Chapter 1- A Study in Timidity
'Cartwright, Erin' found herself seated next to 'Develshnev, Zachary' on the first day of kindergarten, and she had explained to him—because her parents had already taught her to read—that this was called 'alphabetical order.' After that, he did most of the explaining. Jennifer Lumley had to sit in a special seat because she couldn't see real well, and the only reason why Erin didn't get a special seat was that she already had glasses, and her last name started with a C, so she was in the front of the room anyway. Teachers wore high heels because they wanted to be a little taller, and so that their students could always hear their footsteps before they saw them. The sky was blue because of molecules.
Erin asked him what molecules were, but he didn't know. She decided that he could be her friend, if he wanted. Zach knew all kinds of stuff, that was certain, but it was nice that he didn't know everything.
She stands timidly before the arcade game, peeking over her friend's shoulder and twisting the hem of her purple striped dress between her fingers. "Can't we just play doubles? I'm not really good at this." Erin takes a quick glance behind her, pushing her glasses farther up her nose. Flynn's isn't very crowded this afternoon, but there are still other people, clustered around a game nearby and filling the room with a wave of chatter. They're all taller than she is, and the two boys at the controls seem so confident that she wants to shrink. She does the next best thing, hunching her shoulders and turning her feet slightly inward . What if they look over and see how bad she is, and think she doesn't belong here? The fabric of her dress is now balled in her fists.
Zach turns and gives her a reassuring smile, with a tiny dimple on his left cheek that fails to be mirrored on his right. His hair is a shade lighter than hers, and he's a bit chubby, so when he places a comforting hand on her shoulder it seems to make Erin look slightly smaller. "Don't worry. Mom told me to go easy on you when she dropped us off." He pauses. "It'll be fun. See? Look—this is the Tron game. The one from that movie I told you about."
Erin does remember. He has the poster on his bedroom wall, right next to his dresser, and the action figures are scattered all over the floor, where he's spread various aluminum cookie sheets to represent parts of the 'Grid.' She wonders idly if his mother is mad at him for taking things out of the kitchen.
"We'll see it next week, for my birthday when I turn nine. You'll like it. Then you'll know who all my action figures are, and we'll play with them. I'll let you be Yori. She's the girl. Unless you want to be someone else. I don't mind—"
"I'll just choose later…" She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, then back again.
Zach pulls a pair of quarters out of the pocket of his jeans. "Here."
Erin picks one out of the palm of his hand with two fingers, stepping forward with a deep breath and inserting it into the machine. There is a series of low, musical beeps as the screen changes color. "Do I have to be Player One? I don't even know what this game is about."
"Oh, fine." He gives her that smile again, and holds out the other quarter. "Put this one in, then." Erin takes it, and Zack switches places with her patiently. But Erin's hands are sweating, and her hands are shaking slightly, and it doesn't quite make it. She hears a small, metallic click as the coin hits the floor, and she sinks to her knees, scanning the floor around the machine for anything that looks as if it could be silver. Almost lying on the floor next to her, Zach squints, peering under the machine. "It's dark. I can't see anything."
"You think it's down there?" Erin sits on her heels, brow furrowed. She feels her stomach contorting, and all her mind can focus upon is the image of the coin slipping away from her fingertips.
"It's not anywhere else…" He pauses, sitting up. "Maybe I should go get someone who works here. They could move the machine and check."
"No!" Erin covers her mouth almost as a reflex. Her voice was higher, louder than she'd meant it to be. She continues, moving her hand slightly downward, but not entirely. "No. I don't want to bother anybody. Just play by yourself. I'll watch."
"But I don't want you to just watch. That's no fun."
"It doesn't matter. We can come back, can't we? After I see the movie myself."
"I guess…" He turns towards the screen, stops, and looks over his shoulder uncertainly, but Erin manages a crooked smile, showing a row of silver braces, and Zach squares his shoulders, grasping the controls. Erin adjusts her glasses again. She is momentarily immersed in the brightly colored screen in front of her, and her stomach briefly ceases its churning. But it occurs to her that she has absolutely no idea what is going on. Why is Zach shooting at those strangely shaped vehicles? She lets the question die in her throat when she turns towards her friend's face. His eyes are focused and unmoving, and his jaw seems almost clenched in concentration. She doesn't want to disturb him. If he loses because of her, she'll have made the afternoon even worse.
The day Kevin Flynn was reported missing, Zach was at Erin's house, and the television wasn't turned to the news—Erin's parents were fully engrossed in a documentary about coral reefs, and Erin and Zach sought refuge from the noise in Erin's room. It was cluttered with art, and books, and old toys.
Zach was ten, and Erin was almost ten, and Erin had promised to help her friend study for their test on A Midsummer Night's Dream. Zach loved computers much more than he did books. She was trying to make him remember that Lysander was only visiting the enchanted forest, and that he didn't actually live there, and Zach was scribbling furiously on a small piece of paper, taking notes. Erin tried to tell him that he wouldn't be able to use his notes on his test, and it would be better for him to memorize things instead of relying on his own handwriting—which was quite messy if she didn't say so herself. But Zach was adamant. He was too scatterbrained, he said, which was a word that they'd often heard his teachers use when his grades slipped.
The phone rang, but they kept reading, until they were interrupted by Erin's father, who entered the room and told Zach that his parents were calling to speak with him.
Erin waited in her room for a couple of minutes, before Zach returned, sitting opposite her, face slightly ashen. When she asked him what was wrong, he said that his parents were obviously trying to make a really bad joke, and that she really didn't want to know. Curious, she continued to ask him, but he still refused. It was just his parents making fun, he said. That was all.
Erin can see her breath in brief puffs of vapor in front of her face. Her hands are cold, dry, and red, and they are beginning to swell a little as she grips the metal chains of the swing set. She's almost fifteen, and while she can still sit in the seat without too much trouble, she feels a slight pressure on either side of her hips, and her legs are long enough to reach the ground with bent knees. Her sketchbook sits in her lap, and a pencil is stuck haphazardly into her ponytail.
Zach sits cross-legged a few feet away. "You working on something?" He leans forward, peering at the paper, which blows slightly in the wind.
"It's too cold."
"Could I see it?" He stands, brushing mulch off the back of his pants, straightening his bright blue jacket.
"Well…" Erin draws the sketchbook close to her chest.
"Come on."
Erin shrugs, and hands it to him, and she watches his face as he peers at it curiously. There is a moderately large drawing towards one side of the paper—a dragon with tiny, shaded scales all over its body, curled tightly, large eyes drooping so the pupils are barely visible.
She watches Zach's mouth twitch upwards, and Erin smiles, a bit widely. She's just got her braces off, and it feels strange without the familiar brush of metal on the inside of her lips. "I started it in math today."
"Mr. Warren didn't notice?" He raises an eyebrow.
She thinks it's nice, when he talks like this, as if people readily notice her, but she doesn't say so. Giving people the idea that she might want to be noticed would make things too complicated. When she wants to be seen, her fantasies always involve her being somewhat… less petrified than she actually is.
Instead, she pulls her glasses off, cleaning the lenses on the edge of her jacket daintily. "Can't help that I'm sneaky."
It had taken considerable time, but she'd eventually had invisibility down to a science. She couldn't slouch. She couldn't wring her hands, or look as if she were about to be hit by a car or something. People noticed that sort of thing. Erin began to keep herself generally composed, outwardly calm, and only spoke to a rather limited amount of people. Every so often, she'd look at other girls and see them speaking, and laughing lightly, and she would feel sort of hollow. Was there something she missed, that people understood and she didn't?
It is early May, a balmy evening, when Zach shows up at Erin's front door. He's still pudgy, and her hair is still dark and frizzy, and they're nearing the end of twelfth grade. Erin opens the door, a worn white bathrobe draped over her pajamas, hair still in tangles. She hasn't bothered to put her glasses on, so she squints at him, leaning slightly against the doorframe.
"Mom told me you called. Sorry I haven't done anything—I just woke up."
He frowns. "You okay?"
"I'm kind of puking, actually. It's disgusting. I've been brushing my teeth every three hours or so." She pauses, eyes darting sideways, before returning to her friend's face. "Do you want to come in or something? I promise I won't get you all germy."
"Sure." He trails after her. The doorway leading to the living room doesn't seem nearly as large as it used to. A couple of quilts, in patterns that clash horribly with one another, are piled on the sofa, and the television provides a dull murmur. Zach sits on the end of the sofa that the blankets don't reach.
"So what brings you to my abode today, Zach?" Erin stretches, before picking her glasses from the coffee table and putting them on, blinking slowly.
He shifts uncomfortably. "I had actually thought we'd see what it's like over at Flynn's."
"The old arcade?"
"I was reading about it in a magazine the other day. It's apparently still all there—just closed."
She lets out a laugh. "No kidding." Sitting, grabbing the remote, she switches the television off. "So what would you do, stand outside and press your nose against the window?"
"I was hoping we could go together, before exams are over. Like old times. Except, you know—with exams."
"Just go." It's a reflex, of which Erin is only vaguely aware. Zach stares at her. "I don't want you to be deprived just because I can't hold down my lunch."
"You know, I can wait until you're better—"
"Exams, Zach." Erin smiles faintly. "Just go. Find a way inside yourself, why don't you? See if that quarter's still lying around somewhere. Once we're out of school, you can challenge me to a game." A real one, maybe, instead of just playing doubles. She feels she at least owes him that.
"I'm sick of just leaving you places…" Zach seems rather contemplative, hands folded loosely in his lap.
"I'll be fine. Once we've graduated, it'll be easier to just go do things, I think. We'll go then."
When Zach leaves, the sun is still hanging in the sky, and he pulls a bright blue windbreaker over his shirt, because the air is damp, and Erin watches him from the window, wishing her childhood had been more exciting not certain as to why.
The police came later, to tell her that Zachary Develshnev had been reported missing, and to ask her if she knew where he possibly could have gone. She thought of Flynn's and of lost quarters, and sketchbook drawings that were sitting in her room and that Zach probably would have liked to see, and sharing dessert in first grade, and action figures strewn about the floor. And she said nothing. She thought of graduating without him next to her in line, and she told the burly officer that he'd visited, but left when he found out she'd been ill, and didn't say where he was headed. Her friend was gone, and she was pretty certain that she may have had something to do with it, and she didn't want people to remember him as some hooligan that went out breaking into old arcades. She'd done enough damage already.