The River

by Mary Jane Beaufrand

  I didn’t need to say anything before Dad was on me again. “How ’bout your phone?”

  That was something I had a response for. “It’s in my backpack.”

  “Pull it out, then.”

  I undid the front zipper and foraged inside. It was usually right here, underneath the lip balm and PowerBar. Except that it wasn’t. I dumped it upside down on a lowboy. Three tampons, a handful of change covered in a mysterious brown dust (old Oreos?), a pair of sunglasses, but nothing else spilled out.

  “Try the main pocket,” Dad suggested. So I upended that, too. Chem textbook; Literature for You, Second Edition; ¡Hola!, Fifth Edition; three subject folders and corresponding spiral notebooks; a folded schedule of track meets, a pair of really smelly ankle socks, and that was it.

  “Huh,” I said. “I could’ve sworn I put it in there this morning.”

  “Well, you’re not going outside until I see your cell fully charged and switched on.”

  “It’s all right, Mr. Severance. I’ve got mine.” Tomás was standing behind me. Then he thrust his Motorola out for Dad to inspect. That made it twice that day he had come to my rescue. And while I didn’t like feeling helpless, it was kind of cool having someone back me up. I could see why the guys on the basketball team loved him. It wasn’t just for his height.

  But Dad wasn’t done with his interrogation. “I suppose you have her mace, too.”

  “Right here,” Tomás said, popping the cap and tossing it to me.

  “Flashlight?”

  “Check,” Tomás said.

  Dad softened. “Thanks, Tomás. Good thing one of you is organized.”

  Then he shot me a last stern, disapproving glance before retreating to the Astro Lounge.

  After reloading my backpack, we went out the sun porch and down the back steps, Petunia on one side of me, Tomás on the other. I thought: This is insane. Dad might as well have handed Tomás to me on a leash, too.

  The river was higher than it was yesterday, and it made me anxious. I knew it was just runoff and that’s what happened in the spring, but to me it meant that I was losing ground and la llorona was gaining it.

  “I wonder what happened to my cell,” I mused aloud.

  “You missing anything else?” Tomás spoke up. He was so graceful and quiet, for a minute I had forgotten that he was there with me.

  “You mean like my iPod? And Dad can’t find some of his antidepressants.” I suddenly understood what he was talking about. He wasn’t accusing me of being impractical. “Come on. You heard Dad: I’m disorganized. I just misplaced that stuff.”

  “Even your dad’s drugs?”

  That stopped me. Could he be right? Was someone ripping us off?

  “What about your purse?” Tomás went on. “Do you still have cash in your wallet?”

  “I don’t know.” It wasn’t something I checked a lot, which might seem strange, but there wasn’t anything in Hoodoo to buy.

  Tomás frowned. “We should go back. We should go back right now and check.”

  “I already have a father, thanks,” I snapped. I was lucky to be out—on or off a leash—considering all the trouble I was in. And I didn’t want Tomás telling me how to spend what little freedom I still had.

  I hadn’t even gone two strides before I was sorry. Had not the man come through for me twice today already? And no, that didn’t entitle him to run my life, but that was what siblings were about. Or so I was told. We might drive each other crazy but we couldn’t walk away. Besides: I had no trouble dealing with Esperanza waking me up at 2:00 in the morning, and she hadn’t even flipped anybody off for me.

  I was about to apologize but he did it first. “That was way out of line,” he said. “We’re all a little freaked. I just thought…”

  He stared at his shoes. Something was dammed up inside him, like it was the day Karen had prodded him to ask me something that he never got around to. “You just thought what?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I thought we were safe.”

  I nodded, I thought so, too, and the feeling wasn’t even that strong with me, because I still saw the inn for what it wasn’t, namely the city. But Tomás was different. He needed to be here, cocooned by his family and mine. And I wondered what he was escaping.

  “What do you need to be safe from?” I said.

  Tomás rubbed his wrist, the one with the impressive scar. Safe from whatever had given him that. In a lot of ways he was like la llorona, I thought, careful about giving up secrets. But if I had to guess what he was talking about, it wasn’t just that his dad had gotten drunk and knocked him around. He was talking about rage and death, the darkness that stumbled past my bedroom window every night in the old house. Whereas I had the luxury of watching it progress from warmth and safety, Tomás had to live with it. That darkness was probably what he thought he’d outrun, and then it had overtaken Karen.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I don’t need to know.”

  I looked at the sky, which was now the deep purple of boysenberries. Once again I was dead-ended. “I suppose we should get back.”

  I jerked on Petunia’s leash and started back toward the inn, trying to avoid the stinging nettles. I heard Tomás’ voice over my shoulder. “There’s something I want to ask you.”

  I turned around. I wondered what he was going to say, but had a feeling it had nothing to do with his scar. It was as though a little trickle of freedom was coming from him, and it was my job as his near-sister to encourage it into a steady current.

  “Shoot,” I said.

  There was another long pause. That was okay. I could wait. “Do you know anyone who would go out with me?”

  I almost had to ask him to repeat himself, because that wasn’t the question I’d been expecting. I didn’t realize I’d been expecting anything, but at that moment I knew that I had—I’d even rehearsed what I would tell him.

  While I was puzzling over this, I lost my footing and fell face forward, right into something hard and scratchy. I tried to pull myself together, but the bushes weren’t let-ting me go. Petunia helped me by sitting on my feet and swatting me with her front paw. Get up. I managed to get myself disentangled and into a sitting position, feeling my throbbing forehead. A thunderegg was forming above my right eye.

  “Are you all right?” Tomás said, and extended his hand to help me up. I didn’t take it, because I noticed something hidden in the tall grass. Something shining, like a diamond, where everything shiny should have been snuffed by the darkening sky.

  “Hand me the light.” I took it and inched my way over to the object on all fours. It was just more junk—an empty cigarette package. I picked it up tentatively as if it was a dead bird. Why did I need a closer look at this? I saw junk all the time.

  Then I uncrumpled it and looked at the label.

  Jakarta.

  Reading the letters made me feel glacial, like the moment before all your fingers and toes go black from frostbite—that moment when you still have feeling but you know you have to get out of the cold.

  “Isn’t that Keith’s brand?” Tomás asked.

  “It doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “He’s always bank-combing for junk for his mom’s art projects. I see him around here all the time.” And that part was true. The smokes probably had nothing to do with Karen’s murder. All they really proved was that Keith had been through here.

  So why was something whispering to me that this wasn’t right?

  Look, Ronnie, just look.

  All those months following Karen around. She had trained me to spot the unusual. And so, even though my first reaction was to deny I’d even seen this, something deeper told me different.

  “Ronnie…”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  I got to my feet. I shone the flashlight all around the ground and along the bank. There were no shoes, no hairbows—not even any Happy Meal toys. Tomás looked around, too. Five feet upstream there was a tall cedar and lots of brambles. No way anyone could
maneuver around it. That must be what happened: Keith was out here looking for stuff for his mom, had a smoke, turned around, and went home. It was the rainy season. He could leave his butts out here without torching acreage.

  “I can’t do this anymore today,” I said. I should have said, I don’t want to do this. I’d been looking too hard, trying to make sense of a senseless death, and I was circling like an eddy.

  I started walking back to the inn.

  “Hold up,” Tomás said, took the flashlight from me, and shone it in my eyes. The bright light made stars explode in front of me, strong as mace.

  “You’re bleeding,” he said, and brushed something off my temple.

  I ran my tongue over my upper lip. It tasted like rain and something else—something liquid and tangy.

  “Does it hurt?” he asked, drawing away his hand. His fingers were red.

  Yes, I almost said. Because when he drew the flashlight away from my face, I first saw fireworks, then when they cleared up, the outline of his face. It was so strong and his eyelashes so thick that for a moment it didn’t matter to me that he wasn’t hip or was never without his baseball cap.

  This wasn’t right. I couldn’t be attracted to him. He was almost like a brother. Besides, what about Keith? I fingered the cigarette pack in my pocket. That didn’t prove anything. He was probably still my rock-star hero.

  Still, looking at Tomás’ profile in the boysenberry sky, I couldn’t help thinking about how I’d never had him and now I had to give him up, the one who flipped someone off for me, and the pain of that alone was enough to make my face throb.

  “Ronnie? Does it hurt?”

  I closed my eyes and listened to the river. I didn’t know what I was feeling, but I knew I deserved the pain.

  “No,” I said. And I tried to believe it.

  16

  Mom wanted to take me to the ER to check out the lump on my forehead and see if I was concussed or needed stitches. Tomás thought it was a good idea, too. I didn’t want to drive an hour to the closest hospital then wait another two for some resident to send me home with an Advil and a pat on the head. I touched the Jakarta wrapper in my pocket. I was so tired. I just wanted to crawl under strata of quilts and dog hair and sleep.

  Luckily Ranger Dave was in the Astro Lounge. I might not have been a bear cub and so was outside his area of expertise, but his CPR was current and we all trusted him to referee. He came upstairs, poked me a bit, asked if I’d lost consciousness, and when I said no, told Mom and Dad not to worry, that head wounds always bled a lot, which neither of my parents found particularly comforting.

  “You might not be a forehead model for a while but you’ll be okay,” Ranger Dave said to me with a wink.

  Dad forced a laugh and Mom poured herself a glass of merlot.

  The next day I woke up tender and swollen. I thought about skipping school and going back to the patch of briars where I’d found the Jakartas, but I couldn’t make myself, because thinking about it broke me in two.

  So for the next three days I stayed on the track and bleachers, chopped herbs, and read to Esperanza. I hoped that if I kept to where I was supposed to be, eventually I wouldn’t feel so jagged. It didn’t work.

  And then it was Saturday.

  The first real hint I got that Gretchen’s party would be so crashingly bad was the beer Jell-O.

  It went something like this: Dad drove Tomás and me to Gretchen’s that night. He wouldn’t let us walk even though and it was less than a mile and Tomás was a hulking menace of a guy with evil-looking facial hair. “It’s not that I don’t trust you—I don’t trust other drivers. It’s a dark road,” Dad said, overenunciating as though he were delivering a closing argument to a hostile jury.

  When we pulled into Gretchen’s drive, Dad questioned me. “Got your mace?”

  “Check.” It was clipped to my purse.

  “How ’bout your cell?”

  “Check.” My new phone was on a special pouch on my belt. We’d finally agreed that my first one had been ripped off (not lost) and Dad had another one overnighted to us. I kind of liked accessorizing with tech. It made me feel important, like Batman.

  “Call when you need picking up, all right? And Ronnie: Try not to go outside. Another thing: If you have to make out with someone, make out with someone large. Like Tomás here.”

  “Dad!”

  Tomás slunk down in his seat. He was balancing a tray of appetizers on his lap and they threatened to topple.

  “All right, then,” Dad said. “Have fun!” Tomás and I got out of the car, Tomás carrying the blue corn tortilla chips and guasacaca, a dip with layers of guacamole, corn, black beans, repeat. Like a bean dip volcano only with cilantro, which, if you asked me, Mom was now using way too much of.

  I thought Tomás and I were done with Dad’s particular brand of humiliation, but as he was backing out, he rolled down the driver’s side window and lobbed a fresh insult at us.

  “You two look so cute together!”

  At that point I didn’t see how the evening could get worse.

  Gretchen’s house was the beige rambler with bright magenta trim. It was the one funky place in the neighborhood. No amount of pressure washing and beauty bark could disguise the fact that the porch was slouching. The foundation was rotting out from under them. And no surprise—the ground underneath all of us was sludgy mush. The only thing holding most places upright was ice, but that was melting. You got the feeling that, when the thaw came, Gretchen’s house and a dozen more like it would just run off into the sea.

  We walked up the front drive, our ears assaulted by the throbbing bass of the White Stripes. We knocked on Gretchen’s front door but there was no answer, so we let ourselves in.

  I went down the hall past the art deco prints of harlequins (“Cinzano ’74!”) to her bedroom. The door was closed so I rapped on it. “Gretch? Tomás and I are here. We’ll set up. Take your time.”

  The rattling noise came not from her bedroom but from the bathroom next to it. There was a clatter like something falling to the floor, then a hushed “shit” from a voice a lot lower than Gretchen’s. Then Gretchen’s voice shushing him and giggling.

  “Gretchen?” I called. “Are you okay in there?”

  “Yeah!” she said loudly. “Be right out!”

  I stood at the closed bathroom door for a few more minutes, trying to figure out who was in there with her. Who deserved my funky friend? I couldn’t picture her and her purple-tipped hair with a baseball cap guy.

  At last I gave up eavesdropping and went to help Tomás set up. She’d come out sooner or later. I’d examine her new man then.

  The dining room was a small space between the kitchen and the back patio. The table was glass and chrome. Not chichi, but clean. In the center was a clear bowl with royal blue marbles in the bottom, like a fake aquarium. It was very Zen-like. All that was missing was an orchid or bamboo plant—something spindly and contemplative.

  Tomás had removed the centerpiece and was spreading a cloth over the tabletop. I went into the kitchen and pulled the plastic wrap off the chips and dip. As I did, I saw the chore list tacked to the fridge. It read:

  Gretchen. I want you to:

  — Make an olive rosemary loaf

  — Clean your bathroom

  — Feed the cat.

  Already half in party mode, I decided: something has to be done about this. There were many things in my life that I had no control over, but for one night I could fix Gretchen’s list. So I tore it up. Then I found Gretchen’s mother’s Post-it notes and created a new list:

  Gretchen, I want you to:

  — Make the beer Jell-O

  — Vacuum the cat

  — Pick your nose thoroughly

  (not the half-assed job you usually do.

  I mean it. Get parts of your cerebellum.)

  I put it on the fridge and forgot about it because there were dirty dishes in the sink and I was determined to help.

  I should pro
bably mention that Gretchen had these little rebellions. To begin with, her room was out of bounds from her Mom’s nitpicking. The dirty clothes on her floor had more layers than the guasacaca. Second, she never strayed from the list ever. If there was a heap of dirty dishes in the sink, but no item on the list that said “wash dishes,” Gretchen would let them pile up and attract flies, which was apparently what had happened tonight. There were pans crusty with spaghetti sauce and salad dressing and caked-on flour. Scouring them was going to give me upper-body definition.

  I was still washing Gretchen’s dishes when the bathroom door finally opened, and Keith came staggering down the hallway.

  Even though I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink yet, my stomach felt like I’d just slammed a volcano of bean dip and chased it with cheap tequila. Keith? In the bathroom with Gretchen? Giggling? Maybe it was… no. There was no way I could make that into something innocent. I had to face it: they had hooked up.

  I leaned over the sink and bit my lip. They didn’t even like each other. How could they do this? To me? Gretchen knew how I felt. Even Keith knew how I felt, and neither of them cared.

  Keith turned up the music and started slam-dancing around the living room. I tried to look at him without his catching me at it. He was wearing his army jacket and reeked of clove cigarettes. Just how bad are you? I thought.

  He mowed into Tomás only half on accident. Tomás pushed him off with extra oomph.

  “Sorry, Dumbass,” Keith said.

  “That’s Tom-ás,” Tomás said.