Son of Destruction (9 page)

She’s been to those parties, and those parties are crap. So are her parents, both of them. It’s crap being with them right now.

She’s better off here.

This is her place, if Steffy has a place, but late afternoon sun chased the last bit of shade off the roof and now it’s too hot.
Hell with it. I’m not moving until the party’s started and I’m sure Mom and Dad are gone
. It’s harder to breathe than it was when she first lay down on the air mattress, trying to get up the strength to sob out her heart.

She’ll sit out the next hour out back.

By the time Steffy hits the back porch she’s gasping for air like one of those girls some creep stole and buried alive.

Oh, shit.

There’s a guy on the steps. Just sitting there.

Perv alert!

Why am I not scared?

Whoever he is, he’s cute. Not scared. I am sooo not scared.

Be cool. Breathe. Ask, like you belong here and he doesn’t, ‘Who are you?’

He looks up. Nice, like it’s no big deal being a grownup, more like he’s another kid. ‘Oh, sorry. I didn’t know there was anybody home.’

‘Somebody lived here but she’s dead.’ Steffy ought to be on guard right now, hopping off the porch for a head start in case he lunges, but he is not that guy. ‘Nobody lives here.’ He is hanging in place like a sentence ready to be completed or a song waiting to be sung. She almost smiles. ‘Not even me.’

His head comes up. Noted: this is not her house.

‘But I sort of do,’ she says, to forestall questions.

Nice guy, he doesn’t ask. ‘I see,’ he says, waiting for whatever comes next.

God he is cute sitting there with the sunlight on his hair. God he is too old for her. Steffy should get out of this conversation and off the premises, but she won’t. Not yet. ‘I thought you would say, “What are you doing here?”’

‘That would be a no.’ He gets up. ‘None of my business, right?’ He shakes one foot and then the other to see if they’re still working, like you do when you need to get the blood running so you can move on.

‘It’s OK, you can stay.’

‘Can’t.’ He grimaces. ‘I’ve got stuff to do.’

Steffy discovers that she’ll say anything to keep him. ‘No problem if you want to hang in. Really.’ Question, keep him with a question. ‘So. What got you here?’

‘Long story.’

‘Want to tell it?’

‘Not really. Well, part of it.’

‘Which part?’

‘We’ll get to that.’ He has this sweet, wide open look; it’s what Steffy’s guidance counselor tries and fails to hit with her because he’s a jerk. Guidance guy strikes out in spite of all the heavy eye contact and trust exercises he makes them do in fifth period Sex Ed, never mind that it’s humiliating. But this guy . . . The smile.

Steffy is sort of smiling too.

‘So. Can I see inside?’

‘Not really,’ Steffy says. It’s not her house, but it is, and they both know both these things.

‘Look, I’m down here for a newspaper? It would be a big help if you let me look around inside.’

‘Are you writing a story or what?’

‘If you’re worried I can show you my press pass.’

‘I believe you,’ she says. ‘I just can’t . . .’

‘Like you’re not allowed to . . .’

‘Talk to strangers? Not really.’ She lifts her head in that proud, cocky way her mother hates. ‘I can talk to anyone I want.’

He almost-laughs. ‘Because you’re a big girl.’ He’s not being condescending or anything, he is doing a great job of imitating Mom.

‘Pretty much.’ How can she not grin?

‘Look, if this a bad time, no problem. I can come back.’

‘That won’t make it OK.’
Don’t go
.

‘Me talking to you?’

‘Me letting you in.’

‘Did you know this Mrs Archambault?

‘Not really.’

‘This is her house.’

She bristles. ‘Not any more.’

‘I’m doing a story about some bad old stuff that happened here.’

Right, Carteret. Early American History. ‘When?’

‘You don’t know?’

‘Not really.’

Instead of hitting on her or trying one of those sinister things the TV teaches you to beware, he backs away from the house, pointing up. ‘That’s the room where it happened.’

Steffy moves out into the yard so she can see where he is pointing. ‘Where what happened?’

‘The last spontaneous human combustion.’

‘Holy crap!’

‘Crash, bam. Whammo, she just. Burned up.’ As though he already has her cooperation, he says, ‘That’s why I have to get inside.’

If Carter came by right now he would be jealous, seeing the two of them standing together here. Steffy backs into the steps and sits down. He is still out there studying the second floor. ‘So, what are you looking for?’

‘That’s the trouble. I don’t know.’ Unlike grownups, he doesn’t sweep the step with his hand; he isn’t scared of sitting on something gross. ‘Why this woman burned down to grease spot, I suppose.’

‘Ewww.’

‘First they thought it was the husband.’ He pulls a notepad out of a pocket on his thigh. Cool cargo pants. Muttering, he runs his pencil down the page. ‘Harold P. Archambault.’ He taps the eraser on the note.

‘You have notes?’

‘Big story. Research.’ He looks up. ‘They were divorced.’

Steffy hates that word. Divorced. ‘Like, he set her on fire?’

‘No. Nobody knows what did it, that’s the thing.’ Frustration makes him squint. ‘But, you’ve gotta wonder. What if he was here and they had a fight?’

‘People fight all the time,’ Steffy says uneasily. ‘It doesn’t mean anything.’

‘These things, it’s usually the husband.’

‘Just because they had a fight?’ She is really uncomfortable now.

‘Because usually, it is. But this guy was with his girlfriend at the Prince Edward, out at the beach, it’s on the Web. They were together all night.’

Steffy gulps.
Oh God. Oh, God
. She’s not afraid of this gentle guy with eyes that turn green in direct sunlight, but she is afraid. She’s scared of something that she won’t name and hates to think about. ‘Like, he set her on fire because they had a fight?’

‘No. It was spontaneous. I’m not creeping you out, am I?’

Yes
. ‘No.’

‘Sitting there one minute,’ he says thoughtfully, ‘and the next minute – whoom.’

‘Ewww!’

He ticks off another point. ‘But the room was untouched.’

She has quit breathing. It comes out in a rush. ‘Up there?’

‘Yeah. And I’m here because . . .’ Steffy has no way of knowing that this is not a sentence he can finish. After some thought he says, ‘If I can just get into that room and mail back a couple of screen shots . . . I can buy some time.’

‘Time?’

His face changes. ‘It’s hard to explain.’ When she doesn’t say anything he says helpfully, ‘If you want, I really can show you my press pass.’

Steffy would like to see it; she’d like to follow up with a question but she’s squirming. It’s nothing he said. Something else is gnawing at her. ‘So they were divorced. She burned up and it’s the husband’s fault.’

‘The girlfriend said he was with her all night.’

Oh God.
‘Girlfriend.’

‘“Other woman,” they called it back in the day.’

Oh, God.

‘He opened a magnum and turned up the music and that was it. They didn’t know until the police came.’

‘So it couldn’t be him.’

Bemused, he says, ‘It wasn’t anybody. It just happened.’ He’s waiting for her to follow with another question, say
something
, but Steffy is too far gone to speak. He jogs her arm. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yeah.’ But she is thinking, thinking, boy is she thinking. The sun burns hotter. The breeze stops. She gets up. ‘So. Want to see inside?’

‘I thought it was your private place.’

‘Not really.’ She is never coming back here. ‘Not any more.’

‘I did creep you out. I’m sorry.’

Still sitting, she opens the screen door. ‘Really. Feel free.’

Nice, he says carefully, ‘Are you sure? After all, it’s, like, your house.’

She gets up. ‘Come on, it’s anybody’s now.’

Now that she knows, the house is over with for her, but she sort of owes it to him to show him where this lady burned up and in its own way the prurient, curious part of her has to see. In school she flunked spatial relations on the standardized tests, which means she never knows where she is in a building, which is weird. Between that and the house being all cut up after this divorced person burned up, she has a hard time leading him to the right room. Plus, she’s a little scared. Like, what if the old lady is still up there, like they’ll open some door and her skeleton will spring out and chase them outside and all the way down to the bay.

Upstairs, there are so many partitions that she can’t tell which window he was pointing at or whether it’s on this side of the dividing wall or somewhere else. Plus, she’s freaking. Nothing this nice guy did, nothing he said.

The Archambaults had a fight and then the mother caught fire. After the divorce.

She says, miserably, ‘I don’t know which room.’

‘It’s that one. There.’

Everything in her sinks. ‘Oh.’

He’s very nice about it, really. There is nothing special or different about the right room, only that it’s the right one. Yellowed window shades sag at half mast and the linoleum is pocked with dents where generations of different furniture stood after she died. The wallpaper has faded to nothing. There are no smoke marks, no charred woodwork. Just water stains and nail-holes where pictures used to be. It’s as if nothing ever happened here. He studies the sketch in his notebook while Steffy fidgets. He paces, considering, until she snaps, ‘Are you done?’

‘What? Another minute. If you don’t mind.’

Her mind roams out and when it comes back, Steffy is disrupted and writhing, so her voice comes out all freaky and weird. ‘I have to go.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Matter? Nothing. I’m fine. It’s just. I have to go!’ Gulp. Start over. ‘Do you know what time it is?’

‘Five.’

‘Shit. I’m supposed to be home.’ She isn’t but she has to be; she has no idea why she’s so scared.

‘No prob,’ he says easily. ‘I’ll take you.’

‘No,’ she says. ‘No way.’

‘Right. Never get into a stranger’s car.’

‘That isn’t it. OK, I really have to go.’ Steffy isn’t exactly crying when she bolts, it’s just sweat running down, it’s . . . OK, if she starts in front of this guy she will totally lose it. What scares her second most in the world is that if she does cry, she won’t be able to stop. Shit, he’s following! Her voice trickles out. ‘Take your time. Look around all you want.’

‘You’re upset.’

‘I’ve gotta go.’

‘It’s too hot to walk.’

‘It isn’t far.’

‘At least let me buy you a Coke for the road.’

‘Can’t,’ Steffy says urgently. ‘Can’t!’

‘What’s so important that you can’t wait and I can’t take you?’

Grief boils up in Steffy and runs over. ‘I have to get dressed for this stupid party, OK?’

She walks until she’s sure he’s gone back inside, where he can’t see her. Then she starts to run. When she gets home nothing has happened and everybody is fine.

It was weird at Lunch Bunch today, acting like everything was all right with me when everything was all wrong, what with Davis turning out to be a rat and me laying down the line and not knowing which side of it I was on. I should have stayed back, but in Fort Jude you have to go out and show yourself to the people because you don’t want to hear what they say about you when you don’t.

In a way it was a relief, sitting down with the girls like always, pretending nothing’s changed and it’s all fine. We were assigning chores for Patty Kalen’s engagement party, which we’re giving because her dad’s a drunk and poor Cecilia died before the divorce went through. Davis or not, tonight I’m dressing, if not to kill, then at least to maim, because in this town
acte de presence
is everything, and four hundred people are coming to the club! Kara Coleman had Buck order Champagne from a Napa vineyard and the club staff is doing the wet bar and the buffet, and if Brad bitches we’ll tell him, ‘Cheap at the price.’ He’s paying, but we’re in charge. Cecilia suffered at his hands but she loved him so we never said a word, and whatever she suffered, tonight is our big chance to make it up to her. We’re damn well helping Brad do right by their daughter, so she can look at the pictures years later and be proud.

It was an odd day. Sallie put down her checklist. ‘Wow,’ she said, and I still don’t know if she was sorry. ‘Lucy died. My nephew saw it in the New London
Day
. It’s not like it’ll be in the Fort Jude
Star
,’ and then she said, because Sallie is that kind of awful, ‘Turn your back on Fort Jude and Fort Jude turns its back on you.’

We weren’t close, but she was prom queen in our year! That’s too close. I saw the grave yawning and it scared me because to tell the truth, it didn’t look all that bad to me.

Sallie picked up her clipboard. ‘Moving right along.’

Jessie sailed in before she could start; she looked amazing. ‘Big news.’

‘You’re late!’ Sallie hates being interrupted and she hates women attractive to Chape. Lucy was one, back in the day. ‘We were just . . .’

‘You’ll never guess who just checked in at the hotel.’

I guess Jessie made two. Sallie stepped on her hard enough to squash her flat. ‘Shhh. We’re mourning,’ she said, although it wasn’t exactly true. ‘Lucy died.’

‘Oh!’ Jessie said, and the ones of us that don’t like Sallie all that much listened hard. She looked shaken. ‘I hadn’t heard.’

‘Of course not.’ Sallie stuck it to her, the bitch. ‘You were never close.’

‘No.’ In fact, Jessie was a parade of different faces. There are things we don’t ask now that she’s one of us, and with friends, you don’t really want to know about their sordid past. She got it together, but it cost her. ‘As a matter of fact, this guy . . .’

Sallie struck back. ‘We were deciding on the centerpiece.’

‘Shut up and listen!’ Jessie pre-empted, take
that
. ‘It’s her son.’