Brother (10 page)

“No,” she said, sliding a finger across her tattoo. Michael gave her a curious look, and when she chuckled beneath her breath, he laughed too.

“Wow,” she said. “Finally a genuine smile.”

He diverted his gaze once more, looked down at the album cover in his hands. She made him feel awkward, vulnerable, scrambling his thoughts with the curve of her lips. His heart palpitated with the way she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, as though dancing to a beat only she could hear.

“If you don't like it, just bring it back,” she said. “We've got a store full of records at our disposal.”

Michael took a breath, on the verge of asking why she was being so nice. What made him so special for her to treat him so well? But before he could figure out how to string together the words, the click of a lock disrupted their silence. Both he and Alice shot looks toward the back of the store. The storage door swung open. Rebel stepped out first, followed by Lucy, who looked a bit more disheveled than she had when they had first disappeared inside.

Alice and Michael exchanged a look—one that made him want to laugh in spite of himself. Alice mouthed a silent
Oookay
before turning away from him completely, focusing her attention on her friend.

“Barb stopped by,” she announced. “She asked for you, so I told her you were doing it in the back room with some dude.”

Lucy gave her friend a bug-eyed stare, as if refusing to believe what had just come out of Alice's mouth.

“What?” Alice asked, flashing Lucy an innocent look. “That's what you two were doing, right? Or are Michael and I mistaken?”

Rebel walked across the store and met Michael next to a crate marked
IMPORTS
. Glancing down at the record in Michael's hands, he was like a parent eyeing a kid who had already spent his weekly allowance. “You gonna gyp that or what?”

“I'm borrowin' it,” Michael said, avoiding eye contact by ­staring at the cover. That dark forest reminded him of the woods behind the farmhouse.

“Borrowin' it,” Reb echoed. When Michael finally looked up, Rebel was wearing a strange sort of smile—one that didn't quite reach his eyes. “Guess that means we're comin' back later, don't it?”

When Michael failed to reply, Reb swept a pair of fingers up and away from his forehead in a casual salute, giving the girls a wink. “Catch ya on the flip side,” he told them, then pulled open the door and stepped out of the store.

Michael glanced across the shop to the register. Lucy was watching him with a vague sense of curiosity. Alice stood beside her, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. He raised a hand in a silent good-bye. Alice mimicked his action. She mouthed
See you
, looking even more beautiful than she had during their few minutes alone. Even more stunning than she had the first time he had laid eyes on her. His heart twisted up on itself, and suddenly the last thing he wanted to do was leave. He didn't want to go back home, didn't want to go back to his old life, didn't want to see Momma or Wade or even Misty Dawn ever again. He wanted to start over, forget who he was and become the person he knew Alice could make him. He wanted to stay in that very spot, right where he stood, for the rest of his life.

But instead, the sound of the Oldsmobile's engine drew his attention away from the girls. He slowly turned away and stepped out into the summer heat.

M
ICHAEL RUSHED OUT
of the Olds, hopped up the back porch stairs, and stepped into a kitchen heady with the scent of garlic and onions. Momma was standing over a pot at the stove, stirring something with a long aluminum camping spoon. She glanced over to Michael, but didn't speak until Rebel followed him inside. “Dinner's at six,” she told them, then turned back to her cooking. Michael darted out of the room and all but leapt up the stairs to get to Misty Dawn's room, with Alice's record beneath his arm.

He stopped short, just inside Misty's door. She was sitting on her bed, a fresh bruise swelling up her cheek. Her eyes were red-rimmed and raw, and when she tried to smile at him, it only made her look worse.

“What happened?” Michael asked, eventually finding his voice again.

She shrugged her shoulders as if to say she didn't want to talk about it, but explained it with a single word.

“Momma.”

“What'd you do?”

“Nothing.” She looked almost offended by the question. “When do I gotta do anythin' to get her mad? She's been in a mood, gettin' impatient again.”

“But we just had a girl,” Michael said.

“And then Ray went and said somethin' about Lauralynn. You know how she gets.”

It must have been about fifteen years earlier that Momma had shipped Lauralynn off to Grandma and Grandpa Westfall's place out in North Carolina. One day Lauralynn was around, and the next day she was gone—poof, like magic, a disappearing act that only went one way. The grandparents had always scared him. Grandma Jean had the face of an old witch—the kind that lives in gingerbread houses and cooks children for supper. Grandpa Eugene carried a cane and whipped it across the small of people's backs when they were too slow to get out of his way. Michael suspected that Momma had learned how to be cruel from her own parents. Maybe their meanness had been so severe that it had rubbed off on Claudine like a contagious disease.

“What's this?” Misty Dawn leaned forward and snatched the record from beneath Michael's arm. She peered at the cover, then gave her brother a curious glance. “Where'd you get it?”

“In town.”

“You had money?”

“I'm just borrowin' it,” Michael said. “The girl that works at the store said it's a loan.”

Misty's expression flickered from inquisitive to suspicious. “A girl?” Her mouth quirked down at the corners. “What
kind
of girl?”

“Just a girl who works there.” He tried to sound indifferent, as though Alice couldn't have caught his interest if she had pulled her shirt over her head and shimmied back and forth. Except if she had really done that, Michael would have dropped dead of a heart attack. If Alice had leaned in a little closer than she had while standing above those crates, he would have vomited his nerves all over the Dervish's inventory.

“What kind of a girl lets you borrow a record for free?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “What did you do—give her somethin' in exchange?”

“No.” Michael forced a breathy, incredulous laugh from his throat, but it only made him sound guilty. “I didn't even want it,” he told her, “but she said to take it anyway. It's supposed to be rare or somethin'.”

He took a seat on the edge of Misty's bed, but she popped off it as soon as he sank into the mattress, as if not wanting to be close to him just then. She approached the old RCA portable record player sitting on top of her dresser instead, then carefully removed the vinyl that had been left there. Sliding the new ­record that Michael had brought out of its sleeve, she dropped it onto the turntable, hit a button to start it spinning, and lowered the needle into place.

They listened to the track in silence, Misty standing motionless in the center of her room as if mesmerized by the spinning disc. Michael was fascinated by the weird, almost watery-sounding guitar and the strange, brooding vocals. The lyrics struck him as both haunting and alluring, as though the singer wasn't only singing
to
him, but
about
him. By the time the song was over, Michael was in love.

Before he could ask Misty to replay it, she lifted the needle from the record and placed it back at the outer edge. Michael closed his eyes, allowing the moodiness of the music to sweep him away. By the time the second verse hit, Misty had her arms over her head, her hips swaying to the dark, sexy rhythm. She turned to him as she danced, giving him a look he had seen before, a look that always managed to set his teeth on edge. But Michael was too engrossed in the song himself. With his head lolling back and forth, his thoughts were ten miles away. He was back inside that brightly colored store, pretending Misty was Alice dancing to this very song. It was an image that shifted his storybook perception of her to something far more human. Sitting there with his head bobbing to the beat, he longed to inhale spearmint. He wanted to smell sweet, exotic smoke.

What he got was the stale scent of cigarettes instead.

Misty had danced her way across the room to stand in front of her brother, swaying her hips as she ran her hands along the length of her sides. She placed a hand on his chest and straddled his legs, then lowered herself onto his lap as he swallowed his nerves.

“Misty,” he croaked, desperate to get away without pushing her aside. He didn't want to hurt her feelings; she didn't need another wound to nurse.

“Come on,” Misty whispered
.
Leaning in just enough, she let her lips drag across his temple. “How do you expect to ­handle the record-store girl if you've never been with a girl before?”

Michael squirmed. He dug his fingers into the blanket beneath him and clenched his teeth, wanting nothing more than to bolt upright and run out the door. When her lips grazed the lobe of his ear, he squeezed his eyes shut as tight as he could. He willed himself to imagine Alice in her place, but the scent of nicotine kept him from disconnecting. Had Misty been chewing spearmint gum, Michael would have lost himself completely. A kiss from a girl like that—he could only imagine it. And what he
did
imagine lingered on the fringes of heaven.

Misty's hands slithered across his torso. She gyrated on top of him, her mouth trailing away from his ear, beginning a slow descent toward his mouth.

Michael's pulse drowned out the music. He felt queasy, skittish, afraid to open his eyes, knowing that as soon as he saw Misty's face so close to his, he'd twist away from her and plead for her to stop.

But they snapped open anyway, responding to three harsh words.

“What the
fuck
?”

Before Michael knew what was happening, Rebel was jerking Misty off him and shoving her across the room. Michael opened his mouth to speak—to explain that it wasn't Misty's fault—but Reb's fist crashed against his teeth. A bloom of hot pain mingled with a sudden metallic taste. Reb pulled back and nailed him again, splitting Michael's lip.

Blood filled Michael's mouth. He ducked into a protective position, shielding his head from his brother's blows.

Rebel didn't hold back. He pounded his fists against ­Michael's shoulders. His arms. His back. He aimed for ­Michael's kidneys before stumbling backward, haggard with rage.

Michael peeked out from behind his hair in time to catch Reb veering around. He grabbed Misty by the front of her fringed shirt and slammed her hard into the wall. The needle on the record zippered across the black plastic grooves.

“You filthy fuckin' whore,” he hissed into her face. “You're disgusting.” He gave her a parting shove and stomped out of the room.

Michael watched Misty straighten her halter and pull back her shoulders in a prideful sort of way. He admired her for being able to shake it off, but he wasn't as composed. Gathering himself up off of Misty's bed, he kept his head down as he slumped to the door. He couldn't look at her, couldn't even bring himself to apologize for the trouble he'd gotten her into. He simply slipped out of her room and back into his. He curled up on his bed, his head still encased in his arms, the sorrowful lyrics of that song spiraling through his brain.

 • • • 

Michael joined the Morrows at the dinner table for their usual six p.m. ritual. He slid into his seat and bowed his head as if in silent prayer. Wade's eyes jumped from Michael's split lip to Misty Dawn's bruised face. With a furrowing of eyebrows, he finally spoke. “I miss somethin'?”

Momma shifted in her chair and dropped a fresh-baked roll onto her plate, then offered the table an indifferent shrug. Every now and again, Michael pictured her the way she must have been as a girl—distant, distracted, stuck inside her own head.

“The girl needed to be shown her place,” she said, serving herself a heaping spoonful of mashed potatoes.

“And Michael?” Wade's attention shifted to the youngest member of their brood.

Michael kept his head down as he pulled at the strings of his frayed jeans. Rebel cleared his throat and leaned back in his chair.

“These two like pretendin' they're best friends,” Reb explained. “I figured they'd want to match.”

Michael looked up and caught Rebel grinning. Momma was too. Neither one was looking at the other, but both of them were leering like a pair of electric eels.

R
AY HAD LEARNED
how to steal from his mother. Momma never took Lauralynn or Misty Dawn anywhere, but Ray, being the only boy, was occasionally spoiled with a trip into town. These sojourns were little more than a visit to the local grocery store to pick up milk and eggs and, if Ray was lucky, a box of Hamburger Helper or some Sloppy Joe sauce and buns. But grocery stores had lots to steal, and he livened up these mundane journeys with his own brand of fun.

From as early as he could remember, he watched Momma pull things off of shelves, consume them, and stash the empty containers in other aisles. She did this with Cokes and Popsicles and bakery items. During one trip, she let Ray eat an entire box of cookies, then casually left the empty packaging in the bread aisle.

Ray was only caught once. A store manager grabbed him by the ear and searched him for the roll of Lifesavers he'd shoved into his pocket only seconds before. Momma materialized behind them with her hard stare and her line-tight lips. The manager demanded an apology, but when Momma laughed in his face, both she and Ray were booted from the store.

But the first
real
thing that Ray stole hadn't come from a grocery store, but a fireworks tent along the side of the highway.