A Killing in the Hills

37


Carla hated the nose ring. It itched and it burned. Turned red and sore if she casually scratched it even just a couple of times a day. And if she didn’t swipe the whole area with rubbing alcohol at regular intervals, the ensuing invasion of pimples was, like, epic. Unsightly.

She also hated the way it looked, period, with or without its persistent halo of acne. She’d only pierced her nose in the first place to piss off her mom. But the day she came home with it, her mom was busy on a big case, with files and photos and printouts and transcripts and yellow legal pads spread out across the living room floor like a second carpet. Her mom barely noticed her. And Carla had to point out the nose ring. Her mother’s reaction was totally unsatisfying: Fine, honey. Just make sure you keep it sanitary. I think there’s some hydrogen peroxide in the bathroom cabinet. Later, when the big case was over and Bell had more time, she talked to Carla about respecting her body and making smart choices, but that was it. No drama.

The idea of coming home with an unauthorized nose ring was all about The Moment. The Moment when you walked in the door and your mother took one look at you and screamed, ‘Oh, my God! What the hell have you done to yourself?!’ the way Mindy Monkton’s mother had done.

If there was no hysteria, there was no Moment. And no point to enduring all the itching and burning, not to mention all the inconvenience, of a pierced nose.

Carla flipped the visor back up. She’d contemplated her nose ring way too long already. Lonnie kept a small mirror strapped to the back of the visor on the passenger seat of his Sebring, and she had to force herself not to stare in it for miles and miles. Because it was irresistible, being way better to look at than looking at the crappy scenery. And way better than looking at Lonnie.

‘So I been asking around like you told me to,’ he said. ‘Checking it out.’ Lonnie held the steering wheel by his fingertips, as if it were an afterthought. Sometimes, in response to some inner compulsion, he’d twitch his skinny shoulders and start bothering the bottom half of the wheel with his thumbs, getting a rhythm going, and then he’d try to make sound effects with his mouth and his tongue and his teeth, like a rapper.

‘Just drive, Lonnie, okay?’ Carla said, in her super-annoyed voice. ‘Can you do that? Can you just drive like a normal person?’

He was climbing her last nerve.

She had to depend on him. She wasn’t thrilled about the situation, but there you were: She still had five more weeks to go on her license suspension. For the time being, she couldn’t drive the beautiful car her dad had bought for her. It just sat in front of the house now like a big fat red reminder of how stupid everything was.

If Carla wanted to go anywhere, she had to rely on the leering and mercurial and often annoying Lonnie, along with his even less dependable car. The dull gold Sebring needed new wheel bearings. Wheel bearings were expensive. The scraping sound was unbearable.

Yet it was slightly less irritating than listening to Lonnie.

He’d picked her up right after school on Thursday. She was standing at the bottom of the front steps, scowling at the line of bloated ugly buses that waited for students to hoist themselves aboard, when she spotted Lonnie’s car over in the parking lot. He’d wanted to catch her before she headed home and so he’d been driving in circles around the lot, waiting for school to let out. Good metaphor, Carla thought, for how Lon’s brain works. Round and round and round. Like a hamster in a wheel. Going nowhere fast.

He’d honked. When she whipped her head in that direction, she spotted Lonnie’s skinny splayed hand, thrusting up out of the driver’s-side window. Waving at her.

It turned out, Carla discovered from Lonnie as soon as she slid in the car, that the guy who hosted that party – the one she’d been asking him about – might know the guy she was looking for. It wasn’t a for-sure thing, but maybe. They ought to drive back out there, Lonnie suggested, back out to Eddie’s, and check it out.

Like, today. Now, even.

Why the hell not? Carla had thought. There wasn’t much else to do.

It was a chilly, overcast day. The sky was white. It was the kind of sky that could easily unzip into a snow sky.

Carla leaned her head back against the car seat. She knew how much Lonnie cared for her. He showed it all the time, even though he wouldn’t name it, wouldn’t push it, because he had a good idea that she wasn’t into him – not in ‘that way,’ anyway. She’d made that clear. It wasn’t the kind of thing you could ever be confused about. Still, he hung around.

Lonnie was a puzzle. He did plenty of bad stuff, all right. Hell, he was no saint. She knew that. There was a lot of smallness in Lonnie Prince, a lot of pettiness and laziness and spite and drift, but there was something else as well. Something bigger. Something she’d sensed about him. Lonnie himself probably didn’t know the extent of it.

And neither did she. Not really.