Panic(80)

One day, Heather woke up with the sudden, strong impulse to return to where the game had begun. A mist rose slowly over Carp, shimmering, dispersing finally in the mounting sun; the air smelled like moist ground and freshly cut grass.

“How’d you like to go swimming, Bill?” she asked Lily when Lily rolled over, blinking, hair scattered across the pillow. Heather could see the light pattern of freckles on Lily’s nose, individual lashes highlighted by the sun, and thought her sister had never looked so pretty.

“With Bishop, too?” Lily asked.

Heather couldn’t stop herself from smiling. “With Bishop, too.” He had been driving home every weekend from college, to fulfill his community service duties. And to see Heather.

In the end, she decided to invite Nat and Dodge, too. It seemed right, somehow. When the small yellow envelope containing a single gold key—the key to a strongbox at a local bank—had arrived mysteriously in the mail, she had collected and divided the money among the three of them. She knew Dodge had given most of his portion to Bill Kelly; they were building a small memorial for Little Kelly at the site of the Graybill house, which had been demolished. Nat was taking some acting classes in Albany, and she’d gotten a job modeling clothes on weekends at the Hudson Valley Mall.

And starting in January, Heather would enroll in the Jefferson Community College’s program in veterinary services.

Heather packed the trunk with a blanket, beach towels, mosquito repellent, and sunscreen; a stack of old, waterlogged magazines from Anne’s living room; a cooler full of iced tea; several bags of chips; and creaky beach chairs with faded, striped seats. She could sense that tomorrow the weather would turn again, and the air would be edged with cold. Soon Krista would get out of her thirty-day program, and then Heather and Lily might have to return to Fresh Pines, at least temporarily. And soon the months of rain would come.

But today was perfect.

They arrived at the estuary just before lunch. Nobody had spoken much in the car. Lily had squeezed in between Dodge and Nat in the backseat. Nat braided a portion of Lily’s hair and whispered quietly to her about which movie stars she thought were the cutest; Dodge had leaned his head back against the window, and it was only from the occasional way his mouth twitched into a smile that Heather knew he wasn’t asleep. Bishop kept one hand on Heather’s knee as she drove. It still seemed miraculous to see it there, to know that he was hers—as he always had been, in some way. But everything was different now.

Different and better.

Once out of the car, all their restraint lifted. Lily went whooping into the woods, holding her towel over her head so it flapped behind her like a banner. Nat chased after her, swatting away the branches in her path. Dodge and Bishop helped Heather clear out the trunk, and together they all went pushing through the woods, loaded down with towels and beach chairs and the cooler clinking ice.

The beach looked cleaner than usual. Two trash cans had been installed at the far end of the shore, and the sand-and-gravel strip of beach was free of the usual cigarette butts and beer cans. Sunlight filtering through the trees patterned the water in crazy colors—purples and greens and vivid blues. Even the steep face of the rock wall across the water, from which all the players had jumped, now looked beautiful instead of frightening: there were flowers growing out of fissures in the rock, Heather noticed, tangled vines sweeping down toward the water. The trees at the top of the jumping point were fire-red already, burning in the sun.

Lily trotted back to Heather as she was shaking out the blanket. There was a light breeze, and Heather had to tamp down the corners with different belongings: her flip-flops, Bishop’s sunglasses, the beach bag.

“Is that it, Heather?” Lily pointed. “Is that where you jumped?”

“Nat jumped too,” Heather said. “We all did. Well, except Bishop.”

“What can I say?” He was already unlacing his Converses. He winked at Lily. “I’m chicken.”

Briefly, his eyes met Heather’s. After all this time, she still couldn’t quite believe that he had planned Panic, or forgive him for not having told her. She would never have guessed in a million years: her Bishop, her best friend, the boy who used to dare her to eat her scabs and then almost throw up when she did.

But that was the point. He was the same, and different. And that made her hopeful in a way. If people changed, it meant that she was allowed to change too. She could be different.

She could be happier.

Heather would be happier—was happier already.

“It isn’t that high,” Lily said. She squinted. “How’d you get all the way up there?”

“Climbed,” Heather said. Lily opened her mouth soundlessly.

“Come on, Lily!” Nat was standing by the water, shimmying out of her shorts. Dodge stood a short distance away, smiling out over the river, watching her. “Race you into the water!”

“No fair!” Lily ran, kicking up sand, struggling out of her T-shirt at the same time.

Heather and Bishop lay down on the blanket together, on their backs. She rested her head on his chest. Every so often, he ran his fingers lightly through her hair. For a while they didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. Heather knew that no matter what, he would always be hers, and they would always have this: a perfect day, a temporary reprieve from the cold.

Heather had started to drift off to sleep when Bishop stirred. “I love you, Heather.”