Secrets in the Shadows

  After the crowning, we had to dance by ourselves, like a bride and groom at a wedding, while a small spotlight followed us about the floor. I was terrified I would stumble or somehow look silly and awkward, but in Craig's strong embrace, I felt secure. He moved me about gracefully.

  "I was afraid they'd choose Bobby and Charlene," Craig whispered. "They were our only real competition."

  I glanced at Charlene. Although she had a soft smile on her face, I was sure she was disappointed. I felt sorry for her. In my mind she was really the most beautiful girl in the school, and Bobby cut a handsome figure, too.

  "I guess in the end we were just too much for them," Craig added.

  I looked up at him. Self-confidence was slipping quickly into arrogance, I thought. Maybe his mother was coming through, after all.

  "I don't feel right about it," I said. "Charlene certainly dances better than I do, and she's prettier."

  "The band didn't think so, and that's what matters most," he replied. "Don't be silly. Enjoy it," Craig said.

  He was certainly basking in the attention.

  "Won't my parents be speechless when they find out?" he muttered. "Dad's customers will be congratulating him, and he'll have to smile and thank them. I know my mother will permit herself to bask in the glory, even though she'll never admit she was wrong. Serves them both right. I hope they find it difficult eating crow."

  I wished he wasn't so bitter about his own mother and father. It still bothered me that I was partly, if not wholly, to blame, and it made me feel funny to see him happier about making his parents uncomfortable than enjoying our moment for what it truly was.

  The attention we received on first arriving was compounded by the coronation. Everyone wanted to know what our plans were for after the prom and the next day. An invitation to Ruth Gibson's house quickly became as valuable as an invitation to the White House. I was surprised by the girls who came to me to ask if I could get them and their dates invited.

  "It's not my house and not my party," I said, blowing the ingratiating smiles off their faces.

  "How quickly someone can become stuck up," Jennifer Todd muttered loudly enough for the other girls nearby to hear. Heads were nodding, and my welcome mat was quickly pulled out from under my feet and rolled up again.

  Envy has a way of turning into resentment, I thought and wished we had made far less of a spectacular appearance. I had wanted only to have a good time, to have something to remember forever, a cherished remembrance to press into a photo album. I wasn't looking to conquer the school and become Miss Popularity.

  Soon after, the group that was going to Ruth's house decided it might be time to leave. Some of them asked Craig, and he told them yes. The prom had run out of speed, especially for him. What else was there to do here after you had been crowned king?

  "Now the real partying begins," he whispered to me as we left. "We're going to have a good time," he chanted. "My parents have failed to spoil this night for me. We've shown them."

  That sounded that earlier sour note. I certainly didn't want us to have a good time in order to spite anyone. I wanted it to be our good time for ourselves, pleasing only ourselves, but Craig was on a tear about it now. During the last hour at the prom, I noticed he was behaving differently anyway. He kept leaving me to join his buddies around the punch bowl, which I knew had vodka in it. There was no smoking permitted inside the club, so those who wanted to smoke had to go outside. Craig joined them even though he didn't smoke. He left me alone for a good ten or so minutes, and when he returned, he was more hyper and excited. It was soon after that when the decision to leave was made.

  We got into the car quickly and followed the line of cars off the hotel grounds, heading for Ruth Gibson's home. We were still wearing our crowns. I thought it was silly to keep them on, but Craig insisted.

  "We have to wear them all night, even sleep in them," he joked.

  It was just past midnight. The party at Ruth's house consisted of ten couples, but only three were going to sleep over. We were all taking one of the back roads, a shortcut that would get us there faster. With only our car headlights and the taillights of the cars ahead of us to illuminate the way through these secondary roads slicing through wooded areas, I suddenly felt as if I were in an eerie procession. It made me nervous.

  "Here," Craig said, taking his hand off the steering wheel to hand me a dark cigarette. "Light one of these."

  "I don't smoke, and I thought you didn't," I said. "It's not a cigarette, Alice. Don't you know what it is?"

  I shook my head but smelled it.

  "Is it . . . pot?" I asked.

  "Yes," he said, laughing. "It won't make you sick, and you'll relax quickly." He reached for the cigarette lighter and held it toward me. I hesitated. "C'mon, hurry up. I want some, too. We have a right to celebrate. We're royalty."

  Even more nervous now, I lit the joint and took a puff, blowing it out quickly and coughing. He laughed at me again.

  "You have to hold it in," he said and took it from me to show me how to smoke pot.

  "Here, try it again."

  "I'd rather not," I said.

  "C'mon, Alice. Loosen up. We have a great night ahead of us."

  "That's the way I want to keep it," I said.

  "Wow."

  He shook his head in disappointment, but he didn't argue. I could see he was very annoyed with me, but he didn't say anything nasty. Instead, he smoked faster and held the smoke in his nostrils longer. "You don't know what you're missing," he sang and bounced about in the seat, leaning over to kiss me and then offer me the joint again and again.

  I tried to ignore him. Finally, he turned up the radio and laughed.

  "Look how fast Jack Montgomery is going," he said, nodding at one of the cars quite ahead of us. "I know what's on his mind. He wants the best guest room for him and Brenda. That creep.

  "Wait a minute," he said. "We're the king and the queen of the night. We shouldn't be following them. They should be following us."

  With that, he pulled out and accelerated, passing two of the cars ahead of us and leaning on his horn. They did the same. Jack Montgomery's car was the last one ahead of us. Craig sounded his horn, but Jack refused to move to the right. Craig drove up to his bumper, practically colliding, and tapped the horn continually. Jack only accelerated.

  "The bastard," Craig said and accelerated too. "You're going too fast," I said. "It doesn't matter, Craig. Let him go."

  "It matters," he said. "Everyone is trying to box me in. It's like my mother is in that car," he muttered. "What?"

  What a strange thing to say, I thought.

  He didn't respond. He drove faster.

  The back roads were far more narrow than the main roads in our area. Some of them hadn't been attended to for years and were broken up. The shoulders of the roads were soft, and on both sides there was deep ditching, but because the ditches hadn't been cleaned out for some time, they were disguised with mud, leaves and dead branches.

  Craig drove with the joint dangling from the corner of his mouth like any ordinary cigarette. When he took a deep and hard draw on it, the smoke streamed out of his nostrils, making him look like a mad hull.

  Gradually, he caught up to Jack's car again, only this time, instead of trying to get him to pull to the right, he swerved radically to the left and began to pass him. We were side by side, and when I looked over, Jack was laughing, but his girlfriend Brenda was just as terrified as I was, and she was pounding him on the shoulder to get him to slow down. I saw him turn to push her away, and when he did, he jerked his car dangerously close to ours. Craig compensated by moving to the left, only our front left wheel fell into the ditch.

  It was as if someone, some great invisible giant, had reached through the darkness and taken our car into his huge hand, spinning it around. The wheels froze on the macadam nd the car literally lifted off the ground and turned over, crashing into the large oak and hickory trees. I screamed. I heard the sound of glass and metal smash
ing and felt myself being lifted and thrown about. My eyes were closed. I never felt any pain when we stopped thrashing about. I was simply in the darkness.

  When I opened my eyes again, I was looking at a white ceiling, and I heard the sound of some sort of beeping. Slowly, I began to focus, but with it came a surge of pain along my left side, up my leg and into my hip. I groaned. When I turned my head, I saw my grandfather sitting near me in what was obviously a hospital room. He had his head lowered so his chin nearly rested on his chest. I closed and opened my eyes and then called to him. At first I thought I was in a dream and calling in my sleep, because he didn't respond. Then he raised his head slowly and looked at me.

  He looked exhausted, looked like someone who had been up for days and days. His face was unshaven and his eyes drooped, but he managed a smile and stood up slowly to come to the bed and take my hand.

  "Hey, princess, how are you doing?" he asked.

  "Where am I?"

  "You're in the county hospital. You've been in and out of a coma for two days. Your grandmother is out in the hallway speaking with the doctor," he said.

  "What happened?"

  "Don't you remember?"

  I shook my head. Was this that famous selective amnesia again?

  "You were in a very bad car accident, Alice. Very bad. We're lucky to still have you. Don't you remember any of it?"

  I stared at him The pain seemed dull now. I noticed for the first time that something was stuck in my arm, and I followed the tube up to a bag hanging on a stand. I wanted to ask about it, but I felt my eyelids closing, and my effort to keep them open was futile. In moments I was asleep again.

  When I woke this time, my grandmother was standing there with the doctor. My grandfather walked into the room and joined them.

  "Alice," my grandmother said. "Alice, do you hear me? Alice?" She turned to the doctor. "She's looking at me, but she doesn't seem to hear me or even see me."

  "She's still in quite a daze," he said.

  Was I dreaming? I seemed to be looking at them through a thick fog. Slowly, it began to clear.

  "What happened to me, Grandma?"

  "You shattered your hip pretty badly," she said. "You're going to need an operation to see what can be done. You have a concussion, but the doctor says it's not life threatening. You have trauma all over your body, Alice. It's amazing you don't have even more serious injuries."

  As she spoke, I looked at my grandfather and then the doctor. They weren't just watching my reactions. There was something else in their faces, something that frightened me. I closed my eyes and tried hard to remember everything. It was as if I were coming up from a pool of ink, slowly rising toward the light. A part of me wanted to keep from rising. I was shaking my head, pleading to stop going toward the light, but I couldn't prevent it.

  I burst out, and the memories rushed at me like some sort of mad little animals, eager to take a bite out of me. I brought my left hand to my face and moaned.

  "Easy," the doctor said.

  "What . . . where's Craig?" I asked.

  No one replied. They just looked at me. Then my grandmother looked to my grandfather and he stepped forward.

  "Craig didn't make it, Alice."

  "Didn't make what?"

  "His injuries were far more severe."

  I continued to stare at him, waiting for him to add, "But he'll be all right."

  He didn't add anything. He lowered his eyes. "You mean Craig's dead?"

  "Oh God," my grandmother said. Her lips trembled.

  It was as if her face was in an earthquake. Tears began to stream down her cheeks.

  "He's dead?" I asked again.

  "Yes, Alice. He's passed away," my grandfather said.

  I closed my eyes, and then I fell back into the inky pool and began to descend.

  When I woke up again, my aunt Zipporah was there. She was staring out the window.

  "Aunt Zipporah?"

  "Oh, Alice. I'm so glad you're awake. You poor kid."

  "Where are Grandpa and Grandma?"

  "They're having something to eat in the hospital cafeteria. How are you feeling?"

  "Numb," I said. I thought for a moment. Had I been awake and had I spoken with my grandparents and did they really say what I thought they had said?

  Aunt Zipporah pulled a chair close to the bed and took my left hand into her hands. She smiled at me.

  "You'll be all right," she said. "Banged up, but you'll be all right."

  "I was in a car accident."

  "Terrible one. Your grandfather says anyone looking at the wreck would have a hard time believing you lived."

  "But Craig . ."

  "I know. It's so sad. Can you remember what happened?"

  I thought for a moment. Words and pictures seemed to jumble around like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle in my head. Slowly, some of them fit together.

  "We were going to a house party."

  "Yes, I understand," she said, nodding to urge me on. "It was after the prom."

  "Craig wanted to be there first. We were crowned king and queen of the prom."

  "I know," she said, smiling and rubbing my hand. "He was going too fast and something happened . . . the car just flew."

  "He lost control," she said. "Alice," she began. She looked at the doorway and then turned back to me. "Did you . . . were the two of you smoking pot?"

  I stared at her. That was in the puzzle Those pieces came together quickly, too. I nodded.

  "He had it. I took only one puff and then he took it back."

  "They found it, and I guess they could tell from the autopsy that he had been using it," she added.

  "Do Grandpa and Grandma know?"

  "Yes. But it's not your fault," she said quickly. "What happened is not your fault. Don't dare let anyone get you to think it was."

  I studied her face. "Someone is saying it was?" She didn't reply.

  "Craig's mother?"

  "You can't fault a mother for trying to understand and for being angry and trying to blame someone or something other than her own child, but we all know there was no way you could have had it. He had to be the one to get it," she said, but she said it with a lift in her voice, as if she was asking and not telling.

  "Yes, he had it. I didn't even know until we were in the car and on our way to the party."

  "Damn. Smoking grass while driving. That's a big no-no," she said.

  My grandparents came back to my room. Grandpa smiled when he saw I was awake, but my grandmother looked terribly worried. She looked to Aunt Zipporah.

  "It's true about the pot," she told my

  grandmother. "He had it," she emphasized.

  "Oh Alice," my grandmother said.

  "What could she do about it? He had it," Aunt Zipporah said.

  "My God."

  "There's no sense getting her more upset, Elaine," my grandfather said.

  "She's blaming me? Craig's mother is blaming me?" I asked her.

  "She's the sort that would never blame herself for anything, even if she were caught red-handed," my grandmother said.

  "Don't think about any of that," my grandfather told me as he moved closer to the bed. "I want you to concentrate on getting better. Nothing else."

  "As soon as you're well enough, they're going to fix your hip," my aunt Zipporah told me and smiled. "You'll be fine. You can't get out of working this summer, so don't even think about it."

  I turned away.

  All I could think about now was Craig's beaming smile at the prom and the great joy and excitement we both had felt. How quickly we had fallen from that cloud on which we had been sailing. It was truly as if it had all been a dream and now that dream had become a nightmare.

  I didn't have to look at my grandparents' faces to know what awaited me out there. I could feel the gloom and doom coming toward me like rolling thun der. With Craig's mother finding ways to blame what happened on me, heads would bob in agreement and people in our community would say they always knew something li
ke this would happen. They might as well hang a banner on Main Street that read THE APPLE DOESN'T FALL FAR FROM THE TREE.

  I hoped I would die on the operating table and everyone's misery would end.

  "We should let her rest," I heard my

  grandmother say.

  "I'll bring you magazines, things to do, Alice," my grandfather promised. "Maybe, when you're able to sit up, they'll let me bring in some paintbrushes, paint and some art paper."

  I turned sharply to him.

  "I don't want to paint anymore," I said.

  "What? Sure you do. You don't give up something like that, Alice."

  "It's not important."

  "Of course it's important."

  "Don't think about it now. You're not in any state of mind to make decisions anyway," Aunt Zipporah said. "I know it might sound cruel to you, but in time, this will all pass and you'll go on. You can't change what happened, but if you let it destroy you, too, then everything anyone says bad about you will seem to be true."

  She made sense. I was just not in the mood to acknowledge it. I closed my eyes instead. They all kissed me on the cheek before leaving, but I didn't open my eyes. I wished I could keep them closed forever.

  A little while later the nurse came in to check on me, and then the surgeon who was going to do my operation arrived to talk to me about my injuries and describe what had to be done to my hip.

  "Your hip-joint socket was broken in four places, Alice," he said. "It's going to be a long operation, but you won't notice because you'll be under anesthesia. To you it will seem like a few minutes," he said, smiling.

  I wanted to ask him if he could put me under anesthesia now. I think he saw it in my face.

  "Look, Alice, you're a very young girl. You'll recover from this and get strong again."

  "The boy I was with will never recover."

  "I'm sorry about that. Believe me, I wish I had a chance to try to make a difference. for him, too. have a son not much younger. But right now, we have to give you our attention. I want you to he stronger and have a good attitude about your healing," he said. "It helps."

  "Okay. Thank you," I said. He patted my hand, checked my chart and left.