Last Girl Standing

by Jackson, Lisa

  Delta had grinned until her cheeks hurt, pretending to think it was all so much fun, when in reality she wanted to sink down onto the blanket on the grass and sob her heart out.

  Things had not gotten better with Tanner. Maybe she’d let him off the hook too easily. He’d stopped talking to her about Amanda, but worse yet, he now acted like she’d given him carte blanche to hang around with her ex-friend and generally behave as if his kiss with Amanda was no big deal. In fact, it almost felt like he was flaunting his independence from Delta.

  The last few weeks had been horrifyingly awful. How had this become her problem and not his? And Amanda? Like Tanner, she acted as if nothing had happened. She treated Delta like they were still friends, with just a shade more distance between them. The rest of the Firsts had taken their cues from both Delta and Amanda and pretended as if the make-out session on the pool table was a myth. But one little kiss, it wasn’t. Delta was pretty sure about that. There were vibes, undercurrents, tacit agreements, sideways looks that were meant to be bland but held secrets.

  It was torture. Her heart clutched, like it had so many times these long, miserable days. She’d already lost him. It was over. Her dreams, her love, everything.

  And it was Amanda’s fault.

  Delta realized she’d been lost in a fog for most of the day and made an effort to resurface. There were a couple of pitched tents, but the parents had all gotten together and sent e-mails swirling and put the kibosh on a big, overnight campout. The tents that stood in the field belonged to Amanda’s family, who’d turned them into board-game centers where the seniors could get out of the sun and hang together. There was also a badminton net strung between two poles and a croquet field. Coach Sutton had decided to have a pig roast, and he’d been at the site for hours and hours, and apparently there were still hours to go.

  So . . . no overnight, which was fine with Delta. The thought that she might fall asleep while Tanner and Amanda were still awake and somehow escaping the adults’ watchful eyes, maybe heading into the deep woods on the north side of the property above the river canyon for some extracurricular activity, was more than she could bear.

  She inhaled and exhaled. Carmen and Bailey were playing badminton with McCrae and Justin Penske and having a good time, if Delta could correctly read the squeals of laughter and ribald jokes zinging back and forth. Ellie was being her usual brownnoser self, hanging around the barbeque pit and talking to Miss Billings and the coach. There was another teaching assistant with them as well, but Delta didn’t know his name. He seemed more interested in Miss Billings than anything else.

  Amanda was riding a golf cart back and forth between the house and the picnic/party/barbecue near the river, fetching items from the kitchen—sodas, water, paper plates, and other supplies. Sometimes Tanner would jump into the front seat with her, and Delta had seen them turn to each other and share a grin.

  Should she leave? Just turn around and go? She shaded her eyes from the bright spring sun and stared into a deep blue sky. She could barely recognize what a beautiful day it was. Just made for a picnic.

  She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, it was to see Coach Sutton’s tanned, knobby knees as he prowled around the pit, checking the temperature. Miss Billings was seated on a lawn chair, smiling up at him. Delta felt ill. It seemed like love was in the air for everyone but her.

  She realized there was someone just behind her left shoulder, and she turned around swiftly to find Woody Deavers sliding her a sly smile. She turned back around just as swiftly. Woody was always trying to get a laugh, most times at someone else’s expense. His hair was too long—much longer than Tanner’s—and he wore jeans so faded and worn they were almost white and looked like they could shred into cotton puffs and float away. He’d taken off his T-shirt and laid it over his shoulders, exposing a hard, deeply tanned, muscular torso for all to see. A tattoo of a landing eagle, talons extended, ran along his shoulder and collarbone.

  Delta hated tattoos.

  “Hey, Ms. Smith,” he said lazily. “What happened with your man there in the golf cart?”

  She didn’t respond.

  “He and that ice bitch together now?”

  “They’re just bringing stuff up from the house,” she stated shortly as he strolled into her range of vision.

  He thrust his fists in his pockets and gave her a long look. There was something aggressively male about him. She’d seen him in a short, comedic play, and he hadn’t been half-bad, but he was not one of the cool kids, and she’d spent a lot of time working on her own popularity, which could be undermined by even talking to him.

  “Where’s Crystal?” Delta asked, referring to his girlfriend. If Woody had one tattoo, Crystal had a dozen.

  “Crystal wouldn’t be caught dead at a class party.” He smiled, a brilliant shot of white. “Don’t know what I’m doing here. Actually, I do. I came for the pig. Crystal’s a vegetarian, so that didn’t interest her, either.”

  Delta smiled tightly.

  “Seriously, what’s going on with Tanner and Amanda?” he asked.

  “What do you care?”

  “I don’t. Much. But you do.”

  “They’re just friends. We’ve all been friends for years.” She shifted away from him a few feet, wondering if she could just run for it.

  “Sure. That’s why you’re so miserable.”

  “I’m not miserable. I’m just tired.”

  “You gonna stay overnight here?”

  “We’re not doing that anymore. Did you miss the memo?”

  “Maybe the adults in the room are leaving,” he said, shooting a glance toward the coach, Miss Billings, and the assistant guy, “but that doesn’t mean we have to, does it?”

  “The Forsythes aren’t letting us stay here,” she informed him tightly.

  “Ice bitch’s parents don’t have to know.”

  Just the idea made her heart clutch. She was a hard sleeper, and what if she fell asleep and then Tanner and Amanda got together and everyone knew and they had sex and it was all over for her and Tanner? Maybe she should have put out. They’d certainly had their make-out sessions, and some had come pretty close to them doing it; Tanner had certainly pressed her. But Delta had held off, not because she didn’t want to, but because of some nebulous impulse for self-preservation that she’d gleaned from her friends, who seemed to have sex with one boyfriend, then get dumped, then have sex with another, just to have the whole thing start all over again. That’s what had happened with Zora and two guys from their school, both of whom had been older and had already graduated. She acted like it was no big deal, but Delta wondered. She now had a reputation for being easy, which didn’t seem to bother her, but it would bother Delta.

  Still . . . was that the reason Tanner had jumped to Amanda? As far as Delta knew, Amanda hadn’t even had a serious boyfriend, so far. She was, as Woody put it, an ice bitch, and kept guys at arm’s length . . . or at least she had.

  You should’ve made love to Tanner. You should do it tonight.

  “Excuse me,” she said shortly, walking away from Woody. It was a long trek back to the house, and by the time she got there, Tanner and Amanda would probably have loaded up the cart and be on their way back to the party.

  She hesitated, wondering if she should wait. She had to get Tanner away from the party entirely. They needed their own special time together. Somewhere else.

  “Have you seen Amanda?” Ellie asked Delta. She’d been talking to McCrae, flirting, Delta had noted, but now she was looking at Delta in that intense way of hers.

  “She and Tanner went up to the house to pick stuff up,” Delta said, purposely making it sound like no big deal.

  “Ah, yeah, the golf cart . . .” She glanced in the direction of the house.

  “It’s getting hot out here,” McCrae said, squinting toward the sun. “Man, this is great!” His shirt was unbuttoned. Like Woody, he had a washboard stomach. His jeans were in better shape, but not by much. He slapped th
em. “I’m getting these off.” With that he went to the pile of bags and backpacks the kids had brought with their personal gear.

  Ellie said to Delta, “You thinking about going up there?” She inclined her head toward the house. “I want to change into my swimsuit, but I’m not doing it in any tent.”

  “I’m not swimming.”

  “I almost didn’t bring my suit. But the weather . . .”

  “The runoff’ll be cold. You could freeze to death in that water,” Delta said repressively.

  “It’s not that bad. I went down to the river.”

  Delta had no intention of scaling down the steps and ladder to the water below, even though there was a sandy spit jutting into the river where a bunch of the kids had set up one of the tents. The coach and Miss Billings had initially adamantly opposed any of the kids going down there, but had given in and let the assistant keep an eye on them. Not many of their classmates had gone down, though, because the weather hadn’t been warm enough. But now, as the sun slipped past its zenith and was starting to head back down, the heat of the day was surprisingly intense.

  “I didn’t bring a suit,” Delta admitted.

  “Bummer,” Ellie said.

  Was she being sarcastic? Delta wondered as Ellie started walking briskly down the dirt track toward the Forsythes’ mansion. Delta had overheard her telling do-gooder Rhonda about “fibbing”—basically lying—about where she was today to both her stepfather and her mother, as they’d been opposed to her coming at all. They apparently thought Ellie was at her job. Rhonda had received this news with a worried look and a raft of tumbling excuses about how Miss Billings and Coach Sutton were chaperones, and that even Reverend Proffitt had allowed Carmen to come, so everything was totally cool and safe, and Ellie should really just tell the truth. Ellie, who could be judgmental when it suited her—and it suited her a lot—had merely shrugged this time, leaving the do-gooder to gaze after her in consternation.

  An hour later, Delta was still undecided about whether to leave the party but had stuck around because she couldn’t bear to leave Tanner with Amanda. The roasting of the pig was into its final hour, and preparations were being made for the big feast. The group had swelled, and many more senior classmates had arrived, with only a few leaving. Several of the senior class teachers had shown up as well, among them Anne Reade, who taught English, and Brian Timmons, the math teacher and senior class adviser. There had been speculation all year that Ms. Reade and Mr. Timmons were an item, but Delta had wondered if they even liked each other all that much. Neither of them appeared to have any joie de vivre; they seemed more like careful allies than friends.

  But . . . at least Tanner seemed to have given up his allegiance to only Amanda. He swept by to smile goofily at Delta and say, “This is great, isn’t it?” and then he was talking to the guys and other girls and even the teachers. Delta began to realize that he was wasted. But where had he gotten the stuff? There was no alcohol in sight, and she doubted they could hide it in the tents. She’d seen him and others drift toward the woods a time or two, and she’d begun to realize a number of members of the senior class were stealing away to misbehave. She was hurt that she hadn’t been invited. Did they think she would give the game away to the chaperones, who didn’t appear to have caught on yet, or did they just not want her?

  Her suspicions were confirmed when Woody appeared from the nearest copse of trees smelling of skunk. Skunkweed. Marijuana.

  Shit.

  She wanted to grab Tanner and yank him away. He couldn’t afford to mess this up. He was on academic scholarship and hoped to walk on to the football team. Maybe the black mark of a “minor in possession,” should Coach or someone else find out and feel duty-bound to turn him in, wouldn’t much matter, but it sure wasn’t going to help.

  “Who’s going swimming?” Chris McCrae called out.

  “I am!” Tanner shouted, ripping off his shirt. He also had the lean muscular torso of an athlete.

  “Me, too!” Woody said, yanking off his jeans right then and there, revealing a pair of Speedos that made the girls gasp and laugh; there was quite a bit filling them out, which Woody was clearly proud of.

  “Me, too!” Carmen suddenly joined in. She’d changed into a pair of shorts and a tank top, and now she yanked the shirt over her head to reveal a black swim bra and ran after Tanner, McCrae, and Woody, who were all heading for the steps.

  “Jesus,” Zora said, who’d finally apparently left the “Amanda group” of the Five Firsts to join her. “I’m not freezing my butt off.”

  “I don’t have a suit,” Delta said.

  Bailey had walked quickly after Carmen and now stood by as other kids clambered down the steps.

  “Wait a minute. Wait a minute!” Coach Sutton bellowed. “Watch out for the undertow!”

  Amanda said, “The rapids are down the river, Coach. The swimming hole by the beach is fine and roped off for us.”

  “You think these guys care?” he growled.

  “They all know. And you told ’em again and again.”

  “Your mom and dad put me in charge, and that’s what I intend to be.”

  Amanda rolled her eyes. Her parents had taken a trip to the beach and left the party to the coach, but she clearly thought he was taking his job too seriously.

  Counselor Billings said, “Freddie’s manning the rope at the edge of the swimming hole.”

  Freddie. That was the name of the aide.

  Coach snorted, and Delta agreed with him. Freddie might as well save his energy for all the good that would do anyone if the guys like Woody and Penske and McCrae decided to float down the river. The rapids would be tough, though, and there was that undertow where the river dumped into Grimm’s Pond, the swimming hole near the highway that was feared by parents and beloved by daredevils.

  Counselor Billings started heading down the cliff side.

  Delta decided she wasn’t going to stay on the headland if everyone else was scaling down the cliff side, so she followed after Amanda and Counselor Billings. She’d worn black capri pants, a red short-sleeved top, and flip-flops and had some difficulty negotiating the narrow steps down; once there, she wished she’d brought her swimsuit after all. Tanner, McCrae, Carmen, and others, including Bailey and Amanda, were already in the river splashing each other, while Counselor Billings stood on the beach along with about ten other kids and watched them. The water had to be icy cold, but they obviously didn’t care. The river moved slowly alongside the scrawny beach before hurrying down a narrowing canyon. There was a shelf cut into the near side, a walking trail of sorts that was almost an echo of the jogging trail above. The shelf gradually rose as the river headed around a bend and then, with increasing speed, over a series of rapids on its way to Grimm’s Pond. Delta had once traveled those rapids with Amanda when they were much younger, both of them huddled in a rubber boat that was oared by Amanda’s father. It had been a scary and thrilling ride . . . and she’d never wanted to do it again. Neither had Amanda, and her father had teased her mercilessly until she was fighting tears.

  Now Delta gazed down the canyon, seeing the rush of white water far down as the river made its left-hand turn at the beginning of the rapids. Later in the year, it would be rated “easy” by river rafters; not so in the spring.

  Miss Billings was warning them all to be careful. Freddie had stretched the “barrier,” a plastic rope threaded with several red and white floats, running it from one shore to the other. He was wearing a life vest and holding another one up high, silently asking them to do the same. No one paid him any attention.

  “Come on up!” Coach Sutton bellowed down, barely heard by the crowd below. “Pig’s roasted! Corn on the cob’s done!”

  Delta stepped her flip-flops into the water, which was cold but bearable. Amanda was up to her knees, trying to gain Tanner’s attention and failing miserably. He was actually splashing around with Carmen, who was good in the water, her height and strength putting her on par with the boys.


  “Time for barbeque!” Counselor Billings yelled, waving them all out of the swimming hole.

  Reluctantly, in twos and threes, they all staggered out of the water, shivering. Woody got near Delta and shook his head like a wild dog.

  “Woody!” she sputtered. Wet drops were flung all over her red shirt.

  “Sorry,” he said with a huge grin, then whooped and hollered and clambered up the bank. It was like a challenge to the other guys, who damn near stepped on each other’s heads as they followed him up, water dripping on the steps and rungs, making everything ten times slipperier than it had been on the way down.

  Carmen followed after them like a galloping dog. Bailey, who’d descended with Delta and Amanda, looked somewhat pained as she grabbed a rung and headed back up.

  Amanda looked at Delta. Delta looked at Amanda. “Go ahead,” Amanda said.

  “No, go on. I’m going to stick down here for a little while.”

  Amanda looked as if she were going to argue but stopped herself and gave a shrug. Then she followed after the others.

  Chris McCrae was seated on a nearby log, eyeing Delta. His cutoff jeans were wet, and his torso was too, but it was drying in the slanting sunlight. He squinted at her. “Aren’t you going up?”

  “No.”

  He stood and ran a hand through his hair, pulling out some of the water. “Gonna stay down here for the rest of your life?”

  “I just might,” Delta said. She heard her belligerent tone, a far cry from the happy, enthusiastic Delta they all knew.

  “He doesn’t give a shit about her, you know.”

  “Who?” Delta asked automatically.

  He gave her the “Are we really going to play this game?” look.

  “If you’re talking about Tanner, I’d rather not.”

  He snorted. “Who are you—Ellie?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You gotta watch yourself. You sound about as judgmental as she is.”

  She turned her back on him. She didn’t want to talk about Ellie, or Tanner, or anyone.