Dark Companion (20 page)

“You might not think so, but I have to stay cautious, too, Jane.” She was so serious that I assumed it was the vodka talking, and I followed her inside.

The band had ended their set, and Jack jumped off the stage, high-fiving friends as he made his way to Lucky. Hattie hauled me by the hand as she went to meet the Radcliffe brothers.

Lucky was in a slate-gray shirt, a gray blazer, and black jeans. He and Catalina were insanely glamorous together. She was now leaning against the stage. Her lustrous caramel satin halter dress flaunted her golden skin, the curves of her breasts, and her long legs. In heels, she was six feet tall.

“Hi, Catalina, Lucian,” Hattie said breezily as she dropped my arm and leaned against Jack.

“Hello, Harriet.” Catalina rolled her
r
’s in a way that seemed sarcastic. Then she noticed me. “Oh, who let the little mouse sneak into the party?”

For one awful second, I thought that Catalina had discovered the nickname I hated. My paranoia threw me off my game. I lamely snarked, “It’s always so
nice
to see you, Catalina.”

Lucky acknowledged Hattie and me with an apathetic “Hey.”

Hattie frowned at Lucky and said to me, “Isn’t Dog Waffle great?”

Jack pushed a curl off his sweaty forehead. “Hattie, it’s no use pressuring Jane to compliment me. I’ve tried and all she does is hurt my feelings. She hates me.”

“I don’t compliment unless I mean it. You’re really good.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Good like pizza?”

“Pizza’s great, not good, so there’s a qualitative difference.”

Jack clutched his heart dramatically. “See what I mean?”

I smiled, but I was acutely aware of Lucky nearby. He was already talking to some other guy who’d come up. Then more kids joined us and somehow I was standing in the center of people talking over my head.

One guy mentioned the midterm break and another said that they should go on a group vacation. Lucky wanted to visit Portland because he’d never been there, and Catalina said she would be visiting relatives in Barcelona. Hattie voted for the trip to Portland.

No one invited me to come along, and I was moving away when a long-faced college student named Sage stared at me. “Who are
you
?”

“I’m Jane. I transferred in to Birch Grove.”

Catalina sneered, “She’s the new Bebe because Bebe left.”

“She probably flunked out.” Sage grimaced in disgust. “Or maybe she got knocked up by one of her thug boyfriends and sent back to the ghetto.” She dipped her head and peered up at Lucky. “Lucky, I’d think your mom would get tired of rescuing these sad orphans.”

I held my breath, thinking that this was Lucky’s opportunity to stand up for me and to show everyone that we had a connection—but he slapped his brother on the shoulder. “This one’s all yours, bro,” he said, and walked away.

I stared at Lucky’s back incredulously and Jack suddenly said, “I’m a sad orphan, too, Sage.”

He stepped forward and stared down at Sage. “Yeah, I’m adopted. Do you feel sorry for me? Can I cry on your shoulder? My nose gets snotty when I cry, but snottiness turns you on, doesn’t it? Makes you feel so very
special,
am I right?”

“I, uhm, I didn’t mean…” Sage said nervously while the others watched her distress as avidly as a pack of stray dogs eyes an injured member. “I didn’t know, uhm…”

“It’s not your fault. Only our close friends knew. Like Jane.” Jack put his arm over my shoulders, drawing me toward him, and when he touched me, I got that jolt that made me tingle all over. I felt the heat from his body and smelled his intriguing scent, like the morning dew evaporating in the grove.

“I’m sorry, I, uh … didn’t mean…” Sage stepped away from the group.

“Don’t ask to cry on my shoulder, Jacob,” Catalina said. “Hattie is already so jealous of me.”

“It’s because you’re so hot for me. Say the word, Cat, and I’ll rock your world,” Jack said in a sexy growl, and she burst into laughter.

I was on the edge of tears, and kids were still looking at me. I wanted to run away, but Jack kept his arm firmly around me. I could feel the pressure of each individual finger on my shoulder.

He smiled at me and said, “Shorty, I know you were forced to listen to my band, but if you’ve had enough, I can give you a lift home.”

He was giving me a cover so I could leave. “Don’t you have to play again?”

“Not for another hour.”

Even though I didn’t want to go with him, I didn’t want to be here, either. “I was going to spend the night at Mary Violet’s.”

“She’ll stay here until three. Our music gets worse by the hour,” Jack said. “Your choice.”

“Let me tell her I’m going to my place.” After a brief search, I ran into Constance by the refreshment table. “I’m burned out and Jack’s giving me a lift home. I can pick up my things at MV’s tomorrow.”

“You sure?”

“Sure. See you in the morning.” As I went back to Jack, I searched the room for Lucky’s golden head above the crowd. He and Hattie were talking by the steps leading onto the stage. At least he wasn’t with Catalina.

He had large, wild, gazelle-like eyes: his hair, like mine, was in a perpetual tangle—that point he had in common with me, and indeed, as I afterwards heard, our mother having been of gipsy race, it will account for much of the innate wildness there was in our natures. How shall I describe the grace of that lovely mouth, shaped verily “en arc d’amour.”

Count Eric Stanislaus, “The Sad Story of a Vampire” (1894)

Chapter 18

Jack and I went outside to the parking lot, and he pointed to an old green Vanagan. “Ain’t she a swell ride?”

“I thought you were against cars.”

“I can’t even deliver a pizza on a bike, how am I going to handle amps? It’s our drummer’s van.”

He opened the passenger door for me. I tried to step up and sit without my dress hiking up, and I had to pull at the hem, which caught on the ripped seat cover. The van smelled like stale potato chips and motor oil and weed. There were curtains in a daisy print on the side windows. A plastic Batman with a missing arm dangled from the rearview mirror.

Jack got in and after a couple of wheezing cranks, the engine rolled over. He struggled with the stick shift and said, “I’m driving, so it’s your job to make small talk.”

“Oh.”

“Not that small.” He waved at the security guard as we left the club. “Make medium talk.”

“I didn’t know you were adopted.”

“It’s not a big secret, but it’s not the first thing I tell people. Most people take one look at my family and say, so who’s the Jewish kid?”

“I guess I’m used to mixed-up families. What happened to your parents?”

“The short story is that my birth mom was the bookkeeper for Birch Grove. She died of an aneurysm when I was born, and my father gave me up to the Radcliffes because he couldn’t stand the sight of me and knew they hadn’t been able to have kids. A few years later, Lucky came as a lucky surprise.”

“That’s why you asked me about my family and my father.”

“I was wondering if you’d ever met him. I got in touch with my birth dad when I was fifteen. He’s in Vermont, remarried, no kids.”

“How’d that go?”

“He told me that whenever he saw me, all he could think was that I’d killed my mother.”

“That’s awful!”

“Yeah, actually it was awful. I raged out for a while,” Jack said matter-of-factly. “But I love my family, my
real
family.” He drove along the winding road with an occasional grinding of gears as he shifted. “You may not think I’m a prize, but the Radcliffes always act like they’ve won the lottery with me.”

“I’m glad for you, Jack.”

“So am I. All families have problems, though, Halfling.” He glanced over at me. “My mother works really hard trying to keep everything in order. My father gets stressed and down. Lucky has his own major issues. He’s not just some smiling, Abercrombie-looking dude, so don’t expect him to act like a hero.”

“Jack, if there’s something you want to tell me, tell me. Don’t speak in elliptical terms.”

“Elliptical.” He gave a short, sharp bark of laughter. “That’s odd coming from you with all your mysteries, Halfling.”

“All I have is a lousy childhood. That’s no mystery, and if I don’t talk about it, it’s because I don’t want to live in the past.” We drove through the main entrance of Birch Grove Academy, and I tried to think of a safe subject. “You described the rest of your family, but what about you?”

“I’m the one who tells them that it’s not all about success and image.”

“In other words, you’re the slacker.”

“Or the king’s fool.”

“What does that mean?”

“Read your Shakespeare.”

“Why don’t you tell me straight out?”

“No cheating on the test. Eyes on your own paper, Jane Williams.” He parked on the drive. “I’ll walk you to your cottage.”

He stretched across me to open the glove compartment. As he took out a flashlight, his arm grazed mine, sending that reaction through me, so potent that it threw me back into a cool, shady place that I could
almost
remember like one might remember the coolness of a drink of water, but not be able to recall the taste. I froze and thought,
What was that?

“Don’t panic,” he said. “Being a jackass isn’t contagious.” He hopped out of the van, and went around and opened the door for me. He took my hand to help me down. As soon as I was standing, I pulled away from him.

He angled the beam of the flashlight on the uneven soil of the path. I stepped carefully in my high heels. The thick fog swirled around us. The wind grabbed at the ends of my cashmere shawl and the branches of the birches thrashed. Other than the porch light, the cottage was dark.

Jack walked with me to the steps of the porch. “Don’t you ever get scared out here by yourself?”

“You asked me that before.”

“I asked you if you got lonely, not scared. Different question.” He clicked off the flashlight and put it in his jacket pocket.

“There are worse things than being alone. There are real dangers and I’d rather be aware of them than oblivious, even when they frighten me.” We stood still, facing each other, and his face grew serious.

“You are a strange and remarkable little creature, aren’t you, Jane?” The wind whipped my hair across my face and Jack reached over to me and brushed my hair back. Then he held his warm palms against my cheeks. “You’re very fierce and very beautiful and very brave.”

My skin tingled all over, from the heat of the party and his hands now and the cold wind, causing such turbulent emotions and sensations that I trembled. The world beyond seemed to drop away: Jack and I were alone in this wood and I imagined it stretching on endlessly. There was only us, the rush of the wind in the swaying trees, and this black night.

For a brief moment, I imagined that if I took Jack’s hand in mine, we
really
would be in a place where the trees lifted their roots and danced in the night, a place where I really was fierce and beautiful and brave. The illusion was so overwhelming that long seconds passed before I could form a sentence. “Do you talk to Hattie this way?”

“No, only you, Halfing. You make me say foolish things. You make me think impossible things.”

“That’s why I never believe a word you say.”

Jack sighed and dropped his hands to his sides. “Here is a word you can believe. I found it for you, a word that’s like music. Susurration.”

“Susurration.” The word tasted like wind in my mouth.

“Aren’t you going to
ax
me what it means?”

I was so relieved he was openly teasing again that I played along. “What
do
it mean?”

“A whispering sound. Listen.”

We were silent, but the grove was not. The leaves rustled and sighed and branches crashed and creaked. Jack’s long curly hair flew in the hissing breeze and he looked half-wild, like he belonged here in the woods, and I thought of his song, of him running through the forest after his elusive Titania. I thought of him as Pan, the Greek god of music and love and the woods.

I became lost again, staring in his green eyes and listening to the wind swirling and eddying around us.

My thoughts and feelings were so unlike me that I wondered if the punch had been spiked. I stepped back. “Susurration. Thank you for the word and the ride. Good night, Jack.”

He gazed at me in such an odd way, as if he were seeing someone other than the Jane Williams that everyone else saw. “Good night, Halfling.”

I unlocked and opened the front door, and I flicked on the light before I stepped into the living room. I shut and locked the door, making sure I was safe from … I didn’t know. I peeked out through the front curtains. Jack stood at the edge of the path. He must have seen me, because he waved before walking away.

He looked so alone that I wanted to call him back. But his solitude was temporary and soon he’d be surrounded by all his friends at the party.

I was the one who was alone.

I unzipped the dress and hung it in the closet, and then placed my new heels neatly beside my other shoes. I put on a cotton tank and pajama pants. The mirror showed me a plain girl with smeared mascara.

When I went into the medicine cabinet to get facial cleanser, I saw the sunscreen there. I unscrewed the cap. It smelled like Lucky so I rubbed some on my skin.

I curled up on the sofa with a comforter because my thoughts were spinning in circles. I had a hundred questions, most of them beginning with
why?
Why, why, why, why. I don’t know when I fell asleep, but a banging on the door shocked me awake.

“Jane, let me in! It’s me, Lucky! Jane!”

I ran to the door and opened it. Lucky fell into my arms, drunk and laughing.