Black Tuesday

by Susan Colebank

  She’d been on the same page now for at least a minute.

  “I haven’t been trained yet. Maria said maybe in a month.”

  “Sounds good, kid. Glad that you have something to do this summer.”

  “She has school.” Gen’s words sounded strangled. “That should be all she’s concentrating on.”

  Jayne grabbed a water from the fridge. Her mother was right. She should be concentrating on Arizona history.

  Too bad she wasn’t. And too bad she had a C-minus in there right now.

  The third week of a five-week class.

  “I better go take a shower. See you, Dad.”

  She was through the door and halfway down the hall when she heard her mother’s voice. Purposely loud and clear.

  “She looks like a lesbian, Sean. That gorgeous hair has been chopped. Ruined.”

  Jayne smiled.

  This day just kept getting better and better.

  The day had just gotten worse.

  “Is this Jayne?”

  “Yeah?” The word came out while she tried to catch her breath. She’d just finished one hundred crunches, and her stomach felt like she’d done one thousand. God, she was friggin’ out of shape.

  “Val here. Val Shetland. I didn’t catch you at a bad time, did I?”

  Jayne didn’t just have trouble breathing. She forgot to breathe. What did her lawyer want? “Nuh-uh.”

  “I got a call from one of the driver’s lawyers today. The one with the black Mercedes. The jerk wasn’t even hurt and he wants to sue for monetary damages.”

  “Why’s he suing us?” The words weren’t computing.

  “He says it’s because of recurring back pain that’s kept him from making his full salary for the last couple of months. I say it’s because he saw your mom on her billboard down on Central and decided big billboard means big bucks.”

  Jayne kept hearing Val explaining the situation, but the answer wasn’t making sense. “But doesn’t he have money, this Mercedes guy?”

  “Apparently not enough.” Val snorted. “Some people have really huge cojones, you know?”

  Jayne dropped back, lying full-length on the mat. She stared at the high wood beams above her. What was this guy’s problem? It’d been two months. Two months with nothing. “Why now?”

  “Who knows. Maybe a wife who needs a nose job, or a new plasma TV is on the market. Whatever. His lawyer says it’s because he didn’t associate the back pain with the accident. I still say he didn’t make the link until he saw the ten-foot reminder on Central that he had a savings account to cash in on.”

  “Have you called my mom or dad yet?”

  Her dad was at a book-signing in downtown Phoenix. A high school buddy had a new mystery out. Gen was meeting with an alpaca rancher on the outskirts of town, directing the background shots for her story.

  “No. You’re my first call. The most important part of this equation.”

  Jayne wished she was an important part of a different equation. This one sucked.

  “Are you—I mean, are we giving him any money?”

  “Some. His lawyer’s asking for fifty thousand dollars for lost time at work, chiropractor bills, and pain and suffering.”

  “How about his car?”

  “Your auto insurance took care of that.”

  She didn’t want to, but she asked the question anyway. “How about Mrs. Deavers? Is she filing anything?”

  “Nope. Nothing yet. I don’t think she will, though.”

  Jayne concentrated on the beams above her. One had a loose spiderweb floating from it. “Why do you think that? Did she tell you that?”

  Please oh please oh please.

  “No, she didn’t tell me anything. But she let her kid ride in the front seat of her car, without a seat belt on. The seat where the kid got slammed in the face with an air bag. An air bag that has the same force behind it as a twelve-gauge shotgun, mind you.” Val said something to someone on her side of the phone, the words a murmur and unintelligible.

  “But she can still blame me, right?” And take her parents’ money. A lot of money—money that a ten-foot sign on Central was advertising for anybody to see.

  “Honey, I don’t think you need to worry about taking full blame. Mrs. Deavers is just as at fault as you are.”

  26

  MRS. DEAVERS is just as at fault as you are.

  The sentence replayed in her head over and over again.

  Jayne looked at the clock. 3:32 A.M.

  She’d been stealing looks at the stupid thing since 1:01. Val’s call was keeping her up. The blowup fight she’d had with her mother, whom Val had called right after, was keeping her up.

  The words “If you hadn’t been so careless, Jayne, none of this would’ve happened. None of this!” completed the cycle playing in her head.

  Mrs. Deavers is just as at fault as you are.

  If you hadn’t been so careless, Jayne, none of this would’ve happened. None of this!

  Mrs. Deavers is just as at fault as you are.

  If you hadn’t been so careless, Jayne, none of this would’ve happened. . . .

  She flipped on her computer. She wanted to do something, but what?

  She drummed her fingers lightly on top of the keys.

  What to do. What to do . . .

  The answer, when it came, was obvious. And simple. And Jayne wondered why she’d never done it before.

  She typed in:

  AIR BAG CHILD DEATH

  For the next hour and a half, she read.

  And read.

  And read.

  “You have the Deaverses’ address?”

  Tom hadn’t even had the chance to knock on the front door. She’d yanked it open as soon as she saw him walking down the street.

  Jayne was antsy. Antsy to get this done and over with.

  And Tom was here to give her that courage.

  He handed her a piece of paper, his hair still mussed from sleeping. “Yeah. They were in the phone book.”

  “I looked in the phone book. I didn’t see them.”

  “They were under another name. She was under her first married name, before she remarried and had Brenda.”

  They went upstairs, and Jayne closed the door behind her. Her dad was on his run and her mom was on the treadmill downstairs, oblivious to the world for the next hour and a half. But Jayne didn’t want them to know Tom was there.

  The Thompkinses’ position on boys in their daughters’ bedrooms held for Tom, too. He’d been there when Charlie Monteague was caught in Ellie’s room. Gen had called the cops and the boy’s parents.

  And no one at Palm Desert had seen Charlie since.

  Tom was always in Jayne’s room and hadn’t been caught yet. The eucalyptus tree outside was sturdy and well-worn, thanks to years as Tom’s quick getaway route to his house two streets over.

  Right now, Tom was giving her a weird look, his “How do I put this” look. Jayne’s stomach dipped a little. Those long curly eyelashes of his definitely gave him the edge as far as looks went. Usually, if he stayed quiet long enough and just gazed at her with minimal blinking, she’d spill her guts to him.

  But telling him that she was about to write a letter to Mrs. Donna Deavers calling her an idiot wasn’t going to go over well with Tom. He and his stupid nice-boy tendencies would talk her out of it.

  Instead, she’d told him she was writing Mrs. Deavers an apology note.

  He hadn’t thought that was a very good idea, either. “You know that if you send a letter, she’ll have in writing you admitting you killed her daughter.”

  Jayne did know. Val had warned her about writing anything. Both at her sentencing and when she’d called about the black Mercedes guy.

  “No worries, Tom.” Darian’s “no worries” thing pretty much summed up how she was approaching life at the moment. She had too many worries to give them any kind of proper attention anymore. Why not forget them all? “I’m not going to tell her I aimed my car at hers so I�
�d push them into oncoming traffic.”

  She attempted a smile to acknowledge the morbid humor. “I’m not that good a driver.”

  But she wasn’t writing to Mrs. Deavers to admit she was to blame for that little girl’s death. She was writing to blame Mrs. Deavers.

  Brenda Deavers had been killed by her mom and her stupidity. She’d died because Donna Deavers hadn’t been one of the ninety-nine percent of parents who were aware that kids shouldn’t be put in the front seat of a car with an air bag.

  Her Google search had told her that.

  Brenda Deavers had also not been wearing a seat belt. Between no seat belt and the air bag’s impact, the kid didn’t have a chance.

  Another Googled bit of information.

  And maybe if she’d been wearing that seat belt in the backseat, Brenda would still be alive and the Deavers would just have a totaled car.

  “I know what I’m doing, Tom.” She turned to the computer.

  She started typing in the address she’d copied onto a Post-it. She heard a noise behind her and glanced around. Tom must’ve rolled closer to her, because his face seemed an awful lot closer than it had been. “Do you need something?” she asked.

  He opened his mouth and closed it. He opened his mouth again. And closed it. Finally, he said, “You know you’re important to me, right?”

  She nodded. Her fingers over the keyboard slowed to a halt.

  “So write this letter. Don’t write this letter. It doesn’t matter. Whatever makes you get . . . get over this? Do it.”

  Get over this. Was there such a thing?

  He said that now. But what was he going to say when he found out she’d told Donna Deavers she was an idiot? Tom would think she was insane.

  She saw his eyes shift to her lips.

  Jayne’s stomach dipped.

  “What’s going on, Tom?” A tiny voice in the back of her head was whispering something. Kiss me.

  “I . . .” He cleared his throat. “I want the old Jayne back.”

  Kiss me.

  “Yeah?”

  Kiss me.

  The front door slammed.

  Without a word, Tom shot up and made his way to the window and the tree outside.

  27

  SHE PICKED ANOTHER ONION out of her pasta. She’d asked for no onions. But she’d gotten onions anyway.

  Story of her life.

  “Jayne.”

  She heard her mom’s whisper. She also felt her mom’s fake nails digging into her leg. But she ignored her and her nails and her tone of voice.

  Whatever her mom was going to say wasn’t going to make her feel better.

  “So, Harry.” Her dad balanced a piece of his vegetarian lasagna on his fork. “You have a pretty nice ride out there. I take it it’s the new one?”

  “Yes, had the dealership put me first on their waiting list. Just got it.” The tall, thin man rubbed his hands together and leaned across the table. His oval eyeglasses picked up the candle flicker in the middle of the table, making him look possessed. “And man, what a dream.”

  What a douche.

  The tall, thin man was Harry Stansfield, the mystery writer Jayne’s dad had gone to high school with. He’d written twenty books in fifteen years, all self-published. And, according to her mom, all awful.

  All he’d been talking about for the last hour was his new house, his new car, and his new born-rich wife with her new boobs. (The “new boobs” part Jayne figured out from the picture he showed everyone.)

  Her parents had invited her along because Harry Stansfield was also a Harvard alumnus.

  Based on what she’d seen so far, this guy definitely wasn’t the best PR for Harvard.

  “Jayne.”

  The whisper was more urgent. And pissed-off-sounding. Her dad and Harry were too busy talking about Harry to hear Gen.

  “What.” Jayne looked up, her word a statement more than her wondering or caring what it was her mom wanted. Gen sat ramrod straight, a teeny-tiny salad she hadn’t touched in front of her.

  “Stop using your fingers. You look like an animal.”

  Jayne stared at her mom, her thumb and forefinger about to go in for another slimy onion. Without breaking her gaze, she reached in, dug around, and found another one. She yanked it out victoriously, set it on her bread plate, and went back for more.

  “Then don’t watch me.”

  “I hear you’re Harvard-bound, young lady.”

  Dinner was over. Harry was drinking a mixture of scotch and whatever, her dad had gone to the restroom, and her mom was chatting with some slightly drunk people at the next table who’d bribed her into sharing a martini with them when they found out she really was the Gen Thompkins.

  “That was the plan.” Jayne was resting her forehead on her icy water glass. Phoenix summer nights were still warmer than most people’s summer days.

  “Harvard was great. It opened a lot of doors, I can tell you that.”

  Her parents were otherwise occupied, so that meant she had to play the hostess. It was too ingrained in her to do otherwise.

  “You wrote twenty books, right?”

  “Yeah.” He leaned back, his cheek on his hand. A slight smile on his face, like he was proud of himself.

  “With all those Harvard contacts and all, why did you have to self-publish your books?”

  Some of that smile eased away. So much for the compliment he thought he was going to get. “No one hits big with their first book unless they’re like J. K. Rowling with that Harry Potter of hers.”

  He took a sip of his drink, his lips thin and sort of uptight-looking. “Anyway, I’ll make it one day. I’m a Harvard graduate, for God’s sake. Even got a partial scholarship for a while.” He winked at her. Jayne’s skin crawled. “Ended up with a 2.9 GPA, which wasn’t that stellar, but for a guy with an allergy against all things math, that was pretty dang good.”

  Uh-huh. Sure. “So, Harry.” She leaned closer. Maybe it was the hot night, maybe it was her mom being her anal-retentive self. Whatever it was, she felt a little reckless. “How do you think you got into Harvard?”

  He looked like he wasn’t sure if she was insulting him or just inquisitive. Jayne didn’t know herself. “Good GPA . Good extracurriculars. But I think my essay really stood out. You know, where you discuss why you deserve to be there and who your heroes are and all that kind of bull crap?”

  Jayne, for the first time that night, was interested in this guy. “What did you write yours about?”

  Harry had a far-off look in his eyes, a silly smile on his face. “To write the great American novel, since, in my opinion, it hadn’t been written yet.” He lifted his glass to Jayne. “Here’s to the great American novel I have yet to write.”

  Jayne lifted her water glass and clinked glasses. In her own head, she toasted, If this putz can get into Harvard, I can, too.

  28

  YOU SEND THAT LETTER YET?” Tom tied his shoe-lace, like the answer didn’t matter. Jayne knew him better than that.

  Jayne shook her head and popped open her soda. “I want to proofread it one more time. Probably later in the week.”

  There were only about five more minutes of break left. Mr. Munroe hadn’t gotten any more interesting in four weeks. Jayne had to drink two Diet Pepsis every morning just to get through the class.

  At least she was in B territory with her grade.

  And after that talk with that Harvard idiot, she’d asked Mr. Munroe to help her get extra credit in order to boost her grade. He’d assigned her a five-thousand-word essay on the four C’s of Arizona.

  Bor-ing. But at least an A was in sight.

  Tom ate the last Cheeto in his bag and balled up the plastic and shot it into the trash can by Mr. Munroe’s desk. The move reminded her of Darian.

  Somehow, her heart didn’t beat so fast thinking about Darian. Not like it did with Tom, who was currently keeping at least two feet between them at all times.

  Jayne hated the weird vibe. Then again, she kind o
f liked this new electricity between them.

  She didn’t know what any of it meant. She kind of didn’t want to know.

  “I’m glad you haven’t sent it. Without proofreading it, I mean.” He scooted his notebook around on his desk, concentrating on lining up the edges of the desk.

  “You know, I—”

  “Tom!” Lori stood outside the doorway, beckoning Tom with a hand.

  The words she was going to say, I was thinking that I shouldn’t send it, died on her lips. Tom looked at Jayne, then back at Lori. “Hey, Lori.”

  “Tom, come here.”

  “I’ll catch up with you later, Lori.”

  Tom, his back to Lori, mouthed, “She’s stalking me.”

  “Sure.” Jayne thought about the blog, the eggings, her locker. She hadn’t really talked to Tom about any of it, though.

  That would constitute her talking about, well, the accident.

  Which meant that he probably thought Lori wasn’t the spawn of Satan. That Lori had spared Jayne in her terrorization of the rest of the Palm Desert population.

  That she was really a very nice girl underneath it all.

  “Honest, Jayne. We talked at your house on the Fourth of July, but I don’t hang out with her.”

  She looked for the eye twitch. Her personal lie detector. Nothing.

  “We say hi in school, but that’s about it.”

  It looked like his left eye twitched a little. Then again, it could’ve been an eyelash.

  She gave him a tight smile. “Sure thing. No worries.”

  Behind him, Lori hadn’t moved. She stood in the hallway, both middle fingers flipping Jayne off.

  “Where would you like it, hon?”

  “On my back, below my waist, above my butt crack.”

  Jayne was at the 7th Street Tattoo Palace, the most hygienic parlor in the city. She’d picked out her design. She had also already taken two Advil.

  The heavyset woman with tattoos down her arms, across her chest, and up her neck held the needle in her hand. “And you’re eighteen, hon?”

  “Sure am.” The lie rolled off her tongue. This place was also known for inking teenagers without parental consent.