My Dark Vanessa(70)

“Isn’t that sad?” Charley asks. “Do you think I’m pathetic?”

I don’t look up from my notebook. “I think you should do whatever you want with whoever you want.”

I look ahead to the next class period on Strane’s schedule—a free hour. I picture him in the office, reclined on the tweed sofa, a stack of ungraded homework on his lap, his thoughts drifting to me.

“See, that’s why I like you,” Charley says. “You’re so chill. We should hang out. Like, for real. Outside of school.”

I glance up from my notebook.

“What about Friday? You can come to the bowling alley.”

“I don’t really like bowling.”

She rolls her eyes. “We don’t actually bowl.”

I ask what it is that they do there, but Charley only grins, ducks her head down toward the gas valve, puckers her lips, moves to turn it on. I grab her hand and she laughs, raspy and loud.



On Friday night, Charley drives all the way out to my house to pick me up, comes inside and introduces herself to my parents. Her hair is pulled back into a neat ponytail and she’s wearing a ring that hides her tattoo.

She tells my mom she’s had her license for a year, a lie that comes out so smooth, it fools even me. I see my parents exchanging glances, how Mom wrings her hands, but I know they don’t want to tell me I can’t go. At least I’m making friends, starting to fit in.

Once Charley and I are walking up the driveway, out of earshot, she says, “Christ, you really live out in the fuckin’ boonies.”

“I know, I hate it.”

“I would, too. You know, last year I dated a guy who lived out here.” She says his name, but I don’t recognize it. “He was a little older,” she explains.

Her car squeals as she pulls out of the driveway, and I picture Mom wincing at the sound. “Yeah, sorry,” Charley says, “muffler’s bad.” She drives with one hand on the wheel, the other holding a cigarette, her window cracked to let out the smoke. She wears gloves with the fingertips cut off, her coat covered in cat hair. She asks me questions about myself, about what I think of different people at school, about having gone to Browick. She says she’s obsessed with the idea of boarding school.

“Was it crazy?” she asks. “It must’ve been. Full of rich kids, right?”

“Not everyone was rich.”

“Were there drugs everywhere?”

“No,” I say. “It wasn’t like that. It was . . .” I think of the white clapboard campus, the autumn oak trees, the snow banks higher than our heads, the teachers in jeans and flannel shirts—Strane, draped in shadow, as he watched me from behind his desk. I shake my head. “It’s hard to describe.”

Charley sticks the tip of her cigarette out the window. “Well, you’re lucky. Even if you were only there a couple years. My mom would never be able to swing that.”

“I had a scholarship,” I say quickly.

“Yeah, but even then, my mom wouldn’t have let me go. She loves me too much. I mean, letting your kid move away as a freshman? At fourteen? That’s crazy.” She takes a drag, exhales, and adds, “Sorry. I’m sure your mom loves you. It’s just different, I guess, with mine. We’re close. It’s just her and me.”

I wave her off, say that it’s fine, but what she said stings. Maybe it hurts because it might be true. Maybe I wasn’t loved enough. Maybe that lack of love shaped the loneliness he saw in me.

“Will’s supposed to be there tonight,” she says, such a sudden subject change I start to ask Will who, but then remember what she said in chemistry. Will Coviello is so hot, I’ll give him a blow job. Watch me, I’ll do it. I’ve known Will Coviello since I was in kindergarten. He’s a year older, a senior, lives in a big house with a tennis court out front. Girls used to call him Prince William in middle school.

When we get to the bowling alley, Jade is already there, wearing a satiny camisole without a bra. The bowling alley is dimly lit, with long tables set back from the lanes where a bunch of kids from school sit, their faces recognizable but most of their names out of reach. There’s a sports bar attached to the bowling alley, an open doorway separating the two so jukebox music drifts in, the smell of beer.

Charley sits next to Jade. “Have you seen Will?” When Jade nods and points toward the doors, Charley takes off so fast she almost knocks over a chair.

Without Charley around, Jade won’t speak to me. She stares pointedly over my shoulders, refuses to look at me. Her eyeliner cuts across her eyelids into sharp points. I haven’t seen her wear it like that before.

Men with drinks in their hands wander out of the bar and into the bowling alley, their eyes skimming the dim room. A man in a camo jacket sees our table and gestures to his friend. The other man just shakes his head and holds up his hands, as if to say, I don’t want anything to do with that.

I watch the man in the jacket come over, notice how he zeroes in on Jade and her slutty top. He pulls up a chair beside her, sets his drink on the table. “Hope you don’t mind if I sit here,” he says. His accent turns here into two syllables. He-yah. “It’s so crowded, there’s nowhere else for me to go.”

It’s a joke; there are plenty of seats. Jade is supposed to laugh, but she won’t even look over at him. She sits with her back stick straight and arms crossed over her chest. In a tiny voice, she says, “It’s fine.”