by J C Wing
“I wish I’d gotten to know him.”
Elias sniffed, his eyes on Alex’s headstone. “You would’ve liked him. He sure as hell would’ve liked you.” His eyes moved over to the angel. He seemed to be studying the statue’s face. “He didn’t want to be here without Will. He just missed her too much. In a perfect world, both of ‘em would be here now and you and I would have better things to do than sulk around this here graveyard.”
Drew looked back at the lines engraved on his mother’s stone. Friend. He knew who that referred to. He’d heard about all the kids that Willow hung out with; the boys she played baseball with, her co-workers at the gym, but Drew knew the way the epitaph had been written was purposefully single. It was for Edie Heath. Willow’s best friend. The person she’d named her son after.
“You ready to get outta here? Let’s go get a burger before you head back to school.”
Drew blinked when Elias spoke. “Yeah. That sounds good.” He heard Elias’s footfalls grow faint behind him and his eyes moved to the angel’s face once again. He reached up and brushed his fingertips across her cool, hard cheek. When he turned, he touched his grandfather’s headstone, and like he always did when he left their graves, he whispered the word, “Thanks”.
GHOSTLY GALA
Drew and Paige walked along one of the outside paths that snaked around the school campus. Leaves were falling from the trees, swooping and swirling beneath a bright blue sky. Paige had her school sweater on, and Drew knew she’d rather be wearing a sweatshirt. He resisted the urge to reach over and take Paige’s hand. There were a lot of things they both liked about the school. Uniforms weren’t one of them. Another thing was the ridged policy on romantic relationships between the students, which was much stricter than in average public high schools. Drew was sure this was one of the reasons G-Ma had been interested in getting him enrolled. She hadn’t been able to stop her daughter from getting pregnant, but she wasn’t about ready to see her grandson become a young father.
Both Corinne Larsen and the faculty at Winston were prudent, but nothing was stronger than the hormonal structure of an adolescent. Where there was a will, there was a way. Usually they skirted it by being together when not on school property, but if there was anything to challenge a teenager’s libido, it would be their sense of invincibility.
Paige had a habit of bumping her shoulder against his when they walked side by side, and she made up reasons to touch him even when others were around. If he was reading a book, she’d reach over and take it from him, touching his fingers with hers while she’d answer a question he hadn’t asked. She made a point of sitting next to him at lunch and dinner and would lay her palm on his thigh beneath the tablecloth that covered the round table. When they had to sit apart, she’d stretch her legs toward the middle and he would do the same so they could engage in a ridiculous game of footsie while they ate their meal. In the library, they’d steal kisses in the stacks, and Drew would always manage to untuck Paige’s pressed white uniform shirt from the waistband of her skirt and move his hand up to her breast.
“What do you think of Mr. Kennedy?” she asked as they walked past a group of boys engaged in a spirited game of basketball. Her hair was down and floating in the breeze. Drew smiled. He knew what information Paige was after.
“He plays video games and likes burping contests.”
“Nice,” Paige smiled. “Is he any good at either?”
“Both, actually.”
“And he’s your mountaineering instructor, so obviously he’s cool.”
One of the players gave a lazy wave and Drew studied him for a second, not sure the wave had been meant for him.
“Are you friends with Henry Mills?” he asked Paige.
“Hank?” Paige looked up at Drew, then moved her head to check out what he was looking at.
Hank was a senior and had only been at the school for two years. He waved again and Paige huffed.
“I take that as a no on the friends thing.”
“I don’t know him that well, but when I’ve been around him, he’s been kinda rude.” The strap of her backpack slipped, and she hiked it up onto her shoulder again. “He’s a very talented artist. I mean like he should be teaching the class.”
“Art,” Drew sighed. “Have I mentioned how much I suck at art?”
“You do not.”
“Oh, yes, I do.”
“One less thing you have in common with Hank.”
Drew thought about that for a second. “He’s huge. And loud. And he likes detention apparently. He doesn’t seem like the sort to sit still long enough to create anything.”
“Maybe he likes detention because it gives him time to draw.”
“Huh,” Drew said, lifting his arm and sending a tentative wave back toward the court. “Leave it to you to come up with an explanation for bad behavior.”
Paige forgot the no touching rule and sent a hard elbow into Drew’s rib, sending him off the sidewalk and into the grass.
Mrs. Dunleavy, one of the biology teachers, was sitting on a bench outside Mitchell Hall. She called to someone, and Drew moved his eyes to see a small girl running across the lawn. She had blonde pigtails and held a large butterfly net in one tight fist.
“There’s one!” Mrs. Dunleavy leaned forward and pointed into the air. The grassy area was surrounded by dogwood trees, the largest of them standing twenty-five feet tall against the cloudless sky. The little girl swung her net trying to catch some of the red leaves that had fallen from the branches above her. Swipe, swipe, swipe.
The child brought the net close to her face and grinned. “Look, Mommy! I caught three of them! Three butterflies. Aren’t they pretty?”
Drew watched her for a moment. The leaves did sort of resemble butterflies. “A Lacewing,” Drew said. “Or maybe an Atlas Moth.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you’re a nerd?”
“I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that before, yeah.”
Paige watched the little girl as they walked. “She’s cute. I thought Dunleavy lived on campus.”
Drew shrugged. “I guess not. That kid has an imagination.”
“She makes me miss Abigail. Fall break was a long three weeks ago.”
“And in two more weeks, Thanksgiving break will show up.”
“You’re always thinkin’ positive, Larsen.” She flashed him a smile that made Drew want to kiss her. “That’s one of the things I love best about you.”
“I’ll keep trying to figure out how Kennedy operates if you’ll figure out how we can disappear from the dance tonight.”
Paige’s smile widened. “I’m way ahead of you on that one.”
When Drew showed up at the large gymnasium, there were already a lot of kids milling about. It was early, not quite six, but the sky was already darkening. Since Paige hadn’t arrived yet, he sat down in his Levi’s and cowboy boots to do a bit of people watching. He reached up and tipped his straw hat back and watched as four of his female classmates approached, all them wearing red aprons over black t-shirts and pants. Ponytails swung from the holes in their red baseball caps, and as they got closer, he could see that each one of them had a photo of a different spice on the bib of their aprons. Nutmeg, Paprika, Cinnamon and Cloves.
“So, tell me what you want, what you really, really want …” he sang with a smile.
“I told you they’d get it,” Paprika exclaimed, returning his smile.
“Dude,” Nutmeg said. “I’ll give you twenty bucks right now if you sing the whole song.”
Drew put his hands up in a surrender. “Sorry,” he told her. “I knew y’all were the Spice Girls. Doesn’t that count for anything?” There was a fit of giggles as the four of them linked arms and walked toward the gym. “I wanna really, really, really wanna zigazig ah,” he continued very quietly to himself. “Okay, now I’m out.”
He saw an Edward Scissorhands, a Marvin the Martian and Lydia Deetz from Beetlejuice. Finally, he saw a girl dressed in a red dress with small po
lka dots on it wearing a green fleece hat of sprouting leaves on her head. Her long hair was tucked up beneath the cap, and her legs were covered in crimson tights. She wore Mary Jane’s on her feet, and she pirouetted across the tile floor to show off her outfit.
He grinned at the rosy cheeked strawberry as he stood up. “Well now, you’ve got to be the prettiest berry in the whole patch.”
Paige’s eyes sparkled. “I knew you’d make a hot looking farmer.”
He tipped his hat to her and gave her a wink. Then he put his hand out and swept it toward the gymnasium doors and followed his little berry into The Ghostly Gala.
There wasn’t much light in Mr. Pierce’s Biology classroom, but that was more of a help than a hindrance for Drew as he kissed Paige beneath the periodic table that hung on the wall in the corner of the room. She tasted as sweet as she looked, and he deepened the kiss as she pushed the hat off his head.
They could faintly hear music playing in the gymnasium, but they were more concerned with hearing footsteps near the door.
“How did you know Mr. Pierce doesn’t lock up after class?”
“You wanna know that now?” Paige asked, her own hat now missing and forgotten.
“No …” Drew breathed.
“I didn’t think so.”
Twenty minutes later, their clothes straightened, the two of them slipped out into the hall, quietly closing Mr. Pierce’s door behind them. Drew wanted to press his palm to the small of her back, guide her around the corner and back inside the gym as quickly as he could, but he didn’t touch her.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” she whispered. “Get me some punch?”
Drew nodded. “Okay.” He walked back into the gym and felt how much warmer the room was than the hallway. There was food laid out on a long buffet table, all of it served on nice trays and displayed alongside Halloween decorations of carved pumpkins and colorful gourds. The punch itself was surrounded by a ring of dry ice that produced a wispy, flowing fog that seemed to crawl across the table. Drew picked up a cracker with cream cheese spread across it. He looked down to see half a black olive pressed into the cheese with slices of the same olive arranged around it to look like legs. Drew shook his head and took a bite before grabbing two cups full of green punch. He drank one in two swallows, then downed the second one before he began to wonder just how long it took a girl to tend to bathroom business.
Drew looked toward the doors but didn’t see Paige there. He took another spider cracker and popped it into his mouth as he turned to survey the room.
“Hey, man.”
Drew saw his friend Brice walk up wearing a trench coat, a fedora and a pair of black eyeglasses.
“Brice.” He looked his friend up and down, then shook his head. “What’re you supposed to be?”
Brice grinned, then pulled the coat apart to reveal a white button-down shirt. He opened that, too, and Drew saw a blue suit underneath with a large red S emblazoned on it. “Clark Kent, dude. Unless some sort of shit goes down. Then I’ve got that covered, too.”
Drew smiled at him. “You got the whole suit on?”
“Of course.” Brice obviously found the question a ridiculous one.
“I don’t think I need to see you in blue spandex, man.”
“I got the red boots, too. Pretty cool. Except it’s hot as hell. Layers.” He shook his head.
Drew felt a nudge against his elbow and turned to see that Paige had returned. Brice had already moved on, so Drew busied himself with pouring a glass of punch and handing it to Paige.
“What took you so long?” he asked.
“My hat,” Paige told him in a loud whisper.
“What?” Drew looked at her and realized her hair was all pulled up and coiled into a bun on the top of her head. Her leaves were gone. “Oh, shit. Okay,” he told her. “Stay here and I’ll go get it.”
She shook her head. “It’s not there.”
“What do you mean it’s not there?”
“I went in to grab it. I used the flashlight on my phone, and I looked all over, but it was gone.”
“How could it be gone?”
Paige looked as exasperated as Drew felt. “I don’t know, Drew. All I know is that it wasn’t there.” She sipped at the punch.
“Maybe it got kicked under a table.”
“I looked.”
“What about under Mr. Pierce’s desk?”
“It’s not there, either.”
“Okay …” Drew reached up and rubbed his fingertips against the itchy skin beneath the straw hat. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. There’s nothing we can do until Monday—”
“And what the hell are we going to do on Monday?” Her cheeks had gotten rosier.
“I’ve got biology first period. I’ll go in early. The door’s unlocked, right? I’ll go in, grab the hat and stuff it in my backpack before he shows up.”
“I keep telling you, it’s not there.”
“It has to be there, Paige,” Drew reasoned. “Where could it have gone? You didn’t want to get caught so you were in a hurry. The light on your phone isn’t bright enough. I’ll get there before Pierce does and when he shows up, I’ll tell him I need help. We’re good. Stop worrying.”
He could see her trying to calm down. She took another sip of her punch, then looked up at him. “This stuff really sucks.”
Drew laughed. “The spider crackers aren’t so bad. You okay?”
She took a deep breath and put the cup down. “I’m gonna head back to my room. I’ve got an hour before lights out. Time enough to grab a shower. I’ll text you later.” She reached over and grabbed a cupcake that she didn’t want so she could press her arm against his.
“I’ll give you thirty minutes.”
She smiled and gave him a nod. Drew watched her walk across the glossy wood floor for a moment before pouring himself another glass of punch.
NO SHOW
Took a long, hot shower. Ready for bed. You back in your room?
Drew read the previous night’s text with sleepy eyes as he lay in his bed the next morning.
I am. Don’t worry. Try to get some sleep.
I’ll worry, but I’ll still try to sleep.
Sweet dreams.
You, too. Goodnight.
Drew smiled and checked the time. It was almost eight, which was late for him, but he had no plans, and no one would be wondering where he was.
He thought about Paige, who was running around the field in her goggles smacking the crap out of a ball with a strong wooden stick and he smiled. She’d be taking her frustration out about that strawberry hat on the drying grass this morning … and probably her teammates, too. He felt a bit of sympathy, but a lot of them had played with her for years. They knew what kind of fierceness Paige brought to the game.
After a shower, Drew went to find some breakfast in the dining hall. They served later on the weekends, and he was able to fill his plate with scrambled eggs, bacon and a bagel. He brought his English text down with him and ate while he studied and was genuinely caught up in the tale of Edmond Dantès and his imprisonment in Château d'If after being wrongly accused of treason when Cory, one of Paige’s teammates, interrupted his reading.
“Hey.”
Drew looked up to see the girl standing on the other side of the table. “Oh, hey,” he responded. “Good practice?”
“Sure,” she nodded, her short, dark hair plastered to her forehead. She hadn’t taken a shower before coming into the dining hall, which was frowned upon. “You know where Paige is at?”
Lines formed between Drew’s brows. “She’s probably getting cleaned up. Practice just ended, right?”
“It did, but Paige wasn’t there.”
The lines deepened. “What do you mean she wasn’t there?”
Cory leaned over and snagged an uneaten strip of bacon. She crunched it between her teeth. “I thought maybe you could clear things up for me. Obviously, that’s not happening.”
“She didn’t show up to practice?
Did anyone call her? Maybe she’s sick or something.”
Cory shrugged her shoulders. “A bunch of us texted her, but no one heard back. Oh,” she turned her head and looked at what Drew was reading. “The Count of Monte Cristo. You’ve started it? How hard is it to read?”
“It’s not bad,” he said, his mind nowhere near the plot of the book. He gathered his things and nearly pushed the plate from the table onto the floor in his rush to leave the room.
“Nice,” Cory shouted after him. “I guess I’ll get your dishes for you then.”
Drew ran across campus toward Mitchell Hall. Paige had gone to lacrosse practice once last year with a fever of 102, and before a basketball game against Wild Haven a few seasons ago, she ignored the pain in her left elbow, wrapped it and helped Winston come home victorious only to find out later that afternoon that she’d played with a broken bone. If she’d missed practice this morning, something was wrong.
He took the six steps near the entrance to Mitchell in two long strides. “Mrs. Jarvis,” he said, breathlessly as he nearly slid into the lobby. “Hello. I was wondering if I could talk to Paige Barlow?”
Mrs. Jarvis’s glasses had slid down her nose and she reached up to push them back in place. “I’ve seen you with Paige quite a lot, haven’t I?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”
“Drew Larsen.”
“That’s right. Well, Paige isn’t in her room.”
Drew looked at her, confused. “Of course she is,” he told her. “Cory said she wasn’t at practice, so she has to be in her room.”
“I’m afraid she isn’t. She’s not in any of the bathrooms, either, and I’ve checked with every girl here this morning. If she was in this building. I’d know about it. I’m on my way to see Mr. Chamberlain about that now. Maybe you ought to come with me.”
Half an hour later, Anna Riley was sitting next to Drew in the headmaster’s office with one of Asheville’s finest.