Spontaneous (10 page)

I
f the Daltons were big fish, this probably would have been the moment for them to drive me to an alley behind a strip club and pistol-whip me as the rap blared and a sneering, arms-folded bouncer named Sergei stood guard. But no, they definitely weren't big fish. Jenna played a comedy podcast (that none of us laughed at) as she drove us down a private road past the Covington Club until we were hidden behind a patch of shrubs alongside the twelfth green of the golf course.

“No one should bother us here,” she said when she cut the engine. “Security guard doesn't come until at least eight, if he comes at all.”

“We're so glad you texted, Mara, because we need this as bad as you do,” Joe said as he sparked up a fully packed bowl.

“Man, do we need this,” Jenna added.

“Have at it, sis,” Joe said without exhaling, and he passed the bowl to Jenna.

Spark, spark. Suck, suck. Cough, cough. Then, having had at it, Jenna thrust it in my face. “Hit that shit.”

In any other situation, I would have been all “well, if you
insist
.” This, however, was a situation where the burning weed was perhaps a burning fuse. Call me silly, but I had begun to put stock in the Say No to Drugs theory. It made more sense than anything else at that point.

“Rain check,” I told Jenna.

“More for me then,” Joe said, snatching it back for another hit.

“We got shrooms,” Jenna said. “Acid. Some meth.”

“What?” I said. “No. Hell no. When did you start selling meth?”

Jenna passed me a Dunkin' Donuts bag. The top half consisted of Munchkins disguising what was beneath—a plethora of prescription bottles and plastic Baggies. “You said you wanted everything,” Jenna said.

“I did,” I said. “I do. I just didn't know you guys were selling hard shit.”

“Ever since kids started blowing up, hard shit sells,” Joe said, launching a billowing sail of smoke my way.

I held my breath as it caressed my face, seemingly crooning,
Suck me in, sweetie, and I promise I won't turn you inside out.
I waited a full ten seconds after it passed and then drew in a small breath and whispered, “I think I better take the stuff and head home.”

“Ah, kid,” Jenna said. “I know you're sad, but we can't let you get high alone. And if you haven't done some of this stuff, you're gonna need a spirit guide. Especially with the acid.”

“Don't worry,” I said. “Dylan will be with me. We're gonna . . . we'll be together.”

“Dylan?” Jenna asked as she took another hit. “As in Hovemeyer?”

Joe snagged the bowl back and went in for round number three. He closed his eyes and held the smoke tightly in the fists of his lungs. “You didn't know,” he grunted. “Dylan and Mara are like—”

God bless headrests.

The splatter hit the windshield. It painted Joe's window velvet red. It drenched one half of his twin, the right half, plastering Jenna's long brown hair to her face. It streamed back, splashing on the seat next to me like a spilled cherry soda. But yeah, God bless those headrests, Joe's in particular, because it shielded me from what was left of him.

The car shook for a second, as if hit by a gust of wind. Then Jenna began to moan. “Ohhhhhhhhh.”

“Oh my God,” I said. “Jenna? Are you okay? Tell me you're okay.”

“That wasn't . . . that wasn't . . . that wasn't . . .”

The explosion was loud, but not so loud that my ears were ringing. I still had my wits about me. I'd been down this road before. “Jenna, honey,” I said. “This is not good. But we've got to get out of here. I know someone who can help.”

“That wasn't . . . he wasn't . . . oh God, oh God, oh God.”

I reached forward and put a hand on her shoulder. “Jenna,” I said. “We've got to go. We've got to get to my friend. She'll take care of us. We'll be okay.”

Not that I really believed the words, but I had to say something.

Jenna looked into the passenger seat, winced, and then collapsed on the steering wheel. “He didn't do anything wrong,” she cried. “He was a good boy. He was the best boy.”

“Can you drive?” I asked. “Because I'm going to make a call and I'll lead us somewhere safe.”

Rather than wait for a response, I reached forward and turned the key. The engine rumbled, which made the car vibrate and the blood shake and shimmer in the autumn sun. I suppose I could have gotten behind the wheel myself, but that would have required me unbuckling Jenna, pushing her over, and actually having the will and desire to drive a car.

Jenna's body suddenly went rigid and she gasped. Of the girls I knew, she was by far the toughest. She could deal with anything and anyone. Parents. Cops. You'd think she was twice her age because of how goddamn smooth she usually was. At that particular moment, it seemed like she was fighting to channel her calm and cool, but she was also trembling. And when she flipped on the windshield wipers, they didn't help push away the gore. So she cried, “It's staining the glass. It won't ever wash off!”

“Deep breaths,” I said. “It's on the inside. The wipers won't work. Use your sleeve. Clean a patch so you can see out.”

She filled her lungs again and became a good little soldier, doing as asked, sopping her twin brother up in her cable-knit sweater and creating a gauzy but mildly transparent ruby circle.

“Okay, now press your foot on the brake,” I told her. “Because I'm gonna put the car in drive. All you have to do is, you know, steer and accelerate.” I reached forward and eased the gearshift down to the D.

Another deep breath and she said, “I can do this.”

“Yes, you can. Yes, you can.”

The car lurched forward and off we went. Phone in my lap, I searched my contacts under the
C
and
R
for Carla Rosetti, but didn't find her there.

“Where do I go? Where? Where?” Jenna pleaded.

“Head toward Wooderson Road,” I said, because that old factory was chosen to be the rendezvous spot with Rosetti. “Go fast, but be safe.”

Be safe. It was that mom nonsense again, but it was all I could think to say to a girl who had just watched her twin explode. I know it wasn't like they were identical or anything. They didn't share matching DNA. But they did share a womb, and it must have felt like part of her body had torn apart right then and there. A part she loved and hated in equal measure. What could I possibly say to that?

Be safe, and that's it. I let the dull roar of the car do the rest of the talking. The golf course coursed by the window. Then, in a tone-deaf but entirely endearing voice, Jenna began to sing.

“When the red red robin comes bob-bob-bobbin' along . . . along!”

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Driving,” she said.

True enough. Though only barely. She was keeping the car on the road, but not in the correct lane. Luckily, we had this stretch of the pavement to ourselves until we reached the Old Post Road. Then we'd be in the thick of antique shops and farm stands.

Jenna fell back into the tune, but louder this time, singing,
“There'll be no more sobbin' when he starts throbbin' his old, sweet song.”

“What I meant was, why are you singing?” I asked.

“It's my calming song. It's my happy place.”

“Does it help you drive?”

“It does.”

“Okay then. Carry on.”

In retrospect . . . a lot of things. I'm not going to play the in-retrospect game here or anywhere else. Because it doesn't change a thing. What I am going to do, however, is celebrate good choices. Jenna's song was a good choice. Sure, it was dopey and weird. Sure, she was a crappy singer, but it calmed her down and it calmed me down too. It helped me focus.

As Jenna sang, “Wake up, wake up, you sleepyhead,” I remembered something.

“
S
!” I hollered. “She's under
S
for Special Agent Carla Rosetti of the FBI!”

As Jenna sang, “Get up, get up, get outta bed,” I placed my call.

We passed the Covington Club, its stately whiteness all horror show through our smudged windows. The phone rang, and as Jenna sang, “Cheer up, cheer up, the sun is red,” Rosetti answered.

“Agent Rosetti,” she said, because chicks like her don't ever say hello.

“Thank God,” I said. “We're heading to the rendezvous spot early. There's been another.”

As Jenna sang, “Live, love, laugh, and be happy,” she turned the car onto the Old Post Road, put her foot on the gas, swerved to avoid an oncoming UPS truck, and promptly blew up.

Bam. Red. Wet. Fuck.

Not again.

Without a driver, the car would go no faster, but it would continue under its own momentum. The phone slipped out of my bloody hand and I lunged forward to try to grab the wheel, but I was still strapped in, so the belt yanked me back against my seat. As I reached down to unbuckle, the car hopped a curb and even though the windows were now completely red and opaque and I couldn't see a thing, I knew impact was imminent. I braced myself.

That's when the blood-soaked RAV4—occupied by me and a shit-ton of narcotics—crashed through the front window of the Covington Quilt Museum.

I
had broken a promise. Back when I was starting freshman year, Dad had said, “Can you do something for me?”

“Probably,” I had replied.

“Make sure I don't ever receive a phone call from either the police or the hospital. That's all I ask from you.”

“Consider it done.”

As I climbed my way to consciousness amid the huffing and beeping machines of a hospital room, I saw the old man slumped in a chair in the corner. To defuse things, I made a joke. “So which one called you first?”

His phone and the TV remote were resting on his chest, and when he sat up, they fell to the floor, which changed the channel on the TV from a football game to a newscast with a scroll across the bottom that my blurry eyes couldn't read but my blurry brain guessed was about the death toll in Covington, and how it was now
up to six. Jack the Ripper killed only five people, in case you were wondering. (Though I don't know why you'd be wondering about Jack the Ripper. Weirdo.)

“Baby,” Dad said as he leapt to his feet. “Sweetie. Cutie.”

His foot must've been asleep because he hobbled over and put his hands on my face and held my cheeks, really held them, like he was trying to hold me together, which maybe he was.

“Where's Mom?” I asked.

“In the café talking to your friend,” he said as he pulled his hands away and gazed in my eyes.

“Dylan?” I asked. “Tess?”

Dad shook his head. “The FBI agent.”

Notice how he didn't introduce Rosetti as “that hard-ass fed who's super pissed at you for messing up her perfectly good drug sting.” He said “friend.” As in friendly. Which wasn't a side of the special agent I knew, but one I wanted to know. What with her being my hero and all.

“Am I . . . is everything . . . ?”

I sat up, which was actually easier than I expected. I ached. I was dizzy, but dizzy was hardly a new sensation for me.

“You have a mild concussion,” he said. “Some bruises and sprains but, thankfully, you're still you. You're still you.”

But who was I at this point? The girl who'd been splattered by four spontaneous combustions? The girl who'd been pulled from a mangled car? The girl who survived? Which is a horrible thing to be sometimes.

“Was it only the twins?” I asked. “The car didn't hit anyone, did it?”

“Quilts,” Dad said. “Expensive ones, I guess, but quilts are nothing but quilts.”

I'm sure the proprietors of the Covington Quilt Museum would protest such a notion, but I suspect the proprietors of the Covington Quilt Museum doth protest too much. They were undoubtedly part of the next wave of fist-shakers who quickly jumped on the bandwagon that I had helped launch. Because as the blur slipped from my eyes, I could finally read the breaking news.

PRESIDENT CALLS SITUATION “A NATIONAL TRAGEDY” AS SEVENTH VICTIM OF THE COVINGTON CURSE CONFIRMED.

And there was a picture of Kamal Patel in all his stonerific, assholish glory.

K
amal Patel blew up halfway through a gravity bong hit, his body liquefying and cascading down into the orange Home Depot bucket of bong water that Laura Riggs was holding steady with her bare feet. It was a special bong hit, a bong hit of purpose, though Kamal hardly required his bong hits to be purposeful. And it's no coincidence that this hit took place hours after the deaths of the Dalton twins, because it was meant to eulogize them.

Upon learning of Joe's and Jenna's spontaneous combustions, Kamal, Laura, and Greer Holloway gathered in the rickety remains of a tree house perched in a willow on the edge of Laura's backyard. This is where, in seventh grade, they first got high together. Those three and the Dalton twins all huddled around a balloon full of nitrous, giggling their way into a new hobby.

It was a defining moment for them, and I remember hearing whispers in middle school about the “crack tree house” and all the debauchery that took place up there, including make-out games
and partial nudity to go along with, well, not crack, but a mix of mild sedatives and hallucinogens.

Back then, the stories terrified me. By sophomore year, when they finally tickled my curiosity, the crack tree house had been replaced by Laura's basement, which had the added comforts of indoor plumbing, Wi-Fi, and parents who did not give the first shit about teenage hooligans hanging out downstairs amid clouds of carcinogens. They had one of those we'd-rather-it-happen-in-our-basement-than-out-on-the-streets attitudes, which is great in theory, but in reality the streets can be fucking cold at night and the streets don't have fold-out couches. So, as far as environments conducive to shenanigans go, basements are always preferable to streets.

Actually, I hate to refer to what went on down there as shenanigans. It was at first, I guess, and it was most of the other times too, but a few undeniably dark things happened in Laura's basement as well.

They
all
involved Kamal Patel. Now, I can't tell you too much about Kamal without getting all stabby. I'm not ashamed to admit that I hated the bastard. The fact that girls like Laura and Greer still hung out with him made me question my feelings about them too. He was that toxic a person. I only hoped they didn't know the stories.

The stories were multiple and despicable. For the sake of protecting those who should be protected, I'll simply say that more than one girl passed out in Laura's basement over the years, and more than one girl woke up alone in the dark with Kamal Patel
on top of them, his stank breath creeping down their neck and his knuckly hands creeping everywhere else.

Christ. The tears shed because of that slime, the shame tucked away and only shared with those who promised not to say a thing. Including me. And yes, I'm saying a few things now, but I'm only naming one name. Kamal Patel.

To many, Kamal was a lovable stoner. To me and a few others, he was a predator, and whenever I was invited to Laura's house, I always had to ask “Who's gonna be there?” If his name was on the guest list, then I made my excuses and had my fun elsewhere. Not because I was afraid of him, but because I was disgusted by him.

So when I saw his picture on the TV screen in my hospital room and learned that he was lucky number seven in our ever-growing list of spontaneous combustions, I certainly didn't shed a tear. If anything, I felt relief. Not that he deserved death, but he certainly deserved it more than the others. Still, what Kamal deserved had little to do with what this meant. A bloody car full of drugs plus a bloody tree house full of drugs equals a community about to rip itself apart.