I knew I had to be cautious. But I figured the room was so dark that I might be able to get away with just walking around, especially if I did it ninja style and sort of mimicked the shapes of things I moved past, like these black sculpture things in the corners and this huge painting on the wall that was all black and white and looked like Chinese writing, which I could pose myself in front of like some of the writing as I passed it and probably not get noticed.
But then again maybe not, and I certainly wasn’t up for such calisthenic antics, especially after falling down the stairs.
About twenty-five feet away I saw another room behind a wide entryway. It was almost completely darkened, except for some blue glow from what I thought must be computers.
I began to push the fanback chair very gently, using it like a shield between me and the blinking red light. It slid nicely over the floor, very smoothly, actually. And as I pushed it I looked out over the room, seeing all this incredibly expensive black ebony furniture—I supposed it was ebony just because it was black—and all these artworks arranged on these black shelves that just seemed to float in front of the walls.
I must admit that creeping around in there I felt really nervous, almost like I was scared somebody might just appear from nowhere and jump out at me any second.
But then again, I was sure the house was empty.
Dobey was downstairs, and there was no possible chance anybody would jump out, because even if I did get spotted by surveillance cameras, whoever came to get me would come in through the front door or the back door, and it would not really be a surprise, because I’d hear them and still have time to get away.
So I was pretty sure that I really wasn’t afraid anybody would sort of jump out at me.
It had to be something else making me nervous, and I just sort of paused awhile and looked around, looking over the furniture and the paintings on the walls, trying to figure it out so I could relax and get going again.
Then I kind of guessed what it was.
This will sound crazy, but I mean it was almost like the house itself was making me nervous, which I couldn’t understand, because I really thought it was fantastic and, like, the best house I’d ever seen.
But I have to be honest with you even if it sounds nuts.
The house was great—but something was missing.
Now, I don’t want to sound too full of, like, judgments, but I felt something was sort of absent from the house, and it really did make me feel so nervous I almost felt sick.
I just kept looking at all this stuff around me, stuff that cost thousands of dollars and didn’t even look like anybody ever really used it—I mean like they hardly ever even sat in the chairs or on the sofas, and the paintings just sort of hung there all perfect and untouched, and I doubted anybody really cared about them at all.
In a way, it seemed like a house that nobody lived in, or maybe anybody lived in, because there just wasn’t anything about the actual people who lived there.
I mean, for how great it was, the whole house really felt sort of dead.
There was just something so weird and impersonal about it, and I guess I just wasn’t used to that, because my house was such a mess, and nothing but personal—too personal.
Of course, it’s not like I can’t sort of see behind what I was feeling.
I mean, maybe I just sort of resented them having a huge house full of such great stuff that I’ll never have in a million years, unless I win the lottery or, you know, accomplish something important.
Maybe I was a little, like, sick with resentment.
In my neighborhood that’s not too hard to feel, believe me, because if you’ve heard anything I’ve said you’ll kind of understand that a lot of my neighbors sort of resent what other people have and they don’t. And when you’ve lived around people like that your whole life, it’s pretty hard not to act just like them.
But to be perfectly honest, I really wasn’t feeling resentment or anything—but just this weird feeling that the house was somehow off-kilter in some odd way I couldn’t yet understand.
To tell you the truth, all summer I’d been feeling pretty weird.
I’m not saying it was Laura leaving me that did it, but everything had begun to feel so difficult. I noticed sometimes I had to sort of control myself; I worried sometimes that if I just let myself go I might do anything, that life might just sort of slip away from me.
I don’t mean I was dangerous or about ready to sort of lose it, but I felt something had changed in me, because growing up watching everything like I said, I certainly noticed other people having more than me and it had never really bothered me—but maybe now it did.
I’d sort of adjusted to being the kid who didn’t have anything. I mean, you can really sort of adjust to that, being just a watcher like I said, like a player without a piece. I guess that was my way of fitting in.
But maybe it was wrong to adjust like that.
Maybe I was angry.
Maybe I was sort of angry about that, because I didn’t know how to change it, and I didn’t want to just go on being that year after year.
That wasn’t fair.
I don’t mean I was going crazy.
And I don’t mean I wanted to get angry or hurt anybody—please don’t think that. I mean, I’d hate for you to think that I’d sneaked into Laura’s house with some, you know, buried impulse to do something crazy.
But I didn’t know.
All this nervousness I felt, maybe I was just sort of worried or scared of what I
