EIGHTEEN
It started at a lacrosse party. One of those crazy early summer shindigs where someone’s parents are out of town and a flurry of tweets and texts commences. But, of course, Connor doesn’t say commences when he sets the scene on how he and Sabine came to be BFFs. He doesn’t say commences, or even, shindigs, but he does say crazy. I nod, because I remember that long-ago weekend. It was the start of the Johnsaffair summer, and Sabine was way too young to be going to those sorts of parties. And Connor was even younger. Martha was there, too. And Nick. And in case you’re wondering where I was? In bed asleep, completely unaware that my sister was climbing out her window, and that she had been, night after night. Which was probably the main reason that, after she found out about Johnsaffair, Mom decided that Dad got to be the parent in charge that summer. Way out on the coast, where wild parties were sparse, and cell phone coverage even sparser.
“We were new to it, so the two of us ended up on the back deck, sort of watching all the kids get high and drunk. Back then, I didn’t even know how to blaze without coughing like a girl,” Connor says. And looks at me to see if I’m offended about the like a girl part.
He tells me all about the party. Tells me who said what, and who drank what, and who smoked what, and how Sabine looked so pretty in the moonlight, and how he felt like a bodyguard assigned to protect a movie star or a princess. Sooner or later the cops showed up, and Connor grabbed Sabine by the hand. They bolted, sneaking over a backyard fence, then, he led her to a nearby water tower where they climbed up a side ladder and hid out until things calmed down. Turns out, Nick and Martha and a few other kids got busted, and their parents had to fetch them from the Reception Center—which is Portland’s euphemism for small-time juvie hall. And here is when Connor goes all starry-eyed and choked up. The glaze covering his eyes is shinier than my voodoo doll doughnut.
“I knew she would never be my girlfriend,” he says. “She was sooooo … too much. Way out of my league. But when she whispered in my ear that I saved her life, and that she would never forget that, it was like some rock star up on stage picking you out of the crowd.”
I’m down to the pretzel stick in the voodoo doll’s heart. I can taste the frosting on my lips, and it’s mixed with the taste of Connor. My stomach turns, half in jealousy and half in sorrow hearing this story. This typical story of Sabine and her effect on people. On boys. I say, “That seems like so long ago, that summer.”
“She was just getting going with the whole cheerleading thing then,” he says. “And she was up against girls who’d been doing it since third grade. You know how competitive she was, right? She had this whole fantasy about becoming Captain by junior year. Crazy, but she pulled it off.”
I remember Connor helping her train. Running together and stuff. Suddenly, I have to know. “So you and Sabine, you never …”
He shakes his head. Connor’s squatting and drawing little squiggles in the mud with a stick. “I never made a move. I knew better.”
“But you would have, right?”
“Brady, stop. You know how it works. She aimed high. Had to be with the BMOC. That’s part of who she was. And what did her in, I guess.”
Big Man On Campus. Nick. She started dating him the following year. His messages on her phone, so cruel and cutting. I wondered what else Connor knew. “So, what did he do to her? Besides the harassing stuff on the phone?”
Connor’s face goes flat. The glaze in his eyes dries up, and he sets his jaw. “He had this jealous streak. He thought Sabine was cheating on him. He thought we were more than friends, her and me. He would threaten—like tell her that if he caught us, he’d find a way to make it look like an accident. That’s how he phrased it. Bastard.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Did he come after you, ever?”
Connor spits. “He’s a pussy. Type of guy who’ll hit a girl where it won’t show. That time I beat the crap out of him? A few weeks back? He’s all swagger. Got nothing but a mouth and an ego.”
Only a tiny bite of my voodoo doll is left. A raggedy chunk of sugar and dough. “So, like, the day of the accident, how far along was she? Who else knew?”
He shrugs. “Nick, me, a couple of Planned Parenthood receptionists. She wasn’t too far gone, but really, really scared.”
Sabine, knocked up and frightened; Nona and her prayers to Saint Agatha. Virginity, unwed pregnancy. Virgin:Whore. The whole complicated life of a woman made me want to go back to being a little girl. It seemed that, as a woman, there was always something to want or fear. But a second glance at Connor’s lips, his eyes, and I’m back to leaving childhood behind.
“I don’t think we should ever let out the stuff about Sabine’s pregnancy, but I’d love to nail that so-called boyfriend of hers.”
Connor nods. “He’s a prick.”
“He’s more than that. And what about Martha? I’m sure he’ll pull the same stuff on her.”
“You should warn her,” Connor says, stroking the tender spot on my cheek. “Have her listen to the messages.”
That’s what a really good friend would do, for sure. But I’m still angry with Martha. Her opportunistic nature, and the way she always comes out smelling like a rose. Part of me wants Martha to find out the hard way what Nick’s all about. So. What to do? Sabine, she’d know. I listen for some advice, a whisper, and looking at Connor’s quiet listening self, I’m thinking that’s what he’s doing, too.
And then, a question lights up in my head. “Why didn’t you talk her into reporting the abuse? Did you try?”
Connor takes his hand off my face, slides it into his pocket. When he bows his head, Sabine’s earring catches sunlight. Glistens. Then, he looks back up at me. “Your dad hit you, right? Has he ever hit you before?”
I shook my head. “Not even close. He’s not abusive. He’s, you know, grieving. Everything’s out of whack at home.”
“But, if you reported it, with that shiner and all? What do you think might happen?”
I touch the spot that’s still sore under my eye. I can still picture Dad’s face, how angry he was the other night. I run through some likely scenarios if I told the truth about this bruise. “Social services, maybe?”
Connor takes my hand now, and pets it in one direction, like a cat. “What Sabine feared more than that asshole Nick was having people think she was weak. Like, not in control of her life.”
I consider this for a second while my wrist and the whole lower part of my arm goes all tingly—the hairs on it springing up. “She sure had me fooled. I mean, you’d never, ever know that Beenick wasn’t this solid force. The perfect couple and all that. My sister, she always acted so … together.”
“Brady,” Connor says. “You’re nothing like Sabine that way. You, are you. Do you even have any secrets?”
I reach up for the dangling jewel in Connor’s ear. “Besides that I’m here with you, you mean?”
He laughs a little. His green and amber eyes. That dimple. The warm glow in my belly. My heart. “So, what about it? Are you getting shipped off to your dad’s?”
“Yeah, that. We’re down to an ultimatum. It’s back to Greenmeadow or out at eighteen.”
A wave of hope flushes through me. “Would you? Go back, I mean?”
Connor shakes his head of shaggy blondish hair. “That’s history.”
“So, what then?”
He chuckles. “I got mad skills with a lawn mower. Know anyone who needs a yard boy?”
I look over at my half-done sketch, sitting on top of the pink doughnut box, and then back at Connor. “Looks like I’m pretty close to flunking out myself. Here I am, skipping school, and cavorting with a known trouble maker.”
“Cavorting. Listen to you,” Connor says, then gestures at my stairway to nowhere. “Seriously, Brady, you should go back. You’re wicked smart, talented.”
“And I just made headlines, pointing my finger of blame at the school, at Nick—who, by the way, could run for President and win. I go back, I’ll be tarred and feathered.”
Connor peels a couple blossoms off of me. “Tarred and flowered, you mean.”
The sun is out to stay this afternoon, and in its warm glow I move in close to this boy that everyone thinks killed my sister. Some of my hail-blasted petals migrate to Connor as we hug. He feels solid and perfect against me, and I wonder why Sabine resisted him—this boy who held her in place while she cheered. Why would she instead choose the lanky body of Nick, all angles and bones?
Our lips connect again, the fullness of them together. Like a spring worm, too big for a robin’s beak. And then, we pull apart. He and I, facing each other and just standing still. I see us on canvas, surrounded by a frame. It’s the only way I know to make time stop. Make art out of it. Forever and ever, Amen.
And then, it’s done. Just as quick as he arrived, Connor heads down the trail with his doughnut box, leaving me to contemplate the form of a stairway that stops before it reaches its right place.
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