East Coast Girls (ARC)
Page 23
how to do it. And how would she ever be able to explain that to a man? Thirty years old and she couldn’t even remember
how to kiss, much less how to move her hips.
One wrong turn, so many years ago. That’s what it all came
down to. Was it possible to alter the course now? Sometimes
she thought yes. Other times it just seemed hopeless.
She reached into the ice chest, grabbed a wine cooler, took
a swig.
“You guys,” Renee said. Her eyes were wide, her mouth
agape. “Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?”
They all turned to follow Renee’s gaze.
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HANNAH
Hannah hadn’t been on a long-distance train since she was a
little kid. There was something bleak about it. Her childhood memories of them were romantic and exciting but now she
saw they were dirty and hard-seated like a subway. At least it had been easy to navigate her travel. She was always expecting everything to be difficult—though maybe it was just the
drag of fear that made life seem tedious and exhausting. Or
maybe the anticipation of problems was merely an instrument
to avoid doing anything at all. Probably both. But as it turned out, there’d been a quaint and obvious ticketing station and
a map of all the stops and a conductor whom she could pep-
per with questions. And since they were at the end of an is-
land, there was no chance of going in the wrong direction.
Or if they did, getting lost was the least of her problems. If only everything could be like that—so clear-cut and defined.
The doors closed, the next stop was announced and the train
started up with a low moan and a whistle. Hannah watched
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the scenery chug by, her face staring back at her in the dirty, water-spotted window glass. A slant of sun knifed across her
lap, turned her pale legs ghostly. Suddenly she was trapped and unsure. And alone—this most of all. Her friends were probably heading to the beach right now, decked out in sunglasses and hats with their big beach bags, their big laughter. They’d spend all day there under a broad blue sky, trading gossip magazines and memories, taking a midday stroll along the ocean
as the white water sprayed upward like a young girl’s hair in wind. Simple togetherness, simple joys.
The train pulled forward, then picked up speed, greenery
and desertlike shrubs rushing past as she was bumped and
rattled along toward the city. She shouldn’t be on it. In retrospect it had been nice to be with her friends. Even though all they’d done was fight and aggravate and worry her, she had
been in the presence of people who really knew and loved her
and there was such comfort in that. It was only now, return-
ing to her aloneness, that she’d noticed the difference. Worse, she’d left just as it seemed the trip might finally get fun. In fact they’d probably have more fun now that she was gone. Realize she was just a drag on their good times. Stop even bothering
to invite her anywhere.
The long trek home loomed. She would have to take a sec-
ond train to DC and then hail a cab to her apartment and then hot wash all her clothes, scrub her body. Then back to Henry
at the long-term care facility where there was nothing left to fear, but nothing left to be excited about either. Just days that blended into each other and passed and made her older and
only that. It was safe. It was comfortable. It was known. And—
it was not enough. Oh, if only being aware of a problem ac-
tually fixed it. She was making the wrong decision. She was
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sure of that now. And equally powerless to stop it. Once the
momentum got too far in the direction of fear, she couldn’t
rein it in; she had to oblige it like a menacing boss.
She adjusted in her seat, pulled her bag closer, reminded
herself that she would have equally regretted staying. How
were you supposed to know which way was right?
Well, that fortune-teller at the Bridgehampton fair had told
her once, and she had failed to listen.
To think of how much she and her friends had laughed at
the oracle’s eerie prophecy!
Never for a moment had she taken it seriously when the
woman had said, “You will come to a fork in the road and
darkness beyond it…”
And yet there had been exactly that.
So much the psychic had been right about…
“On the one side of the fork, a boy who makes you feel
safe. On the other…”
Hannah shivered at the memory.
And a few days after, after their return from Montauk,
there she was at a fork in the road, just as the woman had
warned her.
There she was shouting to her friends, “Which way? Which
way!”
There she was saying, “We’re running out of gas…”
And the men were closing in.
And a decision had to be made.
Right or left?
Right or left?
She had gone right.
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upon this road before with Henry. That they’d gone right at
the fork.
Almost instantly she’d recognized familiar landmarks. They
were nearer to home than she thought. They probably even
had enough gas to make it. Her cell service came into range.
She called Henry. Told him about the men. He knew exactly
where they were. Guided them to his house.
“Stay on the line with me,” he’d said, and so she had, glanc-
ing nervously in the rearview mirror until the sleazebags disappeared from view. What relief when they finally turned
onto Henry’s well-lit street, pulled in to the driveway, no
one behind them!
He was waiting at the door for them, her handsome Henry
looking so huggable in his sweatshirt and boxers, his brown
hair lopsided from sleep, matted on one side, sticking up on
the other. The others leaped out and raced toward him, clam-
oring about the scary chase, giddy with release. She watched
him tilt his head and furrow his brow as he listened in that
charmingly befuddled way he always seemed to have around
her loud, squealing friends, looking, to her mind, like a new dad, adoring and sleepy and confused. She remembered thinking as she observed him that Henry was her home, the truest
home she’d ever known, and how lucky she was to have found
him so young, when their whole lives were only beginning,
when their love was a springboard launching them both into
a shared and promising future.
She stepped out of the car feeling like a surprise gift the
way he smiled when he took her in. She smiled back, want-
ing nothing more than to press herself to him, to feel his heart beat steady and strong and soothing against hers. To walk toward the shelter of a hug.
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But then
he turned his head, just slightly, his gaze sweeping past her to something beyond. She turned too. Saw the blinding headlights careening up the driveway. For a split second she thought it was Henry’s parents back early, a trick of the brain.
Then Blue and Renee were screaming at her from the
doorway.
“Run, Hannah!”
“Hurry!”
The piercing yip in their voices went through her like a
shiver, stopped her heart in that animal way, trilling the bio-logical alarm of nearby danger. She looked back at the car. It felt like slow motion, that head turn. The men were climbing
out, rising like shadows in a child’s darkened room, and all at once her mind exploded, her thoughts disorganized, scrambling to catch up to what was happening. She needed to run.
But her legs refused to work. They came toward her, slow
moving and dangerous, a dark current of menace approaching
from three sides. She turned back to her friends. To Henry.
Their mouths were open but their words traveled over her as
if she were underwater.
“Run, Hannah! ” Henry shouted then, his voice so loud it splintered her shock. It was as if a switch went off. Her legs came to life and she ran for him, ran toward love, toward the safety of Henry. He reached her, grabbed her hand, pulled her to the house, shouting to the others to get his father’s gun from the closet. She tripped on the front steps, fell to her knees and the men were just behind them, so close she braced for them
to grab her. Henry pulled her to her feet and they plowed
through the door, and she couldn’t make out the words of
her friends over the sound of her own terror, could only join East Coast_9780778309499_TS_txt_277098.indd 234
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the screams, the chaotic squawk of birds and beating wings
in the presence of a hunter.
They slammed the door shut just in time, but as soon as it
was closed, it crashed open again, evil men spilling through, smashing into Hannah’s safe world with their demented smiles, their greasy, sweaty faces and unwashed clothes. Their smell
of booze and rot. There was so much movement then. Every-
thing happening too quickly and too slowly all at once. Time
warped and the volume was turned up on faces, bodies, sound,
everything so immediate, hyperreal. She remembered Blue
and Renee splitting away, running toward the kitchen, chased
by one of the men. And then a crack and a stunned stillness
as her head hit the wall, a sudden eerie quiet, one quick pause and then everything was in motion again. A large man with
dull eyes stood over her where she’d fallen or been knocked
down, and another one—the scratchy-looking one who had
started it all back at the convenience store—laughed at her,
his spit flying from his mouth, landing sour on her face. The large man pulled her to her feet and she had this strange moment of hope when she thought that maybe they wouldn’t
hurt them, that they were just trying to scare them. It was
a hope she would never allow herself again. About anyone.
About anything.
“Leave her alone!” Henry shouted.
“Leave her alone,” the scratchy one mocked in a high,
squeaky voice.
She could see him only in profile, light hair slick with
grease, face meth pocked, body skinny and slithering. He
laughed again and then his voice turned low as a prowl.
“Or what, tough guy?” he said. He shoved Henry so vio-
lently that his feet left the ground and he fell into the couch, East Coast_9780778309499_TS_txt_277098.indd 235
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and then Large Man who still had Hannah by one arm grabbed
her other one and held them behind her back.
Their eyes met, hers and Henry’s.
“Let go of her!” Henry screamed again.
“Or what? Or what, bitch?” the scratchy one said, turning
to laugh with his friend at their fear. His eyes were unsteady, dangerous. He was the one to worry about.
“The police are on their way,” Hannah lied, trying to steady
the tremor in her voice. “We already called them.”
“Oh yeah?” the scratchy one said without concern. “We
better hurry up, then.”
In a flash, he had a gun to Henry’s forehead.
The scream that came out of Hannah was disembodied, un-
earthly. It haunted her, that scream, the piercing shriek of her own helplessness. She could still feel it in her sleep, the way it tore through her body and smashed against the air, trying
desperately to shatter the moment, stop it from happening.
“No!”
It was all she had. That scream. She tried to wrestle her
hands free, but Large Man’s grip only tightened.
Henry pressed himself into the back of the couch as if he
could disappear into its cushions. His eyes were haunted as he stared, quivering, into the barrel of the revolver. He had never looked so young, so unbearably frailly human.
“I’ll give you whatever you want!” Hannah cried. “I know
where all the good stuff is.” It wasn’t true, she didn’t know what Henry’s parents had or where it was or if it would even
make a difference, sate evil. But she had to say something,
stand in the way of the nightmare, change the direction of its inevitable unimaginable end. And maybe, she thought, maybe
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that was all they wanted, just to rob them. And then they
would leave. They would leave. Please, God, they would leave.
“Talk.” The man turned to her, his gun still pointed in
Henry’s face.
She made quick calculations. Could Henry grab the gun?
Where were the others? Could she make a run for it and distract them? But she saw that there was no other move to make. She was trapped. “I’ll show you. Please.”
He moved toward her, away from Henry, sidling up to her
like a hiss. She refused to look at Henry, only at the man,
willing him to put the gun away. He’s going to rape me, she thought. Something in his face made her think that. His eyes
hate-black and dead. She started to whimper, but still she was grateful he was moving away from Henry, glad for that gun
to be out of his face. “I’ll show you,” she heard herself say, so much braver than she felt. “Anything you want.”
“Hannah,” Henry said, and she knew by the desperate
clutch of her name in his voice that he understood the sacri-
fice she was making, that he wanted to save her as much as
she wanted to save him. There was so much in that one word,
all their love, all their despair locked together in this unbearable moment. She wouldn’t look at him. To look at love in a
room so suffocated with evil would break her. And then the
man turned, she didn’t know why, and the shot was so loud,
mixed with a scream that was at once coming from her and
outside her, the sound of her scream and the shot mixed as
one, slashing open the night, her whole world, and then Henry slumped on the couch and they pushed her up the staircase as
if there was still life left in her, as if the bullet hadn’t ripped straight through everything that mattered.
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own sound, clawing at the air to make the nightmare stop.
She saw the red stain spreading across the tan couch like an
ink spill, and everything was warped, happening in some al-
ternate universe, unreal because it had to be unreal, because she had just been at a party and now love was gone and she
had failed to stop it.
The train shrieked to a stop in Amagansett. Jerked her back
into the moment. She found her breath. Deep, deep. It never
worked. She didn’t even mind in a weird way the piercing
pain, the way her heart pounded. Sometimes it was purging
to relive the horror, like she was sick with memory and had
momentarily expelled it. Well, she was, really. Sick with it.
And to look at it head-on reminded her— this is why I am the way I am. She could be gentler with herself, forgive herself her neurosis, her inability to live. Of course, of course, how could it be otherwise? Unless she had listened to the psychic. Gone the other way at the fork. It would have been otherwise then.
They wouldn’t have even been at Henry’s that night if only she’d done that. Or was that magical thinking? She didn’t
know, she didn’t know.
She thought of that flashback—Blue in a ripped and bloody
sweatshirt…where did that fit in? Blue wasn’t in the room
when Henry was shot. Unless she was remembering it wrong…
She leaned her head back. A man in tennis clothes climbed
on, took the seat across from her. Why did people do this when there were other open seats on the train? He pulled out a copy of Dan’s Papers, flipped it open, made her invisible. Good. Just the way she liked it.
She wished she had something to read—remembered she
left her paperback in the rental car.
She shouldn’t even be on this train. It was rash and stupid.
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She was missing everything. But the constant haunt of what if had forced her hand. If something happened to Henry, she would be responsible. She already was. On one side of the fork will be a boy who makes you feel safe. The other side is uncertain and unknown. Take the harder road or you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. Hannah had taken the safe road. And the psychic was right: she’d regretted it ever since. Oh God, so much regret.
The train restarted its loud, lulling chug.
The man across from her wetted his index finger and thumb