A beat passes. “Go get a sweater.” She sets her needles down. “You can borrow my cardigan with the little pearl buttons.”
Nell brightens. “Okay.” She goes back down the hall while Mags and I stand there, fidgeting. Back when I was eight years old, making jacked-up Snoopy snow cones in the kitchen, I never would’ve guessed I’d feel this uncomfortable here someday.
Libby’s gaze goes to the sitcom on TV. “I want her home by eight thirty.”
Eight thirty? Seriously? For a girl who’s turning nineteen in November? I picture Libby sleeping down the hall from Nell every night, dreaming sweet, smug dreams without even the slightest clue that her baby’s had everything stripped away from her, just everything. It makes me sick, and I snap, “We’re getting supper and coming right back.”
“I heard that one before. Then the three of you disappear until midnight.”
Okay, so that’s never happened. At least, not all three of us. Mags sighs, giving Libby her you bore the crap out of me attitude.
It feels good to be in Mags’s car again with the windows down, free. We pass Mom and honk; her Subaru is back on the road, burning oil and flaking rust. I look in the mirror to watch her pull into the driveway and walk over to see what Hunt’s done so far.
Gaudreau’s is nuts. People know they’re running out of summer. By Labor Day, the shutters will be up on the take-out windows, and the sandwich board will read, Thanks for Another Great Season!
The side door opens, and I recognize a migrant guy from the barrens, wearing an apron and lugging a couple bags of trash to the Dumpster. Mr. Gaudreau must pay under the table for kitchen help. Huh. Some family business. “Order for me, okay?” I hand Mags a ten so she won’t give me crap about not chipping in.
I sit at the only empty picnic table, watching the migrant sling trash, thinking how much it would suck to rake all day and then slave here until closing, when somebody sits down next to me.
Shea. It’s a shock, partly because I’d forgotten what he looks like cleaned up, his hair a little damp from showering, wearing a white polo shirt that’s maybe a little nicer than most guys might wear on the average day. That’s Shea, though. He’s the kind of guy who buys only the right brand of sneakers and spends all his time tricking out his motorcycle, a Kawasaki Ninja 300. He’s got me pinned with those lion eyes. “Congrats.”
I set my face. “What.”
He puts a booklet on the table between us. It’s the Bay Festival events brochure, and the high I’ve been riding since work drops me flat. Mrs. Hartwell must’ve put in a rush order.
The cover has a swirly font and photos from last year’s festival: a Guernsey cow winning a blue ribbon at the livestock judging, a lobster dinner, kids on the Tilt-A-Whirl. You can tell Shea’s been rolling the paper, working it in his fist.
“I heard about this. I just didn’t believe it.” He flips through, holds it open at page twelve.
My face doesn’t move, but the shame tastes bitter as I stare at the picture of the unsmiling blond girl with her stupid untrue bio—Darcy plans to travel—printed beside her and wish to God I’d quit the pageant when I’d first wanted to. Now everybody knows. Shea knows, and that’s the worst.
He moves closer to me. His smell is spicy cool aftershave and peppermint gum, which he must’ve spit out right before he came over. He acts like he’s teasing, like this is some in-joke between us. “I mean, do they know who they’re dealing with? You must have a rep clear across Hancock County by now. You oughta hang a sign out in front of that fallen-down old dump you live in.”
Shea and his dad and his dad’s girlfriend live in a tiny prefab house over on Merrill Avenue with one of those corny gazing balls in the front yard, so I don’t know what he thinks he’s talking about. I fold my arms and look straight ahead.
He’s quiet a second. “How come I never heard from you?” I study the flecks in the pavement, the corner of a ketchup packet by the table leg. “Huh? I thought you were going to call.”
Normally I’d say, Phones go both ways, but it’s like the real me has tunneled down somewhere deep and can only send up flares. He reaches out—as if he’s actually trying to be tender—and smooths a piece of my hair. I jerk away. He doesn’t move, giving me this intense look, trying to see right through me. A muscle jumps in his jaw, then he makes a disgusted sound and leans in close to my ear:
“You can get up on that stage and dress all pretty and say your little funny things to try to make people like you. But I’m gonna be out there, knowing I tapped that, and I didn’t even have to work for it. Same as a lot of other guys. Nobody’s gonna be handing out any crown to some trashy-ass slut who gets so wasted every weekend she doesn’t know whose backseat she’s been in.”
The words sink in. One of the flares finally rises higher than the rest, the light and the hissing growing until it fills me, until I remember who I am and turn and say in his face, “I’m gonna beat your ass in the field on Monday.”
Shea sits back, snorts. “What?”
“You heard me. I can rake harder than you, and I’ll prove it.”
He laughs, but it’s okay, because I’ve got my feet under me again. “You really think you can win top harvester.”
“No. Just so long as I beat you.”
Nell comes through the crowd toward us, frowning so deeply I hardly recognize her. She takes my arm. “Time to go.”
Still kind of laughing, Shea says, “Wait a minute—”
“Don’t talk to her.” Nell stares at him for a second, her face set hard, like she’s daring him to speak. He doesn’t. He’s still smirking, but I guess having the hot special ed chick yell at him is interesting enough to actually shut his mouth.
She pulls me away, hugging my arm against her ribs. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You didn’t look okay. At all. You looked scared.”
That spins me out a little, and I shake free. “Where’s Mags?”
She’s over by the car talking to a couple kids from school, our greasy take-out bags sitting on the hood. They’re all using hushed, excited voices. “You’re not gonna believe this,” Mags says once we’re in the car.
I shrug, not in the mood for gossip.
“The cops got somebody. For Rhiannon.” Nell and I stare. “Two different people who live on Church Street saw them take him in, and nobody’s seen him come home yet. Been almost two days.”
Lots of people live on Church, but there’s only one house that I’ve been to about a hundred times.
“Kenyon Levesque.” Mags glances at me. “They put him in the back of a cruiser Thursday night.”
I sit back slowly, my breath trickling out of me. As we leave Gaudreau’s and pull onto Main Street, I see Shea sitting at a table filled with people I know, including Mason and Jesse. Jesse turns his head to watch us go.
THIRTEEN