ROBERT E. LEE High School was what locals called a “super school.” This meant that the building was designed to house about fifteen hundred students from the three cities comprising Grant County. As it was, the school was still not large enough, and temporary classrooms—what other people called trailers—were in the back of the building, taking over the baseball field. Grades nine through twelve were offered here, while two middle schools served as feeders for Lee. There were four assistant principals and one principal, George Clay, a man who from all accounts spent most of his time behind his desk pushing paperwork for the governor’s innovative new education program—a plan that made sure teachers spent more time filling out forms and attending certification classes than actually teaching kids.
Brad fiddled with his hat as they walked down the hallway, his police-issue sneakers thumping against the floor. Without thinking, Lena had started to count his steps as they walked up the locker-lined corridor. The place was institutional in its ambiguity, with its bright-white tile floor and muted cement-block walls. To match the school’s colors, the lockers were painted a dark red, the walls a darker gray. There were posters cheering the Rebels to victory on every available blank space, but this served more to clutter than to encourage. Bulletin boards urged students to say no to drugs, cigarettes, and sex.
“It seems so small,” Brad said, his voice a hushed whisper.
Lena did not roll her eyes at this, though it was hard. Since they had talked to George Clay, Brad had been acting like a high school freshman instead of a cop. Brad even looked the part, with his round face and wispy blond hair that seemed to fall into his eyes every three seconds.
“This is Miss Mac’s room,” he said, indicating a closed door. He glanced through the window as they passed by. “She taught me English,” he said, pushing back his hair.
“Hmm,” Lena answered, not looking.
All the doors on the hall were closed between classes, and all of them were locked. Like most rural schools, Lee had taken precautions against intruders. Teachers walked the hallways, and there were two officers, what Jeffrey called “deputy dogs,” in the front office in case anything bad went down. As a patrolman, Lena had been called to the school more than her share of times to arrest drug dealers and brawlers. In her experience, perps picked up from school were a hell of a lot harder to deal with than their adult counterparts. Habitual juvenile offenders knew the laws governing their arrests better than most cops, and there was no fear in them anymore.
“Things have changed so much,” Brad said, echoing her thoughts. “I don’t know how the teachers do it.”
“The same way we do,” Lena snapped, wanting to cut off the conversation. She had never liked school and was not comfortable being here. Actually, since her interrogation of Mark Patterson, Lena had felt off. She was experiencing an odd mixture of self-assurance from being able to connect with the kid and an unsettling feeling that she had connected too closely. Worst of all, Jeffrey seemed to have picked up on this, too.
“Here we go,” Brad said, stopping in front of Jenny Weaver’s locker. He pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket and started to unfold it, saying, “The combination is—” as Lena hooked her thumb under the latch and popped the locker open.
“How’d you do that?” Brad asked.
“Only geeks use the combinations.”
Brad blushed, but covered for it by taking things out of Jenny Weaver’s locker. “Three textbooks,” he said, handing them to Lena so she could thumb through the pages. “A notebook,” he continued. “Two pencils and a pack of gum.”
Lena peered into the narrow cabinet, thinking that Jenny Weaver was a lot neater than she had been. There weren’t even pictures taped on to the inside. “That’s all?” she asked, even though she could see for herself.
“That’s all,” Brad answered, going through the books Lena had already checked.
Lena opened the notebook, which had a puppy on the cover. There were six colored tabs, one for each period, dividing the paper into sections. Almost every page was filled, but as far as she could tell there were only class notes. Jenny Weaver had not even doodled on the edges.
“She must’ve been a good student,” Lena said.
“She was thirteen and in the ninth grade.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Just means she skipped a grade,” Brad told her, stacking the books back in the locker the way they had found them. He checked the packet of gum to make sure it was just gum. “She sure was neat.”
“Yeah,” Lena agreed, handing Brad the notebook. She waited while he thumbed through it, looking for something she might have missed.
“She wrote real neat,” Brad said in a sad voice.
“What’d you think of her on the retreat?”
Brad pushed his hair out of his eyes. “She was quiet. I hate to say that I barely noticed her, but the girls pretty much kept to themselves. Mrs. Gray was supposed to be there to help out with them, but she got sick at the last minute. I didn’t want to disappoint everybody, and the deposits were nonrefundable….” He shook his head. “The boys were a handful. I had to spend most of my time looking after them.”
“What about Jenny and Lacey?”
“Well…” Brad’s forehead wrinkled as he thought. “They didn’t do much, is the thing. The other kids skied and had fun. Jenny and Lacey kind of kept to themselves. They had their own room and I only really saw them around supper time.”
“How’d they act?”
“Kind of like they had their own language. They’d look at me and giggle, you know, like girls do.” He shifted uncomfortably, and Lena could see exactly why the girls had giggled. Brad probably knew as much about teenage girls as a goat did.
“They didn’t act strange?”
“Stranger than giggling for no reason?”
“Brad…,” Lena said. She stopped herself before she told him why the girls were laughing at him. Telling him they probably thought he was a dork would only make him pout, and Lena did not want to deal with that for the rest of the day.
He stared at her openly, waiting for her to finish.
“Just…,” Lena began, then stopped again. “Did it seem like Jenny was sick?”
“That’s what the chief asked,” Brad said, and it seemed like he felt this was a compliment to Lena. “He asked a lot of questions about Jenny and how she looked, who she was hanging around with.”
Lena closed the locker and indicated that they should continue walking. “So?”
“She didn’t look sick to me,” he said. “I mean, like I told you, they kept to themselves. They didn’t seem to like the other kids. Honestly, I don’t know why they went. They’re not exactly part of that group.”
“Meaning what?”
He shrugged. “Popular, I guess. I mean, Lacey could’ve been. She’s real cute, like a cheerleader.” He shook his head, as if he was still trying to figure it out. “Jenny definitely wasn’t popular. I didn’t catch anyone being mean to her—I would’a done something about that—but they didn’t go out of their way to be nice to her, either.”
“Weren’t you supposed to be chaperoning them?”
He took this as it was meant, and immediately became defensive. “I watched them as best I could, but it was just me there, and the boys were getting into a lot more trouble than the girls.”
Lena bit her tongue, wondering how someone as dense as Brad had gotten on the force.
“Here we go,” Brad said, stopping in front of the library. He held the door open for Lena, something Brad’s mama had taught him to do from an early age. Working with Frank, then Jeffrey, Lena was so used to men opening doors for her that she barely noticed it anymore.
The library was cool, yet friendly. Student projects were tacked up on the walls, and row after row of bookshelves were packed almost to overflowing. About twenty computer stations—another education initiative funded by Georgia’s lottery—sat empty, their monitors dark because the school’s electrical system was not equipped to handle the extra load. There was a second-level balcony with an open railing lining the back wall, and for just a moment Lena imagined that some kid had probably sat up in that second level, thinking about how easy it would be to open fire on his classmates.
Brad was staring at her, an expectant look on his face. “That’s them,” he said, indicating three girls and three boys sitting by the librarian’s desk. Lena knew instantly what Brad had been talking about. These were the popular kids. There was something about the way they sat there, talking and laughing with each other. They were an attractive bunch, dressed in the latest fashions and with that casual air of entitlement that kids have who are worshipped by their peers.
“Let’s get this over with,” Lena told him, walking purposefully toward the table. She stood there for several seconds, but none of the kids acknowledged she was there. Lena gave Brad a wary look, then cleared her throat. When that didn’t work, she rapped her knuckles on the table. The group started to quiet down, but two of the girls finished their conversation before looking up.
Lena said, “I’m detective Adams, this is Officer Stephens.”
Two of the girls giggled as if they knew the best secret in the world. Lena was reminded of one of the many reasons she did not like kids, especially girls this age. There was nothing more vicious than a teenage girl. Maybe it was because boys were more capable of settling an argument with their fists, but girls at this age were much more conniving and torturous than anyone wanted to believe.
One of the giggling girls smacked her gum while the other said, “We know Brad.”
Lena tried not to be hostile as Brad introduced the kids. “Heather, Brittany, and Shanna,” he said, pointing them out. Then, indicating the boys, who were slouching so far into their chairs their butts were nearly touching the ground, “Carson, Rory, and Cooper.” Lena wondered when parents had stopped giving their kids normal names. Probably around the time they stopped teaching them manners.
“Okay,” Lena began, sitting opposite them. “Let’s wrap this up quickly so y’all can go back to class.”
“Why are we here?” Brittany demanded, her tone as hostile as her posture.
“You were on the ski retreat with Officer Stephens,” Lena told them. “Jenny Weaver was there. You know what happened to her Saturday?”
“Yeah,” Shanna said, smacking her gum. “Y’all shot her.”
Lena took a deep breath and let it go. As shitty as she had been at this age, Lena would never have talked to a cop like this. She said, “We’re just asking some routine questions about her, trying to figure out why she did what she did.”
One of the boys spoke. Lena couldn’t remember his name, but it was hardly relevant as they all looked alike. “Does my father know you’re talking to me?”
“What’s your name?” Lena asked.
“Carson.”
“Carson,” she repeated, returning the belligerent stare he gave her. His eyes were bloodshot, the pupils dilated.
“What?” he said, finally breaking the stare. He crossed his arms, looking around the room as if he was bored.
“One of your classmates is dead,” Lena reminded him. “Are you not interested in helping us find out why?”
“The ‘why’ is because you shot her,” Carson answered, picking up his backpack. “Can I go now?”
“Sure,” Lena told him. “Why don’t we get Dr. Clay to take a look in your bookbag?”
Carson smirked. “You don’t have probable cause.”
“No,” Lena agreed. “But Dr. Clay doesn’t need it.”
Carson knew she was right. He dropped the bag onto the floor. “What do you want to know?”
Lena exhaled slowly. “Tell me about Jenny Weaver.”
He waved his hand. “I didn’t know her, okay? She was on the retreat and all, but she and Lacey didn’t really socialize.”
The other boys nodded. One of them said, “They didn’t like to party.”
Lena assumed that by “party” he meant get high. From what little she knew about Jenny Weaver, this was not surprising.
“She was younger than us,” Carson added. “We don’t hang around with babies.”
Lena turned to the girls. “What about y’all?”
Brittany started first. Her posture was as poor as the others’, and her backbone seemed pliable, molding her into the back of the chair like Silly Putty. She sounded just how Lena had imagined she would: whiny and put-upon. There was something wrong with a society that let children talk to adults this way.
Brittany said, “Jenny was weird.”
Lena tried to stir them up, asking, “I thought y’all were friends.”
“We most certainly weren’t,” Shanna toned in. “I for one couldn’t stand her.”
She said this as if she was proud of the fact.
“That so?” Lena asked.
Shanna’s bravura dropped down a notch when she saw Lena was taking her seriously. She was considerably less confident when she said, “We weren’t friends.”
“None of us was really,” Heather said, and she seemed to be the logical one. She had uncrossed her arms, and Lena thought that, of the six, she was the only one who seemed to show any regret. Actually, Heather reminded Lena a little of herself at that age, on the periphery of things, more interested in sports than school gossip.
Heather said, “Jenny was quiet most of the time. Even back in middle school.”
“You all went to the same school?”
They all nodded.
Heather indicated the other girls. “All of us live near her. We rode the bus together for a while.”
Lena asked, “But you weren’t friends?”
“She didn’t really have a lot of friends.” Heather was quiet for a few beats, then said, “When she first moved into the neighborhood, I tried to talk to her and all, but she liked to stay home and read a lot. I invited her to hang out a couple of times, but she didn’t want to, then I just stopped trying.”
“No one liked her,” Brittany provided. “She was a real—what do you call it?—introvert.”
Shanna laughed, covering her mouth with her hand. “Yeah, right,” she said.
Lena pointed out, “She was friends with Lacey Patterson.”
The girls exchanged a look.
“What?” Lena asked.
They shrugged in unison. The boys were either comatose or not interested.
Lena sighed, sitting back in her chair. “We’ll sit here all night until you tell me what I need to know.”
They seemed to believe her, even though Lena wanted nothing more than to leave this school.
Brittany spoke first. “Lacey was only friends with her because of Mark.”
“Mark Patterson, Lacey’s brother?”
“Okay,” Shanna said, holding out her hand palm up, her voice excited, as if she’d just been cracked by Lena’s tough interrogation and was now giddy to tell them all they needed to know. “She was a whore.”
“Shanna,” Heather gawked.
“You know it’s true,” Shanna countered. “She slept around, and not just with Mark.”
Brad stirred in his seat, looking as uncomfortable as Lena had ever seen him, which was saying a lot.
“Who did she sleep with?” Lena asked, looking at the boys. None of them would meet her eye.
“I don’t know for sure, other than Mark,” Shanna said, as if she were talking with one of her girlfriends over the lunch table. “But there were all kinds of rumors that she’d blow guys—”
“Jeesh,” Heather interrupted. “She’s dead, okay? Why do you have to say all this?”
“Because it’s the truth!” Shanna countered, her voice high and excited.
Heather seemed angry. “It was just rumors. Nobody knows if they were true or not.”
Lena asked, “What were the rumors?”
Shanna was more than happy to supply this. “She was having sex with some of the guys behind the gym after fifth period.”
“Intercourse or blow jobs?” Lena asked, still watching the guys.
Shanna shrugged, giving Heather a sideways glance. “I wasn’t there.”
“Heather was?”
“Heather doesn’t like boys,” Shanna provided.
“Shut up!” Heather ordered, alarmed.
Lena wondered if she looked just as shocked as Brad. It was like having their very own Jerry Springer show right here in the school library.
“Okay,” Lena said, holding up her hands, trying to rein this in. “What proof do you have that Jenny was sleeping around?”
The girls were silent, looking back and forth at each other.
“Nothing, right?” Lena asked. “You can’t tell me any of the boys she was with?”
Carson stirred in his chair, but he didn’t volunteer anything.
“Mark,” Shanna said, shrugging. “But Mark was with, like, everybody.”
“No kidding,” Brittany muttered, with something like regret in her tone.
Lena sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. She was getting the kind of headache that would probably last for the rest of the day. “Okay, then who started the rumor?”
They all shrugged. This seemed to be the universal teenage response to any question. Lena wondered if they would later have rotator cuff problems.
“Pansy Davis told me,” said Shanna.
“She told me she slept with Ron Wilson Thurday night,” Brittany countered, “And you know Ron was at Frank’s house that night.”
“Frank said he sneaked out!” Shanna squealed.
“Stop, stop,” Lena said, holding up her hands. It was like being nibbled to death by ducks. “None of y’all remembers where you heard the rumor?”
“It was just a known thing,” Heather told Lena. “I mean, I don’t remember who told me, but Jenny just acted weird, okay? She would go off with boys she didn’t know. Boys, like, in twelfth grade.”
“And you don’t know their names?”
Heather shook her head. “They’re seniors.”
“Not popular seniors?” Lena asked.
“Some of them were skanky,” Brittany provided. “Not seniors I would know. Not popular, okay? Sort of like Jenny.”
“Did she ride the bus home with them?”
“They had cars,” Heather said. “Seniors are allowed to drive.”
“Do you remember any of the cars?”
Heather shook her head no, but Brittany snapped her fingers. “There’s one I remember.” She turned to Shanna. “Do you remember that cool black Thunderbird?”
“A new one or an old one?” Lena asked.
“The older kind that’s really big in the back,” Shanna said. “It was really loud, like something was wrong with the engine or something.”
“Did the driver go to this school?”
They exchanged glances again. “Maybe,” Brittany said.
“I don’t think so,” Shanna added.
Heather shrugged. “I don’t pay attention to cars. It doesn’t sound familiar.”
Lena looked at the boys. “Do any of y’all recognize the car?”
They all shrugged or shook their heads.
Lena tried another line of questioning. “Do y’all have any idea why Jenny wanted to kill Mark?”
The girls were silent, then Brittany finally said, “We’ve all wanted to at least once.”
Lena sat back, crossing her arms. She stared at the boys, guessing why they were being silent. “Okay,” she said, and they all started to stand, but she stopped them. “Carson, Cory, Roper—”
“Rory and Cooper,” Brad corrected.
“Right,” Lena said. “Whatever. You guys stay. The girls can leave.” She turned to Brad. “Why don’t you get their phone numbers and addresses?”
Brad nodded. He knew she was getting rid of him, but didn’t seem to mind.
Lena sat at the table across from the boys, silent until they started to squirm in their chairs.
“Well?” she said.
Carson spoke first. “Yeah, she was doing it.”
The other boys nodded.
“All of you slept with her?”
They did not answer.
“Blow jobs? Hand jobs?” Lena asked.
“Sex,” Carson clarified.
Lena felt her cheeks flush, but not from embarrassment. “When was this?”
“Mark brought her over to my house one time. We were all partying.”
“I thought you said Jenny didn’t party.”
“No, she didn’t,” Carson said. “Not usually, but Mark told her to have something to take the edge off.” He snorted a laugh. “She did whatever Mark told her to do.”
“So,” Lena said, trying to get all of this straight, “it was Mark, Jenny, and you three?”
They all nodded.
Carson said, “She got a little drunk and started coming on to us.”
Lena pressed her lips together so she would not say anything.
“Mark said she’d do anything we wanted.”
One of the boys smiled. “She sure did.”
“You all had sex with her?” Lena asked.
Carson shrugged, smirking. “She was pretty drunk.”
Lena looked down at the table, trying to compose herself. “So, she got drunk and you all had sex with her, Mark included?”
“Mark just watched,” one of the boys said. “She let us do anything we wanted.” His anger sparked like a brush fire. “She was a whore, okay? Why do you even care?”
Lena was startled by the hatred in his voice, as if it was Jenny’s fault entirely that they had done this. She asked, “What was your name?”
He looked down, mumbling, “Rory.”
“All right, Rory,” Lena said. “Did she have sex with any of you on the retreat?”
“Fuck no.” Carson crossed his arms angrily. “That was the thing. Why the fuck else would we go on that stupid retreat?”
“You were having sex with her then?” Lena asked.
“No,” he said, still angry. “She wouldn’t go near us. She was fine at the party. Couldn’t get enough of it.” He grabbed himself, as if Lena needed the visual aid. “But over Christmas she was tight as a drum. Wouldn’t even talk to us.” His lip curled. “The bitch.”
Lena bit her tongue.
“She was a cock tease,” Carson said. “She would’ve fucked a dog if Mark asked her to, but on the retreat it was like she was better than us.”
“What do you think changed this?” Lena asked.
He shrugged. “Who the fuck cares?”
“Did you approach her on the retreat, or did she just ignore you?”
His lip curled. “It was this way, all right? We offered her a little something to help her relax, told her we all wanted to party, and she froze up.”
“Exactly,” Rory said. “It was like we weren’t good enough for her all the sudden.”
“Hell, yeah,” Carson agreed. “She was pretending like it didn’t happen, and I said to her, ‘Hey, you know what you did, you whore.’”
“Should’ve offered her money for it,” Rory suggested. “Should’ve offered Mark money for it.”
“Right,” Lena mumbled, trying to remember the third boy’s name. He had been very quiet during all of this, not hostile like the others. “Cooper?” she guessed. He looked up, and she asked, “Did you ever wonder why a thirteen-year-old girl would do something like that in the first place?”
“She liked it,” Cooper suggested, shrugging like they all shrugged. “I mean, why else would she do it?” He looked up at his friends and his whole demeanor changed. He was more adamant and just as hateful as his friends when he insisted, “She was a whore and she liked it.”
“Yeah,” Rory said, his tone filled with spite. “I mean, you could tell she liked it.”
Lena suggested, “Even though she was drunk?”
They didn’t answer her.
“How could you tell she liked it?”
“Hell, man,” Rory said, “who knows? Her face was buried in the couch the whole time.”
“Dude,” Carson laughed, holding up his hand for a high-five.
Lightning fast, Lena reached out and grabbed his hand. She was holding on to his wrist tight enough to feel the bones, and he grimaced from the pain.
She said, “You think she enjoyed it, huh?”
“Hey,” Carson said, looking around the room for help. “Come on, we were just having fun.”
“Fun?” Lena asked, jerking his arm like she might rip it out of the socket. “Where I come from, we call that rape, you little shit.” She let go of him because there was nothing else she could do short of taking out her gun and pistol-whipping him, which was tempting in light of the smirk that returned to his face when he sat back in his chair.
The bell rang for class changes, and Lena had to force herself not to jump at the loud sound. The boys had a Pavlovian response, gathering their bookbags, not waiting for Lena to release them.
She told them, “Give Officer Stephens your phone numbers and addresses in case we have any questions.” She made sure she had their attention. “I’m going to make sure every cop at the station knows your name.”
“Yeah,” Rory said. “Whatever.”
They started to shuffle away, but Carson stayed, asking, “You gonna tell Dr. Clay to search me or what?”
“I’m going to do every possible thing I can to make sure you’re in jail before you’re old enough to vote.”
“Shit,” he groaned, shuffling off.
Lena stood, wanting to get away from the table where she had heard their vile talk. She walked over to the computer area and rested her hand on the top of a monitor, feeling a cold sweat break out all over her body. It sickened her to know that boys this young were already learning to think this way about women. Lena could imagine him feeling the same way at that age, like girls were expendable. They all liked it. They were all whores.
“Lena?” Brad said, pulling her out of her thoughts. She looked back at the table and saw a couple of older women and one man taking their seats. “Jenny’s teachers,” Brad told her.
Lena put her hand to her chest, feeling claustrophobic. Brad was standing too close, and the room felt like it was getting smaller. “Why don’t you start?” Lena suggested, thinking she needed to get out of here to catch her breath. She walked toward the doors, but he stopped her.
“By myself?” he asked, standing too close to her again. She could smell his aftershave, and something that smelled like a strong breath mint. She could not lose it here. Lena knew if she got sick in front of Brad she wouldn’t be able to go back to work again.
She indicated her cell phone as she took another step back. “I’ll call back to the station and check on things there, maybe see if we can find out who owns a black Thunderbird in the area.”
“I bet the principal would know,” Brad suggested, stepping forward. “They keep logs on that, right? You can’t park here unless you’ve got a parking pass.”
“Good thinking,” Lena said, taking another step back, aware that if she didn’t get her breathing under control she would hyperventilate. “I’ll check that out while you interview them. Be sure to ask about what the girls said.”
He gave her a funny look. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. Suddenly, the room felt hot and unbearable, and she could feel her shirt starting to cling to her back. “Just get preliminary stuff, an impression of what she was like. I’ll be back as soon as I make some calls.”
He gave her a quick nod, his jaw tightening. “All right,” he said, and she could tell he wanted to ask her again if she was okay.
She walked quickly into the hall, taking a deep breath to calm herself. She was still sweating, and took off her jacket. A kid jogged by. He slowed when he saw Lena’s gun in her shoulder holster.
Lena slipped the jacket back on and leaned her head against the wall. She closed her eyes until the nausea passed. After a few deep breaths she felt better, if not a hundred percent.
Lena flipped open her cell phone to give herself something to do. She dialed the station and talked to Marla about the car, glad that Frank wasn’t in. It was still hard for Lena to talk to Frank, and part of her felt that he blamed Lena for what had happened. That same part of her agreed with him. She had been so stupid.
Even though she was standing less than a hundred yards from the front office, Lena called the principal and asked him about the black car. He went through his records while she waited on the phone and gave her the answer she had assumed all along: No one in the school had registered a car fitting that description. Lena thanked the principal, then hung up, thinking it felt good to get some things done instead of just treading water. The more time that passed on this case, the more they seemed to be moving away from solving it. She should talk to Mark again and see what his reaction was to this latest information. Jeffrey probably wouldn’t let her near Mark again after what happened last time.
Lena opened the phone again and dialed her voice mail at home. The first message was from the video store in town, telling her that her tapes were late. The second was from Nan Thomas, Sibyl’s lover.
“Lena,” Nan said, her low voice an irritated grumble. “I’ve still got this stuff, Sibby’s stuff. If you want it, let me know. I don’t…” She stopped, then, “It’s just…”
Lena looked at her watch, wondering how much Nan’s stuttering was costing her.
“I’ll be at Suddy’s tonight around eight,” Nan said. “I’ll have the boxes in my car if you want them. Meet me there if you…Otherwise, well…” Again, she stopped.
Lena fast forwarded, skipping the rest of the message. Suddy’s was a gay bar on the outskirts of Heartsdale. There was no way in hell she was going to meet her sister’s lover in a gay bar.
Lena’s heart dropped into her stomach when she heard the next message. Hank said, “Lee, Barry’s sick. I gotta cover here tonight, maybe tomorrow.”
She closed her eyes, leaning her back against the wall as Hank explained that it would be easier for him to stay in Reece because there was a beer delivery tomorrow morning. She felt panicked again, then angry, because he had taken the coward’s way out, leaving the message instead of calling her cell phone to explain.
Lena walked over to the other side of the hallway, looking out the window. There was an atrium in the middle of the school, and across the way she could see the cafeteria staff setting up the tables. She was so absorbed in their movements that she missed part of the last message. She rewound it and listened again.
“This is Pastor Fine, Lena,” the message began. “I apologize, but I’ll have to cancel our appointment this evening. One of our parishioners has taken ill. I need to be with the family right now.”
Lena snapped the phone closed as he asked for her to return his call so they could reschedule. She would let Jeffrey deal with that. She was not in the habit of letting herself think too far ahead, but the meeting with Fine had been something she had settled her mind on as something to do tonight. In a flash, she saw herself going back to her empty house, being alone. Panic enveloped her.
She put her hand to her chest, feeling her heart pounding against her rib cage. She was sweating, she noticed, and the back of her knees felt hot and sticky. She wanted to hear Hank’s message again, to see if there was a nuance in his voice she had missed. Maybe he had left an opening. Maybe he was playing some kind of game to make her say that she wanted him there.
The final bell rang, a loud, piercing tone that vibrated in Lena’s ears. She looked around the empty hallway, forgetting for a moment exactly where she was and why. As if out of a dream, she saw the image of a woman walking toward her. Lena’s eyes felt like they blurred for a moment, then with a start she realized that she was in Jenny Weaver’s school, and that Dottie Weaver was walking down the hall toward her.
“Shit,” Lena mumbled, looking down at her cell phone, willing it to ring. She flipped it open like she might make a call, but it was too late. Dottie Weaver was less than ten feet away holding a heavy-looking textbook in her hands.
Weaver stopped in the hallway, her mouth an angry straight line. Her eyes were bloodshot, like she had been crying for the last year. Red splotches were all over her face.
“Mrs. Weaver,” Lena said, flipping her phone closed.
Dottie shook her head, like she was too angry to say anything.
“We’re just talking to some classmates and teachers to see if they can shed any light on—”
“Why can’t you just leave her alone?” Dottie begged. “Why can’t you just let her rest in peace?”
“I’m sorry,” Lena told the woman, and she meant it.
“She was my baby.”
“I know that,” Lena answered, looking down at her phone.
“You’re here raking her name over the coals, trying to make her out to be a bad person.”
“That’s not my goal.”
“Liar!” Dottie screamed, throwing the book at Lena. Lena dropped her phone to catch it, but missed. The spine slammed into her stomach and she winced as it dropped to the floor.
“Mrs. Weaver,” Lena began, stooping to retrieve the textbook.
“The school wanted her book back,” Dottie said, her bottom lip trembling. “Take it. Take it and tell them all they can go to hell.”
Lena tried to close the book without damaging the pages. She picked up her phone, which didn’t seem to be broken.
Dottie dabbed her eyes with some tissue, then blew her nose. She did not leave, though, which Lena could not understand until she spoke again.
“Jenny loved this school,” the mother said, wrapping her arms around her stomach as if it brought her pain to speak. “She loved being here.”
Lena thought now was as good a time as any to get this out of the way. “Was she seeing anybody, Mrs. Weaver?”
Dottie shook her head. “A psychiatrist?” she asked.
“A boy,” Lena clarified. “Was she seeing any boys?”
“No,” Dottie snapped. “Of course not. She was just a child.”
Lena nodded, feeling an encroaching dread. “Some of the girls said she was.”
“Which girls?” Dottie asked, looking around as if they might be there.
“Just girls,” Lena answered. “Friends from school.”
“She didn’t have friends,” Dottie told her, narrowing her eyes, sensing some kind of trick. “What are they saying about my daughter?”
Lena tried to think of a way to say it. “That she…”
“That she what?” Dottie demanded.
Lena said, “That she saw a lot of boys. That she was with a lot of boys.”
The slap came suddenly, and stung so much that after a few seconds the right side of Lena’s face went numb. Before Lena could think to respond, let alone react, she was looking at the back of Dottie Weaver as the woman left the school.
The library door bumped open, and Brad stood there, holding the door for the group of teachers he had been interviewing. They looked tired, and a bit irritated, but this was pretty normal from Lena’s recollection of teachers around lunchtime. One of them looked at Lena, and she could tell from the way the woman assessed her that she sensed something was wrong. The teacher raised an eyebrow as if to invite conversation, but Lena was too shocked to speak.
“Lena?” Brad prompted. She nodded that she was okay, wondering if her face was red where Dottie had slapped her.
Brad introduced all of the teachers, whose names Lena promptly forgot. He said, “They know about the rumor.”
Lena blinked, not understanding.
“The rumor about Jenny,” Brad clarified. “They said they had heard it.”
“None of us believed it,” one of the teachers said, her voice indicating that she had resigned herself a long time ago to the fact that there were things that went on in the school that no teacher would ever know about.
“She was a good student,” another teacher said. “Very quiet, turned her work in on time. Her mother was involved.”
The other teachers nodded, and Lena duplicated the gesture, still too shocked to offer anything of consequence.
“Thank you for your time,” Brad said, moving things along. He shook hands with each of them in turn, and to the last one they gave him an encouraging look.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t help more,” one said.
Another told him, “If we think of anything, we’ll call you.”
The woman who had looked at Lena was last, and she told Brad, “You did an excellent job, Bradley. I’m very impressed.”
Brad beamed. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said, tucking his head down like a happy puppy. He waited until the teachers were gone before asking Lena, “Whose book?”
“Jenny Weaver’s,” Lena provided, thumbing through the pages to see if any notes were tucked in. It was empty, just like the others.
“How’d you get it?”
Lena could not answer him. “Here,” she said, handing him the book. “Take it to the front office, then meet me in the car.”
THE parking lot of Suddy’s was pretty empty, even at eight o’clock. If Sibyl and Nan’s life had been any indication, probably most of the lesbians in town were at home, watching sitcoms. Not that Sibyl could watch them, she was blind, but she liked to listen sometimes, and Nan would narrate what was happening.
Lena crossed her arms, thinking about Sibyl, and how she had looked the last time Lena had seen her; not the time in the morgue, but the day before she had died. As usual, Sibyl had been full of energy, and laughing at something that had happened in one of her classes. Above everything, Sibyl loved teaching, and she had taken great joy from being in front of a classroom. Maybe that was why Lena had had such a negative reaction to being at the school today.
Before she could stop herself, Lena got out of the car. Suddy’s was nice by most bar standards. Compared to the Hut, Hank’s bar over in Reece, it was a palace. Outside, the decor was spare, probably because a place like this would not want to draw attention to itself. Other than a Budweiser sign with a neon rainbow flag incorporated into the logo, the building was pretty nondescript.
The interior was more festive, but the lights were down low, making the room a little too intimate for Lena. Something soft played on the jukebox, and a spinning mirrored ball did a slow turn over what looked like the dance floor. Lena had always been uncomfortable with this side of Sibyl, and never understood how someone who was so pretty, who was so outgoing and energetic, could choose this kind of life for herself. Sibyl had always wanted children, always wanted to be taken care of and loved. Lena would not have predicted this kind of life for her sister in a million years.
When Sibyl had first come out to Lena fifteen years ago, Lena’s response had been an emphatic, “No, you’re not.” Even after Sibyl moved in with Nan, Lena had still let herself believe that Sibyl was not gay. It sounded trite to say, but Lena could not help thinking in the back of her mind that it was just a phase, and that one day Sibyl would laugh about her confusion and settle down and have children. Being Sibyl’s twin complicated matters, because Lena had always felt that a piece of herself was in Sibyl, and a piece of Sibyl was in Lena. It was unsettling to think that Lena might somewhere in her psyche share Sibyl’s sexual leanings.
Lena dismissed this as she walked across the room. Two women at a corner table ignored her completely, seeming more intent upon pushing their tongues down each other’s throat than seeing who had walked through the door. The bartender was reading a newspaper when Lena approached her, and she looked up, doing a startled double take.
The woman said, “You must be her sister.”
Lena sat a couple of stools down from her. “I’m meeting someone here.”
The woman closed the paper. She walked over and offered Lena her hand. “I’m Judy,” she said.
Lena stared at the hand, then reluctantly shook it. The woman was tall, with long dark hair and a heart-shaped face. Her eyes were an intense hazel, which Lena noticed because the woman would not stop staring at her.
“Beer, please,” Lena said, then, “Make it a Jim Beam instead.”
Judy paused, then walked over to the liquor display behind the bar. “Sibyl never drank,” she said, as if by extension this meant that Lena, her twin, would not drink.
Lena pointed out, “She didn’t fuck men, either.”
Judy conceded the point. “Jim Beam?”
“Yeah,” Lena answered, trying to sound bored as she took some money out of her front pocket. She had changed into jeans and a T-shirt at home before coming here, a decision she now regretted. She probably looked gayer than the women in the corner to these people.
Judy said, “She liked cranberry juice, though.”
“Could you make that a double?” Lena asked, tossing a twenty-dollar bill onto the bar.
Judy glanced at her before filling the order. “We all really miss her.”
“I’m sure you do,” Lena told her, aware that she sounded glib. She stared at the dark liquid in her glass, remembering that the last time she had anything to drink was the night Sibyl had died. Lena did not like alcohol, because she hated the feeling of being out of control. Not that she had control of anything lately, anyway.
Lena looked at the clock over the bar. It was five till eight.
Judy asked, “Who you meeting here?”
Lena knocked the drink back in one swallow. “Jim Beam,” she said, tapping the glass.
Judy gave her another look, but retrieved the bottle from the shelf.
To discourage conversation, Lena turned on the stool, looking out on the dance floor. A lone woman stood there, her eyes closed as she swayed to the beat. There was something familiar about her, but the light was bad, and Lena’s memory did not want to work. Still, Lena watched her, wondering at the self-absorbed way the woman danced, as if no one else were in the room. As if nothing else mattered.
The song changed, and Lena recognized the tune before the lyrics to Beck’s “Debra” came from the speakers. Mark Patterson popped into her mind again. There was something sensual and disturbing about the way the dancer moved that reminded her of the young man. She watched the dancer, wondering again what the hell had been going on with Jenny Weaver. What was Mark’s hold over her? What was it about him that would make a thirteen-year-old kid prostitute herself? It did not make sense.
Lena wondered if this was the way Mark Patterson would dance, though she could not imagine the kid doing something so audacious as standing in the middle of an empty dance floor. The thought surprised her, because Lena was not aware that she had put herself in a position to make assumptions about Mark’s personality. She knew so very little about him, yet somehow, her subconscious had assigned him certain traits.
Lena turned back around to break the spell. Judy was reading her paper, having left Lena’s drink and her change on the bar. Lena was thinking about what to leave for a tip when she noticed her reflection in the mirror. For just a moment, she startled, and Lena imagined she looked much as Judy had when Lena had first walked into the room. In a split second, Sibyl was there, and Lena felt her heart jump at the sight.
Suddenly, shouting came from outside, and a crowd of people walked into the bar. They were laughing and raucous, all dressed in matching softball uniforms. The pants were black with white stripes up the sides, the shirts white with the word BUSHWHACKERS across the chest.
“Jesus Christ,” Lena groaned, getting the reference. She stood up as she recognized Nan Thomas in the center of the group. The mousy librarian had a neon-pink athletic strap around her glasses and the front of her shirt was streaked with dirt as if she had slid across home plate. Unlike some of the others in the group, Nan showed no sign of mistaking Lena for her sister. As a matter of fact, she frowned.
Someone patted Lena on the back, and she turned around, surprised to see Hare Earnshaw standing beside her. He was dressed in jeans and a Bushwhacker T-shirt as well as a hat with a large B on it.
“How’s it going, Lena?” Hare asked.
Maybe it was the alcohol, but Lena blurted out a surprised, “You’re gay?” to him before she could stop herself. Hare was a doctor in town. Lena had actually seen him a couple of years ago for a cold that would not go away.
Hare laughed at her surprise. “I play on the team,” he said, indicating his shirt. Then, he leaned closer, giving her a coy wink. “I’m the catcher.”
Lena backed up right into Nan. There were people everywhere, though they seemed to be involved in their own conversations about the game they had just played. Lena pulled at the neck of her shirt, feeling claustrophobic. She moved away from the group, toward the front door.
“Lee?” Nan said, then corrected herself before Lena could, saying, “Lena.”
“I told you not to call me that,” Lena said, crossing her arms.
“I know,” Nan held her hands up, palms out. “I’m sorry. It’s just that Sibby always called you that.”
Lena stopped her. “Can we get the stuff, please? I need to get home.” Her voice went down on the word “home” as she thought about the empty house. Hank had not answered the phone when she called the Hut looking for him. The bastard was obviously ignoring her. It was so typical of him to leave her when she needed him most.
“It’s out in the parking lot,” Nan said, holding the door open for Lena. Lena stopped, waiting for Nan to go first. It was one thing to let Brad Stephens hold a door open for her; Lena would be damned if she would let some woman do it.
Nan talked as they walked out to the parking lot. “I tried to keep it the same way she had it,” she said, a forced lightness to her voice. “You know how Sibby liked to keep things orderly.”
“She had to,” Lena shot back, thinking it was obvious that a blind person would have a system to things so that they would not be lost.
If Nan noticed Lena’s biting tone, she ignored it.
“Here,” Nan said, stopping in front of a white Toyota Camry. The driver’s side window was down, and she reached in, popping the trunk.
“You should keep your doors locked,” Lena told her.
“Why?” Nan asked, and she really seemed to be puzzled.
“You’ve got your car parked in front of a gay bar. I would think you might want to be a little more careful.”
Nan tucked her hands into her waist. “Sibyl was killed in a diner in broad daylight. Do you really think locking my car door is going to protect me?”
She had a point, but Lena was not going to give it to her. “I wasn’t saying you could get killed. Someone might vandalize the car or something.”
“Well…” Nan shrugged, and for just a moment, she seemed exactly like Sibyl. Not that Nan was in any way similar to Sibyl in appearance, it was just her “whatever happens will happen” attitude.
“These are some of her tapes,” Nan said, handing Lena a box that was about eighteen inches square. “She labeled them in braille, but most of them have their own titles.”
Lena took the box, surprised at how heavy it was.
“These are some photographs,” Nan said, stacking another box on top of the first. “I don’t know why she had them.”
“I asked her to keep them for me,” Lena provided, remembering the day she had brought the box of pictures to Sibyl. Greg Mitchell, Lena’s last boyfriend, had just left her, and Lena did not want the photographs she had of him in the house.
“I’ll get this one,” Nan offered, picking up the last box. It was bigger than the other two, and she rested it on her knee to close the trunk. “This is just a bunch of stuff she had in the closet. A couple of awards from high school, a track ribbon I guess is yours.”
Lena nodded, walking to her Celica.
“I found a picture of you two at the beach,” Nan said, laughing. “Sibyl’s got a sunburn. She looks miserable.”
Because she was in front of Nan, Lena allowed a smile. She remembered the day, how Sibyl had insisted on staying outside even though Hank had warned her it was too hot. Sibyl’s black glasses had shaded her eyes, and when she took them off, the only part of her face that was not beet red was where the glasses had been. She looked like a raccoon for days after.
“…stop by Saturday to pick them up,” Nan was saying.
“What?” Lena asked.
“I said that you can stop by Saturday to go through the other stuff. I’m donating her computer and equipment to the school for the blind over in Augusta.”
“What other stuff?” Lena asked, thinking Nan meant to throw away Sibyl’s things.
“Just some papers,” Nan told her, setting the box down at her feet. “School stuff, mostly. Her dissertation, a couple of essays. That kind of thing.”
“You’re just going to throw them away?” Lena demanded.
“Give them away. They’re not really valuable,” Nan said, as if she were talking to a child.
“They were valuable to Sibyl,” Lena countered, aware she was close to yelling. “How can you even think about giving them away?”
Nan looked down at the ground, then back at Lena. The patronizing tone was still there. “I told you that you’re more than welcome to have them if you like. They’re in braille. It’s not like you can read them.”
Lena snorted a laugh, setting the boxes on the ground. “Some lover you were.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
“Obviously, it meant something to her or she wouldn’t have kept it,” Lena said. “But go ahead and give it away.”
“Excuse me,” Nan said, indicating the boxes. “How many times did I have to call you and beg you to take this stuff?”
“That’s different,” Lena said, digging in her pocket for her keys.
“Why?” Nan shot back. “Because you were in the hospital?”
Lena glanced back at the bar. “Lower your voice.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Nan said, her tone louder. “You don’t get to question me about whether or not I loved your sister. Do you get that?”
“I wasn’t questioning you,” Lena answered, wondering how this had escalated so quickly. She could not even remember what had started this, but Nan was obviously pissed.
“The hell you weren’t,” Nan barked. “You think you’re the only one around here who loved Sibyl? I shared my life with her.” Nan lowered her voice. “I shared my bed with her.”
Lena winced. “I know that.”
“Do you?” Nan said. “Because I’ll tell you what, Lena, I am sick and tired of the way you treat me, as if I’m some sort of pariah.”
“Hey,” Lena stopped her. “I’m not the one playing softball for Suddy’s.”
“I don’t know how she put up with this,” Nan mumbled, almost to herself.
“Put up with what?”
“Your misogynistic cop bullshit, for one.”
“Misogynistic?” Lena repeated. “You’re calling me misogynistic?”
“And homophobic,” Nan added.
“Homophobic?”
“Are you a parrot now?”
Lena felt her nostrils flare. “Don’t fuck with me, Nan. You don’t know how.”
Nan didn’t seem to catch the warning. “Why don’t you go back into that bar and meet some of your sister’s friends, Lee? Why don’t you talk to the people who really knew her and cared about her?”
“You sound like Hank,” Lena told her. “Oh, I see,” she said, putting the pieces together. “You’ve been talking to Hank about me.”
Nan pressed her lips together. “We’re worried about you.”
“That so?” Lena laughed. “Great, my speed freak uncle and my dead sister’s dyke girlfriend are worried about me.”
“Yes,” Nan said, standing her ground. “We are.”
“This is so fucking stupid,” Lena said, trying to laugh it off. She slipped the key into the lock, opening the trunk.
“You wanna know what’s stupid?” Nan said. “What’s stupid is me giving a crap about what you do. What’s stupid is my caring about the fact that you’re throwing your life away.”
“Nobody asked you to look after me, Nan.”
“No,” Nan agreed. “But it’s what Sibyl would have wanted.” Her tone was more moderate now. “If Sibyl were here right now, she would be saying the same thing.”
Lena swallowed hard, trying not to let Nan’s words get to her, mostly because they rang true. Sibyl was the only person who had ever really been able to get to Lena.
Nan said, “She would be saying that you need to deal with this. She would be worried about you.”
Lena stared at the jack in the trunk of the car because it was the only thing she could focus on.
Nan said, “You’re so angry.”
Lena laughed again, but the sound was hollow even to her. “I think I have pretty damn good reason to be.”
“Why? Because your sister was killed? Because you were raped?”
Lena reached out, holding on to the trunk of her car. If only it were that easy, Lena thought. She was not simply mourning the death of Sibyl, she was also mourning the death of herself. Lena did not know who she was anymore, or why she even got up in the morning. Everything Lena had been before the rape had been taken away from her. She no longer knew herself.
Nan spoke again, and when she did, she said his name. Lena watched Nan’s lips forming the word, saw his name travel through the space between them like an airborne poison.
“Lee,” Nan said, “Don’t let him ruin your life.”
Lena kept her grip on the car, certain her knees would buckle if she let go.
Nan used his name again, then said, “You’ve got to deal with it, Lena. You’ve got to deal with it now, or you’ll never be able to move on.”
Lena hissed, “Fuck off, Nan.”
Nan stepped forward, like she might put her hand on Lena’s shoulder.
“Get the fuck away from me,” Lena warned.
Nan gave a long sigh, giving up. She turned and walked back to the bar without giving Lena a second glance.
LENA sat in the empty parking lot of the Grant Piggly Wiggly, sipping cheap whiskey straight from the bottle. She was past the harsh taste, and her throat was so numb from the alcohol that she could barely feel it going down. There was another bottle in the seat beside her, and she would probably go through that one, too, before the night was over. All Lena wanted to do was stay in her car in this empty parking lot and try to figure out what was happening in her life. Nan was right to some degree. Lena had to get over this, but that did not mean talking to some idiot like Dave Fine. What Lena needed to do was get her shit together and stop obsessing about stupid things. She just needed to get on with her life. She needed, Lena supposed, a night of self-pity, where she finally went through the motions of grieving and letting things go.
She listened to snippets of Sibyl’s tapes, popping them one by one into the cassette player to see what was on them. She should label them, but she could not find a pen. Besides, it seemed wrong to write on Sibyl’s things, even though Sibyl would not have minded. There were a few tapes that were already labeled, most of them Atlanta singers: Melanie Hammet, Indigo Girls, a couple more names Lena did not recognize. She ejected the last tape, which had been some kind of compilation of classical music on one side and old Pretenders tunes on the other, and tossed it in with the others.
Lena reached around to the back seat and pulled at the last box. It was heavier than the others, and when she finally managed to get it to the front, pictures spilled onto the seat beside her. Most of the photos were of Greg Mitchell and Lena at various stages in their relationship. There were some beach pictures, of course, as well as snapshots from the time they went to Chattanooga to see the aquarium. Lena blinked away tears, trying to remember what it had been like that day, standing in line to see the exhibit, the breeze coming off the Tennessee River so strong that Greg had stood behind her to keep her warm. She had loved the way her body felt when he put his arms around her waist, rested his chin on her shoulder. It was the only time in her life she could remember ever being truly content. Then, the line had moved, and Greg had stepped back, and said something about the weather, or a story on the news, and Lena had purposefully picked a fight with him for no reason whatsoever.
Lena thumbed through another stack of pictures, sipping the alcohol with deliberate care. She was beyond drunk now, but not beyond caring. Looking at the photos, she wondered how there had ever been a time when she wanted a man’s company, or felt like being alone with one, let alone intimate. For all Lena had said when Greg left her, she had still wanted him back.
Lena found the picture Nan had told her about. Sibyl did look miserable, but she was still smiling for the camera. They were both about seven in the photograph. At that age, they had looked almost identical, though one of Sibyl’s front teeth was missing because she had tripped and knocked it out on the front porch. The tooth that grew in to replace it was snaggled, but it gave Sibyl’s mouth some character. At least, that’s what Hank had told her.
Lena smiled as she spotted a stack of pictures bound together with a rubber band. Hank had given her an instant camera for her fifteenth birthday, and Lena had used two boxes of film in one day, taking pictures of everything she could think of. Later, she had done her own editing, splicing some of the images together. There was one picture in particular she remembered, and Lena thumbed through the stack until she found it. Using a razor blade, she had made a kisscut over the image, scoring just the surface of the photograph but not cutting all the way through to the back, and excised Hank from the scene. Bonnie, their golden lab, had been glued in his place.
“Bonnie,” Lena breathed, aware that she was crying openly now. This was one of the reasons Lena did not drink alcohol. The dog had been dead for ten years and here she was, crying over him like it was just yesterday.
Lena got out of the car, taking the bottles of liquor with her. She wanted to get them out of the car because she knew she would end up passed out if they stayed there. As she walked, she realized that she was closer to this than she had thought in the car. Her feet felt like they did not belong to her, and she tripped several times over nothing in particular. The store had been closed for hours, but she still checked the windows to make sure no one saw her stumbling across the parking lot. Lena pressed her palm against the side of the building as she walked around it, holding both bottles with her free hand. When she got to the back of the store and let go of the wall, she tumbled, her knees giving out from under her. Somehow, she caught herself with one hand and kept from falling, face first, onto the asphalt.
“Shit,” she cursed, seeing rather than feeling the cut on her palm. Lena stood, more determined now than ever to throw away the alcohol. She would sleep some of it off in her car and drive home when she could see straight.
Reeling back, she tossed the near empty bottle into the Dumpster. It made a rewarding crash as it broke against the metal wall inside the steel chamber. Lena picked up the other bottle and tossed it in. A couple of thunks later, and the bottle had not broken. She contemplated for just a moment going into the Dumpster and retrieving the bottle, but stopped herself before she did.
There was a stand of trees behind the building, and Lena walked over, her feet still feeling as if they were asleep. She bent over and made herself vomit. The alcohol was bitter coming up, and the taste made her sicker than she would have thought possible. By the end, she was on her knees, dry heaving, much as she had been in the car with Hank.
Hank, Lena thought, making herself stand. She was so angry with him that she thought just for a moment about driving into Reece, to the Hut, and confronting him. He had said four months ago that he would stay with Lena as long as she needed him. Where the hell was he now? Probably at some damn A.A. meeting talking about how worried he was about his niece, talking about how much he wanted to support her instead of actually being here and supporting her.
The Celica turned over with a rewarding purr, and Lena gassed the car, thinking just for a moment about letting off on the brake and smashing into the front windows of the Piggly Wiggly. The impulse was surprising, but not completely unexpected. A sense of worthlessness was taking over, and Lena was not fighting it. Even after throwing up the alcohol, her brain was still buzzing, and it was as if her barriers had been broken down, and her mind was letting her think about things that she did not really want to think about.
She was thinking about him.
The drive home was dicey, Lena crossing the yellow line more often than not. She nearly ran into the shed behind her house, the brakes squealing on the drive as she slammed them on at the last minute. She sat in the car, looking at the dark house. Hank had not even bothered to turn on the back porch light.
Lena reached over and unlocked the glove box. She pulled out her service revolver and chambered a round. The clicking sound from the bolt action was solid in her ears, and for some reason Lena found herself looking at the gun in a different light. She stared at the black metal casing, even sniffed the grip. Before she knew it, she had put the muzzle in her mouth, her finger resting on the trigger.
Lena had seen a girl do this before. The woman had put the gun right into her mouth and almost without hesitation pulled the trigger because she had seen this as the only way to get the memories out of her brain. The aftershock of the single shot to the head still reverberated to Lena, and what she remembered most of all from that day was that parts of the woman’s brain and skull had actually dug into the Sheetrock on the wall behind her.
Lena sat in the car, breathing slowly, feeling the cold metal against her lips. She pressed her tongue against the barrel as she considered the situation. Who would find her? Would Hank come home early? Brad, she thought, because Brad was supposed to pick her up for work in the morning. What would he think, seeing Lena like this? What would that do to Brad to see Lena in her car with the back of her head blown out? Was he strong enough to handle it? Could Brad Stephens go on with his life, with his job, after finding Lena like that?
“No,” Lena said. She ejected the clip and kicked out the chambered round, then locked all of it back in the glove box.
She got out of the car quickly, jogging up the stairs to the back porch. Her hands were steady as she unlocked the door and turned on the kitchen light. Lena walked through the house, turning on all the lights as she went. She took the steps upstairs two at a time, turning on more lights. By the time she was finished, the house was completely lit up.
Of course, with the lights on, anyone could look through the windows and see her. Lena reversed her steps, turning off the lights as she ran down the stairs. She could have pulled the curtains and closed the blinds, but there was something rewarding about moving, getting her heart pumping. She had not been to the gym in months, but her muscles remembered the movements.
When she had left the hospital, the doctors had given Lena enough pain medication to kill a horse. It was as if they wanted to give her as much medication as humanly possible to numb her. They had probably thought it would be easier on her to be medicated than to consider what had happened to her. The hospital shrink they had made Lena talk to even offered to give her Xanax.
Lena ran back upstairs and opened the medicine cabinet in her bathroom. Alongside the usual things were a half bottle of Darvocet and a full bottle of Flexeril. The Darvocet was for pain, but the Flexeril was a heavy-duty muscle relaxer that had knocked Lena on her ass the first time she had taken it. She had stopped taking them because at the time it was more important for her to stay alert than not to feel the pain.
Lena read the labels on the bottles, looking past the warnings to take the medications with food and not operate heavy machinery. There were at least twenty Darvocet and twice as many Flexeril. She turned on the faucet, letting the cold water run for a while. Her hand was perfectly steady as she took the cup out of its holder and filled it nearly to the brim.
“So,” Lena mumbled, looking at the clear water, thinking she should say something important or poignant about her life. There was no one to hear her words, though, so it seemed silly to be talking to herself at this point. She had never really believed in God, so it wasn’t as if Lena expected to meet up with Sibyl in the great hereafter. There would be no streets of gold for her to walk on. Not that Lena was well-versed in religious doctrine, but she was pretty sure that anyone who committed suicide, no matter what the religion, was pretty fucked as far as heaven was concerned.
Lena sat down on the toilet, considering this. For just a brief moment, she wondered whether or not she was still drunk. Certainly, she would not be contemplating such an act if she were sober. Would she?
Lena looked around the bathroom, which had never been her favorite room in the house. The tiles were orange with white grout, a popular color scheme when the house had been built in the seventies, but now was tacky. She had tried to compensate for the color by adding other colors: a dark-blue bathmat by the tub, a dark-green cover for the box of Kleenex on the back of the toilet. The towels tied the colors together, but not in a pleasing way. Nothing had helped the room. It seemed appropriate, then, that she would die here.
Lena opened the bottles and spread the pills out on the vanity. The Darvocet were large, but the Flexeril were more like little breath mints. Moving them around with her index finger, she alternated the big pills with the little pills, then moved them all back into their own separate piles. She sipped some of the water as she did this, and realized that to some degree she was playing.
“Okay,” Lena said. “This one is for Sibby.” She opened her mouth and popped in one of the Darvocets.
“To Hank,” she said, chasing it with a Flexeril. Then, because they were small, she popped two more Flexeril, followed by two Darvocet. She did not swallow yet, though. Lena wanted to take them all at the same time, and there was one more person she felt the need to recognize.
Her mouth was so full that when she said his name, the sound was muffled.
“These are for you,” she mumbled, scooping the remaining Flexeril into the palm of her hand. “These are for you, you fucking bastard.”
She shoved the handful into her mouth, tilting back her head. She stopped midtilt, staring at Hank in the doorway. They were both quiet, their eyes locked on to each other’s. He stood there with his arms crossed, his lips a firm line.
“Do it,” he finally said.
Lena sat there on the toilet, holding the pills in her mouth. Some of them had started to break down, and she could taste an acrid, powdery paste forming at the back of her mouth.
“I won’t call an ambulance, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He gave a tight shrug. “Go ahead and do it if that’s what you want to do.”
Lena felt her tongue going numb.
“You scared?” Hank asked. “Too scared to pull the trigger, too scared to swallow the pills?”
Her eyes watered from the taste in her mouth, but she still did not swallow. Lena felt frozen. How long had he been watching her? Was this some kind of test she had failed?
“Go on!” Hank yelled, his voice so loud that it echoed against the tiles.
Lena’s mouth opened, and she started to spit out the pills into her hand but Hank stopped her. He crossed the small bathroom in two steps and clamped his hands around her head, one over her mouth, the other behind her so that she could not pull away. Lena dug her nails into his flesh, trying to pull his hand from her mouth, but he was too strong for her. She fell forward off the toilet, onto her knees, but he moved down with her, keeping her head locked between his hands.
“Swallow them,” Hank ordered, his voice gravelly and low. “That’s what you want to do, swallow them!”
She started to shake her head back and forth, trying to tell him no, that she did not want to do this, that she could not do this. Some of the pills started to slide down her throat, and she constricted the muscles in her neck to stop them. Her heart was beating so hard that she thought it might explode.
“No?” Hank demanded. “No?”
Lena kept shaking her head, digging at his hand to release her. He finally let go, and she fell back against the tub, her head popping against the edge.
Hank threw open the toilet lid and half grabbed, half dragged her toward it. He pushed her head down into the bowl and she finally opened her mouth, gagging, spitting the pills out. Retching sounds echoed back at her until her mouth was empty. She used her fingers to clean around her gums and then used her nails, scraping at her tongue to get the taste out.
Hank stood, and when she looked up at him she could tell that he was pissed as hell.
“You bastard,” she hissed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
His foot moved, and she thought he was going to kick her. Lena curled, anticipating the blow, but it did not come.
“Get cleaned up,” Hank ordered. With an open palm, he swept the remaining pills off the basin and onto the floor. “Clean up this shit.”
Lena moved to do as she was told, walking on her hands and knees, collecting the Darvocet.
Hank leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. His voice was softer now, and she looked up at him, surprised to see that there were tears in his eyes. “If you ever do that again…,” he began, then looked away. He put his hand over his mouth as if to fight back the words. “You’re all I got, baby.”
Lena was crying now, too. She said, “I know, Hank.”
“Don’t…,” he began.
Lena asked, “Don’t what?”
He slid down the wall, sitting on the floor with his hands to his side. He stared at her openly, his eyes searching hers for something. “Don’t leave me,” he whispered, his words hanging in the air above them like a dark cloud.
The distance between them was only a few feet, but to Lena it felt like an endless chasm. She could reach out to him. She could thank him. She could promise him that she would never try this again.
She could have done any or all of those things, but what Lena ended up doing was picking up the pills off the floor one by one and throwing them into the toilet.