The Fable of Us (28 page)

And here we were, years later and so-called adults, and I was refereeing the same kind of shit I had as a kid. If Boone didn’t strangle Ford for this stunt, I was planning on it. Actually, I was looking forward to it.

By going twenty over, I got to Ford’s cabin in just under twenty minutes. A record, and not to mention a miracle I’d made it without getting pulled over and ticketed.

The cabin sat on the edge of Clear Lake was more an estate than what a person envisioned when they thought of a lake cabin. Three stories, two thousand square feet per floor, and complete with a tennis court out back, this was not how one “roughed it” at the lake for a weekend.

A few cars were staggered in the driveway, all of them in the six-figure category save for one: a beat-up Honda I’d walked by countless times when visiting the Cavanaughs’ place.

I hadn’t known Wren had grown up to be a stripper until recently, but I guess it wasn’t a great surprise. Boone’s little sister had been tough and bullheaded like him, but she hadn’t had the hope and optimism Boone had always carried to some degree. She’d been a troubled child who grew into an unruly youth. With what Boone suggested had happened to her at the hands of Dolly’s boyfriends, her behavior made more sense now.

I’d been too young and perhaps too close to the situation to see it then, but the blinders of youth and love were off.

I skidded to a stop right behind the bumper of Ford’s Jaguar. The urge to ram into it became so overwhelming, I forced myself to take a few deep breaths before I turned off the Chrysler and slid out of the car. If I’d had a baseball bat, that would be one thing, but I couldn’t damage my dad’s prized possession in the name of revenge on his future son-in-law. Tempting though it was.

The night was cooler out here, less sticky with heat, and the lake was flat and still. The night was quiet and calm. That all ended the moment I tore toward the front door, running as fast as my short, embarrassingly out-of-shape legs would take me.

As I rounded the front of the house, gunning for the front door, and prepared to drag Boone out of there if I had to, I heard shouts coming from the back of the cabin, where I’d just been. I paused, waiting to hear the voices again. When I did, my heart sank. One of the voices was Boone’s. The other was a woman’s.

I was too late. Too late to save Boone from being the butt of another cheap joke dealt from Ford’s hands. Too late to save him from the humiliation of discovering his sister was the entertainment for the night. Too late to save him from being treated like a second-class citizen all over again by a bunch of guys who were a long fall from being first-rate themselves.

Spinning around, I sprinted back in the direction I’d just come, the shouts becoming louder. The Cavanaughs weren’t known for their propensity for peaceful resolutions—they were better known for their tempers doing the talking. Or in this case, the hollering.

I found Boone and Wren around back. Boone had his sister tucked beneath one of his arms with a blanket draped around her, guiding her toward her old Honda. I slowed to a walk and approached them from the side, ignoring the feeling that my heart was about to malfunction. Neither of them noticed me.

“You said you were going to stop,” Boone’s voice bellowed into the still night as he continued steering Wren to her car. The blanket was so tightly drawn around her body, she looked like a nun in a habit. “You promised me no more of this shit when you had to call me after the last one got out of control.”

Wren struggled against Boone, but she was as short as I was and had always been rail-thin. She might as well have been trying to move the Hoover Dam with a team of mules. “I didn’t call you, Boone. You showed up all on your own at that one, dragging me out in the exact same way.”

“And it was a damn good thing I did show up, because what would have happened if I hadn’t?”

They’d made it to Wren’s car. Boone managed to throw open the driver’s side door and still maintain his hold on her.

“I would have made the other two hundred dollars I was planning on making that night, and there would have been a jack-off line out the bathroom after I left.” Wren shoved at Boone’s side, squirming against him. “God, Boone. When are you going to stop acting like I’m a kid?”

“When you stop behaving like one,” he growled.

“This is my job. This is how I make my living. This is me being an adult and leaving the kid part behind. Why can’t you see that?” When Wren shoved him again, she caught him just enough off guard he staggered a bit. “Thanks to your Save the Little Sister routine again, you cost me another thousand bucks tonight. That’s one thousand singles I had plans for.”

“Plans for shooting up your arm?”

Wren managed to free an arm from the blanket and didn’t waste a moment slapping Boone’s cheek. The slap echoed across the lake, making me wince.

If anything registered on Boone’s expression right then, it wasn’t pain.

“You’re a son of a bitch.” Wren’s voice quivered, more from what I guessed was anger than sadness. “And in case you didn’t catch the first five thousand hints, here’s me saying it out loud—leave me the hell alone.”

Boone’s jaw set, but he stayed silent. I wanted to move in, but my feet were stuck to the ground.

“You couldn’t save me then, and it’s too late to save me from whatever it is you think I need saving from now. A person has to want to be saved for it to work, big brother, and does it look like I’m screaming for help?”

Boone’s arms had fallen away from Wren when he stepped back from her slap. Lifting her arms, she threw off the blanket and did a small spin in front of her brother. If it made me wince to see Wren in her outfit—if that was what one could call it—I couldn’t imagine how Boone felt. How he’d felt when all of those guys inside had seen his little sister the same way.

“Wren—”

“Don’t, Boone. Just don’t.” Wren kicked off her clear platform heels and chucked them inside the Honda. Without them on, she barely came up to his shoulders. “I’m sick of the hero act. You’ve been playing it your whole life, and it’s never been that successful of a role for you.” Wren shook her head at him. “You can’t even save yourself.”

My feet were finally able to move. The sound of my footsteps crunching through the gravel made both of their heads turn, though Boone’s moved as if a weight had been strung to it.

“Oh, goodie. Clara’s here.” Wren’s eyes narrowed at me as I approached. There was very little of the girl I remembered in the woman before me now. Apparently she felt the opposite from the way she was glaring at me. “You can run along and save her now. She was always your main priority anyway.”

I tried to ignore that the woman in the high-leg purple sequined thong and matching pasties was the same girl I’d seen camped out in front of the television in Dolly’s trailer, a coloring book and box of crayons colored down to nubs in front of her. It was next to impossible though.

“God knows she needs all the saving she can get.” Wren shook her head at me next before disappearing into the car and slamming the door.

“Wren, stop.” Boone lurched forward and rapped on her window.

She answered by waving her middle finger at him, sputtered the Honda to life, and as she gunned it out of the driveway, it didn’t seem as though she were trying to avoid hitting me with her 80s Accord. It looked more as though she were trying to make me a hood ornament.

I dove to the side, but it wasn’t necessary. At the last moment, she steered the car to the side. She might have wanted to scare the shit out of me, but she didn’t actually want to maul me. It wasn’t one of the more comforting realizations I’d come to, but at least I wasn’t roadkill.

“Shit, are you okay?” Boone yelled as he lunged toward me.

When I said I’d dove to the side, I meant it. I’d actually dove. “Yeah, I’m good. Other than a little road burn and being reminded of my lack of grace, I’m just fine.”

Boone reached for me, and I took his hand and let him pull me up. He didn’t seem to blink as he watched Wren speed away, the blanket flapping in the wind, its corner caught inside the driver’s door.

“Are you okay?” I asked, dropping my hand on his arm gently.

My touch made him flinch, but his shoulders relaxed the moment after. “It’s been so long since I’ve been okay, I don’t think I remember how it feels.”

The cheek Wren had slapped was red and sparkling with specks of what I presumed was body glitter. I wiped his cheek lightly to dust off a few flecks of glitter. His skin was warm, more so where Wren had hit him. “Sorry, that was probably the dumbest question I could ask you after what just happened.”

“No,” he said, still watching her car. “If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t ask. It’s nice to know someone cares.”

Wren’s taillights disappeared from sight, far down the road.

“I care,” I said.

The night didn’t seem so quiet anymore. The crickets were chirping so loudly their calls seemed to vibrate in my ears. The frogs croaking and the waves lapping at the shoreline joined in the deafening symphony. From inside the cabin, I could make out the sounds of laughter. After a few moments, it went quiet again right before another round exploded into the night. I could only imagine the things they were saying, the image they were reliving, the pictures they were comparing.

If Boone noticed the rounds of laughter coming from the cabin, he didn’t show it.

“I’m sorry, Boone.” I angled myself in front of him, to try to get his attention.

“What are you sorry for?” he asked, blinking. “That my sister’s a stripper or that I had to be reminded just now that she was a stripper?”

“I’m sorry for what happened.”

I couldn’t tell if the reason he wouldn’t look at me was because he was afraid to look away from where Wren had disappeared or afraid to look at me. “And I’m sorry for a lot of things too, but a lot of good that does.” Turning to the side, he walked down the driveway.

“Boone, wait,” I called, realizing I was repeating the last thing he’d said to Wren.

“I need to be alone right now, Clara.” When he reached the end of the driveway, he turned left instead of following Wren’s car back to the highway. He was taking the long way around.

“I didn’t know they had that planned. I just found out.” I panted as I chased him. He was only walking, but I had to jog to catch up with him. His legs were twice my size and seemed to move ten times faster. “I tried calling to warn you. I tried getting here before—”

“It’s not your fault. Wren is who she is, and Ford is who he is. I should have seen it coming.”

Even at my present jog, it became clear there was no way I could keep up with him and keep up a conversation. “Will you please stop?” I was more hyperventilating than panting now. “Will you please just talk to me?”

His shoulders rose a few inches before falling. “There’s nothing to talk about. I’ll see you back at your parents’ later. I need to think.”

Walking away when things got sketchy—a favorite pastime of Boone’s. This time, I wouldn’t make it so easy for him to walk away. “If that’s the direction you’re planning on taking to get back to my parents’ place, I hope you’ve got a lot to think about. A whole week’s worth.”

Boone continued powering down the dirt road, getting so far out in front of me I was losing him to the dark. “I’ve always got that much to think about. Good night, Clara.” Picking up his pace, he disappeared in another few steps.

I came to a stop, stomped my foot against the road, and roared.

He wanted to be alone, he wanted to think . . . code words for him wanting to fester and brood.

Spinning around, I made use of whatever my legs had left to give me and jogged back to Ford’s cabin. Laughter was still ringing inside the cabin, and as much satisfaction as I would have derived from charging in there and stringing them all up to the rafters by their nut-sacks, I forced myself into the Chrysler and went after Boone. He might have said he didn’t need anyone, and he might have thought he meant it, but I knew better.

It seemed like the people who cried the least for help were the ones who generally needed it most. Boone hadn’t asked for help a single time in his life for all I knew.

I peeled out of the driveway, making sure to leave a few unsightly tread marks on the light concrete, before I made a left and barreled down the road after Boone. I’d gone close to a mile by the time the headlights cast their light on him.

He didn’t look back. He didn’t slow down. He just kept moving forward.

I rolled the Chrysler up beside him and cranked down the window. “Now try jetting away from me,” I said, revving the engine a few times.

Boone kept his head forward, though I noticed his eyes drift off the road toward the numerous trampled trails animals had made through the trees.

“Don’t think I won’t follow you in there too.” I gave the engine one more rev. “Come on. Talk to me. Say something. I know you’d prefer to pretend like nothing happened and you didn’t just have to drag your sister out of the bachelor party she was scheduled to strip at and that Ford McBride isn’t still an immature, petty asshole whose goal in life seems to be to make yours as unbearable as possible, but I know you feel something.” I hung my arm out of the window, glancing at him. His face was flat, his eyes matching. “I know you feel lots of somethings. Name one. Any one. Just give me something, for crap’s sake.”

“Frustrated,” he growled. His jaw returned to its former position—clenched so tight, it made the sinews running down his neck look as if they were going to pop through the skin.

“Frustrated, okay, yeah, sure, I can understand that.” I nodded and gave the car a little more gas. He was really trekking. “I’d feel the same way if something like that happened to me.”

“I’m not frustrated with them. I’m frustrated with you.” He glanced at me from the corners of his eyes.

“With
me
? Why are you frustrated with me? I’m not the one who hired your little sister as the main attraction at Ford McBride’s bachelor party.” I edged the Chrysler closer to him. He wanted space? I wasn’t going to give it to him.

“I’m frustrated because I told you I wanted to be alone, and here you are, stalking me down some dark back road in your daddy’s car. I’m frustrated because you’re pretending to care when all you care about is me showing up and standing by your side at the right time for your family to see you’re not some poor, single, just-got-dumped woman. But mostly I’m frustrated because I’m not so sure you picked me to pay ten grand based on your limited options that night, and it had more to do with you wanting to piss off your family and everyone else all over again. I’m frustrated because I feel like a damn puppet in your master scheme of waving your middle finger in your family’s face.”