That Night (12 page)

Margaret waited for a bit. Then, her voice soft, she said, “Do you think you’ll see each other when you get out?”

“I’d lose my parole.”

“That’s not what I asked.” She gave a cheeky smile.

I thought about what she’d said. “Sometimes I wonder if he might try to find me, but it’s been so long … I don’t know if he feels the same way.”

“Do you know if he’s getting out at the same time?”

I shook my head. “No idea. We stopped writing years ago.”

“I could put out some feelers for you.”

For a moment I was tempted. But then I said, “I’m too scared to find out he’s changed, that he’s not the same guy anymore.” I knew how much prison had changed me, and the men’s side of Rockland was even worse. They’d been on lockdown many times over the years after a riot or a fight between inmates and guards, or because someone got caught sneaking in drugs, cell phones, or some other contraband. After prisons became nonsmoking in 2006, cigarettes had also become a hot commodity. If Ryan had survived prison, it was likely he’d turned into someone I wouldn’t want to know.

I said, “We can never be together again, I know that, but I still have my memories—they’re the only good thing I have left from that time. If I find out something awful about him, then it’s like all the good will get erased.”

Margaret sighed. “I understand. Some things are just better left alone.” Then she told me about her husband, who was not a nice guy at all. She said, “I would have loved to have what you kids had, even if it was lost. You shared something special, something most people never find.”

*   *   *

As the years passed and I got closer to my parole date, I worried about leaving Margaret in there, about who might take care of her. When I said as much, she brushed me off. “Don’t you worry about me, girl. Just get your shit together and leave this place for the rest of us.” On days when her arthritis was really bad, she told me that when she meditated she’d dream about being free, running on the beach, watching the birds, and never feeling pain again. She was tired of always aching. She said it was punishment for “loving the wrong men my whole damn life.” She liked listening to me talk about Campbell River, the beaches and the ocean—she was from back east and had only been to the beach once in her life.

Sometimes she’d be melancholy, sipping her tea, her eyes blank, saying, “I’m going to die in this damn place. I know it.” I’d get upset with her. And then she’d say, “Toni, honey, you got it all wrong. Death isn’t the hard part, living is.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

W
OODBRIDGE
H
IGH
, C
AMPBELL
R
IVER

F
EBRUARY
1996

I was sure that Ryan and I had covered all our tracks after breaking into the Andersons’ house, but a few days later I walked in after school to find both my parents sitting at the table. Their faces were serious, coffee cups on the table—half drunk, no steam, like they’d been waiting and talking for a while. Nicole was also sitting at the table, nervously scratching at her arm.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“We’d like to have a word with you,” my dad said.

I sat down and glanced at Nicole, but she looked away. Not a good sign.

“Did you sneak into the Andersons’ house?” Dad said.

“No.” Crap. How much did they know? Had we left something behind?

“Don’t lie,” my mom said.

“I’m
not.
I wasn’t there.”

“Well, someone was,” Dad said. “The Andersons’ alarm shows each time it’s been disabled and which code was used. Someone used the one they’d created for me to enter their house late Friday night. Do you know anything about this?”

I shrugged, but my heart was racing. “Nicole was going over there to water plants, wasn’t she using the code?”

“This was later—hours after she’d been there.”

Mom chimed in, “Nicole said you were out with Ryan Friday night.”

I glared at Nicole.
What else did you tell them?

“Yeah, so what?”

“And you came home past four in the morning.”

So Nicole
had
ratted me out. Two can play that game.

“Nicole was out late too. She had just gotten home when I did.”

Mom looked shocked, and Nicole’s face turned red.

Nicole stammered, “That’s not true—I was just going to the bathroom.”

Mom turned back to me. “It’s bad enough that you’re lying to us, Toni, but trying to point the finger at your sister is just low.”

“I’m not pointing the finger at anyone. I’m saying I wasn’t the only one out.”

“This isn’t about your sister.” Mom looked flustered, like she was trying to regroup. “It’s about you sneaking into our neighbors’ house.”

My dad said, “They trusted us, Toni.”

Now I felt really bad. I hadn’t wanted to get my dad in trouble. “Maybe their alarm is screwed up and it recorded the time wrong or something.”

“Some of their alcohol was also missing.” Dad’s voice turned soft, doing the calm-and-reasonable thing. “We just want to know the truth.”

I glanced over at Mom and knew there’d be hell to pay if she knew the truth. I kept with my story. “I
am
telling the truth.”

Dad looked disappointed, my mom furious.

She said, “You’re grounded.”

“What? You can’t do that!”

“For a month—that includes phone privileges. And you can’t use the car or see Ryan after school. We want you home every night.”

“You can’t
ground
me—I’m eighteen.” I was furious—I’d been a week away from getting the car on the road. “I’m supposed to start work at the Fish Shack the middle of March.”

“You should have thought of that before.” Then she took a breath, like she was bracing for something, and said, “If you don’t abide by our rules, you’ll have to find another place to live.”

Blood rushed to my face. “You’re kicking me out?” I knew it had to be some tough-love bullshit she’d read in one of the stupid books—I’d seen them in her office:
How to Talk to Your Teenage Daughter
and other crap like that. But it still shocked the hell out of me. I didn’t think they’d ever go that far.

“We aren’t kicking you out,” Dad quickly said. “But your behavior is getting out of control. We don’t know what else to do, Toni. Your mom’s right. If you’re not going to respect our rules, then you can’t stay here.”

He looked upset saying those last words, and I had a feeling it was more my mom’s idea than his. I glanced back at her and she looked upset too, but more nervous or scared, her mouth tight and her eyes red-rimmed. She was probably freaked out that I might actually leave, and then she’d have no control over me.

I felt panicky, trying to figure out what I was going to do next. Where would I go? Ryan’s place was no good. His mom was cool, but I was pretty sure she’d draw the line at my living there. Amy and the rest of my friends still weren’t speaking to me. Maybe I could negotiate my way out of this.

“What if I did more chores around here and stayed home during the week?” Then I could still keep my job.

Dad looked at my mom.

“One month,” she said, her voice firm. “It will give you time to realize that when you’re with Ryan, you don’t use your head. You have to learn there are consequences to your actions.”

What she meant was that she hoped it would make us break up.

“Now you’re calling me stupid?” I said. “You didn’t want me to work at the Fish Shack anyway. You’re just trying to screw things up for me!”

“No one’s calling you stupid,” Dad said, “and no one is trying to screw anything up, but when you’re with Ryan, you don’t think things through.”

That stung. “I think about things just fine.”

“We just don’t want to see you do something you might really regret. It will be good for you to have some time apart.”

Near tears, I glanced across the table at Nicole, who was staring down at the floor.

“How come you’re not asking Nicole why she’s lying about where she was Friday night? Or about
her
boyfriend?”

Both my parents looked at Nicole.

Her face was flushed as she said, “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Right.” I almost mentioned the party that Nicole had been at, but when I saw the look of fear on her face I dropped it. If my parents wanted to be blind, so be it, but I didn’t need Nicole to retaliate and throw more fuel on the fire. I was already in enough trouble.

“We’ll talk to Nicole in a minute,” my dad said.

“Are we done?” I said.

“No. You’ll also mow the Andersons’ lawn every week for the next month.”

“Are you
kidding
me? No way.”

“You’ll do it,” my mom said, “or they’re considering pressing criminal charges against you and Ryan.”

That I hadn’t expected. Ryan had already been in trouble for stealing gas last summer. McKinney wouldn’t let him off so easy this time. I felt a jolt of fear. “That isn’t fair.”

“They’re being more than fair,” Mom said.

My dad said, “You can go to your room now.”

I was still walking up the stairs when I heard them questioning Nicole.

“What’s Toni talking about?” my mom asked. “Are you dating someone?”

“Mo-om. I’d tell you if I had a boyfriend.” Nicole’s voice was sweet.

“What did she mean about you getting home late?” my dad said.

“I don’t know. Maybe she’s confused. She saw me coming out of the bathroom, but I was here all night.” Nicole even managed to sound like it really was a mystery. But I wasn’t confused. I knew exactly what I’d seen.

I went to my bedroom and turned on my music, pulling my pillow over my head. How was I going to survive a whole month only being able to see Ryan at school?

*   *   *

Later, when my dad was making dinner and Mom was working in her office, I went into Nicole’s bedroom. She was at her desk writing a note, which she quickly covered when I walked in.

“Thanks a lot,” I said.

Her face was flushed and she looked guilty. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to lie.”

I dropped down on her bed. “You mean you didn’t want to lie about
me
, but you lied about your own shit.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know you’ve been talking to some boy, and you were probably out with him Friday night. You can fool Mom but not me. Why are you hiding this guy?”

She stared at the note, like she was thinking, and for a minute I thought she might tell me the truth. But then she said, “It’s none of your business, Toni.”

“It’s my business when you get me grounded. That was a shitty move.”

“You got yourself grounded by going into the Andersons’. That was a
stupid
move.”

I wondered if that’s what this came down to. She was just smarter about her secrets. I also wondered if she could be in over her head this time, with this guy. But then I thought of other times, when we were kids, playing with Mom’s things when we weren’t supposed to, how Nicole always remembered to put Mom’s things back perfectly while I invariably messed up and left something out. Nicole was too smart to screw up really bad or fall for some idiot. She’d be fine.

“Well, I’ve got an idea that might work for both of us,” I said.

She snorted. “Your ideas just get you in trouble.”

“Do you want to see your boyfriend or not?”

Her gaze flicked to the door, then back at me. “I don’t have one.”

Sure she didn’t.

“Okay, say you want to go out and see this boyfriend that you don’t have, and I want to see my boyfriend. We can cover for each other.”

“How so?”

“My window makes too much noise—let me go through yours.”

“That sounds like you need my help, not the other way around.”

“All I have to do is check on you one night and see that you’re not here. Or follow you the nights you’re supposed to be at Darlene’s…”

She was glaring at me, but she knew I was right.

“Fine, but I’m not doing any other favors for you. And if you say anything to Mom,
ever
, I’ll make sure she knows every single thing you’re up to.”

“Same here, darling sister.”

*   *   *

And that’s how I managed to see Ryan for the next month. We also skipped out of class so we could spend an hour with each other, and after school we lingered until the very last moment before I had to take the bus home. I missed driving home with Ryan, his hand on my leg, roaring down the road and watching him shift the gears, getting a thrill from how easily he handled the big truck. I especially hated standing in the bus line when Shauna drove by in her car, smirking. At least one night a week, usually on weekends, I’d sneak into Nicole’s room and out her window, coming back a few hours later. She’d roll over and look at me, then go back to sleep, and once she whispered, “Be really quiet. I heard someone use the bathroom downstairs a few minutes ago.”

Nicole was sneaking out herself, though not as much as me, and I still didn’t know who she was seeing. But I could hear her footsteps sometimes on the roof outside my room. Once, when I crawled back through her window, she wasn’t home yet, and I didn’t hear her steps on the roof until an hour later. One day at school, I ran into her in the bathroom. She was putting on mascara in the mirror, and her eyes were red-rimmed, her face splotchy, like she’d been crying.

I waited until some other girls left the bathroom, then said, “What’s wrong?”

“None of your business.” She threw her mascara in her purse and pushed past me.

After that, I didn’t ask again.

*   *   *

Mike at the Fish Shack had said that he’d hold the job for me until the end of March, and I was excited to start work the next weekend. I’d have to work hard that summer to make up the money I’d lost. Ryan was also trying to get some extra work lined up on the weekends, cutting firewood, cleaning people’s yards, painting fences, stuff like that. I only had to deal with crap for another three months, then I’d graduate, and hopefully by the end of the summer Ryan and I could get our own place. Mom had been a little easier on me since I was home more, even took me with her a few times to get some supplies for Dad. It had been fun, but I had a feeling she’d be on my ass again as soon as I started work.