Light from a Distant Star (18 page)

“You what?” Nellie gasped.

“I thought you asked her. That’s the way it sounded.”

“Well, I didn’t! And I’m not going to! No way am I spending the night with Jessica Cooper!”

“You have to.” Her mother was white lipped. “Besides, she’ll be here any minute. Her sister’s driving her.”

No sooner said than the bell rang. Red cheeked and giddy with delight, Jessica stood in the doorway, hugging her pillow and carrying two grocery bags.

“No food in the tree house. Sorry,” Nellie said, ready to close the door.

“That’s okay,” her mother said from behind. “Come on in, hon.”

Patrice Cooper couldn’t get Jessica’s sleeping bag and flashlight out of the car fast enough.

Henry stared in horror as Jessica climbed into the tree house behind her. But she had arrived well supplied: a box of Oreos, a large bag of Fritos, Gummi Bears, a bag of Snickers bars, bubble gum, and a six-pack of Coke. She’d had Patrice stop at the supermarket on their way, which of course her sister had been only too willing to do. Better than having to drag Jessica to the movies with her and her friends. Bouncy and sweet with a broad toothy smile, Patrice had been class president, salutatorian, varsity basketball captain, queen of the senior ball, and in another month she would be going to Notre Dame on a tennis scholarship. She stood in the yard talking to Nellie’s mother, who was congratulating her on her many achievements. Behind them, a curtain fluttered in Dolly’s window as she peeked out at the fabled Patrice. At the time, Dolly had seemed so much older, though Nellie would later realize that they were probably only two or three years apart.

Earlier, before Nellie knew Jessica would be coming, she’d brought out Ruth’s old CD player. She wasn’t going to play it at first, because she didn’t want to have to listen to Jessica’s snickering disbelief that Nellie didn’t even have an iPod when she was on her second one. But as darkness enveloped their leafy aerie, they had already eaten half the Oreos and all of the Fritos while Jessica entertained them with wild tales about her two weeks at Camp Crazy, as she called it. Nellie and Henry were as repulsed as they were fascinated by her detailed accounts of near drownings and getting lost in the woods; having to ride the wildest horse and being bucked off; the mountain cave where counselors smoked pot and had sex; a fistfight between two schizoid girl campers, which she broke up and, in the process, got a black eye; and then the night the boathouse caught fire and burned to the ground before the fire trucks could even get there. And romance—she was still getting love letters. Her mother had read one last week. When she realized that Jessica’s boyfriend was sixteen, she forbade her from writing back.

“But my friend Krissie says he can write to me there. That way the bitch won’t know.”

Nellie bristled. Krissie Potek was her friend, too. Jessica’s snarl had backed Henry against the wall. He crouched in a corner, his headlamp shining on
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
. The weekend before, her mother had bought the set at a yard sale. Henry’s goal was to finish the series before school started, which might well happen at the rate he was going, reading night and day, Nellie mistakenly told Jessica.

“So he’s got OCD, then,” she said.

Ignoring her, Nellie turned the music on low so it wouldn’t bother Dolly or the Humboldts.

“Now what do we do?” Jessica sighed, popping open another Coke. “Jesus!”

“Look!” Nellie showed her the stack of magazines.
People
and
Us, Glamour
and
Vogue
, all from the salon. Her mother always brought them home before they got thrown out.

“They’re all, like, old!” Jessica said, checking dates and flipping them aside.

“They’re still interesting,” Nellie said. She should have known better. Enthusiasm, it was like showing blood.

“Yeah, if you’ve been in a coma for six months.”

Getting through the rest of the night would be rough. Nellie opened
People
and read, intently, for Jessica’s benefit. It was the story of a boy who had disappeared from his family’s campsite near Lake Tahoe. His mother had zipped him into his sleeping bag, kissed him and his older brother goodnight, then went into her own tent, where her husband was reading. (Henry’s headlamp was giving her the creeps. Every time he moved, jagged light streaked off the walls.) In the morning, when the family woke up, the boy was gone. Sleeping bag and all. Just disappeared. No one had heard a thing. Not even his brother beside him on the mat. She closed the magazine. Barely a breeze, and yet the wind chimes on the Humboldt’s patio kept tinkling. The green bulb in their garden lamppost cast a creepy glow through the trees and bushes.

Lights still burned in Dolly’s apartment, but it had been a while since there’d been movement inside. Footsteps were coming down the driveway, Nellie aimed her flashlight into the yard. Her parents both waved. They’d gone for a walk, her father said, and wanted to check on them before they went inside.

“Oh! And a warning!” her mother called up and Nellie’s hair stood on end. She reminded them of the rabid skunk that had been spotted in the neighborhood recently. If they heard anything, they weren’t to come down. No matter what. What if it comes up here, Jessica asked. Nellie’s father assured her that skunks can’t climb trees. Prowlers can, Jessica said. Trying to keep her voice down, her mother came closer and asked Jessica if she was scared. Maybe sleeping out here wasn’t such a good idea after all. No, Jessica said quickly. She wasn’t scared—she’d be fine.

After Nellie’s parents went inside, Jessica pulled out her pink cell phone and dialed a number.

“It’s Jess,” she said in a muffled voice. “Call me.” She flipped the phone shut then picked up a magazine. “Think fast!” she said and threw it right at Henry’s face.

“What’s your problem?” he asked, rubbing his cheekbone as he tried not to cry.

“You.”

“Then leave,” Nellie said.

“I can’t. Nobody’s home and Patrice is at the movies,” she sighed.

“My father’ll drive you. I’ll go get him.” Nellie jumped up to push back the plywood cover.

“No! I was just kidding. Jeez.” She rolled her eyes.

“That’s not kidding. That’s insulting. I mean, this is Henry’s first night in his tree house and he lets you be here, and you’re throwing stuff at him?”

“I’m sorry! All right?” She ripped the paper off her fifth Snickers bar and tossed it out the window opening.

Nellie and Henry looked at each other.

Her phone rang. “Yeah,” she answered. “Yeah, we are … I don’t care … Okay … Sure, if you want …”

“Who was that?” Nellie asked when she hung up.

“Nobody.”

Jessica refused to tell her, and besides, it wasn’t any of Nellie’s business.

“It’s my business when you’re on my property,” Nellie said.

“It’s not your property.”

“Well, whose is it then?” Nellie asked uneasily. Jessica just might know more than she did.

“Your parents, of course,” she crowed.

“Same thing,” Nellie said, relieved.

Henry had retreated into his sleeping bag. He lay with his back to them, headlamp on, still reading. Nellie was unrolling her sleeping bag, straightening it, getting the zippers to work smoothly.

“Jesus!” Jessica said from the window opening where she knelt. “Your friggin’ house has bats. They keep coming in and out of the chimney.”

Nellie crawled over next to her. Things were swooping down into the chimney, then darting out again. Quick black things. Lots of things. “Those’re just chimney swifts. Every house has them.” Grateful Henry didn’t contradict her, she returned to her sleeping bag.

“Mine doesn’t,” she said, still watching. “Jesus, what do you live in, some kinda haunted house?”

“Shut up! Just shut up, Jessica!” Nellie was sick of it. Sick of her.

Jessica turned back, grinning. Nothing pleased her more than pushing people to the edge—especially Nellie. She used to think it was the only real happiness Jessica could feel. But now Nellie wondered if it was the only feeling she could understand—someone else’s pain. Because she had so much of her own, being so negative, mean, unhappy, disturbed, Nellie didn’t know which, and right then, didn’t care. “Least my house doesn’t have bats,” Jessica said, leaning out the window opening. “Hey!” she called down in a whisper.

“Hey!” a voice answered, and before Nellie could stop her, she had pushed back the plywood cover and dropped the ladder down.

Bucky Saltonstall’s head popped through the opening. “Hey!” he laughed.

“You can’t come up here!” Nellie couldn’t believe his nerve. And Jessica’s.

“I’m already up.”

“No! My parents don’t want anyone in here. Just us,” Nellie said.

“Then, shh!” Squatting on his heels, he gestured them closer. Somebody was chasing him, he whispered, this weird guy named Gussie who thought he owed him some money. For what? Jessica asked, grinning
with excitement. Bucky looked around as if he’d heard a sound. A bike, he whispered. Right after the guy bought it from him, someone stole it from his garage.

That was his problem, Nellie said. Not theirs, and if he didn’t leave, then she was going to go get her father. Henry’s headlamp faded. Nellie knew he was holding his breath, wanting to disappear into the green-tinted shadows. With this bad mix of people there was bound to be trouble. And they couldn’t risk their parents or, God forbid, Jessica with her big mouth, finding out about their own dark foray into stolen bikes. She could threaten to tell the disgusting thing Bucky had done to her brother, but that would be too humiliating for Henry, especially in front of Jessica.

“Shh!” Jessica whispered, ducking low. “What’s that?”

“Wind chimes,” Nellie said quietly, immediately regretting it. Scared enough, she might leave and take Bucky with her.

“No, listen!” she whispered.

“Bats?” Nellie whispered. “In the tree it sounds like.”

“Somebody’s out there,” Bucky said. He crawled to the opening that overlooked her house. Nellie couldn’t see anyone either, but the sound was more than wind chimes. Bucky moved to the opposite opening and peered out. With a sudden rustle through the leaves, he ducked back.

“Definitely bats,” Nellie hissed, enjoying his cowering. In the corner, Jessica huddled, knees to her chin. Henry hadn’t moved.

“Down there,” Bucky whispered, pointing to the floor.

Maybe the weird guy named Gussie was right under them, waiting to make his move. Waiting to strike. Nellie scrambled onto the plywood cover, with herself as ballast. Henry gave an approving nod. Just then, a strange, muted gasp pierced the leafy darkness, and a bright light flared in Jessica’s hand, her cell phone. She was calling 911, she whispered.

“No!” Bucky snatched her phone.

Below them a strange woman had appeared on the Humboldt’s brick path. Her blond hair streamed down her back. Tall and very thin, she wore spike heels, an ankle-length dress with a high ruffled collar, and a satiny billowing cape that glowed in the lamplight. At the edge
of the patio, she wobbled, then steadied herself. Just then, the back door of the house opened and out lumbered Louisa Humboldt. Arms outstretched, her nightgown moved over the path like a great floating tent.

“Tenley!” she hissed, and he stepped back. “Come inside, please. Please, Tenley, before someone comes out. Please, you don’t want that, now do you?”

“I don’t care!” he gasped. “I don’t! I really, really don’t!”

“You don’t mean that, dear. You know you don’t.”

“Stop telling me what I mean or what I know or what I think!”

“I’m not. Of course I’m not,” she said, slipping an arm through his.

“Then leave me alone. Please!” And pulling free, he flung himself down into a chaise longue. He sat with his hands clasped behind his head and ankles crossed. His sister leaned close, still entreating him to come inside, but he would have no part of it.

They were all at the window opening. Nellie didn’t say anything. Mostly because she didn’t know what to say. She’d heard of such things, but this was right next door.

“What’s going on?” Bucky asked, watching Louisa Humboldt lower herself down onto the sagging chaise longue next to her brother’s. She sat facing him. Head turned, he twirled his necklace impatiently as she spoke. It was the same one Miss Humboldt had bought at the jewelry party.

“No!” he erupted, swinging his feet over the side. “Because I don’t! I just don’t care anymore!”

“Who the hell’re they?” Bucky whispered, shoulder pressing against Nellie’s.

“Miss Humboldt and her brother,” she whispered, and in his quiet nearness, felt a stirring in her heart. So many troubled people. Like Bucky. Poor Bucky, such a tough life, no wonder he was so messed up. All he needed was a friend, someone to be kind to him, someone to help him stay out of trouble.

“Cool,” he said, and she liked him even more.

“My father says they’re, like, really strange,” Jessica said, wide-eyed.

“He doesn’t even know them,” Nellie shot back.

“Are you kidding, he knows
everything
about
everybody
,” she said. “Like how much money they have, and their houses, all that stuff.”

“So he must know about Mr. Humboldt being in plays then. He’s, like, some kind of actor. Like in Japan, how they look like ladies, but they’re really men,” Nellie lied to keep Jessica from telling how little money her family had and how desperate they were for her father’s help. “And that’s his costume. Probably going over his lines. He does that sometimes.” Fueling her bluff was her sudden loyalty to the Humboldts. As her life-long neighbors they were hers, no matter how strange, and she would not have them scorned.

“Hey, freak!” Bucky suddenly cried. He threw a Snickers bar through the opening. Mr. Humboldt ducked as it whizzed by his long moonlit hair. “Here, fag, suck on this!” Bucky shouted, firing off another candy bar, then another. Mr. Humboldt’s hands flew to his face. Miss Humboldt peered up at the tree. “Stop that! You just stop that right now!” she screeched, flinching as the next one hit her arm.

“That’s my candy, asshole!” Jessica was trying to wrestle the bag from Bucky, but he kept firing candy bars. Mr. Humboldt was a sorry sight struggling to get up in his long, tapered skirt. His ankle must have turned because he sank down on one knee. Nellie had to stop Bucky. The Sentry Hold! She and Henry had practiced it before, though never on a kneeling opponent. From behind, she locked her left forearm against Bucky’s throat and delivered a sharp jab in the small of his back, hard as she could. He fell against the boards, gagging. For an awful moment she thought she’d really hurt him.