Friendswood (28 page)

Lee and Char had been good friends after all, years ago—they'd written one another notes on paper they folded into triangles and swans; they'd lain around for hours in each other's bedrooms, gossiping. What had happened to the friendship was nothing but years, really, and Lee saying no to invitations to church. Lee went over to her, held up her drink. “Merry Christmas!” Lee leaned to hug Char, but her shoulders went stiff.

“Well, hi there, Lee. Honey, you know Lee.” She nudged her daughter, whose wide, smooth face seemed to awaken.

“I hear you've been quite busy again over there at city hall.”

“I was. Done with all that now.”

Char studied her, as if waiting for Lee to deny it. “Goodness. Well, what have you been doing with yourself, then?”

Lee shrugged. “Working out in the yard.”

Olivia was there then, pulling Char away, to introduce her to someone involved with the school, and Willa turned toward the picture window and sipped at her drink. She looked alone standing there, the only kid at the party.

Lee called to her, “Hey, why don't we go sit on the couch.”

The girl looked relieved.

They were next to the Christmas tree, bells ringing in the music coming over the speakers, small gold snowmen delicately swaying on the branches whenever someone passed. “Now tell me, you're a junior now, is that right?”

“No, a sophomore.”

Lee wondered if Char had ever told her daughters about Jess. She had to navigate this territory carefully, not wanting to weep or frighten the girl, not wanting to draw attention.

“Is Ms. Marlowe still teaching tenth-grade English?”

Willa lifted her face and nodded energetically. “She just sent me a book of poems by Emily Dickinson.”

But Lee also didn't want to begrudge Jess, who'd had a whole life after all, who'd once held down the center of everything. “Oh, she was a good teacher, I remember. My daughter liked her.” Ms. Marlowe had sent a condolence card after Jess died that quoted Shakespeare and said in loopy handwriting at the bottom,
She was a gem. I will miss her.

Willa turned her head away, hair swinging, and that signaled that Willa did know.

“I'm writing a paper on Dickinson now.”

She said she was doing it on her own, and Lee could see the intensity of her feeling for the homework, maybe because she didn't have to worry about what the other kids thought of her ideas.

“She was a recluse and wore white dresses all the time—every single day. Then after she died, her little sister discovered a box with all the poems tied up in packets, thousands of them. Dickinson had been sending them all along to this man, this former minister, and he kept saying they were good, but not really poems, and in the end, he changed them up and published them.” The girl seemed desperate to talk.

“Unbelievable.”

“It makes me sad for her, but also not.”

“I know what you mean. She must have got something from it. Storing it all up like that. She must have known they were worth something.”

“I think so.” In her wide-eyed intensity, the way she pulled in her bottom lip, there was something Lee recognized. A flash of Jess, then gone.

“What else do you like?”

Willa shrugged. “Hanging out with my best friend, I guess.” She had an awkward beauty, falsely bold in the eyes, mouth shy and small in a way that made youth spill from her. Lee had almost forgotten what it was like to talk to a teenager, to feel the neediness.

Willa reached for her drink, and Lee noticed a dark red rash on her forearm—like an amulet just above her wrist. “You okay there?”

Willa covered her forearm with her hand.

“Listen, I work at a dermatologist's office. You should get that checked out.”

Willa's lip trembled. “I know what it is. I just need to keep face lotion on it. I was writing too much there.”

Lee nodded, not wanting to make the girl squirm. Writing phone numbers? Did kids still do that?

“In my sleep.”

“Huh. Interesting.”

Willa adjusted herself in her seat, then flung out her hand. “In regular life, I like to write poetry too.”

What was it about teenage girls and poetry? Practically all of them wrote it, and it was mostly bad, but at least they tried to make something
out of their cyclones of feeling, tried to tame it instead of letting it blow them away.

“Well, what do you write in your sleep? How do you even do that?”

She shook her head and shyly smiled. She probably thought she'd said too much. Lee wanted to prolong the time away from the other adults, to catch that radiant expression again that felt so familiar. The girl had something. Willa talked about Ms. Marlowe's new husband, how everyone knew he'd made a lot of money on stocks and he'd donated money for a garden. She went on talking, and in her eyes, she looked hurt—the pupils seemed slightly cracked, the whites bloodshot.

Lee caught another echo of Jess, this time in Willa's voice. “I don't know. I guess I'm just weird that way.” She sat up straight, pulled her hair over one shoulder, and gulped her drink. Lee tried to form a reply, to ignore the longing for her own girl.

Then Char was at the couch with them, tugging on the bottom of her sweater. “What have you two been up to?” Over by the keg, a man was singing “White Christmas” in a campy voice, and the smell of the bonfire blew through the sliding glass door.

“Willa's telling me all about poetry.”

Char screwed up her face as if she hadn't understood. “Oh, yeah. She's into that English, alright.” Then her white teeth glared up in her smile. “Willa, come meet Mr. Mitchell over here.” She crooked her finger, winked at Lee. “Thanks for taking care of her.”

Olivia came to the couch with a bourbon for Lee, lowered her voice. “You know it's real sad what happened to Char's daughter. I'm surprised in a way that she brought her here. I guess because there's no other kids around. It was nice of you to take an interest.”

“What?”

“You didn't hear? It's real sad. She drank too much at a party a while back. You know these boys, they were all over her. I guess she's not pregnant, but Char won't talk about it.”

“My God. What did they do to her?”

Olivia shrugged, rolled her eyes. “I don't know exactly. Enough. It was bad. These kids shouldn't drink.”

“She's just a girl.”

“Not much parents can do now, I guess,” Olivia said, swallowing the last of her clear cocktail. “You know it doesn't change. It's one of the tragedies of life. High school doesn't change.” Olivia touched the necklace at her throat, and looked behind her at the rest of the party.

Lee stood up from the couch, with her gaze at the level of a blank-faced, silver-winged angel. Her stomach turned. She remembered how protective Jack had been, how he'd made fun of every guy who tried to date his daughter—ruthlessly imitating them, pointing out their most obvious physical flaw. If something like that had happened to Jess, if she had been raped, it would have destroyed him.

Over at the door, Char and Willa stood with Rush, saying good-bye, Char's face puffy and tired looking, her hand on Willa's back. Willa stood slumped over, arms folded at her breasts as if she were cold. Suddenly Lee didn't resent all of Char's churchgoing and prayers—ruse or not. Lee only wished for them to have whatever solace in the world there was.

U
NTIL
C
HRISTMAS PASSED,
she kept herself occupied, sending presents to her nieces and nephews. She wrote cards to all the relatives back in Beaumont she never saw anymore. She served a holiday dinner in the soup kitchen at the Quaker church. She watched the Christmas specials on TV—it was all an indulgence she'd used to share with Jess—Jack only had so much use for the holidays. And the busyness, the forced cheer of it, gave back to her a small part of maternal duty.

She spent Christmas with her brother and his family in Texas City, glad to be around people who'd once known Jess. This was how most people grieved, she thought, sitting at the fire with Jonathan and his two boys. If she'd felt no pain at moments like this, then it would have been as
if Jess had never been there at all, but the pain was virile and energetic—it kept Jess close to her tonight at the dinner table and next to the fragrant tree. When she said to Jonathan, “I'm done with protesting. I'm retired,” she was happy to find that she meant it.

“I never liked it,” he said. “I gotta be honest. I didn't like the way it took you over. But I always thought you were probably right.”

“It's not enough. I've gone through almost all of my money. And now they want to sue me. I'm just tired, I think.”

“Well, aren't we all?” he said. “I hear that.” His cheeks were red and puffy from drink, sentimental and hangdog in the way their father's had been. “That's why it's so good to have you here. To just take some time, you know? The boys haven't seen you since the summer.” Sleeping in the same house as her brother again, seeing Jess's eyes in his eyes and seeing the echo of Jess's nose in the noses of her nephews, she was almost able to feel her daughter's presence, just sitting still there at the table. Until they went to bed, she stayed up and taught her nephews how to play poker, and they'd played for hours, and she'd tried to remember all the strategies Jack had taught her, tried to be wise and shrewd for them, as they ate cookies and one of them held a candy cane in his mouth like a pipe.

D
EX AND
W
ILLA MET
at the McDonald's. The guy with the small oval-shaped head sat where he always sat, in the window, with a plate of fries and three or four Bibles spread on the table before him. He furiously scribbled into a spiral notebook.

“My mom went to high school with him,” said Willa, nodding. She leaned in close and whispered. “He had a brain tumor ten years ago, and after the operation, this is what he does all day, writes sermons that no one will hear. She said he was the salutatorian of their class, that he used to work as an engineer before.”

Dex wanted Willa to know that he'd been defending her. He remembered Bishop's pointed nose and tiny eyes, and wished he'd made him bleed more. “At least he's still alive. That DJ my mom liked to listen to on the radio—she was hilarious—she just died from a brain tumor.”

“It scares me, the idea of a ball of something bad inside your brain.”

“Well, I guess they're pretty rare.”

“I don't know? My mom knows someone else who died from a tumor. She was the valedictorian of her class. Sometimes if I get a headache, I feel around on my head for lumps.” She laughed.

“I just try not to think about those kinds of things. If my head hurts, I take an Advil.”

She genuinely seemed happy to see him, and he felt guilty about this—as if some part of him felt he finally had the advantage.

On the table someone had left a
Friendswood Dispatch
,
and Willa picked it up, opened the pages, and started reading the headlines about the Mustangs in a mock-serious voice, which made him laugh. “
MUSTA
NG MANIA! THE MUSTANG
S MUST HAVE IT!!
” He hadn't known before that she could be so funny. She wouldn't care that he'd been a trainer, that he'd felt this responsibility to football, even if he couldn't play.

She held up the cover page for him, two murky photos of the Banes site, and a headline that said “
TAFT
PROPERTIES STILL TO
BUILD
?” In the gray-blue photographs, there seemed to be a giant rectangular box pushed out of the ground. Willa read the article in her normal voice, and she seemed curious, so he tried to act interested too. The photos supposedly showed that the toxins buried a decade ago had come up from the ground, proving that the site was not safe for building homes nearby. But the reporter went on, “No evidence of the emerged tank was there after the sighting was reported in September, according to Mayor Wallen.”

“That's my mom's old friend,” said Willa, pointing to a name. “I just saw her the other day at a party. My parents think she's lost it. But there must be something up with that field.” An agency said they would investigate the pictures, and send someone out to the site for monitoring, and then he lost interest until he came to this part: “‘All I've got is my reputation,' said Avery Taft. ‘It means a great deal to me. And when someone accuses me of being careless with plans, careless with human health, well, that makes me upset. All the hallelujah is just false chemistry.'”

“Well, it's definitely the warehouse on the Banes site in the picture. I went mudding over there once.”

She seemed impressed by this. “Was that fun?”

“Kind of.” He wanted to reassure her. “I don't know—that container—even if it is what she says it is—looks pretty small to me.”

They drank their milk shakes, and he finally told her about the fight with Cully and Bishop, but not what had been said. “I don't know what happened but I kind of went crazy on them.”

She was looking down, picking at the blue polish on her nails, and he realized how stupid he'd been to mention their names, to try to impress her just because he'd thrown a punch. “Hey, do you want to go for a walk or something?”

“No, my friend's about to pick me up. Do you know Dani?”

“Oh yeah, sure.”

She tapped her fingers on the table as if she were playing keys on a keyboard. “I'm not supposed to see her, so we had to make a plan.”

“Oh.” He wanted more time with her. “Hey, maybe we could do this again. Get a bite to eat sometime.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Her eyes whisked away from him. It didn't seem possible, but she was more beautiful to him now, even under the harsh lights, which exaggerated the dark circles under her eyes and the black makeup. She looked sad and vaguely foreign and more original than the other girls he knew, but only he would be able to see this.

“I should go outside.” She gathered her books.

“I'll wait with you.”

The car was a beat-up black sedan, the kind almost no one drove anymore. Dani didn't look at him, but Willa touched his shoulder when she said good-bye.

D
EX BEGAN TO
GET BACK AT
P
AMMY
by occasionally lifting a few dollars from the top of a tip pile left on one of her tables. It made her arrogance more bearable, especially on the nights when he worked for her alone. He gave a third of his money to his mom, even though she didn't ask for it.

Once or twice a week, he'd stay late, knowing his mom wouldn't like him hanging out at the Casa Texas dance hall if she knew about it, but he'd come to need those nights, and he even convinced Weeks to join
him a few times. Mostly they sat and watched the women, their glittered eyelids and glossy lips; their long, shiny hair; and the curve of breasts, big and small, under snug shirts. Dex liked their tight jeans, the muscles of bare shoulders just where the tank top strap hit. Weeks was impressed whenever one of the ladies asked Dex to dance, and it happened more often than not with the regulars because he could two-step, and they knew he wouldn't make a move on them either. Weeks never got asked. He just sat back in his chair with his arms folded “watching the ladies.”

Dex had become acquainted with a few of them, who, in between songs, liked to give him advice. “Never tell a girl she looks skinny or fat—always say she's just right.” “Girls like questions. Remember that. Ask your date a lot of questions about herself.” “Girls like a man in a proper shirt.” Sometimes he thought of Willa when they said these things, and sometimes he didn't, but he liked these women, with their fragrant hair and smooth faces. He liked feeling his hand on a taut waist. He felt protective of them, even though they were older than him; and once or twice, he'd saved a woman from a drunk who seemed to be bothering her, just by asking her to dance. He'd watch the relief come over her face, and enjoyed the man's scowl as they left him at a table with his lonely drink.

One night Mr. Holgine walked up to Dex and handed him a hundred dollars. “Here's your bonus. I see how hard you work.” Holgine always left by ten p.m., but he must have heard about Dex staying late sometimes. “I talked to your dad the other day and bragged on you.”

“Thanks.”

“But see here—I want you to tell me if you see any stealing around here, alright? Or any slacking off? That would be real helpful.”

Dex didn't want to be paid for spying, but he didn't want to offend Mr. Holgine either, so he nodded and said, “Yes, sir.”

His mother was still mad at him, but it helped when one night he took her and Layla to Casa Texas for dinner, and Mr. Holgine personally
brought them extra fish tacos to taste and margaritas for his mom. “Dex is driving, right?” He winked.

“I see why you like working here,” his mom said, her face flushed. “The people are real nice.”

He wanted to bring Willa there, to show himself to her in that atmosphere, introduce her around, maybe they could even dance.