She'd seen kids up here sometimes, while out at gym or running track. She rested her elbows over the wrought iron and gaze out past the field, past the abandoned drive-in, out to the barren desert beyond. A single strip of asphalt lead from Laton to the horizon, a lifeline heading towards Odessa, towards the rest of the world, towards the future and a life she'd never known. This was it. This was her last year in school, her last tether to everything she'd grown up with, to her family. There was no university in town, and her parents would never let her squander her "gifts" at some local community college. They'd pushed her too hard, she'd pushed herself too hard for too long to settle for anything less than the best she could do.
There was only one road leading out of town, but she and Derek would be taking different paths down it.
And Lauren wouldn't be taking that road at all.
"Want a smoke?"
Lily started, surprised to see the redheaded boy sitting on the roof only a few feet away, surprised that she'd overlooked him.
She knew Gideon, of course. She knew everyone in Laton. It was a small town, but she didn't, like, know him know him. She knew he was the sheriff's son, she knew he was one of the stoners that hung out at the water tower or The Spot skipping school, and she knew she didn't really want to talk to him. Or anyone else.
She turned back towards the railing. "No, thank you."
He nodded and lit his own cigarette.
It was a small relief to smell nothing more illicit than tobacco.
"You okay?" Gideon asked.
"Yes, fine. Thank you." Her tone was a practiced politeness, affected without thought or effort.
"Okay." Gideon crawled laboriously to his feet and stepped to the railing, leaning along it next to her. "Shit's fucked."
"What?" How long would she have to stay without making it obvious that she was leaving because she didn't want to talk to him?
He took the cigarette from his mouth, squinting against the sun. "The shit at The Spot. Shit's fucked. I, uh, wasn't talking about that other shit. Your shit. That shit's fucked, too."
She almost felt sorrier for him than she did for himself. In an instant she saw him not as some delinquent pothead asshole, but as just another kid, lost and confused, stumbling over words with the most popular girl in school. "Can I have one?"
"What?"
Her gaze directed him to the cigarette in his hand.
"Oh, yeah, sure."
She took one from him, lighting it from the Zippo he offered her. She didn't inhale.
"That's a nice lighter."
He looked at it. "Thanks. Uh. Bought it in the city."
She glanced at him sidelong. "You go to Odessa often?"
"Often?" He gazed out towards the desert. "Couple times a year. Concerts and stuff. You?"
"I've only left Laton a few times," she said. "For meets."
"Right. Track and stuff."
"And stuff." She glanced at her watch.
Lunch was about over. She could leave without him feeling rejected. She didn't know why she cared -- Lauren wouldn't. Ashley wouldn't. Gideon was a scrub. A loser. It wasn't easy for her, though, to write people off so easily. Even though he was probably used to being snubbed, she wasn't used to snubbing people. She just didn't want to deal with the possibility of him hitting on her. Not right now. Hanging out on the roof and making small-talk was better than the cafeteria, but she didn't want to be around anyone.
"I should get going."
"Sure." Gideon chuckled nervously. "Uh. Never thought I'd see you up here to begin with. Or at the Spot."
She looked out towards the drive-in across town. "I've never been to the Spot."
"Before break, I mean." Gideon took a puff off of his cigarette.
"Wasn't me." Lily shook her head, folding her arms.
"You sure? Kinda hard to mistake someone else for you," Gideon said.
"Ha." She dropped the un-smoked cigarette and ground it out with her toe.
"Yeah, right before. You know. Before your accident."
It felt as though her lungs had turned to ice. "What?"
"Don't worry, I won't snitch you out."
"No, what did you say?" She stepped forward.
Gideon stepped away, running a hand through his red hair. "It might have been someone else."
"You saw me at the Spot?"
"I think so?"
"Before the accident." The ice was making it hard to breathe.
"Yeah. You and your friends. Ashley and Lauren."
"You're sure."
"Yeah?"
She pivoted and gripped the railing, dizzy, afraid for a moment she might puke. She knew about The Spot, of course. Everyone did. It was like the school roof, something that even the adults knew about, but never acknowledged. At one point, before even her parents' adolescence, in the halcyon days of the 1970s, it had been a functional drive-in theater. For decades it had sat, officially abandoned, unofficially the primary meeting place for feckless youths with nowhere else to go. Most kids checked it out at least once, and a large part of Laton's teen population frequented it for bonfires, parties, and other gatherings.
Lily hadn't. Not that she knew, anyway. But she'd heard stories.
And the latest story featured a guest appearance by none other than Lily Anne Baker.
"Are you okay?" Gideon asked.
"I don't... don't remember. Being there. I don't remember anything."
"Oh."
"Was I... were we drinking?"
Gideon paused, gazing out towards the Spot. "I only saw you for a second. Sorry. You were talking to Barny."
"Barny? Carter?"
"Yeah. Only Barny I know."
She knew him. Of course she knew him. She knew everybody. And everybody knew her.
"Barny." Gideon pointed at a small dark-haired figure, alone ]on the field below.
"Barny. Great." She closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Thanks, Gideon."
"No problem. You... you okay?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. I don't... headache. I have to talk to Barny."
"Okay. Ah..."
She didn't wait for him to finish, crossing her arms to stop them from shaking, walking back to the stairs leading down from the roof. She felt light-headed, almost a spectator watching herself as she returned down the stairs to the ground floor, across the hall, and out the door to the sod-covered athletic field.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lily wasn't entirely sure why she was approaching Barny until she'd reached him. He was alone, throwing a football towards one of the round tin targets the team had set-up for the purpose. The rest of the class was running laps on the other side of the field.
Like her boyfriend, Barny was a first-string member of Laton High's Sandpiper football team. Slightly shorter and broader of shoulder than Derek, Barny was well suited to his role as Center, a position that involved both physical conflict and a tactical acuity. He was well regarded for both.
He stopped as she approached. "You want something, Baker?"
Lily didn't question why he wasn't running laps with the rest of his class. Barney, by and large, did whatever he wanted to. "Was I at the Spot last week?"
"You were in a coma last week." He picked up a football and turned towards his target.
She cleared her throat. "You know what I mean. Before that."
Barney threw the ball, clipping the side of his target. He turned back towards Lily.
"Yeah. You still saying you don't remember?"
Her eyes narrowed. "I don't remember."
"Okay. Yeah, you were there."
"Was I... what happened?" Her voice broke. "Please, Barney, don't give me any shit, just tell me."
Barney paused, then looked directly at her, a hard stare burrowing into her eyes. "You sure you want to know?"
"Cut the shit, please?"
"Okay."
***
Parties at The Spot were one of Barny's favorite little microcosms, primarily due to the la
ck of scrutiny and adult interference. To most of the teens and adults in Laton, it was a needed pressure release valve, an outlet for rebellion sanctioned for the purpose. For Barny, it was a case study in excess and desire.
A rusted scrap-metal and plywood fence had been erected when the place had been condemned ages ago, ostensibly to keep the town youths out. In practice it just made it easier for the town's adults to ignore what went on inside. Within the fence lay a flat gravel lot surrounding the burnt-out wreck of what had been the snack-shack and ticket office. All that remained of the car-speakers were metal posts driven into the ground every eight feet or so.
"Dude," he said, clasping Hugh on the back. "She totally wants you."
"Yeah?" The fat-fuck stoner looked across the gravel to where Amy, the lithe and tan target of his desire, was talking and laughing near the bonfire.
Stories told that in decades past the teens used to rig up an old projector and watch R-rated movies at the theater, but no one knew what had become of it. Instead, ever since Barny had been a kid, students had built a bonfire near the base of the old screen, letting the smoke form shifting sinuous shadows cast by its own light. Not too far away, Barny had set up a folding table covered with red plastic cups, and a cooler filled with a potent mixture of Everclear, pineapple juice, tang, chunks of watermelon, and Gatorade. It was Barny's variation of an ancient jungle-juice remedy; the electrolytes helping the stomach-lining absorb the alcohol more quickly. It made things more interesting.
"Hell yeah." Barny dipped one of the cups into the alcoholic brew. "See how she keeps looking over here at you?"
"Yeah?"
"Totally checking you out."
Hugh looked back towards the girl. "Yeah."
There was some snickering from the splintered railroad ties piled behind the table, where Barny's cohorts Marty and Chuck were watching from. Their postures and jackal-grins were so similar, that it was easiest to tell them apart by the color of their polo shirts.
"Totally, man," Marty said.
"She's into you," Chuck said.
"See?" Barny gestured back at his cohorts with the cup before handing it to Hugh.
Hugh took a long sip.
"You should go talk to her," Barny whispered.
"Okay. Okay." Hugh's eyes glimmered in the firelight. "I'll do it."
Barny handed him another cup. "You should bring her a drink."
"Yeah," Marty said.
"Okay." Hugh set his jaw and nodded.
The trio watched as Hugh took the two cups across the gravel field that had, long ago, been a parking lot. As he neared the target of his desire, Chuck and Marty's gaze snapped back to Barny.
Barny smiled and gave the jungle juice another stir with the heavy metal spade he'd brought for the purpose. After a moment he looked up and called to a group of his football teammates laughing and talking in their yellow and brown Sandpiper jerseys.
"Kyle!"
A massive defensive tackle glanced in his direction.
Barny pointed his spade towards the fire. "Isn't that your girl that fat fuck is talking to?"
Kyle's eyes widened, and he began a lumbering run towards the oblivious stoner.
***
Marty and Chuck both considered themselves part of Barny's crew, a useful illusion that the center actively cultivated. In truth, while they were mostly amused by his manipulations, they took them for mere games, diversions, rather than the social experiments they truly were. Barny had always felt he'd had an intuitive grasp of the way people ticked, and it gave him a feeling of power when he could make them do what he wanted. Sometimes they were right and it was a simple diversion in the form of a crude but reasonable-sounding suggestions, like the one that resulted in Hugh getting the shit kicked out of him by an enraged defensive tackle. Other times his plans were a little more... elaborate.
People, and adults in particular, usually took Barny for as a charming scamp, if a little bit mischievous. His victims would disagree if they had the intellectual capacity to identify him as the source of their misery, but Barney was skilled at picking unsuspecting targets. He was even better at deflecting attention from himself.
Hugh, for example, was too drunk and stoned to really remember that Barny had pushed him into clumsy flirtations with Kyle's girlfriend. And Kyle was too stupid to figure it out in the first place. It was, again, a pleasant diversion, but one that didn't accomplish much besides amusing Chuck and Marty.
When he spotted Lily, Ashley, and Lauren, it was an opportunity Barny couldn't resist.
While her friends were, in Barny's humble opinion, vapid cunts, Lily was something else. A bundle of conflicting impulses and paradoxical drives. Intelligent but naive. Educated but inexperienced. Socially adept but sheltered. She'd lived her life a minority in a community that broke its arm patting itself on the back about how "enlightened" it was in regards to her, making her an outsider in its desire for inclusiveness. She could never be just Lily Baker, she was Lily Baker, adopted African-American princess, deacon's daughter, who had accomplished so much with so little.
That last misconception rankled, Barny had to admit. Being adopted into one of Laton's most prestigious families wasn't what he would consider much of a handicap. There was no denying that Lily was a social force to be reckoned with, but half of the respect given her was bullshit bleeding-heart overcompensation. While he did appreciate the irony of the unintentional 'othering', it was a damn shame. Someday he'd plan something that exposed the fetid bullshit for what it was, and Lily would be stronger for the experience.
Really, when you got down to it, he was an altruist.
More immediately, he'd heard that the girl had had some sort of fight with her boyfriend Derek, Barny's teammate. Maybe that was why she'd come here, to this indulgent testament of adolescent excess, something she'd disdained in the past. She'd come to unwind. To forget the fight.
Maybe she'd over-do it. She could use it, a little letting loose, a rejection of the pressures she placed upon herself. A rejection of perfection.
Maybe Barny could help.
He'd already poured the cups by the time the girls were passing his table. "Ladies."
Ashley grabbed two cups, handing one to Lauren and one to Lily before taking the third for herself. "Gentleman."
Barny smiled, reflecting on what a useless cow the girl was.
Lily looked at her cup dubiously. "What's in this?"
"A little of this, a little of that," Barny said.
"Booze," Lauren said. "You drink it."
Lily sniffed her cup.
"You all right?" Barny asked, ever the good listener.
"I'm good," Lily said.
"Derek's being an asshole," Ashley said.
"Ashley!"
"He totally is," Lauren said. "Hey, Barn, when are you going to take me out again?"
Barny flashed her a quick smile. He'd already fucked her once, and found the experience wanting. There was no need for seconds.
"It's fine," Lily said.
"Oh, I needed to talk to Derek," Barny said. "Is he here?"
"He's in Boston," Lily said.
"Oh, right, he'd decided on Boston College."
"Well, he's still considering his options."
"Oh." Barny adopted a concerned and slightly embarrassed tone. "I guess I must have misunderstood him, then. Of course."
Lily pushed the hair out of her face. "Wait, why. What did he say?"
"Just a sec," Barny said, gazing off past her. "Hold up, I gotta go handle something."
Lily made a fumbled grab for his sleeve. "Wait, what did Derek say?"
Barny strode off purposefully, calling to a friend that had left the party an hour earlier. "Hey, Kyle, hold up!"
Away from the firelight and confident that the girls had lost sight of him in the dark, Barny circled around the Spot's abandoned concession stand to watch Lily and her friends. He couldn't get close enough to hear what they were saying, but he made a mental note to check up on them late
r and see how Lily was taking things.
***
"Yeah, you seemed pretty upset about something." Barny idly passed the football from hand to hand. "Derek, I think.You guys have a fight?"
Lily brushed the question aside. "We were drinking?"
"Yeah. I was surprised. I didn't think you drank."
"I don't. I didn't."
Barny tilted his head. "Well, you had a cup. Maybe you were just holding it for someone."
Lily turned away, towards the school, arms crossed. This really wasn't helping her mood.
"Or maybe one of the other girls was the designated driver?" Barny rubbed his chin. "No, you all had cups. I know that Ash and Lauren drink, but aren't you usually their D.D.?"
"I don't remember."
"Right, yeah," Barny said. "You know, I remember something from psych class, something about how when the mind is confronted with something horrible, something so terrible that it can't face it, it will block out or alter those memories just so it can live with itself."
Lily felt a thickness in her throat as Barny's words came at her rapid-fire and nearly monotone.
"Do you think you might be experiencing something like that, Lily?"
She looked back at him, and her vision seemed to suddenly sharpen beyond any focus she'd ever achieved. She could see the individual stitching in his shirt, count the hairs in his stubble, hear the steady rhythm of his heart. Before she could even wonder at this sudden acuity, she saw for the first time the slight smile at the corner of his lips, heard the faint mocking edge to his concern. Worst of all was the ugly coldness in his eyes, the hunger there, the way he was drinking in every moment of her discomfort.
Infernal Revelation : Collected Episodes 1-4 (9781311980007) Page 3
