Frannie and Tru (21 page)

“No. No. No. You are out of your mind. There is no way in hell we are going to the party.”

We had scrambled into the car and driven several blocks away, now parked on a quiet side street, engine and lights turned off. Sparrow glowered in the driver's seat, while next to her, Tru defended himself, insisting that no one would try to track them
down, and even if they did, the best thing we could possibly do was to go somewhere else, where we wouldn't be found, or where we could establish some kind of alibi. I cowered in the back, wishing I was home in my room.

“An alibi?” Sparrow said. “
An alibi?
'Cause if they actually find you and try
to charge you with assault
, you think that would work? I repeat: you are out of your mind.”

“Charge
me
with assault? They should charge that asshole with assault!”

Sparrow turned around and looked at me very seriously.

“What did he do to you?”

I wished she hadn't asked. Just like before, when Tru and I had talked at the beach, I didn't want to say it aloud. It seemed like that made it more real, and I didn't want it to be real. But she kept looking at me, brow furrowed.

“He just . . . called me ‘little girl.' Grabbed my ass.”

I looked out the window instead of at her face, but I could feel the anger coming off her.

“What a fucker,” she whispered. Then she looked at Tru. “You
saw
that?”

“I saw enough.”

Sparrow sighed loudly.

“All right, okay. But still. I could have had that asshole kicked out. We could have had somebody threaten him, scare the shit out of him. Johnny from behind the bar or someone. You had to go all Rambo on him instead? Jesus Christ.”

Again, I saw the fist. The blood. Tru in a rage. Sparrow was
right—it was not the way to handle it.

But I was still glad that he'd done it.

More than that, though, I just wanted to forget the whole thing happened. Not that I thought it would be that easy. The exchange with him had lasted less than a minute; counting the punch it was still less than two. But that didn't matter. I could already feel it taking up space in my mind, preparing to lurk in some dark corner.

But that was something to think about and deal with later. For now I just wanted to drop it. I squirmed in the backseat, ready to get the hell out of there.

“So what are we doing?” I asked.

“Going to the party,” Tru said.

“I have so had enough of your shit tonight,” Sparrow said. “We are
not
going to that party.”

He blew out a hard singular breath and put one hand on the dashboard in front of him, seeming to steady himself.

“Look,” he said. “We're supposed to meet Jimmy and Kieran there. I told Kieran I'd drive the minivan home. Which means he's already been there for two hours, drinking. And if I don't show up, I don't know what they're going to do.”

Sparrow angrily rolled down the window and lit a cigarette, puffed on it for half a minute. Finally, she spoke.

“We will go there. We will get Kieran and Jimmy. You will drive them home immediately.”

Sparrow turned the key without waiting for an answer, and her sporty little car roared to life. Before she pulled out, she looked back at me.

“Frannie, honey. I'm sorry.”

We sped off into the night, Sparrow clicking through a couple of songs, unable to settle on anything, no music right for this moment. She turned the sound off, and we sat there in silence. I was left with the echo of Tru singing at the bar, those dangerous words.

A little question wormed its way back into my mind, something I'd started to wonder before, but had forgotten in the midst of everything.

“Why did you say I could sing?” I asked Tru. “You have
never
heard me sing.”

For a moment he said nothing. Then he spoke, in a kind of faux-serious tone, thick with sarcasm.

“Well, I've heard someone singing. In the morning. In the shower. That's why I signed you up for the song by that ex-Disney girl. That seems to be your favorite. Or I know you do some of your own versions of the Suck It, Sparrow catalogue. Something Motown maybe, or The Beatles? Or how about “Lola”? You're pretty good at that one.”

I was having one of those moments when I felt like a moron, slow and dumb as could be.
How?
I kept thinking.
How? How? How?
Then the pieces fell in place, but with agonizing slowness.

If Tru had heard me in the shower, then he'd been home in the morning.

If he was home in the morning, he'd skipped class.

If he knew I sang all those songs, he'd skipped class more than once or twice or even three times. He'd skipped it a lot.

I started to wonder if he'd ever been at all.

The very idea unraveled me, loosened my insides. I couldn't imagine skipping even one class, and Tru might have blown off an entire course, doing it without a care, doing whatever the hell he pleased all the time. He turned so he was sideways in his seat, looking back at me in the dark.

“You know that little window in the basement, the one in the bedroom? You should really have it fixed. Very dangerous. You wouldn't believe how easy it is to slip right back inside.”

Sparrow told him to please just be quiet, he was giving her a headache, but he kept holding onto the headrest, staring at me as if he wanted me to cry or freak out. And I
was
freaked out. He was riled like I'd never seen him before.

I started to wonder who he'd really thrown that punch for—me or him.

The Mack's family lived in a neighborhood within the city limits but set apart, an enclave of winding roads and great big stand-alone homes. His was grand and white with columns out front. The street was already thick with cars, and we parked a couple of blocks away. Tru wanted to go in alone, but Sparrow didn't trust him, and wasn't willing to leave me abandoned in the van either. That meant we were all going in.

We crept through the backyard, Tru leading the way to a pair of sliding glass doors that opened into the basement. He knocked three times and the curtain was brushed aside by Preston Ames, a soccer player I knew vaguely as a happy stoner.
He let us inside with a goofy smile.

“Greetings! You're, like, fashionably late.”

I was so wrecked by everything that had just happened, I'd had no chance to prepare myself. I wasn't ready to be here, in a room full of my former classmates who were older and cooler than me. I went in last, tripping over the doorjamb.

The basement was a huge open room with a pool table, a bar, a keg in the corner, and eyes—so many eyes, sweeping in our direction. I saw dozens of people that I hadn't thought of once in all these weeks of summer: beautiful girls, bitchy girls, JV basketball players I'd had moronic crushes on freshman year. Way in the back, The Mack was pouring shots behind the bar. Jimmy sat on top of it, next to a little blonde I didn't recognize. “Sweet Jesus!” he yelled. “Who let my freaking sister in?” I knew my face was red, red, red, but I also knew that no one was looking at me, because everyone was looking at Sparrow. Not looking, staring. And they were staring because nobody knew who she was and because she was beautiful and because she was dressed too nicely for this party. But I knew they were also staring because she was the only black girl there. There was cattiness and envy coming off the other girls in waves, while boys everywhere were taking her in, and I hated everyone, hated all of it.

Kieran appeared at our side, Sparrow and me both relaxing at the sight of him. He put a hand on my shoulder, his other hand holding a red plastic cup.

“How's it going?” he asked, his face bright and happy.

Sparrow bit her lip, and I stood there, without a single word at my disposal. Kieran wrinkled his brow.

“Don't worry,” he said. “I know I'm driving. This is just Coke, I swear.”

“Wait, you're driving?” Sparrow asked. “Tru told us
he
was driving.”

And that's when I turned and realized he was gone, across the room.

Standing with Jeremy Bell.

I could see in an instant that things were bad.

He was standing close to Jeremy, too close, inclining his head in Jeremy's direction, telegraphing what was between them. Jeremy was totally freaked. He wasn't ready for this, wasn't ready for people to see him here with a boy. He actually started edging away until his back was against the wall with nowhere to go. I wondered how the hell Tru could be so oblivious, how he could possibly miss how upset Jeremy was.

But then I realized that he hadn't missed it at all. He never missed anything. He was just on some mad war against the world, burning everything down in his path.

I touched Sparrow's elbow and whispered her name. She turned to look where I was looking.

“We've gotta get him out of here,” I said.

For a moment she just stared, and then she was speaking into Kieran's ear. I wanted to scream at her to hurry because all I could think of right then was the sweet way that Jeremy had said hello to me at the campground. All I cared about was saving
him. I wanted to run over there, grab Tru's arm, pull him away, but the chaos of the room was making me dizzy. The staccato voice of a rapper drummed from the giant speaker, and all over this enormous space with its oversized furniture, boys and girls were moving and churning. Kids were pressed together, laughing, dancing. They were lounging over chairs and pumping hard on the keg.

Sparrow and Kieran were still talking too low for me to hear. Then fury took over his face, and he grabbed my arm.

“Are you okay?”

Again I heard that nasal voice, calling me a little girl. I felt the hand on my ass. I watched his nose get destroyed. I never wanted to think about it again, and I never wanted my brother,
my brother
, to know anything about it.

“I'm fine,” I said. “Fine. Fine. Fine. I just think we should leave.”

“We're leaving,” Kieran said. “Let me just get Jimmy.”

He hurried back to the bar, where Jimmy was in close talks with the mystery blonde. Sparrow and I turned and headed toward the corner, rushing to retrieve Tru, to free Jeremy from him. We were almost there. Another five seconds and we could stop this.

But just as we reached them, Tru leaned in and kissed Jeremy. Swift but sure on the mouth.

Jeremy jerked away, his face going blotchy and red. He glanced at us for half a second, then looked back at Tru, taking a step away from him.

“Dude,” he said quietly. “C'mon. What the fuck are you doing?”

“What the fuck are
you
doing?” Tru asked. He spoke like they were joking around, but he said it loudly. There were a couple of knots of people close to us and they were already watching, listening, whispers starting among them. Sparrow maneuvered her body around, trying to block everyone's view, mumbling Tru's name, soft but angry.

“Did I miss something?” Tru asked Jeremy, now practically yelling. The whole room could hear. More people were looking. I turned back toward the bar, and saw everyone staring. Jimmy. The blonde girl. The Mack.

And I remembered then what he said whenever Jeremy came in the door.
“No date tonight? Good.”
A sinking started in my chest, went down to my stomach, as I turned back to Jeremy and Tru, watched Sparrow try to casually step between them while smiling as if nothing were going on. I was almost certain Jeremy was going to cry, and now Kylie and Rachel were hurrying over from the other side of the room.

“Truman Teller,” Sparrow said, the false smile still plastered on her face. “It's time you took your worthless ass outside.”

He looked down at his watch, like all of this was no big deal.

“Okay,” he said. “I'll wait by the door. It's getting kind of hot in here anyway.”

He inched his way through the crowd, ignoring the gawks and murmurs. He stepped through the sliding doors and stood there in the grass, hands in his pockets.

By then Kylie and Rachel had arrived at Jeremy's side. Sparrow started to mumble something, but then sensed it was better to leave them alone. I felt so bad, I couldn't even look at them. Sparrow grabbed my hand and pulled me back toward the bar, where Jimmy was telling Kieran to get lost, that he'd find another ride.

Kieran, Sparrow, and I went out the back, and I could sense more chatter gathering all around us. Enough people had seen that the room was buzzing about it. We exited into the night air, but Tru was no longer standing there. I felt a little twinge of nervousness, but Sparrow said he was probably just waiting around the corner, by her car. The three of us started to hurry, jogging across the shadowy green of the backyard, emerging beneath the glow of a streetlamp, making our way down the block to where we'd parked.

Tru wasn't there.

“The van's close by,” Kieran said. “Maybe he found it.”

He started off in the other direction, and we followed. Our feet pattered down the asphalt, past hulking houses, and I could feel the worry grow between us. We tripped a motion-sensor light, and I jumped. A cat darted from beneath a car, and I jumped again.

“Right down here,” Kieran said, and we turned the corner, edging around a mansion with a menacing, spiked fence, onto a shady street ending in a cul-de-sac.

Kieran stopped walking. Sparrow and I stopped, too.

“What is it?” she asked.

Kieran looked around him in disbelief. He backed up and checked the street sign. He stared at it as though it might change.

“Oh, fuck,” he said.

“Oh, fuck,
what
?” Sparrow asked.

“The van. The van was right here.”

For the first couple of minutes, it was as though Kieran and I could bring the van back through logic, arguing that he didn't have keys, he couldn't. Sparrow was very quiet beside us, then spoke in a low voice.

“He got a copy,” she said. “Sometimes . . . sometimes he crawled out the window late at night and drove.”