Though it wasn’t possible, Angie swore she saw the glass take shape before them, a tiny fragile orb, bright as water. She would see this image again at moments throughout her life, from what felt like a million years from that day, when she lay in bed with Rose, the cats curled on the comforter, Hazel asleep in the room next door, the dust motes floating in the sunlight in the window. She would see it the first time with Rose, in Rose’s parents’ motel, the rain flooding the parking lot as Beto Navarro stood guard in the Impala—the first time a girl had returned her touch. She would see it when Rose ran off the first time, spooked by the dawning awareness that what they were doing in secret was real, it wasn’t going away. She would see it when Rose turned up on her doorstep, bouncing Hazel on her hip. She would see it when they visited her father’s grave tucked in the little cemetery in town, when she rearranged rocks into a heart shape over where she thought his heart might be. She would see it every morning as she woke in his house, as she opened his shop in the town she never left, the lines of the road taking her right here, a place both new and old.
She saw it again now as she stared down at the newspaper and looked at that girl’s face again, still seventeen years old, a bright xylophone chime of a memory. Her first secret love. The girl who’d opened Angie’s heart and pushed her in the direction of her true self, even if she’d never known it. The girl whose friendship Angie then severed, unable to see past her own shame and confusion, retreating again into silence. The girl who didn’t come home one rainy winter night, and about whom Angie never stopped wondering: What if I’d been a better friend? What if I’d told her? What if she’d said yes? What if I’d seen her that night? What if she showed up on my doorstep? The girl whose disappearance seemed to soak into the porous rocks of the town, a mystery lurking beneath the surface, becoming as much a legend as those of bones and bikes in sinkholes.
Angie pressed the newspaper to her chest, breathing hard. No, these were real bones, the real bones of a real person—not a myth, not a story. And she remembered that day in the mud, how she’d held tight to her father as he pulled her to safety. How she watched as the glass drifted silent between them and then floated out of the muck, rising above their heads, up and up, beyond them.
Unearthed
February–May 1991
In the first weeks they called her the new girl, and then Phoenix Girl. Not everyone, mainly those who roamed the halls in packs, boys with their hair gelled into spikes wearing polo shirts and smirks, girls with cocked eyebrows and wads of pink gum. At first they said it to each other, nudges and whispers she overheard (that’s her, the new girl), but then they said it to her: “Hey, it’s the Phoenix Girl. What’s up, Phoenix Girl?”
Jess found this baffling. She could sense an undertone, but she couldn’t gauge it; she decided it probably was a dumb inside joke or a test of some kind, not recognizing how much of their tone was rooted in pride, insecurity, and self-preservation, a wariness that she, girl from the city, would dare to look down on them, the rural kids. After all, they’d seen this their whole young lives—from the news, from movies, from the very books in their backpacks, from other new kids before her: Rednecks. Dumb hicks. She should have recognized the tone; she’d heard it enough from her mother, about anyone with a better house, a better car, a better-paying job: They’re not better than us, J-bird. They just have more money.
Whatever was going on, Jess knew enough to keep her mouth shut, clutching her books to her chest, eyes straight ahead. “Ignore them,” her mom told her. “Take the high road.” She could do that. She imagined a literal high road, a berm or a bridge a few feet off the ground, and she fixed her gaze on the square alarm bell at the end of the hall. It was like in ballet class: keep your eye on one spot as you turn so you don’t get dizzy. They weren’t allowed to wear headphones at school, but she acted as though she had them on, as if she could hear only lyrics and guitar.
One day a girl wearing a yellow scrunchie in her hair called after Jess. She said, “God. Stuck-up much?”
Jess should have ignored it. At most, she should have shaken her head or said a simple No, I’m not. But that week, after Angie had had that strange fight with her father, roaring off in her car and leaving Jess to sleep alone in her friend’s bed, Angie had stopped returning her calls, had stopped waiting for her after school or offering rides. Had mumbled, “I can’t do anything after school anymore. I have to help my dad.” Her one lifeline in this town had been razored in half, leaving her reeling, untethered. No more eating pancakes or playing poker or watching TV with Angie and her nice dad, no more rides around town with music blasting from the speakers, thumping into her chest. Nights, she watched TV, but lately the news blared footage from the Gulf—wind-whipped sand and bombs exploding over the capital, burning oil fields, Iraqi soldiers on their knees—which tied her up in knots. She lay in bed and stared at the ceiling or watched her mother sleep and cry until she couldn’t stand it and ran outside. Last night, the moon had dodged in and out of the clouds, lighting up the edges, so the sky looked like a map of the earth. She wouldn’t have been surprised if the land and air had changed places. If the little lake could disappear like that—boom, drained into a sinkhole overnight—then why not the land and air? Nothing made sense. Friendship: How could it be even more elusive than love? What had she done wrong? What was wrong with her?
In the hall, with the scrunchie girl in her peripheral vision, part of her warned, Don’t. Keep walking. Ignore. High road, high road. The other part of her, though—the one worn thin by too much thinking, too much worry, not enough sleep, the weeks of navigating these halls and their whispers—had something else in mind: Head-on. Don’t blink.
Jess turned and looked at the girl. She pulled her book bag from her shoulder and held it by the strap, testing its weight. She carried everything in that bag so she wouldn’t have to stop at her locker. Books for US history, trig, Humanities, and chemistry, her notebook, pens, her hideous polyester gym clothes, copies of Bloom County and Life in Hell she hadn’t returned to the Phoenix library. A good fifteen pounds, if not more. She gripped the strap tight.
The girl lifted her hands, mocking. “What? You got something to say, Phoenix Girl? Oooh, Phoenix Girl has something to say.” She flipped her head to look at her friends, and her stupid ponytail whirled like a helicopter blade. They all laughed as if it were hilarious, as if any of them had the first clue about funny.
Jess said, “Yeah, I got something to say.” As the words came out, she took three long steps and swung the book bag underhand as if fast-pitching a softball. Fast, but not fast enough. The girl jumped back so the bag grazed her arm but missed nailing her upside the head, where Jess had been aiming. She stumbled into another girl to her left, and the whole clot of them stared at Jess, blinking, at first too surprised to react.
The weight and momentum of the bag had wrenched her shoulder, but Jess ignored the twinge. She slipped the straps over both shoulders and continued down the hall as if nothing had happened, as if she had nothing at all to do with the swarm of girls who had begun to buzz and screech behind her. But her heart beat fast, and she swallowed hard. That, she knew, was a mistake. A big one. She smiled and lifted her chin, spotting the alarm bell at the end of the hall and almost pirouetting toward it.