“Hey.”
He looks at me briefly and smiles. “Hey,” he says. “How was school?”
“You know, same old shit.”
He wasn’t there today. He’s still in high school, even though he should have graduated last year. He’s doing a “lap year,” a second grade twelve. Usually it’s the jocks that go back because they want to play another year of football and raise their average by retaking courses they flunked. But Derrick has other reasons. He wants to stay close to his clients, pass them in the hallway, chat with them at lunchtime, and make drop plans in the parking lot. He’s small-time. Nothing too big or dangerous. And he never does deals at school. He’s too smart for that. Unlike me, he’s passing all of his classes, even though he isn’t there half the time. Derrick is the kind of kid who doesn’t have to try hard. Everything comes easy for him. He gets what he wants.
“I got caught today in the old lady’s room,” I said. I don’t tell him why I was in there. I don’t tell him about her pictures. The one that looks like my dragonfly. “So I had to help her read her father’s journals.”
“No shit?” He actually sounds interested. “Why?”
“She’s blind. Can’t read them herself.”
We speed down the street heading toward the waterfront. Derrick is chewing his bottom lip, his forehead creased in a scowl. Thinking.
He reaches over and rubs my leg, grabs my hand.
We met last year at a party. He’s two years older than I am. We go to the same school, but our paths never crossed in the halls. We didn’t move in the same circles. Not then.
I met Alyssa in grade nine, and we started to hang out. Then I switched foster homes last year and I had to switch schools too. I didn’t know anyone at the new school except Caleb, and he’s just an asshole.
Then, one weekend, Alyssa heard about a party at a gravel pit out on Highway 61 and called me. She found us both a ride, showing up at my door just before midnight with a two-six of rye and a few beers, and I slipped out without Laurie knowing. She’s had kids in her home for a long time before I came along, yet she’s too stupid to realize that it’s easy to pop open the bedroom window and climb out.
By 2:00 a.m., Alyssa and I were both drunk, and I was sitting in Derrick’s lap. A half hour after that, the cops showed up. Derrick and I ran into the bushes at the edge of the pit, sliding down the embankment and lying together, giggling, while flashlights blinked, sweeping across the field in search of partygoers passed out in the grass. We lay there gazing at the stars overhead, the earth spinning beneath us, until the cops left and we could creep to Derrick’s car and slip into the backseat. Derrick grabbed a beer from a cooler on the floor, opened it, took a sip before he passed it to me.
I drank. The beer wasn’t cold anymore, but I was thirsty. We passed the beer back and forth a few times.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he said, his hand touching my face, tracing my eyes, my nose, my chin. “How come I never noticed you before?”
I started to laugh. It was the beer. I wasn’t beautiful, but let him think I was. When he kissed me, his lips were moist and tasted of the warm beer. I didn’t feel like laughing anymore. His hands wandered beneath my jacket and then my shirt, tracing the length of my spine to the top of my jeans. I shivered. He slipped open the clasp of my bra, sliding his hand beneath the pink lace to cup my breast. I tensed and drew back, looking into his green eyes, barely visible in the dark interior of the Honda.
“It’s okay,” he whispered into my ear. “Trust me.”
He bent down and kissed my eyes until they closed, then found my mouth again. This time, my lips parted, and I let him in.
Derrick always gets what he wants.
I thought I’d never hear from him again. It pissed me off that I wanted to. A week later, he called me up, and we went to the party where I met the writers. That was when I first realized what he did, how he made the money to afford the Honda and the designer jeans he wore and the booze he always seemed to have in endless supply. I didn’t give a shit, not really. None of that matters. For me, it’s all about the writing.
The car speeds along Water Street, the radio blaring some country trash that I’ve never learned to appreciate, but I don’t say anything. And I don’t change the station.
We turn into the marina and follow the road along the waterfront, pulling into a parking spot overlooking the harbor and the looming grain elevators. The wind has stirred up a choppy swell, the waves crashing against the rocky break wall. There’s a freighter swinging at anchor in the bay. Derrick cuts the motor and turns to look at me.
“I’ve been thinking.”
The way he says it, I’m not sure I want to know what he’s been thinking. I pull out my cigarettes. I offer one to Derrick, even though I know he doesn’t smoke and that he doesn’t like me smoking in his car. That’s about as defiant as I ever get with him.
“Yeah? About what?” I flick the lighter until the cigarette catches and take a long haul.
“You getting caught and doing community hours in that home is maybe a good thing. It’s an opportunity.”
I really don’t see how it could be a good thing.
“Babe, those old folks are taking painkillers by the bucketful. That place has got to be full of drugs we could sell—oxy, Percocet, you name it. You just need to get your hands on them.”
I almost choke on the cigarette. “Are you fucking insane, Derrick? It isn’t like they leave pill bottles lying around.” I look at him, staring into those hypnotic eyes, but he doesn’t seem convinced. “And what the hell do you think is going to happen if something goes missing? The first person they’re going to come looking for is me! I’ve gotten into enough shit already.”
“Just look at how you got into that lady’s room today. We find a way. We look for a loophole. Get cozy with the old folks. The staff. Get them to trust you.”
He leans over and plucks the cigarette from between my fingers, sending it out the crack in the window, and leans down to kiss me.
“You can do this, babe. You can do it for us. We can build a future together, me and you. It’ll be fucking amazing.”
I like the sound of that. His mouth closes over mine. Damn him.
13
Elizabeth
I am sitting in my wheelchair, snugly wrapped in blankets, sunglasses on, parked in the courtyard. It is nice to be outside again. The rain fell persistently for several days but has finally retreated back into the clouds to be carried to other destinations. The air is cool and damp, with a promise of shorter days and the coming winter season. I can hear the girl working on the fence. She is plugged into her music again, the tiny speakers leaking a faint rhythm that wanders over to where I sit. It is familiar, but I can’t quite place it.
“What are you listening to?”
The sounds of scraping stop, briefly. “Music.”
“Aren’t you witty.”
“Aren’t you nosy.”