Denton Little's Deathdate (7 page)

“You want me to say individual goodbyes to everyone that came?”

“Well, they're here for you!”

“All right, all right,” I say, grabbing Taryn's hand and steering us toward the scattered, bouncing bodies. I wonder if she can feel that I'm no longer a virgin, the guilt radiating off my skin.

“Were you guys really talking about movies in there?” Taryn whispers into my ear.

“Definitely not,” I whisper into hers. “I found something weird. I…I'll show you later.”

She pulls her head back, eyes big. “Is everything okay?”

“Not sure, but don't worry.”

I give her a spin, then bring her close, just as the song key-changes into its final triumphant chorus.

“I do worry,” she says. “I can't help it.” Her hazel eyes are glassy and concerned.

I think of what Phil said, that they'll be getting back together once I die.

“Hey,” I say. “Did…”

“Did what?” Her eyebrows slope sweetly together.

“Ah, never mind.”

I go in for the kiss.

A hand lands on my shoulder. “Excuse me. Denton?”

I turn and I'm staring at the handsomish, pockmarked face of that man who was standing in the back during my eulogy. He seems nervous. I want him to leave.

“Uh, yeah? I'm kinda in the middle of—”

“Hi. Um…You don't know me, right?”

“I don't…What?” I exchange a look with Taryn.

“Sorry, that was a strange way to say that. I wasn't sure if maybe your dad had told you about me or…showed you pictures.”

“Oh. No, I'm sorry. Not that I remember.” WTF.

“Right, right, okay. I'm Brian Blum.” He holds out his hand, and I reluctantly take my arm from around Taryn and shake it. “I, uh, knew your mother.”

“She's right over there, if you want to talk to her.” I point to Raquel across the room, in mid-conversation with Taryn's mom.

“Huh?” The man's head spins really quickly to look. “Oh no, no, not— I mean your actual mother.”

The music around me fades.

The people around me disappear.

Other than my dad and brother, I've never met a single soul who knew my mom. But this man says he did.

“You knew my mom?”

“Yes.”

My biological mother. We are on sacred, uncharted terrain.

I turn to Taryn. “Do you mind if I…”

“No, of course, of course,” she says, which I know must be hard because this is our Last Dance Ever.

“Come this way,” I say to him, and lead us to a less obvious corner of the room. The song has ended and people are entering that postparty milling-about phase. We don't have much time to talk.

“Sorry to pull you away from…,” Brian Blum says.

“It's okay. I mean…Well, so, what do you mean you knew my mom?”

“Yeah. Right. So.” He looks around, then back at me. “I mean exactly that. Your mother, Cheryl, and I were very close.”

What's this guy getting at? “Like…you were her boyfriend?”

“No, no, nothing like that. Well, actually, at one point, we…But, no, we had a very close friendship, is all. I was the doctor who delivered you, did you know that?”

I beg your pardon?

“When you were born, I was the ob-gyn. I thought your dad might've at least told you that. You've grown up a lot since then.” He lets out an awkward chuckle.

So. Much. Information. Hold the bad jokes please, mister.

“What…But…didn't my mom die giving birth to me?”

“Ah, I was there for that, too, yes, but look, obviously you know that at midnight tonight, your deathdate begins.”

“Right.”

“You need to be careful.”

“What?”

“I don't know how to say it other than that. There may be strange characters lurking about, people with bad intentions, and you should just keep your feelers on high alert. Trust no one, especially if they're associated with the government. You get me?”

“Not really. Are you saying you think I'll be murdered?”

“Here.” He reaches into a pocket of his jeans. “If anything happens, if you feel you're being followed or you see anything weird, just call me at this number.”

He extends a business card toward me, and I'm reaching out to grab it when a hand ushers me back.

“Okay, no, no,” my stepmom says, steering me out of the card's reach. “Please keep your cards away from my son.”

“Oh, hi, I'm Brian.” He puts the card in his other hand and re-extends his right to shake. “I knew Denton's mo—”

“I know who you are, Brian, and that's all well and good. But Lyle doesn't want to see you, certainly not here.”

Brian lowers his unshaken hand. “Okay, look, I understand where Lyle's coming from, but can't he walk over here to tell me that himself?”

“No, he can't,” my stepmom says.

“What are you guys talking about?” I ask.

“Don't worry, sweetie.”

“With all due respect,” Brian says, “it's been almost eighteen years. And Lyle hasn't forgiven me yet?”

“Guess not. You should leave.”

“This is for Denton's own good!”

“I really don't want to have to call the cops.”

Brian Blum looks desperately back and forth from me to my stepmom. His eyes hold on to me, like he's trying to will some nonverbal message into my brain. I try to understand, but I don't speak Silent Weirdo.

“Sorry,” I say.

Brian's eyes drop down to the ground. He looks back up. “All right,” he says, then turns and slowly walks out a back door of the celebration home.

“Mom,” I say. “What the hell was that?”

“Well,” she says, still watching the door Brian exited out of. “I think you should ask your father. And watch your language.”

“Excuse me,” one of the celebration home staff members says, grabbing a chair from behind me and my stepmom so he can passive-aggressively fold it and stack it, oh so subtly hinting that it's time for everyone to leave.

You would think they might not do that for funerals, but they do.

A river of people streams over to hug me final goodbyes. I go into autopilot, hugging everyone and saying sweet things, while the rest of my brain struggles to find some solid ground.

Trust no one
.

This is for my own good
.

It's been almost eighteen years, and my dad still hasn't forgiven him
.

I try to extract some meaning from all this.

Did Brian intentionally kill my mom? Because maybe that would be worthy of eighteen years of unforgiveness.

I always imagined today would be a time for closure, for resolution, but instead, my head swarms with a million questions I would never have known to ask yesterday.

“Trust no one?” Taryn asks as we sit in my small silver car, parked at “our spot,” a sandy hill that overlooks all the streets and lights of a neighboring town. We like that it's kind of a funny throwback to the 1950s, when teenagers would park up at Make-Out Point or Lovers' Lane or Sex Mountain or whatever.

“That's what he said.”

“So you literally can't trust anyone? Not even your mom and your dad?”

“Well…”

“Are you supposed to not trust me?” Taryn asks, pulling me closer.

Phil's words pop into my head: “She was with
me
.”

“No, I think I can trust you,” I say.

“You think you can?” Taryn scoffs, but her tone is playful. She puts her hands on either side of my face. I lean in closer and kiss her. Our tongues touch, and hers is strangely
cold, like she's been eating a Popsicle. I feel a tear land on my cheek. We stop for a moment.

“This sucks so much,” Taryn says. “I hate that the day we finally say ‘I love you' is the day before you dehhh.” The word
die
gets caught up in a sob. I pull Taryn close, over the gearshift thingy, as she quietly convulses. I'd forgotten about our
I love you
s.

“I hate that, too,” I say.

“You're just my favorite guy.”

I feel my heart beating through my shirt.

“Thanks, Tar.”

“And, I mean,” Taryn goes on, “who's gonna come to this spot with me?”

“Well. Hopefully no one.”

“Ohmigod, of course,” she says, about ninety-eight percent convincingly. “No one.”

Down below us, two cars nearly hit each other, their tires screeching.

My pocket buzzes, and I see that my stepmom has texted:
Sorrry about befor. Maybe youu and Dad wll have tume to talk lator>? Have fun w T and P. xoxoi
.

It makes my heart ache, and not just because my stepmom has the texting abilities of a five-year-old.

“Who is it?” Taryn asks.

“My stepmom. She said maybe me and my dad can talk later.”

“Oh, that's good.”

I tried to talk to my dad at the celebration home, but he was settling money stuff with Don Phillips, and I had to get going to stay on schedule. The rest of my pre-Sitting evening
has been carefully planned and divided: Taryn time, then Paolo time.

“It would be pretty annoying to die and never know what that guy meant.”

We hear a plane fly overhead.

“Isn't it crazy that that's how it used to be?” Taryn says. “Before people knew?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like…before people knew when they'd die, it could just happen anytime. And you had
no idea
. Probably so many unanswered questions. And you could be anywhere: in the supermarket, in school taking a test, or, like, in the bathroom even. No prep time whatsoever.”

“Yeah.” Though I'm not convinced all this prep time is a helpful thing.

“And then you couldn't even go to your own funeral.”

“Yeah…” I'm also not convinced I really needed to be at mine.

“It's just weird to think about.”

“Definitely.” My arm is still around Taryn, my hand rubbing her shoulder.

Here's the funny thing about my state of mind right now: in spite of the immense guilt I feel about Veronica, I am still very much hoping that Taryn and I will have sex. Maybe that makes me an even bigger asshole, but there it is.

Now is probably the moment to make my move.

Problem is, I can't get all that stuff Phil said out of my head. I'm sure most of it is untrue, but it's kinda gnawing at me.

“What's up?” Taryn says, sensing something's wrong and looking up at me. There's glitter on her lips.

“Well…” Ah, fuck it. There's no time. I go in for the kiss, surprising Taryn, who lets out a pleased little yelp.

We make out. Lots of tongue wrestling and deep nose inhales. It's good.

I will ask her about Phil when we're finished. Definitely.

I guide Taryn over from the passenger seat onto my lap, pulling the little bar underneath the driver's seat so it slides back to give us more room.

It's not that big a deal that Taryn was with Phil instead of slow-dancing with me. I'm sure there's a logical explanation.

My hands find their way to Taryn's legs. I trace a path up and under her dress.

“Oh, Denton,” she says.

“Oh, Phil,” I say.

Taryn abruptly pulls back and stares at me.

“What'd you just say?”

“What?”

“You totally just called me Phil.”

Oh my holy shit, I did.

“No, I…” Whoops. “Yeah, okay, I guess I did.”

“That's really weird,” Taryn says, awkwardly crossing back over to the passenger seat, bumping her head. “Ow.”

“I know,” I say. “But Phil said some stuff to me at the party. About you. And it's kinda driving me nuts.”

“Oh no,” Taryn says, slowly leaning forward with her forehead cupped in one of her hands. “I'm sorry, Dent. He's being…really difficult.”

“Yeah, well, he said you guys were getting back together
after I died. And that you were with him when I couldn't find you for our slow dance.”

“Okay,” Taryn says, rising back up, looking into my eyes. “I promise you, Phil and I are not getting back together. We're just not. As for the slow-dance thing, I was with him for some of that, but I feel horrible about it. You don't deserve that, Dent.”

Not gonna lie, my stomach drops when she says she was with Phil.

“It's just, well, first of all,” she continues, “you embarrassed him in front of, like, two hundred people. Which I get because he can be a dick, so that's whatever, but he's already in a bad place to begin with. Because of his dad and everything. So I was trying to be there for him, just for a few minutes.”

“He looked like he was in a great place to me, laughing and joking all over you.”

“His dad has pancreatic cancer, Denton. He dies—”

“In two months, I know, Tar. May I remind you that I die TOMORROW!” I surprise myself with how loud I am, like when you start a car and the stereo is still blaring from the last time you drove it. “Maybe even in a few hours.”

“Whoa. Okay. Sorry.” Taryn stares out the passenger-side window.

The proverbial clock ticks.

“Sorry,” I say.

“You've never yelled at me before.”

“I know.” I have almost no experience with sexual intercourse, but I'm guessing this doesn't count as foreplay.

“Denton, I love
you
, okay?” she says into the window, emotions in her voice.

“I know. Could you look at me? Please?”

Taryn slowly turns back to me, eyes wet.

“I just have a lot going on in my mind right now,” I say, “and it's all getting mixed up and intense. But I love you, too.” The more I say it, the more it feels like I really do mean it. “And I just want to be with you. Is that okay?”

Taryn silently nods. I lean over and touch her cheek as I kiss her.

She kisses me back, and we are at it again, even more charged than before.

I start to pull Taryn back over to my seat. Her hands fumble around with the button of my pants.

There is a
tap tap tap
at my driver's side window.

It startles the crap out of both of us. I turn my head to find a policeman peering in.

Talk about a boner killer.

I push the window button, but it does nothing, and I remember that the car has to be on first.

Car on.

Window down.

“Hello, sir,” I say into the scraggly face of this white-haired cop.

“Evening, kids,” the cop says, with an annoying grin. “License and registration?” I fish around in my pocket for my wallet and ask Taryn to get the registration out of the glove compartment.

“Um, hi,” Taryn says, ignoring my request as she leans forward and tentatively waves at the cop. I hope she's not trying to seduce him to get us out of a ticket, because that could get awkward.

“Oh.” The cop looks worried for a second, then his
wrinkly face lights up. “Look who it is! Phil-Phil's little girlfriend!”

“Hey there,” Taryn says, radiating discomfort. “Um, Phil and I actually broke up, a while ago.”

The cop looks at me and scrunches up his mustache in thought. “Hwell…on to the next, right? Heh heh!” He seems disingenuous, like he's putting on some kind of performance for us. “Philip is my grandson,” the cop explains in my direction, all of the mirth instantly drained from his voice. “Damn good kid.”

Are you kidding me? Of all the cops in town, we get the one who's the grandfather of my girlfriend's ex?

“Of course,” I say, angling my head in GrandpaCop's direction without making full-on eye contact. “Yeah, we, uh, run together. Ran together. Like…on the team…” I trail off pathetically.

“May I?” he says, grabbing the license I've been holding this whole time. “Dinton Little…” He pronounces the
e
in my name like it's an
i
. “Hey, you're that kid who's dying tomorrow, aren't ya? Yeah, here's your deathdate, tomorrow. Sorry to hear that.”

I wonder if Phil has told him all the mean things I said at the funeral. “Thank you, sir,” I say.

“And you, my sweet,” he says, hitching his head to get a better look at Taryn, “are looking lovely as ever. Like a daisy in the summertime.”

“Thanks, Grandpa Ford.” Ew, she called him Grandpa. And his name is Ford.

“Now. I'm gonna have to ask you to get out of the car, Dinton.”

I stop breathing for a few seconds.

“What? Why?”

“Don't worry, I'm not gonna bite ya.”

I look over at Taryn. She shrugs.

“I just, uh…Don't you need, like, a reason? Or a warrant or something?”

“Well, the government has the deathdate statute, surely you know about that. Gives me the right to search someone within seven days or less of their deathdate, 'case they're planning on committing some crimes before they go. You know, steal some money for their family, that sort of thing. You can look it up on the Net.”

“I promise you, I'm not planning—”

“Or,” GrandpaCop says, flipping my license through his fingers like in a bad card trick, “you can stay in the car, and I'll take you to jail, spend the night. Maybe you'll die there.”

This man is officially horrible. Taryn looks mortified.

I open the door and step out. “Just stand right over here,” GrandpaCop says as he shines his light in my eyes, then down my body. “So, got any theories on how you're gonna die?”

“Not really,” I say. My eyes land on the gun holstered at his waist.

Trust no one
.

“You feeling anything strange now?” GrandpaCop asks, flashing his light around more, giving me a pat-down. “Got a fever or anything?”

“No, I don't think so.”

“'Cause sometimes people get sick, get a virus or something, that's how they die.”

Is he referring to my splotch? How could he possibly know?

I feel suddenly brave. “Nope, other than being frisked by a cop for no apparent reason, feeling great.”

“Huh.” GrandpaCop stares at me. “Phil was right about you. Think you're some kind of rebel.” So Phil did tell him about me. Great.

“No, sir.”

“Well, li'l rebel boy…” His hand slowly moves down to his holster. “You seem clean.” He rests his hand on his hip. Phew. “You're gonna have to go somewhere else, though, to do whatever it is you two were doing up here—don't worry, I won't tell Phil-Phil.” This guy is gross. “'Cause you're trespassing on private property.”

“Yeah, okay,” I say, getting back in the car, eager to get as far away from here as possible.

“Have a good last night, Dinton,” HorribleGrandpaCop says as he hands me back my ID, all soiled with his fingerprints. “A pleasure seeing you, young lady. Drive safe now.”