Inside the door, aside from the usual crowd of Summerville Community College students, the cheer squad was assembled in formation, hanging out in the lobby arcade with guys from the team. My mood started to evaporate.
“Hi.”
“You’re late. I got the tickets.” Lena’s eyes were unreadable in the darkness. I followed her inside. We were off to a great start.
“Wate! Get over here!” Emory’s voice boomed over the arcade and the crowd and the eighties music playing in the lobby.
“Wate, you got a date?” Now Billy was riding me. Earl didn’t say anything, but only because Earl hardly ever said anything.
Lena ignored them. She rubbed her head, walking ahead of me like she didn’t want to look at me.
“It’s called a life.” I shouted back over the crowd. I would hear about this on Monday. I caught up to Lena. “Hey, sorry about that.”
She whirled around to look at me. “This isn’t going to work if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t want to watch the previews.”
I waited for you.
I grinned. “Previews and credits, and the dancing popcorn guy.”
She looked past me, back to my friends, or at least, the people who had historically functioned that way.
Ignore them.
“Butter or no butter?” She was annoyed. I had been late, and she had faced the Jackson High social stockade alone. Now it was my turn.
“Butter,” I confessed, knowing this would be the wrong answer. Lena made a face.
“But I’ll trade you butter for extra salt,” I said. Her eyes looked past me, then back. I could hear Emily’s laughter getting closer. I didn’t care.
Say the word and we’ll go, Lena.
“No butter, salt, tossed with Milk Duds. You’ll like it,” she said, her shoulders relaxing just a little.
I already like it.
The squad and the guys walked past us. Emily made a point of not looking at me, while Savannah stepped around Lena like she was infected with some kind of airborne virus. I could just imagine what they would tell their mothers when they got home.
I grabbed Lena’s hand. A current ran through my body, but this time, it wasn’t the shock I had felt that night in the rain. It was more like a confusion of the senses. Like being hit by a wave at the beach and climbing under an electric blanket on a rainy night, all at the same time. I let it wash over me. Savannah noticed and elbowed Emily.
You don’t have to do this.
I squeezed her hand.
Do what?
“Hey, kids. Did you see the guys?” Link tapped me on the shoulder, carrying a monster-size buttered popcorn and a giant blue slush.
The Cineplex was showing some kind of murder mystery, which Amma would have liked, given her penchant for mysteries and dead bodies. Link had gone to sit up front with the guys, scoping the aisles for college girls on his way. Not because he didn’t want to sit with Lena, but because he assumed we wanted to be alone. We did—at least, I did.
“Where do you want to sit? Up close, in the middle?” I waited for her to decide.
“Back here.” I followed her down the aisle of the last row.
Hooking up was the main reason kids from Gatlin went to the Cineplex, considering any movie showing there was already on DVD. But it was the only reason you sat in the last three rows. The Cineplex, the water tower, and in the summer, the lake. Aside from that, there were a few bathrooms and basements, but not many other options. I knew we wouldn’t be doing any hooking up, but even if it was like that between us I wouldn’t have brought her here to do it. Lena wasn’t just some girl you took to the last three rows of the Cineplex. She was more than that.
Still, it was her choice, and I knew why she chose it. You couldn’t get farther away from Emily Asher than the last row.
Maybe I should have warned her. Before the opening credits, people were already starting to go at it. We both stared at the popcorn, since there was nowhere else safe to look.
Why didn’t you say anything?
I didn’t know.
Liar.
I’ll be a perfect gentleman. Honest.
I pushed it all to the back of my mind, thinking about anything, the weather, basketball, and reached into the popcorn tub. Lena reached in at the same time, and our hands touched for a second, sending a chill up my arm, hot and cold all mixed up together. Pick ’n’ Roll. Picket Fences. Down the Lane. There were only so many plays in the Jackson basketball playbook. This was going to be harder than I thought.
The movie was terrible. Ten minutes in, I already knew the ending.
“He did it,” I whispered.
“What?”
“That guy. He’s the murderer. I don’t know who he kills, but he did it.” That was the other reason Link didn’t want to sit by me: I always knew the ending at the beginning and I couldn’t keep it to myself. It was my version of doing the crossword. It was the reason I was so good at video games, carnival games, checkers with my dad. I could figure things out, right from the first move.
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
How does this end?
I knew what she meant. But for the first time, I just didn’t know the answer.
Happy. Very, very happy.
Liar. Now hand over the Milk Duds.
She pushed her hand into the pocket of my sweatshirt, looking for them. Only it was the wrong side, and instead she found the last thing she was expecting. There it was, the little pouch, the hard lump that we both knew was the locket. Lena sat up with a start, pulling it out and holding it up like it was some kind of dead mouse. “Why are you still carrying that around in your pocket?”
“Shh.” We were annoying the people around us, which was funny considering they weren’t even watching the movie.
“I can’t leave it in the house. Amma thinks I buried it.”
“Maybe you should have.”
“It doesn’t matter, the thing has a mind of its own. It almost never works. You’ve seen it every time it has.”
“Can you shut up?” The couple in front of us came up for air. Lena jumped, dropping the locket. We both grabbed for it. I saw the handkerchief falling off, as if it were in slow motion. I could barely see the white square in the dark. The big screen twisted into an inconsequential spark of light, and we could already smell the smoke—
Burning a house with women in it.
It couldn’t be true. Mamma. Evangeline. Genevieve’s mind was racing. Maybe it wasn’t too late. She broke into a run, ignoring the ragged claws of the bushes urging her to go back and Ethan and Ivy’s voices calling after her. The bushes opened up, and there were two Federals in front of what was left of the house Genevieve’s grandfather had built. Two Federals pouring a tray full of silver into a government-issue rucksack. Genevieve was a rush of black billowing fabric catching the gusts kicked up by the fire.
“What the—”
“Grab her, Emmett,” the first teenage boy called to the other.
Genevieve was taking the stairs two at a time, choking on the gales of smoke pouring from the opening where the front door had been. She was out of her mind. Mamma. Evangeline. Her lungs were raw. She felt herself falling. Was it the smoke? Was she going to faint? No, it was something else. A hand on her wrist, pulling her down.
“Where do you think you’re going, girl?”
“Let me go!” she screamed, her voice raw from the smoke. Her back hit the stairs one by one as he dragged her, a blur of navy and gold. Her head hit next. Heat, then something wet dripping down the collar of her dress. Dizziness and confusion mixed with desperation.
A gunshot. The sound was so loud it brought her back, cutting through the darkness. The hand gripping her wrist relaxed. She tried to will her eyes to focus.
Two more shots rang out.
Lord, please spare Mamma and Evangeline. But in the end, it was too much to ask, or maybe it had been the wrong question. Because when she heard the sound of the third body d
rop, her eyes refocused long enough to see Ethan’s gray wool jacket sprayed with blood. Shot by the very soldiers he had refused to fight against anymore.
And the smell of blood mixed with gunpowder and burning lemons.
The credits were rolling, and the lights were coming up. Lena’s eyes were still closed, and she was lying back in her seat. Her hair was messed up, and neither one of us could catch our breath.
“Lena? You okay?”
She opened her eyes, and pushed up the armrest between us. Without a word, she rested her head on my shoulder. I could feel her shaking so hard she couldn’t even speak.
I know. I was there, too.
We were still sitting like that when Link and the rest of them walked by. Link winked at me and held out his fist as he passed, like he was going to tap it against mine the way he did after I made a tough shot on the court.
But he had it wrong, they all did. We may have been in the last row, but we hadn’t been hooking up. I could smell the blood and the gunshots were still ringing in my ears.
We had just watched a man die.
10.09
Gathering Days
After the Cineplex, it didn’t take long. Word got out that Old Man Ravenwood’s niece was hanging out with Ethan Wate. If I wasn’t Ethan Wate Whose Mamma Died Just Last Year, the talk might have spread with more speed, or more cruelty. Even the guys on the team had something to say. It just took them longer than usual to say it, because I hadn’t given them a chance.
For a guy who couldn’t survive without three lunches, I’d been skipping half of them since the Cineplex—at least, skipping them with the team. But there were only so many days I could get by on half a sandwich on the bleachers, and there were only so many places to hide.
Because really, you couldn’t hide. Jackson High was just a smaller version of Gatlin; there was nowhere to go. My disappearing act hadn’t gone unnoticed with the guys. Like I said, you had to show up for roll call, and if you let a girl get in the way of that, especially a girl who wasn’t on the approved list—meaning, approved by Savannah and Emily—things got complicated.
When the girl was a Ravenwood, which is what Lena would always be to them, things were pretty much impossible.
I had to man up. It was time to take on the lunchroom. It didn’t matter that we weren’t even really a couple. At Jackson, you might as well have parked behind the water tower if you were eating lunch together. Everyone always assumed the worst, more like, the most. The first time Lena and I walked into the lunchroom together, she almost turned around and walked back out. I had to grab the strap on her bag.
Don’t be crazy. It’s just lunch.
“I think I forgot something in my locker.” She turned, but I kept holding on to the strap.
Friends eat lunch together.
They don’t. We don’t. I mean, not in here.
I picked up two orange plastic lunch trays. “Tray?” I pushed the tray in front of her and shoved a shiny triangle of pizza on it.
We do now. Chicken.
You don’t think I’ve tried this before?
You haven’t tried it with me. I thought you wanted things to be different than they were at your old school.
Lena looked around the room doubtfully. She took a deep breath and dropped a plate of carrots and celery onto my tray.
You eat those, and I’ll sit anywhere you want.
I looked at the carrots, then out at the lunchroom. The guys were already hanging out at our table.
Anywhere?
If this was a movie, we would’ve sat down at the table with the guys, and they would’ve learned some kind of valuable lesson, like not to judge people by the way they look, or that being different was okay. And Lena would’ve learned that all jocks weren’t stupid and shallow. It always seemed to work in movies, but this wasn’t a movie. This was Gatlin, which severely limited what could happen. Link caught my eye as I turned toward the table, and started shaking his head, as in, no way, man. Lena was a few steps behind me, ready to bolt. I was beginning to see how this was going to play out, and let’s just say no one was going to be learning any valuable lessons. I almost turned around, when Earl looked at me.
That one look said it all. It said if you bring her over here, you’re done.
Lena must have seen it too, because when I turned back to her, she was gone.
That day after practice, Earl was nominated to have a talk with me, which was pretty funny, since talking had never really been his thing. He sat down on the bench in front of my gym locker. I could tell it was a plan because he was alone, and Earl Petty was almost never alone. He didn’t waste any time. “Don’t do it, Wate.”
“I’m not doing anything.” I didn’t look up from my locker.
“Be cool. This isn’t you.”
“Yeah? What if it is?” I pulled on my Transformers T-shirt.
“The guys don’t like it. Go down this road, no goin’ back.”
If Lena hadn’t disappeared in the cafeteria, Earl would’ve known I didn’t care what they thought. I hadn’t cared for a while now. I slammed my locker door, and he left before I could tell him what I thought about him and his dead end of a road.
I had a feeling it was my last warning. I didn’t blame Earl. For once, I agreed with him. The guys were going down one road, and I was going down another. Who could argue with that?
Still, Link refused to desert me. And I went to practice; people even passed me the ball. I was playing better than I ever had, no matter what they said, or more often didn’t say, in the locker room. When I was around the guys, I tried not to let on that my universe had split in half, that even the sky looked different to me now, that I didn’t care if we got to the state finals. Lena was in the back of my mind, no matter where I was or who I was with.
Not that I mentioned that at practice, or today, after practice, when Link and I hit the Stop & Steal to refuel on the way home. The rest of the guys were there, too, and I was trying to act like part of the team, for Link’s sake. My mouth was full of powdered doughnuts, which I almost choked on when I stepped through the sliding doors.
There she was. The second-prettiest girl I had ever seen.
She was probably a little older than I was because, though she looked vaguely familiar, she had never been at Jackson when I was there. I was sure of that. She was the kind of girl a guy would remember. She was blasting some music I had never heard, and lounging at the wheel of her convertible black-and-white Mini Cooper, which was parked haphazardly across two spaces in the parking lot. She didn’t seem to notice the lines, or she didn’t care. She was sucking on a lollipop like a cigarette, her pouty red lips made even redder by the cherry-colored stain.
She looked us over, and turned up the music. In a split second, two legs came flying over the side of the door, and she was standing in front of us, still sucking on the lollipop. “Frank Zappa. ‘Drowning Witch.’ A little before your time, boys.” She walked closer, slowly, as if she was giving us time to check her out, which I admit, we were.
She had long blond hair, with a thick pink stripe sweeping down one side of her face, past her choppy bangs. She was wearing giant black sunglasses and a short black pleated skirt, like some kind of Goth cheerleader. Her cut-off white tank was so thin, you could see half of some kind of black bra, and most of everything else. And there was plenty to see. Black motorcycle boots, a belly ring, and a tattoo. It was black and tribal looking and surrounded her belly button, but I couldn’t tell from here what it was, and I was trying not to stare.
“Ethan? Ethan Wate?”
I stopped in my tracks. Half the basketball team collided into me.
“No way.” Shawn was as surprised as I was when my name came out of her mouth. He was the kind of guy who had game.
“Hot.” Link just stared, with his mouth open. “TDB hot.” Third Degree Burns. The highest compliment Link could pay a girl, even higher than Savannah Snow hot.
“Looks like trouble.”
“Hot
girls are trouble. That’s the whole point.”
She walked right up to me, sucking on her lollipop. “Which one of you lucky boys is Ethan Wate?” Link shoved me forward.
“Ethan!” She flung her arms around my neck. Her hands felt surprisingly cold, like she’d been holding a bag of ice. I shivered and backed away.
“Do I know you?”
“Not a bit. I’m Ridley, Lena’s cousin. But don’t I wish you’d met me first—”
At the mention of Lena, the guys shot me some weird looks, and reluctantly drifted off toward their cars. In the wake of my talk with Earl, we had come to a mutual understanding about Lena, the only kind guys ever come to. Meaning, I hadn’t brought it up, and they hadn’t brought it up, and between us, we somehow all agreed to go on like this indefinitely. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Which wasn’t going to be much longer, especially if Lena’s odd relatives started showing up in town.
“Cousin?”
Had Lena mentioned a Ridley?
“For the holidays? Aunt Del? Rhymes with hell? Ring a bell?” She was right; Macon had brought it up at dinner.
I grinned, relieved, except my stomach was still wrenched into a massive knot, so I must not have been that relieved. “Right. Sorry, I forgot. The cousins.”
“Honey, you’re lookin’ at the Cousin. The rest are just children my mother happened to have after me.” Ridley hopped back in the Mini Cooper. And when I say that, I mean, she literally hopped over the side of the car and landed in the driver seat of the Mini. I wasn’t joking about the cheerleader thing. The girl had some powerful legs.
I could see Link still staring as he stood next to the Beater.
Ridley patted the seat next to her. “Hop in, Boyfriend, we’re gonna be late.”
“I’m not… I mean, we’re not—”
“You really are cute. Now get in. You don’t want us to be late, do you?”
“Late for what?”
“Family dinner. The High Holidays. The Gathering. Why do you think they sent me all the way out here into Gat-dung to find you?”