My Best Everything Read online

  Back in her car she was amped up and thrilled. “See how much fun we had tonight? It won’t be all bad if you have to stay here. Maybe I’ll actually be singing with the band, and you can come watch me.”

  I couldn’t answer with that small space between us. Not where her dreams were spreading out and stretching, while mine were feeling trampled and squashed.

  5

  Roni couldn’t wait to tell Bucky about Lullaby Breaker. Since I wasn’t ready to go home and ignore my parents, I rode with her to the Country Club. That name makes it sound so much nicer than a community pool and golf course that are only open three months a year. I guess Country comes from being surrounded by fields of cows. And Club means you have to pay dues. Daddy said he quit paying dues on account of everyone there was jealous of his tan. That had never bothered him while Paul was on the golf team.

  Roni squealed wheels into the parking lot and jumped out of the car as soon as she saw Bucky standing on the sidewalk. Was it fate that you were there too, getting on your bike? Or simple coincidence? Is there a difference?

  Not that I thought anything like that. Instead, I thought how Randy said you were mixed up with moonshine. I knew you’d been through tragedy and heartbreak over Cindy D’Angelo. You were someone who’d seen and done all kinds of things I didn’t know anything about. No wonder you’d let me puke in your helmet.

  But you’d also laughed and played with my hair in a most confusing way. Throw in the fact that you knew Daddy and hung out at Saint Jude’s, and, well, I simply didn’t know what to think. None of it mattered anyway, because I was leaving town. Somehow, some way. Besides, you had horrible hair.

  I took the keys out of the ignition, where Roni had left them in her hurry. I got out and watched as you moved your bike like you were ready to leave, until Bucky said, “Put that bike down, Mason. I talked Carly into making us a couple of plates of sustenance.”

  The night was warm, and the crickets were crazy loud. Above us, the crescent moon peeked over the shadowed hills. We walked past the pool, where the water glowed the softest shimmery kind of blue, and then we scooted around the back of the golf cart garage, heading out to the enormous field of lush grass.

  Out on the green, I kicked off my flip-flops and walked barefoot through the damp grass. I wanted to take off like a little kid, to run until I got dizzy and forgot that my life was a mess.

  Bucky set his plate on the boulder, and Roni launched into telling him about the bar and Lullaby Breaker. She was jacked up and loopy from it all.

  “You were hanging out in a bar parking lot?” asked Bucky around bites of shrimp gumbo.

  “We were just messing around.” Roni beamed my way. “It was pure luck that the band came out when they did. And that Lulu went insane. Do you think Grungie was serious?”

  Bucky could have stopped it all then. Roni was still nervous enough about this idea that if he’d shown any doubt, she would’ve forgotten all about it. But Bucky said, “Of course he was serious. They’d be crazy not to want you. Hey, Mason, my girl is gonna be famous someday.”

  Roni turned to you and said, “You know those guys, don’t you? Didn’t you graduate with Johnny and Troy?”

  You gave a funny smile and said, “I was supposed to.”

  “Oh,” said Roni. “Sorry.”

  “Not your fault.”

  While I added the fact you were a high school dropout to my confusing observations, Roni said, “I only graduated ’cause of Lulu and Bucky. They’re the brainiacs. I have no idea why I hang out with such geeks.”

  “Is that right?” asked Bucky. “You think I’m a geek, huh?”

  All of a sudden they were hanging all over each other, being smoochy and huggy. It was probably even more awkward for you, since I was used to putting up with them.

  I turned to you and said, “I heard you came by Sal’s.” I didn’t mention that I also heard your family was in the moonshine business.

  “I had to pick up some parts for my boss.”

  “You didn’t get your radiator.”

  Roni laughed then. “That’s right, Mason, we heard you want a raaayy-deee-aaaay-tor.”

  I ignored her tease. “Did anyone check and see if we have the one you need?”

  “Nah. I was on my bike. I knew I couldn’t carry it.”

  “You probably wanted Lulu to help you, right?” Roni moved into Bucky’s lap, murmuring about his radiator and overheating.

  My face burned hot, even if you didn’t know what Roni was talking about. Then their voices lowered until Roni said, “Hey, y’all, we’ll be right back,” and they disappeared.

  I played with her keys, quiet sitting between us. I’d been gauging my distance from you carefully. I didn’t want our hands to accidentally brush against each other. Even though we didn’t touch, I could feel the heat off your body. Finally I said, “You can go if you want. They’ll probably be a while.” I silently kicked myself for bringing up what we both knew they were doing in the dark.

  You asked, “Can you take Roni’s car? Bucky’s got his truck.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know how to drive.”

  “How is that possible?”

  Feeling inadequate always makes me irritated. “It’s not that big a deal,” I said.

  “But don’t you work with cars?”

  “I know parts and pieces. I just don’t know how to make a whole one move. I’m waiting until I’m eighteen to get my license. Which’ll be soon.”

  You were quiet a minute, making me wonder what you were thinking.

  “I could give you a lesson,” you said. “Since you’ve got her keys.”

  Roni and Bucky were nowhere in sight. I was feeling restless and unsettled. Certain my parents would disapprove, I followed you to Roni’s car and got in the driver’s seat.

  Immediately my hands started sweating. “Maybe this is a bad idea.”

  “No way.”

  To someone who wants answers and always wants to know she’s making the right decision, your certainty is comforting. Soothing.

  We sat side by side, a few inches apart. My eyes stayed glued in front of me as you went over the basics of the car, what I needed to keep in mind. I could smell your shampoo or deodorant, something clean, mixed in with your sweat and boy smell too. Our olfactory systems are crucially tied in to memories and comfort and physical attraction. It’s science.

  I was scientifically aware of you as I turned the key and started the engine.

  I put the car in gear and crept forward. Then slammed on the brakes. We both knocked against the seat belts. “Sorry.” I started up again.

  Even though I blamed my mother for my never having had the chance to learn to drive, I hadn’t pushed the issue. Mom’s fears might be irrational, but driving was scary stuff. Working at a junkyard provides daily reminders of what happens to cars when they hit other objects. I’d built the whole idea of it up in my mind. My heart pounded as I coaxed Roni’s Camaro forward, but at least the view over the dashboard was familiar. I poked along, driving the main stretch of the parking lot, determined not to be like my mother.

  “Good,” you said. “A little more gas. That’s nice. Feel that? Hear the hum of the engine? You need to feel like the car is an extension of you. You’re in charge.”

  Your words don’t seem that significant looking at them on the page. Yet the tone in my ear soothed my jangled nerves.

  “Look around,” you said. As I drove through the parking lot again you said, “Anticipate. As long as you think a little bit ahead, you’ll be ready. Slow for the turn. Yes. That’s it.”

  Hypnotic. That’s what it was. Your voice was hypnotic.

  How else can I explain that I let you talk me out of the parking lot? Past the main buildings and out to Possum Hollow Road? I was driving. On a real road. In the dark. I picked up speed. I went uphill and down. I followed the curves and stayed in my lane. Another car came toward us, its lights shining bright in my eyes, but I stayed on the road. I slowed a little bit,
but then you coaxed me back up to a normal speed.

  There’s not much along that road, only driveways with miles between them. When we passed a sign for the old abandoned quarry you said, “Turn right at the next driveway. We’ll turn around and head back.”

  “I can’t.” Now that I was moving, it was slowing down and changing directions that scared me. My hands clenched the wheel.

  “Let up on the gas.” Your voice was steady, but urgent too. “Lulu, if we keep going you’re going to run out of road. Hitting Dowdy’s Bridge is a bad idea. Now tap the brake, nice and easy.”

  One minute everything is fine, and the next, it’s chaos.

  I hit the gas instead of the brake. I panicked and pushed harder. Roni’s car zoomed off the pavement and onto the grassy shoulder. A fence loomed in front of us, but you lifted my leg, allowing the car to finally stop. A sleepy cow looked our way, completely unimpressed with the way my heart pounded fast and furious.

  You got out of the car to check for damage. Climbing back in, you said, “No harm done.”

  I hit the steering wheel hard. Then burst out, “I’m never going to get out of this town.”

  There in the dark, you got slammed with my misery. I told you how desperate I was to get away from Dale. About Daddy losing my college money, and being out of options. I even told you how scared I was of becoming like Mom. I never talk about that. Maybe it was the dark and the way you simply nodded. Or maybe it was because I didn’t know you and you didn’t know me. Maybe I simply exploded.

  “I can’t even get in a car and take off,” I finished off my rant.

  “Maybe there’s a reason you’re supposed to stick around here.”

  “That reason is my father’s mistake. Now what am I supposed to do?”

  “My mama says there’s always hope, as long as the moon still shines.”

  I sat in silence, too absorbed in my negative spiral to respond to your pretty riddle.

  “Sometimes,” you continued, “best thing you can do is accept you aren’t in charge.”

  I thought you meant my parents. That you were on their side. I was too miserable to see beyond my own reflection in the window.

  6

  I steamed through the next few days. Literally. A heat wave hit, muggy and suffocating. It was too hot to bother waving away the gnats and no-see-ums buzzing in my eyes and ears. Of course I thought about you after that night on the golf course. I wondered if you’d ride your bike in that kind of hot. I hoped you had your helmet on in case you passed out on the side of the road. But even if you had an easy smile and the rhythm of your voice had hypnotic powers, I’d sworn off all Dale boys. You were Mason Malone of infamous rumors. A high school dropout.

  I checked and rechecked the Internet for scholarship opportunities but found nothing. Out of curiosity, I also looked up moonshine. It seemed impossible to me that people would pay for something like that in this day and age, yet there was clearly some kind of cult following for the stuff. I found places to buy stills, get recipes, share trade secrets.

  Sal came by with a bushel of raspberries the day after Daddy left again. He sat at our kitchen table, adding sugar to Mom’s too-sweet tea and laughing too loud. So when Roni suggested we go to Jimbo Queen’s field party, I was ready for anything that would get me out of the house.

  The party wasn’t far from their river-tubing business. Just beyond their pasture, there’s plenty of space for kegs and a crowd. You know the place.

  It wasn’t far to walk from the road where Bucky parked, but it was too dark to see the giant ruts in the field. After I tripped for the third time, Bucky insisted that Roni and I each take one of his arms.

  Roni said, “I told you to wear boots, Lulu.”

  “I don’t wear boots,” I said. I’d started wearing flip-flops once I got accepted to the University of San Diego, and I wasn’t about to stop. I’m superstitious about some things, stubborn about others.

  “It’s not about fashion,” said Roni. “Just wait until you step in a big old cow pie.”

  I stopped walking. “Am I really going to?”

  They both laughed. Bucky said, “You should also wear a helmet.”

  Roni punched him. “Don’t be mean. Lulu is not going to puke tonight.”

  “I only meant to protect her head in case she falls.”

  Thinking about you and your helmet, I wondered if you’d be there.

  Despite the wide open space, the crowd crammed together between the keg and the speakers blasting music. “They should get a band to play,” said Roni.

  “Did you ever call Grungie?” I asked her.

  “Not yet. What if he didn’t mean it? He might have just been scared you were going to throw another bottle at him.”

  “Have a drink,” I said. “That’ll get your nerve up.”

  See what a good student I was?

  I didn’t expect to like beer, but that yeasty, bubbly taste surprised me. I especially liked that its alcohol content was measurable and finite. That’s a dangerous illusion for control freaks.

  Buttercup was there with Jimmy, who was on seriously shaky ground. His eyes were red, and he swayed like the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. I kept waiting for him to topple over. We stood in a circle with Mary Lou, Charlotte, and Tommy. Beau Queen was hanging around, and Patrick James too. I’d already mentally said good-bye to these friends. I’d tossed my mortarboard at graduation and checked out. Now that I didn’t know where I was headed, I had even less to say. Buttercup suddenly grabbed at my cup, sending off a spray of beer. “What is Saint Lulu drinking?”

  “Well, it was beer,” I said. “But now it’s gone.”

  “Get her another!”

  “I’m on it,” yelled Jimmy. Then, “Anyone got a dollar?”

  Patrick James said to me, “You’re drinking? You?”

  “Yeah. So?” I acted like it was no big deal. The beer helped.

  At one point Buttercup yelled, “Shake it, baby. Make me a milk shake.”

  “Cow dance!” said Roni.

  Everyone bent over and shook their hands like they were udders. Of course it’s ridiculous, but the beer made it funny too. We made fools of ourselves being all kinds of farm animals. The goat dance meant butting heads against each other’s shoulders and backs. The chicken was a strut with lots of neck. During the pig round, Charlotte, Roni, and I snorted, but no way were we going to roll around like the boys and Buttercup did.

  “Help me up, Lulu.” Patrick James lay on the ground, reaching for me.

  I braced my legs and pulled him up. He whispered in my ear, “I’d sure like to kiss you.”

  It was dark. I was good and buzzed. We’d dated for a few months before things went wrong. So I kissed him. Quick and simple. Then I said, “Now dance like a donkey, you ass.”

  Then he was hands down on the ground kicking up his back legs, doing those horrid mule kicks we had to do in tenth-grade PE. It was funny enough that I let him kiss me again. I wasn’t stingy with kisses back then. They didn’t mean much to me.

  I hadn’t kissed you yet.

  All of a sudden, I’m wondering who gave you your first kiss. Mine was playing spin the bottle at Charlotte’s boy-girl party in sixth grade. So were my second, third, fourth, and fifth. There was a rut in the carpet in front of me, and the bottle kept getting stuck. Roni hated that I was Bucky’s first kiss—he was my number four.

  My first real kiss was the last day of eighth grade with Brent Quesenberry behind the gym. I’d adored him all year from across the cafeteria, but that kiss cured me. He smelled of peanut butter and Daddy’s Old Spice deodorant, so after a few minutes of him licking my face like a beagle, I stepped away and told him I thought I was moving to Paris over the summer.

  Only Roni knows how many boys I’ve kissed since then. Most of them don’t matter. It might sound like pure rationalization and excuses, but kissing a lot of boys was one of my stay-a-virgin techniques. If you keep it light and changing, no one guy expects too much. Except for prom n
ight. Or if you’re drunk in a dark field.

  I suddenly couldn’t shake this picture of myself forever drinking in pastures, playing animal games, and kissing boys I didn’t like. I was supposed to be a brilliant researcher, studying the mysteries of the universe, not dodging cow pies and boy tongues. I’d worked so hard to be the good girl, to keep track of my plan. It wasn’t fair that it was all being pulled out from under me. The beer flowing through my bloodstream brought all those frustrations up to the surface.

  Besides, Patrick James always had kissed way too wet. Now his hands were moving up my sides trying to sneak in for more. I pushed him away. I was buzzed enough to tell the truth. I said, “That’s enough. I’m done with you. No more kisses for you. Ever.”

  He turned nasty and rude. Said, “Forget you, Lulu. You’re still too cold for me.”

  I don’t know why being called cold is such an insult. It’s not like having standards is a bad thing. But no girl likes being called cold. It’s like being called a princess by anybody but her daddy. I poked Patrick James in the chest and said, “That’s right. I’m like liquid nitrogen. Better not come near me without your gloves.”

  Laughing, Bucky pulled me away.

  Patrick James said, “I don’t even know what the hell she’s talking about.”

  I tried to yell an explanation about the liquid nitrogen, how it’s so cold it’ll burn skin. But Bucky steered me back to Roni.

  “Lulu’s gone rogue,” he said. “She’s making Pat cry.”

  “Let him cry,” I said. “Give me another beer.”

  “The keg’s dry,” said Bucky.

  “That sucks,” I said.

  Bucky said, “You know what else sucks? Lulu when she’s drinking. Sucks face, that is.”

  Roni laughed. “Maybe it’s time to go.”

  As we left the field, I thought I saw your shorn head. Impulsively, I darted over and tapped that broad shoulder I thought I recognized. It wasn’t you. Close enough that I had to stop and think a second. You’ve said people used to think you and Seth were twins. That night he had ten or twenty pounds on you, and wore them loose and pouchy. He greeted me with a slow smile.