The River (10 page)

12

When I awoke after what felt like only five minutes of sleep, it was still dark. A little girl with brown hair was leaning over me.

“Ronnie? Are you awake?”

My first thought was: Of course she’s still alive. Yesterday was the nightmare. Then I floated completely to the surface of my mind and remembered that that was impossible, and I jumped upright and crabwalked as far away from the apparition as I could. I could feel my fingernails oozing blood as I gripped the sheets. I’d clawed them raw, trying to drag Karen back in my nightmare.

The apparition before me now didn’t say anything, but neither did she disappear. After a few minutes, when my heart stopped sprinting, I reached over and switched on my bedside lamp.

“Jesus, Esperanza. You scared the pants off me. I thought you were a ghost.”

Esperanza’s lip wavered and made a kind of cedilla shape under her mouth. That was one thing she had in common with Tomás—both their expressions looked like punctuation marks. I wasn’t concerned about the cedilla shape though, because it almost always looked like that. She was sensitive to the point of an anxiety disorder. Which meant that other than the passing physical resemblance between the two girls (brown shoulder-length hair, rounded belly of puppy fat), she was in fact the anti-Karen. Besides, Karen was ten and Esperanza was seven, which didn’t seem like that big a gap, until you factored in that while Karen knew how to identify every species of plant and rock this side of Dufur, Esperanza’s lone talent seemed to be sucking her thumb. It was a habit no one tried to break her of, everyone’s attitude about it being: why not if it gives her comfort? She’s had enough upheaval in her life.

“What happened?” I said.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Where’s your mom? Where’s Tomás?”

“Asleep.”

“Ah,” I said. And really, it made a strange kind of sense. But still. “Why wake
me
?” I asked her.

“Because I’m afraid,” she mumbled, her eyes flicking around the room.

“Of what?” I said.

“La llorona,”
she whispered, as though even saying the name gave it power.

As I may have mentioned before, my Spanish is limited to what I heard Tomás and his mother say, which, in Tomás’ case, was mainly swear words.

But when Esperanza said
la llorona
, I suddenly felt cold, as though a freezing wind had whistled through the eaves and entered my bones. I didn’t even know what it was and I was afraid, too.

“What’s a
llorona
?”

“The river spirit,” she said. “The crying woman who drowned her own kids and lives in the water, waiting to lure more kids to their deaths.”

Lost lost lost
… The crying woman. A water spirit. Was that what I had heard wailing to me this morning, before I knew anything was wrong?

I took a deep breath. “Who told you about that?”

“Mamá,” she said.

That didn’t seem right. I couldn’t imagine Gloria Inez intentionally freaking her daughter out. She was too capable for that.

“Really.”

Esperanza twirled her hair nervously and wouldn’t look me in the eye. “I heard her talking to Tomás. They didn’t know I was listening. Tomás was trying to tell her that
la llorona
was a fairy tale but Mamá said there are hungry spirits all over Mexico, so why should it be any different here, just because it’s colder?”

I wiped the crust, thick as cornmeal, from my eyes. “I see.”

She looked up at me. “What do you think? Is
la llorona
going to come for me next? That’s what Mamá thinks. She told Tomás not to let me out of her sight.”

I knew what my eyes and ears told me, which was that the river was hungry, and that it would swallow all of us if it could, starting with the ones least able to defend themselves. But I also wasn’t about to tell that to a little kid. Especially one as squirrelly as Esperanza.

“There’s no evidence for that,” I said. “Look: Karen’s death was an accident. She slipped on a rock. It’s easy to slip. I know. I’ve done it. This was a tragedy but nothing more. I wouldn’t worry about some spirit that lives in the river waiting to devour little kids.
La llorona
doesn’t exist.”

I didn’t believe what I told her, but I sold it. I don’t know if it was my delivery or if Esperanza just wanted to hear the words, but she seemed to relax. Together we pulled out the trundle and slammed it next to my bed. She peeled back the covers and crawled in. Then she reached over to my nightstand and withdrew something from the top of a stack that hadn’t been there when I went to sleep. “I brought some books,” she said, tossing one in my lap. “Read,” she commanded, then stuck her thumb in her mouth and twirled her hair.

I cracked open the first book and did as she ordered. She’d selected all stories about monsters with gnashing teeth and terrible roars, but were easily controlled by one gutsy child. And it gave me hope. If she’d wanted to read about fairies or princesses living a sparkly-shiny existence, I would’ve been worried for her. But maybe if she could read about being gutsy, then one day she would find the strength she could only now read about and suck on.

Finally, when the last monster was vanquished, her thumb slid out of her mouth and she fell heavily against a pillow, leaving a line of spittle on the sham with the antique duckies. I reached over her and turned out my lamp, telling myself that there was safety in numbers, and that maybe
la llorona
wouldn’t get us as long as we stuck together. But outside my window, the river didn’t care.

Lost… lost… lost…

It was a horrible lullaby and I knew my brave words had no power over it. It may have made Esperanza sleep easier thinking we were an army of two, but I saw the truth: we may have been an army of two, but one of our ranks still sucked her thumb.

The next time the river jumped its bed, I was our only defense.

13

Hoodoo High stood on the banks of Detroit Lake, the body of water that the Santiam bled into. Beneath the lake was a series of dams, and beneath that the Willamette River, which fed into the Columbia. Or the “Mighty Columbia” if you’re a victim of educational films about the Landscape of the American West, blah blah blah. If you bought into that kind of regional-speak, the whole state was Mighty. Mt. Hood was Mighty, Smith Rock was Mighty, the winds that whipped through the gorge were Mighty. The only thing in the state of Oregon that wasn’t Mighty was the Hoodoo High mascot, the Hodag.

At one point in its evolution the Hodag was probably Mighty, too. He was a frontier tall tale, a lot like sasquatch. He was supposed to be a giant furry dragon, a menacing demon who lived on Hoodoo Butte, lying in wait to trip skiers and shred their rotator cuffs. Alas, the Hodag depicted on our Hoodoo High walls was too cuddly to be fierce. He looked like some character from a preschool cartoon: Nonthreatening Animals from Mythology Who Eat Cupcakes and Make Macaroni Art.

Gretchen and I shared a locker but our schedules were so different we rarely saw each other until our last class, chemistry, which I sucked at. Wrong side of the brain; too much memorization.

Still, chemistry was my favorite subject at Hoodoo High because of Keith Spady. And after my embarrassing breakdown in front of him, I was hoping to make up for it. The least I could do was wear a low-cut T-shirt. I wasn’t sure that would help, though. I’d had mosquito bites bigger than my breasts.

When I pulled up a stool in chem on Monday, Keith wasn’t there yet, but Gretchen was, sitting kitty-corner from me at our workstation. Her head was on her desk. She was power napping again.

“Gretch?” I ventured quietly as I sat down.

She bolted up, as though she’d been zapped by something. “Oh hey,” she said. There was no Snoopy bandage on her nose today, so her pirate-style nostril hoop was clearly visible. She gave her scalp a good scratch.

I remembered Sheriff McGarry’s warning about her being on the brink of something. I wished I knew what. It was there, in the itchiness and the napping and the blankness of her stare. They were a formula I couldn’t quite make out.

“Do you need an antihistamine? I bet the nurse has some.”

She ogled me as though I were speaking another language. “You’re itching a lot,” I said.

She brought her hand down and examined her fingernails. “Oh yeah, that,” she said. “I’ve got a hot spot. Good thing it’s not in my nose. God forbid I should be unsanitary.” She smiled and I smiled along with her, but I was unsatisfied. Her eyes were bright, and her words had a polish to them, as though they were scripted. It was almost as though she were expecting me to ask her about it.

Then Gretchen’s eyes focused and she stared over my shoulder at the door. “Oh geez,” she said, and sunk into her stool, her arms crossed.

Keith Spady. I didn’t even have to turn around to know it was him, because you could smell him from halfway down the hall. He’d been smoking cloves again. He was the only one I knew who engaged in that particular spicy-sweet vice. It was comforting. Like cardamom bread.

I ran my tongue over my teeth hoping I didn’t have anything left in them from lunch. I studiously did
not
look at the door. “Ah, Jesus,” Gretchen groaned when she saw Keith. Then she hissed at me: “He can tell, you know.”

“Tell what?”

“How into him you are. Please. Have some dignity. His head’s already big enough.”

But when he pulled up a stool and sat down beside me, my head throbbed from excitement and misery. There was that curl of chest hair, there were the hip clothes. As any English-concept-album junky could tell you: wardrobe makes a difference—even on a guy. And Keith dressed as though he’d just stepped off the set of
Quadrophenia
.

He plopped his books down on the counter with a loud thunk. “Gretch, I’ve been thinking. You should have a party,” he said, talking across the table.

“What?”
Gretchen said, outraged, and I got a whiff of something stronger than clove cigarettes. Gretchen not only didn’t like him, she
hated
him, and I couldn’t understand why. After all: they were the only two hip people in the school. You would think they would get along. But Gretch clearly didn’t want to have anything to do with him.

“Party,” Keith repeated. “And here’s why: Ronnie needs to cut loose.”

“Huh?” I said. He hadn’t discussed this with me. He hadn’t discussed anything with me ever. Except pinecones. And the periodic table.

She shook her head and she looked sad. “Don’t drag her into this,” she said.

“Into what?” I asked, but they didn’t seem to hear me.

“Come on. Nothing helps you get over an untimely death like a kegger.”

I could only stare. I couldn’t decide if he was so cool I couldn’t even comprehend him, or if he was just an insensitive clod.

Gretchen had no trouble deciding what he was. “No,” she snipped. “Definitely not.” The atmosphere changed with Gretchen’s short words. It was as though before she spoke the air was soft and fragrant, and afterwards lopped, as if she were trying to slice him off like pinwheels of cinnamon dough.

Luckily Keith wasn’t so easily lopped. “How ’bout Friday?” he asked.

“Friday’s no good. Mom’s got the night off.”

Gretchen was a latchkey child. We had no idea where her father was, and her mother, Mrs. Kinyon, kept hours that were almost as bad as Gretchen’s. She waited tables at Phil’s Tiki Hut, which made Keith’s stepfather, Phil LaMarr, her mom’s boss—a guy with a gray ponytail who sported various flavors of Hawaiian shirt: hula girl, palm tree, mai tai, hula girl, hula girl, hula girl.

“How about Saturday? I’m sure she’s working Saturday. I can con Phil into adding her if she isn’t already on the schedule.”

“Keith, you know I don’t like this,” Gretchen said. But what she was really saying was:
Don’t ask me one more time because I’ll agree to it and I don’t want to
.

Keith snorted. “A little late to be playing innocent now, don’t you think?”

Gretchen’s eyes fell to the floor. I still didn’t know what had happened between them, but it was enough to take the snap right out of her. That didn’t seem right. True, the way she dressed and talked made you think that she was tough, but still Keith had stung her. If I wasn’t so into him, I would’ve kicked him in the shins.

It took me an embarrassingly short amount of time to forgive him for everything—his jab at Gretchen, plus his crass idea that a party might help me forget Karen. I told myself: some cool guys were just that way, and putting up with it was the price you paid for basking in their aura.

“If you think a party is such a good idea, why don’t you have one at your place?” Gretchen had gotten over her shame and was rallying.

Keith shook his head. “My mom would never go for it. She’s different from yours. She’s really into her stuff.”

I assumed he meant the pinecone art.

“My mom’s into her stuff, too. She just has less of it,” Gretchen spat.

Gretchen and her mom weren’t exactly trailer trash but neither did they live on a hilltop and keep horses, the way Keith’s family did. Gretch and her mom lived in a two-bedroom rambler across the street from the Armstrongs. Gretchen kept it immaculate. There were always notes from her mother on their kitchen counter that began with “Gretchen—I want you to…” followed by lists that usually included vacuuming and making shortbread.

“Look,” Keith said. “That little kid would want you to have fun.”

“Her name was Karen,” I said. And, rock star or no, Keith was beginning to bug me. Could you hate someone and want to wrap yourself around him at the same time?

“How do you know what she’d want?” Gretchen added. “You didn’t know her.”

It was my turn to shrink on my stool, content to let Gretchen navigate for me. I didn’t even want to stick my toes in this one. It was treacherous, full of something submerged and slippery. On the one side, there was Gretchen staring at me, silently ordering me to back her up in the name of righteousness and friendship. And on the other side, there was Keith, confident, abrasive, equally sure I would back
him
up because he knew I was crazy about him. But I knew this wasn’t about me. Or Karen. Or beer. There was something else going on between them, something that made Gretchen scratch even more furiously and Keith strut with conceit.

Then Keith laid a hand over mine. “If you’re there, I’ll be, too,” he said. And the expression in his eyes was so soft that I didn’t care if Gretchen and I were being played or not.

“It isn’t right,” Gretchen hissed, mindful that she’d lost before I even said anything. “You know it isn’t, Keith. I don’t care what Ronnie says.”

“Come on, don’t be a sore loser. Look at you two. I’ve never seen a pair more in need of a break than the Patchworks Twins.”

I’d never heard us called that before, but it seemed right. It made me feel jagged and wobbly, like a scarecrow, all straw coming out of burlap, but bound by coarse thread to someone else who was equally jagged and wobbly. Between the two of us, maybe we could stand straight.

But not now. Gretchen put her head on her desk and even banged it once for effect. “All right,” she said, her words muffled because she spoke them into the Formica worktop.

Keith withdrew his hand from mine. “Yesssss. Thank you very much.” He pumped his arms in the air and glared triumphantly at Gretchen as though he’d just treated her to a giant slam dunk in the face.

“You’d better help me clean up afterwards, Ronnie,” she said, her anger still carrying her.

“Of course,” I said. I had no problem with cleaning. I cleaned up plenty. Only not at Gretchen’s house, which I tended to look on as a Ronnie sanctuary, where I could drape myself like wildlife over the living room furniture and listen to her CDs and watch her TV while she vacuumed around me.

But right then I would have mucked out her toilets because of the way Keith put his hand over mine. Saturday was definitely it. He as much as promised it with his eyes. This would be the weekend things changed between us.

I must have gone back to gazing at him dreamily because Gretchen caught me and shook her head sadly.
Let it go
. But there was no way. Because being next to Keith made me feel substantial in a way that nothing else did—not even running. I was tired of ghosting around. I wanted back in my own flesh, and nothing did that to me like the promise of running my fingers over his stubbly Adam’s apple and kissing his spicy-sweet mouth. I could practically feel him pressing against me in an embrace or a slow dance, and I wanted it. At that moment I would’ve snuggled up to the devil himself as long as he made me feel alive.