The Decoding of Lana Morris Page 7

  Then she remembers the present from Whit. The thought of it fills her with a childlike pleasure, and she wants the present now, not tomorrow. She goes downstairs nearly as fast as Whit had, and there beside the computer is an iPod. It’s connected to the computer. She’s used iPods before—other fosters had them or, more often, the biological kids of foster parents. She’s never had her own. She slides on the tiny earphones and sits down in the blue darkness of the kitchen and starts turning the dial, reading the names of albums, songs, and shows, none of them very interesting. She sees three podcasts in a row called chiefchetteroid@2rivers.com and clicks one.

  “Greetings, Citizens of the Otherworld, this is kay-ess-oh-dee, and that’s K-SOD, and that’s us, and if you know us, you know we have issues to hyperventilate, so let’s just bang out of the bull chute with issue uno, which is a little issue we happen to have with those folks over at the Disney Company. We have just one question and the question is, WHAT IS IT WITH THIS DONALD DUCK GUY? I mean, what was old Walt thinking?—THAT WHAT THIS WORLD REALLY BADLY, URGENTLY NEEDS IS A SPUTTERING DUCK?”

  Lana has heard this voice and this peculiar paranoia before, but Chet doesn’t seem like the sort of person who would start his own talk show. There is a long pause, so long Lana wonders if the recording somehow got cut off. But then the voice is back.

  “Well, I’d take Walt’s money and build myself a beach compound in Tobago and I’d do it tomorrow by four p.m., but that doesn’t mean old Walt wasn’t WAY WRONG ON THE DUCK THING.” Another long pause, and then in a calmer voice: “And how about the little guys, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, and their little Hispanic cousin Chuy, always going to their little Junior Woodchucks Manual every time they get themselves in a pinch?” Pause. “Okay, Walt, I can see where that would be useful if you want to get, you know, a real-life version of the Junior Woodchucks Manual in our hands for use next time we get in a little fix, then, okay, you can say you actually finally did something for the global community.” Pause. “But in the meantime the very best next thing you can do, Walt, is to OFF THAT SPUTTERING DUCK.”

  Pause.

  There’s something oddly interesting about the pauses, Lana thinks, the way it makes you wait for the next thing.

  “Okay, Chetteroids,” the voice continues, “issue numero two. We’ve got the Olympics coming up. We’ve talked about this. We’ve expressed our opinions. We know, for example, where we stand on the pentathlon. We need alternatives; that much we can all agree on. And your good Chief Chetteroid has in mind something cyberspatial that he in his Chetness has anointed”—here the speaker seems to thin his lips to expel a sibilant trumpet-like introduction—“the Oddball Olympics.”

  Chief Chetteroid? He in his Chetness?

  Lana pulls her earphones from her head, goes to the front window, and stares across at Chet’s house. Through the upstairs window she can see him pacing back and forth with his mouth moving. His Chetness, the Chief Chetteroid, is doing his next show. She can’t stop grinning. It’s weird and kind of endearing and definitely blackmailable. She slips the earphones back on.

  “That’s correct,” the voice says. “The Oddball Olympics. And the first event in the Oddball Olympics is”—another trumpety intro—“SPUTTERING DUCK EXPUNGEMENT.” Pause, then more calmly: “I don’t need to tell you, there are no rules for this event. Bare hands, buck knives, or AK-47s, we Chetteroids don’t as they say give a fig, AS LONG AS SOMEBODY BRINGS DOWN THAT DUCK.” Pause. “Okay, enough on the Disney segment. It’s time for—”

  Lana is no longer thinking about her bad evil heart. She is grinning at the thought of not-normal Chet podcasting his not-normal thoughts at three in the morning, thoughts to which she now has access.

  She goes back to bed and listens while Chet does a segment on finding your cat’s purr spot and one on statues of animals and in particular cows and then finally what must be his signature sign-off, “This is kay-ess-oh-dee, K-SOD, where no subject is too small for lengthy and uninformed consideration. You know who we are. We’re aliens hiding in nearby trees, where we can see it all. Good night, Chetteroids and Chetteristas. Keep those cards and letters coming. And please don’t call again.” And then he plays a song sung by a woman with a high, haunting voice:

  Good night, ladies

  Good night, gentlemen

  Keep those cards and letters

  Coming

  And please don’t call again.

  Lana walks to the hall window. The lights are off in Chet’s room. Past his house and down the street, all the houses are dark. She can hear the distant drone of a truck on the highway. In the same direction, beyond her sight, is the hospital, where Veronica lies and Whit sits waiting.

  17.

  “Get up, Lana.”

  In her dream, it had been Whit asking her to get up, and because in her dream she’d been completely naked, she didn’t know if she could just get up with him standing right there, but now, as the words were repeated—Get up, Lana—she realizes it isn’t Whit’s voice, and she isn’t naked, and she opens her eyes.

  It’s Tilly, and just behind her, in the doorway, stand skinny Garth and big Carlito. Lana remembers suddenly the accident of the night before, and the message she sees in the Snicks’ expressions is of something else having gone terribly wrong. “What?” she says. “What’s happened?”

  “We’re hungry, Lana,” says Tilly. “It’s morning. We’re hungry. You bet.”

  Lana looks at Carlito and Garth, who stare blankly. Alfred’s there, too, standing behind the others in his green golf shirt and blue slacks, grinding his teeth.

  “I’ll be right down,” Lana says.

  She washes her face, combs her hair, and then glances out at Chet’s house—his blinds are closed—before heading down to the kitchen.

  Lana races from one task to another, and nobody wets himself or starts screaming or spills juice, so the Snicks are nearly done with their oatmeal (Lana’s been much freer than Veronica with the raisins and brown sugar) when Whit’s diesel chugs up the driveway. Lana stands just back from the window to watch. It’s surprising. Only hours have passed, but he looks older as he walks toward the house with a handful of papers.

  Veronica’s blue purse is not in his possession.

  As Whit steps into the kitchen, the kids somehow know to fall quiet. He looks at them and tries to smile but can’t quite do it. He stands before them all, glancing at them, then down at the papers in his hands. Finally he says, “Veronica’s been in a bad car wreck.”

  A silence follows until Tilly in her loud voice says, “Is she dead as a doornail?”

  Whit makes a dry laugh. “No, Tilly. Veronica isn’t dead as a doornail. She isn’t dead at all.” A deep breath. “But she did lose part of an arm.”

  They are all quiet for a few seconds, then Alfred says, “And they c-c-c-can’t find it?”

  “No, Alfred. They can’t. It’s lost for good.” Again he tries to smile. “But she’s alive and that’s what we need to be relieved about.”

  Lana in fact does feel an odd sense of relief. If she’d wished that Veronica would die and then she did die, Lana would always think she’d had something to do with it, which was something she’d just as soon not live with. “When will they release her?” she says.

  “A week or so,” Whit says.

  Lana feels her spirits rise. A week without Veronica in the house. “I can take over the kitchen and cooking if you want,” she says.

  “That’s good, Lana,” he says, and smiles a tired smile. “Now if you kiddos can keep it down, I’m going to get a little sleep.”

  Lana lets him go upstairs but can’t stop herself from following a few minutes later.

  “Whit?” she says from outside the partially closed door.

  No answer. But she can hear water running in the bathroom, then the bathroom door opening.

  “Whit?” she says again.

  The sound of his footsteps coming toward her makes her mouth dry.

  “What?” he says, poki
ng his head out.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure,” he says. He opens the door to let her in, but she looks at the unmade bed and the stack of Veronica’s clothes on the chair and stays where she is.

  “Thank you for the gift,” she says. “I didn’t know we had a podcaster in the neighborhood.”

  “Yeah, our boy Chet’s more interesting than you’d guess from meeting him in the street.” He smiles. “Of course, most people are.”

  “I guess,” Lana says, but her mind’s on what she wants to say next.

  Whit sits down on the edge of the bed, begins to unlace his shoes, and Lana blurts, “Did Veronica tell you about the pills?”

  “Pills?” he says, standing up again to remove his wallet, some change from his front pocket, and a packet of folded papers, all of which he dumps on the nightstand.

  “She claimed she found drugs in my room. She said she’s going to send them to a lab and get me shipped out of here.”

  Whit sits again on the bed. He rubs his eyes. He doesn’t look shocked or upset. He just says, “Why would she want to do that?”

  The same question, more or less, that Hallie had asked. But this time, instead of saying she doesn’t know, Lana says, “She found some sketches of mine.”

  Whit cocks his head slightly. His expression says, What?

  “They were sketches of you,” Lana says.

  His weary expression becomes one of mild amusement, which annoys Lana.

  She says, “What Veronica doesn’t understand is that I sketch everybody. I have one of Chet, too. That doesn’t mean I have a thing for him.”

  If anything, Whit’s amusement deepens. “Ronnie thinks you have some kind of thing for me?”

  Lana lowers her eyes and feels her skin warming. “She might think that, yeah.”

  “And what do you think?”

  She wants to look into his eyes and say, I think maybe I do, I’m not sure, but she keeps her eyes down and shakes her head and says, “I don’t think anything.”

  “You’re a funny thing, Lana Morris,” he says, and she looks up, and when he lets his tired eyes settle into hers, the desire to tuck herself against his body is like an undertow. She would like to use his chest as a pillow, listen to his slow heartbeat as he sleeps.

  “What about the pills?” she says, and this breaks the spell, which both relieves and disappoints her.

  He shrugs and says, “You worry too much.” He pivots and stretches onto the bed fully clothed. His voice is low and tired and gentle. “It’s not just you, Lana. Everybody worries too much. It’s a widespread affliction.” His eyes fall closed, then he forces them open and makes a little smile. “Someday I’ll help cure you of it.”

  He crosses his feet at the ankles and then, just like that, he’s asleep and Lana, looking upon him serene and still, feels something surprising. She feels the weight of her worries lift away.

  18.

  After breakfast, Alfred, Garth, and Carlito go to the library with a cheerful job coach named Mrs. Arnot in order to clean plastic book covers with spray bottles and rags, one of the unpaid, low-skill jobs that’s supposed to prepare them for independent living. Tilly goes sometimes, but today she says, “Going to help you, Lana!” so Lana leads Tilly next door, where Chet’s in the yard trying to start a red Toro lawn mower.

  “Hey,” she says.

  Chet is kneeling beside the mower, unscrewing a lid to something. “Hey,” he says, and Lana can tell by his voice he isn’t happy. He lays aside the lid and pulls out something that looks like a dirty sponge, which he regards morosely. Something about him seems different, but she can’t put her finger on it. She and Tilly follow him to his garage, where he begins sloshing the sponge around in a coffee can filled with gasoline, a process Tilly regards with interest.

  Lana says, “So what you’re doing there—would that be something you learned from your Junior Woodchucks Manual?”

  Chet doesn’t flinch, grin, or respond in any way. He just keeps working.

  “Because I figure that’s where his Chetness would learn something like that.”

  Chet keeps sloshing the sponge and doesn’t utter a word.

  Lana says, “So how is his Chetness?”

  Chet without looking up says, “Who?”

  “His Chetness. The Chief Chetteroid.”

  Chet says blandly, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Lana picks up an oily wrench and regards it. “Well, that’s too bad,” she says casually, “because I was hoping to meet the Chief Chetteroid, you know, in the flesh.”

  Chet continues to pretend the sponge takes one hundred percent of his attention. His face is stone, and Lana wonders if maybe this is public Chet and the funny, ranting, K-SOD Chet is private Chet. And for a second time, she thinks there’s something else, too, something actually different about the way he looks, but she isn’t sure what.

  She whistles a few bars of the song he’d closed his podcast with, but Chet’s face doesn’t register a thing. It’s like he’s got some kind of Dr.-Chet-and-Mr.-Chetteroid thing going here. Lana decides to stop inquiring about the weird broadcasting. She’ll just listen in again and see what’s on the air tonight.

  They walk back into the yard and Chet sets the sponge back into the lawn mower. Lana says, “I guess Veronica did some drinking last night and wrecked her car. She lost an arm.”

  Chet seems unimpressed. He says, “Should I be grieving about that?”

  “I’m just making conversation,” Lana says.

  Chet says, “Yeah, well, on my party list, Veronica’s just below a rabid dog.”

  This is Chief Chetteroid funny, and Lana wouldn’t mind using it herself. “You make that up?” she says.

  “Naw. It’s K.C.’s line.”

  Then Lana would forget it. She looks up and down the street. She looks at the blank blue sky. She doesn’t know what she’s feeling. So many things have changed since yesterday, but everything looks more or less the same. She plucks a dandelion and prods at the downy seeds so that they float off a few at a time.

  Suddenly Tilly says, “Your spot’s gone, Chet. You bet it is,” and Lana turns to Tilly, who’s staring at Chet but pointing at her own nose.

  Chet nods. “Yep, that’s right. The mole is gone.”

  “The mole is gone?” Lana asks, but even as she speaks, she sees it’s true.

  Chet says, “I’ve been using this ointment my dad bought for me and then—bam—it’s gone.” He glances at Tilly—she’s gently picking her nose—then turns his gaze back to Lana. “Go figure. My dad didn’t notice it, you didn’t notice it, but”—here he hitches his head toward Tilly—“one of the village idiots does.”

  “Don’t call them idiots,” Lana says, and Chet directs an apologetic look Tilly’s way. “Sorry.”

  Tilly doesn’t acknowledge the apology. She walks over to a dry birdbath that stands in the corner of Chet’s yard. She begins scraping out hardened bird dung with her fingernails and Lana makes a mental note not to share snacks with Tilly in the foreseeable future. Chet abruptly stops tightening a wing nut on the mower and turns a serious expression to Lana.

  “Which would you rather lose—a leg or an arm?”

  Lana gives it some thought. “An arm,” she says, “as long as it wasn’t my drawing one.”

  Chet nods. “Yeah. Me too.” Then he says, “Okay, which would it be—an eye or a foot?”

  They both agree an eye, as long as they can see out of the other one, and they go on with this game until Chet says, “Okay, your boyfriend’s eyes or his so-called member?” which just about ends the conversation as far as Lana is concerned.

  As she turns away, she says that most so-called members would be less missed by the average girl than the average guy supposed.

  Chet gives a grin and says, “Oh, and I’m sure you’re an expert on the subject,” which Lana isn’t, not by a long shot, but she isn’t going to tell him that, so she just keeps walking. But then something o
ccurs to her and she turns back.

  “You’re going to use this as a bit, aren’t you? This whole which-body-part-would-you-rather-lose routine—you’re going to use it on K-SOD, aren’t you?”

  Chet blinks once and says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Lana gives him a long, cold look and turns away. “C’mon, Tilly. Let’s vaminose.” As she waits, she says, “Which would you rather lose, a big black mole or the idiot whose face it was growing on?”

  “Funny,” Chet says deadpan, and Tilly and Lana move off.

  As they near their porch, Chet gives the lawn mower cord a pull, the engine suddenly sputters to life, and just as suddenly goes dead. Lana expects to hear swearing. When she doesn’t, she turns and finds Chet standing motionless over the mower. His shoulders droop, his eyes are closed, and he suggests a statue meant to represent the weary contemplation of life’s little trials.

  A statue that, Lana has to admit, has a faint and unexplainable attraction to it.

  19.

  The rest of the morning Lana doesn’t know what to do with herself. Tilly is doing a child’s wooden puzzle and the other Snicks are still with Mrs. Arnot and a little while ago, through the window, Lana watched Chet walk off toward town pushing the lawn mower in front of him, so Lana tries to keep busy. She goes from cleaning to reading to snacking to staring out the window wondering what’s going to happen to Veronica and what Louise is going to tell Veronica about Lana’s snooping in her room and what’s become of the blue purse and the pills. Through all of this, Lana’s aware she’s doing something else, too: she’s listening for sounds overhead, some little indication that Whit is awake.

  When Carlito, Garth, and Alfred come back, Lana ignores the scheduled menu (Pasta with Green Vegetable, which, Lana knows, just means Top Ramen with a handful of frozen peas) and makes them all her favorite lunch—egg salad on toasted white with a side of boysenberry Jell-O and diced pears—and after feeding them all and putting on a video, she does what she’s been dying to do: she takes a tray up to Whit.