Black Tuesday (5 page)

Jayne pulled the blanket away from her mom's hands.
Enough with the blanket rearranging already
. She took a minute to catch her breath. Exertion was not a good thing with these pain meds coursing through her system. She was getting sleepier by the minute. “Where's Ellie?”

“At home. She fought me tooth and nail about coming, but I told her that you'd probably be out of it with the drugs they're pumping into you. Looks like I was right.” Her mom got up and took the water cup from the tray. “Have some water, Jayne. If your dad was here, he'd tell you it makes a body heal faster.”

Gen smiled at this last part. It was a weird smile, though. Like her mind was on other things. Like trying to figure out how to smile without cracking her makeup.

Jayne obediently took the cup. It would've taken more energy to argue with her mom than to just take a quick sip of the plastic-flavored water.

“Please don't. Bring Ellie here, I mean.” She handed the cup back to her mom. For a second, she thought she saw four Gen Thompkinses. She blinked and they merged back into one.

Jayne really didn't want to think about Ellie. She didn't know why. Maybe . . . maybe . . . She tried to swim through the fog in order to figure it out. The answer was just out of reach, but her gut told her: Keep Ellie at arm's length.

She trusted her gut; it was usually right.

Her mom fiddled with the straw in the water cup, tapping the end against the sides of the plastic.

“Jayne.” Her mom stopped to clear her throat. She put the cup on the nightstand and met Jayne's eyes. “I spoke to one of the police officers who was at the scene of your accident.”

Jayne struggled to keep her eyes open.

“Officer Bradley. He told me he'll set up an appointment to talk to you after you're off the painkillers. He needs you as clear-headed as possible before he takes your statement.”

Gen smoothed a strand of golden blonde hair behind an ear. “When he does, I'll make sure our lawyer's there.”

Jayne tried to make sense out of her mom's words. “Why do I need a lawyer? I caused the accident, right? That means it's no one's fault but mine. Right?”

She halfway hoped her mom would correct her. That her brakes had failed or the woman in the other car had crashed into her. Neither of those scenarios made sense, but something inside Jayne made her hope something—or someone—other than her was at fault.

“It's a precaution, Jayne.”

A precaution. Against what? Jayne couldn't think of the answer. She didn't want to ask her mom to explain, either. She was afraid of what she might hear.

As her mind wandered, Jayne remembered the French test she had next week. Fifty vocab words about what a person could find at a museum. She didn't know where that thought had come from, but she held on to it for dear life. She wanted to think about something else. Something other than . . .

“Am I getting out soon?” What was she, a prisoner? She added, “Out of the hospital, I mean.”

“I've convinced the doctor to keep you here an additional twenty-four hours.”

Jayne knew what that was shorthand for: Gen Thompkins had given her “Do you know who I am” speech at Camelback Regional.

“I want to make sure you have a clean bill of health, especially since I've covered so many stories where a person seemed perfectly fine after a crash and
boom
”—she clapped her hands together—“they die from an undiscovered blood clot.”

A whole day that would be filled with nothing but her thoughts while she waited for a blood clot to show up. The French test popped into Jayne's head again.

“I'm going to need my French book. Could you bring that tomorrow? In the morning?”

“That's what I like to hear.” Her mom reached down and briefly squeezed Jayne's hand. “A girl who's got her eyes on the prize. I'll have Diane bring by your books tomorrow.”

Diane. Diane. Oh, yeah. Gen's assistant. The one who was supposed to assist her at work. Not at home.

Jayne felt like someone was holding her eyelids down. She struggled to open them again and found her mother looking behind her at the clock. “I need to get going. Diane's babysitting Ellie, but she can't stay for long. She still needs to do some research for me.”

Diane is “babysitting” Ellie? Such a classic Gen move.
A semi-hysterical laugh filled Jayne's head.

Before she totally gave in to the pills, Jayne mumbled, “The little girl. In the red car. Is she okay?”

She was almost asleep before she realized her mother had finally started talking. “The driver is fine. She has a slight concussion and that's about it. The little girl . . . the little girl is on a ventilator. The doctors say she has a broken neck.”

Jayne forced her eyes open. She knew she should be feeling bad. Crying, even. She had caused an accident. A car accident. She'd never done anything so horrible in her life. Ever.

But the drugs were working against her and her eyes slid shut again. Her mother said something about the air bag hitting the girl. Something about the girl being six. Something else about the thoughtless mother who'd put her kid in the front seat without a seat belt on.

Jayne didn't hear anything else. The drugs had finally won. She stopped struggling and slept.

And she dreamed. About red cars. About men with baseball hats.

About little girls with angel wings.

7

JAYNE STARED at the flat screen and then clicked it off. It was one of the few things she'd fought for when her mother redid her room freshman year. Her mom had wanted her to have an environment that would help her concentrate on homework. Jayne had argued that TV helped her study . . . and the Discovery Channel was research. Her mom had capitulated, but only if Jayne promised to take down her posters of Mary-Kate and Ashley, bull's-eyes etched onto each of their foreheads with a ballpoint pen.

They'd been replaced with framed black-and-white pictures of Audrey Hepburn.

Jayne had hidden her scowl when her mom's decorator had picked them out. As if Jayne, at five foot eleven and perfectly happy in jeans and a T-shirt, could ever even hope to simulate Audrey Hepburn's look.

She dropped the remote on the white carpet and pulled the queen-size down comforter over her head, encasing herself in an igloo of white cotton and goose down.

Today the room felt like a cold crypt, a shell that didn't house a teenage girl with a French test next week and a completed paper on post-colonialism on her desk (done two weeks ahead of schedule).

She wasn't the same girl who'd written that paper. The girl who had once argued in ninth-grade debate why cell phones were the downfall of civilization.

Now she was someone who'd put a little girl in the hospital, attached to tubes and IVs. Now she was a footnote for someone else's debate on the downfall of civilization.

Today was day five since the accident. A Saturday. A day usually filled with ten hours of studying and going to All the Sweet Tomorrows with Ellie. Sharing a sugarless Sinful Chocolate Cheesecake Cupcake. Coming back home, still on a sucralose high, and finishing up a paper or reading another three chapters for a test.

Right now, her brain didn't care. She couldn't study if she wanted to.

Instead, she was busy thinking about her white Jetta crashing into that red car. The nice guy in the Diamondbacks hat checking on her. The woman with a look of horror on her face as she concentrated on who was in the passenger seat. Paramedics and cops arriving. The Circle K lady staying with Jayne. The cigarette smell coming off her shirt and hair, making Jayne sick.

Forcing her eyes shut, she concentrated on turning off the broken record. Car crash. Nice man. Woman with terrified look. Cops. Paramedics. Circle K woman.

God, she needed more pills. Not for the pain. That was under control.

For the memories.

“Jaynie? Can I come in?”

This was the fifth time her dad had come by today. And it wasn't even ten A.M.

She'd been avoiding him since he'd come back from Tucson. Especially after she found out he'd taken some personal days to stay with her. She didn't need a babysitter. She wasn't Ellie.

It was hard to be around him right now. He had picked up the habit of talking to her in low, soft tones, like she was going to break. Sometimes it felt like she was, there was so much pressure building up inside of her. Wondering what was going to happen next.

Luckily, the painkillers kept her from thinking too much about it.

She pushed down the comforter, sucking in a breath of cool, clean air. Sean Thompkins wasn't bad. He was the most even-tempered person she'd ever known. The perfect foil for his high-stress wife, most days. Anyway, at least
he
wasn't pretending like nothing had happened. Ellie and her mom, on the other hand, were acting like everything was fine. Like the world was fine.

Like Jayne was fine.

Jayne sat up, awkwardly pulling her European history book off the floor with her one good hand, flipping to a random page. “Yeah, come in.”

Her dad opened the door, his body still hidden from view.

“Hey. I was thinking about going to Blockbuster. You want anything?”

Her dad was pretty good-looking as far as dads went. Lanky and tan with messy spikes of brown hair, he had light blue eyes, a feature Ellie shared with him. Both of the girls had gotten his brown hair, until Gen had turned the sisters white-blonde two years ago during their annual mother-daughters spa trip.

She shook her head, staring blindly at an illustration of D-day. “No thanks. Gotta study.”

“Not even one of those chick flicks you like to watch with Ellie?” He winked at her. “I'll even get you one you've seen before.”

This isn't me with the chicken pox, bored and watching
Never Been Kissed
for the fiftieth time. Being sick gets movies in bed. Being the girl responsible for putting a little girl on life support gets . . . gets . . .

She didn't know what broken bones and a car crash got her. Definitely not a chick flick.

“You want some company, then?”

“I really need to study, Dad.” She started blindly reading the page in front of her.

“No time even for a furry visitor?”

He walked into the room holding a squirming pug, her black face scrunched up more than usual as she tried to get down. A white cone encircled the dog's neck, making her face look like the center of one pissed-off flower.

Jayne dropped the book on the floor and put her hands out. “When'd Britney get back from the vet?”

Her dad put the pug in her lap, and a warm wet tongue swathed her face. “About two minutes ago. Diane brought her over.”

Jayne scrubbed the dog's belly with her good hand while bopping Britney's nose with the fingers protruding from her cast. The dog was pretty energetic after getting eight stitches thanks to her run-in with Mrs. Allison's tabby.

Right then, Jayne felt normal. Like it was five days ago, pre-accident, with the only worry in the world being the French test.

“So, kid.”

Crap. Her dad saying “kid” was never a good conversation starter. It usually preceded stuff like, “We don't think playing four sports this year is going to be good for your emotional welfare.”

“I was thinking we could go see Larry next week.”

Larry . . . Larry? Oh, God.
Larry!
She forced a smile and rubbed a small eye-booger out of Britney's eye.
Think fast, Jaynie girl
. “I'm good. No reason to waste his time with my sob story.”

Her dad sat on the edge of her bed and pinched the toes of one foot, shaking it back and forth. “I think seeing him will help, Jaynie. Talking to a family friend with a psychology degree might be easier than talking to your mom and me right now.”

Exactly. A family friend who'd report back to
his
friends
.

Her dad shook his head, as if he was reading her thoughts. “The things you tell him will be strictly confidential.” He crossed his heart with a finger. “I swear.”

Even if she did agree to meet with Larry, she didn't know how seriously she could take him. He was a long-haired hippie who dressed and acted like Woodstock had just happened a week ago. He smelled like patchouli and liked to decorate with Buddhas. He kind of looked like a Buddha, with his male-pattern baldness and the pregnant-looking tummy those loose-fitting Hawaiian shirts didn't hide too well.

Ellie had nicknamed him Larry the Fairy because the only thing he ever talked about was feelings, like a girl.

Jayne sure didn't want to share anything, much less her feelings, with Larry. She didn't even know
what
she was feeling. And if she didn't know, how was
he
going to know?

“Can I see how I feel next week?” She scratched Britney's belly. She didn't want to go to counseling. That meant she had to talk about what happened. She didn't even want to
think
about what happened, much less talk about it. “I have a lot of class work to catch up on.”

“Sure, sure.” If that smile was any broader, her dad would've cracked his face in half. “Well, I guess I'll leave you alone. Ellie and I will go get a movie and takeout. Any requests?”

Jayne shook her head. “I'm good. Thanks.”

He kissed Jayne on the forehead and left, keeping the door cracked two inches.

Jayne dragged herself from the bed and closed the door the rest of the way, then locked it. She went back to bed, pulled the covers up, and pressed her nose into Britney's fur.

There was four days' worth of homework waiting for her, as well as that French test to study for. She willed herself to care.