The Graduation (9 page)

Wrong and right. Dark and light. Polly was confused. She did not know what to do. The flowers in her hands were dying. She had just bought them. Roses—the day they bloomed they began to wilt. She didn’t suppose it mattered. Alice wouldn’t care.

Polly knelt beside the grave, the grass thick and wet beneath her bare knees. Her headache had returned. The voice at her back didn’t surprise her. She’d heard the motorcycle approaching from far off.

“So she really is dead,” Clark said.

Polly turned. Clark was all in black. She couldn’t remember when she had last seen him in the sunlight. It could have been the day they had met. It didn’t make much difference, the time of day; he brought the night with him. He was the only guy she knew who stood in his own shadow. She had not seen him since the night her aunt had died.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hello.”

“Did you think I lied to you about her?” she asked.

“You lie to me all the time.”

She turned back to the tombstone, annoyed. Alice Ann McCoy. Polly could have sworn Ann was her own middle name. “Go away.”

“You’re not happy to see me?”

“No,” Polly said.

“Then why did you call?”

“I didn’t call.”

“Then why am I here?” Clark asked.

“I don’t know.”

Clark stepped onto the neighboring grave, her aunt’s. He grinned as he looked down, and she thought that he might spit. A green canvas bag hung by a strap over his shoulder. “She finally choked to death, I see.” he said.

“The doctor said she went peacefully in her sleep.”

“But doctors lie.”

“Did you smother her?” she asked angrily.

Clark shrugged. “She was old and ugly.”

“I hate you.”

He chuckled. “You hated her. You hated taking care of her.”

“That’s not true! Get out of here and leave me alone!”

Clark circled Alice’s grave. He did so carefully, almost as if he feared the spot. He moved to Philip Bart’s grave. A rock from a dynamite blast had put him in the ground. Polly had donated the plot to his family. It was supposed to have been her own plot.

Clark slipped the bag from his shoulder and set the strap over Philip’s tombstone. His middle name had been Michael. Her father’s name had been Michael. But neither her father nor mother was buried in this cemetery. There hadn’t been enough of them left to fill a coffin. Their car had burned forever. Ashes and smoke. If she closed her eyes. Polly could still smell it. and hear her father shouting at her to behave in the backseat right before he had driven off the road.

Polly liked the name Michael. It brought back warm memories. But she still hoped Michael Olson didn’t come to the party. Clark knelt beside his bag and began to unzip it.

“I’m not leaving,” he said. “Today’s your last day of school. It’s our last chance.”

“For what?”

“To even the score.”

“You’re not doing anything. They won’t let you on the boat.”

“You can get me on board.”

“Why should I?” she asked.

He let go of the bag. Anger filled his face. “You’re sitting on your why.”

“They didn’t kill her! She killed herself!”

“That’s a lie. You’re lying to me again.”

“Then you killed her.”

His anger left suddenly. He grinned. He had ugly lips, like a fish. It made her sick to remember all the times they had kissed. “Closer to the truth, Polly. But not close enough. Go on.”

“What?”

“Tell me how I killed Alice.”

She stared down at her roses. They’d scraped away the thorns at the florist; nevertheless, she felt a sharp prick—a band of thorns wrapped around her head like the crown of thorns Jesus wore. Bloody red roses. Funeral flowers. A waste of money. Her vision wavered at Clark’s question. “I was outside in the backyard,” she said.

“All right.” He appeared to sigh. He’d wanted her to say something else. He went back to his bag, pulling out a tiny metal clock, black and red wires, and a lump of what could have been orange Play-Doh. “We’ll say the party killed her. If there hadn’t been a party, there would still be an Alice.”

Polly nodded wearily. “Yeah.”

“Most of the kids who were at the party will be on the boat.”

“What is that stuff?”

Clark tapped the tombstone at his back. “Mr. Bart could tell you.”

“You’re not going to blow up the boat!”

“Of course not.”

“You better not.”

He laughed. “I’m just going to put a hole in it.” He crawled toward her, his leather-clad legs slithering over the grass like twin snakes. She thought he was going to grab her, kiss her—she didn’t want him to kiss her, not that much—but he halted shy of Alice’s grave.

“You remember the party? All the kiddies were in the pool. They know how to swim.”

“Not all of them.” Polly said.

“Who doesn’t know?” he asked gleefully.

“Jessie.” That was a fact. Jessica had grown up with a pool in her backyard and was going to Hawaii next week, but she had never learned to swim. She had almost drowned as a child. She was terrified of the water.

“Who talked you into the party?” Clark asked.

“Jessie. And Sara.”

Clark glanced at his bag. There was something black and muddy inside that he had not unpacked. “Sara never did like you.”

Polly put her hand to her head. She could feel the blood pounding beneath the skin. She had given blood all year—to different hospitals, more times than she was supposed to—and there was still so much pressure inside. Sometimes she honestly felt the only real way to let it all out would be to take a gun and put a hole in her skull the way Alice had.

“How did you know Jessie couldn’t swim?” she whispered.

Clark reached over with his bony left hand—he was left-handed, as Alice had been—and touched Polly’s lips with the nail of his index finger. He touched her teeth. He probably would have stuck his finger inside her if she had let him. He was trying to get inside her. He had been trying from the beginning although he had never wanted to make love to her. She had never been able to understand that. He was one way, and he was another way. She imagined his finger would have felt the same way the cold hard barrel of a gun would have felt inside her mouth. She knew it would have been just as deadly. But that might not be such a bad thing, not if it stopped the pain. Her head was killing her!

“If I tell you that,” he said. “I will tell you everything.”

He was asking for her permission. “No,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“No.”

“I’ll kill them. I’ll kill them all.”

She set the roses down.
For my sister
. “He’ll stop you.”

“Who?”

“Michael.”

“I very much doubt it.” Clark stood and put the explosives back in his bag. He held out his left hand. “Come along, Polly. It’s time.”

She went with him.

Haven
was her name, and she was at the end of a long and fun-filled career. In the sixties and seventies, she had been a popular choice for vacationers looking for an intimate cruise ship to take to Mexico’s Mazatlan. La Paz, or Acapulco. But that had been before a new generation of vessels—larger and more sophisticated—had pushed
Haven
into an uneconomical no-man’s-land; she was too plush to haul cargo, and she was too plain and small to attract parties of the rich and pretty. When Bubba had come to Sara in the spring with the idea of renting
Haven
for Tabb High’s all-night senior party, he had never spoken so truth-fully as he did when he said it was the chance of a lifetime. Her captain had just decided to rent her out as a party boat, making the trip between Catalina and the mainland. This class party was to be one of his first short cruises.

Bubba had caught Sara at an anxious moment. She had been thinking hard and without success for a way to blow everybody’s extracurricular mind one last time, and thus forever ensure their fond memories of her leadership skills. Because neither side was aware of how desperate the other was, the negotiations between the captain of the
Haven
and Sara proceeded with remarkable smoothness. The captain didn’t even mind a postdated check.

Yet the cost for the all-night party was unusually high—forty dollars per student, and that didn’t include a hotel room to recover in on Catalina. But you only graduated from high school once, Sara had thought. She figured the class should be able to stay awake until
Haven
returned them to the mainland the next evening. From the beginning, the idea of the class bumming around together on the island all day had struck her as the best part of the plan. When she had announced the extravaganza, practically every senior had bought a ticket.

It was only because Sara had taken extra pains to keep the price as low as it was that she found herself in desperate need of an L.A. Lakers victory over the Boston Celtics.

Jessica, however, was blissfully unaware of the financial complications surrounding the evening as she sat on the edge of the bed in “her” cabin and watched as Sara split their drugstore bounty. It was just as well. Jessica already had plenty on her mind, not the least of which was the fact that, although
Haven
was still anchored to the dock, she was no longer on dry ground.

They don’t have icebergs this far south
, Jessica told herself.
The
Titanic
was one in a million.

Maria’s accident had been one in a million. It had been that kind of year. Jessica wished they had gone to Disneyland as a normal school class would. She was afraid to hold her breath and stick her head underwater in her own bathtub. The floor beneath her feet was swaying now, ever so slightly.

“I think we should put the stuff in the bathroom cabinets,” Sara said, dumping everything out of their boxes and onto the bed.

“Are you giving me the condoms and taking the foam or what?” Jessica asked.

“No, you take some of each.”

“Then I don’t think we should put it in the cabinets. Imagine how Bill or Russ will feel if he sees we have a selection. We should make it look like we just happen to have something with us.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“Another thing, don’t throw away the boxes. I want to read the directions.”

“The stuff is pretty self-explanatory, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen it before. Have you?”

“No.”

Jessica picked up the roll of condom packets. “Let’s look at one.”

Sara stopped her. “No, we shouldn’t waste any.”

“We won’t waste it opening the corner and peeking inside.”

“Yeah, we will. Then it will be contaminated.”

“So what? We can just throw it out. What do we have here? A dozen. That’s six each,” Jessica said.

“Is that a lot? I mean, how many times do people usually have sex when they have sex?”

Jessica laughed. “What a stupid question.” Then she thought a moment. “I’m not sure.”

“I don’t think we should waste any.”

“All right. You know what just occurred to me?”

“What?”

“That we don’t know what the hell we’re doing.”

“Do you think they will?” Sara asked, serious.

“Oh, yeah. Bill and Russ have been around. Hasn’t Russ?”

“I never asked him. Have you asked Bill?”

“No,” Jessica said.

“But you figure he did it with Clair, right?”

“What an awful thing to say! Now you have me worrying how I’ll match up.”

“Sorry,” Sara said. Something outside the cabin’s tiny round porthole caught her attention. “Oh, no. Don’t look.”

“What?”

“Nick’s just appeared, and he’s got Maria with him.” Jessica stood up from the bed and reached the window in one step. The dimensions of the cabin were going to take some getting used to. The whole room was not much larger than her walk-in closet at home. She could feel her heart pound as she pressed her face to the circle of glass.

“She’ll have trouble getting around the ship in that chair,” Jessica said.
Haven
sat between the dock and the western sky, throwing a deep shadow over the boarding ramp and the boardwalk beyond. Despite the fact that they were to set sail within minutes, a surprising number of kids continued to mill about the dock. Nick was having no trouble wheeling Maria’s chair up the ramp. Jessica had forgotten how small she was.

Her lovely long hair. She cut it all off.

Hair meant nothing next to an injured spinal cord, and yet its loss deeply troubled Jessica.

“Not as long as she stays on deck,” Sara said, also peering out the window.

“I didn’t know she was coming to the party.”

“Who did?”

“Well, she must have bought a ticket,” Jessica said in a slightly accusatory tone. She still hadn’t forgiven Sara for not telling her Michael was to be valedictorian when Sara must have known way in advance. Jessica had been anxiously awaiting Michael’s arrival. Sara swore she had
given
him a ticket.

“The tickets are tickets. They don’t have names written on them.” Sara paused. “You won’t be able to avoid her all night.”

The ramp carried Nick and Maria out of sight around the curve of the ship. Jessica came to a decision. “I’m not going to try.” She stood back from the window. “Come on. We’ll talk to her now, get it over with.”

“Whatever you say,” Sara replied without enthusiasm. She picked up the contraceptives on the bed and stuffed most of them under Jessica’s pillow. Except for Polly, they were the only students who had rooms. Theirs were located toward the stern, adjacent to each other, but unconnected by a door. Jessica wasn’t sure where Polly’s was. Polly had asked when she had come on board if Sara could get her a place to crash. Sara had been quick to oblige; the evening had yet to begin and Polly already looked wasted.

The remainder of the passenger rooms were locked tight, and would remain so the whole night. Kids who wanted to sleep before they reached Catalina would have to do so outside on the top deck or on the floor in one of the main rooms.

“We’ll take care of the stuff later,” Jessica said as Sara continued to stare at the label on one of the boxes.

“Do you think he was right?” Sara asked.

“Who?”

“Bubba. About using a sponge and a man’s pleasure and all that?”

“Ask him. What did he write in your yearbook, anyway?”

Sara hid the box under Jessica’s top sheet. “Shut up.”

The corridor to the stairway, or companion way, was narrow. Jessica detected a faint odor of diesel in the air. No nuclear power aboard this vessel. Mr. Bark would have been pleased. Too bad he was going to be unable to chaperon the party. Word had it that he had developed a sudden unbearable rash on his hands. Miss Fenway, a secretary in the administration building, was to take his place.

A bell rang as they climbed onto the upper deck. The kids loitering on the dock began to walk up the boarding plank. The temperature was still warm, but Jessica could feel it dropping. Cool air over warm water—the fog would roll for sure. She hoped the captain didn’t accidentally miss Catalina on the way out to sea.

“Aren’t you going to check people’s tickets?” Jessica asked, making a brief futile scan for Michael.

“Nope,” Sara said. “If someone wants to come that bad, I ain’t going to turn them away.”

Nick had parked Marias chair near the bow of the ship. He was pointing out something of interest on a nearby tanker. Maria appeared to be listening closely.

“
Promise me I will never have to see you again.
”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Sara asked, watching her.

“Yeah,” Jessica said.

Nick noticed their approach and alerted Maria. Jessica saw one thing had not changed. Maria’s eyes were still dark, still solemn. Yet a smile seemed to touch her lips as their eyes met. Jessica reached out both her hands. Maria took them after a slight hesitation. Their fingers squeezed together briefly, lightly.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Jessica said.

“Thank you,” she said, her eyes fixed on Jessica’s face.

“Hi, Maria,” Sara said, leaning over and giving her a quick hug and kiss. Jessica wished she had done the same. Maria gently returned Sara’s embrace.

“I liked your speech,” Maria said.

“I’m having it copyrighted,” Sara said. “How are you?”

“Fine.”

“You look good.”

“Thank you.”

It was all too formal. Maria continued to watch Jessica with her dark eyes, and even though Jessica didn’t detect a hint of hostility in them, the tension between them was still there.

Why can’t we just talk?

A silly question. She could walk and Maria couldn’t.

“You got us a big enough ship here, Sara,” Nick said.

“Hey, Nicky,” Jessica said.

“Hey, Jessie,” he replied, chuckling.

Sara moved to his side and wrapped an arm around his waist, saying, “There is one thing I haven’t told anybody about this boat.”

“What?” Nick asked.

Sara poked his powerful biceps. “How are you at rowing?”

Sara went on flirting with Nick, and Jessica thought it was cute and everything, but she couldn’t help wondering why Sara wasn’t spending every available minute with Russ. He would be heading back up north come Sunday morning.

Jessica lightly squeezed Maria’s hands again and asked if they could talk later. Maria hesitated before nodding. Jessica left her to go stand by the boarding plank, and repeatedly checked her watch. A second bell rang. The last of the people on the dock boarded.

Please be here, Michael. Please God.

“Should be a fun night,” Bill said, appearing suddenly by her side. He had on a yellow turtleneck sweater, tan pants, and shiny black shoes. He looked good. He always looked good. The boxes of condoms and foam popped into her mind. She pushed them away. She tried instead to imagine the thrill of having his naked body lying beside hers. The picture wouldn’t come. A third bell rang. One of the few crewmen appeared and began to withdraw the plank.

“Yeah, it’s going to be great,” she said, her heart sinking.

“Is Michael here?” Bill asked.

“Who?”

“Olson?”

“No.” She spoke to the crewman. “We’re expecting someone.” The sailor went right on pulling in the plank. The end clanged off the dock and hung out limply from the faded white hull. “That’s a shame,” he said.

“Could I sign your yearbook?” Bill asked.

“Later,” Jessica said sadly. Then she spotted a figure striding briskly around a wall of stacked pallets. She almost lost her glasses jumping to her toes. “He’s here! He’s here! Sir, our friend’s come. Put down the plank, please, sir. Thank you. He’s here.”

Michael was on board a minute later, his yearbook in his hand. Bill gave him a warm slap on the back and complimented him on his valedictorian speech. Jessica felt more than a little awkward welcoming Michael with Bill at her side. Michael didn’t seem to mind. Her joy at his arrival surprised even her. Once she had thought she was in love with him. Now she knew she was.

Before the night is over, I have to tell him.

Michael shook her hand and thanked her for holding the boat for him. He seemed to have just taken a shower. His hair looked damp. He moved off to speak with Nick after talking to her for less than a minute.

Jessica left Bill a moment later to be alone at the stern of the boat. A breeze came up from the north and a fine mist rose up over the flat ocean. The anchor was lifted and the ship slipped away, the lights of the harbor blurring in the mist, growing fainter. The western sky went from orange to purple to black. The party kicked into high gear. Jessica felt little inclination to join it. She shivered, looking at the dark water beneath her feet. She had always had nightmares of drowning.