Closer Home (14 page)

“You’re not going anywhere.”

Frank and the rest of the cowards are still in the car, doing nothing. Bryce grins, watching like this is a spectator sport and he’s got the best seat in the house. Nobody else to be seen in the parking lot. I know I ought to scream, but my pride won’t let me. I’m telling myself I can handle him, that he’s not going to go further than kissing, but I’m not sure. I want Dale to come rescue me, but he’s inside with Callie.

And then there is somebody else in the parking lot. Tall, gangly, awkward. Absolutely no match for Kelvin, and I’m totally surprised by the authority in his voice when Timothy says, “Don’t be an asshole, Kelvin. The game’s up. Let her go.”

“Mind your own business,” Kelvin says. He’s got me by the hair now, twisting it tight so he controls my head. He kisses me again, and this time I bite his lip. He jerks away, dropping me as his hands go to his mouth. He’s bleeding.

I back away, keeping my face to him this time so he can’t come up on me from behind, shoes clutched in my fists as weapons. Timothy brushes past me. “I’ve got wheels. Let’s go.”

My heart hammering like crazy, I follow him, splashing through puddles. I step on something sharp and a burn flares in my right heel. The stupid dress clings to my thighs and knees, slowing me down. My head feels wobbly from the booze. But Timothy’s car is right there. He opens the passenger side door for me and heads for the driver’s seat.

Before he can get the door open, Kelvin is on him with a flying tackle. Both of them disappear from my sight on the other side of the car. I hear a grunt, and a wet, heavy sound as they hit the pavement. A series of thuds. I glance over at the booze car, opening my mouth to scream out for help, but all four of them are lined up in a row, just watching. Frank shakes his head a little, and the scream dies in my throat.

Clutching a shoe in my right hand, the heel facing out like a knife blade, I round the car. Timothy’s pinned flat on his back, Kelvin pounding him with both fists. Coming up behind him, I hammer at the side of his face with the heel of the shoe. He yelps, twisting around to see what hit him, and I strike again. He’s drunk, his reflexes slow, and the hand coming up in self-defense isn’t fast enough to prevent another blow. This one catches on his ear and tears the skin, leaving a trail of blood.

He grabs for the shoe but misses, and I get in one more good smack on top of his head. The moment of distraction is enough to let Timothy use both hands to shove Kelvin backwards, writhe out from underneath him, and give him the knee in the balls he so richly deserves. I don’t need to be told to get in the car, and we’re off and driving. Last I see of Kelvin, he’s writhing on the wet pavement, his hands clutching his privates.

Timothy’s lip is split, his left eye swelling shut. His cheek is cut and bleeding. As soon as we’re out of the parking lot and it’s clear nobody’s coming after us, he finds a place to pull over. Both of us are shivering. He turns the heat full up, but I feel like I’ll never be warm again.

“You okay?” he asks.

I nod. I’ve never felt less okay, but I’m not hurt and I figure that’s what he means. He’s a different story. “Maybe we should go to the ER. You might need stitches.”

He shakes his head. “My mom would have a fit. Costs a fortune.”

“You’re bleeding.”

He checks himself in the mirror. “Face cuts always bleed. It’ll be okay. Thanks for getting him off me. What on earth did you do? I couldn’t see anything.”

“Shoe.” I grin. I can’t help it, and all at once we’re both laughing.

“Ow,” he says, stopping at once and putting one hand over his lip.

“You need some ice on that.”

“Yeah.” He pulls back out onto the road and drives me home, both of us keeping the rest of our thoughts to ourselves.

“Thanks,” I say, when he drops me outside my house. It seems a very small and inefficient word, but I’m about to burst into tears and need to get into the house before that happens.

“Hey, I’ve always wanted to kick that asshole in the balls. Thank you for providing the opportunity.”

“Lise? Are you okay?”

Everybody’s looking at me. My cheeks are wet, and I scrub them with the backs of my hands and take refuge in a long swallow of ice water.

“Sorry.” I try to smile.

“Whatever are you sorry for?” Timothy says. “You’ve got carte blanche to cry anytime. What’s it been, a week since she died?”

A wave of exhaustion rolls over me, and I want out of here and away. Oblivion would be lovely, but responsibility waits.

“We should go check on Shadow,” I say.

Ariel snorts, but she looks pale and tired herself, and she’s still hiding behind her sunglasses.

“I never did thank you properly,” I say to Timothy as we all push back chairs and get to our feet.

“For what?”

“You took a hit for me, back then. I’m pretty sure I never showed proper appreciation.”

“Prom, you mean?” His face darkens and he glances at Ariel. “Has he changed?”

“Not as much as you’d hope.”

“I have to admit I was shocked when you agreed to go out with him.”

“Not so much as I was that he asked me.” I manage a smile and a shrug.

Timothy studies me and shakes his head. “You didn’t know.”

“Apparently not. What are we talking about?”

His face flushes and he shakes his head. “Wish I hadn’t brought it up.”

My stomach does an elevator trip down into my toes. Whatever it is, I also wish he’d kept it to himself, but it’s too late for that now.

Timothy telegraphs something to Dennis and he nods, steering Ariel out onto the sidewalk with a hand on her shoulder.

“Spit it out,” I say. “I already know Kelvin is a class-A asswipe. Probably not much you can tell me that would come as a shock.”

He runs a hand through his perfect hair, standing it on end. If he were on TV, the expression on his face would be “man delivering bad news.”

“Some of the guys used to call you the Ice Queen.”

This surprises me into a giddy little laugh. “Me? You’ve got to be kidding.”

Timothy doesn’t smile. “Because you were so pretty but never went out. There were the inevitable frigidity jokes. Kelvin . . .” He stops and clears his throat.

“God.” Even after all these years, shame heats my skin and turns my stomach. I definitely wish I hadn’t eaten so much lunch.

“Kelvin had a bet going that he could get you to go out with him and . . . well, get you to have sex . . .”

My face burns with humiliation. I should have known. If I hadn’t been so flattered by his attention, I would have seen it. In the days between Kelvin’s invite and prom, girls whispered to each other when I walked by. A couple of the guys asked me out. One of them grabbed my ass while I was getting something out of my locker.

“Well,” I say. “You’re right. I could have happily lived my whole life without knowing that little tidbit.”

Timothy won’t meet my eyes. “I’m sorry I said anything.”

“No, I needed to know. For Ariel.” I put my arms around him and squeeze him tight, wanting to erase what he’s feeling. “You’re a good man, Timothy. Be happy.”

He pats my back like I’m a child who needs soothing. “Take good care of her, okay? Let me know if we can help.”

Outside, when Ariel puts out her hand to say good-bye, Timothy ignores it and pulls her into a hug. “Whatever happens with the testing, I hope you’ll stay in touch.”

She hugs him back. “You can count on it.”

Dennis, who is driving, won’t hear of us waiting for a cab, and they drop us back at the hotel. All the way I’m watching the streets for red curls and a camera, but I see only ordinary people doing ordinary things. Ariel leans her head against the seat, eyes still hidden by dark glasses, but her face looks softer, more at peace, and she clasps the purse on her lap as if it contains treasure.

CHAPTER NINE

Shadow is not in the hotel room. His suitcase is still there, open on the couch where he left it. His shaving kit is on the bathroom counter. Ariel registers this quietly.

“He’ll be back,” she says, but there’s a catch in her voice. She dives straight into the shower, leaving me to the mercy of my memories.

I peel out of my jeans and into a pair of sweatpants. Shame heats my face all over again just thinking about the Ice Queen wager. I wonder if Dale knew about that, and what he must have thought of me.

Which reminds me that I owe him the decency of a call. He doesn’t know where I am. He’ll be worried. And nobody knows where to reach me if Mom gets sick or has a fall. A couple of days ago, Dale’s voice would have been the most comforting sound in the world, but now my hand feels weighted with lead as I dial the familiar number. Each ring travels from my ear down to my toes and back again, as if I’m an empty sound tunnel. When Dale’s answering machine clicks on, I freeze, mouth open, throat tight, choking on words I don’t know how to say.

I’m fine, don’t worry, I’ll be in touch later.

But nothing is easy, not anymore. I hang up without saying a word and collapse on the edge of the bed, shaking like I’ve narrowly escaped mortal danger. In the bathroom, the water stops running. Ariel will be out in a minute, and I need to pull myself together. I want to escape, hit the bar downstairs, maybe get thoroughly plastered. But I need to be here for Ariel.

So instead I climb into bed, hiding my shivering beneath the covers, and turn on the TV. Clicking through the channels is mindless and soothing, and little by little my hands stop their wild shaking. I settle on an old episode of
I Love Lucy
, silly and familiar.

Ariel emerges from the bathroom in a cloud of steam. She looks about ten years old in her fuzzy sleep pants and T-shirt, with wet hair loose around her face. I expect her to climb into her bed and put her earbuds in, but instead she climbs in next to me. Not touching, but closer than she needs to be. She’s got her laptop, though, and it only takes a minute for her to be thoroughly absorbed in the screen.

Watching her, I’m struck by how alone she is. Her mother is dead. She doesn’t have a father. And the only person she feels she can count on is throwing a hissy fit and has gone off God knows where.

I keep running lines in my head.

I love you so much. You’re all the family I have left.

It’s you and me, kid.

Let me take you home.

But I’ve never been good at saying what I feel. And I don’t want to go home, not until the media circus dies down. So where are we to go, what are we to do?

Ariel looks up from the screen and catches me staring at her.

“What?”

Not a tone that encourages conversation. She’s got a personal space bubble up around her so big I can feel it burning my skin. But I have to say something, and I want to kick myself when I open my mouth and spill, “So where are we headed next?”

“Yakima.” Her eyes look weary and don’t light up at all.

“That’s not far, at least. We could rent a car.”

She nods, her eyes on the laptop screen. Her forehead is puckered, lips pressed so tightly together I can see white around the edges.

“You don’t have to do this, Ariel.”

“I do.” There’s a flatness in her voice that’s close to despair, night and day from the enthusiasm she had about meeting Kelvin and Timothy. Maybe she’s missing Shadow, I don’t know, but something’s not right.

“Who is it? Does he know we’re coming?”

She closes the laptop and turns up the volume on the TV, not answering my question.

The studio audience laughs loudly. I go to the TV and hit the “Power” button manually, standing directly in her line of vision.

“Ariel? Talk to me.”

Something bumps against the door, and both of us shift our attention in that direction. There’s the sound of somebody swiping a key and the door opens. Ariel stiffens and looks away, so Shadow’s dramatic entrance falls flat. He waits in the doorway for a long moment, a bouquet of red roses in one hand, a box of chocolate in the other. Ariel keeps her eyes fixed on the blank TV, even when he kicks the door closed.

He brushes past me without any acknowledgment whatsoever. Chocolate and flowers, God help me. He looks tragic and romantic and just a little bit dangerous, right out of one of those teenage vampire movies. “You were right,” he says, kneeling beside the bed and laying the flowers in her lap. “I’m sorry. I don’t want you to need anybody but me.”

Ariel flings herself into Shadow’s arms, burying her face against his chest. He glances over her head at me and smiles, slowly, deliberately, before he bends his head to kiss her. The two of them are lip-locked in a heartbeat, leaving me in the front-row bleachers with the scent of roses heavy in my nostrils.

“I’ll just put these in water, then,” I say, but neither of them comes up for air. What I want to do is beat the boy over the head with his bouquet, but instead I put water in the ice bucket and leave the roses in the bathroom, then slip out the door and go downstairs. The bank of pay phones slows my steps, but I keep going, across the lobby and outside.

A walk would be nice. I could use a chance to stretch my legs and clear my head. But the weather has shifted. Wind scours against me, so full of dirt it’s hard to breathe. The sky is gray with it. A tumbleweed rolls across the parking lot, pursued by a plastic bag and a rattle of dry leaves. A man strides toward the hotel, head bent, face scrunched up against the dust. I open the door for him, and we both blow back into the lobby.

“Pasco dust storm,” he says, smoothing a hand over windblown hair. “Hate this place, but business is business. You staying long?” The smile, the suit, the briefcase in one hand and cell phone in the other—all shriek sales.

“Not long.” I need a polite exit strategy—now—but can’t think of anything.

“You look familiar. Have we met?” A worn-out pickup line if ever there was one, only I think he means it. His eyes sharpen, measuring the angles of my face, the fall of my hair.

“I get that a lot. One of those faces, I guess.” My smile feels wooden, my lips numb. “Good luck with the dust!” As I turn and walk away, his eyes boring a hole into my back, I long for the good old days when I would have assumed he was checking out my ass, not fixing to identify me as Callie’s sister. I take the stairs, insurance against any more curious eyes, and arrive at the door of our room out of breath and out of sorts.

I make sure to knock loudly before I let myself in. The two of them are cuddled up on Ariel’s bed, but at least they’re fully clothed.

I sit on the edge of my bed and pull off my shoes. The blister from Callie’s funeral still isn’t healed. It stings. My feet ache. I just want to be done with this day, but before I can turn off my brain, I need to discuss the plans for tomorrow.

“Okay, kids. Who’s the next victim?”

“His name is Bryce and he looks like another one of Mom’s real winners.” Ariel’s voice sounds small and tired. She leans her head on Shadow’s shoulder, her face hidden by her hair.

I suck in a breath between my teeth and hold it, counting to ten.

“Bryce Halvorson?”

Ariel nods, her face still hidden.

“Ariel. Honey. No. I love you, but no.”

“You promised.”

No need to wonder where Ariel got her stubborn streak. I’ve heard both these words, and the tone they’re uttered in, come from Callie’s lips a thousand times. It never mattered if I’d really promised anything or not.

“But you didn’t tell me his name. Kelvin is an angel of light compared to Bryce.”

“And this is a surprise? Mom liked dicks. We know that.”

Shadow snickers and she smacks him. “You know what I mean. So this guy’s a creep. So what?”

“This guy,”
I say, exaggerating her emphasis, “is dangerous. Skip him. Move on. If he’s your father, honey, you don’t want to know.”

“People change.”

“Not that much.”

“What did he do? Murder somebody?”

I sigh. “No, he kept it down to beating his girlfriend and dealing crack. He liked hurting people.”

Ariel shakes her head, her lips set in a thin line. “I don’t care if he’s a psychopath. I need to know.”

“You think that because you’re sixteen—”

She flings her hands up in the air and glares at me. “Sixteen doesn’t mean stupid. If I’ve got psychopath genes, maybe I should know before I kill somebody in my sleep or something.”

“Bryce isn’t your father, all right? You’re nothing like him. Give this one up.”

“But Yakima is, like, an hour away.”

“Your mother made me responsible for you, and I’m not going to let you do this. I’m just not. So I’m going to call a cab and we’ll head to the airport and find the soonest flight out, you hear me?”

Ariel plants herself between me and the phone. “You said you’d come with me. You agreed.”

“I changed my mind. Move.”

“Call a cab if you want, but I’m not getting in it.”

“Ariel—”

“Me and Shadow can go without you.”

“How are you going to get there?”

“Greyhound.”

“We could hitchhike,” Shadow drawls. “I’ve always wanted to try that.”

“Sure,” Ariel agrees. “The bus is too slow. Hitchhiking is an awesome idea.”

“Until you get in the car with a rapist or a murderer. Think, Ariel. You’re not using your head.”

“Shadow will be with me.” She says this as if the boy offers protection. More a liability, as I figure it. She’s more likely to rescue him if it comes to trouble than the other way around.

“You can’t hitchhike. That’s the end of it.”

Ariel leaps off the bed like she’s got a rocket launcher and gets right in my face. She’s as tall as I am, probably outweighs me by a few pounds. Her fists are clenched at her sides, her cheeks flushed red with outrage. “How are you going to stop me? I’m too big to lock in my room.”

“I’ll call the cops. Report you as a runaway.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.”

“You’re bluffing.”

She’s right. I’m not going to call the cops. If the media got their teeth in that story, it would be like throwing fresh chum into shark-infested waters. If pictures of Ariel in the back of a cop car start circulating in the tabloids and on Twitter and God knows where else, she’ll never forgive me. But if I let her take off and she gets hurt hitchhiking, then I’ll never forgive myself.

It seems like an eternity that we stand there, locked eye to eye—the still center at the eye of a storm. She speaks first.

“He’s not going to hurt me.”

“Ariel, listen to me. I know him. You don’t. He—”

“He’s dead, okay? He’s fucking dead and we’re going to the fucking funeral and I’ll never know . . .”

Her face contorts, eyes scrunched, mouth stretching into the shape of another word, but all that comes out is a sob. Arms wrapped around her belly, she sinks onto the floor with her back against the bed, wrenched apart by weeping.

I don’t know what to do, how to comfort her. I stand there feeling gutshot and like I’m intruding on a private moment. It’s Shadow who sits down on the floor beside her and puts his arms around her, murmuring soothing words, rocking her as though she’s a small child. Her grief is so raw, so naked, it makes me want to run. If I keep listening to her, I’m going to break into pieces and join her on the floor.

I can’t comfort her and I can’t leave her, so I go to the phone instead and focus on practicalities. A rental car. A hotel. I’m pretty sure that the last thing Ariel needs is another funeral, but if she’s hell-bent on going, then I’ll be going with her.