After Midnight

  “Who has a private theater?” Barb asked as she sat down beside Ego.

  “I do.” He bumped her shoulder with his. “Come over sometime and I’ll show you my extensive collection of Three Stooges movies.”

  I bit into the half-sandwich Ego had given me, but it tasted like PB&J-flavored cardboard. As I chewed and listened to Barb detailing the latest brouhaha, which had gotten Tiffany Beck and two other cheerleaders lunchtime detentions, I felt someone run a finger along the back collar of my T-shirt, and turned around.

  Boone, no longer on crutches, smirked at me as he walked on by.

  That afternoon I went out after the dismissal bell to find Trick waiting on his Harley just outside the exit doors. After that, he showed up there every day I got out of school to pick me up.

  From that day my big brother kept his word and held me under house arrest, forbidding me from leaving my room except for meals and chores. Indoor chores, of course; I wasn’t allowed to ride Sali, feed or brush her, or even go to the barn. Trick refused to speak to me except once every night after dinner, when he’d ask if I was ready to talk to him.

  I knew what I’d done was wrong. I knew my brother was punishing me not because he wanted to see me suffer but because he loved me and he was worried about me. I also knew that telling him what he wanted to know would not make things better.

  The first couple of nights when he spoke to me I simply didn’t answer. Trick would try to stare me down for a few minutes (I quickly learned to focus on his earring instead of his eyes so it ended in a draw) and then he would tell me to go back up to my room.

  Gray didn’t talk to me or look at me. He did, however, take his spare set of keys off the rack in the kitchen and hid them somewhere else.

  I used my domestic imprisonment to study, read, rearrange my closet and write some poetry. I soon got bored of that, especially when all the poems I wrote started sounding the same and only described how sorry my brothers were going to be when I died of loneliness.

  After school on Friday Trick (who had been doing all of the cooking since I’d gotten grounded, much to everyone’s despair) set only two places at the table. When Gray didn’t show up I felt like saying something; if I had to eat Trick’s singed sausage and peppers, so did he. Then I remembered he wasn’t coming home because it was game night. Tanglewood would be playing a team everyone had said was their bitterest rival, the Silver Lake Sentinels.

  I’d gotten used to going to the games, and I liked them, and the thought of missing this one really bugged me. Trick seemed to pick up on that because he made a point to rub salt in my wounds.

  “Kickoff is in an hour,” he said as he carried his plate over to the sink. “Are you ready to talk to me? If you tell me the truth, I’ll let you go to the game tonight.”

  I inspected my fingernails. They’d grown a bit because I wasn’t allowed to touch Sali or work in the barn; I’d already filed them into perfect ovals. Maybe I’d borrow some nail polish from Barb and paint them.

  “If you can’t go, I can’t go,” my brother continued. “Gray won’t have anyone there to watch him.”

  I gave him an ironic look. At the last game dozens of girls had shown up wearing number three jerseys over gray jeans. They all sat together, and when they weren’t shrieking “Go, Gray, Go!” at the top of their lungs they made up their own cheers that rhymed with my brother’s name, even when he wasn’t on the field.

  “The paper says the Sentinels are favored to beat the Tigers by three touchdowns,” Trick added. “Be a shame to miss your brother showing them how wrong they are.”

  I began softly whistling the POW’s tune from the movie The Bridge Over the River Kwai.

  “I know how stubborn you can be, little sister,” my brother told me. “But you’re not only one in this family who inherited that mule-headed gene. And I’m not the one sitting and staring at the same four walls every day.”

  True, but I had a lot more to lose than he did, so I was clinging to my silence.

  “Have it your way,” he said. “Go back to your room, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

  I went upstairs, and flopped on my bed, and wondered if it were possible to die of loneliness. Aside from the general misery of being grounded, I’d been feeling unsettled and depressed, just as I had after finding Jesse’s ring. I’d gotten so used to seeing him every night that even when I fell asleep early, I always woke up just after midnight, my heart racing and my fingers itching for the reins. A few times I opened my window and stared at the pine tree as I imagine climbing down it and sneaking over to the barn. But as much as I loved my midnight rides with Sali, without Jesse it wouldn’t be the same.

  The worst part was not knowing what was happening to Jesse. Ego didn’t know anything more than what he’d told me, and I stopped asking him about the Ravens when he started to become suspicious.

  “What is it with you and the rich and famous?” he teased. “Are you angling for an invite to the island?”

  I knew I wasn’t welcome, but it would be a consolation to know that Jesse was having some visitors. “Do they invite people there?”

  He coughed a chuckle into his fist. “No, but they do have anyone who comes within ten feet of the shore arrested.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re rich and they can.”

  “What if a friend of Jesse Raven’s came out to the island?” I asked. “What would happen? Hypothetically speaking, I mean.”

  Ego considered that for a moment. “Jesse Raven doesn’t have any friends. Not in this town, anyway.”

  “Say he makes a new friend in town, and the friend wants to go out to the island to check on him.” I knew I was pushing too much, but I had to know. “How can they make that happen? Without getting arrested.”

  “I guess this friend”—he glanced up at the light fixture—“would have to find a way to get to the island first. That means buying a boat, because none of the charter operators will go out there. Yamah would yank their licenses.”

  The only way I’d get a boat was to actually steal one. “What about your foster parents? Would they be willing to take a friend of Jesse’s with them when they go to work?”

  He pursed his lips. “Larry, he actually likes kids, so he’d just say no. Marcia is more preemptive. She’d say no, smack the kid with her purse, and call the cops.”

  I touched my arm where the man on the island had gripped it while marching me down the pier. “Your foster father’s name is Larry.”

  He nodded. “My social worker said I didn’t have to call them Mom and Dad because they’re not my birth parents. I do it because it annoys Marcia. But I digress.” He itched his chin. “This friend of Jesse Raven’s can’t get out to the island unless she swims there, so I think you should tell her to forget about the whole idea.”

  I saw how he was looking at me. “It’s not me. It’s a hypothetical friend.”

  “I know. I have plenty of those.” He looked at his milk carton and my unopened soda can. “Want to trade?”

  Barb, who was back to her normal self, tried her best to cheer me up. “I know why you’ve been so blue lately. You’ve been hitting the books too hard.”

  I hadn’t told her or Ego that I’d been permanently grounded. “Yeah, that must be it. Educational depression.”

  “Tonight will be a lot more fun.” She giggled. “I wonder if any of them, you know, get busy right there with everyone watching.” At my blank look she grinned. “You forgot, didn’t you? Tonight’s the field trip. You know, we’re spending the night with the animals.”

  I hadn’t remembered the field trip, and being reminded made me think of the argument I’d had with Jesse. “I don’t think I’m going.”

  She frowned. “But you already signed up and paid for your ticket. You’ve got a spot on the bus. You have to go.”

  “My brother isn’t too thrilled about me going out at night.” Or anywhere, for that matter. “I’ll ask him, but he’ll probably say no.”

 
“If you need a ride to the school, call me and I’ll ask my mom if we can pick you up,” Barb said. “And if your brother fusses, remind him: it’s educational.”

  Because the bus was leaving at sunset, I had to ask Trick about going on the field trip as soon as we got home from school.

  “You signed the permission slip a month ago. Weeks before I committed the crime of the century,” I added. I wanted to go on the trip just so I could get out of the house for a little while, but I wouldn’t admit that to him. “So it’s no big deal. I won’t hold you to it.”

  “I think it would do you some good to get out,” he said, astonishing me. “We’ll have an early dinner, and then I’ll take you over to the school.”

  “You’re letting me out of solitary?” I didn’t like the smug tone in his voice. “Why? What’s the catch?”

  “No catch.” He lifted his brows. “Would you rather I say ‘no’ and ‘go to your room’?”

  “That’s okay.” I wasn’t a gift-horse mouth checker.

  After dinner I showered and changed before I met my brother downstairs. Instead of taking me to the school on his Harley, he drove me over in Gray’s pickup truck. I found out why as soon as he pulled out of the drive.

  Trick wanted to talk.

  “I’ve heard this zoo has some nice exhibits,” he said.

  I leaned back. “They generally do.”

  “You and your friends should have fun.”

  I doubted he even knew where the zoo was. “I’ll be sure to report your kindness and generosity to Amnesty International the next time they visit.”

  “What if I ask you one question, and you answer it without deliberately trying to tick me off?” he countered. “Do you think you could do that?”

  “Depends on the question.” I folded my arms. “Go ahead, give it a shot.”

  He kept his eyes on the road. “Did you steal Gray’s truck because you got yourself involved with this boy?”

  I frowned. “I don’t understand the question.”

  “Allow me to clarify.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel until his knuckles bulged. “That morning, were you two trying to run away together?”

  I turned toward him, completely dumbfounded. “You thought I was running away with him?”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “Of all the—” I stopped myself and covered my eyes with one hand while I took a steadying breath. “No, Patrick. I did not steal Gray’s truck so I could run away from home with a boy. Among the many excellent reasons I would never do that, the boy in question desperately needed medical attention.”

  “I want to believe you, little sister,” he said slowly.

  I dropped my hand. “So I’ll take a polygraph. And I’ll pass it. Will that satisfy you, or should we discuss more reliable interrogative methods, like injections of sodium pentothal? Or beating the soles of my feet with a cane?”

  “Stop being sarcastic,” he snapped.

  “Then stop being ridiculous.” I was so angry I could have hit him. “I took Gray’s truck without permission, which was wrong. I drove without a license; also highly illegal. But I did it to help someone who was in trouble, and that, big brother, is the truth. If you want to turn that into a soap opera, be my guest. I don’t have to convince you of anything. I don’t care. I know what I did.”

  He didn’t say anything more until he pulled into the school parking lot behind the field trip bus. When I reached for the door handle, he said, “Catlyn.”

  “The bus is going to leave,” I said flatly. “Am I going on this field trip or not?”

  “You’re fifteen years old,” he said, ignoring my question. “The same age Mom was when she met Dad.”

  “Check the dates on the letters,” I advised him. “She was seventeen.”

  “Close enough. Have you read all of them yet?”

  Thanks to all the turmoil in my life, I realized I hadn’t even thought about them. “I have a couple more to finish.”

  “I’m the reason Mom’s family disowned her,” Trick said. “She ran away with Dad because she was pregnant with me.”

  I hadn’t known that, and it shocked me until I realized why he was telling me. He thought Jesse and I were …

  Through my teeth I said, “I’m not pregnant.”

  “Right before all this happened, you were happier than I’ve ever seen you. I may seem ancient to you, but I’m not blind. You were acting like a girl who had fallen in love.” He sighed. “I just don’t want to see you end up like Mom.”

  Unbelievable. “I’m not in love.”

  “Then why are you shouting at me?” he countered.

  I covered my face with my hand and then dropped it. “Because we’re talking about me. Me, Patrick. The girl who has never had a boyfriend or gone on a date.”

  His mouth flattened. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Where and when do you think I’d have a chance to conceive this imaginary baby? In the girls’ restroom, in between classes? Under a cafeteria table during lunch period?” He didn’t answer me. “Okay. I really don’t think it’s any of your business, but just to ease your mind, I haven’t even had my first kiss yet. So I think it’ll be a while before I work up to premarital sex. Can I go now?”

  He sighed. “Go.”

  I didn’t slam the truck door after I’d climbed out, and I made a point to plaster a smile on my face as I walked toward the other kids gathering by the bus.

  “Hey, Cat.” On the other side of the crowd, Barb waved. “Over here.”

  I glanced back at my brother, who was still parked and watching me. He’d made such a drama out of the whole thing that I wanted to laugh. Stealing a truck to run away with a boy. Getting pregnant. No wonder he’d kept me locked up in the house all this time. He probably thought Jesse and I had been doing it in the woods.

  You were acting like a girl who had fallen in love.

  I stopped walking, and in that moment, I knew. While I’d been seeing Jesse, I had felt happier and more alive than I’d ever been in my life. Now, without him, I drifted through every day, miserable and hopeless. Trick was right.

  I was in love with Jesse.

  Seventeen

  Barb sat next to me on the bus and talked nonstop for the entire trip. “My cousin Ronnie works part-time at the zoo taking care of the cages and habitats and feeding the animals. I told him our class was coming tonight and asked him if he could get us into some of the places in the park only the employees can go, like the nursery. You can’t believe how cute the baby animals are.”

  I usually felt a little jealous of my friend’s perpetual energy and enthusiasm, but the shrill jabber of her voice grated on my ears. I didn’t want to go to the zoo anymore; I should have stayed in the car and told Trick to take me home. Caught between Barb and my depression, I knew it was going to be a long night.

  Once we arrived and were led through the front entrance by our Biology teacher, Mrs. Richards, who was already lecturing, I felt a little better. The night air washed over my face, cool and crisp, and walking through the shadows toward the exhibits made me imagine I was in the jungle. The zookeepers had switched off most of the electric fixtures in the park, so the only light we had came from flaming party torches they had staked here and there along the walkways.

  The first habitat we stopped at was in the reptile exhibit, where one of the herpetologists who worked at the park explained the nocturnal habits of alligators, frogs, snakes and other scaly critters.

  “Florida’s reptile population has always had a bad reputation, especially in the lakes region where gators have been known to attack and kill humans,” the scientist explained. “But the swamp is the kingdom of the reptile, and they all serve as an important part of the food chain. Frogs, for example, are extremely helpful in curtailing the insect population, and serve as nourishment for many of our aquatic birds.”

  “Okay, I get how frogs are important,” one of the students said, “but what good are snakes?”

&n
bsp; “Snakes may seem repulsive and frightening, but without them the rodent population would quickly multiply out of control,” the herpetologist said. “In areas where land development and pesticides have wiped out the local snake population, we’ve even seen mini-plagues of mice and rats.”

  “Hard to tell which is worse,” a girl’s voice sneered behind me.

  Beside me Barb shrank down, as if she wished she could disappear, which surprised me as I glanced back at Tiffany and her posse. I wondered why they’d bothered to wear their uniforms and jackets on a field trip, but at least it made them easy to spot.

  “What do you think is more disgusting, girls?” Tiffany smirked before she glared at Barb. “The squealing little rats”—she shifted her gaze to me—“or the slithering slimy snakes?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” I answered before anyone could shake a pom-pom. “But I’m sure you and your friends have some redeeming qualities.”

  A few kids around us hooted their admiration for my comeback, but Tiffany wasn’t amused, and took a step toward me. “Yeah, we do. Like not stealing someone else’s boyfriend.”

  I scanned the group until I spotted Boone, and then I looked back at her. “But why steal a guy who you don’t even want, and who you can have for free?”

  As everyone around us laughed, Tiffany’s face twisted. “You’re going to regret this,” she promised in a low voice.

  The hatred in her eyes chilled me, but I was tired of being blamed for her breakup. “You’re going to need therapy.”

  The teacher called out for us to move on, so I turned my back on her and followed the rest of the class to the next exhibit. Barb clutched my arm and pulled me away, putting some distance between us and the cheerleaders.

  “Geez. For a minute I thought she was going to jump you.” She blew out a breath. “Maybe we should walk with the teacher. You know, before we end up getting pushed into a pit of poisonous snakes.”

  I faked a yawn. “They keep a pit filled with cheerleaders?”