Night Road (4 page)

Lexi looked at Jude. “My mom died three years ago. I live with my Aunt Eva now.”

“Oh, honey,” Jude said. She knew how it had felt to lose a parent—her father had died when Jude was seven. The world had become a dark and frightening place, and for years she’d been unsure of her place in it. “I’m so sorry to hear that. I know how difficult it must be for you.”

Lexi shrugged.

“How long have you lived with your aunt?”

“Four days.”

“Four days? But … where were you—”

“Foster care,” Lexi said quietly, sighing. “My mom was a heroin addict. Sometimes we lived in our car. So I guess you don’t want me hanging around with Mia anymore. I understand. Really. I wish my mom had cared who I hung out with.”

Jude frowned. None of this was what she’d expected. It did worry her, all of it, but she didn’t want to be that kind of woman, the kind who judged a person by his or her circumstance. And right now Lexi looked as beaten as any teenager Jude had ever seen. Everything about the girl radiated defeat; no doubt she’d been disappointed a lot in her life.

“I’m not like my mom,” Lexi said earnestly. The need in the girl’s blue eyes was unmistakable.

Jude believed her, but still, there was potential danger here. Mia was fragile, easily led astray. Jude couldn’t simply ignore that, no matter how sorry she felt for this girl. “I’m not like my mother, either. But…”

“What?”

“Mia is shy. I’m sure you already know that. She doesn’t make friends easily and she worries too much about being liked. She’s always been that way. And last year, she had her heart broken. Not by a boy. It was worse than that. A girl—Haley—befriended her. For a few months, they were inseparable. Mia was as happy as I’ve ever seen her. But the truth was that Haley had her sights set on Zach, and he fell into her trap. He didn’t know how it would upset Mia. Anyway, Haley dumped Mia for Zach, and when Zach lost interest, Haley refused to come to the house anymore. Mia was so hurt she stopped talking for almost a month. I was really worried about her.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I guess … because if you’re going to be her friend, she needs to know she can count on you. I’d like to know that, too.”

“I would never do anything to hurt her,” Lexi promised.

Jude thought of all the dangers this friendship could pose to her daughter, and all the benefits, and she weighed them, as if this decision were hers to make, although she knew it wasn’t. A fourteen-year-old girl could make her own friends. But Jude could make it easy for Mia and Lexi to stay friends, or difficult. What was best for Mia?

When she looked at Lexi, the answer came easily. Jude was a mother, first, last, and always. And her daughter desperately needed a friend. “I’m taking Mia into the city on Saturday for manicures. A girls’ day. Would you like to join us?”

“I can’t,” Lexi said. “I haven’t got a job yet. Money’s tight. But thanks.”

“My treat,” Jude said easily, “and I won’t take no for an answer.”

Three

2003

The last three years had both worn Jude down and sharpened her. She hadn’t known how terrifying life could be until the first time she handed Zach and Mia car keys and watched them drive away. From that moment on, she’d begun to be afraid for her kids. Everything scared her. Rain. Wind. Snow. Darkness. Loud music. Other drivers. Too many kids in a car.

She’d issued her kids cell phones and instituted rules. Curfews. Accountability. Honesty.

She paced when they were minutes late and didn’t breathe easily until they were safely in bed. She’d thought that was the worst of it, the freedom that came with a driver’s license, but now she knew better.

It had all been a prelude to this: senior year of high school. The semester had just begun, and already it was a pressure cooker, a Rubik’s Cube of deadlines and paperwork. College loomed on the horizon like a nuclear cloud, tainting every breath of air. Years of driving back and forth to sporting events, practices, play rehearsals, and performances was nothing compared with this.

On the wall above her desk she had two giant calendars, one marked ZACH and the other MIA. Every college deadline was written in red ink; every test date was in bold-face type. Jude had spent years studying admission statistics and reading about the various universities, gauging which would be best for her kids.

Getting into college would be a cakewalk for Zach. He had entered senior year with a 3.96 GPA and a perfect SAT score. He could go almost anywhere he wanted.

Mia was a different story. Her grades were good but not great; same with her SAT. Even so, she had set her heart on the prestigious University of Southern California drama school.

Jude had begun to lose sleep about it all. She lay in bed at night, going though admission statistics and criteria in her head until she felt sick. She was constantly figuring out how to make her daughter’s dream come true. It wasn’t easy to get
one
kid into an ultracompetitive school, and Jude needed to get two in. The twins had to go to college together; any other outcome was unthinkable. Mia needed her brother beside her.

And now, as if all that pressure weren’t bad enough, the word she’d been dreading had just been said aloud.

Party
.

Jude drew in a deep and steadying breath.

She was seated at the dinner table, with her family gathered around her. It was a Friday night in early October; the sky was the color of bruised plums.

“Well?” Zach said from his place at the table. “Can we go or not? Molly and Tim are letting Bryson go.”

Mia was beside her brother. Her blond hair had been braided wet and dried into crimpy zigzags. In the past three years, she had blossomed into a true beauty, with flawless skin and a smile that was marquee bright. Her friendship with Lexi had stayed as true as magnetic North, and it had given Mia a new confidence. Her daughter still wasn’t brave or extremely social, but she was happy, and that meant the world to Jude. “What about you, Mia? Do you want to go to this party?”

Mia shrugged. “Zach wants to go.”

It was the answer Jude had expected. They were a pair, these two, in every way. Where one went, the other followed; it had been that way from the moment of their birth and probably before. One could hardly breathe without the other.

“Did you hear that, Miles?” Jude said. “The kids want to go to a party at Kevin Eisner’s house.”

“Is there a problem with that?” Miles asked, pouring hollandaise sauce on his grilled asparagus.

“The Eisners are in Paris, if I’m not mistaken,” Jude said, seeing the twins flinch in unison. “Small island,” she reminded them.

“Kevin’s aunt is there, though,” Zach said. “It’s not like no adult is around.”

“Totally,” Mia added, nodding.

Jude sat back. She’d known this moment was coming, of course. She’d been a teenager herself, and senior year was the Holy Grail of teenhood. So, she knew what it meant when seniors wanted to “party.”

She’d had endless conversations with the kids about alcohol, told them repeatedly how dangerous it could be, and they swore not to be interested in drinking, but she wasn’t a fool. Neither was she the kind of woman who pretended her children were perfect. What mattered to her was protecting them from the risks associated with adolescence, even those of their own making.

She could say no. But they might defy her, and wouldn’t they be more in danger then? “I’ll call Kevin’s aunt,” she said slowly. “Make sure an adult is supervising the party.”

“Oh my
God,
” Mia whined, “way to totally humiliate us. We’re not
children
.”

“Really, Mom,” Zach said. “You know you can trust us. I’d never drink and drive.”

“I’d prefer it if you’d promise never to drink,” she said.

He looked at her. “I might drink one beer. It won’t kill me. You want me to lie to you? I thought that wasn’t how we rolled in this family.”

Her own words thrown back at her, and with deadly accuracy. The price for honesty with your kids was that often you learned what you’d rather not. The way Jude saw it, there were two parenting choices: ask for honesty and try to roll with unwanted truths or stick your head in the sand and be lied to. Zach’s honesty was a reason to trust him. “I’ll think about it,” she said in a forceful enough voice to end the conversation.

The rest of the meal passed quickly. As soon as they cleared the table, the kids put the dishes in the dishwasher and then ran upstairs.

Jude knew they were getting ready for the party. They assumed victory—she’d seen it in their eyes.

“I don’t know,” she said to Miles. They stood side by side at the picture window, staring out at the darkening night. The Sound had turned graphite and the sky was a deep bronze color. “How do we stop them from drinking and keep them safe?”

“Chaining them to a wall would work. Too bad the state frowns on that.”

“Very funny.” She looked up at him. “We can’t stop them from drinking—you know that. If not tonight, then some night they’ll get drunk. That’s just the way it is. So, what do we do to protect them? Maybe we should have a party here. We could take the kids’ keys and make sure everyone stayed safe. We could make sure they don’t drink too much.”

“Uh. No. We’d be risking everything we own. Not to mention, if someone got hurt, we’d be responsible. And you know teenagers, they’re like bacteria. They multiply too fast to see and you can’t keep them in your sights. I can’t believe you’d even suggest it.”

Jude knew he was right, but it didn’t help. “Do you remember high school? Because I sure do. Keggers at Morrow Farm were a weekly occurrence. And we drove home.”

“You have to trust them, Jude. Let them start making some decisions. Mia’s smart, and she sure as hell isn’t a party girl. And Zach would never let anything bad happen to her. You know that.”

“I guess.” Jude nodded, thinking it all through for the thousandth time. There seemed to her to be no good answer. No indisputably right way to go.

For the rest of the evening, Jude wrestled with the question of how to be the best parent in this situation. She was still trying to figure it out at nine o’clock when the kids came running down the stairs.

“Well?” Zach said.

She looked at her kids. Zach, so tall and handsome and steady in his low-rise jeans and striped American Eagle sweatshirt, and Mia, in tattered blue jean capris, white T-shirt, and blue silk men’s tie, knotted off to the side. She had her hair drawn back in a ponytail that geysered at the top of her head. She’d come out of her shell since meeting Lexi, but she was still fragile, a little needy. She could get her heart broken so easily, could make the wrong decision because she was afraid of being laughed at.

They were good kids. Honest kids who cared about their futures. They’d never given Jude any reason to mistrust them.

“Madre?” Zach said, smiling, reaching for her hand. “Come on. You know you can trust us.”

Jude knew he was manipulating her, using her love to his advantage, but she was helpless to resist. She loved them both so much and she wanted them to be happy. “I don’t know…”

Mia rolled her eyes. “This is like the witch trials. Can we go or not?”

“We said we won’t drink,” Zach said.

Miles came up beside Jude, slipped an arm around her waist. “We can count on your word, then?”

Zach’s face split into a huge smile. “Absolutely.”

“Your curfew is midnight,” Jude said.

“
Midnight
?” Zach said. “That’s so lame. Like we’re middle schoolers. Come on, Mom. Dad?”

Miles said “Midnight,” at the same time Jude said, “One o’clock.”

Zach and Mia surged at her, drew her into a fierce hug.

“Stay safe,” Jude said nervously. “If there’s
any
trouble, call me. I mean it. If you drink—and you shouldn’t—but if you do, call home. Your dad and I will pick you up, and any of your friends. I mean it. No questions asked, no getting in trouble. I promise. Okay?”

“We know,” Mia said. “You’ve told us for years.”

And with that, they were off, running for the sporty white Mustang she and Miles had bought for them last year.

“You should have held firm at midnight,” Miles said when the car door slammed shut.

“I know,” she said. It was so easy for him. When Miles said no, they gave up. When she said no, they tried harder, boring through her resolve like boll weevils through corn, until there was nothing left between them and what they wanted.

Miles frowned as the red taillights of Zach’s car disappeared into the darkness. “Senior year isn’t going to be easy.”

“No,” Jude said. Already she regretted the decision to let them go. There were so many things that could go wrong …

*

On a warm autumn night like this, Amoré was packed with customers. Summer was ending and everyone, locals and tourists alike, knew the cold season was moving their way.

Lexi had worked part-time at this ice cream shop since sophomore year. Every penny she earned went into her college fund. She and her boss, Mrs. Solter—a sixty-year-old widow with steel gray hair and a penchant for layering beaded necklaces—worked the counter in perfect synchronicity, one ringing sales while the other scooped ice cream.

Tonight, even though the place was busy, Lexi kept watching the clock. The party at the Eisners’ place started at nine, and Mia and Zach were picking her up.

Zach.

He was the only fly in the ointment of her new life. In the past three years, Lexi had found a place where she belonged. Aunt Eva cared for her deeply; it was obvious, even though the woman wasn’t demonstrative. Mia had become Lexi’s other half, her sister. They were inseparable. And the Farradays had welcomed Lexi into their family with open arms, never judging her. Jude had become like a mother to her, so much so that on Mother’s Day, Lexi always bought two cards—one for Eva and one for Jude. She always wrote
thanks
across the white space.

Only Zach held back.

He didn’t like Lexi. That was all there was to it. He never stayed in a room alone with her longer than was absolutely necessary, and he hardly ever spoke to her. When he did say something to her, he looked away, as if he couldn’t stand making eye contact. Lexi didn’t know what she’d done to offend him, and no amount of reparations had helped. The worst part was that it hurt her feelings every time. Every time he looked away or walked away, she felt a little pinch of loss.

But it was a good thing; that was what she told herself. It was good that he didn’t like her because she liked him too much. And one thing she knew for sure, had known from the beginning: Zach Farraday was off-limits.

At just past nine, she heard the Mustang drive up outside. She whipped off her multicolored apron and ran to the employees’ bathroom for her purse. Snagging it off the wall, she glanced in the mirror just long enough to see that her makeup was still okay, and then headed for the front door, waving to Mrs. Solter as she passed.

“Be good,” Mrs. Solter said with a happy little wave.

“I will,” Lexi promised. She ran out to the Mustang and climbed into the backseat. The stereo was blaring so loudly that no one could talk.

Zach backed out of the parking stall and headed out of town. In no time at all, they were turning onto a long gravel driveway. At its end sat a quaint yellow Victorian, with a pitched shake roof and a big white wraparound porch. Lights hung from the eaves, illuminating baskets of flowers.

When they got out of the car, Lexi could hear the distant buzz of conversation and the music, but there were very few kids visible. They were probably down at the beach, where the neighbors were less likely to see them and thus less likely to complain to the local police.

Zach came around the car and stood by Lexi. She tried to act casual. As usual, she couldn’t manage it. She turned slightly and caught him staring down at her.

Before she could think of anything cool to say, Mia came up beside Lexi, held her hand. “Will Tyler be here?”