Books by K.M. Soehnlein
THE WORLD OF NORMAL BOYS
YOU CAN SAY YOU KNEW ME WHEN
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
You Can Say You Knew Me When
K.M. SOEHNLEIN
KENSINGTON BOOKS
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance or relationship to characters or events, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
850 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10022
Copyright © 2005 by K.M. Soehnlein
Permission to quote from Palimpsest by Gore Vidal (1995) is by courtesy of Random House.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2004113880
ISBN 978-0-758-28264-4
The book is dedicated to my father,
for not being the father in this book,
and to Kevin Clarke,
who was there from day one.
In the end, the hardest thing is learning to tell a secret from a mystery.
—Gary Indiana, Horse Crazy
Contents
THE SON
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
ANTISOCIAL
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
QUEST FOR FATHER
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
SURVIVORS
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
IN THE WOODS
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
PLUNGE
Chapter 16
THE CRIMINAL KICK
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
DOWN TO YOU
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
ECSTASY
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
1
It had been five years since I’d visited Greenlawn, and as soon as I stepped off the bus from Newark Airport, it was clear the only thing that had changed was me.
Many of the same family-owned shops that had been here when I was a kid still stood: the pet store, the hardware store, the place selling musical instruments, the one that made custom-ordered curtains. There was even Georgie’s Sweet Shoppe, where I worked one summer during high school, mixing ice cream and chocolate in the basement, putting twenty pounds on my teenage frame. Each of these stores was housed in brick, all warm hues and weathered corners, so that the main street resembled a single, long storefront, sturdy and timeworn. In San Francisco, where I lived, brick was nearly nonexistent; brick walls collapse during earthquakes. The old brick warehouses that I biked past every day on my way to my boyfriend Woody’s apartment were all being retrofitted with massive steel beams in X formation along the weight-bearing walls. The effect was something like seeing a brace put on a leg before any bone has broken: The buildings were stronger, but you were newly aware of how vulnerable the original structure had been.
Growing up, I saw Greenlawn, New Jersey, as the epitome of American suffocation and conformity. Now here it stood, a pleasant little village preserved in amber. The brickface was part of this, and beyond that, the fact that there were almost no chain stores on the main street. I looked across the intersection to the town park, whose Veterans Memorial and white gazebo had seemed to my rebellious teenage self symbols of oppression, but which now simply seemed old-fashioned; not Amerikkka, but Americana.
My father loved living in Greenlawn. As I stood at the bus stop, waiting for my sister to arrive—luggage at my feet, a lit cigarette in my mouth—I repeated that sentiment in my head, a platitude at-the-ready for meeting and greeting relatives during his wake and funeral in the days to come. It’s good that he died here, in this place that he loved. This was bullshit, of course: He’d died too young, in the hospital, after a painful deterioration, and for those involved the whole thing was suffused with tragedy. That I wasn’t one of those involved was the reason I needed to rehearse platitudes at all. I needed something to say, a way to be and behave during this visit.
A screech of tires, a blur of silver in the winter air: a minivan arcing sharply through the street in front of me. For a split second I imagined it roaring over the yellow-striped curb and plowing into me—I saw the headline, ILLEGAL U-TURN ENDS IN DEATH—but instead it slid efficiently to the curb. At the wheel was my sister, Deirdre. The passenger window lowered halfway, and her voice carried over from the driver’s seat: “I know I’m late. Put your bags in the back.”
I took one last drag off my cigarette, glancing at the clock on the First Jersey Bank across the street. 10:05. “In my world, five minutes late is early,” I said.
I turned to lift my luggage into the back of the van. Staring across the backseat was a small boy bundled in winter clothes. My nephew, AJ. I hadn’t seen him since he was born, and what I caught in his wide brown eyes, gazing out from below a snowflake-patterned ski cap, was equal parts anticipation and suspicion. Distracted, in mid-swing, I banged my forehead on the edge of the roof, letting out a pained “Fuck!” I’m all too famous for this kind of klutzy move.
AJ’s eyes widened.
“Pretend I didn’t say that.” I sent him a wink. As I circled back to the front seat, he twisted beneath his safety belt to keep a watch on me.
I hopped inside and leaned across a topography of gray leather to give my sister a greeting: a no-contact kiss near the side of her face and an awkward shoulder pat meant as a hug. She remained more or less motionless through this, her hands firmly on the steering wheel. “How was your flight?” she asked. Her face was thinner than I remembered, tight around the jaw. Or maybe it was the severe way she’d pulled back her hair into one of those clip-combs. When she pressed her burgundy-painted lips together, the effect was one of strain.
“The flight was fine,” I said. “No, actually, it was awful. I was in and out of sleep. I’m sort of stiff all over.”
“Can’t remember the last time I flew anywhere,” she said as she