Wrecked(35)

Rows are labeled: Macs, Cortlands, Red Delicious, all the same price. Haley and Richard each grab a grocery store – size paper bag and head out.

The sky is a clear, intense blue. They walk to the far end of the field, passing from shade to sun, away from the exuberant family groups.

“Smells like fall,” Richard says. “Cider. Mown hay.”

“Rotten apples,” Haley says. The ground beneath each tree is littered with them.

Richard laughs. “One woman’s rotten apple is another man’s cider.”

She breathes in deeply, filling her lungs. “Donuts,” she adds. “Something baking.”

“They have fantastic cider donuts here,” Richard says. “And apple pie. They serve it with their own homemade vanilla ice cream.”

Haley stops in her tracks. She breathes deeply again. She can smell the fry oil from the donut maker. Damp, fallen leaves. Manure from the dairy farm next door. It’s a bright morning. And it doesn’t hurt.

“This is so cool,” she says. “The light doesn’t bother me. I don’t have the slightest headache.”

He looks relieved. As if someone has just delivered the good news he’s been waiting for. Before she realizes what’s happening, Richard steps in close, wraps one arm around her shoulders, and continues their walk through the field.

He smells like cotton and soap. And him. His warm guy smell.

Oh god. Maybe she shouldn’t say anything. Don’t wreck this, Haley.

“It’s good to know one of us doesn’t have a splitting headache this morning,” he says.





. . .


Marliese knows where Conundrum House is, so they follow her. The trippy, laughing pack weaves across the dark campus.

They don’t need coats; Tamra’s bottle warms them. They stumble in shoes not meant for walking, their heels a syncopated scrape and click as they pass through a wooded labyrinth of winding sidewalks.

They hear the party before they see it. Distant voices obscured by drumming. Will they ever get there? But then a smudge of light glows behind the trees, they round a corner, and the house—bright, teeming—appears.

. . .





16





Richard


Richard may fall asleep.

That would be nice. A nap, right here, stretched out on the warm, sloping grass, sun lightly toasting his closed eyelids. Dry whisper of the trees. They’re at the quiet end of the orchard, farthest from the barn.

Then Haley says, “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

Her tone. Not good. He sits up.

Their bags, stuffed full with every variety of apple, are propped behind her. She stares out into the distance, the full length of field visible from the slight rise where they sit. She speaks without looking at him.

“So the other night, when we were at the Grille? You probably wondered why I sort of . . . left.”

“Yeah, now that you mention it,” he says. I thought you were a complete snot, he doesn’t say. “What was up with that?”

“Your housemate,” she says. “Jordan.”

Something dark gathers in Richard’s chest. His heart drums just a little harder, a little faster. What? What now?

“I figured he said something obnoxious to you,” he says. “Haley, the guy’s a jerk. Don’t pay attention to anything that comes out of his mouth.”

She pivots and faces him now as she speaks. “Actually, it’s not anything he said to me. It’s something he did. Something I know about, and if you and I are going to hang out, you need to know, too.”

Hang out. He wants to stop her there and further explore what she means by that. He definitely has some ideas that extend beyond apple picking.

“A couple weeks ago,” she continues, “my roommate was attacked. Raped. It happened the night of my concussion, a Saturday, at that house near yours. Conundrum. She hasn’t told me any of the details, and I only know the name of the guy by accident. She was waving some papers around and I saw it. And it’s him. Jordan Bockus. That’s why I asked you his last name the other night. It sort of freaked me out when I realized who it was.”

Richard blinks. A minute ago he was dozing off. Now he is definitely awake.

“Jenny,” he says reflexively. “Your roommate is Jenny?”

Haley’s eyes widen. “You know about this,” she breathes.

“You know about this.”

“Shit,” she says. She stands. Arms crossed tightly, she stares down at him.

“Jenny the freshman,” he says. “The girl who is charging Jordan with rape. That’s your roommate?”

“She’s not ‘Jenny the freshman.’ She’s Jenny James. And yes. My roommate. The woman I live with.”

“Shit,” he echoes. He rubs his hands over his eyes. “This is unbelievable.”

“You think?” She’s standing with her back to the sun, and it hurts to twist his neck and look up at her.

“Would you sit? I can’t talk like this,” he says.

She returns to the grass beside him. “How long have you known?”

He squints, thinking. “Known about them hooking up or about her charging him?”

The instant the words are out of his mouth, he realizes his mistake. It’s like getting smacked in the back of the head with a snowball: a thud, followed by glass--sharp prickles of dread melting down your neck.