“Oh, come on. That’s ridiculous,” Rachel says. “This is exactly what Rick was afraid of—that it would all be blown out of proportion.”
“‘Rick’?”
“Hunter,” she says.
Will lets out a dry, mirthless laugh. “When did you and ‘Rick’ get so familiar?”
“We’ve been … I’ve taken up orienteering.”
He shakes his head. “So that’s how it starts, huh?”
Kathryn touches Will’s arm. “Before you contact anybody, I’d like to talk to him again.”
Will glances at Jack, who lifts his fingers and shrugs his shoulders.
“I don’t know, Kathryn,” Will says. “I’ll be careful.”
“Careful?” Rachel laughs incredulously. “You guys are way off base on this.”
“No,” Will snaps. “You’re the one who’s off base. Protecting that oily piece of shit—”
“I wasn’t protecting him. I was protecting Jennifer.”
“Yeah, right.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Rachel says.
“Come on,” Will says. “You didn’t even like Jennifer. She stole Brian out from under your nose—”
“Hey, that’s not—” Brian protests.
“Oh, so we’re back to this,” says Rachel.
“Yes, Rachel,” Will says, “it’s all about this. High school. That’s what it’s about.”
Rachel stands up and looks around at the group. “Well, I’m sorry, I’m not going to be a part of it. You all need to turn him into a scapegoat because Jennifer’s still missing and there has to be a logical reason for it—there has to be someone to blame. Well, maybe you’re not going to find a reason. Maybe you’re just going to have to accept the fact that she’s gone, and she’s not coming back.” She turns to Will. “Anyway, don’t you think you should be focusing your energy on your own life right now?”
Will looks at her in disbelief. “Rachel, you are so full of shit,” he says.
She grabs her bag off the table, and Jack rises in his chair. “Listen,” he says in a low, reasonable tone. “I hope we can trust you to keep quiet about this for now.”
“Don’t worry,” she says. “I wouldn’t want to get in the way of all this amateur sleuthing. Besides, Rick can take care of himself. He has nothing to hide.”
Jack nods, chin forward, a conciliatory gesture.
“Well,” Rachel says bitterly, “happy tenth, everybody.” She turns to leave, and Jack touches her arm. “Whoa, slow down,” he says, but she flinches away, and he doesn’t try to stop her. They all watch her go, banging through the double doors to the lobby.
ON THE WAY out to their cars, Jack says, “So, what are we all doing now?”
Kathryn’s head is pounding and she feels slightly sick from the greasy food and vodka tonics and all the recent drama. “Life in the Fast Lane,” the song that was playing as they left, is echoing in her ears. “Haven’t you had enough for one evening?”
“I’m going to bed,” Will says tersely.
“And I have to drive back to Portland,” says Brian. “I’m going sailing tomorrow morning at ten.”
“That was smart planning,” Jack says.
Brian shrugs. “Cindy’s dad. You don’t say no.” He acts put out, but Kathryn can tell he’s pleased about it.
“What about you?” Jack asks Kathryn, nudging her shoulder.
She smiles. “I need my beauty sleep.”
“You look pretty fine to me.”
“Always the charmer,” Brian says, rolling his eyes.
“I feel lousy,” Kathryn says. “Too much vodka, I guess.”
“A coffee would help,” says Jack.
She shakes her head. “Sorry.”
“Damn, you guys are boring,” Jack says.
“Face it, man,” Brian says. “We’re getting old.”
When Will and Brian have gone on ahead, Jack asks, “Are you okay going home by yourself?”
“I’ll be all right,” Kathryn says. “Thanks.”
He nudges her again. “Be careful.”
It isn’t until Kathryn is on the way home that she begins to feel a little afraid. She looks in the backseat, locks the doors, glances in her rearview mirror to see if anyone is behind her. As she drives through the downtown, the streets are deserted. The traffic lights are blinking, some red, some yellow. Three men are milling around outside the bus station; there’s no bus in sight. The storefronts are dark and sad-looking, as if they were abandoned long ago, in a different era. The bank clock says it’s 11:41.
She pulls into her mother’s driveway and sits there for a few minutes with the motor running, looking up at the dark house. Then, almost without thinking about it, she puts the car in reverse and circles back out onto the quiet street, the wheels squealing slightly as she drives away. She cuts through Little City, slowing through stop signs, taking her foot off the brake as she coasts down the long sinuous stretch of Kenduskeag Avenue, gathering speed as she approaches the bottom of the hill. Taking an abrupt right on Harlow Street, she crosses the river, a gurgling shimmer in the darkness, made barely visible by the dim glow of streetlights. She makes her way up another rise, paralleling the river until the road takes a sharp turn left past a cemetery, and crosses Ohio Street at the top.
Driving at night has the feel of an adventure, a reckless journey into uncharted space. On the dark side streets, up steep inclines and around narrow corners, she can only see as far as the headlights; everything she passes is swallowed up behind. The streets are eerily quiet; the houses she passes are dark blank squares, virtually invisible except for the occasional metallic light of a TV screen.
She wants to drive fast on these roads, to push her foot on the pedal all the way to the floor. There’s something about the stillness that makes her want to get wild, scream at the top of her lungs, disappear in a puff of green smoke like the Wicked Witch of the West. She remembers this feeling from high school, when any kind of altered state seemed preferable to the state she was in. The method didn’t matter—a fast car, a scary movie, alcohol, sex, drugs—the effect she was after was the same. She wanted to be somewhere, anywhere but where she was. She wanted to surprise herself.
A LITTLE WHILE later Kathryn pulls up in front of Jack’s building and sits in the car for a moment before turning it off. Glancing up at the old Harlow Street School building, her eyes go to the second-floor corner, where Jack has told her his apartment is. The windows are dark except for a small glow from somewhere inside. She takes a deep breath and gets out, locking the car behind her.
At the entrance to the building, Kathryn hesitates. Jack may have urged her to go out tonight, but he didn’t exactly invite her over. He probably would never have imagined that she’d just drop by—not without calling first, and certainly not this late. She hadn’t imagined it, either. She has learned from experience that most people don’t like to be dropped in on unannounced. In high school, after she learned to drive, she had made the mistake of assuming that her father’s house was also her home, and she showed up there a few times without asking in advance. The first time she didn’t even knock; she went straight to the fridge to get a soda. She was sitting at the glass-topped kitchen table drinking Diet Slice out of a can and flipping though a fitness magazine when Margaret rounded the corner with a juice glass, saw Kathryn, and screamed, dropping the heavy glass on the Italian tile floor. It shattered, cracking one of the tiles. The next few times Kathryn had knocked, but it didn’t seem to make much difference. Her father and Margaret were always ill at ease, as if she’d caught them doing something illicit. One time it was pretty clear that they’d been having sex; her father came out of the bedroom buttoning his shirt, and Margaret stayed behind the door the entire time Kathryn was there. After that she stopped going out to see them so often, and she usually made appointments in advance when she did. As a result, her visits became carefully orchestrated affairs: three chicken breasts marinating on the counter, place mats and cutlery neatly l
aid out on the dining-room table, a family movie from the video store sitting in its plastic case on top of the TV.
Kathryn may not have planned on coming to Jack’s apartment tonight, but now that she’s here she realizes she’s been thinking about it for a while. Calling him first seemed too premeditated, and it also risked the possibility that he might hesitate or even say no. She knows that the risk she’s taking now is worse—after all, he could shut the door in her face. He could have someone up there with him. But she’s willing to chance that he won’t, and he doesn’t, and this realization emboldens her. She rings the bell.
For a long moment there’s no answer. Then she hears a voice from somewhere above. She steps back from the doorway and looks up, and there’s Jack, leaning out of one of his windows.
“Hey there,” he says with evident surprise.
“I was just driving around …” she says. Suddenly she wants to turn around and flee. “I guess it’s too late.”
“No, it’s fine. Just a second, I’ll come down.” He disappears, and she stands there for a moment. Then she notices that the door isn’t completely shut. She pushes it with the flat of her hand and it opens, and she steps inside.
Her footsteps echo in the wide, empty hallway. The overhead lights are dim. She keeps to the right side of the marble steps, sliding her hand along the smooth wooden banister as she makes her way upstairs. At the top she pushes through swinging wooden doors and walks straight into Jack. “Oh, my God,” she breathes, clutching her hand to her chest, “you scared me.”
“You scared me,” he says.
“Sorry. The door was open, and I just—”
“Good,” he says, wheeling around. “I like surprises.”
Walking down the long hallway beside him, she says, “This is just like detention. Remember that feeling of being kept after school when everybody else has left?”
“Uh-huh.” He nods.
“Did you ever even have detention?” she asks curiously.
“No,” he admits. “But I can guess.”
She shakes her head. “You were too good.”
“You were bad,” he says. “Getting detention. Skipping school. I remember you back then, Kathryn—making crib sheets for algebra. And didn’t you get suspended once?”
“Oh, yeah,” she says, remembering. “Mr. Tremble caught Rachel and me drinking Bud Light in her car before a dance. I think it was just one day.”
“But your mom grounded you for life.”
“Commuted to three weeks for good behavior.” She smiles. At the end of the long hall, the door to Jack’s apartment is ajar. Kathryn follows him inside and shuts the door. “Anyway, as I remember, you weren’t so perfect either,” she continues. “You were just lucky.”
“I was charming,” he says, heading toward the kitchen. “I got away with murder.”
Jack’s apartment is neat but homey, with a series of black-and-white photographs of weather-beaten houses lining the hall and a large, tattered Oriental in the living area. The two couches are worn and comfortable-looking; the television sits on an old leather suitcase, and a paint-spattered trunk serves as the coffee table. Thrift-store lamps cast a soft glow. The newest thing in the room appears to be the stereo system, which is black and shiny, with a dazzling array of tiny dancing lights.
“Want a Bud Light?” Jack asks, opening the fridge.
“Will I get detention?”
He grabs two long-necked bottles with the fingers of one hand. With the other, he rummages in a cutlery drawer and comes up with a bottle opener. Prying the tops off the beers—Samuel Adams, Kathryn sees—he hands one to her. “It depends.”
He looks into her eyes only for a second, but she feels a flutter move through her chest. “On what?” she says.
“On how charming you are.” He sits on the edge of the kitchen table, his arms folded, still holding the beer.
“Do you want to be charmed?”
He takes a sip of beer. “Everybody wants to be charmed,” he says softly, “whether they know it or not.”
She moves closer to him, takes the beer out of his hand, and puts it on the table, placing hers next to it. She looks into his gray-green eyes, and he stares steadily back at her, waiting to see what she’ll do. Gently, she traces his cheekbone with her fingers, touching the hard brown stubble on his jaw and the soft fullness of his lips. When she leans forward to kiss him, she smells the beer on his breath and the grassy scent of his shampoo. He reaches up and pulls her toward him, his hand flat on the small of her back. Standing between his legs, holding his face in her hands, she runs her tongue over his teeth and senses his mouth opening, his tongue meeting hers, and then her head is back and he’s kissing her ear, her neck, pushing her sleeveless vest off one shoulder and kissing that, too. She moves her hand down his neck to the soft top of his white T-shirt and slides her hand under it. His chest, with its small thatch of brown hair, is taut; she can feel his heart beating hard against her palm.
“Jesus, Kathryn,” he breathes. “Are you sure—?”
“Don’t talk,” she says, closing her eyes and leaning her head against his. He slides his hands under her vest, touching the bare skin underneath, moving them up to her rib cage and higher, until it tickles and she squirms away. He pulls her forward, and she falls heavily against him, her head in his neck, the length of his chest warming hers.
“Just hold me,” she whispers, and for a long moment that’s all he does. His embrace feels familiar somehow, as if they’re reuniting after a long absence instead of coming together for the first time. She is absorbed in the moment in a way she hasn’t been in ages, years perhaps. The rest of the world feels very far away. “I know you,” she says.
He threads his fingers through her hair, pushing it off her face, and his hand comes to rest on the back of her neck. “I know you, too.”
In the dark of his bedroom they trip over her sandals and his jeans with the belt still in them, the buckle clinking against the zipper. His sheets and blanket are crumpled at the foot of the bed, and pillows are strewn on the floor. “I wasn’t expecting company,” he mumbles, and she doesn’t answer; she pushes him onto the bed and climbs on top of him, pulling his T-shirt over his head and leaning down to kiss him, her hair falling in his face, getting in their mouths, until he pulls it back with one hand and topples her off him, rolling over so that she’s underneath.
She stretches out, lifting her arms above her head, and he unbuttons her vest, then tries to peel it off, catching it on her shoulder, making them both laugh while he tries to untangle it from her limbs. “Mr. Smooth,” he says. “I guess you can tell it’s been a while.” He traces his finger slowly along the satiny rim of her bra and then he leans down and kisses the top of her breasts, his breath hot on her skin. She runs her hand down the length of his chest and into his jeans, and slips her fingers under the waistband of his shorts. His abdomen is supple and warm—like a dog’s stomach, she thinks idly, and when she strokes him he lets out a sigh from somewhere back in his throat, not unlike a dog sound. As he takes off her bra, slipping the straps down her arms, unhooking the back clasp with one deft move, she feels a wave of affection wash over her. Here they are, all wet tongues and noses, nestled together like two furry mammals in a soft, dark bed. He weighs her breasts in his hands and pushes them together, brushing his mouth over her nipples until they’re hard, pulling gently on one and then the other with his teeth until she pushes his hand down between her legs and his attention shifts.
When his fingers move inside her she has to catch her breath. Everything falls away except the motion in the darkness. He shifts his hand and the feeling subsides; she moves her hips to show him how to sustain it. All at once her head is light, her limbs relax, she feels herself reaching for him like some deep-sea creature yearning toward the surface. When she comes, suddenly, before she expects to, she feels as if she’s drowning, then riding a wave, riding it slowly all the way out, until it dissolves into the motion of the sea.
“One more,” he murmurs after a moment, his lips brushing her stomach, but she pulls him up and kisses him, hard, on the mouth, moving her shoulder forward so he slides halfway off her. She shifts from underneath and then, quickly, climbs on top, feeling like a little kid in a tickle fight. She pushes his arms over his head and he smiles at her, amused, as if he thinks she’s a little kid, too. As she bends over to kiss him, she feels his pelvis moving against her, his thigh between her legs, and she reaches down to push his jeans to his knees and then his soft jersey boxers. He kicks his legs, and the clothes fall to the floor, the belt hitting wood, coins scattering out of his pockets.
“Damn,” he mutters, “I’ll never find those quarters.”
Moving against him slowly, she sits up on her knees. “Do you have—” she begins.
“I was just wondering the same thing,” he says. Twisting under her, he reaches over to his bedside table and pulls out a drawer. “God knows, they’ve probably expired.” She can hear him crinkling what sounds like candy wrappers. “Ah, it’s all coming back to me. The impossible-to-open foil packet,” he says, tearing it with his teeth.
She slides off him. He fumbles beside her as she waits for him to put it on—it seems too intimate, somehow, for her to help. Then he turns toward her and runs his hand along the curve of her hip. “Armed and dangerous,” he says.
She laughs. “We’ll see about that.” She climbs on top of him again and guides him inside her, shifting her hips to find the easiest angle. She arcs her body over his and he pulls her forward, rubbing his face against her breasts, tracing them with his tongue. After a moment she sits back and he leans forward on his elbows, watching her. He puts his hands flat on her chest and runs them down to her thighs, and then he holds her steady, rocking her back and forth. She closes her eyes, letting her body fall into the rhythm, familiar and strangely foreign at the same time. It’s been almost a year, but instinctively she senses how to work it, when to pick up the pace and when to slow it down. After a few minutes she feels him tense beneath her; “Oh—my—Kath,” he breathes, pulling her toward him and away, and she watches him swallow, watches his eyelids flutter, feels him moving faster, straining against her, and her own heartbeat quickens and her mind goes blank and she’s moaning with him, riding him, and he jerks up three times, four, and then the rhythm slows and she feels his body go limp. When his breathing steadies she sinks onto his chest, his bare skin slick against hers, and slides her shoulder under his arm.