Evelyn Juniper Cove
Evelyn
Juniper Cove
2012
Evelyn stood in the back of the auditorium, grinning. The students had pulled it off; the eighth grader playing Alice was precocious and delightful, not missing a single line despite the near panic attack she’d had before going onstage, saying, “Ms. Jackson, I can’t do it. I can’t!” as Evelyn rubbed her back and assured her she could.
Tweedledee and Tweedledum had performed to uproarious laughter from the crowd, and the cards, a mix of first to third graders with the occasional fifth or sixth grader to keep them in line, had charmed everyone.
As the curtain fell on the final scene of the end-of-year play, the audience stood with hoots, whistles, and applause. The curtain drew again and the children, smiles so wide it made Evelyn’s heart ache, lined up to bow. Evelyn paused in her clapping to wipe stray tears from under her eyes, thankful for these kids, this school, this town that felt like her town for the first time since early childhood.
The only thing that could have made it better would have been if Kingsley and Kareela weren’t out of town on opening night. If they’d been there to see what the children had accomplished, what she’d helped them accomplish when the drama teacher’s appendix had burst, putting him out of commission for the final few weeks before the show.
She wished Antony had been here, too.
Evelyn collected herself, knowing she needed to get backstage to tell the children how well they’d all done. First, though, she squeezed her way up the aisle to Violet.
“What a riot!” Violet laughed loudly, her teeth on display. “Dem chil’ren. Dey know how to work a crowd!”
“You enjoyed it, then.”
“Was a hoot!”
“I’m glad.” Evelyn squeezed Violet’s upper arm, affection flowing through her. The sun still rises, Violet had said all those years ago, and it seemed like maybe, at last, it was. “You remember our neighbor is driving you? I need to help with the pull-down.”
“Yes, yes.” Violet waved a hand in front of Evelyn. “Be off with yuh, nuh.”
Evelyn smiled her farewell, then hurried backstage, a cluster of children rushing toward her, laughing, smiling, hugging, their rouged cheeks and defined brows looking darling instead of ridiculous.
Almost an hour later, Evelyn waved farewell to the principal and ran across the parking lot to her car. The rain had come from nowhere, the afternoon’s warm blue skies shifting to a ceiling of gray that had turned what should have been the last hour of twilight into artificial night. Thunder erupted as Evelyn turned on the ignition. Sheet lightning lit up the sky. Evelyn eased onto the lonely highway leading to their road. She swallowed, the muscles in her back tightening. She’d always loved thunder and the sudden skin-tingling bursts of light in the sky just before it. But not while she was driving. After each flash, the unlit road seemed darker than before. The wipers were on full speed, but still she struggled to see the faded dividing line, barely visible beneath the coat of water glinting on the asphalt.
She tried to think of good things to distract herself—she’d read about this in some magazine. To combat stress and fear, think of the good things in your life. The things that give you peace and joy. She’d scoffed at first, but then she tried it, and it helped. She thought of Kareela these past months, the way she’d stopped dressing like she’d stepped out of a hip-hop video and actually wore the clothing Evelyn had bought her at the beginning of the year. How she’d given in to a flat iron and, every few days, let Evelyn spend hours straightening her hair. How she’d started walking, talking, laughing like the other girls. Evelyn couldn’t say she liked the upward lilt that made every sentence sound like a question, but she liked that Kareela was making an effort, that as a result, she was making friends. The incident with those boys had been awful, but—
Evelyn screamed and swerved as a deer appeared in her headlights. She struggled to correct her course as the car hydroplaned, then soared across the thin highway, her breath taken in those few seconds of weightlessness. The car landed with a thud in the shallow ditch as Evelyn was thrown forward, then back, the airbag exploding in her face, trapping her. All she could see was white, and then black.
When Evelyn woke, her body seemed one large pulsing ache. Her head throbbed. Her left arm felt numb—she wasn’t sure she could move it. With her other arm, Evelyn shoved the deflated airbag to the side and struggled to reach down to release her belt. She blinked, her clouded vision coming into focus. The rain had ceased, a short summer storm that, if it’d come twenty minutes earlier, would have saved her from this. She grasped the door handle and heaved her injured shoulder against it, holding on as it finally opened, almost catapulting her to the forest floor. She yelled in pain, then pushed herself to a high crouch, surveying the vehicle. There’d be no reversing out of this mess. She looked into the car, saw her purse on the floor of the passenger’s seat. She limped around the front of the vehicle, her legs like jelly, and wrenched open the door. She scrounged for her mobile, grasped and opened it. Dead. She still used Antony’s old flip phone. The reception was atrocious, the battery worse, and she was forever forgetting to charge it, but she liked it. Liked holding something in her hand that Antony had held. Knowing the last words he heard on it were likely hers—even if it was possible they’d done more harm than good.
She dropped the phone back in her bag and slung it over her shoulder. She was at least six kilometers from home. A not impossible feat. But like this? With her whole body a bruise, her head the victim of a jackhammer?
Not seeing another option, she made her way to the road and crossed, hoping before long she’d flag down a helpful soul. It had to have been at least twenty minutes of trudging, her limp arm propped by the other one, before she heard the distant whir, then saw the lights. She stopped on the gravel shoulder and turned, releasing her damaged arm so the other one could wave. A truck slowed, then stopped, the lights shining on her for one breath, three, five, before a door finally opened.
“Thank you. Thank—”
Evelyn’s words died in her throat as four men and a teenaged boy stepped out of the vehicle.
“What do we have here?” The years hadn’t been kind, but Evelyn recognized him—the boy who, all those decades ago, had called her trash. His son, whom Evelyn had called out, beside him. “Little Evelyn Godfrey. Scrawny little Evelyn Godfrey, who still looks good.”
“I just need some help,” said Evelyn. “My car.” She cradled her arm. “But if you’re too busy, I’ll keep walking. Flag someone else.”
The man, Ashley or Taylor, some name the other school kids had mocked for being feminine, laughed. “Are we too busy, boys?”
Two of the men shook their heads. The teen stared.
“Just like you weren’t too busy to talk down to my son. You.” He shook his head, spit to the side, a brown watery sludge soaring through the headlight’s beam and landing on the asphalt. “I heard you were back in town. With a Black man, and your dirty little half-breed.” He turned his head to the men. “Pretty, though, isn’t she, for a nigg—” He paused. “Oh, wait.” He looked back at Evelyn, mock alarm in his voice. “Better make sure we’re politically correct. Wouldn’t want to offend, like the boys did. Get you all in a tizzy.”
Evelyn’s heart raced, hot fear flaring.
“So what’s the right term…?” He scratched his chin as though contemplating, playing it up for the others. Then, his features stretched, as if a light bulb had gone off in his head. “Ah.” He grinned. “Pretty, for a Black Canadian.”
“It’s ’cause she’s half.” One of the men laughed.
“Oh, a nigg—” Ashley or Taylor or…Courtney?—it was Courtney, she was sure of it now—stopped. “Black Canadian’s a Black Canadian.” He leaned forward, the scent of booze heavy on his breath. “And you know all about them, don’t you, Evelyn?” Courtney stepped closer. “All about them.” He raised his hand to her chin, grasped it between his thumb and forefinger. Evelyn imagined wrenching her head away, scratching him, kicking, running. But she was frozen. “Maybe what you don’t know is what you’re missing. Maybe I should teach you.” He grabbed her shoulders as Evelyn screamed with the pain on her wrenched one. Her paralysis popped like a tense balloon, and she kicked at him, tried to pull her good arm free.
“Hold her, boys.” Courtney thrust her against the side of the cab, darkness suddenly surrounding her. The men stayed still. “Hold her!” Two of them burst into motion, their hands on her arms, against her thighs. She screamed again as Courtney’s large heavy hand landed on her mouth. With his free hand, he fumbled with her pants and underwear, worked his fingers between her legs and, with a burst of violent, violating pain, thrust them into her. “Wet and ready, boys.” He laughed as tears ran down her face, spilled over his fingers. As he withdrew his hand and fumbled with his own zipper, a fresh burst of fear tore through Evelyn. She wrenched her head to the side and bit down hard, the metallic taste of his blood on her tongue. Courtney screamed and jerked his hand away, then sent it back, hitting her on the side of the head. He grabbed her injured arm, yanking her away from the men, and twisted it as she screamed, as her bone snapped, then flung her to the ditch, the gravel digging in as she rolled, then settled.
He stepped toward her, but a voice called out. “That’s enough, Court. It isn’t worth it.”
Courtney stopped. She couldn’t see his face, but the light from the truck behind illuminated the way his arms were clenched, his fists tightened.
“Let’s get out of here,” said another voice. “Anyone could drive by.”
Courtney stepped back. “There.” His voice was tight, as full of gravel as the arm she lay on. “Now you know what can happen. What will happen if you don’t keep your mouth shut. To you, or maybe that sexy little half-breed. I bet her cunt is even sweeter and wetter than yours.”
Evelyn gritted her teeth. Her lips trembled as she tried to read his eyes in the darkness, to determine if he was just fronting for those men or if he had it in him. If he could do this, or more, to a child.
He started to turn, then spun back, crouched, so his face was mere inches from hers, the scent of earthy-sweet chewing tobacco mixed with cheap beer on his breath. “Don’t get any ideas. The sheriff is my brother-in-law. I’ve got four witnesses who’ll say I was out with them all this time, doing whatever I tell them to say we’ve been doing.” He stopped, and in the faint light, she could see his eyes darting across her face, as if searching for the words. “Who’d even say you and me, we’ve been hooking up on the side for months, if that’s what I decide to tell them. That you were scared your husband was about to find out, so you crafted another story. That these bruises are from him. That you went and did the same stupid thing as your mama, married a wife-beating drunk, and now you’re trying to make someone else pay for it.”
He spit to the side of her, his breathing heavy, his eyes glinting in the dim light. Evelyn bit off a groan as she used her good arm to prop herself higher, make it to her knee, level her gaze at his. He was insane if he thought he wouldn’t pay for this, thought she’d stay silent. If he wasn’t going to kill her, he’d pay. They all would.
“Time to head off, boys.” Courtney stood and backed toward the vehicle.
“We can’t just leave her.”
Evelyn’s heart leaped as the man who’d stood beside the boy spoke. Could they kill her? Dispose of her bo—
Courtney turned. “She can walk.”
“And if she dies? And the cops check her over? Find bits of you on—”
“Fine!” Courtney threw his hands in the air, then bit his ugly lip.
“We’ll drop her off at her house,” the man said, and in the turn of his head, the roundness of his voice, she could almost hear a boy from her past. Someone who’d walked over with a Valentine’s Day card, who’d smiled at her from across the schoolyard. He faced her square on, and behind the mounds of facial hair, she saw him, how young and sweet and shy he once was. “Then this will be over.”
“I don’t want her in my truck.” Courtney spit again.
“We’ll put her in the bed.” The man strode past the men who had held her. He placed both hands on her shoulders and led her to the rear of the truck, then opened the back and hoisted her up. She groaned with the jolt. Once up, her whole body shaking, he wrapped his arms around her. The truck pulled onto the highway, and wind whipped around them. He placed his lips beside her ear as Evelyn stiffened. “Go home. Go to sleep.” He paused, squeezing her tighter. “Forget about this. Forget all of it.” Evelyn stared at the disappearing road, the darkness. “Pretend it never happened. Move on with your life. Lie low and stay safe.”
The truck stopped at the turnoff to her road. Courtney appeared before them. “She can walk from here.” The other man jumped down, helped her out. “Shower,” he whispered. “Get a good night’s sleep. In the morning, pretend it never happened.”
He turned Evelyn toward her street, then climbed inside the cab. Evelyn didn’t wait for the truck to drive off. She ran.