by Brent, Cora
“Hi,” he says. He tastes like he’s already had a few drinks elsewhere.
“Hi.” I have to suppress a sneeze because he overdid it on the aftershave this evening.
He wants to know what’s in the red cup and before I can explain that it includes a mouthful of my backwash he tips his head back and swallows the contents like it’s water.
A guy paired with one of Lana’s friends knows Alden and they share a moment of coarse, nearly indecipherable guy banter before Alden strips down to his boxers and jumps right in the water. He swims like a fish, rocketing underwater from one end of the pool to the other before returning to his jumping off point. He slicks his hair back and rests his elbows on the edge while grinning at me.
“Get in here,” he orders.
I stand up and remove my glasses, setting them in the middle of the table where I hope they won’t get knocked off. “I’ve got to go change.”
He’s impatient. “No you don’t. I didn’t change. Come on, just rip off your shirt and shorts.”
It’s not the kind of thing I would do, not in a pool full of people. Or even in a pool not full of people.
“Hey, Phoenix!” Shane bellows, amplifying his voice with his hands cupped over his mouth. “Quit hiding in your armpit and join the fun.”
My head whips over to see that Jay has returned from the gym. He’s standing in the kitchen just beyond the open sliding glass doors. I’ve gotten used to seeing him every day and there shouldn’t be a confusing thrill of excitement in my chest. Yet it’s there. And I’m ashamed that it’s there. I don’t aspire to be one of those girls that broods over a guy who treats her like garbage.
Jay looks up. His eyes skate right over me with no reaction. He lifts one hand to half heartedly wave to Shane but refuses to be tempted into joining the party. His attention is on the bowl of fruit he was in the middle of cutting up and he drops pieces into a blender. It’s just as well. I feel funny about being with Alden in front of him, which is crazy. Jay doesn’t care what I do or who I do it with.
Frustration boils internally and must be what prompts me to rise from my seat, pull my shirt over my head and drop my cutoff shorts. I’m glad I chose the lacy pink bra this morning. And my black bikini panties don’t have a thong level of allure but they’re still hot.
Alden thinks so. He’s practically panting over in the pool.
“Don’t stop there, baby,” he begs. “Let it all come off.”
“Work it, Care!” Lana yells in encouragement. She’s always telling me that I’m cuter than I think I am and I shouldn’t be afraid to cut loose.
I roll my eyes but I’m also giggling and feeling a little giddy as I approach the pool. The alcohol has helped. I jump right in, stay briefly submerged and break the surface to find Alden right there smiling at me.
Lana’s friend Mira hops out of the pool and forages in the cooler. She’s got an armful of beers when she returns. Alden holds up a hand and she tosses him one. Shane doesn’t appear to mind that people are drinking in his pool and he yells for a beer himself. Alden passes his drink to me and I’m still thirsty so I drink three quarters of the bottle. I’m not sure if beer is the best way to stay hydrated but a pleasant warmth is spreading in my gut and Alden is impressed.
“I like this side of you,” he says and drains the rest of the beer bottle with his arm around me.
Lana remembers that she left a batch of Jello shots in the fridge and she coaxes her boyfriend into taking a trip to the kitchen to retrieve them. Shane doesn’t mind. From here I have a view into the house and I don’t see Jay standing at the kitchen counter any longer.
Shane returns with a tray filled with rows of small paper cups. He sets it down by the edge of he pool, helps himself to two shots back to back and then cannonballs back into the water.
Alden grabs a cup for each of us before the rest of the crowd can get over here and devour them. I’m not a fan of these things but I take one because Lana might be right about how I ought to cut loose now and then. I avoid gagging as the slippery mess slides down my throat and Alden plucks the empty cup out of my hand, crumples it up and tosses it to the concrete. Then he slides his arms around my waist and pulls me into deeper water.
“You look so fucking hot tonight,” he says in my ear and lets his hands roam over my ass.
I don’t stop him and slip my arms around his shoulders, pulling him in for a kiss. I really ought to like him more. We’ve had a casual thing on and off for two years now and though I’ve never thought of him as my boyfriend he’s definitely a friend. Plus we’ve shared some hot times together and right now being in his arms feels good.
Alden is getting worked up, running his lips down my neck, and pressing close. Meanwhile, I’m starting to realize that I should have eaten something before drinking. There was no time for lunch today and now my stomach has begun to roll around in an unhealthy way. The feel of Alden’s hard dick trying to poke a hole in my abdomen isn’t helping matters.
“Hold on.” I disconnect from Alden and pull myself out of the pool.
Lana calls my name and I wave to say that I’m fine. I just need a minute. Jay is nowhere in sight and I don’t feel like walking all the way around the perimeter to get to my apartment. Lana’s orange beach towel is draped over a patio chair and I grab it, wrapping it around my waist before I drip my way into the house, charging straight for the door to my apartment in case Jay and his fruit smoothie are lurking nearby.
My senses are fuzzy and my stomach continues to launch a full scale rebellion as I reach my small kitchen. The sleeve of crackers sitting on the counter looks like a safe bet. I pour a glass of cold water and chew crackers while leaning against the wall.
There’s a rustling of approaching footsteps outside the door and I tense, wondering if Jay might be the one on the other side.
Alden comes through the door without knocking and I’m relieved.
And disappointed.
And nuts, apparently.
“I got lonely,” Alden complains but he’s grinning.
I swallow a clump of wet crackers and wash them down with a few sips of water before setting the glass down. “Sorry, I-” The sentence remains unfinished because Alden closes my words off with his lips.
“Alden.” I try to step out of his grip but he just pulls me in tighter.
“Don’t think I could have waited another minute,” he says and he grinds against me while one hand sneaks behind my back and unhooks my bra. “Glad you took the lead.”
Huh?
My towel falls and his hands are already trying to yank my panties down. I feel like I missed a crucial piece of communication in the last two minutes. If I were trying to be seductive I wouldn’t have been leaning against the kitchen counter and pigging out on salted crackers.
“Wait.” I try to yank my panties back up and attempt to slither out of his arms. “I just ran inside because I felt sick for a minute. I feel better now. Let’s go back to the pool.”
He traces my lower lip with his finger and slides my bra strap off with his other hand. Somewhere along the way he also pushed his wet boxers down. I can feel him, hard and bare against my belly. “You got a condom? I left my wallet outside in my pants but I can go grab it.”
I think I’ve already made it clear I’m not in the mood. “Alden, knock it off. We’re not doing this here.”
“Let’s go to your room then.”
“No.”
He finally gets the message and his eyes become dim. His hands, however, are still on me and his dick remains hard, pressing into my skin. “Caris, what the hell? I’ve put in my time with you.”
He’s whining. He’s still touching me. He’s pissing me off.
“And you think that means I owe you sex?” I try to push him away. “Fuck right off with that, Alden.”
He grabs my wrists just hard enough that I can’t struggle. The move shocks me. Alden has never been rough. But I see the anger in his scowl and suddenly I’m afraid.
“What do you think, you’ve got some kind of golden magic pussy? Who the hell are you saving it for?”
“Let go,” I demand through clenched teeth.
Alden hesitates. But then his eyes drift down over my exposed breasts and he smirks.
“There’s nothing there worth the effort anyway,” he says and releases me with a shove.
I know I should just step back and hope he leaves but my anger and humiliation get the better of me.
“Get out.” I push him hard in the chest.
I’m not especially strong but he isn’t expecting this move and he stumbles backwards. When he catches his balance the look on his face stops my breath. I’ve made a mistake. I’ve poked a rabid bear with a stick.
“Bitch,” he spits out. He grabs my unhooked bra and yanks it away. He throws it and seizes me, his fingers digging into my upper arms. I have no idea what he’ll do next but I know the time has come to scream for help. The backyard is full of people. Someone will hear me. Hopefully.
But the scream dies in my throat because chaos has erupted. Alden lets go of me with a yelp and the momentum sends me sprawling on the floor. When I get my bearings I see that there’s a serious struggling happening a few feet away. The world is slightly blurry without my glasses but I can tell that Jay is somehow here and he’s got Alden in a headlock. I remember something Lana told me about Jay. He knows how to fight. He’s now going to prove it. He slams Alden’s body into the wall so hard that I hear a crack.
Then I hear his voice. Low and guttural. Dangerous and sincere.
“Get the FUCK out of here before I fucking take you apart.”
He slams a fist into Alden’s belly. Alden is now gasping for air, rolling on the ground, and the man who sent him there looms over his prone body with muscles tensed, ready to strike again.
“Johnny,” I whisper and then remember that’s wrong, the wrong name. He’s someone else now but whoever he is I don’t want him to do something that will ruin his life.
Alden coughs and climbs to his hands and knees, crawling away in a hysterical panic, but the sight gives me no pleasure. The trembling begins in my bones and I don’t think it will ever stop.
Jay closes the door and flicks the lock in case Alden recovers and returns for retaliation. A second later he’s on the floor, inches away, cupping my face in his hands. He looks frantic, stricken.
“Did he hurt you? Caris? Did he hurt you?”
Despite the trembling I manage to shake my head back and forth.
“Okay.” He breathes and nods in relief. “Thank god.”
Then his eyes sweep down and take notice of the fact that I’m pretty much naked. He spots the towel I’d dropped a moment ago and covers me with it. Carefully, tenderly, like I’m a piece of fragile china that might break into pieces. He helps me to my feet and walks me over to the sofa while my teeth chatter.
Jay lays a hand on my back. “Stay here, all right? I’m going to make sure he’s gone.”
I grip the edges of the towel and shiver. My mind can’t quite process what has just happened. I’ve known Alden for years. Sometimes he’s a jerk. But not like that. Never like that. Sometimes he’d pout when I hit the brakes while we fooled around but he’s never grabbed me, never tried to force me, never shown a hint of violence. I’m sure I’ll never forget the look of fury in his eyes. Maybe I don’t know him after all. Maybe no one knows anyone.
Jay must have decided that Lana would be better equipped to comfort me in this situation than he would. I can hear her voice in the hallway, high pitched and anxious.
“What do you mean? What the hell did he do to her?”
She appears in the doorway and her face crumples at the sight of my tears.
“Oh my god, Care, what happened?”
She’s next to me, wrapping her arms around me, and I break down into full blown sobbing. Since I have a hard time talking, Jay is the one who quietly explains. He happened to return to the kitchen and Alden had left the connecting door partially open so he heard when we began arguing. As soon as the situation escalated he didn’t hesitate to barrel through the door and rip Alden away from me.
Lana is enraged on my behalf. She wants to call the police. She wants Alden arrested. She wants to kill him. I’ve never seen her so furious.
Shane stands in the doorway and shoots worried glances at all of us. Jay talks to him in a low murmur and Shane nods. There are other voices, Lana’s friends, all wanting to know what the commotion is about. She won’t leave my side and asks Shane to tell them that the party is over tonight.
Jay departs with Shane and Lana grabs a comfortable sweatshirt for me, helping to pull it over my head because I’m still shaking. And now I’m starting to feel foolish because I needed to be rescued by the last guy I would ever want to be rescued by.
Lana prepares a cup of hot mint tea for me. A few minutes later Jay creeps in silently with his head down. He places an object on the coffee table. My glasses. I’d forgotten they were left outside.
“Thank you so much, Jay,” Lana says, giving him a grateful smile. “Really. So glad you were there.”
I also need to thank him. There’s no telling what would have happened next if he hadn’t been around. I wish he’d come sit next to me, just for a minute. I set my mug of tea on the coffee table and pick up my glasses. I feel slightly better once they’re back where they belong. But when I look around for Jay he’s no longer in the room. He’s gone.
Johnny, Age 13
I can’t remember how old I was when I found out that my grandfather was a murderer. It feels like something I was born knowing. He died in prison years ago and I only know him from pictures and stories. The pictures are mostly in black and white, although there used to be a family photo album with some that were in color. I don’t know what happened to that photo album but it seems like it was something that disappeared about the same time my dad died. We needed to get rid of a lot of things when we had to move from the small house on Wicker Road to the far smaller trailer.
If I want to see a picture of Billy Hempstead now all I need to do is type his name into the internet and his mug shot will be the first image that pops up. He glares out at the camera and there’s a bruise under his right eye. He looks wild and dangerous. According to everything I’ve heard, he was both.
Besides his mug shot, there’s always another picture of Billy Hempstead that shows up in an online search. It’s his senior prom photo and he’s wearing a white blazer while standing in front of a curtain backdrop with a very pretty blonde girl. Her hair is teased up sky high and doesn’t even look real but her smile is brilliant. Her name was Nancy Gainey and later she would marry someone other than the boy who took her to the prom. When she died her name was Nancy Chapel. Whenever I see that picture I feel sorry for her. I wish time travel were a thing and that I could go back and warn her what will happen. That someday the boy she poses with so happily beneath the flashy ‘Night To Remember’ banner will be her killer.
Then again, she probably wouldn’t have believed such an awful thing was possible.
My grandmother had something wrong with her legs. That might be why she chose to stay in Arcana with my dad, her only child, after her husband was arrested for the murders of his high school girlfriend and her husband.
A few years back I asked my own mother why we stayed in town after my dad wrapped his car around a tree in the middle of a drunken police chase. She snapped at me, asking, “And where the hell do you think we should go?”
Of course I had no answer because Arcana was all I knew. Someday I’ll go somewhere else, a place where people aren’t carrying around generations worth of grudges and staring at me with suspicion because of my last name.
The day Caris told me whose granddaughter she was my heart sunk to my knees. A wave of pure misery and shame swept over me because I realized I was stuck. Stuck with the Hempstead name and the Hempstead awful legacy. No one has the power to change terrible crimes committed before they existed but too ma
ny people have no common sense. I was sure that the girl who had very quickly become my best friend would now recoil from me in horror.
But Caris isn’t like other people. She stared at me with wide eyes for a moment while I waited for her to run away or cry or something. She did none of that. She took a couple of deep breaths, looked up at the sky and then back at me.
“I don’t care, Johnny. It’s not your fault. We’re still gonna be friends, right?”
“Yeah.” I felt a glow of hope. “We’re still friends.”
Then she smiled. And she hugged me. I’d never been hugged by a girl before. My mother doesn’t even hug me more than maybe once a year. Caris’s arms were soft and she smelled like cupcakes and I understood something about the world and how a guy can lose his head over a girl sometimes. For the first time I can imagine doing the same.
As far as Caris was concerned, nothing else needed to be said about the Hempsteads and the Chapels. We walked down Division Street and when she spotted a stray cat we spent a few minutes trying to coax it out from beneath a truck but the animal glared at us with mistrust and darted across the street. She talked about how someday after she fulfills her dream of becoming a veterinarian she’s going to open up an animal sanctuary and all the stray cats in Texas will be allowed to live here. She said I was invited to come stay there too and even though I don’t especially want to live in Texas forever I might change my mind if I can live on Caris’s sanctuary.
That was two weeks ago and we’ve hung out every day since then. She doesn’t like to talk about her parents, which is fine because I don’t like talking about mine either.
My memories of my father are fuzzy and incomplete. He was always gone for long periods of time thanks to his job as a long haul trucker. When he was home he argued a lot with my mother and I remember realizing that the two of them didn’t like each other very much. He wasn’t a bad father when he was around. He laughed often and played catch with me and Rafe. He took us hiking and would patiently tell us the names of the wildflowers and animals we saw. Sometimes he’d go out drinking with buddies and stay out all night. A few times I saw him with his knuckles bandaged up. I can remember being at the market once with my mother and in the next aisle a woman’s voice said, “I swear, no man’s as hot tempered as Clay Hempstead but no man ever gave it to me so good either.” High pitched laughter erupted. My mother slammed her shopping cart into a tower of cereal boxes, charged to the next aisle and started screaming the word “Slut!”