Chapter One

Almost five years after Ronnie Chase's death, the phone rings late
one windy February evening. Ronnie's older brother, Philip, is
asleep on the foldout sofa, because the family room has served as
his bedroom ever since he moved home from New York City. Tangled in
the sheets -- among his aluminum crutch, balled-up Kleenexes, TV
Guides, three remote controls, and a dog-eared copy of an Anne
Sexton biography -- is the cordless phone. Philip's hand fumbles in
the dark until he dredges it up by the stubby antenna and presses
the On button. "Hello.

A faint, vaguely familiar female voice says, "Philip? Is that
you?

Philip opens his mouth to ask who's calling, then stops when he
realizes who it is: Melissa Moody, his brother's high school
girlfriend. His mind fills with the single image of her on prom
night, blood splattered on the front of her white dress. The memory
is enough to make his mouth drop open farther. It is an expression
all of the Chases will find themselves wearing on their faces in
the coming days, beginning with this very phone call. "Missy?

"Sorry, it's late. Did I wake you?

Philip stares up at the antique schoolhouse clock on the wall,
which has ticked and ticked and ticked in this rambling old
colonial for as long as he can remember, though it never keeps the
proper time. Both hands point to midnight, when it's only
ten-thirty. Back in New York City, people are just finishing dinner
or hailing cabs, but here in the Pennsylvania suburbs, the world
goes dead after eight. "I'm wide awake," Philip lies. "It's been a
long time. How are you?

"Okay, I guess.

He hears the steady whoosh of cars speeding by in the background.
There is a thinly veiled tremble in her voice that tells him she is
anything but okay. "Is something the matter?

"I need to talk to you and your parents.

If she wants to talk to his father, she'll have to track him down
in Florida where he lives with his new wife, Holly -- the woman his
mother refers to simply as The Slut. But Philip doesn't bother to
explain all that, because there is too much to explain already.
"What do you want to talk about?

Before Missy can answer, his mother's heavy footsteps thunder down
the stairs. A moment later, she is standing at the edge of the
foldout bed, her worn-out white nightgown pressed obscenely against
her doughy body. A few nights before, Philip had caught the second
half of About Schmidt on cable. Now he thinks of the scene where
Kathy Bates bares all before getting in the hot tub -- this moment
easily rivals that one. He shifts his gaze to his mother's curly
gray hair springing from her head in all directions like a madwoman
-- which is fitting, because to Philip, she is a madwoman. "Who is
it?

"Hold on," Philip says into the phone, then to his mother, "it's
Missy.

"Melissa? Ronnie's girlfriend?

Philip nods.

And then there is that expression: her eyebrows arch upward, her
mouth drops into an O, as though she too has been spooked by the
horrible memory of Melissa's prom dress splattered with Ronnie's
blood. "What does she want?

He gives an exaggerated shrug, then returns his attention to
Melissa. "Sorry. My mom just woke up and wanted to know who was on
the phone.

"That's okay. How is she anyway?

All the possible answers to that question rattle around in his
mind. There is the everyday fact of his father's absence, his
mother's binge eating and ever-increasing weight, her countless
pills for blood pressure, cholesterol, anxiety, and depression. But
all he says is, "She's fine. So what do you want to talk to us
about?

"I'd rather tell you in person. Can I come by sometime?

"Sure.

"When would be good?

Philip thinks of his life in New York, the way he asked perfect
strangers over to his camper-size studio in the East Village at all
hours. The buzzer was broken, so he had to instruct each one to
yell from the street. "How about now?" he hears himself say into
the phone.

"Now?" Melissa says.

He waits for her to tell him that it's too late, too dark, too
cold. But she takes him by surprise.

"Actually, I've waited too long to tell you this. So now sounds
good to me.

After they say good-bye, Philip presses the Off button and tosses
the cordless back into the rumpled mess of the bed. The skin
beneath his cast itches, and he jams two fingers into the narrow
pocket of space just above his kneecap, scratching as hard as he
can. His mother stares down at him as an onslaught of questions
spill from her mouth like she's regurgitating something and she
cannot stop: "Aren't you going to tell me what's going on? I mean,
why the hell would that girl call here after all this time? What,
she doesn't know how rude it is to phone someone so late? For
Christ's sake, aren't you going to answer me?

Philip quits scratching and pulls his fingers free from the cast,
which looks more like an elongated ski boot with an opening for his
bruised toes at the bottom, instead of the plain white casts kids
used to autograph when he was in high school only a decade ago. "If
you shut up for a second, I'll answer you.

His mother crosses her arms in front of her lumpy breasts, making a
dramatic show of her silence. The other night he'd watched Inside
the Actors Studio and one of those actresses with three names (he
could never keep track of who was who) had talked about playing her
part for the back row of the theater. That's how his mother has
gone through life these last five years, Philip thinks, her every
move broad enough for the people in the cheap
seats.

Excerpted from STRANGE BUT TRUE © Copyright 2004 by John
Searles. Reprinted with permission by William Morrow, an imprint of
HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.