walls were always shifting. “Keep what?”

She rolled her eyes. “The rope. I mean, you weren’t using it, right?” Her eyes flashed on his again—eyes that held a challenge—and he looked away. “Didn’t think so. Besides, if you wanted to off yourself, you could do a lot better than hanging. I mean, if you break your neck, that’s all right. Otherwise you could be swinging there for ages. You know how many suicides end up clawing their fingernails to shreds, trying to take off the noose?” He didn’t think she really wanted an answer so he didn’t give her one. She plunged on, “So you sure you don’t mind if I keep it?”

Trenton did mind, kind of. But he didn’t see how he could say no, and what she’d said about suicides clawing their fingernails to bits had turned his stomach. He would probably have screwed it up with a rope, anyway. He shook his head.

“Awesome.” Katie smiled, showing off her crooked teeth. He wondered, just for a second, what it would be like to kiss her and whether she’d taste like cigarettes. “Hey, listen. You gonna be sticking around for a while? I’m having a few friends over on Saturday. You should come.”