IT TAKES ME a second to recognize the gold SUV when it pulls into our driveway later that afternoon. We’re on the porch playing I Doubt It, and I stand, leaning against a column as Kenyon gets out of his mom’s car. Didn’t take long to flush him out of the weeds.
He looks up at our house for a second. He’s never been here before, and the place does look kind of sketchy right now, scraped bare except for fresh butter-yellow paint up to the top of the first-floor windows. He stops at the steps. “Hey.” He sees my bruises but doesn’t ask; knowing the Sasanoa grapevine, he’s already heard the whole story.
I nod. Nell’s curled up like a cat on the swing, studying him openly while working her fingers through an old afghan Libby knitted that we keep thrown over the backrest. Mags sits on the floor, watching him over her cards with absolutely no expression, her foolproof trick to make somebody feel unwanted. Kenyon checks out our setup—table with cards, change, and a bag of cheese puffs—then says to me, “Can I talk to you?”
Mom’s at work, but we go up to my room for privacy anyway. It isn’t too messy except for a pair of dirty underwear that I kick under the bed. He goes over to the window and looks out at the road. “I got your message.” He reaches up and flicks the bunch of dried buttercups distractedly, making them sway. “So I’m a liar, huh?”
“I think you’re bullshitting, yeah.”
When he turns around, he has a hunted look. “Don’t go around saying that.”
“Why not?” I keep my face hard. “You threw me under. Why shouldn’t I do it to you? Why shouldn’t I go right to the cops?” Bluffing, but he might not know that.
“Darcy, seriously. Just leave it alone.”
“What’s the deal, Kenyon? The truth. You owe me.”
He curses softly. He looks skinnier than usual, his Bob Marley T-shirt and skater jeans hanging off him. His jawline’s so sharp it almost looks delicate, the sun turning the fine blond stubble transparent. “I told you. She asked me to take her car.”
“You said you borrowed it.”
His voice is so quiet that I strain to catch his words. “She had to get away.”
I sink slowly onto my bed, hands curled in my lap. My room seems very still now in the afternoon quiet, almost like one of those shadow boxes we made in elementary school: tiny bed, tiny bureau, miniature people. Whatever I’m feeling, you can’t call it relief, exactly, but it’s heavy, stealing my strength and voice for a long time. When I finally speak again, it’s in a whisper. “From what?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what. She couldn’t tell me. Not wouldn’t, but like, couldn’t, you know. Like it hurt too much.” He shrugs and sniffs. “She was messed up bad that last year. We kind of talked around it a bunch of times, but the night of the party, she started crying. Saying she couldn’t stay here anymore.”
I try to fit the memory of the bubbly, smart-ass fifteen-year-old I knew into this frame. Doesn’t go, and I shake my head. “Because of her parents or something?”
“Kind of. She said they wouldn’t miss her ’cause they were too wrapped up in their own drama. That’s the reason she raked blueberries last year, so she could make some money of her own to bring with her. She didn’t want the car, didn’t want the cops putting out an APB and catching her. I told her I’d hide it at our camp until she got away.”
“She burned her bag on purpose.”
“She wanted to make it look like maybe she was dead. That way people would keep searching for her right here. Plus, I think she just didn’t want any of that stuff. Anything that made her who she was. Not her ID, nothing.” He looks down. “I didn’t really think about what would happen if I got caught with the car until I sobered up.”
I fold my arms. “She bother telling you where she was going? How she was getting there?”
He shakes his head slowly. “She promised to text me after, but she never did.” He meets my eyes. I see a guy who has had his heart carved out. “I don’t even know if she’s okay.”
I try to hold back, I really do. I don’t even breathe for what feels like a full minute. “Well, that’s awesome. She didn’t tell you anything so you couldn’t blow her big stupid plan, and now you’re on the hook for it, and you don’t even hate her. Christ, Kenyon, does she have to come back here and literally kick you in the balls to make you realize that she never cared about you? She never liked you, she used you, and now you’re gonna go to jail because of her.”
He doesn’t move, just keeps on watching me, his eyes steady, his mouth in that slanted line. “You can’t tell anybody.”
“Why not? She treated me like dog crap. I’m supposed to keep secrets for her?”
“She was right. You hold a grudge forever.” I stare. “She told me what you did with that guy in the parking lot. How you let him pop your cherry.” His mouth twitches. “Then you blamed her for it.”
“Because it was her fault. It was her idea. Then she went around telling everybody what a slut I was. She tell you that part?”
“Yeah.” It takes me a second to process what he said. “She wasn’t into it that night like she thought. So she got out of there. What’d you want her to do, jump him anyway?”
“No.” I hunch, going through all the dark, ugly baggage again, pulling stuff out and holding it up and remembering how bad it all makes me look. “If she hadn’t run her mouth.” My voice is thick. “She didn’t have to do that. We could’ve stayed friends.”
“She talked shit about you before you could do it to her. Typical sophomore. She thought it was her fault that you gave away something special. Like maybe if she’d never set it up that night, later you never would’ve”—I watch him mull over his words—“been with so many guys.”
I’ve got two words for both him and Rhiannon, and they ain’t Merry Christmas. “So she tried to fix it by making fun of me?”
“She never said it was smart.”
I put my head in my hands, working my fingers into my hair, my nails over my scalp, until it hurts. “You know where she is, don’t you? She told you.”
He shakes his head. “All she told me was she had a friend picking her up. Late, after everybody left the party. I don’t know who.” He lets out a breath. “She talked about killing herself that summer.”
That takes the wind out of me. We’re quiet. None of this makes sense. Sly-smiling sophomore-year Rhiannon, the version who knew how to dress all fringe with her messenger bag and Chuck Taylors, who hung out in the smoking woods with the stoners and under the bleachers, offing herself. I can’t picture it. But then, I didn’t really know that girl. “You gotta tell the cops.” He doesn’t move, doesn’t answer. “Don’t be stupid, Kenyon. The cops think you did something to her.”
He walks to the door and stares into the hallway, watching dust motes drift in sunlight. “We should let her go, Darce.”
The stairs creak as he goes down.
When I open my eyes the next morning, sunlight lies in four windowpanes across my bed. I listen to the sounds of Mom and Libby moving around downstairs, the toilet flushing.
The Bay Festival starts at ten thirty a.m., one hour from now. Over at the fairgrounds, they’ll be gassing up grills, hanging 4-H banners in the livestock stalls, counting out cash drawers. Only nine hours until Nell and I need to be at the pavilion for tonight’s coronation.
I take a deep breath, pull the sheet up over my head, and sink like I’m in quarry water.
Downstairs in the kitchen, Nell starts to sing.
“I can’t believe she’s going like that.”
Hours later, Libby’s voice carries upstairs to my open door. I roll nude pantyhose, slip my toes in.
“Not that I’m surprised you’re gonna let her. If she wanted to leave this house stark naked, you’d say okay.” Her voice drops to a hiss: “For God’s sake, she looks like she got beat up by a pimp.” Mom snorts and mutters something. “You think that’s funny?”
“I think you’re being ridiculous.”
“Wait and see if everybody isn’t saying the same thing tonight. She’s gonna be up onstage in front of the whole town, Sarah. This ain’t the kind of thing people forget. This story’s gonna follow her. You want that?”
I fasten my strapless bra. Nell did my makeup an hour ago before she went to get ready. My only slightly mangled face stares back at me in the mirror. I hear the thud of Hunt’s ladder against the side of the house as he shifts, spreading his brush across the clapboards.
“And let me tell you something else.” This I have to strain to hear: “I saw a boy come out of the house yesterday while you were working.”
I feel Mom’s hesitation. “Jesse Bouchard?”
“I don’t know. He wasn’t one of Nell’s friends.” Another way of saying he’s trash.
I slide the mermaid dress, all sea foam and silver, over my head. I can almost see Mom situating herself around this news, filing it away for later. “They’re allowed to have friends over. No rules against boys.”
“Maybe there should be.”
I spray my hair, wrap a strand around my curling iron, rolling it so close to my scalp it burns. Libby makes a disgusted noise. “I’m gonna go check on Nellie.” Our back door will be lucky to stay on its hinges after what Libby’s put it through this summer.
I stump downstairs in Nell’s silver kitten-heeled sandals. Mags leans in the kitchen doorway, eating an apple and acting like she wasn’t waiting for me. She checks me out head to toe. “Nice.”
I shrug, looking at myself, then back at her. My heartbeat’s like some crazy kid banging cymbals. “Curls too much?”
“Nah. Wait.” She comes over and smooths one ringlet back, which I figured she’d do. “There. You’re good, butthead.”
“Hold up.” Mom comes out of the kitchen with a small white box. My heart ratchets up that much more, because this is as close to misty as Mom ever gets, that quiet smile that crinkles the corners of her eyes.
It’s a corsage from Weaver’s, a white rose and baby’s breath. I can’t think what to say as Mom slides the elastic over my wrist. “We got you both white because Nell wouldn’t tell us what color her dress is.” She steps back and sighs, looking me over. “Well. You know we’ll be out there tonight.” She gives my chin a quick snip between thumb and forefinger like she used to when I was kid, then pecks my forehead. “Love ya.” I close my eyes a second, and then she moves away, going to get the camera while Mags holds the back door open for me so we can meet Nell.
We wait in the yard, me fidgeting with my wrap, twisting from side to side, my heels digging divots in the grass. Finally, Libby comes out of the trailer. She’s crying a little.
Nell steps out from behind her, and none of us can speak. Turns out the corsage will go perfectly, because her dress is pure white organza with one ruffled strap, the bodice fitted to the waist. The skirt is layer after layer of ruffles, belling out and nearly hiding her open-toed heels. I’ve never seen her wear her hair like that, side-swept and pinned in place with a rhinestone comb that matches her earrings. Her makeup is intense, smoky eyes and deep red lipstick with a high gloss. She looks like she stepped right out of old Hollywood. I’ve never met this woman. She sure isn’t my cousin Nell.
“Well,” I hear someone say behind me, and I turn to see Hunt standing beside Mom. He looks at Nell, tries to find something more to say, then takes off his old ball cap instead.
That opens the floodgates, and we’re all telling her how beautiful she is, how she doesn’t even look like herself, and Libby keeps on crying as she smiles. Nell says to me, “Told you it was the one,” smoothing her hand over her dress.
“You were right,” is all I can say back.
They take a million pictures of us together, standing side by side, the mermaid and the starlet.