Revolutions of the Heart (11 page)

“Hiding Derek Winters’s clothes in gym three days running. They finally found out who did it.” He tapped another finger. “Shooting out the lights on Main Street with my BB gun.”

“I remember that.”

“My DWI. My only DWI. Of course, I was fifteen and unlicensed for the ‘D’ part of it.”

“I’m beginning to think screwup might be a good term.”

“The biggie, of course, was Amy Tilghman’s abortion. That hurt her the most, I know.”

“What? You didn’t even go with her.”

“You’re still a little innocent, aren’t you? For your information, Cory, you don’t have to
go
with someone. Just
be
with them at the right time.”

“Wrong time, I’d say. An abortion?”

“Senior year. We skipped school one day that fall and went to Madison and back. One very long day. She ended up telling her mom, who told our mom. That was quite a scene when she confronted me.” He retied a sneaker. “Mom wasn’t happy, I’ll say that. Remember how she would yell about the little stuff like forgetting to take out the garbage, but on a major wrong she’d just get solemn and soft-spoken?”

“I remember.”

“Well, she was practically whispering that time. Said how wrong she thought it all was. How she was disappointed that I’d become a boy who was so thoughtless about girls and hadn’t even been careful. Said if we weren’t ready to be parents we weren’t ready for sex. It was quite a lecture. But it stuck with me, I guess. Since then I’ve only been with Elaine. Damn careful, too.” He glanced over. His expression was partially hidden in shadow, but his eyes were highlighted by moonlight. They searched her. “How about you. Are you being careful?”

“It’s not even close to being an issue.”

“Good. Listen: if anyone plays cheap with you, I kill him.”

Her hands were chilled and she tucked them under her thighs. “That’s a pretty sexist attitude, big brother. I don’t need your protection.”

“I mean it.”

His tension was overpowering. She reached across hesitantly and rubbed one of his hands, her thumb stroking back and forth and bumping over his large high school class ring. “Ease up, Rob. There is no one you have to hate.”

“Cory, I’m just so mad about her dying! That’s what it is, of course.” He withdrew his hand. “I guess I need to start work. There has been too much sitting around and waiting. Ten more days and then I’m on at the plant.”

“You can pass the time by working with me. I’ve seen you scrub out toilets plenty of times.” She checked her watch. “Which is what I’ll be doing in approximately nine hours. Time for bed.” She rose and kissed him. “Coming in?”

“Not yet. Sleep tight, Sis.”

Cory walked across the dark kitchen. A long finger of moonlight stretched in through a window and revealed a mess of playing cards and drinking glasses on the table. She stopped where the kitchen opened onto the living room. The living room fireplace framed a few embers. She stared at the orange glow, mesmerized by the wavering patterns of light. The surrounding stillness was complete.

A log collapsed and broke in half. Sparks shot up, then a final flame. Out of the corner of her eye Cory saw a golden flash. She turned and saw the dream catcher hanging from the wall over empty space.

10

Cory spotted the white paper as soon as she turned into the hallway. She halted and was bumped several times by students hurrying to their lockers before leaving school for the weekend. When she resumed walking, it was in a slow and wary approach.

She pulled the paper out of the crack and looked behind her at the crowd of students. They were all intent on their business. She wished that just one person would stop and be caught by the horror of what she was holding.

She unfolded the paper. It was a printed poster with a grotesque characterization outlined in red. A cartoon Indian. At the bottom of the page were the date and time for the spearing protest at Summer Lake landing. Saturday, si
x P.M.
Across the cartoon face were two bold red words: Spear This. Her correspondent had altered the printed message. “Spear” was crossed out and scrawled above was a familiar obscenity.

“Not again!” Sasha’s voice cut through Cory’s trance. Sasha grabbed the paper and scanned it. “This is awful. This is worse than anything I’ve ever seen.” She waved it over her head and shouted. “Who did this? Who the hell did this?” The crowd slowed down and people looked up from their lockers and conversations, but no one stopped. “Someone knows,” she continued. “One of you had to see something. Who is it?” She tore the poster into shreds and tossed it over the hallway. A few girls protested when paper bits landed in their hair.

Cory put all her books in her locker. “That was nice, Sasha. A little loud, but nice.”

“Let’s go to Donaldson’s office now and tell him. You have to complain. You have to insist that he make a statement to the student body.”

“Do I have to tell him about the condoms?”

“Tell him everything. Fight back, Cory. Why don’t you want to fight back? That’s not like you.” She spun her lock, missed the release number, and started again.

Cory secured her lock and picked up her bag. “
I’m
not like me, okay?” She didn’t wait for an answer but walked away.

Sasha caught up with her at the parking lot. “I really think you should tell Donaldson.”

“What can he do besides sound grumpy over the P.A.? It’s kind of perverse, but I’m almost glad this stuff has happened.”

“How can you say that?”

“Mac has put up with harassment all his life. Now I know a little bit, a very little bit, of what he’s gone through.”

“That’s positive, I guess. But I wish I could fix it all for you. Just make it all stop and be better.” Sasha’s outrage was centered on her face in a fierce scowl.

Cory stopped and hugged her friend. “Thanks, Sash.”

The scowl gave way to a smile. “Careful, you don’t want to invite gay-bashing next.”

They reached Cory’s car. “I’ll give you a ride home.”

“No thanks. Six blocks twice a day is all the exercise I get.” She dropped her book bag on the car hood. “Don’t you wonder who’s doing it?”

Cory unlocked the car door. “Sure. It could be almost anyone. Not you, not Tony. Although a year ago…
”

“
True enough. That’s hopeful, isn’t it? People do change. I think”—she paused and checked for anyone loitering between the few remaining cars—“maybe Nick and Karin.”

Cory shook her head vigorously. “If it is, I don’t want to know. Karin and I were Brownies together.” A car went past and honked. They waved absently and stepped back to avoid the spray as the car ran through a puddle.

“Have you by any chance changed your mind about going to the landing tomorrow night?”

“I’m not going, Sash. I can’t be part of it.”

“We need more people to show support for the spearing. We can’t let the only ones from town be the protesters. I’ve heard that television crews from Milwaukee and Minneapolis might be there.”

“And you know what they’ll see? A few guys standing in a boat spearing fish and a bunch of other people shouting at each other. Will it help anything for me to come and take sides? Remember, I’d be shouting back at my brother. My brother. I suppose that’s exactly what a reporter would love to see: ‘Family Divided; report at six.’”

“Mac might be there.”

“And I won’t be. I’ve told him that and he accepts it. He said he wouldn’t stay the entire evening. We plan to meet later on.” She got in the car. Sasha tapped on the window, and Cory rolled it down.

“I wish you would come, but I understand.” She gripped the door handle. “Cory K., I think you have been so great this winter with all you’ve gone through. Really strong.”

“I don’t feel that way.”

“Probably not.”

Cory stacked the cassettes that were scattered across the car seat, then toppled the pile with a finger poke. “Sash, too many things have happened too fast. I feel like I’ve been playing football or something and I got hit from behind. Bam! And all the wind has been knocked out of me.”

Sasha laughed.

“It’s not funny.”

“Sure it is. You play football? You’d be crunched in a minute. But it explains why you’re so quiet these days. If things were normal, that would have been you waving the poster and screaming.” Sasha drummed on the car roof with her fingers. “Call me tomorrow if you change your mind. I’d rather not go alone.” She picked up her book bag, waved, and walked away.

Cory drove across the parking lot in the opposite direction. She slipped a tape into the player and punched the rewind button. While the tape whirred, Sasha’s words replayed in her mind. “Wrong, Sash. Very wrong,” she said tersely. She didn’t feel strong. Not strong at all.

The next day there were posters in every one of the motel rooms. When Cory walked into the first room of the morning she was stopped cold at the sight of the flyer.

“Bartleby’s on our side,” she recalled Rob saying. “And I’m not,” she said firmly and ripped it down. Ten rooms and twenty beds later she walked into the office with an armload of dirty laundry. A crowd of people was gathered around a large coffee urn that had been set out, an unusual measure of hospitality for the motel owner. Cory wished herself invisible as she plowed through the people with her overstuffed bag of sheets and towels. Mr. Bartleby followed her into the back room.

“We’re absolutely full, Cory. The best weekend we’ve had since Labor Day. I’ve been turning away people for an hour now.”

Laughter surged in the other room and Cory heard traces of conversation.

“How many spearers does it take…”

“Put two drunk Indians and two hungry bears…” She opened her closet and slammed the linens into the bin. Mr. Bartleby was right behind her.

“It’s too bad we can’t rent out Unit 26. If I didn’t charge full rate, do you think it would be okay?”

“The tub leaks and the bathroom tile is ripped up. No, I don’t think it would be okay.” She faced Mr. Bartleby. “By the way, I’ve been taking down those protest posters in the rooms. I’m sure you don’t want that racist crap in your motel.”

His hand started its up-and-down motion on his belly and continued stroking as he walked out of the room. A moment later he returned with a stack of posters and a roll of tape. “Put them up, Cory. I want them up.”

“I
clean
rooms.”

“I’m your boss, Cory. I say put them up.”

“No.”

“I want you—”

“I quit. I quit, Mr. Bartleby.” She grabbed her jacket and slammed the closet door.

“Cory, the rooms aren’t finished.”

She walked into the office. “I quit,” she said loud enough to silence the talking. “I can’t work for a bigot.”

Mike was alone in the house when she returned home. He looked up from the newspaper he had been reading as he ate lunch. He folded the paper and sipped some coffee, then pointed to the chair next to his. Cory sat down.

“Brad Bartleby called. He wants you to drop off the motel keys the next time you’re in town.”

Cory checked her jacket pockets. Empty. She patted the pouch of her sweatshirt, and the keys shifted and jangled. She pulled them out, twirled them twice around her thumb, and stuffed the ring into her jacket pocket. “I left in a hurry.”

“He said that this time you can’t have your job back. This time you quit for good.”

“As if I would want it back.”

“He told me what happened. I told him I thought you were right. He hung up on me.” Mike crumpled his napkin and dropped it into his coffee cup. Cory could see the brown liquid travel upward through the paper. Mike pushed his chair back and looked at the ceiling. “Brad and I were lab partners in high school chem. I used to let him steal answers from me during tests.” He rose and cleared his dishes.

“Where are Rob and Elaine?”

Mike sat back down. He didn’t answer but sat still with his hands folded between his legs. He stared at the floor.

“Mike?”

He looked up with a jerk, as if suddenly pulled back from some better place.

“Rob and Elaine?”

“I kicked them out this morning. Well, not Elaine. She’s always welcome.”

“You kicked my brother out?”

“My stepson, Cory. He means plenty to me, too. But I told him that if he insisted on being part of that nonsense at the landing he couldn’t live in this house. He’s gone, Cory. I kicked Robbie out. Three goddamn weeks after Margaret dies and I kick her son out.” He rose and immediately sat back down. “I’m getting out of here. I’m leaving.”

Cory felt all warmth drain away.

Mike raised his hands and then let them drop on the table. “Cory, not like that. Just for tonight.”

“Where are you going? And why?”

“To my son’s. I don’t want to be here when all the people in this town who were so wonderful to your mother turn on themselves. I don’t want to be here when Robbie stops thinking and goes too far. He will, you know. He’ll do it, unless Elaine can stop him or he gets hurt first. I don’t want to be here when the sheriff calls and asks me to bail my stepson out of jail. Because I won’t do it.” He pulled his wallet out of his hip pocket. “You might need some money while I’m gone.”