“Yeah, yeah, but not as high.”
“Maybe you should give me the keys. How many beers have you had?”
“It’s not the beer, kiddo.”
Mack’s grin is ghoulish. Meredith puts her arms around my waist and I want to leave so badly and forget the whole frigging conversation with Mack.
“So. Stop drinking now.” I swipe the bottle right out of his hand and shove a chip bag at him. “You’ll be okay if you dance some and eat.”
“Just gimme a minute, I’ll run you home.”
I pretend to slap his face. As my open palm hits the inside of my arm—such a realistic sound—Juliann whips her head around and stares. She and Mack whisper in between kisses and then she smiles at Meredith, who smiles at me and winks. Can they really know what I’m thinking?
Mack grabs my shirt and tugs me down so our faces are within inches. “Hey,” he starts. What I said must finally register with him. “Oh. Right. Okay, no more beer. No more…illegal shit. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” His burp is lost in the music. “Be safe.” He laughs at my grimace. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Jeez, how does one time make him such a damn expert?
CHAPTER TWELVE
The courthouse clock says it’s only just after ten. Dad has taken Nick and some of his soccer-mad cohorts camping at the state park across the river. A Halloween campout, complete with greased grapes for eyeballs, marbles in Jell-O for kidney stones, and a bowl of cooked spaghetti for brains. You know the drill. Dad loves this kind of thing. It uses all his Boy Scout skills. And it eases the pain of his sons having failed to follow in his scouting footsteps.
Mom went to visit a college friend on the other side of Charlottesville. She and Dad argued about the gas, but in the end he apologized and said she should go. Anyone can see how she’s been unraveling with the constant back and forth to the lawyer. Walker is driving her crazy. She finally went to talk to Senator Yowell for advice about switching lawyers. They didn’t actually switch, but he must have told her something positive because that night she and Dad went out to dinner alone and they came back laughing and joking about college and their political activist friends. If they act normal at least part of the time, it takes a lot of pressure off me.
Anyway… even Dad with his head in his manuscripts could see she needed a break. The point is, astrology aside, the stars have aligned for me. For once. The houseboat is empty.
Meredith and I run across Route 17 like mad dogs. The band playing at Ferebee’s is loud, very redneck, and a lot off-key. No one’s on the sidewalk, though, so they can’t be but so rinky-dink. Up ahead of us Officer Brewer cruises along at about five miles an hour. His huge silhouette, easy to recognize, fills the rear window of the cop car. Everyone in Tappahannock, even the criminals, knows that Sheriff Jessup’s mostly home at night. I once overheard Dad say it’s his much younger wife who keeps him busy. And the town force is mostly traffic cops anyway. Not a lot of crime in this backwater.
I raise the pirate hook to Brewer in greeting. Joe told me once it’s always better to connect with adults, and especially cops, than to leave them wondering whether you’re hiding something.
“You know him?” Meredith asks. The gray sheet drags along behind her like a little girl’s blankie.
“When you live in this small a town your whole life, you know everyone.”
Brewer brakes and waits for us to come even with his window, open despite the October crispness. “You two been at the Yowell boy’s party?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Going straight home, not walking by way of the bridge tonight, captain?”
“No, sir.” Word of my diving prowess has spread.
“Going to introduce me?”
The dude must never have taken a girl on a romantic walk in his sorry life. Mood is crucial, even I know that.
“Meredith, this is Officer Brewer of the Town of Tappahannock Police Department. Officer Brewer, Meredith Rilke.”
Brewer nods. Meredith smiles. I tug her back into the shadows. Our clothes are wet from Leonard’s pool and Brewer has been trained to notice stuff like that. No matter how much I dislike Leonard for trying to snake my date, I sure don’t want Brewer to get it in his head he needs to visit the party. I’m thinking I should call Yowell and warn him, when the cruiser pulls away and heads toward Wal-Mart. Brewer sure knows where the action is on a Saturday night in Tappahannock. I stop holding my breath.
We walk down the block by the original town clerk’s office, from the 1700s. I think Jefferson and all those speech-making dudes. It’s a miniature brick building that invites peeking. Meredith stretches up to the tiny window and trips on the sheet. I catch her before she can fall. Her body sinks into mine without either of us having time to think about it.
“Easy,” I say, but I don’t want this to stop. She needs me. It’s a great feeling.
After she steadies herself, we’re that close. And alone. Finally. When she looks up, I kiss her, a real Hollywood-type kiss because I’m holding her close enough this time. She tastes sweet, a little like the soda she drank at Leonard’s house.
“Look,” she says.
As the cruiser pulls out onto Route 17, Brewer is flicking the cruiser’s taillights on and off. How juvenile can you get? But he’s got the feeling exactly right.
By the time Meredith and I walk down the alley behind Water Lane to the D-funct marina, I’ve told her some of the famous Landon “rivah” stories and she may be starting to think I’m truly charming. The condoms in my pocket are the size of a yo-yo, they feel so conspicuous. I help her into the rowboat. The only thing that’s missing is a full moon. But then someone on shore might be able to see us on the boat. It’s probably better that it’s dark. Farther downriver voices from a loud party float back up to us. A band starts and stops, starts again. Over the thick slurp of the oars in the creek, I ask Meredith about her childhood.
“Juliann’s always been more athletic, more social. You would think with the same genes I would be that way too. I’ve tried. Put ten people my age in a room, my stomach turns into a tangle of … of… I don’t know, something coiled tight, and I shut down.”
“You did fine tonight.”
“Because you were there. I knew if anything happened, if Leonard pushed too hard, you’d be there.”
“Leonard’s pushing?”
“All the time. He calls you Dead Man Walking. Says there’s no future, why waste the present.” Her face still shows the gray paint and the black circles under her eyes. If I didn’t know it was makeup, I’d think someone had hit her. In that instant I could easily have hit them back.
She rests her hand on my thigh because my arms are busy stroking oars through black water. While her fingers move, up and back, I stay silent. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you. But I don’t think it’s fair that he lets you think he’s your friend. It’s so phony.” She’s crying, but so quietly I can barely hear.
“Don’t. Merry, don’t cry over Leonard. He’s not worth it.” I’ve never seen a girl cry except Mom. And in the movies. This isn’t like that. Meredith hasn’t flung herself, sobbing, on the couch. Still, it’s totally terrifying. She’s crying because of me, and I don’t even know what I did.
Although we’re only a few boat lengths from the houseboat, it doesn’t seem like such a hot time to give her the tour. Instead I row steadily up the creek toward the Route 17 bridge, figuring I’ll show her how cool it is with the reeds on both sides and the world gone. And I’ll invite her to go back with me another day, when it’s light. But even up by the public boat ramp, she’s still crying, little lifts of her shoulders when she breathes, even if it is to herself, her chin tucked so I can’t see her face, as if the whole time she’s been holding this in and now the dam is broken.