Barefoot Girls (59 page)

“No, you weren’t. Aren’t. That’s ridiculous. You know that, right?” Hannah said, tilting her head.

“Maybe to you it seems ridiculous. For me, I was having my first encounter with real evil, and it was inside of me. What I had done with Michael was wrong and I’d known it. Yet, I went ahead and did it anyway. The shock of what had happened between us made Michael try to run away, escape this evil thing, this terrible person he thought was good. Me. And, running, he died. So, yes, in a way, I killed him. At least, that’s how it felt then.”

Hannah made a mournful sound and got up and dragged her chair noisily against the linoleum floor so that they sat face to face, knee to knee. She reached for and grabbed Zo’s hands. “You didn’t kill anyone. Didn’t you say that he and my mom had an argument, a really bad one? Plus he’d been drinking - so much alcohol he could barely walk.”

Zo said softly, “It wasn’t like him to drink, you know. He was always the good influence, drinking maybe one, two beers tops.”

“I must get that from him. I don’t really like drinking that much. One’s fine. Yet another way I’m not like my mom.”

Zo looked at Hannah. Now? No, there was too much more to tell, more to explain. She started speaking again, determined to finish the tale now, at long last.

When Pam’s mother told Zooey the news the next morning, she was certain she’d heard wrong.

“I’m sorry? What did you say?” Zooey asked, standing outside Pam’s front door and leaning against the doorframe. She was so tired, having only slept in snatches after Michael had banged his way out of her living room, not even saying goodbye. He had simply fled, his only words being, ironically, “God help me.” He said this while still inside of her, staring with shock. 

Pam’s mother stood behind the screen, which was odd. Usually she pushed it open, invited Zo inside. “Your friend, Michael. There was an accident last night. I’m so sorry. They’re all over at the Ferguson’s right now.”

Numb and confused, certain Michael had some minor injury, his arm in a cast or something, Zo had thanked Mrs. McGregor and then walked over to Michael’s. She had passed his house on the way to Pam’s and wondered how she managed to miss the crowd of kids that would certainly be around to sign his cast and make fun of whatever dumb thing Michael had done. She’d passed in a daze earlier, only glancing around to see if he was in sight. She had made up her mind to try and talk to him the minute she saw him, get him alone. But the house had been quiet. She hadn’t even heard the usual rumble of adult conversation that accompanied any gathering.

It was one of those crystal-clear days you got out of the blue in August in New England. There would be weeks of thick heat and humidity and then a huge storm would power through, which had happened two days before, a dark sodden day spent inside at Amy’s house playing cards. Then it would dawn clear, blue, and crisp. It was the second picture-perfect day in a row. The wind was low this morning, the bay strangely smooth. Zooey wondered about the surfers, if they had given up over at Jones Beach yet or if there were waves on the ocean side.

As she approached Michael’s house again, she realized that the house was still silent. She also noticed that the flag hadn’t been raised on the Ferguson’s dock. They raised it every dawn and took it down just before sunset, a ritual they kept to with military precision and seemed to enjoy along with their extensive collection of historic flags. Their motorboat was gone and the family’s catamaran was pulled up into the yard, sails put away. So, his parents had left and Michael was alone in the house. How strange. Wouldn’t they want to be around to help their injured son?

She walked up the stairs to the house and knocked on the screen door, the front door standing open. Amy appeared in the doorway to the kitchen in the back of the house. She walked quickly through the living room and opened the door, putting one finger to her lips. “We’ve just given her two of Pam’s mom’s Valium pills. Be really quiet okay? We’re just trying to get her to calm down.”

Zooey didn’t understand. Where was Michael? Had he told Keeley what had happened? If so, Zooey’s life might as well be over.

But no, if that were true Amy wouldn’t have spoken to her. She would have slammed the door in Zooey’s face. Slammed it after telling her what a piece of worthless shit she was, how she would never be able to forgive her, none of them would.

Zooey followed Amy into the kitchen where Pam was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of Keeley, who was slumped on one of the blue-and-white painted kitchen chairs. She was holding Keeley’s hands. Well, more like restraining them, Pam’s muscles clearly working as she held her friend’s hands down. She was talking to Keeley. “Now we’re going to breathe. Breathe now. Come on, big breath.”

Keeley shuddered as she sucked in air through clenched teeth. Then she spat it out. “No, no. There’s a mistake. Michael needs to see me. If I can explain, everything will be fine. He’s waiting for me. He’s over in the parking lot right now, waiting. I can feel it. He’s just mad, that’s all. He’s paying me back with this whole thing. I hit him really hard. I can’t believe I did that. I don’t blame him for being mad. Really, I don’t. I was such a jerk last night.”

Zooey stared at Keeley. Michael was mad? But what about the accident? Pam’s mother – oh, wait. Michael was blaming Keeley for his accident?

Pam looked up and saw Zooey. Her eyes misted up a little and then turned back to Keeley. “Didn’t you promise me you were going to breathe? Do you feel the pills yet? You’re going to feel nice and relaxed in a little bit. Okay?”

Amy picked up an orange prescription bottle that was sitting on the kitchen counter. “Maybe she should have another one.”

Pam didn’t look up, only shook her head slowly. “No, two is good. Two is a lot. Right, Keeley? Oh, good. I think they’re starting to work.”

A few minutes later, Keeley’s head was lolling to the side, and Pam was able to get her up and walk her over to the living room couch, where she had her lie down and covered her with a multi-colored crocheted afghan that was draped over the back of the couch decoratively.

“Phew!” Pam fell back dramatically into a nearby armchair. Then she rested her head on the back of the chair and looked at the ceiling, shaking her head slowly with her lips turned down.

Zooey couldn’t stand it anymore. “Where’s Michael?”

Amy’s stared at her. “You mean, you don’t know?”

Pam lifted her head and put her finger up to her lips and pointed at Keeley’s still form. Amy grabbed Zooey’s arm and dragged her into the kitchen. Amy looked up at her, her firm little mouth uncharacteristically trembling. “Oh, Zo. It’s terrible. Michael…he’s dead.”

If Zooey felt numb, Keeley was nearly catatonic after that. The girls went to the funeral together, but Keeley was like a robot, trundled along by the others. There were no special arrangements made for Keeley, no special pew assignment. His parents looked shell-shocked and smaller, older. They greeted their son’s girlfriend as they greeted all of his friends from Captain’s, smiling but with a hollowness in everything they did and said, vacancy in their once-interested eyes. It was in the receiving line, witnessing their distant friendliness with Keeley, that Zooey knew that they’d never known the depth of Michael’s feelings for her, never heard of his hopes to marry her.

It was also clear that none of them had known the depth of Keeley’s feelings for Michael either, not even Keeley. Her defiant words and wild behavior on the night of his death had been some kind of rebellion, perhaps against her genuine need for Michael. A light had gone out behind Keeley’s eyes and her will to live had departed with it. No one could get her to eat or bathe; all she did all day was lie quietly in the other twin bed in Pam’s room, the shades drawn. Other than attending the funeral, Keeley didn’t leave Pam’s bedroom again until the McGregor’s were closing up the house to go home to Northport three weeks later.

When Zooey came over to visit during those weeks, she saw the old boarded-up Keeley from when they were little, the energetic fireball they’d grown to know over the last four years a product of Michael’s devoted and unfaltering love. If Michael and Keeley had broken up the way that Keeley had claimed they going to that fateful night, it wouldn’t have lasted more than a few days, and Keeley would have been the one to break down, running back into Michael’s arms.

When they all said goodbye to each other, Keeley stood on the boardwalk in from of Pam’s holding an overnight bag she’d been living out of the whole summer and looking like an orphan from a play, her eyes smudged with dark circles, her cheeks sunken, her blond hair matted and dirty, wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that hung on her now-emaciated frame. Zooey looked at Pam and Amy and saw how careful they all were with Keeley now, how uncertain. The ease they had together, such a basic staple of their friendship that it was taken for granted, was gone. 

Amy reached out a hand and put it on Keeley’s. “Are you going to be okay? Where are you going to stay? At Julie’s?” Julie Shaw’s house was one of Keeley’s top go-to homes during the school year; the Shaw’s having an enormous old house in Fairfield and seven children whose friends were always welcome. Zo had visited Keeley there once while she was staying there and liked Julie and her loud opinionated family and their huge Victorian house that was so much like her own family’s house on Captain’s. She’d said a little prayer then and every time she thought of Keeley, asking the angels to protect her and keep her away from her mother.

Keeley shrugged, looking down at her feet. “I dunno. Who cares?”

“We do,” Amy said. “Just let us know where you end up.”

“I might go home, I think.”

“Home?” Pam and Zooey said together.

Keeley shrugged again, not looking at them. ”Yeah.”

“No!” Pam said, “You can’t do that. Your house isn’t safe. What about Julie’s? Or another friend?”

Keeley let out a little puff of air. Then she said, “It’s too much work, finding somewhere to stay. And Michael-“ She trailed off, making a choking noise, her head dropping down.

Zooey said, desperate, “You can’t go home, Keeley. Stay with me if you have to. I’d love to have you. My mom won’t be there, she’s going back to Michigan in a couple days. We can have the whole house to ourselves.”

Keeley looked up at her, but there was no hope sparkling in her eyes. They were dark, shutters closed. “Thanks, but I’m going to go home. My mother won’t notice me. I’ll just lock my door and stay in my room, out of her way. Out of everyone’s way. Spare everyone.”

They argued with her, but she wouldn’t budge. After she left, walking slumped with an uncharacteristic gracelessness down the boardwalk, they agreed that they would check in on her, push their way past her horrible mother if they had to, make sure she was okay. All the promises they made didn’t banish the fear on their faces and in their voices. What would happen to Keeley?

The girls kept their promise, visiting Keeley twice in September, once they met at the Friendly’s restaurant in Fairfield before and after going to Keeley’s. The second time, Zooey picked up Amy in her new car, the “safe” Volvo her mother had insisted on, before visiting. The first visit had gone surprisingly well: Keeley’s mother had let them in without complaint and they’d filed up to Keeley’s room to visit with her. She’d looked exactly the same, and still wouldn’t eat, even though Pam had brought homemade chocolate chip cookies. They stayed for an hour and agreed over their hamburger dinner together at Friendly’s afterward that at least Keeley wasn’t getting worse.

The second visit had been a different story. Pam hadn’t been able to make it. She was behind on her studies at SUNY and had an exam the next morning, so it was just Amy and Zooey, who was home from Wellesley for a long weekend. They waited outside the dark empty-looking house all Thursday afternoon and into the early evening. They rang the doorbell and knocked at intervals, hoping to rouse Keeley and get her to answer the door. They knew she was there: she had delayed her studies at SUNY and didn’t have a job or any other commitment that they knew of. They hoped that she had decided to go stay with a friend; they feared that she had made good on her subtle threats to kill herself.

Finally, her father pulled into the driveway and got out of his car. “Who do we have here?” he hollered from his open car window, slurring. Then he climbed out of his car, hesitating and then straightening up before marching up the front walk as if walking into a wind. “Oh, it’s you kids. What are you doing here?” He looked the same as always, blond-haired and red-faced, his nose like a bulbous afterthought on an otherwise handsome face. His tie was loosened and his gray suit was rumpled.

“We’re here to see Keeley, sir,” Amy said. She was always polite to adults, even drunken ones.

“She’s not here, I don’t think. She comes and goes as she pleases. Like my wife.”

“You don’t have any idea where Keeley is? Not a single idea?” Zooey asked. She couldn’t keep the insulting tone out of her voice. She just couldn’t understand Keeley’s parents. Cockroaches were better parents.

He was oblivious, leaning heavily against the front door with his forehead and fumbling with his key and the lock, his back to them.

“Would you tell her we were here?” Amy asked.

“Uh,” Mr. O’Brien said, and then managed to get the door unlocked and pushed it open. “You girls want something to eat? That’s one thing my wife does. She cooks. Cleans and cooks. Cooks and cleans. Suzie Homemaker, that’s what she is.”