The Roanoke Girls

by Amy Engel

  “Are you okay, Allegra?” I asked again. Part of me was scared for her, wanted to stay and hold her hand. The rest of me wanted to flee, scramble back to my room and pretend I’d never woken up. I’d spent the early years of my childhood attempting to comfort someone; I already knew how futile it was.

  “I’m sad,” she whispered. “Are you ever really, really sad?”

  “Sometimes,” I said. “Usually I’m more mad than sad,” which got a half smile from her. “My mom was sad a lot, though.” I remembered what I used to do when I was little and my mom would huddle in bed, weeping until her pillow was soaked through, back when I still thought I might be able to do something to help her. Back when I longed to ease her pain, instead of inflicting more of it. “Lie down,” I urged, “all the way.”

  Allegra slid down in the bed, her face pinching up. “Hurts,” she said and gripped my hand so hard my bones screamed.

  “Do you want to stay on your back?”

  “No.” Allegra rolled over onto her side, facing away from me, curled her knees up into her chest. She looked very small under the bedding.

  “It’s so hot in here.” I tugged on the bedspread. “Do you want me to take this off?”

  “No!” Allegra fisted the material in her palm.

  “Okay,” I said, as I stretched out beside her. I ran my fingers through her hair. Starting at her scalp and working my way down. This never made my mother stop crying, but sometimes she’d fall asleep right in the middle of weeping.

  I shifted up on one elbow so I could watch Allegra’s face. Her eyelashes fluttered as her eyelids drifted downward. “Feels nice,” she whispered.

  I brushed her hair with my fingers until her breathing evened out and her face relaxed. Her bed still smelled of blood. “What happened, Allegra?” I whispered, not expecting an answer. “Did someone hurt you?”

  The lavender lace curtains fluttered in the open window. Barely any relief against the stifling heat.

  “We’re Roanoke girls, Lane,” Allegra said softly, surprising me. I thought she’d slipped over into sleep. “Being hurt comes with the territory.”

  —

  Although Allegra was still pale and moving slow three days later, she insisted we go into town for the Fourth of July parade and fireworks.

  “Are you sure?” I asked her, sitting cross-legged on her bed while she twisted her hair up on her head, slipped into a red and white tank top over an electric-blue bra. “You don’t look so great.”

  Allegra rolled her eyes. “I’m fine. How many fucking times do I have to say it?” She grabbed a lipstick from the clutter on top of her vanity and smoothed it over her lips, smacking them together to set the fire-engine-red color. “Besides, Fourth of July is about as exciting as Osage Flats ever gets, so there’s no way we’re missing it. Stop worrying. It was only the flu.”

  I caught her gaze in the mirror. “It wasn’t the flu. You don’t bleed when you have the flu.”

  Her hands stopped moving, and her eyes dropped away. “I wasn’t bleeding. I think the heat’s made you delusional.”

  But I knew I wasn’t. I’d seen those bloody washcloths. And I could still smell the faint scent of blood in her room, like a pale red cloud enveloping us.

  “You said Roanoke girls get hurt,” I reminded her. “What did you mean?”

  Allegra slid silver hoops through her ears. “I didn’t mean anything. I was being stupid.” She raised her eyebrows at me. “Like this whole conversation.”

  “Did someone hurt you?” I persisted. “Was it Gran? Or Granddad?” I couldn’t imagine it, but I was a city girl. One raised on stories of kidnappings, molestation, children locked in basement cages. All the vile details just the horrific background music to so many lives. I knew the unimaginable happened every day.

  Allegra’s mouth dropped open. “What are you even asking me? Granddad? Are you insane? He would never hurt me. Or you. He’s the only person who actually loves us!”

  “Right,” I said. “I know. But sometimes people who love us can still hurt us.” I didn’t fault Allegra for her exaggerated eye roll. The words sounded beyond trite even as they left my mouth, like I was auditioning for some particularly shitty public service announcement.

  Allegra walked over and rapped with her knuckles against the side of my head. “Hello? Is my cousin Lane still in there? Or has she been body-snatched by a middle-aged guidance counselor who wants to lecture me about stranger danger?”

  I jerked my head away, laughing. “Shut up, Allegra.”

  She beamed at me, threw her arms wide. “You’re back! Now, come on, let’s get out of here.”

  Since both Tommy and Cooper had to work until evening, Charlie agreed to drop us off for the parade. The ride into town seemed to take forever, me wedged between Charlie and Allegra on the bench seat of his pickup, Charlie spitting out of the window and Allegra blowing out disgusted breaths every time. No one talked. Charlie pulled to a stop near Main Street and leaned his head around me to look at Allegra, who kept her gaze pasted firmly outside the passenger window. “You feeling okay?” he asked. “Maybe you ought to rest up a little more.”

  Allegra wrenched the door open and hopped down, stalked off without answering.

  “Thanks for the ride, Charlie,” I said, sliding across the seat toward the door. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”

  Charlie only nodded at me. I climbed out and gave him a quick wave as he drove away. I caught up to Allegra about halfway down Main, in front of the five-and-dime. “We can sit over there,” Allegra said, pointing to an empty spot on the curb. “I’ll be right back.”

  I sank down onto the curb, already wishing for some relief from the heat. Both sides of Main were lined with people sitting in lawn chairs or perched along the curb. A few kids carried red, white, and blue pinwheels that cast off blinding sparks when they caught the sun. Everyone looked sweaty and bored, the blazing temperature subduing even their voices.

  Allegra returned a few minutes later with two cold cans of soda and a handful of red and blue plastic necklaces. “Here,” she said, handing them to me. “Put these on. That white sundress is too damn boring.”

  I put the necklaces on as instructed and took my can of soda. Allegra had already opened hers and was gulping it down, but I ran the icy can along my forehead and neck, more interested in cooling my skin than in taking a drink. “When does this thing start?” I asked.

  “They’re coming now,” Allegra said, motioning to the far end of Main.

  I leaned forward to get a look and couldn’t help the laugh that burst out of me. I hadn’t expected the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, but this was so pathetic I wondered why they even bothered.

  “I know, right?” Allegra said. “Lame. But this is about as good as it gets here. Sometimes Granddad leads the parade, but he’s sitting this year out.”

  A ragtag line of kids on bikes and trikes led the parade instead, small flags fluttering from their handlebars. Behind them were a few lazily decorated pickup trucks. As they passed, a couple of people hooted and hollered, but most only waved halfheartedly in the heat, as if lifting their hands took too much out of them. At our end of Main, the parade vehicles turned left and disappeared. The whole thing took less than ten minutes.

  “Now what?” I glanced at my phone. “We still have like two hours before Tommy and Cooper meet us at the park.”

  Allegra didn’t answer, and I looked over at her. Sweat ran off her face in rivulets, her skin pale. “Maybe we should call Charlie and ask him to come back and pick us up?” I said.

  “No.” Allegra shook her head without opening her eyes. “I just need to get out of the sun.”

  “I guess we could walk down to The Eat?”

  “Let’s go to the park,” Allegra said. “I can sit under one of the trees.”

  We walked slowly, Allegra holding on to my arm like an old lady needing support. The park was already starting to fill up with people anxious to stake out ground for the fireworks display later
, but we found a patch of grass under one of the big oaks. Allegra lay down, crossing both hands over her stomach. I could see the veins on her hands, pulsing purple beneath her skin. I sat next to her, my back against the trunk of the tree. We passed two hours this way—Allegra sleeping while I sipped my soda and watched small children sail down the slides. Not one of them smacked their heads, I noticed.

  I was dozing off myself, boredom and the heat conspiring against me, when I heard Tommy’s voice calling our names. I opened my eyes and saw him crossing the park toward us, waving with one arm, a huge smile breaking across his face. Cooper trailed behind him, not smiling, eyes staring only at me. We’d had sex half a dozen times now, and seeing him brought a rush of heat to my belly, my body waking up and taking notice, waiting for the moment his hands would touch me again.

  “Hi, Lane,” Tommy said. He glanced down at Allegra, whose eyes were slowly opening. “Happy Fourth, sleepyhead,” he said with another grin, sitting down beside her. Allegra smiled up at him, rolled to the side, and put her head in his lap.

  “Hey,” Cooper said. He lowered himself next to me, gave me a half smile, smoothed the sweaty hair off my neck.

  “Hey, yourself.” Already I was wound taut, needing more from him than his fingertips on my neck. As if he could read my thoughts, Cooper winked at me, gripped the hem of my dress in his hand. “Nice dress,” he said, one of his long fingers slipping underneath to stroke my thigh.

  “Thanks,” I said. If he’d tried to lay me down in the grass, right there in front of God and half of Osage Flats, I wouldn’t have protested. That’s how far gone I was.

  “You ready for our version of Fourth of July?” he asked me, his finger still sweeping along my leg.

  “What’s your version?”

  “Same as all small towns. The flag, fistfights, and fireworks.”

  “No fighting,” Allegra said. “Last year you two assholes ruined the whole night.”

  “I didn’t ruin shit,” Cooper said. “Prick had it coming to him.”

  “What was the fight about?” I asked, when all I cared about was his finger on my leg.

  “Nothing, really.” Cooper’s eyes swept up my body to my face. “Sometimes I need to hit something.” I remembered what he’d told me about beating his father, about all the hits he’d taken himself as a kid. Maybe that wasn’t something you could walk away from. All those punches from his father had left their mark on the inside, too, imprinted him with the need to hit back. It made me wonder what awful gifts my mother had passed on to me.

  Allegra rolled her head and looked at me. “Keep him occupied. He always picks fights at these things. I think the fireworks make him crazy.”

  “I’ll try,” I said as Cooper’s finger slid along my inner thigh before he lifted his hand away.

  Tommy’d brought sandwiches from home, and we ate as the park filled up with people. “His mommy made them for us,” Cooper teased, ducking when Tommy tried to slap his head. Cooper’s contribution to our little dinner picnic was a bottle of tequila we took turns passing around.

  “This stuff is disgusting,” I told him.

  “Not stopping you, though, is it?” he said with a laugh.

  By the time the fireworks started it was full dark, every available space on the grass taken. Allegra had perked up a little once the sun went down and the alcohol hit. She sat next to Tommy, her head on his shoulder, her hand nestled in his. I wasn’t sure if he knew she’d been “sick,” but he seemed even more careful with her than usual, treating her like she was a sheet of glass.

  “You guys want to move up here?” Tommy asked us, glancing at where we were still leaning against the tree. “Are you going to be able to see from under there?”

  “Yeah,” Cooper said. “We can see fine.” We actually couldn’t, but I didn’t care. I could feel the restless energy rolling off Cooper, my own body recognizing it and responding in kind.

  I wasn’t expecting much from the fireworks after the crappy parade, but apparently Osage Flats spent its money on explosives. I leaned forward, craning my neck to see through the thick green leaves as white and blue starbursts lit up the sky. Cooper kissed the back of my neck, and I shivered. “Come on,” he whispered, grabbed my hand in his.

  I didn’t ask questions, just stood up and followed him. We weaved through the bodies sitting on the ground until they thinned out and finally we were alone. Cooper kept walking, guiding me around to the far side of the carousel.

  “There’s a hole in the fence,” he said, pointing out a portion of loose chain link.

  “You want to ride the carousel?” I asked, laughing.

  “No.” His voice was low and quiet, and all my laughter dried up in my throat.

  We snuck through the chain link, stepped up onto the carousel. I turned to face him, and he pushed me back against one of the horses. He kissed me, rough and raw, hands already pulling at my dress, lifting it up to my hips. I thought he would fuck me right then, but he dropped to his knees, shoved my legs apart.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered. I was pretty sure I knew, but so far we hadn’t done anything like this. I could barely breathe, my hands twisted in his hair.

  “Shhh,” he said, pushing my underwear aside. “Let me…” His slick mouth pressed against me, and I stopped asking questions, my back bowed over the horse. I came fast and hard, biting the fleshy pad of my own palm to keep from crying out. Cooper didn’t give me any time to recover, turned me around and took me from behind, one hand on my hip, the other tangled in my hair.

  When we were done he didn’t pull out or away, just rested his forehead on my sweaty shoulder. I reached back and ran my fingers through his hair. The night sky lit up red. “Would it be stupid if I said something about us making our own fireworks?” Cooper asked, his voice hoarse.

  I smiled. “Totally stupid. A comment like that gets out, it could ruin your reputation.”

  Cooper nipped at my neck with his teeth, whispered, “Smart-ass,” against my skin. He wrapped his arms tighter around my waist, and we watched the sky catch fire.

  —

  Later that night, I was sitting on my bedroom floor painting my toenails when Allegra came in. “We waited for you after the fireworks,” she said, leaning against my closed door. She was already dressed for bed in some ridiculous baby-doll nightgown that showed half her underwear.

  I looked back down at my toes. “We couldn’t find you in the crowd.”

  “You got a ride home from Cooper?”

  “Yeah,” I said, using a fingernail to catch a smudge.

  Allegra walked over and dropped onto her knees next to me, sat back on her heels. Her face was pale, except for two bright red splotches on her cheeks. Her eyes glistened like she was on the verge of tears. That manic energy I recognized so well buzzed around her. Allegra grabbed my hand, digging into the tendons. “I saw you and Cooper,” she said, voice low and frantic. “Coming from the carousel.”

  I wrenched my hand away. “So what?”

  “Are you fucking him?”

  A laugh tumbled out of me. “Seriously?”

  Allegra nodded, her head snapping up and down like one of those bobblehead dolls.

  “Why are you freaking out?” I asked, jamming the nail polish lid back on the bottle. “It’s not like Tommy and you aren’t screwing all over town.”

  The blush on Allegra’s cheeks darkened. I swear she looked on the verge of hyperventilating. “I’ve never had sex with Tommy,” she said, like even the suggestion was completely crazy, as if I’d claimed aliens were landing on the lawn.

  I stared at her. “But…but you’re always talking about it…sex…and stuff.” My words stuttered out of me, my brain not able to reconcile what she was telling me with what I thought was fact.

  Allegra flapped both hands in the air like wind-whipped flags. “You can’t go around fucking Cooper!”

  “Why the hell not? Are you suddenly the sex police?”

  She leaned forward and cupped my chee
ks in her hands. “It’s supposed to be special, Lane. It should mean something.”

  I jerked my head back. “Says who?”

  Allegra sighed like I was a stupid kid, and she was an adult with all the answers. And now actual tears were glistening on her lashes. Her hands had dropped to her thighs, laying there palm up, like she was pleading with me. “Everyone says, Lane. It does mean something, something important.”

  “Like what?” I asked, voice hard. Deep down I hoped maybe she could tell me, could explain the painful heat in my chest when I thought of Cooper. Could tell me how to make it stop.

  “Like you’re special,” Allegra said, voice soft as feathers. “Like you’re the most special girl in the world and he can’t live without you.” She reached over and took my hand in hers, lifted it to her mouth and kissed my knuckles. “It’s supposed to mean that you’re his favorite.”

  Cooper leaves sometime after midnight, as the full moon streaks our bodies in cool white light, our legs tangled on the too-short wicker couch, my body lulled by the steady thump of his heart under my cheek. After he’s gone, I stumble upstairs and fall across my bed, naked and aching.

  Morning comes before I’m ready. My sleep for once was deep and dreamless, and I’m not anxious to leave the oblivion behind. But the sun is too bright against my eyelids, sweat gathers behind my knees and trickles sluggishly along my hairline. When I roll over, the scent of sex leaks off my skin, thick and heavy, like fresh earth overturned. I’m in no hurry to wash it away.

  When I wander downstairs, breakfast is long over, so I make a pot of coffee, the caffeine worth the additional heat as I drink. In hopes of catching even a whisper of a breeze, I take my mug out onto the screened porch, where our beer bottles from last night stand guard. I swallow a smile and go back inside to pick up the phone.

  “Hey,” I say, when he answers. My voice comes out low and throaty. I sound like I smell.

  “Hey, yourself.”