Dark River Road (11 page)

It smelled like cherries and mint, and he breathed deep, staring out the shrouded entrance at the chipped moonlight dancing on the river. He liked the sound the river made, liked the way it looked at night, all silky and mysterious. Kinda like Tansy. He looked over at her again. She stared back at him, lantern light flickering on her face and wide eyes. Her legs were pulled up to her chest, long and bare and really pretty. He could see almost all the way up her skirt. He looked away.

He thought suddenly of his guilty dreams, and felt uncomfortable. He shouldn’t even think of that when he was here with her. It felt like a betrayal somehow.

“Chantry, do you think I’m pretty?”

He hadn’t expected that question and answered honestly. “You’re the prettiest girl I know, except maybe for Cinda.”

She bit her lower lip and looked away, and he knew he hadn’t given her the right answer. It made him feel bad. And confused.

“What’s going on, Tansy?”

She put her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook, and he realized with horror that she was crying. He didn’t know what to do. He wanted to comfort her, but wasn’t sure if she really wanted him to touch her or even if he should.

After a minute, she put down her hands and looked up at him. Tears still streaked her cheeks. “You were right, Chantry. I should have listened to you.”

He got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what she would say next.

“About
 . . .
about Chris.” She looked down at her hands, twisted her fingers together for a moment, then reached for the wine again. She poured another cup, and looked up at him with a trace of defiance when he made a sound of protest. “I guess I really knew it, but I didn’t want to think it was true. I wanted to think I was different. Dammit, I
am
different. I don’t fit in anywhere I know. What am I supposed to be?
Who
am I supposed to be? Look at me, Chantry. I’m not ugly and I’m not stupid. I have feelings. I have dreams. There are things I want to do in life, places I want to go. I don’t want people to look at me and say
There goes a black girl
. I don’t even want them to say
There goes a white girl
. I want them to say
 . . .
to say,
There goes Tansy Rivers. Isn’t she something?
”

“I’ll say that, Tansy, and I’ll mean it. You are something.”

She gave him a look almost of desperation, and he felt like he hadn’t said the right thing. Again.

“I don’t know how to say what I feel,” she said after a moment. Her voice lowered to a soft whisper. “I just feel so
 . . .
different. So alone.”

He understood that feeling well enough. Except for Tansy he didn’t have anyone to talk to either. But he didn’t know if he’d know how anyway. He wasn’t good at saying stuff.

“You’re not alone, Tansy. You have me.”

“Do I?” Her eyes swung back to him, studied his face. “Do you love me, Chantry?”

He frowned. “Of course I do. I always have.”

“No. I mean do you love me. Really love me.”

He didn’t know what she wanted him to say so he didn’t say anything, just looked at her. Time ticked past, marked by the rush of the river outside and the flicker of the lantern. Tansy leaned close to him. He could smell the flowery perfume she used, and something else, something that wasn’t familiar. Her voice was low, intense.

“Have you ever
done
it, Chantry?”

“Done it?” She couldn’t mean what it sounded like. He stared at her. She stared back.

“You know. Had sex. Done it with a girl. Have you?”

“Jesus, Tansy, why d’you want to go and ask me something like that?”

“You haven’t. If you had, you’d say so.” She took another sip of wine, looked at him over the rim of the cup. “Me either. I want to do it with you, Chantry. Now. Tonight. Right here.”

He started to sweat. His throat got tight and he had this funny feeling low in his belly and then even lower. He looked away from her. “You don’t know what you’re sayin’.”

“Yes, I do. Oh yes. I do. I want to
 . . .
to be with you.
My
choice. My decision.”

His eyes narrowed with sudden suspicion. “Did Chris Quinton do something bad to you?”

“Not like you mean. But you were right. That’s what he wanted from me. That’s
all
he wanted from me. He said
 . . .
” She paused and her throat worked soundlessly for a moment. She looked down, then back up. Her lashes made shadows on her cheeks. “He said girls like me can’t expect anything else. He’d said he wanted to be with me, to spend time with me, to show me off. And I thought he meant he wanted to take me to the Fall Festival.”

“But he didn’t,” Chantry said when she fell silent, and she shook her head.

“No. He’s taking Mariah Sewell. She’s white. I’m not.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth to steady it. “He said I’m colored, not white, not black, just—
colored
.”

He put a hand atop hers. “You’re a beautiful color. Like a
 . . .
like a rainbow.”

Tiny teardrops clung to the tips of her lashes. She blinked them away. One slid down her cheek and he caught it with his fingertip, smearing it on her skin. She caught his hand and held it in hers, staring at him.

They were so close that he could almost hear her heartbeat. He looked at her mouth, the way her lips were parted and soft, and thought,
This is Tansy. I can’t do this.

Then she kissed him before he could pull away. It was his first real kiss. It felt like he’d been sucker punched in the belly. All the air left his lungs and all he could focus on was how soft her mouth was and how good she tasted. His heart beat faster and all the blood rushed south. He felt like he did in his dreams, hot and achy and full.

They kept kissing and he didn’t know where to put his hands, didn’t want to touch her and didn’t want to not touch her. He thought of her that day at Six Oaks, her bare breast and the taut nipple that had been just inches from him. Then he remembered how Chris had stared at her too, and how Dempsey had come up to stop trouble before it started.
Dempsey.

It took an effort but he pulled away, breathing as hard as if he’d run a mile. His voice came out all wrong, hoarse and raspy. “I can’t. We can’t. It
 . . .
it’s not right.”

Tansy jerked away from him, eyes wide and golden in the lantern light. Her lips quivered. He stared back at her, feeling stupid.

She made a strangled little sound, then got up and ran out of their secret cave and left him sitting there alone, knowing he’d ruined everything.

He didn’t see Tansy for a while
after that. She avoided him at school, didn’t come to the phone, and when he finally got up the nerve to go to her house, Dempsey told him she wasn’t there.

“She stays busy lately,” he said, looking at Chantry as if he should know why. “I don’t hardly see her, what with her schooling and the extra work I been doin’ for the Sheridans.”

Chantry nodded. He felt awkward. And guilty. He didn’t know why he should feel so guilty except maybe because he still had those dreams about Tansy, only worse now. Sometimes he didn’t want to go to sleep even when he was really tired after school, his job at the vet’s, and doing homework. He wanted the sleep, but he didn’t want the dreams.

“Somethin’ goin’ on I should know about, Chantry?” Dempsey looked at him, and he had to look away.

“I just wanted to know if she’s going to the Fall Festival. I’m helping Mama set up for it.”

“Um hm. All right, then. I’ll tell her you came by.”

It was the first time he could remember that he hadn’t been honest with Dempsey, but it wasn’t all his secret to tell.

The day of the Fall Festival, he woke up with a cold. His head hurt, his throat felt scratchy and he kept sneezing. Mama told him he could stay home since he was sick but he’d already taken off work to help her and said he’d be okay. She gave him some cold medicine and told him to be in her sixth period class as soon as the bell rang. There were tables to set up, bunting to hang, and decorations to put on the gym walls.

The cold medicine eased his symptoms but made him feel like he walked around in a daze. By his third period science class, all he could think about was taking a nap. He sat in the back of the room and tried to focus on the principles of chemical reaction. His eyes burned and he rubbed at them. When he took his hand away, a folded piece of paper lay on the surface of his desk.

He blinked in surprise. He looked around, but no one looked back at him and he didn’t know who’d thrown it. It probably wasn’t even for him. The teacher, Mr. Winstead, still droned on about the properties of sulphuric acid. He put the note down in his lap and unfolded the top of it to look inside.

Chantry,
it read in girlish script,
will you go with me to the festival tonight?
It was signed
Cinda
. He read it twice to be sure it said what he thought. Then he looked up.

Cinda Sheridan had her head bent over her open book, but she slanted him a sideways glance real quick. He didn’t know what to do, so just nodded even though he had no idea if he meant it. Mama was counting on him. And he had this damn cold.

After class she came up to him when he got up from his desk. “Are you sure? I mean, I know it’s the last minute and all.”

He stacked his books together to give himself time to think, and then said, “I thought you were going with Justin Dawson.”

“I was. He has the chicken pox. And I need a date.”

That was pretty blunt. He must have looked funny because she said real quick, “And I figured you’d never ask me to go anywhere so I’d just have to ask you.”

That was true enough.

“What about your cousin?” he asked after a minute, aware that the room had emptied and they were alone. “We don’t exactly get along.”

“Chris is a jerk.”

“Yeah, I know. But that doesn’t answer my question.”

She smiled, and her green eyes nearly took his breath away. “He’s taking Mariah. Besides, he doesn’t have any say about who I see or where I go. He’s only my cousin.”

Right
. He didn’t say anything, only lifted his brow and after a second she shrugged. “I’ll worry about Chris. He won’t say anything to you while I’m with you.”

“I’m not worried about him saying anything to me.”

“Look, the bell’s gonna ring. Do you want to be my date tonight or not?”

“Sure. I just don’t want any trouble.” He had no idea how he’d manage it. “Do you, uh, want me to pick you up or anything?”

“No, I’ll just meet you here at seven. Out front. Okay?”

She flashed him a smile and headed for the door, leaving him staring after her. He should feel pretty good right now. But he was scared half to death.