A train rumbles by, rattling Sarah’s bedroom window and breaking her concentration. She’s trying to study but her mind keeps wandering. There are only two weeks left of class before exams and everyone at school’s been talking about summer jobs and plans for the fall. The clap of train wheels rolling over the track reminds Sarah that everyone is hurtling forward toward bright and certain futures while she’s being left behind, a single boxcar sitting off alone on the siding. Becca, like all the kids from UE, is off to university. Addie and nearly everyone else are going to community college or moving to the city to find jobs. Even some of the farm boys are leaving to get their aggie diplomas before they come back to stay. Just four years, she tells herself, four years until Charlie is as old as she is now; then she’ll leave, head west maybe, the only direction it seems anyone from Ross Prairie ever goes.
As the sound of the train fades away, she hears a noise in the hallway and looks up from her notes to see Becca, eyes spilling over with tears, standing in the doorway. She’s holding a dented red coffee tin in both hands.
“I hate her,” she cries. “I really, really hate her.”
“What’s happened? Tell me! What’s wrong?”
“Look at this! She found it and now she knows! She said I’m never to see him again but I won’t do it. I’m not going to give him up because she says so.” Becca wrenches the lid from the can and tosses out a scrap of crumpled paper.
Sunday, 10:00. Can’t wait to be in your arms. B
“Jack and I leave notes for each other and hide them in this can under a rock at the edge of the stone pile. She must have followed me there.” Becca puts her hands on her cheeks and shakes her head furiously. “I don’t know how she knew but she was out there, snooping around, and she found it. I’ve never seen her so mad in my life! She was pacing in circles, breathing so hard you’d think she’d raced to town and back. She reached up and yanked at her own hair. I’ve never seen her like that. She’s crazy!”
Becca, too, is pacing, back and forth from the bed to the door. “‘Oh no, you can’t. I forbid you from seeing Jack Bilyk,’” she says in a falsetto, mimicking her mother, shaking her halo of curls. “Well, I don’t give a rat’s ass if she’ll allow it or not. I’m in love with him and she’s not going to stop us from being together.”
Sarah finally gets up and puts a hand on Becca’s shoulder. “You better calm down yourself. Come, sit, and tell me everything.”
Becca came home from school, she says, to find the battered coffee can sitting in the centre of the table, the lid off, the can empty. Her mother appeared from the shadows in the dining room, eyes fiery with rage, waving the note. She knew it was for Jack and she wanted to know how long Becca had been sneaking around with him. Since the fall, Becca said, not that it was any of her business. But Caroline kept grilling her, demanding to know where they’d been meeting. When Becca sat down at the table, refusing to speak, Caroline picked up a book and pitched it at her. Then she came over and tipped her right out of the chair. Becca cried out, threatening to tell her father, but that only made Caroline crazier.
“She demanded to know if we were sleeping together. ‘You’ve spent the night with him, haven’t you? That time in November, when you said you were at Sarah’s, you were with him for the whole night. How many other times, Becca? How many?’ That’s what put her over the edge.”
“Talk about overreacting,” Sarah says softly.
“It’s crazy. Why go completely off the deep end about it? Why does she care so much about an old feud between our fathers? I mean, chill out already. I don’t understand. She acts civil enough to Anna; I don’t know what the big deal is.”
Sarah doesn’t understand, either. It seems completely out of character for Caroline to get so upset about it.
“So, is it all right if I spend the night? Can I stay until I figure out what I should do?”
Sarah nods. She doesn’t imagine it will be long before Caroline or Mr. Webb comes to town looking for her. She wonders what Caroline will think, what she will say when she sees Sarah and realizes she’s known all along about Jack and Becca; how Caroline will feel to find out Sarah’s been lying, too.
On afternoon break on the last day of exams, Bobby Boychuk is sauntering up and down the hall, telling everyone within earshot where the book-burner is going to be tonight, oblivious to a frowning Mr. Lawson, who is standing in the door to room 5. Bobby might as well be wearing one of those sandwich boards, advertising the whereabouts of the party. Sarah won’t be surprised if Lawson reports it and everyone gets ticketed at the party for drinking underage and having open liquor.
“You going to the book-burner?” Addie shoves the last of her binders into a huge canvas bag and zips it.
“What do you think?” Becca glares at Addie and slams shut the locker door with her hip.
She isn’t going to the book-burning party. Her father came to collect her later on the day she showed up at Sarah’s with the can. He knocked on the door and told Sarah that Becca had to leave, his face stone cold, and went to wait in his truck until Becca came down; he followed her car home. Becca explained later that Caroline thought it best not to tell Eldon about Becca and Jack, but that Caroline had grounded her anyway. Becca’s been begging to go to the party, insisting that Jack isn’t likely to be there, but Caroline’s held firm and Becca can’t go.
“She’s still grounded, but I’m going,” Sarah says, stepping between them. “And I’m still coming to your house after school like we planned,” she adds, nodding at Becca.
Addie rolls her eyes. She’s been losing patience with Becca for the past few weeks, complaining she’s tired of hearing her moan about Jack and how much she misses him. And Becca’s been telling Sarah how she thinks Addie’s selfish, rambling on about summer and fun, not caring at all about poor Becca’s world turned over. Sarah’s been getting a stretched-apart feeling from them, each pulling her in the opposite direction, wanting her to choose sides, pick one of them over the other, and she refuses to do it.
* * *
When Sarah gets to Becca’s after school, Caroline stares at her blankly then turns back to whatever she is stirring on the stove. Her hair is fastened at the nape of her neck; the ponytail makes her look like a child, vulnerable in some way, and Sarah feels a hard finger of regret for her part in Caroline’s obvious heartache. The counters are cluttered, dishes piled everywhere, and the top of the dining-room table looks as though a canister has been filled there — that puff of flour that settles after it’s poured out of the bag — so thick and white is the dust.
At suppertime, Caroline dishes potatoes and peas into bowls and sets down a platter of roast pork, then turns her narrow back to them as she piles pots into the sink. While the rest of them eat, she washes, the only other sounds in the kitchen the clinking of glass and the scratching of plates. Mr. Webb asks Sarah if she is off to Winnipeg in the fall, and when she says no he returns to his plate and mops up the last of his gravy.
Later, the bonfire’s blazing, red-gold sparks flaring up each time someone tosses in a scribbler or a handful of notes. The flames crackle and lick at the air. Cady Hubley is dancing by the fire, tossing her hair and seductively rolling her hips as though she’s conjuring spirits. Del Foley’s blue Charger is parked nearby, stereo blaring so loud Sarah’s heart thumps in time with the bass. Addie’s not here yet and Sarah doesn’t feel like mingling with everyone else. They are huddled in small groups, the cliques from school separate and apart like they usually are, drinking beer and laughing. She feels strangely detached from everyone, all these kids she’s known her whole life who have promised to keep in touch in the messages they wrote in her yearbook. She imagines leaving high school will be similar to that one time she went to summer camp with Becca, all the girls exchanging addresses on the last day, vowing to keep writing to each other until they came back next year. Sarah didn’t get even one letter from those summer-camp girls but, then again, she didn’t mail one away either, and she never went back.
“Wanna beer?” Bobby holds out a bottle and Sarah shakes her head. He gave her a ride out to the party and she’s hoping he’s not under the mistaken impression she’ll want to make out with him when he drives her home.
Sarah notices someone in the shadows past the fire, leaning against the hood of a parked car, a lone figure slouched with his hands jammed into the front pockets of his jeans. She can tell by the way he holds his head that it’s Jack. She makes a wide circle around Cady and Del, who’s her latest boyfriend, and other couples pressed up against one another, slow dancing to the next track on the stereo. As she gets close to him, someone feeds the fire a fresh bundle of notes and the flames flare, lighting Jack’s face for a few seconds with a burst of light. He’s unshaven and his hair curls over his shirt collar, longer than it was the last time she saw him. There is sadness in his eyes but a purpose in the set of his jaw and he half smiles when Sarah walks up to him.
“I haven’t been to one of these in a while.”
“No doubt.” Sarah is suddenly shy, keenly aware this is the first time she’s been alone with Jack without Becca around.
“I thought maybe Becca would be here. I need to talk to her. I guess you’d know if she’s coming?”
Sarah shakes her head. “She’s still grounded.”
Jack pulls a mickey from the inside pocket of his denim jacket and takes a swig, then holds it out for Sarah. She takes a sip; lukewarm amber liquid skims down her throat and a rush of heat spreads through her body. “Caroline will have to give in and let Becca out sooner or later,” she says. “She can’t keep her locked up all summer.” Her eyes don’t leave his face. “Becca told me how she had to break up with you over the phone while her mom stood there and listened.”
“Her old man’s such a prick.”
Sarah hands the bottle back to Jack. “He didn’t make her do it. Caroline told Becca they couldn’t even tell her father about it because of the trouble between your families, so he doesn’t even know. It was Caroline who made Becca end it with you.”
A shadow of anger flickers over his face. “Always thought it was Eldon who had it in for us Bilyks, but I guess she’s no different than he is,” he says, tipping back the bottle again. “I figured things wouldn’t last between Becca and me, anyway. Because of who she is, not that she’s a Webb, necessarily, but because of that way she has about her, you know? Like she says jump and she expects me to say ‘how high.’ I guess she’s been used to getting her way all her life.”
Sarah understands. She’s been under Becca’s spell, too.
“I thought it would just naturally be over when she went away to school, we’d just drift apart without having to make a big deal out of it. I didn’t think she was really into it that much anyway, you know? Like dating me was just some kind of prize she was trying to win.” He takes another pull from the bottle. “But she needs to know that I think it’s best for both of us to just end it now.”
A fight breaks out by the fire between Del Foley and some guy Sarah doesn’t know wearing a Locklin Lions jacket. Del jabs the guy in the face and he wallops him back on the side of the head. A crowd gathers around, chanting, “Fight, fight!” as they tumble to the ground.
“Looks like it’s time to get out of here,” Jack says. “You need a ride back to town?”
Sarah doesn’t want to ditch Addie, but she isn’t in the mood for hanging around. She is mostly quiet on the way home, thinking how thrilled she would have been back in the fall to be riding alone with Jack. She takes a sideways glance at him, at the face she’d like to drift her fingers across like a blind girl reading Braille, memorizing that slight bump on his nose, the firm bones in his cheeks, the moist curve of his lips.
“Would you do me a favour?” He looks at her and turns down the volume on the radio. “Could you give Becca a message for me?” When Sarah nods, he says, “Just tell her I need to see her. I need to tell her it’s best this way, for this to be over. She’s not going to like it, but she needs to know the truth.”
“Sure. I’ll tell her tomorrow,” Sarah says, as a faint glimmer of hope blooms in her heart. Becca always made her believe Jack was just as madly in love with her as she was with him, and now Sarah wonders if that was ever true. Maybe Jack was more ambivalent than Becca had let on, or even realized.
She waits for Jack to say more but he’s quiet, the only sound the thump of tires against asphalt. Just before they reach town, he reaches over and turns up the radio. A song Sarah likes is playing and she listens, really listens, to the lyrics for the first time. Let’s just kiss and say goodbye. She’s glad Jack wants to do it, just say goodbye to Becca and let her go. But she knows Becca doesn’t want that to happen. Becca wants him and she always gets what she wants. She will do whatever it takes to keep him. Jack belongs to Becca and she’ll never let him go.
When she gets home from her job at Pipers’ the following week, her father is sitting at the table, an open ledger in front of him. He takes his pencil and scratches the pale pink scalp where his thinning red hair flops over.
“Did Becca call?” she asks him. All she could think about all day as she stocked shelves and rang customers through is what Becca and Jack might have talked about yesterday. She’d waited nearly a week to tell Becca that Jack wanted to see her. She didn’t want to spoil Becca’s graduation, but it didn’t really matter; Becca hardly smiled at all in her pretty pink gown. Jack and Becca finally met at Sarah’s house yesterday afternoon while Caroline thought the girls were rafting on the river with a bunch of other kids from school. They were alone in Sarah’s room for nearly an hour. When they came out, Becca’s eyes were swollen and red and Jack was so serious it looked as though he’d found out he was going to jail. He didn’t even look at Sarah, and she got the feeling he and Becca had discussed something more than a breakup. After Jack drove off, Sarah wanted to know what was going on but Becca wouldn’t tell her; she just kept crying. Sarah was desperate to know, and before Becca left she’d made her promise to tell her soon.
Her father looks up and shakes his head. “Nope. Only one phone call and it was Hydro with a second warning that they’ll turn off the lights if I don’t pay the bill. Money’s like goddamn water around here. Flows through those boys’ fingers and evaporates into thin air.”
Sarah knows how hard it is; she had to buy a box of cereal with her own money last week just so there’d be something for breakfast.
“Don’t worry about making supper. Brian and Charlie aren’t home and I’ll make myself a sandwich later. Take the night off for a change.” He smiles weakly and turns back to his work.
She goes upstairs and changes into a T-shirt and shorts then rinses out her uniform in the bathroom sink and hangs it up to dry.
“Sarah, phone!” her father shouts. She flies down the stairs, hoping it’s Becca, but it’s Shorty, sounding hysterical. “Can you come over to my place? It’s Jack. He’s fucked up, man.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“He went over to Becca’s this morning, wanting to see her, and her old man came out waving a gun in his face.”
What the hell is going on? “Geez, Shorty. Slow down!”
“He threatened him. Said if he came around again he would beat the shit out of him or worse.” Shorty’s panting, short of breath as though he’s run up a couple flights of stairs, and Sarah can almost see his round red face, puffing into the phone. “He told Jack they’ve sent Becca away and he’ll never see her again.”
Sarah doesn’t understand. Why would Jack go over there if they’d broken up? Becca’s father must have found out about them, but what did it matter if it was all over? All she can think about is Jack. “How is he?”
“Like I said, he’s messed up. He’s been drinking all afternoon and now he wants to go back over there. He might listen to you. Can you come over and see if you can calm him down?”
Sarah grabs the keys to her father’s truck and is out the door, tires squealing as she makes a sharp turn past the elementary school. There’s a little girl there, hopping along on one foot. Her pigtails bounce like springs with each little jump and her lips move as she sings. Sarah hears the high, shrill voice of a child chanting in her head.
Step on a crack, Becca’s never coming back.