by Deb Caletti
“Luke, get the girl a towel. Sweetie, go in the bathroom and get that wet stuff off. We’ve got a change of clothes here for you, I’m sure. Luke?”
“I’ll get some. Hang tight.” Luke tosses her a towel. It’s a little damp and smells of soap. She has a brief moment where she thinks maybe she got hit by lightning after all. She got hit, and now she’s in some dream state where Luke Messenger spoke the lyrics she was just listening to, and has now handed her a towel that has the scent of pine trees.
“Oh, that’s okay.” Annabelle will absolutely not change her clothes. Her current plan is to stand still and say little until this ride is over. “I can change as soon as we get to Grandpa’s. I really appreciate you giving me a ride over.”
“Honey, it’s going to be a while. You don’t want to catch cold in those clothes.”
“A while?”
“He has to go all the way back to Helena. Either that, or go to Billings. He said he’s not going back to the asshole who fixed it before. And he can’t go much farther on that spare.”
The relief at seeing the camper, the shock of seeing Dawn Celeste and Luke Messenger, is now turning to something else, some squeezing in her chest. There is squeezing in her whole body—the compression socks, her shoes, her lungs, her heart. Maybe this is cardiac arrest. Maybe the fear and the run and the nearness of Luke Messenger are killing her right now, even if that lightning missed her.
Luke Messenger is not saying much. His back is to Annabelle. Really, he’s just as calm as a cypress. Annabelle stands there, feet planted on the ground like she’s riding the subway. Something smells like wet dog in that camper.
Oh, God. Maybe it’s her. She sniffs. It is her. She smells like wet dog! She eyes the latch of the camper. She’ll take her chances with the storm, which is something you sometimes say when you’re finally out of one. She will fling herself to the road and roll neatly away like a spy in an action movie.
She’s maybe having a panic attack. She is pressing her fingers to her thumb, one by one, one by one, fast-fast-fast, on both hands.
Luke Messenger turns. He holds a steaming mug with a tea bag string draped over the side. He takes her by the shoulders and sets her down on the couch. It’s plaid, but covered with a purple-and-red quilt. He hands her the cup.
“You’re in shock,” he says, which pretty much sums up the last year of her life.
• • •
She is wearing a pair of groovy lounge pants of Dawn Celeste’s, and a Bob Marley sweatshirt of Luke Messenger’s. Okay—she changed clothes! It’s fine. It does not mean anything. She will give them back and she’ll be out of here as soon as Grandpa shows up. From now until then, she will pretend that there is a big wall between her and them. Words and stuff can pass through it, but the wall renders every word meaningless.
It’s strange, but after they arrive at Bair Reservoir, a small lake set into desolate, camel-hump hills, after she texts her mom to let her know she’s safe but can’t talk, after Dawn Celeste and Luke empty a bunch of gear—pillows and fishing poles and backpacks and jugs of water—from a spare bunk, she lies down at Dawn Celeste’s insistence. And then, she sleeps like a baby.
Fear is exhausting, and so is a run like the one she just did. But something else loosens and relaxes her, too. It’s the way the sheets are at first cold and then warm, and it’s the way they smell a little smoky, like camping, a scent that represents both freedom and safety. It’s the way that she has been tucked into her enclosed little bunk-cave. Just outside of it, there are two people who are completely at ease and satisfied with where they are. So she drifts off and sleeps hard. It’s only in some part of a dream, a dream of Grandpa Ed and Dawn Celeste and a campfire, that Annabelle wonders now about those late-night walks he’s been taking. And the joy and obsession he’s had with his computer.
Even in her dream she wonders if Grandpa Ed is in love.
• • •
When she wakes in that strange place, all the comfort flees, and she’s hit with overpowering anxiety. Annabelle Agnelli has always been—even before the tragedy—burdened by what she owes people. She worries if she’s inconveniencing them. She’s supposed to give and not take. Every Christmas, Dad/Father Anthony used to make her and Malcolm buy a present for a poor child, and Gina always said stuff like, I don’t need anything from anyone. And when old Italian relatives like Great-Aunt Maria or Great-Uncle Frank shoved money secretly into her and Malcolm’s hands, they knew what they were supposed to do. No, no, no, they would say. Take it, the old relative would respond. They’d go another round or two of protesting and insisting, until the relative would finally say, Come on. Buy yourself something. Don’t tell your mother, and then they’d get to finally, gratefully answer, Thank you so much.
So Dawn Celeste and Luke’s generosity now—her imposition, sleeping in their bed, taking up their time, wearing their clothes (she hasn’t been in a boy’s sweatshirt since Will)—it all dumps a profound distress upon her. Her emotions pace. She realizes she didn’t finish her run. She had a mile and a half to go. She is cheating, being here at Bair Reservoir. Anxiety flees to rules and order for comfort, and she’s broken a rule today, being here without running here. She badly, badly wants to tap her fingers, but she doesn’t want anyone to see. She links her hands together and squeezes.
Dawn Celeste does not ask Annabelle if she is hungry; she just sets a plate with a fat tuna sandwich on it on the table. Inside the camper, it looks a lot like Grandpa Ed’s RV, but not. There are woven curtains, and a colorful striped rug on the floor. There’s a painting of an old man in a purple robe over by the door. The empty space under the bench seats, where Grandpa stores his water and wine, dry pasta and tins of anchovies, is open, and it’s been made into bookshelves, with a wooden band across the front so none slide out. It’s tidy, except for all the gear emptied from her bunk, which is now stacked around the bench seats.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“Look outside. You’d never even know there’d been a storm.”
Dawn Celeste is right. Annabelle can see the blue of Bair Reservoir sparkling away with tiny diamonds of cheer. It does not match her mood. After she finishes that sandwich, she’ll call Grandpa Ed to get her out of here, and fast.
“Luke thought he’d try to fish. A guy out there said the twelve- to fourteen-inchers are biting. Trout. Do you like trout?” Dawn Celeste munches chips out of a bag, brushes the crumbs off her cushy chest.
“Oh, I do. Yes.” No. Lots of little bones. Those eyes staring at you.
“Maybe we’ll have it tonight, then, if he’s lucky. We eat late, hope you don’t mind. Late as Europeans, around here.”
“I should probably check in with Grandpa. I’m guessing he’ll be back before then to pick me up.”
“He called while you were sleeping. The tire is shot to hell, and no one in Helena seems to have another that’ll fit his rig. Can you believe it? Of course, most of the snowbirds don’t come out this way until July.”
“What did he say, exactly?”
“It’ll probably be a day or so. You okay to stay here with us, sweetie? Ed thought that might be best, so you can stay on track.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I mean, maybe I can just—” She waves her arm around. There’s no just out here, unless they drive her all the way back to Helena.
“We can drive you to Helena if you want,” Dawn Celeste says, reading her mind. “But Ed thought you could go forward from here, and he’ll meet us whenever he’s done.”
“I couldn’t possibly. I mean, I’m sure you have places you want to be.”
“Honey, Montana,” Dawn Celeste says, as if this is some sort of answer. “Does it look like we have a train to catch? We don’t have an agenda. We go where we’re interested in going next. I hope you’ll relax. Consider this your own home. Books, food, you help yourself.”
Annabelle is rarely relaxed anymore, not even in her own house. So here, her panic is rising. It’s a tsunami of dread an
d obligation and the knowledge of bathroom use in small places. Sometimes she snores. She has woken herself up with a surprising snort. Already, she has smelled like wet dog and dripped on the floor, and changed out of disgusting clothes, and is wearing no makeup and has chopped hair.
“I have to—” she says.
Dawn Celeste waits.
“Go back.”
“Go back?”
“To the um . . .”
“The um?”
“The spot.”
“The spot? The spot where we picked you up?” Dawn Celeste’s voice quickens and her eyes are bright. She is using the same excited cadence they use when trying to decipher what Bit wants when he sits and stares at them.
“It’s a mile and a half or so back,” Annabelle says. “I’m, it’s, cheating. To be here. To go on from here.”
“You want to go back now? We could start there tomorrow. You’ve had quite a day.”
“I’m just going to . . .”
Dawn Celeste waits.
“Do it right now, you know? Just . . .”
“Whatever you want. In the country of my camper, everyone decides for themselves. We’ll be here when you’re done. Let me find you some shorts and a T-shirt.”
• • •
Her plan is to jog casually until she’s out of sight and then flee. It gets a little hazy after that.
A mile and a half takes no time at all. She runs a little past the spot where she thinks they picked her up, just to be sure. She has enough to be guilty of; she has cheated enough people of the things that matter most to them, without cheating about this, too.
The silk basketball shorts she now wears are enormous, and the T-shirt is silk-screened with a rising sun. The T-shirt must be Dawn Celeste’s, because it smells like cinnamon and vanilla, and the shorts must be Luke’s, because even with the drawstring pulled tight, they are large enough that she must clutch them around her middle as she goes. They are so long that they graze her shins like a skirt.
The road is empty, and her run is officially done, so she steps from the highway and into the yellow grass, still damp from rain. She sits in a patch of pebbles. She is a strange sight—a small rising sun in a field. She puts her head in her hands. How has her life come to this? The air smells like wet tar and shower-soaked earth. She thinks of that same smell one night in December, just before Christmas, the night of the winter dance.
They go as a group. Kat says it’s always more fun that way, compared to when everyone pairs up. First they go to Benihana for dinner. They sit around the grill in a half-circle while the chef chops madly and simmers the beef and vegetables on the grill and makes the jokes he’s likely made a hundred times. Zander Khan tries to order a drink and looks like an idiot. Zach wears a pink tie to match Olivia’s dress. They’re all a little too loud, and the other diners are giving looks, and Annabelle tries to shush them like a Goody Two-shoes. The Taker sits by Josie Green, who’s also new this year. She moved in next door to Geoff. They’d be a good couple, really, The Taker and Josie, with her shy smile and plaid skirt and suspenders, her hair dyed jet-black.
They have green tea ice cream for dessert, which everyone pretends to like, and then they pile back into their cars. Splitting the check so many ways took a long time, and now they’re late. They have to park way out by the chain-link gate and walk a long distance to the gym. That’s when Annabelle smells it—that wet asphalt, damp-earth smell. It had rained while they were in the restaurant. She’s wearing high heels, new ones, and a green satiny dress that clutches her hips and dips down to show the top of her breasts. The green matches her eyes. She feels beautiful in that dress. She saved her money for half of it, and Gina paid the other half. She’s only had one other dress this fancy, the one she wore to Aunt Angie and Uncle Pat’s wedding, but that was a little-girl dress and this is a young woman’s dress, and she walks carefully on that wet pavement so she won’t slip and ruin it.
This is Annabelle as she used to be: anxious, careful, responsible, but with moments of confidence, twinkles of flirtation. Love of life, a bright smile, a snort of laughter, a sense of belonging with her friends. She’s aware of The Taker walking closely by her. He bumps her elbow and knocks into her shoulder, as if it’s due to accidental nearness. He’s wearing a dark suit, with a crimson tie. His hair is slightly slicked at the sides.
The doors are open, and the sound of the band spills out. Mr. MacKenzie, the shop teacher, takes tickets. They stand around awkwardly in a group until Drew Gilliam joins them, jokes around, and then asks Sierra to dance.
“Destiny,” Geoff says. He crooks his finger, and then he and Destiny go to dance, too. The band is playing an old Coldplay song, “Yellow.” They’re butchering it. Yet, those words. Look at the stars. Look how they shine for you.
The Taker grabs her fingers. “Come on,” he says.
It’s one of those awkward songs—part slow dance, part fast. What are you supposed to do, sway or bob? But The Taker puts his arms around her waist, and she clasps her hands around his neck. They are mismatched in height, and so he hunches.
She’s aware of Kat, next to her. She is dancing with Zander, but they’ve most definitely decided to bob. Zander is doing a goofy shoulder-shimmy that makes Kat punch him. Kat catches her eye, lifts her brows in a question. Annabelle makes a face. No way, she answers.
But now, she’s aware of something else. The Taker, very close to her, body to body. He’s humming the song.
“They’re butchering it,” she says.
“What?”
“They’re butchering it.”
He still must not hear her. “ ‘For you I bleed myself dry,’ ” he whispers into the soft place behind her ear.
And here is the part she has never told anyone, and that she hopes to God she will never, ever have to tell anyone, but she felt his hard-on then, pressed against her. She should have stepped back, maybe, but she didn’t know what to do. It seemed up to her to be polite, as if his erection was a social blunder she should overlook out of generosity.
And why not overlook it? Why even assume it was personal? He danced with Josie Green, too. Maybe he had one then. Hard-ons are generally friendly, she knew. They aren’t even particularly particular. But now, whenever she thinks of it, she is filled with guilt.
Now, whenever she thinks of it, she is confused about what she did and didn’t cause. She is confused about desire, and her own desirability. She is confused about her own sexuality. It should be hers to wield as she wishes, she knows this, but why—even if she isn’t wielding it, exactly, even if she’s just being herself—is there the sense of a shameful invitation, or even an invitation at all? She knows she should be able to invite if she wants to invite, to say no if she wants to say no, yes if she wants to say yes, to allure or not allure, to just simply feel good about what her body is and does and how it looks. She is supposed to be sure and confident about those things, but how can she possibly be sure and confident about those things? There are so many colliding messages—confidence and shame, power and powerlessness, what she owes others and what is hers—that she can’t hear what’s true. And after the hard-on, she is left with a terrible remorse about that green dress and her body inside of it.
There is so much remorse that she is queasy. Remembering the hard-on, she might throw up. The tuna in the sandwich is trying to make the final swim of its life. She stands, and tries to shake it off, though maybe throwing up would feel good. Maybe she’d be ridding herself of something gross, even temporarily.
She breathes through her nose. Out in that yellow field by the side of the freeway, she thinks of Kat.
I miss you.
I miss you, Kat says.
Annabelle starts to cry. I am sorry for every time I was a bad friend. Remember in the sixth grade when I didn’t give you a valentine?
I didn’t give you one. We were fighting.
And what about that time I didn’t come over when you needed me to?
I didn’t tell you ho
w bad it was until later.
Kat’s mom, Patty, had been drinking and raged at her. Kat wanted Annabelle to come over and spend the night. But Will’s parents were going to be gone, and they had the rare chance to be alone.
I am so sorry. I’ll never forgive myself.
I think you need to get out of this field in the middle of nowhere in Montana.
Kat sounds so wise. Like she’s gained all the important knowledge that there is. But, then again, she’d always been wise.
The storm has passed, but you’d never know it, the way regret rains down.
18
As much as she might want to, Annabelle cannot stay in that pasture like a lady cow. So, she gets up and heads back to Bair Reservoir and to whatever might happen next. Her back is arched with fatigue and sorrow, and she clutches Luke Messenger’s shorts around her middle. Now, she definitely looks like Mr. Giancarlo of Sunnyside Eldercare during that unfortunate attack of colitis.
There is a little dot on the horizon. A moving dot. She squinches her eyes. She probably needs glasses. The dot is growing a bit larger. Now what? she thinks. It’s probably a raging bull coming to gore her, or a Harley Davidson racing to slice her in two.
No. It’s slow, whatever it is.
From that distance, the figure is serpent-y, with wavy anemones on its top half. It’s a creature, walking out of the sea. It’s a man. A solitary man. Now, she sees that the anemones are messy curls and the creature is Luke Messenger.
“Hey!” he calls.
Shit! A warm wind whips through the valley. The yellow grass sways. He’s huffing and puffing right in front of her. A drop of sweat hightails it down Luke’s forehead and drops right off his nose, like those goats that fling themselves from cliffs.
“Hey.”
“How do you do this? I tried to jog a mile out here and I’m dying. My chest is burning. Jesus, I’m out of shape.”
