by Nancy Bush
She was lost in happy thoughts about this unwritten future when Genevieve Knapp slowly stood up across the campfire from Coby, her right hand cupping the flame of a candle that she held in her left. Coby regarded her suspiciously. What the hell was this? Genevieve was cool, blond, and one of the most outspoken of their group, and the way she was standing regally, chin jutted out, did not inspire confidence. Coby glanced to her left, to petite Ellen Marshall, and they exchanged a worried look.
“It’s time to play Pass the Candle,” Genevieve intoned. She gazed in turn at each of them seated in the circle around the ragged campfire that had been dug into a pit in the sand. With the wind snatching at her hair and the smoke funneling around her, she looked like some kind of spectral being arisen from the ashes.
Pass the Candle? Coby didn’t much like the sound of that.
One of the girls, Dana Sainer, a small, birdlike brunette, coughed several times and waved away the smoke. She blinked up at Genevieve. “What?” she asked.
“Yeah, what?” Rhiannon Gallworth cut in. “What does that mean?” Rhiannon had dark eyes and pale skin and a doelike look about her that was belied by her sharp chin and faintly militant manner.
“Yeah,” Coby said, not to be outdone.
“We’ve all known each other since forever, but do we really know each other?” Genevieve asked, in lieu of answering directly. “Everyone has secrets. Some we can’t wait to tell. Some we never want anyone to know. This is about those secrets that are buried deep. Each of us needs to tell one now. Our deepest, darkest secret. And once told, it never leaves the circle of this group.”
“Like, oh, sure,” Coby sputtered, half laughing. She expected all the others to go along with her on this, but no one said a word. They all looked at each other, or the fire, or the ground, or the ocean, its dull roar a constant background noise.
Overhead there was a crescent moon and stars glimmered, as if offering their own comments. Coby looked skyward herself, thinking, Good God, before the wind tossed more sand into her eyes, forcing her to turn away.
She didn’t want to do this. She wanted to run away screaming, right now. Surreptitiously, she threw a glance at her watch and wondered when she could legitimately leave, but it was too dark to read the tiny clock face.
Rhiannon’s brows were lifted in disbelief, but it was Wynona Greer, whose dishwater brown pageboy locks fell across her cheeks, obscuring her features except for the tip of her sharp nose, who demanded belligerently, “Oh, yeah? Well, who’s going to start? You?”
“I’ll be last,” Genevieve answered, and there was something about the way she said it that made Coby think she possessed some big secret, or at least thought she did, and wanted to wait to spring it on all of them. But that was kind of Genevieve’s way. High drama, even when there was none. Especially when there was none, actually.
Wynona repeated, “So, who’s going to start, then?”
“I will.”
They all looked in the direction of the determined voice of Yvette Deneuve. Yvette was one of five sisters dubbed the “Ette sisters” by their friends and classmates because the sisters’ first names all ended with ette: Nicholette, Annette, Yvette, Juliet, and Suzette, in that order. All of them were dark-haired and dark-eyed with mocha-colored smooth skin, a gift from their French father, Jean-Claude Deneuve, one of the dads currently back at the beach house and best friend to Coby’s own dad, Dave Rendell. They were all staying at Coby’s family’s beach house—now her father’s house, since the divorce—and back at that house Coby’s sister, Faith, and Yvette’s sister Annette Deneuve, both a year older than the group on the beach, were hanging out together. In fact, Jean-Claude had brought all of his daughters, except Nicholette, the eldest, and Coby suddenly, fervently wished she’d stayed back at the house with the rest of the Ettes.
But Genevieve had been insistent, so here they were.
Now Yvette took the candle. Her dark hair was held back in a ponytail and the candle’s uncertain light cast deep shadows, hollowing out her cheeks. “I’ve kept this secret for years. I’ve never told anyone.” She inhaled and exhaled several times, as if seriously considering backing down, then said quickly, “I had sex with a nineteen-year-old neighborhood friend when I was thirteen.”
Coby’s brows lifted in spite of herself. Whoa. That sure sounds like statutory rape. Thirteen?
“You mean like sex, sex?” Wynona asked, looking scandalized. “Or just a blow job or something?”
“You want an anatomy lesson?” Yvette demanded. “Yeah, sex, sex. Like in you can get pregnant from it. That kind of sex. Jesus.” With that she thrust the candle to McKenna Forrester, who was seated on Yvette’s left, then sat back down, frowning, her arms wrapped around her knees, her chin resting on them.
It was clear to Coby that Yvette was already regretting her revelation, and she totally understood. Coby had no idea what she herself was going to say. What the hell! She didn’t have any deep, dark secrets. But McKenna was only two people to Coby’s right, so that meant that after McKenna, then Ellen, it would be Coby’s turn.
Maybe I should just run away now!
Wynona threw Yvette a look. Her father, Donald Greer, was the vice principal at their high school, and Wynona had always been the goody-two-shoes type, even looking that way with her pageboy and conservative clothes. It sort of surprised Coby that Wynona seemed to think a blow job was somewhere further down the sex scale from going all the way. As far as Coby was concerned, she didn’t want any part of any kind of sex unless that sex was with either Lucas Moore or Danner Lockwood. Danner was a few years older than Coby, long out of Rutherford High, and didn’t know she was even alive. His brother, Jarrod Lockwood, was in Coby’s class, but he was just a friend and Coby didn’t feel the same way about him as Danner. But Danner was about as attainable as a movie star, where Lucas Moore, her other crush, was a classmate and kinda available. He’d made out with practically all of the girls in this group at one time or another. Currently he was hooked up with Rhiannon, but with Lucas, who knew?
McKenna stood up slowly. She wore camouflage pants and a T-shirt and her short, dark hair was covered by a baseball cap. She dressed like a boy and was androgynous enough to make them all wonder if she was gay. The fact that the issue was unaddressed showed how little they all really knew about each other. McKenna cleared her throat several times and Coby wondered if they were about to have that question finally answered. “I don’t want to do this,” she said.
“Oh, come on, McKenna,” Genevieve cajoled. “Yvette spoke the truth. You can’t do the same?”
McKenna pressed her lips together, thought hard for a moment, then suddenly burst out, “I wrecked the car when I was fifteen and my brother took the blame for me. I shouldn’t have been driving alone. Mom and Dad still don’t know. I don’t think we woulda got the insurance money if they reported me, and we didn’t have the money to fix the car otherwise. I owe my brother big-time.” Quickly, she sat back down and handed the candle to Ellen, who cupped the wildly jumping flame until it smoothed out.
Coby glanced sideways at Ellen, who carefully uncupped her hand but didn’t stand up. Everyone in the group stared at the mesmerizing flame.
Ellen said in a hypnotic voice, “I had an abortion.”
Coby’s lips parted in pure shock and it was all she could do to keep from jerking around to stare directly at her. Ellen? Petite blond, blue-eyed Ellen, who was the quietest of the group? Coby knew next to nothing about her other than her parents were divorced, like hers, and she lived with her dad.
But an abortion?
“It was a guy I met last summer,” Ellen went on in a barely audible voice. “Summer camp. We hung out and . . .” She trailed off and deep silence lasted for about five seconds, then she added, “I had it done right before school started last year.”
“I thought you went out for cross country last fall,” Wynona said breathlessly. “How’d you do that?”
“That was the year before,” Ellen
answered, lips tight. “Last year I couldn’t.”
She carefully passed the candle to Coby, who gazed at it with an escalating heart rate. She had nothing to say. Nothing! Her parents were divorced and her dad had won the beach house, while her mom got the Portland Heights home that looked over the city. But the whole divorce thing had been a fairly businesslike transaction, it seemed to Coby, who, though she hated the fact that they’d split, sort of got it that they’d just moved emotionally apart from each other. Coby had one older sister, Faith, who was a bit of a goody-two-shoes like Wynona, so there was no drama there. The rest of her extended family weren’t scandalmongers, either. Well, except for Great-uncle Harold, the lech, who’d laid a couple of disgusting kisses on Coby’s and Faith’s lips—yuck!—and had made kissing attempts with any other female within reach, but Uncle Harold had died a few years earlier with no serious incidents to report, so he was out.
So, no . . . there was nothing, really. Coby wildly thought back to the night she’d shared some rotgut wine with her best friend, Willa, and they’d both puked in the backyard. But last year Willa had moved to the East Coast, and what could have been a long road of merry transgressions and exploits together had left Coby pretty much alone and partnerless in crime.
The girls were all looking at her expectantly. She was annoyed to see her hand tremble slightly as she stood up. But one thing she wasn’t, was a wimp. So if this campfire required a story, she would come up with one.
If you don’t have anything bad to say about anybody, make up something.
“I caught my father in bed with another woman before my parents’ divorce was final,” she announced, the lie tasting bad on her tongue.
“Daddy Dave?” Genevieve said with a squinty look. “You caught Daddy Dave with another woman?”
“I don’t believe it,” Yvette stated flatly.
Coby was instantly pissed off. “Why am I the liar?”
“Because your dad’s just a really good guy,” Yvette said on a huge sigh accompanied by major eye-rolling and a switch of her ponytail. “We all know it. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Because Daddy Dave wanted to get together with my dad, his best bud?”
“Well, it’s true,” Coby insisted stubbornly, passing the candle on to Dana Sainer, who stood up to take it from her. Coby sat down hard. Even though she’d made the whole thing up out of a tiny incident where she’d caught her father at a café with a woman she hadn’t recognized—a coworker, it turned out later—during the final stages of the divorce, Coby was bugged that they didn’t believe her. It was a dumb game. Dumb, dumb, dumb!
Dana smoothed her short, dark hair away from her eyes with her free hand, stared into the candle’s flame for a long moment, then looked around at their faces, one by one, as if memorizing them. “Well, I’m . . . I’ve had an eating disorder as long as I can remember.”
McKenna pulled off her baseball cap, waved it at Dana, then stuck it back on her head and declared in a bored tone, “You’re supposed to tell a secret.”
“That’s a secret! A big secret! I’ve never told anyone before!” she sputtered. “Well, except Genevieve . . .” She glanced at their leader with a dark scowl.
“It’s no secret. Everyone knows.” This was from Rhiannon, who swiped the candle from Dana with such speed that its flame flickered out.
“Damn it,” Genevieve muttered, grabbing the candle from Rhiannon and holding it toward the fire. Flames reached for her, swallowing up the wick and half the candle. “Jesus, that’s hot!” Genevieve jerked her hand back, then, more carefully, managed to relight the wick before handing the candle back to Rhiannon, whose doelike eyes refracted the firelight.
“I wasn’t done,” Dana declared huffily. “I’ve been fighting bulimia for years. And anorexia. It’s nothing to laugh at. You have no idea!”
Yvette sighed loudly. “We’re not laughing. It’s just that you wear it like a badge of honor.”
“I do not.”
“Yeah,” Yvette argued back. “You kinda do.”
Dana’s mouth dropped open but before she could take it further, Genevieve broke in, “It’s just that you haven’t exactly kept your eating disorder a secret. We’ve all caught you puking at least once.”
“Well, excuse me for having a real problem!” Dana plopped down on her butt and stared fixedly at the burning sticks of wood, fighting tears.
“They’re all real problems,” Coby said, trying to placate, still feeling guilty about her lie and feeling the weight of Ellen’s revelation as if it had blanketed their whole group. And though she felt sorry for Dana, being put on the spot and all, Yvette and Genevieve weren’t wrong: Dana liked having something that made her special, in this case her anorexia and bulimia.
“Go ahead,” Genevieve urged Rhiannon, who was still standing with the candle, tendrils of her dark hair being teased by the growing wind. Rhiannon’s large eyes seemed to swallow up her face.
“My mom’s an alcoholic,” she said. “I mean hard-core. If there’s nothing else, she goes for the vanilla extract. Anything. One time I called nine-one-one when she wouldn’t wake up. Scared me to death. I even kinda wonder what she’s doing right now, but my brothers are with her, so maybe she’s okay. My dad doesn’t talk to her anymore at all. He’s seeing somebody else. I’ve met her. She’s nice.”
“Aren’t your parents still married?” Ellen ventured cautiously.
“Some marriage.” Rhiannon shrugged. “They don’t even like each other anymore.” She gazed toward the ocean, and to Coby the crashing waves suddenly sounded loud and angry. “Hard to believe they were ever in love.” Rhiannon looked wistful for a moment, then a small smile played on her lips.
“Like you and Lucas?” Wynona guessed, sounding faintly jealous.
“Well, yeah,” she said, glancing around as if daring anyone else to argue the point.
Lucas doesn’t love her, Coby thought, a bit envious herself that the blondish surfer-dude was currently spending more time with Rhiannon than any of the rest of them.
Rhiannon gestured for Wynona to stand up, and she did so reluctantly. Rhiannon handed her the candle, then retook her seat while Wynona stared at the jumping flame for a moment, lost in thought. Then she lifted her chin. “I’ve never told anybody this. No one. My parents, I think have guessed, but I’ve never said a word.” She plucked at her pageboy with her free hand. “You know I was on the swim team? Last year? But I’m not this year. I used to belong to this private swim club and we used the pool over by Tualatin. The swim coach there was known for coaching winners. He and I had private sessions.” She started breathing faster and Coby felt the hairs on her arms lift. “And when we were in the pool he helped me out a time or two, and there were a few times his hands kinda grazed me. Down there. And at first I thought it was just random-like, but then one time I was heading for the locker room and we were alone and he was following after me and I turned around . . .” Her voice trailed off for a moment. “And then he was right there and I didn’t know what to do. He pressed me against the lockers and kissed me, and then his hand was inside my swimsuit and—”
“Holy shit, Greer!” a male voice yelled from deep in the darkness outside their circle. “Coach Renfro felt you up?”
Half the girls gave an aborted scream as guys from their class suddenly burst into the light of their campfire. Wynona’s knees gave out and she sank down. The candle slipped from her grasp, rolling into the campfire. Genevieve scrambled for the candle as Coby shot Wynona a worried look and the boys swarmed into view.
Lucas Moore stepped forward first, his sexy, shoulder-length hair tousled and moving in the wind, his gaze searching for someone.
But it wasn’t his voice they’d heard. That loud question came from Kirk Grassi, who showed himself next, his hair pulled into a long, black ponytail, his guitar over his shoulder, his smile flashing, his eyes zeroing in on Wynona as he repeated, “Holy shit, Greer!”
“You morons!” Genevieve blasted, infuriated at the interrup
tion. She’d caught the candle before it was engulfed in the fire and was now dusting off her hands.
Lucas frowned. “Sorry we barged in.”
Rhiannon ran straight at him and he seemed surprised by the show of affection, as it took him a moment to wrap his arms around her. Good, Coby thought, as unrepentant as the rest of them in hoping the Lucas/Rhiannon thing would burn out.
Other guys from their class emerged from the darkness and collectively blew a raspberry in Genevieve’s direction. They’d clearly planned on busting their party, and Coby was pretty sure she could put the blame at Rhiannon’s feet, as she was totally wrapped up in Lucas.
“Oh, for God’s sake, relax,” Vic Franzen told Genevieve, spreading his hands. He was the heaviest of the group, with a shape just short of portly and a mean way of directing negative attention toward anyone else, maybe because he was the butt of so many jokes himself. He was hefting two six-packs of beer and he lifted them up so all the girls could see. “We brought alkee-hol.”
Coby inwardly sighed, knowing she wouldn’t be able to escape without serious ridicule now. Genevieve pressed her lips together and looked ready to explode. The rest of the guys found places around the campfire: Jarrod Lockwood, Galen Torres, Theo Rivers, and Paul Lessington. Jarrod had long hair like Kirk’s, or more accurately, Kirk had followed Jarrod’s lead as they both played guitar and jammed together; the two friends dreamed of being in a band one day. Galen was Hispanic with a look faintly like Ricky Martin; Theo had short hair, almost a buzz cut, and a hard body from regular workouts; and Paul was a tall stringbean with a pronounced Adam’s apple.
Coby saw Jarrod Lockwood coming her way. He held a large brown paper bag, and he sat down next to Coby and dug the bag into the sand between them, forcing Ellen to move over to make room. Inside the bag was a bottle of vodka and one of bourbon. “Paul’s got the mixer,” Jarrod said.
Paul Lessington pulled a large plastic bottle of Sprite and a stack of plastic glasses from inside another bag. He was on the school’s basketball team, if he didn’t get caught for this indiscretion and find himself ineligible.