I try to fit the memory of the bubbly, smart-ass fifteen-year-old I knew into this frame. Doesn’t go, and I shake my head. “Because of her parents or something?”
“Kind of. She said they wouldn’t miss her ’cause they were too wrapped up in their own drama. That’s the reason she raked blueberries last year, so she could make some money of her own to bring with her. She didn’t want the car, didn’t want the cops putting out an APB and catching her. I told her I’d hide it at our camp until she got away.”
“She burned her bag on purpose.”
“She wanted to make it look like maybe she was dead. That way people would keep searching for her right here. Plus, I think she just didn’t want any of that stuff. Anything that made her who she was. Not her ID, nothing.” He looks down. “I didn’t really think about what would happen if I got caught with the car until I sobered up.”
I fold my arms. “She bother telling you where she was going? How she was getting there?”
He shakes his head slowly. “She promised to text me after, but she never did.” He meets my eyes. I see a guy who has had his heart carved out. “I don’t even know if she’s okay.”
I try to hold back, I really do. I don’t even breathe for what feels like a full minute. “Well, that’s awesome. She didn’t tell you anything so you couldn’t blow her big stupid plan, and now you’re on the hook for it, and you don’t even hate her. Christ, Kenyon, does she have to come back here and literally kick you in the balls to make you realize that she never cared about you? She never liked you, she used you, and now you’re gonna go to jail because of her.”
He doesn’t move, just keeps on watching me, his eyes steady, his mouth in that slanted line. “You can’t tell anybody.”
“Why not? She treated me like dog crap. I’m supposed to keep secrets for her?”
“She was right. You hold a grudge forever.” I stare. “She told me what you did with that guy in the parking lot. How you let him pop your cherry.” His mouth twitches. “Then you blamed her for it.”
“Because it was her fault. It was her idea. Then she went around telling everybody what a slut I was. She tell you that part?”
“Yeah.” It takes me a second to process what he said. “She wasn’t into it that night like she thought. So she got out of there. What’d you want her to do, jump him anyway?”
“No.” I hunch, going through all the dark, ugly baggage again, pulling stuff out and holding it up and remembering how bad it all makes me look. “If she hadn’t run her mouth.” My voice is thick. “She didn’t have to do that. We could’ve stayed friends.”
“She talked shit about you before you could do it to her. Typical sophomore. She thought it was her fault that you gave away something special. Like maybe if she’d never set it up that night, later you never would’ve”—I watch him mull over his words—“been with so many guys.”
I’ve got two words for both him and Rhiannon, and they ain’t Merry Christmas. “So she tried to fix it by making fun of me?”
“She never said it was smart.”
I put my head in my hands, working my fingers into my hair, my nails over my scalp, until it hurts. “You know where she is, don’t you? She told you.”
He shakes his head. “All she told me was she had a friend picking her up. Late, after everybody left the party. I don’t know who.” He lets out a breath. “She talked about killing herself that summer.”
That takes the wind out of me. We’re quiet. None of this makes sense. Sly-smiling sophomore-year Rhiannon, the version who knew how to dress all fringe with her messenger bag and Chuck Taylors, who hung out in the smoking woods with the stoners and under the bleachers, offing herself. I can’t picture it. But then, I didn’t really know that girl. “You gotta tell the cops.” He doesn’t move, doesn’t answer. “Don’t be stupid, Kenyon. The cops think you did something to her.”
He walks to the door and stares into the hallway, watching dust motes drift in sunlight. “We should let her go, Darce.”
The stairs creak as he goes down.
When I open my eyes the next morning, sunlight lies in four windowpanes across my bed. I listen to the sounds of Mom and Libby moving around downstairs, the toilet flushing.
The Bay Festival starts at ten thirty a.m., one hour from now. Over at the fairgrounds, they’ll be gassing up grills, hanging 4-H banners in the livestock stalls, counting out cash drawers. Only nine hours until Nell and I need to be at the pavilion for tonight’s coronation.
I take a deep breath, pull the sheet up over my head, and sink like I’m in quarry water.
Downstairs in the kitchen, Nell starts to sing.
“I can’t believe she’s going like that.”
Hours later, Libby’s voice carries upstairs to my open door. I roll nude pantyhose, slip my toes in.
“Not that I’m surprised you’re gonna let her. If she wanted to leave this house stark naked, you’d say okay.” Her voice drops to a hiss: “For God’s sake, she looks like she got beat up by a pimp.” Mom snorts and mutters something. “You think that’s funny?”
“I think you’re being ridiculous.”
“Wait and see if everybody isn’t saying the same thing tonight. She’s gonna be up onstage in front of the whole town, Sarah. This ain’t the kind of thing people forget. This story’s gonna follow her. You want that?”
I fasten my strapless bra. Nell did my makeup an hour ago before she went to get ready. My only slightly mangled face stares back at me in the mirror. I hear the thud of Hunt’s ladder against the side of the house as he shifts, spreading his brush across the clapboards.
“And let me tell you something else.” This I have to strain to hear: “I saw a boy come out of the house yesterday while you were working.”
I feel Mom’s hesitation. “Jesse Bouchard?”
“I don’t know. He wasn’t one of Nell’s friends.” Another way of saying he’s trash.
I slide the mermaid dress, all sea foam and silver, over my head. I can almost see Mom situating herself around this news, filing it away for later. “They’re allowed to have friends over. No rules against boys.”
“Maybe there should be.”
I spray my hair, wrap a strand around my curling iron, rolling it so close to my scalp it burns. Libby makes a disgusted noise. “I’m gonna go check on Nellie.” Our back door will be lucky to stay on its hinges after what Libby’s put it through this summer.
I stump downstairs in Nell’s silver kitten-heeled sandals. Mags leans in the kitchen doorway, eating an apple and acting like she wasn’t waiting for me. She checks me out head to toe. “Nice.”
I shrug, looking at myself, then back at her. My heartbeat’s like some crazy kid banging cymbals. “Curls too much?”
“Nah. Wait.” She comes over and smooths one ringlet back, which I figured she’d do. “There. You’re good, butthead.”