The Bright Effect

by Autumn Doughton

  “Are you really?” he asks as he smacks the pack against the flat of his palm a couple of times and digs for a lighter. Before he can flick the flint wheel, I’m on him, driving him back to the front door.

  “What’s the problem?” he cries, scrambling to keep his balance.

  “The problem,” I say, shoving him beyond the threshold onto the porch, “is that you can’t smoke in the house. Remember Carter, the little boy asleep in the next room? I don’t want him sucking your second-hand smoke into his lungs and getting this scary little thing called cancer.”

  Seth doesn’t say anything for a second. Then he plucks the cigarette from his mouth and grimaces. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking about—” he points toward the house, “—Carter or… you know.”

  He means my mother and the ovarian cancer that ate at her from the inside out. “No shit.”

  He breaks the cigarette in half and slips both parts back into his pocket before dropping onto the ratty wicker loveseat that’s pressed up against the side of the house.

  I ask, “Why are you smoking anyway?”

  “I don’t know. Raf said he could get me a carton on the cheap and I didn’t want to say no. And I thought it might help with the whole musician bit I’m working on.” He shrugs his shoulders. “They’re pretty disgusting actually.”

  “And you’re pretty stupid,” I say.

  “I cannot confirm nor deny that accusation.”

  The thing is that Seth has been my best friend since before I could spell my own name. He lives just around the corner from here. He’s the kind of guy who puts on a front that he’s tough because that’s what you have to do to make it sometimes. But on the inside I know he’s nothing but softness.

  When we were ten, a stray that’d been hanging around the neighborhood for a few months and prowling from house to house got run over. Seth cried about that cat for a week until my mother couldn’t take it anymore and went down to the shelter and returned with an orange tabby that Seth named Jinx.

  Already, Jinx is on the porch. When she sees Seth, she makes a beeline to him and starts moving in and out of his legs. Next comes the purr, louder than a diesel engine that needs tuning.

  “She must have heard you,” I say, meaning the cat. “She never shows up for me unless she hears me dumping food into the bowl.”

  “Jinxy comes to me because she knows she’s my best girl and I like to dote on her,” Seth replies, picking Jinx up and setting her on his lap.

  The purring grows louder.

  “Cats,” he continues, rubbing two fingers beneath Jinx’s chin, “are intuitive creatures so you must give off a stay-away vibe. Kind of like the vibe you give to Rachel.”

  Flicking a gnat off my arm, I ignore the comment about my ex-girlfriend and slide into the chair opposite them.

  Not a lot of people get to see Seth like this—relaxing on a porch with a cat curled up in his lap. But I know he only plays at being a hardass occasionally because he’s had a hard life. Maybe even harder than my own.

  Like mine, Seth’s dad dropped out of the picture a long time ago. His older sister dances for cash at a nightclub near Savannah and his mom spends most of her time getting cozy with her best friend Jack Daniels. The way I see it, the only thing worse than having a mother who’s dead, is having one who’s still breathing, but cares more about a bottle of whiskey than she does about her own kids.

  It probably wouldn’t surprise most people if Seth turned into a loser with a record like a lot of the rednecks who grow up here in Lowcountry, but I know he’s too smart for any real trouble. Sure, I’ve accused him of being as stupid as sin and, yeah, he just tried to light up a cigarette in my kitchen, but that’s just us. Truth is, Seth’s got plans and ideas about having a better life. A life that might take him outside of Green Cove. And if I were going to bet money on anyone making it out of this place, I’d bet on my best friend.

  Seth plays the guitar. And I use the word play lightly. It’s more like Seth lives the guitar. Tonight, it doesn’t take long for him to give in and go into my room to grab the Ibanez he loaned me a couple years ago. That was back when I thought maybe I could learn to play and we could have a band together. Turns out, I’m tone deaf.

  We hang on the front porch for a while—him fiddling with the guitar strings, me listening. Then, just before midnight, a white van pulls up to the curb and its brakes are so loud and screechy that Jinx gets scared off.

  Seth mutters an oath as he watches the cat dart away and disappear behind the brick pilings that hold up the house.

  I look back to the van. It’s the kind of generic white van with rust tingeing the bumper that has you thinking of a pervy kidnapper or a shady electrician. Very slowly, the side door slides open and Paul Abbot, my neighbor’s son stumbles out. Right away, it’s clear that he’s three sheets to the wind. Shit, he’s so far gone, he can barely keep his head from falling off his neck.

  Paul graduated from Green Cove High last spring and since then, I doubt he’s seen daylight more than a couple of times. As far as I can tell, he spends the majority of his time sleeping. It’s funny because back when he was in school with us, Paul was a big guy—always laughing and lifting weights and working on his tan. Now, he looks pathetic—like a vampire who’s been on a hunger strike for three months.

  When Paul sees Seth and me outlined in the dim porch light, he pulls up short.

  “Yo,” he shouts into the dark like we’re old friends. But I’ve never been “friends” with Paul. The entirety of our relationship can be summed up in one story: When he was twelve and I was eleven, he pinned me down in the strip of grass between our houses and shoved a dead lizard into my mouth.

  “Hey Paul,” I say back just to be neighborly. I’m not afraid of Paul like I was when I was a kid, but I still try to keep things pleasant. Sometimes his mom, Sandra, helps with Carter if I run into a problem with work or school.

  Paul heads our way, holding his arms out from his sides to steady himself. When he gets to the porch steps, he has to use his hands and knees to crawl up them like a toddler.

  “What’s happenin’ ya’ll?” he slurs out the words and topples onto an open chair.

  “Nothing much,” I answer slowly. “How about you?”

  “Oh—” he waves a hand vaguely “—I’ve got a couple deals in the pipeline. Just some details to work out and I’ll be sittin’ on a golden egg. Thinkin’ about buyin’ myself some sweet wheels when the dust settles. A porsche or maybe one of those Lexus coupes.”

  “Uh-huh,” Seth murmurs doubtfully. “A couple of weeks ago your mom told us you got a job at Office Depot.”

  “Shit,” he says, only it sounds more like sheeeeet. “Those fools wanted me to work Saturdays so I told the manager he could find himself another sucker.” Then he lurches forward in the chair so suddenly that Seth and I both jump.

  “You okay there?” I ask, hoping he’s not about to throw up all over my porch.

  Paul lifts his chin from his chest and tries to focus his eyes. Almost like he didn’t hear me, he says, “Either of y’all got a smoke?”

  Seth rests the guitar between his knees, finds a cigarette, and passes it over.

  “Thanks,” Paul says, cupping his hand over his mouth as he tries to get the lighter to catch. “That deal I’m a workin’ on… We’ve been lookin’ for more guys and I might be able to cut ya’ll in. Say, five hundred apiece.”

  “Who’s we?” I ask.

  He takes a drag and holds the smoke in his lungs. “Levi Palmerton.”

  For the first time since he started talking, I think he might be serious and this has me worried. Paul might not be a favorite person in the world, but I still don’t want to hear about him being left for dead in some swampy ditch. But if he’s really working with Levi Palmerton, there’s a good chance of that happening.

  Seth’s forehead crinkles. “You’re not really working with Levi, are you?”

  “Sure I am. He’s got a hookup with someone in Charleston who ne
eds to unload a lot of product lickity-split. It’s just a drop-off and I reckon that makes it easy money.”

  “It’s not easy money if you wind up with two broken legs or dead,” Seth says out loud what I’m thinking. “I hear that Levi’s a hardcore dealer now and I’m guessing the people he works with are hardcore dealers too.”

  “Do I look like I’m three pickles shy of a quart?” Paul asks. “I’ve got myself some terms in this situation. Levi ain’t gonna mess with me.”

  “Whatever you say, man. Just leave Bash and me out of it.”

  Paul laughs but because he’s so far gone, it sounds more like a burble. “You like drivin’ around in that piece of shit truck of yours?” he asks me.

  “It’s not so bad,” I say, my eyes looking out to the Bronco parked in the driveway. “It’s rusty but it’s got character.”

  Rolling his eyes, Paul turns his head toward Seth. “How ‘bout you, Cavanaugh? You like not having enough money to take your girl out for dinner?”

  “I don’t have a girl.”

  This makes Paul laugh harder. “Maybe there’s a reason for that,” he grunts, hoisting himself up from the chair. Then he takes another long draw off the cigarette and just looks at us for a minute, his body swaying. “If y’all change your minds, you know where to find me.”

  We watch him go, waiting to see if he’ll make it. When Paul gets to his own house without passing out on the sidewalk, Seth smiles crookedly and says, “And you think I’m a cooter?”

  I close my eyes and rest my head against the porch rail and think about what Paul said. Easy money or not, I’ll admit that it’s tempting to take him up on the offer. Just once, I’d like to know how it feels not to worry about how to pay bills or find the money to feed Carter.

  In my world, five hundred dollars is a hell of a lot of money. But is it enough to break a promise I made? A promise to always do the right thing for my brother?

  “I want to make something of myself and get out of Green Cove as much as everyone else,” Seth says, and I hear him adjust the guitar and run his thumb over the strings. “Just not like that.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Amelia

  So, now I have a problem.

  Until two weeks ago, I would have sworn that Sebastian Holbrook touched no part of my life. We don’t have friends in common. Our lockers are not next door to each other. And we definitely do not move in the same circles.

  Yet, all of a sudden, when I actually want to ignore him, he seems to be everywhere I look. Take, for instance, my Spanish class.

  How the heck could I have missed him before?

  Is it because he always chooses a desk in the way back and I tend to gravitate toward the front? Or is it because he never seems to raise his hand or participate in the class discussions? No matter what the reason, now that I know he’s here, I can’t not notice him. Trust me—I have tried.

  Today, the normally straight rows of desks are in a hodgepodge because the class has split into pairs to conjugate verbs into the past tense. Audra is next to me diligently working to conjugate the -er verbs on our shared list. I’m responsible for the verbs that end in -ir, but I’ve spent more of the period trying to decode the words inked onto the soles of his sneakers. So far, I’ve only been able to make out three words.

  All your tomorrows

  I can’t read anything beyond that and it’s driving me crazy. I want to go over there, pick his foot up, and demand, “All your tomorrows what?”

  The sound of Audra’s voice snaps my concentration. “Just remember to pay attention to venir.”

  “Huh?”

  Her blond head is down and she’s pointing out one of the verbs on our list. “I’m just remindin’ you that venir has an irregular conjugation.”

  “I know it does.”

  She glances over and frowns when she sees my mostly blank paper. “Amelia, are you even goin’ to do this?”

  “Of course I am,” I answer tersely, moving my arm so that it’s partially blocking her view. “I’m just thinking.”

  She looks up at my face for a few beats before turning back to her own desk. “Uh-huh.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  The only answer I get comes in the form of an eye roll.

  Okay then.

  I clear my throat and attempt to refocus on the assignment, but I can’t seem to organize my scattered thoughts. Normally this is the kind of task I could hammer out in ten minutes flat, but today it’s like nothing will stick to my brain for more than a second or two. All I’m really doing is wasting time by reading the same word over and over again.

  This is seriously no use.

  Feeling annoyed and exhausted with it all, I drop my pen and let my eyes wander around the classroom again. Sebastian, I note, is still working on his paper. He’s hunched over the desk with his long legs hooked over the rung of his chair and an elbow propped on the corner. Every now and then he pauses in his writing to stretch out the fingers of his hand or push a tumble of black-brown hair off his forehead.

  Nancy, with her love for monograms and all things Lilly Pulitzer, would probably label him a miscreant or one of the Methamphetamine Army (her words, not mine). But—I don’t know—I think the scruffy jawline and untidy hair curling into his eyes complete the whole I-couldn’t-care-less thing he has going on.

  I study his wrinkled graphic t-shirt and jeans, faded and worn well past the point of no return. On another boy, those clothes might seem messy, like they’d been slept in or snagged from a pile of stinky laundry. But on Sebastian, they work. And it’s not just because he’s got a tall, rangy build and broad shoulders. Or because his angular cheekbones and wide-set grey eyes are admittedly fairly gorgeous. It’s because there’s something unconventional and intriguing about his eclectic mix of country and hipster. He gives off the impression that he’d be just as at home in New York City as he is in Green Cove, South Carolina. And it’s like the more I look at Sebastian, the more I want to look. God, it’s a vicious kind of rabbit hole to fall into.

  As soon as I think the last thought, I feel a sharp splintery pain radiate from the sensitive skin just above my elbow.

  I whip my head around and glare at Audra. “Owwww! You pinched me!”

  She points a manicured finger at me. “Because you’re supposed to be workin’ on Spanish, not havin’ some kind of psycho stare-fest.”

  “What are you talking about? I am not—”

  “¿Amelia, estas bien?”

  The question startles me into silence. I look up and see that everyone in the room, including Mr. Gubera, is watching me expectantly.

  “¿Estas bien?” he repeats.

  Heat floods my cheeks. “Yes, I—uh—bit my tongue.”

  “En español,” he encourages.

  I swallow and search the recesses of my head for the right words. “Me mordio la l-lengua.”

  He smiles. “You just told me that someone else bit your tongue.”

  Soft laughter fills the room and I want to die. Why oh why did I let Audra talk me into another year of Spanish? I should have switched over to French to finish out my language requirement. Or German even. I’m sure I could spreche some Deutsch.

  “Umm… me mordi la lengua,” I try again.

  “Excelente,” he says, clapping his hands once. Then, like he’d planned it all along, he turns to the whiteboard and picks up a black dry erase marker. “This is probably a fine spot for us to stop and review what you’ve been working on. I know that using the preterite conjugation can be confusing, but be careful because, as Amelia just demonstrated, one slip-up can change the entire meaning of a sentence.”

  Oh, good gravy.

  ***

  “I guess I should be askin’ you the obvious question,” Audra says just after the bell rings. I slip my notebook into my bag and stand up from my desk. “What’s that?”

  “Am I losin’ my ever-lovin’ mind or do you have a thing for Bash Holbrook?”

  Something warm and fl
uttery nips at my stomach. “You’re definitely losing your mind.”

  “Am I?” she drawls as we walk into the hall. “Because you spent almost all of Spanish class starin’ at him.”

  “I wasn’t staring.”

  “Then what would you call it?”

  “I wouldn’t call it anything because it was nothing.”

  “That was not nothin’. You were starin’ at him so hard, I’m surprised there wasn’t a puddle of drool on the floor beneath your desk.”

  “Shut up.”

  She grins. “Or that the strength of your eyes didn’t knock him straight out of his chair.”

  “Shut up,” I say again, but now I’m laughing.

  Audra shakes her hair back reminding me that she has about the best hair I’ve ever seen. It’s long and blond and full of these shampoo-commercial waves that catch the light and look an awful lot like spun gold. Most girls at our school would make a deal with the devil for that kind of hair.

  She says, “I can see the headline now: Amelia Bright, Local Debutante and Student Council Treasurer, Takes a Ride on the Dark Side with Bad Boy Bash Holbrook.”

  I stop in front of my locker. “That’s way too long to be a headline.”

  “Who knows,” she muses, “maybe you can get him to take you to Homecomin’. I bet he would be downright yummy in a suit.”

  I snort. “Yeah right. You are delusional.”

  “Speakin’ of the dance…” She cocks her hip to one side. “You remember Sasha Bartley and I went to that party over in Montclair last weekend?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, I happened to meet a guy who goes to Middleburg High and I had a feelin’ about him.”

  “And what did that feeling tell you?”

  “That I should set y’all up.”

  I shake my head. “You are not setting me up for Homecoming with some stranger that you met at a party.”

  “Why not? Because you really are interested in Bash Holbrook?”

  “Gah, can you please stop yapping about this before someone hears you?”