Kimbra Lott was in the cafeteria when her phone buzzed. Dashandre, sorting through his little fuchsia cooler, shot a look at the contents of her lunch box and said, “Is that supposed to be spaghetti?”
April Sparks said with her usual fake disinterest, “I hear Mrs. Sanchez from the beauty parlor fell asleep at her stove this morning and caught her robe on fire. They say it’s very serious.”
“You really give a shit about that?” Dashandre said. “You miss the part where the cops arrested an innocent motherfucker?”
Kimbra hardly heard this. She couldn’t think of much except the message that had just arrived on her phone from Joel Whitley.
Are you still willing to help find KT?
She sighed through her nose. She would be an idiot to help this buff guy with the whiny voice. Hell, word had already spread through the school that Joel had been asking her questions at the diner yesterday. But the fact remained that her boyfriend was still missing despite all she’d done in the last two years to protect him. That he’d been hiding something from her before he disappeared. That he might be hurt. That this town could go fuck itself.
She typed, what do you need?
As Kimbra waited for Joel to reply, she spotted something unusual across the cafeteria. Luke Evers was seated near the head of the Bison table, flanked by Garrett and Mitchell, Tomas and the Turner twins, the six of them laughing violently at something Tomas had just said. It was strange. Every day for years Dylan had sat exactly where Luke was sitting now.
“They’re saying Luke’s going to be quarterback tomorrow,” April said.
“It’s like they don’t even know Jamal’s in jail.” Dashandre deftly flayed an orange with his thumb.
“And now people are saying Bethany made up all that shit about her and Jamal,” April said. “But other people are saying she actually did something much worse.”
“She’s been getting that dark chocolate to melt in her mouth,” Dashandre said.
At the cheerleaders’ table Bethany sat carefully chewing a salad, looking more guarded behind her eye shadow and her contoured cheeks than Kimbra had ever seen her before. Guarded and exhausted. The news of her alleged weekend with Jamal—news spread first by the students who’d opened their classroom windows this morning and heard every word she’d shouted to the police in the parking lot—had already done its damage. Kimbra suspected that Bethany’s position at the top of the school’s pyramid was in danger of toppling.
Joel wrote:
I’ve heard that the footballers were showing each other something secret on their phones Friday night at halftime. Did KT mention anything?
no, Kimbra wrote, which was the truth. She felt April watching her quizzically and ignored her. She texted Joel:
want me to see what I can find out?
Please. Also is there any chance Dylan and KT might have been involved?
involved?
Romantically?
lololol i’ll ask around abt that half-time thing.
She looked up. She frowned. She realized he wasn’t joking. wait—what?
She found Whiskey Brazos, the team’s portly center, seated at a table in the school’s small library after lunch, exactly where his girlfriend April had said he would be. He held a book splayed open in front of him, his mouth screwed up in concentration.
“Is this seat taken?” Kimbra asked.
Whiskey shuddered. “You scared the shit out of me.”
She took that as a no. “Jumpy?”
Kimbra had always liked Whiskey: his harmless face, his country manners, his decency with April, who could be—to put it mildly—difficult. He always wore one of the same five plaid button-ups with the sleeves cut away at the shoulder, always had a fishhook slipped over the brim of his ball caps in case a desperate need for a bass ever presented itself. He asked her now, with what sounded like genuine concern, “Don’t you have class?”
“Depends who you ask. What’re you reading?”
He tilted up the spine of his book to reveal the cover: it displayed an airbrushed quarterback, his teeth a shade of white commonly known as “wealthy,” promising down-to-earth advice. “Dylan said I should read it.”
“That’s deep,” Kimbra said, wondering if Dylan had been as distracted by the handsome face on the cover as she was, and a second later she had to suppress the incredulous whistle that the thought had brought to her lips. Jesus Christ: Dylan Whitley, queer? When Joel had casually answered her question at lunch—I have it on good authority Dylan was gay. Did nobody know?—she had almost spilled spaghetti down her top.
Imagine the damage news like that could cause in this backward shit hole. Kimbra had been around football long enough to understand that its players weren’t just boys throwing a ball: they were everything the men of this town used to be, or never were, the walking realization of every frustrated hope and squandered opportunity and dream.
The men of Bentley would bulldoze their football field before they let a homo quarterback stand in for them under those Friday night lights. And their wives would be relieved.
Whiskey Brazos also regarded the book’s cover. He said, “I wonder if D ever could have had a shot at pro.”
“At least now he’ll never be disappointed.” Kimbra shrugged, and when Whiskey winced she added quickly, “Hey, did you see that thing on Friday night?”
“What thing?”
Scooting forward in her seat, Kimbra whispered, “KT wouldn’t tell me what it is. You know—that thing on your phone.”
“KT told you about that?” said a voice from the stacks of books, and a moment later T-Bay Baskin emerged. T-Bay, the son of the manager of the First Community Bank, was an oddity in Bentley: namely, a rich and black kid. Kimbra had mixed feelings about him. Like her, he acted as if he too were made of some finer substance than this town could appreciate. Unlike her, he never had to wonder how he’d leave.
She held his eye. “He did. But he didn’t say what it was. And now he’s gone.”
The two boys exchanged looks.
“I didn’t send that to nobody,” Whiskey said.
“Who’s asking?” T-Bay asked Kimbra.
“Nobody but me.”
T-Bay raised an eyebrow. “Then what did Joel Whitley want to know at the diner yesterday?”
“Nothing.” She blinked. “Just where KT had gone.”
“I mean it had to have been a joke, right?” said Whiskey, sounding a little pathetic. “Those pictures.”
“You mean the ones of Joel back in the day?” Kimbra said.
The two boys looked at each other again. “You might as well show her,” T-Bay said.
Whiskey hesitated before he pulled his phone from his pocket.
“It’s some racist shit anyway,” T-Bay said. “Jamal’s not the only guy on the team without an alibi.”
Kimbra felt her phone buzz again. She didn’t move. “What?”
“Can’t nobody know that came from us,” Whiskey said, locking his own phone and gathering up his book.
Kimbra opened the message she’d just received. At first it wasn’t as bad as she thought. Then she clicked the link, let her browser load and gasped. She looked up at the two boys. “Who sent you this?”
T-Bay narrowed his eyes. “It doesn’t matter. If you’re talking to Joel there’s something else he needs to know.”