The Heavens Rise

of recreational cough medicine abuse when in each case he was just sluggish at breakfast because he’d been up most of the night downloading pirated gay porn.

Now, as she stood planted in his doorway like a miniature Beefeater with a festive scarf, Ben was reminded once again of how his mother would always look twice as masculine as him, even when she was decked out in J.Jill. They were almost the same height, but the gymnastics training she’d gone through as a young girl had left her brawny and bullish. Her Suze Orman haircut and sharp jawline didn’t do much to soften her appearance either.

It had been a few hours since Ben’s run-in with Marissa Hopewell and he’d spent the time since perusing Nikki’s Myspace page, now plastered with heartfelt tributes from students who just couldn’t go on with their lives in the wake of her disappearance even though they’d hardly said more than a few words to her in their lifetimes. But it wasn’t the desire of his classmates to cast themselves as major stars in The Great Delongpre Disappearance that had left him dazed. And it wasn’t his spat with Marissa Hopewell either. It was the dawning realization that he and Anthem probably wouldn’t be doing any more flyering anytime soon, not after what had happened the day before.

“Mom, I have two classes tomorrow and I’m passing both of them.”

“That’s great. And I want you back in some kind of routine, so you’re going to go to both. Even if you plan on getting a C in both.”

“I’ve never made a C in my life.”

The doorbell startled them. Theirs was a small shotgun cottage on a block of mansions, so it was just a few paces to the front door, down a short hallway wallpapered with the annual Jazz Fest posters his mother collected and had framed every spring.

In her youth, Peyton Broyard might have blanched at the sight of a strange black woman standing on her front porch, but Ben thought even that was growth considering his grandmother had once said to him of black people, They’re like dogs, Ben. You can’t show them you’re afraid of them. But Peyton’s widowhood had included several dalliances with black men. Also, after a second or two of awkward silence, it became clear to everyone that Marissa Hopewell wasn’t a stranger to her at all.

“I read your columns!” his mother cried.

“Thank you.”

“You’re wrong most of the time, but I read you anyway.”

“Well, good. That’s what they’re for.”

“So why are you—” Peyton turned and gave her son a look. Then pivoted toward Marissa, one hand going up as if to ward off an offer of Girl Scout cookies. “Oh, no, no, no. No interviews. Nah uh. No way!”

“Uhm, actually, Mrs. Broyard, your son came to interview me earlier today.”

“I see,” Peyton said. “So we didn’t do more flyering, did we?”

“I didn’t say we did,” Ben answered.

“You didn’t say you didn’t either.”

“Hey. Can we do this all night?” Ben suggested. “It’ll be awesome!”

To Marissa, Peyton said, “Are you here to sue us?”

“Well, your son is a very articulate young man. I’ll say that much.”

“My son is a verbal terrorist who doesn’t believe in personal boundaries.” Peyton’s stage whisper must have been for effect because Ben heard every word.

“I see . . .” Marissa answered, searching Ben’s face. The woman was probably trying to figure out if Ben had been wounded by his mother’s description, or if the two of them always sparred like this. Ben rolled his eyes to let her know it was the latter. “You know what they say. One man’s terrorist is another man’s—”

“Journalist?” Ben finished for her.

“Who says that?” Peyton asked. “No one says that.”

Then she saw the two of them smiling at each other and realized it was a joke. “All right, well, come on in. Since you seem to be friends and all. Just think twice before you give this one a platform, okay? He’s loud enough already.”

•   •   •

A few minutes later, Ben and Marissa were outside in the backyard, seated at a wrought-iron patio table blanketed by the deepening shadows cast by the oak tree overhead. The yard was sandbox size and it always felt to Ben like the oak was going to literally take it over one day. His mother had worked hard to cover the fences with walls of bougainvillea, and a moss-dappled cherub sat on a lone stone bench at the very rear of the garden.

Peyton brought them both glasses of iced tea. Then she departed with a bright smile, relieved that her son was someone else’s worry, if only for the next few minutes or so.

“Were you pulling my leg when you said you went to every hardware store in Orleans Parish to find that bulb?” Marissa finally asked.

“Which bulb?”

“The one that killed those birds at your school.”

“The one Marshall used to kill those birds? No. I wasn’t pulling your leg.”

“Jesus . . . Do you ever actually go to school?”

“I’m a second-semester senior and I was already accepted to Tulane. I don’t really need to go to school.”

“Well, there’s always the whole learning aspect, especially if you want to go into journalism.”

“Who said I wanted to go into journalism?”

“You did, when you went around acting like a reporter.”

“I’m working on a novel.”

“Don’t bother. There’re too many already and not enough people to read them.”

“Seriously? You realize you said that out loud, right?”

Her arch smile told him she didn’t care. She seemed utterly at ease in his presence despite their brief, tempestuous history together; when she took a sip of iced tea and brushed her free-form dreadlocks back from her brow, she did so with hands that were still and controlled, unlike his own. He envied her stillness, her maturity. Her poise.

“You know,” she said, “I recognized you today. From the news. That’s how I found out who you were. You’re one of Niquette Delongpre’s friends. That’s what the flyers are about, right?”

“We’re done with the flyers.”

“Why’s that?”

“Something bad happened yesterday.”

“Oh?”

“My mom said no interviews.”

“And I haven’t said the word once.”

“We were in Ponchatoula and Anthem wanted to put some up in this sorry-ass little bar. I didn’t think we should go inside but he wouldn’t listen. So he just barged right in and started giving his little speech. Like about how our friend might be lost and she was in an accident so maybe she’s disoriented and wandering around out in the swamp somewhere and doesn’t even remember her name—” Saying the words now made him believe them even less, and remembering Anthem’s pained desperation as he’d said them, studded with pathetic attempts at good cheer, made Ben want to cry. “The bartender went off on us ’cause he thought we were scaring off his customers. But Anthem didn’t give a sh—damn. He just kept at it. So finally the guy ripped the flyer out of his hand and he read the date when they disappeared and said, ‘Sorry, pal. Looks like your little slut walked out on you.’? ”

“That is unfortunate,” Marissa said.

“Actually, the unfortunate part was when Anthem broke the guy’s nose and knocked out two of his front teeth.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“How old is this Anthem?”

“My age. But he’s bigger. A lot bigger.”