Shine (22 page)

We talked more about Patrick, and he told me he was here on campus the night Patrick was attacked. He and his college buddies were at a party at someone’s apartment. He showed me pictures on his cell phone, and I told him he looked like a frat boy. He snorted.

I told him about Wally the meth cooker, and he said meth had spread like poison ivy through his hometown, too. His sister-in-law lost her kids to it. A cousin had nubs for hands because of a meth-cooking explosion. Even so, she was still a user. She gripped a tiny silver spoon between her pawlike hands while her boyfriend held the lighter beneath.

“Have you done it?” I asked, thinking
please say no, please say no
.

“No, and I never will,” he said. For a moment, his vehemence transformed him into the angry Jason from the library. “That’s why I’m here. I had to get out of that fucking hellhole. Once I get my degree, I’m going even further. Maybe Nashville, maybe Atlanta.” His throat worked. “I’m never going back.”

I was awed by his conviction, and I felt a pang that unlike Jason, I’d be stuck in Black Creek forever.

Only . . . did it have to be like that? What if I came here after I graduated? My grades were good. Maybe I could get financial aid?

I ducked my head and drew into myself like a stupid snail. Maybe the president himself would fly to Black Creek to offer me a full scholarship, and while he was at it, maybe he’d buy some of my homemade corn relish. Then he’d ask Aunt Tildy for the privilege of killing a chicken so she could fry it up and serve it with dumplings, and as she was making dinner, he’d pop out to the garage and offer Daddy a job so he didn’t have to be a drunk anymore.

But forget all that. I was glad—very glad—about Jason not being a tweaker.

I shared bits and pieces of my life, too, especially the parts relating to Patrick. I told him about Beef, explaining that he was Patrick’s best guy friend, and Jason said yeah, that Patrick had mentioned him. I swallowed and told Jason how I’d found out about Beef’s involvement with meth, and I gave him the details about Beef and Bailee-Ann’s problems in the romance department. I also told him about Gwennie, who appeared to have a thing for Patrick despite the fact that Patrick was gay.

I described the other members of the redneck posse: Dupree, a meth runner who possibly did some on-the-side dealing as well; my brother, the coward; Tommy. I told Jason almost everything, and he listened.

Scooching back on his bed and leaning against the cinder
block wall, I even told him about Robert, whose neediness worried me and irritated me in almost equal measure.

“He keeps saying he’s got a secret to tell me, but he won’t say what it is,” I said. “Oh, and he’s here, by the way. He ambushed me on the bus and followed me.”

“He’s here?” Jason said. “Where?”

“Lurking outside the dorm, I reckon.”

Jason went to his window, hiked it up, and leaned out. “Skinny kid in baggy shorts? Pacing around and talking to himself?”

“That would be him,” I confirmed dryly.

“You should buy him an ice-cream cone,” Jason said. “He looks hungry.”

I told him I didn’t have money for anything other than bus fare, and he fished out three dollars from his wallet.

I held my hands up and said, “Uh,
no
. I’m not here for handouts.”

“For God’s sake, Cat,” he said. “You said he has a secret, so take him out for ice cream. I bet he’ll open up.”

Still, I hedged.

He said, “I’m Patrick’s friend, too. Let me help.”

He helped more than that. He threw out a theory about Dupree and Tommy, based on the information I’d given him. Destiny had said that Dupree would freak out if his mama found out about his drug life, and Dupree said Patrick wasn’t a saint, but a tattletale. What if Patrick was blackmailing him?

“Blackmailing!” I said. “If you think Patrick’s the sort of
guy who blackmails people, you don’t know him as well as you think you do.”

“Think about it this way,” Jason said. “We know Patrick was upset that Beef was involved with meth. What if Beef hasn’t gotten out of the business? Maybe Patrick was trying to enlist Tommy and Dupree’s help, you know?”

“No,” I said. If Jason knew Tommy and Dupree, he’d understand that
enlisting their help
was a scenario that would never play out.

“Try it this way,” Jason said. “Maybe Patrick
suggested
to Tommy and Dupree that it would be a good idea for all of them to quit working for Wally. Patrick would have brought up Dupree’s mama, which would have made Dupree wet his pants. And from what you’ve told me about Tommy, I’m guessing he would have been shitting at the thought of his family finding out their golden boy was committing a felony. Am I right?”

If Tommy’s father found out that Tommy was tarnishing the family name, he’d kill Tommy. So yeah, I’d say Tommy would do almost anything to keep his reputation clean.

As for Patrick being a blackmailer . . . It sounded low described like that, but in theory, having a long talk with Tommy and Dupree would be the right thing to do. Patrick might well have convinced himself that he’d be sinning if he
didn’t
help his friends get out of a sinful situation.

After going over everything we knew, the one missing piece of the puzzle was Patrick’s boyfriend. Who
was
he? Was he a good guy? A jerk? Was he involved in Patrick’s attack? Did
he know anything about Patrick’s attack? So many questions would be answered if only we could talk to him.

“But you’re positive he has one,” I said.

“According to Patrick, yeah. He talked about him a lot, but he never used his name.”

“That’s weird,” I mused. “And why hasn’t he visited Patrick at the hospital? The boyfriend?”

“How do we know he hasn’t?” Jason countered. “Plus he’d be turned away the same as us.”

“What if it was Patrick’s boyfriend who tried to break into his hospital room? Not for a bad reason. What if he just, you know, wanted to see Patrick’s face for a minute?”

Jason shrugged. With no name, we had nothing to go on.

“You see what you can find out from Robert,” he finally said. “I’ll . . . I don’t know what I’ll do.” His jaw tensed. “What should I do? What
can
I do?
God
, I hate this. I hate being so fucking helpless.”

But you are helping
, I thought.

“You really don’t have a cell phone?” he said.

“I really don’t have a cell phone,” I replied.

“You can call me from your landline, then. Or a pay phone.” He snagged a Sharpie from his desk and grabbed my arm, turning it so that the top of my forearm faced up. My heart beat faster.

“Call me any time,” he said as he wrote his number. “All right?”

I nodded. He’d given me his number already, the day at the
hospital, but I didn’t remind him. His fingers easily circled my wrist, and I liked that he was bigger than me. I liked the fine hairs between his knuckles.

He lifted his head, and we gazed at each other. It was a gaze that lasted for a long while, but I felt safe within it and didn’t look away. It was strange, but wonderful.

“Um, hey,” he said seriously. “There’s something I want to tell you.”

My stomach tightened. “Okay. What?”

“Nothing. Never mind.”

“No way,” I said, knowing that if he left me hanging, I’d worry about it forever. “Whatever it is, just tell me.”

He half-smiled. Then he gave a quick and decisive nod, as if committing to do something scary, like jumping off a rock into water far below.

“You have pretty eyes,” he said.

They widened, my pretty eyes, and I knew I was blushing. “Oh,” I said, flustered. “Um, you too. And thanks. And . . . yeah.”

I wasn’t any closer to finding out who hurt Patrick, but I felt like I was. I wasn’t just
me
anymore. I was half of a
we
. . . I was no longer alone.

HERE’S TO JASON AND HIS BRIBE MONEY, BECAUSE a double scoop of mint chocolate chip—combined with my complete attention—was just the encouragement Robert needed to tell me everything I wanted to know. It made me ache for him, something I didn’t see coming. It was unfair how the kids who were starving for attention tended to be so annoying that people had no inclination to give it to them.

Like Robert, shifting about once we sat down in our booth and saying, “Dang, woman. I got a wedgie.”

“I am so glad you shared that with me, Robert,” I said, making him giggle.

He was as twitchy as a dog’s hind leg, though. He kept sliding back and forth on his side of the booth, chattering about bugs
and guns and dinosaurs, until out of the blue, he said, “You wanna talk about Patrick, don’t you?” he said. “That’s why you brought me here. Right?”

“Well, yeah.” I shrugged, seeing no reason to lie. “You said you had something to tell me.”

He nodded, pooching out his bottom lip as if he was thinking it over. “All right, then. I heard what Bailee-Ann told you when you were at my house the other night, but Bailee-Ann’s a big fat liar.” He took a big lick of mint chocolate chip, getting ice cream on his face.

“Use a napkin,” I said, jerking one from the container and handing it to him. Instead of taking it, he tilted his face as if I should do the wiping.

“Robert, you can wipe your own mouth,” I said. “You’re a big boy.”

“I sure am,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.

I was taken aback. He was
eleven
, and in all of three seconds he’d gone from acting like a baby to tossing out a suggestive comment, or whatever the heck he was going for.

“Just tell me about Bailee-Ann,” I said. “What’d she lie about?”

“Lots of stuff.”

“Such as . . . ?”

“Well, she lied about that Saturday night, for one. I mean, Beef
did
drop her off. She didn’t lie about that. But guess who was back half an hour later, throwing pebbles at her window?”

“Beef dropped the others off and then came back?”

“No,” Robert said scornfully. “
Tommy
came and got her, and they went off together.”

Tommy and Bailee-Ann? I was confused. “Why would Tommy and Bailee-Ann go off together?”

“Just because,” he said coyly.

“Just because why?” I grabbed a napkin and wiped his dang mouth off. He grinned.

“All right, I’m gonna tell you something I ain’t told nobody else. You listening?”

I nodded.

“I thought maybe it was Beef who done it. Who beat Patrick up.”

I drew back. “Robert. Beef’s Patrick’s
friend
,” I said. I heard in my own ears how doggedly insistent I sounded, and it frightened me.

“Duh,” Robert said. “I know that
now
. But Beef doesn’t like homos, even though he’s got a buddy who’s one, and so that’s why I thought that.” He leaned in. “Beef’s teaching me how to be a man, see. We’ve had all kinds of talks. I don’t know if you know this, but I’m, like, his best friend, practically.”

Robert was not Beef’s best friend. Robert was eleven. But maybe all of his hanging out with older kids had made him think he was older, too. Maybe that explained his waggling eyebrows and stupid innuendos. Maybe being with Beef and Tommy and Bailee-Ann, with their drinking and kissing and all that, had made Robert not just hyper but hyper-sexual, if there was such a thing.

Best friend or puppy dog tagalong, I didn’t want to hurt Robert’s feelings like I did with his nonexistent chest hairs. So I said, “Oh. That’s nice.”

“Yeah, only now he’s dogging me, and it’s pissing me off.” A shadow crossed his face. He did an odd head-thrust to clear it.

“Anyway, he told me about faggots and no tears for queers and all that,” he said. “So when I heard about Patrick sucking on that gas nozzle, what was I s’posed to think?”

What was he supposed to think, indeed?
Faggots? No tears for queers
? I thought Beef’s calling Patrick a fucking pansy had been a onetime slip.

“So what made you decide he didn’t?” I asked. My heart was beating faster than I would have liked.

Robert shrugged. His shoulder blades were as narrow and sharp as pigeon wings. “I just plain out asked him. I said, ‘Hey, homes, you beat up that faggot?’”

“Good glory, Robert. What’d he say?”

“He said, ‘No way, homes. Beating on people ain’t cool,’” Robert recited. “I said, ‘Not even homos?’ And Beef said, ‘Not even homos. Ain’t right to beat on anyone.’”

I loosened with relief. “He’s right,” I said. “It isn’t.”

Robert was in his own head. “I figured he was playing,” he said, “so I was like, ‘Uh-huh, I hear ya. You’re not gonna smack Bailee-Ann if you find her being humped by some other guy?’”

“Robert”
.

“But Beef was serious. He said he’d drop her sorry ass, but he wouldn’t hit her, ’cause it ain’t right to hit a girl.”

“Good for him. And anyway, would you
want
him to hit your sister?”

He dragged his tongue around his ice cream. “So
then
I said, ‘Lemme see if I got this straight. It ain’t right to hit a homo. It ain’t right to hit a girl. Who
am
I allowed to hit?’”

I put my elbow on the table and propped my cheek on my fist. I was glad Beef was teaching him not to hit homos and girls, but Jesus, this conversation was just plain depressing me.