Smashed (20 page)

Megan leaned against the fence. “Katie, my friend, you have got to try this.” She pulled a baggie out of her coat pocket and removed a single joint from what must have been six or seven. “It’ll calm your nerves.”

“No, thanks,” I said.

“Lighten up,” Megan said. “My sister brought this home from college. It’s not your basic homegrown shit.” She lit it up, inhaled deeply, and passed it to me.

I hadn’t gotten high with these guys since that party over the summer, the one I’d gone to with Alec. I hadn’t gotten high with anyone. But these two had been smoking their way through hockey season. Lightning hadn’t struck them down.

I hesitated. The joint was burning between my fingers, a speck of orange in the night. The smoke was sweet, tempting.

“Jesus,” Megan said, “just take a hit.”

I put it to my lips and passed it to Cheryl before tilting my head back and releasing the smoke in a straight shot over my head.

A few rounds later Cheryl cracked a smile. She only did that when she was high.

“Riley could burn us for this,” I said, and inhaled deeply. The space between Cheryl and Megan blurred every time I moved my eyes. “Here, you finish it.”

“Riley’s not burning anyone,” Megan said, and took the glowing stub. “She doesn’t have a clue.”

Cheryl nodded unsteadily, tilted her head back, and tried to hit her eyes with some Visine. She kept missing, the drops running down her face like tears.

“You’re losing your touch,” Megan said, and took the bottle from her. She used it and handed it to me.

*     *     *

Back at the midway, we floated through the crowd. I moved my head quickly left, then right, the lights of the rides blurring together like a melting rainbow whizzing through the air.
Cool.
I brushed past people, but they were unreal, like characters on a television screen. My skin tingled. Even Megan and Cheryl seemed far, far away. I jerked my head side to side, marveling at the brilliant colors until I nearly fell over.

Megan looked back at me, eyes squinted, smile slow. “Good stuff, huh?”

I wondered vaguely what it had been laced with.

We boarded the Gravitron. A skinny guy with a goatee and long greasy hair took our tickets, then pushed back some younger kids behind us.

“It’s full,” he said, and slammed the door of the spaceship shut in their faces.

“It’s been a long fucking day,” he muttered, and, not looking at any of us, strode to his box and started the thing up. He had a gold stud through one cheek and another through his tongue that he stuck out and flicked against his teeth.

We were spinning fast now, and the goateed man, feet propped up on the side of his control box, threw his head back like a cowboy, pierced tongue flicking in the wind. The pressure flattened me back against the wall, the weight heavier than I remembered. Across the way a kid inched his feet slowly up and around on the wall until he was upside down, his head a foot off the floor.

I couldn’t move my arm or a finger even. How had the kid managed to get upside down like that? I was pinned like a donkey to the wall of this capsule, the flesh on my face blown back, spread out like Silly Putty.

Suddenly it felt like I couldn’t breathe at all, like the air was being sucked out of my lungs. My heart beat wildly in my chest. If the thing didn’t stop, I would suffocate there against the wall, my face smeared like discarded bubble gum across its surface. I tried to catch my breath, but the harder I tried the more panicked I felt and the less air I got, and all I could see now was the goateed man at the controls in front of me, head flung back, looking like nothing would make him happier than ending his long fucking day by killing us all. . . .

We went in search of pizza. We were starving and I’d had a fantastic craving for pepperoni ever since, much to my surprise, I’d been set free from that space capsule alive.

Cheryl was spacey, her bloodshot eyes focused on nothing. “Is that your name on the intercom? I could’ve sworn I just heard your name. . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“What time is it?” I asked.

Megan shrugged.

A skinny woman turned to me, cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. “It’s eleven forty-five, baby.”

“
What?
I’ve gotta go.”

*     *     *

It was nearly midnight by the time I made it to the main gate.

“Where have you been?” Cassie said. “Didn’t you hear us paging you?”

“Sorry,” I said. “We were on the Gravitron and the Zipper, and we kept running into people. . . .” Lies spilled out of my mouth. “I should’ve worn my watch.”

I tried to focus on Cassie but I couldn’t. The colors of the Ferris wheel lights behind her blended with the red of her hair like a trail of fire whenever I moved my head.

“You know I have to be home right now,” Cassie said. “You know my curfew is nonnegotiable.”

“Tell them it was my fault.”

“That’s not the point,” Cassie said.

“Some people care what their parents think,” Matt added.

“Yeah, and some people’s parents
care
, Matt.” I shot him a dirty look.

“It’s not your
mother’s
fault you blew off Cassie’s curfew.”

“Cut it out, you guys. I need to call my parents.” Cassie pulled out her cell phone and turned her back to us. A minute later she turned around. “Let’s go,” she said.

She didn’t look at me again.

Cassie leaned on her rake and looked back across the leaf-strewn lawn at her house. The day had turned gray, the temperature in the fifties.

“Of course I’m mad,” she said. “I have to rake all day. Until I’m finished, anyway.”

“Didn’t you tell them it was my fault?” I was still straddling my bike, relieved I’d found her outside. I didn’t want to see her parents.

“You know how they are. It doesn’t matter. It was the situation I was in, I put myself in it, and I’m responsible. I’m not twelve, I’ve got a car, and I can get myself home when they ask.”

She laid a bright blue tarp on the ground next to a large pile of leaves and began raking them onto it.

“You should have left me there. I could have gotten another ride.”

“Like I’d leave my best friend stranded at the fair. And I kept thinking you’d be there any minute. Where were you guys, anyway?”

“Trapped on the Gravitron with a tattooed psychotic at the wheel. If he ran it any faster, I swear we would have lifted off. Megan loves that thing.”

Cassie dropped her rake. “It figures,” she said. “Megan’s never on time for anything. Can you get the other end of this tarp?”

“Sure.” I climbed off my bicycle and leaned it against the rail fence that bordered the front of their lawn. Each of us took two corners and carried it, like a picnic blanket, over the stone wall at the far back of their property, where we dumped the pile of dead leaves into the woods.

“You must have gone on a lot of rides,” Cassie said, trailing the empty tarp behind her. “You were with them for three hours.”

She looked at me, expecting me to fill her in. My stomach dropped. Was she waiting for a confession? Had she seen how high I was?

I wanted to tell her. I’d actually come over here thinking I’d tell her the whole thing—how I’d run into Alec, how Megan put the joint in my hand, my moment of weakness. I wanted to come clean—at least about this. But would she get it? She’d told me how she felt about them partying this season.
Everyone should care about not blowing the States
, she’d said.
We’re a team
. No. Moment of weakness or not, she would not be impressed.

I looked at the ground and kicked at some leaves with the toe of my sneaker. I could still tell her part of the story.

“I ran into Alec last night,” I said. “Or he ran into me is more like it.”

“Where? What happened?”

“He cornered me by the bathrooms. There was no one around.”

“What do you mean, cornered you? I can’t believe you didn’t tell me before.” She looked relieved, like she could explain to herself now why I’d been acting so strange.

“He grabbed my arm and then . . . he wouldn’t let me walk past him.”

“He
what
? That’s scary, Kay.” Her face went dark. “You know, he’s got a hell of a lot of nerve after what he did. That accident could have cost you your scholarship.”

Heat rose in my cheeks and I looked away.

“What did he say?” she asked.

“Just bullshit.” I kicked the ground. “He was picking on Matt. Said I must have told Matt some shit about him because Matt looks like he wants to fight him. Then he made some joke about that.”

“I’d like to fight him,” Cassie said. “I may be little but I’m mean.”

“You’re as far from mean as mean gets.”

“Well, he brings it out in me,” she said, serious again. “He’s harassing you. You don’t just
grab
someone and not let them walk past.”

I picked up a loose rock and flung it into the woods, then began moving around the yard, gathering fallen twigs and branches that had dropped off a dying tree.

Cassie stood still, her eyes on me. “You should tell someone,” she said.

“Tell who
what
?” I said. “That he’s mad at me for not going
to the movies with him?” For such a smart person, sometimes she was impossibly naive. “It’s not against the law to be pissed off.”

“Well, if he touches you again—he can’t do that.”

What Cassie didn’t know was this: Alec could smash me over the head with a beer bottle and I wouldn’t—I couldn’t—tell anyone. He had too much on me. And he knew it.

“There’s nothing I can do.” I dropped a handful of twigs over the stone wall and looked up at her. “Just forget about it, okay?”

She stared at me then. Her blue eyes, for once, were baffled.

*     *     *

Sunday night was long and dark and lonely. Every time I started to doze, a floorboard creaked or a tree branch scratched the roof, jolting me awake. I hated this empty house, hated the emptiness I felt inside me. Sometimes, lying there at night, I felt like I’d explode if I couldn’t go somewhere else, just
be
anywhere else other than this place—the place where my family had left me, one by one, to fend for myself.

I crawled out of bed and went downstairs, turning on every light I passed along the way. I threw a couple of thick logs onto the smoldering fire, then went into the kitchen, opening the low cabinet near the sink. I’d finished the red; now the white wine jug was nearly empty, too. I’d need to replace both—soon. Stan would get it for me; he could get anything.

With a tall, full glass in hand, I climbed into the overstuffed recliner where my father had liked to drink his beer and fall asleep in front of the heat of the fire. The wine felt warm against the back of my throat, the taste like an old friend. As the glass
emptied, my anxiety floated away, too. The logs caught, the wine slid down my throat, and my feet—up high on the lip of the recliner—were bare but toasty. Finally, I nodded off to sleep.

In my dream, Cassie and Matt had hiked to the top of Pitcher Mountain and were waiting for me there. We were to meet at one o’clock. All night I tried to reach them, but I couldn’t. First I lost my way, the trail dwindling off to nothing, my heart thumping as I searched for a way out of the woods. Then it rained and the leaves on the ground turned slick, and my feet slipped over and over, getting me nowhere. Finally the rain turned into a river and carried me away and I was falling—falling down the mountainside and into the lake, which was icy cold. . . .

When I woke up, the fire had burned out and I was shivering.

On Monday, I darted from class to class with my head down, avoiding everyone. One wiseass remark from Megan and everyone would know what we’d been up to at the fair. She might not care, but I did. In a week or two, play-offs would be over. Then, relief.

Matt finally caught up with me as school was clearing out for the day. He leaned back against the wall and locked his eyes into mine.

“What?” I looked away, pulling a sweatshirt out of my locker and putting it over my head. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Just trying to figure you out.”

“Get to the point, Matt.”

“Okay.” He placed a stack of books on a window ledge. “You were so high Saturday night you’d have to be blind to miss it.”

“Yeah, right.” I leaned over and dug through my backpack. “Like you’d even know what
high
looks like.”

“You weren’t hiding much.”

This was the last thing I wanted to talk about. I’d already kicked myself a million times for what I’d done at the fair. I didn’t need Matt kicking me, too.

I shoved some books into my locker, hard. “Why are you my friend, Matt?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, you don’t seem to like me very much, so I’m just asking.” I slammed the metal door, the clatter echoing down the hall. “Cassie didn’t accuse me of being high.”

“She’d never say anything even if she did think so.”

“Why wouldn’t she?”

“Because that’s her idea of loyalty.” He dropped his backpack on the floor by his feet.

“No, it’s not. She was mad at me for being late and she said so. She’s been pissed off at every hockey player who’s partied this season for risking the States.”

Matt shook his head and leaned against my locker door, arms folded across his chest. “You don’t get it. She’s blind when it comes to you. You’re her
best friend
. To her, you can do no wrong. It’s always been that way.”

“You know, you’ve always been jealous of Cassie. Can I get back into my locker please? I forgot something.”

He stepped aside. “Maybe I was, kind of, way back when she first moved here. But that has nothing to do with it.”

“So what’s your point? You see all the bad things about me but she can’t?”

“Just forget it.”

“I’d love to. You’re the one who can’t let anything go. I always end up feeling like I’m on trial with you.” I slammed my locker door shut again. The hall was nearly empty now, and I was grateful.

“I didn’t know I had to think you were perfect to be your friend.”