Brightside Page 3

  “Sorry,” I said.

  I’d learned to apologize when I mistakenly thought someone had said their thoughts out loud. People got angry when I didn’t. They called me crazy.

  Every night I prayed for God to make it go away, but it was always there, the noise inside other people’s heads. I never listened on purpose. Never reached in and stole people’s thoughts, like some believed. For me, it’s like hearing a person’s true voice, the things they really believe. It’s a whisper from six feet, a scream at just inches. The more focused the thought, the louder it gets.

  You know that silent awkwardness when someone is holding their tongue, stewing in anger after someone does something awful, because they don’t want to cause a scene? Well, for me, it’s like being face-to-face with a wailing psychopath. An endless scream of all the horrible things people really want to do to each other.

  Back then I was still getting used to it. Part of me wanted to turn to Steven and see if his lips were moving. The other part was smart enough to know the things he was thinking weren’t things anyone would say. He was pointing Superman at Corey, the kid who thought I smelled like a girl and that Steven was a fucking chink.

  I started humming my ABC’s, occupying my mind, blocking Steven out.

  It wasn’t long before Brenda’s mom drove up. Then Darryl’s. Then Jennie’s. The next time I counted there were only five of us left.

  Steven turned to me and held out Superman. Steven’s eyes were so squinted I could barely see the black. He was thinking he should have stood up for me after I’d pissed my pants. “You can borrow him,” he said.

  I didn’t know what to say. I almost asked if he could hear my thoughts, because I’d been watching him play with that toy and wanted it for myself. But I’d learned that was a good way to get laughed at. I just nodded and said thanks.

  A shiny black Mercedes pulled up to the gate. Miss Parker called Steven by his real name, Hong, even though he’d asked her not to that morning.

  That got Corey started. Bigger than most of us and blacker than all, he ran over and started doing his gorilla impression, pounding his chest, stomping snow everywhere. He shouted, “Hong Kong, Hong Kong.”

  Steven’s face got red, but he didn’t say a word about how he was going to jump in the car and have his father plow right into Corey. Then Corey slanted his eyes and unleashed his ching-chang-ching talk. Steven figured Corey was jealous of the car. He had no idea Corey was jealous of the stone-faced woman staring straight ahead in the backseat. Corey’s mom had died of tuberculosis.

  If I’d been bigger, braver, I would have said something to defend my very first friend, but I knew Corey would turn on me, ask me where’s my diaper. Despite the cold, my feet freezing so bad they might crack, I had a warm feeling in my chest and didn’t want to ruin it. Soon, Steven was out the gate, climbing in the front seat of the Mercedes.

  In the next few minutes, Corey and the rest of the kids were picked up and gone. It was just me and Superman. The bone-aching cold. Miss Parker.

  Miss Parker told me to stay where I was, that she’d be right back. I had nowhere to go and was used to waiting so that’s what I did. She went into the classroom and came back out a few minutes later. Instead of heading back to the gate, she walked up to me, touched my puffy blue jacket and put her face real close.

  Miss Parker had a face that made you pay attention. That’s what Dad said to do. Pay attention to it. Miss Parker smoked cigarettes when she was a kid. She’d be a Miss forever.

  Having anyone’s face just inches away wasn’t easy, but I didn’t flinch. I just stood there, waited for her to talk. I’ve always been shy, have a hard time looking people in the eyes, but I looked Miss Parker in her murky blue ones because she’d been nice to me, gave me the corduroys and told all the kids that if anyone else laughed they’d be sent to the principal’s office.

  Miss Parker gave her half-smile, spoke out the right side of her mouth. “Your mom didn’t answer, Joey. Is there another number I can call?”

  I shook my head no. Mom had more important things to do than worry about me.

  “Is there anyone else that can come get you? Maybe your dad?”

  No one called Dad when he was at work. I wouldn’t be first. I told Miss Parker no, held Superman tight and tried to stomp the cold right out of my boots.

  This poor kid, Miss Parker thought. I’m going to have to deal with this for the rest of the year.

  Miss Parker didn’t know what to do. She’d never been stuck with a kid this long and never in the cold. The cold made her bones hurt, but she pretended it didn’t.

  I showed her Superman and pointed at his S. “He’s made of steel.”

  Miss Parker walked me over to the gate. “That’s nice.”

  I’d given up on Mom, but had an idea. It wasn’t as cold when I was moving and it was just four blocks to my house.

  A blue car passed by the gate, went through the intersection and pulled to the curb halfway up the block. Miss Parker had her back to it so I pointed at the car and said, “There she is.”

  Miss Parker had no reason to doubt me and was already thinking about the space heater beneath her desk. “Tell your mom she needs to pick you up right here from now on. And tell her we can’t wait so long.”

  I looked both ways and ran across the street. When I got to the other side I slowed down. I didn’t want to get to the car too quick. It wasn’t a Buick.

  A fat man with humongous black boots pushed himself out of the car like it was a clown trick. Miss Parker didn’t see because she was already heading inside.

  The man walked in front of me and stopped all of a sudden. He pointed at the house we were in front of and said, “You the one fucking with my flowers?”

  There weren’t any flowers where he was pointing, just mounds of snow. I was smart enough not to argue and said, “No, sir.”

  The fat man thought I was a little fucking liar and walked to his house.

  Turning around and running back to the classroom seemed like the smart thing to do. But it was just four blocks and I knew my address.

  I kept walking, one boot after another, even though my toes felt ready to snap off. Then it started snowing sideways. I put my mittens out in front of my face, scrunched my eyes like Steven’s. I crossed the street and kept on going, made it all the way to the next corner, where I was supposed to turn right. Or was it left?

  I turned each way and tried to see the school, but everything was the same, just walls of white.

  All I could do was guess so I went to the right, but that was really a left because I’d turned around in a half circle. The block was longer than I remembered.

  I wasn’t scared yet but I was getting close. I’d gone two or three more blocks when the snow finally stopped, the clouds parted, the sun shining, and that made me feel better, like maybe there was a God. Like He was actually looking out for me.

  Still, I couldn’t tell where I was. I kept walking and walking but never crying until this nice lady came up to me and knelt on the sidewalk.

  I couldn’t see her face because my eyes weren’t really working, everything all blurry and bright. But I didn’t have to see her eyes to know they were nice.

  The lady put both her hands on my shoulders. “Honey,” she said. “Are you lost?”

  I didn’t trust myself to speak.

  She knew I was lost without me saying a word. Gave me the biggest hug, wrapping her arms so tight around me, tighter than I’d ever been held. “It’s going to be alright,” she said. “Don’t you cry.”

  I hadn’t even known I was, but the tears were there, coming down hard.

  The lady didn’t stop hugging me. She didn’t think what a whiny baby, like the other kids. She just hugged me harder and held me until I was all done.

  “Do you know where you live?”

  I nodded, sniffed up the snot pouring out of my nose.

  Her shiny green car was right there so she told me, “Go ahead and get in.”

 
I went to the back door but she opened the front, the place I never sat with Mom.

  The nice lady started the car and spoke real soft and called me Honey ten times trying to find out where I lived. But even though it took that long she never got mad. She said how smart I was to remember the address.

  When we got to my house, the lady looked out the passenger window. “Is this where you live?”

  I wanted to say no. I wanted her to drive forever. But I didn’t want to lie so I said yes.

  “Good,” she said. “Let’s get you inside. I’m sure your mother’s worried.”

  I got out of the car, and the nice lady got out too. She put her hand around my shoulder and started down the path to the front porch. “I’ll make sure she’s home.”

  Mom’s big old Buick that she was dying to trade in for something sexy was in the driveway. I didn’t recognize the van parked behind it.

  Even at five years old I knew what I was walking toward, that it wasn’t something good.

  The nice lady walked us up the three steps, her hand on me the whole way, even when she knocked on the door.

  No one came so she knocked again. “Does your mom work?”

  I said no and pointed to the doorbell. The nice lady pushed it and we heard a noise inside, fast footsteps.

  The door opened halfway and there she was. Mom in that dark green towel that matched her eyes. She kept one arm pinched to her side to hold it up. Her hair was fire on that snow-white skin.

  “Sorry, I was in the shower.”

  “I found him walking up and down our cul-de-sac on Cherry.” The nice lady kept her hand on my shoulder, stopped me from running away. “That’s over three miles from here.”

  “You’ve got to excuse him.” Like I couldn’t hear, Mom said, “He’s a little special sometimes. What the hell were you thinking, Joey?”

  The nice lady pointed at my eyes, the skin all around them. “He was out there a long time,” she said. “It’d be a good idea to put something on him right away. Maybe get him to a doctor.”

  Mom grabbed my hand and pulled me past her, my face brushing against her towel that reeked of an over-ripe sweetness, something sour underneath.

  The nice lady said, “Not butter, though. That’ll make it worse.”

  Mom smiled. “I know what’s best for my son.” Bitch.

  The nice lady started to say something. Mom slammed the door and walked me toward the kitchen. Her bedroom door was open and she was praying I wouldn’t look that way. At the guy standing next to the dresser, buckling his pants, his chest all sweaty like he’d been doing pushups.

  Mom saw me looking and said, “TV went out again. That’s why I couldn’t leave. He’s fixing it.” She opened the fridge, took out the tub of butter. That yellow tub was shaking, something Mom never did.

  I wanted to back up, to get away from her.

  She held me there and said, “Damn it, Joey, stay still.”

  Mom was really worried. Worried and ashamed. She couldn’t care less about how she’d forgotten to pick me up. She was feeling bad about what she’d done in her room.

  Mom stuck one hand into the tub, the same stuff that’d been good enough for her growing up. With a huge scoop of butter globbed in each hand, Mom said, “I need you to promise me something. Can you keep a secret?”

  That was the one thing I was good at. Knowing people’s secrets. Acting like I didn’t.

  Mom slabbed the cold butter on my tingling cheeks. “Not a word,” she said. She spread the butter across my face, wasn’t all that careful around my eyes. “Not about any of this. You can do that, can’t you?”

  I knew exactly what Mom was talking about. I said, “I won’t tell.”

  Not like your father doesn’t already know.

  I hurried to my room and cried. Mom didn’t know at the time I could listen to her thoughts, but she knew she couldn’t trust me. After that, whenever she had a man over, she told me to go outside. When the weather was bad she locked me in my bedroom. I’d sit there and watch the rain leaking in through the tiny window.

  I guess that’s why I didn’t freak out like the others when I first got to Brightside. I was used to captivity. The others weren’t.

  The first few nights I heard the screams, the uncontrollable sobbing. Sometimes the bootsteps would follow and the thuds and then silence. Other times they just let the people cry themselves to sleep. The apartment walls were too thick to hear anyone’s thoughts, but we still knew what each other was thinking. You didn’t have to be a telepath to know everyone was scared shitless.

  We’d never leave Brightside.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A week before Brightside I was selling BMW’s and drawing too much attention. It’s amazing how easy it is to sell when you can hear people’s thoughts. If a guy was worried about draining his kid’s college tuition, I’d tell him driving a 5-Series was an investment in his career. I’d tell a woman she deserved it when I knew her husband was slamming his secretary.

  Everyone came around. They didn’t stand a chance.

  One guy didn’t like my tie, looked like one his father wore. I said my parents were coming for Christmas. Told him I might spike my dad’s drink so we could make it through dinner without him reminding me that my brother was a doctor.

  I didn’t have a brother. The guy drove off in a convertible.

  I shattered every salesman record across the country. In the last month, I sold more cars than the entire Beverly Hills dealership. My monthly commission check was going to be more than most people made in a year.

  My dad called, asked if I’d heard about them taking ten more people to Brightside. I changed the subject, said I was thinking about buying a house with Michelle. He started lecturing so I hung up.

  Two days before Brightside, Michelle was curled up on the couch. She was in her silky blue pajamas, both feet on my thigh, her head way down on the other end where I could barely hear her thoughts. She was drinking whiskey. She’d taken two pills. Her brain hardly making a sound.

  Lily, my eight-year-old Lab whose sandy blonde hair matched Michelle’s, was right below us on the soft white rug. All one hundred pounds wedged between the couch and coffee table, her warm breath on my feet.

  It’s exactly what I needed. Everyone at work had been talking about Brightside. How they were rounding up people all over the country. Thought Thieves were real.

  Michelle just lay there watching her mind-numbing TV show. The one I couldn’t watch with my last girlfriend because the doctor looked like her last boyfriend and she’d be thinking about how hard he used to fuck her, what she didn’t get with me.

  But not my Michelle. She was somewhere else, in that perfect little place, her thoughts a gentle sea.

  I opened my computer, the article about the beautiful mountain town of telepaths, how it was in everyone’s interest that they be isolated. Thought Thieves could destroy everything. Parents didn’t want them in the schools or walking the streets. No one was safe.

  Halfway through the article, Michelle started doing the thing with her toes, tugging my sweats and letting them go. Louder than anything she’d said all night, Michelle thought about making another drink. She tucked her toes beneath her and pushed herself up.

  “Come here,” I said.

  I clicked on the Excel spreadsheet and pointed at the number in bold, left my hand there to block the tabs at the bottom of the screen. I waited for her to wonder why I had so many websites open, what I was trying to hide.

  Michelle laid her head against my shoulder, ran her fingers on my stomach. She didn’t realize I was showing her something. Sweet as ever, she asked, “You about done?”

  “Yeah, just about.” I pointed. “That’s what I’ll bring home next week.”

  Her mouth dropped open, stayed there. “No way!”

  I wasn’t trying to brag, just wanted to let her to know we could buy the house. “It’s more than a down payment.”

  “Holy shit.” Michelle’s blue eyes dropped, lost
what little shine they had. She was thinking about the crappy Christmas present she’d gotten me.

  Her glass was empty except for some ice. I told her to make another while I finished up. Her thoughts were giving me a headache. Michelle got off the couch, was extra careful not to wake Lily.

  I went back to my laptop, started closing out sites. Homeland Security. National Safety Council. Half a dozen others. Each called us domestic terrorists, all because one man said so. Our President was scared shitless when he found out what we could do. The possibility that one of us could sneak up beside him, learn his every word was a lie. The corporations, the corruption, all the money and the media. We never had a chance.

  An executive order was issued to trample our rights. And the biggest irony of all, only two years before, Carl Pepper, a Thought Thief from Kansas, had single-handedly foiled the President’s assassination. He’d been at a rally, heard the gunman’s thoughts. There were celebrations, photos of Carl everywhere. But then someone realized there was no way Carl could’ve known the stuff that he knew. Thought Thieves were branded enemies. Carl showed up on the cover of Time. In big red letters: “Thought Thieves Among Us.”

  It didn’t take long for laws to pop up all over the country. First, we were arrested, thrown in jail, but the regular prisoners petitioned to have us removed. That’s when Brightside was created, an old mining town in California, more than a mile in the sky, high enough to make the normals feel safe.

  I’d been surfing in private, but I still cleared the history before setting the laptop on the table. I didn’t think Michelle would ever snoop, but there was no need to take the chance. There was no shortage of people who’d sell out friends and family for fifty thousand dollars.

  Dad had taught me to trust no one.

  Michelle knew I was a stickler when it came to my two-drink limit and put the bottle of Jack up in the cupboard. She came back so tall and graceful, my tipsy swan gliding across the floor, hardly a thought in her beautiful head.

  I dimmed the lights and took her hand, brought her beside me on the couch. Getting so close wasn’t always wise, but Michelle was different, especially on her meds.