KALYN

IT’S KINDA AMAZING, how the entire world can shift while you’re watching a screen.

After Phil and Gus depart, I go inside to find Grandma on the couch, but she’s not watching the Food Network anymore. It’s the news, dogging our lives as always.

I’m expecting the usual slew of speculation and fake updates on the Spence/Ellis case. What I’m not expecting is footage of Jefferson High and the chief Gaggler.

“Eighteen-year-old Garth Holden, a senior at Jefferson High, is almost the same age James Ellis was when he was shot and killed by a classmate. He’s only a year younger than Gary Spence was when he went to prison for the crime.”

The camera pans to the parking lot behind the football field. Preppy kids are milling about, painting posters and holding tarps up to hide trailers and wagons.

“Our field reporter, Anne Lemire, spoke to Garth after school. WKZ was already at Jefferson High, interviewing the student council, who are busy putting the final touches on their floats for tomorrow’s homecoming parade.”

Bullshit. Reporters aren’t often allowed near schools or minors, but the parade would be a good excuse. No way Garth Holden stayed after school to make parade floats. He must have arranged this interview.

I let out a satisfied hoot when the camera reveals Garth. His nose is bulbous from Phil decking him yesterday; the skin under his eyes is swollen and purple. He looks damn near bee-stung to death. The reporter puts the mic in his face.

“You go to school with Gus Peake, the only son of the victim?”

“Yeah, we’re good friends. Gus is having a hard time with all this. And considering all the challenges he’s had to face—”

“He suffers from cerebral palsy, is that right?” Anne Lemire interjects.

He doesn’t suffer from it. That’s just Gus. I wish Willy Wonka would invent a way to punch people through TVs.

“Gus is one tough little guy. Always smiling, keeps his head up. But the truth is, he’s really broken up.” Garth puts on a sad face. “I’m worried about him, you know?”

“I imagine this must be gut-wrenching.”

“Yeah. And Gus . . . ​he’s making bad choices, you know? Skipping school—”

“Hypocrite!” I screech.

“—maybe trying drugs and stuff, I don’t know.”

“You gave him that joint!”

“Hear, hear!” Grandma cries.

“He’s hanging out with some bad people.”

The anchorwoman chimes in while the audio over Garth and Anne Lemire is muted. “It took some encouragement, but Anne convinced Garth to elaborate.” We’re treated to footage of Anne and Garth walking side by side around the football field, gesticulating as they talk. “More developments after the break.”

I mute the TV, because if there’s one thing worse than bullshit news it’s lame-ass car commercials that try to make death machines look sexy.

“Well, Grandma, it’s a real bullshit news day.”

I bet I know what the developments are, and only the gossips are gonna like it. Well, that’s half the town. Garth Holden, wreaking his petty revenge by ruining my life.

I’m on the edge of the couch, a human cliff-hanger, sucking Grandma’s cigarette.

After one last commercial advertising a double-headed toilet brush, we’re back to tonight’s bullshit news.

“Before the break we spoke to a young man named Garth Holden, who shared revelations relating to the ongoing Spence/Ellis murder case. Back to you, Anne.”

The newly risen wind whips Anne’s hair up something fierce, just as it shakes Grandma’s walls. “Revelations is right, Jennifer. Take a look.”

The screen switches back to Garth.

“You’re worried Gus might fall in with a bad crowd?”

“He already has. Gus made friends with the daughter of his daddy’s murderer.” The way he says it, adding a country accent to seduce his hometown, is so rehearsed. “Fell in love with her, maybe.”

Oh, if I could tan his hide. What, you stick a guy and a girl together and automatically they’ve gotta be in love? Seriously, what year is it? No wonder we’re all stuck on an ancient murder case. People can’t get over their outdated notions.

“—an outlandish accusation, but Garth shared compelling evidence.” Now we’re looking at a photo, fresh off the fucking presses. I’d give Garth props for his photography, but I’d rather give him an impossible third black eye.

There’s me with my arms around Gus, holding him up in the pouring rain with the Taurus beside us, captured in the frame like the one in the infamous photo that made the 1989 papers. My face is blurred out, but the vicious Moms of America will recognize my dress without trouble. Anyone at Jefferson High will recognize my pumpkin hair.

Gus isn’t holding me, but the way I’ve got his head nestled against my neck, you’d think he’s sucking my blood. It’s that gross and intimate, and even if I know the truth, anyone might assume we were caught making out.

And Garth cropped Phil out of the photo.

I fucking hate the trickery of it, how we’re all being literally framed, but this development is not actual news for me. We never get a say in how we’re depicted.

But hell, is it even legal to air pictures of minors?

And while we’re on it, do they have permission to show all of Gus’s pictures? Maybe his family gave it years ago, to win a case they’d already won. How fucked is that, when you think about it? I mean, you know no one asked Gus for permission.

All these adults failing kids. It’s blood-boiling.

“Turn on my baking program,” Grandma demands. I bat her hand away.

To add insult to injury, WKZ flashes the old wedding photo beside the new photo.

“According to Mr. Holden, Spence’s daughter registered for Jefferson High under a pseudonym earlier this fall. Interviewees tell us she has done well in school, gaining enough popularity to land a nomination for freshman homecoming court representative.”

Well, gee, no one with two brain cells could possibly puzzle out my identity now. I’d roll my eyes, but they’ve been strained so far the strings at the back of them might snap, apple stems twisted too far along the alphabet.

“Anne,” says the news anchor, “is it possible she’s turned things around? How do we know she’s actually ‘a bad crowd’?”

I whistle. Could this be that rare unicorn, an unbiased Samsboro native?

“Jenn, I put that question to Garth Holden.” The weather lifts Anne’s lapels.

We switch back to daylight and Garth, who points at his black eyes. “She did this to me. What does that tell you?”

I’m used to getting blamed for hitting people, but usually because I have hit them.

Anne’s microphone dips. “She did this to you? Really?”

“I was trying to tell Gus the truth. She’s been lying to everyone, but I recognized her. There was always something kind of, I dunno, fake about her?”

“Pot, it’s kettle calling,” I spit.

“I called her out on it, and she really let me have it, as you can see. She’s probably scared Gus into liking her. Maybe he thinks it’s love, but it’s not healthy. I’m super interested in true crime; it’s kind of my thing. Sometimes violence is something you inherit.” Garth adds sagely: “My cousin breeds pit bulls. Same dif. They play nice, and then they bite the face off your cousin.”

Dog stereotypes aside—Stormy Wilson at the AMP used to have the nicest fucking pits—I’m ready to let Grandma put on her baking program after all if the alternative is me dropkicking the television and screaming our boxy house off its blocks.

“So you don’t believe Gary Spence might be innocent? DNA evidence won’t change your mind?”

Garth bats his eyelashes like Rose might, hand to god he does, almost like he can see me shaking on this doily-covered sofa. “Well, this is only my opinion.”

“Anne Lemire, WKZ News.”

Back to the news desk. “Is this the tale of a modern-day Romeo and Juliet, or a greater tragedy—history repeating itself on a small-town stage? Will tragedy befall a new generation of Samsboro youths?

“If the IFA’s retrial request is granted and Judge Harcourt rules wrongful conviction, Spence could be returning home within a year. He may be disappointed to discover that home may not welcome him back.”

Jennifer shifts her papers, just for show. “Up next: the fall food drive is kicking off again; learn what you can do to make sure everyone in your town has a wonderful Thanksgiving. Also: see what local businesses are doing to celebrate homecoming. Tomorrow the Jefferson Jaguars—”

I shut the TV off. I can see my reflection on the black screen. I don’t look like any Southern Belle. All told, that report took fewer than five minutes.

But the news isn’t really over. It’s happening every minute. It’s happening to me, and to Mom and Grandma and Gus and his folks, too. It’s happening to Jefferson High. It’ll happen even more tomorrow, when I show up for school.

Me and Grandma sit in the dark. I’m dying for the phone to ring.

Despite all the bullshit I’ve lived through, the screaming and the spitting white rage, dirt in my eyelashes and sand in my teeth—I’ve never been outed like this.

If Rose is made of paper like the terrible book that inspired her, well, the pages are curling up and kissing the bittersweet world goodbye. They’re leaving behind a black, ashy husk. They’re leaving what’s really me, charred and stinking and red hot.

In some ways it’s a relief, letting Rose die. I never really believed in her.

But it’s hard to think a bunch of strangers killed her dead, because that’s something that happens to Spences. Rose was never real, but she was a product of Spencehood. She was proof that not everything we put into the world is nasty.

I’ve seen Rose here in this house, in my family, when no one else has. There’s Rose in Mom humming when she cooks macaroni, Rose in Grandma’s baby-pure scalp and warm hands, Rose in the way Mom always smiled for real whenever her patients waxed nostalgic about sock hops of long ago.

Just because other people only see thorns in us, just because for so long I couldn’t see anything else, doesn’t mean we’ve got no petals.

That picture of me and Gus in the parking lot ain’t romantic. But I can’t look at that picture and honestly say that the way I’ve got all of myself protecting all of Gus’s self isn’t some kind of love.

I’ll say it plain: you can love someone without wanting to fuck them. You can love someone without it being anything more or less than that. I don’t know why some people can’t see nuances like that, why they can’t be happy that some relationships can be crooked but loving.

Dad won’t call tonight, just like he didn’t call yesterday. Either he killed James Ellis or he didn’t, but maybe it wasn’t about reasons. Maybe it was nuanced, too.

I don’t know what’s going on with my face. It’s stupid, sitting here next to the phone with my eyes stinging. I don’t know when Grandma moved over here to sit on the armrest, but her warm hand’s on my arm.

“Oh, yeah, your show.” I reach for the remote—­

The door bursts open and I spin round, ready to chuck a chair if need be, but it’s only Hurricane Mom. I’m so glad to see her that my chest hurts.

Mom kicks off sopping flip-flops. “Driveway’s gonna be a bitch in the morning.”

She leans over the kitchen sink, unwinds a dish towel from the rack, and starts wiping rain from her face. And then she can see clearly, and what she’s seeing is me, dirty and teary, and Grandma, petrified by Mom’s dramatic entrance.

Mom’s face sags. “Hasn’t your father called?”

I shake my head.

“Huh.” She drops a damp canvas bag to the floor. “Think he got cold feet, hearing about old man Ellis trying to keep him in prison? Or do you think he heard about his daughter dabbling in assault? Maybe he thought you’d be visiting him in prison soon on your own steam, so where’s the sense in calling?”

“You saw the news,” I say.

“Oh, I saw plenty, behind the counter at work. They aired the picture at noon. Slapped your mug on TV just like that, like you were on trial!”

“Yeah.”

Mom yanks her hair into a ponytail. Water droplets ricochet against my cheek. “For the love of Pete, I’m all for expressing yourself. But this is a hot mess.”

“Where were you, Mom?”

She throws her hands up. “Where do you think? I was down at that so-called news station, giving them hell for picturing a minor without parental consent. Sure, it was taken in public, but you’re underage and they were giving out personal information. Which, as it happens, isn’t legal. I did my research last time you wore that goddamn dress. Did they at least blur your face the second time?”

“Yeah,” I murmur, “but my hair’s pretty recognizable.”

Mom looses another barrage of cusses and then breathes long and hard through flaring nostrils. “So we’ll just have to sue them again.”

“Again . . . ?”

“How do you think we paid rent before I got the caretaking gig? Sued the press and their sweet asses. There’s a fine line between free speech and slander.”

I’m hugging Mom tight before I can even think about doing it, trying to make my arms say how grateful I am for the shit she does for me, the shit she’s always done for me. She tugs my braid. “Whoa there, darling.”

I pull away, wiping my nose on my collar.

“They still implyin’ you beat up that weasel-faced boy?” Mom wrings her ponytail out over the sink. “Because I’ll add that to the list.”

“How do you know I didn’t beat him up? I mean, it’s me.”

“Bang,” Grandma says.

“Lord knows it wouldn’t be the first time.” Mom slips into the third chair at the table and digs around in her bra for her cigarettes. “If you’d have beaten him up, sweetie, he wouldn’t be doin’ TV interviews. He’d be off somewhere licking his wounds.”

I’m smiling, maybe because neither of us think I’m incapable of decking a guy if need be. I don’t want to think about how that makes what Garth said about me being like a pit bull true. But even though I’m as dog-tired as I’ve ever been, sitting with Mom and Grandma Spence next to me, maybe my Rosiest bits have survived.

I’m glad I’m not just Rose Poplawski, petals and no thorns. Rose wouldn’t have the guts to go to school tomorrow, but I do. I’ve got a righteous fire in me, a need to set Jefferson High off, for my sake and Gus’s, too.

That’s a whole nother thing. “When you saw the report before, did . . . I mean. So you know? About me and Gus.”

Mom eyeballs me. “Gus who, Kalyn-Rose Tulip Spence?”

I swallow. “Gus Peake.”

“Well.” Mom considers the mud under her fingernails. “Don’t know why I should care two figs about any Peake boys, ’specially since you’re gay.”

“But he’s—his dad’s James Ellis.”

“Again,” Mom says, “don’t know why I should care who the hell he is, so long as you care about him and he cares about you.”

My mouth is so agape that Grandma taps it closed for me.

“What, no comeback?”

Words spill out quick-sharp: “What about Spence pride, and justice, and—and revenge, and all that shit you raised me to care about—”

“Hold up. Those were your father’s sermons, and I don’t hold truck with any church, no matter who’s standing at the front. If I preached for him, I’m sorry. But I gave you a new name and it didn’t change you. Names don’t change a person. If you like this boy, or whatever—”

“Mom, it’s not romantic—”

“Whatever, who am I to say a thing?” Her smirk is so real. “I’m the batshit lady who fell in love with a murderer, remember?”

I can’t stop shaking my head. “Well, fuck.”

“Fuck indeed, sweetie, and one of these days we’re both gonna wash our mouths out with Dial or something stronger.”

“Damn straight,” Grandma agrees.

“Mom. Did you know Dad and James Ellis were friends in high school?”

She takes a long drag. “It’s news to me, but so is everything these days.”

“But you always suspected something was off. You believed Dad didn’t shoot James Ellis, no matter what he said.” I shake my head. “How did you know?”

“Can’t really say. Maybe it’s just in my wiring. I can smell a liar. I wrote your Dad the day after his sentencing. I was in Arkansas, watching him volunteer for punishment, but I just felt . . . this was not the confession of a boy who’s proud or vicious. It’s a boy who looks righteous and sad. Your dad seemed like the opposite of the men I knew. I wanted someone to tell him so. So I got out my notepad. I didn’t care about all that talk about girls who chase men on death row, didn’t give a shit what other people were doing. I had faith in what I was doing.”

I frown. “What you were doing.”

“Yes. I wrote my way out of my father’s house. Maybe it looks like I ran to another monster, but those letters got me away from a home that had covered me in bruises from the moment I had skin to bruise. You’ll never meet your uncle or your grandpa, Kalyn. There’s nothing righteous about the scars they left on me, the scars that killed my mother.” She’s glaring, but not at me. “That was a slow murder.”

Grandma combs a hand through Mom’s hair.

Her expression darkens. “And say I was wrong the whole time? Say your dad is a monster. Say Gary Spence was guilty, and my gut was just all twisted and wrong after being bruised too many times. Well, at least he’s a monster in a cage. It’s hard to put bruises on anyone from behind bars.”

Mom’s a madwoman, with all her peroxide and bullheaded convictions. I never questioned her motives for being with Dad, because I grew up loving him. It made sense that she loved him, too. Questioning it would be like questioning water being wet.

“You gonna tell me not to go to school tomorrow?”

“Hell no. You’re going,” she growls. “And I’m coming with you.”

“’Kay.”

Her tone changes: “Now the real issue: Kalyn-Rose Tulip Spence, how come you didn’t tell me you’ve been nominated for freshman homecoming court representative?”

“What? You—I can’t—I mean, just those words strung together are so stupid! I didn’t tell you because it’s stupid. And they didn’t nominate me. They nominated the nice girl I was pretending to be.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” She cups my chin in her hand. “That’s still you, like it or not.”