“Not this instant,” I said. “Too far off. We won’t get rain for a little while.” Glass clinked as he reached for another beer. He sat up and took a deep swig from the long-neck.
“You’ll get a lot of rain in Houston, Jordy. You’ll be walking to classes in knee-deep water. It floods there all the time.” His voice sounded as far away as the thunder did.
“Don’t tell Mama, she’ll buy me waders.” I sat up and opened another beer. The crickets chirped through the night air, sounding their brief trumpets before the approaching storm drowned them out. Whoever said nights in the country are quiet don’t know what they’re talking about. The air felt humid, as languid as a girl’s caress, and in the purplish darkness I could barely see Trey sitting next to me. I could see him tip the bottle to his lips, the moon reflecting off the curve where label ended and glass began.
“You ain’t gonna have no horses to ride in Houston,” he observed.
“No. I’ll have to come back here for that.”
“And you ain’t gonna get cooking as good as your mama’s. I bet that university kitchen don’t make good biscuits and cream gravy on Sunday mornings. Probably give you something nasty, like yogurt.”
“Probably.”
“And Marcia Tatum ain’t gonna be around ’case you get a tad horny.”
I laughed. “No, Marcia won’t be in Houston. ’Course, she’s not too pleased I’m going away, period. I don’t think she’d be granting me her favors even if I stayed.”
“Shit,” Trey scoffed. “Your first weekend back she’ll be as hot for you as you are for her.” He stood and stretched, and walked to the back of the truck. His boot heels made an eerie clang against the metal.
“Face it, Jordan, you ain’t got many reasons to come back here. Houston’ll suit you real well. You’re smart. There’ll be a lot of new things to hold your attention. You won’t need Mirabeau again.”
“Don’t be stupid. Of course I still need Mirabeau. My family’s here. My friends are here.” I paused. “You’re here, man. You think I’m going to forget about you?”
“For the first time in your life, you’re going to be around a lot of people that are as smart as you are. Or even smarter. The people you meet at Rice are gonna make the rest of us look like dipsticks. Future doctors and lawyers and such.”
“That’s crap, Trey. Quit saying that you’re not smart.”
He laughed and sipped at his beer. “I don’t say I’m not smart. The teachers say I’m not smart.”
“The teachers here are stupid, then.”
“Brave words from the valedictorian. All I’m saying is, go. Go out there and make what you can of yourself. Don’t look back.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” I said uncertainly. I didn’t care for the way this conversation was going. The thunder sounded again, closer, wilder. “Of course I’m coming back home.”
“And do what? What are you going to do with your fancy degree here in Mirabeau, young Mr. Poteet? Be a lawyer in your crazy uncle Bid’s practice? You can’t stand him. Become mayor? You ain’t exactly a politician. Teach at the school? Won’t pay you diddly to clear them big student loans. Or maybe you’ll just end up serving Dr Pepper floats at the Sit-a-Spell.” His voice had grown harsh.
I stared up at him in the darkness. “Why are you doing this?”
“I don’t want you to think that Mirabeau is the whole world, like our numbnut friends do. I don’t want you to waste the chance you got.”
“I’ll come home if I want. I’ll live here if I want.” I stood and the wind surged, making me feel unsteady. Trey seemed an indistinct figure in the night. “Why are you being so shitty to me?” I hollered.
“Because you’re gonna do all the things in life I wish I could. Because you’re the brother I never had.”
Lightning split the sky and I saw the Trey standing before me was not the Trey of our careless eighteenth summer, drinking beer with me on the next-to-the-last night before I left for college. He was the Trey that had died, his face gaunt and drawn and bearded in the momentary white light.
“Then help me! Tell me who killed Clevey! Tell me who killed you!”
“Killed me?” he asked.
“Yes! You’re dead! Who killed you?” I screamed into the wind.
He collapsed against me and my hands felt the warmth of his life’s blood. His voice creaked like a coffin’s lid. “You are. You’re killing me, Jordy.”
A cry caught in my throat as I wrenched up in bed. I slapped the palm of my hand over my mouth and bit my fingers. Nightmare’s sweat adhered the sheets to my body and I kicked them away. They felt like shrouds.
I staggered to the window. Another storm swept over Mirabeau, headed for the Gulf, and the glass felt cool against my palms. What was happening to me? Why did I feel like this world was the dream and those memories with Trey were the reality? I shut my eyes and took a long, sobering breath.
I shrugged into my terrycloth robe and sat again on the bed, listening to the quiet of my house. Many nights Mama was restless in the wandering way Alzheimer’s patients sometimes are, but tonight she was still. I heard the remote ticking of the grandfather clock downstairs, like a colossal heart. Apparently I hadn’t called out; the house’s silence pushed oppressively on my ears.
I hungered for a comfort food. I didn’t want to stay in my bed; it was nothing but a trap full of memories. I remembered all the pies downstairs. My sweet tooth pulsed and I tiptoed down to the kitchen. I turned on all the lights; I didn’t like the dark anymore.
The pies looked tempting: pecan, peach, buttermilk, and apple, but I didn’t want a slice. Only two images from my dream could make me smile; Marcia Tatum and Dr Pepper floats. Marcia had been my senior-year girlfriend, a buxom, funny, sly-eyed brunette, and she’d served up the best Dr Pepper floats in the world at the old Sit-a-Spell Cafe. Trey had kidded me plenty that I’d had more Dr Pepper floats after school than any other boy in Mirabeau history. He’d follow me to the cafe and chatter at me and Marcia as she made my favorite fountain concoction while I watched her with vast-eyed devotion.
He loved to tease.
I pulled a gallon of Blue Bell vanilla ice cream from the freezer.
Give him an extra scoop now, Marcia, Trey would say, eyeing Marcia’s own scoops under her bright pink uniform.
I found an icy cold can of sugary, original Dr Pepper in the back of the fridge and popped the top.
Don’t you be skimpy with that Dr Pepper, Marcia. Jordy needs all the sweetness he can get. Don’t you, Jordy?
I pulled the ice-cream scooper out of a drawer and rinsed it with hot water. I found a thick, tall glass in the cabinet and set it on the counter.
Marcia, sugar, you ought to give Jordy a large float but charge him for a small one. Don’t you care none about this poor boy?
Dragging the scooper across the pristine plain of ice cream, I pared free a globe of white sweetness. I jiggled it above the glass and the scoop fell in, leaving a creamy smear along the side. Again, another scoop. A small one to top it. Then the Dr Pepper, the fizz of its pouring the only sound I heard as it frothed above the ice cream. The can felt like a deadweight in my hand.
Ah, that’s his favorite there, Miss Marcia. He likes those floats even better than he likes you or me.
“Jordan?” Candace, standing nearby, watched me.
“I’m making a Dr Pepper float,” I announced, and my voice broke. Candace looked sort of blurry.
“I can see that, honey.” Her voice was cottony soft. “You okay? You’ve spilled it everywhere.”
I glanced down at the kitchen counter; the soda can was empty and my glass sat in a puddle of bubbling brown.
I looked back up at Candace and I could see her heart breaking. “He’s dead.” I heard my voice. “He’s really, really dead. Trey is dead. God!” A sob escaped from me, like air long trapped underwater then bursting to the surface. I felt her arms close around me.
I didn’t want to cry. No, not in front of her. I didn’t want her to see me that way. I put my fingers over my face and they were wet and sticky with Dr Pepper.
“Why? Why?”
“I don’t know, baby. I don’t know why he died,” she murmured into my chest.
“Not him dying! Why did he leave us?” I buried my face against her disarrayed hair. “He left me. I was like his brother and he left me. He left Sister and Mark and Mama and Daddy and his own father, but why did he leave me?”
