As I circled back onto the road, Xanadu cranked down her window. The wind caught her hair, blowing up streams of red ribbons around her face. She was breathtaking. I almost drove into a ditch. At the last minute, I swerved to the center of the straightaway, hoping she hadn’t noticed my temporary lapse of control.
“How can you stand it?” She turned to face me.
I knew what she meant. The silence. The slowness of life. “You get used to it,” I said.
She averted her eyes to gaze out on the wheat fields. “I’d kill myself first.”
My breath caught. She didn’t know what she was saying. It was just an expression. We reached the turnoff at the back of the property and I pulled onto it, lungs screaming for relief. I calmed myself, tried to. Let out air.
Driving between two corrals, I stopped next to a double-wide horse trailer and saw Leland Davenport wander out of the covered stalls. He removed his Stetson and swiped his gritty face with a forearm. “Hi there, Mike. Oh good, you brought the feed.” He slid his hat back on. “I heard you were working at the Merc. Why don’t you back her up to the gate here, if you can get in close.” There was a feed bin behind him, alongside a cone-shaped storage shed.
I cranked the flatbed ninety degrees and let Leland direct me in, even though it wasn’t necessary. I could’ve done it. When he began to unload the feed, I jumped out and said, “Know what? I can get this. It’s what I get paid for.”
He eyed the pallet, then scanned me up and down. I knew what he was thinking: You’re too small; it’s too much for one person. He hadn’t seen me in action. I yanked out the work gloves from my back pocket and put them on. I might’ve nudged him gently out of my way.
“Hi, Uncle Lee.” Xanadu appeared at my side. Her bare arm grazed mine and spiked my heart rate.
Leland reached over and gave her a tweak on the nose. I launched myself onto the truck bed, wondering if the tingling under my skin was a permanent condition. I hoped so. They both watched me heft one bag off the pallet and onto my shoulder, then jump down and lug it into the storage shed. Xanadu said, “Okay, major guilt trip. I can help with this.”
Leland cuffed her chin and headed back into the stalls.
Xanadu said, “Why don’t you hand the bags to me and I’ll stack them in the garage, or whatever it’s called.”
I smiled to myself. This should be good. Looping a leg up onto the flatbed, I scrambled back onboard. I lifted a bag of feed off the pallet and passed it down to her. She caught it between her arms and proceeded to collapse in the dirt.
It was hard suppressing laughter, but I managed, sort of.
“Jesus.” She staggered away from the bag, straightening up. “How much do these things weigh?”
“Fifty pounds,” I told her.
She arched her eyebrows. “They didn’t look that heavy when you were doing it.”
“I have a better idea.” I leaped off the truck. “You slide them to the edge and I’ll haul them in.”
“Help me up.” She extended a hand.
I grasped it. Long, slender fingers. That electric charge surged through me again. Xanadu clambered onto the bed and stood for a moment, surveying the pallet. “I can do this,” she said, sounding determined. She tucked her hair into the back of her shirt and got to work.
We finished the job in fifteen or twenty minutes. By then Xanadu was looking withered and I was soaked with sweat. She sank to the end of the truck bed and slumped forward. I hopped up next to her.
Why’d I do that? I had to reek. Wiping the rivulet of sweat running down my ear with the bottom of my muscle shirt, I snuck a sniff under my pit. Whoa. Kill a moose.
“You’re strong.”
I turned. She was eyeing me, my arms. “You must work out.”
“A little. At the gym.” A little? I was obsessed. Now I knew why. Unconsciously—or consciously—I flexed my bicep.
“There’s a gym in this podunk town?”
“At the VFW, next to the tanning salon.”
“Tanning salon? What is it, like a chaise lounge under a lightbulb?”
I smiled.
She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m just—” She expelled a long breath.
“It’s a real tanning salon,” I told her. “Well, there’s only the one tanning bed and my friend Jamie’s usually in it. But I can get you in for free.” Why’d I say that? It’d be taking advantage of Armie. Taking him up on his offer.
“That’s okay,” Xanadu said. “I’m not into melanoma.”
That was the truth. Her skin was white as summer clouds.
“What’s your real name?” she asked.
I felt as if someone had sucker-punched me. Why’d she have to ask? I didn’t want to say. I hated my name. On my eighteenth birthday, I was legally changing it.
“Come on.” She pressed against me with her shoulder. “I won’t tell.”
She had to know how funny that was. This was Coalton. Her elbow nudged mine and stayed touching. Why was she always touching me? Not that I didn’t like it; she was driving me crazy. I exhaled a long breath. “Mary-Elizabeth,” I mumbled. “If you ever call me that, I’ll kill you.” The moment I said it, I wished I could take it back. I’d never hurt her.
She laughed. “You should have my name. Xanadu. How stupid. Call me Xana, by the way.”
No, I didn’t think I would. She was Xanadu. Exotic, enchanted, poetic.
“God,” she went on. “I wish my parents were crackheads or something; at least I’d have an excuse why they did this to me. To me and my sister both. Know what her name is?”
I shook my head.
“Babylon.”
Did I snort?
“Yeah.” She grinned. “So Mary-Elizabeth is, like, ordinary, normal.”
Not to me. “I just don’t like it,” I said. “It isn’t me.”
She met my eyes and nodded. “I get that. I so get that.” She held my attention. Vibes passed between us. Something. Intense. We both looked down. I saw her eyes skim my bicep, my forearm, settle on my hand. My filthy work glove. I pulled it off, along with the other, and stuffed them both in my back pocket. Xanadu’s gaze gravitated to my Timex. “Seven thirty-eight,” she said. “Let’s see, I’ve only been here three days, four hours, and thirty-eight minutes, and already I regret my decision to come.”
My heart sank. I wanted her here. I needed her here.
Looking off into the wheat fields, she added, “I just needed to get my head straight, you know? See if being away for a while would make things better. I was going to blow off the rest of the school year, but it’s so freaking boring out here, I figured I might as well go. Hook up with some people, maybe. I don’t know.”
Hook up with me, I thought.
“You’re probably wondering why I’m here, right?” She spread her hands out beside her and clutched the edge of the truck bed. She had delicate hands, girl hands.
“Right,” I said. I didn’t really care why. Just stay.
“My parents gave me an ultimatum. I could either exile myself at Aunt Faye and Uncle Lee’s in Kansas or enter this diversion program in Englewood. I’ve known a couple of people who did the program and they say it’s like a prison. Worse than a prison. You can’t leave your house at night or call your friends. I mean, what choice did I have?” She reached behind her with one hand and lifted her hair out of her shirt, letting it cascade over her shoulders.
I had no idea what she was talking about. But I wanted her to keep talking, keep playing with her hair. “Where’s Englewood?” I asked.
She blinked at me. “Denver. The suburbs. I mean, I understand where my parents are coming from. I was definitely headed for trouble. It wasn’t my fault, though, or even my choice. Okay, maybe it was my choice.” She glanced away. “And my fault. What choice do you have, though, when everyone does it? E, I mean. Or worse. And if they’re not doing drugs, they’re getting stoned. I hate smoking pot; it makes me sleepy and gives me a headache. Does it do that to you?”
I was so enthralled in watching her body language, the way her lips moved, her eyebrows danced, her eyes expressed every word, that I’d tuned out the content. I suddenly noticed the quiet, her staring at me. “Huh?” I said.
“Oh, never mind.” She shook her head. “You’re so removed from the real world, you’ve probably never even gotten stoned.”
“Yeah, I have,” I said. “Once. With Jamie.” Once was enough.
“Who’s she?” Xanadu asked. She wiggled her eyebrows. “Your girlfriend?”
I choked. “Not hardly.”
Xanadu leaned back, propping herself on her elbows. She raised one leg, the one closest to me, and bent it so that her knee was eye level with my face. Her legs were unbelievably long. And smooth. She must shave, I thought. Well, duh. Most girls shaved. Femme girls.
“The ecstasy was bad. I admit that. But everybody does it. That or dust. But dust’ll mess you. You don’t want to do dust. You have to do E, though. I didn’t think it was dangerous or anything. Not until…” Her voice changed. “Until…”
I twisted my head around to look at her.
She swallowed hard and met my eyes. “Until Tiffany died.”
“What?” I shot up straight and whirled on my butt. “Someone died?”
“God.” Xanadu’s head lolled back. She closed her eyes and released a thin, shallow breath.
“What happened?” I asked.
Through the globs of mascara, a tear glistened on her eyelashes. She hunched forward in a ball, clutching both knees to her chest and rocking a little. “I didn’t know her that well,” she said. “Tiffany. She was a senior. It was her birthday party at her house, her eighteenth birthday. Her parents weren’t even there. Okay, that doesn’t matter. Even if there are adults around, someone always manages to sneak in a bag of E and sell it. Maybe it was a bad batch or something. I don’t know. Tiffany took too many. Who knows? She just passed out in the bathroom and everyone was too scared to call 911. Someone should have called, you know? They waited an hour. A whole fucking hour.” Xanadu exhaled a long breath. “By the time the paramedics arrived, she was already in a coma.”
I was trying to absorb all this. Tiffany, ecstasy, coma.
“I can’t believe she died.” Resting her cheek on her kneecap, Xanadu picked up a chunk of horse chow and flung it off the side. “None of us could. I mean, God. I’ve never known anyone who died. Have you?”
My stomach clenched.
“You have?” She lifted her head and looked at me, through me.
“A couple of people,” I said.
“It’s freaky, isn’t it? It makes you realize, you could be next. That it could happen anytime, anywhere. Without warning.”
No warning.
“Mom and Dad got all I-don’t-know-you-anymore, how-could-you-do-this-to-us?” Xanadu mocked in a sing-songy voice. “I don’t know how they even found out I was at the party. Or who told them I was doing E. Mom went ballistic, of course. She was ready to turn me over to the authorities and, like, have them put me in lockdown. Whatever.” Xanadu released her legs and stretched them out in front of her. “She always overreacts. Is your mom like that?”
I let out a laugh.
“What?”
“Nothing.” I hunched forward.
“Come on. I just revealed my whole life to you.”
She was right. I never talked about my stuff. Who cared? “I’d be happy if my mom could react,” I muttered.
Xanadu’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
Why’d I say that? I couldn’t do this. Not yet. “Forget it.” My eyes raked the ground and I twisted away from her.
Xanadu said, “I’m sorry. I talk too much.”
In my peripheral vision, I saw her gaze out across the fields into the deepening sky.
“No,” I said. “It’s just, I don’t want to go there. I’m sorry.”
She nodded. “That’s fine. You don’t have to. You don’t even know me; why should you trust me? It’s strange, but I already trust you. It usually takes me a long time with new people. There’s something about you, though. You’re so… open.”
Me? I wished I could be. I wanted to be. She trusted me. I felt honored.
We watched the sky together. After a minute Xanadu said, “They were right. Mom and Dad. I was on the road to ruin, in Dad’s words. With the drugs, though, yeah. I mean, I didn’t do that much, but my grades were shitty and I was ditching a lot. I was in trouble already. Then… Tiffany.” Xanadu blinked to me. “I’m sorry. I keep telling you all this.”
“It’s okay. It’s good.” Get it out, I thought. “So you came here,” I said.
“Yeah. Like I had a choice.” She let out a bitter-sounding laugh and nudged me again with her elbow. “I definitely needed a change of scenery. I wasn’t exactly prepared for this.” She swept her arm out to the side, as if indicating the entire planet. Another planet, which, I suppose, Coalton had to seem to her.
Leland trudged out of the barn, humped over, obviously in pain. “You two still here?” He arched his back and grabbed his spine.
“We finished the unloading,” I told him, in case he thought I was slacking off.
He eyed the storage shed, the neatly stacked bags of feed. “Nice job. Thanks.” He smiled at me, at Xanadu. His eyes warmed to her. “Well, I’m all done in, girls.” He smacked his dusty hat against his leg. “Headin’ back to the house. You coming, Xana?”
She ran a fingernail over a freckle on her leg. She had exactly fourteen freckles, that I could count. “I’ll get a ride back with Mike, if that’s okay.”
Please let it be okay, I prayed.
“Fine by me,” Leland said. “Stop by the house on your way, Mike, so the missus can write Everett a check.”
“Will do.”
He puttered off in his boat-sized Buick. The hearse, Jamie called it. A cloud of dust billowed across the road in his wake. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Xanadu said. “I am so not Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.” She tilted her head at me and grinned. “Neither are you.”
She got that right. “Since I’m a townie, I wouldn’t qualify anyway.”
Her smile widened. She had perfect teeth, white and straight.
The sun was beginning to descend behind her, illuminating the sky in a color wash of gold and orange and peach. “So, okay,” she said. “I’m stating the obvious here, but you’re gay, right? Is this like your total butch look?” She passed a hand down my body.
All my muscles seized at once. I felt the blood drain from my face.
“God.” Xanadu covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh God. I’m sorry, Mike. I didn’t mean…” She reached over to touch my leg, but retracted her hand. “I have a big mouth. You can’t shut me up. Someone should wire my jaw shut or better yet, remove the language chip from my brain. I didn’t say that, okay?”
I flexed my quads. I could move, at least. Run if I had to.
“I know a few gay people back home,” she kept on. “It’s no big deal. Not to me. But maybe here… I’m sorry. I’ll shut up. I won’t tell anyone.”
My eyes rose to fix on hers.
“So, um, listen.” She flipped her hair. “Change of subject. What does one do on a Friday night in Cans Ass, USA?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. She knew gay people. Guys or girls? How well did she know them? What did she think of me really? I think she liked me. Forcing a light tone, I said, “Usually we hang out at the Dairy Delite and chug-a-lug Mr. Mistees.”
Xanadu frowned. Then she burst into laughter.
Jokes, I thought. She likes to laugh. “Or we drag Main, which takes about ten seconds. Sometimes we run the service road on both sides of the tracks and pitch cow pies in each other’s windows.”
Xanadu laughed louder. I smiled, and wished it was a joke.
She slugged me on the arm. The sun grew to a huge red orb and set the world on fire. Xanadu gasped. “Wow,” she breathed. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
I felt proud, as if the beauty of nature originated here. A Coalton creation. A reason for her to stay.
There were no words. Speaking would’ve spoiled it. We sat on the flatbed watching the sun sink slowly off the horizon and vanish into space. I wanted so much to put my arm around her, have her lay her head on my shoulder.
“What’s the best time you’ve ever had in Coalton, Kansas?” Xanadu asked quietly.
“I’ll have to think on that,” I answered. I didn’t have to think at all. Sitting here on a flatbed truck sharing a sunset with the most beautiful girl in the world? It doesn’t get any better than this.