Page 85 of Jesse

“What?” I ask. “What am I missing?”

“Nothing,” Jesse says. “There’s nothing to see here. So—”

“Oh, no,” I say. “We’re here now, buddy. And I know this place is huge. Let’s go.”

They trade another look and this time Zach just shrugs. “Up to you,” he says.

“Fine,” Jesse says. “I guess…” He looks around, chooses a hallway, and says, “This way.”

I follow him to a door and Zach brings up the rear. I’d be lying if I said having him behind me wasn’t making me nervous. But when Jesse opens the door it’s just a big room. A massive room, actually. But a normal room.

He lets out a breath, which I interpret as relief. “OK,” he says, panning his arms wide. “Living room.”

And it does look like a living room. If said living room was say, maybe, the size of a hotel lobby. It has seven separate seating areas. Couches and chairs artfully arranged in clusters for talking. Except they are all covered in white sheets. Like this is not just any hotel lobby, but a haunted one.

I get past that and notice there’s no newspaper on the windows and instead of being clear, uninterrupted glass like upstairs in Jesse’s lobby, these have panes. Lots of them. So many, in fact, the window looks like a freaking checkerboard.

There’s a whoosh of fabric and a swirling of dust as Jesse removes one of the sheets over a long, pale-green, velvet couch.

He smiles down at it. Then looks at me. “I slept here all the time.”

Zach laughs. Then pulls off another sheet across the room to reveal a pale-gray velvet couch. “This one was mine, wasn’t it? Shit, I remember that now.” He points to another couch and Jesse walks over and pulls off the sheet. Another gray couch. “That was Joey’s, right? And this one”—he pulls off yet another sheet off yet another couch, pale green this time—“was Johnny’s. He said—” Zach laughs. “He said no one could shoot him from this one, because it was behind this beam. He’s such a dumbass. But that’s why he slept here.”

“You guys slept in here?” I ask.

“For fun,” Zach says. “We all had bedrooms too. I wonder if mine looks the same.” And then he walks off down a dark hallway to go look.

“That’s where we put the Christmas tree,” Jesse says, pointing to the massive expanse of paned windows. “When we used to get them. And here,” he says, pointing to the closest fireplace, because now that I notice, there’s three of them in here. “This is where we hung the stockings. God, this place, man. It was fun living here. I know you think it’s weird, but I didn’t know any better. It was fun.”

“Dude,” Zach yells from somewhere far away. “My fucking bedroom is a riot.” He walks back towards us. “There’s a crib in there. Why don’t I remember there being a crib?”

Jesse squints his eyes at his cousin. “I don’t remember that either. What’s mine look like?”

“I don’t know where yours is anymore,” Zach says. “Were you on this side? Or the other side?”

“This conversation is weird,” I say.

Jesse looks at me and shrugs. “You wanted to come down here. We can leave any time you want.”

“Are you kidding? And miss my only chance to see Jesse Boston’s childhood bedroom? Forget it. Lead on.”

As we make our way through a hallway, into a library, then a billiards room, another living space, and finally to another hall with lots of closed doors, I realize it’s set up like a circle. But if that’s so, then… “What’s in the middle?” I ask.

“What do you mean?” they both say at the same time.

“The space doesn’t make sense.”

Jesse looks confused for a moment, then says, “Yeah, you’re right. It doesn’t. I never thought of that.” We share a moment. Then he points to a door and says, “This was me. That one was Joey, and Johnny was on the other side of the building.”

“Why?” I ask, just as Zach opens up Jesse’s door to reveal a large, but fairly normal teen boy’s bedroom. Posters on the wall. Guitar and amp in one corner. Huge TV and sound system. Outdated, of course. And a king-sized bed.

“No,” Jesse says.

I glance at him. “What?”

“No,” he says again, shaking his head. “I never had any girls up here. We weren’t allowed. They had to meet us in the lobby.”

“I bet that was fun.”