He’ll be a nice addition to the men around here, she thought objectively. He’s not as handsome as Barry by a long shot, but a lot of girls are going to like him. Wait till those two man-hungry schoolteachers in 214 get a look at him. They’ll tear each other to shreds over who gets her hooks in first.
“Enjoy the sun,” she said. “But don’t doze off the way I did or you might find yourself turned into a lobster. This southwest sun can really get to you when you’re not used to it.”
“Got it. Good luck on not peeling.” Collingsworth Wilson raised a hand in casual farewell.
He’s nice, Helen thought again as she skirted the pool and climbed the stairs to the second level. The doors to the second-floor apartments all opened onto a narrow balcony. She walked slowly along it, wondering how red she really was. It had been a foolish thing, she knew, to lie out like that right in the middle of the day. A tan could look great on camera, but it had to be picked up carefully at no more than an hour at a time.
If I do peel, she told herself, maybe I can work it into a report on the weather. “It was good and hot today. I hope you viewers showed better sense than I did.” That was the sort of thing she was beginning to learn to do, to toss out ad libs. As she kept telling Elsa, there was more to television work than just looking pretty and smiling. You had to think under stress and seem natural and come out with occasional quirky remarks so you didn’t come across as a mechanical doll.
There was a paper taped to the door of her apartment. She didn’t see it until she reached it, and then she could only stand and stare.
It was a picture cut from a magazine ad. The text had been cut away, and what remained was the image of a little boy on a bicycle.
CHAPTER 5
When the envelope arrived in the morning mail, Ray Bronson was not surprised. He opened it and drew out the newspaper clipping. He knew what it contained, for he had read it many times before. Now he did so again and felt all the old sensations:
“A ten-year-old boy was killed last night in a hit-and-run accident on Mountain Road, two miles south of the Silver Springs picnic area. Dead is Daniel Gregg, son of Michael and Mary Gregg of 1279 Morningside Road Northeast. Daniel was riding his bicycle when he was struck by an unidentified vehicle.
“A phone call from an alleged occupant of that vehicle informed authorities of the accident. A police car and an ambulance were immediately dispatched to the scene. The boy was conscious upon arrival of the rescue crew but died en route to St. Joseph’s Hospital.
“Mr. Gregg informed reporters that his son had been spending the night at the home of a friend in the Mountain Road area and evidently decided to return home during the evening. The bicycle did not have a light or reflectors.
“Police are looking for the car that struck young Gregg. Paint deposits on the bicycle show it to have been light blue in color.
“Daniel is survived by his parents…a half brother…a half sister…a maternal grandfather…two aunts…an uncle….”
Ray folded the article and put it back into the envelope. His own address stared up at him in the same black, hand-printed letters that had formed the message to Julie.
It’s not a joke, he told himself. It’s not a joke at all.
Not that he had ever really believed that it was. Since Julie had thought so, there had seemed little sense in pursuing the matter. It was possible. It might have been a joke. And she had managed to convince herself.
In his heart, even then, he had been pretty sure that it wasn’t.
So it’s caught up with us, he thought, finally. His own lack of surprise was the thing that surprised him. It was as though he had known all along, somewhere deep within himself, that this was going to happen. It was why he had come home, and a year ago it was why he had gone away.
* * *
The Raymond Bronson of a year ago had been a pretty spineless individual. He had always been small, which was part of it. It wasn’t so much that he was short—five-foot-nine was a passable height—as the fact that he was lean and light-boned and not particularly well-muscled. In some families, this would not have mattered. When you were the only son of a man who had once been a professional football player, it mattered a lot.
Herb Bronson, Ray’s father, had been known in his youth as The Booter. Friends from early days still called him that, and he sometimes referred to himself that way in a half-joking manner.
“Dinner ready yet?” he would call out as he came in the door in the evening. “The Booter’s hungry enough to eat a bull!”
And Mrs. Bronson, busy in the kitchen, would laugh and call back, “How lucky for me! Braised bull is just what I’d planned to serve!”
The Booter had not had a particularly long or glorious career. He had received a knee injury in his second year as a defensive halfback and had reluctantly retired from professional athletics. He was, however, a highly successful businessman. Bronson’s Sporting Goods Store had been the first of what eventually became a small chain of stores in two southwestern states.
Ray’s build had been a disappointment to The Booter, and he had always known it. At the same time, he had known that his father loved him. Teasing comments were tempered with affection.
“Hey, Twerp,” Herb Bronson would say jovially, “when are you going to put some weight on?” And at Christmastime, half the stock in the Bronson stores would appear beneath the tree: footballs, shoulder pads, bats and rackets, boxing gloves and camping gear.
Ray had not done badly in the minor sports; he was a member of the high school golf team and could play a decent game of tennis. It was football that was beyond him. He had managed to make the B Squad in junior high because a number of his contemporaries had not yet acquired their full growth, but suddenly, upon entering high school, he had found himself surrounded by towering individuals with weights up to and above two hundred pounds.
The boys were friendly and most of them knew The Booter by reputation. If he could not compete with them physically, Ray was superior to many of them academically. They respected him for this, and as he was a natural-born teacher, he often made himself useful in a tutoring capacity. No major athlete himself, he did have athletes for friends.
The first time he brought Barry Cox home with him for dinner, his father and Barry had sat over tall glasses of milk for two full hours after the meal was over, reviewing plays from Herb’s career and more recent ones from Barry’s experiences.
“That’s a sharp kid,” Mr. Bronson had remarked late that evening after Barry had left for home. “He’s going to make it big, I’ll bet. He’s a good friend of yours, Twerp? You and he hang out a lot?”
“Yes,” Ray had said.
“Good stuff,” his father had commented approvingly. “I like to see you with friends like that.” And later that year when he had started dating Julie James, there had been a similar reaction.
“Got a cheerleader for a girlfriend, huh? Chip off the old block, aren’t you! Cuties of the school they were in my day. It took a real man to hook a cheerleader.”
Julie had been more than that. Much more. But this he had not told his father. He had just crooked an eyebrow and made a little “here’s to us” motion with his hand, and his father had clapped him on the shoulder in a man-to-man way. It was disappointing, sure, to have a son who couldn’t make it in your footsteps, but Ray was there in spirit, doing his best, and The Booter knew it and respected him for it.
That was the Raymond Bronson of a year ago. Sometimes when Ray thought back upon himself, it was like looking at another person.
I wasn’t anybody, he thought incredulously. Not anyone real. I was kind of a shadow, partly Dad, partly Barry, not making it either way and not knowing how else I could make it. I don’t know what Julie saw in me.
But she had seen something.
“I love you,” she had said once. Only once. They didn’t get mushy very often. They usually just goofed around and had a good time.
But there had been one time when she had turne
d to him suddenly and had seen something in his face that had reflected back into hers. They hadn’t even been making out or anything. It was right in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, and they had been sitting on the floor in the living room of the James’ home playing some crazy card game, and out of the blue Julie had looked across at him and said, “I love you.”
Well, that was in the past. She didn’t love him now. That love had been snuffed out forever in one instant on one summer’s night, as quickly and irrevocably as one little boy’s life.
Barry had been driving too fast. Barry always drove too fast, when it came to that, but he drove well, and nobody got upset about it. Helen had been sitting close to him in the front seat. When he thought back, Ray could remember that, because he could remember her hair hanging over the back of the seat and swinging back and forth as the car took the curves.
Aside from that, he didn’t remember much, because he had been making out with Julie most of the time during that ride. It was Ray’s car, but as usual he and Barry had flipped for the back seat, and this time he had won. Julie had been sprawled in his arms, and she had been wearing a pink T-shirt that clung to her curves and slid up, revealing her flat stomach.
Suddenly, while they were kissing, Helen had screamed. The scream had brought them both upright in an instant. There had not been time to see much before it happened. The bicycle had been there in front of them, caught in the glare of the headlights. They had seen the child from the back. He had been wearing a striped shirt. Then there was the thud and the crunch and then they were past.
“My god!” Julie had whispered from beside him. “We hit him!”
Ray had tried to answer, but somehow he could not get his voice working. The car had not stopped. It was moving on. It was going faster. It took the next curve with such speed that they were all thrown sideways, and Julie had fallen on top of him and had lain there, clutching him, whispering over and over, “Ray, Ray, we hit him.”
“Go back!” Ray had managed to croak. “We’ve got to go back!”
“Go back?” Barry yelled over his shoulder. “What good would that do?”
In the seat beside him Helen was sobbing wildly.
Julie leaned forward, pulling away from Ray.
“That little boy! We’ve got to go back and help him!”
“Help him? We’re not doctors. We couldn’t do anything.” Barry had slowed down a little now and was driving more evenly. “Once we get back into town we’ll call for an ambulance. That’s the best kind of help we can give him.”
“We can’t want until then,” Ray said. “I’m calling now.”
“Not yet,” Barry told him. “Give it a couple of minutes till we’re onto the freeway.”
And, frozen in place, Ray had waited as Barry had instructed—a wait he now realized was unforgiveable. It was ten whole minutes before he punched in 911.
“There’s been an accident,” he said frantically, “on Mountain Road, south of Silver Springs. It’s just above the junction with 301. We hit a kid on a bicycle.”
“Who is making this call?” the voice of the emergency operator asked.
“My name is—” Ray began.
“Don’t say anything more,” Barry shouted, and Ray, obeying on instinct, hit the “off ” button.
“You told them enough,” Barry continued more quietly. “You said what happened and where. There’ll be an ambulance up there in a couple of minutes. There’s no sense giving our names.”
“They’ll get them when we go back,” Ray said. He paused, full realization beginning to sweep over him. “We are going back, aren’t we?”
“For what?” Barry asked.
“Because! Because—we have to.”
“We don’t have to do anything,” Barry said.
In the front seat, Helen had stopped sobbing. Julie said nothing. She seemed as zonked out as a zombie. There was not enough light to see either of their faces.
“Barry doesn’t want to go back,” Ray told them, since neither seemed to be taking in Barry’s statement.
“I don’t either,” Helen said. “But I guess we have to, don’t we? Oh god, I don’t want to go back and see…see what we did.” She drew in a strangled breath and began to cry again, very softly.
“It’s not what we want to do,” Julie said tonelessly. “It’s what we have to do. It’s the law.”
“That sounds real noble.” Barry pulled into the far left lane of the freeway, being very careful to keep just under the speed limit. “It’s a great decision for you to make, but who do you think is going to get hit with a manslaughter charge if the kid up and dies? I was driving, not you. And I’m the only one here who no longer ranks as a juvenile.”
“That’s right,” Ray said. “You’re eighteen.”
“Damned right, I am. No juvenile court for me. It’s the real thing. I’ll get tried as an adult.”
“But it was an accident,” protested Helen. “We all can testify to that. That bike came out of nowhere. We went around a curve and there it was. No lights. No reflectors. It wasn’t our fault.”
“Do you think that would make any difference?” Barry asked her. “The facts are that we’ve been out partying. We all had some beer and smoked pot tonight. The cops will spot that the moment we get out of the car. And it’s a hit-and-run. Oh, sure, Ray called in a report. But technically it’s a hit-and-run. About the worst charge you can get hit with.”
“He might not be dead,” Julie said. “He’s probably only injured.”
“Still, it’s a hit-and-run.”
“I’m responsible too,” Ray said. “After all, it’s my car.”
“You would have been driving it too, if you hadn’t won the toss.” Barry turned to look back at him. “You’re the bright guy who skipped a grade. You’re still only seventeen. You want to turn yourself in, go back and do it.”
“You mean, let them think I was driving?” Despite himself, Ray could not keep the horror from his voice.
“You could,” Helen said. “If you’re that determined to confess. The worst that could happen is that you might get your license taken away for a few months. It is your car, and like Barry says, it was just pure luck that you weren’t the one driving it.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Julie spoke up sharply. “He wasn’t driving and it would be stupid for him to say he was. It would be on his record forever.”
“So it’s all right for Barry to get a jail sentence, but heaven forbid that your Ray might get a splotch on his record?” Helen’s voice was shaky with emotion. “What kind of friends are you to want to offer Barry up like some kind of human sacrifice? You don’t have anything to lose. He does.”
“She’s got a point,” Ray said quietly. “It would all be on Barry. He isn’t any more responsible actually than the rest of us, except that he happened to be the one who was driving.”
“Driving too fast,” Julie said. “You know he was. He always drives too fast.”
“Have you ever objected before?” Barry asked bitterly. “If you were all that concerned about my driving, why didn’t you say so? You were awfully anxious to get into the back seat tonight. ‘Oh, Ray, Ray—we won! We won!’ You knew I was a little bit high. It didn’t bother you then.”
“Let’s take a vote,” Helen said. “Let’s decide that way.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then Barry said, “Okay. How about you two in the back, do you agree to stick by a vote?”
“It’ll be two to two,” Julie said.
“Then we’ll flip.”
“You don’t flip about things like this.”
“How else are we going to decide it?”
“We have to vote,” Helen said. “It’s the only thing we can do. I vote we don’t go back. We just go home and let the police and doctors and people take care of things. What good would our going back there do? We couldn’t help.”
“I vote with Helen,” Barry said.
“Well, I don’t,” Julie said adamantly. “I vote
we go back…now.”
“Then you’ll abide by the final vote?” Barry pressed her.
“By a vote, but not by a flip. If it’s two to two, I’m holding out for going back.” She turned confidently to Ray.
“I…I vote…” He looked at Barry. He could not see him well in the dark car, but he could see the tense way he was sitting, the way his hands were clenched on the steering wheel.
In the distance there came the wail of a siren.
“He’s my best friend, Julie,” Ray said softly.
She stared at him in disbelief.
“You don’t mean you’re voting with them? Ray, you can’t be!”
“Like Barry says, what good would it do to go back now? The damage is done. He’ll have all the help he needs, poor kid, before we could even get there. It would be so unfair, letting Barry take the blame for all of us.”
“I don’t believe it,” Julie whispered. “I just don’t believe you’re really saying this.”
There was a long silence. Then Barry said, “That’s it, then. We’ve made a pact, and no one can break it. Now, let’s get back into town and split up and go home.”
The next morning it had been in the paper. Ray had read it at breakfast. Sitting there at the table, hearing his father’s voice reading aloud from the sports page, smelling the plate of pancakes his mother had just placed before him, he had stared down at the story, on page two next to the obituaries, and he had known he was going to be sick.
“Daniel Gregg…conscious upon arrival of the rescue crew…died en route to St. Joseph’s Hospital….”
“Excuse me,” he had mumbled, getting quickly to his feet. “I-I’m not too hungry.”
“Why, Ray!” his mother had exclaimed in concern, but he made it out of the room before she could stop him.
Later he called Julie. Mrs. James had answered the phone.
“Julie isn’t feeling well this morning, Ray,” she had told him. “Why don’t you call back this evening?”
He had, and Julie had answered. Her voice had sounded small and thin.
“I don’t want to talk,” she had said. “Not now. Not about anything.” And he had known then that it was over. He had placed the receiver back on the hook and lowered his face into his hands and, for the first time since he had been a little boy, he had cried.