Dream Things True (25 page)

“But we were so far gone, or at least I was,” he continued. “Evan and his mom were in Greece. God only knows where his dad was.”

Whit spun around and leaned against the wall, looking up at the sky. “I told Conway I remembered where they hide the key—under the big white planter by the guest house. So we stumbled into Conway's god-awful Hummer and drove there from a party at Paul's house. We had a girl with us. She was so wasted she could barely stand, and young. Christ, she was young.”

Whit seemed to be trying hard to make the story sound funny, but it clearly wasn't funny, and below the humor was a sort of trauma pushing its way out. He looked down at his feet.

“We ended up in Aunt BeBe's bathroom, the three of us. I don't remember much else.”

He turned and leaned out over the railing and rocked back and forth.

“I don't even remember her name. I'm pretty sure I never knew her name.”

Alma felt like she might throw up.

“She was Latina, like you. She had tons of curly hair. Thick. And she was so young. I guess I already said that. She let us take turns, and then she passed out, and we didn't know where to take her, so we left. We just wandered off and left her on the floor of Aunt BeBe's bathroom.”

“
Let
you?” she asked, her voice rising in anger. “There's no such thing as ‘letting' in that situation, Whit. You know that, right?”

He looked directly at Alma, his eyes glassy and bloodshot, rimmed in red with purplish circles underneath.

“It's marble, Aunt BeBe's bathroom floor. It must have been cold,” he said.

Alma felt dizzy. She grasped the metal railing and held tight.

“Say something,” she heard him plead.

“What do you want me to say, Whit?” she asked, looking away from him.

She wanted him to know that his story was the exact opposite of funny. She was horrified to think that she might know this curly-haired Latina, that Conway might have drugged her. She probably did know the girl. Gilberton was a small town, and in the Latino community, everyone knew everyone.

But it didn't matter. Whether she knew the girl or not, what Whit and Conway had done was wrong in so many ways that Alma didn't even know where to begin.

“God, I'm a mess,” she heard him say.

“Yeah.”

She watched Whit bury his face in his hands. He sat down on the gravel bridge and started to sob. His battered pewter flask fell onto the gravel beside him.

Alma didn't know what to do. She was too disgusted to touch him, too angry to lean down and try to comfort him. As far as she was concerned, Whit deserved to be in agony. So she left him crying on the edge of the dam and wandered off in search of his mother's Aleve.

 

 

Evan went to the lake, searching for Alma. He saw her on the dock in front of Mr. Wilson's drugstore, balanced on a piling like a tightrope walker, with a half-empty plastic bag dangling from her hand. Her back was turned away from him, and she was surrounded by an almost perfect silence.

Alma extended her leg behind her and let it dip around to the side. She moved slowly and methodically.

A loud grumbling punctured the silence as a sleek antique speedboat pulled away from the marina.

The next thing he saw was Alma tumbling toward the black water. She had lost her balance. Without thinking, he ran across the dry grass and onto the dock. He hurled his body toward where she had fallen, toward the white plastic bag that slowly began to drift.

Evan grasped Alma's hand, and they both paddled frantically through the freezing, murky water. They heaved themselves onto the dock and collapsed together.

“Good Lord, that's cold,” Evan exclaimed as he shook his head vigorously, releasing the frigid water from his hair.

Alma hugged herself tightly and replied through chattering teeth. “You shouldn't have come in after me. Did you think I was gonna drown or something?” She sounded angry.

The boat pulled up beside them and the driver called out.

“You two OK?”

“Yes, sir,” Evan replied, “A little cold, but OK.”

“You got somewhere to go and get dried off?”

Evan glanced back down the road toward Uncle Sexton's house. There wasn't a chance in hell that he'd be going back there. He had an idea.

“Uh, yes, sir, but it's across the lake. Any chance for a lift? It would be a cold walk back.”

The man motioned for them to climb in, and they both tumbled into the back of the boat.

 

 

Alma watched as they pulled farther out from the dock and away from her stupid mistake. How many times had she done that—balanced at the edge of the water to still her mind? She'd never even come close to falling. The white plastic bag containing Mrs. Prentiss's Aleve (and her twelve dollars and twenty-eight cents change) bobbed in the wake of the boat. She had no idea where they were going, and the wind pierced her skin like a thousand little needles. All she could think about was that Evan's aunt wouldn't get her medicine, and she'd be able to say that an “illegal” stole twenty dollars from her.

Evan talked with the driver, motioning to a point across the lake. Then he sat beside her on the rear bench seat.

“You OK?” he asked, having to speak loudly over the sound of the motor.

“I'm freezing.”

“Yeah, well, at least it's not the second time in three days you've been dunked in cold water.”

Alma looked at Evan, confused.

“At my party?”

She continued to stare blankly at him.

“When they busted into my room?”

Alma figured it was time to come clean with Evan.

“I guess I had too much to drink the other night. And Conway gave me some disgusting shot that was spiked or something. I don't remember anything that happened after we went to your room.”

“Conway gave you a shot?” Evan asked, sounding stressed. “Who let him give you a shot?”

“No one let him, Evan. I just took it.”

“Yeah, OK,” Evan said, an anxious edge in his voice. “Well, anyway, there's not much to remember. Conway, Peavey, and Paul burst into my room, carried me to the pool, half naked and screaming, and threw me in.”

Alma huddled more tightly into a ball, wrapping her arms around her sopping jeans.

“By the time I got back, you were pretty far gone. I got M.C. to come up and put you in a T-shirt. I didn't think I'd be able to handle it.”

So, Whit had been right. Nothing happened. Alma smiled, feeling both relieved and a little sheepish.

“That's embarrassing,” Alma said. “I don't know how I got so wasted.”

Evan shrugged. “I think those shots are pretty strong.” They were leaving things unspoken. Alma felt it. But it didn't seem like either one of them had the energy to take it on.

The boat started to slow as it came toward a large yellow boathouse.

“This the one?” the driver asked.

“Yes, sir. Thanks so much,” Evan said as he took Alma's hand and helped her onto the dock. She smiled at the driver and tried to play along with whatever charade Evan had going.

They stood shivering on the dock as the boat pulled away. Evan took Alma's hand and led her toward the door.

“This is M.C.'s boathouse. I know where the key's hidden.”

“What is it with you people and your hidden keys?” she asked.

Evan didn't hear her. He was rummaging around under a big empty flowerpot. Very original.

He looked back at her and turned the key in the door.

“I couldn't go back in there, Alma. I'm sorry. I couldn't face my uncle.”

“I'm sorry, too, Evan,” she replied softly. “I should have tried harder to convince you not to come.”

 

 

They didn't have to say anything more. They both sensed how broken and battered the other felt, and how desperately each needed to take refuge in the other. Evan closed the door softly behind them and kicked off his shoes. Alma leaned into the door, reaching down to remove her wet socks and shoes. They stood close, peeling away the dampness. Evan pulled his sopping sweatshirt over his head. It landed heavily on the slate floor of the entryway, tangled with a white T-shirt. He turned to face her, bare-chested, and looked directly into her eyes, with a question burning in his own.

“Alma,” he whispered.

She lifted her arms, and he reached down to grasp the edge of her sweater. He pulled it gently over her head. She shrugged out of it, feeling the pleasure of release from its clammy dampness.

Sunlight streamed through a wall of windows, heating each patch of bare skin that emerged as they slowly undressed each other. Almost naked, they knelt together high above the deep water. Each studied the other's body, touching it lightly, taking in its contours. And then, when the intensity of their desire threatened to overwhelm them, they tumbled together onto a soft antique prairie rug.

Their hands searched urgently as their open mouths met. They kissed hard, pressing into each other, hoping that the taste of the other might quench the fire, or at least dull the bright radiance of its heat. When the shimmering radiance refused to dim, Alma fell back and held Evan tightly while he kissed her neck and shoulders, chest and stomach. The sunlight beat down on their gleaming bodies.

Evan rose onto his knees and brought his mouth to Alma's ear.

“I don't have anything,” he whispered urgently. “Is it OK?”

Alma pulled away and opened her eyes.

“Only once,” he continued, pleading, “We've waited so long.”

Evan leaned forward to kiss her again, but Alma propped herself onto her elbows. An image of Whit, crumpled and crying on the dam, filled her mind. What did he have to do with this? A new image forced its way in: her body lying naked on Evan's mother's bathroom floor.

“Was Conway there?” she heard herself asking. “In your room with me?”

Evan sat up.

“What the hell, Alma?” His tone almost frightened her. “What are you talking about?”

“When they threw you in the pool, was Conway there?”

She thought of the way Conway had looked at her as she stood across from him in the hallway, the urgency and anger in his voice when he offered her the shot, Whit's terrible story, Evan's account of Friday night, all that she couldn't remember. Was it all just coincidence? She didn't want to know the answer, but she forced herself to ask again.

“Did Conway carry you to the pool? Did you see him there, or was he in the room with me?”

Evan jumped to his feet and walked away from her, wearing nothing but his boxer shorts. Alma curled up, modesty descending on her like a ton of lead.

“Please, Evan, just answer me.”

Evan ran his hand through his hair. “Peavey and Paul carried me. I don't know where Conway was.”

“Think about it,” she demanded.

“God almighty, Alma. What the hell is this all about?”

“I just need for you to remember,” she said slowly. “Please.”

Evan slumped onto the edge of a couch and rested his face in his hands. The sun moved behind a cloud, and the room dimmed.

“No, I guess he wasn't there.”

“And when you came back to your room? Was I alone?”

“Yeah.” Evan nodded into his hands.

“Was I the way you left me?”

Evan looked up.

“Was I?” Alma commanded.

“No, you took off your dress and your bra.”

Alma felt cold, suddenly. She grabbed a quilt from the couch and wrapped herself in it.

“But I was passed out.”

“Not quite,” Evan said. “You were out of it. It felt wrong to want you so much. You were so, uh, wasted. So I got Mary Catherine to help.”

It hurt Alma to look at him, to see him breathing so deeply. He was still struggling to bring his desire under control.

“She was drunk, too,” Evan said. “But she said something about Conway.”

Alma thought she might vomit.

“Evan, please try to remember what she said.”

“She said he came out from my bathroom and told her he wanted to help. She called him a perv and kicked him out.”

Alma glanced around urgently. Her stomach heaved. All she saw were closed doors, so she lurched toward the sink in the small kitchenette. She stood over the sink in her underwear. Again and again, she hurled bits of mayonnaise-laden chicken into the basin.

 

 

Evan turned on the heat. The light from outside was almost completely gone, but the room stayed warm. He was afraid to turn on the lights. He didn't want anyone to find them. He gave Alma a glass of water and wrapped her in the quilt. He wrapped himself in a towel and put their wet clothes in the dryer. Then he sat on the couch, watching Alma shrink deeper and deeper inside the quilt on the other end. The dryer tumbled repetitively in the background, and he listened to her talk. She told him about Whit and Conway and the way they took advantage of a drunken girl in his own house. She called it “sexual assault.” She said the words, over and over, as if naming the act would make it disappear.

Each time she said it, he thought how strange it would be for them to have watched each other do that. Conway probably hated himself for watching Whit, or for wanting Whit to see him.

“He wanted to do it to me, Evan,” Alma said.

“What? No,” Evan said.

“He cornered me alone and made me take a shot.”

Evan felt his chest collapse. She was right.

How did he let this happen?

“Do you see where I'm going with this, Evan? Because I don't think I can say it out loud.”

Evan nodded. Prickly heat spread through his chest and his face.

“Why were you alone with Conway? Where the hell was Mary Catherine? Where was I?”

“I don't know, Evan. Don't get mad at me. I just needed to get away from him, so I took it.”

“Jesus, Alma, I'm not
mad
. It's just, everyone
knows
…”