Desert Crossing

  I could feel myself losing control of the story. I was never good at lying. And for some reason—even though they were such jerks, even though this was the perfect way to stop whatever might be happening between Jamie and Beth—I felt a stab of guilt.

  “They’re not really out yet,” I said. “So they probably wouldn’t want you to know.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  Just then the phone rang. Beth motioned with the paintbrush, so I picked it up. “Hello?”

  “Beth?”

  “No. Would you like to talk to her?”

  “Oh. Is this Miss Martinez?”

  Now I recognized the voice. “Yes,” I said warily.

  “Sheriff Durrell here. I’ve got some good news for you and your brother, Miss Martinez. We just got the preliminary report from the coroner’s office. We have an estimated time of death for the victim.”

  I looked down at my sketch, at her quiet, staring face. How was that good news? “Oh,” I said.

  “It’s two p.m.”

  I didn’t understand. “But it was at night,” I said. “It was dark when we hit her.”

  “We don’t think you hit her, Miss Martinez. We think that girl died five, six hours earlier.”

  I leaned forward slowly, holding the phone so tightly I thought it would break in my hand. “What?”

  Beth put down her paintbrush. “What is it? Lucy, what’s the matter?”

  The sheriff kept talking. “Those samples we took from the car. There was some kind of animal fur on the license plate.”

  “You mean … Jamie was right? It was a coyote?” I couldn’t believe it. I was tingly and numb at the same time, as if something heavy was sliding off my body and the feeling was rushing back into my arms and legs all at once.

  “Lucy, who are you talking to?” Beth came and stood next to me. I was gripping the phone, straining to hear his answer.

  “Well, that’s what we think. Your brother said you didn’t know the exact spot where you hit whatever you hit. Maybe when you drove back, you went too far, or not far enough. And you found her instead.”

  I could breathe now, huge gulps of air. But it still didn’t make sense. “But she was near the road. If she’d been there all afternoon, in the daylight, wouldn’t somebody else have seen her?”

  “Well, two o’clock was the time of death. We don’t know what time she was left there.”

  When he said that—“left there”—I realized what it meant. Somebody had done this to her. Somebody had left her there, dead, on the highway.

  “We’ll drop off the car in a little while,” he said. “Okay, Miss Martinez? Can you put Beth on for a minute?”

  I passed the phone to her and covered my face with my hands.

  “What a relief,” I heard her say. “Jamie especially—well, they’ll be so relieved, I know. But how did she die? Yes, I understand. It’s terrible.” I spread my fingers, watching her, and she listened in silence, looking back at me. “They’ve talked to their parents. Sure. I think so. Yes, I think you’re right. That’s good of you, Stan. Thank you. Okay. Bye.”

  She reached out and touched my arm. “Lucy, he’s giving you guys a break on the beer.”

  I pressed my forehead against my knees, closing my eyes. Was it really over? “Then we can go? Is it okay for us to go now?”

  But I wasn’t sure even as I said it. I kept seeing the girl’s face, feeling the cool bundle of her charm bracelet in my hand. It seemed wrong to leave her. It seemed as wrong to leave her now as it had last night, in the rain, on the road.

  Beth shook her head. “Not yet. He wants you to stay through tomorrow, at least.”

  The dogs started barking out in the yard, and we heard the sound of the truck rumbling toward the house. Jamie and Kit were back.

  We both got up, and the instant they walked through the door, I couldn’t wait, I forgot what jerks they’d been and how mad I was, and I grabbed the first one who came in and wrapped my arms around him. It was Kit, and his shoulder felt warm against my face. Then he stumbled backward, his hands on my arms. He looked confused. “Hey, what’s going on?”

  But I was already hugging Jamie. “The police called. It wasn’t us!”

  “What?” They were both staring at me.

  “We didn’t hit her. She was already dead, hours before we even got there. They think it was a coyote! They think we hit a coyote.” The words came out of my mouth in a rush, tumbling over each other. Kit and Jamie just stood there.

  But then Beth started explaining, and Kit threw his head back and whistled, long and low. “No way. No way. It was a coyote!” He punched Jamie’s shoulder. “Jamie, it was a coyote, just like you said! Oh my God.” Kit grabbed Jamie and lifted him right off the floor.

  Beth stepped aside, smiling. “And Stan—the sheriff is letting you off the hook on the drinking,” she said. “He said this was probably the scare of a lifetime for you guys.”

  “Yeah!” Kit was reeling around, flushed and loud, banging the air with his fist. “Yeah, yeah, no kidding. Unbelievable.”

  But Jamie just stared at the floor. The color had drained from his face, and he stood there, trembling. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “I can’t believe it’s over.”

  Beth touched his shoulder. “Believe it,” she said. “It’s over.”

  14

  The rest of the day blurred past. I couldn’t eat the sandwich they’d gotten me, couldn’t eat dinner that night when Beth offered it. It was weird to think of doing something normal again. The police brought our car back around sunset. We were elated to see it, our dusty old sedan. It felt like a reunion. Jamie and Kit opened the windows, apologetic in front of the cops. It still reeked of beer.

  That night, we talked endlessly about the accident, every single detail of it: what we’d been doing in the car right before, what we’d said, what we’d seen. It was like we were trying to make up for the long silence that had settled over us since it happened. Finally, we could replay that scene on the highway—how the rain came, how we felt the bump, how we kept going—because this time we didn’t hit her. This time it wasn’t our fault.

  “You jammed on the brakes, remember?” Kit said.

  “No,” Jamie shook his head, “there wasn’t time. I braked afterwards.”

  “Yeah, and we skidded,” I reminded them.

  Now Kit thought he remembered a gray streak in front of the car. I wondered if I’d seen it, too.

  Jamie called our mom, and we had to both get on the phone, one on the portable and one in the kitchen, to hear her crying, “Oh, thank God! Oh, Jamie, Lucy, I can’t tell you how worried I was.”

  Then she asked about our dad—she’d called him, was he coming for us?—and at least we could say that he wouldn’t have to now. Not that he wouldn’t come, but that he wouldn’t have to. We’d be driving to Phoenix in a day or so. “But that’s almost halfway through your vacation,” my mom protested.

  “It’s okay,” Jamie told her. “It’ll work out.”

  We called our dad afterward. It was late enough to call him at home, and he picked up on the first ring. As soon as he heard my voice, he said, “Lucy! Why didn’t you leave a number? I’ve been trying the cell all afternoon, but it wouldn’t go through. What the hell’s going on?”

  And I had to explain it again, but it was so much easier now. Plus, I could tell that my dad only cared about the ending, because he kept interrupting with questions like, “So you guys are fine? No damage to the car? When are you going to get here?”

  “I think we can leave tomorrow or the next day,” I told him. “The police have to go through the lab report or something.”

  “Give me the number for the police station. I want to talk to them directly.”

  So Beth got it for him, and I kept reassuring him, until finally he said, “Well, I hope you can leave tomorrow, because I’ve got meetings all day Wednesday and Thursday, and now the weekend’s shot. Okay, babe, put your brother on.”

  Listening to Jamie’s
end of the conversation, I could tell he was getting the predictable lecture, about driving in the rain, or driving too fast, or braking when something came into the road. With my dad, it didn’t matter if it wasn’t your fault. There was always something you could have done differently. Jamie kept saying, “Yeah, Dad. Yeah, I know. I’ll remember.”

  Then Kit finally called his parents. He paced around the living room, his voice too loud, piling on the details. I could feel it happening as he spoke: this terrible thing, the girl dead on the road, was turning into one of his close calls. A near miss, a disaster that wasn’t. He would tell this story as proof of something. But of what? I thought about the girl. Everything had changed for us. Nothing had changed for her.

  “So don’t worry,” Kit was saying. “Everything’s fine now.”

  “Kit,” I said quietly. “She’s still dead.”

  * * *

  That night, I curled up under the blankets and faced the window. It was like looking through the porthole of a spaceship, directly into the universe. I couldn’t sleep. I’d left my door open a crack, hoping one of the dogs would come. But the house was quiet.

  Then I heard something. It was a strange sound, a muffled kind of choking coming from the hallway. But the stranger thing was, I recognized it. In some buried part of my brain, I knew what it was. I sat up and listened. Slowly, as quietly as I could, I pushed back the covers and slid my feet onto the floor. I padded to the door and put my face against the crack.

  Jamie was in the hallway. He was crouched against the wall, knees drawn up, head down, sitting in a long rectangle of moonlight. He was crying.

  I started to open the door and go to him the way he’d done for me a long time ago, after our dad left and I used to cry at night.

  Then I saw Beth.

  She slipped through her bedroom doorway into the hall, wearing a thin white nightgown covered in flowers. It swirled around her like a meadow when she knelt beside him. She put her arm around his shoulders.

  I heard her voice, soft and low, saying, “Jamie, what is it? What’s the matter?” And then, “Shhh. I know it was scary for you. It would have been for anybody. But it’s over now.”

  She kept talking to him. Her hair fell forward, hiding her face, and I couldn’t hear the rest. Then I saw Jamie lift his head, his cheeks wet. And I felt my stomach clutch because I knew what was about to happen. I knew it before they did.

  His hand reached up to touch her hair.

  Beth pulled away, and in the patch of light, I saw the stricken look on her face. “No,” she said.

  He took her hand and turned it over, slowly, so her palm cupped the moonlight. Then he brought it up to his mouth and kissed it.

  “Jamie,” she said again. “I don’t understand. I thought you and Kit—I thought you were—”

  But it was too late. He was pulling her forward, holding on to her like he thought she might fall, or he might. Then he was kissing her, touching her face and kissing her.

  I stepped away from the door. I pushed it closed, noiselessly, and climbed back into bed.

  It wasn’t over.

  15

  When I woke up in the morning, I thought I had dreamed it. It was too strange, what happened in the hallway. It had the feel of a dream, a weird dream, coming after that weird day. The night had been long and restless. I’d dreamed about the girl again, but this time when she rose up in front of the car she was wearing a white nightgown, and it billowed out like the sail of a ship.

  I untangled the sheets and blinked at the blaze of sky that filled the window. Beth was so much older than we were. Jamie was still a kid. I’d seen Jamie kiss girls before, up against the lockers at school, or leaning into somebody’s car. But I’d never seen him kiss anyone like that. It couldn’t have been real.

  I pulled on my jeans and tiptoed into the quiet hallway. It was late, but nobody seemed to be up. Beth’s door was closed. The door to the study was open a crack. I walked toward it thinking they’d be in there, Jamie and Kit, sleeping, just like Kit was yesterday. But I think I knew before I pushed it open: the only one there was Kit.

  I stood looking at him, lying on his back, breathing his deep, slow breaths. I wished—just for a minute, but fiercely—that he was the one in the bedroom with Beth and that Jamie was here, safe.

  Suddenly, I had to get out of the house. It was too much, the car accident, the dead girl, and now Jamie sleeping with a woman twenty years older than he was. It felt like we’d left Kansas and stepped into some upside-down world where there were no rules.

  I ran down the hallway, my feet skimming over the cool floor. The dogs heard me and came rushing out of the living room. When I yanked open the front door, they crowded behind me, whining and nuzzling my legs. We walked out into the desert light.

  * * *

  I didn’t hear Kit come up behind me. When he spoke, I jumped. How long had I been sitting on the porch steps? I scooted over, making room for him to pass, trying to pretend everything was fine.

  “Hey, what are you doing out here?” he asked. “Where is everybody?” He sat down next to me, rubbing his face with his hands. His hair was sticking up in little coppery whirls.

  “Just sitting,” I said. I didn’t want to answer the other question. I couldn’t think what to say. That they’d gone somewhere, Jamie and Beth? Her truck was still in the driveway.

  “Where’s Jamie?” he asked. He glanced around the yard. “Where’s Beth?”

  I hesitated. “Still sleeping, I guess.” I looked at him. He was sitting so close to me, I could see the flecks of green and gold in his eyes. They were pretty, but in a complicated, surprising way, like the quartz inside a rock.

  Kit frowned and glanced back into the house. I saw what he saw: the empty hallway and Beth’s closed door. His eyes widened. He turned back to me.

  “No way.”

  I pulled my knees up to my chin and swung my hair forward, hiding my face.

  “No way!” he said again. This time, he grabbed my arm, making me look at him. “He’s in there with her?”

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to. Kit whistled, and it was a low, wondering sound that pierced the air. “Unbelievable. Un-frigging-believable. I mean, we’re stuck here in the middle of nowhere, thinking we might have killed that girl, and Jamie—” He shook his head. “Jamie gets laid.”

  “Stop,” I said.

  “No, I mean it.” His mouth curved in a slow grin. “He has all the luck, you know?”

  “It’s not like that,” I said. How did I know? Maybe it was like that.

  “Oh, come on. He was totally into her. You saw it.” Kit raked his hair back. “But I’m surprised she went for him. I thought she’d be all uptight about the age thing. What do you think happened? He crashed the same time I did.”

  I stared at my feet, curling my toes over the edge of the step. The wood was splintery.

  Kit’s hand clamped my shoulder. “Hey. You know something.”

  “No, I don’t.” I couldn’t look at him.

  “You totally do. You saw something. What?”

  I tilted my chin down, shaking my head. “Nothing. I didn’t see anything.”

  But Kit leaned toward me, pushing my hair back from my face. “Come on, Luce. Just tell me.”

  And then I wanted to tell him. It was too much to think about by myself. I looked up at him.

  “Jamie was in the hallway,” I said. “Late last night. He was … upset. Upset about the girl, you know, and relieved, but—” I didn’t want to say he was crying. Kit wouldn’t understand that. “Beth came out of her room. I heard something, so I got up and started to open my door … and I saw them.”

  “Yeah?” Kit said. “What’d she do?”

  What had she done? How did it start? “She sort of hugged him—”

  “She did?” Kit sounded incredulous. “She made the first move?”

  No, that wasn’t right. I shook my head. “She was trying to, you know, comfort him. And then he started kissing her
.”

  Kit let out a long breath. “Wow. Really? And then what?”

  “I don’t know. I went back to bed.”

  “You’re kidding! You missed the good part?”

  I shoved him away. I knew I shouldn’t have told him. “He’s my brother! There is no good part. Beth is twice his age. It’s ridiculous.”

  “Okay, okay. Relax.” He shook his head. “It’s still strange though, you know? Not Jamie, but Beth. She seems too—well, she must have known he liked her, so I’m surprised she’d do something—”

  I couldn’t take it. “Look, it’s my fault. I told her you and Jamie were gay. That’s why she hugged him. She didn’t think it would start anything.” There. I’d said it. I stared at the step.

  “What?” Kit’s voice was too loud.

  “Shhh,” I said. “They’re still sleeping. You heard me. I told her you and Jamie were gay.”

  “Why the hell did you do that?” He was flushed and close to me. “What’s the matter with you? Are you crazy? You think we’re gay?” Suddenly he leaned forward and kissed me. Just like that. His mouth warm and mad on mine, but tight against it.

  I couldn’t believe it. I brought my hand up to his chest and pushed him away as soon as it started, but not soon enough. We sat there, inches from each other, breathing hard. I swallowed and wiped the back of my hand across my mouth. “I know you’re not gay. And it’s not like I’d care anyway. You don’t have to … prove anything.” That was all it was.

  He turned away, but I was already sliding across the steps, shrinking back from him. I couldn’t believe he’d kissed me. I could feel the hot sting of his mouth.

  “Then why’d you say it? Why would you say something like that?” He wouldn’t look at me.

  I called for the dogs. They came trotting out of the shed, shaking their ears, looking sleepy and sweet. I made room for them between us. Oscar climbed the stairs and leaned heavily against my thigh. “I don’t know. It didn’t mean anything. I was mad at you guys for going to lunch without me. I never thought—”