19

Now, I’d rather sip a battery-acid cocktail than go out to that friggin’ field again, but by the time Hayes rings the doorbell, I’m ready to get the hell out of this house. For the past two hours, my grandmother has been fussing over me as if I were some kind of virgin sacrifice.

“No, Alex,” she says when she sees my first outfit. “Red is acceptable for elementary-school teachers on Valentine’s Day and for prostitutes, maybe, but not for a young lady who hopes to get married one day.”

I don’t have the energy anymore. I go back and change into a green shirt and a denim skirt.

“And what is that getup?” she says. “An outfit is fine, a costume is acceptable, but you are not walking out my front door in a getup.”

“There’s nothing good about a getup,” Josie chimes in.

“What do you want me to put on?”

“Whatever makes you the most comfortable,” my grandmother says. “Far be it from me to tell you what to wear.”

(And then she tells me exactly what to wear.)

When I come out the front door in a white top and chinos, Hayes laughs. “Triplets!” she says, gesturing at her sparkly, snowy Michael Stars minidress. “Madison’s wearing white too.”

“Interesting choice for a party in a dust bowl,” I grumble. I trudge along behind her and then stop when I see what she’s driving: It’s the SUV again.

“What happened to the Prius?” I ask, getting in.

“We need a real car tonight, sweetheart,” Madison says from the backseat. “Not the eco-can.”

It turns out that she’s right. Hayes takes us flying out of town, north up Route 17, and then down some rural route I haven’t been on before—it’s so old, it makes the truck vibrate. The sun set twenty minutes before, and still we keep bumping into the gloom, with the windows open and the hot air blowing in our faces.

“Sorry, y’all,” Hayes says. “The air-conditioning’s broken.”

I never thought Hayes and Madison would tolerate having their hair messed up like this.

“Is there any water?” I ask, my mouth dry.

Madison hands me a bottle of Vitaminwater from her purse. Besides being way too sweet for my palate, it tastes weird.

“I guess we’re slumming it tonight,” she says when she sees me make a face. “Drink up. There’s no place to get anything out here.”

Suddenly, Hayes brakes hard and turns off the two-lane blacktop into a field.

“Where’s the road?” I cry.

The two of them burst out laughing as the truck lurches and bounces across the dirt. The sugar water is sloshing around inside me; I feel sick. The only thing keeping me from throwing up is the fresh air coming in the window. A horsefly blows in and whacks me in the face. Great.

We blast through some scrub and out onto a sandy logging road in the boonies. It’s pitch-dark, and there’s barely any moonlight. Hayes doesn’t even pause; she just points the SUV straight ahead and steps on the gas.

Suddenly, she stands up on the brakes, and the truck slides to a stop.

“My aviators!” she cries, feeling her hair.

“Your what?” I ask.

“My Marc Jacobs sunglasses. They blew out the window.”

“Boo-hoo,” Madison says.

“They cost a hundred and sixty dollars!”

That’s weird, I think. When did the MGs start keeping track of their cash?

“Well, I’m not going to get them,” Madison declares loudly. “Get them yourself.”

Hayes looks at me pleadingly.

“Okay, I’ll do it.” I pop open the door, grateful to get out into the fresh air. It’s humid outside, and I feel as if I’m breathing through a wet blanket. Crickets are screeching in the woods. As I trot along the dirt road, I can feel a storm building. The air is electric.

Just as I spot Hayes’s sunglasses, it suddenly becomes really dark. I look up in time to see the truck driving away.

Is this a joke? No, because there it goes, bouncing around a bend in the road. I race after the SUV—dreads flopping, legs cramping. But it’s no use. Hayes and Madison are gone.

I stand, panting and sweating, and feel tears sting my eyes. Well. Looks like our “friendship” was a way of getting me to lower my guard, and now this is the punch line. Is everyone out to get me? And how am I going to get home?

I begin to plod up the road. My legs feel like lead, but I keep putting one foot in front of the other. Pick ’em up, put ’em down. Pick ’em up, put ’em down. And that’s when I hear a car behind me.

It’s about fifty yards down the road, creeping along at a couple of miles per hour. The headlights are off, and when I stop, it stops. To my left I spot a ditch at the side of the road—probably the one in which my grandmother and Josie will find me dead. No, no, I’m sure I’m overreacting. More likely than not, this is just a bunch of other kids on their way to the Field. This must be a shortcut or something. I walk toward the dark car and raise one hand.

“Hey!” I shout. “Do you—”

But then the headlights flick on, shooting straight out and pinning me in the middle of the road. I hear the doors open on either side.

Okay, I don’t care what kind of fool I look like. I’ve seen The Silence of the Lambs. I jump the ditch and run.

But the headlights ruined my night vision, and I smack face-first into a tree. I fall on my butt and taste blood. Behind me the serial killers, or whoever they are (Gilroy?), are getting closer, so I scramble up, put out my arms, and run like the devil. I hit a tree with my shoulder, jam my fingers on another, and smash my knee into a third, but I don’t stop. Tiny branches whip my face, but I don’t care.

I stop crashing through the brush and crouch down to listen. I can’t hear anything except the screaming cicadas and my blood pounding in my ears. I can’t tell what direction I came from. I can’t breathe normally. Heat lightning flickers gently in the sky. I stand up and start to walk.

Every branch I step on causes me to cringe. Something is in the woods with me, and whatever it is can hear me and see me blundering in the dark. At any minute, I’ll see the shape of a man step out from behind a tree, and it will all be over.

Suddenly, a shape looms before me. I let out a noise and fall backward. It’s massive, with its arms outstretched to grab me. I scrabble backward in the dry leaves and realize that the figure isn’t moving. I freeze.

Wait, it’s a… statue?

Fifteen feet tall, the sculpture is rough and primitive. When I finally get up the nerve to touch it, I discover it’s made of concrete. Its arms are stretched out as if the statue is going to hug me—twenty-five feet from fingertip to fingertip. I can feel it watching me, and while in the daytime I would laugh at myself for being so stupid, at night, alone in the woods, I only want to get away. I know it’s just a statue and that it’s not really alive… but what if I’m wrong?

I creep past it and keep moving, feeling as though I’m being watched. I keep waiting to hear the statue lift itself out of the ground and shamble after me. And then I trip over the TV. I’ve tripped over a TV before (don’t ask), and there’s no mistaking the noise it makes or where it clips me in the shins. My hands hit the dirt, knocking over a broken plastic pitcher, and all around me on the ground I see light-colored shapes scattered everywhere: broken plates, toaster ovens, microwaves—it’s a graveyard for smashed junk.

Then I notice the headstones and realize it’s an actual graveyard. The stones are worn and old, leaning to the side, split in half, sinking into the mulch. I think about the dead bodies directly beneath me: how their coffins have probably rotted away, and the dirt has subsided, and their hands are just inches away from breaking through the mulch and twining around my fingers. I’m up and running again.

I pass a tree with white ribbons hanging from its branches, then another tree, this one with nothing but hubcaps dangling from chains. I swear I see white candles burning, far away, but when I turn toward them, they flicker and go out. Two massive rocks have been chopped and shaped until they look like the heads of African kings. I run between them. The trees are getting thicker. The woods are getting darker…. I’m lost.

Wait—I smell salt water and the sweet smell of thyme. Then the scent of cloves, cinnamon, and lemongrass. I hear the tinkling of a wind chime up ahead, and I burst into a clearing. Then I recognize it… Buzzard’s Roost.

All the lights are out except at the Buzzard Social Club, where it’s bright and loud. Music is playing. People are probably watching something on the stupid satellite dish. Suddenly, something as mundane as television seems tremendously comforting to me.

The music gets louder, and it sounds alive. Maybe they’re having a party? Just being around people right now, having a beer or even a Coke, something processed and artificial that was made in a factory and sold in a supermarket—even that sounds reassuringly normal to me now. I burst into the social club.

“Hey, guys!” I shout. “Remember—” And then I stop cold.

The room is packed with people, and they’re all staring at me. Three drummers with their hands frozen over their drums. Dozens of black people I’ve never seen before. Old white ladies. My grandmother. Josie. And right across from me, those two backstabbers, Hayes and Madison.

Doc Buzzard, the man I saw in the garden shed, steps out of the crowd. He’s dressed in white.

“Hello, Alex,” he says, as if we’re talking about the weather. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

He claps his hands, and the drummers begin to play. The noise confuses me, and everyone begins to sing something that sounds like a hymn. Is this one of those weird Christian intervention things?

I open my mouth to tell him I just want to go home, but he’s shaking my hands, first my left and then my right, and then he hugs me, pressing me to one shoulder and then the other, and I’m passed along, and now I’m shaking hands and hugging someone else, and on around the circle, spinning and shaking and hugging. I want to tell them that I just want to go home, but there’s a sound like a gong and then a million angry bees, and a ripple goes through the room. I stand stock-still. I’m facing Madison. She’s shaking her car keys and singing a hymn. I grab her by the shoulders and give her my killer face.

“Did you drug me?” I ask.

“Jon-ta-conku-er. Jon-ta-conku-er,” she murmurs.

But there’s no way to ask her what she’s talking about, because my legs go out from under me, and hundreds of hands are catching me, laying me on the floor, floating me down to it light as a feather, and draping an enormous piece of pink silk over my body.

The circle of people is moving around me counterclockwise, singing, drumming, stomping. They have their house keys in their hands, and they’re shaking them like a million metal maracas, and they’re stomping on the wooden floor that’s vibrating like a drum now, and I can feel it all through my body.

I roll my head to one side and see that the floor is covered with cakes. Pink cakes, yellow cakes, white cakes, wedding cake, birthday cake, all covered in sugar flowers and icing and sitting on bone-china plates. Something wet splashes my face, and I breathe it in and start to choke. It’s sweet and sticky, and I realize that someone has just emptied a bottle of champagne over my head.

“What the hell?”

I want to say something else, and then I realize that it’s Hayes and Madison, and they’re drinking from bottles of champagne and pouring the rest on my face. I can’t breathe. My face feels like thick rubber, and then something happens to me. I’ve never taken acid before, not even mushrooms, but suddenly a vision comes together out of the noise, the drumming, the jangling keys, the stomping, and the singing.

I see myself three times. One of me is wrapped in a woman’s arms, a woman who feels like my mother. I’m cuddled up like a kitten, and she’s stroking my hair and whispering to me and telling me everything’s going to be okay.

The second me is some kind of snake, slithering in the dust. I’m molting my skin and becoming something better. Different.

The third me, though, this one stops my heart. The third me is beautiful. My hair is glowing. I’m holding my body differently: My shoulders are back, my hips are tipped back, my legs are strong, my posture is straight. I’m not Pudge. I’m not Alex. I’m Alexandria. I’ve left a little girl behind me, like that snake shedding its skin, and I’m curvy and voluptuous and beautiful.

I see Doc Buzzard watching me with his yellow eyes, and I walk up to him and stare at him, daring him to say something to me. Then I whirl and begin to dance. I step into the circle, and I’m singing the songs and I know the words, and then I’m in the middle of the circle, and the candlelight is soft and beautiful. I see my grandmother, and in her I see my mother and I see myself. Someone hands me a piece of cake, and I eat it, and it’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted. I want more.

I drink from a bottle of champagne. Someone hands me a cigar, and the smoke turns my lungs into rich mahogany wood. People take my hands on either side, and we float outdoors, and it’s as bright as day. Candles are lit all over the yard, and sixteen women are sweeping the dirt, back and forth, like they’re dancing. In front of me the swept yard leads down to the river and the dark rush of water, and everyone is moving that way while the ladies sweep and the candles sparkle. I drink another bottle of champagne, and it tastes better than the first. It feels good on my face and running down the front of my shirt.

We reach the river. The tide must be out. Between the bank and the water is pluff mud, soft and black and warm. We walk through it and reach the water, and then the singing starts again. I look back at the riverbank, and everyone’s watching. Someone’s leaning me backward into the rushing water, and I go under, and everything gets washed away. Here in the cool and dark at the bottom of the river, I feel the water moving through me. It pulls out images that pass in front of my eyes:

There I am as a kid, climbing up the moon path above the RC beach, alone.

There we are, Billy and I, throwing rocks in the pond.

There we are playing mud ball on the beach.

The beach! I’m older now, and Reggie’s kissing me.

And now we’re behind the Main, and he’s giving me a joint. I push it away, but he roughly puts it to my lips again…. I understand, he whispers. I’m the only one who does.

Now he’s planting the first crop at the RC. There he is, with a spade; it’s Reggie, ripping up my mother’s precious plants.

And finally, he is with Crystal, standing where the Sanctuary used to be. He’s holding her the same way he did in the soccer field, and she’s laughing. But for some reason, I don’t care when I see them this time. It’s like watching two strangers. He looks so ugly to me, with his scrawny body and his liar’s eyes. I let the water pull him away.

I stand up, gasping for breath. Someone hands me a bottle of champagne, but it tastes flat and boring. I let it drop into the water. My salty tears fall into the brackish water, and that’s the last thing I remember: crying into the Vernon River because of all the ways this world has disappointed me, while in the distance the heat lightning flickers out at sea.