Rage: A Love Story (7 page)

M
y brain won’t stop remixing the scene from last night. Rewriting the ending: Reeve falls in love with me; Reeve comes home with me.

Reeve running from me—that doesn’t play in Joyland.

I need mind-numbing activity. Today is senior ditch day, so school won’t work. I decide to clean the apartment. It’s the first time I’ve swept under the refrigerator. Entire ecosystems are destroyed.

The phone rings, but I don’t get there in time. I haven’t bothered to brush my hair or teeth yet, and I’m still wearing the oversized t-shirt I wore to bed. Do I stink? Maybe that’s what scared Reeve away. I strip in the bathroom, and as I reach to crank on the shower, the phone rings again. I sprint to the living room to pick up.

“How does a lesbo spend senior ditch day?”

“Scouring the shit from her life?”

Novak is quiet. Then she sniffles.

I didn’t mean her. “Novak, I—”

“Everything’s fucked,” she says. “Can I come over?”

“I have to be at work at four.” Kind of cold, I think. But I’m not feeling all toasty warm toward her, not after last night.

“I won’t stay long.”

I don’t say anything.

“Please?”

I realize I ran out here naked and now I’m all goose pimply. “Yeah, okay. Sure.”

Novak’s father is an international investment banker. The drive from Countryside Commons, where she lives, is fifteen minutes if you book it.

I take a quick shower and put my tee back on. In the kitchen I’ve removed everything from the cabinets. What was I thinking?

Was I thinking my life is an empty cupboard? Restock it. There’s a can of cream of celery soup that must be left over from when Tessa lived up here in high school. After Tessa left and Mom got sick, I pretty much did all the grocery shopping. Mom would make a list. Until she was forced to leave her own home, she was making grocery lists. A knock sounds on the door.

“It’s open!” I yell.

I’m restacking Tessa’s Corelle plates as the door whooshes open. “You don’t lock your door either?”

I spin around.

“I bring gum.” She holds up a pack of Orbit.

My heart does a backflip.

Reeve takes in the chaos and coughs. “Sorry.” She fans her face.

Lysol fumes. “I’ll open the windows.” I rush past Reeve to crack the front window.

“So this is your crib,” she says, looking around.

“What?”

She slugs my shoulder. “I’m going to smack you every time you say that.”

“Say what?” I smile and she balls a fist.

“Is this how you get high on ditch day?” she asks, dropping the gum on the divan. “Sniffing Scrubbing Bubbles?”

“Yeah, I’m a huffer. Actually, this is the first time I’ve ever cleaned this place.”

Her face lights up. “And I get to share?”

I exaggerate a grin. “Epic.”

She smiles back. That warm, tender smile I melt under.

She has on shorts and a faded pink crop top. Her hair’s ruffled and loose and her high cheekbones glow with sparkles of glitter.

I haven’t even combed my hair. “You could’ve come earlier,” I say, sweeping my mess of tangles over my head. “To share in the first scouring of Terrifying Toilet Bowl.”

“Oh snap,” she says.

I measure the distance between us, allowing it to close in. Mentally I spin a web around us. No escape this time. She isn’t struggling to free herself, just standing here surveying her territory.

I take a step toward her. This is my territory.

“I came to see how you live alone.”

Another step.

She tenses, then propels herself across the living room to the dining room, which is the same room, though it suddenly seems larger.

“How did you even know where I lived?” I perch on the arm of the divan. Give her space, I think. The door is close enough that I can block it if she bolts.

Reeve turns and looks at me. Her eyes scan my front and settle on my thighs.

My naked thighs. I realize I don’t have anything on under the shirt, which has ridden up. Can she see? Do I want her to?

“How do you afford this?” she asks.

I shrug. “I’m an heiress, sort of.”

Her eyes bounce around. “Is there a john?”

“Yeah. He’s in the bedroom. You came at a bad time.”

She sees I’m joking and grins.

God, I love her smile. I point. “It’s down the hall.”

Reeve heads that way. My heart is in my throat. Reeve is here, in my apartment. “Wow, you have two bedrooms?” she calls.

I move to the end of the short hall, where it splits into two rooms. “No,” I say. “Only one.” The other room is a storage closet.

She peers into the cramped closet that’s packed with junk. Tessa’s sewing machine and skeins of yarn, her dolls and stuffed animals. Maybe that’s why this apartment never felt like mine. Too much of Tessa left behind.

“It’s a walk-in closet. If you
could
walk in.”

Reeve snaps, “You don’t know what a closet is.” She charges me, bumps me backward, and shuts herself in the bathroom.

I’ve said the wrong thing—again?

My skin sizzles where she touched me. Water runs in the sink, and I think, Touch everything, leave fingerprints.

Thunks on the stairs draw my attention and Novak suddenly bursts in. “Johanna.” She literally throws herself at me.

I remove her arms from around me and flatten them to her sides. Her face disintegrates.

“What?” I say, even though I know what. Make that who.

Novak bites her lip and twists her hair over her shoulder. Her hair is thick and luxurious, the kind of hair you see in shampoo commercials. “I’m sorry about last night,” she says. “I didn’t know Dante was going to do that.” She tries to hold my eyes but can’t. “Okay, we talked about it.”

My jaw drops.

“You wouldn’t have been forced to do anything you didn’t want to. You could always say no. And you did.” She shrugs one shoulder.

“Yeah. I guess I respect myself.”

Novak swallows hard. “It wasn’t my idea. We were talking about you and I told Dante you were a lesbian and he thought that was cool. He asked if I’d be willing to do it with you so he could watch.”

“You
did
tell him.”

I don’t know what shocks me more. That she betrayed my confidence about my sexuality or that she agreed to the plan.

“Hey,” she adds, “you should be flattered. Guys want you. Girls want you. You don’t even have to choose. You know I’d sleep with you, even without Dante.”

Our eyes meet and lock.

Novak’s intense gaze breaks off and her eyes shift over my shoulder. “You didn’t mention you had company,” she says flatly.

Reeve is standing in the hallway. How long has she been there? She ducks around Novak and beelines for the open door.

“No!”

She’s past me. I race out the door and down the stairs to catch her. “You don’t have to go, Reeve. Don’t go.”

She slows and turns. Her eyes have lost their luminescence. They lift up to the landing, where Novak is slumped in the doorway, separating her split ends.

Reeve heads toward the van that’s parked at the curb. I’m not going to let her get away.

Crushing grass in my bare feet, I step into a patch of goat-head thorns and yelp. I hop on one foot, trying to brush off the burs as I make my way to the end of the yard, where I stub my toe on the broken sidewalk. “Reeve. Reeve!”

The van door slams shut.

I lunge for the handle. “It’s only Novak,” I tell her.

Reeve starts the engine. Exhaust coughs out the tailpipe and I have to raise my voice to be heard. “She’s just a friend.” The window’s open an inch, so I know Reeve can hear me. “Please. Whatever you heard …”

Reeve meets my eyes. Hers are dark, and deadly.

“Can I call you?” I ask.

A flicker, a trace of uncertainty flashes across her face. She shifts into gear. I press my forehead against the metal trim over the window and ask, “Will you call me? Please?”

She doesn’t jam her foot on the gas.

“Do you have something to write with?” I say. “I’ll give you my number.”

Reeve checks the rearview mirror and drives off.

I storm past Novak on the landing and fling myself onto the divan. A bur is embedded in my foot and I pull my ankle up chest high to dig it out. “Thanks. Your timing sucks.”

Novak doesn’t say anything.

I glance up to see her checking out my privates. I spin away and stretch my shirt down over my knees.

“Reeve Hartt?” Novak comes over and perches beside me. “You have to be kidding. She’s such a skank.”

I whirl on her. “Shut up.”

Novak flinches. “God. Are you sleeping together?”

The bur pops out, and I throw it at Novak. “That’s none of your business.” I stand. “That’s all you know, isn’t it? Not every relationship is only about sex.”

Novak says, “I love Dante.” She picks up the pack of Orbit beside her. “I’d do anything for him.”

Yeah, like betray your best friend
. I snatch the gum out of her hand.

She sits back and makes herself comfortable. “Can I live with you?”

I glare over my shoulder. “No.”
Hell, no
.

“Mom kicked me out.”

“Wh-what?” My voice falters.

She drops her head, finds the pricker on the cushion and rolls it between her fingers. “She says I can stay until graduation,
then I’m out. She says she knew what was going on all these years. She’s always known.”

She can’t know
all
of it.

“It’ll only be for the summer.” Novak bends forward, sets the bur on the table, then presses her hands between her thighs. “Please?”

She can’t be serious. “Why don’t you live with Dante?”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“His mother hates me.” Her head twists to face me. “Every time I come over, she looks at me like I’m a blight on her darling baby’s butt. She doesn’t even say hello to me.”

“Get a place together,” I say. “He works. You could work.” She’s never had to work in her life. Dante works construction part-time, which has to be good money.

Novak sits up and arches her back, raking fingers through her hair. “We want to save our money for the future.”

“So you figure you can live here for free? Move in and leech off me?”

She casts me a withering look. “Did I say I wouldn’t pay you? Did I say anything about living here for free? I fully intend to pay you rent.”

Sure. It’s getting warm, so I cross the room to put distance between us.

“Johanna. Please.”

No, I think. Don’t do this. “What about Dante? You know he’ll end up staying here too.”

“He’ll contribute his share.”

Like hell. The three of us living together? “No way. It won’t work, Novak. I’m sorry.” I head down the hallway.

The divan creaks and I feel her rush up behind me. “Okay,” she says. “It’s okay. I understand. This won’t affect our friendship.”

She gives me a hug from behind and my breath catches.

Novak says softly, “Because I am your friend, I have to tell you.” She comes around in front of me. Lacing her fingers with mine, she presses down. She’s so close I can smell her sweet breath. “Don’t get involved with Reeve Hartt. I mean it, Johanna. You’ll be in over your head.”

We walk along the sandy beach. We’re barefoot. We step on glass
.

Back up
.

We mount horses and ride. We ride bareback. We canter along the shore. We’ve both chosen enormous Thoroughbreds. Lacquer black. Only Reeve is willow white. Her legs hang free and her slender thighs press against the horse’s flanks. She laughs, high and light, her happiness dispersing in a spray of seawater caught by the wind. Extending her arms to either side as far as she can reach, she spreads her fingers like wings
.

I ride up beside her and touch her wing tips to mine. We close in, steeple our hands. In silent communion, we interlock fingers and press our palms together
.

Slowing to a steady lope, we ride in mirrored strides. Our horses bump rumps and snigger, nuzzling like lovers
.

We telepath our thoughts and feelings
.

Reeve: Let’s ride to the rocks
.

Me: You’re on
.

I jam my heels into Black Beauty’s flanks and the horse spurts ahead. Behind me, Reeve whoops a war cry. She gallops past and heads straight for the water
.

Danger. “Wait, Reeve.” My head drops and my thighs clench hold. I grip my horse’s mane and urge her on. “Catch them. Catch Reeve. Don’t lose her in the waves. Don’t let her drown.”

Reeve cries again. She’s under
.

Reeve!

I call to her, “Hold on, baby. I’m coming.”

The last thing I see is a spray of black foam
.

• • •

S
aturday, on my way to work, I stop by the Ishtar Café. No one even remembers we were there. Did I dream it? But I can still taste cherry tobacco at the back of my throat, so I leave money for our unpaid bill.

Eight hours at Bling’s, then to the hospice. Carrie’s mom is throwing a fit about the cleaning people moving Carrie’s pictures so they can dust. She’ll do the cleaning and dusting, she says, and she doesn’t want that male nurse anywhere near her daughter.

Bitch. Sad bitch.

On the way to Frank’s room, I have to pass the room Mom was in. I’m usually okay, but today my knees feel wobbly and my throat constricts. I wish I would’ve told Mom about me, about who I really am; wish she could’ve seen me with a girlfriend,
being happy. She loved Dad so much. I want love like she had with Dad, like Tessa has with Martin. Why can’t I have that? I can, and will.

I sit with Frank, watching professional poker on cable. His eyes are open, but he doesn’t see, or doesn’t comprehend. He falls asleep around midnight.

There’s a manila envelope shoved under my door at home, sealed with tape, no writing on the front. I unclasp it. Five twenty-dollar bills. LATE NOTICE screaming out in big red letters on my car insurance.

Tessa has attached a sticky note: “We need to talk.”

Where were you when I needed to hear from my sister so much it almost killed me? Answer that, Tessa Marie Däg.

Robbie shuffles around the bend in the hallway as I watch from the classroom door. He’s alone.

“Johanna, Johanna, Johanna,” he goes. “I am here to cooperate.”

“Where’s Reeve?”

He edges past me into the room, not answering. Locating his seat, he drops his pack, positions his case precisely in the middle of the desktop beside him, and sits with his hands folded in his lap.

I linger at the door, hoping, praying, she might be a step behind, riding through the fog on a horse.

The only fog is in my brain.

“Where’s your essay?” I ask Robbie, tossing my pack onto the teacher’s desk.

He cocks his head. “You don’t have it?”

Do I? I dig through my pack. So much crap in here, I can’t find anything. I dump the contents onto the desk.

“Just kidding.” Robbie whips the pages out of his back pocket. He grins.

Hilarious.

His pages are folded lengthwise and he runs his jagged thumbnail down the crease, then makes a major production out of smoothing the pages over the desk.

“Do you need a pen?”

He produces a pencil from his shirt pocket and, touching his tongue to the sharpened lead, says, “Let us begin.”

I study him as he writes. And writes. He has Reeve’s intensity of purpose—is that autism?

The clock over the door ticks. Twenty more minutes of babysitting. Wish I had an iPod or cell. Maybe I could find something to read, or clean out my pack.

I feel impatient, restless.

“Can I see what you’ve written?” I engage Robbie. I get up and walk over to him; extend a hand.

He stops writing and lifts his head. His eyes blip around the room. I sit at the desk beside his, wiggling my fingers.

He drops his arms and slumps. I have to reach over and get the essay.

“March 12,” he wrote. “I was born.” Brilliant.

“May 23 I kill my mother.

“May 24 Ikilled myfather. May 25Ikilledherfather.”

I glance sideways at Robbie. He says, “The plot thickens.”

I set the first page aside and begin page two.

When he locked the closet me and Reeve hid in there and he found us. dark is no cover. Reeve says don’t say anything she told him no don’t. but he didn’t lissen .evry night Reeve made me go in and we shut the door and waited in the dark and it was dark and cold and ther were bugs and roches skorpions and spiders in the dark and he’d come and say wer’e playing hide and seek kids and Reeve woud whisper don’t say anything don’t cry he won’t find us in the dark. but he always did. He took me first and Reeve begged him, No take me. In the dark I heard her. The dark is no cover. she didn’t cry or scream I screamed. that once. and Ihit him. and after that he took me first
.

I force my eyes from the page, my heart hammering in my chest. I look at Robbie. He’s staring into his lap, playing with his string.

God, if this is true …

darkdarkdarkdarkdarkdark … covercovercovercover

The rest of this page is filled with that. Then there’s a third page.

I cot my mom shooting up and she says get out. I told Reeve she didn’t believe me. I get the needle and Ishow Reeve and she takes it. She tells me forget it and stay out of moms way. She keeps the needle. I find it and I smell it smells like viniger. We hide in the closet. Evrynight we
hide in the closet he finds us. We disappear we cover oursells with all the cloths it’s hot and suffcating dark. darkdarkdarkdark we covercover. Reeve says does he hurt you? I say no She says he hurts me. He burns me with his cigarette. He burns me too but I don’t tell Reeve
.

I shut my eyes, but the next line has already wormed its way in.

Reeve cuts. She doesn’t know I know …

My stomach hurts. I can’t—

I fold the pages together, hoping the words will fester, pop, ooze down the crease and off the page.

I turn to Robbie. “How much of this is true?”

He says, “Negative zero.”

Is he lying? I lied on my essay. Everyone lies.

God. I can’t turn this in to Mrs. Goins. She’d have social services or whatever all over them. But what if she should? Or what if it’s a bunch of bullshit?

Does Reeve cut? I’ve never seen scars, but I never get past what shows—her face and breasts and legs and eyes. Especially her eyes.

“Where’s Reeve?” I ask Robbie again, swinging out of the desk. “Is she coming for you?”

“She doesn’t come for guys.” He exaggerates a grin. “Do you want me to keep writing?”

“You know what?” I round the teacher’s desk. “I think this is enough. Maybe tomorrow we can start on the best moment.”

“We?” Robbie asks.

I have cramps. Head and stomach cramps. “You,” I say. “I meant I’d be here for you.”

He stands and scrapes his case across the desktop, then saunters to the door. He says, “I’m going to meet her now. If you want to come.”

She sits cross-legged on the grassy knoll in front of the school, gazing up at the sky. Twisting her head slightly as Robbie tromps down the hill, me behind him. When she sees me, she springs to her feet.

“Hi,” I say.

She looks the way I feel: dismantled. We lock eyes. Robbie plops on his case on the grass.

Reeve mumbles, “I need to get Robbie home by four.”

“No, you don’t,” Robbie says.

Reeve fists his temple.

I wince. Does she have to hit him so hard?

She peers up the street. “There’s our bus.”

“I’ll give you a ride home,” I say.

A look of horror streaks through Reeve’s eyes. “I don’t want you coming to my house. Ever. Again.”

“Okay. Then I’ll drop you at the corner.”

She levels me with her stare.

Reeve, please
, my eyes plead.
Let me help you, be with you
. “Later, then?” I say. “Can we meet somewhere?”

Her eyes lose focus. “Not tonight. I can’t tonight.”

“Sometime? Anytime.”

A long moment passes. I hear the bus grinding to a stop
and she goes, “You don’t want this. You don’t need me in your life.”

I take a step closer to her. In a lowered voice, I say, “Yes. I do.”

She can’t help but look. Her breath seeps out between her lips.

A hand touches my arm and I flinch. Robbie says, “You know what I want? A grilled cheese sandwich.”

Reeve and I go, “Shut up.” This makes us laugh.

Reeve hugs his head to her and answers, “Okay.”

Okay? To meeting me? Or to the sandwich? The bus door opens and we all tear down the hill. Robbie gets on, then Reeve. I watch through the filmed, scratchy windows as they take seats together near the middle.

The bus pulls out. Reeve turns to look out the window at me. Her eyes hold the longing I feel.

Blaring music in the background amplifies Novak’s rant. “If she thinks I care that she’s kicking me out, she’s delusional. I just can’t believe Dad’s on her side this time.”

She’s talking fast and loud. Where is she? I can hear voices and laughter behind her.

“Johanna, are you there?” she screeches.

“Where are you?”

“It’s like child abuse, you know? Neglect. They’re throwing me out on the street.”

Except you’re not a child, I want to say. And they’ve given you everything.

Novak says, “She won’t even let me use the pool.”

“Well, fuck,” I say.

“I
know
. Bitch. I was going to invite you guys over for a party. You could stay the weekend, like you used to. Except instead of sleeping with me, you’d be fucking Reeve Hartt.” She coughs a short laugh. “And I’d watch.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Come on, Johanna. I didn’t mean that,” she says in a rush.

The last time I stayed over at her house was Thanksgiving. Tessa and Martin had flown to Minnesota to be with his family, and even though Martin had asked me to come, I knew he was only being nice. But Tessa could’ve insisted.

We spent the whole weekend at Novak’s in the greenhouse getting wasted. Then she and Dante had a fight. She wanted to ask him for Thanksgiving dinner, but her mother said not now, not ever.

“I love you, Johanna Banana,” Novak says softly, then hangs up.

Novak. She drives me crazy. But I don’t know what I would’ve done without her, especially this last year.

“What would you do if you knew someone who was in an abusive situation?” I ask Jeannette. We’re sitting at the crafts table, molding Play-Doh with Mrs. and Mr. Mockrie. They have Alzheimer’s, which I think is kind of sweet, both of them losing their minds together.

“Who?” Jeannette asks. “Who’s in an abusive relationship?”

“Someone. A friend. It’s a family situation.”

Mr. Mockrie rolls a fat snake.

Jeannette stops pounding her Doh and looks hard at me. “Is this someone I know?”

“No.” I see what she’s getting at. “It’s not me. It’s a friend of mine.”

Mr. Mockrie grunts and I help him dig off another glob of blue Doh to mold. Jeannette moistens her lips. “How old’s this friend?”

“Seventeen. Eighteen.”

She says, “You know this for sure? That there’s abuse?”

“I know. But, I mean, I don’t have it on film.”

The buzzer sounds up front and Jeannette scrambles. “If that’s Evelyn …” Her jaw sets. Evelyn is Carrie’s mother. “Don’t get involved.” Jeannette scrapes back her chair and stands.

“What?”

She smashes her Doh back into the container. “You don’t want to get involved in someone else’s family business. Believe me.”

What I believe is I want to be so deeply involved in Reeve’s business there’s no way out.