Higher Ground (6 page)

“I hope so, too.” I assume he’s still buried in the guest list, so I continue to scroll through the list of attendees. I pause at an old familiar name the exact moment Wade notices the same person. “Troya Bergeron Hart,” he says, finally looking up from his phone. “Bergeron. Is she…?”

She posted a message on the event wall.

We’ll be in town for the holidays to visit family. I’m so freaking happy for you and Corey. I love you both, and I can’t wait to see you and your family. Thank you for including us. xoxo

I exhale, close the app, and set my phone on the table between us. “Troya is Oliver’s cousin. She’s also Van’s best friend. A long time ago, she was my friend, too.”

Then

Day after day, Oliver showed up at the cemetery, though we didn’t always leave for coffee. On the mornings she wasn’t busy with clients, Miss Verity had started packing a sack of breakfast for me. Whether it was ham and biscuits or freshly cut fruit, it was always enough for two. Oliver convinced me we should exchange numbers so I could give him a heads up when she took care of us. On those mornings, he stopped and got hot coffee at a shop between his house and the graveyard. We’d walk down to the river, and he’d take pictures of the water, the steamboats, the barges, and me.

The last Friday of summer break, Oliver made an early appearance to cut me off at the pass. When I stepped out onto the porch, an ancient Buick Roadmaster was parked in front my house. Oliver and a girl with fiery red hair were leaned against it, sharing a cigarette and waiting.

An unexpected surge of jealously swept over me the moment I spied them laughing together. As soon as he caught sight of me, he pushed away from the car and walked to the wrought-iron fence surrounding our yard.

“Good morning,” he said, like he wasn’t just swapping spit with some other girl via a Marlboro.

“Hi.” It was all I could get out, because why would he bring a date to my house? Was I a magnet for dickheads?

“This is my cousin, Troya.” He thumbed over his shoulder at his smoking partner. She flicked the cherry from the cigarette, stepped on it, and pocketed the butt before stepping up to join Oliver.

“Hey,” she said. “If this isn’t cool, Oliver can take me home so y’all can hang out.”

Hostility morphed into horror before my brain and mouth could catch up. “No.” I took the steps two at a time off the porch and walked down to unlock the gate for them. “It’s cool. I was surprised. That’s all.”

She grinned. “I told him to text you, but he never listens to me.”

“Muffins,” I said. “Miss Verity’s been making muffins all morning. Would you like some?”

Oliver glanced at her but ultimately let his stomach make the decision. “I do.”

“Whose car?” I asked.

“It’s Mitchell’s,” Troya answered.

I stopped short, and Oliver slammed into my back. “That’s Mitchell’s ride? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Oliver laughed and put his hands on my hips to steady us both. “Nobody wants a shitty old station wagon. He got that thing dirt cheap.”

Miss Verity wasn’t exactly pleased to see Oliver step into our kitchen with an unfamiliar girl trailing us. She eased up after introductions, and then the hostess in her kicked in. She told them about her sleeping troubles, said she’d been up baking for hours, and offered them warm homemade muffins.

Troya fell in love with the cranberry ones, while Oliver alternated between blueberry and chocolate chip. Van wandered into the kitchen moments after she pulled his personal favorites, banana nut, out of the oven.

When he noticed our visitors, he almost turned around. Instead, he took a deep breath, walked over to kiss Miss Verity on the cheek, and then made his way over to the fridge. He spent a quiet moment leaning forward and studying the contents. He settled on milk and pulled it out to pour a glass for himself.

“Anyone need a refill?” he asked, waving the gallon jug in the air. His voice was quiet, but it was the bravest thing I’d heard from him in a while.

“I do,” Oliver said. He stood from his seat and walked over to Van. The milk passed from one to the other like it was no big deal. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Van surprised us all by taking a seat at the table between me and Troya.

He didn’t talk much as we ate, but none of us did. Miss Verity was in cleaning mode a few feet away, washing dirty mixing bowls in the sink.

“You got plans today?” Oliver asked him before he could escape up the back stairs after breakfast.

“Uh, no, not really. I may go to the library. I’m not sure,” Van answered, immediately turning his back to leave us.

“You should come with us.” Oliver kept his voice light and even, like he had no idea what had happened to Van.

I was on the verge of stepping on his foot to shut him up when my brother’s voice rang out again, louder and clearer this time, with a touch of curiosity. “Where?”

Oliver leaned back in his seat and turned his head to nod toward his cousin. “Troya has a few free passes to Six Flags. They expire on Labor Day, so we figured we’d use them and see if y’all wanted to come with us.”

“Both of us.” Van’s voice was more an echo than a question.

“Sure, if your business at the library isn’t pressing.”

A smile ghosted across Van’s lips so quickly that I almost thought I was imagining things. The reason I knew it was real was because of my brother’s reply. “Nah. Nothing that can’t wait.” Miss Verity dropped an empty pan in shock, and my tongue was tied in happiness and surprise. Van tugged at his sleep shirt. “I need a couple of minutes to change.”

“Take your time,” Oliver said, unwrapping another muffin.

Half an hour later, we were arguing with Miss Verity on the porch over money, because she insisted on giving us cash for the park. In the end, we took her money, though both of us knew we’d be returning it later in the day.

I climbed in the back seat without asking if Troya wanted the front, but she surprised me by walking around to the driver’s side and sliding in next to me. Van stalled when he realized he’d be expected to ride up front with Oliver. His head turned back toward the house in hesitation, his lips mashed together, and he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he reached to open the door of the car.

Oliver waited until we were a few blocks away to pull a joint from the ashtray in the dashboard. He slowed the car to a stop at a red light and glanced at Van. “Is this cool?” he asked.

Van turned slightly in his seat to look at me. We’d smoked together a few times that summer out on the balcony our rooms shared, but we’d never done it around anyone else. At times, I’d felt bad about it. I was a year older than him, so instead of smoking out with him, I should’ve been setting some kind of example. He had a prescription for antidepressants he flushed down the toilet one day at a time. The shit my parents were peddling was much worse in my eyes than an occasional joint, because the list of side effects was as long as my arm.

“It’s cool if you want to,” I said. “I probably will.”

My brother took the joint from Oliver and a lighter from Troya. “Sorry if the end is too tight,” she said. “I was rolling while he was driving.”

Van tore a small strip of paper from one end before he lifted it to light it. He passed it wordlessly over his shoulder to me before he exhaled. The four of us managed to nearly kill it by the time we reached the park. If the lot attendant noticed the smell, she didn’t let on.

As promised, Troya had three passes. Van and I offered to pay for one of us or split the cost of one admission between all of us. Oliver responded by whipping out a hefty stack of twenties and paying for a ticket. I’d come to notice he always had cash and was very generous, but I’d never seen a roll like that.

He paid for our drinks, our games, and any souvenir I glanced at for longer than a minute. We took turns with seating on the rides. Sometimes I rode with Troya, sometimes I rode with Van, but most of the time, Oliver would step in next to me and take the seat beside mine.

During our second trip of the day to Pontchartrain Beach, Van and Oliver were scoring big at the airboat game while Troya and I watched from a few feet away.

“Violet!” A familiar voice called from the line at Papa Russo’s Pizza. Elijah and two of his buddies—two of the assholes who’d assaulted my bother on numerous occasions—nodded and waved. It was the first time I’d seen him since that day in the stairwell, because Van and I had spent the last few weeks of the school year being taught by our parents at home.

Hoping they’d fuck off before Van caught sight of them, I turned away from them, but I wasn’t that lucky. Elijah walked over and tapped my shoulder in a bid for my attention.

“Hey,” he said as I stared at Oliver’s back. “Can we talk?”

I didn’t bother turning around to answer. “I don’t think so.”

“Just for a minute.” His hand closed around my bicep and tugged.

Instead of causing a scene and alerting Van, I stepped back with Elijah. “I’ll be right back,” I said to Troya.

She raised her eyebrows when she noticed his grip. “Okay.”

I jerked my arm from his grasp and walked past his friends at the pizza place to get us as far away from Van as I could. We turned a corner but stopped short of the entrance to Cajun Country.

“What do you want?” I asked. “I’m here with my brother, I have nothing to say to you, and I sure as hell don’t want to be seen with you.”

“That’s how it is, huh?” He rested his hands on his hips and stared hard, like his glare could change my mind.

“Yeah. That’s how it is. What did you expect?” He stepped forward, extended his arms, and tried to reach for my hands. “No. Don’t touch me.”

“I want to apologize. At least let me say I’m sorry.”

“Apologies don’t mean shit, asshole.” Oliver stepped between us, gave me a onceover, and then turned to face Elijah, while Troya and Van stood a few feet away. The hate in my brother’s eyes fueled my own and Oliver’s. “Violet told you to keep your hands to yourself,” he said as he crossed his arms. “So don’t fucking touch her.”

Elijah had a few inches on Oliver and the two football buddies who’d joined the scene. “Who the hell are you?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Oliver said. “But if you fuck with her again, you’ll regret it.”

His tone was one I hadn’t heard before, but it was no lie. I absolutely believed him. He was ready for a fight, itching for it under the surface, and it was unnerving. I’d only seen Oliver kind and generous. The hard set of his face was so unlike the Oliver I knew—the Oliver I
thought
I knew.

“He’s right,” I said. “Sorry doesn’t mean much. It doesn’t make anything better, and it doesn’t undo who you are.” Elijah took a step back. Old memories of dances and virginity crossed my mind for a moment, but hurt outweighed years of a shared past. It was time for goodbye. “I’m not the one you should be apologizing to, so there’s really nothing left for us to say to each other.”

Oliver lifted a hand and moved his fingers up and down in a condescending wave. “Bye.”

Elijah and his friends walked away, cutting a right into the DC Comics section of the park. The scowl on Van’s face disappeared when they rounded the corner to move out of sight. “I fucking hate them,” he said.

“Who are those guys?” Troya asked, glancing between me and my brother.

“Just some people we went to school with at Academy,” I said.

“We have dickheads at Newman, too,” she said. “They stick together, but they don’t really leave their circle much.”

I didn’t want to admit I’d been a member of Elijah’s circle, maybe even a ringleader, before I knew how cruel they could be. Instead, I jumped on the obvious chance to change the topic. “You go to Newman?” I asked.

Troya glanced at Oliver and then at me. “Yeah… We go to Newman. Oliver’s a senior this year, and I’ll be a junior.”

Van cracked a smile. “I’m a junior, too.”

Suspicion battled confusion in my head, and I stepped away from them to make my way over to a lemonade stand. Oliver and I had spent weeks talking nonstop about nothing at all. He’d had numerous opportunities to tell me we’d be going to the same school, but he’d taken none of them.

“Are you okay?” he asked from behind me.

“Fine,” I said.

“Tell me if he bothers you again. I’ll take care of it.”

I turned to look at him—
really
look at him—and he seemed harmless enough, with his unwashed hair and loose-fitting t-shirt. Then again, Elijah had seemed harmless in the beginning, too.

“Why didn’t you tell me you go to Newman?” I asked in the most non–accusatory tone I could muster.

He laughed and cupped the back of his neck with his hand. “I’ve gone there since I left St. Luke’s. I guess I thought you knew.”

Oliver had known I’d gone to Academy when our paths split. I’d never really looked back or given a second thought to elementary school or the awkward boy in suspenders. I’d been easily distracted by makeup and shaving my legs. Books and new boys had taken up the rest of my time.

“Troya goes there, too, huh?” She and Van were laughing about something several feet away, and for the second time that day, I found myself jealous. It’d been a while since I’d seen Van happy or had that kind of closeness with him.

“Yeah,” Oliver said. “I wanted you and Van to meet her before Monday. She’s into math stuff, too, and I figured they may have some of the same classes.”

“She knows he’s not…” A few different words tumbled through my mind, but none of them worked.

“Available?” Oliver offered with a small smile and a nod. “Yeah, she does. I hope it’s okay I told her. She’s not the gossipy type, and she’s not available, either. Her boyfriend, Sonny, is working today, or he would’ve come with us.”

“I don’t know how Van will feel about you telling her, or even about me telling you, now that I know you’ll be going to school with us.”

“Look,” he said, taking a small step forward. “Troya’s cool, or I wouldn’t have told her. I didn’t mention the part about your ex or the fight. She’s not going to announce he’s gay to the student body, and neither am I. If Van wants people to know, he can tell them.”

It was too late for me to undo the information dump, so my only choice was to trust him.

Oliver paid for my lemonade and also bought drinks for Troya, Van, and himself. The roll of twenties in his hand dwindled as the day continued, but he didn’t seem bothered by it. When the sun began to set, Van pulled out his cell to call our mom. I stood by while he asked if we could stay longer. After witnessing weeks of a lost, sullen boy, his enthusiasm was intoxicating.

We rode every ride at least twice, ate crappy park burgers for dinner, and stayed until the gates closed. The scent of cotton candy and popcorn lingered on us in the parking lot. Troya and I took the back seat again, and after a few tokes of a fresh joint, I worked up the nerve to ask about her hair. There was no way the rainbow of reds was natural. The colors varied too much, from dark red to orange to almost yellow in places.