Bury This (16 page)

But always facing off. These two lighthouses. What was the fight? What was the contest? The issue? The conceit? Or was it simply a nothing thing. A trifle. A shrug. Pebbles on the sidewalk. Grass through the cracks, repeating again, “Don't look at me, I'm nothing. I'm not here.” As insignificant as sawdust.

And the thought comes to her, almost to focus . . . what it is . . . what it means after all . . . but before it can form itself into a crystal, there's a noise from behind, and it's gone for eternity.

Walking walking out out out toward the water, Beth thinks about all the things she will one day have. She will surround herself with little glass figurines, a fireplace. Molding and a great big imposing colonial-style house with columns and soldier-ghosts and history, history, in every plank of the floor. She will give her daughter her blue Wedgwood locket, the one her mother gave her. History.

She will have a husband with sandy brown hair, a kind-eyed working man. A professional. He will come home with his oxford shirt, sleeves rolled up, tired from the day. He will sit down on the navy-blue wing-back chair and she will coax him back to happiness with a few kind words and his favorite apple crumble. She will kiss the back of his neck and he will reach back and touch her arm, reassuring. I am here. We are here. We are in it together. We are blessed.

Turning just before the lighthouse, a hurried sound of an engine. Beth looks out at the purple dimming sky, purple dim street, hard to tell apart. Thinking for a moment she saw a dark green car, a forest-green Plymouth. But no. That's Jeff's car. And Jeff would be with Shauna. Of course he would.

EIGHT

“I
t'll be fun, I promise.”

“I don't know.”

“C'mon. Just try it. Just this once.”

Shauna Boggs would've died if she thought anyone would ever see these. It was a mistake. She had put them away meticulously. First, she had put them in the dresser drawer, then under the bed, then in a shoebox in the closet. Which is where Beth found them.

Beth had been over, even though, guilty, she avoided that wooden oyster box of a house as much as was possible without arousing suspicion. Why would she want to go over there? Would you? Walking in there was nearly a seven-in-nine chance you'd stumble on her pop staring into his glass in the kitchen. Hunched over himself at that card table, use-it-for-a-kitchen-table, staring intently into a brown plastic glass of something orange with what's left of ice melted in it. For hours.

She wondered how someone could sit for hours like that, not a word. She would die of boredom. But no, there he was—it didn't matter what day it was, what hour. It was his job and he took it seriously. What was he looking for in that brown plastic glass,
opaque, from the Buffy's Buffet down on Henbert. Had to be he stole it. Habit, I guess, to stare into the same glass each morning, each noon, each twilight? That's my glass. My drinking glass! Don't touch it.

No, Beth steered away, delicately, from this little mess of a home, barely hanging on. She had nearly run out of excuses but this time she'd thought what the fuck. Choir practice had been canceled so what else was she gonna do 'til her shift. Besides, Shauna's house was near to work. It didn't make sense to go back home.

They'd been trying on shoes. Then, next thing you know, dresses, this necklace, that skirt, 'til the whole afternoon was burned down and in the hurry of try-on-this and hey-let's-swap a box had tipped over, a little gray shoebox, at the back of the closet and the pictures had come flying out.

Naughty pictures. Dirty things. Sinful pictures her mother would've never allowed her to see, make-her-say-three-Hail-Marys-just-for-looking pictures. Polaroids. There. In the white frame, wide at the bottom, the little black pieces reveal themselves. Shauna in her swimsuit. Shauna in her bra. Shauna in nothing at all.

Shauna on her back. Shauna smiling, drunk. Shauna with a flirty look on her face, spread your legs a little wider, thata girl.

Beth couldn't bear to look at them, but she couldn't look away. Who was this girl? Her friend? Her best friend? In the pictures, now a star. A vixen. A killer of hearts. You would think that what was boiling up in Beth was disgust, shock, judgment, but that's not what it was at all—to her surprise, more shocking than even the pictures, it was envy.

“Jeff took 'em.”

All that time, from cradle to hopscotch, from recess to four square, from corsages to prom to graduation to work, to endless days of drab . . . there had not been one, not one time in a single lifetime Beth had ever felt anything other than the obvious fact. She was her superior. Shauna was never as thin, or as demure, or as delicate in her features, as Beth. Beth was the prize. Shauna was the seconds.

Every time, each and every time, they'd met a boy, or a new set of boys, at school, after school, at the roller rink, Beth had stepped back . . . as she was taught, as she'd inherited. Naturally shy, it wasn't that difficult. What would she have said anyway? What was she supposed to say? The patter, the general swamp of facts exchanged between people who knew nothing of each other confused Beth. It was a mystery. A lackluster one. She wanted nothing to do with it.

But Shauna, oh Shauna had a lot to say. Miles! On and on she would go, asking questions, smiling, laughing, teasing, swatting, guffawing. She was a master of this vacuum-language, as eloquent at drivel-speech as a person could get. Beth sat in wonder, at times wide-eyed, at Shauna's ability to dazzle, razzle, and retain. She had to admit, it was a gift. The gift of gab, isn't that what they called it?

Yes, that's what Shauna had. In spades. In hearts! In diamonds! On and on, she'd go every time, and it was only a matter of time 'til the eyes, or the two sets of eyes, in front of her, would move from the face making noises at them to the smaller, more petite, more dainty little face behind her. And this face, this frozen, cautious face would inevitably, cryingly always prove more interesting.

That part, Beth counted on.

How complicated she would seem, just for this saying-void. The less she did, the more wild they became, in their mistaken knowledge, the fury of her had-to-be-profound thoughts, inner workings, desires. Who is this sweet almost chaste but perhaps dirty, maybe dark, maybe brilliant, maybe wise little shy enthralling creature?! And all of this while Shauna prattled on.

So now this.

These pictures, these x-rated filthy things. In one, the one Beth is holding, peering down, unable to let go, Shauna is lying back on a towel, maybe on the lake? But there must've been no one around . . . she's pulled her shirt up, just enough. She smiles a swoony, mischievous smile and the sun makes her dirt hair gold.

Jealous!

Beth had never been envious her whole life. Not from an abundance of confidence but from a sworn-in, do-your-duty belief that envy was, after all, one of the seven cardinal sins and it just wasn't done. That indulgence, not meant for anyone with the last name Krause. Jealousy was a tonic for small minds, an exorbitance of the weak, the devil's work. Both Dorothy and Lt. Colonel Charles had taught her well to stay away from such lily-minded vanities.

It's a sin, dear. It goes against God. It's an insult to all you've had, all you've been given. There's a reason they call it the green-eyed monster.

And so, with this sudden envy, this sudden desire to be someone, Beth didn't hesitate when her best friend since grade school Shauna Boggs took out her Polaroid and told her to lift up her shirt.

NINE

B
eth was glad to be back at choir practice. Here she knew the rules. In her white sweater set, under the white wood rafters: This is who she was. This here. Not like yesterday. That wasn't her.

She didn't know what had happened. It had happened so fast. Why had she been so weak? Drinking a beer, fooling around. It was supposed to be play. Afternoon playtime, before work. Not what it was.

“Dona Nobis Pacem.”

The song they sang nearly every other week. A round. A beautiful round. The soprano part, by far more interesting. Soaring. The alto part, a dirge. She could sing both parts, if someone fell ill, she would step in, knowing both parts by heart. Yes, she was the favorite.

What had Shauna meant by all this? Swooping around, drinking a beer, taking pictures. She'd just meant it as a joke, for God's sake. But here it happened. Not a joke. A mean little trap, somehow, but Beth could not say how.

Shauna had waited 'til Beth was nearly blacked out, rolling back, lazy arms and eyes. She'd closed her eyes and, as in a dream, she'd opened them and known she was not supposed
to. Shauna's mouth, her lips, her tongue, on her chest, her bare chest! It was a trap! Beware!

Yes, it was a trap. But she hadn't stopped her. Why hadn't she? What was it in her that played dead, lay back, and watched this maybe-lifelong woozy dream come true? Was Shauna in love with her? Why had she done these things?

Wasn't it a sin to do these things? Licking, touching, kissing, that was for husbands on wedding nights, not girl people in the light of day. One of them a spider, one a fly. But Beth knew, also, she hadn't stopped her. Not what she was doing at first and not what she did later. No, she hadn't stopped that either. If Shauna wanted to get drunk and devour her whole, who was she to stop her? Just this once.

But there was an uneasy thought, a devil thought, coming up from her ears, tightening her throat. For a second, she thought she'd heard the sound of something, something else.
Click. Click. Click
. More taking pictures.
Click
. Wait.
Click
. But how could Shauna have been taking pictures when her hands, her mouth, her eyes were all on her?

Don't let devil thoughts get you. Don't let devil thoughts get you in church.

TEN

T
he second-story room at the Green Mill Inn was nothing to write home about. Paneled walls, blue carpet, a perfunctory picture of a boat on Lake Michigan, a print of an oil by a mediocre artist. There's a lighthouse but it could be any lighthouse. Dirt blue, beech, and cream.

Room 202.

An even-numbered room, which annoyed Jeff. He didn't trust even numbers. Always he would try for room 107, room 111, room 115. But 202. No good could come of it.

“Did you give it to him?”

“Who?”

“Billy! Did you give him the pictures?”

Jeff keeping her at bay. What a little piece of sausage Shauna was! Packed into her tank top and blue-jean shorts. Those pudding legs pale as Pringles. A lifetime of cornflakes and white bread and beer. Her mouse hair, wet around her temples, yes, they had been up to something. Up to no good. Again. Afternoon delight. Although the afternoons were becoming less and less delightful. She was not the one he wanted.

From that day she had paraded him around like a pink pony
in the front office, it had pulled him back like a tide. Drawn him to and fro. In and out. Crashing again and again into the impossibility of it. She was too good for him. Shauna, ha—well that was easy. But Beth. No. She would take work. And even then.

“Listen, ya can't tell Billy you know about the pictures, okay?”

“I know, I know. Geez.”

“It's just guy stuff. That's all.”

That phone call he'd gotten, so sudden in the middle of the afternoon. “I'm here with Beth and we're taking dirty pictures. Billy would die!”

Yes. Billy. That's what he'd made up. A stupid little trifle of a lie. To cover. “Why you asking so many questions about Beth? You in love with her or something?” And it just slipped out. “No, fuck no . . . Billy thinks she's cute is all.”

Since then, a weird obsession, an overzealous engagement on Shauna's part. “Tell Billy.” Or “Yeah, Beth's coming. Get Billy.” Or “Maybe Beth will be there . . . hmmm . . . maybe ask Billy, huh?” Such a stupid little child-girl fantasy she'd put together. The importance of it somehow magnified, he could not imagine why. So he'd played along. “Ha, oh yes” and “Oh, I will.” Wink, wink. And he'd played along, sure, he'd played along that afternoon when got that phone call.

“Billy would die!”

“Wait, what?”

“Beth's over and we're taking Polaroids. Billy would freak out!”

He could not say how or in what state he'd managed to fling himself over into that little situation. All he knew, hearing her words, was that he had to get involved.

“I'll be right there.”

“Yeah, you guys should come over. Pretend it's a surprise.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Why the fuck would he call Billy? Let's be plain, Billy didn't even know who Beth was. It was all made up, for Christ's sake. But there she was, Shauna, going on and on about it.

And now, these bad-girl pictures. What the fuck was he supposed to do but stare at them all day. Over and over. Then put 'em back. Forget about them. But then, again, bubbling up, boiling over, get them back again. Stare stare stare at that lily-white little miss perfect Beth Krause and think long and hard, strategize, how to get her.

Shauna prodding again. “You know, I think Billy'd like Beth.”