Kendra forced a smile, played with the collar of her shirt. Rae looked larger than the last time she’d seen her, her gray T-shirt puffing against the lower part of her abdomen. She’d sat next to Kendra at her dad’s funeral, and at one point, Rae had leaned in and whispered, apropos of nothing, “Your daddy loved my cookies.” For the rest of the service, Kendra wondered if “cookies” meant something other than the burnt chocolate chip and walnut monstrosities Rae sometimes baked during the holidays. The thought repulsed her.
“Still wearing black in the summer?” Bryan said, grinning down at Kendra.
“It’s just a damn shirt,” Kendra said.
“Just sayin’,” Bryan said.
“Oh, look at the college boy,” Lynette said, moving in to hug her nephew. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Gonna read as many books as Kendra,” Bryan said.
“Ha,” Kendra said. She looked at Bryan, then her mother, then her aunt, grabbed her suitcase, and wheeled it down the hall.
Bryan’s old room, the room where she was to stay, smelled like sweat and cheap cologne. It was markedly smaller than her room in D.C., and in each corner sat a different mountain of clothes.
“There’s such thing as a hamper,” Kendra said.
“I’m organizing,” Bryan said, coming up behind her.
On the walls were various posters of hip-hop artists—Redman, Snoop, Nas—and on the ceiling, staring down onto the bed, a life-sized portrait of Lauryn Hill, her eyes looking shifty and seductive, her hair big and braided. She wore blue overalls over a plain white shirt, one strap undone, and Kendra wondered if someday, as an adult, she could pull off such plain clothes and still look so beautiful.
“Why would you put her on your ceiling?” Kendra said.
“Goddess,” Bryan said, kissing his fingers, blowing the kiss upward. “Fucking goddess.”
“Gross,” she said. She rolled her suitcase to the closet. “I mean, I don’t even think there’s enough space here for half my clothes.”
“Don’t worry,” Bryan said. “I’m getting all my shit out soon.”
“But school doesn’t start for another few months,” Kendra said, turning around.
“I got places,” he said. “Don’t worry. And look at you. Don’t you just wear the same thing all the time? Black T-shirts with band names on them? I mean, who even listens to Bad Religion? Bunch of whiny white dudes who shout a lot.”
Kendra scoffed. “And I suppose 2 Live Crew doesn’t shout a lot?” she said. “Why are you so obsessed with my clothes anyway? You wanna borrow some?”
“And those earrings?” Bryan said. “They’re, what, spiderwebs?”
“Ugh,” Kendra said.
He shrugged. “Listen,” he said, “I’ll get my shit out ASAP. You’ll have plenty of room for your suicide wardrobe.”
She looked at his desk, frowned. “I can’t believe you’re going to college.”
“It’s not that weird,” Bryan said.
“Yes,” she said, “it is.”
She walked over to the desk. Stacked neatly on top were a small pile of textbooks—his first semester’s classes ready for review: astronomy, college algebra, English composition, sociology, philosophy. She imagined her cousin hunched over these books, writing notes, highlighting, making flash cards. The image was odd, contradictory to how she’d always pictured him. He’d barely gotten through high school, spending more time arranging parties than doing homework, and when, after high school, he’d gotten a job driving the city bus, everyone had thought he’d found a stable, reasonable calling. He’d seemed happy, even met a few women on his route, and nobody, not even Rae, expected him to quit, at least not for a decade or so. But then, a month after her dad died, Bryan had called and said he was going to UNL, that Greg’s accident had made him really contemplate his life. I’ve got a lot more in me than driving a bus, he’d said. A shit ton more.
In the bedroom, Kendra felt suddenly sick. She went to the window, opened it.
“The air’s on,” he said.
“I know,” she said.
He went to her, put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s not so bad here, you know? You’ll get used to it.”
She shook her head. “It’s just temporary,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, removing his hand. “Sure.”
They spent a lot of time together her first month there, him acquainting her with her surroundings, introducing her to the bus route, easing her into a situation she’d already deemed fatal. They ate ice cream and talked about life with his mother, which, it turned out, didn’t scar as much as she’d thought it would. They often biked to Holmes Lake, a man-made stretch of water about a mile from their apartment. Kendra loved this lake, reveled in its straw-smell placidity. Whenever they went, they encountered few people, and this, she thought, was why people moved to places like Nebraska: here was nature unencumbered by human trampling. Here was an actual place of quiet.
She’d never been to a lake before, she told her cousin—wasn’t that weird?
“Nah,” he said. “You have a river, and you’re close to an ocean. You don’t need a lake.”
“It’s funny,” she said, “how people always gravitate towards water. Like for all their recreation, water’s always important.”
They stood under the shade of a small brown shelter, taking swigs from plastic water bottles, holding their bikes. Kendra didn’t like the bike she’d been given: it’d belonged, once upon a time, to Rae, and it looked terribly outdated—the red crossbar screamed “Schwinn” in bright-white letters; the seat was wide and flat, made for a person much larger than Kendra; and the handlebars curved awkwardly toward her in a U shape, making sharp turns near-impossible. Bryan’s bike, on the other hand, was sleek, blue, modern, with thick new tires and spongy black handlebars. He often raced ahead of her, even when she screamed at him to stop, and when she’d finally catch up, he’d laugh and say, “Get on, old woman!”
“I still don’t know how you lived here your whole life,” Kendra said. “Everything’s so boring.”
“Boring isn’t bad,” Bryan said. “I mean, look at this. I guess it’s all boring as shit. But it’s nice, right? It’s pleasant.”
Kendra shrugged. “I guess.” She drank. It was morning—nine thirty a.m.—and the sun threw small, golden dots on the water. When everything was calm, the lake looked like a dark-blue mirror cutting straight through the hills, and it seemed, if she were careful, she could walk out on it and not get wet.
She imagined sitting out there with Shawn, his arm wrapped tightly around her, his lips nuzzling her neck. Would he appreciate the calm? Would he be okay with the endless green? He’d probably love it, she thought. He’d probably concoct stories about cannibal serial killers who lived in the park and lurked behind trees, waiting to taste young girl flesh. On the phone back in D.C. he’d said that Nebraska sounded beautifully ominous—all that land, those farms. She’d said, Are you kidding? There’s nothing beautiful about being stuck in the middle of the country.
“Did I tell you my roommate’s gonna be some dude from Thailand?” Bryan said. “How crazy is that.”
Kendra looked at him, saw the dreamy anticipation in his eyes. “You know that already?” she said. “It’s only June.”
“It’s not that early, Kendra. Summer’s gonna zip by.”
“Why didn’t you pick your roommate?” she said.
“I wanted to expand my horizons.”
“Well, they’re expanded, I guess.”
“Ha-ha. Yeah.”
She was nervous about school, about roaming the halls of Lincoln High by herself, a Black girl surrounded by heaps of white. Though she’d been assured both by her school and by Rae (You’re going to the most diverse school in Lincoln, she’d said. I made sure of that), she didn’t believe that a town with a 3 percent Black population could ever lay claim to any sort of diversity.
“I mean, people live like this all the time,” she said, gripping her water bottle tight
. “You did.”
Bryan frowned. “Kendra,” he said. “Look at me.”
She looked at him. His face was suddenly stormy. “I’m here. My mom’s here. Your mom’s here. Even if we were the only Black people in this town, we’ve got each other at least, right? And you’re always gonna have us.”
“Hmm,” Kendra said.
“We’re always gonna be here,” he said. “No matter what.”
“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
They biked.
As summer pressed on, however, Bryan decidedly wasn’t there. He spent more time with friends, on campus, at his ex-girlfriend Simone’s house. (How she was “ex” was beyond Kendra—she didn’t know anyone who regularly spent the night with former lovers.) And Kendra, knowing this would happen at some point, tried doing things on her own—biking to Holmes Lake, biking to the ice-cream shop, biking downtown. These solitary excursions, however, eventually became too depressing, so she stopped, telling herself that she’d start again once school began. Maybe she’d make a friend? Stranger things had happened.
One steamy day in July, Kendra sat in her bedroom, rereading Carrie, trying to determine if she sympathized with the telekinetic murderess or if she was just pathetic, when Rae knocked on her door, opened it, and in her meaty, disapproving voice, said, “Phone’s for you. It’s a boy.” Kendra’s heart jumped into her throat. She grabbed the phone and tried to shut the door. Rae stuck her arm out. “I’m waiting for a call from the electric company,” she said.
“Okay?” Kendra said.
“Keep it short.”
“Don’t we have call waiting?”
“I have call waiting,” Rae said. “I pay the phone bill.”
Kendra stared at her for a bit, put the phone to her ear, then politely nudged the door closed.
She hadn’t talked to Shawn Sims since that phone call where she’d embarrassingly demanded to know their relationship status. He’d evaded, of course, and had commandeered the conversation by shifting the subject to a place called the Quigley House. She’d listened, albeit tensely, both aggravated by and understanding of his pivot, and at the end, when he’d told her for the fifth time how amazing this haunt was, she’d had to lie down, her body seemingly giving out on all ends. I can’t just ask him to come over for sex now, she’d thought. I’ve totally blown it.
“Hi, Kendra,” he said.
Her breath caught in her throat. His voice! How she missed his voice! She missed his deep sound and his gingery smell and his wiry body and his curly hair. Shawn was familiarity. Shawn was ease. Shawn was home. And there he was, calling her, giving her another chance.
“I’d meant to call earlier,” he said.
“Shawn,” she said, relishing his name on her lips.
“How are you?” he asked.
“I’m doing okay,” she responded.
They talked for a bit about Nebraska, the vast expanses, the corn, the whiteness, the red, red barns. After a while, Shawn asked about the Quigley House, asked if she’d had a chance to check it out.
“I don’t think it’s, like, right in town,” Kendra said. “It’s in the country.”
“But isn’t everything out there country?” Shawn said.
“Um, no,” Kendra said. “It’s an actual town with things. It’s not, like, some prairie with a few houses.” She giggled.
“But even so, you’re literally a few miles away from it now, Kendra.”
“So?” she said.
“I did some research,” he said, “and I found this other article in The Horror Monthly and I got one of the Quigley managers’ names—Cory Stout. You could look him up? Like, in the phone book?”
“Like, now?”
“Maybe?”
“But why would I—”
“It’s the only contact name I’ve found. I mean, there’s John Forrester, of course, the owner, but he’s not gonna show up in the phone book. But this Cory dude, his address will probably be in there.”
“I mean, is this place as cool as you say it is? It sounds a little weird.” She felt suddenly paranoid. Like was he using her? He’d obviously not called to pick up where they left off, so maybe? But then: Why wouldn’t he use her when she was in a place that contained something he loved? Wouldn’t she have done the same?
“I think you have to be eighteen to be an actor,” Shawn said. “But they probably have other things you could do? It’d be amazing, you working there.”
“Wait. Working there?”
“I’m not saying you have to.”
“Of course I don’t have to. Are you high?”
“I’m getting way ahead of myself,” he said. “Sorry. I just can’t stop thinking about it.”
But can you stop thinking about me? she wanted to say.
“They’re already this huge deal,” he said.
“And if I worked there, like if I had some sort of part-time job, you’d want to hear about it all the time.”
“Well, obviously.”
Kendra drew in a deep breath, stood up. She went to Bryan’s desk, sat down. “Like, you’d maybe visit?” she said.
“Holy shit, I wish,” he said.
“Hold on,” Kendra said, her head buzzing. She stood, paced for a few seconds, set the phone down, then went out to the kitchen, where she found Rae whisking an egg wash, her rapid wrist movements flapping her arm fat.
“You done?” Rae said.
“Do you have a phone book here?” Kendra said.
“I said, ‘Are you done?’”
“Almost! Just need a phone book,” Kendra said.
“You’re on the phone,” Rae said. “What you need a phone book for?”
Kendra put her hands on her hips. “Do you have one or not?”
Rae groaned, stopped whisking. She opened a drawer, brought out the book, handed it to Kendra without looking at her. “You finish soon,” she said. “The electric company’s probably trying to call.”
“You have call waiting!” Kendra said, and retreated to her room. “Okay,” she said once she picked up the phone. “I have the phone book. What did you say this guy’s name was?”
She didn’t, at that point, know if she actually cared about the Quigley House—it sounded interesting, for sure, but it also sounded gross. A haunted-house attraction where the actors could touch you? No way. She could tell, however, that if she stopped talking about Quigley, Shawn might stop talking altogether, and she couldn’t have that. She couldn’t. So she flipped through the book, looked up “Stout,” found “Cory,” said, “He’s here. He’s in the book.”
“And his address?” Shawn said.
“Listed,” Kendra said.
“Holy shit,” Shawn said.
“I can’t just call,” Kendra said. “Like out of the blue, that’d be weird.”
“Why not? You just say that you saw an ad.”
“There was an ad?”
“Not really. In this interview I read, this dude just said that they’re always looking for talent. So not really. Not an actual ad. But those were his words, and this magazine isn’t that old, like a few months, so I’m sure they’re still looking.” He paused. “Summer’s definitely the best time. Like, they’re preparing for the season, getting everything organized. They’re probably actively looking for people.”
“I don’t know,” Kendra said, chewing her lip. “I just moved here.”
“So?”
“Shouldn’t I start school before I get a job?”
“Why?” he said. “I mean, shit. You said before you left that you’re gonna hate it, and you probably will, you know? So why not have a fun job to take your mind off how much you hate everything?”
“You’re so excited.”
“Yeah, I’m excited. It’s a big deal. Honestly, I’d switch places with you if you got to work there.”
“If I worked there, I’d show you around. You’d visit and I could show you around.”
“Total wet dream,” he said.
“Ha-ha,” she sa
id. “Well.”
“I mean, you don’t have to call him,” he said, his voice suddenly hard and distant. “I just thought you’d like it.”
Kendra swallowed. She blinked hard. “Are you mad?”
“What? Why would I be mad?” he said.
“You just sounded—”
“I just thought it’d be a fun distraction for you. That’s it. But if you don’t want to do it, don’t do it. Simple.”
Kendra walked over to her window, which looked down on a wide patch of grass dotted with conifers. Her mother had enthusiastically called this area a “park,” though to Kendra it looked more like an intensely sad scrap of land that’d tried—and failed—to be revitalized into a number of useless things: it contained a crumbling shed, a rotting bench, a rusty swing set, and a small weed-ridden garden, all situated around a cracked sidewalk weaving through identically coiffed cone-shaped trees. Kendra shook her head.
“You’re right,” she said. “A fun distraction would be good.”
“So you’ll call?”
“I’ll call,” she said. “Why not.”
“Holy shit,” Shawn said. “Holy shit, holy shit!”
“I’ll call today, like right now,” she said, feeling his energy soar. “Like, right after we hang up, how about that?”
“Yeah? Holy shit!”
“It’ll be fun,” she said.
“It’ll be fucking amazing,” he said. “Seriously, you’ll have to call me every day, and I mean it, tell me everything.”
“Of course,” she said, smiling. “Yeah, of course.”
“Every day, Kendra. I mean it.”
“Every day,” Kendra said, her chest light, her head spinning. “No problem.”
The call with Cory Stout was short. The raspy voice on the other end simply said that he needed to see her, that he could do nothing on the phone. He could meet that day, if she wanted. Did she know where the Willow Green Apartments were? No, she said. What about Antelope Park? Normal Boulevard? I just moved here, she said. But I know the bus route.
“Bus?” he said. “You know you’d need wheels to get to Quigley.”
“I could find rides,” she said.
“Eh,” he said. “Fine.” Luckily, he said, Willow Green was right next to the 30 bus line, so he’d see her in about an hour? She said yes. About an hour. Depends on the weekend schedule.
Reprieve Page 10