CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Thanks.” She smiled weakly. He smelled like a thrift shop, the scent of celebrations past cloying to his rented polyester tux.

Attending prom with a senior boy was every sophomore girl’s dream, but Katie Andern had only agreed to go for her parents and because breaking up with Gary Lindstrom that spring would have only fueled the rumors. Talk was Lucy Van Buren had been suspended for two weeks for some mysterious stunt and everyone looked to Mark and Katie for answers. The two told lie after lie involving graffiti, truancy, illegal fireworks. The only truth Katie managed to offer was that her parents didn’t want her around the miscreant—so, no, she did not know how Lucy was doing.

Mark knew, however. Lucy had been working days at her father’s tractor supply and repair shop. Every night after the garage closed, Mark and Lucy’s band practiced songs for prom. It was the only thing keeping her afloat, he’d said. In fact, she was pretty damn stoked. By prom, the bruise around her eye would be mostly gone. She’d asked Mark to be her date, to keep up appearances, and promised they didn’t have to wear formal attire like the other “hosers and posers” because they were the entertainment. She was even going to sneak in a bottle of gin she’d lifted from her dad’s liquor cabinet.

Sweet lilac drifted on the breeze that night and Katie wore a simple, sleeveless satin dress the color of spring leaves. Prom’s theme was British royalty and all the couples posed for pictures on a wobbly Tower Bridge replica built by the shop class. Anita Funk won queen and a teacher placed a brass and red velvet facsimile of Queen Elizabeth’s crown on her maxed out blond hair. The hired band played a slow dance for the court and then took a break to humor Mark and Lucy’s little ensemble.

While he and his friends stood and sniggered, Katie wandered from them toward the stage.

Lucy Veebee shakily plugged her guitar into the other band’s amp. It buzzed and squawked until she turned it down, but this had at least served to gain full attention. Natch, she looked amazing and fuck-all-yas in her black and white striped tank top and purple lamé trousers. Katie’s heart fluttered in her chest and her breath came light and ragged. She glanced around the crowd to see if any of the other kids could tell what was happening to her. But all eyes were trained on the stage in various states of credulity.

Mark Fox, looking like a Miami Vice detective in his white suit and sunglasses, stumbled up to the keyboard nearly knocking it over. One of the marching band drummers, sporting a powder blue tux, settled into the hired band’s kit and twirled his sticks.

Mark nervously punched buttons on his keyboard and the auditorium filled with cascading melody. In response, the drummer stabbed around to locate the beat. Then Lucy quickly strummed her guitar and the PA system screeched, so she rolled her volume knob down. After a few bars they seemed relatively in control of the noise they were making and lurched into Duran Duran’s “Girls on Film.” Mark sang leads. Lucy harmonized and played a little too fast, but the kids started dancing, and they kept dancing even after the synth-pop disco beat switched to thrashy punk for the Violent Femmes song “Blister in the Sun.”

Katie’s skin tingled. She couldn’t be sure if the band had won the kids over with their talent or if their schoolmates had merely elevated Lucy to a new echelon of coolness because of all the recent vandalism she was supposedly inflicting upon the innocent citizens of Wicasa Bluffs. One thing was for sure Lucy and Mark were buzzed and getting even higher on gin-spiked punch.

What was the point in staying, stranded here on the periphery? Katie wondered. Gary refused to dance to New Wave music and only wanted to stand along the wall and make out. Lucy was never going to speak to her, even if she’d wanted to. And Katie herself was in no mood to watch the two tumble drunk off the stage and get themselves in further trouble.

She threaded back through the crowd and found Gary. “I’m not feeling well,” she told him.

Though she expected disappointment, he wiggled his eyebrows at his buddies; the sooner he got her in his car the better.

On her way out, Katie looked to the stage once more. Lucy stared blindly into the lights as she sang, her face shining from sweat and makeup sparkles.

Now Katie really did feel queasy. But she had to try. Just one last shot. She snuck off down the hallway toward the classrooms. She pulled the note she’d folded into a triangle from her sequined purse and slipped it through the vent of Lucy’s locker.

Welcome Back Lucy.

I am a million times sorry. I know you probably hate me. But I dream about you every night and even when I can’t sleep I’m still dreaming of you. All I can see is your father hurting you. I wish I had stood up to them. I really do. But I am trapped here. You have to know that. I’ve got to stay in their good graces. I get my license in a few weeks. And they promised me the Beetle if I keep my grades up and stay out of trouble. I just need a few more weeks . . .

(Okay, I counted all the “I’s” in this letter. As in “I am so selfish.”)

Please, please, please tell me you forgive me. But don’t write back. It’s too dangerous. Tell Mark, okay? Tell him what I need to hear. Tell him nothing’s changed in your heart.

I love you. I always will.

Katie

At school the following week, Lucy continued to ignore her. And though it was logical, it stung. But the week after that, Mark presented Katie with a manila folder labeled with strange lettering. The cardstock inside held a set of the English alphabet and a matching foreign alphabet that looked almost Asian. Katie would need to memorize these hieroglyphics and hand the language key back to Mark before Lucy would send her actual correspondence.

When it arrived the week before graduation, this is what the note translated to:

Meet me at Bikini Tree.

Saturday at 9pm.

Tell no one.

Not even Mark.