Tommy glances at me, and something flares in his eyes: sadness, alarm, shame, guilt. I can’t pinpoint the emotion before he looks away. My fingers tighten on the window, even as Tommy puts the car in drive.
“I’ve gotta go, Lane,” he says.
I lift my hands, watch him glide away.
—
Just as there’s only one gas station in Osage Flats, there’s only one place to go for car repairs: Sullivan’s. So when my car won’t start, and doesn’t respond to Granddad’s and Charlie’s attempts to jump it, I know who I have to call.
“My car won’t start,” I tell Cooper when he answers the phone, my voice flat.
“I’ll swing by after work and see what’s wrong with it.”
“You don’t have to come yourself. You can send someone else.”
“I’m the only one here right now. You want to wait until tomorrow?”
I sigh. “Can’t I have it towed there?”
“Sure, if you want to pay fifty bucks for the tow job.” He’s definitely enjoying this.
“Fine. Stop by when you can.”
It’s after seven when he arrives, although there’s still plenty of daylight left. I’m sitting on the front porch waiting for him.
“Took you long enough,” I say, as he swings out of his truck. He’s parked behind my ancient Honda on the semicircular drive.
“Contrary to popular belief, I actually have a life that doesn’t revolve around you, Lane,” he says. “Keys?”
I toss them to him, and he scoops them out of the air with one hand. “I already said it won’t start.”
My voice must sound angrier than I realized, because he says, “Easy, tiger,” holding up both hands in surrender. “I’m just checking. That’s why I’m here, remember?”
When he climbs back out of my car, I give him a smug look. “Told you.”
He shakes his head at me as he moves around to the front of the car and lifts the hood. “It’s probably your battery.”
“My granddad and Charlie already tried to jump it.”
“From the looks of this thing, you need a new one.” He glances at me through a panel of wheat-gold hair that’s fallen to cover one eye. I ignore the sick drop of my stomach, like an elevator plummeting toward the ground. “Lucky for you, I brought one with me.” He pulls the old battery from my car and sets it on the drive. “You got anything to eat?”
I raise my eyebrows at him.
“I skipped dinner to come out here. Would it kill you to make me a sandwich?”
“It might,” I say, but I stand up.
“And a beer,” he calls after me once I’m through the front door.
I take my time making two ham sandwiches. I remember Cooper likes his with mustard and extra cheese, hold the mayo. It’s funny the things your mind clings onto, even when you’d rather forget. A distinct memory of the last time I made him a sandwich flashes through my head and I try to shake it out, try hard not to picture us in his parents’ kitchen—green walls, white curtains—the house quiet and empty around us. He’d come up behind me at the counter and kissed his way down the back of my neck, put his warm hand on my stomach to pull me closer.
When I push out through the screen door, plates balanced on one arm and two bottles of beer clutched in my fingers, Cooper is leaning back against my car, the hood still open.
“When’s the last time you had your oil changed?” he asks, taking his plate and beer from me.
“I don’t know. It’s been a while. Why?”
“I’ll go ahead and do it now.”
I cross back to the steps and sit down, putting some space between us. “You don’t have to do that.”
Cooper takes a huge bite of his sandwich. “Thanks,” he says, holding up the rest.
“Welcome.” The cold beer tastes good. Even with dusk coming on it’s still muggy; my shirt sticks to my back and my skin feels heavy with moisture. We eat in silence, each staying on our side of the yard, as though someone’s run an invisible piece of tape down the center, a line not to be crossed. As always, I’m hyperaware of him, feel every shift of his body without having to see it.
“Where are your grandparents?” he asks. “Awful quiet around here.”
“Isn’t it always? But they’re in town tonight. Having dinner at The Eat.”
Cooper nods. “Your granddad came in for gas last week. He was pretty broken up about Allegra.”
I take a careful sip of beer. “Well, she is his granddaughter. And she’s missing.”
I can’t read the look Cooper gives me. “Yeah? He didn’t seem all that worried when you up and disappeared.”
“That was different. I didn’t disappear. They knew I was leaving. I said good-bye.” I take my mind in both hands and steer it away from that morning, from those last minutes right here on this porch.
“Not to everybody, you didn’t,” Cooper points out.
“No,” I admit, “not to everybody.”
Cooper waits until I look at him before he speaks. “I may not have been the perfect guy, Lane, but I deserved better than that.”
“What do you want me to say, Cooper?” I shrug, struggling to keep my voice even. “I left. I didn’t tell you. I can’t change it now.”
Cooper stares at me for a long moment, then sighs, sets his empty plate on the ground, and pulls a pan and a dirty rag from the back of his truck.
“Really,” I protest, “you don’t have to change my oil. I can bring the car in some day this week.”
“It’s okay. I’m already here.”
“What? No hot date with the redhead?” I say, going for teasing but not quite reaching it. “Or Brandi?”
“Nope,” he says, sliding under my car. “Not tonight.”
I sit on the porch, nursing my beer and watching him work. It’s the far edge of twilight when Cooper loads his equipment back into his truck, slams my hood down. “You’re all set,” he says and crosses the yard. He stops a few feet from where I stand by the steps.
“Do you want to come in?” I ask. “Have another beer?” I don’t even know exactly why I’m asking, only that I don’t want him to leave yet. I’m not ready to watch him drive away.
“I wouldn’t mind another beer.” He moves closer, his eyes shifting to Roanoke. “But how about out here or around back? That place is like a goddamn carnival fun house.”
“You’ve been inside Roanoke a lot?”
His brow furrows. “Umm…yeah, with you. Are you having memory problems?”
I lift my leg to scratch the back of my calf with my bare foot. “Not since I left?”
Cooper shrugs. “Maybe a few times with Allegra.”
“Were you sleeping with her?” I blurt out, even though I know he wasn’t. Even though it shouldn’t matter to me what he’s been doing since I’ve been gone.
Cooper’s head snaps back a little. “Jesus, Lane,” he says, “no.” He reaches out, slow, and runs the backs of his fingers down my cheek. “No,” he repeats, softer this time.
“Okay,” I say. “Sorry.” I stumble away from him, turn to the house. “I’ll grab the beers and meet you on the screened porch.” Inside, I lean against the kitchen counter and tell myself to get it together, press one of the bottles against my cheek to ease the fire burning there.
When I step out onto the screened porch, he’s sitting on the old wicker couch, the pink patterned fabric faded now to virtual colorlessness. I hand him a beer, sit down next to him. One of the cats has caught a vole and is playing with it in the dusty barn doorway, letting it almost get away before hooking it again with razor claws.
“Tommy told me you’re divorced,” Cooper says.
I stare at him until he turns and meets my eyes. “Yep. Why do you care?”
He takes a pull from his beer. “Making conversation.” He waits a beat until the air turns charged and electric around us, like the heated moment before a lightning strike. “Was it true love?”
“No.”
“No?” Cooper lau
ghs. “I almost feel sorry for the poor bastard. He probably didn’t know what hit him. God knows, I sure didn’t.”
“Stop it,” I say. “Let’s not do this.”
Cooper slams his beer bottle down on the old wooden table, and suds spill out of the neck. “What should I do then, Lane? Please, tell me. You waltz back in here and spin me sideways, just like you did all those years ago. What the fuck am I supposed to do? Pretend like nothing happened? Pretend it’s all okay?” He drags a hand through his hair, his jaw clenched and his eyes burning.
“I spin you sideways?” I ask. Because for everything Cooper and I ever did together, talking about how we made each other feel was never one of them.
He has his elbows balanced on his knees, his head hanging down, and he turns to look at me, a wry smile on his face, like he can’t believe that’s the one thing I picked out of everything he said. “Of course you did. Of course you do.” He pauses. “How can you not know that?”
My lip trembles when I try to speak. I have to suck in a breath to get the words out. “I don’t know a lot of things, I guess.”
He holds out his hand, dirty with grease from my car, tan from the sun, still familiar after all these years. I take it, and he pulls me to him. I go willingly, eagerly, like I’ve been waiting for this moment all along. He tastes exactly the way he did as a boy: cigarettes and mint toothpaste, the sharp bite of alcohol on his tongue. I raise one hand and run it through his gilded hair, down the side of his face. The rough scratch of his stubble tingles against my fingers. Selfishly, I hope there’s some part of him, no matter how small, that still belongs to me.
I stand in front of him, and he watches while I undress. There’s no point in feeling embarrassed or ashamed. Cooper has already seen my body in every way it can be seen. When I’m naked, I go to him and straddle his lap with shaking legs. His T-shirt is pushed up, and my inner thighs flame when they meet his bare skin. He reaches forward with one hand and runs his fingers up my rib cage, as if he’s counting each delicate bone. His hand continues its journey, and my heartbeat stumbles drunkenly when he cups my breast in his palm. With his other hand he traces up my neck to cradle my face, his thumb passing once across my bottom lip. “Still so beautiful,” he whispers, his voice rough and dark. It doesn’t sound like a compliment. He kisses me again, and we move against each other, our bodies finding the rhythm effortlessly, as if they’ve never been apart. I am not surprised. This has always been easy between us. It’s everything else that’s so damn hard.
“The sun is different here.”
“Huh?” Allegra sounded like she was more than half-asleep, her voice slurred and heat-soft.
“The sun. It’s like heavier or something. It has weight.” Even as I spoke, I could feel the sun pushing between my shoulder blades like a slab of brick, oozing down my spine and slipping over my sides like a molten blanket.
“Are you drunk?” Allegra asked, peering at me over the top of her sunglasses. “Because you sound drunk.”
I didn’t bother answering her question. She’d been with me when we checked the fridge for beer and found it empty. I didn’t know if Gran had gotten wise to us or Sharon was due for a trip to the grocery.
“Maybe you have a point,” Allegra said. “Because I think I’m melting.” She fanned herself with one hand.
“That only makes you hotter.”
“Whatever.” She flopped over onto her back, heedless of her undone bikini top. Her breasts were paler than the rest of her, and I threw the sunscreen in her direction.
“Might want to put some on.”
“I’ll roll back over in a minute.”
We were stretched out on towels on the flat roof of the screened porch, a vantage reached by clambering through a guest room window. The red bikini I’d ordered after our trip to the swimming hole had arrived today, and Allegra had insisted we christen it immediately. Below us the door to the screened porch opened, and we heard Sharon’s voice calling the dogs to come eat some scraps she’d probably tossed out on the ground.
“Think Sharon would bring us a couple of sodas?” I asked, once the door had closed again. “Heavy on the ice?” Allegra and I snickered under our breath. The idea of Sharon doing anything for us beyond the bare minimum was always cause for amusement.
“She would if Gran told her to,” Allegra said. “I swear, Sharon would eat Gran’s snatch if she pointed her south.”
I hooted out a laugh. “Oh my God, that may be the most disgusting thing you’ve ever said.”
Allegra’s mouth twisted in a wicked grin. “Disgusting but true.”
I propped myself up on my elbows, looked at Allegra, who was still stretched out in all her half-naked glory. “What’s the deal with Sharon anyway?” I asked. “Why’s she so attached to Gran?”
Allegra rolled to the side so she could see me. “She worked for Gran’s family back in Boston. When Gran married Granddad, Sharon came along. Granddad told me Gran’s family had been about to fire Sharon, which is why she jumped at the chance to come here.”
“Long way to come for a job.”
Allegra pursed her lips. “Well, it’s not like people in Boston were gonna be standing in line to hire her. She can’t cook. She’s ugly as hell. And she’s a bitch.”
“So why does Gran keep her around?”
Allegra shifted back to her original position, boobs pointing to the sky. “I think she likes having a reminder of Boston. Sharon kept her from getting too homesick when she first moved here. And she’s got Sharon wrapped around her little finger, like I said. Gran likes being the boss of something, because she sure as hell isn’t the boss of Roanoke.”
“Hey there now!” Charlie’s voice called, and I startled, ducking down to make sure he couldn’t see my bare chest. “Put some clothes on, Lane! Cover up!”
I lifted my head to see over the edge of the porch. Charlie stood below, eyes shaded with his raised hand. “We’re sunbathing,” I called down. “I’m on my stomach. Nobody can see us!”
“Well, I saw you!” Charlie yelled back. “Put on your swimsuit, for God’s sake.”
A sudden fit of giggles hit me. I turned my head and tried to smother them with my hand. “Allegra’s got her top off, too,” I managed. “How come you’re not yelling at her?”
As I spoke, Allegra sat up, giving Charlie a full view. “Yeah, Charlie,” she said in a singsong voice, “how come you don’t care if I’m flashing my boobies?”
Charlie lowered his head, flapped a hand in our direction. “Put something on, Lane,” he said, walking away. His voice sounded sad in a way that made no sense to me.
“What was that about?” I asked.
Allegra kept her gaze on Charlie’s retreating back. “He’s probably trying to protect you, save your immortal soul.”
“What about you?” I laughed, pointing at her nakedness.
She still wasn’t looking at me. “Oh, I’m not the one he’s worried about. He already knows it’s too late for me.”
—
The sound of crying woke me, and at first I forgot where I was, thought for a split second I was back in our New York City apartment and my mother was having one of her bad spells. They got more frequent as I grew, so that by the year my mother died her life consisted of one long sob. But I smelled the hot night air, thick with prairie grass and remembered…Roanoke. I rolled onto my back and lay still, listening.
It came again a few seconds later, a faint whimpering, followed by the sound of muffled voices. I climbed out of bed and opened my door a crack, peering into the dimly lit hall. The voices were coming from the far end of the long hallway, my grandparents’ room, and the crying from up above…Allegra.
I slid out of my room and down the hall, snuck into the alcove leading to the turret. I raced up the stairs, my heart pounding. Allegra’s door was closed, a thin strip of light showing underneath.
“Allegra?” I called. “It’s me. Are you okay?”
I put my hand on the cut-glass knob, and it
twisted beneath my fingers. The door jerked open. Sharon stood there, blocking my view into the room. “What are you doing?” she asked me.
“I heard crying.”
Sharon tutted, shifted the basin she was holding to her hip, but not before I saw the handful of stained washcloths, smelled the unmistakable twang of blood. “A bad stomachache is all. Maybe a touch of fever. Nothing you need to be rushing up here for.”
“Can I see her?”
Sharon’s free hand reached behind her for the doorknob, pulling the door up against her back. “Probably best to let her rest, come back in the morning.”
“Lane?” Allegra’s voice called, reedy and weak. “Is that Lane?”
Sharon turned her head. “You heard what your gran said. You need to rest.”
“I want to see Lane,” Allegra said, a hint of her usual petulance sneaking into her voice.
Sharon sighed heavily and waved me into the room. “Go on,” she said, “but don’t stay long.”
“I won’t,” I promised.
The room was dark except for a lamp glowing on Allegra’s dresser. She was sitting up in bed, wearing a white nightgown not much paler than her skin. The purple shadows under her eyes were as deep and dark as bruises. I didn’t understand how she could look so ill when I’d seen her after lunch and she’d been fine. A sheen of sweat glistened on her forehead, and the smile she gave me was pained, like it cost her something to move her lips upward. She patted a spot on the bed next to her, and I sat down. I noticed her other arm remained wrapped around her stomach, as if she was trying to keep her organs from spilling out.
“Are you okay? What happened?”
“Just sick,” she said, her voice quiet. Her eyelids were puffy from recent tears. The smell of blood was stronger here, close to her, and I had a sudden image of the bed soaked red underneath her lavender bedspread.
“Sharon said it was a stomachache?”
Allegra nodded, her arms tightening on her middle. Heat pulsed off her, but when I laid my hand gently on her forehead, her skin was clammy and cold. “Did they give you medicine or something?”
“Yeah. Something for the pain.” Her glassy eyes met mine, slid away. A tear trailed down her cheek, dripped off her face onto her silk bedspread, where it left a dark stain.