No Place to Fall (11 page)

As he strolls out of the kitchen, whistling, the band breaks into “Runnin' with the Devil.”

Just great.

Will is silent as we
walk back to his car. The gravel crunching beneath our feet is the only sound. On the short stretch of interstate before we take the exit to the drive back across the mountain, he turns the music up too loud to talk over. He doesn't even sing along, just stares ahead at the road.

Finally I crack. I can't take his cold shoulder, especially since I'm not sure what happened. “Did I do something wrong? Is it because I kissed you?”

He sighs and pushes his fingers through his dark hair. “No, Amber. I mean, yeah, we shouldn't have done that. Technically, I'm dating a different Amber.”

Technically? An hour ago, my heart might have done
a backflip for “technically.” But now, unlike when Will suggested going to Sizz's in the first place, unlike the way we were together onstage, unlike when we kissed, Will is distant.

“What did Sammy mean about your other ‘fella'?” Will looks at me for the first time since he started the car. It's a quick glance, then his eyes are back on the road.

“Well,
technically
, I have
no
‘fellas.' But I believe he was talking about Sean. He gave me a ride home the other night, and Sammy met him.”

Will turns onto the access road to our school. “Look, Amber. If you don't mind, I'm going to just drop you off. I'm not so into football game dance nights, and I think I'd rather go home.”

My pulse gets faster. Just because Sean gave me a ride home one time, and my sister is married to Sammy, Will wants to go home? There's some stupid irony.

“Sean's only a friend, Will.” Does he think all of my rides home end up like the one he gave me on the first day of school?

Will pulls up to the curb, his hands locked on the steering wheel. He slumps forward and lets out a breath. “No, not because of Sean. I mean, who am I to say if you like the guy or not? Remember?” He points to himself. “Girlfriend.”

“I don't . . .” I realize my voice is uneven, so I breathe in and repeat myself. “I don't like him.”

“It's not about Sean, Amber. It's about me. And my dad.”

“Your dad?”

“My dad will crucify me if he finds out I've been hanging out with dealers. Tonight was fun, and you're a great singer. Really great.” He pauses and looks at his hands.

I feel my face getting hot. “But I didn't invite Sammy! He showed up at Sizz's on his own. He would've showed up, whether or not you took me.”

Will stills his hands. “I know that. But things are complicated.”

A couple of girls walk past the car toward the cafeteria doors. They look excited, grabbing on to each other's arms and giggling. I recognize one of them from Amber-o-zia's table at lunch.

I reach for the handle, open the door wide, and step out onto the curb, watching them disappear inside the school. “Yeah, I got it,” I say. “Complicated.”

He starts to say something else, but I shut the door and walk away.

When I hear him drive off, I turn around and follow the side of the building until I slip into a window alcove. Inside the cafeteria, colored lights refract off a tiny disco ball
hanging from the ceiling. Blue, green, hot pink, and white beams bounce around the silhouettes of awkward dancers. I slide down the wall, pulling my knees to my chest.

I press my forehead against them and sit for a while. The music shifts and I stand up to watch the dance through the window. We must have won the game because I can see burgundy bobcat stickers on everybody's cheeks. I spot C.A. laughing, dragging Sean out onto the dance floor. He's dressed in his normal T-shirt and jeans, hair flying everywhere, but there's the shyest smile flickering around his lips.

C.A. bounces on the balls of her toes, egging him on, and when she finally gets him moving, I can tell he's not a half-bad dancer. I watch them. C.A.'s dancing around him, and Sean's keeping up. There's no sense in me going in there. My dance rhythm is nonexistent and my mood would only bring them down. I pull out my cell phone and call Daddy's phone. It goes to voice mail.

I sit for another second, staring off at the black mountains. Some asshole's defied the ridgetop laws and built a house right on top of one. The lights look unnatural shining out from the black.

My phone rings. Daddy.

“Can you come and pick me up?” I ask him.

“Now?” Daddy asks. There's country music playing in
the background and I hear a sudden, sharp sound, like ice hitting glass.

“Yeah. I'm ready to go home.”

I hear Daddy whispering. He never whispers to Mama. Then he gets back on the line. “Give me about thirty minutes.”

“Okay.” I hang up and stare at the lights near the ridge again. It's bound to be a vacation home. I wonder what those people think of us. The wife probably stood in the middle of a tangle of rhododendrons, a wild wind at her back, and held her hands out in a tiny square. “Oh look, honey,” she might have said. “We can put a picture window right here.” Because that's the thing. The folks that move in, they don't care so much about the actual view. Life looks too real back in the holler.

The rumble of Daddy's diesel, followed by a quick blow on the horn, draws me out of my hiding place.

Daddy grins as I climb into the truck. “Evening, Amber girl.”

He's whistling Rosanne Cash's “My Baby Thinks He's a Train” with a big smile.

“What? Did you get a promotion? Win something from a scratch-off ticket?” Daddy's good mood is infectious, but I'm skeptical.

“Nah, just a good day, baby girl, just a good day.” He stretches his arm over and gives my shoulder a squeeze.

Gross. Lilac.

“Did you get a new air freshener?”

If he knows I've figured out he smells like perfume, maybe it will knock some sense into him. But Daddy doesn't even blink before answering.

“Might've, I pick those things up so often, I forget what's what. Hey, look down there, I got an old farmer's almanac calendar in the mail today from eBay.”

I pull the yellowed, musty calendar out of the padded envelope—1932. There's a picture of the Clinchfield Railroad engine on the upper part. “Cool, Daddy.”

“Yep, I thought so. Going to frame it for the train room.”

I'm struck with an urge to be Daddy's little girl again. To act like Mama and just blind myself to the obvious. While Whitney was my daddy's princess, I was his train girl, always up for heading to the tracks to lay pennies down or count the cars. I used to love going with him to the depot and listening to the engineers tell ghost stories. But now that I know how he really is, how can I ever be that girl again?

Like with so many other revelations in my adolescent years, Whitney made the Daddy situation crystal clear.
About three years ago, we'd gone to eat at the Fish House, just Daddy and his little girls. The hostess had flushed and looked everywhere but at Whitney or me. Daddy called her sugar and put his hand on her arm, and the lady had gone all red and silly. I remember asking Whitney why the lady acted that way, and she'd said, “That's Daddy's girlfriend.” At first I didn't understand. Boys could have friends who were girls. Couldn't grown men?

Whitney had stood up, glaring down at me. “Grow up, Amber,” she'd said. “It means they're screwing.” I sat for a long time that night, just staring, watching the bats swoop in and out from the barn through the maple leaves, wondering if this meant Daddy didn't love us anymore.

The next morning, later on, when I'm sure she'll be awake, I walk the acre back to Whitney's trailer. Giant barks and jumps behind the chain-link fence Daddy put up for Whitney's ever-rotating foster animals.

“Hey, big man,” I say to the tiny dog. It's Sammy's only redeeming quality, his acceptance of Whitney's animal obsession. Left to his own devices, he'd probably be as neglectful as the folks she rescues them from. I slip in through the gate and knock on the door. Nothing. I knock louder.

Sammy pulls it open. “Amber.” He hangs on the door frame, bare chested with his Strat strapped across his shoulders.

I want to scratch his eyeballs out, but I can't. And if I renege on his stupid practice, he'll tell Mama I was at a college party in Tennessee. And if she gets wind of it, the speech will go exactly like this: “If I can't trust you at home, how can I trust you in some far-off city?”

I hug my arms closer. “Where's Whitney?”

“In the shower. Come on in. She'll be out in a minute.”

“I'll wait outside.”

“I said come inside. Wouldn't want my wife thinking I'd left her sister out on the porch, would I?”

I step in, but stand near the door.

Sammy cranks up the amp and starts tweaking his guitar strings. I look around. No matter how Whitney tries to add nice touches to their trailer, Sammy takes over. Electronics magazines, speaker parts, half-filled cans of Mountain Dew, which you have to be careful not to ever pick up because they double as spit cups. Even Coby's colorful toys look dull in here.

“Hey.” He breaks for a second. “You ever got any friends that get sports injuries or surgery, whatever, and have leftover pain meds, hook me up. I'll pay for leftover scrips. I'm trying to buy a van for the band.”

“Sammy, didn't you just get arrested? What the hell's the matter with you?”

“Ain't no big thing, it'll blow over. Once I start gigging again, legit money will be rolling in. But I've got to get there first.” He goes back to playing, and I press against the wall.

Whitney walks out of the back, toweling off her hair, holding Coby on her hip.

“BerBer!” Coby reaches out his hands and I take him.

Whitney glances at Sammy, then at me. “What's up, Amber? Does Mama need something? She could have just called.”

“No, you got a minute?”

We leave Sammy to his solo and go out and sit on the stoop. Fall swirls around under the air of fading summer. A soft breeze rustles the leaves on the trees. In the pasture, one of Daddy's cows lows soft and melodious. Coby toddles off to chase Giant.

“So?” Whitney pulls a comb through her long, wet hair. “You pissed off at me for last night?”

“It wouldn't kill you to apologize.”

Whitney stops breathing for a second, then blows a big breath out. “I'm sorry. Tell your friend I'm not usually a bitch like that. It's just . . .” She hesitates. “I think Sammy's running around on me.”

“Really?” Sammy is six or seven kinds of bad news, but I've never questioned his loyalty to Whit.

She stretches her legs out in front of her. “Maybe. I don't know. It's just this music thing again.” She looks down at her body. “I'm not really looking like a hot groupie anymore.”

“Sammy wouldn't cheat on you.” Then I remember why I walked back here in the first place. “But I think Daddy's got a new girlfriend.”

She doesn't even flinch. “I figured. You're a fool to think he'd ever quit. I doubt it's even a new girlfriend.”

“I'm not a fool, I just . . .”

“Oh, get over yourself, Amber. Not one of us is perfect. Not even you, anymore.”

“What are you talking about?”

“How arrogant you're getting. Running around with that judge's kid. He's just using you, you know.”

She can't be talking about Will. Unless Sammy told her.

“What do you mean?”

“He's swishy, isn't he? You two have been hanging out for years and he's yet to make a move.”

“Don't say that, Whitney. It's rude. It's like somebody calling you and me poor white trash.”

She shrugs. “If it fits.”

“Besides, he's not using me. We're actually friends.”

But her words let in a ghost of doubt. I know it's not right, but I can't help but think that Devon might've been waiting for someone more interesting to move to town. Someone like Kush.

Coby bounds across the yard, then falls. Giant moves in and licks his ears until Coby's giggles are louder than Sammy's guitar. Whitney and I smile, watching them. After a second, she whistles and Giant moves away.

“Mama's perfect,” I say. Even though I know it's not entirely true, she's the closest we've got.

“No, she's not. She hides behind God. Figures if she prays enough all of her problems will go away, but it doesn't work that way.” Whitney talks like she's holding back a deep hurt.

“What do you mean?”

“Life. Just. Is. I've got Sammy, Daddy's got Mama, and Mama's got Daddy. And you, you've got a wild dream that's going to do nothing but disappoint you.”

Coby crawls into Whitney's lap and snuggles against her. She strokes his back and stares off at the mountains.

“You think I'm stupid for dreaming?” It shouldn't matter what Whitney thinks, but it does. She's still my big sister.

Whitney's quiet for a while. “No.” She looks at me.
“I don't want you getting hurt, that's all. Do me a favor, okay?”

“What?”

She inclines her chin toward Coby and throws her head back toward the door and Sammy behind it. “Don't be in the kind of hurry to grow up that I was.”

It's the first time I've ever heard Whitney admit that her life might not be turning out exactly as she'd planned.

“You don't regret having Coby, do you?” I grab his chubby fingers and wiggle them.

“Of course not. And I can't wish that I'd waited. What's done is done. But I wish I'd figured out a way to still go to vet tech school.”

“It's not too late,” I say. “If you'd stop selling . . .” And using.

The door pulls open. Sammy looks down at us. He's pulled his pale blond hair into a bun and his jeans are slung low, exposing that slice of skin and hip bone Whitney once told me was her own personal heaven. “Hey, Whit, I just got a call. You coming?”