All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
“Gag me with a spoon,” Leslie said.
I did a Wavy shrug, because I didn’t even think Leslie’s lifeguard was cute. I hadn’t yet seen a boy I thought was worth having a crush on.
“Well, she’s always been different,” Mom said.
“I bet she’s pregnant by the end of the school year,” Leslie said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I wanted to say, “It means Leslie is a bitch,” but I kept my mouth shut.
“You know she’s having sex with Kellen,” Leslie said.
“I most certainly do not know that.” Mom tapped the brakes and looked at Leslie, who stared straight ahead.
“Well, she is having sex with him. Now you know.”
“You don’t know that,” I said. I still thought it was one of Wavy’s weird games.
“She said she went all the way with him,” Leslie said.
“Yeah, but—”
Mom braked hard and pulled over to the shoulder.
“What do you mean she said she went all the way with him?”
Leslie sighed like she was bored. “We asked her about her wedding ring, and Jana said, ‘Do you go all the way with him?’ and Wavy said, ‘Yes.’”
“What wedding ring?” Mom’s hands shook as she put the car in park.
“That ring she was wearing with the diamond.” Leslie smirked.
“Oh my God.” Mom said it about ten times and then she said, “I can’t believe you two have been keeping this a secret. Shame on you. Shame on you both. Tell me everything. Right now.”
We told her everything. No, not everything. Neither of us was brave enough to say, “Hot. Hard. Desperate.”
Mom put the car in drive and turned around. We were going back.
I felt like a traitor and I was glad the lifeguard had ditched Leslie. She deserved to lose her boyfriend for ratting Wavy out like that.
On the drive, Mom talked to herself, saying, “Oh, God, Val, how could you let this happen? You let this guy come around and you didn’t ever think there was something funny going on? It didn’t seem right to me. The way he touched her.”
I didn’t say it to my mother, but that was what struck me: Wavy let Kellen touch her.
* * *
Mom didn’t go back to the garage. Either she didn’t remember how to get there or she wasn’t ready to confront Wavy. At the farmhouse, there was a car in the driveway.
“Thank God, she’s home,” Mom said. She parked and opened her door, but Leslie and I stayed put. “Come on, you two. You’re involved in this.”
“Mom!” Leslie’s desire for revenge had gone to cold fear. Mom was going to make us tell Aunt Val everything.
I trudged up the stairs behind Leslie and Mom, my stomach in knots. The door stood open a couple inches. Mom knocked on the frame and called, “Val? Val? It’s Brenda.”
Nobody answered, so Mom pushed the door all the way open.
Beyond a certain amount of blood, your brain freezes up, like there’s a limit to how much blood it can understand. There was more than that in the kitchen. Past Mom’s shoulder, I saw a body lying in the doorway to the hall. A man in jeans and cowboy boots lay facedown in a puddle of blood. More blood was splattered on the wall and bathroom door.
Leslie bent over and vomited on her own shoes. That’s when I saw the woman crumpled on her side on the kitchen floor, with a chair toppled next to her. I knew Aunt Val from her long, brown hair soaked in blood.
I don’t know what other people would have done in that situation, but my mother walked around the table, picked up the phone and dialed 911. While she was waiting to be connected, she said, “Get your sister a cold, wet washcloth.”
That was Mom’s solution when someone vomited. I was supposed to step over my aunt’s body, go into the bathroom, stepping over another dead body on the way, and get Leslie a cold, wet washcloth. It wasn’t going to happen. Mom, she was on autopilot, trying to follow some inner guidelines for What to Do in a Crisis.
“Yes, my name is Brenda Newling and I need to report an emergency. My sister’s been—I think she’s been shot.” Mom started off all business, but by the end her voice was shaky.
While the 911 operator talked, Mom picked up a dish towel and turned on the kitchen faucet.
“It’s off County Road 7. Near Powell. I don’t know. I don’t know the name of the road.”
All we had were a series of landmarks and turns written on the back of an envelope. Maybe the road didn’t even have a name. Mom frowned, her lip trembling, as she wrung out the towel. She held it out to me, but I was paralyzed.
“God, I don’t know! It’s Valerie and Liam Quinn’s house. You turn off the highway after the tractor dealership and take the left. There’s a silo there with a tree growing in it. I think it’s four miles and—coming from Powell. What do you mean is it Belton side or Powell side? I don’t know what county it’s in! Amy, please.”
She was waiting for me to take the towel. I made myself move, following the same route she had taken, around the table on the opposite side of Aunt Val. The towel felt good in my hand. Fresh. Cool. Not hot and sticky like the blood that was attracting flies.
A few drops of water dripped off the towel, and Mom and I watched them fall to the floor. That’s why we saw it at the same time: a footprint in blood. A small one, and then another, a trail of them going toward the back door.