Seventh Heaven (12 page)

All day Ace felt himself falling harder for Rickie Shapiro, and by the afternoon he was at her mercy. People couldn't go around feeling like this and exist. He couldn't stand to think of what the Saint would say if he knew what Ace had wanted to do to Rickie in the hallway. He wanted to pull up her skirt and slide his hand into her underpants; he wanted to make her gasp, to feel how wet she was, how ready she was for him, how she wanted him in spite of herself. The Saint, he knew, wouldn't say a word, it would be the disappointment in his eyes, that would tell it all, how fucking impure he would think Ace was. Jackie would have plenty to say. You jerk, that's what he'd say, not for Ace's wanting her, but because he was actually foolish enough to care. She thinks she's too good for you. All you've got to do is take her, take her and then just walk away. Walk away, man, and it would be even better if you made her crazy for you before you left. Yeah, have her call out your name as you're walking away. Have there be tears in her eyes.

J
ACKIE ONCE HAD A STEADY GIRLFRIEND
, Jeanette, and when they were together they used to lock themselves in her bedroom, even when her parents were home. Jeanette never cared about that. But Jackie never talked to her; he made her sit in the backseat alone when they went riding around with his friends. She wound up dropping out of high school and marrying a cop over in Oceanside, and now she sent a Christmas card every year, addressed to the whole family. If Jackie was the one to bring in the mail, he always threw her card away; he didn't even remember what she looked like anymore, and when he came across her picture in friends' photographs he'd always say, “Who the hell is that?”

Jackie knew Cathy Corrigan, so did his friends Pete and Dominick, but so did plenty of other guys, and knowing her wasn't something you necessarily bragged about or even admitted. You went to Cathy Corrigan when you were desperate, or when you wanted a girl to do things no one in her right mind would do. Actually, she was pretty, even though her eyes crossed a little. The pathetic thing was she actually went for Jackie, after all the rotten things he'd done to her. She lived at the far end of Hemlock Street, and Jackie knew she came looking for him sometimes; she'd just happen to pass by when he was working on his car, she'd just happen to be wearing something she thought he'd like, a new sweater or a skirt shorter than any other girl would dare be seen in. He told her once he thought hoop earrings were sexy, and she'd worn them ever since, just because he liked them, and that only made it easier for Jackie to be cruel.

Two nights after they'd stolen the Cadillac, Jackie and his friends were still feeling like bigshots. It was a Friday night and the streets were still frozen; up on Harvey's Turnpike there were cold halos around every streetlight. The mimosas and the willow trees had limbs of ice, the chain-link fences that ran along the backyards were encased in silvery pods. Up at Louie's Candy Store sawdust had been sprinkled on the linoleum floor so that customers wouldn't slip when they came in for cigarettes or gum. It was black as midnight by seven when Jackie and his friends pulled into the parking lot. They didn't have any particular plans—pick up some smokes at Louie's, then maybe head over to the bowling alley. All three wore polished black boots, their hair was combed back and so wet that ice crystals formed by the time they had walked into the candy store.

“Take a look at that,” Pete said, while Louie was getting their cigarettes.

Jackie took a pack of Juicy Fruit gum and stuck it in his pocket without paying. He saw Cathy Corrigan sitting on the last stool at the counter. She was wearing a fleecy coat that looked like a skunk and she had a smudgy white pocketbook slung over her shoulder.

“What a piece of trash,” Jackie said.

“Yeah,” Dominick agreed.

“You want her?” Jackie asked, and he grinned.

Dominick and Pete grinned back at him. Jackie put some change down on the counter, picked up his pack of Marlboros, and went over to the soda fountain. Cathy was still wearing her white checker's smock from the A&P under her coat. She had a hamburger special in front of her; her pack of Salems and a gold lighter were right next to the bottle of ketchup. Jackie leaned up against the stool next to her.

“Meet me outside,” he said without looking at her. He lit a cigarette, and when he could feel her staring at him, he walked to the front of the store. Outside, Pete and Dominick were waiting.

“So?” Pete said.

“She'll be right out,” Jackie assured him.

They stood in the cold, smoking cigarettes. Somewhere far down Harvey's Turnpike a siren sounded. The wind shook the pink neon lights of Louie's sign and rattled the letters against the bricks. Cathy Corrigan walked outside, then stopped and pushed the strap of her pocketbook over her shoulder.

“You didn't say there'd be anyone else,” she said to Jackie.

“What do you care?” Jackie said.

Jackie turned and started to walk toward his parked car. Dominick and Pete grinned at each other and followed, and soon they could hear Cathy behind them, walking gingerly on the ice. They got in the car and drove over to the bowling alley, parked in the rear of the lot where it was dark, and took turns with her in the backseat. Jackie went first, and then Pete, who had had her before, and then they had some trouble with her and actually had to talk her into taking on Dominick.

“What am I, a mercy case?” Dominick said.

They told him to shut up and swore to Cathy that Dominick had never gone all the way before and that she'd be doing him a psychological favor, and when that didn't work, Jackie made it clear that he wouldn't drive her home until she said yes. Pete and Jackie stood outside and watched through the window as Dominick took his turn with her. It was freezing cold and they could hear the music from the jukebox in the bowling alley. They could see Dominick's white ass and the moons of Cathy's breasts. Neither of them had thought to undress her when it was their turn.

“Let me bring her home to meet my mother,” Pete drawled.

“Yeah.” Jackie laughed. “I'll chip in for the engagement ring.”

Pete clapped his hands together, then blew on his fingers. “What a dog,” he said.

Jackie was scanning the parking lot for Cadillacs. He had never had a smoother ride—better than his Chevy, better than a Corvette. Pete nudged him hard with his elbow.

“A dog,” he said. “Get it?”

Dominick got out of the car and tucked in his shirt. Inside the car, Cathy Corrigan was folding up her checker's smock; she fumbled through her pocketbook in the dark till she found her rat-tail comb.

“You know what they're saying,” Pete told Jackie. “She fucked a dog and then had its pup.”

“Get out of here,” Jackie said. He took a cigarette and tried to light it against the wind.

“Swear to God,” Pete said. “She's got the goddamned puppy at home. I'm telling you, man, it's hers. She probably lets it suck her tits.”

“You're a moron,” Jackie said to him. “Anybody ever tell you that before?”

“Sure,” Pete said. “Like it really bothers me.”

The three friends sat up front as they drove back toward home. Dominick looked over his shoulder as they passed the only patch of woods left beside Harvey's Turnpike. “Christ,” he said. “She's crying.”

“I'm getting out of here,” Pete said. “Drop me off at the corner.”

When Jackie pulled over, Dominick and Pete both got out. “Thanks a lot,” Jackie called after them. He looked into the rearview mirror. Cathy Corrigan wasn't making a sound, but in the moonlight Jackie could see tears falling down her cheeks. “For Christ's sake,” he said, “don't worry. I'll drive you home.” He reached for his cigarettes. When he looked in the rearview mirror again, she was still crying. “Oh, Jesus,” he said. He pushed the car lighter in. “All right. You can sit up front.”

Cathy got out and came around to the passenger seat. She had a circle of mascara around each eye. She looked like something you'd run over in the road.

“You could have told me about them,” she said.

“So sue me,” Jackie said. He ripped the car into gear; it was his game completely. Cathy looked at him, but she didn't say a word when he drove down Hemlock and went past her house. Jackie drove to the teachers' parking lot behind the school and parked. He had hated high school the whole time he was there, but now he kept coming back to it, and he didn't even wonder why.

“Take off all your clothes,” he told Cathy.

“What do you mean?” Cathy said.

He knew that when her voice went up like that she was frightened. He left the car running so the heater would still work, and he turned the radio up. “I mean I'm not done,” he said.

Cathy stared at him, suspicious, as if he meant to take all her clothes, kick her out, and just leave her there. That had happened to her before, in another car, with another guy.

“Oh, for Christ's sake, Cathy,” Jackie said. “Trust me.”

Cathy Corrigan laughed. It was a small, dry sound, as if there were something wrong with her throat. She took off her coat, started to unbutton her blouse, and gathered her nerve.

“You've never kissed me,” she said.

“So?” Jackie said.

“I don't know,” Cathy said. “I was just thinking about it.”

If he didn't do it, she'd give him a harder time, and anyway no one would ever know. He grabbed Cathy and pulled her toward him. He kissed her lightly and was surprised to find she tasted like strawberries. She wasn't so bad. He kept kissing her and finished unbuttoning her blouse. If he hadn't been kissing her, if he hadn't had the radio turned up so loud, he might have noticed that another car had pulled into the parking lot. When Pete drove his father's Oldsmobile up and shone his headlights onto Jackie's Chevy, Jackie felt something cold go through him. He wrenched away from Cathy. Through the foggy windshield he could see Pete, and Dominick, and Jerry Tyler, but he couldn't make out any of the other guys' faces.

“Get down,” Jackie told Cathy.

Cathy looked at him, puzzled, until she finally understood what he meant. He didn't want anyone to see them together; it was death to be caught kissing her.

“Get down on the floor,” Jackie said.

His voice broke, and maybe that was why Cathy sat up straight and said, “No. I won't.”

Jackie glared at her; he wanted to slap her, but he didn't have time for that. “Then get in the backseat,” he said, and when she didn't move, he gave her a shove. “Go on.”

He pushed her until she was hanging halfway into the back. The other guys had opened their windows and were calling out to him, laughing. They blinked the headlights on and off. He was trapped here with her; he had to make his move. Blinded by the headlights, he reached down and tore the car into gear. He let out the clutch so fast that Cathy was propelled back; she gave a little gasp when he floored the gas, and clung to the top of the seat with her fingernails.

At first the Chevy took off in a straight line; Jackie's foot was so heavy he couldn't have let up on the gas even if he had tried, and he didn't have time to try once they hit the ice. The Chevy made a circle and kept on going, leaning to one side so that the door scraped along the asphalt, and nothing could have stopped them when they crashed into the chain-link fence that separated the parking lot from the athletic field. They were flying on the black ice, and above them the stars pulsed with light. Cathy Corrigan held on to her pocketbook with one hand and gripped the top of the seat where she'd been perched ever since Jackie tried to push her into the back. Jackie heard her call out when they hit the fence, then all he heard was metal, as if the metal were screaming with a voice of its own. But really it was he who was screaming, as if anyone's scream could weaken the force of the accident. And that's all it was, that's how it was listed down at the station house when Joe Hennessy, who had pulled night duty, came in to file his report. He didn't have to go to the high school, but it was on his way home. The parking lot was full now; there was a car full of white-faced boys, an ambulance, three police cars, and another detective, Johnny Knight. Hennessy got out of his car and buttoned his coat. He went to stand beside Knight, and he lit a cigarette.

“The girl was dead as soon as she hit the ground,” Knight said.

Out in the field there was a body covered by a gray woolen blanket.

“Kids,” Knight said. “They never think anything can hurt them. She was fooling around. Sitting on top of the front seat. Right through the window on impact.”

Hennessy nodded and smoked his cigarette. “Mind if I take a look?” he asked.

“Hey.” Knight shrugged. “Have a party.”

Hennessy went over to the fence. The Chevy was totaled; there was so much broken glass that the asphalt seemed to be covered with stars. Hennessy saw something as white as milk shimmering in the dark. Only when he reached down to pick it up did he realize he hadn't found a piece of glass. What he held in the palm of his hand was a perfect white tooth.

T
HE FLAG OUTSIDE THE HIGH SCHOOL WAS AT
half-mast for two days, and there had been an assembly to honor Cathy's memory. Even the rudest boys, boys who had fucked Cathy Corrigan and boys who only said they had, were silent and wore dress shirts and black ties. Girls who had written that Cathy was a tramp with their hot-pink lipsticks on the mirrors in the girls' room, and who had refused to sit next to her in class, put their arms around each other and wept. There was blood on the athletic field for a week, spots that looked like rust and hushed anyone who passed by, until more snow began to fall. And now, nearly two weeks after the accident, Ace McCarthy still rose at dawn. His brother would be coming home from the hospital in only a few hours, but Ace got dressed and left the house before his parents were out of bed. By the time the sun was rising, Ace was standing beside the smashed-in fence. The snow was already deep enough to cover his ankles. He had come every day to this spot where the car had crashed, and now all he saw was snow. It was so cold that the snow turned blue and Ace had to breathe into his cupped hand for warmth. He stayed there as long as he could take it, he stayed until he could see the crash somewhere behind his eyelids. And then he turned up his collar and put his hands in his pockets.