Echols, Jennifer (14 page)

"I could probably think of twenty reasons. Since I haven't slept today, I can think of only three. First, you don't want to get back together with someone who gives you the Silent Treatment."

"The Silent Treatment isn't so bad."

"Obviously it's driving you crazy. Second, you're trying to get drunk and have sex because everyone else is doing it. At least, you think everyone else is doing it, because they're bragging about it. But you need to do what's right for you."

There was silence on the other end of the line. I waited for her to thank me for my infinite wisdom. Instead, she said, "I thought I could count on your support. You wear a T-shirt that says
Peer Pressure."

"Today I'm going to peer pressure you into not doing something rather than doing something. Look, I use m protection when I have sex. It's over, and I never think much about it again. With you, it would be different. You would use a condom, it wouldn't break, and there would be no problems. The next day, you would go to the doctor to make sure you weren't pregnant and didn't have AIDS. You would go back every day for a month." I raised my voice over Tiffany's giggles. Three years later, you would still be obsessing that you were having a delayed reaction. You might be pregnant and you might have AIDS. You would do everything you could to keep Brian from breaking up with you. because if he did. he might call your mama and tell her you weren't a virgin."

"Am I that obvious?" Tiffany asked.

"Yes. And I'm not saying that's a bad way to be. I could probably use a little obsessive worry in my life. It would make me more balanced."

I realized with a start that I'd been pacing madly up and down the parking lot, as if Tiffany's sex life really concerned me.

I walked back to my motorcycle and continued, "I'm saying you would not be comfortable with casual sex. Or whatever we're talking about here. The National Honor Society version of prostitution. When it's right, you won't have to call me to check. You'll know. And here's the third reason you shouldn't do it. Sex isn't that great."

She was quiet. "Touch My Body" played in the background, like she'd been psyching herself up. "Oh, come on."

"It's not."

"It's supposed to be no good the
first
time. I thought you were way past that."

I laughed shortly. "Thanks, Tiff. It's still no good."

"Then why are you doing it?" she shrieked.

A gust of wind made me shiver in my wet sweatshirt. "I want to make sure I've lived, in case I don't have a lot of life left."

"You told me you finished jogging and you don't have leukemia!"

"I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"That sounds a lot like obsessive worry," she said.

"About this particular thing."

"It's a pretty intense particular thing, Meg."

"Yeah, well, you're one to talk. Go ahead and proposition Brian, and I'll tell the whole school you're a beer-swilling slut-whore."

She hung up on me.

I was just stuffing the phone back into my bag when it rang again. I clicked it on. "Okay, you're not a slut-whore. If you're going to run with the big dogs, you have to learn to take a joke."

Silence on the other end of the line again. But no "Touch My Body."

My heart stopped. "John?" I asked.

"The other one," Eric said.

My heart beat again, slowly. "Oh, hey! I've been expecting your call. And I take back what I said about you not being a slut-whore."

"Right back at ya," he said. "Booty call." "I ain't no hollaback girl." "Yes, you are."

A cop car cruised slowly by the park. Not John, of course. Some lucky soul on day shift. But my heart stopped again for the split second before I realized it wasn't him.

I was far gone. And I needed to come back. Otherwise I'd end up like Tiffany, making sacrifices on a boy's behalf.

"Okay, I guess I am. I need some sleep first, though."

"Leave your motorcycle at the police station tonight," Eric said. "I'll pick you up there at nine, and I'll have you back at the beginning of John's shift—when—ten?"

It never took Eric long.

"I couldn't get any pot," he warned me. "I'll have some beer, though."

"Are you crazy?" A couple of elderly ladies speed-walking on the track in sequined workout suits turned to stare at me. I lowered my voice. "I can't drink beer and then ride around for eight hours with John."

"Then I guess we'll have to do it sober." I could almost hear Eric shudder as he hung up.

Me too.

That night, I walked to the drugstore across the street from Eggstra! Eggstra! and bought condoms. I always brought condoms. Eric was liable to forget them and not care. Somehow I had known this about him from the very beginning.

Then I rode my motorcycle to the police station, as we'd agreed. Eric was fifteen minutes late picking me up, as predicted. And he would be fifteen minutes late dropping me off again, so John was sure to be steamed.

That was Eric's plan, and it was good.

I didn't even say anything when he turned the Beamer onto the dirt road and parked in the clearing beside the bridge.

He cut the engine and turned to me. At least, it sounded like he turned to me. Clouds covered the moon and stars. With the engine and the dashboard lights off, the darkness was total and heavy.

"This time I want you to take all your clothes off," he said, "not just pull your pants down six inches."

His tone was light. But for some reason, I took the words as a warning. I needed to see the look on his face.

"That's not how I do it," I said.

"I want you to do it my way this time."

"What? No foreplay?" I asked drily.

"Foreplay," he murmured, like this was a new idea.

And then he kissed me.

I wished I hadn't brought up foreplay. Eric was not a good kisser. Too wet, too deep, too much tongue, too too too. His hands were already in my shirt, like there was no point in easing me into the mood, like I was just some little high school senior with blue hair and a reputation for putting out.

I kept my eyes closed and thought of John. The way those sleepy dark eyes would watch me as he put his hands down my shirt. The way he would take his time.

Honestly, it was no use. There was this whirling dervish in the way.

I pulled back from the kiss, but Eric followed me. I turned my head. He put his tongue in my ear. Finally I pressed one hand on his chest and held him off. "Give us a moment, won't you?" I said in a bad British accent, to lift the mood.

"What's the problem?" he growled, mouth still to my ear. "You want me to send you flowers now?"

Oh, yuck. "I just can't do this. I don't have the least desire to have sex with you when I'm not drunk."

His hands stopped in my shirt. Then started again. "Is tonight your last night with John? I'll call you tomorrow."

I couldn't believe this. I'd just told him I wasn't attracted to him when I was sober. He didn't care.

He had to know there was something going on with me and John—or there
had been.
I couldn't help but pronounce John's name with a dreamy drawl. Eric didn't trap me in the elevator in the ninth grade, but it was legendary. Just let Eric try to trap me. Just let him try.

Eric probably had sex with Angie last night, and he didn't care about
(hat,
either.

I wouldn't have cared a week ago. But suddenly I did.

I gripped his wrists and tried to extract him from my shirt. "No, I don't think you should call me anymore."

He pressed me harder. I began to have a creepy feeling, full of fear. I'd expected him to pout, maybe, or tell me I was a stupid bitch. T hadn't expected him to keep insisting yes when I said no.

John's definition of a domestic flashed through my mind.

"Are you breaking up with me?" Eric hissed.

"I would, but I don't think I can," I said, keeping my voice even. "You need a relationship before you can break up."

We glared at each other. I could see him now in the cold dark. His eyes glittered and hardened. I had pushed until his control was gone, and there was nothing left but anger.

He was going to do something.

Feeling the pads of his fingers push into my flesh and my heartbeat pound in my ears, I tried to think through the fear. He was twice as big as me. Still. I didn't remember exactly what I'd done to Todd Pemberton when he tried to

Chapter 13

He pulled his hands out of my shirt and settled back on his side of the car.

"You shouldn't play games with me," he said snippily. "My dad knows every health inspector in the county. He could ruin Eggstra! Eggstra! like snapping his fingers."

That's when I really felt relieved. I'd thought he was going to hurt me. But if he was only going to be petty, I could handle that, easy.

"Eric," I said. "News flash. Your father does not give a shit about you. He does not give a shit whether you break up with your girlfriend. I've seen the way he looks at my hair. He'll be grateful my hair isn't associated with your family anymore."

"Hey. My father bailed me out of jail. Your father left you there to rot."

That stung, but I managed, "Your father didn't want to be further embarrassed. My parents are old hands at being embarrassed by me."

His jaw moved a little in the dim night, like he was chewing on something. He reached toward me, and I flinched back. But he was only reaching across me to pull a sandwich bag of pot out of the glove compartment.

"You were holding out on me," I said.

He fished a rolled joint and a lighter out of the loose weed. "Oh, shit. I forgot I lied to you. You want some? Maybe you'll change your mind about, you know. The other thing."

"No, and I don't particularly want to ride around with a policeman when I smell like pot smoke."

He flicked the lighter, touched the fire to the end of the joint, and took a long drag. Holding the smoke in his lungs, he suggested, "Roll down the window." He exhaled such a thick cloud that I could have caught a buzz off his breath.

I felt for the window controls before I thought. "They're automatic windows, Eric. Turn on the engine." He moved to crank the car.

"No, wait!" I exclaimed. "What are you thinking? Why are you smoking pot before you take me back? You're not really going to drive. Stoned. To. The police station?"

"Why not? My dad can get me out of anything." He took another drag.

What could I do? I could leave the car and call John. Or just stand in the dark and wait for John to show up. since he loved the bridge so. But then I would have to explain how I got here, and why my motorcycle was at the police station.

And I would have saved myself while sending Eric off to have a wreck, killing innocent people. Not that there was any more chance of this now than all the other times he'd driven drunk and/or stoned, and I'd ridden with him. But I had to admit, seeing the dead woman last night had exactly the effect on me that John and the Powers That Be had intended. I hated it, but there it was.

Okay, I would call John and tell him to pull Eric over, then come retrieve me.

I got out and slammed the heavy door of the Beamer. Immediately hearing the low hum, I turned toward the bridge and looked for the train's headlight.

Blue lights burst to life behind me.

Heart racing, I whirled around and waited for John to say something to humiliate me through his megaphone.

"Driver, stay in the car. And don't even try to hide that contraband."

It was Officer Leroy's voice.

He left his engine humming as he walked from his cop car to the Beamer, coming close to me.

"I know what this looks like," I said quickly, before he could take out his handcuffs.

"Looks like every other time I catch kids parking." In the swirling blue light, I couldn't tell whether he was giving me the Disapproving Adult look.

"But it's not," I said. I racked my brain for any argument I could possibly make to convince him not to tell John. Even though I didn't care what John thought.

Officer Leroy nodded over his shoulder. "Go to After's car. He wants to talk to you."

After.
I strained my eyes to see through the darkness. Sure enough, a second cop car was parked behind Officer Leroy's. Oh, no. "Can't
you
just give me the lecture?"

"He's pretty pissed," Officer Leroy said. "I wouldn't mess with him if I were you."

"He's
pissed," I muttered. I was really mad. At least, I wanted to be really mad, and yet all I felt was scared and guilty. But there was nothing to feel scared or guilty about. I hadn't done anything wrong. Well, maybe that was too strong a statement. I hadn't done anything
illegal.

Shaking, I walked past Officer Leroy to John's car and pulled on the back door handle. It was locked. I slapped the door and heard the lock clunk open. Then I let myself into the backseat, crossed my legs primly, and hauled the door closed. I probably was locking myself in.

Through the metal grate, in the glow from the dashboard and Officer Leroy's headlights, John scribbled across forms on his clipboard. T watched the rearview mirror, waiting for the inevitable shock when our eyes met. And I tried to control my shaking so he wouldn't hear my movements against the vinyl seat in the warm car.

But he didn't meet my eyes in the rearview mirror. He turned all the way around to give me the look full-force through the metal grate.

Not outraged. Just hurt.

Which got me worse than anything else could have. Because it meant we could have salvaged 6:01 a.m. Thursday, and I had thrown it away.

Just to rub it in, a whiff of the cologne he'd worn for me tickled my nose.

"You know I check down here a lot." He'd never let me hear this tone from him before: hurt, accusatory, nineteen. "You wanted me to find you here, doing Eric."

"I wasn't
doing Eric.
I was standing outside the car when you got here, so that would be kind of a stretch."

"You intended to, though."

I wanted to turn away from the look, but his eyes held mine. My brain scrambled for a weapon to fight back with. "You followed me."

It worked. He actually sat back a little behind the grate, and went on the defensive. "I didn't follow you. I was headed into work a few minutes early to write my weekly report. I generally do it during my shift, but my shift's been more interesting than usual this week." He paused to watch my reaction.

My pulse quickened with that idiotic feeling again—he liked me! he liked me!—but I was very careful to show no reaction whatsoever.

He went on, "And then I recognized Eric's car, and I saw you turn in here."

I waited for him to hear himself. But of course he didn't. John was selectively daft. Finally I pointed out, "And then you
followed
me!"

He closed his eyes. "I—"

"I'm embarrassed enough already. Why'd you have to bring Leroy out here? You wanted me to feel as embarrassed as possible, right? You get off on making other people feel vulnerable and captured, because it makes
you
feel stronger and more in control."

"This is what you want, right? This is exactly how you want me."

"No!" he shouted. His chest rose and fell rapidly. He put one hand up to grip the metal grate between us. His knuckles showed white. "If I had pulled Eric out of the car myself, I'm afraid of what I would have done to him."

He turned around in his seat and picked up his clipboard again. His hand shook on the pen.

I asked quietly, "Why are you pretending to write, when I already know you're just doing that to intimidate me?"

"Don't try to make me any angrier than I already am." He kept making notes and
Xs
and flipping through forms as he growled, "You're trying to get back at me for last night. You think I don't feel that, just because I'm wearing a uniform?"

I meant to keep acting sullen. But he was too mad. He demanded and maybe even deserved a real answer.

"You told me in the diner one night that I was feeling around for soft spots to stab you," I said. "What do you think you did to me last night? You've seen me faint before. You knew what would happen."

John shook his head. "I wasn't handcuffing you or locking you up. I had no idea you'd pass out. I just wanted to show you this accident to scare you, because I don't want you to get hurt." He turned around in his seat and pulled himself close to the metal grate between us, as if he would pull himself through it. "I care about you, Meg."

His sleepy dark eyes melted me. Almost. I wasn't falling for it. I glared at him. "You care about that dead girl."

"No, I care about
you."

"Yeah, I understood that last night at the wreck. Nothing says
I love you
like a dead body."

He sighed through his nose. "You don't want to be tied down or held prisoner. Death is the ultimate prison, and you're headed there. That's what I'm trying to tell you."

"But you can't live your life worried about dying all the time. If you do, you're dead already. Like you."

He had completely forgotten to be big tough cop guy. He bit his lip gently and ran his fingers back through his short hair at the same time.

But we were tied. I'd crossed my arms on my chest.

"Even if you were mad at me," he said, "even if you thought I'd wronged you, I can't believe you would come here with Eric. It seems like the past week would have meant more to you."

"I didn't do him," I repeated.

"You were going to, though," he repeated.

Both these things seemed true, but didn't add up. "I wasn't going to," I said. "Maybe I thought I was, but I wasn't."

He watched me carefully. "Because of me?" I sighed. "Because of you."

He gave me that dark, loving look. "Now is when I should hug you, and we would both feel so much better. But I can't in front of them." He nodded to Officer Leroy patting Eric down in the swirling blue light outside the car. Then he turned back to me and opened his hands in front of the metal grate. "Consider yourself hugged. Virtual hug."

I felt the virtual hug, warm and snug. "All right," I said. "But from now on, every time you show me a dead body, I'm having sex with Eric."
"God,
Meg!"

"That's as far as I can go for you right now."

We stared at each other through the grate for a few moments. Though his stern expression didn't change, he did cock his head, as if looking at me from a new angle might help.

Finally he turned around in his seat and faced the steering wheel. Like nothing had happened—no induced fainting, no near-sex with pot-smoking boyfriend, no virtual hug—he said, "Come up in the front seat where you belong, and let's get out of here. We have work to do."

*

We drove to the interstate and downtown and the bridge and McDonald's and Martini's and Eggstra! Eggstra! and the bridge and the bad side of town and the Birmingham Junction and the bridge. Then Lois radioed to us about an attempted break-in at one of the smaller stores near Target in the town's main shopping center, which some of our more unsophisticated citizens, including my mom, referred to as a
mall.

Lois said the suspects were driving an old Aztek. We cruised all the way around the shopping center parking lot and behind the buildings. No Aztek. As usual, the crime was over by the time John got there.

He parked the cop car, and we walked under the shopping center awning. He checked the doors of all the stores and shone his flashlight through the windows to make sure. Speakers under the awning played the Birmingham radio station as if it were daytime shopping hours, not 4 a.m.

As if John and I were on a shopping date.

He tried the locked door of Dixie Dental and played his flashlight beam around the waiting room. Offhandedly he said, "We haven't talked about anything important the whole shift."

"Like?" I hoped he meant we should talk about 6:01 a.m. Thursday, which was approximately two hours from now. I hoped we were back on.

"Like cancer," he said.

Now
(here was
a disappointment. But I could tell this was really bothering him. He avoided my eyes and kept examining Dixie Dental's posters of smiling cartoon tooth people, to make it easier for me to answer.

"I wouldn't have pushed you so hard if I'd known," he said. "Don't ask me how I went to high school with you and never heard about it."

I followed him as he walked up to Bama Blinds, Curtains, and More, which strangely did not have window coverings. He tried that door. I focused on where I was walking. Despite looking down, or maybe because of it, I tripped over my own feet and nearly fell trying to avoid a crack. I didn't want to break my mother's back. In fact, of all the things I regretted about the way I handled leukemia (or failed miserably to do so), I was most sorry for worrying my mother. Every time my dad guilted me about her, I just wanted even more to escape, which got me in more trouble. I wished I could take it all back.

Lord knew how many times I'd broken my mother's back already. And the walkway awning seemed awfully low all of a sudden. I stepped off the sidewalk and into the empty parking lot, where it was safer. Tall light poles held up the dark blue starless sky.

"The treatment dragged on until I was a sophomore," I said. "But all the business of my hair falling out, the ambulance rushing to school to pick me up when I collapsed in the hall, everything that would get your attention—that was in eighth grade, middle school, when you were already in ninth grade at the high school. There's no reason you would have heard about it. And it doesn't even make sense for me to get on you about your cigarettes. I didn't get cancer by smoking cigarettes. I got it because I'm lucky. I guess I just don't want anyone else to go through that."