“I’m sorry,” he said again, and this time he took those words and owned them. “I was a complete tool.”
We sat with it. Or I sat with it, and he let me, until at last I said, “Well, I’m sorry, too. For embarrassing you in front of all those library people.”
He exhaled through his nose. “Hell, I deserved it. But, man. When you get fierce, you get fierce, don’t you?”
No comment, I thought. I liked the way he saw me, though. I tried it on . . . and it actually kind of fit. I was fierce, or getting there. I sat up a little straighter.
“Did you find anything when you were doing your research?”
He pushed his fingers through his hair. “No. It had been a week. A week, and Patrick was still unconscious, and the sheriff’s department didn’t have a clue who worked him over.”
“They still don’t,” I said.
He nodded. “That day at the library . . . I don’t know,” he said. “I figured it was a good ol’ boy from the hills who hurt Patrick. Some ignorant redneck filled to the brim with ‘Jesus Saves’ and ‘Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.’ I guess I wanted to punish someone.”
“So you saw me, and what? Thought you’d punish me for being an ignorant redneck?”
He hitched one shoulder. “You were kind of crawling up my butt.”
“I was not,” I said, making an ew face. “Anyway, you’re more country than I am. You just don’t look it.”
“Whatever.”
“How’d you peg me as being country?”
It wasn’t like I’d worn overalls or anything. It couldn’t have been my accent, either, because I was just sitting at the computer, minding my own business. Plus, I didn’t talk like most folks in Black Creek did. I made a point of it.
He muttered something unintelligible.
“Come again?” I said.
His whole face was red, along with his neck. “Patrick pointed you out once. You wouldn’t remember.”
I didn’t remember. He was right about that.
“Did he introduce us?” I asked.
Jason shook his head.
“Then how do you know it was me?”
“You’re right, maybe it wasn’t,” he said, giving in too easily.
“Oka-a-a-y, then why’d you say it was?”
He sighed.
I waited.
“It was this past winter,” he finally said. “We had half a foot of snow dumped on us the night before, but the next day, the sun came out. You were taking a walk.”
My skin tingled. I had no recollection of seeing Jason, but I did remember that particular day. I remembered the glint of the fresh snow, so bright it hurt to look at. I remembered how amazing the sun felt after months of being cold.
“It was the first warm day of the year,” I said.
Jason nodded.
“Patrick honked,” I said slowly. “He was in his car. He drove past me.”
“There was a film festival in Asheville,” Jason said. “My car wouldn’t start, so he picked me up, and afterward we drove back to Black Creek. Patrick saw you and pointed you out. He wanted to stop the car and offer you a ride. I told him no.”
“Gee, what a gentleman,” I said. My mind was somewhere else, though. I was surprised Patrick would have pointed me out to a friend after three years of getting little more from me than quick nods of acknowledgment.
“I didn’t want to bother you,” Jason said. “You were in your own world. You looked . . .”
I tilted my head.
“Happy,” he said. “And then Patrick honked, and you jumped, and your expression changed.”
“Ohhh,” I said, the details falling into place. I’d been daydreaming about the book I was in the middle of, and when Patrick honked, it did startle me. There was a time when I would have recovered with a laugh, but that was the old me. The pre-Tommy me. The girl Patrick honked at was someone else entirely.
And yet . . . was it possible that the real me still existed, buried beneath snowdrifts of hurt?
Jason and I talked for a long time. I finally told him my name, which I’d managed not to up until then, and he said it suited me.
I asked him why, and he said, “I don’t know. Because cats are smart? Because they know how to track things down?”
I laughed. “Things like you? Believe me, it wasn’t that hard.”
“Well, because of how they keep to themselves, then,” he said. “Dogs like everyone. Cats choose who to like.”
Hmmm, I thought, mulling that over.
We talked more about Patrick, and he told me he was here on campus the night Patrick was attacked. He and his college buddies were at a party at someone’s apartment. He showed me pictures on his cell phone, and I told him he looked like a frat boy. He snorted.
I told him about Wally the meth cooker, and he said meth had spread like poison ivy through his hometown, too. His sister-in-law lost her kids to it. A cousin had nubs for hands because of a meth-cooking explosion. Even so, she was still a user. She gripped a tiny silver spoon between her pawlike hands while her boyfriend held the lighter beneath.
“Have you done it?” I asked, thinking please say no, please say no.
“No, and I never will,” he said. For a moment, his vehemence transformed him into the angry Jason from the library. “That’s why I’m here. I had to get out of that fucking hellhole. Once I get my degree, I’m going even further. Maybe Nashville, maybe Atlanta.” His throat worked. “I’m never going back.”
I was awed by his conviction, and I felt a pang that unlike Jason, I’d be stuck in Black Creek forever.
Only . . . did it have to be like that? What if I came here after I graduated? My grades were good. Maybe I could get financial aid?
I ducked my head and drew into myself like a stupid snail. Maybe the president himself would fly to Black Creek to offer me a full scholarship, and while he was at it, maybe he’d buy some of my homemade corn relish. Then he’d ask Aunt Tildy for the privilege of killing a chicken so she could fry it up and serve it with dumplings, and as she was making dinner, he’d pop out to the garage and offer Daddy a job so he didn’t have to be a drunk anymore.
But forget all that. I was glad—very glad—about Jason not being a tweaker.
I shared bits and pieces of my life, too, especially the parts relating to Patrick. I told him about Beef, explaining that he was Patrick’s best guy friend, and Jason said yeah, that Patrick had mentioned him. I swallowed and told Jason how I’d found out about Beef’s involvement with meth, and I gave him the details about Beef and Bailee-Ann’s problems in the romance department. I also told him about Gwennie, who appeared to have a thing for Patrick despite the fact that Patrick was gay.
I described the other members of the redneck posse: Dupree, a meth runner who possibly did some on-the-side dealing as well; my brother, the coward; Tommy. I told Jason almost everything, and he listened.
Scooching back on his bed and leaning against the cinder block wall, I even told him about Robert, whose neediness worried me and irritated me in almost equal measure.
“He keeps saying he’s got a secret to tell me, but he won’t say what it is,” I said. “Oh, and he’s here, by the way. He ambushed me on the bus and followed me.”
“He’s here?” Jason said. “Where?”
“Lurking outside the dorm, I reckon.”
Jason went to his window, hiked it up, and leaned out. “Skinny kid in baggy shorts? Pacing around and talking to himself?”
“That would be him,” I confirmed dryly.
“You should buy him an ice-cream cone,” Jason said. “He looks hungry.”
I told him I didn’t have money for anything other than bus fare, and he fished out three dollars from his wallet.
I held my hands up and said, “Uh, no. I’m not here for handouts.”
“For God’s sake, Cat,” he said. “You said he has a secret, so take him out for ice cream. I bet he’ll open up.”
Still, I hedged.
He said, “I’m Patrick’s friend, too. Let me help.”
He helped more than that. He threw out a theory about Dupree and Tommy, based on the information I’d given him. Destiny had said that Dupree would freak out if his mama found out about his drug life, and Dupree said Patrick wasn’t a saint, but a tattletale. What if Patrick was blackmailing him?
“Blackmailing!” I said. “If you think Patrick’s the sort of guy who blackmails people, you don’t know him as well as you think you do.”
“Think about it this way,” Jason said. “We know Patrick was upset that Beef was involved with meth. What if Beef hasn’t gotten out of the business? Maybe Patrick was trying to enlist Tommy and Dupree’s help, you know?”
“No,” I said. If Jason knew Tommy and Dupree, he’d understand that enlisting their help was a scenario that would never play out.
“Try it this way,” Jason said. “Maybe Patrick suggested to Tommy and Dupree that it would be a good idea for all of them to quit working for Wally. Patrick would have brought up Dupree’s mama, which would have made Dupree wet his pants. And from what you’ve told me about Tommy, I’m guessing he would have been shitting at the thought of his family finding out their golden boy was committing a felony. Am I right?”
If Tommy’s father found out that Tommy was tarnishing the family name, he’d kill Tommy. So yeah, I’d say Tommy would do almost anything to keep his reputation clean.
As for Patrick being a blackmailer . . . It sounded low described like that, but in theory, having a long talk with Tommy and Dupree would be the right thing to do. Patrick might well have convinced himself that he’d be sinning if he didn’t help his friends get out of a sinful situation.
After going over everything we knew, the one missing piece of the puzzle was Patrick’s boyfriend. Who was he? Was he a good guy? A jerk? Was he involved in Patrick’s attack? Did he know anything about Patrick’s attack? So many questions would be answered if only we could talk to him.
“But you’re positive he has one,” I said.
“According to Patrick, yeah. He talked about him a lot, but he never used his name.”
“That’s weird,” I mused. “And why hasn’t he visited Patrick at the hospital? The boyfriend?”
“How do we know he hasn’t?” Jason countered. “Plus he’d be turned away the same as us.”
“What if it was Patrick’s boyfriend who tried to break into his hospital room? Not for a bad reason. What if he just, you know, wanted to see Patrick’s face for a minute?”
Jason shrugged. With no name, we had nothing to go on.
“You see what you can find out from Robert,” he finally said. “I’ll . . . I don’t know what I’ll do.” His jaw tensed. “What should I do? What can I do? God, I hate this. I hate being so fucking helpless.”
But you are helping, I thought.
“You really don’t have a cell phone?” he said.
“I really don’t have a cell phone,” I replied.
“You can call me from your landline, then. Or a pay phone.” He snagged a Sharpie from his desk and grabbed my arm, turning it so that the top of my forearm faced up. My heart beat faster.
“Call me any time,” he said as he wrote his number. “All right?”
I nodded. He’d given me his number already, the day at the hospital, but I didn’t remind him. His fingers easily circled my wrist, and I liked that he was bigger than me. I liked the fine hairs between his knuckles.
He lifted his head, and we gazed at each other. It was a gaze that lasted for a long while, but I felt safe within it and didn’t look away. It was strange, but wonderful.
“Um, hey,” he said seriously. “There’s something I want to tell you.”
My stomach tightened. “Okay. What?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
“No way,” I said, knowing that if he left me hanging, I’d worry about it forever. “Whatever it is, just tell me.”
He half-smiled. Then he gave a quick and decisive nod, as if committing to do something scary, like jumping off a rock into water far below.
“You have pretty eyes,” he said.
They widened, my pretty eyes, and I knew I was blushing. “Oh,” I said, flustered. “Um, you too. And thanks. And . . . yeah.”
I wasn’t any closer to finding out who hurt Patrick, but I felt like I was. I wasn’t just me anymore. I was half of a we . . . I was no longer alone.
HERE’S TO JASON AND HIS BRIBE MONEY, BECAUSE a double scoop of mint chocolate chip—combined with my complete attention—was just the encouragement Robert needed to tell me everything I wanted to know. It made me ache for him, something I didn’t see coming. It was unfair how the kids who were starving for attention tended to be so annoying that people had no inclination to give it to them.
Like Robert, shifting about once we sat down in our booth and saying, “Dang, woman. I got a wedgie.”
“I am so glad you shared that with me, Robert,” I said, making him giggle.
He was as twitchy as a dog’s hind leg, though. He kept sliding back and forth on his side of the booth, chattering about bugs and guns and dinosaurs, until out of the blue, he said, “You wanna talk about Patrick, don’t you?” he said. “That’s why you brought me here. Right?”
“Well, yeah.” I shrugged, seeing no reason to lie. “You said you had something to tell me.”
He nodded, pooching out his bottom lip as if he was thinking it over. “All right, then. I heard what Bailee-Ann told you when you were at my house the other night, but Bailee-Ann’s a big fat liar.” He took a big lick of mint chocolate chip, getting ice cream on his face.
“Use a napkin,” I said, jerking one from the container and handing it to him. Instead of taking it, he tilted his face as if I should do the wiping.
“Robert, you can wipe your own mouth,” I said. “You’re a big boy.”
“I sure am,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.
I was taken aback. He was eleven, and in all of three seconds he’d gone from acting like a baby to tossing out a suggestive comment, or whatever the heck he was going for.
“Just tell me about Bailee-Ann,” I said. “What’d she lie about?”
“Lots of stuff.”
“Such as . . . ?”
“Well, she lied about that Saturday night, for one. I mean, Beef did drop her off. She didn’t lie about that. But guess who was back half an hour later, throwing pebbles at her window?”
“Beef dropped the others off and then came back?”
“No,” Robert said scornfully. “Tommy came and got her, and they went off together.”
Tommy and Bailee-Ann? I was confused. “Why would Tommy and Bailee-Ann go off together?”
“Just because,” he said coyly.
“Just because why?” I grabbed a napkin and wiped his dang mouth off. He grinned.
“All right, I’m gonna tell you something I ain’t told nobody else. You listening?”
I nodded.
“I thought maybe it was Beef who done it. Who beat Patrick up.”
I drew back. “Robert. Beef’s Patrick’s friend,” I said. I heard in my own ears how doggedly insistent I sounded, and it frightened me.
“Duh,” Robert said. “I know that now. But Beef doesn’t like homos, even though he’s got a buddy who’s one, and so that’s why I thought that.” He leaned in. “Beef’s teaching me how to be a man, see. We’ve had all kinds of talks. I don’t know if you know this, but I’m, like, his best friend, practically.”
Robert was not Beef’s best friend. Robert was eleven. But maybe all of his hanging out with older kids had made him think he was older, too. Maybe that explained his waggling eyebrows and stupid innuendos. Maybe being with Beef and Tommy and Bailee-Ann, with their drinking and kissing and all that, had made Robert not just hyper but hyper-sexual, if there was such a thing.
Best friend or puppy dog tagalong, I didn’t want to hurt Robert’s feelings like I did with his nonexistent chest hairs. So I said, “Oh. That’s
nice.”
“Yeah, only now he’s dogging me, and it’s pissing me off.” A shadow crossed his face. He did an odd head-thrust to clear it.
“Anyway, he told me about faggots and no tears for queers and all that,” he said. “So when I heard about Patrick sucking on that gas nozzle, what was I s’posed to think?”
What was he supposed to think, indeed? Faggots? No tears for queers? I thought Beef’s calling Patrick a fucking pansy had been a onetime slip.
“So what made you decide he didn’t?” I asked. My heart was beating faster than I would have liked.
Robert shrugged. His shoulder blades were as narrow and sharp as pigeon wings. “I just plain out asked him. I said, ‘Hey, homes, you beat up that faggot?’”
“Good glory, Robert. What’d he say?”
“He said, ‘No way, homes. Beating on people ain’t cool,’” Robert recited. “I said, ‘Not even homos?’ And Beef said, ‘Not even homos. Ain’t right to beat on anyone.’”
I loosened with relief. “He’s right,” I said. “It isn’t.”
Robert was in his own head. “I figured he was playing,” he said, “so I was like, ‘Uh-huh, I hear ya. You’re not gonna smack Bailee-Ann if you find her being humped by some other guy?’”
“Robert”.
“But Beef was serious. He said he’d drop her sorry ass, but he wouldn’t hit her, ’cause it ain’t right to hit a girl.”
“Good for him. And anyway, would you want him to hit your sister?”
He dragged his tongue around his ice cream. “So then I said, ‘Lemme see if I got this straight. It ain’t right to hit a homo. It ain’t right to hit a girl. Who am I allowed to hit?’”
I put my elbow on the table and propped my cheek on my fist. I was glad Beef was teaching him not to hit homos and girls, but Jesus, this conversation was just plain depressing me.
“He said I ain’t allowed to hit no one,” Robert replied, his voice hiking up in disbelief. “Said it ain’t right to hit, period. So I’m like, ‘Not even guy-on-guy?’ And he’s all, ‘Not even guyon-guy.’”
I closed my eyes and pressed the heel of my palm against my forehead. “Maybe he wants to set a good example for you,” I said at last.