Shine (35 page)

Had Beef done that, too? In his mind, had he come up lacking?

My sadness about him sat dark and heavy in my heart, but I think it would have been worse if it didn’t. It was right to be sad when sad things happened.

I swiveled my head and looked at Jason. He must have felt my gaze, because he looked up from his book, which was
To Kill a Mockingbird
. He’d never read it, and which blew my mind, so I’d given him my copy. Judging by how quickly he was moving through it, I figured he liked it.

I smiled at him. He smiled back. He must have seen that I was feeling melancholy, because he put down his book, leaned toward me, and cupped my face with his hands. He kissed me, and his lips were soft against mine. Our souls mixed. Something passed between us, an invisible but glowing light.

He drew back, his expression a question. Had his kiss helped? Had he made me feel better?

I pushed my fingers through his soft hair. “Go back to your book. I’m fine.”

“We can talk if you want,” he said.

“It’s okay. Really.”

I was lost in my thoughts, anyway. Thinking about Beef. Thinking about my brother and my aunt and Robert. Thinking about just all of it.

“Cat,” Jason said in a hushed voice. I blinked and was back in my plastic hospital chair.

“What?” I said.

He nodded at Patrick’s bed.

I followed his gaze, my skin tingling. Patrick’s eyes were open. When he saw me, he smiled.

“Hi, Cat,” he said, his voice hoarse from lack of use.

I was too stunned to talk. I was too stunned to breathe, so I just soaked him in. His lips were so chapped they’d split open in places. He’d grown a scraggly beard, with unruly hairs sprouting above his jaw line. He’d shave it off, I was sure, because Patrick was
so
not a beard guy. I liked it, though. He looked handsome. He looked like a man instead of a boy.

He quirked up one eyebrow in that way of his that drove me bonkers. “What’s the matter?” he said. “Cat got your tongue?”

My mouth fell open. Patrick loved throwing those dumb sayings at me:
Cat got your tongue
? Or
When the Cat is away, the mice will play
. Or his favorite—and the one I detested the most—
Curiosity killed the Cat
.

Not this time.

I ran and just about threw myself at him before remembering his still-healing body. I hugged him, carefully at first, and then tighter. I hugged him like there was no tomorrow. Except there
was
. Tomorrows and tomorrows and tomorrows, and who knew what was in store for any of us? What I did know—maybe all I knew—is that we got to play a role in deciding.

I pulled away. A smile shone on his face, and I smiled back.

Then my gut clenched as I thought about the flip side of endless tomorrows. The nurses would come running in soon, and they would call Sheriff Doyle. Sheriff Doyle would drive to the hospital. Maybe not right away, but soon, and he’d ask Patrick the hard questions.

Gently, I hip-bumped Patrick to make room for myself on the narrow bed. It was so familiar being with him, and so easy, that I couldn’t believe I’d punished myself by staying away from him for so long.

I took his hands. His monitors were singing a glad song, which told me the nurses and probably Dr. Granville would be bustling in any minute. We didn’t have much time.

“Beef’s dead,” I told him, because there was no other way.

Patrick’s smile fell away. “What?”

“He’s dead. Beef’s dead.” I’d have the chance to go deeper later, but right now my job was to lay out the bare bones of the story, because Patrick had a decision to make, even if he didn’t yet know it.

I stumbled over the words: Robert, Suicide Rock, my brother. The gun. Patrick’s confusion turned to shock, then anguish, and then to a bottomless sorrow. I went there with him, and I willed his grief to flow into me, so that I could bear it on his behalf.

From the hall came the sound of footsteps and excited voices. I glanced anxiously at Jason, who rose and went to the door. Hopefully, he could buy us some time.

“They’re going to ask you what happened at the Come ‘n’ Go,” I said to Patrick in a low voice. “They’re going to ask you to tell them who hurt you.”

Patrick furrowed his brow. “They don’t know?”

I bit my lip, feeling horrible about telling Patrick that Sheriff Doyle and Deputy Doyle hadn’t gotten anywhere with their investigation. I felt as if Black Creek had let him down.

“Well, they’ve been looking into leads and everything,” I said. “They’ve been trying real hard. They just . . .”

Ah, screw it
, I thought. Anyway, only some people in Black Creek had let him down. Not everyone.

“They’re saying it was a truckful of out-of-towners,” I told him. “They’re probably ready to close the case, unless you tell them otherwise.”

I bit my lip. I wasn’t out to sway him one way or another, and I hoped he knew that. I hoped, too, that he knew that Beef
had
loved him, just as he had loved Beef. I was sure this was true of the Beef I knew and loved, the Beef before everything went bad.

“A truckful of out-of-towners,” Patrick repeated. He stared at his hospital sheet. When he looked back up at me, his eyes were a full shade darker. “That sounds about right. Too bad I can’t remember a dang thing.”

The nurses broke past Jason and descended on Patrick like
cooing doves. Kelly, the nice one, pulled at me and said, “I need you to move back now, sweetie. This boy of ours has gone through a lot.”

I squeezed Patrick’s hands, unable to let go. Kelly had to pluck at me to get me off him.

“Hey,” she said when she saw that I was crying. Patrick was crying, too, and from behind me came a loud sniffle that Jason tried unconvincingly to turn into a cough.

“Hey,”
Kelly said again. “This is a
happy
day. My goodness. And Patrick’s going to be just fine.” She placed her hand lightly on his head. “We’re just glad he’s back with the living, aren’t we, kids?”

The barest breeze moved through the half-cracked window, making Mama Sweetie’s wind chimes sing their silvery tune. It felt like a miracle, and maybe it was—or maybe it was just a breezy summer day.

“Yeah,” I said, only my throat was so clogged with tears that I sounded like a frog. I laughed in a sobbing sort of way. “Welcome back, Patrick.”

Where the heck to start? I wake up every morning saying, “Thank you, God,” for all the amazing people in my life, and I go to bed saying the same thing. So, first of all, thank you, God/the universe/spirit-and-soul/love-and-life-in-all-its-beautiful-forms! Really, that about covers it, but to be more specific:

My Abrams people! Y’all are so cool. Thank you thank you thank you for making my books exist. Michael J., I’ve not always made your professional life easy, but you just keep on supporting me anyway—and always with a smile. Maria, you are an artist, lady, and dang, am I lucky you were in charge of
Shine
’s cover art. It is stunning, as all of your work is. (And yes, manly Chad, I know she learned it all—well, almost all—from you.) Brett? You chat with me when Susan makes the slice-her-
hand-across-her-neck silent gesture to you that means, “Tell her I’m not here!” As you are delightful to chat with, I do not mind at all—so thank you. To everyone in sales and marketing and publicity: My books would be invisible if not for y’all. I am so grateful not to be invisible. Mr. Scott Auerbach, you’re just plain funny, even when you don’t know you are. I love grammar, and I love the fact that you do, too. Tamar, I know you don’t work directly with me—you’ve got your own fab authors upon whom you lavish your attention—but you are very much part of my Abrams support group. Thank you for introducing me to great music, and thank you for helping me overcome my fear of skinny jeans. Maz, you are an artistic soul who is nonetheless able to handle the very scary details of, like, schedules and dates and events. I don’t know how you do it, but you do, and I am full of appreciation and awe.

Howard, Maggie, and Laura . . . hi! *waves enthusiastically* I sure do like y’all!

As for Jason and Susan, just hold yer horses, you two. I’ll be getting to y’all later . . .

Seth Viney, thanks for the exploding shoes. They were in the book, but my editor—ahem—made me take them out.
Seth’s lovely wife, Terace? Omigosh. Thank you for sharing your stories so openly and courageously, and with such level-headedness. Also, good golly, thanks for helping me type in my revisions at the end of the
Shine
marathon!

Sara Hayden? Thank you for being my girl Friday. Along with Terace, you also helped me insert last-minute changes to
the manuscript, and you did so brilliantly. Of course, you do everything brilliantly.

I need a lot of help getting through each day, and to that end, thanks to multiple sweetie-pie “assistants”: Chelsea Alles, Lauren Karbula, Amy Hayden, and Stephanie Swanson. You enrich my life while at the same time keeping my kids safe . . . and making my house look a whole lot better . . . and folding my laundry (omigod, thank you, LK!) . . . and giving me the inside scoop on all things “young adult” I ask you about. You are the youth of America! And with America in y’all’s hands, we’ll do just fine.

Yo, Ian Mahan. You kept me straight when it came to “guy” talk. Thanks. And yo yo yo to all my Starbucks pals. Y’all work at the best Starbucks in the whole world, and the reason it’s so great is because of y’all.

Jim Shuler, as always, thank you for telling how to hurt people—or rather, for telling me what would happen, medically, once a (fictional!) person gets hurt. And as always, anything I got wrong is on me.

Jim, thanks also for talking to me about guns, and I extend that thanks to my uncle, Jack Mitchell, and my neighbor, Dave Taylor. Dave, you used a straw to show me how one might pistol-whip someone . . . and you demonstrated on your wife, Pretty Jenny! So, Pretty Jenny (who is much more than simply pretty), thank you for letting your husband straw-whip you. Pretty Jenny, thank you even more for reading an early-early-embarrassingly-early draft of the novel, and for lying
and saying nice things about it. You gave me encouragement when I desperately needed it—and you gave me great advice on how to make the novel better.

Early readers are invaluable, and along with Pretty Jenny, I thank Nina Romantio and Holly Warren for their insights. Y’all were awfully nice and supportive, too. Jackie, babe, I know you would have gladly read an early draft for me, but I screwed up and didn’t get your copy to you. Bad me! Rain check?

B-O-B spells Bob, and it also spells Best Official Buddy-System, if you pretend that Buddy-System is one word. Love ya, Bob. You look very stylish in your leopard print thong, by the way.

To my agent, Barry Goldblatt: I think it is often the case that we authors don’t have a CLUE how much you agent-types do for us. I know that’s true in my case. For all the things I’ve thanked you for, thank you again. For all the things I haven’t thought to thank you for, or haven’t known to thank you for, please accept my heartfelt thanks now. You da real deal, Care Bear.

Jason Wells, aka the Energizer Bunny. Oh, sweet Jason, this book would not exist if not for you. It simply wouldn’t, and you and I both know it. Thank you for our road trip talk that day when we could not and could not find the book warehouse. Ideas spring from marvelous sources, and you, yourself, are a marvel.

Sarah Mlynowski and Ermengarde Lockhart (oh dear, did I out you?): I have told you this before, but I must tell you
again. You two do not lie when it comes to giving me feedback on my novels. Instead you are quite straightforward in telling me what sucks . . . but then you tell me how to fix it! And the angels sing from on high, and y’all are the angels, and yes, SM, you can be a Jewish angel, ‘Kay? ‘kay. Without y’all, I would be a sad, shriveled version of myself, so thank you for not making me need Botox. Your friendship—and your generously shared writing expertise—make me a very happy Lauren.

To my big ol’ sprawling family, which is a glorious mishmash of conservatives, evangelical Christians, Jewish wine enthusiasts, veggie-chewy enforcers, computer geeks, bleeding heart
Susans
liberals, dog people, cat people, baseball players, and food-and-book lovers: Y’all are mine, and I am y’all’s. I hug you all.

To my parents, all four of you: holy creamed corn, I am blessed beyond measure to have y’all in my life:

Sarah Lee, you taught me about making jam and how long to soak green beans, two skills I’ll never use in real life as there is plenty of delicioso jam out there already, and because green beans are nasty (as are big hunks of fatback, even if they supposedly make the beans more flavorful). The knowledge you shared helped me flesh out Cat’s day-by-day reality. Thank you.

Dad? As in, my North Carolina I-sprang-from-your-loins Dad? Omigosh. You are so . . . I am just . . . ai-yai-yai. Can’t even find the words to express how much I appreciate your help with this book. Black Creek is not the North Carolina town you
live in, nor is the town I grew up in. Nonetheless, you answered every single one of my questions in your characteristically meticulous way. You told me about Spanish rifles. You told me about rusty cars and antique dirt bikes rebuilt from the frame up. You told me about moonshine (!!!) and backwoods potions and mongrel dogs that guard the trailers hidden deep in the woods. You also told me about beautiful things: breaking ivy, the way moss looks on a water-soaked log, the way the air smells when a storm is coming on. Thank you for my “hill girl” childhood. I love you.