Unspeakable Things(44)
The sergeant made no move to take the lawn chairs from my hands, despite his offer. Rather, he seemed to be studying me, spending extra time on my neck. I returned the favor, ogling the silver chain holding his dog tags peeking out of his collar, even though being stuck in here with him gave me the identical stomach-up feeling as riding the Zipper at the Town & Country Fair. He was out of uniform, his white T-shirt a sharp contrast against his tan and muscled arms.
He wore jean shorts, so short that the bottom of his pockets hung out. He was barefoot. He’d also rubbed something in his hair that smelled and looked like Vaseline. He’d combed the same hair jelly into his mustache but hadn’t fully blended in a chunk by the corner of his fat red lips. His eyes were bloodshot.
“Sergeant Bauer, what are you doing down here?”
He made an angry sound. “Aramis, I said. You call me Sergeant Bauer and this’ll be the shortest party in the history of Stearns County. I’m not much older than you, you know. I graduated with your dad.”
He took a step closer, and I recoiled. Any smile fell off his too-red lips. “You scared of me?” he asked.
“No,” I blurted, stepping down onto the cement floor to prove it. On even ground, he towered a foot above me. I glared up at him. I thought he was going to sneer, but a look of surprise crossed his face instead. It gave me a pump of courage. “Did my dad tell you that the two boys who were attacked both came from the Hollow and that maybe you should have extra patrols there?”
He stared down his nose at me. “Yeah.”
He was lying—a tickle in my chest told me that—but I wasn’t sure which part he was being untruthful about, that Dad had told him or that it was only two boys from the Hollow.
My mouth felt chalky, but I shoved out a ball of words anyhow. “I need to get these chairs back up to the house.”
I hurried out of the studio before Bauer could respond. I wanted to walk out backward so I could keep an eye on him, but I was too afraid of what I’d see.
CHAPTER 26
Forty-three cars lined our driveway, filled in wide spots on the lawn, and were tucked in the field across the road. They were white, black, red, green. From the sky, it would look like Chiclets scattered by a giant child. I’d walked between the cars, counting them, letting my fingers trail over their cooling metal as the sun set and the long grass licked my knees.
There were people at the party I’d never seen before, people who I could tell were wondering if the stories were true. They mowed through the tables of potato salad, pickles, and desserts, navigated the extension cords hooked up to bubbling slow cookers, syrupy thick with cocktail wieners swimming in BBQ sauce and pulled pork and bright-orange cheese sauce.
I’d tasted all of it, everything, to make sure I hadn’t missed a flavor. My stomach hurt, but I’d kept returning to that salad layered like a hot dish, with a base of deliciously crunchy head lettuce and on top of that salty bits of bacon, mayonnaise, tomato chunks, bright-green sweet peas that burst in my mouth, the whole works covered in another layer of mayonnaise, and on top of that, more bacon and shredded cheddar cheese. I’d gone back four times for seconds, pretending I was cleaning up a bit of paper or moving around a cookie plate so that I could scoop more of that salad onto my plate.
Once people were done eating, Kristi removed her clothes. It was always her who started, boobs low and big nippled, pointing toward her triangle bush, her eyes defiant. I stared the first few years she did it. She wanted to announce that it was okay to be naked here, that she was free, that this was how these parties went.
That’s when Mr. and Mrs. Frais left. No one but me seemed to notice.
Soon other women began stripping, though some of them required a little one-on-one attention from Dad. I don’t know how he talked those respectable women into taking their clothes off, could never figure out how he swung it, even though I swore at every party that I’d listen to what he said to them. Probably I got distracted by the food every time, because I’d turn around and then a handful more ladies were naked, and then a handful more. The men would lose their shirts, but they hung on to their shorts usually. Then they’d all begin playing croquet or lawn darts naked (women) or mostly naked (men), and there would be no help cleaning anything up, and everyone would eventually head to the barn like dogs in heat.
It wasn’t full dark, but most people had already disappeared into that building. Warbly Indian music snaked out of it. I’d peeked through one of the cracks in the barn last year. It was hard to look away, but it was harder to keep staring. I wasn’t going to look again.
“Help me clean out the slow cookers,” Sephie commanded. Before Mom had careened toward the barn on some guy’s arm, she’d ordered us to put away all the food. Sephie had taken that to mean she was in charge.
I shook my head. “I’ll walk the trails and make sure no one tossed cups.”
Sephie was having none of it. “You’re welcome to do that after the potluck is taken care of. No way am I doing all this alone.” She’d actually donned one of Mom’s aprons after her bartending gig dried up. She apparently thought it gave her the power to tell the world what to do. At least it meant she wasn’t flirting with the old guy anymore. He was nearly Dad’s age, and they’d been laughing too loud at anything the other said all afternoon and night. It gave me the barfs.