Chapter Fourteen #2
They stopped at a store, and Wendy suggested maybe they find someone to buy beer for them.
“Watch for someone to come out and ask. Guys will do that. The creepier the better.” Maeve couldn’t keep her eyes off Wendy.
The dark blue of the dress popped against her white skin.
Her hair up in ridiculous curls. She looked like the Hollywood version of herself.
“Ask that guy,” Wendy said, pointing. “He’s already got a six pack. ”
But Maeve shook her head. She wanted to stay clear. She could at least keep one promise to her dad and not drink. “Nah, I’ll just get Cokes and chips and be right out. Wait here, okay?”
Wendy laughed and put her bare feet up on the dash. “Where would I go?”
On the ride out to the beach, Wendy told Maeve she’d let Brett kiss her, and he said she was a prick tease for not doing more. She’d had to push him off several times.
Maeve did not want to think of Brett kissing Wendy, of his hands on her. “He didn’t hurt you, though, right?”
Wendy shook her head. “No, but, man, I can’t keep doing this. I don’t want that. Not ever. Pull over,” Wendy said, pointing to a dirt lane. “No one will be out here this time of night.”
Maeve shut off the engine, and the world went quiet. When she shifted toward Wendy, the paperback in her back pocket fell free and landed barely under the seat.
Wendy picked it up. “Reading?”
Maeve leaned across her to open the glove box. She shut the book inside.
Maeve did not see the car come up behind them.
It was possible the lights were dimmed. It was possible she was wrapped up in Wendy, buried beneath her.
By the time she heard rapping on the fogged window, it was too late to make the situation less clear.
She righted herself, though there was no fixing the straps on her overalls that had been undone.
She buttoned her shirt while Wendy pulled her dress down over her hips.
Maeve expected to see a cop or, worse, her dad.
Instead, the door opened, and Conor O’Kane peered into the back seat.
His mouth fell open as his stony eyes moved from Maeve to Wendy and back again.
He seemed to pick up something he’d dropped then stepped away from the car.
Maeve twisted to secure the toggles of her overalls. This can’t be happening.
“I think that’s the guy from the store, the one carrying beer out,” Wendy said.
Maeve heard the flick of a lighter, smelled tobacco burning. “Wait here.”
O’Kane was leaning against the hood of his car, which had Maeve’s pinned into the lane.
“Hello there, Maeve. Fancy bumping into you. You remember me, right?”
“I know who you are.”
“I saw Will’s car in town and thought, now that’s funny,” Conor said.
He sucked on the cigarette, blew smoke in her direction.
A memory of her grandmother swirled in the scent of it.
“Strange seeing it parked on this road on a Saturday night. I figured I’d check it out.
” He stared at her, squinting as if he was trying to solve a riddle.
“Did you follow me?”
“What if I did? Seems you got up to something, I’d say.”
The moon was full and as bright as an interrogation light. There was no story she could invent. He saw what he saw.
“Are you going to tell?”
“Tell?” His laugh was outsized and fake. “You think I’m some kind of narc? Ask your mother. She knows I can keep a secret.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Conor stepped forward, put a hand on her shoulder. She flinched, tried to shrug it off.
“Your strap is twisted,” he said, hooking a finger into her overalls. He detached the metal toggle, unwound the strap like he was twirling a lock of hair, his eyes never moving from hers. “So, girls, huh?” He gestured toward the car. Wendy was staring from the back window.
He was the villain of every story—the wolf in sheep’s clothing, the needle on the spinning wheel.
His accent was as thick as her grandfather’s, who said more than once that Conor O’Kane was full of shite.
Up close, he was an abyss. What made it worse was that he smelled good.
Not like cologne or soap or a firepit or oil or car exhaust. He didn’t smell like leather or denim or cotton.
It was not some herb or flower or fruit or piece of wood or fish in a net.
Something earthy oozed from him—mushrooms or moss in a cave.
Maeve wished she could smell like that, push up earth just by breathing.
If Conor O’Kane could transform into a bear or wolf, she would not be surprised.
She stared off to the right, repulsed but something else too. She was afraid to even look at him.
“I bet you’ve never even given a man a go. You never know . . . the right one might fix you up.” He hooked the toggle around the metal button, grabbed the other strap, and yanked up hard. The seam of her pants dug into her crotch. Maeve let out a yelp.
“You and your girlfriend there best get home. Wouldn’t want William and Fiadh to worry. Where do they think you are, anyway?”
“It’s none of your business what I do.” Maeve thought of conversations she’d heard over the years, her parents’ distrust of this Conor O’Kane, how they’d both wanted to be rid of him, how her mother pounded the table at the mention of his name.
She would be doing them a favor. She could end it for them all.
“You know, Mom and Dad don’t even like you.
Nobody does. And they sure don’t trust you.
They know you’re a liar. Even my grandfather doesn’t like you.
He said he wished you’d go away. You don’t have proof of anything. ”
Maeve saw a flinch. Good, she thought. Maybe her jab landed. His white smoke circled her, and she remembered being a child scared by him but thrilled too. She could feel it again, the danger of him manifesting as desire. She throbbed where the seam had cut in.
“Don’t be so sure. You have no idea what I know.” He pulled a flat woolen flask from inside his jacket, unscrewed the lid, and took a long pull. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand then held the flask out.
She scoffed. “Drop dead.”
His head tilted. He filled his cheeks with air then blew the boozy breath into her face. “Maybe I do have proof. Maybe I could sink your whole perfect family.”
“You don’t. And it’s your word against mine. Now, if you don’t mind . . .”
He wagged his finger at her. “Have it your way.”
Behind the wheel of the car, Maeve shook. “Oh, I hate him!”
Wendy climbed from the back seat into the front. “He’s still there.”
Maeve looked in the rearview mirror. A flash of high beams blinded her, then retreated. The black car spun and peeled in a circle, pebbles plinking against the fender like hailstones.
Maeve checked the time. She was past curfew. “My dad is going to kill me.”
Wendy laughed oddly, put her hand to her mouth.
“Oh, no,” she whispered. Maeve pointed at a rip in that precious dress as if that were the problem.
“That? That’s from before. No, I was thinking.
If I was voted prom queen, my parents would definitely find out I wasn’t there.
I didn’t think of that. I was so mad. And fucking Brett.
It’s almost funny how embarrassed he would be.
” She laughed wryly. “Guess we’re in for it now. ”
Maeve turned the key in the ignition, and the engine sputtered to a purr. “Do you want me to take you back? To the school?”
Wendy shrugged. “It’s too late. Doesn’t matter.”
Maeve drove in silence, relishing the feeling of Wendy’s hand on her thigh.
She imagined telling her parents about Wendy, about herself, imagined finding the words to make them understand.
She thought of Wendy’s mother and how cruel she had been.
No way her parents would be like that. But then again, they were there on that porch swing, that perfect couple, golden and true, the American dream.
Could they reject her? What would rejection even look like?
The truth was Maeve had no idea what they would do.
What Wendy said looped in her head like a skipping record.
We’re in for it now. We’re in for it now. We’re in for it now.