her eyes tightly, wishing the morning away. Maybe she could go back to sleep
and the next time she woke up, it would be Sunday and she would be ready to
leave for college. She could leave and pretend that last night had never
happened. She wanted to cry, but her eyes were swollen and her throat raw
from too many tears already.
Tears and, she remembered now, being so sick somewhere around two in the
morning that she’d wanted to die.
Sometime after Dev had left the party, she’d had too much to drink. Way too
much. The beer and wine—she remembered sharing a bottle or maybe two with
Shelley—had made her sick, but it hadn’t made her forget the sound of Mike’s
foot thudding into Dev’s body, or Dev’s soft moans, or her own screams.
Shelley kept asking her what was wrong, and Leslie hadn’t been able to answer.
What could she say? Mike hurt Dev and it’s all my fault? Dev kissed me
and I let her. I didn’t mean to let her. I didn’t mean to kiss her back. It was
a mistake. Wasn’t it?
Leslie tried to go back to sleep but she could hear the guests getting up and the
sounds of activity outside her open window. The boathouse was probably a
mess, and she really ought to clean up down there before her parents saw it.
Groaning, she dragged herself from bed and wobbled on shaky legs into her
bathroom. She was afraid she might vomit again, but she was sure there was
nothing left to throw up.
She was never going to drink that much again. She was never going to let
anything like last night happen again. She was never going to let anyone kiss her
like that again.
She’d never let anyone close enough to get hurt by her mistakes.
She kept the shower on cold and stood shivering with her arms wrapped around
herself, hoping to drive out the sickness and the feel of Dev’s body and the heat
of her mouth and the terrible sound of someone’s heart breaking. When she ?
nally felt like she could face her parents without them being suspicious of the
way she looked, she dried her hair and dressed and went downstairs.
“Hi, honey,” Eileen Harris said. “I’ve still got plenty of breakfast left. There’s OJ
in the refrigerator. You want pancakes?”
Wanting to clamp her hand over her mouth at the sudden surge of nausea, Leslie
turned quickly away and pretended to be looking out the
• 107 •
RADCLY fFE
window. “No thanks, not yet. I think I’ll just have a Pepsi and go down to the
boathouse. I want to make sure all the trash got bagged.”
“Pepsi in the morning? You should eat something.”
“I will. Later.” Leslie started toward the back door, wanting to get away before
her mother looked at her more closely.
“I’m so glad you had the party here,” Eileen said, carrying a stack of dishes to
the counter. She opened the dishwasher and began loading it. “And I’m glad
that your friends are all responsible. Thank God they’re all too sensible to ride
motorcycles.”
“What?” Leslie said, only half listening.
“Some local teenager had a terrible accident on a motorcycle last night.”
Leslie stopped, her hand on the doorknob. Her heart pounded furiously and the
queasy feeling in her stomach coalesced into a hard knot of dread. “Accident?”
“Mmm. Someone crashed their motorcycle on Lakeshore Road last night. Up
north from here a bit.” Eileen lifted two cast-iron skillets from the stove and
propped them up in the sink. “Your father heard something about it on the
news.”
Leslie managed to walk out the door and across the porch before she vomited
over the railing into the bushes. When she was done, she collapsed into one of
the chairs. She knew it was Dev. She just knew it.
Dev had been drinking, but not a lot. Dev was a good rider, but she was hurt.
And she must’ve been angry too. Angry with her, and with Mike.
Mike. Mike had left right after Dev. He’d been gone almost an hour. He wasn’t
angry when he came back. He would hardly talk to her, not that she wanted to
talk to him. And he was drinking a lot, even more than usual, off in a corner with
some of his friends.
She knew it last night, and she knew it now. Something bad had happened. She
should say something. She should tell her mother. She should tell someone that
it was all her fault.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been home for a while,” Leslie said.
After a moment’s silence, Eileen said, “I wish things were different now. What
with your father—”
“No, it’s okay. I’m glad I’m here.” Leslie took her mother’s hand.
“Now, about that truck.”
• 108 •
WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE
Eileen laughed weakly. “Your father will always be a Jeep man. If it’s anything
other than black or green, he won’t drive it.”
Leslie smiled. “God forbid we get him a yellow Hummer.”
“If you do end up getting one, we’ll pay you back. I’m just not sure when.”
“Mom, come on. I can afford it. It’s not a big deal.”
“All right,” Eileen said carefully. “Then if I can’t get you to agree to take money,
why don’t you tell me why you’re really here?”
“That’s blackmail.”
“Not when it’s your mother doing it.”
Leslie wanted to pace. She wanted to abort the conversation. She didn’t have
an answer, not one she was ready to share, especially not when her mother
already had her father to worry about. Not one she could even verbalize
completely to herself. She forced herself to sit still.
“I haven’t taken any real time off in years, and I was due for a vacation. When I
thought about getting away, the only place I thought about going was here.”
Leslie knew it was true. Maybe not all of the truth, but some of it. She met her
mother’s eyes, surprised by the uncritical welcome in them.
“It’s funny,” Eileen said quietly. “I had the feeling when you left for college that
you couldn’t wait to get away, and I’ve never understood why.”
“I guess it must have seemed that way. I’m sorry.”
That was as much of an answer as Leslie could give, because anything else
would demand far too much confession. She couldn’t explain about Dev and
Mike. She couldn’t say she’d needed to be somewhere else, be someone else.
That she’d needed to leave behind the person she couldn’t look at in the mirror,
to reinvent herself.
She’d done a good job of it. She was successful. She was respected by her
colleagues. She had a lover who was beautiful and smart. And yet here she was.
