belfast killing

9/04 4:00 PM
Mrs Nicas is dead. And Brandon Nicas is missing.

Mom came back from the Nicas' a half-hour ago. Even in something as private as a diary, I don't even know how to start.

9/04 4:25 PM

In times like these I miss Rachel, my best friend. A lot. Since she's moved to Venezuela, this notebook might be the only friend I have. Maybe I can actually keep this going for some time. I've tried writing things down before, but it never worked because I always had someone to tell things to. And a notebook can't suggest where I should start.

Before she left Rachel swore she would send me emails daily. I've gotten three in the last two months. She did send me a letter just after she landed. She wrote that her new villa has a garden with a million different purple and blue and orange blooms. She's supposed attach the pictures as soon as she gets her camera to work. In the meanwhile, she said I should find myself a good Argentinean boyfriend like her mother's fiance, Marco. Then, I could visit her as often as I'd like.

(Rachel always knew how to make me laugh.)

I'm not the type to attract an Argentinian demigod. I'm tiny. I've got unfashionably long hair and crooked too-thin legs. I'm more than just pasty. I'm glow-in-the-dark white.

Even though I'm no psychic I get there isn't anyone in the tarot cards for me. Not an Argentinean. Or Brandon Nicas, who's lived down the street since I was born and whom I've been deeply in love with for as long as I can remember.

These are the facts of my life, and I'm fine with them.

Rachel isn't a bombshell either. I love the fact that we're equal in most t
things. Sure, she's slightly shorter and curvier than I am, but not by much. We both love classic rock. We bought the same pens and indulged our fetishes for stationary at the Papyrus as often as we could. Together (and with Dad's help) we built shelves to store our old LPs and books and whatever else we collected because we believed friendships are all about collecting things with hidden meanings. And now when I look at my bedroom shelf, at the broken parts of porcelain castles, the stacks of old Zeppelin records, I realize that I'm the only one on this side of the equator who knows about their origins.

It's not a fun feeling.

So there's no one else to tell about Brandon or what happened to the Nicas. Rachel's gone, and from her emails she's more than just a few thousand miles apart.

Back to the Nicas'.

They've been the only other family on our block we've talked to and my parents have known them since before I was born.

My parents are pretty aloof. They know it, too. They hate the Supermoms and Dads who manage to keep perfect lawns, who ferry their children to karate and to SATs and to swimming and to their cello lessons. My mother tells me (often) that she doesn't care what I do during the day as long as I keep out of prison, comb my hair, and take a bath occasionally. But they're very fond of the Nicas, and we have them over all the time, or as often as Mom feels like putting a huge dinner together.

The Nicas moved here from Belfast but they're originally from Romania. Their oldest, Brandon, was born in Belfast. for the longest time Brandon carried that accent with him. You can imagine that from the time that I was a baby I was subjected to that gorgeous voice.

What's a poor girl to do?

The Other Guy has a name, of course; it's Lucian, and he's my age, born in boring old Branville, New Jersey. It sounds like the ultimate preppy name, but it's wrong for him. He's almost as short as I am. He never changes out of his oppressive black sweaters and threadbare corduroys.

Often, we have dinner parties together. My mother babysat Brandon and Lucian when Elisaveta and Carlo went to Europe. Elisaveta was calm but not social. Just thinking about her now, I remember her black hair braided tightly behind her, the beautiful gray eyes, the flawless dusky complexion. She never went out unless it was to see us or relatives, and the times we have encountered her extended family she never looked comfortable among that colorful, boisterous group of men or the muttering of their silent wives. She felt the most comfortable at her flute, bent in front of the window, watching her sons in the yard. Carlo is more effusive but, again, though he is close with Dad (they play golf together) I feel like I don't know him much.

But I know Brandon and Lucian.

We always were a little group unto ourselves. Then, Lucian and I entered middle school, and then he broke away to hang out with his crowd of overachievers from high school. When I didn't see Rachel sometimes I played cards or Scrabble with Brandon over at his house. He commuted to college and sometimes had a few free hours in the afternoon. And after I got over the distraction of his gorgeousness, we played a few very competitive games of go-fish and rummy on his creaky porch. Our houses were each on the opposite sides of the street. Attached houses with twin roofs, bending to meet in the middle. In our similar houses we saw each other a million times a week, and Elisaveta said, in her serious way, that if she had any more children, she would make my parents its godparents.

It is tough for me to imagine Mrs. Nicas dead, but the news hasn't really settled in yet. Somehow, I'm not able to cry.

It's as tough to hear that Brandon is missing. For the longest time I won't be able to look at his knuckles while he conquers me royally in chess. I hope he is all right. Maybe he is not missing after all, and this whole thing is a total misunderstanding.

The time has come to talk to Mom.



9/04 8:34 PM

I've just come back from the Nicas'. When I found Mom in the kitchen, she put a hot casserole dish in my hands. Cheesy baked potatoes and spiced cauliflower. She told me to take it to Mr. Nicas quickly. "It's important that they eat," she said. I've never heard her so exhausted before. She had to hold onto the back wall in order to stand. "There's no use in people running around on empty."

My first thought was that Elisaveta's the best cook I know and the Nicas never ran around on empty. Then I remembered Elizaveta's dead. Quickly, so that Mom wouldn't see my watering eyes, I turned around with the dish and marched right out of the house. The weather outside is sultry. Not too hot, but I can still smell the accumulated heat of the season. Though it's cooling down and I've gotten used to the weather, I still don't feel comfortable, especially with this giant dish in my hand. So I made as good time as I could to the Nicas'.

The Nicas own one van and one Fiat. Neither were on the driveway.

I hit their doorbell so hard I was surprised by the noise it made. I almost dropped that boiling casserole on my foot. At first I was scared. Nobody opened the door. Then I heard footsteps approaching. They were too soft to be Carlo's. I was right. It was Lucian.

Clear-faced and, in this heat, still wearing his sweater.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

I held up the casserole dish. He moved to let me inside. "Where did your dad go?" I asked. I followed him into the hallway. Two suitcases lay against the wall. I squeezed myself against the bags to get into the kitchen. His kitchen -- even our kitchen -- is the biggest room in the house. No shortage of gleaming countertops and straight, polished cabinetry. Even now, with the chaos, their whole kitchen was immaculate. Just placing the dish next to the flat stove made me feel like I'd dirtied the place up.

Lucian shrugged.

"When will he be back?"

"Why do you care?" he snapped. "Thanks for the food."

He spun and left.



Lucian and I don't have a glorious history with one another. We were all right as kids. Now, we go to the same school and have an unspoken agreement to never interact. Outside, though, we're always pleasant. Sometimes we talk about what happens in the news, or about music. I like Brandon much more and save my Earth-shattering observations for him. When he's with his friends he literally does not acknowledge my existence. Which has also been fine, except (though I'll never admit it in public) I could use friends.

"Lucian took it?" Mom asked me, when I got home.

I told her yes.

She sat me down at the kitchen table and took her hands in mine. "I'm scared too, you know," she said. "Elizaveta was a wonderful woman. It's terrible what happened to her at Belfast." Her voice was shaking, like she was about to cry.


What happened to her was this:

She traveled to Belfast, with Brandon, to see her parents, who live in Ireland. When I have the time I imagine Brandon standing there on the super-green fields facing hills and tall hedgerows, just like in every researched stereotype I could find on Ireland. The whole world gets reflected in those eyes when I think about them, but if Elisaveta was killed there, I cannot imagine it anymore without wanting to throw up. Mom went on to tell me that some Irish nationals blew Elisaveta up in her parents' apartment. The authorities caught one of her killers, but there were others, and the police haven't found them yet. And, apparently, they couldn't find Brandon either.

"At least," Mom said, "she died immediately. She couldn't have survived the blast."

I'm wondering in what awful universe that's actually considered comfort.

It's only after I've gone upstairs do I realize that Mom didn't mention anything about Brandon.