"I can't breathe," I said to Mike. "I need air."
He took my hand. "Okay, let's take a walk."
"I'm still mad at you," I said.
He didn't answer. We tramped through the soggy cemetery, past the Cyprus trees with their billowing gray trunks, and away from the melodrama of the crowd. Soon there was just the white noise of the rain. I knew where Mike was leading us. His feet just went there naturally.
We stopped in front of his family's lineup of plots in the center of the graveyard. I followed Mike inside the walk-in mausoleum where Grandfather and Grandmother King were buried. I had been there one time before, two summers ago on the fifth anniversary of his grandfather's death. The mausoleum had seemed creepy enough to me then, full of living people in the middle of a hot, sunny day.
Now the two of us ducked like zombies under the low cement doorway. We took a seat on the carved marble bench. The dank smell of Spanish moss filled my nose and made me cough. I might have been scared if I had stopped listening to the thunder and keeping my eyes on the large stamped KING printed over entrance of the mausoleum. Mike ran his hand in circles over my back. It was hard to stay mad at him in here.
We hadn't said a word since we left the funeral. In fact, we hadn't said much to each other since Mike's big speech yesterday, except for a few polite remarks made for public consumption at the reception. Come to think of it, we hadn't really talked since . . . well, since before J.B.
I had friends who stressed about lulling into a pause in conversation with a guy on the phone or during a dinner date at MacB's. I'd always felt bad for them for missing the point. Mike and I didn't have awkward silences; we had intimate ones. Kate would look at me like I was insane whenever I'd talk about how much I loved to be quiet next to him. But maybe this hush was stretching it, even for us.
I opened my mouth, sure that I'd have something of interest to say, but when I hung there gaping for too long, Mike said, "I wish this rain could wash everything we did away."
"It can't."
Both of us sounded like robots.
"Justin's dead," I continued, feeling the impact of those two awful words fill up the mausoleum. "We can't ever undo that."
My mind was whirling with thoughts of J.B.'s smug face, the bragging manner he took on whenever he smiled. I wanted to stop thinking about him, stop getting those flashes of his green eyes. It made me wonder what exactly Mike was thinking just then but not saying.
On my left, he sighed. "Maybe we have to come clean."
"What?" I gasped, whipping my head around.
Mike rubbed his eyes like a kid someone forgot to put to bed. His shoulders seemed to cave in around his chest.
"This thing is driving me insane. I haven't slept in four days. They're going to find out what we did."
"No, they're not," I said, turning my head away so I wouldn't have to stare at how small he seemed right then.
"I left my water bottle in his hands--"
I shook my head. "Mike, every guy your year has that exact same Nalgene. And all the Bambies think it's cool to buy them, too. We can skirt that evidence easily."
"But someone will have seen us leave the party with Balmer practically halfdead already. What's it going to look like if we try to cover it up until they find us? Let's just come clean. We'll say we didn't mean for things to get so--"
"No." I stood up and started pacing. There was a square cutout in the cement that looked back at the church, and I could see the funeral-goers heading out toward the parking lot. They'd all go back to their quiet little homes and spark the phone lines with their gossip. But if we came clean, what would I go back to?
My old trailer-park world with no way out? The muck of my past life? I could almost smell the rotting-fish stench right now. Girls like me didn't get a second chance. This was it. My lips quivered, and I could feel my shoulders start to shake.
Mike sighed and reached his hand out for me. "Look, I don't want to go to jail any more than you do."
Who said anything about jail? I suddenly realized that Mike had no idea what I was thinking. I filled his open hand with mine.
"Then we fix this, Mike. We just do."
He looked up at me. "How?"
"Starting at the source of all Palmetto intel," I said, forcing my mind to keep up with my tongue. "The rumor mill. What have we heard so far?"
Mike shrugged and exhaled. He was never one to get too caught up in the mill. "Something about that footage Baxter Quinn shot at the party."
I smacked my palm against my forehead. "You're a genius," I said, surprised to find myself laugh in spite of our dire straits. "They've already picked out the man for us. He's still missing, by the way."
"Wait . . . do you mean . . ." Mike shook his head, incredulous. "We blame Baxter?"
"Why not?" I said, trying to sound nonchalant, even though I could feel my voice breaking. "Just plant a few clues."
"Hold on." Mike dropped my hand and rubbed his forehead, the way he did when he was cramming for a big test. "First we accidentally . . . kill someone. Now you want to frame someone else? "
"No, no, no," I cooed, standing up and stepping in between his legs. I rubbed my fingers in a slow circle around his temples. "It wouldn't exactly be framing. You saw Baxter that night. He was handing out drugs left and right. We both heard him say someone should cut J.B. off--then twenty minutes later, he's cheering on the second keg stand from the balcony."
"I don't know," Mike grimaced. "Baxter's no saint, but he's not a murderer."
"We don't have to make him a murderer. We just have to clear our names by shifting the focus somewhere else. Look," I said, lowering my forehead so that it was touching his, "we can't bring J.B. back."
There it was again. The icy feeling I now got whenever I really thought about J.B.'s death. This time, it was so strong I almost cried out in pain. But then I looked at Mike's furrowed brow--which meant the window for persuasion was closing. I wrapped my arms around my chest to fight the chill and made myself keep going.
"All we can do is uphold our reputations as ambassadors of goodwill during our school's time of need," I said finally.
"I guess you're right," Mike nodded.
"Of course, I'm right."
"It's not like Baxter ever even comes to class. If he got expelled . . ." he trailed off.
"Exactly," I said. "Isn't it better to hold our heads high and let the police punish someone who deserves to be hauled away, anyway? We can't go down for this, Mike." I covered my heart with my hands. "Now more than ever, Palmetto needs its Prince and Princess."
"Well," Mike said, giving me a small smile and pulling me onto his lap, "I know I need my Princess."
It felt like centuries since we'd been this close. I couldn't help it; I gave in to his lips and, for the first time all week, I relaxed.
"Something's poking me and it's not, um, me," Mike said, adjusting himself over me on the marble slab. He pointed toward my hip. When I realized where he was going, I grabbed his hand.
"Don't," I said.
He wrestled free and went for the side pocket of my raincoat.
"What do you have in there?" he asked quickly.
When he pulled out J.B.'s pill bottle, his face screwed up like he'd eaten something bad. "What are you still doing with these?"
"I don't know," I stammered. Why couldn't I just tell Mike the truth? Oh yeah, because it sounded crazy.
"Me neither," he said, incredulous. "I thought we agreed you would lose them." He stood up and ran his fingers through his hair. "You act like you have this all figured out, and then you can't hide the most obvious piece of evidence? What if someone catches you with this?"
"It's not like I can just throw it out at home," I said. Mike was well aware that ever since Mom started screwing the Dick and got all into composting his gardens, she had the maid pick through our trash like a hobo. I reached for the pills in his hand. "I'm just waiting for the right place to get rid of them. I'll take care of it, I promise."
"If we screw this up--"
I leaned forward to put a hand over his mouth.
"Do you love me?" I asked.
"Come on," he sighed, sitting back down.
"Do you love me?" I said again, holding my breath.
Mike looked up with his is-the-South-swampy smile and said, "I just tackled you in my grandfather's mausoleum when we have a homicide to cover up," he said, kissing the top of my head. "I might be, literally, crazy about you."
Relief washed over me. "Then we can't screw up," I said. "We just have to stay strong, together." I sat back down on his lap, putting my arms around his neck. "I'll talk to Tracy Monday morning. And--I'll get rid of the pills. You get the scoop on Baxter's DVD from the guys."
Before Mike had a chance to look nervous again, I straddled him, hiking up my black dress around my waist. I wrapped my legs around his torso, taking care that the pill bottle didn't come between us again, and I leaned in to whisper in his ear.
"You have to want this as much as you want me."
Mike sighed into my hair. The warmth of his breath on my neck felt so comforting.
"Okay, Nat," he moaned softly. "We'll nail Baxter."
CHAPTER Eleven
AT ODDS WITH MORNING
On Sunday morning, I lay in my canopy bed surrounded by the remnants of one of Mom's white frilly pillow projects--and the ghosts of my testosterone-filled past. I had J.B.'s seizure meds in one hand and my cell phone opened to my dad's third unanswered text in the other hand. Two men I thought I'd rid myself of, two signs that I'd been very wrong indeed. I looked back and forth from one hand to the other, feeling utterly trapped between them.
If I was as strong as I dared Mike to be, I could not give these men a free pass to unhinge me. No. I had to unhinge them.
Reminding myself that I was merely revising--not actually breaking--the vow of silence I took against my dad back when he skipped town, I hit the compose button on my phone. I needed to send the kind of message I wouldn't have had the courage to send back then, when the vow of silence was as far as I could go.
Save the 'Daddy's home' charade and just spit out what you want.
I tried to imagine his reaction, the way the wrinkles around his silverfish eyes would fall slack--but the point was not to think of him. The point was to think of myself.
Send.
It took a moment to realize that my heart wasn't racing. I was calm and collected. Okay. One talisman down, one to go.
My father had been haunting me because I let him. Now, with J.B.'s coffin still fresh in the ground, I only hoped I could put him to rest as well.
I'd spent the past week fumbling with the prescription bottle, and I guess my palms had been sweatier than usual because the label was starting to peel off. I tugged at the sticker, and before I knew it, the whole label came off in my hand.
Oh crap. Had I just multiplied the evidence? Or--had I made it easier to dispose of? Mom had a paper shredder downstairs (a divorcee's best friend, she liked to say)--but I couldn't risk a run-in with her. Better to be my own paper shredder.
I dashed to the bathroom and hunched over the salmon-colored toilet bowl, snipping the label into flushable-size pieces. They fell into the bowl like feathers, and soon I couldn't make out the word anti-seizure at all.
All week, I'd been wondering whether someone at Palmetto would leak the details about J.B.'s condition, but the actual cause of his death seemed to still be a public mystery. I guess it didn't surprise me. As interested as they were in the classic southern facade of perfection, J.B.'s family would be exactly the type to want to keep his seizures on the down low. Maybe when I flushed the toilet, I would just be following their lead.
Now about the actual pills. All I had to do was flush them, too. As soon as the tank filled up, I'd just hold them upside down over the bowl and free myself of them.
My wrist hovered over the toilet. I was trembling . . . okay, now full-on quaking.
I couldn't do it.
I sunk down over the bowl and laid my head in my hands. I'd tried to seem so unruffled yesterday in front of Mike, but alone, I guess I still couldn't accept what I'd done. These pills were all I had left of J.B., and maybe I needed to let them go in a more ceremonial way. In some sort of tribute instead of in a toilet. Like the therapist Mom made me see when Dad left used to say: It was all about finding your own kind of closure. What form exactly that kind of closure would take, I still had no idea.
"Natalie."
Shit. My mom's head was poking through my bedroom door. In seconds, she'd be close enough to see what I was holding. I stuffed my hands and the bottle in the pocket of my Palmetto sweatshirt and turned around.
"The Dukes are here. Get your coat; we're leaving," she said, straightening her cropped bright-pink top over her pink-and-yellow-checkered pedal pushers.
I groaned to remember. This week's "family fun day" with the Dukes was going to be a whopper. The other day, the Dick declared that he was in the market for some new real estate in the Cove--the way other people declare they're in the market for a new spring hat--and now we all had to go house hunting.
For Mom, today was about playing her cards right in hopes of squeezing something sizable out of him--which, from what I gathered about the Dick, probably didn't happen often in the bedroom. For me, today meant suffering in silence.
But before Mom could steer me out of my room, there was a timid knock on the door. Darla stuck her mouse head through the frame.
"Um, Nat," she said, looking nervous, "would it be okay if I ... I spilled some yogurt on my shirt." She held her pale-blue baby tee out from her torso to prove that the yogurt spill was indeed true. "My dad thought, maybe . . ."
"Of course, Natalie has something you can borrow," Mom butted in, putting her hand on Darla's shoulder, as if this were a happy bonding moment for everyone. "Right, Nat?"
Darla's mouth was set in a perpetual gape, making her look like one of the fish piled up on the Cawdor wharf. Not exactly the type I wanted modeling my wardrobe as we drove all around the Coveted in broad daylight. Something scrubbier would be more her style, anyway.
"Here," I said, starting to pull my Palmetto sweatshirt over my head. "You can wear this." The tiny rattle of the unmarked bottle in my pocket made me stop short with the hood half over my head.
"Actually," I said quickly, "just help yourself to anything in my closet."
Mom raised an eyebrow at me. "You're wearing that? Out? But you have such a gorgeous figure." She stepped forward to help me out of the old sweatshirt, but I jerked away.
"It's a stipulation of Palmetto Princess," I lied. "I'm supposed to show school spirit at least three times a week." I shrugged. "One of those things no one ever tells you before you take the crown."
"Oh." My mom nodded. "In that case."
She turned to Darla, who meanwhile had slinked into the emerald mini sundress that I'd worn to our big pep rally three Thursdays ago. That was a signature piece. I was still fielding compliments for that dress, and now Darla was going to stuff her doubleD boobs into it? I narrowed my eyes at her, but she just gave me that dopey open-mouth smile.
"Can I really?" she asked.
My future stepsister had me in a wardrobe headlock. I could feel Mom holding her breath for my approval.
"Of course," I finally said sweetly. "Though it really looks much better with heels. I'd lend you my snakeskin strappy sandals, but I guess your feet are a few sizes bigger. Bummer."
In the Flower Van, I slunk down in my seat as the Dick pulled out of our neighborhood. All together in the Flower Van again.
"Darla's been very affected by the news at Palmetto," he said. "She's been working on an editorial for the school paper. How are you handling it, Nat?"
The Dick's handlebar 'stache barely fit in the rearview, and I could feel him trying to catch my eye in the mirror. But there was no way I was going to let him see the deer-in-headlights look on my face. I shivered, pulled my sweatshirt tighter around me, and pretended to b
e absorbed by the traffic outside.
"Oh, it's awful," Mom jumped in to say. She wheeled around in the front seat to put her hand on my knee. "Natalie and Justin used to be great friends."
"You were?" Darla asked, prying her eyes off my mom's chest brimming over the top of her shirt to look at me. Her own chest was only slightly more contained by the conservative bust of my dress.
Why did Mom have to go and say that? So what if one time, years ago, during a mother/daughter morning gossip session in bed, I'd spilled to Mom that I couldn't get J.B. out of my head? I'd never go around bringing up all the details of her flings in front of the Dukes. Some confidences were supposed to be a little more sacred than that.
Now I was forced to shrug. "Not really. We just ran in the same circle."
"Well, have you heard the latest about Baxter Quinn?"
My head darted from the window to look at Darla. What did she know? Was I really going to blow my cool and stoop to asking the Double D for the news?
Wait--just because I was flailing didn't mean the rest of the world was turning upside down. Here was Darla with her jutting lower lip and lack of chin, with the stringy hair that needed washing and some shine spray. She didn't know anything. Obviously, she was looking to me.
"To be honest," I said finally, "I'm pretty tired of talking about it."
Darla nodded, all apologies.
By then, the Flower Van was turning down an oak-lined avenue toward the Coveted. I knew this area well; we were heading down a ritzy alcove where Rex Freeman and Kate Richards both had weekend homes. I knew if we walked out past the bend to where the Cove dipped into a whisper-thin peninsula of pine trees, I'd be able to see Mike's house across the bay.
He didn't like the Dick any more than I did, but he was always really nice to Darla. I think he thought he was doing me a favor, but it really just bugged me to the point where I hadn't even bothered to tell him I'd be stuck with the Dukes today.
"I think you're going to like this one, Dotty," the Dick was saying, running his fingertip along the bra strap that had slid down my mother's bare upper arm. Again, he looked at me in the rearview, his mustache glinting in the sun. "Are you as picky as your mother, Nat?"