“What am I doing? Nothing special. I was passing the house and saw the light still on. I thought you might be sitting around or something.” He shivered. “Hey, it’s cold out here. Can I come in?”
“Where’s Peter?” They were the only words that she could utter.
“Pete? I don’t know. Out somewhere. I don’t try to keep track of my big bro’s comings and goings. I said, is it okay if I come in for a few minutes? I’m half-frozen.”
“Sure,” Laura said stonily, stepping back from the door.
She didn’t know why she said it. The last person she wanted sitting in the living room was Niles. She’d always felt uncomfortable with Peter’s brother. There was just something about him that made her uneasy. Perhaps it was the slight but definite resemblance to Peter, which made him seem both familiar and strange. The dark good looks were there, but in Niles’s case they were slightly distorted, as though viewed through a warped sheet of window glass. The fineness of Peter’s features was missing. Niles’s face was broader and coarser, with the brown eyes set back a trifle too far, giving an illusion of opaqueness. His mouth was wider than Peter’s, but thinner-lipped, with one corner a little higher than the other, so that he always looked as though he were trying to keep from smiling. There were girls who found the odd half-smile attractive. Laura didn’t.
“Are your parents in bed?” Niles asked, stepping into the room and shoving the door closed behind him.
“I live with my mom. She’s out tonight.”
“You look nice,” Niles said, “all dressed up.”
“Thanks.” She’d started back toward the chair that she’d so recently vacated, but Niles seemed somehow to have gotten himself in the way of it, so she sat down on the sofa instead. To her surprise, he came over and sat down beside her.
“It’s gotten really cold out,” he said conversationally. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an early snow.”
“I hope not,” Laura said.
“You don’t like winter? Snowboarding and skiing and stuff?”
“I’ve never tried those things. I don’t like being cold.”
“You’re one of those girls who likes to curl up by the fire, right?”
“I guess you could say that.” She looked down at her hands. Her mom had taken her for a manicure in honor of the evening. The little pink ovals gleamed up at her against the soft material of the blue dress.
“Niles—about Peter—you’re sure you don’t know where he is? We were supposed to go out tonight.”
“He stood you up, you mean?” Niles sounded shocked.
“I don’t know what he did. I just know that he was supposed to be here at eight fifteen, and he never came.” She struggled to keep the tremor from her voice. “I thought… maybe… something happened at home—some emergency—”
“You were giving him the benefit of the doubt, right? That shows what a nice person you are, Laura. Most girls would be pissed off.” Niles’s voice was warm, sympathetic. “So you’ve just been sitting here waiting?”
“It’s been hours and hours.” She blinked hard to keep back the tears. “When the doorbell rang, I thought it was him—that he’d come to tell me what happened—and maybe we could still go over to the dance for the final hour.”
“And it was just me, the sidekick brother. No wonder you looked so disappointed. I’d take you to the dance myself, but I’m not exactly dressed for it. This is a big deal and they don’t let you in without a jacket and tie.”
“That’s all right. It wouldn’t be the same. I mean—” She realized too late the rudeness of her response. “I’m sorry, Niles. It was nice of you to think about doing that. It’s just that—Peter—”
She began to cry softly.
“Hey, now, baby,” Niles said. “It’s not as bad as that. A dance is just a dance, huh?”
He put his arm around her shoulders and drew her over against him so that her face was pressed against his shirt. The material was thick and smelled faintly of smoke. Niles himself smelled of shaving lotion. It was the same brand Peter used, and the familiar spicy scent, combined with Niles’s surprising gentleness, broke through the last shreds of her control.
“He promised!” she burst out wretchedly. “He said we were going! I got the dress and the shoes—everything—just for tonight!”
“That’s rough,” Niles said. “That’s really rough.”
“Why did he do it? Why would he hurt me like this? How can one person do something like this to another person, when they’re supposed to care about each other?”
“Maybe,” Niles said, “he thought it would hurt you more if he told you…” He let the sentence drift, unfinished.
“Told me what?” Laura brought her face up out of the sweatshirt. “What is it he didn’t want to tell me?”
“Look, Laura, Pete’s my brother. I may not approve of everything he does, but at the same time—”
“Tell me, Niles! You have to! Where is Pete now? Why didn’t he come tonight?”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Niles, please!”
“He’s—at the dance.”
“At the dance?” She couldn’t believe she’d heard him correctly. “But why would he go alone to a dance when we could go together?”
“He didn’t go alone,” Niles said.
“You mean that he—”
“I mean, he took Madison. They got back together early this week, and he’s been out with her every night since. They just weren’t telling anybody yet. They wanted to get everything worked out between them first.”
“But he said he hated her,” Laura whispered. “He said he never wanted to see her again.”
“So he changed his mind.” Niles brushed her cheek with his lips. “Hey, now, baby, don’t look like that. It’s not the end of the world. So Pete’s going out with some girl. There are lots of guys who aren’t. Like me, for instance. I know how to keep a chick from being lonely. Just relax, and I’ll show you that brother Peter isn’t the only one who knows how to keep you warm.”
“No. Stop. Don’t do that.” Laura stiffened as his arms came tight around her.
“Stop playing games, Laura.” There was a note of irritation in Niles’s voice. “Pete’s told me about all the things you let him do to you when you go parking down by the creek.”
“I don’t believe you. Pete wouldn’t talk about—”
The words were lost as his mouth closed over hers, and she twisted helplessly as he leaned against her, forcing her backward under the weight of his body. He was shorter than Peter, but stronger. His arms were locked around her, pinning her own arms at her sides, as his hands began to fumble impatiently with the zipper at the back of her dress. His mouth kept working at hers; she felt his tongue, wet and slimy, probing at her sealed lips.
In desperation, she did what seemed the only thing possible. She bit him.
He sprung back so suddenly that they both rolled off the sofa onto the floor. Laura felt a sharp jab of pain as her left shoulder hit the corner of the coffee table. She pulled herself to a sitting position, tugging frantically at her skirt, which had become twisted around the upper part of her thighs.
Niles’s face was white with rage, and there was a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.
“Bitch!” he said hoarsely. “You freaking bitch! You took half my tongue off!”
“I’m sorry.” She meant it. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him. The taste of his blood in her own mouth made her nauseated.
“You’re sorry, all right! The sorriest mess I’ve ever seen! You thought Pete was going to take you out in public and dance with you? He’d die first. And so would I. So would anybody.”
“That’s not true. Peter and I have been dating for weeks now.”
“The word isn’t ‘dating,’ it’s ‘screwing.’ With his eyes closed. Why else would any guy in his right mind spend time with a whale?” Niles leaned toward her, enunciating each word carefully. “Pete was using you. Get used to the idea, because that’s all any guy is ever going to do with you. You might as well take what you can get, because it’s all you’re going to get. You get all high-and-mighty like you just did with me, and you’re going to wind up without anything at all.”
“Get out!” Laura whispered. “Get out of my house!”
“With pleasure!”
When he was gone Laura got up off the floor and went over to the front door and locked it. Then she went upstairs and took off the blue dress. She stood staring at it for a long moment; then she wadded it into a ball and stuffed it into the back of her closet. She took off the pumps and threw them in after it.
Then she went into her mother’s bedroom and opened the bottle of sleeping pills she kept on her bedside table. She didn’t bother to count them. She took them all.
The dance was over at midnight.
Holly Underwood arrived home at 12:14 a.m. Her date, Steve Penrose, walked her to her door. This had been their first date, and neither one had particularly enjoyed it. They said a polite good night, keeping a careful distance between them. Holly went into the house, and Steve went back to his car.
Irene Stark dropped Kelly Johnson at her home at 12:20 a.m. and then drove several blocks farther to let off Erika Schneider and Paula Brummell. Erika was spending the night at Paula’s.
Tammy Carncross and Kevin Baker went to the coffee shop before calling it a night.
Tammy’s parents pulled into their driveway at 12:23 a.m.
“That was quite an evening,” Mrs. Carncross commented.
“You can say that again,” her husband said. “Did you see the look on Ferrara’s face when Paula dropped her bombshell?”
“How could I miss it?! Do you think they’ll really do it—use the money for a girls’ soccer team?”
“Not if they can help it. Ferrara has his heart set on those warm-up suits.”
“Mr. Shelby was laughing.”
“He probably thought it was a joke.”
“There’s nothing wrong with starting a soccer team,” Lil Carncross said. “It’s a popular girls’ sport in lots of towns.”
“I can’t imagine the school organizing a soccer team for the girls when the boys don’t even have one yet.” Mr. Carncross opened the car door. “Hey, does that dancing we saw tonight remind you of disco?”
“Nothing can replace disco,” Mrs. Carncross said. “It was also sort of nice dancing cheek to cheek.”
Peter Grange took Madison Ellis home at 12:30 a.m. They took a long time saying good night.
At about the same time, David Brewer and Ann Whitten were parked in the Whittens’ driveway. The porch light, which Mrs. Whitten had left on for them, illuminated the porch steps and a strip of lawn, but stopped short of the front of Dave’s pickup truck. In the darkened interior of the cab they sat close together with their arms around each other.
“I felt kind of funny tonight,” Dave said. “A graduated guy at a high-school dance.”
“It was fun, though, wasn’t it?” Ann asked.
“It was fun because you were having fun. It’s just that when I’m around a bunch of your school friends like that, I realize I’m robbing the cradle. They all seem like such kids.”
“You’re not that much of an old man,” Ann said. “It’s only been three years since you were in high school yourself.”
“It’s been a long three years. Tonight, looking around at those boys—Tammy’s boyfriend with the red hair, and the guy Peter, that Madison goes with—I felt like they were living in a whole different world. They’re thinking about partying, sports, scouting out each other’s girlfriends; I’m thinking about the farm, getting the leak in the barn roof fixed before the first snow, getting married.”
“You’re not happy, are you, about my going to art school?” Ann asked him softly.
“I think it’s what you’ve got to do. If you don’t, you’ll always feel like you missed out on something.”
“That’s what I feel,” Ann said. “It’s like it was meant to be, the way it fell out of the sky right into my lap like that.”
“That’s not how it happened,” Dave said. “Your teacher friend arranged it.”
“Well, still—”
“She knew what she was doing. She knew we were engaged, the wedding date was set, everything was planned. Nothing ‘fell into your lap,’ Annie. A lot of strings were pulled.”
“You sound as though Irene did something mean and sneaky,” Ann said in astonishment. “That she was trying to hurt us instead of help us.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Dave said. “It’s just hard to like somebody when you know they don’t like you.”
“Irene likes you!”
“No, she doesn’t. When you introduced us tonight, I could feel the vibes coming out of her like cold air from a freezer. There’s a lot of bitterness in that woman, and I don’t like the idea that you’re around her so much.”
“You’re wrong,” Ann said. “Irene’s the warmest, most understanding person in the world. She wants me to get this training because she thinks I have real talent. She takes my painting seriously.”
“So do I. I told you, I’d make you a little studio room to paint in.”
“But you think of it as a hobby, not as a career.”
“I think of it as something you need to do to be happy,” Dave told her. “If you mean by a ‘career’ that I expect you to sell paintings and make money to pay the expenses around the place, then you’re right, I don’t think of it that way. That’s my job. If I couldn’t support us, I wouldn’t get married.”
“That’s an old-fashioned point of view,” Ann said.
“And I’m an old-fashioned guy. What do you want me to do? I’m letting you go off to Boston. I’m going to sit here and wait for you. What more do you want?”
“But you want me to feel guilty, like you’re doing me a big favor!”
“I’ve never tried to make you feel like that. It’s just”—his voice grew husky—“it’s just that I’m going to miss you.”
“Oh, Dave, I’ll miss you, too.” She turned and pressed her face against his shoulder. “I’m so confused that sometimes I’m not sure how I feel about everything myself. I love you so much. I don’t want you to be unhappy.”
“I love you, too, my gentle Annie,” Dave said quietly. “I know that things are different now than they used to be when my dad and mom were married. I know girls want different things now, and I guess that’s how it should be. It’s just that I’ve grown up a certain way. I can’t change the whole way I think and feel about things like that overnight. I’m trying. That’s the best I can do. I’m trying.”
Jane Rheardon hadn’t gone to the dance. She went to bed early, and then, as she often did, woke around midnight. At 12:32 a.m. she was lying in bed, reading.
She heard the siren when it was still a long way off and got up and went to the window. All the houses along the street were dark.
Somewhere, someone is hurt, she thought. In a car accident, or a fire. But that person isn’t Mom.
It had been a pleasant Saturday. Her father had left the night before to go hunting in the northern part of the state. She and her mother had gone shopping for material and then had spent most of the day sewing. Jane was trying to make her own dress for the first time ever—her mom made it look so easy—and that night they had gone to Brummell’s Café for dinner. Her mom had been chatty, giggly, like a young girl. They had ordered fried chicken, and for dessert they had both had chocolate sundaes with whipped cream and nuts piled on top.
Her mom was sleeping now, safe and alone in the queen-size bed in the next room. The sirens were not for her.
Kristy Grange heard the siren when she stood on the porch steps, kissing Tom Brummell good night. She stiffened, turning her head to listen.
“A fire engine?” she said.
“Or an ambulance. It’s close, isn’t it? It sounds as though it’s only a couple of blocks away.”
“I hate sirens,” Kristy said with a shudder. “They freak me out.”
On his way home, Tom passed the ambulance. It was parked with its lights flashing in front of the Snow house.