Dina and Trent.
The group paused at the end of the hall in front of the doors to the foyer. The principal and vice principal kept talking to Dina. Trent looked right at me. He didn’t smile. His cool blue eyes made me think of something reptilian floating inside a specimen jar. Something biding its time. Waiting for the perfect moment to turn the tables on its captor.
The principal noticed me and called out. I forced myself to walk over to them.
“Young Miss McCall herself,” said the principal. “We were just going over the security matters for your sister’s appearance here tomorrow.” He smiled at Dina and Trent. “These two seem amply professional. You’ve nothing to worry about.”
He clapped me on the shoulder. The vice principal couldn’t stop smiling. Trent and Dina stood silently while the principal spun off my many virtues other than being the younger sibling of the most famous person to ever live in Preston County. It was like he was trying to sell me.
I blushed. If you look embarrassed, people will make fun of you, but they won’t expect you to talk.
When the principal ran out of material, the four of them walked into the foyer, headed for the front doors. The principal pointed out the trophy case, like Dina and Trent would give a damn, but I took advantage of their momentary lull and trotted down the steps to the doors and pushed through to the sweet freedom of fresh air.
I didn’t look back. I didn’t want to scratch the itch, find out that it wasn’t just my nerves, that Trent was still watching me, all my weaknesses imprinting upon his reptilian brain.
Chapter 14
Just before the last class period I checked my phone. Dad had called while I’d been in Chemistry.
All he said in the message: “They’re here. Jennings is an absolute mess. Plan accordingly.”
After that, and although she was one of my favorite teachers, I didn’t retain a single word Ms. Watkins said that entire last period of the day.
Sherman offered to give me a lift, but I told him what Dad had said. Sherman insisted he didn’t mind, and he was being sincere, but I didn’t need anyone thinking I considered myself too good, too special to alter the regular course of things.
I rode the bus home on Thursdays. That was the plan and I’d stick to it, come what may.
When the bus had unloaded everyone else and was down to Nick and me, I looked back at him. He wasn’t staring or gloating or in general looking like a turd, but instead had his eyes closed, his head leaned back on the seat rest, iPod ear buds in his ears.
The assembly for Maddy was tomorrow. Then Small Town Girl’s premiere was late in the afternoon, the post-premiere party at the Ashmond Country Club slated for the evening.
Nick’s older brother Tyler was infamous for a couple things, beyond practically stalking Maddy when she was in high school.
His hairline had receded so much that he looked almost bald by graduation. He could burp the alphabet. He’d gotten thrown out of a school dance for threatening to head-butt one of the chaperones (not that there weren’t mitigating circumstances – in short, his date for the evening, Missy Good, had been flirting with the chaperone to the point the poor man forgot himself and accepted Missy’s request for a dance).
And most notably, although it had never been proven, Tyler had covered one of the teacher’s cars in manure. Not at school, but on the street in front of the man’s house. Coated it. Even got the side view mirrors thick and gunky. The incident reportedly stemming from Mr. Kirk’s telling another student to keep away from Tyler and his like, unless the kid wanted to end up pitch forking hay and kicking cow flops the rest of his life.
Tyler did it stealthily and in the middle of the night. Rumor had it his little brother helped him out, either driving the truck, or helping Tyler dump bucket after bucket of manure on the car.
At least two of our teachers were under the impression that Nick, with 2 years of high school to go, had already superseded Tyler for the mantle of most troublesome Verney brother.
Nearing Nick’s stop, I got up out of my seat and sat down next to Nick. He didn’t open his eyes until I nudged his shoulder with mine. He looked at me, dreamily, and then ducked his head back like I was threatening to daub his nose with something foul.
He reached up to pull the ear buds out, and then changed his mind. I wasn’t worth that. Instead he just thumbed the music off or probably simply paused it.
“What do you want?” Crabby. Maddy used to be that crabby if you tried to wake her up before she was good and ready.
“I’m just wondering what you have planned.”
“Planned?”
“I’ve heard things,” I said. “Around school. What plans you have for the assembly tomorrow.”
He laughed. I’d heard him laugh like that before. A big old honk of a laugh, it usually permeated his mouth if someone got hit especially hard during prison ball. If they were out of shape or wearing glasses he really made a noise.
He looked at me, his mouth shut, almost a sneer.
“It really is all about you, isn’t it, McCall?”
I held his eye. He made a little ‘puh’ sound with his lips.
“Let me clue you in, ok? Just because my brother liked your sister, doesn’t mean I give two-“ he lowered his voice in case Pat had an ear out “-wet and bloody fucking farts-“ holding my eye and waiting a moment to go back to his normal speaking voice “-about your crummy movie-star sister. I know. You have tunnel vision. It’s difficult to imagine that anyone that lives in this town doesn’t think about anything other than the fact that the great and awesome Maddy McCall comes from here.”
We were getting near his stop.
“That’s not what I think,” I said.
He threw it right back at me, but at a higher pitch.
“I will tell you something, McCall, something that no one has probably ever told you because you are who you are and I am who I am. A Verney. A no one. Ok? The reason my brother was ‘stalking’-” – he put his fingers up in air quotes – “-your sister is because she liked it. She led him on. Remember when she got in trouble every now and then and had to stay after school in Mr. Luoto’s class? Well, sure, Tyler was in there sometimes, too. Do you know what she did? Did she share with you what she did for fun? To pass the time?”
He leaned in and whispered, “She flashed him. I’m not talking about bra, Luce. No. Not bra. The whole deal. The full deal. On more than one occasion. I know what you’re thinking, ‘but Luoto was probably in the classroom.’ You think Luoto would notice that? Would he? Think about it.”
Mr. Luoto was an ancient teacher. Cross-eyed and mumbling and unaware of his surroundings. He’d already been fully ensconced in that mode before I was even in middle school. Maddy and her friends had nicknamed him The Turtle.
Pat Corley signaled and pulled to the side of the road. I got up out of the seat, and hadn’t even sat down completely as Nick passed me. Only as he passed he suddenly turned on heel, and gripping the seat in front of me lowered his face right into mine.
“You want to know what I have planned while your goddamn sister is here? Jack. And shit. I know. It’s hard to believe that I don’t use my talents to make her stay more memorable, but I actually have a life…Lucy Goosey.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Lucy Goosey?” His features hardened, and an evil that alcohol and loathing would coax out in the years ahead permeated his features. “Means when you two idiots do it Sherm the Worm is like a worm dangling over an open pit.”
I think what he wanted was tears or anger. I started laughing. He didn’t know how to deal with that.
He pushed off the seat and stomped down the aisle and thundered down the steps to the road. If there’d been a door to slam, he would’ve slammed it, guaranteed.
Pat shut the door and looked back at me.
“You okay?”
“He was just trying out some new material.”
“All right,” he said.
He put the bus in gear and we rolled forward.
I didn’t look out the window to check to see if Nick was walking to his house, to Geoff’s, or mooning the bus and me.
For reasons I couldn’t quite label, I felt guilty and at fault and if he’d been wiggling his white rear end at me in disdain, I can’t say as though I would've blamed him.
Chapter 15
Pat Corley said, “Oh shit.”
He’d started slowing down as we pulled near the driveway.
Dad was right. It was a mess.
There looked to be more news vehicles, more fan vehicles, and maybe 3 sheriff rigs parked alongside the ditch on the north side of Jennings.
As the bus rolled ahead slower and slower, people started coming down off of the Arbogast property into the road. And not just onto the road, but towards the bus.
It was just a handful of people and then it turned into a flood.
Homemade signs were held up. Love you Maddy, Love you Jack. Eaton’s Hometown Girl! Marry Me 2, Jack!
Mixed in were signs featuring headshots of Jack and Maddy. Drawn on antenna sprouted from the top of their heads. Other signs featured pictures of UFOs. Someone had that sign with the Biblical passage. Another just a sign that read Hollywood = Road to Hell.
I sat behind Pat. I’d moved up, planning to launch out of that seat and down the steps to the road as quick as I could.
Three people pressed themselves against the bus exit. The rubber stoppers on the door flaps moved inward and we could hear them calling for Jack and Maddy. Fists started hammering on the door.
Zombies. Just like zombies looking for brains.
More people pressed in against those three. The people in front of the crowd were close enough to the vertical strips of glass framed in the bus’ exit doors their breath fogged the glass.
Out the front windshield I could see deputies looking at each other, shrugging, trying to figure out how to rein the people in. One of the cops grabbed a megaphone from his unit and started ordering people to fall back.
A dry ‘thwock’ noise came from the rear of the bus. Through the begrimed glass of the emergency exit I could see people pressing hands and foreheads into the glass, trying to glance in, and get a view of who might just be inside the bus.
Pat turned and looked at me. His eyes widened. I knew I was shaking.
“Goddamn you’re pale,” he said.
He turned back, laid on the horn, started swooping both his arms around like he was trying to convince someone to get out of the water and come back to the beach. Instead he was trying to convey to the people in front of the bus that they needed to get out of his way.
“No? You don’t want to get out of the way? Then let me give you no choice.”
He let up on the brake and we started rolling forward just a little. Just enough to make people realize he meant to keep going forward whether they liked it or not.
The window alongside his head snapped on its runners as he popped it forward with the side of his hand.
“You! Security guy! Yeah, you. Or any of you! I’m driving to the house. You got me?” He pointed. “To the house! Move it or lose it. I got the kid with me, all right? Lucy McCall. I am driving her to the house. I ain’t making her wade through this bunch of fucking loony tunes.”
Pat hit the left turn signal. He patted the bus horn and then laid on it.
He started a slow motion turn. It took what felt like forever for us to make any forward progress. Pat kept saying “Come-on-Come-on-Come on” under his breath as though speaking it could work a spell on the crowd.
Out the windows I could see Lucentology security, and deputies grabbing fans and shoving them out of the bus path. Wilson Plass started yelling at one of the Lucentology guards and the big mountain of flesh grabbed Plass right where the neck and shoulder met. Plass’ chin jerked skyward. His teeth bared he looked like the world’s biggest meanest mosquito had just sunk its beak into his shoulder blade.
I kept imagining someone was going to get shot. Or have a heart attack. The people that had been pressed up against the bus exit doors were overweight. All the people in the crowd looked dulled and incapable of any measurable movement unless compelled. They were being compelled. Grabbed, shoved, whatever accomplished the job.
“We got this,” said Pat. “We got this. We got this. We got this.” Chanting for himself, for me, as second by second the bus straightened in its turn and then miracle of miracles, straightened out all the way, and started moving forward without the threat of potentially rolling over some slow moving fan.
Pat put his arm up in the air and made a noise not dissimilar to those produced by an excited football fan.
“About time,” he said.
One person ran up the driveway, trying to chase the bus. He held a sign in his hands. One of the men in black chased him and grabbed him from behind. The sign popped out of the fan’s hand and hit the ground. After pulling the man’s arms behind him and turning him around, the security guard marched him back towards East Jennings. Another guard retrieved the sign from the ground.
Pat peered at the sequence of events in the side view mirror.
“Should’ve dropped the sign, sport,” he drawled.
The things yelled at us from the crowd surging around the bus remained echoing in my skull.
“Are you excited your sister is coming-“
“-having Jack’s baby! His baby!”
“Lucy! Lucy! Lucy! Lucy!”
“-feel like to be the sister of a movie whore-“
“-room are they sleeping in-“
“-members of the Church of Lucentology-“
“-will raise his sword and strike down the false god-“
Pat coughed.
It snapped me out.
“There’ll be cars in the back,” I said. “SUVs. Dad’s car, too, I think. You might want to turn around here in front.”
Pat grunted. “Good to know. Good to know. Thanks there, Luce.”
I nodded limply. I had no idea how I’d been able to rise above the twitching and be that coherent.
Right where the fence stopped moving parallel with the driveway the road widened, and partially turned into a broad dirt enclosure leading up to the front lawn.
Pat swung the wheel wide to the right and then wide to the left, positioning the bus in such a way that its front passenger side tire went up on the lawn, but just a little, and just enough that he could keep turning left and get started back down the driveway headfirst, rather than having to back out.
People had come out of the house.
They walked down the lawn and towards the bus.
Pat looked from them to me. Reaching for the pull handle on the door he said, “Don’t worry. These ones look all right to me. They won’t eat you.”
“Promise?”
He laughed.
I was still in my seat when Maddy walked up the bus steps.
Pat said, “Ma’am,” then nodded towards me. “This one belong to you?”
“Ha.” Throwing her perfect smile at him. She struck a pose, her right leg cocked on the top step into the bus. Looking at me, her right eyebrow ticked high up her forehead.
“How you doing, Squirt?”
I shrugged.
She sighed. She looked down the length of the bus and out the windows towards the mess of people on East Jennings. The deputy with the megaphone kept up requesting that people maintain themselves in an orderly fashion.
“My world, Squirt,” Maddy said. “My world. Welcome to it.”
Chapter 16
Dad, Maddy, Jack, and I visited in the kitchen. Dina and Trent stood guard out in front and in the back of the house respectively. Just in case someone somehow slipped past the 3 guards down at th
e end of the driveway.
From the kitchen table I could see Aster Cupps on the living room couch.
She was totally engaged with her iPad, pushing things around on the screen, managing all aspects of Maddy’s life. Her hair was up and she wore thinly framed glasses. She looked delicate, bird boned. Even prettier than Maddy, but in a different way.
Maddy you could imagine outside on a cold winters afternoon, sledding, building a snowman, flopping to the ground to make a snow angel. Aster would remain indoors, in a turtleneck sweater, swaddled in blankets, and even sitting near a roaring fireplace, she’d remain chilly.
Her hand had shaken mine limply.
“Do you use Lucy or Lucille?” she’d asked. Barely smiling when Maddy interjected that I answered to ‘Squirt’ and nothing else.
Maddy and I sat at the kitchen table while Dad and Jack stood. My hand still throbbed after getting the Jack Ford handshake on the porch, just a preliminary to the Jack Ford hug.
“Lucy. It’s great to he here. Really. I appreciate it.” The way he’d said it you’d think I’d just pulled every member of his family out of a burning house.
Dad smiled. He looked like he wanted to be nothing but accommodating. I wondered how he was doing really. Mom was the only one of us that could ever accurately read his emotional barometer. He was in his home, hosting the enemy.
The boards on the front porch squeaked. Whenever the sound hit my ears it reminded me that Dina was out there, watching Jennings. Watching the fields west and east of us. I could imagine another of the security people staring at the sky and another with their eyes peeled to the ground just in case a rabid fan went all Bugs Bunny and tried to pop up on the property via tunneling.
“Hello?” said Aster. Still seated, she tilted her head to the side, her hand lightly pressed against the Bluetooth device in her left ear. She started in on a conversation.
“Don’t worry,” said Maddy. “You don’t have to whisper or anything when she’s on that. She has the volume cranked. She’s taken calls when we’ve been on a helicopter.”
“Aster never sleeps,” said Jack. “She’s like, oh, damnit, what is it? From Star Wars. I think Empire Strikes Back.” He snapped his fingers. “Mads. What’s that guys name? Lando’s right-hand man. Bald. He’s got the big electronic things on his ears?”