Brightside, Mark Tullius [philippa perry book .TXT] 📗

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,