Except for the kiss, the one kiss, the night of graduation. A first kiss almost exactly like I’d always dreamed it: an unseasonably warm June day, swimming weather, almost; the smell of smoke turning the air sharp; Brent coming through the trees, lifting a hand to his eyes against the dazzle of my flashlight. How many nights had I walked the woods behind my house to the edge of the reservoir, hoping to run into him just that way, hoping he would notice me?
It was so perfect I could never be sure I hadn’t made it up, like I did Sonya, a dark-skinned colt-legged girl who lived in the attic of our old house when I was a kid and used to play games with me in exchange for leaves, twigs, and branches I brought her from outside; she had once been a fairy, I explained, when my mother found the attic nesting with rotten leaves and beetles. Like the games I made up after my mom died, to bring her back. Skipping over the sidewalk cracks, of course, but other ones, too. If I could hold my breath until five cars had passed…if I could swim down to the bottom of the reservoir and plunge a finger in the silt…if there were an even number of crows on the telephone pole, any number but ten.
Misha carefully seals a top on her iced coffee, pressing with a thumb around the edges. “Why?” she asks—so casually, so sweetly, I nearly miss it.
“Excuse me?” For a second, I really don’t understand.
Finally, she looks up. Her eyes are the clear blue of the summer sky. “Why do you think Brent liked you so much?”
I clutch my water bottle so hard the plastic takes on the imprint of my fingers. “I—I don’t know,” I stutter. Then: “He didn’t.”
She just keeps smiling. “All that long hair, maybe.”
And then, unexpectedly, she reaches out to tug my ponytail lightly. When I jerk away, Misha laughs as if embarrassed.
“Maybe that’s where all that BS came from, Kaycee wanting us to hurt your feelings,” Misha goes on. “She was cuckoo, that one.”
“She was your best friend,” I point out, struggling to keep up with the conversation, to haul myself out of the muck of memory.
“She was yours, too, for a little while,” she says. “You remember how it was. She scared me to death.”
Could it be true? Whenever I remember that time, it’s usually Misha’s face I picture, her crowded teeth and those big blue eyes, the look of pleasure whenever she saw me cry. Misha was the vicious one, the pit bull, the one who made the decisions. Cora and Annie, the followers: they trailed after Misha and Kaycee like worshipful little sisters.
Kaycee was the prettiest one, the one everyone adored. No one could ever say no to Kaycee. Kaycee was the sun: there was no choice but to swing into orbit around her.
Now, ten years older and ten years free of her best friend, Misha seems to be at ease. “Brent will be so happy you’re back, even if you’re on opposite sides now. Well,” she adds, seeing my face, “it’s true, isn’t it? You’re here to shut Optimal down?”
“We’re here to make sure the water is safe,” I say. “No more, no less. We’re not against Optimal.” But to the people of Barrens, the distinction will make little difference.
“But you are with that agency group, right?”
“The Center for Environmental Advocacy Work, yeah,” I say. “News travels fast.”
Misha leans a little closer. “Gallagher said they’re going to shut off the water to our taps.”
I shake my head. “Gallagher has his signals crossed. Anything like that would be way down the line. We’re just here to check out the waste disposal systems.” Law school teaches you one thing above all: how to speak while saying absolutely nothing.
She laughs. “And here I was, thinking you were a fancy lawyer. Turns out you’re a plumber instead!” She shakes her head. “I’m glad to hear it, though. Optimal’s been such a blessing, you have no idea. For a while we thought this town was turning to dust.”
“I remember,” I say. “Believe me.”
A look of sudden pain tightens her forehead and pinches her mouth together. And for a long second she appears to be working something out of the back of her throat.
Then she grabs my hand again. I’m surprised when she steps closer to me, so close I can see the constellations of her pores.
“You know we were only kidding, right? All those things we did. All those things we said.”
I guess she takes my silence for assent. She gives my hand a short, quick pulse. “I used to worry sometimes about you coming home. I used to fear it. I thought you might come back looking for—” She breaks off suddenly, and I feel a cold touch on the back of my neck, as if someone has leaned forward to whisper to me.
Kaycee. I’m sure she was about to say Kaycee.
“For what?” I ask her, deliberately trying to sound casual, spinning a rack full of cheap sunglasses and watching the sun get sucked into their polarized lenses.
Now her smile is narrow and tight. “For revenge,” she says simply. This time, she holds the door open and allows me to pass through it first.
—
Misha’s baby is fussing in the car seat. As soon as she spots Misha, she begins to wail. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding when Misha reaches in to unbuckle her.
“This is Kayla,” she says, as Kayla begins to cry.
“She’s cute,” I say, which is true. She has Misha’s eyes, but her hair, surprisingly thick, is so blond it’s nearly white.
“She is, isn’t she? Thank God she didn’t get Peter’s coloring. The Ginger Ninja, they call him at work.” Misha jogs Kayla in her arms to quiet her. I somehow can’t square an image of Peter Jennings—blunt-jawed and stupid-looking—with this child. But that’s always true of babies, I guess: it’s not until later that they inherit their parents’ ugliness. “You’re helping put us on the map, you know, living all the way out in Chicago with your big job.” It’s half-compliment, half-command. Subtext: Don’t fuck with us.
“You’ll have to come by the house for supper. Please. You at your dad’s? I still have the number.” She turns and fastens Kayla into the back seat again. “And let me know if you need anything while you get settled in. Anything at all.”
She slips into the car before I can say don’t bother, and there’s no way in hell I’d be staying at the old house anyway. As soon as she’s gone, it’s like a hand has released my vocal cords.
I will never need a thing from you.
I will never ask you for anything.
I’ve always hated you.
But it’s too late. She’s gone, leaving only a veil of exhaust that hangs in the thick summer air, distorting everything before it, too, vanishes.
Chapter Two
Senior year, Misha and Kaycee started getting sick. Their hands shook—that was one of the first symptoms. Cora Allen and Annie Baum came next. They would lose their balance even when they were standing still. They forgot where their classrooms were, or how to get to the gym. And it was like the whole town got sick, too, like Barrens spiraled down into the darkness with them.