“Hey, man. Nice car.” A lanky zombie with a cigarette droned at me as he passed.
“Is he stoned?” Gwen asked.
“I sure hope so. That or we’re extras in Night of the Living Dead.”
“I think we’re gonna need this.” Gwen sipped from the bottle, licking a drop from her bottom lip. And I had to fight the urge to drag her back to the car, find a turnout somewhere, and finally make use of the condoms I’d bummed off Wade. A three pack. As if.
“Magnum?” I’d asked him, snorting with embarrassment at the flashy gold word printed on the package.
“Don’t worry,” he’d said with a straight face. “Half of sex is setting an expectation.” And that’s exactly what I was worried about. Now that she’d coined me a badass, Gwen probably assumed I was experienced. A real ladies’ man. Or at the very least, not still sporting my v-card. Not for long, Butchy. Not for long.
“There’s Cherice. C’mon.”
She pulled me along behind her—yanking me straight out of my reverie—pointing toward the fire, where Cherice stood alone.
“This is lame,” Gwen said, offering Cherice our bottle. She took a drink and smiled right at me. Like Gwen didn’t even exist. And it hit me in an instant. Cherice digs me. It must’ve hit Gwen too—hard—because she wrapped her arms around my waist and squeezed me to her, claiming me. If I could go back, I’d slap myself silly. With my lazy, shit-eating grin, I was happier than a pig in slop. And man, that’s exactly what I was. A total swine.
“Hi, Calder. Gwen didn’t tell me you were coming.” She stepped closer and dabbed at her forehead with the back of her hand. Her whole body glistened in the heat of the fire, her skin shining like she was an Amazonian princess. I glanced away, worried I’d already looked too long.
Gwen dropped her head and sulked like a little girl, muttering. “Didn’t know you cared.” Soft, as if she didn’t want Cherice to hear her. But loud enough that hearing was inevitable.
Cherice rolled her eyes and flashed another smile my way. Damn. Two guys would’ve just duked it out and been done with it. A broken nose seemed like small potatoes compared to girls’ two-faced backstabbing. And they were friends?
“Where’s Matthias?” I asked, desperate for an ally in this vicious game of chess.
“Heck if I know. He ditched me the minute we got here for his sketchy brother. Matthias follows him around like a puppy.”
“He never mentioned a brother.” Not that I knew the guy. Beyond our shared affinity for cigarettes and alcohol. And girls who liked hated each other.
“Half brother,” Cherice corrected. “Apparently their dad was a real skeezball. A girl in every port, you know? They only just met a year or so ago.”
“So…” Gwen was all sugar and spice again, fiddling nervously with the choker around her neck. “Does he really have ecstasy?”
“Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
“Maybe I will.” She untangled herself from me and marched away, the silence reverberating in her absence like the aftershocks of an earthquake.
“Well then,” I said, chuckling. “Sorry ’bout that. She’s drunk.”
“Don’t make excuses for her, Calder. She’s a spoiled brat. I can’t even believe you’re with…” She kicked at the dirt with her boot, scattering an empty beer can. “Are you with her?”
I shrugged. “Yeah. Kind of. I mean, I guess. But, we haven’t really made it official or anything.”
“Just be careful. Gwen’s a lot like her dad. She’ll get bored with you.”
My thoughts were a little fuzzy, dulled by the slow burn of the cognac. But that cut fast and deep. “Wait. You know her dad? You know she’s rich?”
“Ha! Loaded is more like it. My mom works for the Shaws. She’s their housekeeper. When Gwen got in trouble—again—my mom asked me to get her some community service hours at the Port. And then you showed up.”
Still reeling, I tried to steady myself the only way I knew how. Another swig of the sauce. I’d been so busy keeping my own story straight, I’d never suspected Gwen lied too. And better than me. “Don’t tell her you told me, okay?”
“My lips are sealed. But, Calder?” She leaned into me, until her face was right there. Her scar a brilliant purple that made me want to touch it. “You can do better. We both can.”
“Calder!” I jumped back, startled. “Hey!” Matthias jogged toward us, a broad grin on his face. As wide as I’d ever seen him smile. “My brother said he knows you.”
In my head, I said every single curse word I’d ever learned, and a few I made up right there on the spot. That must’ve been the way my dad felt when he’d stared head-on into the jaws of that misguided big rig. Too late to swerve, I had to take what was coming to me. Tagging along behind Matthias was Gwen, as hot as she’d ever looked, her cheeks flushed from the booze and the heat. She stuck out her tongue at me, revealing a tiny blue pill resting at its swollen center. Her eyes sparkled, dared me as she swallowed. And bringing up the rear, backlit by the fire, the devil himself.
“Hot dog, Nobody. If I knew you were comin’ I’d have baked a cake.” He half-sang, half-slurred the words. But he wasn’t as far gone as the other zombies. “Why didn’t you RSVP?”
****
I sat rigid as a corpse in the driver’s seat of the ’Cuda. Top up. Outside, Gwen giggled at me as she held up a red bandana over her head. She stared up at it, eyes glazed over, until someone in the crowd gave her a nudge.
“Gentlemen. Gentle. Men.” Another burst of laughter. “Start your…oh, that’s really bright. So bright. So pretty. We didn’t start the fire…”
She raised a shaky finger at the bonfire, singing Billy Joel to herself until another girl grabbed the bandana and pushed her out of the way. Gwen stumbled against Cherice and nearly fell. This was better (or worse) than a goddamned PSA. This is Gwen. This is Gwen on drugs. Any questions? But she bounced right up, like one of those roly-poly toys, bobbing her head to her own music. Then she snatched the bandana with a shriek.
“Start your fucking engines. See, Calder—I can say it.”
My right foot revved the gas. Left foot held the clutch. Once I released it, I’d be flying. Up ahead, only dirt road as far as I could see. Matthias waited with a flashlight a quarter mile out at the finish line.
I risked a glance to my right. Trey waved at me from behind the wheel of the eggplant. The Grand National was quick, no doubt. But certainly no match for the ’Cuda. He was about to be embarrassed. Humiliated. But he’d insisted. Too high for logic. And I was too drunk and too proud—and let’s face it, too stupid—to refuse.
“You got yourself a real looker,” he’d said to me, thirty minutes earlier, side-eyeing Gwen. “I’ll bet you didn’t find her at the Blue Bird.” Thankfully, she’d already been too high to notice. “Wanna show her what your whip can do? Let’s race.” He wouldn’t take no for an answer, wouldn’t leave me alone. “C’mon. What have you got to lose? Unless you’re scared of me.”
You’re dead, Nobody. Next time I see you, you’re dead. He hadn’t said it again. In fact, he’d been as nice as pie. But those words colored his eyes black when I’d shaken his hand and agreed to his ridiculous terms. Pink slips. Never mind that the ’Cuda was worth forty times more than his beater.
“On your mark. Get set—”
“Wait.” Trey smirked at me, shifting to park. “There’s somethin’ missin’. I think we need a couple shotgun riders. What d’ya say, Nobody?”
“Sure, Trey. Whatever you want.”
“Cassie. Get over here, darlin’.” Trey curled his finger toward the edge of the crowd, beckoning, and the girl from the motel stepped forward. I hardly recognized her, clad in the outfit of a forty-year-old stripper, her lifeless eyes hooded with heavy makeup. She looked just like the other zombies. Either stoned or lobotomized.
“Ain’t you gonna call
your girl over?” He jerked his head at Gwen. Who was, of course, blowing kisses to a fence post. “Looks like she met herself a new somebody.”
The onlookers laughed, and I felt my face get hot. Until Cherice caught my eye and grinned. “I’ll ride with him. Since Gwen’s too busy.”
“Goddamn, Nobody. Is your pecker made of gold or somethin’?”
“It’s Calder, Trey. It’s Calder.”
****
“On your mark. Get set. Go!”
I let the clutch out and floored it, jamming the accelerator. The ’Cuda launched like a rocket ship down the dirt road with Trey just behind me. He’d been slower at the start, and I watched his back end fishtail before he found his groove.
“He’s close. He’s gonna bump you!” Cherice yelled, her hands braced against the dash.
Trey swerved hard toward the ’Cuda’s back end, just as I redlined it and shifted up to second. Not today, asshole.
Then, third. Then, fourth. See ya, sucker! Engine roaring beneath me, I felt like I could take flight. Like nothing else mattered but crossing that finish line. Winning.
“Hell yeah!” I pumped my fist, when Trey spun out in the ditch.
And again, when we flew past Matthias’ waving flashlight.
The whole race took less than ten seconds. But something in me changed. Sometimes, ten seconds is all it takes. To make choices you can’t take back. To become someone else entirely.
Cherice was laughing and cheering and squeezing my shoulder, KISS blasting in the background, I Was Made for Lovin’ You. And when she looked at me, I felt like a king. Whatever this was, I didn’t want it to stop.
“Keep driving,” Cherice whispered, and I already knew that she would be my first.
****
When I pulled into the Blue Bird in the wee hours of the morning, I understood Gwen better than I ever had. There’s this bad part of me, the part that gets off on it. But later, I feel dirty. Like the worst person in the world. Yep, I got it.
Wade was sitting outside on the curb with two red Solo cups, half-filled with the good stuff. Johnny Walker Gold.
“Been savin’ this for a special occasion. Let’s see it.” He held out his palm. As promised, I gave up the proof. Two empty condom wrappers. “Two? Damn. You must’ve done somethin’ right. So who was the lucky lady?”
“Cherice. Her name is Cherice.”
“Here’s to Cherice then. We’ll drink to her.” And we did.
I didn’t tell Wade the whole truth. Not ever. Didn’t tell the parole board either. Or the half-dozen shrinks who’d interviewed me. A boy amped up on adrenaline and still a little buzzed; a quickie in the passenger seat with an older girl, who all but begged me for it; even, six days later, a murder. Those things, they understood. I’d told them I’d driven Cherice home post-hookup and hadn’t seen Gwen till the following afternoon.
I’d intended to spill it. To somebody. Someday. I really had. Tell the story of the crime, Mr. Calder. In your own words. And I’d start where I always do. The day I bought that godforsaken car. And end where I always did—with Gwen dead and the ’Cuda wrecked. I’d chicken out every time. It was easier to tell it like always. If I’d changed my story then, that late in the game, they’d start asking questions.
But, honestly, I couldn’t tell them who I really was. The kind of guy who wasn’t so different from Trey after all. The kind of guy who’d gone back to the party and dropped off Cherice with the cover story that we’d gone for more booze. The kind of guy who told Trey to keep his piece-of-shit car. The only use I’ve got for it is scrap metal. My exact words, before I’d turned tail and run, Matthias barely holding him back, his teeth bared like a pit bull on a leash. I’d left the way I came, with Gwen riding next to me. And she’d been coming down hard.
“I’m sorry,” she’d said, sniffling. “I shouldn’t have done that stuff.” She’d pressed her hand to her heart. “Sticking to booze from now on. I swear.”
“Don’t worry about it. You didn’t miss much.”
And when she’d invited me into the Shaw mansion, up the winding staircase to her room where her viola was propped against the wall and into her bed with the softest sheets that smelled faintly of watermelon bubblegum, I certainly couldn’t tell them I was the kind of guy who said yes.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
Evie
January 18, 2017
Wednesday
I’m staring wide-eyed at the ceiling with Sammy paperweighted on my legs like a sack of sand. My journal is open beside me, Violet’s letter tucked in the back and three, brand-new sentences—memories!—I’d scrawled in ink hours ago.
He bought us beer and knew my name because Cassie told him. I drank some and Cassie did too. He said the hanging tree would be more fun if we were drunk.
There’s a fourth sentence, a question really, but it’s only in my mind. I couldn’t bring myself to write it. Were we drugged? It would explain a lot. The morning-after wooziness. The nausea. The complete-and-total black hole in my memory.
I turn the question over and over again like a stone, hoping to exhume an answer beneath. But there’s nothing. Just the plaintive sounds of the house, the creaks and groans I’m certain are Danny slinking up the steps, trying my door. He knows where I work. How hard would it be for him to find me here?
Easy peasy. The rasp in my head sounds just like him. Like mother, like daughter.
I slide my legs from beneath Sammy’s warmth and try the door. Again. It’s locked. But I could break it without much effort. Or pick it so quietly no one would hear.
Right after they’d cautioned me about my reckless behavior following Danny—taking matters into my own hands, they’d called it—the cops assured me they’d send a regular patrol past Maggie’s driveway. But every time I close my eyes, I see his. Hard and blazing full of hate. I can’t shake the feeling that, for him, this is personal.
Trying not to wake Sammy, I contort myself around him, folding my legs like a pretzel. He repositions himself and falls back into a heavy sleep. I wish for that kind of peace. For morning. For breakfast with Calder. For surly Brenda, who’ll probably spit in my coffee. Even for my session with creepy Sebastian. For anything but this night that seems as dark and deep and endless as the ocean.
When the phone rings, I’m not sleeping—not even close—but it stops my heart anyway. Because it makes me think of Jared and that feeling of dread from the final days. The brief respites away from the hospital and the shot of pure terror every time the phone rang. Sammy lifts up his head and eyes me like he’s thinking what I’m thinking. Nothing good comes from a 4 a.m. phone call. It’s a direct line to hell.
There’s no receiver in the guest bedroom so I wait for Maggie to answer. But first, her soft footfalls down the hallway. The shrill ringing, expected now, comes again and again, each time jolting as an alarm clock.
“Hello, Maddox residence.” Maggie’s composure is daunting, her ability to simply keep moving. “Uh, yes, she is. But, may I ask who’s calling?”
Me, on the other hand, I do what I always do. I freeze. With my mother. With Cassie. With Butch today in the car. Even with Jared, on the day the doctor told us. It’s cancer. But not just any cancer. Glioblastoma. The worst kind. If only I can be still enough, quiet enough, the curse of Evil Evie will pass over. And the world will be right again. But it never does, and it never is.
Still, I lie stonelike beneath the covers, my skin clammy and my mouth sawdust dry. Sammy jumps from the bed and sits beside it, licking his front paw. He’s waiting for me. Maggie calls from outside the door.
“Evelyn. Wake up. Telephone.”
She raps softly. Tries the door. And it’s inevitable now. I have to move. So I do.
“Who is it?” I ask, forcing the words out. Bracing for the answer. Because even though her mouth is pursed, tight and annoyed, h
er eyes look worried.
“That detective. They found your driver’s license.”
****
Twenty minutes later, Detective Munroe is waiting at Maggie’s door under the soft glow of the porch light. I watch through the kitchen window as she presses the bell and waits. Her shoulders proud, feet planted firmly. From here, she seems as solid and stoic as the hanging tree. And she’s not alone.
Maggie clears her throat. “I think that’s for you,” she says, lifting her eyes from yesterday’s newspaper.
But I wait a little longer. Long enough to size up the man on the doorstep. To notice what needs noticing. Short, squat, and wound tight, like a package of dynamite, the man wrangles with the tie at his neck, grumbling. Like somebody else makes him wear it. Like somebody’s made him wear it for the last twenty-five years. He reaches past Detective Munroe and jabs at the bell again.
“Easy there, Macaroni. It’s still four in the morning.” Macaroni?
He grunts at her and pulls at his tie again, loosening it completely. Balls it up and stuffs it into his pocket. “You’re right. It’s too early for this noose.” Then they both laugh, and in the crinkle of his eyes, I see the shadow of a much younger man. And a memory nearly knocks me over.
****
“How old are you, Evie? May I call you Evie?”
I’d nodded, but I didn’t want to answer him. I’d wanted to be badass like my mom. Was. “Twelve,” I’d said. Because I wasn’t like her—not at all—and he was a cop. The first cop to talk to me, even though I’d been the one sitting there with her corpse. I’d felt rooted to her, like a baby just born. I couldn’t cut the cord.
“Well, I’m Officer Maroni but you can call me Macaroni, if you’d like.”
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