The Secret Year

  She snorted. “You think they ever invite me to the country club? Or to their parties, now that Pam’s gone?”

  “I’ve seen you eat lunch at Austin’s table.”

  “Yeah, and Julia used to act like I was this huge annoyance whenever I’d dare to sit there. Even when I was going out with Michael, they still treated me like an outsider. And now you tell me I don’t belong with you guys, either, because I don’t live on the flats.” She stared out at the river. “Nick always looks at me funny, like I’m a spy from Black Mountain. Nobody trusts me, not you and not them.”

  “I trust you.”

  “Good, then you’ll let me come with you.”

  “I don’t know, Kirby.”

  “Well, I’m going up there, Colt, with or without you.” She stood. “Come on, let’s go walk someplace. I’m sick of sitting around.”

  chapter 19

  Nick picked me up on Friday night. Paul was already in the car. We stopped on the way to get Kirby.

  Cars streamed up the mountain, lights flashing, horns honking. Paul rolled down the window and stuck his head out. Nick laughed at nothing. Kirby shivered. Something sizzled and sparked in the air; we all felt it.

  “Where’s Fred?” I asked.

  “He’s going in Ryan’s car.”

  “Is Syd coming?”

  “No.”

  I was glad to hear that. If the Black Mountain kids decided to fight with us, she wouldn’t want to be there. Nick had spread the word that anyone from Black Mountain should stay away from the park tonight, so of course we expected some of them to show up.

  I wondered what Julia would’ve thought of all this. Kirby had told me that Michael thought it was completely moronic, that this whole thing was driven by Nick and Groome showing off. Julia would have thought so, too. “The only time Austin ever looks for a fight is when he listens to Keith Groome’s bullshit,” she’d written in her notebook. But at the same time, she loved excitement. She probably would’ve come, if only to see what happened.

  The park had a long, narrow parking lot. Usually people pulled into the spaces headfirst, facing the view off the mountain. Tonight we backed in, thinking we could pull out fast in case of trouble. We got one of the last places in the lot, but cars kept coming after us. They parked in the grass; they stopped in the roadway. They piled in, honking, until we couldn’t have pulled out if we’d wanted to.

  “What do we do now?” Paul asked.

  “Wait,” Nick said, grinning.

  So far everyone just seemed to be sitting in their cars, radios cranked up, engines racing. It took me a few minutes to realize the cars didn’t all belong to kids from the flats. I saw Austin’s car, and Groome’s, and Adam Hancock’s, and Tristan Allen’s. I’d expected to see more of the Black Mountain guys, and I wondered if the others had stayed away because they were scared or because they thought the whole thing was stupid. After all, the park would always belong to them, no matter what happened tonight.

  Chadwick and Groome and those guys were parked on the grass near the entrance, next to a sign that told people to clean up after their dogs. The closest flats cars faced them, separated by a space of grass. That space of grass was the DMZ, I told myself. No-man’s land.

  We’d been sitting there about twenty minutes when Austin got out of his car. He walked across the DMZ, heading toward the nearest flats car, but Brad Letts climbed out of it and met him on the grass. When they got close enough to each other, their mouths opened wide. They must’ve been yelling, but we couldn’t hear over all the engines and radios. They shoved each other. Then they backed off, yelling and flailing their arms. Letts beckoned Austin with a “come over here” hand wave.

  Groome got out of his car. At the sight of him, about five kids from the flats jumped out and went after him. Paul ran to join in. Adam Hancock and Tristan Allen had enough sense, or fear, to stay inside their cars.

  “God,” Kirby said, “six against one? That’s too much.”

  “Yeah,” Nick said, “but are you going to stop them?”

  We couldn’t even see Groome anymore, just a knot of people pushing and punching and kicking, and what they were punching and kicking seemed to be down on the ground now. Kids from the flats were out of their cars by this time, standing on hoods and roofs. Someone jumped up on Hancock’s gleaming silver car and began to bounce on it. More kids jumped onto Groome’s car, and Ryan Coates bashed Groome’s windshield with a rock.

  Austin turned to look, and all of a sudden he must’ve realized what the odds were, because he yelled one last thing at Letts and ran back to his car. He reached into it, got something, and held it up. He stood there holding his arm up like the Statue of Liberty, screaming at the guys attacking Groome.

  “What’s he saying?” Nick asked.

  “He’s threatening to call the police,” Kirby said. “That’s his cell phone.”

  Paul ran up, ripped the phone out of Austin’s hand, and threw it away. They exchanged punches—Paul’s missed—and then Austin scrambled into his car. Paul returned to the knot around Groome, but the guys were already backing off, leaving Groome crawling on the ground.

  “This is awful,” Kirby said. She got out, went over to Groome, and knelt beside him. The air was full of honking and hooting and cheering. Maybe Austin hadn’t been able to call the cops, but I figured they’d be here soon anyway. I doubted that the rich people who lived around here would put up with this noise much longer.

  I opened my door. I didn’t want Kirby to be alone out there. Nick said, “Colt, are you crazy?”

  “This is what you wanted, isn’t it? Why the hell don’t you come out, too?”

  He stayed behind the wheel. I almost said something about him starting this whole thing, only to hide when the blood started flowing. But I didn’t want to get into it with Nick now.

  I went over to Kirby. Paul and those guys were telling her to leave Groome alone, but she ignored them. Groome groaned, and the way he moved reminded me of the way a bug moves when you’ve crushed it but not quite killed it. There was so much blood I could smell it, a smell like hot metal. Most of it poured from his nose.

  “God, Colt,” Kirby said, “is there a towel or something in Nick’s car?”

  I walked back to Nick. He usually had a beach towel or a blanket in his trunk. “As far as I’m concerned, the guy can bleed to death,” he said.

  “Look, Nick, he’s pretty banged up.”

  “That’s too damn bad. He should’ve thought of that before he slashed my tires.” Nick craned his neck to look past me. “Ahh, he’ll be okay. Kirby’s overreacting. I knew we shouldn’t have brought her.”

  I went back to Kirby. Paul bent down to get a closer look at Groome. “Whoa,” he said. Kirby and I used my jacket to stop the blood, though I gritted my teeth when I handed it over. I noticed that Groome had wet his pants, a dark stain spreading over his crotch and down his legs.

  Austin stood over us, shouting at the guys who’d attacked Groome, until Kirby yelled, “Shut up! You’re not helping.” Then she said to Paul, “Can you calm those guys down?”

  The rest of the guys who’d beaten up Groome were still milling around, rubbing their knuckles, itching to take on Austin and anyone else who might dare to step out of their cars. Paul got them to back off a little. Most of the other kids in the park were standing on their cars, watching, quieter now. Groome’s blood seemed to have satisfied some appetite.

  “Maybe you should go to the emergency room,” Kirby told Groome. “Your nose might be broken.”

  “Fuck that,” he said, although through his mashed nose and the cloth of my jacket it sounded more like “Huck dat.”

  “He’ll be okay.” Austin leaned over and slapped Groome’s shoulder. “Right, buddy?”

  Cars were leaving, as if there was nothing more to stay f
or, now that the violence was over. Tristan Allen and Adam Hancock came up and helped Groome into the backseat of Austin’s car. Austin shut the car door and turned to us.

  “You guys have gone too fucking far,” he said. “Tell all your friends, you guys are going to be paying for Groome’s car until you get so old your fucking dicks fall off.” He pointed at me. “You got that, Colt Fucking Morrissey?”

  I hadn’t thought he even knew my name. I knew plenty about him, but I’d always believed that was a one-way street. To him, I was just a guy from the flats. A nobody. It would make sense that he’d hate me if he’d known about Julia, but he couldn’t have known. Could he?

  “You’re welcome, Austin,” Kirby said, her voice full of venom.

  “Hey, Kirby, don’t take it the wrong way. You’ve always been okay with me, and what you did tonight shows it. I just don’t know why you want to hang out with this loser.”

  “Oh, go to hell,” Kirby said. She turned away from him, and Austin looked at me again.

  “What were you trying to prove, coming up here?” he said.

  I didn’t answer. I followed Kirby.

  By this time, there were hardly any cars left. As we crossed the empty lot back to Nick’s car, we both started to shiver. I put my arm around her and she said, “I’m glad you helped with Keith. I’ll say thank you even if they won’t.”

  I did it for you, not them, I thought. But I didn’t say it out loud.

  Nick rolled down the window and said, “I’m not so sure I want her in this car.”

  Kirby glared at him. “Why not?”

  “I don’t know why you had to run over and help that asshole and ruin everything.”

  “They could’ve killed him, Nick! It’s not like on TV, where a guy can take fifty punches and walk away. This is serious.”

  “Colt, you getting in?”

  “Not unless you let Kirby in, too.”

  “Fine. You can both walk.” He started the engine and yelled, “See ya!”

  Nick tore out of there, and Kirby and I sat on the grass. The cold dew soaked into my jeans. Kirby sniffed and ran the heel of one hand beneath her eyes. Her hand was splotched with Groome’s blood. “I never cry,” she said sharply.

  “We’ll be okay,” I said. “We can walk home.” I picked up her hands; they felt cold and dead. I rubbed them to get her blood flowing again. “Hey, if the police come roaring up here now, at least we’ll have a ride home.”

  My lame attempt at humor did nothing to cheer her up. “Do you think like Nick?” she asked. “Do you think I should’ve stayed out of it?”

  “No.”

  “You know this is serious, right? Keith could get people arrested if he wanted.”

  “Yes.”

  “Talk to me, Colt. I can’t stand these one-word answers.”

  I squeezed her cold fingers. “I think we’d better start walking so you can warm up. It’s a long way.” If I had been alone in the backseat of Nick’s car tonight, I never would’ve gone to help Groome. I would’ve sat back and watched him get killed. “I think you did the right thing. I think you’re a better person than I am.”

  I wanted to tell her I loved her, too, but somehow I couldn’t. The words rose up to the back of my tongue and stuck there. Ever since I’d said them that night in my room, I hadn’t been able to get them out of my mouth again. I didn’t know why.

  chapter 20

  We walked down to Kirby’s, and she drove me from there. I got home around one in the morning. My father’s snoring filled the house. I took a shower to get the blood and dirt off me, and then I crept into my room.

  I couldn’t sleep. My mind was a jumble of smashed glass, and howls, and Groome’s blood. Over and over, I heard Austin saying, “What were you trying to prove?”

  I rolled around in bed for a while, but I kept itching, or getting an ache in my arm, or tangling the sheets. I turned the light back on and dug Julia’s notebook out of my desk drawer.

  I hadn’t read it since I’d first started thinking about Kirby. After all, I had finished it. I’d moved on, left Julia behind.

  I told myself all this, and then I paged through the book, looking for an entry I remembered, one that Julia had written in the middle of an April night.

  Dear C.M.,

  I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to get up and write. I wrote a poem, but I’m not tired yet.

  I was thinking about college. It’s hard to believe I only have one more year at home. After that I’ll be at Harvard (I hope!), and at some point, I definitely want to do a year in Europe. France, I think.

  It doesn’t seem real. My plans sound big, but how do I know I can live up to them? My life has always been Black Mountain and the Willis River and this stupid little town. My stepfather works in the city, and so does Austin’s dad. They think of this town as a quiet place to come home to after they’ve spent all day in the “real world.” I’ll bet nobody outside this county has even heard of Black Mountain.

  Maybe a school like Harvard would eat me alive. Maybe I won’t get in. Reality is going to smack a lot of Black Mountain kids in the face when they graduate. Keith Groome thinks he’s going to Princeton, but with the grades he’s got I don’t think Princeton would let him mow their lawns.

  I wish I could talk to you right now. I might even try to call, if it weren’t two thirty in the morning.

  What do you think about when you can’t sleep? Sometimes I think about the ocean. I can see it lapping on the shore, waves rolling in one after the other, washing over the sand, never stopping. That’s what usually puts me to sleep.

  I decided it couldn’t hurt to try. I called up the rhythm of the waves from that one time I’d seen the ocean. That got me calmer, even sleepy, but it didn’t take enough of the edge off. I knew a way I could definitely fall asleep, and I tried to think about Kirby, but it didn’t help.

  What worked, finally, was thinking about Julia. I told myself it wasn’t really like cheating on Kirby. I tried like hell to think about Kirby instead. But for some reason, tonight it was Julia.

  On Saturday I took one of Tom’s old jackets out of his bedroom closet and hoped Mom wouldn’t ask what had happened to mine. Wearing his jacket reminded me that I hadn’t talked to him in a while, and I called him at school.

  “Colt! You’re actually calling me? What, did the house burn down or something?”

  “Very funny. No, I thought you’d want to hear about last night.”

  “What about it?”

  I told him what had happened. “So, what do you think?”

  He paused. “I forgot about all that Black Mountain bullshit. You don’t let it get to you, do you?”

  “No.”

  “I remember people saying the word ‘flats’ like it was a synonym for ‘toxic waste dump.’ Just wait till you leave that town and see how small Black Mountain really is.”

  Julia’s letter last night had said the same thing. “I know.”

  “Once you’re out here in the world, nobody cares where you used to live. Who you are, that’s what counts.”

  “Uh-huh. Should I be humming inspiring background music while you’re giving this speech?”

  He laughed. “Okay, I know my cue to shut up.”

  “Then I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

  “Ooh, little brother’s getting a bit too full of himself! Sounds like someone needs to come back and put him in his place.”

  “When are you coming home, anyway?”

  “Not until after finals.” He took the phone away and said to someone else, “Hey, have a seat.”

  “Who’s there?” I asked.

  “Uh—Derek just walked in.”

  Something in the way he said that name told me what was coming. “Derek?”

  “
Yeah, this guy I’ve been seeing.”

  It’s one thing to know your brother is gay in the abstract, but to think of him with a real live boyfriend is—strange, kind of. I mean, it takes getting used to. “You sure you wouldn’t rather just screw around?”

  He laughed. “Yeah, that’s tempting, but I think I want to be with Derek for a while.”

  Someone in the background—Derek, I guessed—yelled, “‘For a while!’ Great! It’s almost like a commitment!”

  “I should let you go,” I said.

  “Talk to you later.”

  After I hung up, I thought of what he’d said about Black Mountain. It was true in a way. I knew it was small compared to the rest of the world. But I figured there were more Black Mountains beyond the one in our town. Bigger ones, too.

  Kirby might have thought she was caught in the middle before, but that was nothing compared to the week after the fight at Black Mountain Park. Everyone hated her. The Black Mountain kids wouldn’t talk to her because she’d been with us that night. The kids from the flats wouldn’t talk to her because she’d helped Groome. Her locker became a dumping ground, with people sticking things through the vents. (Some of it we couldn’t identify—just like busing tables at Barney’s.) She moved her books and coat into my locker.

  She would’ve gotten even worse treatment if she had been completely isolated. But three people stuck by her: Syd, Michael, and me.

  The four of us ate lunch together that week, forming a little island that nobody else would come near. Syd pretended she didn’t care. Michael didn’t have to pretend; he obviously didn’t care what anyone else thought of him. I didn’t like Michael spending so much time with Kirby, but I thought it was important that somebody from Black Mountain was sticking up for her.

  “Adam and some other guys drive by my house every night, honking,” Kirby said while we ate our sandwiches. “We’ve had so many hang-up calls, we’ve taken the phone off the hook.”

  “Ignore them,” Syd said.

  “They’ll get sick of it,” Michael said. “This weekend there’s another country-club party. That’ll take their minds off you.”