Ferocity Summer (14 page)

This Summer

C
hristian's Town Car sat waiting for me in the far corner of the park-and-ride lot. I felt like a total skeezoid. I didn't need to do this. I mean, Christian hadn't even promised me anything yet. I could walk away, but I couldn't. Right now, Christian was the only hope I had. All my plans, everything I hoped for, hinged entirely on Christian's aid, and he wasn't going to help me unless I helped him first. I opened the passenger door and got in.

“You're looking resplendent today,” Christian said.

I shifted in the seat and tried to pull the hem of my sundress down further, but it didn't work. It rode up too high when I sat down. I wondered if it had shrunk in the wash or if I'd experienced some sort of growth spurt. I made a mental note to dispose of it immediately.

“I found out stuff for you,” I said.

“That's great,” he said. I didn't like the goofy smile plastered across his face.

“What did you find out about the strings you can pull?” I asked.

“It's complicated,” he said.

“Meaning, too complicated to work?”

“No. Not necessarily.”

I waited, but he didn't say anything else. The windows were only rolled down a crack and it was hot in the car. I felt sweat oozing out of my pores, a combination of the heat and my nerves.

“So, can you get me out of the trial or not?”

“We don't have much of a time frame to work with, and of course, you've already been charged. The district attorney might be willing to play ball, provided you're able to serve them Randy Jenkins' head on a platter.”

The heat made me lightheaded. I tried to focus, but my vision grew fuzzy, and Christian sounded further and further away. I reached out and braced myself against the dashboard even though I wasn't actually in motion. I looked over at Christian to see if he felt the heat, but it was as if he didn't notice it. How could he stand it?

“If I tell them Randy is a drug dealer, then I'm free?” I asked.

“You'd need to testify,” Christian said. “You'd need to testify at the trial about Randy's culpability in the accident.”

I couldn't take it anymore. I threw open the door and stumbled outside.

I'd gotten up too fast. Sparkles crowded my vision. I reached out for the car, but I'd never shut the door. It wasn't where I expected it to be. I felt everything slipping away. I tried to prepare my body for impact, but I never touched the ground. Christian had run around the car in time to catch me. He held me in a firm embrace.

“Priscilla?” he said. “Priscilla, are you all right?”

My head started to clear. My vision and my strength returned. The sweat that coated my body now cooled in the faint breeze and gave me the briefest chill.

“Just too hot,” I said. Christian didn't let me go. “It's okay. I'm fine now.”

He looked at me with those little-boy eyes. Thankfully, he'd lost that goofy smile, but then I saw him leaning toward me and felt his lips lock onto mine.

I didn't know what to do. I froze. Millions of thoughts raced through my mind. Was this whole thing about narcing out Randy bullshit? Was this all some clever ruse Christian had come up with to get me? Had I played right into it? Would he still help me with the trial?

I pulled away from him, and Christian released me from his grasp. What was that look on his face? Hurt? Confusion? Lust?

“What's going on?” I demanded.

“Oh, God,” Christian said. “I'm so sorry. I didn't mean … I don't know what … I shouldn't have done that. I don't know what I was thinking.”

“Forget it,” I said, but I took a couple of steps away from him. “I'll tell you what I know, okay, and you do your thing with the district attorney or whatever. Make sure he knows I'm an informant and all, all right?”

“Okay,” Christian said, so softly that he still sounded really far away. I didn't know what this meant. Did it mean I was in the clear? Did it mean I wouldn't have to stand trial? Was I still supposed to blame Randy for the boat accident? I just wanted to be free of this whole mess.

So I spilled my guts to him, giving him all kinds of juicy tidbits about the drug trade as I knew it. Afterwards, I felt like shit. I felt worse than if I'd just gone and had sex with him in exchange for his helping me out. I went home, and took a long, hot shower.

Last Summer

I
never felt closer to death than I did the night of the accident. I don't mean because of the death of that faceless woman aboard the other boat, but because of the fact that I'd forced my mom to be present for an ugly encounter. I'd dared to publicly humiliate her in front of the worst sort of people out there.

My mother hated the Jenkinses, with their upper-middle-class virtues and their somewhat snobbish attitude. She bitched about them and never even pretended to tolerate them, but this deep-seated resentment of hers was just evidence of her inferiority complex. Secretly, my mother was always worried about how she looked; she wanted to be socially acceptable in the eyes of others, and of course Willow's parents were minnows compared to the big-fish Andersons.

Of all the events of that fateful evening, none was more sobering than the ride home with my mother. I sat in the passenger seat with a beach towel wrapped around my legs and a torn windbreaker over my still-wet clothing. I shivered as the cool air from the car's vents blew on me. For five straight minutes, she said nothing. With her lips set in a straight line and her eyes staring straight ahead, she drove. Watching her, waiting for the storm that had to be coming, I half imagined, half hoped that this silent treatment would be worse than any fury she could unleash on me. Of course I was wrong.

“Goddammit, Priscilla. Why the hell did you have to go and fuck up on such a grand scale?”

I didn't answer, but this wasn't my version of the silent treatment. Her question was clearly rhetorical.

“Teenagers rebel. I know that. And drinking, well, I'm not supposed to say this, but I expected that. I mean, it's what kids do. Not saying I'm happy about it, but there was no way I could try and stop you without making things worse. That's the whole problem with being a parent. Our fucking hands are tied. But for Christ's fucking sakes, couldn't you have done your rebellious drinking with someone who didn't own a
fucking
speedboat
?”

“It's his parents' speedboat,” I said quietly. I couldn't bear to look at her, so I didn't know if her eyes were on the road.

“Don't get smart with me. Couldn't you have just walked down the street and gotten drunk with that pimply faced kid who lives on the corner? Or, Jesus, I don't know, sneaked beers out of the fridge while I was at work?”

I wanted, masochistically, to apologize for not sneaking beers out of the refrigerator, but based on her previous command not to get smart and a half-hearted desire to make it through the night without dying, I kept my mouth shut.

“No, you've always got to go overboard, don't you?”

If only I had gone overboard. If only I was at the bottom of the lake. If only I was anywhere else but here.

“You can't get shitfaced in your own neighborhood, you've got to go and do it on some rich shit's boat. You've got to go and learn your lesson by getting someone killed.”

“I'm sorry, okay,” I said. “I didn't want any of this to happen.”

“I'm not done. I'm gonna give you a little lesson in how the world works. It's all fine and good for your rich little friends to go crashing speedboats, because they've got the money and the power to clean up their messes. Well, I don't have the money or the power to clean up your mess, which means you're just going to have to sit in it.”

“I feel bad,” I said. “I can't even explain how bad I feel, and I know it's all my fault, and I'm willing to pay for my mistakes.”

“Save it for the jury. I'm your mother, and I don't want to hear your sob story. What you did tonight went way beyond you and your selfish little concerns. You and all your reckless adolescent stupidity killed someone, and it brought me into the mix as well.”

So, that's what she was really upset about.

“If you think this isn't going to come down to the fact that I'm a bad mother, that you come from some single-parent home skating on the thin ice of poverty, that your circumstances have destined you for a future no greater than the one you demonstrated tonight, then you are completely naive. Because the second that woman went hurtling to her death it became something much bigger than just some kids acting young and stupid. It became a tragedy, and behind every tragedy there's someone who takes the blame. Suddenly where you come from is very important. Suddenly the critical eye is on me. How could you do this to me?”

My mother had begun to cry. I knew there was nothing I could say. So I chewed the inside of my lip and examined the individual threads that made up the nap of the towel on my legs. It would have been easier on my mother if I'd died in the accident. It would have spared her the scrutiny that frightened her so much. It would have made me the victim rather than the perpetrator, but that wasn't how it worked out. Although she didn't exactly wish me dead, that's what I heard, and I considered it. I'd fucked up badly, and I didn't really see any way to make things right again, except, maybe, suicide. I thought about it, but decided that at this point it would only make things worse. If I killed myself now, my mother would be taken to task not only for raising a daughter capable of vehicular homicide, but also for raising the cowardly sort of daughter who would take the easy way out rather than facing up to her own mistakes.

This Summer

A
ll the lights except the kitchen ones were off when I got to Willow's. I thought she might not even be home, but she was. I found her at the kitchen table with a bottle of Captain Morgan and a pile of money. I thought at first she'd raided Randy's glove compartment.

“That pile's yours,” she said, pointing at the other end of the table. “Care to join me in a drink?”

“Sure,” I said and sat down.

“Parents are out for the night, and Randy's hard at work feeding the hungry.”

Her voice had an edge to it. I figured it was the alcohol. I cut my rum with flat Coca-Cola, but she drank hers plain.

Beneath the kitchen's enormous fluorescent light, Willow looked like crap. She'd lost weight. Her face looked tired and old.

“So, how is Randy?” I asked. “I've barely seen him all summer.”

“Oh, cut the crap,” Willow said. She stared at me with eyes like gun barrels. I stared back. My palms began to sweat. “You make me so fucking sick.”

“What's this about?” I asked.

“Just shut up! Just shut the fuck up!”

“I don't know what your problem is.”

“Stella Delaney saw you,” Willow said. She waited, but I didn't have the power to speak. I didn't even know what Stella saw, but whatever it was it could not be good. “At the park-and-ride with that cop.”

“I—”

“Look, just shut up. Whatever you say is just going to make it worse. She saw you, and she knows he's a cop because he busted her boyfriend's younger brother at Roxbury in June.” She sighed. She looked like she wanted to cry. In a whiny voice she mimicked, “Remember that guy in the Hawaiian shirt? He's just some guy Joe Bullock paid to freak me out.”

“I'm sorry.”

“I said shut up.”

She didn't say anything else for a few seconds. I'd never realized how loud the hum was on the fluorescent light.

“We could have both been killed, you know. If Craig or any of his associates found out, we'd be dead. Were you fucking him? Jesus. I thought I knew you.”

“I thought he could help me,” I said. “It was stupid. I don't expect you to understand. And he already knew about Randy anyway.”

“Randy's my brother. He may be a dirtbag, but he's still my brother. And he likes you. He cares about you, and I guess I kind of thought you felt the same, but apparently not if you're narcing him out to some sleazeball cop.”

“I'm going,” I said. I stood up. I looked down at the pile of money on the table. It made me feel ill just to look at it. “You can keep the money,” I said.

“Oh, thanks. I'm saving up for a new life.”

“Willow, I never meant—”

“Get the fuck out of here!” she shouted. She hurled the nearly empty rum bottle at me. I ducked. It hit the cabinet and shattered. “Now!”

I had my hand on the doorknob, but it turned from the other side. Midge and Mr. Jenkins stepped in. They stared at the money on the table, at the broken glass, at Willow, at me.

“Hi Scilla,” Midge said cheerily.

“What in Christ's name is going on?” Mr. Jenkins demanded.

“Scilla is just on her way out, aren't you?” Willow said.

I nodded. I didn't trust myself to speak.

“Have you girls been drinking?” Midge asked, still chipper.

“Have you lost all olfactory powers?” Mr. Jenkins snapped at her. “Of course they've been drinking.”

“Oh girls,” Midge said. “You know you really shouldn't.”

“You're out of control,” Mr. Jenkins said. “Maybe you should both get locked up for a little while. Maybe it will straighten you out.”

“If she gets her way, I will be,” Willow said.

So I left. I had to push my way past Midge and Mr. Jenkins, but I didn't care. I needed to leave. Outside, I sucked air into my lungs as if I was on the verge of suffocation. Then I started walking as fast as I could, practically running. The tears began to fall as I walked.

Why did I always fuck everything up? Every bad thing that had ever happened to me was entirely my fault. What was wrong with me?