She was glad he asked because she wasn’t ready to go home yet. She shrugged.
“I have an idea,” he said. She was content to let him lead and lay her head against the seat back, belly full of milkshake and butterflies.
They pulled through a rusting gate and approached a clearing. At the far reach of the headlights was Mockingbird Lake. She tensed. Had she seen this in a horror film? Maybe she shouldn’t have gone with him so easily. She glanced around, noting a hunting knife in the caddy by the dash. When he parked at the bank, he got out and left her in the car. She watched him rummage for something in the back of the truck and she took the knife, slipping it down her boot just in case. Just like her mom had taught her.
Dirk left the headlights on, and the moths and night bugs all descended on the area; the catfish could be heard bubbling and grunting over Charley Pride on the radio. He pulled a tube of catfish bait and squeezed the ochre paste out into a capsule the size of a grub. It stank of rot and shit and something else. Liver maybe.
After rinsing his fingers in the shallows, he set two bent-up lawn chairs on the shore and gestured for her to sit. “You first,” she said.
Dirk chuckled a little under his breath and gave her a sarcastic salute. He sat and cast his line and held it out to Charlie. “Here, hold this a sec,” he said.
She sat down next to him and took the rod.
He shoved his hand in his pocket and pulled out a lighter and a joint.
“What the hell is that?” Charlie asked, though she knew exactly what it was.
The joint between his lips, Dirk mumbled, “It’s a marijuana cigarette.”
“What do you want that for?” She told herself to shut up and be cool, but she had never been this close to drugs before.
“Welp,” he said. “I guess it feels good. So does a hot shower, so does a hamburger, so does sex. Just like those things, it’s a nice thing to share with someone. Why, is it weirding you out?”
“I don’t know . . . maybe you’re just trying to take advantage of me.” She wasn’t sure she believed that, but she felt the need to push back.
Dirk smiled. He held the flame to the twisted end, took a smooth mouthful, and inhaled, holding it a beat before letting it go. “Whatever, dude,” he said.
Charlie reached out to take the joint, but Dirk pulled it back slightly.
“Hey, seriously, no pressure. It’s not such a big fucking deal, just another way to relax.”
Charlie took the joint from him and tugged a snort of smoke straight into her lungs. She hacked violently. Dirk laughed and collapsed forward, not even trying to hold himself up. The feeling came on almost instantly, like she was being dipped into warm sand, her head airy, a natural grin forming on her face. She swayed (or thought she was swaying) as if to a ballad, and finally found her center. Oh, this is what he meant, she thought. It just feels good.
“Sure does,” Dirk said, and Charlie realized she had spoken out loud. She handed over the joint and Dirk toked, thin-lipped.
“So, what’s your story?” he asked through billows of smoke.
“My story?”
“I mean, what’s the deal, it’s just you and your mom, right?” She must have signaled her discomfort with the question because he quickly followed up. “Sorry, I get a little nosy when I’m high. No shame, honest. My dad took off when I was six or something. I didn’t mean to make it weird, I was just thinking. People around here talk, you know, how the Walker ladies are a bit of a mystery.”
She would not normally indulge such personal questions, but something about the way he asked and the magic running through her body caused the thick wall between her thoughts and her mouth to crumble.
“I don’t know,” she said between residual coughs. “My mom is pretty stingy on details. I think all her family is gone but she doesn’t like to talk about them. I get this feeling like something terrible happened. Maybe I’m afraid to ask. And whoever my dad was was just some guy she went out with when she was younger. She said he was handsome, smart, not much else. Except when I was little, she would say he was the most generous man she had ever met because he let her have me all to herself.”
Dirk humphed. “That’s sweet. My mom calls my dad a motherfucker.” Charlie’s explosive laugh blew snot out her nose. Too high to be embarrassed, she wiped her nose with the tail of her shirt.
She was not the only kid in town who didn’t know her father, but she might have been the only one who never had a man at home at all. She was glad, at least, she did not have to deal with stepdads and temporary “uncles” like some of the girls she knew. As she sat there close enough to Dirk to feel him breathe, she admitted to herself she wanted him.
Charlie changed the subject. “God, Sandy was being a freak tonight.”
“Yeah, she was probably just jealous. We hooked up a while back.”
“You did?” Charlie felt weird but laughed to show she didn’t care.
“I mean, if we’re being honest, who hasn’t hooked up with her?”
She snarfed and covered her face with her hands, letting the fishing pole fall to the ground. She picked it up again and jerked on the line. “Poor Sandy.”
“I shouldn’t poke fun, because it’s really sad. Her mom’s a junkie, her dad never came around. She’s just this bottomless pit and she fills it with”—he paused as if searching for the right word—“with dicks!” They both laughed like high people, helplessly.
“You’re horrible. Now I know how you talk about women, we’ll never be an item,” she said, a flirty smile on her lips.
“Who said anything about being an item?” he said, grinning right back at her.
Charlie found herself studying the broad yoke of his shoulders built for bearing heavy loads; the haze of blond stubble across his cheeks and chin; his hands, nearly twice the breadth of hers. She wanted to prod and squeeze him to know his density and the feel of his skin. She had to stop herself from handling the firm fatty layer around his middle. A force drew her toward him, not just curiosity or attraction, something more like appetite. She settled into her seat, jerking the line from time to time, not caring that the fish weren’t biting.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kit approached the house only half-settled and unsure how she would talk to Charlie. It was past dinnertime and her daughter might be worried or, more likely, pissed. The kitchen light was on. There was a mess of bologna and an open jar of okra on the counter. She noted the stillness in the house at once and hollered up the stairs. No response. She checked Charlie’s room, but it was empty. Downstairs, she found a note on the kitchen counter.
Out. —Ch.