The Dance (12 page)

“It’s a long story,” Nick said finally. “Can I ask you something?”

The Rock shrugged. “Sure.”

“The night of Alice’s party—you told the police you came back to the house to thank Mike for saving your eyes. Is that true?”

“No. I came back to kick the crap out of you.”

“Why didn’t you?” Nick already knew one reason. The Rock had chickened out when he had discovered all his buddies were gone.

“My eyes started to burn again. I didn’t totally trust what the doctor at the hospital had said. I thought I might go blind. I jumped in the shower to wash them out some more.”

“You really were in the shower when Alice was killed?”

“Yeah. Anyway, I heard she killed herself.”

Nick had never been able to understand Michael’s conviction that Alice had been murdered. The facts spoke for themselves, and no one had been closer to the facts than Nick. But now, the more he thought of Tommy…

There is something connecting those two deaths.

He would have to talk to Michael about the sense of déjà vu he’d had in that dark bedroom. And he’d better tell him the truth about how he hadn’t run straightaway to the bedroom—as he had told the police—but had dashed down the stairs first. All of a sudden, Nick had the uneasy feeling these things might be important.

“I heard she killed herself, too,” Nick said finally. “But I changed the subject. You were starting to apologize?”

The Rock shifted on his feet again. “I’m sorry. What else can I say? I thought you had come here to mess up everyone’s mind. You can see why I was always on your case, can’t you?”

“But you jumped me without any proof I was selling drugs?”

“I told you, I thought I saw you at that crack house.” He added, somewhat embarrassed, “I did try to get proof.”

“It was you who set that narc, Randy Messer on me?”

“You know about him?”

Nick nodded, checked his watch. “Hey, I’ve got to get to work. You give me a ride and I’ll think about accepting your apology. I’ll have to put my bike in the back.”

“It’s a deal.” The Rock offered his hand. “No hard feelings, Nick?”

Nick hesitated. “Are you really a Big Brother?”

“I am.”

“What’s your real name?”

“Theodore.”

Nick laughed, shook his head. “God help those kids.”

Sara started her car as she saw Russ jog down Polly’s long driveway and turn onto the deserted sidewalk. She let the engine idle for a minute while he headed away from her.

He is living with Polly. I should run him over.

She was cold. She was tired. She had been sitting in her car in the dark for over an hour waiting for Russ to appear, thinking of the way Bubba was brushing her off every time she demanded an update on the money she had given him, fretting over whether the homecoming tent was going to collapse and smother the whole school, and remembering the good old days when she’d had only herself to worry about. She had been a different person then. She had been happy.

No, I wasn’t happy. I was bored out of my mind.

Which had been a lot more fun, she decided, than being downright miserable. She flipped on her headlights and put the car in Drive, rolling after Russ.

CIF is in two days, Saturday morning. He won’t run far.

Nor, did it seem, was he going to run very fast. She followed him for two miles, out of the housing tract and on to a path that circled the park across the street from the school. He never broke his leisurely jog. He also gave no sign that he knew she was following him. But when he made a sudden U-turn and began to head back toward Polly’s house, she momentarily panicked and put her foot on the gas, racing past him. She probably would have kept going if he hadn’t waved. Slamming on the brakes, she pulled over to the side of the road and got out. His breath came out white as he walked toward her.

“Have you been following me?” he asked.

“No.” She wished more than anything else in the universe that she didn’t feel this way when she was with him, that she didn’t need him. “Yes,” she said. “Aren’t you going to say 'Hi, Sara’?”

He wiped the sweat from his face with the arm of his shirt. “Hi, Sara.”

“Hi, Russ. How are you?”

“Fine. How are you?”

“I feel like an idiot. How did you know I was following you?”

“I don’t go into a coma when I’m running.” He came up beside her, gestured to the unlit park, the silent rolling grass hills. “It’s late,” he said.

“I remember you told me you liked to run late at night.”

“Yeah, it’s cooler. And you don’t have to run into people.”

“Not as cool as a freezer, though,” she said. He tried to brush off her remark, but she spoke quickly. “I’m sorry I locked you in there. I didn’t mean to. I mean, I meant to, but I didn’t know you’d have such a hard time getting out.” She reached for her car door. “That’s all I wanted to say.”

“Where are you going?” he asked, surprised.

“You don’t like to run into people.” She opened the car door. “That’s what you just said.”

“I wasn’t talking about you. Hey, don’t go.” He closed the door, touching her hand in the process. “Come on, Sara, let’s not fight.”

She couldn’t look at him, not when he was living with one of her best friends and sending that friend out to buy contraceptives in public clinics. “I just don’t want to bother you,” she said.

He put his hand on her arm. “You’re not bothering me.”

“I’m not?”

“No.”

She whirled on him, throwing off his hand. “Well, you’re bothering me! You got yourself fired. You’ve stopped coming to school. You’ve got this big race you’ve got to win if you’re going to do anything with yourself. And you’re—”

“I’m just sleeping there, that’s all,” he interrupted.

“Did I say anything? Did I say a word about you having sex with Polly and the whole school talking about it when they’re not talking about Clair’s abortion?”

“Clair had an abortion?”

“Yeah, and it wouldn’t surprise me if you’re the one who got her pregnant!”

He scratched his head, confused. There you go yelling at me again when I’m trying to be nice to you.”

“I’m not yelling at you!” she yelled. Then she stopped. “Why are you trying to be nice to me?”

“I don’t know. I guess I like you.”

“You don’t like me.”

He was beginning to get annoyed. “All right, I don’t like you.”

“I know you don’t. Why did you say that you do?”

Russ sighed, sat down on the curb. “Never mind.”

She sat beside him, studying his face for a full minute. He looked about as miserable as she felt, but it gave her no satisfaction. A chilly damp layer of air began to creep toward them from the dark park. “You’re going to catch cold,” she said.

“I don’t care.”

“I care.”

“What do you care about?”

“That you’re going to get cold.” She hesitated. “And I care about you, you know?”

“No, you don’t.”

It was her turn to be annoyed. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“No.”

“Then what are you doing?”

He rested his head in his hands. “I think I’m beginning to get a headache.”

“Oh, swell, thanks a lot. Sorry I had to be born and mess up your evening.” She started to get up. He stopped her.

“Would you please quit doing that?”

She brushed off his hand but kept her place beside him on the curb. Her butt was beginning to freeze. “I’m not doing anything. I tell you I care about you and you don’t believe me.”

“Well, I told you I like you and you don’t believe me.”

Sara paused. “You’re right.” Then she smiled. “Do you really like me?”

“No.”

She pushed him. “Yes, you do! You’re crazy a me. You’re just afraid to admit it.”

He laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far. Stop pushing me!” He grabbed her hands, pinning them together, hard; impressing upon her again how strong he was. Then their eyes met. She didn’t think she had ever looked him straight in the eye before. They were dark, intense. They even scared her, a bit. Still holding on to her, he leaned over and kissed her on the lips. She kissed him back.

Oh, my.

He wasn’t cold at all. No one had ever kissed her before.

A minute later—or maybe longer, her sense of time went straight to hell the instant they had made contact—he pulled back.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, opening her eyes with a start. She couldn’t remember closing them. Nor could she remember him releasing her hands and wrapping his arm around her shoulders. Like his mouth, it, too, felt warm.

“Nothing. I can’t kiss you all night. You’re new at this, aren’t you?”

“No. Why do you say that?” She had a rush of anxiety. “Am I a lousy kisser?”

“Fair.”

She started to shove him again. But when he started to stop her, she let him. Unfortunately, he didn’t pin her hands or kiss her again. He just stared at her, and she found herself blushing.

“What are you thinking?” she asked finally.

“About something you said.”

“What?”

“That I’m a drunk,” he said. “I didn’t mean—”

“No, you’re right.” He took back his arm, rested his elbows on his thighs, his head hanging down. Even in the dark, she could see the gooseflesh forming on his legs. She should let him go, or give him a ride home, back to Polly’s house. “I’ve got to quit the beer,” he said.

She nodded. “I wish you would. You’d run a lot faster. The race is Saturday, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

He had kissed her, she thought, her next question shouldn’t be hard to ask. Yet it was. “Do you want me to come?”

He glanced up. “Do you want to?”

She spoke carefully. “Will I be the only one there?”

He shook his head, serious. “I’m only staying with Polly because I have nowhere else to stay.”

“That’s not what she says.”

“Then she’s crazy.”

Sara couldn’t argue with that. “Yeah, but she’s also my friend. And she just lost her sister.” The mention of Alice made her pause. She had all these problems, and somehow, they all seemed connected to that night.

When Alice was alive, it was easy to be tough.

Suddenly she was close to crying. It was true, what people said about how when someone close to you died, a part of you also died. Two months ago she would simply have told Bubba to take a hike. She would never have lost the money in the first place. She wiped at her eyes, fighting for control.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing. Yeah, I want to come. I’ll be there.” She shoved him in the side. “You’d better win.”

The following afternoon, Friday, Jessica left school at lunch to go home. She had called the SAT test office in the morning looking for her scores. When they told her they would have to search for the information, she had asked them to call back and leave the scores on her answering machine. Naturally, she was anxious to check the machine’s tape. The big event of the day was over, anyway. Voting for homecoming queen had taken place during fourth period. She had intended to vote for Maria but, at the last minute, had checked the box beside her own name. Clair hadn’t been in all week and the gossip going around about her was vicious; nevertheless, Jessica did not want to lose by one vote.

At home, Jessica found both her test score and Clair. She did not, however, notice her rival until after she had run upstairs and listened to the bad news on her answering machine.

“Jessica Hart,” a brisk-voiced lady said. “This is Jill Stewart at the test office. Your scores are as follows: Three hundred and seventy on the verbal section, and three hundred and twenty on the math section. If you have any further questions, please feel free to call me back.”

Sixteen hundred total was a perfect score. If you got less than four hundred on either the math or verbal section, your counselor usually recommended a community college with a strong tutorial program. Jessica trudged back downstairs and outside and plopped down on the front-porch step. She thought of all the Stanford yearbooks she had browsed through while growing up. Her father was going to kill her

“Bad news?” a voice asked. Jessica looked up and stood quickly. Dressed in old, faded blue JMS and a plain red blouse, not wearing a speck of makeup, Clair strolled up the walkway.

“Clair, you surprised me. How did you know I’d be here?”

“Bubba told me.” Clair stopped at a distance of approximately ten feet, gave the house a cursory inspection, then focused on Jessica, her blue eyes cold. “He told me a few things. All about your filthy mouth.”

She swallowed. “What?”

“Don’t deny it. You started the rumor about me having an abortion.”

“That’s not true. All I know is what Polly told me.”

“Polly nothing. You made her talk. You did it because you’re afraid of me. You’re afraid I’ll bet you out for homecoming queen, and that I’ll take Bill away from you.” Clair took a big step closer. “But like I told you before, dearie, I can’t lose. And as far as Bill is concerned, you can have him. For all the good he’ll do you.”

Jessica shook her head weakly, as weak as her lies. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Clair drew closer still, pointing a long nail at her face. “When I first met you with Mike, I thought you had class. I thought we could become friends. Now I’m glad I kept my distance. I hope Mike does the same.” She flicked her nail at the end of Jessica’s nose, scratching it. “You’ll get what you deserve, bitch.”

Clair turned then, leaving, and Jessica went inside and collapsed on the couch. It was hard to remember when she had felt worse.

“Alice, where are you?” She moaned to the ceiling. Her little friend had always looked up to her and perhaps because of that, she had always striven to do what she knew was right. Now that Alice was gone it seemed she didn’t care who she stepped on.

Oh, I care. But I do it, anyway.

That morning Bill had asked her to the homecoming dance, and she had said yes. Although talk continued to fly about how he had knocked Clair up, he appeared unaffected by it. Indeed, he hadn’t even gone to the trouble of denying it, which confused her; she had recently learned from Polly that it had been Bubba, and not Bill, who had picked Clair up at the clinic.

Once upon a time, Bill’s asking her to the dance would have meant everything. And she had agreed to go with him because he still had a body that wouldn’t quit. But she was no longer infatuated with him. He virtually had no personality, she finally realized. More important, she was interested in someone else. She was in love with Michael Olson. When he had told her about the different tests, and in one stroke shattered her lifelong plans, she wanted to die. What she had done instead was sit in the shade of a tree at the back of the Sanders campus. Afraid to leave her in her fragile condition, Michael had sat with her. With the realization that she wasn’t going anywhere special after graduation, the Valium had begun to sock it to her. Lying on the grass, Michael sitting quietly at her side, she had wandered in and out of consciousness for what had seemed ages. But each time she had resurfaced, she opened her eyes to find Michael still waiting for her, sometimes writing in a notebook, other times just staring up into the sky. And each time he had looked different to her, as if she were seeing him through different eyes. Each time he had looked more beautiful, more perfect. Each time she had awakened hoping to find his fingers stroking her hair, or catch his eyes fixed on her face.

But he was just being the way he is, kind. I can’t expect anything from him.

She kept taking advantage of him. Surely by now he must know why she had stood him up. Bubba knew everything, and Bubba must have told him. Yet he had treated her nicely all week, repeatedly apologizing for giving her the wrong answers on the test, wishing her well on the homecoming-queen vote, apparently oblivious to the self-serving gossip floating around that she had set in motion. He had treated her as Alice always had, as if she were special.

Not for the first time, Jessica wondered what he really thought of her. She would have given almost anything to know.