A Dark Road

by Amanda Lance

  I heard some swearing just beyond the open soccer field where the garden sheds ended. I couldn’t see who the voices belonged to and guessed that no one else could either, but there wasn’t exactly anyone else around. After a minute, one of the Goth kids emerged from behind a supply shed and walked in the other direction. And as I stepped up, I saw James McKay walk away in the opposite direction. His hands were folded into his sweatshirt and his eyes looked toward the ground. I probably should have let him keep on walking, but I was pulled to his brooding like a magnet.

  “Ja—McKay!”

  I remembered what he said about his name and corrected myself. At first I thought he hadn’t heard me, and so began walking across the field, quickening my step until I realized what an idiot I probably looked like from afar. Did he have girls chasing him around all of the time like Simon did? I shifted my jaw together and looked to the sky. I was as big of a dope as everyone else.

  I was about to call after him again when he froze like a statue. The only indication that he wasn’t a still life was the breeze moving his hair. Then I realized I could see his shoulders moving just a little with each breath.

  “Hi.”

  He hesitated to turn to me, and when he did, his neck craned further towards the ground. What could have been so wrong that he would frown like that? I felt sort of sorry for him but I didn’t understand why. There was no specific reason to pity him, but my gut told me he needed sympathy. Now he wouldn’t even look me in the eye. So why did I take the time to stop him? I thought I wanted to talk to him, speak with him like I had the night before, but now I was having a hard time thinking of something to say.

  “Um…hey.”

  “Hadley.”

  He looked up a little and smiled. “I didn’t forget.”

  “Well, I thought you might have. I understand you’re pretty popular around here.”

  His posture became stiff again. The few words I’d said were wrong.

  “What d-do you want?” I watched the arch of his sharp brows knit together. “I’m all—”

  “I just wanted to say ‘hi.’ Christ, it’s not like I’m stalking you or anything.” I pretended to laugh off the last part, thinking how I had stared at him in English and then again in gym. Stalking, ogling, I was walking a thin line.

  “Really?”

  My words seemed to have both flustered and relieved him at the same time.

  I rolled my eyes. From what Jordan and romantic comedies had taught me about boys, playing hard to get or at least indifferent was better than begging for attention.

  “It’s not like I had anything better to do. I’m waiting for my brother to get out of band practice.”

  James looked at me with a strange sort of awe. Oh God, did I have something on my face? Something in my teeth? I looked up into his eyes, even in the sunlight they looked like gray ash, a gloomy fog.

  “What? You act like no one has ever said hi to you before.”

  I saw the smile break through and his dimple made my knees shaky. “You’d be surprised.”

  “So, ah—what were you doing back there, anyway?”

  When the smile left he looked painfully white. “Just, I um—dropped something...”

  “Okay.”

  He blushed as he answered and his stutter enhanced, so even though his explanation didn’t make much sense, I let him have it plainly.

  “I forgot to say thanks for the other day. I hear you don’t like to talk much, so when you…kind of stood up for me in gym, that was pretty cool.”

  I thought he might smile, or at least I thought he might respond in a complimentary form but instead his brow wrinkled and he frowned again, looking angry.

  “You heard something about me? People were saying t-things about me?”

  Remember getting caught picking the candy out of the trail mix as a kid? When you’re caught gossiping that same fledging of terror seeps through you along with a feeling of self-consciousness that you were even interested in someone enough to be gossiping about them in the first place. Not only that but I didn’t want to be ruining reputations or causing trouble where there certainly hadn’t been before. So I shrugged and tried to change the subject.

  “I don’t remember. How do you think you did on the English quiz today?”

  “Good.”

  “Just good?”

  He shrugged. “A 100.”

  We stared back, smiling at each other in the dulling daylight of the afternoon. It was possible that I was completely and totally thrilled to be staying after school just then.

  “Do people really talk about me that much?” he asked.

  I was confused by the abruptness in his questioning. Rachel had given me the roster of who was who over the last couple of days, but James McKay was not one of them. But then if he had been attending school here for long enough, why didn’t he have any idea about the prattling that lined the halls about him?

  “Don’t your friends keep you up to date on this stuff?”

  He shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck as though there was a soreness there that could not be undone. “I don’t really have any of those.”

  “Any of what?”

  “You know.” James groaned inwardly and I giggled at the sound. It was rude and obtrusive but still enjoyable. “F-friends.”

  “You don’t have any friends?”

  He smiled, though the expression seemed to bring him some pain.

  From a distance, my name echoed off the fields and brick exterior. I turned in the direction of the sound at the same time James did. We both saw Tim struggling to get out of his shoulder pads, slurping down water and Gatorade with the other players. I waved back but it wasn’t enough, so he imitated a boxer’s stance and threw mock punches at an invisible enemy. I waved again, feeling awkward at the display. I couldn’t help but wonder what James was thinking.

  “Do you have a boyfriend already?”

  From the corner of my eye I saw Tim doing a cartwheel but my attention was fully back on James. His posture went back to one of ridged indifference.

  “Tim is just my friend. Friends are allowed to say ‘hi’ to one another.”

  His shoulders slumped as he stared off into the vastness of the parking lot.

  “I suppose you wouldn’t know that, though.” I waved my hand in front of his face, wiggling my fingers and trying to get his attention. “Being as how you have no friends?”

  “Dog doesn’t count.” He smiled. “Real friends don’t steal your spot on the couch or fart in your face.”

  “Hmm, I’ll have to tell my brother that. All of his friends back home are no true friends at all.”

  “Speaking of…” I looked in the direction James nodded. Sure enough, Simon’s head was sticking out of the window from the band room. I saw his squinting eyes staring down at us and I knew there would be questions later.

  “I have to go.”

  “I see that.” He shrugged.

  I started to walk away but his voice stopped me in my tracks.

  “Hadley Grayson?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Next time you can’t sleep, make sure you find something better to do,” he added quickly. “You shouldn’t be out there…in the fields.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. He sounded scared, but was he threatening me?

  “S-seriously, trespassers get shot all the t-time around here.”

  And so ended my first week at my new school.

  Chapter 14

  McKay

  One of the best ways to screw people over is by carrying an even number of tablets with you. Since three for $50 is such a bargain, I carry around two, or sometimes four when I know I’m going to be selling at school. Again, stupid thing to do, I know. But it doesn’t much matter if I don’t get paid, then I can’t get out of here and that’s all that really counts.

  But like The Stooges, the Goths are giving me shit and I can’t get rid of them. Someone must have told them that I not only make ecstasy, but that it’s the
best shit around, because Goth Trish has been following me around all day.

  Finally she and a bunch of her nocturnal worshiping friends cornered me right before English. I thought it might make an even bigger scene if I made a deal out of it, so I let them surround me and kept my head to the ground and hoped that anybody who did notice just thought they were making fun of me.

  I’m hesitant to deal anything to people I don’t know, but a couple of these kids aren’t exactly saints, either. They’ve been going here as long as I have, so at least I know they aren’t undercover cops or anything. At the same time, I don’t want to make any more stupid moves than I have to. It’s well-known that Goth Trish has some serious depression and if she’s on an SSRI (your Prozacs, your Zolofts, your Lexapros) it may not have any adverse affects. But if she’s on one of those heavy-duty MAOIs (one of those motherfuckers where you can’t even eat cheese) then she’s bound to overdose or have a stroke, or just drop dead altogether.

  So I tell her outright, “I’m not selling you anything.”

  When I tell her why she laughs like I just said something hilarious and keeps on following me.

  “Dude, come on.” Skinny Pants must have known his girlfriend wasn’t getting anywhere so he tries his luck with flattery. “We know you’re a good guy. Just give us a break. It’s not like we’re narcs, and we’ll pay whatever you want.”

  “God, Marshall, could you be any louder?”

  “Being obvious, anyway, aren’t we, Trish? Talking to the biggest loser that ever lived?”

  I’m kind of fascinated that Goth Trish can roll her eyes with all that makeup on there, but I think maybe it’s an evolutionary tactic girls have.

  But there I was: the biggest loser among the losers.

  King Loser. May the trumpets sound my arrival.

  People are starting to look now, and I definitely can’t be having that.

  I point to Marshall. That’s a terrible name for a Goth, at least Hadley Grayson would think so. Shouldn’t he be called Stench or Scab? “Behind the custodial shed, after school.”

  It was better not to think about those rumors around the one Goth girl who wore long sleeves. And I’m trying not to think about the difference between going away for dealing and manslaughter, the difference between knowledge and intent.

  “It only takes one mistake to bring down a house of cards.”

  “Huh?”

  “Nevermind.”

  I’m not surprised that Marshall is behind the shed before I get there. I swear he’s in such a state of disbelief that he’s finally getting his hands on drugs that he doesn’t even listen to me.

  “This is a one time deal,” I say to him. “I don’t sell to people at school.”

  “Yeah, okay. Okay.”

  The words sound pointless even as I say them. I know they are more or less falling on deaf ears, that my warnings will not be heeded, but it doesn’t keep me from saying them anyway.

  “And like—you know…don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

  He rolls his eyes and I realize he’s wearing eye shadow, too. Maybe he thinks he’s a vampire. “Scrap the lecture, dip ship. I know what I’m doing.”

  Yeah, sure you do.

  I’m wishing for disclaimer forms for illegal narcotic sales. Check the little box and waive all liability that your dealer/chemist carries from this point forward. Sign here, initial here…

  By the time I do get rid of him I think he’s on my back again, but I’m surprised and I’m shocked and I’m horrified.

  She reminds me her name is Hadley but I don’t need a reminder. Why in the hell would I?

  “I thought you might,” she tells me “You’re pretty popular around here.”

  Less than a week here and she knows who I am and what I do. I try to tell her I’m all out of product, for some reason I hate the idea that she wants to use. But more frightening than that is this revelation she’s offering me. She tells me people talk about me and I can hardly think straight. Her voice is like warm milk, and I want to drink her up.

  Then I see this kid who kind of looks like her, only not so edible), sticking his head out the window. He’s glaring at me and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out he’s probably the twin brother I’ve heard about.

  When I point him out, Hadley gets a funny look on her face, something between embarrassed and annoyed, and though I can’t name the expression, I like the way her ultra-straight white teeth bite down on her lower lip. I even like the way liking it makes me feel, but then I start thinking about Frank and how paranoid the meth has him, and I hate everything again.

  “Hadley Grayson?” Just saying her name does things to my insides that remind me of a punch in the gut.

  “Yeah?”

  “Next time you can’t sleep, make sure you find something better to do. You shouldn’t be out there. Seriously, trespassers get shot all the time around here.”

  It wasn’t true, but it was better if she thought it was. And it was better to have her think I was stupid or a crazy like everybody else.

  As I walk back to my truck, I think about how the sunshine makes her hair lighter and the things I’ll never have.

  Even on a good day, a girl like Hadley Grayson would never be interested in me.

  I meet Jenna just outside of her church when she’s done with choir practice. Her parents are almost always out of town for work or on vacation or some damn thing and alleviate their guilt by giving her a high allowance that she pretty much hands straight over to me. Other than The Stooges, she’s the only customer I ever deal with directly, and that’s only because I know she has as much to lose as I do.

  I roll down my windows and watch the leaves blow into the gutter around the building. For a church it isn’t bad looking, stained glass windows and the whole bit. It’s the second time Jenna has had me meet her here, though it’s usually someplace different, the mall, the movie theater, the diner six towns over. I had to hand it to Jenna though, she may be a junkie, but she is functional in a way that The Stooges can’t be. She is all set to be valedictorian or one of those things and meth has practically helped her get there.

  When I see the first flock of people start to leave, I sink down in my seat. Jenna is even more apt than me to not let anyone know about her drug use, and if it came down to the wire, I was sure she would keep my name out of it.

  I wait until I see her leave, of course she’ll be last, and when the parking lot clears out, I go over to her.

  “Hey hey.”

  “Hi.”

  Jenna is a quiet girl, always has been, even when she’s high she doesn’t get talkative, which is out of sorts for someone with my product.

  We exchange money and product quietly, as the routine dictates.

  “Same time next week?”

  She nods.

  “Jenna, what have you heard about the new kid?”

  “Kids,” she corrects. “Plural.”

  “Okay then, kids.”

  Jenna looks out of the corner of her eye. “Simon and Hadley Grayson, age 17. Twins. Mother is a manager of an auto dealership, father is in insurance auditor. Simon plays piano, Hadley is, or was, rather, the captain of her fencing team.” She cites the information like she has it memorized, another thing I notice only girls tend to do.

  I kept my mouth shut when she asked me why I wanted to know. At the end of the day it’s always better to leave questions unanswered, to let them make their own guesses, since most of the time they’re wrong, anyway. Let them have the benefit of the doubt that they’re right and you’re wrong, leaving them in confusion is second best to have them not noticing you at all.

  Chapter 15

  Hadley

  Dad set Simon and I to basement clean-up duty as soon as we got home. Normally, I would have complained about this obvious abuse of parental rights, but I was curious about the lower-level of the house that had been bordered off by old milk-crates and other various junk. Dad had cleared away most of the heavier pieces, including the remai
ns of a door frame, but once he caught a peek of the mess inside, he decided it would be a good project for us kids to handle.

  I batted away mounds of cobwebs with a roll of paper towels. “We should call social services about this.”

  “We might have to bleed a little to make it believable.” Simon swore while struggling to hang a flashlight from the ceiling. “I could stab you with one of these jagged nails a few times…”

  “Or I could hit you over the head with this paint can.” I gutted the cobwebs like they were my primary opponent. I made the lunge for final point. In my imagination I had won the match.

  Simon shook his head at me. “You’re just not dedicated enough, Hads.”

  He lugged a piece of a workbench against the concrete. I flinched at the sound and retreated to the other side of the basement. Having a basement was something new for us. In Connecticut we only had the attic, which was more of a crawl space than anything. In this lower level there was the uneven bumpiness of the walls and floor and a perpetual damp and cold, even though the furnace was running a few yards away.

  I picked up the stepstool and stood to the side with the window plank. “What do you think Mom wants to do with this room?”

  “Put a bunch of crap in it: Christmas decorations and stuff. Why?”

  When the window wouldn’t open, I went to the tool box and grabbed the WD-40. I sprayed at the windowsill until both of us were coughing and then tried opening it again.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I just kind of hope she doesn’t turn it into a sewing room or pottery studio when the mid-life crisis hits.”

  “What, you want to make a club house or something?” Simon laughed.

  Finally the window came open.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe I do.”

  “Lame, Hads. Get over here and help me with this, will you?”

  “You look like you have it under control.”

  “What did we agree on, Hadley?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’d do dust, mold, and spiders—”

  “That’s right, Hads, spiders!”