“I thought I was going to Florida.”
“Only if he ignored Logan. Not now. Ken will do what’s right.”
“I can sleep late, at least.”
“You can do your math. This might be your last chance to avoid summer school, Cory.”
“I’ll watch some soaps.”
“This isn’t going to be a vacation. Not for a moment. You have been suspended and I’m not happy about it, Cory. Do you understand that?”
“I hear you, Mike.”
“I have to go back to work. Can I trust you to get your books and go straight home and study?”
“Of course you can trust me. Have I ever let you down?”
“Dawn’s store, algebra, first communion.”
“Communion hardly counts.”
“You were fourteen, Cory. Old enough to know better than to spit out the wine and blurt ‘Yuck.’ “
“It gave you a reason to stop going to church, didn’t it?”
He didn’t answer, didn’t seem to have heard. He rubbed his unshaven jaw. “Loaded condoms. Oh, Lord, Cory, your mother—”
“Please don’t haunt me with that, Mike. Donaldson’s given me plenty of punishment.”
He pushed open the exterior door, and a gust of wind blew in their faces. Mike shook his head. “That’s not what I was going to say. Once upon a time, given the same situation, your mother would have done exactly the same thing.”
“You think so?”
Mike smiled. “Maybe without the molasses.”
“But that was the best. It just oozed across the bastard’s head. I nearly—”
Mike shushed her with a finger to her lips. “Go home, sweetheart. Go home and study.”
18
Prom night was rainy and cold. Cory picked up Mac, Sasha, and Tony, and for twenty minutes they sat in her car and debated about where to eat dinner. Tony made the final winning point that going to the powwow in Eagle River was Sasha and Mac’s idea, so he and Cory should choose the food. Burgers and malts won out over pizza. After dinner at Seestadt’s Cafe, the four friends drove to the school and cruised the parking lot, shouting and honking at formally dressed classmates who were huddling under umbrellas and scurrying through the rain and around puddles toward the gymnasium door.
Cory switched the wipers to high speed. “It’s really pouring now. Look—there are Nick and Karin. If I time this just right, I can hit that puddle and splash them.”
Sasha cheered her on, Tony sank out of sight, Mac gently squeezed her arm. “Don’t you dare.”
Cory glanced at Sasha in the rearview mirror. They both rolled their eyes. “The next time I fall in love,” Cory announced to her companions, “it will be with someone lacking a conscience.”
“What did you say?” Mac asked.
“You have a conscience, Harvey MacNamara. It’s not always attractive.”
“No—the ‘fall in love’ part. Did I hear right? Can there be a ‘next time’ without a ‘this time’?”
“Let’s hit the highway,” said Cory.
“She loves him,” Sasha said to Tony. “I always knew it.”
Tony pushed against the front seat with his foot. “Tell him straight out, Cory. Guys like it.”
“It won’t hurt,” added Sasha.
“Who wants to walk to Eagle River?” Cory asked. She reached across to Mac and tapped his glasses. “If you’re dancing tonight you should take those off.”
“I’m not dancing, and you changed the subject.”
“It’s a private subject, okay? Hey, everyone, it’s private.”
Sasha and Tony hissed and booed. Mac nodded. “Fair enough.”
“How about this, though,” she said. “One thing I love about you”—and she reached and slipped a hand into the largest of two rips in his jeans—“is the way you dress. Those purple boxer shorts are great.” Tony leaned over the front seat. “Wow, she has her hand in his pants! Smooth move, Cory.”
Sasha yanked him back. “Buckle up.”
“Sasha,” sighed Tony, “if I rip my jeans, will you do what Cory did?” Sasha punched him, Mac laughed, Cory accelerated the engine, and they sped toward Eagle River.
As soon as they were in the community center, Sasha spotted the vendors and dragged Tony off to go shopping. Mac led Cory by hand through the crowd. “I guess we’re too late for the grand entry,” he said. “They’ve already started the competitions.”
Cory stood on tiptoe in order to see into the center of the hall where the dancing was going on. She occasionally saw a headdress rise, then fall out of sight. As they pushed closer to the dancing, Mac was accosted by an excited girl who wanted to talk about someone Cory didn’t know, some crazy fool named Don and what he did, what he said. Mac laughed and they talked, heads bowed together. The girl was in a jingle dress of deep red cotton covered with rows of chimes. Tobacco-can lids. As Cory watched them talk, the initial twinge of jealousy gave way to curiosity about Mac’s life. Who else, what else, was unknown to her?
She’d always been aware of the imbalance in their lives, always known that his was more complicated, with wider and wilder experience. Hers had always been safely circumscribed by a comfortable life in Summer. And if he went through with his plans for Canada, the disparity would increase. She, after all, was only going to summer school.
“Damn algebra,” she said aloud. Her words were lost in the crowd noise. She repeated it again and again, louder each time.
Mac turned around. “What are you saying? Gosh, I’m sorry, Cory. I didn’t introduce you. This is Lisa Whitebird. Lisa, this is Cory Knutson.”
The jingles on Lisa’s dress tinkled as she reached for and shook Cory’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”
Cory exchanged a few words about the weather, the crowd, the dancing, the noise. She rubbed Mac’s arm gently. “Stay and talk, Mac. I’ll just push on and look around.”
“I’ll meet you later by Jeff and his drum group.”
“I can find it.” She edged through people toward the vendors’ tables, hoping to find Sasha and Tony. She circled the hall once, didn’t see them, and decided to find Mac, even if she had to drag him away from the girl. She looked around, looked up, and spotted a video camera suspended from the ceiling. It moved slowly from side to side as it recorded. She wondered how she would appear on the tape, what she would look like: one very short white girl pushing her way alone through a mass of feathers, shawls, beads, and jingles.
She saw Mac standing behind Jeff at the drum circle and she found an empty chair. She was close enough to the center to see the dancing. The announcer, whom she couldn’t see, said something, people applauded, and the drummers began their song.
The rising and falling voices and the incessant drumming was immediately mesmerizing. She closed her eyes and was carried back to the first powwow, the first time she’d heard the drum, before…before everything.
What have I passed on to you?
Cory opened her eyes.
It’s important to pass things on. What have I taught you?
Cory had never believed in ghosts, but now, amidst the swirl of drum and song, she heard her mother’s voice. It was a forceful haunting of memory and desire.
She rose, looked wildly for an escape, then saw Mac listening to the drum. Focused, intent, unsmiling; still, his pleasure was evident. His eyes were closed, his lips moved, and his hand twitched up and down. She guessed he was silently singing along, committing the song to memory.
Something to hold onto, he had said. His mother hadn’t had it, and he was claiming it for her.
Mac looked, saw her, and waved. Cory smiled and sat down. Maybe it wasn’t just music running through his mind. Maybe he heard a voice too, his own haunting.
Hers returned, insistent and clear through the loud drumming.
What have I taught you
? Cory glanced down. White shirt, beige bra. “Taught me how to dress,” she whispered. “I learned that.”
And more, of course. Cory caressed the smooth, pale skin of her once-broken arm. She had also learned something about change, something about revolutions of the heart.
Between songs and dances the chair next to hers emptied and Mac appeared and sat down. “I’m sorry I deserted you.”
“Forgiven.”
“Having a good time?”
“It just got better.”
Mac waved to someone, then grasped Cory’s hand and held it. Another drum began its song, and Cory leaned over to Mac and spoke directly in his ear. “Do the Cree believe you can communicate with the dead?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find out when you’re there.”
“Where?”
“Canada. Go for it, Mac. You’ll have a great time. I wish I had someplace where…”
He didn’t urge her to finish the thought, but instead put his arm around her and pulled their chairs closer, and together they enjoyed the spectacle of music, dance, and color.
*
Sasha spent two hundred dollars on jewelry. All the way back to Summer she admired her purchases and described the beautiful things she hadn’t bought. She attempted to clasp a silver necklace on Tony, but he gently pushed her away.
“Never,” he said. “No jewelry.”
“Sasha,” said Mac in an accusing tone, “did you watch any of the powwow?”
“I certainly did. It was wonderful. Can’t wait to go again.”
Tony dropped her purchases one by one back into the bag. “You can’t afford to go again.”
The rain had ceased, the sky had cleared, and the moon was high overhead by the time Cory and Mac were parked alone in his driveway. Cory yawned and slumped in her seat. “I’m supposed to help Rob and his crew lay sod tomorrow. Five bucks an hour.”
“Close your eyes and hold out your hand.”
She obeyed. Something scraped against her palm as he dropped a light object into her hand. She looked. She was holding two silver web earrings.
“Remember when I met you?”
She traced the thin silver circle with her thumb. “I remember, Harvey MacNamara. I remember.”
“Happy prom night, Cory K.”
*
Another night ride through a maze of black highway and dark forest. Cory knew the route by heart, but as the road split open the wall of trees that disguised the familiar scenery, it was possible to imagine she was going someplace new, someplace unimagined.
The highway curved around a pond, and moonlight reflecting off the water half lit a solitary birch. Wind moved a pale branch. Cory saw the motion and her breath paused in her throat. It had seemed for that instant to be a ghost signaling, waving her down.
Cory pulled the car over. She looked across the water and identified the tree, an ordinary birch. “No ghosts,” she said loudly. “No more ghosts tonight.” The stillness in the car weighed heavily. Cory reached and turned on the radio. It scanned until it found a clear-channel, far-away station. An announcer finished the Dallas weather report. “Ten-thirty,” he said in a musty drawl. “Now here’s a number to make you move.” The song started and Cory’s thumbs automatically beat out the rhythm on the steering wheel.
“Ten-thirty,” she groaned. “I don’t believe it—it’s ten-thirty on prom night, and I’m headed to bed.” She eased the car back onto the road. “No way.”
A push on the accelerator, a crank of the wheel, and she reversed directions and sped back toward town. It didn’t matter what Sash and Tony were doing. They would stop. It didn’t matter if she woke Barb and Jeff and had to drag Mac out of bed. The night was not over. They’d go back to the cafe, load the juke with quarters, make some noise. It was prom night, it was spring, and Cory wanted to be dancing.