Crystal Grader, Tag Cavello [best books to read for beginners txt] 📗

20

 

“Fuck!” she yelled.

Jarett’s kisses stopped. “What?”

“Look out the window!”

“But you just told me not to—“

Crystal slapped the top of his head. “Look, dammit! It’s my mother!”

“Oh son of a fucking bitch!”

He let go of the blouse, which by then had been pulled up well past the lacy decorations on Crystal’s brassier, and ran into the kitchen with his hands scrambling at the bulge in his crotch. Crystal followed. A car door slammed from outside. Then came the sound of approaching feet. She found a magnetic mirror on the refrigerator and began to straighten her hair and blouse. Both were a mess.

“What are we going to do?” Jarett almost squealed.

“It’s all right, it’s all right.”

But one look between his legs told her it wasn’t all right. Jarett was still hard and horny as a gorilla. God knew how Lucretia would react if she saw it.

At that instant the woman in question knocked on the door.

“Crystal!” her mother’s voice called. “Open this door, young lady! I know what you’re up to!”

Oh my fucking god, are you KIDDING me? Crystal’s mind babbled.

She spun around to see Jarett frozen in front of the sink. His eyes looked ready to pop out of his skull, and his lips were drawn back like those of a corpse. For a moment Crystal was reminded of Sardonicus from the old Ray Russell story, but rather than laugh, she ran back into the living room, tripped over Chubby and went flying head first over the arm of the sofa.

Lucretia knocked again, harder. “Outside! Now! You are in big trouble!”

Gasping, Crystal tried to stand up. Her knee banged on the coffee table. How could Lucretia know? What had happened? It didn’t make sense! There’d been just the two sexual encounters with Jarett this month, both in the middle of the night, both with the entire town buried under three feet of snow.

“CRYSTAL!”

“Coming,” she croaked.

Jarett appeared an instant later, shaking from head to foot.

“Let me talk to her,” he said.

“I don’t understand how she could know,” Crystal replied, keeping her voice down. “I really don’t. Unless—“

She stopped. The stoolie’s name, so obvious, had just now popped into her mind.

“That…bitch!”

Jarett gaped at her. “What?”

“Lucy!”

“What about her?”

“She told on us! She had to have! She’s the only one who knows!”

“You told Lucy?” Jarett hissed.

But there was no time for further talk. Suddenly more furious than scared, Crystal went to the door and yanked it open.

“Mom, it’s all bull—“

And she had to stop herself again, for standing on the other side of the threshold was a sight she wouldn’t have expected to see in a million years. Lucretia had one hand on her belly and the other up against the frame. This seemed the only posture she could manage, her laughter was so hard.

“Mom?” Crystal asked, dumbfounded.

“Gotcha,” the other just barely managed. “Gotcha good!” The hand went from belly to eyes in an effort to wipe away tears. “Funny right?”

“Oh, hilarious.”

A very audible sigh plumed from behind her. Crystal turned around just in time to see the last of the green drain from Jarett’s cheeks.

“Sorry, sorry,” Lucretia said, stepping through the door. “I just couldn’t resist. You’re such a trouble-maker, Crystal, I wanted to give you a dose of your own medicine.”

“Mom, I—“

Lucretia’s eyes widened at something past Crystal’s shoulder. “Whoa! That’s the biggest thing I’ve ever seen!”

“What!”

She whirled, almost tripping over her own legs. It was astonishing the way this clumsiness had come on over the past few minutes. All traces of the virtuoso cheerleader had utterly flown. Crystal was now a klutz, a doofus. Less graceful than even Lucy.

“I mean this is the first time I’ve ever looked at Chubby up close,” Lucretia went on. “He is a much bigger dog than I would have imagined.”

“Oh yes!” Jarett cut in, sounding like a man about ready to vomit. “Yes, these border collies can be surprising sometimes. And Chubby here, he loves his junk food.”

Chubby walked over to the fireplace and sat down. He liked to smile whenever he knew people were talking about him, and the case was no different now. Crystal usually found this trait cute; today, she envied his pleasure.

“Okay then!” she blurted out, raising her hands. “That was fun! Jarett, thank you for the lesson. I’ll be sure and finish that story up for you by next week.”

He looked stupid. “What story? OH YES! Yes! The story, of course.”

Crystal flashed him a scowl that shut him up before any further damage could be done.

“Super,” Lucretia said. “Crystal, how about Vanson’s on the way home? Hannah went with leftover pizza and I haven’t cooked any dinner.”

“All right, Mom, that sounds good.”

Like I’m actually going to be able to eat anything after this heart-attack drill.

“Take care, Crystal,” Jarett managed.

“Yeah,” she said. “But before I leave…I just need to use the bathroom.”

The author’s hand went to his forehead. “Oh me too. I mean…you know, later,” he added, after a sharp look from Lucretia.

***

After that day everything slowed down for a little while. Crystal attended school and lessons with Jarett with a kind of sobriety she had not felt since Hannah’s age. She did her homework, cleaned her room. She cooked meals for Jarett. She gave Chubby baths. Evening phone calls with Lucy were kept short, although in this regard it was hard to say whether or not the near miss in Jarett’s living room played a role. The bigger reason more than likely had to do with Miko, the part-time friend in Lucy’s life who’d become full-time boyfriend last fall. Or at least it seemed that way from Crystal’s distance. Getting closer to them, finding out more about their relationship, was proving to be a chore. More than once she’d asked Lucy for details over the phone, or in the halls at school. And more than once—every time, in fact—Lucy had just smiled and said they were doing all right. Apparently it was the truth. She and Miko were still taking lunches together, without Crystal. He was carrying her books, holding open doors, pulling out chairs. All of these chivalrous things and more that were supposed to be dead and buried with the Titanic.

Such high-minded progression would have bothered Crystal under ordinary circumstances, but for the time being at least, she felt happy to be ignored. She began eating her lunches with the cheerleading squad, content to let Megan or some other girl contribute most of the school gossip. That gossip, to her further relief, no longer included their dearly departed janitor. Indeed, by mid-March of that year, the entire school seemed ready for spring. The boys were talking about baseball; the girls were talking about the beach.

Meanwhile, Jarett hadn’t stopped asking for the outline he wanted for Crystal’s so-called novel. It was unfortunate considering she had no interest in the project, but the way he kept bringing it up at the end of every lesson—always just before she could get down off the front porch, as if the cracked paint there put him in mind of procrastination—showed that he meant to have his wish granted. As a result, many of Crystal’s evenings were spent alone in her room with a pad and pencil, trying on ideas the way she sometimes tried on shoes at the mall. None of them fit. Her lack of enterprise was a bane to creativity. She didn’t want to write a novel. She was too young, too inexperienced. Also, long-term projects almost always turned out to be a bore. The only one she’d been able to stick with of late was the re-imaging of Lucy, which now looked to be complete. Indeed, this perhaps was the reason Crystal felt like she had nothing left in the tank. Perhaps she needed a rest.

Only one flicker of hope shined amongst the dreariness: Vicky.

She’d listened to Jarett’s account of their past together with fox-like intensity, waiting for a lie. Everything he said matched up well enough with what was in the love letters to contain her spite. For the time being. And while his honesty had nearly gotten them in serious trouble (she’d been so caught up in his subsequent kisses her mother had nearly walked in on them half-naked across the chair), it also made Crystal more curious than ever to know more. And as long as her curiosity was sparked, why not turn it to some form of creative advantage? In short, why not use Jarett’s past as an idea for his own assignment?

On a chilly night towards the end of March, Crystal wrote this sentence down in her notepad: A boy meets and falls in love with a girl, only to lose her to a devastating illness. She thought it over for a few minutes while listening to the wind slap rain against her bedroom window. Then, for a theme, she wrote: coping with heartbreak.

“There now,” she said to one of her stuffed animals, “two hurdles cleared. Maybe I should have gone out for track and field instead of cheerleading, eh?”

The stuffed animal had no opinions to give on the matter. Crystal went back to the notepad and began to outline chapter one. Nothing worthwhile would surface, however, and after half an hour of futility she tossed her work onto the headboard and reached for the TV remote.

“Wasteland!” a bald man screamed as channel 57 came into view.

“Yeah, no shit,” Crystal told him. “It’s about time somebody gives the truth about cable programming.”

The bald man smiled at her, and said: “Your present, your future, your life, is more than just going to work and paying the bills! Let us prove it! Come to the arcade of arts at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and experience what wonders lurk inside us all!”

Crystal lowered the volume as he burbled on about paintings and sculptures and other such nonsense. His use of the word arcade had given her an idea. According to Jarett, he had met Vicky at a video arcade in Norwalk. He’d given her a street name before going on to explain that the business had closed years ago. Today it was nothing more than an abandoned building.

She snapped the TV back off. The idea began to grow stronger, hotter. If she could somehow get to Norwalk and find the building, a stroll around the premises might very well be the shot in the arm her inspiration needed. At the very least, it would facilitate the structuring of chapter one.

Crystal’s feet swung out of bed. She needed a ride to Norwalk, and it just so happened that one of her friends was going there with her family this weekend. One of her old friends. One that she trusted…until recently.

She grabbed her phone, dialed a number so familiar her fingers knew it better than her brain, and waited. It was picked up after three rings.

“Hello?” a vacant voice asked.

“Lucy! Is that you?”

“Crystal,” the voice replied. Flat, matter-of-fact. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“Great! Hey, are you still going to Norwalk on Saturday?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I come too?”

The other girl hesitated, but not long enough to make Crystal care. “I…suppose so.”

“Hot damn! Thanks, Luce! I’ll explain everything on Saturday, don’t worry. What time are you leaving?”

***

They ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant on West Main Street that Crystal had heard stories about. Headless cats in trash cans, pee-water on the back doorstep. One bite of their fried rice with baby corn dispelled all of them. You didn’t cook food this succulent with cat meat—or if you did, and eating it made Crystal a kitty carnivore, then so be it.

She thanked Lucy’s mom and dad both for the meal and for reminding her of how good Chinese food was. The dad laughed. The mom asked how things were going at school. Were she and Lucy still studying together? It seemed like they weren’t talking as much as they used to. Why was that?

Crystal did her best to smooth things over with a folderol of excuses.