Eruption (Yellowblown™ Book 1)

by Hughey, J.

  I grabbed the opportunity for a lukewarm shower, determined to feel clean at least once today. I picked up two apples from a basket on the counter on my way to the scraping and digging sounds from outside.

  “That fellow’s pretty handy.” Grampa lounged on the glider again. He gestured toward Boone at the big spring.

  “Hi, Grampa. Where’d you come from?”

  “Your dad showed up looking for a digging iron and my rubbers.”

  “Your what?”

  He peered up at me. “A digging iron. You know, to help pry rocks out of holes.”

  “And the other thing?”

  “My rubbers.” He looked askance at me, and I couldn’t tell if he was joking or starting to get pissed. “My Tingleys.”

  “Your what?”

  “Land sakes, girl, did you grow up in the city? My overboots. My rubber boots.”

  “Well, what does ‘tingly’ have to do with it?”

  “Tingley,” he said, shaking his head. “The brand name. T-I-N-G-L-E-Y. Tingley.”

  “Oh.”

  “You honestly don’t know what a rubber boot is?”

  “You didn’t say rubber boot.”

  He blinked at me, then understanding dawned. “Gah, you and your music video generation makes everything about S-E-X.”

  I hadn’t watched music videos since fourth grade, but I wasn’t going to argue with him.

  “That Nebraska kid is ankle-deep. My rubbers are keeping his feet dry.”

  “Thanks, Grampa. I’m bringing this apple to him. Do you need anything? How’s Grandma?”

  “Bossy. I should have never retired,” he grumbled. “I also should’ve kept the little crawler tractor she made me sell last year. Thing’d be handy right now.” He squinted at Boone where he wrenched a grapefruit sized rock out of a muddy hole. “That boy’s a hard worker.”

  Grampa had sold the crawler at least five years ago when he’d accidentally driven over Grandma’s favorite rose bush. He’d mistaken the bucket control for the throttle. The incident unnerved my dad, since Grampa had owned an excavation business for fifty years. I’d heard Dad tell Mom he’d thought his father would remember how to run big equipment long enough to dig his own grave.

  “I’m fresh out of tractors. You sure you don’t need anything else?” I asked.

  He waved me away. I walked over to where Boone shoveled some gravel into his hole.

  “Want an apple?” I called.

  As he crunched on it, I surveyed his project, which so far consisted of one muddy hole below and to the left of the spring, about the size of a five-gallon bucket, with a layer of gravel in the bottom. Several sacks of concrete mix lay on a tarp next to four posts.

  “Whatcha making?”

  “We’re gonna put a roof and a fence around it.”

  “Why?”

  “To keep the ash and the animals out. And then we might lay a pipe in here, make it easier to collect water.” He tossed the apple core into the woods. “Go check out what your parents are doing at the other spring,” he said. “Then come back and help me if you want.”

  Mom knelt in the grass with a printed brochure unfolded and weighted down with rocks in front of her. A black tub rested upside down nearby. Dad hacked at a hole in the lawn. Sweat dripped from his sloe-gin face.

  I looked over Mom’s shoulder at instructions on how to install a fishpond.

  “Are we going to farm our own fish, too?” I asked.

  “Very funny,” she said, without looking up.

  “Oh, I remember this thing. You were going to add it to the flower garden, like, three years ago.”

  “Well, I never got around to it,” Dad said. “But it’s going to be pretty useful now.”

  “Won’t it get algae and frogs and stuff living in it?”

  “Probably,” Dad said. “We’re going to put a screen over it, and a cover.”

  “Sounds great,” I lied, vowing I would never drink water from any vessel where frogs lived. “I’m gonna go help Boone.”

  We all worked until dusk. We were dirty and sore with blistered palms by the time the digging part ended. Or at least three of us were. Boone didn’t seem to mind, even after the long bike ride this morning. Dad carried four beers and two sodas—for Sara and me—to the back patio, though why Sara got anything I didn’t know. All she’d done is watch TV. Mom usually noticed such inequities.

  Grampa cradled his beer bottle like a lover. His lips smacked with bliss after every sip.

  “Hey, Sara,” Mom said. “You haven’t helped all day. Why don’t you go in and make some sandwiches for all of us for dinner.”

  “That isn’t fair. Nobody told me you needed help,” she squealed. “Why do I have to do it?”

  “Make sandwiches or dig another foot in that hole for me,” Dad ordered.

  “Umm, Boone and I were thinking about going out for pizza,” I ventured, “though he might be too worn out now.”

  “I’m good.” He took another swig from his bottle. “If you’re driving.”

  I toasted him with my cola.

  Mom handed her car keys and thirty bucks to me. “You going to Carpucci’s?” she asked, referring to the pizza joint at the intersection with the main road to Gardenburg.

  “Yeah. I doubt we’ll be late since we have more construction to do tomorrow.” I said it with a genuine smile. As boring as digging holes might be, like Boone had said, it felt good to have my blood moving, to have an occupation and a project instead of watching the consistently disheartening news. The stock market slid, the power grid destabilized, the jet stream swung back in our direction. And the ash still pumped out of the ground like the water from our springs, only much, much faster.

  She gave me an unexpected hug. “The project will be here. You two go out and have a fun time together.” The unspoken words hung between us. …while you still can.

  I wondered if my parents were starting to reverse roles when Dad shadowed us out the door.

  “Be in by midnight,” he grumbled.

  I stopped on the sidewalk. “I haven’t had a curfew since high school.” I hadn’t exactly needed one, nor did I tonight. The principle of the thing irked me.

  “No problem, Mr. Perch,” Boone said to my Dad’s silhouette on the porch.

  Ten minutes later, I pulled into the only local restaurant, a high school haunt for those of us this side of the school district. Boone took my hand as we crossed the parking lot of pot-holed and patched asphalt. He wore a green and orange plaid shirt over a white T, with jeans and his hikers. He’d gotten some sun on his cheekbones and, to me, looked like a guy who could earn a modeling contract. He startled me out of my single-minded admiration when he said, “You look good in skirts.”

  I hoped the darkness hid my pleased blush. I’d worn a sundress with a denim jacket over it, and, with Sara’s encouragement (“Cowboy up!”), a pair of short boots instead of flip flops. “You look pretty good yourself, Boone Ramer,” I stammered. So much for always knowing what to say and do.

  We slipped into a four-person booth with duct tape repaired seats and had our drinks in front of us before my scalp crawled with the sensation of being watched. Instinctively, I glanced over, then averted my eyes. “Oh, son of a…how could I be so stupid?” I hissed without thinking.

  “What?” Boone asked, alarmed. He looked. You didn’t have to be a detective to notice the table of four rubbernecking guys. He stared right back for a moment then asked with a wry smile, “Ex-boyfriends?”

  “Just one.”

  “Let me guess, hmm, the goth one with the fedora.”

  I nodded minutely, horrified and trying to appear totally nonchalant and unconcerned as Parker Snider separated from his posse to approach us, his shoulders in a practiced slouch.

  “No shit.” He stifled a laugh. “I was joking. Tell me he isn’t Parker.” My pure misery answered the question. “So, am I playing dumb or telling him to go pack sand?”

  I shook my head, too late to give instructions,
or better yet, escape before Parker arrived at our table. He wore a dress shirt the color of Mia’s lipstick, skinny black pants with a slight sheen, black boots with treaded soles that would make a monster truck envious, and only enough eyeliner to allow the uncertainty of whether he was or wasn’t. His black hair hung in purposeful locks that set off his pale skin.

  I wished I could be like Dorothy, clicking my heels together, except instead of wishing for home, I would repeat There’s no place like college. There’s no place like college.

  “Hey, Vie,” Parker said in his subdued, practiced voice.

  “Hi, Parker.”

  He scowled. His given name ticked him off.

  I continued, “How’s things?” I knew from my mom things for him sucked. “This is Boone Ramer, from college,” I said, driving in another stake.

  Boone slid out of the booth to shake his hand. Parker sized Boone up, thoroughly. Boone stood an inch or two taller, and had at least twenty pounds on Parker, who purposely went for the anemic artsy vibe.

  “Parker,” Boone said, unknowingly twisting the knife.

  “I go by Jag,” Parker said.

  Boone’s eyebrows lifted a tad. “Oh. Okay. Jag.” He slid back in across from me.

  “So, you back for a visit?” Parker asked. Now that he and Boone had had their meet and greet, the shadowy eyes searched me with an intensity I’d once found intriguing and now found pathetic.

  “Who knows?” I said. “School closed for awhile. You know, volcano and everything.”

  “Well, that’s college for you,” he said. In a quick move, he dropped into the booth seat beside me. I slid away so abruptly I smacked my elbow against the wall. Boone stiffened. His chin lifted. A tiny unfriendly smile curled the corners of his mouth as he fixed glittering eyes on our uninvited guest.

  “So, Boone, what’s your gig?” Parker asked.

  “Taking a break from college, like Violet said.”

  “That’s cool. That’s cool. What are you studying?”

  “Agricultural economics.”

  “Agriculture? No way.” He bumped me with his shoulder. “See, Vie, you do like farmers. Are you a farmer?”

  “Cattle ranch,” he said. “In Nebraska.”

  I could almost hear Parker’s head-gears turning, trying to remember where Nebraska sat on a U.S. map.

  “How many acres?” Parker asked.

  “You don’t ask a rancher that question.”

  “Oh,” Parker said on a high note. “Sorry. I’m not up on my Nebraska etiquette.” He looked at me then back to Boone, smiling thinly. “Am I allowed to ask how many head of cattle?”

  “Not normally but since the answer is currently zero I guess it doesn’t matter,” Boone said with a scoffing laugh. I’d never seen him so glacial, so not the approachable, helpful Scout.

  “Zero? Why?”

  “Omigod, Parker. Volcano?” I said.

  Three things happened. Boom. Boom. Boom.

  The server arrived with our pizza.

  A dramatic gasping cry rang out from the direction of the restaurant entrance.

  The entire place went silent as all the occupants, including our server, watched the drama unfold.

  Boone turned in time to see a willowy blonde’s face crumple with theatrical tears. I hadn’t personally seen Nikki cry since the day after graduation, but I suspected it happened plenty since then.

  My stomach turned to lead. What had I been thinking, coming here on a Saturday night? Did I think Boone and the Yellowblown ash would shield me from my eternal three-pointed curse? I might as well have tied antlers on my head and pinned a target on my chest and hiked into the hills on the first day of buck season as think I would get out of Carpucci’s without bloodshed. In the non-literal sense.

  “Who’s that?” Boone asked.

  “Parker’s wife,” I said dully.

  Boone slowly rotated to look at me. His eyebrows arched in questioning surprise.

  “We. Are. Separated.” Parker enunciated every syllable before he slid out of the seat. “Nikki,” he called.

  Her gold and platinum streaked locks swirled around her head like strands of silk as she pushed back through the exit.

  Luckily, Boone watched my reaction, not the perfect cheeks of her butt highlighted by rhinestone-studded pockets.

  “What just happened?” he asked when I continued to stare at the closed door.

  I showed him my palm to stop the questions then reached over to grab his hand where it lay on the table. I held on for dear life. This was now. Parker and Nikki were way in the past. “It’s not worth talking about,” I said. Deny. Deny. Deny.

  He squeezed my fingers, though I think he struggled not to laugh at my distress. “Remember when you said you never would have put me in my truck,” he said. “Not in a million geologic epochs would I have put you with that guy. I buy the stalking part, maybe. He’s a little sketchy.”

  I dropped my head to stare at the cracked vinyl tablecloth. “I swear I will tell you everything later. I can’t talk about it here, okay? I’d forgotten this place is a time machine built to return me to the worst moments of my life.”

  His indulgent smile proved I was going off the tracks.

  My cell vibrated in my pocket. An automatic check of the screen pushed me closer to the derailing. Nikki. Oh, I wish I didn’t have a rule against nicknames in my phone ’cuz hers would be a humdinger.

  “Can we just eat this pizza?” I asked as I thumped the phone face down on the table.

  I’d been starving when we’d arrived. Now I ate without tasting. I welcomed the clinging burn of hot cheese on the roof of my mouth. Anything to distract me from the incessant buzzing of my phone and the mortification of Boone meeting my worst mistakes in such a spectacular and complete way.

  By the time we were ready to leave, Parker had returned to his posse in his hangdog way. Boone nodded in their direction as we hit the front door. He’d argued with me when I pulled out the cash to pay the bill, but I guess he recognized a woman at the end of her tether, and he let it drop.

  My phone buzzed madly in my pocket as it had all through dinner. I peeked again, hoping Mia was psychically aware I needed an intervention.

  Nikki’s name covered the screen, listed on a series of missed calls and text messages. The texts started out encyclopedic in length, though the last one from three minutes ago said simply “FU.” Classic.

  I shoved the phone back in my pocket. Nikki Hollingshead Snider was the last person in the universe I owed any explanations or apologies to. At least not fresh ones.

  As we crossed the parking lot, Boone paused to look at a classic truck painted in matte black with all the right chrome. I groaned when he walked over to it, knowing he would see decals for The Blue Canoes and Jordan Blue. And look, a new logo on the door, as if this was a commercial vehicle for Jordan Blue’s studio. Was it legal to impersonate a celebrity’s truck?

  “Let me guess. These are Jag’s wheels.”

  I nodded, miserable.

  “What’s that whole Jag thing about, anyway? Is he a fighter pilot or something?”

  “Hardly. J-A-G are Jordan Blue’s real initials.”

  “Who is Jordan Blue?”

  “A musician,” I said with a maniacal laugh. “He’s actually pretty creative, but I can’t listen to him anymore without throwing up a little. Come on.” I plucked at his sleeve. “Let’s get out of here before anyone else from my past decides to get pizza tonight.”

  I drove to a different spot by the river. A quarter moon shone bright enough to make the flowing water sparkle.

  “Do you want to sit outside?” Boone asked.

  He put his jacket on the bank then sat behind me to brace me between his bent legs, my back against his warm front. I turned my face into his neck, savored the scent of his shaving gel and him. “Thank you,” I breathed.

  “For what?”

  “For not freaking out.”

  “Well,” he said. “The next time you want to use m
e for arm candy, give me a little warning.”

  I angled sideways to look at him. “Hey, I didn’t do that on purpose.”

  “I know,” he said with his throaty laugh. He eased me back against him again. “I figured that out when your face turned as white as the napkins on the table. So, tell me the story of Jag and Vie.”

  I shuddered. “Parker is local, but he’d been home-schooled, so he first came to Gardenburg High the first day of junior year. I was such an idiot. I was so tired of everything being the same. All of us wore the same clothes, the same haircuts, thought the same things. Parker looked different, and for some reason, he noticed me.”

  “That shouldn’t surprise you.”

  “Thanks,” I whispered with a nuzzle to his throat. “Anyway, we started dating the first week of school. And it was fun, you know. We hung out like most high school kids.”

  “Sex, drugs and The Blue Canoes?”

  I shrugged. “Well, the last part, for sure. I know the lyrics to every song.”

  “Did you take the veil? You know, dye your hair black and make your face pale?”

  “No. I mean, I wore a lot of black but my mom flipped out when I tried the eyeliner. Of course that only made me like him more.”

  “Of course. How long did you date him?”

  I cringed. “Into spring of senior year —″

  “Spring of senior year? You dated for, what, eighteen months? That’s a serious boyfriend.”

  “Looking back, I didn’t like him during senior year the way a girl should like her boyfriend. But we were a high school couple. You know, established. People thought we were cool. So I kept going out with him, figuring I’d escape to college in the fall.”

  He pressed his lips against my hair as if he understood. “The end came when you left for WCC?”

  “No-o-o,” I said slowly. “I broke up with him at the Valentine’s Day dance.”

  Boone became very still. “Wow,” he breathed. “That’ll screw a guy up for life.”

  “He kind of asked for it.”