Banished

In the kitchen, Dun was tilted back in a chair across from Gram at the table. Rattler Sikes was standing at the sink, a lit cigarette in one hand. He was pouring a glass of water down his throat.

He gave me a tiny nod and then slowly lowered the glass to the sink. Leaning against the counter, he put the cigarette to his lips and drew in on it and smirked as the smoke streamed lazily out of his nostrils.

There were eight beer cans on the table, and I knew without having to be told that six were empty and Dun and Gram were working on the others.

“Hel-lo, Hailey,” Dun drawled, letting the chair legs slam down on the floor with a thud. “You’re lookin’ hotter’n August. And who’s this you got with you?”

Behind him Rattler laughed, an abrupt, rasping sound accompanied by a ghost of a smile.

Dun looked Prairie up and down the way he usually looked at me-lingering on her breasts and her legs. Dun and Rattler were both probably about Prairie’s age, but Dun had always looked old to me, with a couple of missing teeth and greasy hair falling all around his face. After he’d stared her up and down, he gave a low whistle.

“Prair-ie Tar-bell,” he said, drawing out the syllables. “I’d know you anywhere. You look even better than the day you left.”

I could feel Prairie tense up next to me. “Hello, Dunston,” she said, her voice steely. “Rattler.”

“Damn-you recognize us after all, girl. Didn’t think you would, now you gone all uptown on us. But I guess you just couldn’t stay away from us local boys forever.” Dun laughed as though that was the funniest thing he’d heard in a long time. Gram laughed with him, lighting up a fresh cigarette and ending on a hacking cough.

“I remember you.” Prairie practically chewed off the words.

“Alice tells me you’re moving back here. Ain’t that nice. Course, if you come back to try an’ git in my pants, you’re a li’l late.” Dun’s words were slurred from the beer. “I got my eye on another girl.”

Gram laughed again and they both looked at me.

“Lucky her,” Prairie said icily. “Now, if you all will excuse us, Hailey and I are tired, and I’m meeting with a realtor first thing tomorrow to look at a house, so we’re heading to bed.”

“ ‘Hailey and I are tired,’ ” Gram repeated in a high singsong voice. She did that sometimes when she was drinking, mimicking what I said.

Something told me it was a mistake to do it to Prairie, though.

I waited for her to snap back at Gram like she had earlier, but she said nothing. She put her hand on my arm and steered me toward the hall. “Come on,” she whispered.

“Goin’ to bed, are you, Prairie?” Rattler’s voice came from behind us.

I could sense Prairie tense even more, but she didn’t say anything, just practically dragged me down to my room. Once we were inside, she shut the door firmly and leaned back against it.

I went to check on Chub. He was curled up in his crib, and I was grateful Gram at least had managed to get him put down. His little fist was pressed against his cheek. He always got hot when he slept, his face taking on a rosy color. I put my hand lightly on the back of his neck and felt his heartbeat-strong and regular.

Only then did I turn back to Prairie. “If Dun and Rattler knew about you, and probably a whole lot more people knew too, how come nobody ever said anything to me?”

“Keep your voice down, Hailey,” Prairie said softly. “A lot of people are scared of Alice. Or else Alice makes it worth their while to keep their mouths shut. Besides, other than Alice’s customers, not that many people in town would remember. Alice sent us to school in Tipton because she didn’t want us mixing with the local kids. And it’s not like we ever had friends over.”

“What about Dun and Rattler? Seems like they knew you pretty well.”

“There were a few families that Alice… socialized with. The Aceys and the Sikes, a few others.”

“From Trashtown. Her customers.”

“They weren’t always customers, but-yes. Alice knew they had a taste for illegal substances. And she figured out how to capitalize on it. She had to find a way to make money, after all.”

Prairie sighed and smoothed down the fabric of her jacket, the memories clearly taking a toll on her.

“But you got out,” I said. “And…”

I almost didn’t say it. I bit my lower lip and considered staying quiet, letting the past rest. It was probably the right thing to do. But in the space of a few hours I had learned that I had lost more than I ever knew I had. So when I spoke again, my voice was bitter.

“And you left my mom here to deal with Alice by herself.”

Like me.

Prairie recoiled as if I had slapped her. “Hailey! I-It wasn’t like that. You have to know that I loved your mother more than anything in the world. I would never have left, if-if-”

“If what?”

“The thing that happened. It would have been dangerous for both of us, if I stayed.”

What could have been so bad that she had to leave town? “Did you kill someone or something?”

Sharp anguish flashed across Prairie’s face, and for a second I regretted asking. If she was a murderer, maybe I didn’t want to know.

“No,” she said quietly. “Nothing like that, but what I did made it impossible for me to stay here. You just have to believe me. And I was going to come for your mom.”

“It’s easy to make promises,” I said. “You told her you’d come back for her, and you didn’t. Now you’re trying to come in here and, what, rescue me? Because you feel guilty about what happened to my mom?”

I could feel my heart squeezing and hear my voice going high and thin. I knew I should stop. But it would be way too easy to give in to what Prairie promised-and way too dangerous. If I made the wrong decision, it wasn’t just me that would be hurt. It was Chub, too.

Before Prairie could answer, I turned away from her. “Forget it. I don’t want to know. I’m going to bed.”

“Hailey-”

“If you’re still here tomorrow, not that I expect you to be…”

I didn’t finish the sentence, because I didn’t know what to say. The truth was that I desperately wanted to believe in her. I wanted her to rescue me. But I was afraid that if I let myself trust her, she’d disappear like every other good thing I’d ever wished for.

Suddenly I was tired. Very tired.

“Hailey, we can go as soon as Rattler and Dun leave. Alice won’t wake up once she’s out. You know that.” Prairie sounded desperate.

“What I know is that I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” I said, edging past her to the door. “I’m going to go brush my teeth.”

When I came back, Prairie took a small toiletry kit from the bag she’d brought with her and went to the bathroom without saying a word. She looked exhausted. While she was gone, I fixed up a bed for her as well as I could. I put my sleeping bag down as a pad and added some old quilts and gave her my pillow. I made myself a pillow out of a sweatshirt.

When Prairie came back into the room, she looked at the makeshift bed and gave me a little smile.

There was one more thing I needed to do-I had to see what Gram and Dun and Rattler were up to before I could sleep. I slipped into the hall and peeked around the corner into the kitchen. The beer-can pile had grown, and Dun was slumped way down in his chair. Rattler was sitting at the table with an ashtray loaded high with butts, drinking another glass of water. Gram was saying something to him, low and serious, but his expression was stony. I wasn’t sure Dun was even awake.

As I watched, something strange happened: Rattler suddenly raised his head and stared straight ahead, right toward where I was hiding. His eyes lost their focus and he squinted as though it hurt, and he held up a palm to Gram to make her stop talking.

“Who knows I’m here?” he demanded.

“Nobody,” Gram said, chugging her beer. Some dribbled down her chin.

“No, there’s-there’s-You got that back door locked?”

“Yeah.”

“Something’s not right. A car…”

“Nah, that’s just her car.” Gram yawned, not bothering to cover her mouth. “That damn foreign thing.”