Since She Went Away (32 page)

Jenna threw the remote as hard as she could. It missed the TV—fortunately—but shattered against the wall.

“Mom?”

“Turn it off,” she said, her voice barely under control. “Just turn it off so I don’t have to see that witch’s face ever again.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

J
ared’s fingers scrambled around the edges of the TV until he found the power switch. He pressed it, and Reena’s face disappeared. He looked down at the floor. The remote was in a few pieces, the batteries scattered.

He couldn’t remember ever seeing his mom throw anything in anger.

He turned to face her.

“Did you tell anybody else?” she asked, her voice level and strong. Every word fell like a brick.

“I told you. I mentioned it in the park to those guys and—”

“Ursula,” she said, finishing the thought. “What about Mike?”

“He wouldn’t say anything. Never.”

His mom pulled her phone out.

“Mom? What are you doing? I mean, this is all over the TV. She just called me a criminal. You too, I guess. Are we going to get in trouble for this?”

She looked up from the phone. “No. Not at all. You have nothing to worry about. I promise.”

Her firmness made him feel better. A little.

He guessed there were worse things than being outed for holding alcohol. Maybe it would make other kids at school think he was a wild partier, even if it wasn’t true.

“Who are you calling?” he asked.

But she didn’t answer. He saw the veins standing out in her neck, the whiteness of the knuckles that held the phone.

Ursula.

His mom’s voice went up a little bit on the phone. He heard her say, “Ian.”

He’d expected that. First Ursula pushed Jared to go on TV. Jared could remember, like probing a healing bruise with his index finger, the touch of Ursula’s hand against his knee.

And then she went to the media—to Reena—with the story about his mom’s lie. The lie that covered up for Jared.

Why?

Jared wandered back to his room, giving his mom privacy. It was Friday night, and he had no plans. That wasn’t unusual, since he didn’t always have plans. And even when he did, they consisted of going to Syd’s or Mike’s, or having one or both of them come over to his house.

He wished Natalie could be there. He wished they could go out and do something.

His mom came by his room. Her cheeks were red, and she carried her phone in her hand. “Are you okay if I step out for a minute?”

“Sure.”

“Really, Jared. You’ll be here alone. Maybe I shouldn’t go.”

“What’s going to happen to me?” he asked. “Will I get a ticket for underage drinking?”

She smirked and raised her eyebrows, as if to say,
We all know what can happen to people. We know it all too well.

“Are you worried about this Domino guy too?” Jared asked.

“That’s part of it.”

“I’ll lock the door,” he said. “I promise.”

“Do you want me to call Grandma? She can come over and sit with you. Or Sally?”

“Grandma? She’s going to call and chew you out now that she knows I had booze in the house. And I’m not a child. Remember?”

“I’m going to call Detective Poole. She’ll send a patrol car by just to be safe. Okay?”

Jared sighed. “Okay. Hey, Mom? Are you okay?”

His mom let out a sound of throaty frustration. “I’m fine. Thanks for asking. I’m just pissed. Very, very pissed.”

“We’re going to need a new remote.”

She laughed a little. “I guess I’m not always a good example, am I?”

“I kind of thought it was cool. Just like when you cursed on TV that day.”

“I’m teaching you a lot of good lessons.” She started to go, then stopped. “Hey, aren’t you wondering where I’m going?”

“I know where you’re going.”

“Where?”

“You’re going to ask Ian what the hell’s wrong with his daughter.”

She nodded. “Doors locked. You hear?”

“I hear.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

•   •   •

Once she was gone, Jared pulled out his phone. He sent a text to Mike, asking what he was doing.

Nada,
he replied.

Are the country clubbers partying tonight?

Probably.

Can u find out where?

Will check my sources.

Jared changed his clothes and pulled on sneakers. He checked his hair in the mirror once, tousled it around with his hands, and decided he looked relatively cool. Certainly not rich, but also not someone who would hang out on the bottom rung of the social ladder. He was somewhere in the middle, which wasn’t a bad place to be most of the time. It might not be enough to get into a rich kids’ party, but he intended to try.

His phone chimed.

You know that asshole Kirk Embry? His house.

We have 2 go.

Can’t. Grounded. Mom caught me w cigs. Take big Syd.

Need you. Get out.

There was a long pause. Jared thought Mike had ended the conversation. Or had his phone snatched away by his mother.

But then one more text came through.

K. Meet u behind school in 15.

He knew the cops might be out there, checking on the house. But they couldn’t watch every door all the time. Not because of a phone call that might be a prank.

Jared grabbed his coat and slipped out the back.

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

I
t felt surreal for Jenna to be back in that house again.

Ian opened the door for her, and as she stepped into the foyer, the light above providing a soft glow, every surface below dusted and polished to perfection, she tried to remember that last time she’d been there. Two days after Celia disappeared. A flurry of activity that day. Cops and volunteers and media. People in the kitchen making signs and brewing coffee, hangers-on milling and gawking at the edge of the property line.

Ian closed the door, but before he did, he stuck his head out, looking first one way and then the other. She didn’t know if he was checking for nosy neighbors or media, and she didn’t ask.

He led her out to the kitchen. Jenna expected Celia to appear at any time. Up until a few years ago, it was always that way. Jenna would arrive at the house—late as usual—and she’d walk out to the kitchen, where she’d find Celia languidly enjoying a glass of wine or a gin and tonic. Maybe she’d be sitting with a much younger Ursula working on homework, or maybe she’d have a magazine or her cell phone in front of her, and when Jenna would walk in she’d look up, her face breaking into a smile.

“At long last,” she always said.

Jenna shivered at the memory, felt the icy hand of regret and grief grabbing her around the back of the neck.

Ian walked over to the refrigerator. “Wine?” he asked. “Or a beer?”

“Nothing. Is Ursula home?”

“She’s out. I told you. It’s Friday night. What teenager wants to be home? We never were.”

He was right. They played and partied hard, and they didn’t have computers and video games and streaming movies to keep them occupied. If they wanted something they had to go out and get it. Good or ill.

“Are you sure you don’t want anything?” Ian asked. He pulled out two beer bottles. “I get the feeling this is going to be an unfriendly conversation. Maybe beer would help?”

Jenna nodded. She still felt cold and so kept her coat on. She slipped into a seat at the kitchen table, remembering the hundreds of nights she and Celia had sat there, talking and eating and drinking and talking some more. She never thought about any one of them being the last, even as their lives slowly changed the more Celia became involved with her country club life. She knew someday one of them would die, knew there’d be an end of some kind, but pushed it away, further and further out into the future. She wished they’d been closer in those final few years, wished she’d taken an emotional snapshot of every moment.

Ian placed the beers on the table, the caps off. He slid one over to Jenna, the bottom of the bottle leaving a condensation trail on the tabletop.

“So? You said something about the TV tonight and Ursula. You know, I told you not to trust Reena. She’s a snake.”

“Yeah. But that’s not really my problem right now. Why did Ursula go to her and tell her—” She stopped. “Shit, you don’t even know. Nobody knows.”

“Know what?”

She told him why she’d been late the night Celia disappeared. The discussion with Jared that kept her from getting out the door on time. Ian listened, his lips slightly parted.

“So you lied to the cops back then?” he asked.

“I didn’t tell them the whole truth. I think there’s a difference.”

He leaned back, sighing a little. “I understand if you didn’t want to involve Jared in all this,” he said. “I told you that before. I’d defend anyone who wanted to do that.”

“Listen to me. Nobody knew Jared made me late. Just Jared and me. And he told Ursula and a couple of her friends the other night. Now Reena Huffman knows about it, and she broadcast that news on TV tonight. The whole friggin’ world knows now. So either Ursula or one of her friends told Reena.”

He was slowly shaking his head, the corners of his mouth turned down. “I don’t think Ursula would do that.”

“She went to Jared and encouraged him to go on TV tonight. She practically begged him to do it when I wouldn’t let him. What’s her interest in all this?”

Ian pushed away from the table and stood up. He carried the beer with him as he walked to the sink, his back to Jenna. He stopped, staring at something on the wall Jenna couldn’t see, and then he turned around.

“I know how Ursula is,” he said. “I know what she can be like.”

“She’s been through a lot, Ian. I can tell.”

He held up his hand. “Maybe if I’d been around more, I could have taken some of her edge off. Maybe a father’s influence . . . I don’t know.” He swallowed more beer. “But you’re accusing her of something. And I don’t like the way it sounds.”

“Why did she want Jared to go on TV so much?” Jenna asked. “Why did she try to lead us into an ambush?”

“She didn’t do that, Jenna. She wants her mother to be found. She wants this murderer to be arrested.”

“And how does humiliating us on national TV accomplish that?”

“You said yourself it could have been those other kids who said something.”

“Do any of them do anything without Ursula saying it’s okay? We know who the queen bee is, don’t we? And, let’s be honest, we knew who the queen bee was when we were in school. We know who always got what she wanted.”

“I guess I should have expected that comparison.”

Jenna knew she’d pushed. Too hard, maybe. Her emotions had turned on a dime, from the wistful loss she’d experienced when she walked into the house to the vein of anger she carried with her best friend’s name on it. Talking to Ian dug it out of her, brought it up into the light.

Ian didn’t say anything right away. He drained his beer and contemplated the empty for a moment. Then he turned on the tap and rinsed the bottle out, his movements methodical and precise.

While he worked at the sink, Jenna watched, her stomach churning. She’d jumped the track, taken them down a path she hadn’t intended to travel. But Jenna always believed, always had and always would, that it was better for things to be out in the open than bottled up inside.

He dried his hands on a towel and turned to face her. His expression was calm except for his eyes, which seemed alive with a new energy.

“You think you understand everything, don’t you?” he asked.

And Jenna knew the question didn’t require an answer. Ian was going to keep on talking.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

J
ared and Mike tried to blend in. They passed through the crowds of kids, music thumping in the background. Kirk Embry lived in one of the big old homes around downtown. His father ran a consulting business, and his mother was a lawyer who appeared every day in TV commercials advertising her firm. They were out of town, attending a family wedding, and Kirk stayed behind. He was a junior who came to school every day in a sleek black BMW.

A few people gave them funny looks as they navigated the rooms. Jared tried not to imagine questioning stares and sneers where there weren’t any, but he knew they didn’t belong with this group. He and his friends were a little too young, a little too unpolished, even Mike. Jared simply wanted to find Ursula and then get out.

“I have to tell you something,” Jared said.

“What?”

“The booze came up on national TV tonight.”

“Are you kidding me?”

Jared explained about Reena’s revelation. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Your name wasn’t mentioned.”

“Shit,” Mike said. “What if my parents see that? They’ll get pissed all over again. They always blame me, even when I didn’t do anything.”

“I’m the one in hot water now,” Jared said.

“Why can’t everybody keep their fucking mouths shut?” Mike said, and he stormed off.

Jared thought about following him, but he let his friend go. He slipped through the kitchen, where a keg of beer in a large plastic tub drew a crowd of his classmates like flies to sugar. They held plastic cups before them, supplicants to the senior who held the nozzle. The guy filled the cups of the pretty girls first, and when the pretty girls were gone, he turned to everyone else.

Jared went out the back door onto the patio. The crowd was smaller there. The night air was cool, and the people on the patio smoked and drank, filling the air with the fumes of alcohol and cigarettes. A little farther in the darkness, near the covered swimming pool, two kids were making out, their heads rolling from side to side in search of the best kissing angle possible. Jared thought of Natalie when he saw them. He couldn’t help it. And it wasn’t just the kissing and the fooling around he missed, although he very much missed that. Even in a few weeks’ time, he knew he could count on Natalie, knew she’d take his side no matter what was wrong. Seeing the couple together, two people so wrapped up in each other, made him feel lonely, as if he were the last man on earth even in the midst of the crowded party.