CHAPTER SEVEN
Her body registered the passage of minutes, but barely. It had been dark. And then it was not so dark. She was cold and then not so much, although her feet and hands were freezing.
Thirst was another constant. She’d licked the wall a few more times and crawled around looking for something that would catch the dew. Could she pee into her cupped hands? Possible? She’d found more bones scattered under the leaves, a whole rib cage thick with the stink of rotting flesh. How hungry would she have to get before she considered…? She kicked it away, huddled back into her nest like a hibernating mouse. Tried not to think of ice-cold water, coffee, pancakes, bacon, comforters, hot baths, movie nights with Lynn, doing the Sunday crossword with her dad, frosting fancy cupcakes with her mom.
Her bladder hurt but it was empty, her tongue was swollen. She couldn’t seem to rouse herself completely; she felt sluggish, as if her biological processes had slowed down. This was how death came, wasn’t it? Slowly. Organs shutting down one by one. Her kidneys would be the first to go. Did it hurt? Or would she just go to sleep?
She had to force her brain to operate in a linear way. She seemed unable to string events together, and jumping from one to the next felt almost physical, like crossing a rushing stream by balancing on slippery rocks. Still, she fought against the cloudiness, though it made her headache resurge with a vengeance.
“Someone will come for me soon,” she whispered. The sibilants bounced back to her and crowded her head with the hissing of snakes.
Amidst the confusion, one belief stood strong.
Lynn would realize right away that Ari had vanished and she would find her. A memory teased at the edge of her brain, like a fly caught in a web—what was it? Something important about Lynn’s dog…
Tallulah.
It was an unseasonably humid Tuesday afternoon, four days after the Sourmash incident. And even though it was late September, it seemed as if half the seniors from school were at the swimming hole. Ari had dragged Lynn there as well, to moon over Stroud Bellows and his chest hairs. At a safe distance, naturally.
“This time you’ll speak to him, right?” Lynn had asked.
“Of course,” Ari had lied.
They were sitting on the hill above the water. Ari tore her gaze away from the frolickers and relinquished the beer bottle to Lynn, who was sitting beside her with her hand out.
“Finally,” Lynn said. “I thought you were hypnotized.”
“Shut up. You’ve been staring at Miranda for half an hour.”
“Not Miranda, her boobage. And mostly I was just wondering how she gets that teensy bikini top to stay up.” She chugged from the beer and offered it back. Ari shook her head. It was lukewarm, it was “lite,” and it wasn’t giving Ari the buzz she wanted right now. They’d scored the six-pack from some college guys hanging in the liquor store parking lot.
“So do you think there’s Velcro or Krazy Glue attached to those oh-so-perky nipples?” Lynn remarked.
“I don’t know. I hate her.”
Miranda splashed water over Stroud Bellows and darted away laughing. He shook the water from his hair. God, it was like a soda commercial or something. Ari picked angrily at the fraying edge of her jean shorts. She’d been feeling good. Her new haircut had solved the frizz factor, and Philip had added some red highlights, which did something nice to her eyes and made her brows and lashes appear darker. But now she was just annoyed.
“Why don’t you show him how to work that rope swing?” Lynn said.
“Miranda already shimmied up it and hung upside down like that pole dancer you like so much—whatshername…” The beer might be warm and barely three percent alcohol, but it had reduced her tongue to a less than limber muscle and slowed her brainpower.
“Jenyne Butterfly,” Lynn said. “How dare you disparage her excellence!”
“I just meant that Miranda was doing those stripper moves.”
“Jenyne is not a stripper. She is an athlete. It’s very misogynistic of you to speak of her that way.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Lynn patted her hand. “Someday I’m going to meet her and wonderful things will ensue.”
“Absolutely.”
Outraged yells floated up from the pond. Jack Rourke had pushed a fully clothed girl—a freshman, Ari thought—into the deep water. She flailed until Miranda extended a helping hand.
“You’re positively not going to go down there?” Lynn said with thinly veiled sarcasm.
“In a minute…I just…”
“We could have gone to Dempsey’s Maze, you know.” This was Lynn’s absolute favorite destination in the Hollow. Eight-foot walls of carefully tended bush—something Lynn loved to announce—occupying more than an acre of land and planted over a hundred years ago by Thomas Lee Dempsey the elder, one of the town’s founding fathers.
In the long, hot summers, a riot of peach, pink and deep-glowing-red roses intermingled with the bristly hawthorn and beech hedge. The contrast between the baby cheek–soft petals and the sharp hawthorn spurs was startling, but at this time of year, when the leaves bronzed and fell and the rosehips had been pruned, the hedge was bare, the branches black against the sky. Beautiful but eerie.
“No water,” Ari said.
“No assholes either. Here, let me find you some bravery,” she said, digging in her bag. “A-ha!” She pulled out a small bottle and unscrewed the top. The smell of something sweet and artificial filled the air. The sun suddenly seemed too bright, and Ari felt the beginnings of a migraine.
“Peach schnapps?”
“You know it. Courtesy of my mom. It was way back in the cabinet. Probably from the nineties,” Lynn said. She gulped some down. “Yum, still good,” she said, barely concealing her grimace. “Come on.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Ari replied. Lynn had gone from smelling like coconut sunscreen and citronella bug repellent to Sourmash on a really bad day. Sourmash. Ari had managed to push the memory of him out of her mind until now. She gave herself a mental shake.
“Are you having fun?” Lynn asked.
Ari watched Stroud jump into the water with Miranda clutching his biceps and apparently trying to position her body so that he landed on top of her. The freshman girl stood in her dripping clothes, arms wrapped tightly around herself. After a few seconds, she hurried off. Stroud said something to Jack, who just laughed and shrugged his shoulders. Ari had no trouble imagining what filth Jack had spoken to the girl.
“Not really, no.”
“Well this makes everything better,” Lynn said with a twisted smile. “Trrruuuusssst me.”
Ari reluctantly took the bottle. “Don’t smell it first,” Lynn cautioned. Ari lifted it to her lips and sipped. It was pretty bad. Sugary. Sticky.
“And another,” her friend said. This time when Ari drank, Lynn reached over and tipped it up higher. Ari choked and spluttered. And then a warm feeling spread in her belly.
“Attagirl,” Lynn said calmly and took the bottle back. “You know, most guys will choose simple and easy every damn time.”
“I’m simple.”
“No, you’re not,” Lynn looked at her under heavy-lidded eyes. “You have expectations.”
“So what? I believe the best of people.”
“That’s scary for a boy if he’s not willing to man up. Expectations are heavy. It’s like sticking a mirror in front of his soul.”
“He’s perfect. What does he have to worry about?”
“No. He’s not.”
“What’s the deal, Lynn?”
She shrugged. “I’m not you, you know. I don’t have to like everyone.”
Ari bit her lip.
Lynn relented. “I’m sorry. That was harsh. I just don’t want you to build him up into this amazing, flawless guy when he’s not.” She sighed. “If he’s really who you’ve set your heart on…”
“Yes. So what do I do?”
“You’re asking me? The lesbian? I don’t know. If he doesn’t see what I see, then he’s stupid.”
“But you see the parts boys don’t notice right off the bat.”
“You mean everything above your neck?”
“Yes,” Ari said with a groan.
“Well, fortunately, you can always distract them with your boobs.”
Ari snorted out a laugh. “It’s nonstop boobs with you.”
“Boobs are a universal truth. B, C, double D, porn pontoons, it doesn’t matter. Seriously. Western civilization would be nowhere without them.” She raised the bottle. “Here’s to the ever-loving bosom. Or is it bosoms?”
“What the heck is a pontoon?”
“A boat? A gun? I’m not sure. But ‘porn pontoons’ just sounds so right.”
“You know, being smart doesn’t mean you can just throw any word in there.”
“You can if no one knows what you’re talking about.”
Ari leaned back on her elbows. The grouchiness had melted away, taking the headache with it. The late September sun felt so good. She kicked off her sandals and admired the sparkly purple pedicure Lynn had given her.
Lynn waved the bottle in front of her nose again and this time Ari drank deep and then licked sticky goodness off her lips. “This is delicious. Why don’t we drink this all the time?”
“Not a good idea. Intermittent schnapps usage is recommended.”
“You’re crazy,” Ari said, ignoring Lynn’s attempt to steal the liquor bottle back.
“Did you have breakfast this morning? Lunch, other than that tiny granola bar?”
“No, I didn’t want to bloat.”
“Why? It’s not like you’re ever going into that water.”
“I might. After a little bit more of this.” She tilted the bottle again.
“Hey, Paris Hilton, schnapps is a sipping beverage. Hand it over.”
“Too late.” Ari downed the rest of the bottle.
She stood up, brushing dirt from her butt. The earth moved underfoot. She adjusted her stance, feeling the sun beating down on her shoulders, watching the light dance through the leaves. She shook her hair back, suffused by a feeling of almost unbearable happiness. “Look at that Miranda. If I had scaly knees like that, I’d keep them covered.”
“Turn down the volume, maybe,” Lynn suggested. “And sit back down.”
Ari snuggled down next to her. “What would I do without you?”
“You’d be lost.”
Ari grinned. “You and peach schnapps are my best friends. I might call my first child Peach.”
“Good name. Better than Budweiser or Night Train, though Coors has a certain masculine ring to it.” Her voice drifted off. “Speaking of stupid names, Stroud is walking this way.”
Ari lurched up so suddenly her head spun. She brushed earth and dead leaves off her T-shirt. Why had she been practically lying in the dirt?
“Just take it off,” Lynn said, gesturing at the tee. “Mr. Bubble isn’t that sexy anyway.”
“It’s vintage.”
“Boys don’t care about vintage. They care about breasts. You’re wearing a bikini under there, right?”
Stroud had paused to yell something back at the group at the swimming hole. He had his red water polo team jacket slung over one shoulder, his arm muscles flexed in a way that made Ari want to bite them.
“One-piece.”
“Not the god-awful Speedo?”
“No. The new one my mom just bought me.”
“Good enough.”
Ari stripped her shirt off hurriedly and stowed it behind her.
“Does my hair look okay?” she asked, crossing her legs and then uncrossing them again.
“Very naturally tousled and windblown,” Lynn said, picking out a stray leaf. “If you lean back on your arms and arch your back a little, your boobs will look bigger.”
Ari tried it and lengthened her legs. She was just fake-tanned enough, without venturing into Orange Land; she’d managed to shave around her ankles without nicking herself. The alcohol was a warm buzz and a sweet taste in her mouth rendering everything in sharp relief, as if she were wearing her dad’s reading glasses. In contrast, she felt deliciously blurry around the edges.
He was close, near enough to smell the pond water in his hair—and Ari had lost the capability for speech. Maybe she could mention how last week he’d cut his time on the freestyle? By…what was it? Two seconds? Three seconds. She didn’t want to get it wrong. He was walking past. Going, going, going…
“Hey, Bellows,” Lynn said. “How’d you do on that killer trig test?”
He paused, looking confused. “I don’t take trig.”
“My mistake, I mixed you up with that other do…” She let her voice trail away and smiled at him widely. Ari could almost see the unsaid “douche” float past in a speech bubble. She shot Lynn a quick frown that was received with a bland expression, and redirected her attention toward Stroud. Golden Stroud. Even on land, he moved like a wild animal.
He cleared his throat and shifted from foot to foot. Ari gazed at his freckled shoulders, followed the length of his arms down to his strong, tanned hands. Whatever Lynn said about knuckle-dragging apes, those long arms were why he was so good at water polo and swimming, and she wouldn’t mind being double-wrapped in them like a straitjacket.
She felt a bony elbow in her ribs and blinked.
“Hi, Stroud,” she managed. The sun was directly behind him. It haloed his bright hair, outlined him in light. She was staring but she couldn’t help it. She knew she should talk, but the words were stuck.
Droplets of water glistened on his broad chest, just a few hairs curling around his nipples. They were like small brown candies. She blushed and dragged her gaze up to his face. He was looking back at her, his deep-blue eyes intent. His soft, pink lips were opening. Every movement he made was in slow motion, and she felt something hitch under her breastbone and pull toward him, as if he had hooked her with a fishing line.
“You look really hot, Sullivan.”
What?! Oh my God. Confidence spilled into her like a flood of warm water.
“You too, Stroud.” She wanted to say his name at the end of every sentence she spoke. She wanted to hear her own name in his mouth.
He ruffled his hair and frowned adorably. Oh, how she wished she were that hand.
“You should definitely get out of the sun,” he said. “You’ve got a major farmer’s burn happening.”
The good feelings deflated like a pricked balloon. She watched him walk up the path. Miranda’s tinkling laughter floated on the breeze as she trilled, “Wait up, Stroud,” and then flew past them, her shiny blond hair and bikini breasts bouncing in just the most perfect way. The two disappeared around the corner, but not before Ari saw Miranda’s arm snake around Stroud’s waist, his hand slip to her shoulder and then casually down to her breast. The butterflies were replaced by a bitter feeling, and a weird spluttering sound came out of her mouth, part shame, part something else—something volcanic.
“Gonna hurl?” Lynn said, stroking her arm. “I can hold your hair back, if you want.”
Ari jumped to her feet, shaking her head. She had to get away, somewhere private.
“Oh, sweetie. He’s not the guy you think he is. You can’t see past his whole all-American jock thing. He parties a lot, and frankly he’s kind of an asshole, like all the rest of them—Rourke and Dinkwad and Whosit.”
Ari bit back a half giggle, half sob. Down the hill a short distance in the opposite direction from the water was a stand of trees growing around what had once been a quarry. People dumped all kinds of stuff in there—garbage, broken appliances and furniture, old cars. She headed for it, fighting the sour bile.
“If he goes for the manky chicks like that he’s not worth it!” Lynn called after her.
Ari stumbled along the rough path. That’s what girlfriends always said, but it didn’t help. Another wave of peach-scented bile hit her. She stopped by a tree, leaning against it, and fought to control her churning guts. How had she gone from feeling so good to feeling like this?
Stroud would never notice her in that way. It was a hopeless dream. The dance, an impossible scenario.
She tried to reason with herself. Why did she even like him? Because he was hot? Because he was tall and broad-shouldered? Because she imagined that beneath the muscular exterior he had the soul of a poet? Lynn was right. She’d wait around forever for a guy who was nothing like she imagined. In her mind, she’d built him up into this ideal. But still, his hands. God, how she wanted his hands on her hips, pulling her toward him, and his mouth crushing hers.
“I’m such a loser,” she moaned. “So stupid.”
A branch cracked above her head. She looked up and got a shower of grit in her face. Someone peered down at her through the sparse leaves. She jumped back, sick feeling forgotten.
“What the hell!” She recognized the face. Jesse Caldwell. One grade below hers, left back because he’d failed a year.
“Lost, little girl?” he said with a smirk.
Hitching his legs over the branch he was perched on, he grabbed another above his head and swung out, hanging for a long moment, his shirt wrinkled up and baring his abdomen, before he dropped to his feet. He took his time pulling his shirt back down, making sure Ari saw his flat stomach. He was that kind of guy, always preening and posing, leaning against his locker in studied nonchalance, going unshaven and letting his hair flop over his face. He slipped a notebook into the messenger bag slung over his shoulder.
She turned her back on him, noting the unimpeded view of the swimming hole from there. The nausea had subsided but now she had a different kind of queasy feeling. Up in the tree the view would be even less obstructed.
“Spying, Jesse?” she said, swiveling around, unable to keep the sneer out of her voice. The schnapps was playing havoc with her balance and she braced herself against the tree.
Under his shaggy black hair, the tips of his ears turned red, and then he straightened his back. “What’s it to you?”
“Hoping for some skinny-dipping? Or for Miranda’s bikini to fall off?”
His eyes went immediately to Ari’s chest, as if his brain were wired for certain words. She wished she’d grabbed her T-shirt.
“No crime in looking,” he mumbled, slanting his eyes away when he caught sight of her angry glare. “We don’t all live by the rule book.”
Jesse Caldwell unsettled her. Frequently mean, often cuttingly sarcastic, he seemed to delight in making other people feel bad as he slouched down the hallway in his black denim and vintage hats. He’d shown up from God knows where halfway through junior year and supposedly lived with an old aunt, or someone, outside of town. A month after he’d arrived he’d cut some girl’s ponytail off in Art with a boning knife because she called his artwork pretentious and derivative. Practically scalped the poor girl. Not that they’d ever found the reputed knife on him, and the girl—Kelly something, Ari remembered—had transferred out shortly afterward. Jesse had been suspended for two weeks and his reputation had been sealed. The word weirdo was spray-painted on his locker in case anyone forgot, and he’d taken it as a badge of honor.
“Voyeurism is pretty pathetic, even for you.” She folded her arms across her chest, feeling more naked than she actually was.
“You think?” There was an odd light in his blue eyes, a challenging twist to his mouth. His eyes raked her body again, lingering. He smiled, though his face was suffused with anger. “Weren’t you doing the same thing? Creaming over Stroud Bellows? Giving Miranda the old stink eye?”
“You were spying on us too?” She felt herself blush. Yes, she’d been ogling Stroud, but that was different. “You’re such a pervert!”
He took a step toward her. “You’re no better than the rest of them, you know?” he said, his lips a thin line. “Everyone is just some Breakfast Club stereotype to you. Cheerleader, Jock, Brain, Weirdo. What about the people who don’t fit, and those who don’t want to fit? Like your friend Lynn? Even you?”
“What about me?” She couldn’t help asking.
“You’ll never be part of their group. They’re a different species.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
He looked at her briefly. “They think you and Lynn are a couple—a couple of dykes.”
Ari gritted her teeth. “And? What’s your problem, Jesse?”
But then he’d swung away from her, moving fast, shoulders hunched.
He had a book stuffed in his back pocket. Edgar Allan Poe. Of course he’d be into that morbid shit.
Anger flooded into Ari’s veins. “Dyke is an ugly word, you asshole…you freak!” she yelled.
He stopped when he was past the tree line and looked back at her.
His voice was pitched low but still she heard him clearly. Each word was bitten off.
“Sticks and stones, Sullivan.”
There were no words. Her brain was totally blank.
He turned and walked away, whistling to himself.
Shaking off the creepy-crawly feeling that being in close proximity to him had given her, she was conscious again of the unhappy state of her stomach. Also, she had to pee.
She stumbled forward deeper into the forest where no one would see or hear her. A hundred yards in, it was hotter under the canopy, the air close and still. Her stomach cramped, the nausea surged back. She could smell something sweet and gassy, like rotten potatoes in a plastic bag. Clouds of flies buzzed with an insistent whine. The ground fell away. She was at the edge of the abandoned quarry. She could see a refrigerator, door removed. Black garbage bags, one ripped open, spilling soiled diapers. The sun couldn’t quite penetrate the densely growing trees.
Something dangled ahead. Like a large football. And there were other odd shapes, like fists and dripping wet bags tied to a web of thin rope. Her feet moved her inexorably closer, even while her brain tried to decipher what she was seeing. A swathe of black and white nailed to a tree trunk. Then another, all black this time, curly like her mother’s bouclé coat, and one larger—tan, black and white in splotches. A collar, decorated with silver studs, swung from a branch. It was familiar. Next to it Ari saw more collars—leopard-spotted, pink velvet, chain. Her eyes went back to the swathe. Not cloth, but fur.
Tallulah.
And then she saw everything. Red, bloated, misshapen, truncated forms hanging from hooks, the leaves below spattered with brown and red stains. Movement came from one, and she struggled to comprehend what she was seeing. It was dead; it had to be. The skinned carcass, she realized, was wriggling with hundreds of yellowy-white maggots.
A fat fly landed on her cheek and she batted at it, hysterical now. The world tilted and rushed away like the sea going out, a swirl of black and green and red. She leaned over and vomited.
“Ari,” Lynn called from close by. “Where the hell are you?”
Ari heard rustling in the undergrowth. She turned, shouted, “No, Lynn, stop! Stay where you are!” But it was too late. Lynn pushed through some bushes, her face red with exertion. “Are you okay, sweetie? I just saw that creep, Jesse, and I was worried—” Her voice cut off as she looked past Ari. “Holy shit. What the hell is that?”