The Fall Musical (17 page)

They all shimmied backward on the living room carpet as Brianna looked slowly around the circle. Her eyes stopped at Casey. “Casey Chang . . . ”

Casey began to sweat. It was a cool fall night, the fire in the hearth was nearly out, but she felt as if the temperature had risen twenty degrees. She didn't like the look on Brianna's face at all. The truth part of this game was not exactly a place she wanted to go. And her reasons had nothing to do with Brianna or Kyle.

“Not me,” Casey said quietly. “Pick someone else.”

“No, I want to pick you,” Brianna said playfully. “Doesn't everybody want to hear Casey's deepest truth?”

A few voices shouted in agreement, but Casey didn't really hear them. She felt trapped.
Fight or flight
. She gathered her legs under her. “I—I just don't like talking about myself, that's all.”

“Everyone opens up to
you
, Casey,” Brianna pressed. “Loosen up. Unless you have some big dirty secret—”

“Leave her, Brianna,” Kyle chimed in. “It's okay to pass on a turn.”

“Then what's the fun?” Brianna said.

She was digging. Why?
Why was she doing this?

“Darling, not everyone wears their feelings on their sleeves like you and me,” Charles said.

“Everyone has secrets,” Dashiell added softly. “Stuff that no one is allowed to know.”

Mr. Hammond ran the local Catholic charity foundation and enjoyed sailing on the Sound with his two children . . . .
Casey shook away the memories. If you didn't think about the memories, they couldn't hurt you.

Everyone was staring now. The party had changed. The air was different.

Why? What were they all staring at?

Why did Dashiell say that?
Everyone has secrets
. Did they know? Did everyone know? How? It wasn't on the public record, she remembered the report exactly.

Brianna—she knew Alex Duboff. That was it. She must have called him.

Would she do a thing like that? What kind of friend
was
she? What kind of friends were any of them?

Casey stood up, holding herself steady on the edge of an armchair.

“Casey? Are you all right?” Kyle asked. “You look kinda green.”

“I'll bet it was the shrimp,” Charles said. “Someone smell the shrimp.”

“Or the beer,” Corbin said.

“Casey?” Brianna was up now, walking closer to her. “Do you want to lie down in my room?”

“I—I have to go,” was all Casey could manage before running for the door and tearing off, blindly into the night.

18

SHE RAN. HER FEET DID THE THINKING, taking her around sharp corners and down placid nighttime streets. Houses blinked and dogs barked and the weary faces of a late-night card game stared at her from a screened-in porch as she passed. She didn't stop until she reached the small park on the corner of Bayview and Merrick.

Unable to think, she slowed her pace and headed toward the duck pond. The park was empty, except for a mass of clothing on a distant bench that was either a sleeping homeless person or two people hooking up. She caught her breath, walking along the edge of the pond and feeling the mist as it blew lightly across the surface of the water. On the opposite side, she could hear a band playing “Oh What a Night” from inside the Olympia Catering House. The place was outlined in Christmas-type lights that reflected in the water, making it look as if there were a happy little duck village under the surface. She wondered how deep the water was. You never could tell. In the dark it was inky black. Under the duck village there could be a population of silent octopi and sharks and a forgotten shipwreck. If she jumped, how far would she go? Would she pass out before hitting bottom, or stand there in ankle-deep water feeling like a lunatic?

The path plunged into darkness just before the hill. Someone had broken three streetlamps, and Casey found the darkness comforting.

She needed to forget the party. Forget what had happened last spring. That's why she and Mom had moved here. The doctors said the adjustment process would take at least a year. Things had been going so well.

Who found out
? Maybe Brianna, through Alex Duboff. And maybe Dashiell. He was a Google maniac. But he didn't seem like the type who would go hunting for information on her, and then tell about it.

Unless someone put him up to it.

But why? Why would anyone want to make her miserable? Casey reached into her pack and felt around for something to eat
.
That was another thing. She was eating all the time. Instead of losing weight, she was getting fat. Again.

Then she heard the footsteps.

Heavy. Thick. Male.

In a hurry.

From this angle, she could still see the lump of clothing on the bench, now directly across the pond. If she screamed, they might hear her. But what good would it do?

Cell phone. Where was her cell phone?

She stumbled forward, faster, her pack in front of her. Her hands shook as she reached inside, pushing the mess around—too many things—

Clunk.
The phone dropped onto the ground. The footsteps were closer now . . . running.

“Aaaaaaghhhhhhh!” she screamed, turning as a broad silhouette lunged toward her.

“Whoa! Easy!”

She dropped her backpack. The voice was unmistakable. “Kyle?”

He held up his hands. “I come in peace,” he said.

“Kyle, you scared the crap out of me.”

“I know. Sometimes I scare the crap out of
me
.”

“I'm sorry,” Casey said, turning away. “Sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” he asked. “Hey, are you okay? Want to sit?”

Why was he here?
What on earth did he want from her? Had the others followed him?

She pulled back. She didn't want to sit. Or touch. She wanted to move and not stop. “I have to go.”

“Me, too. I'm supposed to meet someone in a few minutes, but I can take you home before that if you want. I have my T-Bird.” He pointed to the curb.

Casey kept her eyes from his. The last thing she needed was a pitying glance. “You all must think I'm a nutcase.”

“Nah. Everyone's mad at Brianna. They think she pushed you too hard. She feels bad, too. She started crying after you left.”

An ambulance whizzed by, siren blaring even though the street was empty. Casey flinched. She hated that sound, even now.

“Want to talk?” Kyle asked.

“It's nothing,” Casey replied. “I'll deal with it.”

“Cool.” Kyle heaved his big shoulders in a friendly way. “Well. Okay then. See you.”

Casey watched him walk slowly away, into the halo of the streetlamp. He glanced back over his shoulder, giving her a look that was definitely not pitying but something else . . . what? Protective? Worried? Curious?

That fact that Kyle was
here
began to settle on Casey. He'd followed her. Found her. He could have been with Brianna or his pals or any number of people he hung with on Friday nights. But he was here at the pond, with her, in the mist and muffled din of someone else's celebration.

“Kyle?” she said, her voice brittle in the cooling air. “Why did you really come here?”

He turned to her and shrugged. “No one could figure out why you left. They were all talking about it, but no one was doing anything.”

“You were worried—about me?”

He walked toward her. In the reflection of the distant lights his features were shadowed, gray on gray in the fog, but his smile broke through like a crescent moon. “Are we talking? 'Cause you said you didn't want to. Yo, either way is okay. We can hang and
not
talk.”

That smell again—salty-sweet, like the ocean. The senses came one at a time with him. Hearing, seeing, smelling. She felt herself falling toward him and didn't want to stop. “Why . . . would we do that?” she asked. “Not talk?”

Kyle scratched his head. “Guys do it. You could say something important and the other person takes it the wrong way. Or ignores it. Or thinks it's dumb and makes fun of it. So you don't talk. It's safer. That way you don't lose anything.”

Casey began walking up the path, toward the darkness and the woods. “Kyle . . . have you ever had some piece of you that you
wanted
to lose?”

He laughed. “Um, that's a hard question. I have to think about that. Have you?”

A reply caught in her throat. Their footsteps echoed over the light-flecked pond, hers sharp and quick, his calmly thumping. They were alone,
she was alone with Kyle Taggart
, and she realized she'd imagined this before, she'd invented this moment in her mind a dozen different times, and not once had she gotten it right. He wasn't doing much, but he was opening something inside her, and she felt herself expanding, like a ripple on the pond. The world began to spin, picking up speed, threatening to sweep her into a limitless void, and the only thing that grounded her was his presence, warm and listening and kind.

“My name isn't Casey.” The words were out of her mouth before she could retract them.

“My name isn't Kyle,” she heard him say. “It's Roland. Roland Kyle Taggart. But don't tell anyone or I'll have to shoot you.”

Shoot me, shoot me quick . . .
She was leaving the ground now, whirling, coming apart. She closed her eyes against the dizziness, swallowing against the truth, but it was too late, and there was no going back. Her voice seeped out thickly, like a reopened wound. “I'm Kara. Kara Chang. Does that name ring a bell?”

“Nope.”

“That's good . . . I was worried . . . they never released my name, you know . . . ”

“Um, what are you talking about?”

Time, too, was spinning now, rewinding, forcing her to see clearly . . .
Late-morning sunlight, dappled through a plane tree. The chatter of squirrels, the screech of a bluebird. Wisteria, Korean spice blossoms. Sight, sound, smell. A perfect spring day.
She looked at him, and if his face had shown shock or ridicule she would have exploded, but it wasn't that way at all. His eyes were inviting, accepting.
Speak
. “I was driving to the 7-Eleven for my mom,” she said. “It was April, and I'd had my license for two months. I was good at parking . . . driving in traffic . . . obeying the speed limit, the signs and lights . . . We'd had a huge rainstorm the night before but it was sunny and gorgeous. I must have been doing, like, twenty or twenty-five . . .” Her voice seized up, and she began to shake.

“Come on, Case,” Kyle said, “let's sit.”

Casey nodded. She steadied herself as they sat on a bench that was way too cold and shrouded in darkness. A shadowy pair of ducks, heads tucked under their wings, floated by like discarded hats.

“I—I wasn't doing anything wrong,” she went on. “I knew the corner pretty well. I'd walked by it a hundred times since I was about eight, but still, when you're a kid you don't notice everything. Westfield has a lot of big old maple trees lining the streets, and there was a huge one on the corner, just swooping down. I remember noticing the beautiful light spring green as I passed. I—I didn't see him until I was in the intersection. I couldn't have.”

“Him?” Kyle asked.

“It. A car. He was driving pretty fast, but it was a busy street, and he wasn't doing anything wrong.
He
didn't have the stop sign. Anyway, it all happened so fast—I jammed my foot on the brake, but he was already in the intersection, right in front of me, almost as close as you are. I was doing thirty or so, which doesn't feel fast, but it is. I hit him. Right in the side. I must have yanked the steering wheel pretty hard and spun around, because I ended up through the wall of the house across the street and into the living room. I blacked out until they were loading me on the ambulance. That's when I saw the tree . . . and the people . . . and the sun on the other car . . . it was all twisted, and I remember thinking it looked so peaceful, like a sculpture. I knew the people who lived inside the house I'd hit, and I asked if I'd hurt them. The EMT workers told me no, no one was hurt in that family. That was what stuck in my mind,
no one was hurt
, which I took to mean what I wanted it to mean—and then I blacked out again.”

“And the people in the other car?”

“I didn't know until my mom told me,” Casey said. “After I'd come home. She could barely get the words out. One person was in it. A guy named Kirk Hammond. He'd gone out to buy a birthday present for one of his kids, a Tickle Me Elmo. The present survived.” Casey felt the memory pressing against her chest and throat, pushing upward into her face. “He didn't.”

“Oh my God . . . ” Kyle muttered.

The tears came down so heavily she couldn't even hold her head up, so she let it drop between her knees as her chest heaved and heaved and heaved. “The newspapers blamed the town,” she continued. “The branch on the old maple tree at the corner had split in the storm and drooped down, blocking the stop sign. It should have been removed. Nobody was mad at me. The press, the TV reports, all blamed the town of Westfield. Even his wife told me it wasn't my fault. She
forgave
me. But the look on her face . . . ”

Kyle put his arm around her and rocked slowly back and forth.

“I made it to the end of the school year. We were thinking of staying on, but all summer long people were asking about it, my friends, everybody looking at me all funny, like they thought I was going to fall apart—and as the school year got closer I kind of freaked out. My mom started looking for houses in a new place, far away . . . ” The spinning had stopped, and she wasn't aware of time anymore. A minute could have been an hour, and it didn't matter because feeling was all, the warmth of Kyle's body as he moved closer and wrapped her in a flannel-warm cloak of comfort and forgiveness. She closed her eyes, feeling weightless, and tasted the shock of his lips. They were soft and sweet and strong, and she kissed him hard, taking from him, feeding a hunger she never knew she'd had. Something coursed through her body, something brighter than light, igniting her as if she had been dead and brought back to life.