Dream Things True (26 page)

“Everyone
knows
?” Alma cried out. “What the hell is wrong with you people?”

He forced his reluctant mind to return to that night, to recollect every detail while Alma waited in silence.

“Alma,” he said, “just calm down. You're right about Conway. He likes to get girls wasted and fool around with them.”

“It's not called ‘fooling around,'” Alma said. “It's called ‘sexual assault.' And if everyone
knows
then why the hell don't you
stop
him? I mean,
Madre de Dios
, are you telling me that Conway is going around
raping
girls, and everyone just
knows
?”

Alma's head fell into her hands.

“Oh, Christ, Alma. Oh, Jesus.” He was starting to sweat. Evan worked hard to knit together the evidence. He grasped his elbows and rocked back and forth, trying not to let the rage and remorse overtake him.

Then it all came together.

“I don't think he hurt you. He didn't have time. I was down there for ten minutes.”

Alma shot her head up and gave him a look that made it pretty clear. Ten minutes was plenty of time.

Evan started to pace. “Listen, Alma. I looked at you. I watched you for a while. I mean, when I found you almost naked in my room.”

Alma hugged the quilt even more tightly.

“You had your underpants on. They were smooth against your skin, not like someone had tried to force them off or anything.”

God, he hated this. He hated that the sweet memory of stealing a glance at her body was becoming evidence in some sort of investigation. Suddenly, he felt like a pervert instead of a boyfriend who was just completely in awe of his girlfriend.

“Your hair was smooth. You were kind of curled up.” Evan's forehead fell into his hand. “You probably don't remember, but when they busted into the room, your dress was already halfway off, and, uh, your bra was unhooked.”

“Oh, no.”

“I was just starting to realize you were too drunk, and I was trying to stop.”

Alma looked down at the floor and squeezed her eyes shut. When she looked back up, she spoke quietly.

“Thank you,” she said, “for stopping.”

He sat down beside her.

“You shouldn't thank me for that, Alma,” Evan said. He bit down on his lip. “It wasn't a favor. It was just the thing to do.”

Alma nodded silently and looked away.

“He may have touched you. But I don't think he, you know, uh…”

“Yeah, I know,” Alma said. Thank God she hadn't used the word again.

“He would have needed to take off your underpants.”

“I guess you're right,” Alma replied, looking away from him. “I didn't bleed. I'm not sore.” She turned toward him. “All of that would happen, right,” she whispered. “I mean, on my first time.”

Evan shrugged and took her hand in his. “You're asking the wrong guy, Alma.”

She edged toward him and rested her head in his lap. He stroked her hair gently, as innocently as possible.

“I'm not ready,” she said, in a tone that was both gentle and firm.

“We'll wait,” he said, “for as long as you need to.”

“OK,” she said, propping herself up to kiss him softly. And then she said something really strange: “Let's hold out for moonlight and rose petals.”

NINETEEN

St. Jude, Plead For Us

Sometime before four a.m., the helicopter roared through Alma's unconscious mind, shining its blinding light onto that awful scene. She awoke, panting and sweating, with the sickly sweet taste lingering in her mouth. This time, she had seen the source of the saccharine sweetness: a red Jell-O shot forced into her mouth by Evan's aunt Maggie.

Yuck.

Alma's dream was back for the first time in months, and it was worse than ever. Call it superstition, but Alma worried, wide awake in her bed in the predawn hours, that if they didn't get to the next part of Mrs. King's plan soon, everything would go to hell in a handbasket.

She texted Evan.

ARE YOU AWAKE

NO. WHY?

I NEED TO ASK A FAVOR

AT 4:15 IN THE MORNING?

NO. AT 7

YOU KNOW I'LL DO ANYTHING

TAKE ME TO MASS

YOU MEAN CHURCH? TOMORROW'S MONDAY. GO BACK TO BED

MEET ME ON THE BENCH AT 6:45. CATHOLICS HAVE CHURCH EVERY DAY

GOOD LORD. WHICH ONE?

WHICH CHURCH?

NO, WHICH BENCH

FORTITUDE?

SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT

 

 

Evan must have passed out because Alma's text awoke him in the guest house, his bleeding hand wrapped haphazardly in his own T-shirt and Mary Catherine wrapped in a duvet, dozing on his bare chest.

Evan held it together when he was with Alma. They waited until late and then walked the three miles around the lake to his car. She fell asleep on the drive home. He shook her awake and walked her to her front door. The moment he left her the rage overtook him. All of the insanely frustrating events of the past few days converged into an image: Conway tugging on Alma's dress. He drove recklessly through the darkness, blinded by the image, using every last ounce of his will to keep his car from steering toward Conway's driveway, to keep himself from beating Conway to a pulp. He could almost feel his hands aching with the sensation of it. Instead, he stormed into his empty house, slammed the doors loudly. He tried to take a long, hot shower, to watch pointless television, to listen to music so loud that the neighbors would hear. But even the angry screams coursing through the speakers couldn't dampen his fury.

Evan took a bottle of Johnnie Walker from the liquor cabinet in his dad's office and sucked down several long, painful swigs. When the buzz came on strong instead of mellow, Evan knew that being alone was a very bad idea. He lurched out of the house, his tense body carrying him toward Conway while his battered mind urged him to stay away.

When he saw a dim light coming through Mary Catherine's window, Evan realized that she might offer him a way out. He texted M.C. to see if she was awake. Moments later, they met in the guest house, as they had many times. Until now, it was always to deal with Mary Catherine's crises—some lame boyfriend or another who had broken her heart again.

It was Evan's turn to call in the favor.

They finished the bottle, passing it back and forth as Evan fumed. Mary Catherine listened, stunned and horrified. Evan explained the jail, his talks with “Uncle Buddy” and Uncle Sexton, and then the hardest part. He hoped desperately that she would have a way to refute his story about Conway, to come up with an alternative explanation. Instead she confirmed everything, slowly reconstructing the events of Friday night.

Evan probably frightened her when he grasped the near-empty bottle of Johnnie Walker by the neck and smashed it against the kitchen counter. Small shards of glass and the last drops of dark liquid splintered across the gleaming tile floor. But she didn't show that she was scared. Instead, she knelt with him to pick up the fragments of the bottle, seeing that his hand had been gashed with a deep wound and watching the blood flow red. He remembered burying his face in his bloody hands. Then the angry tears finally released.

Mary Catherine told him to take off his shirt. She wrapped his hand in it, and somehow, they both fell asleep on the couch.

“It's four fifteen,” he said, nudging her. “You should go home.”

She heaved her body across his and pulled the duvet over her head.

Evan lifted her from the couch and carried her from the guest house. The cold air jolted her awake.

“Thanks,” he said. She kissed his cheek and stumbled away.

Evan knew he wouldn't sleep again, so he went inside, threw his bloodied shirt in the trash, and took another long, hot shower. He pulled the glass from his wound, bandaged it, and waited for morning to come.

He arrived at school long before Alma's bus, so he sat waiting on Fortitude, holding a cooling double cappuccino. When the bus came, Alma walked toward him and took the cup.

“What happened?” she asked, noticing his bandaged hand.

“Stupid accident,” he said. “The knife slipped when I was making a peanut butter sandwich last night.”

She shrugged and led him to the car.

His head was pounding so he didn't mind the quiet as they drove to Santa Cruz. They went into the church, and Evan sat with Alma in the second pew of the almost empty sanctuary. He couldn't believe he was skipping calculus for this. He had no idea what was going on since the entire service was in Spanish. All he knew was that there was a lot more standing, sitting, and kneeling here than in his church. He was pretty impressed that the three old ladies sitting in front of them kept up. His head still ached and his bandaged hand throbbed. How had he ended up feeling so ruined?

The faint smell of incense combined with the warmth and the dim light created a perfect atmosphere for sleep. He wasn't sure how much longer he would last.

Hoping to enhance his appearance of piety, Evan made the mistake of closing his eyes. Why couldn't he shake the image of Conway standing over Alma, tugging her dress up around her narrow hips?

Alma nudged him. She was standing, watching the priest walk out of the church. At last, it was over. Alma dug in her purse and pulled out a candle—the kind you see in the “ethnic foods” section of the Bi-Lo. She motioned for Evan to follow as she walked from the sanctuary and into a room crammed full of statues and paintings and flickering candles.

She placed her candle in front of a plastic statue of a bearded man in a white robe. He had a green drape over one shoulder. With his left hand, he held what looked like a big gold coin in front of his chest. His right hand had a long staff, like the one Jesus held on his preschool coloring pages of the “Good Shepherd.” There was a weird little flame over his head.

“Is that Jesus?”

“It's St. Jude. Wanna light the candle?”

“Um, OK,” he said, looking around for a pack of matches. She took a long stick that had been burned on one end and balanced it over the flame of the adjacent candle. That one had a weird image of a toddler all dressed up like a Spanish conquistador or something.

Alma handed him the stick, and he touched the flame to the wick of Alma's candle. They watched it flicker in silence for a while. He felt lighter, surrounded by dim flames and unfamiliar images.

“So, did I just participate in some sort of voodoo ritual?” he asked.

“No, it's not quite that exotic,” Alma replied. “You made a prayer to St. Jude. Or I guess it would be more accurate to say that you asked St. Jude to plead to God for us.”

“Plead? Wow.”

Evan struggled to keep the heaviness from descending again. They both glanced around the room, taking in the dozens of images and statues that surrounded them. “Why'd you choose him?”

“He's the patron saint of hopeless causes.”

“Yeah,” replied Alma, “it does.”

He took her hand in his good one and they stood together a little longer, watching the candle flicker alongside many others, each making a silent, impossible plea.

 

 

They probably would have arrived on time for second period. But Evan offered to stop at the Dripolator on the way back. Evan could always be counted on to feed her addiction. They both stopped by a trash can in an empty hall of the school. Alma sucked down the dregs of her second double cappuccino, and Evan noisily pulled the last droplets of water through a straw. Just as they were about to part ways, Alma heard a deep male voice call her name. She turned to see Mr. Massey, the principal, walking toward them.

Busted.

Alma and Evan tossed their drinks into the garbage.

“Mr. Roland,” the principal announced with a firm voice, “shouldn't you be in a classroom somewhere instead of loitering in the hallway?”

“Uh, yes, sir,” Evan replied shakily. He caught Alma's gaze and shrugged. “I'm on my way now, in fact.”

He turned and walked away, leaving Alma stranded in the hallway with Mr. Massey.

“I'd like for you to come to my office, please, Alma.”

Alma followed Mr. Massey. Did he already know about what had happened to her father and brother this weekend? Was he planning to offer condolences? Or was he just eager to start the process of transferring her files to the nonexistent high school in her family's hometown in Mexico?

He motioned for her to sit down in the fake leather chair across from his desk.

“Alma, I've just received some very exciting news.”

She wondered where this was going.

“You have been named a finalist for Youth of the Year by the Boys and Girls Clubs of Georgia.”

This had to be some sort of cruel joke.

“We're very proud of you, Alma. This is a wonderful honor for you and for the school. I know that you and Mrs. King worked very hard toward this.”

He was wrong. Alma had given up on it months ago. She had submitted most of the application in the fall, but she never turned in the teacher recommendations. She was too in love to face Mrs. King and her judgment, so she quit and tried to forget about it. Alma told herself that she could come back to scholarship applications senior year, when they mattered more. But Mrs. King was not a quitter. She must have submitted the recommendations for Alma.

Mr. Massey lifted a letter from his desk and read, “‘High school juniors who show exceptional qualities of scholarship, leadership, and citizenship—'”

This
was
a cruel joke.

“‘—are guaranteed a one-thousand-dollar college scholarship, and are eligible to compete for the regional and national awards next spring. Those awards carry scholarships of up to fifty thousand dollars.'”