Black Tuesday (22 page)

“Really, Jayne, couldn't you have at least picked something less morbid?” Her mom stirred a straw through her iced tea. “Like a heart or a daisy?”

“I didn't feel like a heart or a daisy or a bunny rabbit, Mother.” Jayne fell back onto the sofa, her eyes closing, shutting the sight of Gen out. “I felt like getting this put on as soon as I saw it on the wall at the tattoo parlor.”

Crystal hit wood. Her mom was definitely ticked. She hadn't even attempted to place the glass on the coaster a couple of inches away. “You didn't even plan to put those words on you? And what, did the tattoo artist pick where to put it so he could look at your ass all day?”

Jayne didn't waste the breath to correct her. Mabel had seemed like she didn't care one way or another what her ass had looked like.

“How about this?” Her dad put his hands up. “If Jayne can answer one question, she can keep that tattoo. At least for a month while we get used to it,” he added when his wife started to sputter.

“I don't know what you've been smoking, Sean.” Gen pushed the palms of her hands into her closed eyelids. “Her body is ours until she's eighteen. Hell, everything she has, between that room of hers, that car she can't drive anymore, even the smarts that got her A's most of her life—it's all ours.”

Jayne could only stare at her mom. Was that what she really thought? That everything she was and had belonged to Gen and Sean Thompkins?

“Gen, you're toeing the line.” Her dad seemed to be giving his wife a look of warning. “Stay on the right side of it.”

Her mom looked like she wanted to say more vile stuff, but she pursed her lips and took another sip of iced tea. Which was a good thing, considering the thoughts Jayne was still having about those Emmys of hers.

“What was your question, Dad?”

He steepled his fingers together. He arched his eyebrows, and his eyes sparkled. “If you get this answer right, we'll give this whole tattoo business a rest. At least until next month, when we'll revisit how we're all feeling about the matter.”

Jayne nodded. “Agreed.”

“Okay then.” His eyes seemed to grow even more amused. “Who was the person who first said that quote on your back? And”—he held up a finger—“from which of his works did it come from?”

It looked like someone had come home after their walk and had been on the Internet.

“Who is Friedrich Nietzsche, in
Maxims of a Hyperborean.
”

Her dad laughed. “That is correct.”

Her mom dropped her head back on the sofa, looking at the ceiling. “Mother—.”

37

DARIAN'S HAND was on her boob. It was on her boob, and the only things separating his skin from hers were her bra and the black cotton of her shirt.

“God, you feel great, Jayne.” His nose was buried in her neck, his tongue tracing a trail around her ear.

“You feel pretty good yourself.” They were sitting on a couch outside Meadow's house. It was Friday, the last Friday before school started up again.

It was cause for celebration. It was cause for Jayne to let Darian feel her boob.

In her head, Jayne shrieked a little. Partly out of excitement for where Darian's hand was. Partly out of terror for where Darian's hand was.

They'd been kissing out here for a good twenty, thirty minutes. And for the first time, Jayne hoped her sister couldn't see her. Ellie had come to the party with them. Mainly because Jayne didn't want to be caught by surprise running into Ellie drunk and belligerent again.

“Jayne?”

“Yeah?” This was terrific. She wondered why she'd been riding Ellie so hard about this whole kissing deal. It felt pretty friggin' amazing.

“Let's go upstairs.”

“Why?” She said this after another long, intense kiss.

“Why?” He pulled back. Laughed. “I'll give you one guess. If you win, we go upstairs; if you lose, we go upstairs.”

It felt like someone had poured a bucket of cold water over her head. She pushed back. The hand on her breast felt clumsy and uncomfortable. She pulled it off her.

As she sat there, her senses heightened. She heard the couples around her whispering and kissing. She smelled the smoke coming from the corner where a bunch of girls sat and talked and laughed.

“C'mon ...” He tried to kiss her. She pushed him away.

Darian shot off the couch, his hands combing through his hair. “I knew it. Meadow told me, but I wouldn't believe her. Criminy!”

“Knew what?” But Jayne knew the answer.

“That you were a tease. That you only were good for kissing and groping. Crap!”

Jayne felt the girls in the corner watching them. “Darian. C'mon.” She tried to sound light and teasing. Part of her didn't know why she wasn't yelling or cursing. “This isn't really that big a deal, is it?”

He looked at her, his hands on his knees, his head about a foot from hers. “The only way this isn't going to be a big deal is if there's some small . . . token of affection I get tonight.”

“Token?” That word did nothing to make her feel better.

“A token. Where there's no risk of disease or pregnancy. But I get what I want, and all's good.”

It took a minute to work out the word puzzle, but when she did she started laughing. She couldn't help it. The laughter just kept bubbling up inside of her. “Let me get this straight. You get yours. I get nothing—”

“You got something—an eight-hundred-dollar bracelet.”

“You said that came with no strings.”

“Everything has strings, Jayne, everything!” He all but whined this last part.

“I guess I can't handle the strings, then.”

After she said the words, she realized that she didn't feel one iota of sadness.
A token
. Whatever. A token got you on the bus.

Jayne leaned her head back and looked at the clear, starry sky.
A token. Ha!
The words kept replaying as she worked on the clasp at her wrist. When she unfastened it, she held the rope of gems out to him.

He stared at the bracelet and then gave her his puppy-dog eyes. His voice got softer, lower. Whiny. “Couldn't you suck me off just once?”

Jayne stared at the boy in front of her. She felt like she wasn't even in her body anymore.

She got up and pushed the bracelet into his chest until he was forced to reach up and take it. “I have to get going. Have a good life, Darian.”

She turned and left him still staring at her with those puppy-dog eyes. She shivered. Crazy how she'd been into him one second, letting him go with his hand where no one had gone before. And now?

Now he gave her the heebie-jeebies.

She walked by the table of girls, the tips of their cigarettes the only things she could make out in the dark corner. “You break up, Jayne?”

She peered deeper into the shadows. The question sounded like it came from Meadow. “Yep.”

“Before or after he asked you for his token?”

“After.”

She heard Meadow laugh. Joylessly. Knowingly. “Darian's not too good about going a night without sex. Guess you found that out.”

Jayne had her hand on the sliding glass door. It was late and she was more than ready to forget about Darian and the out-of-body conversation she was having right now.

But she couldn't help herself. Meadow wasn't making any sense.

“We've been going out a couple of months now,” Jayne said. “He seemed okay with not having sex.”

There was that laugh again. “Sweetie, do you really think he left you after each date to go back home? He's a senior, he's on the basketball team, and he's cute.” The tip of her cigarette grew brighter as she took another drag from it. “He was off screwing anything that moved when he wasn't with you.”

38

JAYNE JUST WANTED to go home and forget about this night. And these people.

“Has anyone seen my sister?”

The consensus was that she was upstairs in the master bedroom. Passed out.

Jayne ran. Faster than she ever had in her life.

A naked, still form was in the center of the bed.

“Ellie, wake up. Wake up!” She shook her, but that did nothing.

Jayne searched frantically in the dark for clothing. Where the hell was her underwear? And her dress?

She found them tossed on the back of the desk chair. She started pulling Ellie's legs through the holes of her underwear.

“Is everything okay?”

Jayne turned to quickly glance over her shoulder. Meadow was there. She seemed . . . well, not indifferent, which was something for Meadow. “No. Help me put this dress over her head.”

Together they lifted Ellie's torso off the bed, slipped the hem of the dress down, and slid it the rest of the way to her knees.

After Ellie was fully dressed, Jayne put her face in front of Ellie's. “Ellie!”

Her sister's eyes were closed, but she was moaning.

“Ellie!”

She shook her sister's shoulders. Nothing. “Meadow, did you see if my sister was drinking anything?”

“I think she had a drink, but it wasn't like she was throwing them back or anything.” Meadow zipped up Ellie's dress. “Jayne, you should know that Lori took a picture of Ellie with her cell phone.”

Jayne was shocked into stillness. “What? Why?”

Meadow shrugged. “She's a freak.”

Jayne went back to the chair and found Ellie's purse.
Please, Ellie, for once, please have been responsible
. She opened the clasp.

Inside was Ellie's glucose meter.

Jayne went to Ellie and punched the meter into the tip of Ellie's finger. Normal was around 170 mg/dl at this time of night.

Right now, Ellie's blood sugar was at 400.

“Go and get me some water. Now.”

Meadow left while Jayne reached for Ellie's cell phone and dialed the pre-programmed number. While she waited for someone to pick up, she put pillows under Ellie's feet to help keep the blood flowing to her head.

“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”

“My sister. She's in diabetic shock.”

 

“Jayne!”

Jayne looked up from the tile she'd been staring at. She'd been wondering what had made the scuff marks, and what kind of solvents it would take to clean them up.

She'd been like this for the last twenty minutes or so. Ever since she had ridden in the ambulance with Ellie to Camelback Regional.

The same hospital Jayne had been brought to just four months ago.

Her mom was running down the corridor, and the only thought in Jayne's mind was that it would really suck if her mom's heels slipped out from under her.

Then all three Thompkins women could be admitted to this hospital.

Random thought. Then again, this was a random kind of night.

“Jayne, I asked you a question. How'd this happen?”

Jayne had been asking the same thing herself. Ellie had been eating like crap all summer. And she didn't think her sister had been good about being consistent with her shots.

Then again, getting a shot three times a day, every day, year after year, could get to a person.

But Jayne didn't really know the answer. She could only guess. So she settled with what she knew: “I don't know.”

“You don't know?” Gen's face was getting red. She must've been getting ready for bed when Jayne had called from the ambulance. Her face was free of makeup, her hair was in a ponytail. That of course meant she was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. Jayne checked her watch.

1:32 A.M.

“No. I don't know what Ellie put into her body or didn't. At first I thought she was drunk, but then I checked her blood glucose levels. That's when I figured out she was in shock.”

“Gen!” Jayne's dad walked toward them, fast and determined. He'd gone to see the doctor as soon as her parents had gotten there. “The doctor wants to see us.” He started toward the next set of double doors.

“You stand right here, young lady. Don't even think about moving a muscle.”

Jayne's night had been filled with threats, disclosures, and child pornography. She wasn't about to take her mom's crap and see what kind of punishment she'd get because her mom was dealing with misplaced mother-guilt issues. (Her sessions with Larry were pretty quiet, but she picked up a few of his psychology journals when he didn't have a new
National Geographic
.)

“Or what?”

“Or what?” Gen said the words like she couldn't believe Jayne had even dared to speak them. “Or what? Fine, let's get down to brass tacks. You will be going to a boot camp. Or you will be going on my show to talk about this downward spiral you've been having. Or—”

Her mom stopped, taking in a sharp breath. She wanted to say something else. Jayne could see it. She could
feel
it.

“Or what, Gen?”

The use of her first name pushed her mother over the tiny edge she'd been holding on to. “Or else you will leave my house.”

“Good to know where we stand, Gen.” Jayne felt a calm she'd never felt in her life. It made her think more clearly. And made the irrational thoughts she was having seem almost rational. “You may also want to know that while Ellie was in the middle of what everyone mistook for being plastered, Lori—Diane's stepdaughter—took off Ellie's clothes and captured it with her camera phone.”

Well, it looked like Gen was speechless. Good. It made Jayne almost want to tell her more. About how when she first saw Ellie, she thought she'd been drugged and raped. Meadow had told her later that Lori had been blabbing all night about what she planned to do with Ellie. To get back at the Thompkinses.