by Lisa McMann
Never mind the quiet girlfriend, Kendall. She keeps her head down and doesn’t talk to the reporters. Does she know something? Speculation ad infinitum.
Kendall can’t stand it.
Every morning Kendall wakes up and remembers. And every evening at eleven her phone doesn’t ring. More than once she thinks about calling Nico’s number just because it feels like a connection, but she doesn’t want to startle his family, make them remember, force them to relive their personal horror any more times than they already do.
Over the course of the week Kendall goes from shock to mourning to frustration and fury. The news crews are bored, tired of having only one restaurant to eat in and no fast food within thirty miles. Tired of the loyal, tight-lipped people. They try to get a fresh angle, but the people of Cryer’s Cross are a quiet, protective group. Even Jacián just gives them a look and walks away when they yell out questions to him.
Kendall sits on the restaurant steps, waiting for her mother to stop chatting inside the drugstore. She pushes her hair off her forehead. It falls back again when she stares down at her hands. Behind her, old Mr. Greenwood and Hector Morales sit in their chairs, not talking. As usual.
Jacián comes toward them. “Abuelo,” he says sharply. “Are you coming now with me?” Kendall notices that he takes on a hint of an accent when he speaks to his grandfather.
Jacián ignores Kendall, walks right past her up the steps.
Hector looks up and says something to Jacián in Spanish. Jacián replies in Spanish and then turns, jogs down the steps and to his four-wheeler. He heads off alone.
Kendall turns and squints at Hector. “Jacián isn’t supposed to be going off alone, you know. He could get arrested.”
Hector smiles, but he looks worried. “He’s okay. He’s already eighteen, and stubborn. What can I say? Sheriff says he’s legal to go alone, just stupid. It’s nice of you to worry about him, though.”
“I’m not worried about him,” Kendall says crossly. How can she explain it? The rule-follower in her can’t help but say something.
“I’m sorry, Miss Kendall. Truly. About the Cruz boy. I know he was your beau.”
Kendall stares at the dirt between the steps. “He’s not dead,” she says. “He still is my . . . my beau.” She cringes at the old-fashioned word. It’s odd how the longer Nico is gone, the easier it is to call him her boyfriend.
Hector is quiet. Kendall glances at him to make sure he’s not mad at her tone, and he assures her with a sympathetic smile.
“Where’s Marlena?” she asks. “Did she search today?”
“She took a fall last night, so she’s been down all day. She hit a rut that was hidden by brush and she flipped off her four-wheeler. She got a little too cocky with it, going too fast.” He says it softly, his hand shielding his mouth. “Don’t let the news crews hear of it.”
“Oh, no,” Kendall says. She pulls herself out of her own misery for a moment. “Is she okay?” She remembers suddenly that tonight would have been the first soccer game of the season, but Coach canceled because of Nico.
“She broke her leg and dislocated her shoulder,” he says. “She’ll be okay.”
Kendall’s eyes bug out. “Oh my God. That’s terrible!” Her fingers flutter up to her throat. “I can’t believe this. I’m so sorry, Hector. I didn’t know. Is there anything I can do?”
He tilts his head and glances at old Mr. Greenwood. “As I always say, people in tough times need tough friends. Right, friend?”
Mr. Greenwood grunts.
Finally Kendall’s mother emerges from the drugstore. She grabs Hector’s hand and squeezes it. “I just heard about poor Marlena inside,” she whispers. “So sorry to hear it. I’ll drop Kendall by to visit tonight.”
Hector raises an eyebrow at Kendall, as if to say, See? This is how it’s done, but all he says is, “Yes, ma’am. She’ll appreciate that.”
As Mrs. Fletcher and Kendall walk home, the news trucks come roaring past on their way out of Cryer’s Cross, leaving a trail of dust. For them the story is over.
ELEVEN
Kendall sits in silence as Mrs. Fletcher drives her to Hector’s ranch. She’s tired. Not quite ready for life to resume.
“Call me when you’re ready to be picked up.”
“Okay,” Kendall says with a sigh. “How about now?”
“It’ll be good for you to think about someone else for a bit,” Mrs. Fletcher says carefully. “Help you cope.”
Kendall doesn’t have any tears left. She’s too weary to voice what she and her mother both know—that Nico is probably inexplicably gone forever, just like Tiffany, and life has to go on. In a farming town it is a simple fact of survival. The produce, the animals—no one can make living things pause in their growing. Not one human event can make the potatoes wait. When they are ready, they are ready.
* * *
Kendall pauses at the front door of Hector’s house as her mother drives back down the long driveway. Jacián is in the grassy yard between the house and a corral. A floodlight shines on a soccer goal. Half a dozen soccer balls are scattered over the grass and around the net, and Jacián dribbles one slowly, then fakes left and spins around an invisible opponent. He passes the ball to himself and sprints to the goal, smashing the ball into the net at a sharp angle.
He moves like a dancer.
He reaches down to pick up a ball and sees Kendall standing there. They stare at each other for a moment. Then Kendall breaks the stare and knocks on the door.
Mr. Obregon lets Kendall in. He and Mrs. Obregon greet her warmly and thank her for coming. They usher her through the house to the family room, where Marlena rests on the sofa, right leg in a cast that reaches to midthigh. Her left shoulder is immobilized in a sling. Hector sits nearby in an old rocking chair. Marlena’s eyes are closed, but she stirs when Kendall comes in.
“Hey,” she says with a sleepy smile. A single crutch lies on the floor next to her.
“Hey,” Kendall says, taking it all in. “Wow. Did they keep you at the hospital overnight? This looks . . . really serious.”
Marlena grins. “Yeah, but it’s not as bad as it looks. The fracture’s nice and small—cast on for four weeks, maybe six. My foot itches like crazy, though. The shoulder—I dislocated it before once in a soccer tournament back in Tucson. This time it popped right back in. Swelling’s going down already. Just hurt like a futhermucker for a few minutes.”
“Marlena,” Hector says. He narrows his eyes and shakes his head slightly, but Hector couldn’t look mean if he tried.
“Sorry, Abuelo. It’s the painkillers.” Marlena looks guilty.
Hector chuckles. “What makes you do it the rest of the time, hmm? You must be always on the painkillers.”
“It wasn’t even a real swear!”
“It is the intent, not the word, that makes something harsh,” Hector says. “So yes, I agree. In this case you are off the hook.” He turns to Kendall and reaches out. “How are you this evening, Miss Kendall?”
Kendall walks over to him and takes his hand for a minute. “I’m okay,” she says with a shrug. “At least I’m not in pain like Marlena.” Or like Nico. He might be in pain too, if he’s even alive. She glances out the picture window behind Hector to where Jacián continues to work soccer plays. He nails the goalpost, and the ball ricochets out. Kendall sees Jacián yell his frustration, but she can’t hear him. She nods out the window. “Does he do that a lot?”
“Every evening with Marlena,” Hector says. “It’s his dream to play professional.”
Marlena eases to a sitting position and follows Kendall’s gaze. “He looks so alone out there. He’s worried.”
“About what?” Kendall asks.
“The team.”
“Yeah,” Kendall says. “Me too. Losing . . . losing Nico. . . .” She turns abruptly to look at Marlena. “Oh, crap. And you. Der. I . . . .” She thinks for a minute, and then her lips part as she realizes. They are down to six players. Their already too sm
all team is now no team at all.
Marlena presses her lips together and looks like she’s going to cry. “I heard Jacián on the phone with Coach tonight after dinner. He was trying not to yell. Then he went storming out there. It’s been hours.” Her voice quivers. “I feel so bad.”
“Well, there’s no rule that says we can’t play,” Kendall says, but her heart sinks. “Just common sense. Eight was already too tight. Six . . .” She trails off. She was counting on soccer to bring her out of her misery. If she can’t dance or act, playing soccer is her savior. It’s the only other thing that can occupy her mind enough to stop the whirling in her brain. “Maybe there’s a freshman we can coerce, just to get our numbers,” she says, but she already knows that Coach has begged every eligible kid in school just to get the eight they have—or had, as of a week ago.
“You know there’s not,” Marlena says, miserable. “Coach is tapped out.”
They sit together in silence, mourning for different reasons.
After a minute Marlena says, “How are Nico’s parents?”
“In front of me they seem fine. Like they’re really trying to be upbeat for my sake. My mom says they’re having a terrible time, though. He’s their youngest kid and the only one left here. Everybody else moved away.”
“That’s so sad,” Marlena says.
Neither of them really knows what to say.
Hector interrupts the silence. “Maybe you can tell us something about Nico,” he says. “Stories always help. Tell Marlena about when you were younger.”
Kendall sighs, but humors the older man. “Okay. . . .” She thinks for a minute. “Well, so we’ve been neighbors since I was born. Nico is two months older than me. We grew up together, rode bikes or walked to each other’s house every day. Both of us have farms, and our houses are set really far back from the road, like yours here. Riding my bike to Nico’s felt like this really long journey, so I always had to pack a lunch, right?” She smiles a little at the memory. “And then I always felt bad so I packed a lunch for Nico, too, and then I’d ride down the driveway on my bike and stop at the road, looking both ways like fifty times, even though there’s hardly any traffic down our road, and I’d get up the nerve and fly across the street and make my way to Nico’s, maybe stop and try to catch a grasshopper or whatever. And by the time I got all the way up to his house, I’d be all ready to have my lunch because it felt like a lot of work, but Nico always made me wait. He’d come out and we’d go ride around the tractor trails all through his property, all along the perimeter of their land. Their property backs up to a neighbor who doesn’t live there anymore—an old man who died a few years ago, Mr. Prins. Remember him, Hector?”
“Oh, yes. He was a cranky old deaf man. Didn’t have a kind word for anybody at the end. I knew him since I was a teenager,” Hector says. “He wasn’t always so mean, but sometimes things happen that change a person.” His eyes cloud.
“Yes, well, I was scared to death of him. But Nico was totally fascinated. He couldn’t stay away. He tormented that man and dragged me into it with him. Mr. Prins would be hoeing his garden and we’d stand right behind the property line, as if it somehow protected us, and scream at the top of our lungs, trying to get him to look at us, ready to run like heck if he ever looked up. But he never did.”
“I thought he was deaf,” Marlena says.
“He was,” Kendall says. “Nico figured he was faking it.”
“When did you eat your lunch?”
Kendall smiles. “There’s a big oak tree in the back corner of their farm. His older sister and brothers built a tree house in it and left it once they grew up. We’d go up there and eat lunch and play all day. He didn’t mind playing house with me, or acting in all the dumb little plays I always wrote. It was like we were meant to be together forever.”
Marlena looks like she’s about to cry again.
“I’m so sorry,” she says.
Kendall takes a deep breath, lets it out, and smiles shakily. She leans forward in her chair, puts her chin in her hands. “What am I going to do without him? He’s my best friend. It’s like half of my soul was ripped out.”
Hector quietly eases out of his chair and leaves the girls to talk.
Almost as if Marlena turned a switch, Kendall finds herself spilling everything—her fears, her sadness. How upsetting it was when people insinuated that Nico had something to do with Tiffany’s disappearance. She even tells Marlena about her own secret problem. Her obsessive-compulsive disorder, and how this stress is making it harder than ever for her brain to settle down. How she’s hoping so much for soccer to help her cope, but now there’s that worry too. How this buddy system thing is going to ruin everything. She can’t even go for a run when she wants to. And how scared she is, wondering who’s next to disappear.
It’s after nine when Mrs. Fletcher returns for Kendall. She comes in for a minute, carrying a plastic container of something, and sets it on the counter. Says a quick sympathetic hello to Marlena and makes small talk with Marlena’s parents in the kitchen. Kendall, feeling a little vulnerable, gives Marlena a gentle hug good-bye and goes outside, where Hector stands, leaning against the railing of the big wraparound porch, watching Jacián.
“Thanks, Hector,” she says, “for making me talk about Nico. That really made me feel better.”
Hector nods and smiles. “It always hurts, but it helps, too,” he says. “I’m glad you’re not so stubborn, like some.”
Kendall watches Jacián. He’s moving more slowly now. She can only imagine how exhausted he must be. When he slips on dewy grass, he flops to the ground and lies there on his back, chest heaving. “I guess maybe we all have different ways of working things out,” she says. “Sometimes they even make sense.”
Hector squeezes her hand. “Thank you for coming. Will we see you again tomorrow, then? Marlena won’t be in school for a couple days. Not until she can get around on one crutch, or until her shoulder is well enough to handle a second one.”
Kendall nods. “Sure, I’ll be glad to come by. Maybe I can just. . . .” She pauses as she realizes that it’ll be just her and Jacián tomorrow for their first day back.
“Come home with Jacián after soccer, maybe?”
Mrs. Fletcher comes out and closes the door behind her. “Ready, Kendall?”
Kendall squeezes Hector’s arm. “Maybe. We’ll see.” She turns to her mother. “Yep. Ready.”
They wave good-bye, and are home four minutes later.
Nico’s driveway looks dark and lonely.
TWELVE
She doesn’t want to get up today.
Everything is about to be very different.
She thinks about faking sick, but she knows her mother will just force her out of bed. “I highly regret this day in advance,” she says to the ceiling. Finally she hoists herself out of bed and gets ready for school. She halfheartedly packs her soccer clothes and wonders if she’s actually already played the last game of her high school career.
When Jacián pulls up in one of Hector’s ranch trucks, Kendall shoves the rest of her toast into her mouth. She chews quickly and swallows, grabs her stuff—then sets it all down again because her OCD won’t let her leave the house without brushing her teeth. Jacián comes to the door and knocks.
She spits out the toothpaste, rinses her mouth, and wipes it dry, then grabs her books and runs to the door. He’s standing in her way.
“Hi,” she says.
He nods curtly. “Ready?”
“Yeah.”
He strides over to the pickup and opens her door for her. Stands there impatiently as she stares him down, Kendall wondering what his possible motive could be.
“You don’t need to do that,” Kendall says. “I can handle getting a door myself.”
“My grandfather will ask you if I opened the door for you.” He goes to the driver’s side. “I’m just trying to make the old man happy.”
“I’ll tell him yes. From now on.”
“Fine
.”
He starts the truck and turns around in the driveway, navigating the bumps carefully. Kendall glances at him and slumps against her door, hugging her book bag. She stares out the window as he turns onto the gravel road. She looks over her family’s farm, and she hates this day. Hates everything about it. She sees her father up on the big combine as Jacián’s truck picks up speed. Her father doesn’t see her. He’s trying desperately to catch up for all the time he spent searching for Nico, she knows. She won’t see much of him until after harvest is over.
They drive in silence. Jacián pulls into the dirt parking area next to the school building. He parks and turns off the ignition and sits there. Kendall looks at him, and then back at her lap.
“You talked to Coach,” she says.
He nods. Doesn’t look at her.
“What did he say about the team?”
He pulls the keys from the ignition. Opens his door. “He said he’ll let us know what’s going to happen at practice today.” He clears his throat and gets out of the truck. Heads for the door to the school and goes inside.
Kendall gets out too and shuts the door. Watches the students coming to school in groups now. And then she feels her chest tighten. She remembers all of her rituals—the wastebasket, the markers, the curtains, straightening the desks. Her heart drops and she hurries inside, sees that some of the students are already sitting down. Fear stabs through her. This can’t happen.
Everything is thrown off, and she can’t let anybody see how weird she is. Anxiously she glances at the wastebasket and nudges it with her foot until it’s properly turned. The markers are askew so she saunters over to them as if she’s going to draw a silly picture on the white board like some of the other students do. Instead she bumps the tray and knocks them onto the floor. She picks them up again and puts them in their proper order. And then she goes over to the windows where other students mingle, whispering about how weird it is to be back after what happened, again. She tugs at the curtains that she can reach and lines them up, pretending like she’s looking for someone. One window remains blocked, people standing in her way. She bites her lip anxiously, trying to maneuver a path, but finally she just gives up and leaves it. She hurries over to the senior section, trying to straighten a few desks as she goes, and feeling an overwhelming failure. She knows it’s not going to be right. She doesn’t notice Jacián watching her, a look of mild curiosity on his face.
