Compulsion (29 page)

As if someone had pressed play again, the crowd surged, pushing her and Eight together. “Do you want names,” he asked, “or should I leave them out so you won’t feel bad when you forget?”

“I’m happy to let my bad memory be your fault,” she said, relieved when people laughed.

“It’s always going to be Eight’s fault. He’s male, isn’t he?” Cassie squeezed through from the edge of the group. “But what are y’all doing? We need to crank up the music, get the party started. Barrie’s used to lots more excitement in San Francisco. We don’t want her to think we’re a bunch of hicks down here in the South.”

Barrie nearly choked. “It wasn’t very exciting at home,” she said, which came out sounding condescending. Or like an outright lie. Way to start things off. “Not that I mean it isn’t exciting here,” she added hastily. “This is great. I didn’t know there were places like this.”

She ran out of steam, and the conversation lapsed into an awkward silence. The other kids shifted their feet, looked away. Barrie racked her aching head for something to say, something not completely lame.

“I loved San Francisco.” A girl with a round, open face and a galaxy of freckles pushed toward Barrie. “My mama and I went out there last summer to visit her roommate from college. I couldn’t believe the shops and restaurants. Fisherman’s
Wharf and Sausalito and Chinatown. And Lombard, that crazy crooked street. I loved it. We crossed the bridge to Muir Woods to see the redwood trees, which was awesome in the literal sense. You forget what that word means until you see something that actually leaves you struck with wonder.”

Barrie opened her mouth to say she knew exactly how that felt, but Cassie cut her off with a throaty laugh. “My cousin has trees of her own, Jeannie. Acres of them. You know, at Watson’s Landing?”

Why
wouldn’t Cassie please shut up?

“Ours are nothing like Muir Woods,” Barrie said. “But then you’ve got the Devil’s Oak here in town, and that’s as amazing as any redwood.”

“Not when we grew up climbing all over it. I guess it’s harder to feel awed by something that you’ve draped with toilet paper at two o’clock in the morning.” Jeannie grinned as everyone laughed. She moved with an athletic, unconscious grace in her bikini as she wound through a couple kids to stand with Barrie. “The Devil’s Oak is pretty to look at, but walking through Muir Woods? That was like walking straight into a cathedral from Jurassic Park.”

Barrie nodded, Jeannie’s words settling over her with a sudden, throat-closing rightness. She remembered Mark’s reaction to the place. He had worn his new wedge sneakers, which had been his idea of appropriate footwear for tromping
through the woods, and he’d complained the moment they’d left the rental car that he wasn’t cut out for “any nature shit.” Then they had reached the trees. He had fallen silent, walking with his head tipped up to take it all in, and for the first time in Barrie’s life, he hadn’t seemed gigantic.

“So what else did you do while you were in San Francisco?” she asked Jeannie. “What was your favorite place to eat?”

“Don’t judge, okay? Bubba Gump’s at the Wharf.” Jeannie smiled, the kind of smile that said she didn’t mind whether people laughed with her or
at
her. “I love the Tom Hanks movie. I ended up getting a
Stupid Is as Stupid Does
T-shirt and eating enough popcorn shrimp to make myself sick. We watched sea lions—there must have been fifty of them—climbing all over one another on a floating raft. One would get pushed off; then he’d get back up and shove another one off—”

“Barrie, you’re probably starving,” Cassie interrupted, linking her arm through Barrie’s. “We should go get food. The grill’s right over there.”

Barrie pulled away and rubbed the elbow she had knocked on the steps. “No. Thanks. Not yet.” She gave Jeannie an apologetic smile and looked around for Eight, who had snuck off without her realizing it. He was splashing through the surf with a cooler and a stack of folding chairs. “I ought to go help Eight,” she said.

“He can handle it by himself,” Cassie said. “He’s a big boy. Or haven’t you noticed?”

Jeannie’s face twitched into a grimace. “We’re sitting over there. Why don’t
you
and Eight come sit with us when you’re ready?”

The emphasis had been very clear. Cassie looked like she’d been bitch-slapped, but pulled herself together as Jeannie walked away. She cut a look at Barrie and stalked toward the grill.

“Drama queen,” someone muttered as she went.

“What’s she doing here any—” someone else said, the last word cut short as if by an elbow to the ribs.

Barrie couldn’t tell who had spoken. The faces around her all looked friendly.

“You doing okay?” Eight dumped the cooler and chairs into a pile on the nearest stretch of empty beach. “Would you mind setting up the chairs? I’ve got one more load.”

Barrie didn’t get the chance to tell him about Jeannie’s invitation. She would have to run after him. And he had left their things at the edge of the crowd, so now she stood by herself.

It was her own fault for feeling out of place, she knew that, but it brought back memories of standing at the edge of the playground while the other kids played, and trying to pretend she didn’t care.

Which would be worse, setting the chairs up where Eight had dropped them or carrying them over to where Jeannie was sitting? And what about Cassie?

Cassie saved her the trouble of deciding. She unfolded a chair, spread a towel over it, and lowered herself to sit. “You’re looking a little green there, Cos,” she said too loudly. “You’re supposed to be sick
while
we’re sailing, not after you get off the boat.”

Heads swiveled toward them. Barrie had a picture of herself once school started, going to classes with Cassie clinging to her side, Cassie driving everyone else away until it was the two of them at the edge of the crowd. Then Cassie would transform back into the shining girl Barrie had seen at Bobby Joe’s and the Resurrection. Barrie didn’t mind not being the center of attention. She didn’t
want
to be the center of attention. But she didn’t want Cassie to be her only friend.

Eight would be gone, clear across the country when school started, and Mark would probably be gone then too. Barrie’s head throbbed. Tears pressed against her eyelids.

Not here. She couldn’t start crying. She refused. But her lip was already trembling.

Eight dropped the load of towels he was carrying. After hurrying the last few steps, he drew her toward him. “You can’t cry in front of Cassie,” he whispered, pulling up the fabric of Barrie’s tank dress. “Come on.”

Barrie tried to hold the hem down, but he grinned and flicked the dress over her head. In one smooth motion he picked her up, turned toward the water, and carried her as if she had no weight.

“What are you doing? Put me down. Right now. Eight! Stop it! I
don’t want
people looking at me. I
want you
to put me down.” Horror clawed at Barrie’s chest as Eight carried her into the water. “Let me go back.”

Waist-deep in the waves, Eight launched her into the air.

Water and panic closed around her, fast and dark. Arms flailing, Barrie opened her mouth to scream and ended up swallowing half the river. She kicked Eight in the chest before she realized it was help. Safety. He caught her and brought her up coughing and sputtering. She was mad enough that she almost kicked him again.

“Oh, hell. I’m sorry, Bear.” He held her tight against him. “I thought it would help to loosen you up. You never said you couldn’t swim.”

“
Screw
you.”

“I’m going to fix this. Trust me. Just go with it, all right?”

He lowered his head and kissed her before she could answer. Kissed her until she wasn’t sure if it was him or the fear of almost drowning that was making her head spin and her heart whirl.

“There,” he said. “That’ll give everyone something else to think about.”

“
That’s
why you kissed me?”

“One reason.” His grin was quick and lethal. “Cassie wants to be accepted. She’s trying to make herself look good, and she’ll use your panic to put you down. But you aren’t weak.”

He was right. Showing weakness was the signal for predators to pounce.

Was that how Barrie thought of Cassie? When had her opinion changed?

She started wading toward the beach, but Eight swept one arm under her knees and another beneath her back, and carried her out of the river to the accompaniment of whistles and applause. Bringing her head up, Barrie flashed a brilliant, carefree smile, and when Eight kicked open a chair and dropped her into it, she kept one arm wrapped around him, grabbed a towel, and threw it over his head. While his eyes were covered, she dug a handful of ice out of the cooler and pressed it to the back of his neck, wishing she were the kind of girl who would dare to put it down his shorts. Cassie would have.

“You know I’ll have to get even now,” Eight said, laughing at her with approval.

“Not if you can’t catch me.”

Barrie spun away, feeling suddenly wild and unlike herself. Her footsteps pounded the sand in time with the pounding of her head. She refused to be prey.

She grabbed the hand of a blond, bare-chested boy who
stood nearby. “Dance with me,” she said, forcing a laugh. “I need protection.”

She didn’t know where the nerve had come from, or what magic made the boy follow her to a bare stretch of sand at the water’s edge. The song had lyrics about zombies, and a heavy, monotone beat that pulsed right through her. She figured she looked half-dead anyway, so she went with it. The boy chuckled and joined in, stiff movements, arms outstretched, head bobbing and all, and before she knew it, other couples were zombie-shuffling on the sand beside them.

Eight pulled up a chair. He gave her an encouraging nod. Then Cassie leaned over to whisper something. He shrugged, but didn’t answer.

Barrie danced. When she was dancing, she didn’t have to talk to Cassie. She didn’t have to think. Didn’t have to feel anything except her loss-heavy body moving and the ache of the music. She could ignore that what she wanted most right then was to be back exactly where she had been earlier: with Eight at Watson’s Landing, driving under the cathedral canopy of oaks that, to her, was even better than the redwood groves. At Watson’s Landing she felt connected to Eight and to the earth and sky and trees, to Pru and the
yunwi
. To the Fire Carrier and the water that wrapped Watson’s Landing in a veil of magic.

At Watson’s Landing she felt found instead of lost.

Despite the piercing stab of the music and the sun that lanced through her eyes straight into her nerves, even through the dark sunglass lenses, she danced through lunch. She was long past the point of being tired, but she danced with the blond boy and with Eight, and with more boys than she had ever thought she would dance with in her life. She surprised herself. But all of it was killing time until she could safely ask Eight to take her home.

Cassie tanned alone in her chair at the edge of the party. Finally she must have tired of waiting. She shimmied up beside Eight, her long limbs oiled and dangerously graceful. While her body was angled toward Eight, it was Barrie she addressed.

“You look like you could use another swim to cool down, Cos. Or a comb. Did you remember to bring one? If not, I can loan you mine.”

Cassie, of course, looked beautiful. All she had to do was flip that switch inside her that made her shine, and she became the center of attention.

Then why had she been sitting alone?

“Thanks, but I’m all right,” Barrie said.

“Well, I hate to cut in on your fun. Are y’all about ready to go? I have to get back into my Scarlett slippers. I have another performance tonight.” Cassie turned to the group dancing around them and raised her voice to be heard above
the music. “Barrie and Eight came to see my play last night.”

The temperature chilled again, and this time Barrie knew it was Cassie and not her making everyone uncomfortable. What had happened to the Cassie she had seen at Bobby Joe’s and the Resurrection? The Cassie who’d seemed so comfortable. Now Cassie seemed to be trying much too hard. Was she nervous? Or was there something else going on?

Barrie closed her eyes, disgusted with herself. Here she was, already pulling away from Cassie because that was easier than standing up for her cousin. “The play was great,” she said, speaking as loudly as Cassie had. “Have you all seen it? You should go. Cassie did a fantastic job writing and directing, not to mention acting. She ought to go to Hollywood.”

“Oh, she’s going,” Jeannie said. “Hasn’t she told you? She’s sure told everyone else. She’s leaving the second she graduates, if not sooner, and she’s never coming back.”

Barrie couldn’t help stiffening. She managed not to look at Cassie. Or Eight. How was it neither of them had mentioned that he and Cassie would be minutes away from each other in Los Angeles, or that they shared a desire to get away from Watson Island?

“Maybe I won’t go after all.” Cassie’s eyes flashed with something Barrie couldn’t read. “I’m feeling more like sticking around here lately.”

There was no mistaking the bitter note in her voice. For a
moment everyone fell silent, and Barrie had a feeling she was missing something in the conversation. Then Cassie laughed and made a dismissing motion with her hand.

“Now, what about that ride, Eight Beaufort? Are you going to take me home, or am I going to have to swim?”

She walked off to get her things without waiting for an answer, which left Barrie and Eight with the awkward choice of following her or ignoring her. “Come on,” Barrie said. “Let’s go.” She grabbed Eight’s hand and waved to everyone. “It was great to meet you all.”

“That’s ‘y’all,’ around here, sugar,” Jeannie said. “Or even ‘all y’all.’ But don’t worry, you’ll catch on. I’m having a cook-out at my house tomorrow night. Come on by for more lessons. Six o’clock, all right? You and Eight.” She didn’t look at Cassie, who clearly was not included in the invitation.

“We’ll be there,” Eight said, without waiting for Barrie to agree. He snatched up the chairs and cooler and left Cassie still pulling clothes over her swimsuit. While her cousin combed out her hair, Barrie grabbed their stray towels and the bag Eight had left on the sand, and held them chest high while she waded into the surf. Eight dropped his own armful over the side, swung himself into the boat, and reached over to help her up.