Set Me Free (40 page)

But for now she could relax. Now she could have a good time. Sadie was already at the party—she’d made friends with a few
Ponderosa girls. As Amelia waved to them and garnered their congratulations, she hit on a crisp truth: these girls were more
like Sadie
than Amelia could ever dream of being. These girls
wanted
to giggle at the idiot boys taking turns hurtling themselves over the fire pit. These girls
wanted
to suck on cigarettes and complain about how fat they were. Because they were all genuinely impressed with how hard Amelia
and the rest of the cast had worked, it didn’t feel so sad to Amelia to recognize how different she was. She didn’t feel sad
that these girls had never been truly kind to her, and that she had never been truly kind back. Instead, she put her arms
around them and accepted the beer they placed in her hands.

Lydia was wild with joy. She didn’t threaten anyone’s life or yell obscenities. In fact, she’d developed something of a crush
on Caleb, the boy who’d played Ferdinand to her Miranda, a shy kid with a hangdog attitude who had somehow been transformed
into a dashing, loyal lover the second he’d stepped on the stage. Amelia watched Lydia toss her hair and laugh at Caleb’s
jokes as Bobby Marron, Lydia’s sometime boyfriend, sulked in the shadows. Caleb looked simultaneously panicked and thrilled,
trying to take Lydia all in as she gestured exuberantly.

Victor was at the party too. Amelia and he nodded at each other as they gathered beside the bonfire. Amelia didn’t know what
was going on. She and Victor had achieved a strange kind of closeness, just being onstage together. She’d had the same feeling
with Wes during their duets. Amelia felt as though she
knew
Victor deeply because of the work they’d done together, but without any of the facts of his actual life involved. As though
the talk in his truck had been an agreement between them not to let real life get in the way of the acting work they had to
do. Victor was an astonishingly good Prospero. Amelia knew his acting talent, and his passionate devotion to the character,
were a significant part of her attraction to him. She also felt a strange stirring inside every time she looked at him, remembering
how she’d been plunged into embarrassment when he said he wasn’t “into” her. So that was that. He wasn’t. And yet there was
this knowing, this gnawing. She dropped his gaze and decided not to talk to him until she’d had a few more beers.

Wes interrupted Amelia’s thoughts. “You were just great.” He grabbed her into a long hug, and over his shoulder, Amelia caught
Sadie explaining to another girl her impression of the nature of her brother’s feelings. Amelia could read Sadie’s whispering
lips: “He really likes her,” and Amelia closed her eyes and hugged Wes back.

“You look great,” he said as they pulled away. “Congratulations. Really. I mean it. That’s the least boring Shakespeare play
I’ve ever seen.”

Amelia remembered her first impression of Wes, how hot he’d seemed, how distant and artsy and brooding. Now she laughed and
ruffled his scruffy hair. “So you’re letting it grow?”

He shrugged. “Jackson liked it short. So I thought,’Screw Jackson.’”

“Speaking of Jackson, I want to talk to you,” Amelia said, nudging him in the ribs. “We’ve got some unfinished business.”
But Lydia was calling everyone to attention for a toast, and afterward, there were more congratulations and Benson people
to meet, more beer to drink, more boisterous stories to tell about nearly missed entrances and lines. Then Amelia was standing
face-to-face with Victor.

“Good job,” he said simply. She was the one who made the move to hug him, and he obliged.

“You too,” she said.

“You were really funny,” he said.

“Thanks. And I loved that epilogue. I think you made a lot of people cry.”

Victor looked pleased and shy. Light from the fire rippled across his face, and Amelia tried not to feel a pang of regret.
She’d missed her chance. He’d told her, to her face, that he didn’t like her, at least not like
that,
but maybe she could have done something different at the beginning that would have changed his mind. She tried to memorize
him. This was probably the last time she would be this close, get to see his shallow breath as it moved up and through him,
the rapid way he blinked. She wanted to say something perfect. But nothing came.

Victor cleared his throat. “Urn, listen,” he said.

Amelia smiled. “Yes?”

Wes appeared beside her.
“There
you are! I’ve been looking everywhere. You ready?”

“Sure,” said Amelia, bringing her voice to a public tone. She was about to introduce Wes to Victor and Victor to Wes, but
Victor was already bumming a smoke off another girl. He was as unreachable as if they’d never been talking.

“Sorry about that,” said Wes as they walked away. “I thought you two were talking to that group behind you. I hope I didn’t
ruin a moment.”

“No worries,” Amelia said, pushing aside her disappointment.

“He’s hot. Is he your boyfriend?”

“I don’t have a boyfriend!
You’re
the closest thing I’ve ever had to a boyfriend. And we know how well that turned out.”

They found a log away from the others to sit on. “Look,” Amelia began, “I don’t want this to be a big deal. I just wanted
to kind of, I don’t know, tell you something. About that day when you gave me that money?” She sighed. “I know you meant well.
But I don’t want that money. I never did. And it has nothing to do with whether I’m poor or rich. It has to do with the way
you made me feel. You made me feel like I was nothing to you. Like all you cared about was your secret. And it hurt me that
you couldn’t trust me, that you thought—”

“I’m sorry,” Wes said. “I was really messed up. Jackson had told me that if anyone found out—”

“I know,” said Amelia. “But here’s where you promise me you’ll never, ever do that to someone again. Okay? We’re friends.
I’ll keep your secrets. You don’t have to bribe me.”

“Okay,” Wes agreed.

Amelia fished the thousand dollars out of her back pocket. “I was pissed off, so I spent a hundred of it on my friend Lydia.
But I want to give you back the rest.”

“Keep it,” Wes said. “I owe you.”

“That’s the point: you don’t owe me. Friends keep secrets. I’m not going to tell anyone. I don’t want this money.”

“Well, I don’t want it back,” Wes said, but Amelia took his hand and pressed the stack of bills into it.

“I don’t want your blood money—”

“Hey!” Victor’s voice rang out in the darkness. Amelia turned toward the fire, and he was standing there, his arms crossed.
“What is that?”

Amelia could see that Victor was angry, even though he was in shadow. Wes answered before she could. “It’s no big deal.”

“Yeah?” Victor was closer now, towering over them. “Why don’t we let Amelia answer?”

“Victor, it’s no big deal.” She held up the money and waved it. “Wes lent me some money. I’m paying him back.”

“Looks like a lot of money to lend someone.”

“Don’t worry about it, man.”

“It’s really no big deal,” Amelia said.

“You’re that Wes guy, right? Amelia told me about you.”

Amelia saw a flicker of fear pass across Wes’s face. “What’d she say?”

“That you got her into something bad.”

“It’s no big deal,” Amelia said again, but she wasn’t being heard.

“You know what I think?” Victor went on. “I think some rich kid from the city shouldn’t come out here and sell drugs.”

“Drugs?” Amelia couldn’t help the shocked laugh that accompanied the word. “That’s insane. There are no drugs.”

“I told you, man, this is none of your business.” Wes was standing now, and Amelia found herself rising to make herself a
barrier between the two young men.

“This is my business. This is my home. This is my reservation. You can’t just come in here—”

“This is just a big misunderstanding. Wes just lent me some money, Victor.”

“And that’s why you called it blood money? Maybe it isn’t drugs, but this kid did something to you, and I don’t trust him.”

Amelia wedged herself between the boys and tried to push Victor off. She realized she was much drunker than she thought she
was. She could barely budge him. “Look,” she said, “Wes is my friend, okay?”

Victor sized Wes up and snorted. “Yeah. He seems like a great guy.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” Wes said, and Amelia had to move against him as he lunged.

“It’s okay,” she said, “just let it go.”

“You don’t know anything about me, man.” Wes ducked around Amelia and swung at Victor.

“This is insane,” Amelia said. “We’re all drunk. Let’s forget this.” But the boys were not going to forget it. Amelia looked
toward the fire. A few people had noticed that a fight was brewing. She hoped they were coming to help stop things.

It didn’t matter how many people came to try to pull the boys from each other. The boys were both angry, both afraid, both
sure of what they knew. Both ready to fight.

Victor knew what he had carried with him from Chicago: people sold drugs. People lied. Amelia was innocent to the ways of
people like that. He liked her that way, wide-eyed, optimistic. He wanted her to stay sheltered. Who was this Wes fellow,
anyway? Lydia had told him that Wes was Amelia’s boyfriend, and then Amelia had said he wasn’t. But here he was, arrogantly
cornering Amelia when Victor was trying to tell her something important, something personal, something about the way he felt.
And Victor was tired, from the play, from caring for his great-grandmother. He was scared because in the last six months,
he had discovered a terrible secret about himself. He loved acting. He knew he was good at it. But maybe he wasn’t good enough.
There were people like Wes in the world, and they were white, and rich, and arrogant, and they were the people who got to
do what they loved. They were the people Amelia was going to want. Not someone like Victor, a poor brown kid who lived in
a trailer and wanted to be… what? An
actor?

Victor swung back.

Wes knew what he had carried with him from Portland: he was really, truly gay, and no matter how he tried to cast it, that
meant Sadie would never look up to him anymore, that meant his father would be ashamed, that meant his mother would lock herself
in her bathroom and cry. It didn’t even matter that Wes had fallen in love, because Jackson Rice was a bastard who’d been
fucking three boys in total, telling each one he was the special one. Yes, Wes was going to therapy, and yes, most days, with
enough effort, he didn’t hate all of himself, but here was a boy accusing him of being a bad person, here was a boy saying
he had heard something from Amelia about who Wes really was. Suddenly, Wes was forced to wonder if Amelia had kept his secret
as she’d promised, or whether everyone here knew about him and the sweetness he felt when he kissed a man, and then he became
all tangled in fear and anger and rage. He wanted to be beaten. It seemed just.

Wes punched Victor across the jaw.

The fight was so visceral, so raw, that not many noticed Amelia going off into the night. Lydia certainly didn’t. But when
a few boys had finally pulled Victor and Wes from each other, Victor asked where Amelia was, and a girl standing beside him
said she’d noticed Amelia heading off in the direction of the abandoned barn. Victor called her name and took off into the
night.

Amelia was nearly to the barn when Victor caught up with her. She was crying. Scalding tears sheeted down her face. She was
humiliated and angry, and she yelled at him when he caught her by the elbow. “How could you hurt someone like that?” she asked.
He apologized. He told her he couldn’t stand by and let someone hit him. “He’s my
friend,”
Amelia cried. “You don’t know anything about him.” She told him to leave her alone. She stomped into the barn, and he followed.

Back by the bonfire, Wes was angry and breathless. Sadie and Lydia tended to him, but he told them he wanted Amelia. They
couldn’t find her. Someone mentioned that Amelia and Victor had
headed out toward the barn, and Wes grabbed a burning stick from the fire and said he was going to find her himself. Sadie
begged. “This is stupid. You’re just going to fight again.”

“I want to make sure she’s okay,” Wes slurred, and a gaggle of children followed him as he made his way into the night, a
torch in his hand. That was when Lydia decided to get help.

H
ELEN

Stolen, Oregon
Tuesday, May 6, 1997

Helen made her exhausted way back to her house. The play was over and she was proud. No big flub-ups; just three late entrances.
Only a few lines dropped, and the audience hadn’t batted an eye. She’d watched from the back of the gym and known immediately
that this was the best kind of crowd, one that laughs at the comedy, gasps at the denouement, and holds its breath for the
lovers. All around her, in the darkness, there were people who had never seen or heard this story before, and as she walked
home in the quiet night, she smiled at how rapt they’d been. It would be the first thing she’d describe to Michael when she
landed in Burlington.