The Beginning of After (8 page)

Chapter Nine

T
he limo driver’s name was Manny, and he did crossword puzzles while waiting for people to be done with their weddings or finally arrive on late flights at the airport. He had a wife and a baby, and his sweet ’78 Mustang was just back from the shop.

We learned these things about him during the ten-minute drive from Meg’s house to the Hilton. It was easier to talk to Manny, through the open smoked-glass window dividing the front seat from the rest of the car, than make conversation with one another. I sat with Meg in the way-back, Joe and Gavin facing us. Gavin had a line of perspiration beading across his upper lip. He’d wipe it away, then two minutes later it was back.

“The Sweat Mustache,” whispered Meg, her breath minty against the side of my face.

Joe playfully kicked my foot, which was dressed in one of Nana’s black satin pumps and looked unattached to my body. I kicked back and smiled. Other than a light arm around my shoulder when we were posing for pictures, it was the first time we’d touched all evening.

At three, Meg and I had had our hair done at the Cosmos Salon. Hers: an updo with lots of curls. Mine: all down and straight. I got it trimmed a bit, to shoulder length, and even a few inches’ weight off my head felt like a huge relief. We had spent the time since then getting dressed in Meg’s room while Nana and Mrs. Dill drank tea downstairs. Meg showed me her new bra and announced her plans to fool around with Gavin at one of the after-prom parties. Later, I threw up in the Dills’ hallway bathroom sink.

We’d done photos on the front steps, then, after the guys arrived, more in the driveway and over near the big pine tree at the edge of the lawn. Nana went inside twice to get Kleenex, and each time she took too long.

I thought of the photo of my mother in her prom dress. It would have been easy to suggest we take one picture inside, of Joe and me in front of the stairs, and even though it wasn’t our house, it would have counted enough to make it into the double frame. But I didn’t want to. Not then, at that moment, when things were moving along so smoothly.

At the Hilton, there was a long line of limos dropping kids off. Quick swishes of colors and fabrics. Gel on the boys’ hair that glistened in the fading sun, and on the girls, corsages of every flower imaginable. If they put all their hands together, they’d make a field of bright, nonmatching blooms.

We watched everyone from the right-side window, quiet. When it was our turn, Manny got out and opened the back door. The guys exited first and moved away, cluelessly leaving Manny to help us step from the car.

“Thank you, sir,” said Meg, winking at him.

I just looked at the ground as he took my hand and pulled me onto the concrete, feeling everyone’s eyes on me. When I raised my head to see where I was going, there was Joe, holding out his hand now like he was offering me a lifeline.

And then there was Andie Stokes and Hannah Lindstrom, with their dates, Ryan and Lucas. I wasn’t sure who was with whom, but I couldn’t imagine it mattered. Andie hugged me, tight, and then dropped back to check out the dress.

“Oh my God,” she said. “You look amazing.”

“Thanks.”

“We have the best table. Come see.” She beckoned, and we all followed her into the ballroom. As we passed under the orange and blue balloon arch, I turned to see where Joe was. But he wasn’t behind me. I scanned the lobby until I spotted him talking with Mr. Churchwell, who shook his hand and clapped him on the back before letting him run to catch up. I turned back quickly so he wouldn’t know that I saw.

Mr. Churchwell. It hadn’t occurred to me before, but maybe he had something to do with all of this. With Joe, and with Andie and Hannah. But things were moving too fast for me to think more about it.

We did have the best table. It was farthest from the stage, centered along one side of the dance floor, next to French doors that opened onto the ballroom’s balcony. Most of Andie’s friends were already seated at the next table over—the second-best table—and we all waited for Andie to choose her seat. She did, and then everyone else fell into place, Meg and I next to each other.

I did a quick sweep of the rest of the room and the large circle of other tables. It was clear how the clique system of our school dropped invisible boundaries into this space. The popular seniors were on our other side, and I wondered how it was that a bunch of juniors got the prime real estate. Fanning out before us were the in-between kids, the ones who were jocks or geeks or a little bit of everything. On the opposite side of the circle, across from where I stood, was one table of Railroad Crowd kids. Not even a full table; just two pairs of couples sharing with members of the only decent rock band at school.

One half of one of those couples was Julia La Paz, David’s girlfriend. Or former girlfriend, judging from how enthusiastically she leaned into her date, another Railroad guy. I tried to picture David there with her, at the prom, but couldn’t. I would have bet money that proms weren’t David’s thing. Maybe Julia had been relieved that they’d broken up and she could go.

Dinner was loud and awkward. Joe and I and Meg and Gavin tried to talk over the din, while Andie and Hannah kept shouting to their friends at the next table. After everyone was done eating, the DJ started up his party music, but nobody made the first move to dance yet. I took the opportunity to go back to the bathroom and stand for three minutes in front of the full-length mirror.

This is me
, I thought, nodding to the girl I saw in my reflection. With mirrors I was always looking for something wrong, something that could be thinner or brighter or higher. But unbelievably, I liked everything I saw in this girl.

This is me at the prom, and I look a little bit pretty.

The girl in the glass nodded too, as if to say,
Your secret’s safe
.

For a second, I imagined my parents standing behind me. Mom on my left, Dad on my right. Nodding and proud. Now stepping into the frame was Toby with his video camera, shooting me a thumbs-up.

I whirled around fast to make them go away.

When I came back from the bathroom, everyone at our table was on the dance floor. I stood by the doorway alone for a moment, watching. It felt odd to be the one staring at everybody, instead of the other way around. Within seconds, Mr. Churchwell was next to me with his hand on my elbow.

“You okay?” he yelled.

“I’m just looking for my date,” I yelled back, and jerked my elbow away from him.

Suddenly, Joe had wriggled out of the dance cluster, taking my hand, his palm warm and too tight, leading me to where Meg and Gavin were.

Then somehow I was moving, and Joe was looking at me like I was interesting, and the blue dress tickled as it swished around my ankles. Andie and Hannah smiled at me when I caught their eye. Some petals broke off from my corsage as I moved, and I watched them drop, then disappear under Meg’s feet.

Chapter Ten

I
n the limo on our way to Adam LaGrange’s after-prom party—new golf team captain, just got contact lenses, trying to build a rep—the configuration had changed. Gavin and Meg sat together on one seat, leaving Joe and me to share the other. My ears were still ringing and my feet were hurting, so I took off my shoes. Now they looked like part of my anatomy again, naked and familiar. I put them up on Meg’s knees, and she started to rub.

“Do I get to be next?” said Gavin, nudging Meg with his elbow.

Meg smiled but didn’t look up. “Sure.”

She was going to do it, I could tell. She was going to fool around with Gavin, and I was pretty sure it was going to happen before we’d even left the party. I looked at Joe, who was trying to get something decent on the radio, the hair at his neckline fringed with dance-floor sweat. I felt an overpowering sense of dread.

When we got to Adam LaGrange’s house, it was already packed. Meg and Gavin went into the yard to look for Adam, while Joe took my hand and led me downstairs to the den, where a folding card table had been converted into a fully stocked bar.

“What’re you having?” he asked in mock James Bond.

I thought of the time Meg and I took samples from her mother’s liquor cabinet, one capful at a time, taking notes on a Hello Kitty pad.

“Vodka tonic?” It was my dad’s drink, every Friday night before dinner.

Joe mixed one for me, then one for himself, totally guessing on how much Smirnoff to put in. It hissed at me as I put it to my lips, bubbles hopping. It tasted sweet and dangerous. I started to go back upstairs, but Joe grabbed my hand again, pulled me toward a couch. There were maybe five other people in the room, and I saw them track us with their peripheral vision.

“So, did you have fun? It seemed like you did.” I was getting used to this directness from Joe.

“Yes, of course. Couldn’t you tell?”

“You’re a great dancer.”

“You too.”

A pause. Drink sips, in unison.

“But you’re feeling good, so far? You’re feeling okay?” Joe said this with what looked like practiced concern on his face. I remembered the way Mr. Churchwell put his hand on Joe’s shoulder, the nodding of their heads.

“You’ve been talking too much to school counselors,” I said, pulling together all my courage to put my hand, lightly, on his knee. “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”

Joe drank again, then put his hand over mine. My heart skipped,
nervous, panic
, but then I glanced back up at the other people in the room, now two or three more. They were a horizon to focus on when I started to feel queasy.

So you might get your first kiss. Chill!

But I had waited so long for the right opportunity. When I’d come close in the past I always blew it. I got nervous and too jokey. The more I anticipated it, the more terrifying it became.

Where was Meg? I needed to grab her and drag her into a bathroom or closet, clutch her arm and say, “Is this it?” Meg had already had her first, second, and third kiss, all with guys who worked at her family’s yacht club.

Now Joe was finishing his vodka tonic and going back to the bar, and I was gulping mine to keep up, something warming in my stomach. Then Meg was fluttering down the stairs, two at a time, holding her shoes in one hand and the edge of her dress in the other. She ran up to me, laughing.

“There you are.” She eyed my drink, then glanced at Joe behind the bar, getting a lesson in vodka-to-tonic ratios from a senior. “I see you’re all taken care of.”

“Want one?”

“No. I just wanted you to know where I’ll be.”

I gave her a dumb look.

“Manny told Gavin that the limo will be parked on the street,” Meg said, “a couple houses up. Adam’s folks set up a little party area for the limo drivers behind the pool house, so he won’t be there.”

“So?” Still dumb.

“So Gavin and I are going to hang out in the limo for a while.”

I let my mouth fall open wide. It was meant to look like mock horror, but it wasn’t all that mock.

She just smiled, kissed me on the cheek, and shot back up the stairs.

Suddenly Joe was at my side. “What was that?”

“They’re going to hang out in the limo for a while.”

Joe grinned, as if remembering something. “Let’s go up to the backyard,” he said. He grabbed my hand again, and I was getting used to that feeling of sudden heat,
zing
, shooting up my arm when he did that.

Upstairs, the party had gotten crowded, and getting to the backyard took several minutes. We wound our way through people, saying hi where appropriate, careful not to spill our drinks. Finally, stepping through the sliding glass doors onto Adam LaGrange’s brick patio, a blast of fresh air. There were Christmas lights strung all around, reflected in the pool water. A cluster of people around the buffet table provided a low murmur against the music coming from inside and the soft shriek of cicadas.

I found myself looking around for Julia La Paz, but didn’t see her, and felt relieved.

Joe’s friend Derek came up to us with two beers, handed one to me, then the other to Joe, and walked away. I just stared at it, amber slightly glowing from the lights.

“Isn’t there a saying about liquor before beer, or something like that?” I asked.

Joe just shrugged. “I’ve never been able to tell the difference.” And then he finished his vodka tonic, placed the beer cup inside the empty one, and took a big long sip. Before he was finished, I did the same thing.

“If I get you drunk, your grandmother will never forgive me,” he said, watching me gulp.

I swallowed and looked down at the beer again, churned up and foamy, an ocean after a quick summer storm. Already, I was feeling muscles relax that had been so tense for so long, I’d forgotten they even existed. My neck felt soft and my toes started to blend into one another so that I couldn’t wiggle just one at a time.

Another beer and a half, and we found two lounge chairs by the pool. They leaned us back too far to watch the rest of the party, so instead we stared at the sky. It was only halfway clear, with the stars muted, trying to make themselves seen through a layer of clouds.

“Wow,” I said. “I can see Orion’s Belt, but not the rest of him.”

“Where?” asked Joe. “Oh, yeah. You’re right. Where’s the rest of him?”

“Maybe he left his belt behind and is off doing something else.”

“Borrowing the Big Dipper to make some soup.”

“Or hitting on Cassiopeia. I heard he does that.”

Joe snorted and some beer came out his nose, which made me laugh too. Before I even realized I was doing it, I reached up and wiped the front of his shirt, now dotted with beer spray.

“I don’t want you to get charged extra by the tux rental place,” I said, avoiding his eyes as I did this.

“You know what I want?” he said. I still didn’t look at him. “Actually, it’s what I wish.” He paused, and it seemed I had no choice anymore but to meet his gaze.

“What do you wish, Joe?”

“I wish Gavin and Meg weren’t in the limo right now.”

For a second, I didn’t get it. Did he want them here with us? But then it dawned on me. He wanted
us
to be in the limo. Alone. Without people’s eyes wandering toward us, always scanning to see where we were and what we were doing.

First, panic again. But I looked at him, him looking back at me as if we’d known each other forever, and I wasn’t afraid anymore.

“Well, we still have most of the night, right?” It wasn’t me who said that. Blame it on the girl in the not-Laurel dress.

“We have most of the night,” Joe echoed, and then he was standing up. “I’ve gotta go find a bathroom. You all right here?”

I had my arms resting lightly on the lounge chair’s edges, my ankles crossed, my heels popped out of my shoes. I was slightly drunk, and the thought of people seeing me sitting alone by a pool had no effect on me. I was definitely all right.

Joe was gone about a minute, maybe five. I’m not sure. I closed my eyes and listened to the murmurs, the music, rubbing my fingers lightly over my skirt.

“Hi,” someone said from above me. I opened my eyes.

It was David.

This took a few seconds to register, the outline of his head frayed with Christmas lights. He had a bottle of something, too big to be a beer, in his hand, and there it was again, that pot smell. He was wearing a black jacket, but I could see the markings of a T-shirt decal underneath.

“Hey,” I said, slowly sitting up. None of my usual David reactions were firing. No wanting to hide around a corner. No urge to pretend we’d never played Batman and Robin or collected rocks in the woods or even known each other at all.

He walked around me and sat on the edge of the other chair, his elbows on his knees, the bottle—it was a two-liter soda bottle with no label, a flat, amber liquid inside—dangling between them.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I was at the prom.”

“You’re drunk.” David’s bottom lip curled down a bit, and he sniffed.

“I don’t think so.” This conversation wasn’t going in the right direction. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be with your dad?”

The thought of Mr. Kaufman made my vision tilt a little.

“Haven’t been to the hospital in a few days,” said David casually.

“Where have you been staying?”

“This guy I know. His folks are out of town.” He looked at my dress, from the hem up. His eyes traveled quickly but steadily along the seam of the skirt, landed on my shoulder. “Nice outfit.” David took a swig from his bottle and shook his head slowly.

“What?” I asked, taking the bait.

“I just can’t believe you’re here. All dressed up, doing the prom thing. A freaking corsage.”

I fingered the miniature roses on my wrist, unable to move beyond that, not knowing how to answer his non-questions. David took another swig from his bottle, and it occurred to me that he hadn’t yet looked me in the eye. My hair, my shoes, anywhere safe and only distantly related to the person he was saying these things to.

“Leave me alone,” I finally said, swallowing hard. It came out lame, weak, a little kid being bullied on the playground. My mother had taught Toby what to say when I teased him:
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
It only made me laugh and tease him harder.

“You’re living it up over here with Joe Lasky. Aren’t you even the slightest bit broken up by what happened to you?” David said.

Something dark inside me knocked twice.
He’s right, you know. Why are you in this place, when they can’t be? Just like you were home that night when you should have been with them.

“That’s none of your business,” I said, trying to make it sound forceful. But then suddenly I popped out with: “What about you? If you’re here, why can’t I be here?”

“Because we’re just crashing this party. Do you see me wearing a goddamn tux? My buddies and I came here to pour some kamikaze in the punch, then leave.”

He held up his bottle as proof, but the kamikaze—if that’s what it was—was almost gone. Where was Joe? Joe would make David go away.

David saw me looking toward the house. “Laurel, you can go to as many proms as you want, but it’s not going to change things.”

“I know that.”

“You’re an orphan. That’s what I heard someone say inside. ‘She’s an orphan now.’”

The word made me think of Dickens, of Pip and David Copperfield and even
Oliver!
It wasn’t me. Clinically, officially, yes, but I’d never connected to it.

I must have looked shocked, because David regarded me now with more regret than anger.

“That came out sounding way harsher than I thought it would,” he said, then looked down at his kamikaze accusingly. I noticed his hands were shaking. “I wasn’t prepared to see you here,” he added, his voice a little deflated now.

But if he was deflating, I was doing the opposite. Something in me was filling with air.

“You’re an orphan too,” I said, as matter-of-factly as I could. This made David stand up, his confusion giving way to defensiveness.

“No, my dad is still alive. He’ll be fine.”

“If that’s what you want to believe. Personally, I think he’s going to be a veg forever.”

I blamed that one on the alcohol, making me brave for one or two seconds at a time.

“Shut up,” he snapped.

So I’d struck a nerve.

“Which is what he deserves,” I said, “considering he killed four people.”

David paused, his hand squeezing the plastic bottle so tight I heard it pop a bit. “My dad wasn’t drunk.”

“He didn’t have to be drunk,” I said. “He just had to be careless. Either way, he’s a murderer.”

David wanted to hit me. I could tell. He wanted to hit me so bad that his heels came up out of his shoes. I had put my beer cup on the ground, and now he kicked it into the pool, where it landed without making noise.

Even though he was standing and I was sitting, I could feel things shift. I had found a box of ammunition somewhere, tucked into the back of my mind. What else was in it?

“What about Masher?” I asked, as if we were a married couple breaking up, figuring out custody of our joint life.

“What about him?”

“I don’t have to take care of him. I can give him back to your grandparents.”

David shook his head, looked away. “You can’t do that. They don’t want him.”

“Then you want me to take care of him?”

David’s face had caved in a bit, the shadows carving deeper across his cheeks and chin. He didn’t seem that different from Toby after one of our arguments, after I’d beaten him on every front. This was when Toby would have jumped on me for the wrestling portion of the program, but I was pretty sure David wasn’t about to do that.

“Yes,” he said, and placed his kamikaze bottle carefully on the ground.

“Yes, what?” That’s what this ammunition box was. Big-sister power. The only power I had in the world, at least when Toby was still in it.