Housebreaking (29 page)

Now, though, all that was over. Her father had transferred to Hartford. Her parents forced her to leave Denton before her senior year, even though she'd asked them if she could stay with Leo and his dad in the city—it was fine with them. But, no. Instead they'd moved to this creaky old house in the middle of nowhere, hours from the city, and she had to be the new kid, all over again.

She crossed the intersection and headed down the hill toward the grammar school. The sunny afternoon had drawn the suburbanites out
to their driveways and yards, washing cars and raking leaves.
Have you seen a malamute?
she wanted to ask. But she couldn't do it—that moment of approach, the collision of strangers: The expectation was too great, like when you had to tell the waiter your order; always, at that instant, she could barely speak. So she passed by, glancing about for Sheba. There were dogs in nearly every yard—Labs and golden retrievers, boxers and German shepherds—and all of them barked at her, but no Sheba.

Then, out of nowhere, Emily found herself worried, sickeningly so. What if Sheba had gotten run over? What if she was lying by the side of the road, broken and bleeding? She closed her eyes, driving away the image, and did what she always did when a dark feeling smothered her: She spoke to Daniel.

Do you think she's okay?

And his voice, from somewhere inside her, wiped away the anxiety, as it always did.

She's fine, Em. Don't worry.

Where is she?

She's having fun. She's playing.

She allowed herself a private smile. Daniel had always wanted a malamute. They'd seen some movie when they were little about a wild pack of dogs, all malamutes, living in Canada, and Daniel had never gotten over it. Her parents had finally caved on his fourteenth birthday, taking him to a breeder.
That one with the black muzzle,
he'd said, picking Sheba out of the litter.
She's the one.

Up ahead, Emily noticed a boy leaning against a Jeep, staring at her. There was a pickup truck in the driveway. Through the open garage door she saw an assortment of junk: old furniture, metal pipes, big rubber tires.

“Hey,” he said as she came near.

“Hey.”

He was shirtless, smoking a cigarette in the sun. He had tattoos on his chest and arms. She recognized him—one of the boys from school who hung around the rear courtyard anchor at lunchtime, listening to rap.

“You're in my history class,” he said.

She nodded.

“I'm Billy.”

“I know.”

“What's your name?”

Emily kicked a pebble. “Why should I tell you?”

“You don't have to. It's Emily Martin-Murray. With a hyphen. All you stuck-up girls have hyphens.”

“Don't you mean hymens?”

He snorted. “That too.”

She looked down, pleased with herself. As foreign as she felt talking to boys, she somehow didn't show it. Some actress part of herself took over, at ease, good at teasing. Not her, really. Her representative. The girl they wanted to see.

He exhaled a long line of smoke. “You live around here?”

“Two streets that way. We moved here a few months ago.”

“Lucky you.”

“I'm looking for a dog. A malamute. You happen to notice one?”

He shook his head. “I hate dogs. You see this?” He pointed to the side of his face. She took a step closer. A scar on his cheek, shaped like a half-moon. “A hundred and fifty stitches,” he said. “Rottweiler got me when I was eight. Wouldn't let go. My dad came out of the house and cracked it with a baseball bat.”

“I like scars. I wish I had one like that.”

Up close she could better see the tattoos. Words in Spanish on his neck.
LA VIDA LOCA
. On his biceps, the face of Jesus. And bunny ears on his pecs.

“I got plenty of scars.” He stuck out his right leg and raised his jeans, revealing a patch of mottled skin on his calf. “Motorcycle burn,” he said. He showed her a few more on his hands and upper back.

“I've only got one,” she said.

“Show me.”

She nearly did. The cross on her inner thigh, she'd cut it into herself with an X-Acto knife. The skin had peeled away so cleanly, revealing the pure layer of white, the blood bubbling out. “Can't.”

He shrugged. “What's a malamute look like?”

“Like a husky.”

“Haven't seen one of those.” It was clear from his tone that he was done with the conversation.

She turned and headed back the way she'd come.

“Hope you find him,” he called.

“Her.”

“Whatever.”

She knew he was watching. She tried not to hurry. Why had she worn her ugliest skirt, the plaid one her mother had given her last Christmas? Her ass looked huge in it. When she reached the end of the street she glanced back, and he was still there, staring.

“Hey,” he called. “What's your number?”

* * *

HE CALLED
that evening and they talked for a couple of awkward minutes, and the next day they hooked up after school at his house. Afterward, she lay on his bed in purple panties and a toe ring, watching him fiddle with the joystick. Her jeans, shirt, and sweater lay on the floor next to her black motorcycle boots. She could never understand the male fascinations: video games, heavy metal, comic books. Each boy had his own particular obsession, which he would explain to her in excruciating detail. The “genius” of some band or movie:
South Park. The Big Lebowski.
“Check it out,” the boy would say, wrapping the headphones over her ears or sliding the DVD into the player. “Awesome, right?”

Billy Stacks was no different. Sex on his twin bed had taken two minutes. But his GameCube captivated him so thoroughly that, even after an hour of wrestling with the joystick, he couldn't avert his attention for a moment to answer her question. He sat at his desk with his feet up, staring at the television, his eyes darting.

She asked again. “Do you have any pills?”

The walls of his room were covered with posters of swimsuit models and rap artists. His little brother's twin bed had a comforter decorated with horses. The room smelled like sweat socks and stale food, along with the lingering scent of her own sex.

“Check this out,” he said.

She glanced at the screen. In the game, a U.S. Army soldier moved through an underground passageway while the bass thumped out of the subwoofer like a crazed heartbeat. Suddenly, from around a corner, a villain wearing a turban appeared, raising a machine gun. Billy thumbed the joystick and the villain's head exploded; three torrents of red sprayed out of the carcass.

“What is it?”

“Spider Hole II,”
he said. “I live for this shit.”

“It's really stupid. You know that, right?”

Emily picked a Victoria's Secret catalog off the night table; there was a whole stack of them, going back for years. It was an old issue, with Gisele on the cover. Flipping through the pages, looking at the smooth hip bones and perfect thighs, she felt fat and envious.

“Turn that down,” a woman screeched.

Billy paused the game, and Emily grabbed her sweater off the floor.

“Dammit, Billy, I can hear it from across the street. And how many times have I told you not to lock your door?”

“Chill, Mom. You're acting totally uncool.”

“Does your friend want dinner? I've got fried chicken and potatoes.”

Emily said, as loudly and politely as she could, “No thank you.”

“What about you, Billy?”

“No. Can you stop standing outside the door like a narc?”

“You're supposed to be studying, not playing video games. And I want this door unlocked. Now.”

Emily heard her steps moving down the hallway. Billy shook his head. “Ever since my dad took off she's been acting like supermom. Baking brownies and shit.”

“My mother hasn't made cookies in forever.” She set the catalog back on his night table and picked up a framed photograph: Billy, a few years younger, with long curly hair, standing next to a man dressed in Army greens on a tarmac, in front of a helicopter. It was a sunny day; both were wearing aviator sunglasses.

“Is this your dad?”

“Yeah. They got divorced last year.”

“Is he in the Army?”

“Marines.”

“Where is he now?”

“Deployed.”

“You mean Iraq?”

“Afghanistan.”

She put the picture back on his night table. “Do you miss him?”

He shrugged. “He emails almost every week.”

“Is he coming back soon?”

“Dunno. They never tell you that kind of thing.”

“Are you worried about him?”

“My dad? No way. He can take care of himself. And that's putting it lightly.” Billy had small, mean-looking brown eyes, and he was always puffing out his chest. He wasn't more than an inch taller than Emily.

His cell phone began vibrating on the desktop. He picked it up and glanced at the display, then grinned and texted something back. It was the fifth text, at least, since she'd arrived at his house.

“Who's that?”

“No one.”

“Is it your girlfriend? Because I don't care, if you want to know the truth.”

“Actually, it's none of your business, bitch.” He turned back to the game, unpaused, and turned down the volume so his mother wouldn't hear.

“Fuck off, asshole.” She grabbed her boots and bent to put them on. She was struggling with the second boot when he bear-hugged her from behind.

“Hey, don't get all freaky. I'm just goofing around.”

He had small, sharp muscles, and she liked the feel of him squeezing her. She went limp under his grip. “Don't call me a bitch. Ever.”

“Okay.”

“Got it? I can't stand that word.”

“I got it.” He let her go. “And there isn't any girlfriend. It's B-Ray, that's all.”

“You know him?”

“Course. He's my boy.”

“I have English with him,” she said. “He's hot. Seriously hot.”

“Yeah, all the bitches say that.”

She opened her mouth in astonishment. “Oh my god. What did I just say?”

“I didn't call you a bitch,” he protested. “I said
all the bitches.
”

She sighed. “What does he want?”

He shrugged.

“Tell me,” she demanded, “or I'm leaving right now.”

“It's no big deal. I texted him, you and I were hanging out and he started writing back like every three minutes.”

“Why?”

“Wants details.”

“About me?”

“Who else?”

She tried to keep herself from blushing. “What did you tell him?”

“That's between bros—hey!”

She grabbed the phone and saw the words
big titties
on the screen before he wrestled it back from her.

“Seriously?
Big titties
?
”

He stashed the phone in his jeans pocket. “That's a compliment. You got great tits. Most girls would be happy to hear that.”

“I'd be happier if you weren't texting about it.”

“I was just answering a question.”

“What question?”

He sighed. “B-Ray wanted to know, nice ass, nice boobs, or what. Guy stuff.”

She rolled her eyes. “Tell me about him.”

“Like what?”

“Like everything.”

B-Ray, he said, was the first friend he'd made at Wall High. Billy Stacks had moved here from Dallas a year earlier, after his father left. As a military kid he'd switched schools enough to know not to make friends with anyone the first couple of days. But he and B-Ray—there was no doubt. They had everything in common. They both sat in the last row in homeroom, wore the same kinds of clothes, had the same music on their iPods.

“And you text each other every time some girl sleeps with you.”

“Just the rich bitches.”

She reached to smack him, but he grabbed her around the waist and lifted her in the air. She shrieked in surprise, then covered her mouth. He carried her to the chair in front of the TV, setting her on his lap, bouncing her up and down like a carnival ride.

“Okay, okay,” she said, laughing. “I'm getting dizzy.”

“What kind of drugs you want, chica?”

“I already told you.”

“You some kind of junkie?”

“Does that mean yes?”

“It means, I can get anything you want, anytime you want.”

“Do you have a dealer?”

“I don't need no dealer. I get what I want, right out there.” He gestured toward the window. “They all got their little medicine cabinets.”

“You mean break into houses?”

“Damn straight. You down for that?”

“I bet I've stolen more than you.”

He laughed. “Yeah, right.”

“Not from houses. From stores. You don't believe me? Let's go to the mall, I'll show you.”

“You crazy, girl.”

The video game recaptured his attention. He picked up the joystick and fiddled with the controls. The figure on the screen switched from a man to a woman, with her name blazoned across her chest in red letters,
MISS DESTRUCTION
. A curvaceous blonde dressed in skintight Army greens, cradling a rifle. “That's you,” he said.

“I like me.”

“This is your directional, the toggle. The red button is your weapon. Double-click for rapid fire. You ready?”

“Double-click?”

“Never mind. You'll get the hang of it.” He pressed the button. “Okay. Go.”

Within a few seconds, before she even got off a single shot, the bad guys cut off her head with a machete. Then they danced on top of her corpse and dragged her through the streets, shouting in Arabic.

“You got wasted,” he said.