Aurora studied the booth and frowned. In her trendy low-rise designer jeans with stiletto-heeled sandals and a fitted white blouse, she looked more like a celebrity than a small-town doctor’s ex-wife. “I can’t believe you put pictures of the flag all around your banner. Rectangular shapes are bad for women; everyone knows that. And your slogan: Vote Grey. Seven years of college and that’s your best shot?” She turned to Vivi Ann. “Fortunately originality isn’t valued in a politician.”
“I suppose you could do better,” Winona said.
Aurora made a great show of thinking. She frowned deeply, tapped one long, acrylic-tipped nail against her cheek. “Hmmm . . . it’s difficult, I’ll agree. I mean, your name is Win. But how, oh, how could you use that?”
Winona couldn’t help it: she burst out laughing. “How could I miss that?”
“You’ve always been a see-the-trees, miss-the-forest gal,” Aurora said. “Remember when you took your first driving test? You were so busy looking ahead to the stoplight and calculating how many feet it would take you to stop at that speed and wondering when to hit your turn signal that you drove right through a four-way stop?”
That was the thing about family. They were like elephants. No one ever forgot a thing. Especially a failure, and a funny failure was as durable and reusable as plastic.
She was about to offer to get coffee for everyone when she noticed Noah going through her purse. “Noah,” she snapped. “What are you doing?”
He should have looked guilty, but that was the thing about Noah: he never behaved as you expected. Instead, he looked angry. “I need a pen to do my homework.”
My ass,
Winona thought, but said, “How very enterprising of you.” She plucked a pen off the table and handed it to him, then retrieved her purse.
For the next eight hours, she and her sisters handed out brochures and buttons and gave away candy. Sometime after three, Aurora disappeared for half an hour or so and came back carrying quart-sized margaritas in Slurpee cups. After that they really had fun. Winona wasn’t exactly sure whose idea it was, but after they’d given away all the promotional items, while the other business-oriented booths were shutting down for the night, the three of them ended up standing in the middle of the street, arms slung around shoulders and waists, doing the cancan and singing, “Can can can you vote for Win?”
Laughing, they walked back to the booth, where Noah sat like a little black rain cloud.
“Could you be
more
weird?” he said to Vivi Ann, who immediately lost her smile.
It pissed Winona off. The last thing her sister needed was an angry, maladjusted kid to hurt her feelings. “Could you?” she asked Noah.
“Who wants another drink?” Aurora said quickly. “Everyone? Good. Come on, Noah. You can help me carry them back. It’ll be good practice for senior year.”
After they were gone, Winona went over to Vivi Ann, who was standing by the banner’s stanchion, looking out across the crowded street. Through the colorful, moving blur of people, Winona knew what her sister was staring at. The corner of the ice-cream shop and the start of the alley.
Cat Morgan’s house was long gone, of course; now that clean, well-tended alley led out to the Kiwanises’ park. But no matter how many signs they erected or ads they placed in the newspapers, to the locals it would always be Cat’s alley.
“Are you okay?” Winona asked cautiously.
Vivi Ann gave her one of the Teflon smiles she’d perfected in the past few years. “Fine. Why?”
“I heard Noah got in a fight again.”
“He says Erik, Jr., and Brian started it.”
“They probably did. Butchie’s kid has always been a bully. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“I gave Noah the benefit of the doubt the first few fights, but now . . . I don’t know what to do with him. Even if he’s not starting the problem, he’s finishing it, and sooner or later he’s going to hurt someone.”
Winona considered her words carefully. Of all the land mines buried in the dirt of their past, none was more easily triggered than discussions about Noah’s problems.
The past year had changed everything; it had happened almost on the day of his thirteenth birthday. In one summer he’d gone from being a skinny, smiling Labrador retriever of a boy to a sullen, sloop-shouldered Doberman. Quick to anger, slow to forgive. He’d caused talk in town with his temper. Some even whispered the word
violent,
usually paired with
just like his father
.
Winona thought he needed counseling at the very least and possibly placement at a school for troubled teens, but offering Vivi Ann that advice was problematic. Especially coming from Winona. Their reconciliation was complete, but a little conditional. Some things were just out of bounds. “It’s not surprising that he’d have trouble dealing with . . . stuff,” Winona said. She never mentioned Dallas’s name if she could avoid it. “Maybe he needs counseling.”
“I’ve tried that. He wouldn’t talk.”
“Maybe get him into sports. That’s good for a kid.”
“Could you talk to him? You remember what it was like to be picked on, don’t you?”
Winona didn’t want to agree. The truth was that she didn’t like Noah lately. Or, maybe that wasn’t quite accurate.
He frightened her. No matter how often she told herself that he was just a boy and that he’d had a rough shake and that the teen years were hard, she couldn’t quite make herself believe it. When she looked at him, all she saw was his father.
Dallas had almost ruined this family once, and she was terrified that his angry, violent son would finish the job.
“Sure,” she said to Vivi Ann. “I’ll talk to him.”
I can’t believe I used to like Founders Days. What a joke. Like people don’t think I’m enough of a loser already, I have to sit in Aunt Winona’s “campaign center” and hand out cheap buttons to old people.
When they started that stupid kick dancing in the street I wanted to hurl. Of course that’s when Erik Jr. and Candace Delgado walked by. I totally wanted to smash his grinning face, and Candace looked like she felt sorry for me.
I HATE THAT.
I’m so sick of people thinking they know something about me just because my dad shot some lady.
Maybe she gave him one of those you’re scum looks. Maybe That’s why he shot her.
I’ve tried to ask my mom about it, but she just looks like she’s gonna cry and says none of that matters anymore, that the only thing that matters is how much she loves me.
Wrong.
She has no clue how I feel. If she did she’d take me to see my dad.
That’s the first thing I’m gonna do when I get a license. I’m gonna drive to the prison and see my father.
I don’t even want to talk to him. I just want to see his face.
You probably want to know why, don’t u, Mrs. Ivers? U think I’m being an idiot to want to see a murderer and you’re wondering if I’ll steal a car to do it.
Ha ha.
You’ll have to wait and see.
In June, the Bits and Spurs 4-H Club was having their first official get-ready-for-the-fair meeting. The girls, and several of their mothers, were in the cottage, seated on the floor, on the sofa, on the hearth. The pine-plank floor was dotted with blank squares of poster board. On each white sheet sat a bucket of supplies. Colored markers, rulers, glitter paint, decorator scissors, Scotch tape; more than twenty years of experience had taught Vivi Ann exactly what they would need. Trends came and went, the words changed with the generations, but how girls expressed themselves remained the same: with bright colors and glued-on glitter.
Vivi Ann stepped around the room, positioning each of her girls in front of a piece of poster board. “Go ahead and begin,” she said finally. “Start with your horse’s name. It’s his stall, remember, and neatness and spelling count. The barn judges will read every word.” She stepped over one girl’s outstretched legs and sidled past another. At the dining room table, she paused. From here, she could look out through the old, rippled kitchen window and see the shingled exterior of the addition.
Noah’s light was on.
To the girls, she said, “Excuse me for a minute,” and walked into the new wing of the house. To the left lay her bedroom and bathroom. She turned right and went down to the end of the hall. She hadn’t found the time yet to pick out carpeting for this area, so her cowboy boots creaked on the springy plywood flooring.
She knocked on Noah’s door, got no answer, and went inside.
He was on his bed, knees drawn up, eyes closed, rocking out to music on his iPod. White wires snaked down from the buds in his ears and plugged into the thin silver player.
At her touch he flinched and sat upright. “Who said you could come in my room?”
Vivi Ann sighed. Did they really have to have the your-room-my-house conversation every day? “I knocked. You didn’t answer.”
“I didn’t hear you.”
“That’s because you listen to music that’s too loud.”
“Whatever.”
She refused to take the bait. Instead, she reached out to tuck the hair behind his ear the way she used to, but he shrank back from her touch. “What happened to us, Noah? We used to be best friends.”
“Best friends don’t jack your Xbox and TV out of your room.”
“You got suspended from school. Was I supposed to send you flowers? Sometimes parents have to make hard decisions to do what’s best for their kids.”
“I don’t have parents. I have you. Unless you think Dad is making hard choices about me in his cell.”
“I don’t know why you’re so angry these days.”
“Whatever.”
“Please stop saying that. Come on, Noah, how can I help you?”
“Give me back my TV.”
“That’s it, that’s your answer. You get in a fight at school and—”
“I
told
you it wasn’t my fault.”
“Nothing ever is, is it? You’re like a fight magnet, I guess.”
“Whatever.” He glared at her. “You know everything.”
“I know this: you’re a member of the Bits and Spurs 4-H Club, and as such, you’re supposed to be making a poster for your stall.”
“You’re crazy if you think I’m showing at the fair this year.”
“Then I’m crazy.”
He jumped off the bed. His iPod swung from his earbuds and then fell, clattering to the plywood floor. “I won’t do it.”
“What’s the alternative? You going to sit in this room all summer, staring at where your TV used to be? You don’t do sports, you won’t do chores around here, and you don’t have friends. You can damn sure go to the fair.”
He looked so hurt that Vivi Ann wanted to apologize. She shouldn’t have said that about his lack of friends.
“I can’t believe you said that. It’s not my fault I don’t have any friends. It’s yours.”
“Mine?”
“You’re the one who married a killer and an Indian.”
“I’m tired of this same argument, Noah, and I’m tired of you sitting around doing nothing and feeling sorry for yourself.”
“I’m not showing at the fair. Only girls show horses. I take enough crap already. All I need is Erik, Jr., to see my pink and blue glitter why-I-love-my-horse poster.”
“That was a great poster. Everyone loved it.”
“I was
nine
. I didn’t know any better. I am not showing at the fair this year.”
“Well, you’re not sitting home all summer.”
“Good luck with making me move,” he said, putting his earbuds back in.
Vivi Ann stood there, staring at him. She could actually feel her blood pressure elevating. It was amazing how quickly he could get to her. Finally, remaining silent by force of will, she left his bedroom, slamming the door behind her. A juvenile show of irritation that nonetheless felt good.
In the living room, she paused. “I’ll be right back, girls. Keep working.”
Grabbing a sweatshirt off the sofa, she left the cabin and walked down to the barn. It was full of trucks and trailers.
Inside the arena was carefully controlled pandemonium. Kids and dogs ran wild through the bleachers, chasing the barn cats around. Several women and girls were riding in the center of the arena, practicing flying changes. Janie, back from college, was working her mare along the rail, and Pam Espinson was leading her grandson on his new pony.
Vivi Ann scanned the crowd, finding Aurora in the stands watching her daughter. She put her hands in her pockets and walked over to her sister. All around her was the blurring movement of people on horseback, the vibrating thunder of hooves on dirt. She moved easily through the crowd and took a seat by Aurora. “It’s nice to see Janie riding again.”
Aurora smiled. “It’s nice to see her again, period. The house is awful quiet these days.”
“I wish,” Vivi Ann said.
“Noah?”
Vivi Ann leaned against her sister. “Isn’t there a rule book for raising teenagers?”
Aurora laughed and put an arm around her. “No, but . . .”
“But what?” Vivi Ann knew what was coming and tensed up.
“You’d best do something before he hurts someone.”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
Aurora looked at her. She didn’t say anything, but they both knew she was thinking about Dallas.
“He wouldn’t do that,” Vivi Ann said again, although her voice wasn’t as strong this time. “I just need to find him something worthwhile to do.”
Traffic on First Street was stop-and-go on this last day of school. No doubt all the graduating seniors in town were in their cars right now, honking to one another and high-fiving out their car windows as they passed. She saw a few yellow high school buses caught in the snarl, too, and could imagine their tired drivers’ reaction to all this.
If she’d left ten minutes earlier or later, she wouldn’t be stuck here. It wasn’t as if she were on a tight schedule—or like she didn’t have access to a calendar.
It was summer on the Canal now, on the very June day that most of the county’s schools ended for the year, and those two details combined to make a perfect storm of traffic. One blocky motor home after another inched down the winding road. Most of them were hauling other vehicles—boats, smaller cars, bicycles, Jet Skis. Nobody came to the Canal in these golden months to sit inside, after all; they came to play in the warm blue water.