Smashed

by Lisa Luedeke

  “I ran into Alec last night,” I said. “Or he ran into me is more like it.”

  “Where? What happened?”

  “He cornered me by the bathrooms. There was no one around.”

  “What do you mean, cornered you? I can’t believe you didn’t tell me before.” She looked relieved, like she could explain to herself now why I’d been acting so strange.

  “He grabbed my arm and then … he wouldn’t let me walk past him.”

  “He what? That’s scary, Kay.” Her face went dark. “You know, he’s got a hell of a lot of nerve after what he did. That accident could have cost you your scholarship.”

  Heat rose in my cheeks and I looked away.

  “What did he say?” she asked.

  “Just bullshit.” I kicked the ground. “He was picking on Matt. Said I must have told Matt some shit about him because Matt looks like he wants to fight him. Then he made some joke about that.”

  “I’d like to fight him,” Cassie said. “I may be little but I’m mean.”

  “You’re as far from mean as mean gets.”

  “Well, he brings it out in me,” she said, serious again. “He’s harassing you. You don’t just grab someone and not let them walk past.”

  I picked up a loose rock and flung it into the woods, then began moving around the yard, gathering fallen twigs and branches that had dropped off a dying tree.

  Cassie stood still, her eyes on me. “You should tell someone,” she said.

  “Tell who what?” I said. “That he’s mad at me for not going to the movies with him?” For such a smart person, sometimes she was impossibly naive. “It’s not against the law to be pissed off.”

  “Well, if he touches you again—he can’t do that.”

  What Cassie didn’t know was this: Alec could smash me over the head with a beer bottle and I wouldn’t—I couldn’t—tell anyone. He had too much on me. And he knew it.

  “There’s nothing I can do.” I dropped a handful of twigs over the stone wall and looked up at her. “Just forget about it, okay?”

  She stared at me then. Her blue eyes, for once, were baffled.

  *

  Sunday night was long and dark and lonely. Every time I started to doze, a floorboard creaked or a tree branch scratched the roof, jolting me awake. I hated this empty house, hated the emptiness I felt inside me. Sometimes, lying there at night, I felt like I’d explode if I couldn’t go somewhere else, just be anywhere else other than this place—the place where my family had left me, one by one, to fend for myself.

  I crawled out of bed and went downstairs, turning on every light I passed along the way. I threw a couple of thick logs onto the smoldering fire, then went into the kitchen, opening the low cabinet near the sink. I’d finished the red; now the white wine jug was nearly empty, too. I’d need to replace both—soon. Stan would get it for me; he could get anything.

  With a tall, full glass in hand, I climbed into the overstuffed recliner where my father had liked to drink his beer and fall asleep in front of the heat of the fire. The wine felt warm against the back of my throat, the taste like an old friend. As the glass emptied, my anxiety floated away, too. The logs caught, the wine slid down my throat, and my feet—up high on the lip of the recliner—were bare but toasty. Finally, I nodded off to sleep.

  In my dream, Cassie and Matt had hiked to the top of Pitcher Mountain and were waiting for me there. We were to meet at one o’clock. All night I tried to reach them, but I couldn’t. First I lost my way, the trail dwindling off to nothing, my heart thumping as I searched for a way out of the woods. Then it rained and the leaves on the ground turned slick, and my feet slipped over and over, getting me nowhere. Finally the rain turned into a river and carried me away and I was falling—falling down the mountainside and into the lake, which was icy cold… .

  When I woke up, the fire had burned out and I was shivering.

  33

  On Monday, I darted from class to class with my head down, avoiding everyone. One wiseass remark from Megan and everyone would know what we’d been up to at the fair. She might not care, but I did. In a week or two, play-offs would be over. Then, relief.

  Matt finally caught up with me as school was clearing out for the day. He leaned back against the wall and locked his eyes into mine.

  “What?” I looked away, pulling a sweatshirt out of my locker and putting it over my head. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Just trying to figure you out.”

  “Get to the point, Matt.”

  “Okay.” He placed a stack of books on a window ledge. “You were so high Saturday night you’d have to be blind to miss it.”

  “Yeah, right.” I leaned over and dug through my backpack. “Like you’d even know what high looks like.”

  “You weren’t hiding much.”

  This was the last thing I wanted to talk about. I’d already kicked myself a million times for what I’d done at the fair. I didn’t need Matt kicking me, too.

  I shoved some books into my locker, hard. “Why are you my friend, Matt?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, you don’t seem to like me very much, so I’m just asking.” I slammed the metal door, the clatter echoing down the hall. “Cassie didn’t accuse me of being high.”

  “She’d never say anything even if she did think so.”

  “Why wouldn’t she?”

  “Because that’s her idea of loyalty.” He dropped his backpack on the floor by his feet.

  “No, it’s not. She was mad at me for being late and she said so. She’s been pissed off at every hockey player who’s partied this season for risking the States.”

  Matt shook his head and leaned against my locker door, arms folded across his chest. “You don’t get it. She’s blind when it comes to you. You’re her best friend. To her, you can do no wrong. It’s always been that way.”

  “You know, you’ve always been jealous of Cassie. Can I get back into my locker please? I forgot something.”

  He stepped aside. “Maybe I was, kind of, way back when she first moved here. But that has nothing to do with it.”

  “So what’s your point? You see all the bad things about me but she can’t?”

  “Just forget it.”

  “I’d love to. You’re the one who can’t let anything go. I always end up feeling like I’m on trial with you.” I slammed my locker door shut again. The hall was nearly empty now, and I was grateful.

  “I didn’t know I had to think you were perfect to be your friend.”

  “I didn’t know I had to be perfect for you to be my friend.”

  “I just don’t want you to blow it. I wish you could understand that. It’s because I am your friend.”

  “Well, you know what? That’s my business. If I blow it, it’s my business.”

  “Forget I mentioned it,” Matt said, but he wasn’t over it.

  Neither one of us spoke.

  He stood there for a minute while I finished organizing my things.

  “You’re still coming over tonight, right?” he said finally. “To help me pick the final pictures for my portfolio?”

  “Yeah, if you still want me to.”

  “I do,” he said. “See you then.” And he disappeared around the corner.

  *

  Matt had photographs spread out all over his bed when I arrived. “These are the ones I’ve made prints of,” he said, not looking up at me. “The rest are still slides.”

  I glanced at a small cardboard box on the other bed. Inside it, in a thin plastic container, were several rows of slides we’d selected out of hundreds back in the summer.

  I stood in the doorway, waiting, as Matt moved around the bed adjusting the photos, lining them up in perfect, neat rows.

  Finally he stopped and looked over at me. “Are you coming in?”

  I shrugged. “Do you want me to?”

  He took a deep breath; his shoulders fell and relaxed. “I told you I did,” he said q
uietly. “I do want your help.”

  He looked anxious—not just about the fight we’d had but about his portfolio. He wanted to study traditional photography, to take photos that were art, like Ansel Adams and Man Ray. He wanted to prove he could do that.

  I stepped into his room. “Okay,” I said. “What can I do?”

  Matt threw himself into an armchair, head back. “I’m afraid I’ll pick the wrong ones and they won’t like them, you know?”

  “That can’t happen, Matt. There are so many good ones, it’s hard to even narrow it down. They’re all beautiful.” I picked one up off the bed. “I like this one a lot.” It was a close-up of a cow, taken with a telephoto lens by the side of a road. One narrow half of a cow’s face, a single, soulful brown eye gazing into the camera, filled the frame.

  “Me too,” he said.

  “Let’s start a pile of our favorites.”

  “All right,” he said. “Then we can start getting rid of the rest.”

  Matt liked abstract photographs the best, and working in black and white. First we went through the slides, placing them on the light box and viewing them through the loupe—a magnifying glass mounted on a clear plastic platform that made the picture larger and clearer to the eye. Then we considered the prints. We eliminated more than half as we went, and then put the rest into categories: personal favorites, different styles, color, and black and white. Finally we began choosing, agreeing and disagreeing, setting second and third choices to the side. We were almost finished when Matt went into a drawer and pulled out one last photo.

  “I’d like to use this,” he said. “It’s one of my best portraits.”

  When Matt said “portraits” he didn’t mean posed shots—he hated those. He meant photographs of people in their element, caught in real moments—candids. Honest shots, he called them. “There’s nothing interesting about people smiling into a camera lens,” he’d said many times. “Not to me, anyway.”

  I took the photo from his hand. It was one I’d never seen before. There I was, in black and white, on the bench next to the hockey field during that first scrimmage of the season, when Coach Riley had benched me. Around me were freshmen, JV players, second-string varsity, their eyes on the game. My arms were folded in front of me like I was shivering, even though it had been a very hot day. I was hunched over, my eyes cast down. Looking at it, I remembered that moment so clearly, the rocking motion of my body as I gazed at the grass, too humiliated to watch the game.

  “I didn’t know you took this.”

  “I know.” Matt stood quietly in front of me. “I won’t use it if you don’t want me to.”

  I looked at it a moment longer. “That was a bad day.”

  “I know.”

  “You can use it,” I said, and handed it back to him.

  “Katie?”

  “What?”

  “I know you think I’m a jerk sometimes. That I’m always down on you or something,” he said. “It’s just …”

  “What? Say it.”

  He held the picture in his hand, his lips pressed tightly together. “I just don’t want you to feel this way.”

  “What way?”

  “The way you did in this picture.” His brown eyes shone.

  “I’m okay, Matt,” I said quietly. “Really, I am.”

  He nodded. But something in his face told me he wasn’t so sure.

  Later, outside, we crossed the road and walked across my lawn, dead leaves rustling like crumpled paper beneath our feet.

  “I’ve got to rake these before it snows.”

  “I’ll help you,” Matt said.

  We reached my porch and he hugged me. I didn’t want to let him go.

  34

  Cassie told me everything that happened.

  She’d caught up with Megan and Cheryl behind the field house as they were getting into Cheryl’s car. Marcy was with them, too, her long blond braid swinging against her hockey jacket. She’d had a bad practice that day—she found out Sue Tapley was going to the homecoming dance with Alec, and Coach Riley had been on her about her attitude again.

  Cassie shivered in the dimly lit parking lot. “Hey, can I talk to you guys for a minute?”

  “What’s up?” Megan said.

  “You going to Scott’s party this weekend?”

  “Yeah, want to come?” Megan looked slightly surprised.

  “No, I’m waiting until after the tournament. I figure we’ll have a big party after we win the States.”

  “I’m having that one at my house,” Megan said. “My parents are going to Florida for Thanksgiving.”

  Cassie nodded.

  “So, what’s up?”

  “Well,” she said slowly, “I was hoping you’d wait until then, too. Once the play-offs are over, it doesn’t matter anymore if we party.”

  Cheryl rolled her eyes. “No offense, Cassie, but Riley hasn’t exactly been on top of the situation this season. I don’t think we’ve got anything to worry about.” She rubbed her arms. “Damn, it’s cold,” she said, and climbed into the driver’s seat. “You guys ready to go?”

  “While you’re on the lecture circuit, why don’t you talk to your co-captain,” Marcy said. “Wouldn’t want Miss Scholarship to blow it.”

  “Shut up, Marcy. You’re just jealous,” Megan said, and Marcy got into the car, scowling. “I hear you, Cass, but don’t worry. We’re not going to do anything stupid. I’ll guarantee you we’ll all be playing in the quarterfinals on Monday.”

  “That’d be good, because we’d be sunk without you in the goal.”

  “Not to worry,” Megan said. “See you tomorrow.”

  *

  “I think she heard me,” Cassie said now, backing her Beetle out of the parking lot. “I know they care about the play-offs as much as we do.”

  I was grateful to Megan: She hadn’t blown my cover, and she’d put Marcy in her place. But Marcy was a real wild card—not someone you’d want on the other side playing against you. If she knew what I’d done, I could forget it.

  Cassie stopped, looked both ways, and turned out of the lot. If I reached over, I could touch her sitting there, her hands on the wheel. But I felt a million miles away. It had been that way ever since the accident, ever since the first lie. Then there’d been the concert, when I hadn’t told her about dancing with Alec or holding his hand, and then that dent in the hood of my car. I thought about standing by the tall fence at the fair, blowing sweet smoke into the dark, relief coursing through my body as my mind slipped away. I could never explain that moment to her.

  I stared out the window into the darkness. “Cassie …”

  “What? You’re nervous aren’t you? You know, I shouldn’t have made such a big deal out of the party. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  “That’s not it.”

  “What is it? You know, even if we lose the first game—which we won’t, by the way—you’ve already got a scholarship. Coach Hollyhock promised you money.”

  “I know. The tournament won’t change that.”

  “Listen, those guys can’t ruin anything. Marcy’s always a jerk—even Megan knows that—and Riley can handle her.”

  Her car sat idling in my driveway now. “We’re kicking butt next week.” She reached over and squeezed my shoulder. “Now get out of my car, or I’ll be late getting home.”

  *

  I was actually glad to have the house empty that night, to have it entirely to myself. I pulled the new jug of red wine Stan had gotten for me out of the cupboard and poured, filling my glass. I’d delivered the empty jugs to the recycling center in a brown paper bag earlier in the week. I’d wanted them gone the minute I took the last sip; once they were out of sight, it was like they’d never existed.

  Sort of like how drinking alone could make it seem like you weren’t drinking at all.

  In the recliner in the living room, I considered the old riddle: If a tree falls in the woods and there’s no one there to hear it, does it still make a sound?
/>   A different version, my own, had been floating through my mind for weeks: If you drink some wine and there’s no one around to see it, does it still count against you?

  My theory was that it did not. What other choice did I have?

  It was just one more thing I kept inside me, like a tightly wrapped package, ready to explode.

  *

  The following week we went into the quarterfinals ranked number one in Western Maine Class B and won the game 3–0. Marcy behaved perfectly, blank-faced and silent on the field, even when the ref made a clearly bad call in the second half and gave the other team a free hit into the circle on a ball that should have been ours.

  “Nice job today,” I said to her as we jogged off the field, and she actually smiled. I saw Coach Riley give her a thumbs-up, too.

  Megan, Cheryl, and some others had partied over the weekend, but they were right. Nothing had happened. Nothing ever did. Coach Riley talked tough, but like most grown-ups, she didn’t have a clue what was really going on.

  35

  It was Friday afternoon and it seemed like the entire school had gathered around the field. On Wednesday, we’d rolled over Jamaica 4–1 in the semifinals. If we won today, we’d be Western Maine champions, heading to what we hoped would be our final destination: the States.

  Kids who had never been to a field hockey game in their lives were giddy—laughing, shivering, sipping soda. Cars paraded into the parking lot, filled with parents who had taken the afternoon off work to see their daughters play. Outside the locker room, I watched Bobbi Crow talk to her father, then hug him and go inside. What would it be like to have a dad like that to support you at one of the most important moments of your life? I wondered. A sharp ache jabbed at the back of my throat and I pushed the thought out of my mind. Sure, neither of my parents were going to be at the game, but I’d known that. I’d expected no different. I was here for myself and for my team.

  Our nerves running high, we ran through our drills on the field. We wanted to look strong, to psych the other team out. When Coach Riley gave us the signal, we jogged off the field in a line and gathered, sticks pounding the ground to the rhythm of our cheer.

  It was time to play.