Riversong (2 page)

“Three then.” Mrs. White flicked her hand towards Lee's door. “Go on now. Don't want any kids to see me up here.”

After Mrs. White drove away, Lee looked around, wondering if it was too late to chase after the truck and tell Mrs. White, forget it, I don't need this much humiliation. I get enough at home, she might add. Then she saw some kids heading towards a sandy trail between some Birch trees and decided to follow them, feeling the pain of self-consciousness in every step, clutching her canvas bag that held her sketch pad and notebook to her chest. The path led to a sandy beach and a deep green swimming hole as perfectly shaped as if it were a man-made pool. The beach was scattered with kids in bathing suits and shorts. There were coolers stuffed full of beer. Chips and cookies peaked out of grocery bags. Someone had a boom box blaring Madonna's, “Papa Don't Preach”. She smelled marijuana smoke and saw some kids behind a tree passing a joint.

On the other side of the swimming hole were boulders jutting ten or so feet above the water where kids sat, dangling their legs over the sides or tanning themselves against the rocks. Suddenly a boy did a Tarzan yell and dove from the tallest point into the jade colored water. Lee gasped, realizing she was clutching the sides of her own arms with fright until the boy's head bobbed out of the water, hair covering his face. He whipped his head to one side and his hair fell back in place. Then he swam the crawl back towards the rocks, head poking out of the water and moving from side to side in a way that reminded Lee of an overgrown puppy. Christina Brown, big hair, black lined eyes, from sixth period health class, stood beside her. She gave Lee a look like,
who are you and why are you here?
Then she adjusted her bikini bottoms and waved to the boy in the water.

Lee walked to the water's edge. She took off her sneakers and put her feet into the water. The sand was soft, the water as cold as iced tea. Her feet looked whiter than usual under the water. Minnows came to nibble at her toes. Someone was distributing bottles of beer. She surprised herself when she held up her hand for one and used her shirt to twist off the cap. She sipped it tentatively. It tasted bitter and the bubbles tickled going down her throat but she took two long swallows. Then she sat back against a rock and tossed stones into the river, wishing she hadn't let that bossy Mrs. White talk her into coming. She didn't belong here, amidst all the laughter, abandonment, the war cries of freedom. These other kids were alive and vibrant. She was chained and invisible. She understood she wasn't offensive to the other kids like Ronnie Myer who didn't shower and smelled badly, or Sally Wagner who had a nervous tick and one eye that crossed and a strange habit of talking to herself in the lunchroom. Lee was just benign, someone no one thought of, like she didn't really exist. Maybe she wasn't really here or there or anywhere. Her thoughts were turning jumbled. Could it be the two sips of beer, she wondered.

She forced herself to take another long sip. It still tasted terrible. She poured some of it onto the wet sand. The beer turned into white foam and then made air holes in the surface.

She wandered along the edge of the river. Climbing onto a boulder she saw a patch of sand nestled between large rocks, almost like a cave. No one was there. Holding her beer in one hand and her bag in the other, she clambered over the smooth round granite to perch on an indentation that was like a seat. She took out her sketch pad and began drawing a cluster of poppies. The green buds hadn't opened yet, merely hinting at the vibrant orange that would soon be revealed.

She lobbed a pebble into the water and hearing footsteps turned her head to see Zac Huller approaching, walking lopsided, holding a beer. He was class vice-president, an athlete. Some girl had written “babe” in lipstick on his locker last week. Lee knew his parents owned the town sawmill. “Born with a silver spoon in their mouth,” her mother said once, sneering. Zac stopped, looking disappointed. “Oh, I thought you were someone else.” He plopped down on the sand, inches from her bare legs. “What're you doing?”

She tossed another pebble. “I don't know.”

“Everybody's getting loaded.” He tipped the beer into his mouth, his Adam's apple moving up and down with each swallow.

Lee chucked a small flat rock and it skipped over the water in three leaps.

Zac threw his empty bottle and it shattered into jagged pieces. “Man, I can't wait to get out of this shit-hole.” Brown glass lay in shards on the sand and he kicked one with his foot, pulling another beer from his shorts.

“Me too.”

“I heard you got a big scholarship. What for?”

“Art.”

“I saw your paintings hanging in the cafeteria. Freaked me out but I don't know crap about art. I'm going to the community college up by Eugene. My dad's got a boner over college, so here I go.” He kicked the sand and sipped his beer. “My dad just wants to get rid of me now that my mother left him. She went to Florida with some rich guy she met when she went to visit my aunt. She hated it here. Always talking about how much she missed the city and what a hick my old man is. I guess she hated me too because she's gone, gone, gone.” He tore the label off the beer bottle and crumpled it between his fingers. “Wanna hear something messed up?” He looked at her, eyes half-closed. “Do you?”

“I guess.”

“I saw my mother porking that guy in Florida. I walked in on them one day after school. It was disgusting. I hate him. My dad's a jerk, always on my ass about everything, but this guy, this guy's a complete waste.”

Lee remembered then that he was gone the first part of the school year. “Did you come back after that?”

“Yeah, I came back to live with my dad. He thinks I'm a complete screw-up, so that's a lot of fun.” He flipped his hair out of his eyes and stared at her, slapping her ankle. “You know, you're not so ugly underneath those glasses.” Lee looked at him, thinking he was interesting in a science project kind of way, and lobbed another pebble.

He lurched to a standing position and dropped with a thud on the rock next to her, waving his hand between them. “What do you think about this?”

Lee's eyes darted away from his face to the sun glistening on the water. “About what?”

“Y'know, me talking you up?” His fingers grasped her knee and then went up her leg to the soft flesh of her inner thigh. “You ever think this would happen?”

Lee put her legs together. “Exactly what are we talking about?”

“I'm Zac and, you're a, what are you? A non-person. I've watched you in that bullshit Health class and I wonder if you're a girl or a robot.” His words slurred and there was spittle in the corners of his mouth. “Maybe I could loosen you up. Make you scream a little, break the robot out of her shell.” He pulled on the collar of her t-shirt with his index finger. “This could be a good spot to y'know.” He raised his eyebrows and patted the sand with his foot. “Nice and soft.”

“It's not really soft, as a matter of fact.”

The vein on his forehead bulged as his face turned a shade of purple. “See, like that, the way you're so stiff and shit. It's weird.” He yanked her glasses from her face and tossed them onto her canvas bag. He pulled her to the sand. He was on top of her. Sharp pebbles dug into the backs of her legs. His wet tongue wiggled around inside her mouth like a slug and his breath smelled of beer and Doritos. He panted, his hands clutching at her breasts like he was trying to pluck them from her body.

She wheezed against his weight, attempting to push him off. He was heavier than he looked. “Don't you have a girlfriend?”

He grunted. “Screw Lindsey. She's been blowing me off.” He yanked at her shorts.

She reached behind her, hoping for a rock but found instead a sharp edged piece of the broken beer bottle and slammed it hard into the back of his right thigh. He shrieked, jumping to his feet and twisting his upper body to see the wound, looking like a rabid dog chasing his tail. “You stabbed me?” He held up his fingers. There was a small amount of blood on them. “I'm bleeding. You bitch.” He lunged for her but tripped and fell onto the sand. She grabbed her glasses and bag and scrambled over the rocks, slipping in her tennis shoes and scraping her knee. She kept running until she reached the crowd.

Lee waited the rest of the afternoon in the hot parking area for Mrs. White. Finally, shortly after three she pulled up in the yellow truck. Without getting out of the vehicle, Mrs. White leaned across the seat to the passenger side and opened the door. “Hop in,” she called out to Lee.

Mrs. White had changed into Bermuda shorts and a t-shirt, her white legs surprisingly muscular for an old lady, Lee thought. “You're red as a lobster,” Mrs. White said. “Don't you know about suntan lotion?”

Lee looked at her arms. They were bright pink and starting to sting. Her skin was hot to the touch. Great, she thought, a sunburn to top off what had been a horrific day. This just proved it, bad things always happened to her whether she wrote her list or not. As a matter of fact, it was the things she didn't think of that happened.

As Mrs. White backed the truck onto the road she said, “You have any fun?”

“Not really.”

“A lot of drinking?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Mrs. White looked at her sharply but didn't ask any other questions. Lee's eyes were heavy. She put her head against the side of the truck and fell asleep. When she woke they were pulling up to her mother's house.

She sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Sorry, didn't mean to fall asleep.”

But Mrs. White wasn't listening. She was looking at the house with a worried expression. “What's wrong?” Lee asked her.

Mrs. White swore under her breath and leaped from the truck, sprinting towards the porch. Lee followed, her heart beating hard inside her chest. They entered through the front door, Lee on the older woman's heels. The screen door slammed behind them. It smelled different but she couldn't think of what. Then it came to her. Smoke.

“Those damn cigarettes,” Mrs. White yelled, running towards the kitchen.

The coffee table, covered with magazines and newspapers was on fire. Her mother lay on the couch, inches from the flames, not moving.

Lee screamed. Without thinking, she ran past the fire to the couch and dragged her into the foyer. Once on the floor, Eleanor's eyes fluttered and then coughed the rattled smoker's cough, her chest rising and falling.

“Mommy, are you alright?” Lee took her mother's hand that felt like crepe paper, sobbing.

Without opening her eyes Eleanor murmured, her face slack, “My chest hurts.”

Lee heard the clang of a pan and then water running from the kitchen. Mrs. White ran past them with a pan of water. Lee watched her douse the fire. It went out instantly, as if it knew there was no denying Ellen White what she wanted; the remains of its rebellion soggy charred magazines and blackened remnants of the town newspaper.

They put Eleanor to bed and cleaned the mess left by the fire. Afterwards they sat on the steps of the front porch. “How did you know?” Lee said. “About the fire.”

“Oh, I've got a nose can smell most anything. It's a curse most of the time. Always figured my family must've been the types smelled the Queen's dishes for poison.”

Lee made a pattern in the dirt with her foot. “Glad we got here when we did.” She shivered.

Mrs. White looked at her, eyes sharp. “Is it always this bad?”

Lee shrugged, looking at the ground. “I guess.”

“You ever tell anyone about it, like a teacher at school or anything.”

“Nah, what could they do?”

Mrs. White looked like she might say something but then thought better of it, examining her fingernails instead.

“Mrs. White, I'm leaving in the morning.” And as she said it, she knew suddenly that it was true. She was finished with high school. She'd miss the graduation ceremony but who cared? She was done living in this crazy house. “College starts in late August but I'll go now, get a job for the summer. I can live in the dorms during the summer as long as I have the rent.”

Mrs. White nodded. “You'll need some money.”

“I've got a little saved.” Not much, she thought. Enough for a bus ticket and one month's rent. But it could get her through until she found a job.

“I'll float you some. You can pay me back when you're a rich and famous artist.”

She wanted to protest but knew she couldn't. “Okay. Thanks.”

“I'll take you to the bus station in the morning.”

“The bus to Seattle leaves at 11:30.” She'd memorized the schedule years ago, planning her escape.

“I'll be here to get you.”

She slept fitfully that night and woke late the next morning, hot under her bed covers. The air reeked of smoke. Her sunburned skin stung. She threw back the covers, longing for the feel of water on her scorched arms and legs. She dressed in a ratty pair of shorts and t-shirt. On her way down the hall she paused in front of her mother's room, leaning for a moment on the closed door. A bird's summer song drifted in through the open hall window. Her mother snored softly inside the room. She put her hand on the doorknob to go in like she did every morning but then hesitated. The familiar sadness crept in but she forced the feelings inside, scratching her sunburned arms with her fingernails, drawing blood. The river beckoned to her, as if it called her name. She withdrew her hand from the door and walked away, down the hall and the creaky stairs, all the while hearing a call to the river, knowing that she would not look back again.