It’s the tall, gorgeous blonde who answered the science and math question; I think maybe she goes to Bucksport. Everybody’s on their feet as Mrs. Hartwell comes out with the rest of the judges, bringing the crown and a huge bouquet of roses and a little velvet cape they drape over Rachel’s shoulders as she takes her seat on the throne.
I work my way back over to the stage, waiting for Nell to come out as people leave the pavilion for the next event on the festival schedule, probably the country music band lined up for nine o’clock. Bella comes out first, looking like she swallowed a quart of vinegar. Her buttoned-down mom’s waiting for her, and Bella blows right by her, the two of them sniping at each other all the way—“I told you not to wear that dress, it was totally inappropriate for a pageant like this,”; “God, Mother, enough!” Fun times in the Peront house tonight. Then again, it’s probably never real fun.
As I wait, I keep an eye out for Shea, but I don’t see him. He probably never even set foot in the pavilion tonight. He didn’t have to. He knew I’d do the work for him, worrying that he might show, wondering what he might do. I guess nobody can psych you out better than yourself. “Darce!” I look up to see Mags raise a hand in the crowd. Feels like I haven’t seen her in about a year.
They’re still taking pictures onstage. Nell’s crying as she smiles, hugging her roses. I really don’t think she could’ve been happier if she’d taken Queen.
My gaze moves across the dirt track, back over the crowd, maybe hoping for Jesse, I don’t know. Instead, she snags my attention, over by the grandstand post.
I watch her standing there, wearing a moss-green North Face T-shirt, cargo shorts, and Birkenstocks. Elise Grindle.
She’s smiling and talking to the guy she’s with, the guy who no doubt fed her some line about turning out to support Nell tonight. How Nell was always one of the special ones. I almost don’t recognize him in his street clothes: a sport shirt, jeans, boat shoes. He holds the leash of a yellow Lab that’s sitting with her tongue hanging out, food watching.
They step away from the grandstand, Elise slipping her hand into his back pocket. I stare at his back as they join the leaving crowd, moving so easily. They have a dog. Might as well be a kid. Another building block of a phony life.
I step out into the midway, barefoot, arms hanging at my sides, making people stream around me. He sat right there with his eyes all over Nell tonight, cool as could be. Now he’s going back with Elise to their apartment on Irish Lane, where he’ll keep playing house with her, and it makes me feel so damned ugly I could cry. Because it’s not over. It never was. And some part of me always knew it.
TWENTY-FOUR
NIGHT.
I open my eyes, and know that the car is out there. No headlights on the wall this time. I don’t need them.
I don’t think that I ever really slept. Last night was one long after-party: riding home with everybody crammed into Mom’s Subaru, all of them talking at once, the smell of roses and hair spray, Nell spent and glowing, Libby an absolute mess, like she never dared to believe her baby would place. Mom let us drink some cheap champagne, and Mags clapped me on the back, said I’m the best loser she’s ever seen, and that she practically blew an artery laughing when they asked me about small-town living. It was a good night. Should’ve been the best. But I watched it all from some high, cold place where the air was thin and all I could do was count the minutes until right now, 2:03 a.m., when I have to decide what to do.
I get out of bed and put my jeans on underneath my sleep shirt. My mermaid dress lies in a pool on the floor, silver sandals beside it, my corsage wilting on the vanity. I pull on my hoodie and go downstairs, walking along the edges, Nancy Drew–style.
Outside, it’s misting. The grass is dewy under my flip-flops, and I slip and catch myself as I follow the roadside ditch into the woods beside our house.
It’s darker than I expected. No moon tonight. I pull my hood up and hunker down between some trees, waiting for whatever’s going to happen.
The car’s idling. Still no headlights, but as my eyes adjust, I can see it there, maybe fifteen feet away, by the faintest dashboard glow.
I wait long enough for my legs to get stiff and my nose to start running before I see the tiny light drifting along like Tinker Bell in the blackness. It’s on the opposite shoulder, coming our way. A penlight.
The light drifts across the road. When it’s almost to the car, he switches on the headlights. She’s painted in halogen, my Nell, wearing her navy-blue raincoat with the pattern of little white whales on it, her face a dark hollow inside the hood. She’s reaching for the passenger door. In a second, she’ll be inside, pushing her hood back, turning to smile at him as he takes her away, away from us.
I throw myself forward, not knowing where I’m putting my feet until I’m on pavement. I say her name, just say it, but in that night silence, it might as well have been a scream.
Nell spins around, wincing in the light. We stay that way, pinned.
Then, very slowly, the car glides backward. From the corner of my eye, I watch him pull a gradual U-turn and accelerate away, leaving her. Leaving us facing each other in the blue glow of her penlight beam.
She runs, but I’m faster. I get a fistful of her raincoat and we go down together on the wet grass of our front yard.
“You promised.” I slap her hood back. She gives a high, thin scream. “You said you’d never see him again and you did!”
Nell shields her face. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she sobs.
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry! You lied! You lied! You know how hard I tried to keep you safe? You know how many times I had to lie so nobody would find out? Then you sneak around behind my back and do it anyway! Goddamn you!” This roar comes out of me, and I bring my fists down on the ground beside her head, making her scream and roll to the side.
She manages to get up on one foot, her jacket hanging on by one arm. Lights come on in the house and trailer. I shove her back down, and she cries out miserably, her shoulder grinding into the mud under me. “I love him.”
“No, you don’t! You don’t even know what you’re talking about! He’s a goddamn pervert, you don’t love him!”
I shake her until somebody catches me under the arms and pulls me back. “Stop! What the hell are you doing?”
I kick and swing as Nell staggers away, hugging herself, watching me with huge, stunned eyes. When she sees that Mom’s really got me, she bends double and shouts back, “You don’t know, Darcy! You don’t love anybody, so how can you know?”
Libby runs across the yard, jerking her old terry-cloth robe around her. “Nellie? Baby, what—?”
Libby reaches for her, but Nell pulls away and Libby nearly falls, gasping as her baby turns and runs from us, across the yard and down Old County Road into darkness.