“Everything is fine,” I said, and then I realized that when you said that, when you saideverything is fine, it sounded like exactly the opposite. “I’ll text you later. Honestly, I’m just exhausted.”
I got into my car and drove away before he could say anything else. I could see him in my rearview mirror, not moving, getting smaller and smaller as I drove.
I’m so sorry,I wanted to say to him. I wanted to turn the car around, go back, and try to explain that this wasn’t about him. I was just suddenly having trouble breathing. It felt like I was underwater again, and I couldn’t figure out which way the surface was.
Alvin knew that his sister did not like to cry, that she viewed that particular bodily function as betraying too much weakness. Instead, Margo Hatter got angry. Her face turned as red as a tomato; her arms crossed over her stomach and held themselves there so tightly that her breath caught in her chest.
Alvin himself, like his father, was much more prone to tears. This had bothered him once upon a time, but his father had told him that first of all, he would probably grow out of it, and second of all, who gave a flying rat’s whiskers what other people might think of him if he cried?
“My father never cried a day in his life and look at him!” Mr. Hatter had said. “He’s wrinkled up like a raisin! No, I think a little bit of salt water is good for the skin. Everyone’s face needs a little watering now and then.”
Alvin knew that if his father had been here to see this, he would have cried.
Alvin was crying—big, gushing tears that he couldn’t begin to control.
But there was Margo: a statue, unmoving, her face blank and carved out of stone. He could see the flames reflected in her eyes.
The flames of Grandpa Hatter’s house.
There was no way the old man could have made it out alive. It was an absolute inferno.
“Margo,” Alvin called, his voice choking, catching.
Margo turned to him. Her eyes were very red, but theywere also dry. He imagined flames coming out of her own ears, her mouth, swallowing her up. When she spoke, black smoke billowed out of the house behind her, and Alvin imagined that it billowed also out of her nose, her fingertips, the very pores of her skin.
“We’ll make him pay,” she said.
And the way she said it, Alvin could almost believe her.
—fromAlvin Hatter and the Return of the Overcoat Man
14
Joan Jetta was the only car in Em’s driveway, so I let myself in the back door without knocking. I had a key to their house that Em had put in a keychain shaped like a skull.
I found her lying on her bed on her stomach, in the middle of what I could only assume was an hours-longX-Filesmarathon. She looked up when I pushed her door open, and she paused the episode immediately.
“What’s wrong?” she said, pulling herself to a sitting position. She held her arms out and I took her hand and sat on the edge of the bed.
“I’m okay,” I said, the automatic reply. I didn’t even have to think about it.I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay.
“You look really pale, and your hands are clammy,” she said. She put the back of her hand on my forehead, then made a face and placed two fingers on the inside of mywrist. She squinted for a minute, then said, “Your pulse is racing. Why is your pulse racing? Were you running?”
“Driving,” I said.
“Then why is your pulse racing so hard?” She pulled her phone closer to her and started the stopwatch. She counted as the seconds ticked by. “One hundred and twenty-five.”
“One hundred and twenty-five what?”
“Your heart rate. Do you feel okay? Feverish? Nauseous?”
“I’m okay,” I said again, and Em hopped off her bed and forced me to a sitting position, never letting go of my wrist. “I’m just... It’s just a panic attack.”
“Oh, Lottie,” Em said, looking both relieved and sad at the same time.
“Or it may be a heart attack,” I said. “I don’t think we can rule that out.”
“Don’t worry, okay? It’s not a heart attack. My mom gets these all the time. It’s apparently really stressful being such a homophobe.” Her face softened, and she put her hand on my cheek. “Lie back, okay? I’m going to get you some water.”
