Chapter Seven
The concert is better than Jules anticipated.
The band has a spiritual vibe, the sound moody, soulful.
Though, too much angst for her taste; that’s probably because she hasn’t experienced much angst in her life.
She’s smart enough to understand that good looks give you a pass from the hardships that are at the root of teenage angst. Her gross history teacher, Mr. Belcher, isn’t totally wrong.
Brad is drunk and too loud. Miranda hangs on him like they’re just pals but Jules knows she has a thing for him.
Jules leans in for a kiss, marking her territory.
Brad pulls away from Miranda and kisses her back.
She can almost feel the electricity running through him.
He’s been pressuring her—she thinks that’s the right word—to finish the job, stop teasing him.
He doesn’t know she’s a virgin. It won’t be tonight, that’s for sure.
When she decides to give herself to someone, it’s going to be perfect.
The perfect time. The perfect place. The perfect mood.
Candles, even. Not a sweaty pile of limbs in the back of Brad’s Mustang.
And certainly not drunk and sloppy, with the stink of After Shock seeping through his pores.
The band moves to a ballad and the lighters are in the air now. She makes sure none are near her hair, lest the Aqua Net ignite into a blaze. Brad shouts into the dark, his voice hoarse. His friends join in like howling wolves. They’re such followers. And Miranda edges closer to Brad again.
Brad’s best friend, Bill, offers to put Jules on his shoulders so she can see better.
She politely declines. Bill plays the nice guy, but Jules has heard rumors that he drove a date out to the cornfields where everyone makes out and said, “Put out or get out.” You’ve got to watch out for the nice guys.
Miranda is all over Brad again, but Jules cuts her friend a break. Miranda’s always a bit desperate when she drinks.
The final straw, however, is when Jules watches Brad’s hand slide down Miranda’s ass.
“Are you kidding me?” She whirls him around.
He gives her an exasperated look.
“Wait? Are you two…?”
“It just happened,” Miranda says, her eyes glassy.
No, just … no. Jules pulls away from the group and starts down the stadium stairs.
“Jules, where are you going?” Brad calls after her. “Wait…”
Jules doesn’t respond, just continues down the concrete steps. She’s angry but also relieved for some reason.
In the corridor of the arena, the beer and food vendors are closing up, getting ready for the exodus.
She feels tears well in her eyes. She needs to fight them.
It’s just so … so fucked. And how’s she going to get home?
She can’t call her parents. She’s drunk and they’ll just want to talk about it, her mom so desperate to get in her business, missing the drama of high school, of the beauty pageant circuit.
“These are the best days of your life,” her mom always says when she’s had too much wine.
She looks around for anyone she might know. But there are thousands of people at the concert.
Outside now, she checks her handbag for cab money. She spent all her cash on the booze. They’re supposed to reimburse her, but she can’t go crawling back now after stomping off.
She sees a plexiglass bus shelter on Farnam Street in front of the arena. She doesn’t know the bus schedule. But how hard can it be?
The street is dark, the path to the bus stop shadowy. She shouldn’t be out here alone. Her thoughts go to the cashier at the liquor store with his sickening grin.
“Be careful … the May Day Killer is hunting.”
Stop being a chickenshit. Plenty of drunk concertgoers are stumbling along the sidewalk ahead. Lots of people are out. She’ll be fine.
There’s a small group at the bus stop.
She asks a young woman if she knows which bus goes into Monarch. The woman, she’s in her twenties, rougher looking, but turns out to be nice. Tells Jules to take the Number 10.
She wonders if that asshole is even looking for her. Or has Brad decided that Miranda is a sure thing? Screw them both.
The group gets on the next bus, but it’s not the 10. They were loud and annoying, but she’s sorry they’re gone.
Alarm bells peal inside her when she sees an orange glow, the end of a cigarette, in the dark car parked on the street. It’s been there the whole time but she didn’t know someone was inside.
She should go back to the stadium. Find a pay phone. Call her parents. Fuck, she should just get a ride home with Brad, deal with it all tomorrow.
She winces at the sound of an engine roaring. The dark car’s headlights are on. They’re blinding her.
She considers running back to the stadium but is saved by the rumble of a city bus going too fast and jerking to a stop. The lit number 10 sends relief flooding through her.
At the fare box, she starts to explain that she doesn’t have money, that she’ll promise to pay on the next ride, that her friends left her, but the driver cuts her off by waving her to the back.
Only two other people are on the bus. An older woman who wears an office cleaner uniform, and a man whose clothes are dirty and who’s sleeping or passed out.
What a night, she thinks, as the bus plods along. One of the windows is open a crack and the breeze hits her in the face. She’s stone cold sober now.
This one will go down in the books. The night she took the bus home alone from downtown Omaha after Brad and Miranda betrayed her. She wonders how many of their friends know about the two of them and said nothing.
She opens her handbag, pulls out her compact, and looks at the small mirror.
Her eye makeup has smeared and she thumbs it.
She shakes her head at her poser plaid shirt.
Her mind leaps to Quinn Riley, wonders what he’s doing right now.
Wonders what he’ll say about her predicament when she tells him about it in Monday’s study hall.
He’ll have some wisecrack, but he’ll be nice.
Maybe ask her what she’d expect from the likes of Brad.
Quinn’s never said anything bad about her boyfriend, but she can tell Quinn thinks Brad is a tool.
Yet he never says an unkind word about anyone. That’s a good quality, she thinks.
At last, the bus arrives in Monarch, and she feels another wave of relief. She’s back on her home turf. Where people know her, where she’s safe.
As she walks down Main Street, she thinks about Brad, about advice her grandmother once gave her, borrowed from Maya Angelou: “If someone shows you who they are, believe them.”
Her heart thrums at the sound of a vehicle idling next to her. She thinks about the dark car at the bus stop, but her pulse slows when she recognizes the pickup truck. Johnny Elwood. He’s with his girlfriend, Courtney.
“Jules, what are you … Do you need a ride?”
“If you don’t mind?”
She climbs into the cabin. Courtney offers a tight smile, slides over to the middle. Jules used to date Johnny, so there’s some awkwardness.
“You don’t want to ask,” Jules says.
Johnny smiles, takes the hint, and doesn’t.
“Your house?”
“Actually, can you take me to Brad’s? My car’s there.”
Johnny’s a good guy. That he’d drop her at Brad’s, the boy who she left him for, proves that. The ride is mostly silent. When they arrive, Johnny waits until Jules is safely in her car before he tears off.
Jules sinks into the driver’s seat, exhales, and wonders what excuse she’ll give her parents if they’re up, since she told them she was sleeping over at Miranda’s.
Then the voice from her back seat causes a violent tremor to rip through her. “Mmm, mmm, mmm.”
“Dammit, Brad, this isn’t funny, and—”
She stops short when she realizes that her friends are still at the concert. And this isn’t Brad.