the veneer of her streetsmart toughness. She was twenty miles out of the city, up in the hills that backed onto the Kickaha Reserve. Attitude counted for nothing out here.
She didn’t bother cursing Eddie. She conserved her breath for the long walk back to the city, just hoping she wouldn’t run into some pickup truck full of redneck hillbillies who might not be quite as ready to just cut her loose as Eddie had when he realized he wasn’t going to get his way. For too many men, no meant yes. And she’d heard stories about some of the good old boys who lived in these hills.
She didn’t even hate Eddie, for all that he was eminently hateful. She saved that hatred for herself, for being so trusting when she knew—when she knew—how it always turned out.
“Stupid bloody cow,” she muttered as she began to walk. High school was where it had started.
She’d liked to party, she’d liked to have a good time, she hadn’t seen anything wrong with making out because it was fun. Once you got a guy to slow down, sex was the best thing around.
She went with a lot of guys, but it took her a long time to realize just how many and that they only wanted one thing from her. She was slow on the uptake because she didn’t see a problem until that night with Dave. Before that, she’d just seen herself as popular. She always had a date; someone was always ready to take her out and have some fun. The guy she’d gone out with on the weekend might ignore her the next Monday at school, but there was always someone else there, leaning up against her locker, asking her what was she doing tonight, so that she never really had time to think it through.
Never
Until Dave wanted her to go to the drivein that Saturday night.
“I’d rather go to the dance,” she told him.
It was just a disco with a DJ, but she was in the mood for loud music and stepping out, not a movie.
First Dave tried to convince her to go to the drivein, then he said that if she wanted to go dancing, he knew some good clubs. She didn’t know where the flash of insight came from—it just flared there inside her head, leaving a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, a tightness in her chest.
“You don’t want to be seen with me at the dance,” she said.
“It’s not that. It’s just ... well, all the guys ...”
“Told you what? That I’m a cheap lay?”
“No, it’s just, well ...”
The knowing looks she got in the hall, the way guys would talk to her before they went out, but avoided her later—it all came together.
Jesus, how could she have been so stupid?
She got out of his car, which was still parked in front of her dad’s house. Tears were burning the back of her eyes, but she refused to let them come. She never talked to Dave again. She swore that things were going to change.
It didn’t matter that she didn’t go out with another guy for her whole senior year; everyone still thought of her as the school tramp. Two months ago, she’d finally finished school. She didn’t even wait to get her grades. With money she’d saved up through the years, she moved from her dad’s place in the
‘burbs to her own apartment in Lower Crowsea, got a job as a receptionist in an office on Yoors Street and was determined that things were going to be different. She had no history where she lived or where she worked; no one to snigger at her when she went down a hall.
It was a new start and it wasn’t easy. She didn’t have any friends, but then she hadn’t really had any before either—she just hadn’t had the time or good sense to realize that. But she was working on it now.
She’d gotten to know Sandra who lived down the hall in her building, and they’d hung out together, watching videos or going to one of the bars in the Market—girls night out, men need not apply.
She liked having a girl for a friend. She hadn’t had one since she lost her virginity just a few days before her fifteenth birthday and discovered that boys could make her feel really good in ways that a girl couldn’t.
Besides Sandra, she was starting to get to know the people at work, too—which was where she met Eddie. He was the building’s mail clerk, dropping off a bundle of mail on her desk every morning, hanging out for a couple of minutes, finally getting the courage up to ask her for a date. Her first one in a very long time.
He seemed like a nice guy, so she said yes. A friend of his was having a party at his cottage, not far from town. There’d be a bonfire on the beach, some people would be bringing their guitars and they’d sing old Buddy Holly and Beatles tunes. They’d barbecue hamburgers and hotdogs. It’d be fun.
Fifteen minutes ago, Eddie had pulled the car over to the side of the road. Killing the engine, he leaned back against the driver’s door, gaze lingering on how her Tshirt molded to her chest. He gave her a goofy grin.
“Why are we stopping?” she’d asked, knowing it sounded dumb, knowing what was coming next.
“I was thinking,” Eddie said. “We could have our private party.”
“No thanks.”
“Come on. Chuck said—”
“Chuck? Chuck who?”
“Anderson. He used to go to Mawson High with you.”
A ghost from the past, rising to haunt her. She knew Chuck Anderson.
“He just moved into my building. We were talking and when I mentioned your name, he told me all about you. He said you liked to party.”
“Well, he’s full of shit. I think you’d better take me home.”
“You don’t have to play hard to get,” Eddie said.
He started to reach for her, but her hand was quicker. It went into her purse and came out with a switchblade. She touched the release button and its blade came out of the handle with a wickedsounding
“What the hell are you trying to prove?” he demanded. “Just take me home.”
“Screw you. Either you come across, or you walk.”
She gave him a long hard stare, then nodded. “Then I walk.”
The car’s wheels spat gravel as soon as she was out, engine gunning as Eddie maneuvered a tight oneeighty. She closed up her knife and dropped it back into her purse as she watched the tail lights recede.
Her legs were aching by the time she reached the covered bridge that crossed Stickers Creek just before it ran into the Kickaha River. She’d walked about three miles since Eddie had dumped her; only another seventeen to go.
Twice she’d hidden in the trees as a vehicle passed her. The first one had looked so innocent that she’d berated herself for not trying to thumb a ride. The second was a pickup with a couple of yahoos in it. One of them had tossed out a beer bottle that just missed hitting her—he hadn’t known she was hiding in the cedars there and she was happy that it had stayed that way. Thankfully, she had let nervous caution overrule the desire to just get the hell out of here and home.
She sat down on this side of the bridge to rest. She couldn’t see much of the quickmoving creek below her— just white tops that flashed in the starlight—but she could hear it. It was a soothing sound.
She thought about Eddie.
She should have been able to see it in him, shouldn’t she? It wasn’t as though she didn’t know what to be looking out for.
And Chuck Anderson. Jesus.
What was the point in trying to make a new start when nobody gave you a break?
She sighed and rose to her feet. There was no sense in railing against it. The world wasn’t fair, and that was that. But god it was lonely. How could you carry on, always by yourself? What was the
Her footsteps had a hollow ring as she walked across the covered bridge and she started to get spooked again. What if a car came, right
Halfway across she felt an odd dropping sensation in her stomach, like being in an elevator that was going down too quickly. Vertigo had her leaning against the wooden planks that sided the bridge. She knew a moment’s panic—oh, Jesus, she was falling—but then the feeling went away and she could walk without feeling dizzy to the far end of the bridge.
She stepped outside and stopped dead in her tracks. Her earlier panic was mild in comparison to what she
