TWENTY-FOUR
If the speech team had made state, Tammy might have lived to be a grandmother. Unfortunately, they got stomped. For want of a nail, a kingdom was lost.
So they were home that weekend. Tammy’s parents had gone to Vegas but didn’t mind if Jennifer came for a sleepover, since she was a notorious virgin who didn’t drink. “Isn’t it great how usually when a father abandons his family it screws up the kid, but that didn’t happen in your case?” Tammy’s mom had burbled on more than one occasion. “I mean, you really learned something!” Oh yes, definitely, my dad leaving was a wonderful learning experience and worked out great for us in the short and long run. So, ’bye.
A notorious virgin, yes, but not because of abandonment issues. She was saving herself. For Lars.
He’d moved to Cannon seven months ago and his name should have been stupid. A blond, blue-eyed guy named Lars Gundersson who lived in Minnesota and loved lutefisk?* It sounded like what someone from Hollywood thought a typical Minnesotan would be like.
Not only was Lars all those things and more; he was popular! She was sure with a name like Lars he’d be doomed to marching band, but nope. Because he was also beautiful and athletic, played b-ball and football and had the build of a running back: fleet and strong.
Tammy had invited him over to her house on Jennifer’s behalf. So Lars was coming over. Tonight. And he could stay as long as he—and she—wanted. Tonight! Tammy, giggling, offered the use of her parents’ room.
“Whoa,” Jennifer had said, putting her hands out as if to physically rein in Tammy’s enthusiasm as a matchmaker/pimp. “We’re not even going together. We haven’t even been out. He only just broke up with Amy last month.”
“So? You can just snuggle.”
Well. That sounded like a plan and a half.
So she went over early and Lars called and said he was coming over early, so she and Tammy did the teenage girl squealing/yelling thing
(“OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod!”)
and Jennifer went around and lit candles in every room, then went to the basement and stoked up the woodburning furnace, something she’d done in that house at least a dozen times over the years. She’d been so excited
(he said he was biking that means he’ll be here in ten minutes)
she hadn’t latched the door after tossing in several logs, and some coals had spilled out onto the floor. In her panic
(where’s the shovel WHERE’S THE SHOVEL gotta get these picked up oh shit it’s catching)
she’d made it worse. And Tammy’s folks kept five cords of nice dry wood right there in the basement where it was convenient. Tammy’s dad hated scrounging around outside for wood, even if it was stacked neatly behind the garage.
Even now, she couldn’t believe how fast it had gone up. Masturbating Arson Investigator Guy told her that the time between the fire light point and total engulfment of the structure was two minutes.
She knew. She saw.
She hadn’t even tried to help her friend. Well, she had, but not very hard. It was just—smoke was everywhere and it was so fast and she had to get out so she started up the basement stairs and couldn’t get past the fourth step
(I thought smoke was supposed to rise can’t see I can’t see can’t BREATHE)
and finally she had to turn and stumble through the opposite hallway to get out via the garage door and when she opened the double doors a ton of oxygen-rich air rushed in, which fed the fire, and two minutes? If anything, it hadn’t even taken that long.
Of course Lars saw the smoke and rushed in and tried to help them. As she was leaving by the garage, he was running through the front door, for all the good it did Tammy, or him. They never saw each other.
The police had been right behind the fire trucks.
* * *
They thought it was on purpose. Apparently, teenage boys and fires went hand in hand sometimes, and the investigators decided Lars had a crush on Tammy—his call to her house just before the fire looked bad—and set the fire so he could be a hero and rescue her. This sounded exquisitely stupid to Jennifer, but she was in no position to argue.
Incredibly, she was safe, and not just from immolation. She wasn’t supposed to be at Tammy’s until after supper; no one knew she’d been in the house that afternoon. And Lars didn’t know about her crush; he’d thought he was just going over to hang. Everyone thought he was going over to have sex with Tammy, because parents forgot that kids almost never turned down invites to parent-free houses. It could be someone you didn’t even like and you’d still go. Lack of supervision was like any drug: once you got a taste, you always wanted more.
The sympathy. That was the worst part. Everyone in town knew she’d loved Tammy, that they’d been best friends since sixth grade. She got almost as many thoughtfully sympathetic looks as Tammy’s folks did. Hell, Tammy’s parents tried to comfort her: “Thank God you weren’t there; you could have died, too!”
Then, the indictment, and she said nothing.
The trial. She said nothing.
Guilty of felony arson and involuntary manslaughter. Tried as an adult, of course—why not? It was a heinous crime, one that bought him twenty years. ’Bye, Lars. I loved almost going out with you.
She said nothing. She said nothing. She said nothing. She was too busy researching methods of suicide at the library.