Cryer's Cross

  After school Kendall and Nico head to soccer practice out in the field behind the building. Soccer here is coed and all varsity since there aren’t enough high school girls in Cryer’s Cross to make up a girls’ team, and there aren’t enough students who want to play soccer to have a JV team as well. Kendall’s the only girl to stick it out. And she’s better than most of the guys.

  As Kendall finishes stretching, Jacián shows up to the field, dressed in Nike soccer apparel like they’re sponsoring him or something. Kendall jogs in place, rubber band between her teeth, and whips her hair into a ponytail as she watches him walk. She can tell he’s an athlete. She says his name to herself so she doesn’t forget how to pronounce it—not a lot of Jaciáns around here.

  A moment later Marlena appears, dressed for practice in less obvious designer sportswear. She sees Jacián and runs toward him.

  Kendall stares. “They’re both playing?” she says under her breath to Nico.

  “Looks that way.” Nico grabs a ball from the ball bag and tosses it at the ground in front of Kendall, who captures it with her foot and dribbles automatically away from the others.

  “Well, we definitely have room on the team.” They pass the ball back and forth. Kendall thinks of the four team members they lost to graduation last year.

  “Yeah, there’s too much room, and only one freshman that I know of wants to join us. And this new girl. I suppose Coach will take anybody with a pulse. But we’re still short. How many is that, number girl?”

  “Eight,” Kendall says automatically.

  “Yowch.” He scratches his head. “I hope Coach can recruit a few more, or we’re going to be killing ourselves playing against full teams.”

  Kendall squints and shrugs. “We’re not the only team with low numbers. We can do it with eight. Though it’ll be hell playing Bozeman teams with the full eleven.” She watches the Obregons stretch, waiting to see what they can do. “You know, it might be nice having another girl around,” she says finally. “Jacián, on the other hand . . . Well, I guess it won’t make a difference.”

  When Jacián plows into Kendall during a four-on-four practice scrimmage and leaves her with the wind knocked out of her, though, she realizes he actually might make a difference. “Asshole,” she mutters when she gets her wind back. “Coach, hello! That was a foul.” She gets back up and runs to help protect her goal, but it’s too late. Jacián scores against her team.

  THREE

  After practice Kendall follows Marlena to the tiny girls’ locker room, which is more of a lean-to against the school building than anything else. “You guys are good,” Kendall says.

  Marlena smiles. “Thanks. Jacián is great. I’m just okay.” Her voice is warm and rich.

  “You’re way better than Brandon,” Kendall says, feeling generous.

  “Which one is he?”

  “The immature senior loser with the light brown hair. Kinda big and dopey, about this tall.” She holds up her hand to about six feet four. “He sits behind me in school. I’m sure you know who I mean. The guy who didn’t actually manage to touch the ball the entire scrimmage but fell down multiple times.”

  “Yeah. I think so.” She grins.

  They strip down, clean up, and change back into street clothes, layering on deodorant. Couldn’t shower even if they wanted to, but there’s a sink at least. “So,” Kendall says, “what’s your brother’s problem?”

  Marlena raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s not very friendly. Hasn’t said a word.”

  “Oh, that. He’s just upset,” Marlena says. She lowers her voice, even though it’s just the two of them. “He doesn’t really want to be here.”

  “Why not?”

  Marlena shrugs. “Moving away from all his friends for his senior year. Leaving his girlfriend, trying to do a long-distance-relationship thing. And then when we got here . . . Well, you probably know.”

  “Know what?”

  “About the sheriff coming over. Right when we moved in. Everybody seems to know everybody else’s business here.”

  Kendall shakes her head. “I don’t know. I was isolated on a tractor twelve hours a day all summer. What happened?”

  Marlena pulls a makeup bag from her backpack and starts applying eyeliner. “Well, we moved here in May, right after our school year was done down in Arizona. Right before that girl Tiffany disappeared, I guess. Sheriff Greenwood and the state police thought maybe Jacián had something to do with it.”

  Kendall’s eyes widen. Her heart skips, and the irrational fear wells up. “Oh. . . .” The word gets caught in her throat, and bad thoughts start looping.

  “He didn’t, though, obviously. After a while the sheriff stopped bugging him.” Marlena scowls as she swipes her lips with gloss. “Jacián was really pissed off, though. Called the sheriff a racist.”

  Kendall swallows hard. “So . . . why did you guys move here?”

  “My grandfather.” She replaces the cap and fishes around in her makeup bag. “He’s getting older, and his business wasn’t doing very well. He’s not keeping up with technology. Still uses horses to round up cattle. Can you believe that? My mother and father decided to come here and take care of things. Family is a big deal to them. To all of us.” Marlena turns to look at Kendall. “Are you all right?”

  Kendall stops staring at Marlena and turns on the faucet, washes her hands, stares at the water instead. “Wait . . . so, who’s your grandfather? I don’t know any Obregons around here.”

  “It’s my mother’s father. Hector Morales. A mile down RR-4.”

  Kendall grins. “Oh, Hector’s Farm! Everybody loves him. We buy lots of stuff from him—milk, beef. I didn’t know he was having trouble.” Somehow, Marlena and Jacián being related to Hector makes them a little less scary.

  “It’s not too bad, my mother says. He’s just not able to keep up with beef orders as well as he used to, and he lost some cattle over the winter. Plus, he’s too stubborn to hire help, so I guess he lost some commercial business. We’re trying to get it back.”

  “Well, we’ll keep buying all our stuff from you guys, I’m sure. And the cool thing is you can ride. He’s got beautiful stables. You can even ride to school if you want. There’s a hitching post over on the side of the building.”

  “No way, really?” Marlena grins and picks up her backpack. “This place is so old-fashioned. We rode back home too, but just for fun. It’s in the blood, I think. We’ll be switching Grandpa over to four-wheelers soon.” Somebody outside the building pounds on the wall, and Marlena startles.

  “That’ll be Nico,” Kendall says. She grabs her bag. “Nice getting to know you.”

  Marlena smiles. “Don’t let my brother get to you. He’s just pretty mad about everything right now.”

  “No kidding,” Kendall says. She pushes the door open and comes face-to-face with Jacián Obregon.

  He glares.

  She glares back, but her stomach twists. “You fouled me,” she says.

  He doesn’t speak for a moment. When he does, his voice is lower than she expects. “Stay out of my way, then, if you don’t want to get hurt.” He dismisses Kendall by the mere act of looking beyond her, to Marlena. “Come on, Lena,” he says sharply. He turns in the dirt and starts walking toward the parking area.

  Marlena smiles an apology to Kendall and takes off after Jacián. “See you tomorrow,” she calls out.

  Kendall waves halfheartedly at Marlena as Nico walks up. “He’s a jerk.”

  Nico nods. “Yep. Pretty much.”

  Kendall smiles and starts walking. “Let’s go. I’ve got chores and homework. Felt good to play again, though, didn’t it?”

  “It was awesome. You get hurt at all?”

  “No. I can take it. . . .” She trails off.

  “What?”

  Kendall looks over her shoulder as they cross the dirt road and cut the corner of a barley field. “Marlena said they moved here right before Tiffany disappeared, and tha
t Eli’s dad suspected Jacián might have had something to do with it.”

  “What? That’s crazy.”

  “Is it? I mean, how would we know? He’s mean. Maybe he’s unstable.”

  “Kendall.”

  “Seriously, what if he has her all tied up in the woods. Or maybe he chopped her up into little pieces. . . .”

  “Kendall, stop it. That’s ridiculous.”

  She’s not convinced.

  They walk until they reach the halfway point between their respective family farms—directly across the road from each other. For a moment they stand in the middle of the road facing each other and holding hands. Nico leans in and kisses her sweetly.

  “Don’t work too hard,” Nico says.

  “You either. Call me at eleven?”

  “Always.”

  Kendall smiles, and they part company, each down their long driveways.

  FOUR

  At home Kendall throws her backpack onto the big oak kitchen table. “Hi, Mom,” she sings, and gives her mother a kiss on the cheek.

  “How was your first day?” Mrs. Fletcher stands at the sink watering her herb garden. She’s tall and dark-haired like Kendall, wearing capri jeans and a red-checked short-sleeved shirt, knotted at her waist.

  “Fine.”

  “Was it hard without Tiffany there?”

  “Yeah, a little. Everybody noticed but nobody said anything—pretty much what I figured.”

  “How’s the OCD? Do you feel a little better now that you’re back into the school routine?”

  Kendall breaks off a piece of a bran muffin and shoves it into her mouth. “Immensely. Shit, I’m starving.”

  “Honey. Inside language, please.”

  “Sorry. Man, I’m starving. Better?”

  “Yes. What else is new? Did you meet Hector’s grandkids?”

  Kendall tilts her head. “You know about them?”

  “They’ve been around for a couple months.”

  “Why am I the last to know everything?”

  “I didn’t know you didn’t know. The girl’s been sitting at their market stand all summer. Such a striking young woman.”

  “Well, I’ve been on that damn tractor all summer, watching my leg muscles atrophy. I’m all wobbly.”

  “Language, Kendall.”

  “Sorry. Got used to farm talk again. Maybe you shouldn’t make me work so hard with all those swearers.”

  Mrs. Fletcher looks like she’s trying not to grin. “I know. But the work is good for you. Builds character.”

  Kendall rolls her eyes and pulls the milk jug from the refrigerator. Its label reads FRESH AS HECK FROM HECTOR FARMS. How could anybody not adore Hector Morales? She pours an impossibly large tumbler full and drinks it all. Slams it on the counter, empty. “Any mail?”

  “Nothing from Juilliard.”

  Kendall screws up her nose, disappointed. “Okay. Well, what needs to get done before I start practicing?”

  “Dad’s checking the southwest field today to see how close we’re getting to harvest. He wants you out there to show you how he does that. Then dinner. Then homework. Then you can practice.”

  “Big sigh, Mummy,” Kendall says. “I am so sick of potatoes, I could scream.”

  “Another six weeks and it’ll all be pretty near over.”

  Kendall starts jogging to the field, but the milk sloshes in her stomach and her thighs burn from the soccer scrimmage, so she slows down to a walk. Even out here, on her home turf, Kendall feels uneasy walking alone. She heads for the southwest field, looking nervously over her shoulder every thirty paces or so.

  After a few minutes she hears her father’s familiar yell and catches up to him. “Hey, Daddy!”

  “How’s my girl?” Mr. Fletcher air-hugs Kendall. His hands are filthy.

  “Good, now that I’m with you,” she says, demure. “Whatcha got?”

  “This here is what we call a potato,” Mr. Fletcher says.

  “Fascinating.”

  They walk the field together a few rows apart, stopping now and then to check for ripeness, rot, and bugs. Kendall’s mind wanders, remembering earlier in the day, picking up random thoughts to obsess over.

  “Machines are good,” Mr. Fletcher says, taking on a teaching tone, “but they don’t compare to the human eye, or the touch of a hand. That’s the real way to keep crops, to be one with them, to create potatoes that love you back.”

  “Yeppers,” Kendall says, but she’s not paying attention. She’s picturing Jacián sneaking off to kidnap, murder, and chop poor innocent girls into pieces.

  By the time she gets her homework done, it’s nine thirty p.m. and her legs ache, but she’s not done. She slips a DVD into the player and sits down on her bedroom floor to stretch and warm up. By nine forty-five she’s running through ballet positions, and then she works into her routine, the one she choreographed herself for the Juilliard application video. It feels good. But she’s exhausted.

  By the time Nico calls her phone line at eleven to say goodnight, she’s already asleep. But it’s a good sleep. Being busy and exhausted is about the best thing for Kendall’s brain.

  She even forgot to check her window lock six times.

  WE

  Thirty-five. One hundred. Thirty-five. One hundred. We know. The weight, the heat. There is life heavy against Us again. A heartbeat, a pulse through taut skin.

  Please.

  Help me.

  FIVE

  In the morning Kendall rises at six. She gets online and looks up the youth theatre in Bozeman, wondering what productions they’re doing this fall and if there would possibly be time to squeeze in a play on top of soccer and life. Last spring she got the part of Miss Dorothy in Thoroughly Modern Millie. It was the most fun Kendall has had in her entire life. The director called her a natural, and she even got nominated for a local youth theatre award. Not bad for her first musical.

  But Kendall has always known she wants to sing, dance, act. She’s been doing it on her own since she was a little kid, always doing productions in the barn, using cats as her other actors if she couldn’t talk Nico, Eli, Travis, or even stupid Brandon into participating.

  Nico usually played along. He is the closest neighbor, and their mothers have been friends since before Kendall and Nico were born. Nico was agreeable to doing almost anything Kendall requested, except when it came to singing or dancing, which Kendall thought was probably good, since he’s terrible at both.

  Kendall pulls up the theatre’s website and sees they are auditioning for Grease. She scans the rehearsal schedule but knows it’s impossible. She can’t drive all the way out to Bozeman multiple times a week during harvest and soccer season. Too far away. Too many conflicts.

  Too many stupid potatoes.

  She checks her e-mail and then closes her laptop and gets ready for school.

  At school things are pretty much just as they were yesterday. Kendall turns the wastebasket, straightens the markers, opens the curtains, tugs to check the windows, and runs her fingers over each window lock. “All checked and good,” she whispers. Then she makes minor adjustments to the desks.

  She watches the students arrive, many of them walking, some driving cars or pickup trucks. Kendall tries to see Cryer’s Cross through the eyes of a newcomer like Marlena. Some of the students wear cowboy hats and boots, others wear Gap or Levi’s or Target or home sewn. It’s not that strange, she guesses.

  When Nico comes walking up to the school, Kendall smiles. She’s really proud of him wanting to be a nurse. He’s been bandaging cats and farm animals since the two of them were little. The other guys aren’t jerks about it like Brandon.

  The school day progresses. Ms. Hinkler assigns the upperclassmen various things to read and work on, and then she spends the most time with the freshmen, which she’ll do for this first week, until they get used to her and how things work.

  In the senior section Brandon and Travis sleep. Eli Greenwood reads for a while, then jiggles his leg and doodles
in the margins of his English book. Jacián does trigonometry problems on scratch paper until his work is done, and then he slumps in his seat and traces his finger over the desk graffiti. Nico props his head up with one arm and rests the other on the desk next to his open physics textbook. His eyes close. Kendall pretends to read, but she’s daydreaming about Broadway.

  There is something about performing that soothes Kendall’s overactive brain. It’s like the concentration necessary for acting takes the attention away from the never-ending circle of thoughts that drives her sometimes irrational behavior. And she wants it—she wants that relief. That control over her list of obsessions and compulsions. Maybe this winter she can do another show once soccer and potatoes are done. Maybe.

  In the sophomore section Marlena glances over her shoulder, catches Kendall’s eye, and smiles.

  At noon everybody heads outside to eat lunch or hit the locker rooms for a bathroom break. Some go home for lunch if they live close to town. Nico and Kendall live just a little too far away to make that worthwhile.

  “Bored yet?” Kendall lies down on her back in the grass next to Nico. It’s a beautiful day, a few clouds, maybe seventy-five degrees.

  Nico is quiet. Kendall pokes him.

  “Hmm?”

  “I asked if you were bored yet. With school.”

  With visible effort he pulls himself from his thoughts. “Oh. No. I think I’m going to like physics.”

  “I wish we had more options. You know. Ceramics. Drama.”

  Nico rolls to his side and looks at Kendall. Touches her cheek. “Me too, for you. No mail?”

  “Nope.”

  “Good.” Nico falls back again. “I don’t want you to go.”

  Kendall laughs and punches him in the shoulder. “Stop! You’ll jinx Juilliard.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I just wish you weren’t going to be way out in New York . . . I haven’t gone a whole week in my entire life without seeing you—since before you were born.”