Hidden Deep (4 page)

I stumbled through the yard toward the back porch, lightheaded. I really couldn’t explain to myself what had just happened. I wasn’t even going to attempt to explain it to anyone else. If I told Mom or Grandma, they’d never let me set foot outside again. And I was definitely going back. Lad was at the center of the two strangest experiences of my life. I had to know more about him.

I stepped through the back door into the kitchen, and there was Grandma Neena, sharp blue eyes, wild white ringlets covering her head, and dirt on the knees of her too-short gardening pants. She had a plump fuzzy okra in one hand and a kitchen knife in the other.

“Hey, girl. I was wondering where you’d gotten to.”

Grandma Neena had looked exactly the same my whole life. Or maybe it only seemed that way because of the hair. It had been white since I’d known her. Mom said Grandma’s hair was once chestnut brown, like mine, but it had turned white when she was only in her twenties, around the time she was widowed. She was sixty and had hardly a wrinkle. Lord only knew how because there wasn’t an ounce of fat to stretch out her skin. I hoped I’d inherited the good skin from her along with the freaky-tall-and-thin gene.

“Hey, Grandma. I was out exploring.”

She spotted my damp hair and raised a brow. “Get caught in a rain shower?”

“No, I uh…” She knew it hadn’t rained, and we both knew there were no lovely spring-fed pools along the
paths
on her land. “I found a natural spring and kind of splashed myself. I was pretty hot.”

She looked me over, as if checking for… damage, maybe? Her squint broke and she grinned, turning back to the cooking. “You’re just like me, you little wood sprite. I’d be out there myself, if I didn’t have this oven going. You didn’t see any signs of coyotes, did you?”

“No. Why?”

“I’ve been hearing them the past couple of nights. Just make sure and get back to the house before dark when you go out. And you should wear some brighter colors—don’t want some fool with a gun mistaking you for a critter.”

“But hunting season’s over. And your land is posted.”

“A few rusty old signs won’t stop some of these boys. And spring turkey season just ended last week—not everybody obeys the rules. Just be careful, that’s all.”

“Okay. I’ll try my best not to resemble a wild turkey.” I laughed and peeked inside the old yellow porcelain bowl on the counter, smelling the savory cornbread mixture she’d been stirring. “Making chicken and dressing?”

“Mmm hmmm. Your momma should be back soon. She had to run by the lawyer’s office after the interview—trying to take care of that IRS mess.”

“Yeah, thanks, Dad,” I muttered. I picked up a knife and started helping her slice vegetables, the blade chop-chopping against the wooden cutting board on the counter.

Grandma flashed a glance at me as she dropped batter-covered coins of okra into a cast iron skillet sizzling with butter.

“None of that, now, Ryann.” Her tone was gently chiding. “Your momma’s got enough bitter for the both of you. You don’t know the whole story, and you need to remember your parents’ problems are
theirs
, not yours.” She looked back over her shoulder at my expression and turned back to the skillet, shaking her head. She’d always been able to read my face as if my thoughts were scrawled there in permanent black marker. “No, don’t go getting all lemon-faced on me. You know I love her more than my own soul, but she’s got so much poison inside right now about men—you don’t want to let that leak into your life. Love can be good, honey.”

After what my dad had pulled, I had my doubts, but what was I going to do—argue with my sweet grandma, who’d lost her husband basically right after the honeymoon ended? I wandered over to inhale the aroma of frying food and gave her a quick side-by-side hug. “Oh my God, that smells good. I swear—absolutely anything tastes good fried.”

“You know what they say about Southern cooking—butter’s the main course—everything else is just a side dish. Why don’t you make us some of your sweet tea to go with supper, and then we can set the table. Maybe there’ll be a new job to celebrate.” She made a rah-rah gesture.

“Oh—I’m sorry. I can’t tonight. I have to get in the shower. Emmy’s coming by to pick me up in a little bit.” Emmy Rooney had been my best friend since preschool. Our grandmas had been friends forever, too.

“That’s good. Where you girls headed tonight?”

“The usual—ballpark, Sonic.”

Living in a town of thirty-six hundred people had some advantages. Entertainment variety was not one of them. At least Emmy had a car. Under our new financial circumstances, if I wanted anything above room and board, especially a car, I was buying. That meant finding a job for the summer was my new priority.

An hour later, I heard the crunch and pop of tires winding down the tree-lined gravel driveway. Checking the window first, I went out to the porch. Her VW Bug came to a stop, and out popped Emmy, very little changed since we’d met. Same dark tan, straight, sandy-brown hair, and still wearing glasses, though she’d traded the Hello Kitty frames for some thin silver ones by middle school.

“So you ready for another exciting episode of ‘Hicktown Nightlife?’” she said.

“Should I change into my Daisy Dukes and stilettos or am I okay like this?” I gestured to my usual warm-weather uniform of t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. We both laughed and got in the car.

Emmy drove us into town and all the way down Main Street, passing darkened storefronts, some small restaurants, the huge First Baptist Church, the Food Star, and the city park with its quaint white gazebo. We cruised slowly through the Sonic Drive-in to see who was there, and then made the loop through town again. Other cars full of teenagers leisurely traveled the same route, windows down, stereos up high. We waved at each one.

“So, I met this guy today…” I said.

Her hands gripped the steering wheel tighter, her interest instantly piqued. “Okay—every detail. Don’t hold back. Where, when, and for God’s sake,
how
did you meet someone new around here?”

“Apparently he lives out near my grandma. He’s homeschooled.”

“Hot?” she asked, without much hope.

“Very. In fact, weirdly hot.”

“Okay, are we talking Jake-hot or
Nox
-hot?” Emmy put exaggerated lustful emphasis on the last part.

“Hard to say. He’s… different.” I gave Emmy an abbreviated version of the how-I-met-him story as we pulled into the cool side of the Sonic and parked. I did not mention the part about remembering him from my childhood
incident
. I still didn’t know what it all meant, so I could hardly explain it to
her
.

“So you meet an amazing guy in the middle of the woods—why does this kind of thing never happen to me?”

“I guess you should go skinny-dipping more often,” I teased.

“I am
totally
going to do it,” she said. “And you know I will.”

I laughed, not doubting it for a minute. If there were a Wikipedia entry for “boy crazy,” Emmy’s picture would appear beside it. Unfortunately, she had a chronic weakness for players—guys who were the high school equivalent of womanizers—what was the name for them? Girl-izers? Unlike me, she was always ready to open her heart one more time, to go with her gut and trust that
this
time it would work out.

We studied the menu, pushed the button and ordered. The subject changed to her latest epic crush while we waited for our food in the car, listening to the radio. Emmy loved jocks in particular, and lately it was Jake McKee, a senior with great biceps. She was giving me the play-by-play of their most recent school-hallway flirtation when a sultry-sounding female DJ teased us with promises of celebrity sleaze after the commercial break.

“Oooh—turn it up. I want to hear that,” Emmy said.

“Why? You’re already some kind of celebrity trivia savant.”

“I know, I’m slightly obsessed, but I can’t help it. I mean, they’re so freakin’ beautiful. Like Vallon Foster.” She pulled out her phone and caressed the actor’s famous face on the screen. Holding the phone up to me, she said, “Look at him. He’s almost too gorgeous to live. I can’t believe I didn’t get into his fan pod—it sucks to be wait-listed.”

“Don’t feel bad—I heard they favor kids from big cities on those applications. But why do you even want to be in one of those pods? They’re like… cults or something.”

“No they’re
not
.” She shot me a shaming look for suggesting something so blasphemous. “It’s cool that A-list celebrities like Vallon give their biggest fans special access. If you think about it, it’s not much different from an internship, just way more glam. And you get to go to cool parties, and meet other celebs—oh my God—I have to get in. And you’re wrong. It’s not only big city kids. Remember Allison Douglas?”

“No.”

“Oh. She’s like five years older than us. She went to my church.
She
got into a pod a few years ago. I bet she could help me, but nobody around here knows how to reach her anymore. Probably off having too much fun with the beautiful people to keep in touch with anybody back here in this podunk place.” Emmy’s mood made a lightning-fast swing from gleeful spokesperson to dejected kid.

“But don’t you think it’s kind of weird—how the pods are like, all the same? It’s like some kind of government program or something,” I said.

And back to gleeful. “That’s totally on purpose. The celebs with fan pods all have the same agent—the
best
agent in Los Angeles—Alfred Frey. He represents all the top singers, and models, and actors. Even the really cute athletes. I read about it in
People
.
I
think it’s brilliant. I bet his clients are the most popular
because
they’re so connected with their fans. Or… maybe it’s how ridiculously gorgeous they are. I mean, look at this girl, Serena Simmons.” She picked up one of the magazines littering her car and thrust it under my nose.

I took it from her, studying the improbably perfect face and figure on the cover. “Okay, you’re right. She
is
hard not to look at. This says she doesn’t even wear any makeup for her close-up shots. How is that possible?”

“I have a theory that they’re all part of some secret super-race, and the rest of us were born to worship them,” Emmy said, holding her hands in front of her and bowing repeatedly.

I laughed. “Or maybe she’s full of it. The guy who airbrushed this probably has his arm in a sling now.”

We ate in the car before driving all of a minute and a half to the ballpark. It wasn’t quite dark yet, but the stadium lights were already blazing.

“Oooh, Jake’s game has started,” Emmy said. “I don’t want to miss him batting.” She pressed the gas pedal a little harder, leaning forward over the wheel to scope a good parking spot.

For a three-stoplight town, Deep River had a pretty decent ballpark. The complex had three baseball diamonds arranged around a common area with picnic tables and a snack hut. A tall announcers’ booth stood behind the backstop of the largest field, the one with the expensive lighting. The smell of grilling hamburgers filled the air. A hint of popcorn, too. It was definitely the place to be on a late spring weeknight. Families and groups of teenagers walked around, and the stands were nearly full at all the fields.

Emmy and I made our way to the bleachers on the home team side of the largest diamond, where the older guys were in a play-off game. We found some space a few rows from the top and sat down so she could scout her number one crush.

“Look at him,” she whispered to me in kind of a hushed squeal. She pointed to a big guy with a blond buzz cut—number eight. “Doesn’t he look kind of like Thor?”

I followed her pointing finger and located the object of her desire, playing third base. Jake was attractive in an I-spend-hours-a-day-working-on-the-guns-in-the-weight-room kind of way.

“Yeah, he’s cute,” I said to please her.

Emmy nodded her head furiously and giggled.

“You should be careful with him, though,” I warned. “He has a reputation for a reason.”

She rolled her eyes at me with a groan. “‘Be careful with him. Don’t join a fan pod,’” She mocked my warnings in a goofy voice. “I swear, Ryann, you act older than your grandma.
Your
hair’s gonna turn white if you don’t relax and live a little. Are you honestly telling me you don’t want a nibble of that man-candy?”

I shrugged, abashed, and looked away from her, out toward the players running in from the outfield. I certainly didn’t mind muscles on a guy, but Jake wasn’t my type. I really preferred the long and lean variety. Hard, rather than puffed-up.
More like Lad… or him…

My gaze landed on a guy walking past our section of bleachers. Nox was lanky and tall with wavy hair so shiny dark brown it bordered on black. It looked like he’d showered just before coming here and let the air from the rolled-down car windows dry his hair on the way. He wore some well-aged jeans, a vintage AC/DC t-shirt, and western boots, in spite of the steamy night. He had a swaggering way of walking, lazily stretching out one long leg after the other, moving slowly past the stands with his eyes on the field.

Oh, and he was stunning. In fact, he would’ve looked quite natural in one of Emmy’s magazines.

Emmy followed my stare. “Gorgeous jerk,” she whispered with a conspiratorial grin. “
He
looks sort of like Vallon Foster, doesn’t he? Too bad he totally knows it.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. Every female under the age of thirty in Deep River was aware of Nox Knight. He’d started at DRHS a few months ago. Anyone new in town would have made waves, but this guy had caused an estrogen tsunami.

He wasn’t
just
good-looking—he’d moved here from California, had his own band and the bad-boy musician attitude to go with it. Like everyone else, I liked to look at him, but I’d known better than to dive in. Not that I’d ever been invited into the water.

I was still watching Nox when he glanced up in our direction. Sucking in a quick breath, I turned my head. When I peeked back again, he’d gone about his way. He hadn’t noticed me—as usual.

“Oh, Shay’s here. Come on,” Emmy said, craning her neck toward the parking lot. She got up and started stepping over seats to get to the bleacher stairs. I followed.