Turtles All the Way Down(62)

I stood up. I felt for some reason like Pickett might be right behind us, like he might push us off the edge of his tunnel and into the river below. “Now I’m a little freaked out,” I said.

“What are we gonna do?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing. We’re gonna turn around, walk back to the party, hang out with fancy art people, and get home by curfew.” I started walking back toward the distant music. “I’ll tell Davis, so he knows. We let him decide whether to tell Noah. Other than that, we don’t say a word.”

“All right,” she said, hustling to catch up to me. “I mean, is he down here right now?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think it’s for us to know.”

“Right,” she said. “How could he have been down here this whole time, though?” I had a guess, but didn’t say anything. “God, that smell . . .” she said, her voice trailing off as she said it.

—

You’d think solving mysteries would bring you closure, that closing the loop would comfort and quiet your mind. But it never does. The truth always disappoints. As we circulated around the gallery, looking for Mychal, I didn’t feel like I’d found the solid nesting doll or anything. Nothing had been fixed, not really. It was like the zoologist said about science: You never really find answers, just new and deeper questions.

We finally found Mychal leaning against the wall opposite his photograph, talking to two older women. Daisy cut in and took his hand. “I hate to break up this party,” she said, “but this famous artist has a curfew.”

Mychal laughed, and the three of us made our way out of the tunnel, into the silver-bright parking lot, and then into Mychal’s minivan. The moment my door slid shut, he said, “That was the best night of my life thank you for being there oh my God that was just the best thing that’s ever happened to me I feel like I might be an artist, like a proper one. That was so, so amazing. Did you guys have fun?”

“Tell us all about it,” Daisy said, not exactly answering his question.

—

When I got home, Mom was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a mug of tea. “What is that smell?” she asked.

“Sewage, body odor, mold—a mix of things.”

“I’m worried, Aza. I’m worried you’re losing your connection to reality.”

“I’m not,” I said. “I’m just tired.”

“Tonight, you’re gonna stay up and talk to me.”

“About what?”

“About where you were, what you were doing, who you were doing it with. About your life.”

So I told her. I told her that Daisy and Mychal and I had attended a one-night art show beneath downtown, and that Daisy and I had walked to the end of Pickett’s unfinished tunnel, and I told her about going out to the meadow, and I told her about the jogger’s mouth, about thinking Pickett was maybe down there, about the stench.

“You’re going to tell Davis?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“But not the police?”

“No,” I said. “If I tell the police, and he is dead down there, Davis and Noah’s house won’t even be theirs anymore. It’ll be owned by a tuatara.”

“A tua-what-a?”

“A tuatara. It looks like a lizard, but it isn’t a lizard. Descended from the dinosaurs. They live for like a hundred and fifty years, and Pickett’s will leaves everything to his pet tuatara. The house, the business, everything.”

“The madness of wealth,” my mother mumbled. “Sometimes you think you’re spending money, but all along the money’s spending you.” She glanced down at her cup of tea, and then back up to me. “But only if you worship it. You serve whatever you worship.”

“So we gotta be careful what we worship,” I said. She smiled, then shooed me off to the shower. As I stood underneath the water, I wondered what I’d worship as I got older, and how that would end up bending the arc of my life this way or that. I was still at the beginning. I could still be anybody.





TWENTY-THREE



I WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, a Saturday, feeling truly rested, frozen rain plinking against my bedroom window. Indianapolis winters rarely feature the sort of beautiful snow that you can ski and sled in; our usual winter precipitation is a conglomeration called “wintry mix,” involving ice pellets, frozen rain, and wind.

It wasn’t even that cold—maybe thirty-five—but the wind was howling outside. I got up, dressed, ate some cereal, took a pill, and watched a bit of TV with Mom. I spent the morning procrastinating—I’d pull out my phone, start to text him, and then put it away. Then pull it out again, but no. Not yet. It never seemed like the right time. But of course, it never is the right time.

—

I remember after my dad died, for a while, it was both true and not true in my mind. For weeks, really, I could conjure him into being. I’d imagine him walking in, soaked in sweat, having finished mowing the lawn, and he’d try to hug me but I’d squirm out from his arms because even then sweat freaked me out.

Or I’d be in my room, lying on my stomach, reading a book, and I’d look over at the closed door and imagine him opening it, and then he would be in the room with me, and I’d be looking up at him as he knelt down to kiss the top of my head.