After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away (16 page)

I wish I could call Crow by his true name: Gabriel. The name he’s called by his family.

Since Claudette came bursting into the shop, Crow has been acting different. He’s edgy, irritated. Not at me. I guess he must be brooding over his sister, who was so rude to us, and his father, who’s been drinking, and little Roland—his nephew?—and maybe he’s also thinking of his mother, who left (when? why?). I would love to ask Crow about his mother sometime.

If we see each other again. If we are ever alone like this again.

Crow gives me a sidelong glance. Like he’s checking me out.

“This van is something, eh? Not what you’re used to.”

“It’s…very high.”

“Yeah, you look down on other drivers. Some drivers. Mostly, driving a van, people look down on you.”

I’m not sure how to interpret this. Close up, I can see nicks and scars in Crow’s face. I remember he said he’s been in a wreck too. (Maybe more than one?) I wonder if, driving, he thinks of the danger. If there is something scary, and exciting, about driving after you have been in a wreck, and lived.

Crow is a good driver, for sure. The van has a stick shift, which he handles with authority. Next year I will take driver’s ed at school. I mean, it’s required. They don’t teach you stick, though. The thought of driving a car makes me feel excited, sickish.

In a car you can lose control. The weight of the car will propel you forward. Helpless.

Crow says, “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, Jenna. I heard you almost OD’d at Christmas.”

This is a shock! I don’t know what to say.

I hear myself stammer it was a really stupid mistake…

“The mistake is hanging out with Trina Holland.”

“But Trina is my…”

The minivan is lumbering along Main Street. Crow is an aggressive driver but can’t make much headway in this traffic. I am so surprised at what he’s said. That Crow has any thoughts at all about me. “Trina is, like, my closest friend. I thought you and Trina—”

Crow laughs. Runs his fingers through his hair so it looks fierce and spiky, like the feathers of a savage bird. Meaning—what? He and Trina are broken up? Or never were a couple? Or Crow can handle Trina, Trina and her friends are no danger to
him
?

I’m kind of stunned. For a long time I’ve been thinking that Crow would be impressed that Trina Holland has time for me. Trina Holland likes
me
! And aren’t Trina’s friends, the guys she hangs out with, mostly Crow’s friends too?

Maybe something happened between them that I don’t know about.

“It wasn’t Trina’s fault, Crow. It was mine.”

Crow shrugs like
okay
. Whatever I want to think.

“Jax gave me the pill. You know, Jax Yardman…”

Sure. What
ever.

“I made a mistake; I was feeling kind of bad. I guess I wanted to sleep right through Christmas. Just, like,
out
.”

“Why?”

“Why—what?”

“Why’d you feel bad?”

This is the question everybody tries to ask me. Aunt Caroline, Uncle Dwight, Dr. Freer. But nobody has asked it blunt and in your face like Crow.

“Because I miss my mother. Maybe you know—my mother and I were in a car crash last May. That’s why I’m here in Yarrow Lake. I live with my aunt now.”

“I heard, yeah. I’m sorry, Jenna.”

Damn if I am going to cry. The way Crow says
sorry
.

This frayed old safety belt I buckled myself into, I’m glad that it’s holding me tight now. I can feel myself straining against it, like something is trying to throw me forward to hurt me.

Crow asks me what happened, and I tell him: It was a head-on collision, on the Tappan Zee Bridge. My mother lost control of her car. She veered into another lane, hit a truck. She and the other driver died. I was pretty banged up, but I survived. It was thought that the setting sun blinded my mother so she couldn’t see, and everything happened so quickly…. “The Tappan Zee is such a big bridge, did you know, Gabriel? It’s three miles long. I dream about it all the time. The Hudson River is really wide at that point; like a nightmare, it just goes on and on….” I’m out of breath, words are rushing from me. After a pause I hear myself say, “I caused the crash, I think.”

“How?”

Crow is so quick and matter-of-fact. Right away asking me
how
, like he isn’t judging me or trying to convince me I must be wrong.

“I pulled at the wheel. I panicked, I guess. There was something on the bridge in front of us—I couldn’t see exactly, the sun was blinding…”

My voice trails off. I can’t believe that I have told Crow this, which I have never told any other person.

“What was it, Jenna, you thought you saw?”

“A deer, maybe. A dog…”

I’m waiting for Crow to ask the obvious question: Was anything found on the bridge in the wreck? A deer, a dog?

I’m waiting for Crow to ask: Have you told anybody? Have you confessed that you caused an accident that killed two innocent people?

But Crow says only, shaking his head, “That’s heavy. For you to keep to yourself. Man!”

Later I will realize that I called Crow Gabriel, and it was so natural-sounding, neither of us noticed at the time. At least I think Crow didn’t notice.

“So anything that happens to Jenna, that’s hurtful and punishing, it’s what she deserves.”

Crow says this like stating a fact. Not trying to argue me out of it.

I’m not crying, but my nose is running; I’m wiping it on the edge of my hand like a little kid. Crow pulls a crumpled tissue out of his pocket and hands it to me without comment. He’s used to wiping little Roland’s nose, I guess.

“Jesus! I know what it’s like, Jenna. Accident-prone.”

He has turned onto Mount Street, where traffic is tight. Up the block is Elvira’s Coffee & Bakery, with a gingerbread man sign that creaks in the wind. It’s strange to me like a dream to be here high in the cab of an unfamiliar vehicle staring out at shops and storefronts that look transformed. “I can get out here, Gabriel. Thank you.”

I don’t want Aunt Caroline to see me with Crow. To see me getting out of this van. There would be too much to explain.

Crow brakes the van to a stop. Leans across me to open the door, which is heavy and sticks. Crow is so close, I can feel his breath on my skin. His jacket sleeve has pushed up—I see the tail of the coiled green snake just above his wrist. Crow was close to Trina once, wasn’t he? Here is proof.

“Take care,
chérie
, it’s a big step to the street.”

On the sidewalk I watch the minivan move away. Within seconds it becomes one of several vans and small trucks on Mount Street. He called me
chérie
!

6

march 11, 2005

dear dad,

thank you for the christmas gifts.

i am sorry not to call back.

i dont do much e-mail here. its not like tarrytown.

my friends in yarrow lake arent into it.

i am happy here. thank you for inviting me to visit.

i am busy now with classes. maybe sometime.

jenna

(It took me forty minutes to write this. Trying to decide if I had to say “love, Jenna.” In his cards and e-mails to me Dad always says “love, Dad.” It’s so phony, though. I hate it. I just can’t say “love” to him. Not anymore.)

7

“I wish.”

At school I try not to look for Crow. Try not to stare past the others’ faces hoping to see his. Try not to hang out at the back of the school. Try not to drift through the seniors’ wing, where a sophomore is out of place.

I was so surprised: Trina knew! Only a few hours after Crow left me off on Mount Street, I’m in my room at home and my cell rings, and Trina’s voice is reedy and sharp in my ear. “Hey baby, heard you hooked up with Crow.” I stammered telling her he’d given me a ride, that was all. Trina laughed to show this was cool with her, why’d she care if Crow gave me a ride home. I said, Crow didn’t give me a ride home, just a ride from one part of downtown to another. Trina laughed and clicked off. Yet next day at school, in the cafeteria, Trina sinks her nails into my wrist, says, “So where’s Crow? Why’re you with us, where’s Crow?” like she’s angry and sneering but smiling at me, leaning close almost like she’s kissing me. And Kiki, and Dolores, and T-Man, and Rust, and Roger, and Jax are looking on.

“Trina, Crow just gave me a ride. A few blocks. He saw me walking, it was cold…”

“In his dad’s truck, eh? That must’ve been warm.”

Trina’s sitting between T-Man and Dolores, and there’s no room for me at their end of the table. I’m standing with my tray, beginning to feel anxious. (Maybe Trina is teasing? Trina is always teasing!) “Jenna, hey. Here’s a place.” Rust Haber pulls out a chair for me next to him, but I don’t want to sit with Rust. He’s a short, blunt-faced boy with muscled arms and shoulders from working out and a smirky smile, and Trina has told me Rust is “kind of into” me—thinks I’m “cute”—but his eyes on me are never friendly, always kind of taunting. Like, if I give in and sit by him, if I ever hook up with him, he’ll laugh at me afterward.

There’s Jax Yardman. I don’t trust him either. There’s Kiki Weaver, pulling out a chair for me. “Jenna? C’mon.” I’m sitting next to Kiki, staring at the food on my plate. At the other end of the noisy table Trina is laughing, I don’t dare look at her. Kiki is a big-boned girl with long, straight no-color hair streaked with purple. Every time I see Kiki, she has added another silver pin to her face, so she’s glittering like a pincushion. Kiki has a big chest, not like Trina, who’s size zero. Kiki leans close to me, saying, “Trina’s pissed at you, but she’ll get over it if you act like you’re sorry.”

“Crow only just gave me a ride in his—”

“Sure. Trina knows.”

“…it was just, like, he felt sorry for me, I guess. He…”

Kiki makes a gesture like to signal this is an obvious fact, everybody knows. Why’d I think I should explain?

8.

Chérie
he called me. When he leaned across me to open the door of the van. Remembering that, I felt dazed, dizzy. I wanted to cry, to laugh, to scream. I wanted to kiss his mouth, which was so close to mine.

Chérie
he called me.
Take care,
chérie,
it’s a big step to the street.

The pronunciation is
shay-ree
. Meaning
dear
,
dear one
.

In my French dictionary it also means
beloved
,
precious
.

In March, I’ve begun auditing French II.

First they told me no, it couldn’t be allowed. If I wanted to take French II, I should have enrolled back in September.

“But I didn’t want to take it then, Mr. Goddard. I want to take it now.”

I got excited, I guess. Just felt so frustrated!

Finally Mr. Goddard said okay. As long as my study period was at the same time French II was taught.
Highly irregular. No academic credit.
I told Mr. Goddard I didn’t care about academic credit, I just wanted to learn French.

Mr. Goddard adjusted his glasses on his nose and gave me a look like I am so totally, terminally weird it’s impossible to communicate with me. “Jenna, this is a public high school. What if everyone just wanted to ‘learn’ and didn’t want ‘academic credit’?”

It’s a small class anyway, only fourteen students. Mrs. Laport—Madame Laport, we call her—seems pleased that weird as I am, I’ve come along to take another seat. (Most students at Yarrow High take Spanish if they take any foreign language at all.) She smiles at me like she can’t figure me out. I’m doing the homework, taking quizzes and tests, and really seem to enjoy the conversation exercises, which are the last fifteen minutes of each class. My grades, not “official” but just for me, are mostly As. Madame Laport says, “Jenna,
vous vous êtes beaucoup appliquée, pourquoi?
” and I tell her, enunciating each word with care like a toddler taking baby steps,
“Parce que le français est une langue très belle.”

9

I am so
ashamed
.

I am so
angry
.

Dazed, like. Almost I don’t know if I am standing or sitting—sitting, I guess. Later it will seem to me unreal as a dream where things are sliding and skidding and you can’t catch your breath to figure out where you are, or why.

My uncle Dwight McCarty is asking why, why did I take the glass paperweight from Dr. Freer’s office. “Was it to hurt us, Jenna? Or yourself?” and I can’t answer.

Uncle Dwight and I are in his office study, which is at the rear of the house, a large rectangular room with mostly glass walls and a glass skylight. This is not a room I have ever entered by myself and only rarely with anyone else. It is not a room in which I would be welcome, as my little cousins Becky and Mikey would not be welcome. It’s a little scary. Uncle Dwight has shut the door.

I guess he and my aunt Caroline decided that next time there was a problem with her niece, he would speak with me first. Because always it has been Aunt Caroline until now. And now it’s just Uncle Dwight speaking in his calm, clench-jawed way like a reasonable man who is
trying to understand
, oh, man, he is
trying very hard to understand
why anyone would steal from someone who wants to help her, but, like, he
can’t understand
.

“…Jenna? To hurt us, your aunt and me, or…”

The incriminating evidence, the glass paperweight with the glittery mineral mountain and swath of pure-blue sky, is on my uncle’s desk. I can’t look at anything else.

“…must have realized, Jenna, that Dr. Freer would notice, and know that the person who took it had to be…”

Did I? Or didn’t I care? I can’t remember.

Poor Uncle Dwight! He’s perspiring and breathing hard like a man trudging uphill, wondering where he’s going. I wish that I could shrink into a tiny wisp of something like milkweed seed that could blow away and disappear. Earlier today at school I was feeling kind of good about myself. Gym class went pretty well (basketball, where I’m an okay player and Dara Bowen is always encouraging us), and I got a B–on my paper for history (“Child Labor in the First American Textile Mill, 1790”), so coming home to this, to my uncle frowning and clenching his jaw, and Aunt Caroline hiding away, not wanting to see me, is a shock. There’s a buzzing in my ears that’s the pressure of blood, I remember from when I was in the hospital. I want to tell my uncle,
My head isn’t right, my thoughts are confused, it was the blue sky I wanted.