By ten-fifteen the club was all but abandoned to the staff, and Joni Fletcher found herself waiting with only Jane and Seth Baker on the front porch, facing a parking lot that was empty except for the Fletchers’ Mercedes-Benz, the Bakers’ Lexus, and a collection of battered and rusting old cars that belonged to the staff. “I don’t believe they’re still at it,” Joni said, glancing impatiently at her watch. “If I’d known those two were still going to be playing this late, I’d have caught a ride with Myra.”
“Go get them, will you, Seth?” Jane Baker asked.
The knot of anxiety that had only just begun to release him from its grip tightened again, and for an instant Seth wondered what would happen if he tried to beg off. But what would be the use? His father was already mad at him, and what would happen when they got home wouldn’t get any worse just because he’d brought a message from his mother. Turning away from the porch, he went back into the clubhouse and down the stairs to the pool room in the basement.
Though the club had banished smoking a year ago, the low-ceilinged, walnut-paneled room that housed the club’s single billiard table still reeked of the thousands of cigars that had smoldered in the room over the decades, and Seth almost gagged when he stepped through the door to see his father lining up a bank shot. Knowing better than to utter even a single word before his father completed the shot, Seth waited until the cue had clicked, the ball his father had been aiming at had failed to drop into the far corner pocket, and the cue ball had come to rest in an almost unplayable position against the rail, next to the nearest corner pocket. “Mom says she’s ready,” he said when Blake finally glanced over at him.
“Nice timing,” Blake Baker said, his eyes fixed balefully on his son. “In case you’re interested, what I’m trying to do here is win back the money you managed to lose for me this afternoon.”
“Come on, Blake,” Ed Fletcher said. “It wasn’t Seth’s fault — all he did was make a couple of good shots. Seems to me it was you and Zack who lost the money.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Seth saw Zack Fletcher’s jaw clench and his fingers tighten on the pool cue he was holding. “But Mom said—” he began.
His father didn’t let him finish. “Tell your mother that if she’s in such a hurry, she can catch a ride with Joni. I’ll drop Zack and Ed off after we’re done here.”
“And at the rate it’s going, that might take all night,” Ed Fletcher said. Leaning over his cue, he lined up his shot carefully, then sent the cue ball the length of the table, banking it off the far end so it came back, glanced the six ball into the side pocket, then sent the four ball into the corner pocket that lay only a couple of inches from where the shot had begun. Seth backed out the door, then turned and started back up the stairs. He’d just gotten to the landing when he heard Zack’s voice.
“I want to talk to you, Beth.”
Seth froze. Part of him wanted to run, to dash through the lobby and out the front door before Zack could get to the top of the stairs. But then he realized even Zack wouldn’t dare start something right in front of his mother. And by tomorrow Zack would have told everybody he knew that he had run away.
Run away and hid behind his mother’s skirts.
He thought of Angel Sullivan, staying through the party and facing Heather Dunne, Sarah Harmon, Chad Jackson, Jared Woods, and all the other kids who hadn’t spoken to her but kept talking about her just loud enough to make sure she heard every word they said.
If she could face them, he could face Zack Fletcher.
So instead of running, he waited at the top of the stairs until Zack caught up with him.
And suddenly, having made the decision not to run away, he was no longer afraid. “So what do you want to talk about, Zack?”
Zack hesitated — he’d been sure that Seth would run away from him. And tomorrow he would have had one more story to tell everyone about what a chicken “Beth” Baker was. But he hadn’t run. Instead, Seth was just standing there, looking at him as if he wasn’t scared at all.
“What did you do?” Zack finally asked.
Seth stared at him as if he didn’t understand the question. Indeed, he didn’t.
“This afternoon,” Zack said, his voice rising. “How’d you make all those shots?”
Seth’s mind raced as he tried to think of something — anything — that Zack might accept. But recalling the black cat that had stayed with him all the way through the back nine, watching every shot so closely, as if it was controlling them, he realized what to say.
The truth.
The simple truth.
“It was easy,” he said softly. “I did it the same way I messed up your last putt. I used witchcraft on you!”
Zack gaped at him, then pulled back his fist and smashed it into Seth’s face. Seth jerked aside at the last second, just enough to avoid the full force of the blow, but Zack’s fist still caught him on the jaw and sent him sprawling to the floor. Instead of bursting into tears, however, or trying to scuttle away, Seth only looked up at Zack.
“I don’t think you should have done that,” he said, his voice cold. He picked himself up, and his eyes locked on Zack’s. “And my name isn’t ‘Beth,’ ” he added. “It’s ‘Seth.’ ”
Then he turned around and walked away.
Chapter 33
YRA SULLIVAN LAY AWAKE THROUGH MOST OF THE night, waiting for Marty to come upstairs and praying that he wouldn’t. When they’d come in at a little after nine, he was sprawled in his chair with the lights off, the droning television providing a dim glow, enough for her to see that the collection of empty beer bottles around his chair had almost doubled while she and Angel were at the country club, and a pint bottle of bourbon had been added to it. She wasn’t sure whether she was angry or relieved that he’d spent the hours she was gone drinking himself into a stupor. Part of her didn’t want to cope with him, or even talk about what had happened that afternoon when she’d seen something she couldn’t possibly have seen. But another part of her hoped he’d be sober enough when they got home that she could at least tell him he’d been right about the party at the country club — she and Angel shouldn’t have gone at all. She’d known it the minute she saw all those kids dressed in their preppy clothes, in contrast to Angel who looked foolish in her vampire costume.
Why had those girls Angel overheard in the dressing room done it? She knew that Angel had never done a thing to them.
Had it been up to Myra, they would have left right then, but before she could even say anything, Angel had dashed away, and when she found her daughter hiding in the ladies’ room, Angel had insisted she was all right. So Myra had gone back to the party, found Joni, and tried to make the best of it.
But the “best of it” turned out to be the forced smiles a few of Joni’s friends managed to come up with, while the rest of it was pretending she didn’t notice the disapproving stares most of the club members were giving her and the backs that were turned wherever she went. What kept her from finding Angel and leaving within the first hour was the knowledge that the only place they could have come was home, and she suspected that being home that evening would be even worse, not only for her, but for Angel too. So she’d stuck it out, and so had Angel, who at least had Jane Baker’s boy — Seth, that was his name — to keep her company. Not that she was certain that was a good thing — knowing what boys wanted from all girls.
Though the subject of sex had always made her uncomfortable, she’d tried to talk to Angel about it on the way home.