The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek(58)

“Wow, GamGam,” Janine said. “They’re gone. Nice work.” She exhaled and tried to relax, though she knew she wouldn’t fully feel better until she was taking off in that plane.

“Woohoo!” GamGam shouted into the rearview. “Eat my dust! I wish your Grandpa Chuck was here to see this.”

“Me too, GamGam,” Janine said, picturing her late Grandpa riding along with them, his eyes bugging out in terror as GamGam traveled well above the speed limit. Janine then had the morbid thought that even if Grandpa Chuck had somehow survived his heart attack in 1981, being here for GamGam’s wild driving might have finally killed him.

“I tell ya, I think I owe my drivin’ skills to Burt,” GamGam said. “You know he did all his own stunts in Smokey and the Ban— Aaaahhhhhh!”

Janine joined her grandmother in screaming as the red car shot out ahead of them from another side street, screeching to a halt and blocking their lane. GamGam slammed on the brakes and desperately cut the wheel to the right as she brought the Grand Marquis to its own, far less skillful screeching halt.

Janine’s first impulse was to grab her things and make a run for it, but she didn’t want to abandon GamGam. So instead she would stay. She would fight.

“Good Lord,” GamGam said, trying to keep a sense of humor even though she was obviously as shaken up as Janine. “All this over a movie. Some people are too sensitive.”

Janine couldn’t even speak. Horns blared behind them, as both their Grand Marquis and this strangely familiar Corolla were completely blocking the road. Her mind raced. She was about to be murdered in the middle of a country road, all for thinking it would be cool to make a movie about kidney stones. What a legacy.

She watched the door of the red car open, ready to duck in case the driver had some kind of weapon. When she saw who had been behind the wheel, though, her brain short-circuited.

The person who had been chasing Janine was…her cousin?

Donna, in one of her trademark flannel shirts, quickly reached back into the car and then held up a piece of white posterboard—styled just like the Gnome Girls title cards she used to make—with two words written on it:

Stay Bitch

Janine slowly opened her door and stepped out of the car.

“You…can’t leave,” Donna said.

“I don’t…What…” Janine was trying to make sense of what she was witnessing. Her painfully reserved cousin had stopped her from leaving town with some sort of stunt-driving move, and now she was holding up an ironically hilarious sign.

“Donna, that was very dangerous,” GamGam said, joining them on the street. “Are you drunk?”

“No, GamGam,” Donna said. “Janine, that girl was killed. Alicia. She died in a fire at the school.”

“Oh my god,” Janine said. Another dead Whitewood student. Who conveniently happened to be the one kid who had personally injured Whitewood. That girl had barely been there a week.

“How awful,” GamGam said.

“Quit blockin’ the damn road!” a woman shouted from behind them.

“But…I don’t think that’s the full story,” Donna said.

“No, of course not,” Janine said. She was almost as shocked by Donna putting together complete sentences as she was about Alicia Boykins’s death.

“This ain’t book club—move your daggone cars!” a man shouted.

“So, uh, why are you…leaving?” Donna asked. Janine could see that her cousin was growing more comfortable speaking with every word. It was like watching someone beginning to walk after an accident.

“It’s complicated,” Janine said. “I wasn’t getting anywhere with my movie. And, well, Dennis…”

“That asshole?”

Janine stared at Donna in wonder and confusion.

“GamGam told me the deal,” she said.

Janine looked to GamGam, who shrugged.

“He sounds like a piece of crap who doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as you,” Donna continued. “Let alone date you.”

“Oh.” Having Donna, of all people, say that to her was not unlike being splashed with a bucket of ice water.

“I know I haven’t been myself for…a while now. But I’m tired of being afraid. It’s hard to…It’s hard to talk about what…happened to me.” For a moment, Janine saw the distance enter Donna’s eyes, that same disconnectedness she’d seen for years. But then she looked right at Janine, and the detachment was suddenly replaced with resolve. Janine felt as if she was looking at fifteen-year-old Donna. “But watching you with your movie, and remembering my dad…and now hearing what happened to this girl…You can’t leave. Because you might actually be able to do something about this. And I want to help.”

Janine understood then that she was running away from Bleak Creek, just as her mother had done so many years before. She saw herself becoming yet another person who sees a problem and then leaves town to let somebody else deal with it.

“Okay,” Janine said, wiping tears away. “I’ll stay.”

Donna rushed over and hugged Janine for the first time since they were teenagers.

“Aw, geez, you girls are making me cry now,” GamGam said.

“If I’d wanted to watch my soaps, I would have stayed at home!” a woman shouted.