Exposure (7 page)

“Don't let that bitch get to you.” She stared pointedly in Beth's direction.

I must have looked completely floored because she added, conspiratorially, “My grandfather used to say, ‘You never really know your friends from your enemies until the ice breaks.'”

“Uh huh,” I said, totally wondering what the hell
she'd
been drinking.

“I learned a few things today about my so-called best friend.” She nodded in the direction of the Wicked Witch of East Anchorage. “And when she least expects it, I'm going to enjoy making her pay.”

“What did she do to
you
?” I was expecting Kristy to say that Beth had shrunk her Prada miniskirt or lost her string of loaner pearls, the typical cheerleader bullshit.

“I just found out she's the reason Duff got shipped off to Scotland.”

“
Beth
did that? Why? How'd you find out?”

“That's classified info, but consider yourself lucky that you don't have a boyfriend. If you did, I'm sure Beth would be after him, too.”

Little did she know that as far as I was concerned Beth had already pretty much stolen the closest thing I'd ever had to a boyfriend.

“Want to know something totally effed-up?” Kristy flipped her long, perfectly highlighted hair over one shoulder and leaned in to whisper. “Craig doesn't know this, but she made a pass at Duncan last week. He wouldn't have anything to do with her.”

“But she and Craig — ” I started to protest.

“She doesn't really care about Craig, or anyone else for that matter. She's just a sociopathic social climber. She should wear a sign: ‘Prom Queen or Bust,'” Kristy said, delighted with her own joke. She spun around, a little unsteadily, and vanished into the shadows of the adjoining room.

I wasn't naive enough to think that Kristy had taken me into her confidence because she recognized friend material. The fact that Beth openly despised me made me the obvious choice for passing on any damaging rumors about her. Clearly Kristy had handpicked me to start spreading the gossip about Duncan. Even if it was true — and it probably was just Kristy on a revenge mission for whatever she believed had happened with Duff — I wasn't going to stoop to her level. Frankly, it was none of my business. Besides, I was finally starting to believe that Craig and Beth deserved one another.

Left to my own devices and feeling a tad buzzed from the shot, I decided to explore the party scene, with the certainty that my presence would go virtually undetected; a detached anthropologist observing the mating habits and group dynamics of popular kids in their natural habitat, I mused. At least I could make fun of the whole thing later with Kaya and the girls.

In the hallway, an open bathroom door revealed the same intrepid freshman I'd seen displaying beer bong bravado when we first arrived; he was now crouched in front of the toilet in woeful misery.

“Mom?” he muttered pitifully as I passed by. Well, even if he's delusional he can still speak, I thought, and made a mental note to check on him again in fifteen minutes. I needed a moment to decompress and get a handle on what had already happened tonight. I considered calling my dad, but even if my cell phone had worked out here in the middle of nowhere — which it didn't — I was too ashamed to ask him to bail me out after the way I'd acted. I did what I usually do in uncomfortable situations, which was to take framed imaginary shots of my surroundings in my head.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around to see Craig standing behind me.

“Hey, Beanpole.” He looked embarrassed. “I've been looking for you.”

“Doubtful.” That felt good, I thought, and stood a little taller.

“Look, I'm sorry about earlier….”

“Sorry for ignoring me, or sorry for inviting me in the first place?”

“For acting weird. I was just surprised you even accepted, that's all.”

“Oh, so you
were
just patronizing me. Thanks for clarifying.”

“That's not what I mean. I'm glad you came, really.” He lowered his head a few inches so that his eyes peered directly into mine. There was a glint in his green orbs that seemed to both flirt with me and beg my forgiveness, pretty-please-style, with a cherry on top. Damn, he was cute. But I was probably imagining the flirting part.

“Forget it.” My pride caved instantly to my passion. “You don't need to apologize for anything.”

“No, really, Skye.” It surprised me to hear him say my real name. He looked into my eyes and — I kid you not — we must have stood like that for fifteen seconds while the blur of the party circled around us. Crammed into the room like we were, our faces were mere inches apart. I couldn't blink, I couldn't speak … I don't think I even breathed.

He grabbed my hand and whispered, “Let's go somewhere where we can talk.”

Just then someone yelled “flashlight tag!” and I turned to see Beth armed with two flashlights, pushing her way toward us through the dispersing crowd like a salmon swimming upstream. Craig dropped my hand and mumbled, “Later, okay?” as Beth tossed me one of the flashlights. Pulling Craig along behind her without a backward glance, she made for the door.

FLASHLIGHT TAG IS A PRIMAL GAME, pitting the hunter against the hunted. In the wilds of Alaska, one might prefer to be discovered early on, for the longer the hunt continues, the scarier it gets. Alone with your thoughts in pitch-black, unfamiliar terrain, you can only hope and pray you won't get left behind. This far from civilization, there was a distinct possibility that once hidden, you'd be lost forever.

In my case, there was no way I was going to venture more than twenty yards from the bonfire. I didn't want to run the risk of running into a pack of wolves, or worse still, a beast with two backs. Everyone knew the real allure of flashlight tag was getting to sneak private time for activities that would make even our disturbingly frank health teacher, Miss Scruggins, blush.

I waited for everyone else to scatter up the banks of the river and into the woods before I shuffled across the ice to wait out the game in Craig's Jeep. In his backseat, I burrowed under the flannel blanket he kept there for emergencies. It was scratchy and smelled alternately of men's cologne and wet dog.

Looking out the window, I could still see a few darting pinpricks of flashlights as people scampered farther into the brush until finally, the black woods swallowed them whole. Overhead, the Northern Lights warped across the night sky like a giant flashlight beamed into the universe's funhouse mirror. The green luminescence danced overhead in strange mutations, making me feel drunk even though I had only barely nursed my plastic cup of Sprite and cheap vodka.

Living in Anchorage, where mini-marts, mega-malls, Starbucks, and Taco Bells are as common as in any big city of the lower forty-eight, it's easy to forget how truly isolated Alaska is. Yet once you get even thirty minutes outside of the city, you start to remember that we're sort of stranded here on the edge of the world. Internet, e-mail, cell phones, and satellite TV can't change the fact that we're a savage frontier at heart. Our little pockets of civilization are dwarfed by beautiful-but-unforgiving mountains, glaciers, forests, and tundra. There are even people living here who wish we'd never joined the United States, who'd love nothing better than to secede from the union. Although I'd never known anything other than this rugged landscape, I often felt a sense of loneliness and isolation that I doubt residents of St. Louis or Dallas could ever understand. This was home, but there was a bleakness and foreboding atmosphere that made you cling more tightly to the people in your life.

I wondered whether my mom was home from work yet. Probably not, if there was a late-night screening. She'd always told me she had accepted the job at the theater to help us earn a little extra cash, but the payoff didn't seem to be worth the slow and steady disintegration of my parents' relationship. I guess I should have felt fortunate that they didn't shriek at each other every day the way some people's parents did. But I would have welcomed a shouting match in place of the complete and utter silence that pervaded their marriage. When they were both home at the same time (and that was becoming less and less frequent), they roamed our small, three-bedroom house in completely separate spheres, like those plastic balls that hamsters run around in outside of their cage. If they came within three feet of one another, it was only to hand off a crying Ollie or to shovel a spatula full of scrambled eggs onto the other person's plate. Conversation between Mom and Dad was monosyllabic, and while they still kept up the charade of retiring to the same bedroom at night, that wasn't enough to convince me they weren't toying with the idea of divorce.

I could see that the stress was getting to Dad, and as for Mom, when I did try to converse with her, she seemed dead inside. There was a time when I could confide in her about anything, but I couldn't remember the last time we'd had a real heart-to-heart. Of course there was Dad, too, but how could I talk to him about my terror that they might split up? I'd either be certain to cause him pain or, worse yet, hear my suspicions confirmed — which absolutely wouldn't work for my current strategy of living in denial. So instead, I plastered a smile on my face every night, told funny stories, helped out with Ollie as much as I could, and prayed that the inevitable didn't come to pass.

Everything happening at home certainly cast a harsh and clinical light on my high school crush. How in the hell did I know what love was if even my pushing-forty parents were clueless? Was falling in love
ever
worth the inevitable heartbreak?

In the distance, I heard the shriek of a male voice and the crack of what sounded like tree branches breaking. Was that laughter? At least someone was having a great time. Twenty minutes ago, I'd come just inches away from having a grand old time myself. I could have sworn that Craig had wanted to kiss me. I knew he was drunk, but hey —
in vino veritas
. Maybe that cheap liquor was acting as some sort of truth serum. It was foolish and degrading, I know, to be consorting with these drunken idiots out here in the middle of nowhere. This wasn't me. And yet, in that instant, as Craig's face ventured slowly toward mine, I couldn't help but think that one kiss would somehow be all it took to release him from the spell that was making him forget who he really was.

A sudden movement of the car jolted me out of my reverie. Someone had returned to the rendezvous point early and was now leaning against the Jeep. Nearby, I heard footsteps pacing on the gravel. Then I heard Beth's voice. She sounded out of breath, and spoke in a barely audible murmur.

“What's done is done, Craig. It was an accident. I'm just as freaked out about this as you are, so just get a grip!”

“I can't believe this is happening. Oh my god! What do we do now?”

“Nothing! Just pretend like everything's normal. It's the only way.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

I crouched lower under my blanket. Every hair on my body was standing on end. Whatever Craig and Beth were arguing about, I didn't want to know. But to exit the car or let them know I was in the backseat now seemed monumentally unwise.

“You need to just chill out, Craig!”

“How can you say that? We're talking about a life here, and I'm responsible.”

“I know, sweetie. We both are. But don't worry. We'll figure something out.”

A life? Why was Craig so freaked out? My heart sickened at what I inferred: Beth was pregnant. Didn't Craig say she'd thrown up at school a few weeks ago? Morning sickness, of course! For a second, I myself felt a bit nauseous at the discovery of Craig and Beth's secret.

“What you need to do right now is calm down so we can figure out what to do,” I heard Beth continue.

“What to do?” Craig said. “Don't you understand? This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me.” He was right on that account. Fatherhood, I was certain, did not play into the highly orchestrated master plan that Craig's dad had mapped out for him. A baby would unalterably change his life. I swallowed hard to try to clear the lump that was forming in my throat.

“It was an accident, baby. Don't make this worse than it already is. We can't go back and change what happened. It's just got to be our little secret.”

They were quiet for another ten seconds or so. I prayed that they didn't decide to get in the car. I didn't move a muscle. I could hear the scream of girls being chased back to home base, and their stampede put an abrupt end to the conversation, apart from one last hurried remark.

“My god, Craig, you're shaking. Let's get back to the fire. Pull yourself together! And don't breathe
a word
of this to
anyone!
”

My heart was pounding a mile a minute. I must have sat in the car for five minutes or so mulling over what I'd heard. As more groups of out-of-breath asylum-seekers returned from hiding, I quietly crept out of the car, making sure to exit on the far side so that no one would see me, and only barely closing the car door with a soft click. Ambling in a roundabout path back to the warmth of the bonfire, I found Craig staring blankly at the flames while Beth hugged him from behind, her cheek resting against his broad back.