Owen shakes his head no. “They all looked like transients — college kids, making a few extra bucks over the summer.”
So it was a complete stranger.
I don’t know how I feel about that. I close my eyes, wishing for problems like unexpected quizzes or hangnails or frizzy hair. Those are the problems I want. Owen says softly, “Have you told anyone else about what happened to you that night?”
“No.” I’ve never even considered telling anyone. The stupid truth of it all? I didn’t want to get Owen into trouble. His family has been important to me for so, so long.
“I think you should talk to Janna about it,” Owen says. “It might help to have a girl’s perspective on this.”
I collapse against the back of the booth. “Janna has just barely come back into my life.”
Owen smiles, just a little. “Janna never really left.”
That’s probably true. But I don’t know whether I want to tell Janna. I don’t know anything right now. My brain is heavy, overloaded. I can feel exhaustion starting to take over, and I cover my mouth and yawn. Without a word, Owen finishes the last of his coffee, throws down a few dollars and tips his head to the door.
As I climb into the Jeep, I do my best to forget about all those male voices I heard in the living room that night. I do my best to forget about the expression on Owen’s face when he told me I’d been raped. I do my best to forget about Rusty’s unexplained absence from my life.
I do my best.
Twenty-Four
There’s never been a lack of people available to assess my mental state over the past couple of years. Caseworkers, counselors, therapists, doctors … you name it, they’ve stood over me with a pen and a folder, recording my progress or lack thereof. A week or two after Dad died, my therapist tried to give me a prescription for Paxil, claiming that it would alleviate my anxiety when I was out in public. Which was a bad idea in countless ways, the most prominent being that one of the side effects of Paxil is diarrhea. Pretty sure diarrhea would cause anxiety when I was out in public. And the thought of taking a prescription drug made me hyperventilate, so I played my violin instead. Like, excessively.
When I wake up the next morning, feeling as though the Gulf of Mexico has taken up residence in my stomach, I roll over, grab my violin, sit on the edge of my bed, close my eyes and rip into my favorite reel.
It doesn’t help.
With my eyes closed, all I can see is Owen’s concerned expression from the night before — the way his mouth turned down when he asked me about Rusty.
Words like probability and likelihood wedge themselves into my brain.
I pull on some clothes, grab my purse and hustle to the nearest bus stop. I don’t know where I’m going, only that I’m going.
Climbing on the bus, I take a seat in the back row, staring out the window and watching houses and businesses and palm trees zip past. I rub the area on the back of my neck that always gets stiff when I spend too much time practicing without using a stand to hold my sheet music. Long ago, Dad gave me a music stand for Christmas. It was a gorgeous contraption of knotty walnut that smelled like varnish and stain and absolute devotion. We were pretty broke, so I knew that he’d virtually emptied his bank account to buy it. And the way he placed it in front of me, the light in his eyes as he watched me peel off the wrapping paper, I burst out crying.
I was just … gone.
And now, so is the music stand. Gone, that is. Like most of the things that were in the house when I was taken into foster care. Who knows what happened to everything? Social workers rummaged through the house and brought me some of my clothes, a few books. The things they deemed important to me. Everything else, though — it was all taken away.
The bus jerks to a stop in front of the library, nudging me back to the present. I jump up and hustle off, feeling oddly as though this is where I was heading all along. Janna has always been big on the library, forever dragging me here. She never read any of the library’s books, though. She always brought her own, proclaiming that she just liked to sit and read with words whispering all around her.
I’ve just curled up on a soft chair by the window, and I’m flipping through a book I found on Vanessa Mae, and I’m thinking about my bow skills and whether my elbow was dropping this morning, thereby contributing to my crappy playing. The library’s air-conditioning is set at a perfect temperature, and the chair is the sort of soft that feels almost like a giant baseball glove, holding me exactly where I need to be. I’ve almost forgotten about my problems when a loud clatter yanks me out of my book, my comfort zone and my chair, all at the same time.
I yelp — like, literally yelp, as though I’ve just discovered a three-inch spider on my foot — and jerk my head toward the noise. I find Andy Simon behind me, stooped over a pile of books, an expression of complete and utter dismay on his face. “Oh my God, Andy,” I say, my palm on my chest, “you scared the absolute living crap out of me.”
He turns toward me, his face cycling through about eighty shades of red. “Grace! Hey. Hi. Hello. I didn’t even see you there.” He folds his arms over his chest, then squats down and starts picking up the mess.
Awkward silence.
I look down at the books. “Did you drop those?”
“Um,” he says. He doesn’t look up. “Yes?”
More silence.
“Do you … want some help picking them up?” I ask.
“No!” he practically yells, and one of the librarians gives us a thin-lipped stare. He tosses her an apologetic wave and scoops up the books, holding them tightly to his chest as he stands. The book on the bottom is facing me, the title beside his forearm: How to Convince Her to Love You. Can’t say I’m surprised. Not sure whether Andy has even had a girlfriend before.
“So,” I say, pointing to the book, “some light reading?”
Andy shifts his weight and says, “It’s not what you think.” He blows out a loud exhale and pinches his eyes closed with his free hand. I tip my head sideways to read a couple of the other spines. The Nerd’s Guide to Romance. Attracting the Love of Your Life, 101. After a second, he says, very quietly, “Okay, so it’s exactly what you think. I can totally forget you saw these books, if you can totally forget you saw these books.”
“What books?” I say. “I didn’t see any books.”
He sighs, opens his eyes and winces. There’s a bead of sweat rolling down his brow. “Yeah, you totally did.”
“I kind of did.”
“You can’t tell Janna,” Andy blurts, “because everything will get awkward and weird, and she’ll never want to speak to me again. Our friendship will be ruined.”
My eyes feel like they’re boinging out of my head. “Wait. Hold up. Janna? You’re reading those for Janna?”
He grimaces. “Yeah. I mean, yeah. Not that she’d ever fall for someone like me. But the thing is — no offense — Janna and I have been closer than ever since you’ve been out of the picture. Sorry! I’m sorry. That sounded a lot better in my head. It’s just that Janna and I, we’re, like” — he holds up his free hand, twisting his middle finger around his index finger — “tight. And sometimes I think that she might feel the same way, but she doesn’t even know it? And maybe all I have to do is, um, trip a switch in her head, or something.”
“Trip a switch in her head.”
He swallows and nods, absentmindedly tugging on the rough edge of his half ear. Then, realizing he’s drawn my attention to it, he lets his hand drop. “Yeah. Like, Janna doesn’t think of me that way. Not sure anyone thinks of me that way, really. I mean — it’s not easy being Sawyer’s brother.”
I make a face. “Not all girls find your brother attractive, you know.”
“Most of them do. Have you seen him lately? All he does is work out. His thighs are the same circumference as my waist. If he wasn’t my brother, I’d have a crush on him.”
When I snort and roll my eyes, he says, “No, I’m serious. He’s a freaking golden boy. He’s been breaking speed record after speed record the past several years, and he’s only getting faster. Clemson’s already recruited him for track.”
I wave a dismissing hand at him. “Whatever. I’m not impressed.” Looking to steer the conversation away from Sawyer, I say, “If you’re so interested in Janna, why did you ask me to homecoming the other day?”
The red in Andy’s cheeks deepens. He rubs his forehead with the heel of his hand and mutters, “I thought maybe if I made her jealous? I mean, she was kind of miffed at you anyway, so …” He must see exasperation in my face, because all of a sudden he looks panicked. “I know! I’m sorry! It was a dick move. It’s just — I’m at a loss here, and I’ve tried everything. I even became a lifeguard because of her, hoping she’d — I don’t know … see me differently, or whatever? Please promise me that you won’t tell her about all of this.”
“Andy, Janna and I just barely started talking again. I can’t imagine bringing all this up to her.”
“Promise me, Grace.”
I sigh. “Okay. Fine. I promise.”
He clears his throat and shifts his feet, his face still basically purple, and then he says, “So what’re you doing here, anyway?”
I’m trying to distract myself.
I’m running away from life.
What I should be doing right now is asking Andy if he noticed anything strange the night I was assaulted. If he saw anyone go into my room. I swallow down the thickness in my throat. Ask him, Grace. Ask him if he saw anything unusual that night.
ASK HIM IF HE SAW ANYTHING.
I open my mouth, but “Um, Andy?” is all that comes out. Because I know that once I start asking questions, I’ll be pushing some huge boulder into motion. And I’m not sure whether I’m ready for that yet. I’m not sure whether I’ll ever be ready. Andy is staring at me, waiting for me to continue. I swallow. “Good luck with Janna.”
Twenty-Five
The first thing I see when I step into the house that evening is Faith, standing at the kitchen counter, the head of a fish in one hand and a knife in the other, her hair sectioned off into a dozen of those old-school pink foam curlers.
She holds up the fish. “Dinner preps,” she says, by way of greeting. “Rusty is actually working a day shift today, so I thought we could all eat together. Well, everyone except Eleanor, who has some sort of thing going at the senior center? I’m not exactly sure. Didn’t want to pry.” She hustles to the far end of the kitchen to deposit the fish head in the trash can, and then heads to the sink, brushing past a large, stain-blotched cookbook, one of the countless things she’s already moved here from her old apartment.
Using her elbow to flip up the lever on the faucet, Faith washes her hands. She says, “When Rusty said we had fresh fish in the fridge, I had no idea I’d have to dismember it. I’m a vegetarian, so it was kind of gross. I mean, it still had eyeballs.”
I wrinkle my nose in solidarity and unload into a kitchen chair. My eyes find the Salad Shooter — the one gifted and regifted between Dad and Rusty — sitting atop the counter, a pile of sliced cucumber beside it, and I smile, just a little, because it sort of feels to me like Dad got the last word. “So you’re going to start eating meat?” I ask.
“I’ll be eating fish. For my fertility diet.”
I blink at her. “Fertility diet?”
She spins around to face me. The motion causes her curlers to rock back and forth on her head. She grins, spontaneous and bright. “I’m not getting any younger. I want to have babies right away.”
Well. That surprises me. Though it probably shouldn’t. Lightning-fast decisions seem to be a particular talent of Faith’s — suddenly chopping off six inches of hair, switching careers, changing her diet, jumping headlong into marriage. Maybe impulsive change works well for her, but I have a hard time believing it will for Rusty. “How does Rusty feel about having kids? He’s forty-four.”
Faith pops a couple of cucumber slices in her mouth. “He’s excited,” she says with her mouth full, and then she shoots me an apologetic look. “Sorry, I was raised without proper manners.” Swallowing and tossing a handful of cucumber slices into a bowl, she goes on, “Rusty wants kids as much as I do. Which is to say that he really, really wants kids.”
A sudden ache blooms under my rib cage, almost like I’m jealous of a baby that hasn’t even been conceived yet, but not quite. It’s more like … hurt. I feel like I could disappear for days and Rusty wouldn’t even notice I was gone. I wonder whether he remembers I’m here half the time, whether he remembers I exist. Granted, I wondered the same thing while I was in foster care, but it’s almost worse being ignored by him here, now, in his house, where my clothes are swinging on the backyard clothesline and my shoes are lined up next to the front door. I’m everywhere here, yet he hardly seems to notice.
Almost on cue, Rusty barrels through the front door, a gigantic stack of mail in his arms.
I stare at him for a moment, my heart crashing in my throat.
Did you do it?
His only answer is an easy smile. “Ladies,” he trumpets. His gaze falls on Faith. He kisses her once on the nose and then backs up, patting her affectionately on the top of the head. “Whatever those things are? They’re adorable.”
She claps a hand over her mouth. “Oh, my God. I totally forgot about the curlers.” And with that, she scurries off to the bathroom.
Rusty unloads the mail on the table. It’s an avalanche of envelopes and magazines and bills. Pretty much explains why he was late paying the electric bill. Gesturing at me with a sweep of his hand, he says, “Guess some things never change, huh?”
“Excuse me?”
He flips through the mail, not looking up. “Sundresses. You still wear ’em. When you were little, it used to drive your dad crazy.”
I look down at my dress and swallow. I wasn’t prepared for Rusty to mention my clothing. Or Dad. You’d think I’d feel angry, listening to him talk about my father so nonchalantly after all this time. But all I feel is a mass of tears building just behind my eyes. It’s been so long since I’ve heard Dad mentioned in casual conversation that I want to hold on to the moment a little longer. So I wait a little while before I say, “It did?”
He glances up from the mail, a soft smile on his face. “It did. When you were three, you wanted a leopard-print sundress for your birthday. Went on and on about it for days.”
“I don’t remember that,” I say quietly.
He laughs. “I sure do. Your dad had to drive all around the damn county lookin’ for one. Know how hard it is to find a leopard-print sundress in a toddler size? Damn near impossible. But your father — he’d’ve done just about anything for you.” A shadow passes over his expression and his words fall away, and for the first time since I arrived, I feel like I’m with one of the few people in the world who really understands what it’s like to miss my dad. Then Rusty clears his throat and hands me a letter from social services. “I guess Sarah’s coming for a visit in a couple of days?”
“Ah,” I say. Visits and/or inspections are standard procedure for kids like me. Social workers feel the need to poke their heads into the house to make sure that we don’t have a meth lab in the bathroom. Or, say, stolen wallets hidden under our T-shirts. The most important things are that the house is in order and everyone is present for the visit. “Just make sure you’re here for it, okay?” I say.
He nods. “’Course.”
Silence drops between us, and I chew on my thumbnail for a moment, wanting to thank Rusty for sharing that story about Dad. Instead, I spring to my feet and stride to the cupboard. As I pull down some plates for dinner, I can almost swear I hear him sigh.
#
I’m quiet all through dinner, thinking about tragedies and swallowed feelings and the things people do to
cope. So after everyone goes to bed that night I walk decisively into the living room, to the desk where Rusty keeps his old computer. After pressing the power button, I pace back and forth while the desktop fires up. Once the screen blinks to life, I collapse into the chair and do something I’ve wanted to do for years: I type Owen McAllister and motor vehicle accident into a search engine. A couple of short articles pop up, dated back to the summer that everything went crooked. I read the first one.
Owen McAllister, 16, a rising junior at New Harbor High and a member of the student council, struck 7-year-old Zoey Barnes with his 2009 Toyota in the intersection of Main and Seventieth. Miss Barnes was flown to St. Joseph’s Children’s for treatment, her spinal injuries leading to paralysis.
The other article is basically the same, but it has a picture of a tiny blonde girl lying in a hospital bed. Her skin is pale and sunken, her body covered in bruises and scrapes and bandages. She’s smiling but the gesture is miserable and thin, full of effort.
All the air whooshes out of my lungs. I cup my forehead in my hands and stare at the desk. Has Owen seen this picture? I know the answer immediately. Of course he has. And he probably beat himself up over it for months. Owen’s built cages around turtle eggs and nursed baby owls back to health. Hurting this little girl must’ve been unbearable for him, and I left him to deal with it on his own. I shake my head, ashamed and embarrassed. Ever since our conversation at the restaurant, Owen’s been coming over, knocking on the door, trying to talk to me, and I’ve been hiding in my room.
More than ever, I’m aware that I underestimated him, that he doesn’t just bail when things get rough. In fact, he’s better at talking through problems than I ever imagined.
Still, though.
I suspect he’ll press me about going to the authorities. I suspect he’ll confront me with his suspicions about Rusty.
I suspect I still have feelings for him.
But avoiding him after all he’s done for me, after everything I haven’t done for him —
The Leading Edge of Now Page 11
