Full Circle (3 page)

Megan was a total girly-girl. Her existence was tied up in her make-up, her clothes, and what boy said what about what girl. Megan’s goal in life was to be a wife, mother, and fashion consultant, not necessarily in that order. So Elizabeth, who was smaller than Megan, was very careful to buy the clothes that Megan wanted but couldn’t wear, borrow things from Megan’s closet when Megan could never borrow anything from hers, and generally make Megan’s life as miserable as possible. It was her duty: they were sisters.

On the other hand, nobody, and I mean nobody, said a bad word about Megan in front of Elizabeth, and visa versa. And that went double for their brother Graham. On the Graham front, the two girls were totally bonded.

On this beautiful Thursday in April, the two girls got out of the minivan that was their carpool vehicle of the week, and raced to the front door, Megan of the longer legs winning as usual. They knew that today they were latchkey kids, as Dad was still at work and Mom was off to her romance convention in Austin, so they dug the extra key out of the flowerbed and used it to get in the house.

Megan, heading for the kitchen, said, ‘I’m hungry.’

Elizabeth answered with, ‘You’ll never lose weight that way. I’m going upstairs.’

Megan wasn’t really overweight but Elizabeth never missed an opportunity to point out that she
could
be. She bounded up the stairs and into her room, throwing her backpack on the bed and heading straight to the computer. She turned it on and checked her email. And there it was: an email from Tommy.

Elizabeth wasn’t really into boys, but Tommy was different. He was smart and funny and he understood her. She had to admit, to herself at least, that she was beginning to have a bit of a crush on him. The email was simple:

So she did. They’d met in a chat room several weeks ago, one dedicated to astronomy nuts, which they both were. They were the only non-college-aged kids in there and had gravitated to each other. Now neither visited the astronomy site much, but talked to each other by email and IM as often as possible. Elizabeth sent out an IM:

Elizabeth felt a stab of panic laced with joy. Was he going to profess his undying love for her? Was he going to say he couldn’t talk to her anymore? What?

Oh, God
, Elizabeth thought,
he’s not a boy in the ninth grade like he said – he’s some thirty-year-old freak
 . . .

This was it, Elizabeth thought. His name is Herman and he’s in his fifties. Oh, gross.

There was a long silence from the other end, so long that Elizabeth thought for a moment that Tommy, or whatever his name was, had gone away. Then her computer pinged and words she’d never expected to see popped up.

Elizabeth stared at the letters, not sure she was reading them right. Finally, she wrote:

E.J., THE PRESENT

When Elizabeth told me about the emails, and the stalker’s ‘confession’, I was sick to my stomach. There was no question that this could be Aldon. I saw his dead body – tripped over it. Buried it. Cried over it. Bessie was so young when it happened that any memory she had of that terrible time would be shaky. The trauma of what she had experienced that night left her mute for several weeks. I’m not sure how much of that time she remembered. We used to make a pilgrimage every year to the Lesters’ graves, but in the last five years or so, we’ve let Bessie set the tone. Some years we all go, some years just Bessie. And once, no one went. It’s her call.

But I never suspected that she could be almost convinced that Willis and I had lied to her. That Aldon never died, that we were somehow in a conspiracy to cover up ‘what really happened.’ I cried when she told me that. I didn’t even know tears were streaming down my face until she looked at me and her face began to crumble. Then I felt the tears and wiped them away. ‘I’m sorry, honey,’ I said. ‘So sorry you had to go through this.’

‘I’m sorry!’ she said. ‘That I could believe that creep! I don’t know what got into me!’ she said, sobbing.

At fourteen, my youngest daughter is still tiny, still small enough that I can pick her up. I did, and pulled her into my lap, holding her tight. Megan was crying too, saying, ‘I told her you and Dad could never ever do that! I told her!’ Then I had ended up with both girls in my lap, holding them tight, all of us crying. Willis and Graham sat at the table, Willis with his face in his hands, Graham looking anywhere but at the crying females.

It had been the longest night I’d spent since childbirth. And it wasn’t over. Not until he was found, and I managed to have a few words with him.

GRAHAM, THE PRESENT

Here’s the strange thing: I didn’t get grounded. Not one day. Actually, I came out of this whole thing looking pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. Semi-superhero status. The girls, my sisters, might disagree, but they sure as hell didn’t when I was saving their asses! It’s just when they got time to think about it and figure out how much they now owed me that they decided I didn’t do much. But they are Wrong with a capital ‘W’.

So I called Lotta that first Sunday, after I finally got up, late in the afternoon, and asked if I could drive her home from school on Monday. I’d met Lotta the night before, riding around in the low-rider. Long story. Anyway, the guys in the low-rider were her cousins (one was an uncle, I think), and they picked her up from work. So she was with us when the whole thing with Elizabeth came down. And she was hot – Lotta, not Elizabeth, jeez – and she’d given me her number.

‘Hey, I work, idiot,’ she said.

‘Who you calling an idiot?’ I said, smiling when I said it.

‘You! Who do you think?’ she asked.

‘I dunno. Thought maybe you had somebody else on the line who really was an idiot,’ I said.

‘Naw, I only talk to one idiot at a time,’ she said.

‘So I’ll drive you to work,’ I said.

‘Um, you’ll have to talk to my cousin,’ she said.

‘Which one?’

‘You saying I got too many cousins?’ she asked.

‘Hey, if you can count ’em all, that’s fine.’

‘Are you saying I can’t count?’ she said, no longer playing around.

‘No, I’m saying you got a lot of cousins!’ I said.

‘’Cause if you’re saying you think I can’t count ’cause I’m Mexican, you can just take your white ass . . .’

‘Whoa, there! Jeez, Lotta, where’d this shit come from?’ I asked, totally confused.

There was a sigh on the other end of the line. ‘Never mind,’ she finally said. ‘The school counselor says I got issues.’

‘Hey, we all got issues,’ I said.

‘You saying your issues are better than my issues?’ she demanded.

‘OK, look,’ I finally said, ‘I guess this isn’t gonna work, so, Lotta, enjoyed meeting you . . .’

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I tend to get defensive. I think that comes from being the only girl with five brothers and fourteen male cousins. Not another girl in the bunch.’

‘I can understand that – on a smaller scale,’ I said, ‘being the only boy with two sisters.’

‘Yeah, but I met your sisters, and I think they’re nice,’ she said.

‘That’s ’cause you’re not a boy sharing a bathroom with them. Underwear drying on the bathtub, hairy razors everywhere, face cream or some such shit all over the counter – and don’t get me started on trying to get in there in the morning! I almost pissed myself last week.’

‘Oh, thanks for that image!’ she said, laughing.

‘So,’ I said, taking a deep breath. ‘Can I drive you to work after school tomorrow?’

‘Hum,’ she said, like it was the first time she’d heard me ask. ‘I guess so.’

‘Great!’ I said. ‘I’ll meet you at the door to the parking lot, OK?’

‘See you then after last bell,’ she said.

Then we both said goodbye and hung up. Then I thought, all I had to do was figure out how to get Mom’s car. But that afternoon, that, and so many more of my problems got solved when my grandma came over.

She had her friend Miss Gladys with her and they were driving what I thought were both their cars. One was a fairly late model Ford Taurus and the other was Grandma’s Valiant.

Once everybody got in the living room, she made Mom call me downstairs and then came the bombshell of all bombshells.

‘I was looking at the Valiant,’ Grandma said, ‘and thinking about the horror Bessie went through in
my
car. And I thought she’ll never want to ride with me anywhere again. And then I thought, I need to get her to ride in it a lot so she’ll get used to it being my car again, and not that horrible place where she was held captive, but then I thought how she hardly ever rides with me, so then I came up with the perfect solution.’

Grandma looked from one to the other of us with a beaming smile on her face. Finally, her friend Miss Gladys said, ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Vera, just spit it out!’

Grandma glared at her but then turned to me with a smile. ‘If it’s OK with your parents,’ she said, ‘I want you to have the Valiant. I already bought me a new car,’ she said, pointing toward the window, ‘that Taurus out there. Fine little automobile. Now that Valiant has a lot of years left in it, Graham, if you treat it right!’

I whirled around to my parents. Mom was looking shocked but Dad was smiling, which meant he and Grandma had already discussed it, without talking to Mom about it. Oh, boy. ‘Can I?’ I asked. Or panted. Or whatever.

‘I don’t see a problem with it,’ Dad said.

‘Willis!’ my mother said, staring daggers at my dad.

‘What’s your objection, E.J.?’ Dad said, really putting her on the spot.

She opened her mouth and closed it, and then tried it again, with still no words coming out. Finally she shook her head, sighed, and said, ‘No objection.’

I jumped up and hugged my grandmother and thanked her a bunch. Then grabbed the keys and headed out the door.

E.J., THE PRESENT

So I picked them up after school that day, and the next, and the day after that. He didn’t show. I knew he wouldn’t right away. He’d wait for us to let our guard down, to stop watching every move that Elizabeth made. Then he’d once again go after her. That’s what stalkers did.

One afternoon, as Megan climbed into the backseat, Elizabeth stuck her head in the open window of the passenger side of the car. ‘Mom, my friend Alicia wants me to go home with her. I told her it would be OK, right?’

‘Who’s Alicia?’ I asked, never having heard of this particular friend.

‘She’s new in school . . .’ Elizabeth started.

Megan cut in. ‘And she’s a total geek and a snob on top of that! Why in the world a geek would think they have anything to be snobby about, I don’t know.’

‘Shut up!’ Elizabeth said.

‘Bessie! We don’t say shut up!’ I corrected.

‘Yeah, and we don’t call me Bessie, remember, Mother?’ she said, drawing the dastardly word ‘mother’ out as only a teenage girl can. To her sister, she added, ‘And you’re just pissed because she didn’t invite you!’

‘Elizabeth! We don’t say pissed!’ I corrected.

‘Maybe you don’t, Mom,’ Megan said, ‘but I think Bessie just did!’ There was stress on the old nickname, which caused Elizabeth to stand up straighter and glare at her sister.

‘Is anyone really talking to you?’ Elizabeth said. ‘Other than that skuzzy skater who tries to look down your shirt every day?’

I couldn’t help looking back at Megan. She was turning blood red. This was something I’d have to delve into – later.

‘Elizabeth. I don’t want you going home with someone I don’t know. Have her mother call me and we’ll discuss having your friend come over to our house,’ I said.

‘Oh, gawd! You’ve got to be kidding! Alicia’s waiting for me! What am I supposed to tell her? That my mother thinks I’m too young to have play dates, for God’s sake!’

I was losing my patience. ‘Get in the back seat now,’ I said.

‘No! I have to go tell Alicia I can’t go!’ she almost screamed at me.

I took off my seatbelt and opened the driver’s door. Before I got myself out of the car, Bessie was in the backseat, buckling her own seatbelt.

Still standing outside the car, I said, ‘Where is this Alicia? I’ll tell her myself.’

‘No! Don’t! Please, Mom! Gawd, I’d die of embarrassment!’ Bessie said.

I got back in the car. ‘Tomorrow, tell her to have her mom call me and we’ll set something up. That’s the only way, Elizabeth. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ she said. In the rearview mirror, I could see her folding her arms over her chest and glaring out the side window.

BLACK CAT RIDGE, TEXAS, 1999

I finally got to sleep sometime around three a.m. When I awoke the next morning, it was after ten and my mind registered the smell of bacon coming from the kitchen downstairs. And then the terrible events of the day before washed over me like a red tide.