I flap a hand. “Why can’t we watch TV? Or, I don’t know—talk.”
Steve ducks into the room again. He steps out dressed.
“Okay. Tell me what just happened.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Why’d you get so weird? Let’s talk about that.”
I press to the wall. “You were being gross.”
“ ‘Gross.’ Good one, Angelyn.”
“Stay anyway?” I ask, small-voiced.
“Stay and then what?”
“I don’t know. Just stay.”
“I’m out,” Steve says. But doesn’t move.
“We can talk!” I say. “I’ll talk.”
“I don’t believe you,” he says. “But, okay—go.”
Oh God. “I can’t—be with you that way here.”
Steve all but taps his foot. “I get that. Why?”
I bite the inside of my cheek. I shut my eyes.
He would tell. Everyone.
And:
I don’t have the words anyway.
I open my eyes. Steve is staring.
“Angelyn?” His voice is a little softer.
“You can go,” I say.
“What?”
“You were right, Steve. You should go.”
His face closes. “You are going to end up alone. I mean, like, forever.”
“Yeah,” I say, like: I do not give a shit.
Steve leaves.
I wait five minutes and I leave too.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I stay to the ditch that parallels the connector road to the highway. I watch for Steve’s headlights, but I don’t see his or anyone’s. It’s full dark, and I move from memory, one foot after the other through scrub brush.
At the highway I tuck my hair in my collar, hoping I pass as a guy. I walk along the shoulder, cars and trucks whipping by. A group in a van comes honking next to me. I wave them on.
Off the highway I pass the county fairgrounds. My shirt is sopping and my mouth is dry. A sign by a driveway reads “Blue Creek Care Home.” I read it more than once. Mrs. Daly’s place, Jeni said.
In town the bars and restaurants are busy, loud talk and laughs spilling out. Pickups cruise. Friday night. I move through like a ghost. A thirsty ghost.
Farther along Main, everything’s shut. I pass auto fix-its, a nail salon, a TV repair shop. My legs ache and still I’m miles away. I think about calling him.
He’d tell me no. He’d have to say that.
A minimart lights the next block. I don’t have a cent, but I make it my goal.
The clerk is hard-faced with pencil brows.
“All I need is a cup,” I say. “Water’s free, right?”
She shakes her head. “They’d charge us for inventory.”
I point toward the drinks machine. Row after row of cups.
“Nobody ever messes up and has to take a second one?”
“Nothing here is free,” the clerk says.
I put out my hand. “The key to the bathroom.”
She smirks. “Bathroom’s for customers only.”
I lean on the counter. “Please. I just want something to drink.”
She checks the closed-circuit. “Move along, hon.”
“Don’t call me hon.”
The door opens with a cheery ring.
The clerk looks past. “Yes, sir. How can I help you?”
I stand there out of ideas.
The guy walks up. “Angelyn, hey. I thought that was you.”
Nathan Daly.
I stare at him.
“Thirty bucks gas,” he says, handing over a couple of twenties.
“Where’d you get that money?” I ask.
Nathan shrugs. “Working. I’m in town delivering wood.”
I swallow dry. “Feel like doing me a favor?”
He smiles widely. “Name it.”
Nathan pumps gas while I chug a soda next to the truck.
Fluorescent lights thrum above us. Moths flutter.
I run a hand over the primered hood. “Yours?”
“My dad’s,” Nathan says. “I’m driving it these days.”
“Nice,” I say. Nodding.
“I saw you in town,” he says.
“You followed me here?”
Nathan glances up. “Well, I needed gas.”
I nod again, mechanically.
He sets the nozzle back. “You all right, Angelyn?”
I hoist the near-empty soda. “I owe you for this.”
“No problem.”
“The thing is, there’s something more.”
We drive in and out of cloud cover, a full moon behind it.
Nathan looks over. “I wish you’d say where we’re going.”
“Where I’m going. Left turn coming up.”
He swings onto the road that runs by our old grade school.
“You promised not to ask,” I remind him.
“Okay. I won’t ask about that.”
I settle on the patched seat. “Good.”
“But why are you out by yourself?”
“Nathan.”
“It’s a different question.”
We crest a hill and there’s Blue Creek Elementary.
“Remember that place?” he asks.
“Yeah. It was shitty there.”
“You would call me retard and such. You and your friends.”
“We weren’t the only ones,” I say.
“Angelyn, you didn’t start until I told about your stepdad.”
I tap a nail on the window. “Not that again.”
Nathan leans with the wheel like he’s steering a ship.
“There’s something I never got straight.”
“Watch the road, huh?”
He coasts to a Stop sign. “Which way?”
Left is town. Right is the country. I point right.
“Who do you know out here?” Nathan asks.
“No one you do.”
Forest on both sides. No light but the truck’s. No signs.
I look in all directions, trying to place us.
“Do you know where we’re going?” Nathan asks.
“Just drive, okay?”
We jump along the road. Dark miles.
The forest thins, cut by driveways. House lights beyond the trees.
“It could be soon,” I say.
“Tell me when.” Nathan sounds pissed.
I see the white arch over the driveway. The horse at its center.
“There,” I call, throwing my arm out hard.
Nathan swings the truck in.
“Stop!” I say, and he shuts it down.
Ahead the drive curves out of sight. Crickets chirp in tall oleander.
“Lights off,” I say.
We sit in the dark.
“Why’d I bring you here?” Nathan asks.
I’m working up my nerve to leave.
“Angelyn. Tell me one thing. It’s all I want to know.”
I rest my head on the seatback. “Is that the price of the ride?”
“The price?” Nathan says. “Sure, I guess.”
Tired, I say, “Ask.”
He clears his throat. “Why’d you hate me for telling the truth?”
“The truth.” I take a moment. “You mean what you saw at my house?”
“Yeah.”
“Nathan. You know what happened after ‘the truth.’ The cops came, and I had to talk to them. We all did.”
“You lied to them,” he says.
I lift my shoulders. “Call it that. I don’t care. My mom was mad. So mad.”
Nathan says, “We could hear her yelling.”
“Right, and then I couldn’t see your grandma anymore.”
“Or me,” he says.
I roll my eyes. “I was alone with them—Mom, Danny, and me—and it was all on me. Mom’s never stopped being mad.”
“But did he stop?”
I look in Nathan’s direction. “What?”
“Your
stepdad stopped when I told. Didn’t he?”
“Yeah.” My voice is flat.
“Well, that was good. Wasn’t it?”
I don’t answer.
“Your stepdad was hurting you,” Nathan says. “I stopped him.”
“He wasn’t hurting me.”
“He’d hold you tight—like a wrestler—and then he’d hit at you.”
“Hit at me?” I laugh. “Is that what you thought he was doing?”
“I saw him touch between your legs.”
“Shut up,” I say.
“You couldn’t have stopped him, Angelyn. He wouldn’t have stopped himself.”
“It wasn’t up to you!”
Nathan is quiet. “My mom used to hit me. So, I know.”
“Don’t be dumb,” I say. “It’s not the same thing.”
“A neighbor reported her. That’s how I came to live with Grandma.”
“Nathan, I remember. Why go over it?”
“I know you remember. Because you and me were friends.”
I stare out at nothing. “Don’t.”
“We’d play Monopoly. Remember that? And cards. Grandma would make us cookies. Oatmeal chocolate chip. She’d help us with our homework.”
Afternoons, after school. “Yes,” I say.
“Saturdays, I’d go to church with Grandma,” Nathan says. “Sundays, she’d be at church club and I’d stay home. I’d play on the roof, under this tree that hung there.”
My face burns. “Is that where you did your peeping?”
Nathan says, “Yeah. I saw you guys.”
“Did you like the show?”
“No. From the first time, I wanted to tell.”
“Why didn’t you?”
I hear him breathing.
“I was scared I’d lose my place.”
“What?”
“Grandma would take you in like she took me. I’d be out.”
I shake my head. “That never would have happened.”
“There wasn’t hardly room for me, Angelyn. There’d be no room for you.”
“Listen. Mom never would have let Mrs. Daly take me.”
“It’s what I thought then,” Nathan says. “So, I kept quiet. I’m sorry. I’ve been sorry.”
His voice is thick. I turn it over, what he said.
“That’s why you’ve been following—stalking me? To say you’re sorry?”
“Not stalking. And, yeah. But not only that.”
“You don’t need to say sorry. Anyway, you told what you saw. You did tell.”
“I had to. He was getting worse. He’d be making faces behind you. Rubbing on himself.”
I sit up. “I don’t want to know that!”
“Angelyn, I’m dropping out next month when I turn eighteen. I’m never going to pass those tests for graduation.”
I shrug and remember he can’t see. “Oh,” I say.
“I’ve been wanting to know that you’re okay. That you’ll be okay.”
“Without you, you mean?” I want to laugh. Wildly. I can’t get the sound out.
Nathan says, “I don’t mean that. I’ve been wondering about you for a long time. Pretty soon I won’t be around even to have the chance to ask.”
“Well, things are crazy, but they’re always crazy. I don’t know how I’ll be later. Nobody knows that.”
“Your stepdad ought to be gone. Whether he stopped or not.”
“I talked to her about Danny,” I say. “Just a little. All Mom did was blow up—again.”
“Your mom still thinks he didn’t touch you?”
“I don’t know what she thinks. Anything I say to Mom, it’s automatically wrong.”
“Make it matter to her, Angelyn. Tell her up front.”
I remember where I’m at. “Okay, I answered way more than one question.”
“Wait. Don’t go!” All panicked.
I haven’t moved. “What do you want from me, Nathan?”
In the dark our hands scrape.
Cool settles on me. I grip his hand and lean across. Find his mouth and press mine to it.
Like kissing a statue. If statues shook.
I sit back. “Are we good now?”
Nathan leans to me. He winds fingers in my hair. They smell like gas. He holds my head like it’s something precious.
“No.” But I don’t say it. In shock, I say nothing at all.
Nathan kisses me. He’s gentle. Clumsy. Just outside the lines.
I open my mouth. Our tongues bump. He pulls away.
“Angelyn! Wow.” A laugh behind his words and something tender.
“You’re the same as Danny.”
“Huh?”
I pet Nathan’s lap like a dog. His hips rise to meet my hand.
“You see?” I let it hover.
We sit in our separate corners.
“Why did you do that?” he asks.
I strain ahead to see—anything. “To show you.”
“Show me what?”
“I know what you want, and that’s it.”
“Angelyn, you kissed me first.”
“To kiss you off,” I say. “You put your hands all over me.”
“I did not!” He stops. “Not like that. I just like you. I always have.”
“Danny liked me.”
Nathan swears. It sounds wrong, coming from him.
“I am not your stepdad! It is not the same.”
“It’s the same!” I say. “Congratulations. You’re normal.”
“Why are you so mean to me?” he asks.
“I’m not being mean. I’m being real.”
“You weren’t being real,” he says, “when you kissed me.”
I work my shoulders. “No.”
Heavy quiet.
“You hate me,” Nathan says. “You hate me right now. You hate me still.”
I check outside, my eyes adjusting. “I’m getting out.”
“What is this place?” he asks. “What are you going to do here?”
“I don’t know.” A shiver runs through me. “That’s your last question.”
“No. One more. When are you going to see my grandma?”
“Oh, Nathan. Stop it.”
“She was your friend too. She helped me understand things, and you too.”
“We’re grown-up now,” I say.
“See her.” Nathan’s voice is dull.
“Thanks for the ride.”
“I always thought you were so pretty,” he says.
I step down. Nathan throws the truck in reverse. I watch him go.
Shaking.
CHAPTER TWENTY
My sneakered feet crunch gravel down the drive. I run a hand along the oleander, holding the leaves and letting them go.
A dog is barking, closing in.
Dark shape coming at me.
I crouch. “Dolly! Dolly, girl.”
She knocks me flat. And licks me to death.
Dolly stays until a whistle calls her off. I walk on.
The house is lit. Mr. Rossi’s on the porch steps, shirtless, in shorts. Dolly jumps in front, telling a story in short, breathy barks.
I reach the pool. Lights flood. A motion sensor.
Mr. Rossi stands. “Who’s there?”
“Me,” I say. “Angelyn.”
He shades his eyes. “From school?”
I stop at the walkway. “Yes, me.”
Beer cans line the step behind him.
Mr. Rossi follows my look. “I was just—”
“Drinking,” I say. “It’s all right.”
His leg brushes a can, tipping it. The can rolls down the steps with a tinny rattle. Mr. Rossi lunges for it, stooping to gather the rest.
I don’t know where to look. I’m working not to laugh.
He props the screen door with an elbow, arms full. “Wait outside.”
My laughs bubble over when he’s in. I snort them in my hands.
Dolly circles, whimpering.
I bend to her. “Silly dog.”
She’s sleek. Meat on her bones. Her eyes are bright.
He’s taken care.
“Love you,” I say. Dolly smiles.
I lie on the lawn, arms behind my head, watching the house. I flex my feet in ratty sneakers. My jeans are gritty; my T-shirt, stretched and smelly. I think about his wife—of the yellow, silky tank—and wonder what she looks like.
Something rustles in the grass. Dolly bolts and I’m up and shuddering. On tiptoes I run past the garage to the tire swing. Climbing in feels like safety. The rope twists. The tire turns. I shut my eyes.
Another tire swing, my mother in shorts and tank top. She runs me backward and lets go. I fly away laughing, legs out straight. “Brave girl,” she calls.
“What are you doing here, Angelyn?”
In T-shirt and jeans, Mr. Rossi stands opposite in the clearing.
“You changed,” I say, lifting the tire around me like a donut.
“Why’d you come?”
“This stuff happened,” I say.
“What if my wife were here? How would I explain you?”
I drop the tire and sit in it. “She isn’t, though.”
“How do you know that?”
“Mr. Rossi, you said she left you.”
He stumbles on something. “And, what? You’re here to take her place?”
I stop moving. “I thought it would be—easier—if she weren’t here.”
“You thought what would be easier?”
I look past him to the house. “For me to visit you.”
Mr. Rossi looks with me. “Angelyn, you’re not staying.”
“Why?” I ask. “Nobody’s home. We brought Dolly here.”
He slams his chest. “I’m home. The dog was a mistake.”
“She is not! You said she was working out.”
“I want you to leave,” Mr. Rossi says.
I grip the tire. “Maybe I’ll go, and maybe I’ll take her with me.”
He stands there. Unsteady.
Getting out of the tire is harder than getting in. My feet tangle and I fall backward, landing in the dirt with a whumpf.
Mr. Rossi says my name—pissed, not worried.
I gather breath. “I’m going.”
“I don’t need this,” he says as I push myself up.
“Mr. Rossi, I can smell it on you,” I say, hobbling past.
“This is my home,” he says. Loud. “I do what I want.”
Back at the driveway, I call for Dolly.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Mr. Rossi says behind me.
I jump. And start away.
“Where are you going now?”
The File on Angelyn Stark Page 10
