Xanadu bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes. “That is so cool. God, I’m happy for him.”
“Listen.” We’d reached the room and I stalled outside the door. “I wanted to tell you—” My throat closed up.
She gazed into my eyes and tilted her head, the way she does. So sexy. “Tell me what?”
I coughed; cleared my windpipe. “Tell you—”
“Yo, Xana.” Bailey appeared out of the manure heap and swept her into his arms. He kissed her long and hard. When they separated, he said, “I thought we were meeting out front this morning.”
“Oh shit.” She bit her index finger. “I forgot.”
“I guess I can forgive you. You probably had other things on your mind.” He circled her with his hairy arms and rocked her side to side.
Xanadu reached up and tugged his Stetson down over his eyes. “I know what’s on your mind.”
The bell rang, saving me from having to barf on Bailey’s boots. As I veered off toward my dunce seat in back, Xanadu snagged my arm and whispered, “We’ll talk later, okay?”
I stared at her all period. I couldn’t help myself. Her hair was loose today, flowing down her back. She wore low-cut dirty jeans, same as everyone was wearing these days, except on her they looked pristine. Spectacular. A short shirt. No belly-button ring.
I had to tell her.
I tried to catch her after class, but she left. With him. Then later between periods, she was with him again. At her locker, at lunch, after school driving away in his truck.
I was committed. As soon as she knew, she’d see me differently. As more than a friend. Better than Bailey. I’d love her so much more than he ever could.
I’d call her tonight.
No. This wasn’t something you did on the phone, profess your undying love to the girl you planned to spend the rest of your life with. I’d tell her before school tomorrow. When we were alone. Away from him.
She didn’t show at my locker the next day. I didn’t catch her alone once. He was always around, lurking, like a wolf. The scent of him sickened me, primed me for the kill.
After the game tomorrow night, I decided. It was a home game so she’d be there. Yeah, and so would the rest of the town.
Shit.
Friday. When we went out drinking, I’d tell her then. Jamie’d pass out eventually and we’d be alone. Or I’d drop him off first.
Four days. It’d give me time to think about what I was going to say, besides, “I love you.”
“I love you, Xanadu. I love you more than life itself.”
“So, Mike. How much money have you collected?” Coach Kinneson came up behind me as I strapped on my chest protector.
I feigned deafness. What did she think I did, empty the can at the Merc and count it? Get real. My face got hot every time someone folded money to wedge in that stupid can. It was humiliating.
“I submitted your application for the camp this week,” she said.
I whipped my head around. “Why’d you do that?”
She skimmed down the roster on her clipboard. “I wanted to make sure you applied in time; that your name got on the A-list.”
“Maybe I don’t want my name on the A-list. Maybe I don’t want my name on any list. I’m not going.”
She looked stunned. “I’m sure you’ll have enough money by then.”
My jaw clenched. I pulled my mask down and charged out onto the field. Why was I so angry about this? It was the money, yeah. The charity. My pride. But there was more. The whole freaking Catch-Her-Star. It’s my star, okay?
The rematch with Deighton was a blowout. We avenged our earlier loss. Everyone was in top form, me included. It felt good to get back out there. Play a role. Be a star.
I was buzzed after the game. When I sprang from the lean-to, I saw Darryl loitering at the end of the bleachers, smoking. What was he doing here? He gave me a thumbs-up and I flipped him the bird.
Jamie and Xanadu were waiting for me. “Awesome,” Xanadu said. She threw her arms around me. Jamie fluttered a pom-pom in my face. I smooshed it into his mouth.
A horn honked in the parking lot and Xanadu wheeled around. Who else? Wolfhound. “Gotta fly,” she said. “We’re on for Friday, right?”
“Definitely.” I hoped she heard the “we better be” in my voice. I was taking control.
She converged on Bailey and Beau and a group of guys at his truck. I slung my duffel over my shoulder, heading in the opposite direction. I’d planned to hook up with the team at the Dairy D, but now I wasn’t in the mood.
Jamie loped up beside me. “Listen, I can’t go celebrating with you and Xanadu this Friday.” He spit out a strip of Mylar pom-pom. “Shane wants me to call him Friday night after he gets off. To talk, he said. What do you think that means?”
I shrugged. “Form words? Speak them out loud?”
He cast me a withering look. “What if he wants to break up?”
“I didn’t know you were engaged.” Jamie wasn’t coming Friday. Xanadu and I would be alone the whole night. A spike of fear shot up my spine. Why did that scare me, and excite me at the same time?
“You know I really could use some support here.” Jamie stopped and flung his pom-poms on the ground. “I’m a total emotional wreck and all you can do is crack jokes.”
I slowed. He sounded more upset than mad. “I don’t know what it means, Jamie,” I admitted. I hadn’t had any experience in this arena. “What was Shane’s tone of voice? Was he serious, like, ‘We need to talk’? Or light, like, ‘I miss the sound of your voice. Let’s talk’?”
Jamie exhaled a long breath and bent to retrieve his pom-poms. “I don’t know,” he said on the way up. “It’s hard to tell when the words come across your fucking monitor.” He torched me with a glare.
Oh yeah. The joy of cybersex. “Guess you’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Wait and see if he breaks my heart. What do I have, a sign on my back that flashes, HI, I’M JAMIE. SQUEEZE MY BALLS. MAKE ME SCREAM?”
Kimberleigh called, “Jamie, come on. We need you for comic relief.”
Jamie’s face lost all expression. “God, to be straight for one day. To know how it’s all supposed to turn out.”
We didn’t go to the caboose. I took Xanadu to the water tower instead. As the extension ladder clanged against the metal frame, she gazed upward, shielding her eyes. “Are you insane? I’m not going up there.”
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “I’ll catch you if you fall.”
“Ha, ha,” she deadpanned.
“Here, give me your pack. I can carry both of them. Trust me. I do this all the time.”
She met my eyes and held. “Why?”
I didn’t have an answer for that one.
Xanadu touched my arm. “Okay, I think I know,” she said. I almost died. If she did know, I wish she’d tell me so I’d have the words to explain it.
She handed me her pack and stepped up onto the first rung of the ladder. I followed close behind. At the top she waited for me by the gate, looking freaked.
“It’s okay,” I reassured her. “It’s safe.” With me, you’re always safe, Xanadu, I wanted to add.
She grabbed the bottom of my shirt and shuffled after me to my usual spot on the walkaround. I set down the packs and sat, motioning her beside me. She hesitated, looked around. Slowly, she crept to the railing and peered over the side. “Is this where he…?”
“No. Other side.” Where the sun sets. Where I never go.
“It’s high up here.” Her eyes swept the tower, the fields, the highway out of town. She stepped back. She sat and scooted against the water tank. Next to me, our arms touching. “Kind of creepy, Mike.”
“Not to me. I think it’s peaceful. The stars, the wheat, the farms. When I come up here I feel… I don’t know. Free. Like a cloud. Like sky. No edges, no limits. No walls to close me in.”
She tilted her head slightly and smiled.
All the blood rushed to my face. It was hard revealing
so much of myself to her. But I needed to. I wanted her to know me. To know I trusted her.
I felt her shiver.
“Are you cold?” I reached over and unzipped my pack.
“A little.”
Damn. I’d forgotten my sweatshirt. I was so psyched about seeing her, being with her, that my brain had disengaged. It’d been a balmy day, but the night air was crisp. It was always chilly up here at night. I knew that. Damn. Her arms prickled with goose bumps.
My muscle tee would be enough for me. I took off Dad’s flannel shirt and held it open to her.
“No, I’m fine—”
“Wear it. It’s all warmed up for you.”
She blinked at me, then slid her arms into the sleeves. The shirt was way too big. On me it hung to my knees; on her it looked sexy as hell.
The sky was clear and calm, the air smelled earthy and fresh. Out in the fields, blue and red strobes from all the circular sprinklers created a moving quilt of twinkling stars. “It really is beautiful,” Xanadu breathed.
“Yeah.” I stared at the side of her face. “It is.”
She turned to me and held my eyes. My heart hammered a hole in my chest. Do it now, Mike. Do it. “I brought you up here to tell you something.” My voice sounded shaky, weak. I hated that. Be strong. Be confident.
She waited.
Blood roared in my ears. My hands felt clammy and I wiped them on my new Levi’s. “I, uh…” Couldn’t speak.
“What, Mike?” Her fingers brushed my quad.
A bolt of lightning shot through me.
“You can tell me.” Her voice was soft, sensuous. “You can tell me anything at all.”
“I love you.” Did I say it? Did I speak the words aloud? Or did they lodge in my throat, get mangled, trickle off into the night? I didn’t want her to think I was insincere, or unsure. With more conviction, more finality, I said it again: “I love you. I’m in love with you.”
There was a moment when the world stopped spinning underneath me. When my heart was sure to rotor right out of my chest.
One word: “Oh.”
Oh? That was it? She removed her hand from my leg. My eyes followed her hand, up her arm, to her face, her eyes. They dropped. A tiny smile curled the tips of her lips. “I think I knew that. I mean, I’ve known it. Mike—” Her voice changed.
“Don’t say anything.” I stood up fast. “Think about it.” I suddenly felt like running, jumping. Not off the tower. Off the ends of the earth. Into a tornado, a centrifuge, a cyclone swooping me away from here.
“I have thought about it,” she said quietly.
My ricocheting brain crash-landed on the tower. “You have?”
She nodded. “Yes. I love you too.”
My heart sang.
“As a friend.”
No. She wasn’t supposed to say that. We were beyond that. Of all the things she could’ve said: I’m not ready yet. Let’s see where this takes us. I’d like a little time to get used to the idea. I never knew. Now that I do know, I love you too. I love you, Mike.
“What did you bring to drink?” My voice disembodied.
“Mike—”
I bent down to open her pack. Inside was a full bottle of Wild Turkey. I yanked it out and unscrewed the lid.
“You understand, don’t you?” she said. “I mean, I’d be honored to be your girlfriend, if…” She paused. “Any girl would be lucky to have you. I’m just not… that girl.”
I guzzled. Lucky. Lucky me. The dark amber liquid burned all the way down.
“I hope this doesn’t change things between us,” Xanadu said, watching me.
I coughed and took another swig. I wiped the dribble off my mouth. “Why should it? Nothing’s changed.”
She held out her hand for the bottle. Reluctantly, I relinquished it. She patted the spot next to her. I drew a deep breath and sank to sit. Too close. I inched away. I needed the consuming love I felt for her to dull, diminish, die away. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, Mike,” she said. “I need you in my life.” She reached over and took my hand, raised it to her lips, and kissed it.
I wrestled the bottle from her and finished it off. A new world record for speed drinking. Oh yeah.
I don’t remember getting off the tower. I don’t remember getting home. At some point I must’ve blacked out because I finally felt at peace.
“I love you too,” she’d said. “I need you in my life.” The words churned in my brain. My damaged brain. They leaked and pooled. They cesspooled. Swirling, picking up speed, intensity. It wasn’t my imagination, and I wasn’t drunk when she’d said it: “I love you too.” She’d touched me, kissed my hand. She wanted me. I know she did.
An excruciating pain in my shoulder made me cry out and I jerked upright. Darryl was screaming in my ear, yanking my arm and yelling, “Goddammit, get up. Are you deaf?”
I clicked into semi-consciousness. My mind was thick, slow. My gut had ruptured.
“Ma’s bleeding to death,” Darryl said. “Get the fuck out of bed and help me.”
Chapter Twenty
“We have to get her to a doctor.” Darryl clenched my pits and hoisted me to my feet. I felt feverish, disoriented. My ears pricked. A sound: Ma in her room, gagging.
Darryl said, “Jesus Christ. You smell like a brewery. Goddammit!” He raised a hand to hit me, but smacked my bedroom door instead and stormed out.
I stumbled after him down the hall.
She was lying on her side, her head hanging off the mattress. She wheezed and choked. There was a pool of blood on the floor, more dribbling down her chin.
“Ma?” I knelt beside her and slid an arm around her back. “What’s wrong?”
She gurgled and coughed up another spray of blood, splashing my bare legs. “You’re going to be okay,” I heard myself say. She was dying. Where was Darryl? “Ma?”
She reached around and flung my arm off her. My brain screamed, Fine! Die! See if I care.
She whimpered like I’d spoken the words aloud. “I didn’t mean it,” I said, in case I had.
“Fuck.” Darryl rushed in. “Doc’s gone to Nebraska fishing all weekend. We’ll have to get Ma to the hospital in Garden City.”
I stood on wobbly knees. No. Please, no. Not the hospital. Darryl added, “I don’t know if we can get her in the truck.” His wild eyes searched mine. “Maybe we could clear out enough room in back to lay down some blankets.”
“I’ll get my quilt.” I weaved down the hall. Not the hospital. Not again.
Somehow, Darryl got Ma to her feet and out the front door. She barely fit through the frame. She’d never squeeze into the back of the truck. Even if we could push her through the double doors, there was too much equipment back there—the snake and air compressor and water pump. Darryl helped Ma down onto the front stoop and said, “We’ll be ready for you in a minute, Ma. Stay here.”
Where’s she going to go? I almost asked. You think she’ll run away? I wished she would. I wished I could. Where would I go?
She was still coughing and spraying blood all over the place. I glanced back briefly to see her fleshy arm shield her eyes from the light. From the world. She shriveled into herself, if that was possible. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d been out of the house.
Darryl started throwing stuff out the back of the truck. The air compressor came flying by my head and I yelled, “Don’t bust that.”
“Just help me!” he screeched. He lifted a toilet tank under his arm and hauled it out. Bottles of wine and whiskey rolled onto the driveway.
Darryl’s fiery eyes incinerated me on the spot.
“Look, I’m sorry—”
“Darryl!” Ma cried.
We both jumped.
“Where are you?”
“Get me a couple of cinder blocks from the back,” Darryl ordered. He leaped out of the truck and rushed back to Ma. I staggered up the drive, squelching the urge to hurl. The only free blocks I could find were saturated with motor oil and sticky with
cobwebs. I hefted a block up in each hand and hobbled back to the truck.
“Make a step for her,” Darryl said. He supported Ma by one of her flabby arms.
Between us, we got her smooshed inside, don’t ask me how. Darryl spread out my quilt on the floor. She groaned and rolled over onto it. She was bleeding and sweating like a pig and the stench and stain of her would be on my quilt forever. Grandma Szabo’s quilt. It was the only thing I had left of her.
“You ride with her,” Darryl said.
“Okay.”
“No.” Ma reached over and grasped Darryl’s sleeve. “You.”
Her beady eyes met mine and went black. Darryl snapped at me, “Can you do this? Can you do this one fucking thing for me?”
I snatched the keys out of his hand. “Shut up. Don’t ever talk to me again.”
U.S. 83 was deserted. Why? What day was this? I couldn’t have slept all day Saturday, could I? I would have felt better than this. It had to still be Saturday. No cops in sight. I floored it. I knew where the hospital in Garden City was by heart. I turned up the radio, but I could hear over it Darryl talking to Ma in back. She was weeping now. Through the rearview mirror, I saw him prop her up against him, on his chest. He smoothed her greasy hair down, held her as she gurgled up blood all over my quilt.
What I’d said to her echoed in my head. It was the day of Dad’s funeral. I’d lit into her. She was in bed as usual, weeping. “Get up,” I’d snarled from the doorway. “Get up and get dressed. It’s time to go.”
When she didn’t reply, didn’t respond, I’d charged in and yelled right in her face, “Get up!” I’d punched the pillow beside her head. She’d flinched then. “Get your fat ass out of bed for Dad’s service. He was your husband, dammit. The father of your children. All three of them, living and dead.”
Ma’d glared at me. This spittle, like venom, dribbled out the side of her mouth.
Pay your respects. Is it so much to ask?
She’d rolled over and curled into a lump. She hadn’t spoken to me since. Not one word. Not to say, “hello,” or “goodbye,” or “brush your teeth,” or “go to school.” I was dead to her. More dead than Camilia.