“Richie Stearns,” he answers listlessly, wiping down the bar. I nod in recognition; I’ve heard him play my whole life. Banjos and soulful crooning. I look around, hoping to find Kyle Richardson. If he’s here.
At the sound of a raucous whoop from the back deck, Wyatt and I lock eyes, the same expression of exasperation on both our faces. That’ll be where our cohorts are. I shoulder my way outside, Wyatt following, and I take a serious slog from my beer, both to avoid spilling it down the front of my dress and to bolster myself for this interaction.
On the back deck, a gaggle of twenty-five-year-old men are engaged in some committed drinking, surrounded by stalagmites of empty glasses growing up from the rustic picnic tables. It’s almost dark out, and the fireflies blink languorously in the fields below. There’s a big moon hanging low over the lake, orange and strange. I see Kyle, perched on the railing, seeming to hold court over the other men clustered around him, who are staring up at him almost rapturously. His cheeks are flushed a dangerous crimson, and his eyes have the eerie blankness of the sixth or seventh drink. I notice now that he isn’t as thin as he was in high school, that his middle has thickened. Although judging from the beefy firmness of his arms, maybe this isn’t a result of beer so much as picking heavy things up and putting them down. He catches sight of me and nearly knocks his beer over as he leaps down from the rail.
“What the fuck are you doin’ here?” he slurs aggressively.
Wyatt makes a slight movement to get in front of me, but I weave around him.
“Hi again, Kyle.”
“I don’t want anything to do with your fuckin’ family. You’re all just a bunch of—psychos!” he spits out triumphantly. He is, of course, one hundred percent correct.
“I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions about your sister,” I say evenly. I notice that his cronies have turned toward us. Their testosterone is showing. They can sense imminent conflict, and combined with a significant amount of alcohol, this produces a blurry sort of electricity.
“Shit, is that Ava Antipova?” one of the guys says, and I turn my head, recognizing Josh Wheeler, a perennial stoner and all-around not-nice guy. Of course he and Kyle have stayed friends.
“Hi, Josh,” Wyatt says, shouldering closer to me. There was a time when he used to count these guys as “sort of” friends. In a high school like ours, with a graduating class of eighty, you become “sort of” friends with pretty much everyone. I smile pleasantly and wave to the rest of the crew.
“So do you bat the same as your faggoty sister?” Josh leers.
“Are you talking to me or to Kyle?” I ask sweetly, and it takes them a second to see what I’m getting at.
“Fuck you, Ava,” Josh says.
“Kyle, you want a cigarette? Talk a second?”
He looks at me very suspiciously but, after a moment, nods blearily. We make our way around the side of the deck to the smoking area, closer to the parking lot.
“Outta beer,” he says, almost whining. I hand him a cigarette and light both his and mine, looking over at Wyatt.
“Why don’t I go get another round?” he suggests, on cue.
“Thanks. The Belgian one for me,” I say lightly. Kyle just holds up his glass mutely, and Wyatt disappears back into the crowd inside.
“Whaddya want, Ava?” Kyle asks, his eyes tiny slits after he inhales a deep lungful of carcinogens. I take a drag on my own stick, feeling deliciously light-headed as tiny pieces of fiberglass shred my lungs, allowing the chemicals to enter my body faster.
“To talk about your sister,” I say. “And mine.” He says nothing. “Listen,” I go on. “I have a better idea of why you were so pissed the other day. I didn’t know about Zelda and Kayla, and I had no idea she was missing.”
“Yeah, well,” Kyle grunts.
“How long has she been gone?”
“Five or six days. She took off with Zelda on Monday, and we haven’t heard from her since.” There’s a note of blame in his voice, as though I’m somehow inculpated in this.
“And they were…together?” I’m reluctant to be too blunt. In high school, he was the sort of guy who called people “faggot” for wearing pink.
“Fuck if I know. They were spending a lot of time together, then Kayla got in a fight with our dad and, like, I don’t know, ‘came out’ or whatever homos do. Said she and Zelda were in love.” Oh, Christ. Zelda had some young girl mooning around after her, convinced they would be together forever, no doubt. “But Kayla wasn’t no queer,” Kyle continues, sounding hopeful.
“Maybe,” I agree. Wyatt reappears in the doorway, holding two beers instead of three. I’m momentarily concerned that he’s decided to cut me off, but he hands me my drink in the curvy beer glass and reaches over to Kyle to give him his. Kyle immediately sloshes some of the liquid down his chin, and a few drops slop onto his shorts, darkening the fabric. He doesn’t seem to notice. Wyatt folds his arms across his chest, hands empty.
“How long had Kayla and Zelda been hanging out?” I ask.
“Few months, maybe six? Christmas?” He seems bewildered. “But since it warmed up this spring, Kayla’s off with her in her fuckin’ trailer more and more. Started using.”
“Using what?” Wyatt chimes in.
“Druuugs,” Kyle says as though Wyatt is unspeakably slow.
“What kind?”
“Fuck if I know,” Kyle repeats. “Expensive, whatever it was.”
“Doesn’t really narrow it down,” I say.
He doesn’t hear me. “She stole a whole buncha shit from my mom’s jewelry box. Then when my mom chucked her out for a coupla days, she took off to my aunt’s and sold her TV. How do you, like, explain that shit without drugs?” He punctuates this query with a rhetorical jab of his finger in my direction. I step back to avoid him knocking my beer into my chest.
“Good point. Did she and Zelda ever hang out with other people? Do you know who their friends were?”
“How the fuck would I know that? Kayla was always off sneaking around—she didn’t tell me shit. Mosta what she said the last few months were total lies. That girl is gonna be in so much fuckin’ shit when she comes home….” His voice wavers uncertainly.
“Where do you think she might be, Kyle?” Wyatt says. “Why do you think she’s laying low?”
“Jesus. You people and your fucking questions. She probably knows there’re rumors that somebody killed your crazy-ass sister, and she doesn’t want to get picked up. Then she’d have to get clean. Fuck, maybe she killed your fucking sister.” Kyle chuckles. “Wouldn’t that be poetic justice. Irony.”
I don’t really see how that could be, but I decide not to press it. Wyatt looks dangerously close to starting something, and I put my hand on his forearm. The sudden contact with his warm skin makes me flush, and I realize the beer has just kicked in. My fingers linger for just a second longer than they need to.