The Dolls (6 page)

I’m in a fog, puzzling over the new details of my mom’s death, as I head back out onto Main Street. I’m so caught up in my thoughts that I don’t notice the guy rounding the corner of the library building until I run straight into him.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” I exclaim. “I wasn’t looking. . . .” I’m about to ask if he’s okay, but my breath catches as I look up and realize that the solid, muscular chest I’ve just collided with belongs to the guy from the cemetery, the guy with the blue eyes. Caleb Shaw.

“It was my fault too.” He reaches out with both hands to steady me. “You okay?”

His voice is deep and warm, just like I imagined it would be. I blush as I look down and realize the hairs on my arms are all standing on end. “Uh-huh,” I finally say.

He looks unconvinced. “You sure?”

“Uh-huh,” I manage to repeat.
Brilliant conversational skills, Eveny.

He stares at me for a minute, and at the same time we both realize that his hands are still on my arms, holding me upright. He pulls away like he’s been burned. “Well, I’m just headed into the library to check out a few books,” he says.

“Yeah, reading’s cool,” I mumble. I immediately want to smack myself.
Reading’s cool?

I can see a smile tugging at the corner of his perfect mouth. “Sure,” he says.

“Cool,” I manage to say very uncoolly.

“Right. So see you later then?”

“Later,” I squeak.

He gives me a long, searching look and then vanishes through the library door.

I stand there frozen in place for a moment before shaking myself out of it.

“
Reading’s cool
?” I say aloud. “Who
says
that?”

I can feel my cheeks flaming in embarrassment the whole way home.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

I
don’t even know if it’s a date,” I tell Meredith on Sunday evening as I put makeup on in the bathroom mirror. I’m wearing a long-sleeved black T-shirt, my old leather jacket, and a pair of skinny jeans, which I’m hoping are appropriate for the crawfish boil Drew’s taking me to tonight. At Meredith’s insistence, I’ve swapped my Converse for a pair of cowboy boots.

“But you said this Drew guy’s cute?” she prompts. I have her on speakerphone, and the way her voice fills my room, as if she’s right here with me, makes me miss my old life in New York so much it hurts.

“Very,” I tell her. I put the tube of mascara down and concentrate on dusting some blush on my cheeks.

“So do you like him?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I tell her. “The thing is, there’s this other guy. . . .”

Meredith is silent as I tell her about Caleb and the way our eyes met across the cemetery on Thursday. I refrain from telling her about our spectacularly dorky encounter Friday outside the library.

“Girl, for all you know he’s gay. He could have been staring at Drew,” Meredith points out. “Go for the guy who’s already into you. How cool will you be if you start at a new school already having a boyfriend?”

I shrug before realizing she can’t see me. “I don’t even know if he’s interested. Besides, the girls I was telling you about don’t seem to like him.”

“Well, they sound like snobby little rhymes-with-witches,” Meredith sniffs. “So who cares?”

“I guess you’re right. But they’re from my past too. Everything feels totally complicated here.”

“Or maybe you’ve just been reading too many angsty novels,” Meredith says. “You don’t need to have every step planned out. Just do this crawfish boil, have a good time, go with it, and make out with the Drew guy if you want to.”

I swallow hard. I wish it were that easy. I wish I weren’t thinking about Caleb. I wish I hadn’t spent the last twenty-four hours daydreaming about being pressed up against the solid chest I’d collided with outside the library.

The doorbell rings, snapping me out of it. “That’s him. I’ve got to go.”

“Have fun!” she replies. She makes some kissy-kissy sounds, then I hear the phone click and she’s gone.

“Eveny!” Aunt Bea’s voice wafts up from the front hallway. “Drew’s at the door!”

“I’ll be right down!” I take one last look in the mirror, spiral my fingers through a few errant curls, and head for the stairs.

On the drive over to the crawfish boil in Drew’s pickup truck, I once again note that the Périphérie is practically the polar opposite of central Carrefour. In my part of town, every building sports a fresh coat of paint, every neighborhood looks like it could have been lifted from
Better Homes and Gardens
, and every person strolling by looks like they’ve been styled for a photo shoot.

But as soon as we make it through the thick tangle of trees that surrounds the center of town, it’s like we’ve driven into a new universe.

“It’s so different out here,” I say, hoping that I don’t sound like a snob.

Drew looks amused. “Poor, you mean.”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” I say quickly. “It actually seems like it has character.”

“I think you mean decay.”

“Not at all. It’s just odd that there’d be such a big divide between the two sides of town.”

Drew raises an eyebrow. “You have a lot to learn about this place.”

“Even the weather is different,” I add. Indeed, outside Drew’s pickup, clouds swirl against a dark, ominous sky, and it feels like the temperature has dropped twenty degrees since we emerged from the trees. I shiver and roll my window up.

“I heard once that the temperature variation between the two areas has something to do with water vapor from the bayou,” Drew replies. “I’m no meteorologist, but it never made much sense to me.”

We arrive at Drew’s friend Teddy’s house a few minutes after six. Most of the guys are wearing sweatshirts and jeans, and about half of them are in maroon and beige letter jackets that I assume are from Carrefour Secondary. Most of the girls are in cowboy hats and jeans or denim miniskirts. The only piece of my outfit that fits with this crowd are the cowboy boots Meredith insisted I wear.

There’s a bonfire blazing in the middle of the yard with a few dozen people clustered around it, talking, laughing, and occasionally sloshing their drinks out of red Solo cups. On the side of the house, two huge pots at least three feet high and three feet across are simmering on big propane burners, sending giant puffs of steam shooting skyward.

“What are those?” I ask, pointing at the pots.

“That’s where they cook the crawfish.”

Just then, a guy with green eyes, freckles, and a cleft chin, all shaded by a giant cowboy hat, materializes next to us. “It ain’t crawfish season yet, but we got a whole load of those daddies in the freezer from last year’s catch, and we got to use them up before we can start getting ’em fresh again. That’s why I’m calling this my Clean Out the Freezer Crawfish Boil.” He sticks out his hand and adds, “You must be Eveny. Real pretty name. I’m Teddy. Welcome to Freezer Night.”

I laugh, shake his hand, and thank him for inviting me.

“Thank this guy,” he says, clapping Drew on the back. “He’s been raving about you since you got back into town. We’ve all been dying to meet you. So this is your first crawfish boil?”

“It is.” I can’t help but grin at him. He’s a ball of happy energy.

“Sweet! So what’ll you have? We got beer, or there’s something my girl Sara over there made called Swamp Punch. No idea what’s in it.”

“I’ll stick with the beer.”

“Smart girl,” he says with a wink. “I’ll be right back. You want a beer too?” he asks Drew.

“Just one. I gotta get this girl home safe.”

“He seems nice,” I say to Drew as we watch Teddy bound off toward the back deck, which is lined with three rusted-looking kegs. “He goes to Pointe Laveau too?” I’m already imagining a new life where I hang out with the down-to-earth people from the Périphérie even if I go to school at Snob Central.

“Nah,” Drew says, kicking the dirt and looking down. “Pointe Laveau is kinda reserved for
your kind
.”

“Excuse me?”

“The people who live in the privileged part of town. People with money. Out here, none of us can afford the tuition, so every year six merit-based scholarships per grade are awarded to Périphérie kids. I guess it’s some kind of philanthropic gesture.”

I’m quiet for a moment. “Just so you know, my aunt Bea and I weren’t rich when we lived in New York.”

“Eveny, you live in a mansion. Your family founded this town. You’re probably one of the richest people in Louisiana.”

I don’t know what to say.

Finally, Drew sighs. “Maybe your aunt was trying to raise you with some values. Most of those spoiled rich kids don’t have any.”

I swallow the urge to defend the Dolls. In a strange way, I feel as much a part of them as this life out here, because even if we’re polar opposites now, we share a past. I don’t know whether I’m rich or poor, refined or casual, city or country. But I have the uneasy feeling that living in two worlds isn’t going to be easy for long.

The crawfish boil turns out to be a blast.

Even though I worried I wouldn’t belong, everyone is being really nice. Drew leads me around the sprawling yard, his hand lightly resting on the small of my back, and he introduces me to so many people that I start forgetting names. There’s a raucous game of cornhole—which apparently involves throwing beanbags into a board with holes cut out—going on near the bayou, and in the yard another group is playing beer pong. There’s country music blasting from speakers on the back deck, which has turned into a dance floor.

Everyone shrieks with excitement when Teddy announces the crawfish are ready to boil, and Drew excuses himself to go help. I stand alone and clap along with everyone as Drew, Teddy, and two other guys dump huge cases of crawfish into the boiling pots, which are already simmering with red potatoes, corn, and spices like garlic powder, onion powder, and cayenne pepper. The air smells sweet and spicy, and I find myself getting hungrier and hungrier.

“Thirty minutes till we eat!” Teddy announces. “Y’all better work up your appetites!”

The crowd cheers, and the dancing on the deck gets more frenzied. When Drew comes to find me a minute later, his cheeks are flushed and he’s grinning. “Man, I love a good crawfish boil,” he says. “Want to go take a quick walk down the bayou while we wait for the food?”

“Sure.” His enthusiasm is contagious, and I find myself smiling too.

We grab a flashlight from the deck and stroll toward the back of the yard, where it dissolves into a mess of dying cypress trees, brown Spanish moss, and darkness. When Drew grabs my hand, I don’t pull away.

It only takes a few minutes for the noise of the party to vanish behind us. Out here, the night is thick, and the buzz of mosquitoes is a steady soundtrack.

“So,” he says after we sit down in the grass, “do you remember the time you and your mom came out to visit us and my mom made her special gumbo?”

I shake my head sadly. “I wish I did. I think maybe I blocked out most of my memories of being a kid here.”

“But you remember your mom?”

“Yeah. I still think about her a lot.” I pause. “She died a long time ago, though. Sometimes I wonder if there’s something wrong with me for not moving on.”

“Eveny! That’s crazy! She was your mother. Of course you’re still thinking about her.”

I look out in the blackness. There’s rustling in the trees and splashing in the water, and although I don’t know what’s out there, I realize I feel safe with Drew.

“She’s just on my mind a lot more since we’ve moved back. I think—” I hesitate. “I think I still can’t wrap my head around the idea that she took her own life.”

Drew studies me for a long time and then pulls me into a hug. “I’m so sorry you went through all that, Eveny.”

I’m relieved that he understands and grateful when he abruptly changes the subject, chattering all the way until we’re called to eat.

As we stroll back to Teddy’s house, he tells me all about his band, which is called Little Brother and plays something called bayou fusion rock music.

“Bayou fusion rock?” I repeat.

He laughs and says it’s their own form of banjo-driven rock ’n’ roll. “Like if the Eagles, the Avett Brothers, and a New Orleans jazz band got together and had a music baby. I play the guitar,” he adds. “Teddy’s our drummer; he thinks we’ll get a record deal if we can just get in front of the right people.”

“Is that what you want to do with your life, go into music?” I ask.

“Who wouldn’t want to be a rock star, right? But I’m not a total idiot; I know those things don’t always work out. I’m going to go to college too, so I have a backup plan.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“LSU,” he says instantly. “No doubt. But I’ll have to get a scholarship or take out a bunch of student loans. It’s not like my parents have the money for something like that anymore.”

“Anymore?”

He shakes his head. “Let’s not talk economics right now. Too much of a downer. So how about you? Planning to go to college?”

“NYU,” I answer without hesitation.

“You want to go back to New York?” he asks in surprise.

“No offense, but this isn’t home. New York is.”

“Well,” Drew says, “we’ll see about that. This town has a funny way of sinking its teeth into you.”

Ten minutes later, I’m standing in Teddy’s backyard again, watching as the guys pull giant metal strainers out of the huge pots, shake them dry, and dump them on long picnic tables covered in newspaper. A sea of what look like miniature lobsters pours out alongside hundreds of potatoes and ears of bright yellow corn that have been cut into thirds.

“Dig in!” Drew shouts at me across the yard as he carries one of the strainers toward the back deck where Teddy’s already hosing them off.

I laugh as the crowd descends on the tables, piling big handfuls of crawfish, corn, and potatoes onto Styrofoam plates. Drew arrives at my side a moment later and leads me over to scoop up my own dinner, then we retreat to a quiet corner of the yard, where we sit down, leaning our backs against a big oak tree. Drew teaches me how to eat the crawfish, which is kind of a gross process: you twist them in half, suck the heads, and then squeeze the tails to get the meat out.