Part 7 (2/2)
”I guess that pretty much did it for the party, huh?” I asked.
”That party and every other party from now until we're all dead,” Amy said as she climbed out of the truck after me. ”Lisa still has to swear in blood, practically, just to get out of the house, and it's three years later, for G.o.d's sake.”
Kevin jumped down from the tailgate. ”What are you guys telling her?”
”Oh, nothing,” T-s.h.i.+rt said. ”Only the legend of the Bathroom Bandito.”
Kevin blushed. ”Yeah, well, I was thirteen.”
”You were a dork,” Amy said.
”You still are,” I said. Kevin's eyes darted toward me, and Amy crowed with delight.
”See,” Amy said. ”She's a smart one. She knows the score.” She threw her arm around my shoulder. ”They're all dorks, aren't they, Josie?”
”Not my brother.” I reached up to adjust the collar of Jack's jacket and make Amy move her arm.
”Jack's cool enough,” Kevin said carefully.
”My older sister used to see him down at Eide's all the time,” she said. ”She says he's the coolest guy she's ever met. Smart and funny and just awesome.”
”Jack worked at Eide's?” Kevin asked me as we entered the warm coffee shop.
”For about fifteen minutes.”
”I didn't know that.”
”It was literally about a week.”
”What happened?”
They had asked for a social security card and a driver's license, and Jack had neither. ”He didn't like it,” I said shortly. T-s.h.i.+rt and Amy were ahead of us, following the waitress. I moved quickly to catch up.
”Ask him if he remembers my sister,” Amy said as we slid into the booth. ”Beth Furlough. She had a huge crush on him.” Amy's words were authoritative, as if she were repeating Delphic prophecy. ”She used to say that she wouldn't be surprised if he turned out to be someone special, like a rock star or a secret agent. Something.”
”Okay, we get it.” Kevin looked disgusted. ”Jack Raeburn is good-looking. So is his sister. Can we drop it?”
”I was just saying.”
”And saying, and saying, and saying,” T-s.h.i.+rt said, rolling his eyes.
She sniffed. ”Not my fault if he's the only interesting thing in town.”
I hugged his jacket closer as the waitress came to take our order. The others ordered coffee and French fries and hot fudge sundaes. I got coffee.
They were capable of amazing amounts of talk, those three. On and on and on they went: about Amy's boyfriends, about T-s.h.i.+rt's girlfriends, about what a drag living with your parents was, and how cool college would be. Amy said she wanted a car for her birthday, she didn't care what kind, and they talked about that. T-s.h.i.+rt said he was thinking about joining the soccer team and they talked about that. I sat and looked at the veins on the backs of my hands. At one point Kevin turned to me and asked, ”You okay?” I nodded and he didn't ask again.
They weren't unusually dumb, or unusually superficial, or any other kind of unusual. They were normal, nice kids from normal, nice families. Jack and Raeburn were right; we weren't like them. I had nothing to say to them. I wanted my coffee to have whiskey in it and I wanted my brother, and nothing else was all that interesting.
T-s.h.i.+rt and Amy dropped us off at the high school around eleven-thirty. There were two cars in the empty, moonlit parking lot. One of them was Kevin's station wagon. The other was a battered blue truck.
Kevin dropped my hand. Together, we stared across the dark lawn at the parking lot in silence.
I heard him swallow. ”Did I keep you out too late?” he said.
”Violating the strict Raeburn curfew, you mean?”
”Well, your dad's home...”
”And by now he's pa.s.sed out in the study. Let's go the other way.”
We walked toward the clearing, where the bonfire had been. The scent of the night air was still good.
”s.h.i.+t, Josie,” Kevin said. ”What's he doing here?”
We had reached the soggy black scar where the fire had been. The moonlight glinted off Kevin's gla.s.ses. He was scared. He kept running his hands through his hair, turning his head nervously.
I took a deep breath. Now I smelled char and Jack's coat and the coffee on my own breath. I looked at Kevin, who was a nice boy who liked to wear army pants and rock star T-s.h.i.+rts, and an eerie calm slid over me.
”I'm going to go back alone,” I said. My voice was steady. ”Stay here. Give us a chance to leave.”
”Wait a minute,” Kevin said.
I turned to go.
Jack was standing there watching us, with his hands in his pockets. He was blocking the way to the parking lot. His face was turned toward the sky.
”Hey, little sister,” he said, staring into the cloudless sky.
”What are you doing here?”
”Waiting for you.” He looked at me. ”Nice jacket.”
”Thanks.”
Then he looked at Kevin.
Kevin made a strangled noise in his throat and bolted forward. I'm not sure what he was doing. Maybe he was hoping to get in the first punch. Maybe he was trying to run.
Anyway, Jack caught him.
The last time I saw Kevin McNerny, he was lying where Jack had thrown him, face-down in the ashes of the dead bonfire. I could hear him drawing long, sobbing breaths through his broken nose. He was trying, weakly, to get up, or at least to get his face out of the soot.
Jack's T-s.h.i.+rt was stained with blood and there were a few splattered drops on his cheek. We drove home in silence.
I went straight up to my room and closed the door behind me. Turned the light off and lay face-down on my bed.
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