Maiden Rock (8 page)

She couldn’t believe it. She had a real boyfriend, one who would stay up all night and talk to her about all the things in the world. She had dreamed about finding someone like that, but wasn’t sure it would happen to her until she went to college. She had always figured herself a late bloomer.

As Meg walked up the driveway, she enumerated what she liked about Curt: 1. he read books, 2. he liked Bob Dylan and the Cranberries, 3. he thought the space between her front teeth was cute, 4. he didn’t believe in war, 5. he was a great kisser, 6. he wanted to stay living in the country, 7. he wanted to travel, 8. he thought Mr. Langsfeld, their science teacher, was stupid and mean, 9. he hated that animals were becoming extinct, 10. he loved to talk. What more could she want in a guy?

When she lifted her head up and looked down the driveway, she saw a line-up of cars, but didn’t see Krista’s car. Maybe she had parked it behind the barn.

What kind of reception would she get from Krista? Just the day before the party, Krista had been telling her that she wasn’t sure she even wanted to see Curt anymore. Meg wasn’t sure it would help to remind her of that. She’d have to play it by ear.

What if Krista wouldn’t let her in the house? If Krista was at all mean, Meg had decided she would just leave, she would walk home. She wasn’t going to argue with Krista. She would

tell her mom they had a fight. But she wanted to give Krista a chance to be her old self.

Maybe she and Curt hadn’t done it right last night. They had tried to tell Krista earlier, but they hadn’t really had a chance until the end of the party. They had decided to do it together, so neither of them would have to bear the brunt alone. They talked it over, decided that Krista would get angry, blow up, and then quickly get over it. That’s the way she was. She never focused on any one thing for long. She bounced from one idea to another with such energy.

Meg hoped she could work it out with Krista. In a short time, she had become such a good friend.

She froze as she heard voices and then saw people coming out of the Jorgensons’ house. She was too far away to see who it was, but she didn’t want to take a chance. She ducked into the weeds and watched.

They got into a car. As it turned, she saw that it was a squad car. Why would a squad car be there?

Shit, what if they had called the sheriff on her? Her mom?

***

Claire was glad Rich insisted on driving. It was against sheriff’s regulations for a civilian to drive a squad car, but she knew she shouldn’t be behind the wheel at the moment. It was always hard delivering bad news, but when you might be the recipient yourself of the same news, it was ghastly.

Rich started the car and then jumped when the radio crackled.

Claire took the call. Just Stewy reporting they were taking the body out. He’d check in again. Six deputies were out looking for Meg and Curt.

Rich whipped around in the driveway and headed down the long rutted road. When they were halfway down it, Claire caught something move out of the corner of her eye—a flash of red. What could be that color? Too big for a cardinal.

She remembered the red hunting jacket.

“Stop!” she yelled at Rich.

Before he even had a chance to comply, she unbuckled her seat belt, opened the door, and jumped out. She fell to her knees, but pushed up and jumped down into the ditch.

Scrub trees growing on the sides of the driveway served as cover but Claire shoved through them and saw a flash of red ducking behind a cedar. She clawed her way through the remaining branches and tall grass.

She ran around the cedar and saw the red jacket ducking under a pine tree.

“Meg!” she yelled as she spurted forward. She tackled her daughter wearing the hunting jacket she had put on the night before, as she was leaving for the party. They both fell to the ground, but Claire kept a tight grip on her daughter.

Meg sat up and Claire pulled her to her chest.

“Meg, thank god. Oh, I don’t know what I would have done …” Claire started sobbing. All the tears she had held back all night came ripping out of her. She couldn’t let go of Meg. The tears, a river.

“Mom, what’re you doing?”

Meg tried to pull away, but Claire held her tight.

***

Meg knew, from the moment that her mom jumped her in the bushes at the Jorgensons’ driveway, that something was horridly wrong, even before her mom started sobbing.

But her mother’s tears convinced her it was very, very bad. She had never heard her mother cry like that before, even when her father died. It sounded like she was crying up her guts.

She had to help her mother out of the ditch alongside the driveway, holding her so she didn’t fall. Her mother wouldn’t stop holding onto her and sobbing. Rich stood at the edge of the driveway and helped them onto the gravel.

Meg looked at Rich and asked, “Who died?”

M
eg stood at the bottom of her driveway and Highway 35, waiting for the school bus. She had a hard time believing that school would happen, that life would go on as if nothing had happened. She had a hard time.

That morning her mother had told her she didn’t have to go to school. Even Rich had suggested that she stay home, but she didn’t want to put off the inevitable. They didn’t understand. It would only get harder to see all her friends at school if she waited. All Krista’s friends.

Especially Curt. He had called several times over the weekend, but once she had pretended she was sleeping, and the other time she had flat out refused to come to the phone. He got the message and didn’t call again. But he deserved to hear straight from her what she was feeling.

Meg had a pile of Kleenex stuffed in the pocket of her hooded sweatshirt. Even thinking about the fact that she wouldn’t be sitting next to Krista in third hour made her cry.

As she waited, questions kept buzzing around inside her head. Why had she decided to tell Krista about Curt at the party? How stupid was that? She should have waited until they were at Krista’s house where she could have explained it all to her and

then handled her anger face to face. Instead, she had chickened out. Curt and she had told Krista at the party, thinking that way she wouldn’t make a scene. Because of this stupid decision, Krista was dead.

Blinking her eyes to clear them, Meg saw the school bus coming down the highway. She wasn’t looking forward to the ride. She wasn’t looking forward to anything she had to do today, or the rest of her life.

The bus stopped and the door swung open. Mr. Jensen had his hat turned backwards as usual, and said, “Good morning,” like he always did. Then he added, “Sorry to hear about your friend.”

“Thanks,” Meg mumbled and slunk halfway down the bus aisle. She didn’t want anyone to sit with her so she put her books next to her on the seat. She stared out the window and tried to see the fields as they drove by. But it was like she was blind. She couldn’t see the world anymore. Just what she was feeling.

This year in world literature she had read a French poem in which the gray sky was described as being like the cover of a pot. That’s how she felt. Like she was inside a container and someone had closed down her whole world.

Her mother had told her she couldn’t go anywhere unnecessary for a month. In other words, she was grounded, but the weird thing about it was that Meg felt like it wasn’t just a punishment, but rather a way for her mom to feel safe. For one whole month she wouldn’t have to worry about where Meg was.

Meg didn’t really care anyway. There was no place to go, nothing she wanted to see or do. Life, which two days ago had seemed like it could get no better, was suddenly hardly worth living.

One of the Swenson twins looked like she wanted to sit with Meg, but Meg ignored her and she walked farther down the aisle.

As always, when Meg got off the bus at school, Curt was waiting for her. Curt had always been waiting for them—Krista and her—every morning. He bent his head down toward her and smiled. Meg felt her heart turn in her chest.

“Hey,” he said, walking up to her.

Meg felt like she was seeing him for the first time. His tall, skinny body towered over her. He couldn’t afford to lose any weight. She felt protective of him for a moment, then pushed that feeling away.

“I called you a couple times. I really wanted to talk to you,” he said. “How’re you doing?”

Meg had rehearsed her speech. “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have any words for this.”

“Meg, that’s a little melo,” he said gently.

That word took her by surprise. It was in their language. “Melo” was short for melodramatic. A secret word they had created together.

This wasn’t going to work.

She tried to walk past him, but he grabbed her arm. “Meg, I didn’t mean that. I’m feeling really bad too. But we have to help each other. We have to talk it out. Krista was my friend longer than she was yours.”

How could he even try to quantify a friendship like that—by who knew her the longest? Meg wanted to scream at him. But she wouldn’t. It wasn’t the right place, it would never be the right time.

She felt someone grab her arm, then pull on her. When Meg looked down, she was staring at Krista’s little sister Tammy, who

was three years younger than her. Tammy’s eyes were red and swollen from crying, but her mouth was mad. “I want to know what happened to my sister.”

“Tammy.” Meg tried to put an arm around Tammy. She didn’t know her well, but they had always been friendly. Her heart hurt for how Tammy must be feeling.

Tammy pushed Meg’s arm away. “What did you do?” she screamed. “You were supposed to be her friend. How could you let her go with those other people?” Then she turned on Curt. “Big boyfriend you are. Where were you when my sister died?”

Curt started to say something, but Tammy cut him off. “I heard what happened. You two left together. If it wasn’t for you, my sister would still be alive. I hate you. I hate both of you.”

She ran off before they could say anything. Meg felt another weight drop on her shoulders and her stomach turned. She felt sick all over.

“I can’t do this,” Meg said.

“I know. I don’t want to believe she’s dead either.” Curt nodded.

“I just think it’s over.” “What do you mean?”

She looked him straight in the face and said, “Tammy’s right. We are responsible for Krista’s death. We killed her. We should have waited to tell her—not done it at the party.”

Curt stared at her. His face grew still. His eyes widened. “I see what you mean. It is our fault, isn’t it?”

She nodded. She knew he would understand. That’s what she loved about him.

“Why does everything have to go bad like this?” he asked and reluctantly let go of her arm.

She had no answer. She didn’t know why things worked out the way they did.

When she walked away, he didn’t try to stop her.

That was it. The love of her life so far was over.

Meg walked into school by herself. Tonya Holbrook walked up and said how horrible it was about Krista. Meg took out a Kleenex and pressed it to her eyes. These tears, she knew, were for herself.

***

Arlene stood in the hallway and quietly pushed open the door to her son’s room. Jared mumbled and stirred but didn’t wake. His long dark hair haloed his head.

In sleep her son looked like an angel. Always had. But she knew that the sleep he had finally dropped into was as deep as death. She had tried to wake him twice already this morning and he wouldn’t rouse. She leaned in closer to make sure he was still breathing.

When Jared had brought Davy home two days ago, she could tell that he was strung out on that drug again. When she accused him, he didn’t say he wasn’t. But he promised—this time he really promised her—he would go straight.

He didn’t sleep at all the first night he was back, watching TV and smoking cigarette after cigarette, picking at scabs on his hands. Then he crashed about four o’clock yesterday afternoon. That was twenty hours ago. Arlene hoped he would wake up sometime today. But what she really hoped was that he could stop taking that awful drug, that meth.

But hope felt like sand, nothing you could grab onto. As her mom used to say,
wish in one hand and spit in the other and see which one gets full first.
Arlene had fed Davy and set him down in front of the TV. Her heart broke to see how skinny that little boy was.

What was the matter with her sister?

The matter might be that she was dead.

Jared had told Arlene about the fire, said he wasn’t sure what had happened to Letty. Then Amy had called. Odd that Jared’s former babysitter was now a deputy sheriff.

Arlene had always liked Amy, thought she would do something with herself even as a kid. Amy had said how sorry she was about Letty’s trailer burning down. Then she asked her a bunch of questions, said it was too early to tell if there was a body in the trailer. The fire had burned hot and they were still sifting through the debris.

Arlene didn’t mention that she already knew about the fire, that Jared had been there. No sense involving him in that mess. Arlene was glad she could tell Amy that they had Davy, and that he was fine.

Arlene half wished her sister was dead. It would be a blessing to know Letty was finally released from this horrible life she had fallen into. Davy didn’t deserve to live like that. Arlene had tried to keep Davy the last time he had stayed with her, but Letty wouldn’t hear of it.

This time, if Letty was still alive, Arlene would insist on keeping Davy, unless Letty cleaned up. Arlene was determined not to let the little boy go back to that hellish existence.

A tinny blast of music came from a pile of clothes on the floor—Jared’s cell phone ringing. Arlene scrambled to find it before Jared woke up. There was only one person who would

call him on that phone and she meant to put an end to it. She found the phone in the pocket of a pair of dirty jeans and ran out of the room with it.

For a moment she thought of answering it, but she didn’t want to talk to that evil man. She had seen him once when he had stopped by the house. Jared hadn’t invited him in and she never learned who he was, but she knew what he was to Jared. His dealer. With a shrunken face and steely eyes, she thought he looked like Satan reincarnate. And Arlene didn’t really believe in the Devil.