Rippler (17 page)

“I don’t blame you. Not for a minute.”

“Thanks,” she said. Her mouth pulled into a sad half-smile. “So I bet Will loves this door,” Mickie tapped the glass as she closed it behind us.

I nodded, smiling.

We reached my room and I grabbed the hoodie off my desk chair and passed it to her.

Mickie looked around my room. “Nice. Real home-y.”

I saw a flash of yearning, but it disappeared quickly.

“Speaking of home, my brother gets steamed if he’s got dinner done and I’m not there.

Time to go.”

I led her down to our front door, holding it opened.

“I’ll be seeing you,” she said.

“Bye, Mick.” I watched as she walked out to her Jeep, my mind an astonished whirl.

Mickie had just handed me a book that her brother said she wouldn’t let him touch. A smile spread across my face. She trusted me.

I settled into my bean-bag chair and opened the book. The handwriting was cramped but neat. The individual letters were all part of the alphabet I knew, which meant it had to be European, and there weren’t any strange additional letters or symbols like those from Germany or the Scandinavian countries. Will was right about Latin. Not enough “hic” or

“hoc” or words ending in “ibus.”

As I flipped through the pages, I noted short phrases scrawled in margins and once, on a page by itself:

Lisaba es partida.

Or sometimes:

Helisabat es partida.

And often:

Helisabat es morta.

I knew how to translate that one.
Helisabat is dead.

Tuesday morning I asked Madame Evans about a couple of phrases I’d jotted down.

Everyone else had filed out of the classroom. Gwyn hadn’t spoken two words to me, and I hoped that was because she was exhausted after the Panning Event.

Madame puzzled over the phrases. “Where did you run across this writing?”

“An old journal.” I didn’t trust myself to create an elaborate lie.

“Your mom’s side of the family, I take it?”

I made a noise that could be interpreted as agreement.

“I’m wondering if it’s Cajun, because of your mom’s Lousiana roots. See this: ‘aver besonh de’ sounds a lot like
avoir besoin de
, to have need of. And ‘la rason perqué’ is similar to
la raison pourquoi
, the reason why. Maybe the person who wrote this lacked the knowledge of proper spelling and simply gave his or her best guess. This one, ‘ne sabi pas res,’ has the French ‘
ne pas
’ structure, but the two other words are anyone’s guess. ‘Sabi’

could be a corruption of
savoir
, I suppose: to know.”

“So Cajun is French?” I asked.

“Cajun is a language in its own right, but its roots are French. We’ll listen to some music and dialog in your third year French class. That’s my best guess,
Samanthe
, with your mom’s family history.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks a lot.
Merci beaucoup
.”

Of course my mom’s background had nothing to do with this black book. Still, the idea of a
version
of French was a good one. There were moments when I felt like I could
almost
understand some of the sentences. We just had to find a language derived from French instead of from Latin, like Will and I had been thinking.

I didn’t catch up with Gwyn to ask her how things had gone with the fundraiser that first day back. On Wednesday and Thursday, she remained cool towards me, and I began to worry this wouldn’t blow over soon. I couldn’t apologize because I couldn’t catch her attention.

Will asked me what was wrong on Thursday.

“Gwyn hates me,” I said glumly.

“Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious. She thinks I hate cats, and that’s why I didn’t gold pan, and I told her I don’t hate cats, and she thinks I’m lying to her.” My throat tightened as I spoke.

“She didn’t say anything to me about missing the fundraiser. Actually, she hasn’t said anything to me all week. Maybe she’s mad at both of us.”

All too likely
, I thought.

Friday, Will’s sister was taking him to lunch. Eating alone was nothing new to me, but I wasn’t going back to snarfing in the halls and hiding in the library like I used to. I walked towards a table where Gwyn sat, alone for the moment.

She looked up at me without smiling or frowning, scanning my face, looking for bruises or heavy layers of cover-up. She spoke first.

“Do you know what I see looking out our back window?”

“The cat kennels?” I guessed.

She looked away for a moment. “The night someone took a shot at the cats, I looked out and I thought I saw Will climbing over the back fence. Did he come for target practice on our cats?”

“What?” I didn’t believe what she’d just asked.

“I’d really like to be friends, and I know Will’s had some rough patches in his life. But I can’t stand the dishonesty, Sam. He needs to get help for this kind of problem because it won’t go away on its own. It’ll get worse, Sam.”

She didn’t wait for me to respond.

“I didn’t want to believe it—Will seems like such a nice guy—but all the clues line up in one direction. And there’s his dad and all. Violent criminals often start with violence directed at animals.”

“Will’s not violent with animals or people.” My voice was a whisper.

“Sam, you can get help. I saw the bruise, remember?”

I shook my head. “You’ve got it all wrong.”

“Sam, I think you know the truth about Will. I think you were with Will that night. Am I right?”

I blinked frantically, but it did no good. Tears forced their way past my closed lids. I couldn’t tell her the truth. But I couldn’t lie either; she’d know if I did.

“You’ve got it all wrong,” I choked out.

“You’re a really bad liar.” She shook her head. “You said you like that I give it to you straight. Well, this is me, giving it to you straight. I thought you were a lot smarter than this, Sam. No guy is worth this. I can forgive a lot of things, but lying and abuse are two things I won’t tolerate.” She stood up. “And neither should you.” She left the table.

I heard big, gulping sobs coming from somewhere. From me. I ran to the track where I cried with abandon.

***

Wandering to the far side of the deck, I stared across the pool at the waterfall, but it had no power to soothe me. I could have Gwyn as my friend, or Will, but not both. Gwyn would continue to cold-shoulder me unless I explained what had really happened that night. But Will and his sister would leave town if I told anyone about rippling. And that meant letting Gwyn believe I was in an abusive relationship with a guy who tortured cats for fun. That’s what this came down to. I had to choose who I could bear to live without.

For about an hour, I considered lying to Gwyn. Saying that I had a thing for shooting critters, and that I knew I needed help and would she point me to a twelve-step program for cat-haters? I saw myself in a room full of people confessing to terrible compulsions, all encouraging each other to take that energy and build squirrel feeders instead.

But I couldn’t lie my way out of a paper bag, and Gwyn knew it.

So who could I live without? At the moment, I was experiencing life without Gwyn. It sucked. Sure I had Syl, but she was a mom, not a girlfriend. Mickie was my friend, and a girl, but it wasn’t the same.

Life without Gwyn.

I felt a lump forming in the back of my throat.

But if I told Gwyn the truth?

Life without Will.

His sister would take him away, and I’d never see him again. Will punching me on the shoulder like I was his best friend. Will holding me safe in the creek, bringing me back to safety and life. Will and his grin aimed straight at me, his eyes crinkling as he smiled, so he looked sleepy and sexy at the same time.

Life without Will.

I couldn’t breathe.

I tasted all the bitterness of this choice, because if life were fair, I wouldn’t have to choose between them. But life is never about fair.

Excerpted from the private journal of Girard L’Inferne, approx. 1943

Indebtedness Training—Test Subject: Helga

“It isn’t fair,” the girl whispers. “I should have been chosen. I am stronger and smarter
than Greta.”

“Never mind, Helga,” I say. “If the couple wanted a child like Greta, they would not, I
think, have made good parents for someone as exceptional as you.”

She does not know that I release only the children I consider failures, so she nods.

“Eat, child. I saved my lunch and dinner for you. I wish it could be more.” I am lying,
but the child does not know. “Perhaps someday I will find a nice Fraulein to marry, and we
will adopt you.”

“You would make a good father. Life is not always fair, I think,” says the child, seeming
to find comfort in the idea as much as in the food.

“No, child, hardly ever,” I agree.

She smiles with a new thought. “If everything were fair, I would not get extra food from
you either.”

I smile back, happy at the increased burden of indebtedness the girl feels with each of
these visits.

-translation by G. Pfeffer

Chapter Fourteen

BLISS

Weeks flowed by and school settled into a routine for me, my academic work off-set by cross country practice. Our teams had never filled out in numbers enough to compete, but I didn’t mind. Meets just didn’t matter, in light of other things. I missed Gwyn’s friendship, and running on the same team only made the space between us more painful. The end of the month loomed ahead—on October 27th I would turn sixteen. Gwyn and I had talked about celebrating this milestone at Las ABC with lots of caffeine and sugar. But that part of turning sixteen wouldn’t be happening now.

I sat outside, down at my lookout, gathering the last bit of October sunshine. Below and to the west, the Valley lay smothered in a blanket of tule fog. Soon it would be too cold to sit here, even in the afternoons. I thought about getting up, and then I heard someone coming my direction, which basically never happens. I looked and saw Will flashing a hundred-watt grin my direction.

“Sylvia said you might be down here.” He was holding a plastic baggy stuffed with

something green. “It’s basil. Mick wants a celebratory dinner tonight. Pesto’s the only thing she knows how to make from scratch. So she called your step-mom and here I am.”

“What are you celebrating?”

“We found out today that our dad got arrested last June. Two counts of possession and resisting arrest.” Will smiled. No, he glowed. His hair had grown, untrimmed, for several months now. It suited him, dark curls framing that bright face.

“And that’s a good thing?”

“A very good thing.” As he said this, his grin changed and looked almost feral. “He’s got a year in drug court.”

I stared in fascination at the animal expression of his mouth.

“So, yeah, today’s a very good day.” His smile relaxed, back into a comfortable grin.

I’d wanted to ask questions about his dad for a long time. “You said he started using to cure his Helmann’s or something?”

His brow contracted.

“We totally don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,” I said.

“’S’okay.” He looked at his watch and sat on a stump beside me. “I got a few minutes.

The Neuroprine, the Helmann’s drug, it kept him from going numb at inconvenient times, but it had a few side effects. Stuff like drowsiness, loss of appetite and, uh,
libido.
” He spoke the word like it might bite him. “Parent” and “sex drive” are
so
not meant to be thought of at the same time.

Will continued. “For a long time the side effects didn’t bother him. I mean, he was a kid, right? But this doctor mentioned one visit that before the prescription existed, people would sometimes self-medicate with controlled substances, which didn’t have the side effects—uh—

like I mentioned. Obviously they had other side effects, though, like being illegal and making you crazy. The doctor must have meant to tell Dad how lucky he was to live in an age with a safer option. But that wasn’t what my dad did with the information.

“Dad meets my mom in Thailand doing Peace Corps, and he’s all in love with her, and he starts thinking maybe an alternative drug is a better idea, and that’s when he started using.

Mom was pissed when she found out.”

“Wow. I had no idea your parents did Peace Corps.”

“Yeah, go figure, huh? I never got to see that side of my dad. It took Mom a long time to give up hoping it would return.” Will shook the bag of basil and seemed to decide it was time to change the subject. “You and Gwyn figured things out yet?”

“We’re not friends anymore.”

“Serious?”

I nodded.

“Why?”

I sighed, kicking my feet out in front of me. “She’s convinced you came to her place to shoot cats the night I blew that hole in the wall. And that I basically gave you my blessing, by not stopping you.”

Will laughed. “For real? That’s hysterical!” He looked over at me and his grin faded. “I’ll go over right now and set Gwyn straight it wasn’t like that.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“It’s not like I’ll tell her what really happened.”

“It isn’t that.” I struggled to find the right words. “Gwyn thinks . . . it’s just . . . with your dad and all . . .”

“You can tell me.” Face stoic, he gazed out across the canyon. “I’m used to the kinds of things people think once they hear about my dad.”

“You know how I had those bruises, from where the rocks hit my face?” I glanced over to catch his expression. “She thinks,” I paused; my voice dropped to a murmur. “She thinks you beat me. And she thinks that I’m okay with it.”

I watched as the muscles on the side of Will’s jaw clenched. “Geez.” He scuffed at the dirt with his heel and stared out across the Valley. “Didn’t see that one coming.”