“Well, hello to you too,” Evan said.
Darcy yawned. “Don’t start with me. I bombed my geometry test, which means adios to my car for a week.”
“And Daddy won’t let you take the jet?”
“Anyway, Teddy,” Darcy returned, cutting through Evan with her gaze. “Room for one more in the car today? I don’t have a ride home.” She pouted, and Brynna could feel the heat rise in her cheeks.
“Actually Darce, I’m on two wheels today. But I suppose if you want to ride on my handlebars.”
Brynna straightened up. “My mom’s picking me up. I’m sure we can give you a ride home. I’ve…got a few things to do after school lets out, but it beats sitting on someone’s handlebars.” She forced a smile, willing to suffer whatever consequences—even letting Darcy know she was “practicing” in the pool—to keep Darcy away from Teddy.
Darcy’s eyes cut to Brynna’s, a glint of hardness in them. “Really, Brynna? You’re sure your mama won’t mind?”
“Lay off, Darcy,” Evan said, leveling her with a stare. “Not everyone’s father’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer.”
“Nominee,” Teddy coughed into his hand.
Brynna could see the fire redden Darcy’s cheeks, going all the way up to her scalp, making her pale blond hair look like wispy flames. She snatched up her bag and turned on her heel, stomping out of the cafeteria in a puff of couture perfume and haughtiness.
“You guys are a couple of asses, you know that?” Lauren said, giving the boys a halfhearted glare. She gathered her things too, threw out her trash, and went out after Darcy, but with far less angst and storm.
“Well that was fun. What’s next?” Evan asked, grinning.
Teddy planted a chaste kiss on Brynna’s cheek and grabbed his tray. “I’ve got an English test to make up, so I’ll see you two later.” He wound through the room, going the opposite way the girls went.
Evan gave Brynna a soft elbow to the ribs as she stared into the remnants of her lunch. “Don’t worry about Darcy. She can be a real bitch. It’s no big deal not to have a car.”
“A car would be useless for me,” she mumbled.
“Wait. Do you not even have your license?”
Brynna spun back to that night, almost a year after Erica’s death.
Her father was gone—as usual—off to close a deal or open up some airport bottles, and Brynna was stuck at the Gallery on Main, a pompous shop full of blond wood and thick glass where her mother’s paintings hung under gooseneck lamps. There was soft music playing, something just slightly jazzier than you’d hear in an elevator, and people milled about in dark suits and cocktail dresses, eating petit fours, drinking wine, and talking in muffled voices about the paintings. Brynna was in her own formal wear, a black shift that her mother set out for her that used to hug her curves but now hung shapelessly, her arms and legs sticking out like thin, pasty twigs. She had given up trying to be pretty a long time ago, and so her dirty blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her lips were only red because of the wine she kept swilling. Her mother was busy being The Artist, so she didn’t notice when Brynna swiped the first glass, and from her perch halfway behind the registration desk, no one watched her swipe the second and third. When the bottle was gone, Brynna’s stomach was grumbling, so she took the keys from her mother’s purse, went to the parking lot, and slid behind the wheel. She was six hours into Driver’s Training, so she knew what to do, guiding the big car out of the lot and into the street. It was dark but lights were flashing everywhere—headlights, traffic lights, streetlights—and they all blended together in one bright, blinding mess. She meant to park the car right along the sidewalk—she could walk the rest of the way to Burger Town, but the car lurched and someone screamed, and then even when she hit the gas, it wouldn’t move. She could hear the engine run, she remembered hearing it rev until blood dripped into her eyes, turning everything outside the windshield a thick, deep red. She remembered the sound the scissors made as the paramedic sliced through her seat belt—weird and sawing—and she thought it would be faster. She was being jostled and moved, and her head hurt and the red wine had made her lips dry. She just wanted something to eat. She wanted the flashes of light to stop.
“She’s going to be okay, Ms. Chase. She’s going to be just fine.”
The masculine voice floated down to Brynna, and she opened an eye. Her blood-tinged gaze found her mother standing at the side of the car, one arm across her chest, one hand pressed against her open mouth. There were tears in her eyes.
Then Brynna heard the clink of the handcuffs, the metal tightening around her wrists.
“No, I don’t have my license.”
“Why not? Were you prairie people where you were from? No, wait. You lived by the beach. Boat people?”