Pretend You Love Me (3 page)

My muscle tee was soaked clear through by the time I finished loading the flatbed. I would’ve liked to stop by home and change—make
myself more presentable—but it was getting on to dusk already and I’d only sweat out again unloading at the Davenports’.

The Davenports’. I hadn’t been out there since the summer before sixth grade. Dad and I had been contracted to plumb their
new barn—install a toilet and utility sink, an outdoor shower for cleanup. That was before Mr. Davenport—Leland—fell off the
roof and broke his back. I remember Ma had baked a rhubarb pie for me to take to Faye. Wow, that was a long lost memory. Back
when Ma was a functioning, productive human being.

The dogs met me at the gate. Bean and Howdy. They were looking older, grayer. Bean was hobbling around like he had arthritis.

“Hey, guys,” I greeted them from the cab. “Stay back.” I inched up the gravel entrance to the farmhouse. The Davenports probably
owned the majority of sections south of town, but since they were getting up in years, they leased the land to commercial
farmers. Most everyone around Coalton grew wheat or milo for feed. Farther east were the stink holes, the cattle lots, and
pig farms.

I jumped down from the cab. The dogs sniffed my crotch.

“Bean, Howdy, get down,” Faye hollered from the house. The screen door slammed behind her. “Hello, Mike.” She clip-clopped
down the porch steps in her rubber clogs. There was this painting from ninth grade Art Appreciation called
American Gothic.
That’s what Faye and Leland Davenport reminded me of, those two stoic farmers. Except more human.

“How nice to see you again.” Faye wiped her hands on her apron, then gave me a hug. “How’s your mother?”

“Doin’ good,” I lied.

“Leland’s down at the horse pens, if you want to take that feed around.” Faye pointed past the big barn. I shielded my eyes
at the sun glinting off the metal roof. For some reason, my focus fell to the hammock in Faye’s yard, strung between two cottonwoods.
Specifically, the person in it who was sleeping with a pair of earphones on.

My heart shattered my rib cage. The sound of cracking bone must’ve carried because her eyes opened and she swiveled her head
around.

Xanadu struggled to sit up. She clawed off the earphones, swung her legs over the hammock, and smiled. At me. Or was that
my imagination running wild? Because it was running wild all over the place.

Slipping into sandals, she floated across the greening lawn. She was wearing shorts. Short shorts almost invisible under an
oversized tee. Which my X-ray vision might’ve been trying to see through because it was obvious she wasn’t wearing a bra.
A twinge of electricity surged between my legs.

When she got to where I was, she shoved her CD player under the waistband of her shorts and said, “Hi, Mike. Wow, I’m glad
you’re here. I was just about to die of terminal boredom. Let’s see if I did.” She slapped her cheek. “Not yet. I still have
feeling on one side.” She grinned. I laughed. My heart pounded like a well drill.

Without her clunky shoes, she wasn’t that much taller than me. Four, five inches.

“I see you’ve met my grandniece,” Faye said.

“Uh, yes, ma’am. I’ve had the pleasure.”

Xanadu snorted. “What are you doing out here in the boonies?” She crossed her arms loosely over her chest. Maybe because my
eyes were glued to it. “Besides rescuing me?” she added.

I looked from her to Faye. Faye smiled thinly. “I’m delivering your order from the Merc,” I said. “Well, not
your
order.” My mouth was
dry as chicken scratch. Xanadu was still grinning at me. It was making me light-headed. Get a grip, Mike. I stumbled to the
rear of the flatbed to retrieve Faye’s dog food.

“Why don’t you ride out with Mike and give her a hand unloading?” I heard Faye say.

I peered around the truck. Xanadu curled a lip at Faye, like, Are you serious?

Hefting a bag of dog chow onto my shoulder, I said, “That’s okay. I can handle it.” I headed toward the house. “Where do you
want this, Miz Davenport?”

“Just inside the door’ll be fine,” she answered. “Thank you, Mike.”

I opened the screen and dumped the bags on the floor next to the dog bowls. The house still smelled of meatloaf and baked
potato from dinner. My mouth watered. I couldn’t have come an hour earlier and been invited, could I? I hadn’t eaten since
my PowerBar on the way to Armie’s.

Xanadu was leaning against the truck hood, fiddling with her CD player, when I got back. She and Faye had obviously had words.
Faye did not look happy. “It’ll be easiest to go back to the road and come in behind the horse corrals,” Faye told me.

“Okay.” I climbed into the cab. The passenger door squeaked open and Xanadu hoisted herself up onto the cracked leather seat.
“I’ll ride along, at least, to keep you company.”

Be still my heart, I thought.

She added under her breath, “Maybe you could drop me off in Siberia. It can’t be that far from here.”

Faye must’ve heard because she scorched Xanadu with a look. “This
is
your Siberia, Missy,” she snarled. “It may be your last stop anywhere.”

Xanadu’s eyes slit and shot a firebolt. Faye matched her glare with equal heat.

Holy shit. I booked it out of there before the truck burst into flames.

A
s I circled back onto the road, Xanadu cranked down her window. The wind caught her hair, blowing up streams of red ribbons
around her face. She was breathtaking. I almost drove into a ditch. At the last minute, I swerved to the center of the straightaway,
hoping she hadn’t noticed my temporary lapse of control.

“How can you stand it?” She turned to face me.

I knew what she meant. The silence. The slowness of life. “You get used to it,” I said.

She averted her eyes to gaze out on the wheat fields. “I’d kill myself first.”

My breath caught. She didn’t know what she was saying. It was just an expression. We reached the turnoff at the back of the
property and I pulled onto it, lungs screaming for relief. I calmed myself, tried to. Let out air.

Driving between two corrals, I stopped next to a double-wide horse trailer and saw Leland Davenport wander out of the covered
stalls. He removed his Stetson and swiped his gritty face with a forearm.
“Hi there, Mike. Oh good, you brought the feed.” He slid his hat back on. “I heard you were working at the Merc. Why don’t
you back her up to the gate here, if you can get in close.” There was a feed bin behind him, alongside a cone-shaped storage
shed.

I cranked the flatbed ninety degrees and let Leland direct me in, even though it wasn’t necessary. I could’ve done it. When
he began to unload the feed, I jumped out and said, “Know what? I can get this. It’s what I get paid for.”

He eyed the pallet, then scanned me up and down. I knew what he was thinking: You’re too small; it’s too much for one person.
He hadn’t seen me in action. I yanked out the work gloves from my back pocket and put them on. I might’ve nudged him gently
out of my way.

“Hi, Uncle Lee.” Xanadu appeared at my side. Her bare arm grazed mine and spiked my heart rate.

Leland reached over and gave her a tweak on the nose. I launched myself onto the truck bed, wondering if the tingling under
my skin was a permanent condition. I hoped so. They both watched me heft one bag off the pallet and onto my shoulder, then
jump down and lug it into the storage shed. Xanadu said, “Okay, major guilt trip. I can help with this.”

Leland cuffed her chin and headed back into the stalls.

Xanadu said, “Why don’t you hand the bags to me and I’ll stack them in the garage, or whatever it’s called.”

I smiled to myself. This should be good. Looping a leg up onto the flatbed, I scrambled back onboard. I lifted a bag of feed
off the pallet and passed it down to her. She caught it between her arms and proceeded to collapse in the dirt.

It was hard suppressing laughter, but I managed, sort of.

“Jesus.” She staggered away from the bag, straightening up. “How much do these things weigh?”

“Fifty pounds,” I told her.

She arched her eyebrows. “They didn’t look that heavy when you were doing it.”

“I have a better idea.” I leaped off the truck. “You slide them to the edge and I’ll haul them in.”

“Help me up.” She extended a hand.

I grasped it. Long, slender fingers. That electric charge surged through me again. Xanadu clambered onto the bed and stood
for a moment, surveying the pallet. “I can do this,” she said, sounding determined. She tucked her hair into the back of her
shirt and got to work.

We finished the job in fifteen or twenty minutes. By then Xanadu was looking withered and I was soaked with sweat. She sank
to the end of the truck bed and slumped forward. I hopped up next to her.

Why’d I do that? I had to reek. Wiping the rivulet of sweat running down my ear with the bottom of my muscle shirt, I snuck
a sniff under my pit. Whoa. Kill a moose.

“You’re strong.”

I turned. She was eyeing me, my arms. “You must work out.”

“A little. At the gym.” A little? I was obsessed. Now I knew why. Unconsciously—or consciously—I flexed my bicep.

“There’s a gym in this podunk town?”

“At the VFW, next to the tanning salon.”

“Tanning salon? What is it, like a chaise lounge under a lightbulb?”

I smiled.

She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m just—” She expelled a long breath.

“It’s a real tanning salon,” I told her. “Well, there’s only the one tanning bed and my friend Jamie’s usually in it. But
I can get you in for free.” Why’d I say that? It’d be taking advantage of Armie. Taking him up on his offer.

“That’s okay,” Xanadu said. “I’m not into melanoma.”

That was the truth. Her skin was white as summer clouds.

“What’s your real name?” she asked.

I felt as if someone had sucker-punched me. Why’d she have to ask? I didn’t want to say. I hated my name. On my eighteenth
birthday, I was legally changing it.

“Come on.” She pressed against me with her shoulder. “I won’t tell.”

She had to know how funny
that
was. This was Coalton. Her elbow nudged mine and stayed touching. Why was she always touching me? Not that I didn’t like
it; she was driving me crazy. I exhaled a long breath. “Mary-Elizabeth,” I mumbled. “If you ever call me that, I’ll kill you.”
The moment I said it, I wished I could take it back. I’d never hurt her.

She laughed. “You should have
my
name. Xanadu. How stupid. Call me Xana, by the way.”

No, I didn’t think I would. She was Xanadu. Exotic, enchanted, poetic.

“God,” she went on. “I wish my parents
were
crackheads or something; at least I’d have an excuse why they did this to me. To me and my sister both. Know what her name
is?”

I shook my head.

“Babylon.”

Did I snort?

“Yeah.” She grinned. “So Mary-Elizabeth is, like, ordinary, normal.”

Not to me. “I just don’t like it,” I said. “It isn’t me.”

She met my eyes and nodded. “I get that. I so get that.” She held my attention. Vibes passed between us. Something. Intense.
We both looked down. I saw her eyes skim my bicep, my forearm, settle on my hand. My filthy work glove. I pulled it off, along
with the other, and stuffed them both in my back pocket. Xanadu’s gaze gravitated to my Timex. “Seven thirty-eight,” she said.
“Let’s see, I’ve only been here three days, four hours, and thirty-eight minutes, and already I regret my decision to come.”

My heart sank. I wanted her here. I needed her here.

Looking off into the wheat fields, she added, “I just needed to get my head straight, you know? See if being away for a while
would make things better. I was going to blow off the rest of the school year, but it’s so freaking boring out here, I figured
I might as well go. Hook up with some people, maybe. I don’t know.”

Hook up with me, I thought.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m here, right?” She spread her hands out beside her and clutched the edge of the truck bed.
She had delicate hands, girl hands.

“Right,” I said. I didn’t really care why. Just stay.

“My parents gave me an ultimatum. I could either exile myself at Aunt Faye and Uncle Lee’s in Kansas or enter this diversion
program in Englewood. I’ve known a couple of people who did the program and they say it’s like a prison. Worse than a prison.
You can’t leave your house at night or call your friends. I mean, what choice did I have?” She reached behind her with one
hand and lifted her hair out of her shirt, letting it cascade over her shoulders.

I had no idea what she was talking about. But I wanted her to keep talking, keep playing with her hair. “Where’s Englewood?”
I asked.

She blinked at me. “Denver. The suburbs. I mean, I understand where my parents are coming from. I was definitely headed for
trouble. It wasn’t my fault, though, or even my choice. Okay, maybe it was my choice.” She glanced away. “
And
my fault. What choice do you have, though, when everyone does it? E, I mean. Or worse. And if they’re not doing drugs, they’re
getting stoned. I hate smoking pot; it makes me sleepy and gives me a headache. Does it do that to you?”

I was so enthralled in watching her body language, the way her lips moved, her eyebrows danced, her eyes expressed every word,
that I’d tuned out the content. I suddenly noticed the quiet, her staring at me. “Huh?” I said.

“Oh, never mind.” She shook her head. “You’re so removed from the real world, you’ve probably never even gotten stoned.”

“Yeah, I have,” I said. “Once. With Jamie.” Once was enough.

“Who’s she?” Xanadu asked. She wiggled her eyebrows. “Your girlfriend?”

I choked. “Not hardly.”

Xanadu leaned back, propping herself on her elbows. She raised one leg, the one closest to me, and bent it so that her knee
was eye level with my face. Her legs were unbelievably long. And smooth. She must shave, I thought. Well, duh. Most girls
shaved. Femme girls.