Far from Xanadu (14 page)

I eased off the clutch.

Xanadu dug in her backpack and pulled out her portable CD player. “So we don’t have to listen to that country crap,” she informed us.

Fine by me. I sent Jamie another silent threat: If you tell her I’m into country, you’re roadkill.

Ten miles north of Coalton, over the elevated road and past the old homestead, the caboose loomed up out of the scraggly sumacs. I maneuvered the truck down the trampled tire tracks and crunched to a stop. No other cars were around. If one had been, we would’ve had to leave. Caboose etiquette. Naturally, we’d take note of who was here. Inquiring minds want to know.

“Is this for real?” Xanadu said. “How cool.”

The caboose was an abandoned car from the Union Pacific Rail-road. Before the tracks were rerouted to the Co-op elevators in town, they ran out this way. A grain car was coupled to the caboose at one time, but it’d been hauled back to the rail yard in Denver, or Wichita.

“I’ve never been inside a caboose.” Xanadu pushed Jamie out the door so she could exit. “What’s it doing here?”

Jamie answered, “Providing continuous hours of adult entertainment.”

Xanadu plowed through the trees and grasped the stair railing. She stepped up, ascending onto the deck. Jamie followed. I trailed him. He glanced over his shoulder at me and leered. Kill you, I threatened him with a fist. Peering into the little window, Xanadu gasped, “Oh my God. Don’t tell me.”

The king-size mattress spoke volumes.

Last time Jamie and I had driven out here, in November during our Thanksgiving break, we’d found a bunch of shriveled condoms on the ground around the caboose. Five, to be exact. Jamie added them to his vile collection. He named each one individually: Beau I, Beau II, Beau III...

“Do people really come here and do it?” Xanadu asked. She opened the creaky door and entered the cabin, not waiting for an answer.

I collared Jamie, “What are we doing here?”

“A three-way,” he said.

I ground a knuckle into his spine and he yelped.

She wandered around the interior, taking it all in. I could read her face — awe and delight. “This is so sleazy,” she said, eyes gleaming. “How fun.”

“Wait, don’t sit on that nasty thing.” Jamie hurried over to Xanadu, who was falling to her knees on the mattress. He wrenched her up by the elbow. “You don’t know where it’s been. Or whose DNA’s been deposited. Here. I brought a cover.” He opened his pack and pulled out a checkered tablecloth. The three of us spread it over the mattress.

“The Suprette was running a little low on party supplies.” Jamie retrieved a cellophane bag full of party hats from his pack. He ripped open the package with his teeth. They were flimsy cardboard cones, Star Wars theme.

Xanadu slid her cone hat on and snapped the elastic band under her chin. I copied her. Jamie put his hat on. We looked at each other and cracked up.

Jamie reached in his pack and pulled out a can of Reddi-wip. “Okay, girls,” he said. “Get naked.”

Xanadu and I rolled our eyes in unison. Good. We were communicating here.

Jamie popped the top on the whipped cream and aimed the nozzle at his open mouth.

“Wait.” Xanadu yanked down his arm. “What’s a party without serious liquid refreshment?” She lifted the flap on her pack and extracted a liter of vodka.

Absolut. The brand Dad always kept in his desk.

Jamie gasped, “Girl, you are bad. Give me that.” He lunged for the bottle.

Xanadu’s eyes sparkled. “You don’t know how bad.” She relinquished the vodka to him, then produced a bottle of wine from her pack. I assumed it was wine — blood-colored, corked. There was no label on the bottle, so it must’ve been homemade. A lot of people brewed their own spirits. Xanadu set the bottle next to her and dug out another item. A box. A gift box.

“Oh yeah,” Jamie said. “Pick your poison.” The third selection was a quart of Jack Daniel’s. Jamie raised the vodka to his lips, but Xanadu stopped him again. “This is a celebration of Mike,” she said. “We have to make a toast.” She opened the gift box and handed me the quart of whiskey.

“Where did you get all this?” I asked as she twisted the cork on her wine.

“I found my aunt and uncle’s stash in the root cellar. Is that what you call it, where you store all the jars? I think Aunt Faye must’ve forgotten it was down there because she sent me to get peaches for dinner. She had to know I’d find the booze.”

I almost said what I was thinking: Maybe she trusted you to leave it alone.

Xanadu added, “It ought to be potent. The bottles were pretty dusty.”

I unscrewed the lid on the Jack Daniel’s and passed it under my nose. Whew. The fumes alone were staggering.

“To Mike.” Xanadu raised her wine bottle. “Who always saves the day.”

My face flared. “I don’t know about that.”

Xanadu and Jamie swigged from their bottles. I studied mine, noting how a view of her through the amber liquid turned her hair the color of sunset.

The whiskey burned all the way down. It’d been a long time since I’d drunk hard liquor straight. Since I’d discovered Dad’s hip flask in the glove compartment when I was, what, six?

“To Mike,” Jamie said. “Coalton’s player of the year.” He raised the Absolut to his lips again. “Make that the millennium.”

Xanadu muttered, “That’s a Toto eternity.”

The second swig of J.D. went down easier. Most everyone drank; there wasn’t a whole lot else to do on weekends. Mainly we stuck to beer though. It was cheaper, more accessible.

Xanadu slid in a disc and cranked up the volume on her CD. The music was hip-hop or rap, no group I’d know. Jamie and Xanadu rocked shoulders in time to the beat. “Let’s play musical bottles,” Jamie yelled. He handed me the vodka and reached for Xanadu’s wine. As I tipped the vodka to my lips, Jamie hollered, “No, keep passing. Until the music stops.”

Dumb game. Xanadu seemed to like it though. We circulated the liquor five or six times, then Jamie switched off the music.

The three of us drank from the bottles we were holding. Something was missing here. Oh yeah. Player elimination.

“To Mike,” Xanadu said. She clinked my bottle, then Jamie’s. “My hero.”

“To Mike,” Jamie replied. “My queero.”

“Shut up.” To me, I silently saluted.

The music started up again. “We’re going to get so sick,” I shouted. Jamie grinned. My stomach rumbled as the Absolut traveled from me to Xanadu. “Did anybody bring food?”

“Fo-od,” Jamie sang. He set down the Jack Daniel’s and upended his backpack onto the mattress. Fun Size Snickers and Mars Bars and Baby Ruths tumbled out. They had to be left over from Halloween. In the middle of the pile was a baggie.

“Ooh, Jamie. I love you.” Xanadu puckered a kiss at him. It made me wish I’d brought candy or something. Right. Ma rooted out sweets like a truffle pig.

I selected a Baby Ruth and unwrapped it. I snuck a peek at Xanadu, watching her, getting lost in her presence with me here tonight. She met my eyes and smiled — a smile so sensuous I thought I’d pee my pants.

“What are you guys doing after you graduate?” Xanadu asked. She and Jamie rolled a joint.

“I’ll probably go to the University of Alabama.” Jamie struck a match and lit up.

This was the first I’d heard of that plan.

“Why Alabama?” Xanadu took a hit.

Jamie sighed dreamily. “Tell her, Mike.”

“Tell her what?”

He widened his eyes at me. “Shane. That’s where he wants to go.”

Right. Shane, the wannabe filmmaker. He must’ve been pumping gas in preparation for his SATs.

Xanadu looked from Jamie to me. “Who’s Shane?” She offered me the joint and I shook my head no. I was going to be sick enough.

Guess in all their conversations Jamie forgot to mention his one true love. “Shane is Jamie’s cybersex fiend,” I informed her. “Some guy he met on the Internet. He’s too old for Jamie and he’s probably a pedophile.”

Jamie took the joint and stuck out his tongue at me. It was purple from the wine.

Xanadu twisted to face him. “Interesting. I was having this long distance relationship with a guy I met in a chatroom once. But it didn’t work out. You can’t connect that way. At least, I can’t. I need a body. Give me flesh and blood.”

Yes! I thought. A living, breathing, warm-blooded, heart-pounding person.

“What about you, Mike?” She took back the joint, pulled a deep drag, and chased it with a swig of Absolut. She handed the bottle to me.

“I don’t know. I never really thought about college until this week.” I glugged the vodka and coughed. Xanadu and Jamie wide-eyed me. What? Were we talking about relationships or college? I shouldn’t have opened my mouth.

“What happened this week?” Xanadu asked.

I unwrapped a Snickers and popped the whole thing in my mouth. Rude to talk with your mouth full. Xanadu tilted her head like, I’m waiting. So did Jamie. Though he was alternating bites of Snickers from one hand with hits on the joint from the other.

“Coach Kinneson thinks I could get a shoftball...a sholar... shit.” My tongue wouldn’t work.

Jamie and Xanadu giggled. I did too.

Xanadu said, “You mean a softball scholarship? You could.”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Course you could.” She touched my thigh. “You’re an awesome player. Why not?”

I shrugged. Concentrated on speaking. It was hard with my tongue so thick and her hand so close to my, um... “You have to be scouted. You have to play competitive. You have to attend soft... ball,” I pronounced the words slowly and distinctly, “camp.”

“Camp?” Jamie clapped excitedly. “Oh boy. Can I go to camp? I used to be a Boy Scout.”

“And the pope is a drag queen.”

Xanadu laughed.

Was I funny? I’d made her laugh.

“You can go in my place,” I told Jamie.

His face turned a sickly shade of green, like he was going to hurl. I scooted away from him, pulling Xanadu with me. She said quietly, “Why aren’t you going?”

I heaved a sigh. “It costs three thousand dollars.”

“Holy shit,” Jamie hissed. He covered his mouth. “Sorry, Pope.” His eyes bulged and he wobbled on his butt, teetering over sideways. He never could hold his liquor.

“Three thousand isn’t that much.” Xanadu slowly peeled a wrapper on a Baby Ruth bar.

Where did she live? Not in my shack of the woods.

“Don’t they have financial aid?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I don’t really want to go.” I exchanged the vodka for Jack Daniel’s. It was tasting good now, delicious. Soothing and warm.

“You lie.” Jamie shot forward and thrust an index finger in my face.

“You’re stoned.” I scrambled to my feet. I had to pee, bad. I steadied myself on Xanadu’s shoulder and felt her hand cover mine. If only we could stay like that, my leg pressed to her side, her hand caressing mine. “I gotta find a tree,” I said. My eyes didn’t respond as fast as my brain. The door was around here somewhere. Behind me? I whirled and stumbled.

My head felt like a grappling hook. Swing, swing,
clang.
I rammed the side of the caboose. Took a header down the steps, landing in a clump of thistles. A thought registered dimly: Tomorrow that is going to hurt. I groped around for a bush.

When I got back, Xanadu and Jamie were squirting whipped cream into each other’s mouths. Attempting to. Jamie had most of it on his face and hair. Xanadu squirted a stream into her own mouth as I flopped down beside her. “Tell me everything you know about the McCalls,” she said. Her voice sounded far away, hollow.

“Handth off. Beau’th mine.” Jamie’s head bobbled.

I smacked his leg. “I knew you still had the hots for him.”

Jamie’s eyes rolled back into his head.

“You can keep Beau,” Xanadu said. “I want Bailey. Bad.”

Jamie’s eyes focused on mine, momentarily. I retrieved the half-empty bottle of J.D. and swilled.

“I can’t believe he hasn’t called me yet.” Xanadu fiddled with the nozzle on the whipped cream. “I’m not
that
disgusting, am I?”

All I could do was shake my head no. No, no, no. The Reddi-wip can appeared over my face and Xanadu parted her lips, instructing me to do the same. I didn’t need instruction. While she squirted a stream of whipped cream into my mouth, she licked her lips as if tasting. Hungry. I was tasting her. I wanted to put my lips on hers and eat her up.

“I’m calling him.” She bubbled whipped cream into her mouth, swished it around and swallowed. “I’m sorry, but I can’t wait. I don’t operate on Toto time.” She grabbed the neck of my dad’s flannel shirt and jerked me up until my face was flush with hers. “Open,” she commanded.

I obeyed.

She filled my mouth with Reddi-wip until I choked. Then she let me go and I fell on my head. I might’ve passed out. I might’ve passed on. The whipped cream, the alcohol, the shedding of inhibitions. Me and Xanadu, physically connecting. We did. I felt it. It was real, wasn’t it?

If not, this was one heavenly dream.

Chapter Thirteen

O
kay, I might’ve been driving a little erratically. I might’ve been speeding. The road kept disappearing into the sea, then rippling up like the Loch Ness monster in front of me. At least I’d managed to drop Xanadu off safely at the end of the Davenports’ drive and leave Jamie at his trailer.

I didn’t hear the siren. Did he sound the siren? Reese pulled up alongside me on Main Street. Shit. I was two blocks from home. He waved me over. His cruiser door slammed as I fumbled around to turn off the ignition. Were you supposed to cut the engine? I’d never been stopped by the cops before. The cop.

“Pretty late for you to be out, Mike,” Reese said, resting his arms across my open window.

“I got lost,” I mumbled.

Reese smiled. His nose twitched and he dropped his arms, stepping back. “Hooey.”

Oh that. Jamie had barfed on the floor. I didn’t quite make it to the ditch in time. First thing this morning, I was going to hose out the truck.

“Been doing some partying, have we?” Reese stated the obvious.

“Gold star,” I said. I licked my index finger and marked him air bingo. Oops, I should stifle the sarcasm with the local law enforcement. “Or is it a silver star?” I pointed to Reese’s badge.