Grit

by Gillian French

  I sit at the only empty picnic table, watching the migrant sling trash, thinking how much it would suck to rake all day and then slave here until closing, when somebody sits down next to me.

  Shea. It’s a shock, partly because I’d forgotten what he looks like cleaned up, his hair a little damp from showering, wearing a white polo shirt that’s maybe a little nicer than most guys might wear on the average day. That’s Shea, though. He’s the kind of guy who buys only the right brand of sneakers and spends all his time tricking out his motorcycle, a Kawasaki Ninja 300. He’s got me pinned with those lion eyes. “Congrats.”

  I set my face. “What.”

  He puts a booklet on the table between us. It’s the Bay Festival events brochure, and the high I’ve been riding since work drops me flat. Mrs. Hartwell must’ve put in a rush order.

  The cover has a swirly font and photos from last year’s festival: a Guernsey cow winning a blue ribbon at the livestock judging, a lobster dinner, kids on the Tilt-A-Whirl. You can tell Shea’s been rolling the paper, working it in his fist.

  “I heard about this. I just didn’t believe it.” He flips through, holds it open at page twelve.

  My face doesn’t move, but the shame tastes bitter as I stare at the picture of the unsmiling blond girl with her stupid untrue bio—Darcy plans to travel—printed beside her and wish to God I’d quit the pageant when I’d first wanted to. Now everybody knows. Shea knows, and that’s the worst.

  He moves closer to me. His smell is spicy cool aftershave and peppermint gum, which he must’ve spit out right before he came over. He acts like he’s teasing, like this is some in-joke between us. “I mean, do they know who they’re dealing with? You must have a rep clear across Hancock County by now. You oughta hang a sign out in front of that fallen-down old dump you live in.”

  Shea and his dad and his dad’s girlfriend live in a tiny prefab house over on Merrill Avenue with one of those corny gazing balls in the front yard, so I don’t know what he thinks he’s talking about. I fold my arms and look straight ahead.

  He’s quiet a second. “How come I never heard from you?” I study the flecks in the pavement, the corner of a ketchup packet by the table leg. “Huh? I thought you were going to call.”

  Normally I’d say, Phones go both ways, but it’s like the real me has tunneled down somewhere deep and can only send up flares. He reaches out—as if he’s actually trying to be tender—and smooths a piece of my hair. I jerk away. He doesn’t move, giving me this intense look, trying to see right through me. A muscle jumps in his jaw, then he makes a disgusted sound and leans in close to my ear:

  “You can get up on that stage and dress all pretty and say your little funny things to try to make people like you. But I’m gonna be out there, knowing I tapped that, and I didn’t even have to work for it. Same as a lot of other guys. Nobody’s gonna be handing out any crown to some trashy-ass slut who gets so wasted every weekend she doesn’t know whose backseat she’s been in.”

  The words sink in. One of the flares finally rises higher than the rest, the light and the hissing growing until it fills me, until I remember who I am and turn and say in his face, “I’m gonna beat your ass in the field on Monday.”

  Shea sits back, snorts. “What?”

  “You heard me. I can rake harder than you, and I’ll prove it.”

  He laughs, but it’s okay, because I’ve got my feet under me again. “You really think you can win top harvester.”

  “No. Just so long as I beat you.”

  Nell comes through the crowd toward us, frowning so deeply I hardly recognize her. She takes my arm. “Time to go.”

  Still kind of laughing, Shea says, “Wait a minute—”

  “Don’t talk to her.” Nell stares at him for a second, her face set hard, like she’s daring him to speak. He doesn’t. He’s still smirking, but I guess having the hot special ed chick yell at him is interesting enough to actually shut his mouth.

  She pulls me away, hugging my arm against her ribs. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “You didn’t look okay. At all. You looked scared.”

  That spins me out a little, and I shake free. “Where’s Mags?”

  She’s over by the car talking to a couple kids from school, our greasy take-out bags sitting on the hood. They’re all using hushed, excited voices. “You’re not gonna believe this,” Mags says once we’re in the car.

  I shrug, not in the mood for gossip.

  “The cops got somebody. For Rhiannon.” Nell and I stare. “Two different people who live on Church Street saw them take him in, and nobody’s seen him come home yet. Been almost two days.”

  Lots of people live on Church, but there’s only one house that I’ve been to about a hundred times.

  “Kenyon Levesque.” Mags glances at me. “They put him in the back of a cruiser Thursday night.”

  I sit back slowly, my breath trickling out of me. As we leave Gaudreau’s and pull onto Main Street, I see Shea sitting at a table filled with people I know, including Mason and Jesse. Jesse turns his head to watch us go.

  THIRTEEN

  KAT’S NOT ANSWERING her phone. I left three messages last night—I heard about Kenyon. Call me.—and another one this morning, but still nothing. It’s impossible, Kenyon getting arrested, him hurting Rhiannon somehow. He and Rhiannon were friends, or at least friendly; they used to party together, and I remember seeing them sitting on the bleachers during gym once, talking, just the two of them, ignoring Coach Tremblay’s whistle. It hits me that Kenyon must’ve been the one to tell the cops that I was in the barrens the night Rhiannon disappeared. I can’t understand it, not at all.

  Mags has been nice about it—even though this proves her right about the Levesque twins—making conversation about other things and not chiming in this morning when the locals knotted together in the barrens before work to kick Kenyon’s name around like he’s something the dog coughed up. Nell bites her thumbnail and watches me. She’s been watching me ever since she yanked me away from Shea. She saw something in my face that I never meant her to, and now I don’t know how to make it better. This isn’t how it works. I’m the one who takes care of her. I don’t like things being backward.

  Now, a parade’s coming toward me with Shea in the lead, followed by Mason and some other guys. Most of them are grinning, carrying their rakes and water like they’re planning on staying awhile.

  I fold my arms and meet them. Shea stops short of stepping on my toes. He looks me in the eye but he doesn’t talk to me; he talks to the guys, saying in that loud, warm voice, like he’s joking around, “Miss America here says she’s gonna beat my ass.”

  Laughter. Only Mason isn’t smiling. He watches me closely, grimly, like he’s trying to figure something out. I search for Jesse’s face but don’t find it. “That’s right.”

  Shea throws a look back at his buddies, and they feed him with more laughter and catcalls. “Told you guys.” He leans down into my face like I’m a little kid. “Okay, Princess. Don’t blame me when you go home crying.”

  I pick up my rake and turn into the first row of the day. “You still talking?”

  And like that, it’s on.

  I’m not aware of anybody but Shea. There’s a powerful wind today, pushing puffy white clouds across the sky and kicking up leaves and dust, making my eyes water. I don’t need to see. My body’s a machine: rake-rake-rake, dump, rake-rake-rake, dump, close the box, open another. Guy talk and laughter hums in the background like power lines.

  Lunchtime. “Darcy, what’s going on?” Mags’s face hovers in front of me as I shove food down, not wanting to waste a second and lose ground. “Why are you racing Shea? Hey, are you hearing me?”

  Maybe I grunt out an answer; I don’t know. I churn the afternoon away, then stand, fists on my hips, one knee twitching like a racehorse’s as Mrs. Wardwell tallies up the day’s haul and writes in the new standings.

  Shea’s moved up to the sixth
slot. I’ve moved up only one slot to number eight, dogging some migrant named Bankowski.

  Can’t believe it. I busted my ass today for one stupid slot? Shea’s smirking hard enough to give himself a hernia, shaking his head as he gathers his stuff. The other guys are leaving, too, talking about what they’re going to do after work, acting like it’s over.

  Not even close.

  Mom’s garden is a thing of beauty. Ruler-straight rows, stakes labeling what’s what. It puts Libby’s neglected jungle of a flower garden to shame, which is why nobody cares that Hunt’s poking his ladder holes all through the marigolds and bleeding hearts.

  After supper, Mom goes out to weed and pick green beans. I watch her through the window as I wash dishes. She’s hunched over, wearing her gardening stuff, old cutoffs and a T-shirt so thin you can see the knobs of her spine through it as she bends forward. It’s her day off, and she spends it slaving. Go figure.

  I wander outside, standing over her until she looks back, squinting in the fading golden light. We haven’t talked about Edgecombe or telling the truth since that night, but I guess she reads something in my face, because she slaps the ground beside her, and I sit.

  I tug some weeds, splitting a strand of witch grass down the middle with my fingernails. The wind picks up, making a hollow howl through the moose blowers—tin cans with string threaded across the opening, meant to scare off the crows—and flapping the old shirt hanging from the scarecrow’s frame. It’s a man’s shirt, probably one of Dad’s. She’s got all his stuff packed in boxes in the attic. Not like a shrine. It’s good stuff and we might get some use out of it. There’s a big pair of steel-toed boots, a heavy Gore-Tex coat he wore when he worked the tugs out of Belfast, a collection of Clydesdale beer steins.

  “What did Gramma and Grampie say when you brought Dad home the first time?” It’s an old story, but I love hearing it.

  Mom snorts. “You know what they said.” A pause. “You know your grandparents are good Catholics.”

  “Not like us.”

  “No. If Gramma Nan isn’t sitting in her pew Sunday morning, you’ll know the Rapture’s come. And Grampie can be a hard man to live with.” She hands me the colander and gestures for me to start picking. “The first time I saw your dad, he was parked outside a St. Patrick’s Day dance they were having at the Elks Lodge. I didn’t want to go, but Libby did, so I went along because I’m older and that’s what you do. Your dad was sitting outside on his old Indian bike wearing this red-and-black lumber jacket, and he had the best-looking head of hair I’d ever seen.”

  I smile. “Love at first sight?” Behind the trailer, the clothesline jerks and begins to move on its rusty wheels.

  “Close enough. Libby got mad at me over something stupid and left the dance early, so your dad offered me a ride home.” I hear a huh from the direction of the trailer’s back steps, which happens to be within earshot of our conversation. “I took him up on it. When Gramma saw us pull up, she went straight for her rosary beads. Grampie was waiting for us at the door, and the first thing he said was, ‘Son, you know that bike ain’t inspected?’ Your dad said yeah, he knew. ‘Well, who the hell do you think you are, driving my daughter around on a piece of junk that ain’t road-legal?’ And he sent Dad packing.”

  She always pauses here. I’m grinning as I snap beans off the vine, because I know what comes next.

  “Next Saturday, up pulled Tommy Prentiss on the same Indian, but the exhaust was fixed and there was an inspection sticker on the plate. Grampie took one look at him in his jacket and said, ‘Son, if you think I’m gonna let my girl go anywhere with you dressed like some kinda bum, you’re crazy.’ And he kicked him out.

  “Saturday after that, Dad showed up wearing some shiny Goodwill suit with a pink handkerchief in the pocket and two-tone wingtips. Came to the door smelling like Aqua Velva, gave me a rose, and asked Grampie’s permission to take me out for a nice time. Grampie says, ‘Where you planning on going?’ And Dad said, ‘Demolition derby over to Fort Kent.’”

  I laugh. “And he let you go?”

  “You know he did. Grampie was speechless. Stayed that way clear through our wedding day.”

  I trail off to giggles, feeling the day’s tension rolling off me. “House is coming along.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Hunt’s scraped the clapboards completely bare on this side. He was here working this morning, gone by the time we got home from the barrens. Looks like he took our trash to the dump and did some weed-whacking around the shed, too.

  There’s another huff, and then Libby comes around the trailer, lugging a laundry basket. She calls over, “It wasn’t stupid, Sarah. I had a perfectly good reason to get mad at you that night.”

  Mom cranes her neck. “Like what?”

  “You blew me off for some fool in a lumber jacket.”

  I call Kat again. It goes straight to voice mail, same as before. When I turn around, Mags is on the porch, looking in at me through the screen door.

  “No luck?” She could care less how Kat’s doing, but it’s nice that it doesn’t stop her from caring about me. I start to ask her something, but she cuts me off. “Lemme guess. You want to go over there. You won’t be able to sleep tonight unless you do.” She sighs and slides her feet into her flip-flops. “It’s going on your tab. Nobody rides for free.”

  Nell’s lying on the porch floor, examining her hand in their game of Spit. Mags tells her where we’re going. “Better stay here, hon. Your mom wouldn’t like it.”

  Nell surprises us by saying, “Okay,” and climbing up into the swing without any questions. Usually she hates being left behind, especially when it’s because Libby wouldn’t approve.

  Mags tells Mom what’s up, and then the two of us drive into town together. I don’t try to explain how it is between Kat and me. It’s not like we’re BFFs or anything, but she was my friend when lots of people at school wouldn’t be seen with me on a bet, thanks to Rhiannon’s mouth.

  Okay, so maybe Rhiannon wasn’t the first one to spread the rumors—the seniors we met up with at the soccer fields Halloween night of sophomore year told people, too, I’m sure—but she said enough. Even now, my face gets hot remembering a girl’s voice, maybe Georgia Cyr’s, drifting into the bathroom stall where I sat, trying not to breathe: said he almost asked Darcy Prentiss. I don’t get it. She’s not even that pretty. Rhiannon, with this dry little laugh: Don’t worry about it. He just wanted to get some.

  And I remember how much I still hate her for that.

  Mags says, “So spill. Why are you racing Shea at work?”

  “Because he’s a jerk.”

  “Well, yeah. You must have a better reason than that.”

  I scan through radio stations. “He gave me a bunch of crap about the Princess thing, so I told him I could rake more than him.”

  “Can you?” Mags sounds like she really wants to know. “You’re good, Darce. Your paycheck’s almost twice the size of mine, and I’m no slacker.”

  Mags doesn’t go around handing out compliments like Juicy Fruit; it means a lot. And it’s the first time I’ve thought about this thing without anger. “I dunno. He’s stronger than me. But I might be faster.”

  She lets loose a rare cackle, tossing her head back. “Ooh, he must’ve hated you calling him out like that in front of his buddies. Bet it got his panties all in a twist.” She glances at me. “Then this means that you guys definitely aren’t—”

  “No,” I say flatly.

  “Just checking.” Then: “Good.”

  I’m nervous when we pull into Church Street. The Levesques live in a nice white two-story house with a renovated barn they use as a garage. I walk up to the door and knock. After a minute, Kat opens it, her eyes half-lidded, hair tangled around her shoulders. She wears a tank top with no bra, her teeny-weeny boobs pitching pup tents against the fabric.

  “Hey,” I say. “I called you.”

  “I know. Sorry.” She squints at Mags’s car, scratching her hip through a pair of dro
opy boxers with the Playboy bunny printed all over them.

  “It’s just my sister.”

  “Yeah. I can see that.” She blows out a sigh, and stares back.

  “Are you and Kenyon okay?”

  She hesitates. “He’s sleeping.”

  “He’s here? I thought he got arrested. Everybody’s talking about it.”

  She snorts and checks out her black toenail polish, disgusted with me or the world or all of the above. “They questioned him. It’s not like they cuffed him or anything.”

  She’s about to shut the door on me. I put my palm flat against it. “Well, I need to see him.”

  She opens her mouth, then glances back as a shadow steps from the stairs into the hallway.

  “Kenyon?” I push past her into the house.

  He’s shirtless, wearing his baggy-ass skater jeans and nothing on his feet. Kenyon’s blond—Kat’s been dyeing her hair black or blue for years—with soft brown eyes and a sketchy attempt at a goatee. He stands with his hand on the newel post, maybe wondering if he can bolt upstairs before I catch him.

  I’m not sure how to start, but pissed-off and yelling is out the second I get a good look at his face. The boy is tired. He’s got shocked hollows under his eyes and his cheekbones are sharp, like he’s lost weight. I have an edge to my voice all the same. “Why’d you tell the cops?”

  “Look, I’m sorry, okay?”

  “Why’d you give them my name, Kenyon?”

  He goes off. “Because I didn’t do anything to her, but they think I did and—I’m like Leatherface or something because they got my prints.”

  “Dude! Shut. Up.” I’ve never seen Kat really mad before, and it’s strange to actually see the whites of her eyes as she gets in her brother’s face. “You’re not supposed to talk about it.” When he just stands there, looking beaten, she says, “You’re such an idiot,” and stalks off to the kitchen.

  Kenyon and I look at each other. Mrs. Levesque’s voice drifts down from upstairs. “Kenny? Who’s here?”

  He makes a frustrated sound in his throat and pushes through the door that opens into the garage. I don’t know if he means for me to follow, but I do.