“Who? The guy in the band?” Laird took a drink, then passed the flask to Jory again.
She nodded.
“How’d you meet him?”
“It’s hard to explain,” Jory said. “Do you think Mr. DeNovia and Mrs. Cross are, like, friends or something?” Jory took another sip of the schnapps.
Laird laughed. “Something like that.”
Jory watched her breath condense in the frigid air. “Where do you think Rhea and Randy are?”
“I don’t know. Down in the ditch maybe.”
“No,” said Jory. “Not in her new dress.” The ditch was actually a canal that ran along the length of the football field. It was where the kids went during school to do things they didn’t want to be seen doing. For some reason the canal was hardly ever filled with water. Jory had never been down in the ditch, although a boy had once thrown her knit hat into its murky depths.
Laird held the flask between his legs. “How come when it’s colder you can see so many more stars?”
“No cloud cover,” said Jory. She shivered and Laird put his arm carefully around her. She gazed up at the sky and the dotted pattern of constellations. “Pythagoras thought that the stars were singing.”
“Who?”
“An old Greek guy. He thought that the spinning of the planets and stars made music only the gods could hear.”
“Wow,” said Laird. “How do you know all this stuff?”
“My dad’s an astronomer.”
“Yeah, well, I’m an Aquarius.”
“That’s not the same thing at all,” said Jory, sighing.
“It was just a joke,” said Laird. “Jeez, how dumb do you think I am?”
“So dumb I have to cheat off your earth science paper.” Jory squeezed Laird’s arm and he grabbed her hand and brought it to his chest.
“You’re cute,” he said, and he kissed her hand through its glove.
Jory blushed and then laughed. “I’m not beautiful, though,” she said, looking up at him. “Like Jude.”
Laird rolled his eyes and then leaned toward Jory. She could smell his pepperminty breath coming closer to her. She closed her eyes and then felt his mouth, soft and surprisingly small, lighting on hers for a second. He pulled away and they sat on the hood of the car in the dark, their warm breath leaving cloudlike traces in the evening air.
“Singing stars, huh?” said Laird.
Jory grinned shyly. She had a sudden, unexpected thought. “Did Jude really tell you to ask me to Homecoming?”
“What? Huh? No, I just told her I was going to. I wanted to know if she thought you’d turn me down.”
“How weird,” said Jory. She tried to remember the exact wording of that conversation in the bathroom. Maybe, just maybe, if Jude had lied about Homecoming, that meant that she might be lying about Grip as well.
Or maybe that wasn’t it at all.
With Jude, it was somehow completely impossible to know.
Jory craned her head up at the sky again, at the stars sprinkled across its velvet darkness like an enormous spangled sash. Did anyone ever really know anyone else? Really, truly know them, so much so that you never even had to doubt their thoughts or intentions? Maybe this was a rhetorical question. Her father once told her that most people who ask questions aren’t looking for information, but affirmation. Jory guessed this was true now in her case as well.
The dance was ending. Jory and Rhea stood under the gym’s overhang and fanned themselves with their hands. “Randy’s a drip,” Rhea said. “He makes out like he thinks someone’s watching.”
“What do you mean?” Jory peered back at the doors, looking for Laird.
“You know. Like he’s practicing posing for the camera or something.” Rhea held her hair up off her neck. “I caught him looking in the rearview mirror while we were kissing.”
“Uck,” said Jory. “Don’t make out with him anymore.”
“I have to,” said Rhea. “I came with him.”
Jory paused. “You could get Jude’s brother to take you home. He likes you.”
“Nick?” Rhea gave Jory an incredulous look. “The only girl he likes is Jude. Which is weird enough, but he also just tried to off himself.” Rhea lowered her voice. “That’s what he’s doing here in Arco—recovering. He showed me his wrists that day out at the trailer court.” Rhea made a face.
“What?” said Jory.
The side doors opened and the four band members sauntered out and began immediately lighting cigarettes. They stood underneath the overhang a few feet away from Jory and Rhea. “Hey there, girls,” said one of them. The drummer, Jory thought.
“Hey, yourself,” said Rhea.
“You two go to school here?” The drummer blew a stream of cigarette smoke up into the air.
“No, we teach here,” said Rhea. “Spanish and biology.”
“Ha,” said the drummer, and looked back to his bandmates. “The young comedian.”
The guitar player walked over closer to them and stared at Jory. “Well, hello there,” he said, grinning. “Long time no see.”
“Hi,” Jory said shyly.
Rhea looked at Jory.
The guitar player leaned his back against the gym’s doorway. “Where’s your date? Gawky young guy in the white tux?”
“He’s still in the gym, I guess.”
“Glad to see you wised up about the other guy.”
Jory blushed fiercely.
“I’m totally lost,” said Rhea, looking from one of them to the other.
The guitar player shook his head and took another drag on his cigarette. “Grip’s trouble with a capital fuckin’ T.”
Jory tried to distract him from this topic. “I didn’t know you played in a band.” She eyed his silver shirt and his well-worn boots, which looked almost red in the darkness.
“Whenever I can get a gig. Times are hard when you’re on the straight and narrow—got to make money somehow.” He winked or blinked—it was hard to tell which. “Hey, what’s your name, anyway? Didn’t Grip call you something like Johnny?”
“Jory.”
“And my name’s Rhea,” said Rhea, leaning forward. “In case you were wondering.”
“Nice to meet you,” said the guitar man. “I’m Jimmy, and that’s Jack and Marcus and over there’s our drummer, Stryder.” He pointed at the other band members, who nodded at the girls and moved a little closer.
“Stryder?” said Rhea.
“Yeah, yeah, The Hobbit, blah blah blah, whatever.” The drummer pulled a small brown bottle out of his jacket pocket and unscrewed the lid. “For God and country,” he said, and took a drink.
More people poured noisily out of the gym and headed toward the parking lot, but even though Jory stood on her tiptoes, she didn’t see Laird anywhere.
“Want some?” The drummer held the bottle out toward Rhea and she took it happily, but then made a face after she took a drink. “Urg,” she said, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I thought that schnapps was bad.”
“Hey,” said Jimmy, the guitar player, suddenly taking hold of Jory’s upper arm and leaning in toward her face. “You still looking for your sister?”
“What” said Jory. “Why?”
“Well,” he said. He scratched at his cheek for a long moment. “I just might know where she is.”
“Wait a minute,” said Jory. “What do you mean?”
The guitar man glanced off into the distance and then seemed to make a sudden decision. He now had an almost gloating look in his eye. “She’s out at Hope House with your old buddy Grip. You know . . . my old business partner who tried to beat me up. That guy. They’re staying in the main house with Angel and Sam and Nadia.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Jory. Her heart lurched against her ribs. She felt suddenly as if she might fall do
wn right on the parking lot pavement. “Are you sure it’s her?”
Rhea looked from one of them to the other.
The guitar man stared at Jory, almost guiltily now, as if he hadn’t entirely anticipated the effect his words were having. “Shaved head and out to here?” He held his hands out in front of his abdomen and then nodded and lit another cigarette. “Yeah—it’s her.”
Jory stood in the darkness and stared at the guitar man. Her heart was beating as if she had just run several miles. “You mean they’re living together?”
“The two of ’em showed up at Hope House trying to scrape up some road trip money for Mexico or something.” He shook his head. “As if I owe him a fucking penny! It’s definitely the other way around, man, if you ask me.”
“Mexico?” Jory said this so quietly she wasn’t sure who she thought she was asking.
The guitar man was looking off toward the gym and didn’t seem to hear her. “Ah, shit,” he said. “Duty calls.” He took a long last drag on his cigarette and dropped it onto the pavement and then ground it out with the toe of his boot. “See you inside,” he said, and walked back toward the doors of the gym.
Jory stood in the darkness. She felt sick. There had been a dense spot of poison in her heart, but it had burst and was spreading quick as mercury through all her veins. She felt her heart continue to thud. Grip knew where Grace was, and always had, and that’s why her dress had been under his bed. She had been with him all along. Which meant that he had been lying to Jory from the very start. Or maybe—maybe Grip was just helping Grace because of the way he felt about Jory. Maybe he had found Grace somewhere and was taking care of her for Jory’s sake. He probably thought Jory would want him to do that. Wouldn’t she want him to do that?
“What in the hell was that guy talking about?” Rhea had grabbed her hand and was squeezing it hard as she led Jory back into the gym. “Your sister is a hippie now?” She shook her ringleted head. “This has been the weirdest night ever.”
Inside it was noisy and unbelievably warm and the band was now gearing up for its final go-round. Jimmy stood in front of the microphone. He tapped on it experimentally and slung his guitar strap around his shoulder. “The next song is dedicated to a girl named Jory,” he said, “who’s learning about life the way we all do—the hard way.” He stepped back and began to play a few chords. The drummer started in and Jory stood next to Rhea aware that most of the people in the gym were now staring at her. She had no idea where to look, what to do with her face. “You’re famous,” Rhea whispered. “Did you go out with him or make out with him or what?” Jory suddenly spied Laird standing a ways across the gym looking at her, and next to him, Jude, who had a particularly interesting look on her face. A self-satisfied look that seemed to have nothing to do with the guitar man’s dedication. People were still looking at her and murmuring even as the song began, and out of the corner of her eye Jory could see Mrs. Cross heading in her direction, and behind Mrs. Cross was Jory’s father. Jory took an involuntary step backward. “Ouch!” said Rhea. “Jesus, watch my shoes.” Mrs. Cross and Jory’s father reached Jory just as the band got to the part about starting out walking and learning to run since we’ve only just begun. Jory stood looking at her father, at his baggy brown suit and windblown hair, at his nose that was slightly red from driving all this way in the cold. “Hi, Dad,” she said. Her father took her arm and they made their way out of the gym together. She cast a backward glance at Rhea, who was staring openmouthed after her and at Laird, whose tuxedoed arm was now being held firmly by Jude Mullinix. The gym’s twin doors opened and then shut behind them with a bang.
It was freezing in the car. Jory sat huddled in the front seat, staring out through the windshield as her father tried vainly to adjust the heater. He finally gave up and sat back with a sigh. They passed the Day ’N’ Nite grocery store and crested and then rolled down the little hill. “Jory, do you have anything you want to say to me?” Her father stared straight ahead.
Jory was silent.
“No apologies? No excuses for why I find you at some sort of a dance you definitely don’t have permission to attend, with a boy I’ve never met before?” Her father shook his head and kept shaking it. “Right now, of all times, you choose to do something like this—knowing what your mother and I are going through? How worried sick we are?” His voice dwindled away, but his head shaking continued.
Jory noticed that there were single lights on in most of the farmhouses they passed. Solitary lights left on for someone’s comfort and security in the night. Left on so someone wouldn’t be scared of the darkness.
“You have nothing to say for yourself?” Her father gripped the steering wheel.
“I know where Grace is,” Jory said. And the moment she said it, it couldn’t be unsaid.
At Hope House, her father wanted to go up to the door by himself—in fact, he’d insisted upon it—but once he stepped out of the car and started walking toward the porch’s large kohl-painted eye, Jory leaped out of the car and ran up the steps behind him. He began pounding on the front door until finally the girl with the long red hair and teardrop tattoo opened it. She was now even more pregnant than before and she seemed to be wearing the same long white dress that she had been wearing on Halloween.
“Hey,” she said rather tentatively, and looked from Jory to Jory’s father.
“I’m here to get my daughter.” Jory’s father’s voice sounded horrible and strangled even to Jory. He took one step into the house, and the copper-haired girl couldn’t shut the door against him in time. “I’m not sure she wants to see you,” said the girl, still holding the edge of the door.
Jory’s father stepped around the girl and into the room. “Where is she?” he said.
“I could call the police,” the girl said, lifting her chin up.
“Go ahead,” said Jory’s father. “That might be a good idea all around.”
The girl stepped away from the door a little, but she didn’t move any farther into the room.
“I’ll just search until I’ve found her,” Jory’s father said. “So you might as well tell me where she is.”
The girl said nothing, but she turned and started walking through the living room and into the kitchen. Jory and her father followed close behind. They passed through the clacking red bead curtain and out through the kitchen and down a long hallway painted blue and silver with all the signs of the zodiac. The girl stopped in front of a closed green door. She knocked once and then again. The door opened and Grip stood in the doorway, looking tired, but happy. He saw Jory and her father and his face changed shape and he stepped back from the doorway. Jory’s father gave him a shove that sent him sprawling even farther into the room. Jory could hear her sister gasp and she saw Grace get up from a bed she had been lying on. “Dad,” Grace said. Grace’s head was now completely bald and she had a red dot in the middle of her forehead and her hands and arms were covered with interwoven and intricate drawings. Her father strode into the room and gripped Grace by both of her elbows. He began shaking her, hard, and Jory watched amazed as Grace’s head flopped back and forth. Grip tried to insinuate himself between Grace and her father with no success. Jory put her hands over her mouth. Her father slowly stopped his shaking, but he still held Grace’s arms. “Get your things,” he said. “We’re going home.” Grace said nothing, but simply gazed at her father in awe. She was wearing a long flowered nightgown Jory had never seen before. It was unbuttoned part of the way down the front and Grace didn’t seem to be wearing any underwear.
“She’s not leaving,” said Grip. “Not if she doesn’t want to.”
Their father pointed his finger at Grip. “You,” he said, “have nothing to say about this.” He turned to Grace. “Go get in the car,” he said. “Now.”
“Grace,” said Grip.
“Shut up,” their father said. Jory had never heard him use this phrase with anyone ever before. T
heir father still had Grace by the arms and he now began pushing her out of the bedroom. Grip tried to touch Grace as she passed by, but their father elbowed him out of the way. The girl with the tear tattoo was nowhere to be seen. Jory looked at Grip looking at Grace and saw for the first time what had been there all along. She didn’t think she would be able to stand this, she had been sure she would never be able to stand this, and yet here it was. She followed her sister and her father out of the room and down the hall and through the living room and down the front steps and into the car, and the whole time Grip was calling after them in a voice Jory had never heard him use before. No. He wasn’t calling after them, he was calling after her sister. He was calling after Grace.
Jory now sat in the backseat of the car. She watched Grace’s completely shorn head from behind as they drove ever onward, back toward the house they had lived in all their lives. For all the years of their lives except this one.
In silence, they drove down one road after another. They passed Mrs. Kleinfelter’s house, where a lone light still burned. Jory realized with a sinking sensation that Mrs. Kleinfelter was probably still up waiting to hear how Homecoming had gone.
Grace turned toward their father. “You can’t do this,” she said, in a voice that was as full of radiant bitterness as anything Jory had ever heard. Their father reached over and across Grace and pressed down the lock key on the passenger door. “I can do this,” their father said, “and I am.” He seemed utterly unperturbed by Grace’s brand-new voice.
Of all the silent car trips Jory had ever taken, this one was the worst. Grace was alive. She wasn’t hurt or dead or run over or lying in a ditch somewhere—but some part of Jory, the most selfish, horrible, and the very truest part, wished that she were. Jory stared out the window in a wide, unblinking, heart-pounding fury. She had previously wished Grace gone in a sort of halfhearted, abstract way, but this was different. If she had the power to do so now, she would wish Grace utterly out of existence. The toxic substance that had zinged through Jory’s veins back at the Homecoming dance had filled her head completely now—even her fingertips felt buzzy and electric with the full extent of her hatred for her sister. She sank down in the car seat and allowed herself to imagine Grace unlocking the car door and tumbling onto the unforgiving concrete of the roadway. Or floating down the Elijah drain ditch, her fingers catching in the reeds and cattails, her mouth and nose stopped with brackish water. Grace’s funeral was a dramatic affair that, as it grew, featured Jory in the starring and pivotal role. There were carpets of white flowers and weeping and the illicit thrill of seeing the now diminished and vastly lessened Grace laid out in her coffin—a sight that Jory lingered over and stared at unabashedly. It was a scene of strangely sensual proportions.
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