Dust and Roses: Book Two of the Dust Trilogy (19 page)

“Hey,” he greeted me as I hoisted myself
into his truck. “Want to go to Sonic’s and grab a bite?” His smile seemed so
sincere, it was hard to believe he had tried to blackmail me less than an hour
ago.

I wasn’t hungry. It was nice not to be
starving all the time but I did like their salty fries. “Sure. Sounds good.”

He cranked up his classical music and
backed out of my driveway. “So how’s life?”

I put on my seatbelt. “My life is royally
screwed-up and confusing right now. I really don’t know what else to say about
it.”

He put his hand on my knee and squeezed it
reassuringly. I didn’t object to him touching me because I didn’t mind, which
was a bit surprising. “Want to talk about it?”

I wanted to, but I couldn’t. Wiley knew a
part of my secret so I wondered if it might be safe to tell him more.
Eventually, I decided against it. “No, I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s
talk about you.”

I realized how little I knew about Wiley.
His truck was his prized possession. I knew he and his parents lived in a huge
house on Everlane Road. He was an only child. He was friends with Ranson and
his whole crew and that was about it. I never saw him hanging out anywhere.

He took a sharp turn around a corner,
taking us in the opposite direction of Sonic’s. “Now why would you want to talk
about boring old me?”

“I don’t know much about you. Wiley, where
are we going? Sonic’s is the other way.”

He grinned at me and I willed myself not
to blush. It didn’t work. “We’re going to the Sonic’s in the next county over.
That’s the best one. The food’s always fresher. Besides, a longer ride will
give us more time to talk.”

I nestled into the seat. “So, what do you
do with yourself when you’re not skipping classes?”

He smirked. “I think having to go to every
class every single day is a bit much, don’t you? If I hit each class once a
week, I think that’s good enough.”

My jaw dropped. I had no idea how Wiley
got away with it. “Don’t you worry about your grades?”

“Not really. I’m not going to college.
I’ll be working for the family business. It’s already mapped out for me.”

That explained why he couldn’t have cared
less about what his high school transcripts looked like, but still . . .

“Anyway,” Wiley continued. He sped up as
we hit the wide empty road that led us out of Everson Woods. “I guess I like to
do what everyone else likes to do. I’m just a normal guy, Arden.”

That didn’t answer my question at all so I
asked him about the music he was listening, even though it was on the verge of
putting me to sleep. That opened him up. He went on and on talking about
Vivaldi, different types of instruments, and an orchestra he had gone to when
he went to New York for Christmas.

“Why do you like this kind of music?” I
asked.

He shrugged. “It’s calming and it helps me
think. I like songs with no words. They help me create my own stories.”

That was pretty deep coming from him. We
rode most of the way in silence because I figured he’d rather listen to his
music than hear my problems. It’s not like he would have understood them
anyway. When we got to the Sonic’s, Wiley pulled up to one of the lighted menus
to place our orders. He got a number one with extra cheese while I ordered a
large fry and a bottled water.

As we waited, Wiley looked me up and down.
“You on a diet or something? I never pegged you for one of those girls who ate
like a bird.”

“I ate dinner right before you picked me
up,” I lied, “so I’m not really hungry.” I had eaten a sandwich not that long
before. It was nice to eat and actually get full.

Wiley lay his head against his car seat,
staring at me. It was okay for a few seconds, then it got uncomfortable so I
looked away.

After a few moments the waitress brought
our orders out and we ate silently in the parking lot.  Once we were done,
Wiley threw our garbage away. He kept his car up immaculately. There would be
no empty food wrappers or discarded condiment packets on the floor of his car.

When he got back in, he turned the music
down and placed his hand on my knee again. That time I shivered for some
reason.

“I know I joke around a lot, but that’s
because I really like you,” he said.

He liked me but I shouldn’t care about
that. Wiley was an underachiever who got off on watching me kill Bailey. Then
another part of me couldn’t help but notice how he knew the truth about me and
he liked it. He wasn’t afraid or weirded out. He could accept what I was.

He leaned over, placed his hand on the
side of my neck and brought my head closer to his. Our lips met and I trembled.
Before I knew it, his mouth was moving against mine. I had given boys pecks
before, but I had never made out with anyone, yet there I was making out with
Wiley in his truck. His lips were soft and he tasted like the peach milkshake
he had been drinking. Even though I didn’t like sweet, it was good. What would
Fletcher think? Why was I worried about what Fletcher would think?

After a couple of minutes, we pulled away.
My entire body felt warm and I was sure my cheeks were a rosy red. Wiley put
his hands on the steering wheel, grinning sheepishly, like he was embarrassed.
It was sort of sweet. I knew I couldn’t have been the first girl he’d kissed
like that.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about
Wiley—definitely not the way I felt about Fletcher, but I needed to get over
him. Fletcher had told me loud and clear, several times that he could never
love me the way I wanted him to. What was I supposed to do with that? I
wouldn’t be one of those desperate girls wasting my years pining away for a
guy, clinging to the hope that he would one day reciprocate my feelings. Wiley
liked me, even the creature part. What were the chances I would ever find that
again? Maybe I needed to give him a real chance.

We rode home making small talk about our
weekend plans. Wiley was going to some auto show in a nearby town and I was
supposed to be helping Imani shop because she wanted to change her whole
wardrobe, but my crazy life didn’t allow for such mundane teenage activities. I
would be in the lair trying to break that stupid curse.

My street was lined with cars when we
pulled up. Clumps of people stood around, huddled together. A fire truck was
parked a couple of houses down from Mrs. Nelson’s. I melted into the seat. It
didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened.

Wiley slowed down to a crawl. “I wonder
what’s going on.”

I swallowed hard. “Me too.”

When we pulled into our driveway, Mom and
Dad stood in the yard talking to some of our neighbors. I wanted to disappear
into the house and not speak to anyone. I didn’t want to know what was going
on.

“Arden,” Wiley called as I headed toward
the house. “Don’t you want to find out what happened?”

No, I didn’t but I nodded and followed
Wiley over to the adults because that would be the normal thing to do.

“What’s up?” Wiley asked.

Mrs. Walker who lived across the street
had her arms folded underneath the beige caftan she always wore. “Mrs. Nelson
had a heart attack tonight. She keeled over right on her porch. Mr. Tucker saw
the whole thing but by the time the paramedics got here it was too late. Poor
thing.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s horrible,” Wiley said
but he had no idea who Mrs. Nelson was and the whole thing was probably not as
exciting as he had hoped. He patted me on the back. “I’ll see you tomorrow,
okay?”

I nodded and Wiley jogged back to his car.
By the time I turned back around to my parents and neighbors, Mrs. Oliver, Mrs.
Nelson’s best friend, was storming toward us with a coffee mug in her hand.

“You!” she accused, pointing at me with
her free hand.

The crowd grew quiet. Everyone stared at
me, even my parents. I took a step back. “What?”

Mrs. Oliver stopped a few feet away from
me. Her eyes were wide and crazed. “Claudia told me. She told me how you came to
her house and told her she was going to die. What did you do? What did you do?
You put some kind of hex on her or something? Some kind of witchcraft?”

“I didn’t do anything!” I shouted.

Mrs. Oliver gave me the Look of Death,
then she took her coffee mug and threw it at my feet. I had to jump back to
avoid getting hit. The ceramic shattered all over the sidewalk.

Dad grabbed her gently by the shoulders.
“Mrs. Oliver, control yourself.”

From the strong bitter smell wafting up to
my nostrils I knew that Mrs. Oliver hadn’t been drinking coffee at all. It was
some type of alcohol.

Mom stood in front of her. “I don’t know
what you’re talking about but that woman died of a heart attack. What does that
have to do with Arden?”

It was nice to have my parents sticking up
for me but I felt guilty that they had to do it in the first place.

Mrs. Oliver wasn’t about to let up. She
pointed a trembling finger at me. “She did something to her. I know she did.”

This time Mom raised her voice. “Don’t you
ever say that again. That woman had a heart attack plain and simple. You’d
better stop slandering my daughter.”

Mrs. Oliver backed up but she didn’t take
her eyes off me. She knew. She knew that Mrs. Nelson had told her the truth and
that I’d known she would die. Mrs. Oliver just didn’t know how to explain it.

The crowd parted, making a pathway for her
and she wobbled back toward her own house. Dad ushered me inside, away from all
the curious looks and hushed whispers.

“I know, Dad. Please don’t say I told you
so,” I told him as soon as the door closed. Mom had stayed outside to talk
more, probably trying to convince everyone that Mrs. Oliver had said those
things about me because she was drunk.

“I wasn’t going to say that.”

He probably wasn’t, but he had to be
thinking it. “You were right, I guess. Telling her didn’t change anything. All
it did was freak her out. I should have learned my lesson from what happened
with Mrs. Melcher. Poor Mrs. Nelson.”

Dad kissed me on the forehead. “Yeah. Poor
Mrs. Nelson. She’s lived on this block since before we moved here.”

I plopped down on the couch, flipping
absently through TV stations. I had homework to do but there was so much going
on in my head, I knew I would never be able to concentrate on that.

Dad went into the kitchen, grabbed a beer,
and came back and sat in the loveseat. “So, tell me about the boy. That’s
Walter Wiley’s son, isn’t it?”

I so did not want to talk about Wiley even
though our night had been okay. What happened with Mrs. Nelson had overshadowed
our wonderful time. “His name is Bruce but he goes by Wiley. He’s nice. We just
went for a bite to eat.” And we made out.

Dad watched me as he took as long swig of
his beer. “I’d like to meet him before you go out with him again.”

“Dad, I didn’t go out with him tonight.
That wasn’t a date.” Was it? Wiley had invited me. He drove. He paid. We
kissed. Maybe it had been a date and I was so clueless I had no idea.

Dad raised his eyebrow at me. “I didn’t
say it was a date. If you’re spending time with someone, especially someone who’s
going to be driving you around, I’d like to meet them.”

“Okay,” I groaned. “Nothing’s on.” I
tossed the remote to the side. Unfortunately, I had stopped on the news. A
reporter was talking about the autopsy reports of the deceased carnival
workers. One of the men had bruises around his neck and had died from
asphyxiation. That couldn’t have been caused by an ox. I turned the television
off.

“What’s going on with the curse?” Dad
asked.

I told him the plan and how Rose was on board.
“I told her the truth, you know, the truth about us. She didn’t know.”

Dad paled. “Yeah, we know she didn’t know
and we wanted to keep it that way.”

I frowned. “Why?”

“We thought it would just be easier for
her, Arden. Rose has already been through so much. She’s lost both the parents
who’ve raised her since birth and had to move in with complete strangers and
start over. Your mother and I, we wanted to see her, just to see what she
looked like up close and in person, but we didn’t want to uproot her life
again. At least not now. Anyway, what did she say?”

“She believed me. She knew her parents
weren’t her birth parents, of course, because of what they are. She said she’d
like to meet you guys one day but she needed some time.”

Dad nodded like he understood. I couldn’t
tell if he were happy our disappointed.

“Anyway,” I should probably go to bed.
“I’m kind of worn out.”

Dad watched the blank TV screen as if
something were on. “Good night, honey,” he said as I went up the stairs. “Arden,”
he called once I was at the top.

“Yeah?”

“You know no matter what happens between
us and Rose, you are our daughter and no one could ever replace you.”

I nodded. I did know that, but it was nice
to hear him say it.