Getting Somewhere (30 page)

TUESDAY, JULY 24

THE GIRLS NEED VERY LITTLE DIRECTION. THEY KNOW
what needs to be harvested and how much, are efficient at getting the produce washed and divided into shares for each basket. Even Lauren is quiet, though she is not moving any faster than usual. Sarah is a little surprised she is even helping, since Grace is not here to goad her.

With no salad greens, no carrots to wash or green onions either, they are finished by early afternoon. New patches of all those things are weeded and growing and thriving, though, and everyone wonders privately how they will ever get everything done, then realizes they may not be here to worry about it.

Ellie asks if any of the girls want to go along to the CSA pickup. Sarah feels awful about disappointing her, but she can't imagine going to town right now, riding in the truck with Ellie, trying to make conversation with her. No one else wants to go either.

Sarah and Cassie follow Ellie up to the house, and Jenna heads back into the garden. Lauren has already gone up, and no one even thinks to ask where she is or wonder how she decided they were done. Sarah and Cassie run up to their rooms to remove their filthy clothes and put on something cleaner, and Sarah decides she will walk back to the marsh, considers asking Cassie to go along. Cassie's door is still shut when she is done so she heads downstairs and thinks she'll look at books in the library for a while to see if Cassie might come down. She hears Ellie leave her room, the front door slam, and the truck engine start up, listens as the tires crunch gravel on the way out of the driveway, takes a deep breath as the sound reminds her of Jason's car following the same pathway only a couple nights ago.

Sarah was sure it was all over. Grace would tell Ellie what happened, and then both Sarah and Lauren would be sent back to detention. Maybe, Sarah had thought, with Lauren gone, the complaint would be withdrawn and the program would be saved. In some weird way, Sarah could cast herself as the hero, capturing the villain and sacrificing herself to lure danger away from the village, return everyone there to comfort and safety.

But then Grace was gone, didn't seem to be coming back. Sarah kept an eye on Ellie, soon concluded that she'd been told nothing, hadn't seen or talked to Grace since the aborted escape, would possibly never know that Sarah and Lauren had been prepared to abandon her and the program to its fate. It has seemed impossible that they wouldn't be in trouble for it, might never have to see the look of hurt and disappointment on Ellie's face. Though Sarah thinks she should be exhilarated by the reprieve, she is, instead, devastated by it. It's as if punishment for this crime might have lessened the guilt for the more serious ones. And, worse than that, nothing can now prevent her from being here to witness the real devastation when it ultimately comes.

But Sarah has been able to concentrate on little other than the content of Lauren's last words to Grace, trying to decide if they contain the explanation for why Grace is now gone. It's been like sucking a pop bottle that has been empty for hours, every attempt at finding liquid just making her that much thirstier.

Sarah hasn't taken a single book off the shelf when she hears the phone in the office ringing. For some reason, she runs across the hall and presses her ear to the door, listens while Ellie's voice tells whoever is on the line that no one can come to the phone right now, hears a faint buzz as the machine switches on.

A man's voice says, “Hey, Ellie. This is Stephen. I've done a little footwork here on your questions, and I've got some information for you. I think it is mostly good news, though I don't want anyone getting their hopes up yet. I'm going to be out of the office the rest of today and in court most of tomorrow but, hopefully, we can talk sometime Thursday. Okay. Have a great day. Talk to you later.”

When Sarah looks up, Cassie is standing at the bottom of the stairs with a stricken look on her face. Then Sarah realizes what she has heard, puts her hand over her mouth to stifle a squeal.

“Did you hear that? Did you hear what he said?”

“I think so. Oh, I wish we could listen to it again.” Cassie has stepped over to Sarah, and Sarah's mind is racing with the ridiculous thought that Lauren could get them into the office so they could replay the message.

Sarah says, “It was Stephen Hastings. Did you hear?”

“That's what I thought. Tell me what you heard him say.”

“He said he's got information and it's mostly good news, but not to get anyone's hopes up.”

“Do you think it's about . . . my baby?”

“What else could it be?”

“Well, maybe something about the complaint.”

“I don't think he has anything to do with that. I think it's about your baby, Cassie.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? Just ‘okay'?”

Cassie smiles and shrugs. “I'm trying not to get my hopes up.”

Sarah laughs and pretends to slap herself in the forehead. “You know what I think we should do?”

“What?”

“I think we should completely ignore his advice. We might as well be hopeful about something.”

Cassie smiles and then covers her mouth with both of her hands. She is bouncing on her feet, faster and faster, until she bursts into a whirl, her arms extended from her shoulders like wings. She stops abruptly in front of Sarah, takes several shallow breaths that end in a tiny whine, like the mewling of a cat.

“Okay. How do we do that?”

“A
RE YOU GOING
to the river today?”

“Why do you ask?”

Lauren shrugs, looks down at her bare feet digging into the soft dirt. “I just wondered. Thought I could walk back there with you.”

Jenna stands and turns to Lauren, frowning slightly. “Kind of late to feel bad about everything, don't you think?”

Lauren looks instantly uncomfortable but quickly hides it, stands up taller, and puts her hand on her hip.

“What are you talking about?”

“C'mon, Lauren, What's the point of pretending now? Everybody is going to find out tomorrow that it was you. What did you tell them? That they tie you up in your room at night? Won't let you eat? Oh, wait, that wouldn't be punishment. How about force you to eat? Vegetables. There, that's it. They make you eat vegetables you don't like. That would be about your speed.”

“Shut up, Jenna. You have no idea what you're talking about.”

“So, tell me. What am I talking about? What did you say that got this whole thing started?”

“Why are you so sure it has anything to do with me?”

“Okay. I'm totally confused. You come back here and ask me if you can walk to the river with me. What
did
you want to talk about? Did you think we were going to discuss the weather or Paris fashions or if the Yankees are going to pull it out this year?”

Jenna turns away, is bending back down to the broccoli plants she's been weeding, when Lauren says, “She wouldn't have had to run away if it wasn't true.”

Jenna pauses, reaches for another weed.

“I had to tell someone. She can't be allowed to get away with it. I can't help it if you were in love with her or something. But you'd better know that you weren't anything special to her. She was constantly after me, too, and I couldn't stand it anymore. You know with them it's just whoever says yes. Maybe you were going to say yes, maybe you already did, but not me. And she took it out on me any chance she could get. Even you had to see that. It's just wrong and this program is wrong, totally fucked, the work and the sessions and all this shit. Even if I thought I'd actually have to go back, I'd rather be in detention than have some pervert drooling over me and another one who gets her kicks trying to be our mommy. This place is sick, and you're just as sick as they are if you don't know that.”

Jenna is thinking of all the fights she's had, all those years when the anger would well up in her and the hurt could only be contained by clenched fists and swinging arms. Part of her wants to hit Lauren, to hear her scream. But when Jenna straightens up, Lauren appears to have shrunk and Jenna can clearly see the top of her head where the brown roots are several inches long, forming a dark cap, a nearly perfect line around her scalp where the blonde begins. The haughtiness is completely gone from her expression and her eyes are wide, maybe even a little fearful, and Jenna is almost moved to laughter. But it's too pathetic, and when Lauren turns her face toward the house, her mouth is turned down and she is blinking rapidly and Jenna can see that she's close to crying.

It's all an act or maybe it's not. At this point, Jenna doesn't care, hardly even registers the girl beside her, the skinny arms and the bony knees and the once impossibly shiny hair gone lank and dim, the lacy camisole now stained with garden dirt. Jenna is telling herself that none of it matters and still, Lauren's words are searing a pathway into her heart, a hot jagged pain that she thinks must be like getting struck by an arrow. She has seen those films where the antelope or giraffe gets hit and, instead of falling, takes off running, desperate to get as far away from the source of the pain as possible, even as the movement and the adrenalin and the pumping blood push the poison deeper and deeper into its heart.

Jenna takes one more look at Lauren who still seems to be expecting something from Jenna, then turns, wanting to walk, wanting to run, but paralyzed by the palpable sensation that she is taking her last look at everything.

I
T'S LATE, MAYBE
close to midnight. The air has barely cooled since the sun went down and feels dense and laden with moisture, though the sky is awash with stars. The frog choir even sounds lazy to Jenna, deeper and less melodic than it did earlier in the summer, and has now been joined by crickets and katydids.

Jenna has made a decision. It's as if everything on the page in front of her, the text she had been so anxious to read and understand, has been completely erased except for a single word, the word that tells her what she must do. She has mentally banished her worries for the people around her, can already remember the sense of freedom she always feels when she has managed to escape protective walls, moved past the need for human contact. She is completely alone already with no one to take care of, no one to concern her but herself. She's fucked things up before, and she will most certainly do it again. The only recourse is to refasten her armor, her only regret that she took it off at all.

When the screen door squeaks open behind her, followed by the gentle
thud
of someone's hand preventing it from slapping shut, Jenna doesn't turn. She can almost believe she has been waiting, like someone lingering outside a sick room for word of death.

Ellie sits down beside Jenna and lays a thick pouch of loose tobacco and a pack of rolling papers on the small, round table between them, flicks a lighter, and exhales heavily.

“Help yourself.”

Jenna hesitates, reaches for the tobacco and papers, and expertly rolls herself a thin cigarette. Ellie hands her the lighter.

“Grace is the one who got me started on this stuff. It's organic, as if that could make any kind of difference.” Ellie laughs a little sourly, takes another drag off of her cigarette.

Neither one says anything for a while, though Jenna can't help but notice that Ellie has pulled her chair a little closer, turned her body so her knees are visible just off Jenna's elbow as two shining globes in the moonlight.

Jenna doesn't know where her voice comes from, is almost irritated to hear herself speak.

“She's not coming back, is she?”

“I don't know.”

There is a long pause. Jenna gets up and steps to the edge of the porch, pinches the glowing ember off the end of her cigarette into the bushes, and puts the butt into her pocket. She stands there for a moment, gazing off over the garden, and then turns to face Ellie, though her features are dim, shadowed under the porch roof.

“I've never . . . been any place like this before.” Jenna guesses Ellie is nodding.