Home Before Dark (22 page)

“That makes no sense.”

“It does, and you will.” It felt good to be the bossy one for a change. “If you don't step up to the plate, we'll lose the opportunity, and even Nell Bridger knows that. Without your pictures, we're going to wind up with sensationalist, tabloid dreck.” She gestured at the photographs on the wall. “Luz, you can use your talent to do some good and maybe make a little money to boot.”

“Spoken as a true mercenary.” But the waver in Luz's voice indicated capitulation.

Jessie hurried over to the cabin to grab her things before Luz changed her mind. Jessie was learning to feel the way through space, almost against her will. The people at the Beacon had advised her to enroll in their program as quickly as possible, before she formed habits of gait and posture that were undesirable. As she crossed the yard, she gave a thumbs-
up sign to Blair and Nell. She grabbed the soft leather portfolio filled with her records, then hefted her camera bag. She brought it back to the house and set it before Luz.

“You're going to be needing this.”

“I can't take your equipment.” She spoke with a hushed reverence as she handled the cameras, lenses, filters and gadgets Jessie had amassed over the years.

“You can, and you will. Listen to me. You know this stuff, Luz. You always have. You're the only one Nell trusts to do this right.”

Luz took out a camera, lifting it as though it were the holy grail. Only Jessie understood fully what was happening. She was handing Luz her dream and would never snatch it back. Jessie would never again take a photo, never heft the solid body of the camera in her hand, feel the smooth snap of a lens seating itself in place or hear the satisfying click of the shutter capturing a perfect shot. The passing of the camera equipment signified the end of a chapter. She watched Luz's face, memorizing her sister's expression down to the last detail. She was desperate to observe everything and imprint it on her memory. It was as much a form of self-preservation as it was defiance.

She concentrated on simply breathing, and hoped her emotions didn't show. She was at a turning point, but for now, she wanted it to be a private transition. She was ending the only life she knew, and leaping blindly, in every sense of the word, into the unknown. There was something both gratifying and appropriate in passing the tools of her trade on to her sister.

Luz looked ready to burst into tears. But she didn't. Luz never burst into tears.

The phone rang, disrupting the moment. Jessie grabbed for it. Since the accident, she'd adopted the habit of running interference for Luz.

“Benning residence.”

“Mommy?”

The word froze Jessie, and for a moment she fell into the fantasy. “Lila? What do you need, love?”

“Oh. Aunt Jessie.” The change in the girl's tone flattened Jessie. “Can I talk to my mom?”

“Is there something I can do for you?”

There was a tragic sniffle that cut straight through the phone line and grabbed Jessie's heart. “I'm in the nurse's office at school,” Lila said miserably.

“Are you sick?”

“This is the
nurse's
office. The refuge of outcasts.”

The raw hurt in her voice clasped even tighter around Jessie's heart. “You're an outcast?”

Lila hesitated. “I don't feel so good.”

Jessie tried to put together the scenario. Lila had come home from school yesterday and gone straight to her room, claiming she had homework. She'd scarcely spoken at dinner and resisted all efforts to draw her out. This was the first crack in her shield.

“What's the trouble, sweetie?” Jessie asked.

“Oh, Aunt Jessie.” She caught her voice in a sob. “I can't be here today. It's too hard to be at school right now. I've got to get out of here.”

Despite everything else that was pressing at her today—the day she was going to take a major step toward a dark and frightening future—Jessie didn't hesitate. She was quickly learning a fundamental law of nature. When a child needed you, there was no time for a personal crisis. “You sit tight, love. I'll get you out.”

 

“Thanks for offering to give Lila a little TLC,” Luz said, hugging Jessie as Blair started the car. Nell had already left
to meet with her pastor and some of the other families about the article. “I don't mind letting her have a day off for some girl time in the city. You're a lifesaver.”

“Lifesaver.” Jessie snorted. “I've never rescued anyone in my life.”

“Bullshit. Remember the time I broke my ankle in the woods and you went for help?”

“Just like Lassie,” Blair said.

“Okay, that's once,” Jessie conceded. “Name another.”

“You don't get it. Once is all it takes. If you hadn't saved me that day, I'd've died.”

“Well, in this case, I don't think Lila's life hangs in the balance. She needs a day away. A day in the city might be the thing. I'll take her to lunch, then see if they can work her in at Galindo's—maybe a haircut and manicure? If there's time, I'll let her buy a new CD, and then we'll catch a ride home tonight with Ian.”

“That sounds good, Jess. But…” Luz bit her lip, and her brow creased in a way that made Jessie want to scream.

But what? Don't tell her I gave birth to her?

“She might ask to go see Travis Bridger—he's still in the hospital. I'd rather she didn't visit with him yet.”

Jessie let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. “Fine. We'll steer clear of all hospitals. Got it.”

“I didn't mean to sound so bossy,” Luz said.

Yes, you did.

“She's going to be okay, Luz. A day off, and she'll come back a changed person.”

“I pressured her to go back to school too soon after the wreck. I thought getting her back into a routine would be good for her. Instead I made things worse.”

“God, Luz, why don't you take responsibility for the anthrax scare and the Middle Eastern situation while you're at
it?” Jessie said. “Look, you did nothing wrong. A bunch of kids screwed up royally, something terrible happened and we have to help them deal with it as best we can. Lila is going to be okay because you raised her to cope. I'm doing my small part. Working on this article is going to be therapeutic—for both of us.” It felt strange, offering solutions to Luz, who always knew all the answers. Jessie added, “We'll both be new women at the end of it all.”

“Implying there's something wrong with the old women.”

“They're old,” Blair shouted from the driver's seat. “Let your sister get in the car, hon.”

Jessie hugged her again. “We'll be home with Ian tonight. Take some time for yourself. Make friends with the camera again.”

She got in and gave Blair directions, guiding her through the shaded hills of Edenville and past the Gothic courthouse, which presided over the central square, its bell tower sandy yellow against the sky.

“So this is your hometown,” Blair commented, navigating the Cadillac along Aurora Street.

“My old stomping grounds.”

They passed the Halfway Baptist Church, an old-fashioned wooden building with white siding and a perfectly groomed lawn. Nell's Charger was parked at the side. The notice board in the front proclaimed, Our Angel, Albert Bridger, 1989 to 2003.

The SkyVue Drive-in Theatre still stood at the far edge of town, the back of its towering screen painted in a Lone Star flag motif, red-brown streaks streaming under the bolts like rusty tears. The marquee read “Cl sed 4 the Seas n.”

“I bet you made your share of trouble there,” Blair remarked.

Jessie offered a rueful smile. She remembered cars that
smelled of motor oil spilt over engines that ran badly, and the cheap, thin taste of beer stolen warm from a pallet behind the Country Boy Grocery. She could still recall the sensation of a boy's curiously timid hand settling on her thigh. Or another boy, whose decidedly untimid hand captured her breast as though it were a fly ball out in right field.

Blair surveyed the outlying, empty fields of layered rock and chaparral only a few blocks from the main square. “No wonder you left this place.”

“Some people can't imagine being anywhere else. It's a town where all the neighbors know each other and none of the kids can get away with anything because everyone's watching. But the trouble with some kids is that knowing they're likely to get caught is no deterrent. It's part of the game.”

They parked in a visitor space at the school and stopped at the bizarre shrine to Dig—a mound of flowers and memorabilia that was already looking tired and forlorn. “We'll want pictures of that,” Blair said, gesturing at the football jersey fluttering in the breeze.

“Luz will do this right, Blair. I swear it.”

They went into the high school. It was not exactly as Jessie remembered, but close enough. Locker room smells, disinfectant, coffee, hollow noises. A hallway gleaming from its nightly buffing. Hand-lettered signs bearing announcements: Homecoming '03. Go Serpents!

Leaving Blair to inspect the hallowed halls of Edenville High, Jessie went in search of Lila. The main office still rang with the busy chaos of a postal substation. And the attendance clerk, Mrs. Myrtle Tarnower, had not moved from her spot at an obsessively neat oak desk with its green blotter. Jessie thought her unreliable eyes were playing tricks on her, because it was impossible to conceive of Mrs. Tarnower sitting there
year in and year out, keeping track of who was sick and who was late and who was truant, phoning parents to verify claims of the missing. Mrs. Tarnower must have called the Ryder place many times in search of Jessie.

“I'm here to pick up my…Lila Jane Benning,” said Jessie to a woman wearing a black-and-purple booster ribbon. “My sister Luz—”

“—just called about her.” The receptionist handed her a clipboard, then waved her toward the nurse's office. It was still in the same location it had been two decades before, when Jessie used to stop in for a Band-Aid or a Midol, or to hide out when she didn't have her algebra homework done. She went down a side hallway, stopping at a heavy door with a thick pane of frosted glass.

Jessie knocked lightly, stepped inside and encountered a husky boy with acne, sitting on a stool in the corner, holding a blue gel pack around his hand. Moving past him, Jessie peeked into a side room. There sat Lila on a low bench, her face pale and intense as she studied a bilingual choking chart on the wall.

“Hey, kiddo.”

“Aunt Jessie.” Lila exploded with the word as though she'd been holding her breath. “Thanks for coming.”

“I'm glad to do it. Let's go.” They emerged from the nurse's office to find Blair in the foyer of the building, interviewing a pair of wide-eyed underclassmen. When they spied Lila, they excused themselves and hurried away, as though her misfortune was contagious. Pretending not to notice, Jessie introduced Lila to Blair and said, “So are you really sick, or sick of this place?”

“I pick answer B.”

“That's what I figured. Listen, Blair and I are going to
write an article about the accident. It's going to be published in
Texas Life.
”

“No way.”

“Way. Mrs. Bridger and Mrs. Beemer both want to be in it. So we have some things to do in the city. She's going to take the idea to her editorial board, and I've got a few errands. How about you come along? There's something I think you'll like, guaranteed to heal the sick. Ever heard of Galindo's on Sixth Street?”

“It's only about the most famous salon in the city. Are we going there? Really?” Excitement animated her voice.

“I'll treat you to lunch and then a half-day spa routine. But I have to warn you, it includes a massage.”

Lila settled against the pink leather upholstery of the back seat. “I've never had a massage before.” She fell silent until they passed the green-and-white sign: Now Leaving Edenville. Then she let out a long sigh.

“Talk to me, love,” said Jessie, swiveling sideways on the front seat and reaching for her hand. She gestured at Blair. “Dr. LaBorde is a professional. You can say anything in her presence, as long as you understand she has no respect for privacy.”

“I respect telling the truth,” Blair said. “Not everyone can handle the truth.”

“The whole school knows anyway,” Lila burst out. “Heath dumped me.”

Good.
Jessie bit her lip to keep from saying it, but getting rid of the kid who had nearly killed her didn't seem like a terrible idea.

“I'm sorry, love,” she said. “I know you'll miss him. Listen, about that article—your mom's doing the photographs.”

“No way.”

“Way.”

“I thought you were the photographer.”

“Not anymore.” The finality of saying it aloud appalled Jessie, but she held her feelings in check. This must be how Luz did it, she realized. This was how Luz controlled her world. She erupted inside and kept the same shell on the outside. “So is that okay with you?”

A shrug. “I guess.”

“People want to know about the town, your friends, your life. But if you don't want me to say Heath broke up with you, I won't.”

“However, the fact that he dumped his girlfriend on homecoming week says something about his character,” Blair added.

“What's that?” Lila asked.

“That he's a spineless weasel who won't take responsibility for his actions,” said Jessie.

A tiny, gratifying giggle escaped Lila. Jessie absorbed her lovely smile and filed the image away in her heart.

“I had a boyfriend in college who dumped me two days before the Aggie-Longhorn game,” Blair said. “What a prick.”

Lila looked startled and pleased by her salty language. “What did you do?”

“My sorority sisters and I gave him the hairball treatment.”