The Graduation (20 page)

“Oh, no,” Bubba said, sitting up.

“I don’t deserve to live,” Polly said, her attention on Michael. “I
can’t
live with what I remember.” She turned the dial on the timer. “You have five minutes. Leave while you can.”

“Polly,” Jessica said. “Don’t do this. You have your whole life in front of you.”

Polly was not spaced. She was resolved. “I died in that room when Alice hit the floor. I’ve been killing time since.” She coughed. “I am going to do this. Nothing will stop me. Leave.”

“How about if
you
leave,” Bubba suggested hopefully. Clair elbowed him in the side.

“Shut up and let Mike handle this.”

“Polly,” Michael said. “We don’t have anywhere to go.” He held out his hand. “Give me that thing.”

Polly nodded to the fog, to the faraway voices. “There’re other kids out there. You can find them.” She glanced down at the timer. “You have four and a half minutes.”

There was something in her voice that made Michael take back his hand. He looked at Bubba, who in turn leaned forward and took a closer look at the mechanism Polly held. Michael’s unspoken question was clear:
If I pull it out of her hand, will it go off?
Bubba considered a moment and then shook his head.

“Don’t try it,” he said.

“I don’t want to spoil the party,” Russ said. “But we should get the girls off the lifeboat now. That thing could blow any second.”

“I’m not leaving without you!” Sara cried.

Russ frowned. “Who said I was staying?”

“Oh.” Sara turned to Jessica. “You don’t have a jacket?”

Jessica gestured vaguely toward her butt. “There’s one under my seat.”

“Russ is right, Mike,” Nick said. “It could blow any second.”

It was seldom Michael appeared lost. He quickly scanned the ocean. Then he slapped the side of his leg with his fist. “Dawn’s coming and the fog’s lifting, but we could be in the water an hour.”

“I’d rather tread water that long than be spread all over it,” Kats said.

“Bubba?” Michael asked.

“I can float till the Coast Guard gets here.” Bubba stood and grabbed Clair. “Let’s go for a swim.”

“Mike?” Clair asked, tightening her life jacket. They were all waiting for him to tell them what to do. He threw his hands up.

“Go then, get away. Swim toward the voices. There have got to be other lifeboats out there.”

The gang jumped overboard almost as one, sending the lifeboat rocking. Nick didn’t even stay. Jessica understood. He had to take care of Maria. They disappeared within seconds in the fog. Michael sat back down across from Jessica. “Get out that jacket.”

“There’s no jacket,” Jessica said.

He did a double take. “You’re kidding?”

“No.”

He glanced anxiously at Polly. She had the bomb hugged to her chest, her eyes half closed. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You’ll be OK. Just swim after the others. You can catch up.”

“You’re not staying,” she said.

“I’ll be along in a few minutes.”

He was a lousy liar. The minute she was gone, he was going to try to talk Polly into giving up the bomb. And if that failed, he would attempt to take it from her by force. He would risk his life in order to save Polly’s. “You go after the others, and I’ll be along in a few minutes.” she said.

His anxiety increased. “This is no time for games. Get out of here, Jessie!” Holding on to her right arm, she came and sat beside him. He was so beautiful; it made her heart ache to think she’d only been given one night to love him. “My arm’s broken,” she said.

“
What?
Why didn’t you say something?” He whirled in the direction the others had disappeared. “All right, it doesn’t matter. I’ll go with you. We can still catch them. You can swim with a broken arm.”

“No.”

“Yes, you can! I’ll help you.” He stood and tried to take her hand. “Come on.”

“I can’t swim.”

He dropped back down. The life went out of his eyes. “No?”

“No. I have to stay.
You
have to go.

He turned away from her and stared at Polly. A minute went by and he didn’t say anything. Then he burst out crying. “I
can’t
leave you,” he whispered.

She pressed her left hand to the side of his cheek. He was shaking with fear, and she was suddenly calm. The fear was still there, but it was as if deep inside she understood that it was supposed to end this way. Her destiny had come to her. It was a relief in a way.

“She’s my friend,” she said. “We’ve been together since we were children. I can’t leave her.” She wiped at his tears. “It’s all right. I love you, and I got to tell you that. I remember the night we went out. You told me you sometimes swim around the pier in the morning for exercise. You’re hurt, but you’re still a swimmer. You’ll catch the others. Now go ahead, get out of here.”

He bowed his head and covered his eyes. “You’re going to die.”

“Nothing’s decided yet.” She hugged him as best she could. “Please, Michael, before it’s too late.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. You can do it for me. For
us
. Please, go.

He shook his head. He wouldn’t look at her. And she suddenly realized he wouldn’t leave. Not Michael. Not for anything.

Except possibly to give her some kind of chance.

Polly was watching them. She caught Michael’s eye, subtly shifting her hold on the bomb’s wires. Polly didn’t have to speak the threat aloud. It was there in the air. If he didn’t leave, she would blow the three of them up right then.

“Damn,” Michael whispered. Beaten at last, he did turn to Jessica, looking at her for the longest time. And she remembered the first time she had seen his face, how she had admired the warmth and intelligence in his eyes. From that point on, the whole year, she had wondered what he thought other.

“I love you,” he said.

She smiled. “That is good.” He kissed her good-bye once. Then he was in the water and swimming away. The fog swallowed him up as it had the others. She turned her attention to Polly.

“Do you want to talk?” she asked.

Polly had seen everything. “You could have taken Sara’s life jacket. Sara can swim like a fish.”

“I could have.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I wanted to talk to you alone.”

Polly looked away. “Oh, Jessie.”

“What happened to your wrist?”

“I cut it with a razor blade. I’m crazy.”

“You seem sane enough now.”

“I suppose I have Mike to thank for that.”

“He doesn’t know everything. How come you didn’t defend yourself?”

“I used Clark for that. But Mike is right. Clark never came back to see me after Alice died. No one came.”

Polly shrugged. “Mike knows enough.”

“You didn’t smother your aunt. You’ll never convince me of that.”

“When I came home, after I chopped down the varsity tree, I thought I saw Clark leaving my house. And then I went inside…” Polly drew in a weary breath. “She was hard to take care of. There were so many times I wished she was dead.”

“That doesn’t mean you smothered her. She was old. She just died.”

Polly paused. “I suppose that’s true.”

“And you didn’t take Sara’s money.”

“Yes, I did do that. I remember—she had just gotten it out of the bank. She had to run back inside for a receipt or something. She had it less than five minutes when I took it.”

“Did you have a reason?”

“I was afraid she’d lose it. She had all cash.” It was coming back to Polly in bursts of clarity. “Yeah, I took it out of her bag and put it in mine. And then, when I got home, I put it in our safe.” Polly chuckled without mirth. “And then I forgot about it. I forget my name sometimes. I’m crazy.”

“Stop saying that.”

“It’s true.”

“You didn’t kill Alice.”

Polly looked away again, hugging the bomb closer. Jessica wondered how much time was left. She supposed she wouldn’t feel anything when it went off. But that remark Kats had made about being spread all over the water… She couldn’t go out this way—torn to tiny red pieces. She couldn’t help thinking of her mother receiving the news. Not everything that was left of them would sink. The calm and silence of the surrounding sea remained, but her internal calm began to waver.

“Get out of here,” Polly said.

“I have nowhere to go.”

“Well, it’s your own fault.”

“I don’t care how mad you were at Alice. I don’t care if everything else Michael said about that night is true. You didn’t push her off that ladder. You loved her.”

In response Polly yanked open a compartment on the side of the lifeboat. There was a life jacket inside the compartment. She threw it to Jessica. “Get out of here.”

“No.”

Polly checked the timer, tension spreading across her face. “There’s less than a minute left.”

“I don’t care.” Jessica set the life jacket aside.

“What are you doing? Go!”

“Did you push Alice off the ladder?”

“I’m not bluffing!”

“Did you push Alice off the ladder?”

Polly blinked. “No. We were arguing about Clark. Her hands got all tied up in the Christmas lights like Mike said. And then, she slipped. She fell forward. She landed on her nose.” Polly closed her eyes and grimaced. “I was always arguing with her about something.” Then her eyes popped open. “Oh, Christ.”

“That’s it. It was an accident. It was an accident your father drove off the road. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

The immensity of the revelation had Polly stunned. Yet she would not easily abandon her madness. It had a hold on her stronger than the most potent drug on the most hopeless addict. “I sunk the ship,” she said.

“The Rock probably got out some way. And Bill’s an athlete. I bet he was able to swim clear. What’s one old boat? You’ve got millions. Buy the captain a new one.” Jessica paused. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Polly began to cry. “
You’re
wrong. I did tamper with the float. I thought you would be elected homecoming queen. I blamed you for making me have the party.”

“I forgive you.”

“I tried to hurt you! I was jealous of you!”

“Why?”

“Because everybody loves you! I heard what Mike just told you! No one’s ever told me that!”

Jessica picked up the life jacket and threw it overboard. Immediately it began to drift away from the lifeboat. “Does this tell you something? You’re my friend, Polly.”

Polly stared at her in utter amazement. “You’ll die.”

“Maybe we’ll both die. But we don’t have to.”

“You would do this to Mike?”

“No.” Jessica got to her knees and slowly crawled toward Polly, wincing with the pain in her arm, the fear in her heart. “If I die,
that
will be your fault. You’re not crazy now. You know what you’re doing.” Jessica stopped and stuck out her left hand. “Give it to me, Polly.”

Polly held her eye. “Alice told me you would end up with Mike.”

“Let’s not disappoint her. Give it to me.”

“I don’t even know how to turn this thing off!”

“That is not a problem,” Jessica said, losing patience. “Give it to me!”

Polly’s anxiety evaporated, being replaced by an indignant expression and tone that was almost comical given the circumstances. “Really, Jessie, you’ve got a broken arm. I can get rid of it myself.” And with that Polly stood and—holding on to the detonator and the plastic explosives as one unit—threw the bomb as far as she could into the fog. Polly’s choice of direction seemed commendable; she had thrown it opposite the direction toward which the gang had disappeared. Of course, it was always easy to end up going in circles in the fog.

The bomb exploded. A couple of seconds later they felt the spray. A couple of seconds after that they heard an irate shout. It was Bubba.

“Hey, girls! Lighten up!”

“Come back!” Polly yelled happily. “Come back! Everything’s OK! I’m OK!” She plopped down beside Jessica and the two girls laughed and cried together as they used to in the good old days before time had made them into terrible teenagers. But there was one thing Jessica still didn’t understand. “Why did you chop down the varsity tree?” she asked.

“I used to hate seeing all those jocks and cheerleaders gather under the tree every afternoon at lunch. They’re such a bunch of snobs.” Polly smiled. “That’s one thing I don’t regret.”

There was a reason the ocean had been so flat.
Haven
had sunk less than a quarter mile off Catalina. The swells that had rocked the ship earlier had been effectively blocked by the proximity of the island.

This was fortunate. Not a single passenger or crew member drowned as a result of the bomb. When the sun rose a half hour later and the fog cleared, all of Tabb’s senior class—including The Rock and Bill—could be found either drying out on the beach or floating about on a lifeboat offshore. Some called it a miracle.
Haven
’s captain, though, was quick to credit one passenger with keeping his head in the middle of the crisis and hurrying everyone into the lifeboats. He was Mr. Carl Barber, better known as Kats.

Very few people realized that Kats had started evacuating the ship
before
the bomb went off. From then on, he was considered something of a hero.

It was a different morning from the previous one. There was no fog. There were no bombs. There was nobody on the beach. Michael was glad the school year was finally over.

It was Sunday. He could hardly remember Saturday. He had spent the whole day—and night—in Catalina’s small but efficient hospital. The diagnosis had not been too bad. Twenty-four stitches in the scalp and “a moderate concussion.” Michael would have hated to have seen a serious one. He still had a slight headache. They hadn’t wanted to release him so soon. Then he had told them how poor he was.

The sun was an hour into the clear sky, dazzling on the gentle blue Catalina water; he was still on the island. Michael sincerely believed the morning shore was the best place in the world to sit while waiting for someone. He had recently adopted that belief. He stretched his bare feet through the cool grainy sand. Jessica was supposed to meet him soon.

He had a girlfriend. He had a sister. He had vindication.

A good day to be alive. I need a lot more of these.

Lieutenant Keller had called him and asked if he could interest him in pursuing a career as a detective. Keller had sounded properly chastised, but to his credit, he had also seemed happy to be proven wrong.

Michael had a visitor before Jessica arrived. The fellow seemingly came out of nowhere. He wore black leather as if he had been born with it on. His red hair shone in the morning light. He carried a brown paper sack in his left hand.

“Hi, Clark,” Michael said, not getting up to greet him.

“Hello.” Clark glanced at the white bandage wrapped around Michael’s head. He apparently decided to remain standing. Michael felt no fear, not even when Clark removed a gun from his coat pocket. “This is yours,” Clark said.

Michael accepted it. Clark had removed the bullets. “Thanks. Just what I need.”

Clark gestured to Michael’s bandage. “Did I do that?”

“Yeah.”

Clark chuckled. “You should have known better than to come to my door in a hundred-degree heat with a sports coat on.”

“You knew I had the gun?” Michael wondered what Clark had in the bag.

“Sure. But I didn’t know what you were going to do with it.”

In his own way, Clark was apologizing. Michael decided he had no reason to hold a grudge since he had been the one who had brought the gun. “I wasn’t going to shoot you,” he said.

“Should have told me before I clobbered you.”

Michael studied Clark’s face. He wanted to make sure he had the real one. “I chased you the whole year.”

“I knew you followed me from the gas station that one day.”

“You were on a fast bike. Why didn’t you ditch me?”

“I wanted to know why you were following me,”

“Were you really stoned that night I met you at the game?’

“Probably. Why?”

“Honestly? You’re a weird guy, Clark. I followed you because I thought you might have killed Alice.”

“Why would I kill Alice?”

The proverbial question. It was good to finally understand there was no answer to it, that it had been an accident. “It doesn’t matter. How come you’re here?”

Clark’s green cat eyes brightened. “I heard about what happened on the radio. I called the hospital to see how Polly was doing. They referred me to her doctor. He wants me to come meet with him and Polly. He told me she was starting therapy. He thought I could help her.” Clark shifted his paper sack into his right hand. “What’s the dude talking about?”

Polly must have been placed into the hands of an innovative psychiatrist. Michael approved. Confronting a flesh-and-blood illusion couldn’t be any worse than being struck by lightning.

Clark hadn’t actually answered his question. “I don’t want to spoil the surprise,” Michael said. “But you definitely should go. You’d find it fascinating.”

Clark showed interest. “How’s she looking these days?”

“Thin and sexy.” Michael had to shake his head. “What did Alice ever see in you?”

Clark was not offended. When he spoke next, though, there was a strange authority in his voice. “She used to talk about you. She thought you were alright. I guess you thought the same about her. But your Alice was not mine. She was an artist. She could have been great. She had my passion.” He wiped his nose with the back of his arm. “She couldn’t stand me most of the time, but she saw something in me most people don’t.”

“What was she to you?”

Clark handed him the bag. Inside was an achingly beautiful painting of Alice walking alone on an ocean shore beside a wide desert, wearing a long white dress, a string of jewels around her neck. It was on the small side, twelve inches by twelve inches, and had yet to be framed, but the colors pulsed with life; they literally took Michael’s breath away. He understood. Alice had meant a great deal to him.

“You cleared her name,” Clark said.

“So you came all the way over here to give me this?”

Clark nodded. “You’re right, I’m a weird guy.”

He walked away before Michael could even thank him. Michael stood and threw the gun into the ocean. A few minutes later he heard Jessica call his name.