Pecked to Death (3 page)

Sadie took a breath. She had miraculously avoided any run-ins with Luke since they were both in college, but the last one had been cataclysmic. Maybe he didn’t remember. And maybe her dad would suddenly pick up a ukulele and do the hula. The best defense was a good offense, right? That’s what Aunt Abby would say, and Sadie didn’t disagree. So she pulled forth her best pageant smile and turned to face the doorway.

“Still lurking in the cave, Batman?” she asked.

Luke paused in the doorway to inspect her. At first, her poison arrow hit its mark. His eyes narrowed with dislike and apprehension. Then she watched as his smile turned cool and calculating, just like hers. “If it isn’t our very own Sadie Cooper, gracing our presence with her shiny white hiney. Tell us, Sadie, how’s life on the unemployment line? Or are you using your new talent for another sort of work?”

There was a brief, glorious second when Sadie imagined herself ramming him in the chest, just taking off like a rabid goat and knocking him to the floor while she stamped and kicked at his head. She had always been able to take Luke, the pansy, and she didn’t think that would have changed just because he was taller and bigger now. But she was a grownup long used to being an actress. So as Maddie flew into a tirade, attempting to shame her son for his rudeness and lack of tact, Sadie smiled, pretending to be impervious to the mortification. Everyone knew about her on-air slip, apparently. Great, just great.

“You say you’re sorry to Sadie right now, young man,” Maddie said, hands on hips. Maybe Luke was as good an actor as Sadie was because he hung his head contritely, but when he looked up at her, his eyes blazed with loathing.

“Sorry, Sadie.” His words oozed remorse. Only the telltale wrinkling of his nose gave him away. Luke
always
wrinkled his nose when he lied, and he had no idea he did it. He also had no idea how Sadie had always beat him at poker.

“No problem, buddy,” Sadie said with enthusiastic good cheer. Luke hated it when she was fake. In fact, he pretty much hated everything about her. She popped a cherry tomato from the relish tray on the counter and ate it with a subtle wink in his direction. She was rewarded when his hands clenched menacingly into fists. As if Sadie would find him menacing, as if anyone would. “Hey, speaking of careers, congratulations on your doctorate. You’re halfway to being Bruce Banner by now, huh?”

It was a double-edged barb, and they both knew it. Sadie knew through Abby that he couldn’t afford to get his doctorate, and teasing him over his comic book obsession was simply an immature low blow. Maddie looked between them, trying to decide if Sadie was being intentionally mean. Sadie gave her such a look of pure innocence that Maddie’s troubled expression cleared. “Uh, Sadie, Lucas doesn’t have his doctorate. It costs so much money and…well, he’s been working so hard as a teacher.” She shrugged. “He’ll get there someday.” She patted her son’s arm in a way meant to offer up motherly comfort.

“Aw, I’m so sorry to hear that, Bruce. Guess the Hulk is going to have to wait awhile longer to emerge.”

“I’m pretty sure I could show him to you now, if you like,” Luke said. Maddie looked between them with a helpless sort of laugh.

“I never did understand you kids when you started talking comics,” she said. She shuffled off, leaving them to their anger and awkwardness.

“So it’s Lucas now, is it?” Sadie asked. “That does sound much studlier and more doctoral than Luke. Where’s the suede coat with leather patches, though? I thoroughly expected you to be wearing one.” When his cheeks flushed, she knew she’d hit the mark. Sadie laughed and shook her head. “Such a cliché, Lucas.”

“You want to talk cliché, Sadie? How’s this: Former homecoming queen turned T.V. personality turned humiliated failure. Let’s try that on for size.”

She eased her shoulders up and down into a careless shrug. “I’m twenty eight. I hardly think that qualifies me for retirement. I’ll get another job. No big deal.”

Now it was Luke’s turn to laugh. “No big deal? Have you seen you? You’re viral, you’re everywhere. Good luck ever getting another job that doesn’t begin with the words, ‘Haven’t I seen you somewhere before? Turn around and let me check.’”

“I don’t have to work in front of the camera. That’s not where I started. I can do anything. The opportunities are endless.” She said it to herself as much as him. She had to say something to stop the encroaching panic. The problem with sparring with Luke was that he knew her as well as she knew him. He knew he was getting to her, and he relished it.

“You’re right, of course. Something will come along. It always does for people who get by on their looks and charm. Of course we’re twenty eight now. In pageant years that’s like ninety. But I’m sure you’ve got a few more fake tans and plastic smiles in there somewhere. I can’t
wait
to see where you’ll end up next, Sade.” He gave her the same saucy little wink she had bestowed on him, bumping hard against her shoulder as he passed by.

Luke loaded his plate with food, dumping random spoonsful without noticing what they were. It didn’t matter anyway; everything his mother made was delicious. His mind was seething while he surreptitiously watched Sadie to gauge her reaction. For a few seconds, she stood still, staring at the empty spot he had just vacated. Then in true Sadie fashion, she turned toward the food with her ever-present smile. He hated that smile, loathed it, and was willing to do anything to knock it off her too-beautiful face. That was another thing that hadn’t changed about Sadie, her almost supernatural physical perfection. How she had gone from an awkward speck of a girl to a beauty queen still confounded him. Even though he had been there every step of the way, he had somehow missed the transition. One day she was Sadie, his mutt-ugly best friend, and the next she was
Sadie,
sought-after fascination of every teenage male in the tri-county area.

He could have forgiven her for becoming beautiful, could have forgiven her for leaving him in the dust to undergo his own awkward transformation at a much later date—college, to be exact—but he couldn’t forgive her for the person she had become inside. For that, he despised her.

He listened in sullen silence as she charmed everyone in the room. Somewhere along the way, she had earned a master’s degree in charm and manipulation. Men, women, old, young, it didn’t seem to matter. Everyone loved Sadie, everyone except Luke who knew that her outer beauty was a ruse for an empty shell.

There was one other person in the room who wasn’t taken in by Sadie’s deception. Her father caught Luke’s eye and raised his eyebrows as if to say,
Get a load of her.
Luke looked away without responding. If there was anyone he didn’t want to commiserate with about Sadie, it was Gideon. Luke might have his own grudges and reasons to dislike her, but they weren’t Gideon’s reasons. As far as Luke was concerned, a father should love his daughter unconditionally, the way his own father loved him—and Sadie, for that matter. No, Gideon was not a suitable ally in the I-hate-Sadie-Cooper club. Until he found one, he was on his own.
Nothing new there,
he thought as he bent his head and concentrated on his food.

Sadie was exhausted. There was no easy way to extract herself from her friends and neighbors, so she kept her pageant smile in place and listened as they talked. And talked. As the night wore on, she missed Aunt Abby more and more. Aunt Abby would have told Johnny Robbins to shut up and stop talking about his new John Deere. She said her dotage had earned her the right to be blunt, though Sadie suspected she probably always had been. What you saw was what you got with Aunt Abby. She was bustling with joy and good cheer unless she didn’t want to be and then heaven help whoever was in her path. She did and said whatever she wanted and felt. Oh, how Sadie had envied her.

There was a time when Sadie was the same way. She had said whatever came to mind with alacrity. Back then, Luke had tried to have a tempering effect on her.
Sadie, you can’t say stuff like that to people,
was his most used phrase. Then adolescence hit and everything changed. Sadie started to pay attention to the way people responded to her. They didn’t like her when she said what she was thinking. They liked her when she smiled, nodded, and pretended to be interested in them. Pageants weren’t won on plain-spoken opinions. Sadie had always been a quick student. It didn’t take long in the pageant circle to figure out how to win, and it didn’t take long to apply those skills to real life. Everyone liked her better after that, everyone but Luke and her dad.

At last Maddie noticed Sadie’s droopy eyes and took pity on her. “You must be exhausted after so much driving, Sadie. Why don’t you head on home? Lucas can walk you.”

Luke dropped his spoon and shot a horrified look at his mother.

“I’ll go,” Gideon said.

Sadie wasn’t sure which of them was worse. She wished she could have sneaked away by herself and fallen asleep by the time her father came home. She stood and gave Maddie a long, heartfelt hug. “Thanks for supper, Maddie. It was delicious as always.”

“You hardly ate anything,” Maddie scolded.

“Beauty queens can’t eat, Mom. It’s in their contract,” Luke said.

“You don’t know what it’s like to try and keep up a figure like Sadie’s,” Maddie defended.

Despite his best efforts, Luke’s eyes landed on Sadie’s figure and lingered. She snapped her fingers and he looked away with a guilty flush.
Hypocrite,
she wanted to say. Men never looked beyond her body to what lay beneath. Luke liked to pretend he was different, but he wasn’t. She wished they were alone so she could give him the verbal pummeling he deserved.

Her father noticed the exchange because he noticed everything. With a roll of his eyes, he turned toward the door, beckoning for Sadie to follow. She trotted to keep up, feeling like an errant child. The feeling was all too familiar.
So, Dad, how have you been?
That was what Sadie wanted to say. But even that little bit of communication seemed out of reach. Instead she waited for the inevitable criticism to come. It didn’t take long. As soon as they stepped outside, Gideon spoke.

“That your car? It’s a heap of junk. How you made it here without a breakdown is a miracle.”

“Yeah, well, Dad, they’re not exactly paying top dollar for meteorologists these days.” And when you’re an unemployed meteorologist, they pay nothing at all. “People think you make a lot when you’re on TV, but you don’t.” Sadie had barely made above minimum wage. Yet she had to dress like the celebrity people thought she was. Most of her money went to clothes and makeup. Too little had gone into savings. Now she was in dire financial straits, but there was no way she would admit as much to her father. Knowing Gideon, he probably already knew anyway, or at least suspected.

“Ridiculous fluffy job,” he muttered. “You should have gotten a real job with real work.”

“I tried construction, Dad, but I kept breaking my nails,” she said. He gave her the look, the one that said she was treading dangerously close to being disrespectful. He opened the door and Sadie slipped by without another word, sinking wearily into the bed that had been hers since she was a little girl. The mattress was lumpy. The sheets probably hadn’t been washed since she was home last time. And nothing had ever felt quite so good. Within a few minutes, she was fast asleep.

The day of Aunt Abby’s funeral was dreary and damp. Sadie thought she would have loved knowing that the weather cooperated to add to the mood of the day. Aunt Abby had a flair and appreciation for the dramatic, yet another reason that the two women had gotten along so well. Sadie’s hands shook as she slipped her dress over her head and reached around for the zipper. She hadn’t given in to her tears since The Terrible Day, and she didn’t want to let down her guard now, not when her dad and Luke were nearby to question the tears, to ask if they were real or fake. As if she would be heartless or shallow enough to fake sentiment for Aunt Abby, a woman she had loved as long as she could remember.

Her father sat at the kitchen table sipping his coffee when she rounded the corner into the kitchen. He didn’t look up, didn’t comment on her appearance. Sometimes Sadie felt invisible in his presence. The rest of the time she wished she was. He stood, threw back the remainder of his coffee, and put the dish in the sink. “Let’s go,” he said. She hadn’t eaten or had her own coffee, but if she pointed that out, then he would reply that she should have gotten up sooner. How had they come to the place where they knew the argument so well that they didn’t even have it out loud?

As she slipped in the door of her father’s truck, Sadie had never felt so alone. Without her mother and Aunt Abby to comfort her, she had no one. Her gaze rested with longing on the neighbor’s house, wishing for Luke in a way that she hadn’t for a long time. He had never been as good at soothing her as the women in their lives, but he had his own way of comforting her back in the day, back before things went so wrong between them. Those thoughts brought a different kind of pain, and she shoved them away, turning her attention instead to the town. If it had changed in the years since she had been gone, the changes didn’t show. Everything looked just as it should, and Sadie took comfort in the familiarity.

They arrived at the church and Sadie distanced herself from her father. She couldn’t stand his seething disappointment, not today when there was already too much hurt in her heart. Instead she sidled up to Maddie and grasped her hand. Maddie glanced at her in surprise before letting go her hand and sliding her arm around Sadie’s shoulders. Sadie blinked a few times to clear the mist from her eyes, and the service came to order.

On Maddie’s other side, Luke frowned in consternation. He noticed Sadie’s arrival, of course. Everyone did. She had that sort of presence, the one that turned heads wherever she went. If her beauty didn’t arrest attention, then her lively spirit did. Today she looked as beautiful as always, maybe more so with her black dress that contrasted with her white-blond hair and fair complexion. She was like a calla lily, injured, fragile, and noble. Luke knew it was all a façade, though. She had likely spent hours getting ready just to garner the kind of attention she was now receiving. And there was nothing injured, fragile, or noble about Sadie Cooper. Or so he thought until he saw her slip her hand into his mother’s and clasp for dear life. The action disturbed him because it had been real. He knew Sadie well enough to understand when she was faking. She hadn’t been faking then. She had looked vulnerable. But instead of softening him toward her, the vulnerability made him angry. She wasn’t
supposed
to be vulnerable. She was supposed to be strong and shallow and easy to hate. Then he hated her because she was unpredictable. Why couldn’t she ever be what she was supposed to be?

He seethed in silence a few minutes before he realized he was missing the service entirely. Putting aside his anger at Sadie, he concentrated on the funeral. It was exactly what Aunt Abby would have wanted—nostalgic almost to the point of being maudlin as people came out of the woodwork to extol her virtues, of which there had been many. Friends and neighbors commented on her kindness, compassion, and generosity, glibly glossing over her many temper tantrums or displays of power through the years. Aunt Abby had been all the good things people said, but she hadn’t been without her faults. She had remained calm and pleasant up until the moment things didn’t go her way.

Luke’s eyes flicked to Sadie. Her funeral would no doubt go the same way. People would remember her charm and beauty and forget her self-centered shallowness. Tears shimmered on her lashes and her lower lip quivered. He quickly looked away. Some long-forgotten part of him wrenched at the sight of Sadie in tears. He didn’t want to remember the way he used to hurt when she hurt, the way he cried when she cried. She had forfeited her right to his commiseration long ago.

After the service, Luke’s father abandoned him to flank Sadie and offer his support. Luke walked sullenly behind their trio like the resentful third wheel he was. Gideon Cooper fell into line beside him, adding to Luke’s irritation. Why did Gideon somehow think they were best buds since Sadie came home? There was a time when Luke was little that he and Gideon had been close. Gideon had been the parent who took him and Sadie fishing, panning for gold, on tree-climbing expeditions and overnight campouts. Luke had loved it, had loved Gideon. Then Sadie ruined everything, including Luke’s friendship with Gideon because, even as a child, he hadn’t been able to stomach seeing the way their relationship changed. He resented Sadie even more for the loyalty she had somehow demanded from him and yet in no way deserved.

They reached the cemetery and the pastor started to speak again before ceding the floor to anyone who wanted to say a few words. Luke wasn’t surprised when Sadie stepped forward. If there was a spotlight to steal, she was the woman for the job. He was surprised when she stood there speechless, her eyes watery with unshed tears. At last she began to whisper in fits and starts, her voice choking with emotion.

“Abby was the best friend I had. Her loyalty and support were unwavering. Always.” Her gaze flicked to Luke. Was that accusation he read in her eyes? There was a part of him that wanted to step forward and answer the unspoken accusation, to let everyone know exactly whose loyalty and support had been suspect in their relationship. But then Sadie stepped back and his parents stepped forward, surrounding her, cocooning her with their love. They had never said as much, but Luke knew they blamed him for the feud. He hadn’t told them what happened, any of it. Only one person knew, and she was now being lowered into the ground. Aunt Abby had somehow known everything and remained neutral. At the time, her neutrality had aggravated Luke. How could she
not
take his side? Now he began to understand that maybe in her own way Sadie had needed Abby’s support just as much as he had.

As more people from the town stepped forward to say a few words, Luke’s mind traveled back half a lifetime ago to his fourteenth birthday, remembering the beginning of the end.

He and Sadie lay under their tree in Aunt Abby’s yard, staring up at the canopy while Luke thought about kissing. He had thought about it with recurring frequency since he and Sadie shared their first and only kiss a couple of years before. Neither of them had ever mentioned it after that day, almost like it hadn’t happened. Luke wished it hadn’t, not only because it had caused a subtle shift in his relationship with Sadie, but because he was afraid it would never happen again. Not that he wanted it to happen with Sadie. They seemed to have some sort of mutual agreement that they were better off as friends. But there were other girls who had caught his attention. Not only were the other girls not interested in him, but there was a not-so-small part of him that was afraid none of them would ever measure up to Sadie. Even without anything else to compare it to, he knew the kiss had been special.

“We’re not going camping this weekend,” Sadie blurted. She had been uncharacteristically silent for a while. Luke would have realized how ominous that was if he hadn’t been lost in his own thoughts about kissing. Now he sat up and looked down at her.

“What? Why not?” The two of them and Gideon had gone camping on the weekend after his birthday for as long as he could remember. It wasn’t even a question of “if” anymore; it just was.

“I have a pageant,” Sadie said.

He curled his lip in disgust. “So get out of it.”

“I can’t. It’s important to my mom.”

“But camping is important to me and your dad,” Luke said. He lay back down, sure the conversation had been decided in his favor.

“I
have
to do the pageant this weekend, Luke. You don’t understand how much this means to my mom.”

Sadie’s mom had been sick a lot which he supposed might account for some of Sadie’s odd behavior. Lately he had caught her looking at him a few times with an unreadable expression on her face, a sort of sadness, almost as if she was trying to tell him goodbye. He took a breath to argue with her again when he realized Sadie was crying. He didn’t know what to do with her when she cried. He stared, horrified, as his insides twisted with agony. How did she do that? How did she make him feel sad and guilty at the same time whenever she turned on the waterworks?

She shifted closer and rested her head on his shoulder. His arm slid awkwardly around her back, patting a few times. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.

“Just go to your stupid pageant. Maybe we can go camping next weekend,” he said.

“It’s not that. It’s Mom and Dad. They fight all the time, and Mom’s so sick and so weak, and Dad’s so angry. Dad doesn’t want me to do the pageants and Mom does. She wants me to be popular. She wants me to be a cheerleader next year.”

Luke chuckled before realizing she was serious. Sadie as a cheerleader—wow. “Tell her you don’t want to be a cheerleader,” he said.

“It’s not that easy, Luke,” she snapped. “We’ve been getting along really well lately, and it makes her so happy when I do the stuff she wants me to do. I can’t say no. But Dad…” she trailed off, pressing her face to his shoulder again.

Luke zoned out. He lost the thread of the conversation as he noted the changes in Sadie’s body now pressed to his. He had a good three inch height advantage on her. By everyone’s standards, she was shorter than most of the other girls in their class. She was softer in more places than she had been before. The uncomfortable heat now flooding his face made him want to move away and get some space. Sadie sat up and looked down at him, her blond hair forming a canopy around them. When had it gotten so long and silky?

“Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?” she asked.

He nodded. He had no idea what she had just said. He would spend the next few years wondering what it was, if it would in some way explain her upcoming behavior. She smiled and lay down again, hugging him. “You’ll always be my best friend, Luke,” she muttered, then she stood and dashed to her house. Luke stared after her for a long time, wondering what it had all been about.

The following Monday, the beginning of their freshman year of high school, he found out. Sadie was nowhere to be found. She didn’t walk to school with him, didn’t meet him at his locker—it was as if she had disappeared from the planet. Just when he was starting to really worry, he saw her in the cafeteria, but she wasn’t alone and waiting on him like usual. She was sitting with the richies—their term for the popular group of mean girls who had taunted them since fifth grade. The girls had spent so many years torturing them that Luke was confused, but too intimidated to find out what was going on. Perhaps Sadie was being held captive against her will. And maybe she had Stockholm Syndrome. How else to explain why she was laughing so hard without ever once looking in his direction?

He sat with the geeks, the ones who shared his love of comic books. They tried to talk to him and be friendly, but he wasn’t paying attention. Instead he was staring at Sadie, trying to figure her out, trying to figure out the gaping hole inside his stomach. What was she doing? Was this some type of social experiment? If so, why hadn’t she asked him to come along?

That night he waited in Aunt Abby’s back yard, and for the first time in fourteen years he was unsure whether or not Sadie would show up. She did, and she looked as sad as he felt, and guilty, too. “What was that?” he yelled as soon as she came within range.

“It’s just the way things have to be now, it’s the way they are. We can’t be friends at school anymore. We can be friends here if you want.”

Her attitude was matter-of-fact, her hands clasped behind her back. Luke wanted to shake her. He had never been so angry with her. “What are you saying? Your girl hormones are making you stupid. You can’t dump your best friend of fourteen years and get new friends. No one does that, Sadie.”

“I have to, Luke,” she replied. Later he would think maybe she sounded tired and a little bit sad, but just then he was too angry to notice.

“You don’t have to do anything. I can’t believe you’re doing this.” He felt as desperate as he sounded, and he hated that. But Sadie was part of the fabric of his being. Who did he have if he didn’t have her? And who was he without her? He was afraid the answer to both questions might be “no one.”