RHIANNON’S WAITING FOR me at the kitchen table the next morning. I sink into a chair, puffy-eyed from a bad night of sleep, and see her splashed all over the front page of the American again.
A Year Without Rhiannon. That’s the headline, with a smaller one underneath: Twelve Months After Her Daughter’s Disappearance, Sasanoa Mother Seeks Answers. There’s a big photo of Rhiannon’s mom staring off down Route 15 with the barrens behind her, the snow fence unraveling to the left. Charlie Ann looks older, and I think she might be getting her hair dyed at Great Lengths now, because it’s a brassier shade of auburn than I remember. So it’s almost the anniversary. Crazy to think that this time last year, I was picking up the phone and hearing Charlie Ann’s voice. Did Rhiannon stay over? Was there a party?
The next photo is of Rhiannon, a candid of her lying on her stomach across her bed with her fuzzy slippers on, her gaze tilted up, chin propped on her hands. The last photo is of the Fit being towed out of the woods.
“You should read it,” Mags says, sitting next to me with a bowl of cereal. “It’s a pretty good article.” She doesn’t say anything about seeing a car parked on our road again last night, so either she slept through it or I dreamed that flash of headlights across my wall. I shrug, don’t say anything.
Mom finishes wiping down the counter and sits by me. “You got in early last night.”
I look up. She almost never says anything about when I come and go, as long as I don’t show up wasted. While I watch, something unspoken passes between her and Mags. For the first time ever, I get the feeling they’ve been talking about me.
Mom coughs and crinkles the cellophane on a fresh pack of Kools, keeping her eyes on what she’s doing. “Everything good?”
I bite my lip for a second. “Yup. It’s all good.”
When I woke up this morning, I thought hard about not going to work. The harvest is almost over. The barrens should be cleared by Saturday at the latest, and Bob will probably send most of us home before then because he won’t need as many hands. I’d lose only a couple days’ pay. It might be worth it to dodge Jesse, Shea, the whole stupid mess.
But that’d be chickenshit, and I know it. Shea’s cheating all of us, every single person who busts their back in the heat while he does the same work for extra pay. If Jesse’s too gutless to do something, then I guess it’s on me. So, I put on my cutoffs, tank top, and cowgirl hat, lay the SPF 50 on thick, and get ready to survive this day.
Nell comes knocking, and on our way out the door, we grab our bags of donations for the migrants who lost their stuff in the fire. I’m surprised to step into the first hint of fall crispness in the air. It’ll be seventy-five by noon, but right now, I’ve got goose bumps on my legs.
I brought the front page of the American with me. Wait till Libby shows up and sees that somebody messed with her morning ritual of coffee, toast, and paper. I read the Rhiannon article on the ride in, Nell reading over my shoulder. The reporter gives the facts of Rhiannon’s disappearance, then talks about Charlie Ann’s “quiet resolve and determination”: “Somebody out there knows the truth. It’s been a year. Maybe this story will help them find the courage to come forward and bring Rhiannon home.”
It mentions Rhiannon’s dad only once, which isn’t surprising, since Jim and Charlie Ann divorced when Rhiannon was nine and have that awkward on again, off again thing going on. Once he even moved back in with them for a whole year, until the day Rhiannon came home from school to find him gone and her mom mopping the kitchen floor with a vengeance, saying that he wouldn’t be coming back and to stop asking about it. I remember Rhiannon called me, crying so hard she could barely talk.
“Wow. Look,” Nell says, and I glance up to see a big new poster stapled to the telephone pole in front of Gaudreau’s. It’s printed on white poster board with Rhiannon’s sophomore-year photo, a full-color five-by-seven, dead center. Missing—$5,000 Reward for Information.
It’s a parade of Rhiannons all the way down Main Street, her face smiling out of every business, bulletin board, and telephone pole. We even pass the people hanging them up, some guy stapling a poster in front of the post office while a woman waits in the car. I think I catch a glimpse of auburn hair, but I’m not sure.
We’re called up to headquarters before work begins for the day, sitting in clusters on the grass, knowing something big is brewing. This time, Mrs. Wardwell stays in her chair, watching her husband with a tired but not-too-mean I give up kind of look. Bob stands with his fists on his hips, working his mouth around his dentures like the words he’s mulling over have a bad taste.
“I got something to say, and then I ain’t gonna bring it up again. But I never thought I’d see you people—some of you I known for years—walk away from folks needing help. That’s not what small-town livin’s supposed to be about.”
I notice Jesse looking at me. He sits beside Mason with his forearms resting on his bent knees, looking up at me slantwise from under his hair, which has gotten shaggy this summer, and shot through with reddish sun streaks. He doesn’t look like himself without a grin. I can see how badly he wants to say something to me. It hurts to see him hurt, no matter how mad I am at him. I turn away. I didn’t make him lie, didn’t make him set me up as a fool, or be so totally blind to what’s really between me and Shea.
“Now, you know who you are, so I ain’t gonna go namin’ names, but the ones I seen drivin’ off down the road while we were putting that fire out . . .” Bob jerks his chin. “Well, there ain’t gonna be work here for you next year. If the woods had caught, or one of them little kids had been inside—” He steps back, shaking his head. “Just don’t be coming around looking for work.” He claps his hands together once. “Get to it.”
You can feel the shock, people looking at each other, whispering, maybe the migrants most shocked of all. The faces of the locals who left yesterday are like hard masks as we get up and spread out across the rows. A couple of them leave, just plain leave, without a word to the Wardwells or anybody else. I watch Shea brush off his jeans, giving him time to feel me looking and meet my eyes. He grins. This time, though, he must sense that something’s changed, because he doesn’t give me any crap as I follow Mags and Nell into the barrens.
But he follows me. And sets up two rows over.
I rake hard because I want money. I rake hard because that’s how I like to work. I’m not killing myself anymore to try to beat Shea in a rigged game.
His presence beside me is like heat, like weight, something I’ve carried around on my back too long. Can’t believe how he’s steered my time and energy toward him this August, feeding his lame love/hate thing, while all I could think about was proving how tough I was. I fill a box and close the top, letting my gaze meet his, staying cool as I can, not giving him a reaction.
He pushes his hat back and wipes his brow. “Looking rode hard and put away wet, Princess. Rough night?”
“You’d love to know.”
“Nah. I’m not into sloppy seconds.”
“From what I hear, you’ll take whatever you can get.” I drop an empty box on top of my stack with a bang. “And I hear you take handouts pretty regular.”
“What, you mean like the handout you gave me at the quarry? I do okay. You worried about me?”
“No. But you should be.”
I let him think on that one. When I glance at him next, his cockiness has faded into watchfulness. He gets back to work, but he’s moving slower, sizing me up.
At lunch break, I wait until Mrs. Wardwell makes her usual mosey over to the Porta-Johns before grabbing the bags of donations from Mags’s car. I carry them up to the camper and set them inside the open doorway—the Wardwells will figure out who they’re for—mostly because I don’t want us to look like kiss-asses in front of the locals who were basically told not to show their faces here next harvest.
I go back down the steps. Everybody’s eating lunch in the grass below. I see Nell’s blue bandanna, the sun shining gold off Mags’s hair. Then somebody grabs my arm hard enough to make me gasp, pulling me into the shadows behind the camper.
Shea presses me back against the cool metal, leaning down to get in my face. “Who’ve you been talking to?”
I push on his arms. “Let go, idiot.”
“Not till you tell me what the hell you were hinting at back there.”
“What do you think?” Our noses are almost touching. “I know you’re cheating. We’re all busting our asses while you pull in double—” I jerk against him, then go flat against the camper, breathing hard. “Tell Duke to stop, and I won’t say anything to anybody.”
“You think we’re dealing? You want to, like, shake on it or something?”
“Fine. Then I’ll tell everybody. Hope you like washing dishes at the Harbor View diner next summer—”
This time he slams me back so hard that the aluminum ripples. I curse, lunging at him until he grabs my wrists and pins them. I’m strong, too, and I don’t make it easy for him. “You’re not telling anybody.” He’s breathing hard on me. “You just love screwing me over, don’t you? You been after me all summer, giving me shit.”
“You got that backward.”
“Bouchard told you, right? He’s the one.” I fix my gaze on sunlight caught in a spiderweb. He swears. “Knew it. He can’t keep his mouth shut. Just like he can’t keep it in his pants when some little hoochie like you shakes her ass at him. I don’t even blame the guy.” He turns my chin back. “That’s the plan? You’re gonna spread for all my friends before you work your way back to me?”
“I’m never gonna touch you again. And just so you know, I liked Jesse way before I ever hooked up with you. But I never liked you.” Using all my strength, I twist my wrists free and push past him. “Stay away from me.”
A few seconds later, he says, “Hey, Darcy,” and when I glance back, he catches my upper arm and pulls. I stumble. He sweeps my left foot out from under me. I go down.
I don’t remember seeing the trailer hitch, but I guess I must’ve, because I almost get my hands up before I hit it. My forehead and nose slam metal. My teeth clamp down on my tongue.
I see fireworks, smell blood, taste blood, and gag as I roll onto my side.
Cradling my face, I ride the wave of pain until it drops me, and I can breathe again. Sitting up, I wipe away tears—I’m not crying, it just hurts—and see a watery image of Shea walking away across the field. He didn’t even stick around to see how messed up I am; going by the warm wetness on my face and the way my head is throbbing, I’m guessing very.
I’m too dazed to do much more than put one foot in front of the other, touching my fingertips to my nose, wondering if it’s broken, how you can tell. All I can think about is getting to Mags’s car so I can lie down in the backseat where nobody can see me, but I’ve got to cross the field to get to the road. A big hazy shape closes in to my right; must be Mrs. Wardwell coming back. She drops whatever she’s holding and says, “Holy crap.”
I try to hide my face, skirting the boulders, going faster and faster until I run smack into Mason. It’s like he’s been waiting for me. I try to go around him. I’ve got blood trickling down the back of my throat now, making me cough. He leans down, says, “God,” under his breath, holding my shoulder as he checks me out.
Then Mason, all six-four, two hundred and thirty pounds of him, goes after Shea. Shea’s standing around with some guys, shooting bull like any other day, when the heel of Mason’s palm hits him square in the chest, knocking him back. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Mason’s voice booms across the barrens.
Most everybody scatters, only a couple heroes stepping between Mason and Shea, trying to keep them apart.
I haven’t moved, watching this whole thing like it’s happening on TV. Then Jesse runs up. The moment he sees my face is awful, almost worse than hitting the trailer hitch in the first place. His expression goes slack, like somebody in shock. I can see him putting two and two together. Everything that makes him Jesse—my Jesse—falls away, and he loses it.
He’s on Shea, grabbing for his throat, smashing his fist into Shea’s face twice before the other guys can tackle him to the ground. He rolls free and throws his head into Shea’s stomach, bringing him down, where they roll, punching each other’s ribs, really ripping each other apart, not like some fight in the school hallway that’s mostly for show.
Mags has me, then, and Nell presses in on my left. I let Mags hold my head to her chest, worrying my hair with her fingertips, her heart pounding beneath my ear. She yells something at Shea, but I can’t understand it.
For a few minutes, not even Bob and Duke can pull the boys apart, and it looks like we’re going to have to let them fight it out. Finally, Duke gets his arm around Shea’s neck in a sleeper hold, and it’s either Shea lets Duke drag him back or passes out. Jesse gets slowly to his feet, wiping his face with his forearm, one eye already swelling shut.
There’s nothing but the sounds of breathing, bugs humming in the bushes, and Nell’s tear-choked voice as she says to me, “Oh no, oh, your poor face,” and dabs at my lips and shirtfront with her unrolled bandanna.
Bob’s deeply flushed, his eyes snapping. He stoops and grabs Shea’s ball cap, throwing it at his chest. “You do this to her?”
Shea’s dusty, bleeding at the mouth, and the collar of his T-shirt is ripped. He looks at me with this remote expression, like he doesn’t even know me. Underneath that, though, there’s a hard smugness that blows my mind, a real satisfaction. All I can do is stare back as he says, “She wasn’t supposed to land that hard.”
Jesse makes a choked sound and takes a run at him, almost getting ahold of him before the guys pull him back. Bob walks up to Shea. “Get your ass off my property.”
Shea pulls out of Duke’s hold, spits blood into the dirt, and walks away without looking back. Duke squints after him, rubbing the back of his neck.
Bob turns to me. “You want me to call the law, dear?”
“No,” I say quickly. With my luck, they’d send Edgecombe, and I can’t deal with him right now.
Mags draws back. “Darcy. You have to press charges.”
“No.” She opens her mouth again and I say, “Drop it,” in a tone that actually seems to get through to her.
Bob wants me to go to the hospital, but when I say no, he settles for Mrs. Wardwell calling Mom at work. The conversation’s pretty short. “She’ll meet you at the house,” Mrs. Wardwell says, then watches us go. I think of Jesse, but I don’t look at him.
We pass Shea on 15. He’s taken his shirt off and tucked it into the waistband of his jeans, like he wants to feel the sun on his back.