Page 3 of Notice Me, Jameson Hart

brotherhood of man

T icktock. Ticktock.

The clock above the bedroom door is more annoying than a metronome. I’ve been awake for hours, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars Robbie stuck to the wooden slats when we were twelve. He picked them out at the dollar store, claiming they’d help me sleep better. Spoiler alert: they don’t.

Above me, Robbie’s bunk creaks as he shifts in his sleep. The familiar sound usually comforts me, but tonight, all it does is remind me that everything is about to change.

We only have two months left of beach days and boardwalk strolls.

Of Adam trying to teach me sports I’ll never master and Robbie making terrible jokes—or worse, torturing us with his horrible taste in music.

Two months before life shifts into college prep mode and our last year of high school becomes a blur of deadlines and goodbyes.

I roll onto my side and pull the thin sheet up to my chin. The A.C. hums, keeping our room at Dad’s preferred arctic temperature. Despite the closed door, I hear footsteps. Is it Adam? Is he restless tonight too? Is he thinking the same things I am?

I don’t know why I’m stressing. Graduation won’t spell the end of the Pryor boys. We plan to attend Arcadia University in the fall and find an off-campus apartment with three separate bedrooms. Sign up for the same Gen-Ed classes, maybe even join the same clubs.

Adam already has his eye on their football team. Robbie does too, but he’s also considering auditioning for their comedy improv group. Meanwhile, I’m gunning for their theater program, which puts on six productions a year.

I sit up, careful not to bang my head on Robbie’s bunk.

My Playbill posters stare at me from the opposite wall.

The glossy paper catches the moonlight filtering through the blinds.

Next to them is the corkboard with pictures of me and my brothers, Dad and Diana, my best friend Rita, and my brothers’ teammates. Everyone important to us.

The bedroom door creaks open. I freeze as if I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t. My body goes lax when I see Adam’s silhouette in the doorway. “Can’t sleep either?” he whispers.

He steps into the room, and I notice something weird. He’s decked out in a bright red Arcadia Knights football tee and gray mesh shorts. And he has on black flip-flops, the same ones he used to wear to the community pool before Dad splurged on a swimming pool for the backyard.

“Why are you dressed?” I ask.

He shrugs, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world to be dressed at such a late hour. “Thought you might want to go grab something to eat at the diner.” He tips his head toward the stairs. “You in? Or do you want to keep pretending you’re sleeping?”

I’m not sure when the all-night diner on Main Street became the center of our universe, but it’s now considered holy ground.

It’s where the marching band and football team hold their postgame pancake pig-outs.

It’s where the drama club debriefs opening nights over milkshakes and fries.

It’s where Adam, Robbie, Matthew, and Tyler have their postseason sundae eating contest—which no one has ever won, except Matthew, and, once, Robbie. But only because he cheated.

The very idea of going there with Adam, just the two of us, is almost too tempting to process.

I glance at Robbie’s bunk, half expecting him to jump down and demand to tag along.

But he’s burrowed under his blanket, his mouth open and snoring louder than a leaf blower.

I swear the guy could sleep through a tornado.

“Give me five minutes,” I tell Adam.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll be downstairs. Don’t wake Robbie.”

Flashing my brother a thumbs-up, I put my theater skills to the test and do the world’s fastest quick-change.

I grab my sandals from under the bed and slip my feet into them.

I swap my oversized Star Wars shirt, which I stole from Dad, for a clean black one that says Drama Queen across the chest in rhinestones.

It was a Christmas present from Rita that I swore I’d never wear in public.

Since it’s the middle of the night, no one I know is going to see me in it.

I throw on a zip-up hoodie, though, just in case.

If we get stopped by the cops, I want to be presentable in my mugshot.

Adam is waiting in the hall, scrolling through his phone. He looks up with an impatient sigh. “Took you long enough.”

We creep down the staircase, dodging the one creaky step that Dad promises to fix but still hasn’t. In the kitchen, Adam grabs the car keys from the junk drawer stuffed with takeout menus, expired coupons, and a truly impressive collection of rubber bands.

We’re almost to the front door when Dad’s voice breaks the silence. “Where are you two headed?”

I consider faking a sleepwalking episode, but Adam answers. “Diner.”

Dad grunts his approval from his favorite recliner in the living room. He doesn’t even peel his eyes from the TV that’s playing a late-night rerun of Friends. Ironically, it’s the one where they’re up all night.

Outside, the air is thick with humidity and the smell of cut grass. Our driveway glows under a nearby street light, shining a spotlight on our getaway vehicle—the minivan.

Adam unlocks it with a soft beep that sounds too loud in the stillness.

He tosses his phone into the cupholder while I slide into the passenger seat.

The engine rumbles to life, and the radio comes on full volume.

I turn it down and smile as we slowly back out of the driveway and head off into the night.

Everything is different when Arcadia sleeps. The cheerful houses with their expansive yards now huddle together. Porch lights create small pools of yellow warmth, but between them stretches an ocean of shadows. The stop signs glow with an otherworldly red.

We pass the elementary school where we all learned to read. The playground equipment has transformed into strange metal skeletons. The swings hang perfectly still without a breeze to move them. The parking lot stretches, empty and vast.

“Weird seeing the town dead,” Adam says, reading my mind as usual.

“Yeah.” I watch a stray cat dart across the road and disappear into the bushes. “It’s like we’re the only people left in the world.”

We take a shortcut through the park where Dad taught us to ride bikes, meander around the baseball diamond where Adam hit his first and only home run, and pull up at a red light beside a bike rack where Robbie once got his head stuck between the bars.

When we reach Main Street, Adam parallel parks in a spot on the road. The shops that bustle with tourists during the day are now dark and silent. The signs have been flipped to “closed,” and all the blinds have been shuttered. It’s almost depressing.

Stepping out of the minivan, the silence presses in on me from all sides. No seagulls crying. No children laughing. No vendors hawking their wares. Only the distant hum of a generator and our footsteps on the sidewalk.

I hate how exposed we are out here, how our footsteps echo on the sidewalk. Every shadow could hide something sinister. The alleyways between the buildings could spell danger. My heart threatens to beat right out of my chest.

Without thinking, I link my arm through Adam’s. He gives me a funny look, one eyebrow raised. “Kev?”

“The quiet is freaking me out,” I admit, tightening my grip on his arm. “It’s too much like a horror movie. You know, right before the zombie jumps out and eats someone’s face.”

Adam’s expression softens, and he doesn’t pull away. “There are no zombies in Arcadia.”

“That’s exactly what someone says before the zombies show up.”

We walk arm in arm past Pages & Prose, the local bookstore. The few books on display can’t comfort me right now. Mannequins stand frozen in the windows of the thrift store, their blank faces turned toward the street. I shiver despite the warm night air.

“Remember when we used to sneak out in middle school?” Adam asks in an attempt to distract me from my zombie paranoia.

“You and Robbie snuck out. I stayed in bed like a good child.”

“You came with us that one time.”

“Because you guilt-tripped me!” I hiss. “And then I spent the whole night convinced Dad was going to catch us and ground us forever.”

Adam chuckles. “He did catch us. He was waiting in the kitchen when we got back.”

“And he made us do yard work for a month.” I groan at the memory. “My hands still have phantom blisters.”

The diner finally comes into view, its neon sign casting pink and blue light onto the sidewalk. Through the windows, I see a few late-night customers hunched over coffee cups and plates of pie. The sight of other humans calms my nerves. My shoulders relax and my stomach unclenches.

“Better?” Adam asks as I finally loosen my death grip on his arm.

“Much.” I push open the diner door, and the bell above it chimes. “First one to the booth picks what we order.”

“You’re on,” Adam says, but he lets me win anyway.

I slide into the red vinyl booth and take in the diner.

The checkered linoleum floor is covered in scuff marks and mysterious stains.

The air smells of bacon grease and coffee strong enough to wake the dead.

Above us, fluorescent lights buzz and flicker, casting the diner in a harsh, unnatural light that makes everyone look slightly ill.

The walls are covered in faded photographs of Arcadia through the decades.

There’s the boardwalk before Hurricane Sandy, the old roller rink that burned down when Dad was a kid, and the grand opening of this very diner sometime in the ’70s.

A jukebox sits silent in the corner, its chrome surface reflecting distorted versions of the few other patrons.