He was a good kisser. He was really very wonderful. Maxwell’s hand was under her shirt, his palm on her rib cage. That was okay, too. She wanted that. Another hand slid south. The pressure of his palm, his insistent fingers, the bite of his nails into the flesh of her stomach. She adjusted. She moved his hand away, but it kept pushing. Then both his hands were on her shoulders, and he shoved her back.
And all of a sudden, she wasn’t safe at all.
She was on her back, and he was climbing on top of her. This wasn’t what she wanted. He was pushing up her skirt and tugging at her underwear and simultaneously unclasping his belt. The thought of him flopping out of his pants. No, no, no. Suddenly this was all very serious and grown-up and wrong, and what had she done? What was she doing? This wasn’t what she’d meant; this wasn’t what she wanted.
“Stop.”
Maxwell stopped. She pushed him away. His face showed stupid, stupid surprise.
“What’s wrong?”
She wormed her way out from under him. “What are you doing?”
He studied her, not angry, just confused. He smacked his lips and blinked.
“I thought you wanted to fuck.”
The word was like a slap in the face. She used it a million times a day, but it didn’t mean anything. Not really. Certainly not that. It wasn’t really attached to anything real. But for him it was. They were staring at each other across a great gulf of experience. And Cherry was suddenly alone in a man’s bedroom. Not only did she not want to fuck — she wanted to undo all the things she’d already done, which were not okay, which were not safe. She wanted to undo it all.
She couldn’t undo any of it.
Lucas.
“I’m sorry.” The words fell like two pennies, plopping on the duvet, so soft.
Maxwell’s eyes searched her, semi-drunken, red. “Jesus,” he hissed, and dragged himself from the bed. He stood at the window a moment, deciding what to do. Then he went to the door.
“Lock this after me. Who knows what might stumble through it.”
Then he left her, sealing her in the dark with herself.
When she woke, the clock read 4:30. Outside the window, the streetlights were an angry orange. The streets were empty. No reasonable person was up at this hour. Somewhere a car alarm whooped and sighed. She gathered her things, pulled on her shoes.
She went into the living room. Someone was asleep on the foldout. She thought a tangle of blond hair might be Vi’s, but Vi was curled in an armchair, asleep.
Cherry picked up the room phone.
“Front desk.”
“I need . . .” What did she need? She squeezed her keys. “I need a car.”
“Certainly. Would you like a call when it’s ready?”
“No,” said Cherry. “No, I’ll come down now. I’ll wait in the lobby.”
She thought of leaving quietly. Without Vi. Vi might ask what happened, which meant thinking about what happened, and Cherry didn’t want that. She shook Vi’s shoulder.
“We have to go.”
Vi blinked, her gaze lingering on the couple on the foldout. She looked disappointed.
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
The lobby was bright and empty, except for a family just arriving at the front desk, a little girl asleep on her father’s shoulder. Cherry tried to remember the last time she’d fallen asleep like that. When the car was ready, she gave the driver Vi’s address. Cherry watched the passing streets, the anemic buildings. Vi was either asleep again or pretending. Cherry wondered if she might like this city better in the daylight.
She must have fallen asleep, too, because all at once they were in Vi’s driveway. The girls exchanged a half-articulated good-bye, and Cherry gave the driver the second address. It was after six when they reached the parking lot across from the bottling plant. The sky was beginning to turn pale. The film crew had gone, taking all their equipment. Food wrappers tumbled through the lot like an abandoned carnival site. The Spider waited under an elm tree, seedpods littering the soft top and piled in the wiper well. It was in bad need of a wash, grime fanned across the doors, the windshield spattered and streaky. It looked as if it had been waiting for her a hundred years.
Cherry took out her wallet.
“No need for that, miss,” the driver said. “All taken care of.”
“No, it isn’t.” She had a twenty in her wallet. She held it out.
“I really can’t, miss,” the driver said.
“Take it! Just take it!” She jabbed the bill at him. She would scream if he didn’t take it. She could see his eyes in the rearview mirror. He took it.
The Spider’s cabin was freezing. She cranked up the heater, turned on the radio, and pulled out onto the empty avenue. Despite the dry heated air, she was shivering. Tiny dots danced before her eyes, and she felt sick. There was a horrible soreness in her shoulders. She wanted a shower. She wanted her bed. She wanted to lock the door forever. And more than anything, she wanted to see Lucas. She imagined him curled up under his checkered blanket.
No, she couldn’t even think about him.
What came to mind instead was Ardelia. Ardelia singing and dancing on the piano. Ardelia inviting her to Maxwell’s party. Ardelia kissing the strange boy in the park. Ardelia tossing her the car keys. She was like an infection, spreading into every cell of Cherry’s life. And now Cherry felt diseased. Something stank. A dead smell, a polished smell. It was the smell of the car. Expensive leather. Chrome. She hated it. It climbed up her nostrils and clung to her brain. She rolled down the window, but the stink got worse. Chlorophyll. The smell of money.
Instinctively, like swatting an insect, Cherry jerked the wheel. The streetlights pitched. Rubber squealed as the car skidded, swerving at a right angle to the road. The wheel spun free of Cherry’s hands. Weightless silence. Then the passenger side smashed the concrete divider. Lightning flash, double flash. Cherry had a vision of yellow and green and colored confetti. There was a rattle of broken glass and the slice of the seat belt across her chest. And then quiet.
The car rocked, settled. Something hissed. Something clicked. Grunting, Cherry unbuckled and climbed out of the wounded car. She took a step back to examine her handiwork. The Spider was facing the wrong way in the breakdown lane, the passenger side crushed against the barrier, both windows shattered on that side. Long smoky skid marks chased each other across the pavement. Something was leaking from the engine block, and the hood had buckled down the center. There was glass everywhere. The car was dead. She knew a dead car when she saw one.
Feeling the nauseous sense of satisfaction that came with yanking a loose tooth, Cherry started on foot toward the trailer park. The dawn air was crisp and cleaned the sweat from her skin. Her eyes stung; her limbs twitched. Her chest burned where the seat belt had dug in. Good. She deserved pain. She hoped it would get worse. She hoped it would bruise. She hoped her eyes would burn for days. She liked the ringing in her ears, which made thinking impossible.
She knew something was wrong before she reached the end of the bridge to Sugar Village. She sensed movement at the end of the street. Then she saw Lucas. He was coming toward her out of the shadows, and for a hallucination he seemed awfully solid. He was running toward her, calling her name.
Cherry stopped, not sure what to do. She braced herself, her knees going weak. He knew. Somehow he knew everything about Maxwell. So this was it, the end of them. Would she cry? Would he yell? Whatever her immediate punishment, nothing could be worse than losing him. As he got closer, she saw his expression — something unfamiliar that frightened her more. He threw his arms around her and squeezed.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, his words thick, almost drunken. “I’m so sorry.”
“W-what?”
“It’s gone. It’s gone, baby.”
He looked at her beseechingly. He shook his head, but Cherry pushed past him, running toward the end of the street, where she now saw the slow sweep of red and yellow lights and heard voices.
Somewhere water pattered on the ground. Mrs. Budzenia watched from her door in a bathrobe. Other neighbors peered from their windows.
Her trailer was a twisted black hulk. The roof had arched and caved like the convolutions of a roller coaster. The walls had come away in sections and lay on the scorched lawn. She could make out the cooked nub of the refrigerator, the chalky outline of the rooms. Everything was black and wet. Fire hoses crisscrossed on what used to be the driveway. And that was it. There was nothing else. The fire had taken everything.
“Cherry!”
Stew wore a starchy blanket around his shoulders, his face streaked with gray ash. He’d been crying.
“You the sister?” a fireman asked.
Something clicked in Cherry’s brain. “Where’s Pop?”
“We’ve reached your father. He’s on his way.”
Stew was holding her, his face pressed into her shoulder so hard it hurt.
“It’s my fault. It’s my fault! It’s my fault!”
There was a little circle around Cherry now. The fireman, Lucas, and her brother. They were waiting for her to say something, waiting to see what she’d do. Everyone was frozen.
And then all at once, she knew what to do. The pain in her head and joints vanished.
She held Stew away. “It’s not your fault. It was an accident. You hear me?” Stew sniffed. He didn’t seem so sure. She held his ears like she was about to rip them off. “You hear me?”
He nodded.
“You all right? You hurt?”
He shook his head.
“Then everything’s okay. Everything’s fine.” She turned to Lucas. “Can we stay with you tonight?”
“Yeah, of course,” he said. “I’ll tell Dad.”
“Go with Lucas,” she told her brother. “Take a shower. I’ll wait for Pop.”
Stew wanted to protest, but Cherry’s tone left no room for argument.
“Thank you,” she said to the fireman. “We’ll be fine. Thank you.”
The fireman touched his helmet and then motioned to the others.
“Hey,” Lucas said.
She looked at him in the pulsing lights of the fire trucks. She noticed he was barefoot, dressed in his sleeping shorts and tee. He didn’t want to leave her, but he would if she said to. Her guilt didn’t matter now. All that mattered was Taking Care of Things.
“Make sure he drinks water,” she said to Lucas. It seemed like the right thing to say.
He kissed her forehead, then put his arm around Stew and led him around the bend, toward his trailer.
The firefighters were packing up. There was nothing more for them to do. Cherry watched their careful efficiency, rolling the hoses, climbing onto the chassis, serious but not indifferent. The siren bleated once, and the two trucks pulled away. Mrs. Budzenia had gone back inside, and the neighbors’ windows were dark now. The sun had just breached the tree line, and long shadows fell across Cherry’s street. It was about time for her morning run.
Cherry turned back toward the wreckage of her home. She could see straight through to Lucas’s bedroom window, where the light was on. A morning bird chirped its two-note song. It was Saturday.
Cherry sat down on the curb and waited for her father.
A little after ten in the morning, Cherry went into Lucas’s room. The shades were drawn. He was awake, lying on his side. He held up the covers so she could slide in. She pulled off her skirt and the crumpled black top. She’d washed her face in the DuBoises’ bathroom, and her skin tingled where it was still wet. She tucked in beside him, warming herself against his thighs. Nothing had ever felt so good. It was the first time they’d been in a bed together since kindergarten.
“Everything’s going to work out,” he said.
She’d always been confident this was true. Life’s trampoline could bend only so low before rocketing you back up again. Now she wasn’t sure things would work out. It seemed likely they wouldn’t. Things would get worse, and keep on getting worse, until there was nothing left. But she didn’t say any of this.
“Say something,” Lucas said.
He thought she was in shock. And maybe she was. She didn’t deserve his pity, because she was a cheater. A traitor. She could still feel Maxwell’s lips on hers. She couldn’t confess, because if she did, his anger would be dampened by how sorry he felt for her. He’d forgive her because she’d lost everything and because he was a good person.
So that was her punishment. Having to keep the secret. Never getting to be a good person again. She’d stepped out into the cold, because she was curious, because she was covetous, and now she could never, ever get back in.
“I’m homeless,” said Cherry.
A trailer is too small for three people. With three people, spaces overlap, single rooms split into mini-rooms, shelves in the medicine cabinet subdivide into a tic-tac-toe of his razor, her shampoo, the other’s toothbrush, the shared floss. With the DuBois trailer now supporting five, there was no such thing as personal space.
They lived like refugees. Stew slept on the living-room floor, Lucas on the couch. Pop had a camper bed in Mr. DuBois’s bedroom —“Just like the army,” Mr. DuBois joked — but usually fell asleep in Leroy’s armchair. Because she was a girl, Cherry had Lucas’s room to herself, and on most nights Lucas would climb over her brother asleep on the floor, using the crackle of the TV to muffle his footsteps, and climb in beside her. His bed was a single. They both had to learn to sleep totally still, in spoon position, the edge of the mattress inches away. Cherry found it hard to keep still while he lifted the sheets and wrapped himself around her. She pretended to sleep. If he thought she was awake, they might end up talking, and if they talked at night, for that four or five hours they were actually alone, she might tell him what she’d done.
In the mornings, everyone was cheerful. It was a little like camping. Cherry made coffee and eggs, Stew put away the blankets and sleeping bag. Mr. DuBois read aloud from the Aubrey Times, and Pop would crack jokes about the stupidity of this politician or that coach. Stew teased Lucas about his snoring, and Lucas would make cracks about Stew’s toxic foot odor. They were double the family in half the space, something super-dense, like a collapsing star, and the only things light enough to escape were jokes.
Cherry kept an eye on her father. His initial reaction had been to just stand there in the ashy puddle of their lawn, hanging off himself like a wet winter coat on a rickety stand. When the shock wore off, he was almost relieved, as if the world were lighter without the trailer in it. He hugged her and Stew a little tighter now and a little more often. He spoke softer and moved more delicately, and it worried her. She worried and worried. There was more hair in the drain than usual — long, dyed-blond strands.
Cherry hoped school would at least feel normal, but no such luck. She was a celebrity again, but for worse reasons. Instead of envy, she got pity — sticky, sweet, and synthetic, like the syrup on the cafeteria flapjacks. Kids she’d never met said things like, If there’s anything I can do . . . which was meaningless. Still, she couldn’t blame them. If their homes burned down, Cherry would have felt the same vague pity and unease, as if a burned-down house were contagious, like chicken pox or VD.
And it did seem like misfortune had cursed her, what with the trailer and her beautiful car destroyed. It was hard for people to wrap their minds around both incidents at once. The two didn’t fit into a logical relationship. Had she crashed the car into the trailer, causing the fire? No. Had she seen the fire from the highway and lost control of the vehicle in a state of shock? No. The destruction of both trailer and Spider were simply unrelated tragedies, two awful things for the girl who’d rescued Ardelia Deen. It was so odd, most people had nothing at all to say about it.
The Monday after the fire, Principal Girder called Cherry down to his office and proposed a food drive for her family.
“Our trailer burned down, not the grocery store.”
“Well, then.” Girder straightened his pencil, aligning it with
the edge of his blotter. “Maybe something else. Perhaps a charity fund-raiser?”
“We’re fine,” said Cherry. “We’ll be fine.”
Fine was all she said anymore. When Coach White asked her if she wasn’t feeling up to running laps, she said, “It’s fine.” When Mr. Sackov asked if she needed an extension on her paper, it was also fine, even though she’d desperately needed an extension before the fire. It was like the fire was an excuse to get all the slack a normal person needed just to get through senior year. Maybe if everyone’s house burned down, kids wouldn’t be so stressed.
The only person who didn’t ask her how she was doing was Lucas. They ate lunch together on the bleachers, which was against the rules. They got away with it, though, and this was the extent of the charity Cherry was willing to accept.
“Someone tried to flush a hat in the second-floor girls’ room,” Lucas said, opening a can of soda. It fizzed everywhere.
“Who wears a hat?”
“Who tries to flush a hat?” Lucas said. They watched a flock of geese land on the field, readying a fresh barrage of grass-killing shit. The geese squawked at one another. Cherry decided she hated geese.
“Is this what it’s gonna be like?” Lucas said. “When we’re married, I mean. Living together.” He thought this over, chewing his roast beef sandwich. “I guess we won’t see each other during the day.”
“Not unless we work at the same place,” said Cherry.
“You want a janitor job?”
Cherry shrugged. She wanted to make a dirty joke about riding the floor buffer but didn’t have the energy.
She had to make do with only the clothes she’d been wearing the night of the fire and an ancient Minnie Mouse T-shirt she’d left at Lucas’s a million years ago. Her old photo albums, favorite DVDs, everything she’d ever owned was gone. She couldn’t begin to catalog it. The little trailer had held so much. Now everything was reduced, scarce. The Gremlin, made with love, had burned up, along with the attached garage. With no car, her whole world had shrunk to a slim hourglass, with Sugar Village and Aubrey High conjoined by a narrow path she walked every morning with Lucas. Chunks of herself, her life, had burned away.
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