Evidence of Things Not Seen

by Lindsey Lane

  One day at the end of class, she said, “See you tomorrow.” After a while, she said “Hey” every morning. Once, she double-checked her homework assignment with what he wrote down.

  In January, Marshall noticed she came into the cafeteria with Mary Louise. That was odd because Mary Louise usually ate in the art room. Painting was her life. She was the only person in the senior class going to an art school. It seemed like another sign. When Robert put his tray down across from Marshall, he said, “You mind if I invite Mary Louise over to eat with us?”

  Robert looked over at the cafeteria line. “She’s sort of a wing nut.”

  “Yeah, and you’re sort of a jock. So what?”

  “Sure. Why not? It’ll be a change from listening to you talk about colleges.”

  Marshall ignored Robert. He did talk a lot about where he might go to college. It seemed important, but at the same time, it didn’t. He was good at math and the counselor said that engineering would be a good fit, so he applied to colleges that had engineering programs. He’d been accepted at three and chose one. But he still wasn’t sure if he wanted to go. It was simpler for Robert. All he wanted to do was play football, so he took the best deal.

  Marshall waved at Mary Louise as she was scanning the lunchroom for a seat. She smiled and tried to wave but nearly dropped her tray.

  “Wing nut,” mumbled Robert.

  Mary Louise leaned toward Leann and sort of pointed at Marshall and Robert. Marshall could see Leann hesitate. Her eyes scanned the room, looking for another possibility. But there weren’t any empty tables. She nodded and followed Mary Louise.

  Marshall made sure to motion to the seat next to him when Mary Louise came up to the table. He didn’t want to spook Leann.

  “Y’all know Leann?” Mary Louise said as she slid her tray next to Marshall’s. “We have gym together.”

  Marshall nodded. “Yeah, we have astronomy together.” He motioned to Robert as Leann sat down. “This is Robert. Mostly a jock. Also a good friend.”

  Leann smiled a little. Marshall wasn’t sure why but he had a feeling that she liked this strange crew. The jock. The artist. The engineer. And whoever Leann was. Marshall also had a feeling that because there were four of them together, it made Leann more comfortable. Like one on one, even with Mary Louise, would be too close.

  Marshall didn’t mind. He liked that Mary Louise and Robert were there. It helped him blend in better. He could pretend to be eating while listening to them talk. Listening to Leann talk. Listening to how she feinted and dodged but never really opened up. She made it seem like she was there, a part of them, but Marshall sensed she was someplace else.

  Leann takes out her mascara and rolls it on her eyelashes. She still can’t believe she’s going to prom. Eight months ago, she wondered if it were possible to live someplace and not know anyone the entire time you lived there. Maybe she could hold her breath for a whole school year and not talk to anyone. It turned out she couldn’t. Something happens. You forget your gym shorts and you have to borrow some. After that, Mary Louise—the girl with the extra shorts—says something to you every day. Something nice. Not very prying. You wonder about her paint-splotched fingers. She tells you more about herself. You find yourself liking not being alone. Pretty soon you go to lunch with her and then you’re sitting with two guys and presto you’re going to the prom. Maybe it’s the perfect thing to do to finish off this exile from her life back in Midland. A prom. A step toward normal. With friends. No romance. A sort of date with Marshall. A sort of date would be all right. With Marshall.

  She still wasn’t sure about him. He looked like a dangerous combination of smart and sensitive. She liked smart because she hated dumb. But smart meant she had to be watchful. Smart meant someone could pull a fast one on her. Smart meant she wasn’t sure she could trust him.

  Sensitive confused her. She thought he was sensitive. Maybe it was his eyes. Or those glasses. They made him look vulnerable. Breakable. Maybe it was the way he didn’t push himself at her. He couldn’t hurt her if he was sensitive. Could he?

  It couldn’t hurt her to go to the prom with a pretend date. Could it?

  Leann was never sure what would hurt. It was like her antenna mixed all the signals up when someone got close. She couldn’t figure out what they wanted. Or she did know what they wanted and it was wrong but they said they loved her so it couldn’t be wrong. But it was her uncle so it was wrong but he said he loved her so maybe it wasn’t. Then it was her cousin but he said he loved her so maybe it wasn’t but it was. It was wrong. Every time. But they said they loved her. They said so. Then her mother found out and said Leann was a “little tease, the kind of girl that gets boys in trouble.” She sent Leann away. “Go live with my sister. See if she can teach you to keep your hands to yourself.”

  The night before she left, her cousin whispered at her door, “Wanna suck me off one more time?” Leann didn’t move. She wasn’t sure what she should do. She thought she should go to the door. He was always nice to her afterwards. She could hear him breathing. Then he kicked the door and said “Bitch.” Leann gripped the edge of her bed and held her breath. She felt guilty. Maybe she should have opened the door. Whenever he got angry, she felt like should have done something different.

  When her aunt picked her up at the bus station in Fredericksburg, she didn’t ask what happened. She never pried. She let Leann be. After a month or so, Leann relaxed enough to take her first big breath of air. Then a second and a third.

  Now it’s time for the prom and she is almost breathing like normal again.

  When Marshall pulls up in front of Leann’s house, he has to remind himself this is pretend. It isn’t really a date. He can hardly believe that yesterday he convinced all of them that picking up their date was part of the ritual, even for pretend dates.

  “How about we meet Mary Louise and Robert outside the dance in the parking lot and walk in together,” he’d said to Leann.

  Leann didn’t like the idea. “This sounds more and more like a real prom date. I think we should all go together.”

  Marshall shrugged. “Okay. Then I want to be the driver.”

  “No way,” said Robert. “I want my own ride.”

  “I get carsick if I ride in the back,” Mary Louise added.

  “Okay, I get it,” said Leann. “No one wants to be the cute couple in the back seat.”

  Marshall wouldn’t have minded playing the part of the cute couple, but driving all together would have made coming out to the pull-out at the end of the night more difficult.

  Walking up to Leann’s door, Marshall composes himself. As soon as he knocks, an older woman answers. She has Leann’s long dark hair but it’s streaked with gray.

  “My name is Marshall Johnson. I’m here to take Leann to the prom.”

  “I’m Leann’s aunt. Jackie.” She reaches out and Marshall shakes her hand. It feels callused like a man’s. It’s strange to hold this hand and stare into a face that looks like an older version of Leann. Then Leann appears. Standing next to her aunt, it looks as if time had split their cells. Neither smiles. Both have that same wariness in their eyes. Except Leann is beautiful. Her blue dress is dusted with silver so that it looks as translucent as her eyes.

  When Leann steps toward him, Marshall sucks in his breath and holds it. He almost exhales an audible “Ahhh,” but he doesn’t slip up. He holds it together as they walk to his car and he opens the door for her.

  Leann sits straight up. Her back barely touches the passenger seat of Marshall’s car. She reaches for the door handle. She could run back inside. She could tell him she has food poisoning. She could fake stomach heaves. She could …

  She holds on to the cold metal handle. Breathing. Holding on to the door handle calms her. If anything bad happens, she can open the door and fling herself out. Even if it’s moving. When Marshall sits down, she glances over at him. He doesn’t look any different, right? He hasn’t done anything wrong, right? It’s a fake date, right?
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br />   Marshall doesn’t know what to do. Leann looks a little ill. Should he notice? Should he say something? If he were a boyfriend, he’d say something. What would a fake date do?

  “Oh, I got a corsage for you.” Marshall tries to sound as offhand as possible, pointing at the plastic box on the dashboard. “They’re gardenias. I wasn’t sure what color dress you would wear so I got a white flower. To go with anything.” Only they aren’t meant to go with anything. They are meant for her. He wants her to have those beautiful white flowers wrapped around her wrist all night. He wants her to remember him whenever she smells a gardenia.

  Marshall watches Leann open the box and stare at the corsage. He can hear her take a short sip of air as if smelling the flowers might hurt her. Then it sounds like she stops breathing altogether. Marshall isn’t sure if he should start the car or not. She looks like she might puke. Marshall scrambles. “I hope you like it. It was weird bringing it. I got a little nervous. I worried if you would like it. This pretend stuff started to feel a little real, ya know?”

  Leann laughs. A short, sharp “Hah” pops out of her mouth. It surprises her. Like the breath she was holding exploded out of her. Her laugh must have surprised Marshall. He jumps as if she had scared him. That makes her laugh more. She loosens her grip on the door handle. She’s glad he’s nervous too. Having him say it makes her relax.

  “Yeah, a little too real.”

  “Maybe it’s the corsage. You don’t have to wear it.”

  Leann takes the corsage out of the box and puts it around her wrist. She stretches her arm in front of her and looks at the bracelet of white petals. “No, I want to wear it. It’s beautiful.”

  “Good. I mean, let’s—I mean, it doesn’t mean anything. They’re just flowers. It’s tradition, right?”

  “Right.” Leann raises the white flowers to her nose, breathes in their fragrance, and leans back onto the seat.

  Marshall circles the Fred High parking lot, looking for Robert’s truck. He sees it parked in the far corner of the lot. Robert is sitting on the tailgate. The cab windows are open and the twang of Robert’s favorite country and western station accompanies Mary Louise as she twirls around in an empty parking space next to the truck. She looks like a ballerina. Even her skirt is a white net material.

  “We saved you a spot.” Mary Louise stops twirling and jumps out of the way. “Actually, I saved you a spot. Robert wouldn’t dance with me. He thought it was too goofy to dance in a parking lot.”

  “Hell, yes,” says Robert. He clicks off his radio. “It’s already pretty goofy I spent twenty bucks on a damn corsage and another ten on this tuxedo from Goodwill for a pretend date.”

  “Ooooh … you’re lucky, Mary Louise,” says Leann, admiring the bridge of sweetheart roses circling her wrist. “He spent more on your corsage than his tuxedo.”

  Leann and Mary Louise laugh and head toward the gym. Marshall trails behind with Robert. “Phew, that tuxedo stinks.”

  “Shit,” says Robert. “I dumped a whole bottle of Old Spice on it.”

  “Yeah, now it smells like cinnamon-spiced cat pee.”

  “Shit. I swear it didn’t smell at Goodwill.”

  “Mary Louise didn’t say anything?”

  “Naw, she’s too nice. Do you think I should change? I’ve got some jeans in the truck. The shirt doesn’t smell bad. It’s my dad’s.”

  Marshall weighs Robert’s question. He’d gotten them to the prom. Leann was his date. It didn’t really matter if Robert dressed the part. “Yeah, smelling like cat pee is a really bad idea.”

  Robert lopes back to his truck. “Tell Mary Louise I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Leann and Mary Louise grab a table close to the dance floor. They wave to Marshall. As he walks up, the band starts playing a fast song. On impulse, Marshall takes both girls by the arm onto the dance floor. When Robert comes in, Leann pulls him into their circle. After a few fast songs, the band slows down. Marshall wants to ask Leann but he has to pretend this isn’t a date. He takes Mary Louise by the hand and bows. “May I have this dance?” Mary Louise giggles and nods. As they dance away from Leann and Robert, Marshall forces himself not look at Leann. He pretends he wants to slow dance with Mary Louise first.

  Leann looks over at Robert to see if he is going to ask her to slow dance. As he turns to go back to the table, Leann feels disappointed. She’s enjoying herself. More than she thought she would.

  She grabs Robert by his elbow and pulls him onto the dance floor. “Come on.”

  Robert moans. “I hate this song.”

  “Tough. This is our prom. We’re dancing.”

  “Can’t we pretend dance?”

  “You want me to pretend slap you?” Leann raises her hand above Robert’s shoulder.

  Robert groans. Leann smiles. She doesn’t have to pretend. She’s having fun.

  Marshall dances every dance. When he slow dances with Leann, he doesn’t let himself relax. He keeps thinking of things to talk about. What he really wants to do is concentrate on how one of her hands cups his shoulder and the other hooks around his thumb.

  One time, when all four of them are dancing together, sort of jumping in a circle, Leann leans in close to Marshall. “Thanks. This is great.” Then she smiles. Marshall stops dancing for a second. He can smell the gardenias, the sweetness hanging between them. He wants to kiss her. Her cheek is an inch from his lips. He stops himself. “You’re welcome,” he says close to her ear. Then he jumps away from how perilously close he is to the edge of her and keeps dancing, glancing over again and again, hoping she didn’t notice that the mask he is wearing had slipped for an instant.

  Leann barely hears Marshall say “You’re welcome.”

  She’s laughing. For the first time in a long time, she is really laughing. When the band takes a break, she goofs around at their table, thumb wrestling each of them and winning against everyone except Robert, whose big hand engulfs hers. Even then, she pretends to win by using both hands, claiming her two hands are equal in size to his one. Mary Louise suggests they all get their picture taken together and Leann helps arrange the photo so they are all squished in together in one photo. When she poses with Marshall as a couple, she doesn’t think twice about his arm looped in hers.

  When the prom ends and Marshall suggests they go to the Whip In, Leann doesn’t hesitate. She wants to keep having fun. Pretty soon this guy named Sam, who everyone but Leann seems to know, is taking their orders. Fifteen minutes later, burgers, fries and sodas fill their table.

  Ravenous, sweaty from dancing, Leann guzzles her Dr Pepper and burps so loud both Marshall and Robert choke on their burgers in shock while she and Mary Louise fall over in their seats, holding their sides.

  “Holy crap,” said Robert. “That sounded like a whale burp.”

  “Do whales burp?” asked Mary Louise.

  “If they did, it would sound like that,” said Robert.

  Leann smiles. Having Robert make a joke at her expense doesn’t bother her. She sniffs her gardenia corsage. “I wonder where this corsage tradition came from.”

  Mary Louise waves her hand in front of her nose and smells her corsage. “To cover up their date’s stinky tuxedo smell.”

  “Hey, that’s in the car.”

  “Still too close.”

  They fall into laughing again. Mary Louise never insulted anyone.

  “I have the receipt. I bet I can return it.”

  “No way,” says Marshall. “You’ll have to donate it back to Goodwill.”

  “You might have to pay them to take it,” Mary Louise adds, and they start laughing again.

  Outside the Whip In, Marshall hopes Leann will walk straight to his car but she doesn’t. Mary Louise stops to look at the poster of Tommy Smythe on the window.

  “It’s so sad,” says Mary Louise. “He was a really nice kid.”

  Leann stops next to her. “Do you think he is dead?”

  “I don’t know. It’s been like eight days.”

>   “Eight days is nothing out here,” says Robert. “He could definitely show up still.”

  Marshall doesn’t say anything. Ever since that kid went missing, it seems like Tommy is trying to jinx Marshall’s plans for the evening. First he put the prom in doubt and then he made it more difficult to take Leann to the pull-out because the sheriff drives out there more often. Normally, Marshall wouldn’t wish harm on anyone but, in this case, he really would have preferred Tommy’s body being found. With Mary Louise feeling sad and Leann not moving, Marshall is wondering how to break the spell and move the evening forward.

  “Hey, prom pretenders, shall we take our fake dates home?” Marshall doesn’t feel as offhand as he hoped he sounded.

  Mary Louise looks at her watch. “Oh yeah, my sisters and I are cooking breakfast for Mom in the morning.”

  “Oh crap, I forgot about Mother’s Day,” said Robert.

  Leann laughs. “Don’t worry, Robert, if you remember to say anything tomorrow, she’ll be surprised.”

  “You think?” said Robert.

  “Definitely,” says Leann, laughing. “See you at school on Monday.”

  Just like that, Marshall is holding the car door open for Leann. She doesn’t look bothered by the whole Tommy thing. Or the mention of Mother’s Day. He takes a deep breath. Here’s the big moment. He is scared. What if she says no? Except they’d had a good time. Why not go ahead and say it?

  “Leann, can I show you something before I take you home?”

  “Sure.”

  It’s that easy. Minutes later, he is turning his car off 281. Marshall scans the pull-out. No cars. He slows down and heads the car toward one end of the pull-out. In the dark, it looks like he is driving straight into a wall of trees. He eases the car through the cedars, tensing a little until his headlights stretch into the field beyond. No matter how many times he drives through the gauntlet of trees, it’s hard not to imagine a cliff beyond the cedars. He drives about ten feet into the field, turns off the car, and rolls down his window.

  “People call this place the Stillwell pull-out.”