Brutal Youth (42 page)

He was trying to sound friendly and goofy, but he was clearly worried. Hannah said, “Maybe you should go now, then,” and they did. Quickly.

Hannah knew when Mr. Zimmer left the restaurant that he wasn’t coming back, that she wouldn’t get her dance, but she made herself wait around anyway, just in case he did return. Of course, he didn’t.

Alone now, Hannah unzipped her purse, which matched the cotton candy color of her dress. The only thing wedged inside it was a small framed picture, one she had snapped herself at the beginning of the year, hugging Mr. Zimmer from the side as she held the camera at arm’s length. She had intended to give it to him tonight.

Hannah heard footsteps behind her and wedged the photo back into her purse.

A small girl stepped forward to the base of the rocks, looking up at Hannah. “I’m Sarah,” she said, though she was already better known to Hannah, and almost everyone else, as Seven-Eighths.

Hannah played with the hem of her dress. “What do you want?”

The girl was crawling up the rocks beside her, wearing the uniform blue pants and white polo shirt of the volunteer underclassman workers. At the top, Seven-Eighths became transfixed by the lights of the valley, not saying anything—but her lips were moving softly. Hannah could barely make out a whisper. She was saying the Our Father prayer to herself.

Hannah considered scaring her off but thought of that nickname—Seven-Eighths—and held back. As far as nicknames went, it was better than Fuckslut, but something in the girl’s weird fishface, a strange chiaroscuro of light and blackness in these shadows, made Hannah feel a rare twang of mercy.

“You’re sad,” the freshman girl said. “I can tell.”

“It’s just puppy love and heartache and all the stuff you hear about in bad songs,” Hannah said. “You’ll feel it yourself when you get older. Teenage bullshit. No biggie. I’m glad to be leaving it behind.”

A timid smile appeared on Seven-Eighth’s beaklike mouth.
Bullshit.
She didn’t say words like that. “I saw you sitting here alone. And I saw you sitting alone inside, too,” Seven-Eighths said.

Hannah began to wonder how much this girl knew about the notorious Hannah Kraut, scourge of the senior class, keeper of hideous secrets, cowardly slut, and blackmailing bitch. “Maybe I wanted to be alone,” she said.

The girl laughed. “No … You’re Hannah Kraut. You’re the one everyone makes fun of behind your back.”

Sometimes, when you are feeling your worst, an extra stab of pain doesn’t hurt at all. Hopelessness is a great anesthetic. So Hannah laughed. “Well, they don’t do it to my face, now, do they? That’s something.”

The young girl’s scissor jaw clenched. “They say it to
my
face,” she said softly. “They say it
about
my face.” She looked sideways at Hannah. “But you’re very pretty. They should be talking about how lovely you are, but instead they talk about hating you.”

“Better to be hated in secret, than hated out in the open,” Hannah said. “At least nobody
bothers
me anymore. I stopped all that.”

“You have their secrets, don’t you? That’s why they leave you alone … so you’ll leave them alone.” The girl slid closer to Hannah. “I want to know how to stop people, too.”

Hannah regarded the river far below. Maybe her troubles were ending at St. Mike’s, but this girl’s were just beginning. “Tell you what, Sarah … tell me
who
is bothering you, and maybe I can help.”

The girl took a very long time to answer. Hannah thought she could guess the response: probably Smitty, who had made up the Seven-Eighths name and still bragged about it. Or maybe it would be one of those bitchy freshman girls, like that Lorelei person. Or the Grough sisters—those boars.

Seven-Eighths surprised her—she said: “Can you help me stop Father Mercedes?”

Hannah’s eyebrows turned into two little darts aimed at her nose. “Exactly …
what
 … did Father Mercedes do to you?” she asked, expecting the absolute worst.

Seven-Eighths stared down at the town lights on the other side of the valley. “He makes me pray,” she said, the words beginning to flow uncontrollably. “
A lot
 … I like to pray, but Mother and Father make me do confession every Saturday with my brother, Clarence, and confession is good, but I can’t pray like Father Mercedes wants, all the time, every hour … the prayers get stuck … Do you know what I mean? They keep saying themselves and I can’t shut them off even if I
want
to shut them off. That’s a sin and you should never want to
not
pray, and—” She cut herself off, and her mind raced with a soothing:

Hailmaryfullofgracethelordiswiththeeblessedartthou
 …

The girl’s insect eyes widened; her jaw quivered. “Can you tell me something about Father, please? Something that will hurt him? Do you have something about him in your book?”

Hannah hung her head for a long time. She searched her memory, honestly … and fruitlessly. “I wish I did, Sarah,” she said. “But I’m sorry. I never paid much attention to him.”

Sarah shrank back from her. “Are you sure?…
Please
?”

Hannah said, “Listen, I’d tell you if I did. From what you’ve said—he’s an asshole—but that doesn’t really make him stand out in a crowd around here.”

The girl said in a small voice, “If you do learn something, will you tell me?”

Hannah raised two fingers in the air. “Scout’s honor.”

The little freshman drew her knees up to her chin. After a while, she said, “So … who’s the boy who made
you
sad tonight?”

Hannah laughed. “Nobody makes me
sad
.… I’m pissed off.”

Seven-Eighths giggled at the profanity again. “Then who made you mad? Who made you come sit out here alone?”

Hannah shook her head. In the darkness, Seven-Eighths was looking at Hannah’s purse, where she could see the top of the framed photo sticking out. She cocked her head slightly, studying the faces in the dimness. Hannah didn’t even notice.

The girl ventured, “Do you know something that will hurt
him
?”

“Him who?” Hannah asked, then noticed her looking at the photo. Hannah’s sad smile vanished. “Maybe you need to mind your own business.”

Seven-Eighths smiled grimly and looked down at the purse again. “So you
hate
him, but you don’t want to
hurt
him.…” Her brain calculated this in silence, temporarily blocking out the constant background noise of prayers.

Hannah pulled the purse close to her hip, hiding the photo. She could guess what the girl was thinking now, and Hannah was tempted to let her imagine whatever she wanted. Why not allow some nasty rumor to spread? It’s easy to hate those who don’t love you back.

But Hannah didn’t really want that.

She leaned in close to the freshman, close enough to kiss. “Get those thoughts out of your weird little skull, Seven-Eighths. They’re a fucking
sin
.…”

The girl stood abruptly, and Hannah watched her scamper down from the rocks and fast-walk back along the edge of the restaurant. Being mean always made Hannah feel a little better.

*   *   *

The passenger door opened, and the dome light in Father Mercedes’s car came on. Then the door closed, and the vehicle was dark again except for the priest’s little orange cigarette ember. He started the car and drove out of the restaurant parking lot. It was late. He had been waiting a long time.

He looked over at the girl slumped in the seat beside him. “Well, what did she say?”

Seven-Eighths didn’t look up when she answered. She tried never to look at Father Mercedes. It was easier to do the things he asked if she didn’t have to face him—if she could just pretend their meetings were confession, in that little room, with a screen between them.

“I did my best, Father,” she said. “But you don’t need to worry. She said she didn’t know anything about you. And I tried hard to get her to tell me. I tried to trick her.”

The priest said, “You’re certain she’s telling the truth? She has nothing?”

Seven-Eighths told him, “Just that you were a …
blank
-blank.”

The priest rolled his eyes. “Just say the word.”

“She called you an ‘
ass-
hole,’” the girl said, as if it were two words. Then she crossed herself and thought a quick Hail Mary to cleanse.

Father Mercedes laughed, then coughed, breathing smoke through his nose as he smiled. If true, this was hugely comforting. Let Hannah read her toxic scribblings in front of everyone at the Hazing Picnic and scorch the world—as long as nothing could hurt him.

He stuck the cigarette in the corner of his smile and let it hang there as he drove Seven-Eighths back to her home.
This was it. He was safe.
He had been blessed by this type of relief once before, when the peril of discovery had been its strongest, when the anemic financials of St. Michael the Archangel had nearly exposed his petty crimes.

It had seemed like a tragedy to everyone else—the burning of the church—but from those ashes a grand disorder was born, and his misdeeds, his chronic theft, had been obscured by much greater loss. The windfall of insurance funds, though not enough to rebuild, had helped hide what he had taken. Now, he needed to make further amends, to shutter the school, to make St. Michael’s chapel rise again on the spot where it had once smoldered.

This blessing, this freedom from exposure in that strange girl’s notebook, was the first step. He had faith in that now. God was again watching out for Father Mercedes. He wondered what blessing would come next.

It happened to come immediately.

Father Mercedes drew on his cigarette, a deep, biting lungful, feeling alive. It made Seven-Eighths turn her face toward the door and ask permission to roll down the window slightly. She hated the smoke. It was how she imagined hell would smell, and the stink would be in her hair now when she was trying to get to sleep tonight.

Sarah “Seven-Eighths” Matusch truly did despise Father Mercedes, deep down in her heart. She knew he was cruel and manipulative, and that part of what she’d said to Hannah had been no lie. But sometimes we crave the love of those we’re afraid to hate.

“You might want to know one other thing…,” the girl said softly.

Father Mercedes grunted. “And what’s that?”

The glow of the dashboard cast dismal shadows on the angles of Seven-Eighths’ face. “I think Mr. Zimmer is having sex with Hannah Kraut.”

PART VII

The Other Way Down

FORTY-TWO

Peter Davidek stood by the classroom window, hands stuffed into his pockets, his blazer swept back at the sides, the red clip-on tie squared at his collar. The morning sky was tropical blue, and a breeze scented with fresh-cut grass swept in and lifted the bangs of his hair. Just next to the Tobinsville shopping center, he could see the yellow insects of earthmoving machines shifting around piles of gray slag from the Kees-Northson steel mill, and green waves of lush, wooded hills floated beyond the river, rolling on toward anywhere-but-here.

Mr. Mankowski was doing the homeroom roll call again. “Dahnzer, Missy,” he said, and a girl shaped like a pear with two pencils for legs said, “Present.”

The bald teacher looked squarely at Davidek’s back and said, “Davidek, Peter…” When Davidek didn’t answer right away, he said it again, louder.

Davidek replied, “Here.”

Mankowski went on and on, name after name, and when he got to “Stein, Noah,” he paused, as he always did, and was disappointed that Davidek wasn’t facing him. The teacher said it once more, just for the heck of it: “Stein, Noah.” But Davidek didn’t respond.

Mankowski wrinkled his mouth, then made a mark with his pen and moved on.

*   *   *

Hannah saw Davidek in the lunchroom, a rare appearance there for the radioactively unpopular girl. “You never came to the prom, Playgirl,” she said.

Davidek was holding an empty lunch tray. He told her, “I had trouble getting a ride.”

She scrunched her face. “Weren’t you coming with that fat kid from your class? I saw him there, hanging around with Bilbo and his buddies.…”

Davidek said, “Yeah … well, that fell through.”

“What happened? I was waiting and—”

Davidek shrugged. “It fell
through,
so you can threaten me or something, and I’ll say, ‘Sorry, Hannah, sorry … It wasn’t my fault. Please don’t!’ And then you’ll either do something to me, or you won’t.”

Hannah cocked her head, studying him. She almost looked hurt. Almost. Then it was gone, and she said, “You on the rag or something, Playgirl?”

*   *   *

Carl LeRose ambled over during study hall in the library, his fingers stuffed in the pages of a decrepit
Advanced Biology
textbook that was swollen with water damage from the flood. “Check it out,” the sophomore whispered, bending open the cover. “There’s a picture of a naked chick in it.”

Davidek looked over at the pages and winced. “She’s old,” Davidek said. “And what’s that on her skin?”

“Uh, some rash…,” LeRose said, scanning the caption: “Smallpox.”

Davidek pushed the cover of the book closed again as LeRose threw an arm over his back and shook him. “I came over here to cheer you up. Everybody’s talking about you these days. The hazing thing is coming up. They need to know—are you gonna help us get Hannah, or are you a pussy asshole coward?” He raised an eyebrow. Davidek looked bored.

LeRose settled into the empty seat beside him. (All the seats were empty around Davidek.) “Hannah has something on you, too, doesn’t she?” he whispered. “Just like the rest of us.”

“No,” Davidek said. “Turns out, I’m just a pussy asshole coward.”

LeRose bobbed his head. “I get it. You’re feeling a little pressure—okay. But I’m coming over here as your friend. And maybe the folks at this school aren’t treating you so nice, because they don’t know if they can trust you. I’m spreading the good word about you, though. I just need you to show some goodwill back.”