Fragile

“Did someone come out?”

“Yes, a young fellow. Laid out a few traps, said he’d come back tomorrow.”

Maggie nodded but didn’t say anything, half forgetting she was on the phone.

“What’s wrong?” asked her mother.

“Probably nothing.” She told her mother about Marshall Crosby lingering across the street, running off when she called his name.

“That boy was always trouble.”

“You don’t even know him.” She knew her mother wasn’t talking about Marshall.

“I meant Travis.”

“Marshall is not Travis.”

“Not yet.”

Maggie felt the familiar rise of annoyance and defensiveness at her mother’s superior, knowing tone. It bordered on imperious. Elizabeth Monroe thought that her seventy-five years of life, twenty-five of which she’d spent as the principal of Hollows High, had taught her everything she needed to know about human nature. Why had Maggie even bothered saying anything?

“Did you call your husband?” Elizabeth asked when Maggie didn’t respond.

“Can’t reach him.”

Now it was Elizabeth’s turn to keep her mouth shut. Between mothers and daughters, it seemed to Maggie, there was so much more meaning in silence than in any words spoken.

“And Ricky?” Elizabeth said finally. Can’t reach him, either, Maggie thought but didn’t say, for different reasons altogether.

“He’s upstairs studying,” she said.

“Well.” A pause, a sigh. “Lock the door. If he comes back, call 911.”

Elizabeth was always unemotional, pragmatic. Maggie had long ago stopped looking for tea and sympathy from her mother, had actually come to accept and even appreciate Elizabeth for exactly who she was-most of the time. Not easy work, not even for a shrink.

“I will.” Maggie walked back over to the door, peered out. Just the quiet street, the glowing orange of porch lights, the sway of trees. “Good night.”

“Maggie.” Her mother’s voice carried small and tinny over the air as Maggie took the phone from her ear.

“Yeah, Mom?”

“Call if you need me.”

She felt a smile lift the corners of her mouth. Her mother was five foot two, a hundred pounds soaking wet.

“Would you come over and defend me with your cane?” Maggie said.

Elizabeth gave a throaty chuckle at that. “If I had to.”

“Thanks, Mom. Good night.”

“Good night, dear.” Was there something wistful in her voice? Or maybe Maggie was just imagining things… her husband sounded strained and tense, her son angry, her mother lonely. Was she just projecting? When everyone close seemed to be suffering, maybe it was time to look in the mirror.

Just as she hung up the phone, Maggie heard Jones pull into the drive in his big government-issue SUV. It was a gas-guzzling maroon monstrosity, with big silver stars emblazoned on the doors. HOLLOWS POLICE DEPARTMENT. A rack of lights sat on top. At the door she watched her husband turn off the ignition and then just sit there a moment, looking straight ahead. In the light from the garage, she could just see his arm and the shadow of his head. She saw him put his hands to his temples and rub. She felt a gnawing sadness watching him there. Sometimes, even when they were only separated by feet or inches, he seemed so far away, untouchable. When did it happen? When did this strange distance grow between them, and why didn’t she have the energy to open the door, walk out to his car, and bring him home?

6

It was one of the things Amber hated most about autumn, the early fall of darkness. Summer days reached lazily on into summer nights, stretching orange fingers against the encroaching black, then surrendering with a shrug. In autumn, the light snuck out early, like it was late for something, like it might not be coming back. After lunch, she started to feel uneasy, had a sense that the day was racing away and she was being left behind. Her mother said that she was too young to feel like that, that she had all the time in the world. But she couldn’t shake the feeling when, even on the bus ride home, the sky was already growing dark.

It was dark now, as dark as it would be at midnight, and it wasn’t even dinnertime yet. As she got farther from her house, she slipped a cigarette from the pack in her jeans and cupped her hand to light it. It wasn’t until after she took the first drag that she saw him sitting there. She didn’t know he had a car.

She heard him lower the window as she approached. She leaned down to look inside instead of walking by without acknowledging him, which she’d usually do if she saw him in the cafeteria or the hallway. Curiosity got the better of her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

She’d told her mom that she was going for a walk, the smokes shoved into her jeans, a lighter in her pocket. Wear a jacket. And don’t go far. Dinner’s almost ready. She wondered if her mother suspected that she went out for a cigarette. Anyway, what could she say? Every once in a while, Amber would find a cigarette butt pressed into the soft ground behind the pool house with her mother’s lipstick on it. A little secret habit they both had. It would be just like her mother to pretend she didn’t know her daughter was smoking, letting herself off the hook of forbidding and then punishing. Her mother preferred the surface of their life to be calm and harmonious, even when the depths were roiling.

He’d been parked down a house or two, just sitting there, smoking, as well. As she got closer, she saw a pack of Lucky Strikes on the dash. No filters. The sight of that red and white soft pack, one cigarette poking out a neatly ripped opening, and he suddenly seemed different to her, less dorky. It was a cool car, too. Old but tough, one of those muscle cars.

“Just chillin’. Waitin’ on my boy.” She hated it when white, suburban guys tried to talk and act like gangbangers, taking on the too-cool lope and apathetic, half-lidded gaze. He immediately sank back to dork in her estimation.

“Who? Justin?”

He gave a slow nod. She didn’t know they hung out. In fact, she doubted it. She just couldn’t see Justin Hawk, football quarterback, pot dealer, senior class heartthrob, throwing this guy a backward glance. Unless.

“You got some? Or are you waiting on it?” Amber asked. It would be nice to get high, even with a dork. Marijuana was the only thing that had ever taken the edge off the constant buzz of anxiety she had lately. It made her calm, relaxed her, made her laugh.

He gave a slow shrug. “Back at my crib, yeah, if you want some.” Crib. Come on.

“I can’t,” she said, nodding toward her house. “My mom’s cooking.”

“You’ll be back in twenty. I’m just a mile up the road.”

Was that true? She didn’t know where he lived. She didn’t think he lived that close. Doctors, lawyers, hedge fund managers like her dad-those were her neighbors. She didn’t even know what his parents did. Hadn’t she heard his dad was in jail?

“Thanks,” she said, trying to be sweet about it. “But I have to get back.”

“Suit yourself.”

Just like that he turned her off, tuned her out, and stared blankly ahead, as if she wasn’t even there. She felt like she should say something, apologize. She’d have gone inside with Justin, or taken a ride with Brad if she’d seen him waiting in that sweet new BMW his parents gave him. She’d even have taken off for a few minutes with Ricky Cooper, gothic freak that he was. At least he had a band.

She started toward home, feeling a little bad. She knew he was thinking that she was a bitch, stuck-up.