When It All Comes Down to Dust (Phoenix Noir Book 3) Page 15

  Laura didn’t say anything.

  “If I call your mother, will she agree to let you take part?”

  “I don’t know. She might.”

  “Do you want me to call her?”

  Laura shook her head.

  “I really don’t know what to do here.”

  “Are you going to let people in the audience get up and speak? Could I do that?”

  “Of course we are, and of course you can’t. You’re not listening to me, Laura. Your mother said you weren’t allowed to debate today. Period. And she gave a convincing reason why. And, let’s face it, if you’d listened to what I told you about your grades, and taken it seriously, this wouldn’t be happening.”

  “Are you going to call her or take me home?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “No.”

  “Then I won’t, even though I should. I’m going to forget that I saw you today.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “Now you’d better get out of here and let me start forgetting.”

  “Can’t I stay for the debate? Just to watch?”

  “You really don’t listen. The only reason I’m not calling your mother or taking you home right now is that I don’t buy what your mother says. I don’t believe her reasons, and, even if I did, I don’t agree with what she’s doing. But she has the law on her side, so if you repeat what I just said, I’ll deny it, and if anybody sees you here I’ll have to pick up the phone and tell her to come and get you.”

  Laura walked out of the room. As she walked along the hallway, she met a young woman she hadn’t seen before.

  “Hi,” the woman said. “Can you tell me which room belongs to Mr. Crossan?”

  “Room 28.” Laura wondered if this was Mr. Crossan’s girlfriend.

  “Thanks.” She held out her hand. “I’m Miss Stewart. What’s your name?”

  Laura shook the hand. “Laura Ponto.”

  “Ah. You’ll be my arch-enemy today. You’re going to be debating my students. Mr. Crossan says you’re very good.”

  “I’m not debating today.”

  “Oh, why not? I was looking forward to hearing you.”

  There was something about these words, coming from a pretty, friendly woman Laura had never met before, that made it impossible for her to pretend that she was all right. She stood there and began to cry.

  “Honey, what’s wrong?” Miss Stewart said. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Laura shook her head and hurried out into the sunshine.

  Carrie Stewart walked into Eric Crossan’s classroom. “Hey, I just met Laura Ponto. She walked out in tears.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Nothing that I did, if that’s what you’re thinking. Her mother’s mad at her, so she won’t let her debate. She came here anyway and tried to talk me into letting her do it, and I told her I couldn’t.”

  “Of course you couldn’t. Poor girl... With most of my kids, the real stupid, bratty behavior comes from the parents.” She touched Eric’s arm, and he almost shivered. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “But something tells me Laura’s not going to be.”

  She didn’t know what to do now, where to go. She had no real friends, just people she talked to at school, but nobody she could call. And everybody she knew at school would be at the debate. There was nobody to call and nobody to go to but her parents, and they were nobody to her.

  She rode a bus down Seventh Avenue, got off at Encanto, and walked to the park. As she walked, she began to cry again, the heat drying the tears from her face almost as quickly as a handkerchief would have. As she walked, Frank saw her from his car.

  He had just left the park, was driving on the street, and he saw her. He saw her walking on the hot sidewalk, saw the tears, saw that she was alone. He saw it all as he drove past her. He turned onto Seventh Avenue and headed north, but he was still seeing the tears and the aloneness. He drove back to the park.

  Laura had decided to go to the park just so she could go someplace, but, now that she was in the park, she didn’t know what to do there.

  She walked around, looking at all the families hanging out. She felt the sun burning her scalp, so she looked for some shade, sat down under a tree. She knew a lot of people complained about the non-native trees that were planted in the city, by the city, but Laura was glad. If the only trees were cactus, there wouldn’t be any parks you could go to, there wouldn’t be anywhere to escape from the sun. She lay back, stretched out on the grass, looking at the blue of the sky though the green of the leaves.

  She felt the heat of the grass and earth she was lying on, and she thought about the air-conditioning in her school, how it was always too cold for her. She thought about Mr. Crossan’s classroom, and she wondered how the debate was going. She wondered how many people from the other school would come along to support their classmates. She pictured herself winning them over to her side, making them laugh at her jokes and at the lameness of their friends’ arguments. She wondered who Mr. Crossan had substituted in her place. She imagined seeing him on Monday morning, him telling her how humiliating their defeat had been, how they all knew that they couldn’t win without her.

  She didn’t see Frank walking towards her.

  “Hey, there,” he said. “Excuse me...”

  She raised her head from the ground and saw him, standing a few feet away, a man wearing jeans and a T-shirt and sneakers, short dark hair, quite handsome, smiling at her.

  She sat up. “Hi..?” she said.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you. I just wondered if you were all right.”

  “Yeah. I’m all right. Thank you.”

  “Good. I saw you a little while ago, and you were crying, so I wanted to know everything was okay.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I don’t mean to be nosey or anything, but why were you crying?”

  That was all it took. The tears came again, and, when Frank held out his arms, Laura came into them, even though she didn’t know his name.

  Her face was pressed to his neck, and she could smell his skin and the cotton smell of his shirt. She was sobbing, and he was saying, “Yeah. Cry as much as you want to.” What did the other people in the park think when they saw them? Father and daughter? Big brother and little sister?

  She stopped crying. She didn’t want to move her face from his neck, because she felt embarrassed and she didn’t want to have to step back and look at the world and look this man in the face.

  “You okay now?” he said in her ear.

  “Yeah.” She moved out of his arms, sat back, looked at him. “Sorry,” she said, trying to be grown-up, one adult talking to another.

  “Nothing to be sorry for. Everybody feels that way sometimes. I know I do. What’s your name?”

  “Laura.”

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Frank.”

  “Hi.”

  “Now I can leave you alone if you like. Or we could go get a hot dog and you could tell me what you’re sad about.”

  “I’d like to do that.”

  “Me too. Let’s go, then.”

  There was a hot dog and burger stand nearby, right next to the park’s children’s playground, Encanto Kiddie Land. Frank bought two hot dogs and two sodas, and they sat at a picnic table, and Laura talked and Frank listened. After they had eaten, she went on talking, and Frank either asked questions or just listened.

  They walked. They walked around the park, and they found themselves back at the tree where they’d met. They sat under it and talked some more, talked for so long that they were still sitting there when the light started to fade. Frank asked Laura if she wanted to go home yet and she said no. He asked her what she felt like doing and she said she didn’t know. He asked if she’d like to see a movie with him and she said yes.

  As they walked to his car, Frank remembered another girl, her head smashed by a rock. But Laura wasn’t that girl, so he turned away from the memory. />
  They got in his car – a Chevy Nova that was perpetually on the verge of breaking down but still looked good – and cruised up Seventh Avenue with the windows down and the radio on. Even though it was getting dark, the temperature didn’t seem to be falling. They headed West on Bethany Home, and kept going until they were at the drive-in theater at 59th Avenue.

  The movie was Jaws. Frank had seen it before, but Laura hadn’t. He asked her if it wasn’t too scary and she said no, she liked scary movies.

  Soda and popcorn. The music announcing a shark attack. Laura and Frank holding hands in Frank’s car, among so many other cars.

  Dark, except for the movie screen. Laura and Frank getting in the back seat of the car. Kisses, open-mouthed and deep, shocking Frank.

  On the screen, a boat on the open sea. Frank watching the screen while Laura skillfully sucks his cock. Frank coming, Laura swallowing. Laura telling him, “You taste yum!”

  Frank nervous now, scared, now that he’d come, thinking now about what might happen if anybody saw them. Frank wanting to get out of there, away from people, away from Laura.

  Laura cuddling up to him, her head on his shoulder. Frank stroking her hair with one hand and fastening his pants with the other.

  More kissing and snuggling. Driving out of there, Frank asking Laura if he should drop her off at home.

  Laura not believing she was saying what she was saying, saying no, she didn’t want him to drop her off, she wanted to go home with him.

  Frank still scared, but excited again.

  Streetlight through blinds on the bedroom window. The two of them in Frank’s bed, fucking, slow, for a long time, like nothing Frank could have imagined. Laura coming. Frank coming on her stomach. Falling asleep, lying on their sides, Laura behind Frank, Laura kissing Frank’s back. Laura so happy.

  NINE

  Frank slept deeply and didn’t remember his dreams.

  When he woke, he felt Laura sleeping next to him, her warm, naked skin touching his, and he didn’t know what to do. He tried to fall asleep again, so that he wouldn’t have to think about real life, about what to do now, but he was wide awake. He lay there with his eyes closed, as if he were asleep, because he didn’t want to see anything yet, didn’t want anything to be real.

  He felt Laura get out of bed, heard her walk to the bathroom, heard the sound of her pissing and of the toilet flushing, then her walking back to bed. Even without opening his eyes, he would have been able to tell that this was a child, not a woman. It was in the heavy, clumsy sound of her bare feet on the carpet, not the deliberate, padding steps of a woman.

  As she neared the bed, he opened his eyes and saw what he had seen last night, and loved to see – definitely still a child, breasts and hair arriving but not yet what they would be. She wasn’t pretty, but she wasn’t ugly either, and she was a child and that made her more beautiful to Frank than any woman could be.

  She smiled when she saw that he was awake. “Hi,” she said.

  “Good morning. Did you sleep all right?”

  “Yep.” She lifted the sheet and got back in bed. “Did you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I like sleeping in bed with you,” she said.

  Frank had never thought that he’d hear anything like that. He known for years now that it was children that he wanted, but he had only ever been with one before, and she hadn’t wanted to be with him.

  This one did.

  She was nuzzling his chest and shoulder. He kissed the top of her head. He could see the white of her scalp where the black hair began.

  The other girl, the other child – and he made himself think that word – hadn’t been like this, moving into him, wanting to get even closer. She hadn’t wanted this at all.

  But Laura did, and she was showing him that she did. She knew what to do just as well as some women he’d been with, and he knew he couldn’t be her first, and he wondered if he should ask her or let it be a mystery.

  He did ask her. Not while they were still in bed, but later, when they’d gotten up, pulled clothes onto their tender, exhausted bodies, and were sitting at the card table Frank used as a dining table, eating cereal and drinking coffee. He asked her if she had a boyfriend, and she said no, she had never had a boyfriend, and he said he wouldn’t have been able to tell, and then she told him.

  She told him about her parents, about the men. She told him about how before the men she only had her imaginary sister, and that after the men and the bankruptcy and the move, Tori didn’t come back. She told him everything she could think of to tell him, because she wanted him to know. “You’re my first boyfriend,” she said.

  The rest of that day: Laura wanting Frank to take her back to the park so they could walk around holding hands. Frank liking the idea but afraid to be seen with her.

  Frank wondering when she would ask to be taken home.

  Laura not wanting to ever go home again.

  Frank thinking that maybe he could take her back to the park where they’d met, and they could say a sad goodbye and he could leave her there and maybe she’d never tell anybody anything.

  Laura thinking that she would live with Frank now, that she’d need new clothes and a toothbrush and everything else, that she wouldn’t have to go to school anymore, that they’d have to be very careful because people would be looking for her, that they might have to move to another city or state, maybe live in the woods or on a mountain somewhere.

  Frank drove her to Encanto Park. He though briefly about waiting until she got out of the car and then just driving away. But she knew where he lived, so it wouldn’t be safe to make her angry.

  They walked around the park. Laura tried to hold his hand, but Frank told her they couldn’t risk attracting attention, that people wouldn’t understand. Laura said people were stupid, and Frank said she was right.

  He worried that she might have been on the news already and that somebody would recognize her, but he knew it wasn’t likely. It had only been twenty-four hours, and she’d disappeared following fights with her parents and her teacher, so, if her parents had even notified the cops yet, they’d be waiting for her to cool off and come home.

  “You ever notice how days feel different from each other?” Frank said as they sat on the grass under the tree where they’d met.

  “Uh-uh. How are they different?”

  “I don’t exactly know. I guess the week days are all the same, but Saturday and Sunday feel different from the week days, and different from each other. I mean, this doesn’t even seem like the same park we were in yesterday, because it was a Saturday, and today feels different.”

  “Maybe it’s because people don’t have to work on weekends,” Laura said. She didn’t really believe that was it, because she didn’t have school on weekends and yet weekend days didn’t seem different to her. She only said it because she wanted to have something to say to Frank, because she didn’t want him to think she was dumb.

  “I don’t think it’s that,” Frank said. “I sometimes work weekends, but they still seem different.”

  “How?”

  “Saturdays are fun, and Sundays are sad. I don’t know why.”

  “Are you sad today?”

  “A little bit.”

  She touched his hand. “Don’t be sad.”

  He looked around and didn’t see anybody looking at them, so he leaned over and kissed her quickly.

  It was late afternoon. “What do you feel like doing now?” Frank said.

  “I don’t care. Maybe we should just go home,” Laura said, and Frank knew that when she said home she meant his place.

  “Okay,” he said. “We can stop at the supermarket again and get some stuff for dinner.”

  They did. And, along with a pack of frozen hamburgers and some potatoes and carrots and bread and milk, Frank threw a couple rolls of duct tape into the shopping cart. Laura either didn’t notice or wasn’t curious.

  As Frank made dinner, Laura took a shower. Her clothes were starting to f
eel stiff with dried sweat, and she wondered how to bring it up with Frank that she would need new clothes. She thought about when her period would come, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to tell Frank what she needed for that. She wondered if he might just give her some money so she could get herself whatever she needed.

  After she’d showered, she put on his robe, which she found hanging on a hook on the bathroom door. She told him that her clothes were starting to stink, but he didn’t comment. They sat on the folding chairs at the card table and ate burgers with fried potatoes and boiled carrots, and drank Coke.

  When they’d eaten, Frank put the dirty dishes in the sink. Laura followed him to the sink, intending to help him wash the dishes, but he turned around and put his hands on her shoulder and began kissing her and she kissed him back and then he slipped the robe off her body and they went to bed.

  She woke during the night because she heard him crying.

  He was lying on his side, facing away from her, trying to be quiet, to keep from waking her.

  She had never seen an adult cry before, never in real life, only in movies, and never a man. She didn’t know what to do.

  “Are you crying?” she said, even though she knew he was.

  “Yeah.”

  “Why? Is it because it was Sunday?”

  “No.”

  “What’s wrong?” She put an arm around him and kissed his trembling shoulders.

  “I was just thinking about somebody.”

  “Who?”

  “Another girl.”

  “Is she your girlfriend?” Hurt and jealous.

  “No. She’s dead.”

  “Oh. How did she die?”

  He cried even harder as he told her. At first she thought it couldn’t be true, and then she knew that it was. And she knew that Frank wasn’t crying for the other girl. He was crying for Laura.

  In the morning, Frank didn’t eat breakfast. He took a shower, got dressed and went to work. He left without looking at the bed where Laura was lying, on her side, naked, hands behind her back bound at the wrists with duct tape. Her ankles were bound together by the same method, and a strip of the tape covered her mouth.