Dreamland
Chapter 8
As December began, when I wasn't in photography class with my mother and Boo, continuing my rapid falling out of favor with the cheerleading squad, or listening to Rina wail about her love life, I was at Corinna's. It was the only place I felt like I got some peace of mind, and I found myself drawn there whenever things got crazy. I'd creep up the front steps and knock softly, always worried I was interrupting something, and she'd yell out for me to come in. When I pushed the door open I usually found her sitting on the couch with a cigarette in one hand and the remote in the other, smiling as if she'd been waiting for me to show up all along. We'd sit on the couch, smoking, and watch soap operas, eating frozen burritos and talking while the world outside went on without me. I'd discovered that Corinna and I had a lot in common. Besides the fact that we'd both gone to Jacksonshe was three years ahead of Cassher mother and mine were each Junior Leaguers, and she'd grown up in Crestwood, a subdivision on the other side of the highway from mine. She said she'd been a geek her freshman year, doing time in student council and dance committees, until she met Dave, who was two years older. She fell in love with him and became, in her own words, a “burnout,” spending more time in the parking lot than in class. In her yearbook, which she kept on the coffee table, there was a picture of her sitting on the hood of someone's car in cutoff jeans and a tie-?dyed T- shirt, barefoot and wearing sunglasses. She was laughing, beautiful, even then. For graduation, she'd gotten a tiny green vine tattooed around her left ankle, and Dave had given her the first of the thin, shiny silver bracelets she wore on her left wrist. He had continued to give her one for every Christmas, birthday, and Valentine's Day since. They clinked against each other whenever she walked, or gestured excitedly, or reached to brush her hair out of her faceDave said it was her theme music. But what I liked most about Corinna was that she liked me. She was pretty, smart, and funny but I didn't feel like I faded out when I was with her, like I always had with Rina and Cass. I loved her easygoing manner, hanging on every one of her horror stories about waitressing at Applebee's and her own wild high school years. She seemed to have the perfect life to me: independent, fun job, living with a man who loved her in their tiny, funky farmhouse. I could see me and Rogerson like that, someday. Us against the world. It was the way I imagined Cass living in New York with Adam, starting over all on her own. Being with Corinna always made me miss Cass a little less. She didn't talk to or see her family much, even though they lived right in town. One afternoon we went to the grocery store and bumped into her mother, leading to a strange, awkward exchange in the frozen food aisle that made me so uncomfortable I slipped off to the produce section. Her mom looked a lot like mine, with the blond bob, khaki skirt, conservative V-?neck sweater, and pearl earrings. She was buying salad dressing and scallops, and when she asked Corinna about Dave her nose wrinkled just slightly, as if she'd gotten a sudden whiff of something rotten. Afterwards, riding home, Corinna chain-?smoked cigarettes, hardly talking except in small argumentative spurts, as if her mother was still there, arguing back. “They never even tried to like him,” she said, hitting the gas to pass a slow-?moving school bus. “They hated him on sight. But it was never really about him. They had already decided they wanted me to be chaste, go to college, and be a lawyer. It was always about what they wanted.” Then she hit the volume on the radio, cranking it up to drown herself out. We drove on, and a second later she reached forward, turning the sound down again. “I mean,” she added angrily, “they'd already, like, decided exactly what I was supposed to do, and be, for God's sake. I never even had a say in anything.” I nodded as she twisted the volume up, the speakers rattling around us. We drove on, whisking past the dairy farm at the top of the road, the smell of cows and manure wafting in through the open window. “And now,” she said, reaching impatiently to cut off the radio altogether as we bumped down the dirt road to her house, “they're so disappointed in me. Like I've let them down by not doing everything they planned. I can see it in their faces. Like waiting tables is so awful. I'm not costing them anything, for God's sake. I mean, I can't even afford to go to the dentist, but do I ask them for help?” “No,” I said as she yanked the wheel and we sputtered to a stop behind Dave's truck. “No,” she repeated. “Exactly. I don't.” She got out of the car, grabbed her one bag of groceries, and slammed the door. I followed her up the steps into the house, where Dave was sitting on the couch in jeans and a Spam T-?shirt, an open bag of Fritos on his lap. “Hey there,” he said cheerfully as she brushed past him into the kitchen, the door swinging shut behind her. I could hear her bracelets clanking as she moved around, putting things away, cabinet doors banging shut, one by one. Dave, with one Frito halfway to his mouth, raised his eyebrows. “We saw her mom at the store,” I explained.
“Oh,” he said, popping it into his mouth. “How'd that go?” “Shit!” Corinna said loudly, as something crashed and broke in the kitchen. “Goddammit.” “Not so good,” I told him. He sighed, standing up. “Here,” he said, handing off the Fritos to me. “I'm going in.” I watched as he pushed the kitchen door open. It started to swing shut behind him before catching on the stubborn piece of kitchen tile that poked up at the edge of the threshold. He walked over to where Corinna was standing, crying, holding a piece of broken plate in her hand. “This fell,” she said, holding it up as proof. “I didn't drop it.” “I know,” he said, taking it out of her hand and putting it on the counter. “It's okay.” She wiped at her eyes, impatiently. Then she said, “I hate that I let her do this to me. It's so dysfunctional.” “It's not your fault,” Dave said as Corinna closed her eyes, leaning her face against his chest, and I felt bad for watching, turning my attention to the Brady Bunch rerun on the TV. I wondered again if this was what Cass's life was like with Adam in New York. I hoped so. Even if she was struggling and living off Ramen-?noodle soup, it seemed perfect to be in this kind of love. Corinna was still crying, even as Dave kissed her forehead and smiled, taking one of her hands and twirling her around the small, paint-?peeling kitchen. “Stop,” she said, half-?laughing as he dipped her over the garbage can. “David, honestly.” He was humming something, a song I didn't know, as he twirled her out, then pulled her back, scooping an arm around her waist, and led her into an exaggerated tango, both of them stepping expertly over the dog bowl. “You're crazy,” she said, but now she was smiling. Outside the window over my shoulder it was winter, flat and gray. But in the kitchen, under the warm bulb light, they were still dancing, laughing, twirling across the tiny floor while those silver bracelets jingled, making music all their own.
My mother was still buying dolls and glued to the Lamont Whipper Show daily, where she caught glimpses of Cass every once in a while. Adam, however, she saw every day, since at least one fistfight or hair pulling incident occurred on each show. He was always bounding onstage, grabbing wives off their cheating husbands or separating angry drag queens while the crowd roared in the background. She was also writing Cass each week, and although she hadn't heard back yet, there'd been four hang-?ups so far on our phone, all coming during the official O'Koren dinnertime: six to six-?thirty. My mother would throw down her napkin and run to grab the phone, then stand there saying hello again and again, her fingers gripping white around the receiver, before finally replacing it and walking slowly back to the table. She'd sit down, not saying anything, while my father and I watched her, the only sound the scraping of forks against plates. “Margaret,” my father would say, finally. “It's probably just some long-?distance company” “She almost said something that time,” my mother would blurt out. “I could hear her breathing. She wants to talk to me. I can feel it.” This was probably true. Cass had always been easily homesick. Even when we went to camp as teenagers she'd bawled at the bus station. I knew the only reason she hadn't gotten in touch so far was just because she was afraid my parents would somehow force her to come home. Even as I imagined her making Hamburger Helper without the hamburger with Adam in New York, being madly in love, I knew my sister, and I was sure she missed us. On Saturday afternoons, I went to the Arts Center with my mother and Boo for photography class. I'd regretted agreeing to it almost instantly mostly because between cheering and school I didn't see Rogerson as much as I wanted, to begin withbut in time I found that I actually liked the class. The instructor was a young, energetic photographer named Matthew, who sported a scraggly goatee, as well as a seemingly endless number of tattered wool sweaters. He gestured excitedly, eyes sparkling, as he guided us through the first few discussions on light, focus, perspective, and setting. Then he just set us loose in different placesTopper Lake, the old graveyard, the supermarket encouraging us to “create our own personal vision” of each. At the supermarket, for instance, my mother spent the full hour in the floral section, trying to get the perfect shot of the rows of cut flower bins, while Boo went for the abstract, selecting a round, bright, yellow squash and arranging it on the meat counter, right next to a freshly cut set of bloody steaks. “Contrast,” Matthew proclaimed excitedly, as she circled the meat with her camera, getting it from every angle. “Make us think about your meaning!” I myself was sorely lacking for inspiration. I contemplated the rows of milk bottles white, smooth, coldbut moved on when I saw two people from our class already there, taking identical pictures from the same angle. Should I do the bored lobsters in their tank? Seek deep introspection in the cheese aisle? I was beginning to lose hope. “Five minutes, people!” Matthew called out as he passed me. “We'll regroup by customer service, okay?” Five minutes. I was getting desperate and had decided to go back to the milk when I walked past the frozen foods. It was empty except for an elderly woman with her cart, who was pulling a door open to get out a frozen dinner. She was small and frail, with skin almost translucent and made whiter by the bright fluorescent lights overhead. I started up the aisle toward her, popping the lens cap off my camera,
already lifting it to my eye and adjusting the zoom so that her profile took up the entire frame. Then she leaned in, reaching forward, and as her breath came out in a sudden, small white puff, she closed her eyes, reacting to the cold. I snapped the picture, catching her in that one instant with a simple click. The next week, when we did our developing, I stood and watched as her image emerged in front of me:
distinct, perfect, in all that cool white. Matthew held it up for the class to see and congratulated me on my “sense of face.” For me, it was the first thing I'd done in a long time that I was truly proud of, so much so that I hung it on my mirror, replacing my second-?place ribbons and B honor roll certificates. But even as I was doing well in photography, things were going from bad to worse in my cheerleading career. Choosing Rogerson over Mike Evans had been the beginning of the end, but now I was so busy with him that I just didn't have the energy for pyramids and dance routines anymore. This was added to the fact that Corinna's was about a mile from school, so I often headed there for the half hour between last period and practice. Corinna was usually in her Applebee's uniform, lazily putting on her makeup and various sizzzzzle steaks! and ask me about superchocolatesundaes! buttons. I'd throw down my backpack and take my place on the couch, where we'd share a bowl, smoke some cigarettes (I was buying my own packs now), and watch General Hospital, some sleazy talk show, or another infomercial. This, of course, usually made me lose any motivation I had for cheerleading. If I even made it to practice afterward and increasingly, I didn'tI was usually so tired and lazy it was all I could do to go through the motions. The only thing worthwhile about practice was that I got to see Rina, who was currently embroiled in one of her trademark mucky love triangles. This one involved her quarterback, Bill Skerrit, a nice aw-?shucks kind of guy who honestly believed he and Rina were going to get married, and the college-?boy shoe salesman, Jeff, who Rina had met a month earlier when she'd gone to return a pair of platform sandals.
Bill Skerrit had already bought Rina a friendship ring, which she wasn't wearing, and Jeff was a dog and never called her when he said he would. Of course, she was mad for him. “Oh, God,” she'd say to me as we sat outside the gym after practice.
“I don't want to be like this, you know?” “Like what?” I'd say. “Like such a total bitch. I mean, poor Bill, you know?” Bill, who assumed he and Rina were both saving themselves for marriage, had not the slightest inkling that she was, ahem, involved with Jeff. I'd only met him once, at the mall. He was tall, with a big floppy shock of blond hair he was always getting out of his face by jerking his head suddenly to the side,
whiplash-?style. Rina found this incredibly sexy. It made me nervous. During all of this I was also spending as much time as I could with Rogerson, who still complained that I wasn't around enough. My grades kept slipping as he talked me into going out with him every night, always sweet-?talking me into it the same way he coaxed me out of the house. And the nights when he just showed up, not talking, just wanting me to sit with him while he recovered from something he wouldn't even discuss, became more and more frequent. I noticed bruises on his face, red marks and puffiness around his eyes, but he shrugged off my concern, dodging it gracefully, again. I felt desperately helpless, unable to protect him from some awful force I couldn't even name. It kept me up nights, long after I'd watched him drive away. I was running from one problem or place to another, with no time left to study, or sleep, or just breathe. I felt pulled in all directions, fighting to keep all these obligations circling in the air above me. It was only a matter of time before something fell.
It was the Friday of the Winter Athletic Ceremony that it happened. After last period I was supposed to go to a cheerleading meeting, then home to meet Rogerson, who wanted me to go to the mall to help him buy a birthday gift for his mother. After that, I would return home to shower, change, and ride back to school with my parents and Boo and Stewart for the ceremony, where I'd get a corsage from some football player. This would be followed by us all sitting through an endlessly boring speech by Principal Hawthorne detailing the “virtue of competition” and the “lessons we learn from teamwork” that we'd all heard the year before, and the year before that, while we waited for Cass to get her trophies. Finally I would be given a cheap plaque, my mother would take about a dozen pictures (in all of which I would have a partialor nohead) and somehow, eventually, it would be over. By 3:15, it was clear I needed something to help me get through this. I drove to Corinna's with one eye on the clock, just wanting a few minutes of peace. When I got there she was in her uniformtoday, her button said super steaks! the new sensation!and rolling change on the coffee table while watching reruns of the Newlywed Game. “I have to make at least a hundred bucks tonight after tipping out,” she explained as I sat down, taking the bowl as she passed it to me, the lighter balanced on top of it. Now she didn't even bother to ask me before she packed itwe had a routine, a system. Rogerson had even begun to give me my own small supply of pot, as well as a bowl, tiny and white ceramic with a wizard painted on its tip. With it, my bag, cigarettes, and a lighter, I was like Barbie all over again, just with different accessories. Now Corinna exhaled, blowing out smoke as she stacked pennies, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“Dave's out of work at least till next week and the power bill's due Monday. Plus I wrote a check for groceries that's gonna bounce if I don't deposit something tonight.”
I took the bowl and lit it, watching as one of the couples on the TV won a new bedroom suite. The woman had seventies hair, all hair-?spray and feathered bangs, and was jumping up and down, kissing the host. “I'm sorry,” I said. “That sucks.” “Yeah, well,” she said, piling pennies into a roll and twisting the ends shut. “We'll make it somehow. We always do.” Corinna always seemed to be working, but I never could quite figure out what Dave did, exactly. He seemed to do some carpentry work, sometimes, and for a week or two he worked at the Quik Zip, selling gas and cigarettes on the night shift. More often, however, he was in the next room sleeping, where I could hear him snoring sometimes as Corinna and I spoke in whispers so as not to wake him. I was learning that with Dave, as with Rogerson, it was best just not to ask questions. After we'd finished smoking I glanced at the clock: four sharp. The meeting was beginning, and I could just see Chelsea Robbins taking her spot in front of the assembled squad, decreeing who would be escorted by which football player at the banquet. It seemed like a long way back to school, suddenly, and I wondered if anyone had noticed yet that I wasn't there. Corinna looked up from stacking dimes. “Aren't you late for practice?” I thought of Mike Evans pinning a corsage on my chest and leading me to the stage while my mother snapped pictures that would never come out. “Nope,” I said, settling back into the couch. “Don't have it today.” She picked up the remote and flipped a few stations until the phone rang, leaving it on a commercial for car wax as she got up to snatch the cordless off the top of the TV. She walked into the kitchen, lowering her voice, as I heard Dave mumble something, asleep, from behind the half-?open door to my right that led to the bedroom. Then I heard music I recognized. It was yet another Lamont Whipper rerun coming on. It was so popular that now they'd added yet another showing, making my mother that much happier. I watched as the camera zoomed in on Lamont himself, holding his microphone. He announced the day's topic“Better Run While You Can, 'Cause You've Been Messing with My Man!” Cass was standing behind him. She was wearing a brown sweater and jeans, her hair up and twisted into a hasty bun behind her head, held in place with a pencil, the old Boo trick. She was holding a clipboard, her eyes glancing quickly around the studio, checking something I couldn't see. As her gaze moved across the audience, she stared right into the camera for one instant, and it was suddenly like she was looking right at me. And as she did, she lifted a finger and smoothed it across her eyebrow, turning her head slightly. I felt a slow, creeping chill crawl up the back of my neck just as Corinna came back through the door, turning the phone off with an angry jab of her finger. “Oh, so listen to this crap. The five-?thirty wait called in sick with a freakin' hangover, so I'm on my own till six. On a Friday, no less.” She sighed, sitting back down and shaking a cigarette out of the open pack next to her stacks of coins. “Can you believe that?” “No,” I said softly, as the camera switched angles to focus on the first guest, a huge black woman in a brightly printed pantsuit. I lit a cigarette and drew in hard, my vision spinning for a second. “Whatever. I have got to get out of this crappy job. It's about to kill me.” Corinna glanced at the TV. “What's this?” “Lamont Whipper,” I said. “Oh, I hate that show,” she moaned, picking up the remote. “It's like white trash on parade. Do you mind if I change”
“Wait,” I said quickly, as the camera shot back to Lamont, who was now asking a thin blond woman in a Harley-?Davidson T-?shirt her opinion. “Just one second.” And there was Cass again, this time scribbling something on her clipboard while a guy in headphones leaned down to whisper something in her ear. Then she smiled, shaking her head, and I thought of my mother sitting at home, her chair pulled up to the screen, smiling back. “Caitlin,” Corinna said. She was watching my face. “What is it?” Now, on-?screen, Cass glanced back up, brushing her bangs out of her face with the back of her hand. “That's my sister,” I said quietly. “Where?” “Right there. Against the wall, in the brown,” I said as Cass hugged the clipboard against her chest. “Oh, man, really?” Corinna said, leaning in closer to study the screen. “Look at that. Wow. You never even said you had a sister.” That was strange. Cass had always been such a big part of what I was, but I hadn't mentioned hernot even once. I wondered what she would think if she really could look through the TV and see me sitting there stoned, not recognizing the girl beside me or the place I was or even, maybe, me. I thought of the other Cassandra, the one she'd been named for, the girl who could see her own future. And I wondered if this futureLamont Whipper and Adam and New York and leaving us behind was the one she'd seen for herself. Or for me. “It's so weird,” Corinna was saying, still watching the screen. “She looks just like you. She could be you, you know?” The camera cut away quickly, as the woman in the bright pantsuit responded to some comment from the audience. When they went back to Lamont, Cass was gone. “I know,” I told Corinna, and for once I was the only one who knew how untrue it really was. “I know.” I knew how much Rogerson hated to wait. The only time I'd ever seen him lose his temper was when Dave was set to meet us at his house and showed up thirty minutes late. Rogerson was punctual to the second. So I left Corinna's at four-?thirty-?five, which gave me ten minutes to get across town to my house to meet him. I was sitting at the light by the high school, nervously watching the clock, when I saw Rina a few cars ahead of me. She'd cut the one class we had together, in fifth period, but it was just like her to skip school but show up for cheerleading practice. Rina, for all her bad judgment, was surprisingly dependable. Watching her, even from three cars back, I could tell something was wrong. She was smoking and kept fiddling with her radio, reaching up every few seconds to wipe her eyes with her shirtsleeve or run her fingers through her hair. Every once in a while she'd start singing along with the radio, slamming her hand on the steering wheel to emphasize one chorus or line, and then her shoulders would start shaking. It was clear. Rina was driving and crying. After every crisis, breakup or blowout, the first thing Rina did was bolt to her car. She'd crank up the stereo and start on her standard loopout past the high school into the country, across the highway to Topper Lake, where she'd park at one of the overlooks and feel tortured for a while. Then she'd circle through a few of her old neighborhoods, drive by her second stepdad's house to curse his front yard, and go home. It wasn't really about where she went, in my opinion: It was the motion she liked, which prevented just about everyone from seeing her being weak. I, however, had spend endless nights riding shotgun, listening to one of her many mix tapes of lost love/done me wrong/screw you songs and watching scenery rush by, her hiccuping sobs just barely audible under the music and the sound of the wind coming through my window. Now, I knew I was barely going to make it to meet Rogerson on time as it was. Rina hadn't seen me,
and from the looks of things she'd already done the country and was headed out to the lake. But as I watched her punch in the car cigarette lighter with a jab of her hand, then wipe her eyes, I just couldn't go home. When the light finally changed I managed to pull up beside her after dodging around an elderly woman in a Cutlass with a handicapped sticker, who promptly flipped me off. “Rina!” I shouted, but the radio was up loudsomething sad and gooeyand she didn't hear me. I hit the horn, twice, startling the minivan with a Pro-?Choice sticker in front of me, which quickly changed lanes. We kept cruising neck and neck, with Rina full-?out bawling now, singing along with the radio, tears running down her face, completely oblivious to both me and the speed limit. i reached under my seat and searched around until I came up with an empty plastic Coke bottle, which I then hurled at her windshield. She jerked back from the wheel as it bounced off, then whipped her head around, eyes wide, and finally saw me. “Shit!” she screamed, rutting the automatic window control to open the one nearest me. “What the hell you are doing?” “Pull over,” I yelled back. There was a Quik Zip coming up on the left. She shot me an evil look, hit her turn signal, and took a wide arc into the parking lot, coming to an abrupt stop in front of a pay phone. I pulled up behind her. “You could have killed me,” she snapped, slamming her door as she got out. She was wearing a fuzzy sweater, black skirt, and tights, her hair tumbling over her shoulders. A group of public works guys, all in bright orange vests, hollered at her as they drove past, circling the gas pumps. “I was worried about you,” I said. “What happened?” She sighed, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back against her car. “It's all,” she began, dramatically, “over.”
It was four-?fifty; I was officially late. And Rina always took her time explaining herself. “Is this about Bill?” I asked. She nodded, drawing out a piece of hair and twisting it around her finger. “Last night,” she began, “I went to meet Jeff at the Yogurt Paradise at the mall during his break to discuss our relationship.“ ”Right,“ I said, trying to move her along. I could just see Roger-?son sitting in front of my house. ”And we did just talkfor the most part. But then at the end, you know, things got a little physical“ ”At the Yogurt Paradise?“ I said. ”We were just kissing,“ she snapped. ”God. But, as luck would of course have it, Bill just happened to be walking by on his way to the cafeteria and saw us.“ ”Yikes.“ ”Oh, it gets better. He was with his entire family, Caitlin,“ she said in a low voice, as tears filled her eyes again. She looked down at her hands, picking at a pinky nail. ”It was his Granny Nunell's birthday. She's, like, ninety. I met her a few weeks ago and she loved me. But you should have seen the look she shot me last night. The woman has a walker, but she meant me harm. No doubt about it.“ ”Ouch,“ I said, trying to be subtle in taking a glance at my watch: five minutes had passed. ”So I'm just busted,“ she said, wiping her eyes. ”I mean, there's his aunt Camille, and his mom and dad, his Gran-?Gran“ ”Gran-?Gran?“ ”and Bill, who is just staring at me, and I'm sitting there with Jeff's hand on my leg. He didn't even say anything. He just walked away. It was awful. Terrible.“ She crossed her arms again, tossing her hair out of her face, Jeff-?style. ”So of course I can't face him at school today. But I figure I can't miss the squad meeting, so I sneak in the back door.“ ”I missed it,“ I told her. ”No kidding. And as your friend,“ she added, changing tacks to become all business, ”I should tell you that you need to be watching your back. There was a vote today, and everyone but me was in favor of a confrontation about your level of serious commitment to the school and the squad.“ ”Oh, God,” I said. A cheerleading intervention. Just what I needed. And now, it was five after five. But Rogerson would understand. He knew about the ceremony. We could buy the present tomorrow. “So anyway,” Rina said, flicking her wrist as she switched gears again, “Bill was waiting for me after the meeting.“ ”What did he say?“ ”What could he say?“ she wailed. ”He asked for his ring back.“ She put her hand on her throat, where the silver chain now hung empty, kinked a little bit from where the ring had been. ”He gave me back my pictures and that shirt I gave him for his birthday. And then ...“ And she stopped, waving her hand in front of her face, unable to continue. I waited. By now, I knew Rogerson was leaving my house, gunning up the street, wondering where I was. I could feel a slow burn starting in my stomach. ”. . . then,“ she began again, catching her breath, ”he told me he was disappointed in me. Which was, like, the worst. I mean, call me a bitch, or even a slut, that I can handle, you know? But to say that... that was just mean.“ She crossed her arms over her chest, looking down at her feet, eyes closed. It was starting to get dark, the lights of the Quik Zip bright and warm behind her. I walked over and put my arm around her shoulder, leaning my head against hers. ”He wasn't right for you anyway,“ I told her, like I had so many times before. ”He was too“ ”good,“ she finished for me, and laughed, still crying a little bit. ”Good men just don't suit me.“ ”That's right,“ I said, brushing her hair out of her face. ”That's exactly right.” I stayed there with her for a while longer, letting her cry and saying all those best friend thingsYou'll be okay, Don't worry, I'm here, Let it out, Screw himwhile the Quik Zip bustled with people pumping gas and rushing home, the smell of hot dogs wafting out each time the door was pushed open, mixing with the strangely warm December breeze. But all the while, my mind was on Rogerson, seeing him in my mind driving across town, angry and wondering why I, too, had somehow let him down. When I got home it was six o'clock, Rogerson was nowhere in sight, and my parents were finishing dinner with Boo and Stewart. The whole house smelled like steak and the Lamont Whipper Show was on, muted, in the living room. “Honey, where have you been?” my mother asked, turning around in her chair as I came up the stairs. “I was getting worried. The ceremony starts in less than an hour and if we want to get a good parking place...” “Are you hungry?” Boo said, reaching over to poke at something in a casserole dish with a big wooden spoon. “There's plenty of tempeh goat cheese salad left here.” “I laid out that blue dress for you to wear and bought you some new panty hose,” my mother added. “You should hurry and take a shower, though, because you really cut it close by” “I know,” I said, already kicking off my shoes as I headed into my room. I was just about to shut the door behind me when my mother yelled one last thing. “Rogerson came by looking for you,” she called out over my father and Stewart talking. “He seemed to think you two had plans for this afternoon.” I eased my door open, sticking my head back out. “What else did he say?” She shrugged, dabbing at her mouth with her napkin. “I told him you'd be back soon because of the ceremony. And he said that he'd call you later.” “Oh,” i said. “Okay. Thanks.” I shut my door slowly, telling myself that all this time I'd been worried for nothing. We were just going shopping, anyway. He understood. It was no big deal. The ceremony was just as I expected: endless trophies, a flimsy certificate,
and a corsage for me. Rina had recovered, at least temporarily, and was completely composed as she was escorted to the stage and our seats there, in a quick rearrangement, by a defensive back. Bill escorted Eliza Drake, while Ifor punishment, clearlywas paired with the field-?goal kicker, a short guy named Thad Wicker who resembled a short, stubby, chewed-?on pencil with bad breath and a sinus condition. Rogerson showed up just as Principal Hawthorne was making his final speech. I saw the door open, just a crack, and he slipped in and leaned against the wall. I was so surprised to see him, happy he was even interested enough to come. His hair was wetthe warm weather had turned to rain, suddenly, as we drove to the ceremonyand he was glancing around the room and the crowd, looking for me. When he saw me he lifted his chin, then glanced around the room and stuck his hands in his pockets. “A lot of people,” Principal Hawthorne was saying, “sometimes question the value of sports in an education. For me, the facts are clear....” I'd only known Rogerson for three months, but I could recognize instantly the subtle signs of him growing irritated: I'd been to enough parties where I'd felt him watching me, impatient, even as I tried to pull myself away from Rina so we could leave. And I knew he only looked at his watch when he thought his time was being wasted. I started to get a strange sense that maybe the afternoon had been a big deal, after all. Principal Hawthorne kept talking and all I could do was just sit there, watching Rogerson as he fidgeted, glancing around, bored. He checked his watch again. Shifted his feet. Brushed his hand across his head. Checked his watch. “And so, on behalf of Jackson High School I would like to thank all of these fine athletes and their families for a great season. ...” I looked at Principal Hawthorne, willing him to finish, even as he gripped the lectern harder, his voice rising across the faces in the audience. Beside me Rina pinched my leg, then smiled at me when I glanced at her. I smiled back, still listening, and knotted the hem of my dress up tight in my fist, squeezing it hard. Hawthorne would not shut up. “I thank you for your hard work, your school spirit, and your good sportsmanship. We are very, very proud.” Rina was still smiling. She nodded at Rogerson, and when I looked back to where he'd been standing, just seconds before, the door was swinging shut and he was gone. “Thank you and have a good evening!” And everyone started clapping, the auditorium seeming hotter than ever as I got up out of my chair and pushed off the stage, down the steps past the swarms and clogs of people. “Caitlin, honey,” my mother called out, and then she was right in front of me, with Boo beside her. “Let's get a picture of you in that beautiful corsage.” I stood there, forcing myself to smile. “Oh, dear,” she said, pulling down the camera to examine it. “This isn't working, for some reason. Why isn't this working?” Boo leaned over to help, both of them bending over it. “Lens cap,” I said. There were all these bodies brushing past me, and the auditorium was so hot: I could smell someone sweating. “What?” my mother said. “The lens cap,” I said, reaching over and pulling it off. “There.” “Well, Margaret, I'm glad to see you've learned so much in photography class,” Boo said, smiling at me. “Oh, goodness!” my mother said, laughing as she stepped back to set up her shot. “I always do that, don't I?” I nodded, feeling a hot flush crawl up my neck. “Now, that's better . . . okay! Smile, Caitlin. Smile!” I was smiling. And sweating. I had to go. The flash popped in front of my eyes and I saw stars. “It was a nice ceremony,” Stewart said as he came up beside me, as if I'd planned it myself. “Very uplifting.”
“Show us your certificate,” my mother said, prodding me in rhe elbow. I handed it to her; I'd forgotten I was even holding it. “Isn't that nice? Jack, isn't this nice?” My father, who was standing a few seats down looking hot and uncomfortable in a tie I'd given him just a few years ago, green with dark black stripes, glanced at it and said, “Nice.” “I have to go,” I said quickly. “Rogerson's here, so I'll just get a ride home with him, okay?” “Well, I don't know,” my mother said in a worried voice, looking at my father. “I thought we'd have coffee and dessert back at the house.” “Let her go,” my father said, ready to leave himself. “The traffic's gonna be terrible. We should get going.” “Well, all right...” my mother said in a light voice, trailing off again. She glanced again at my father, as if wanting him to intervene, but he already had his coat and was heading to the aisle. “But, Caitlin, do try to come back to the house, so we can all celebrate together. Okay?” “Okay.” I was starting to feel dizzy. “Let's go,” my father, who had a low tolerance for crowds, repeated. He loosened his tie as he brushed past me, the crease in his forehead already folding in on itself. The room was hot and smelled like perfume mixed with sweat and people and dusty school heat. “Very nice,” Stewart said to me again as we walked up the aisle, with Boo and my mother behind us. I was hardly listening, my eyes on the crowd outside the door. “We're very proud of you, Caitlin. Really.” “Thanks,” I said, stepping to the side to let a big fat lady in a pink suit between us. Once she passed I'd lost sight of Stewart and everyone else, so I slipped out the door and into the warm, moist air. I found Rogerson parked down by the soccer fields. I knocked on the passenger side window and he looked at me, then waited a second before leaning over and unlocking the door. I got in, shut the door, then leaned over to kiss him on the cheek, but he pulled back, turning his head away from me. The radio was playinghis musicbut this time I didn't change the station.
“What's wrong?” I said. “Nothing.” Outside, it was raining again, big drops splattering across the windshield. “I'm sorry the banquet ran long,” I said. “I really couldn't do anything about it.” “Whatever,” he said, running the tips of his fingers over the steering wheel. He still hadn't looked at me. “Where were you this afternoon?” “Oh, God,” I said. “I ran into Rina and she was, like, having this enormous crisis. She blew it with Bill, finally. Got totally busted.” And I laughed, but the laugh sounded weird, like it was too heavy and just fell. “Oh,” he said, shifting in his seat. “I waited for you for a long time.” He was looking straight ahead, to the soccer fields. I could see the rain falling sideways in the bright lights there. “I'm sorry,” I said. “She was all upset, and the time just got away from me. Okay?” “Whatever.” And he kind of smiled at me, like he was ready to let it go. Like it was all right, we were okay now. We just sat there for a minute, both of us looking at the rain as it fell harder on the windshield. “It's just that I wondered where you were,” he said, then ducked his head, picking at a seam on the steering wheel. “Since you said you'd be there and all.” The thing is that I thought we were okay. He had smiled at me, and I'd let out a big breath, assuming it was over. Now, as he brought it up again, I stopped thinking and got careless. “Oh, come on,” I said, reaching over playfully to knock him on the knee. “Don't be such a big baby.” When he hit me, I didn't see it coming. It was just a quick blur, a flash out of the corner of my eye, and then the side of my face just exploded, burning, as his hand slammed against me. The noise it made was a crack, like a gunshot. And it wasn't like in the movies, where the person just stands there and takes it. I reeled back, hitting my head against my seat. My ears were ringing, my face flushed, and already, instantly, I had tears in my eyes. I said, out loud, “Oh, my God.”
“Don't ever fucking talk to me that way,” he said in a very low, quiet voice. Then he started the engine, slammed it into reverse, and fishtailed down the dirt parking lot before hitting traffic. We crawled down the slope of the main lot to the road, a line of brake lights lit up in front of us. I had my hand on my cheek, holding it there. My face felt strange and tight and I was gripping the door handle with my other hand, as if that was all that was keeping me from flying loose from my seat and up into the air. I concentrated hard on the car in front of us, a blue Honda Accord with a bumper sticker that said I Love My Scottish Terrier! I read it again and again, saying the words in my head. Someone started beeping. Traffic was bad, all backed up. Roger-?son turned on the wipers as it started raining harder, the drops big and round, splashing as they hit the windshield. “What the fuck is taking so long?” he said under his breath, looking over the car in front of us. “Jesus.” I still had my hand on my face. I was trying not to cry but the tears came anyway, bumping over my fingers and down the back of my hand, and I tried to think of something safe. But all I could come up with was trivia. What are sometimes called Minor Planets? Asteroids. What is seaborgium? A new transuranium element. What does a sphygmomanometer measure? Blood pressure. All the cars were going off to the median, heading around something. One by one they pulled aside, bumping across the grass and gravel. As we got closer I could see it was my parents' car in the middle of the road. My father was behind the wheel, one hand rubbing his forehead, while my mother sat beside him. Stewart was in the backseat, the door opposite him open And then, as we crawled around them, I saw Boo. She was crouching in the road, her braid hanging over her shoulder. Then she stood up, hands cupped and extended in front of her. She was holding something.
The rain was coming down very hard now, in sheets, but Boo moved slowly, carrying whatever it was very gently. As we wound past her, I looked back and saw her bend down by the side of the road. She put her hands into the grass, releasing what she'd been carrying, what she had saved. It was a turtle, brought out by the unseasonable rain and into peril by blind instinct. Boo stood up, hands on her hips, watching as it made its way over the grass, to its intended destination, as the cars honked and the people cursed and Rogerson, disgusted, gunned the engine across the grass median and back onto the road, while my face still burned under my hand. “Crazy bitch,” he said. But as we turned right, onto the main road home, all I could think of as we sped away was how it must feel to be surrounded by those whizzing cars and find yourself suddenly lifted and carried, safe, to the comfort of that tall, cool grass. We didn't talk about what happened. Instead, we went to McDonald's, just like it was any other night, where Rogerson had a Big Mac and bought me a milkshake without me even asking him to. Then he drove me home, his hand on my leg, playing my radio station like nothing had happened, nothing at all. It seemed so crazy to me, like maybe I had dreamed it, somehow, but each time I touched my fingers to my face the swelling and tenderness there reminded me it was real. Rogerson parked in front of my house, then surprised me by reaching over and kissing me very tenderly, cupping my chin in his hand. And as much as I hated to admit itit seemed impossible, just so wrongI felt that rush that always came when he touched me or kissed me, the one that made me feel unsteady and wonderful all at once. “I love you,” he said, pulling back and looking very directly into my eyes. His were so green, like the ocean underwater: When he'd been angry, earlier, they seemed almost black. “Okay?” It was the first time he'd said it, and under other circumstances it would have been important. But now, all I could think about was the pain in my face. My temple was still throbbing, my eye swollen just enough that when I blinked it stung. And I missed Cass so much, suddenly, wanted to walk up the steps to my house and find her there, ready to smooth one finger over my eyebrow, her face close to mine. Close enough to see what had happened, without me even having to say it out loud. Rogerson was focused on me. It was as if he was asking me to make a pact with him, to get our stories straight. He brushed his finger across the back of my hand, gently. All the way home he'd kept touching me, so carefully, as if he had to keep me somehow connected to him or I'd just drift away. I could have just gotten out of the cat and walked up to my house, leaving him behind forever. Things would have been very different if I had done that. But the fact was that I loved Rogerson. It wasn't just that I loved him, even: it was that I loved what I was when I was with him. Not a little sister, the pretty girl's sidekick, the second runner-?up. All I'd ever wanted was to make my own path, far from Cass's. And even after what had happened, I wasn't ready to give that up just yet. “Okay,” I said to him, and when he kissed me again I closed my eyes, feeling the slight sting there, like a pinprick, nothing more. He stayed in front of my house, engine running, as I walked up the steps. I could feel him watching me and wondered if he was worried whether I'd keep up my end of our bargain. Still, I couldn't shake the image of his face, so dark and angry, his hand coming at me, with no time to stop it or get out of the way. It was like he'd become a different person, a monster from a nightmare. He didn't drive away until I'd closed the front door behind me. I took a deep breath and started up the stairs, not even sure yet what story I would tell when my mother saw my face and flew into a panic. When I got to the top of the stairs, I could see her standing in the kitchen, clutching the phone to her ear,
the cord wrapped around her wrist. My father was standing in front of the refrigerator, arms crossed against his chest, his eyes on my mother as she spoke, haltingly, her voice seeming to echo lightly off the cabinets and bright, shiny floor. Neither of them saw me. “Oh, baby,” my mother was saying, one hand rising, shaking, to touch her own cheek. “I'm so glad you called.” My father shifted his weight, the worried crease easing into and out of his forehead, but he never took his eyes off my mother's face. Behind him, on the counter, were four coffee cups, abandoned, as well as a plate of untouched brownies. “Oh, honey, no. No. We're not mad,” my mother said softly, wiping her eyes and looking back at my father, a mild smile on her face. “We were just worried about you, that's all. We just wanted to be sure ... that you were okay.” Her voice cracked, slightly. “I know, sweetie. I know.” I walked into the living room and sat down in my father's chair, looking at the row of dolls lined up around the TV. They stared back at me, open-?mouthed, their gazes dull and gray, as I reached up and touched my eye, feeling the slight puffiness there. “We love you too, Cass,” my mother said, her voice choked. “We just didn't want to lose you, honey. I couldn't stand to lose you.” I heard the patio door slide open, then footsteps as my father walked out onto the deck. A breeze blew inhot and sticky-?wetbefore the door slid shut again. When I looked outside, through the glass, he was standing with his back to me, looking up at the few stars visible through the fast-?moving clouds. My mother sniffled, listening as Cass spoke. Then she laughed, once, and said, “We've got time, honey. Plenty of time to tell us everything, when you're ready.”
I closed my eyes, seeing Rogerson again in my mind, his eyes black as his hand lashed out, the pain spreading so suddenly from my cheek to my temple. I hadn't even seen it coming, hadn't even had a chance to move aside. My mother was talking, laughing, as I crept back down the stain and slipped out the front door, easing it shut behind me. I didn't even know where I was goingRina's route, maybeas I started my car and pulled out onto the street, my headlights cutting a swath across the house. I just drove, one hand cradling my face, until I finally turned into the parking lot at Applebee's. I could see Corinna inside, sitting at the bar, legs crossed, smoking a cigarette and counting a stack of money, her hair twisted up in a bun. The bartender slid a drink over to her, and she looked up at him, smiling, then tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, her bracelets sliding down her arm. When I walked inside I had no idea of what my face looked like: I still hadn't seen a mirror. But when the bartender nodded at me and Corinna turned around, her mouth dropped open, her eyes widening. “Oh, my God,” she said, standing up and coming over to me. She reached out and touched my eye and I flinched, my own hand rising to push her away. “What happened to you, Caitlin?” But I couldn't tell her. Instead, I just let her walk me to the bar and sit me down before she wrapped her arms around me, drawing my face to her shoulder. She smelled like fried food and grilled peppers as she drew her fingers through my hair, telling me it was all right, all right now.