Stained, Page 2

  “He wasn’t at Joe’s today either.” I figure they already know this, but I don’t know what else to say.

  My mother tells me with her eyes to sit down. “Jocelyn, do you know anything about Gabe that might give us a clue to his whereabouts?”

  “We’ve called his friends, Jocelyn,” Margo explains. “And everyone on the baseball team. None of them have seen him since the party last night. Did you see him there?”

  “Was he drinking?” asks Mom.

  What do I do? I look at Mike just sitting there playing with the salt and pepper shakers. He doesn’t look up. Do I say, Yes, he was three sheets to the wind? “It was an end-of-the-year party,” I say instead. In other words, You connect the dots.

  “Was he with anyone special?” asks Margo.

  “Bernadette?” asks Mom.

  “I didn’t see Bernadette at the party,” I say.

  “Well, that’s a relief.” Margo puts her tissue down and picks up her coffee mug. Her hands are shaking.

  “Perhaps he left the party to go to Bernadette’s,” Mom suggests lightly. We both know that this is Margo’s worst fear.

  Mike gets up and looks out the sliding door. “When I get my hands on that kid …”

  I look at Mom. What’s going on?

  The O’Neils have called the police, Mom tells me. They’ve called the church, too. Gabe is missing. In two more hours they will start an official search. “Jocelyn, can you think of anything that could help? Do you know anything about Gabe that Margo and Mike might not know?”

  “Has there been any trouble?” his mother asks. “Drugs?” She is begging me to tell her anything, no matter how heartbreaking.

  Until now the two families have pretended that Gabe and I are in the same league. That we’re both having the time of our lives during these exciting high school years. But we all know that Gabe is a golden boy an all-star, and that I am barely making it as fringe. If it weren’t for Benny who moved into town in January, and Theresa, who has remained my best friend since we discovered that we both loved Wuthering Heights at the end of seventh grade, I would be a total outcast. Gabe and his friends couldn’t possibly tell anyone in the room whether or not I was at the party last night.

  Until today Gabe could do no wrong. They’re asking me to share the perceptions of an observer, a loner—not an insider. Their eyes plead for information.

  “I don’t know of any trouble,” I say. “But I’ll see what I can find out.”

  They nod in relief. It’s funny, but for a moment I feel that invisible chord that used to bind Gabe and me. Maybe I can help.

  SIX

  Gabe and I have started Mrs. Story’s kindergarten, but it’s Friday night and we’re allowed to stay outside until our mothers have finished their martinis and eaten all of the baby cocktail franks out of the fondue pot. Gabe’s oldest brother, Matthew, and his sister, Mary, are at parties. His middle brother, Timmy and his dad are at their house watching 77 Sunset Strip on television. I can see flashing blue images through the windows. Gabe and I are sitting at the picnic table on my back deck staring at our ham and cheese sandwiches. Our mothers have said that we can’t get up from the table until they are finished. I hate ham. Gabe hates soggy cheese.

  He yells that we are getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. My mother stomps out on the deck, lights a stinky candle in a peanut butter jar, and places it in the middle of the table. “There. That will keep the bugs away. Eat your dinner.”

  Despite its smell, the candle seems to be having little effect on the bugs. The mosquitoes are still humming, and within seconds, moths have the candle surrounded. Little white moths and larger gray moths with furry bellies flit in and out of the jar. We hear a fast sizzle now and then—a moth flying too close. Gabe takes a stick and tries to poke them farther into the fire.

  “Cut it out, Gabe,” I say. I hate the thought of singed moths.

  He won’t stop.

  I blow out the candle.

  “Mom!” Gabe yells.

  In the faint porch light I can see that there are moths that have flown too close or have stuck to the melted wax. “Let’s give these poor moths a funeral,” I suggest—partly because I feel bad for the moths, partly because I want to stop Gabe from telling on me.

  Gabe looks inside the jar. “We can’t,” he says matter-of-factly.

  “We could bury our sandwiches at the same time,” I suggest, thinking that our table sentence is the obstacle.

  “No,” says Gabe. “They can’t have a funeral ’cause they did suicide.”

  I have no idea what Gabe is talking about. He can tell because my mouth is shut.

  “Suicide is when someone kills themself.”

  “Why would someone do that?” How is such a thing possible?

  “Lots of people do,” Gabe says. He begins whipping the bread from his sandwich into the woods. “They blow their brains out. Or they jump in front of the train. Matthew told me.”

  I remember hearing that someone had died in a train crash last year, but I thought it was an accident. I thought they had been too pokey in getting over the tracks. I try to imagine someone wanting to die.

  “Do they want to go to heaven? Is that why they do it?”

  “They can’t!” Gabe is getting impatient with my lack of knowledge. “If you kill yourself, you’re a sinner. They’re sinners, so they can’t have a funeral and they have to go to hell.”

  “Hell?” I whisper so our mothers won’t hear me say a swear word. “Hell with the devil?”

  “Of course! Don’t you know anything?” Gabe’s sandwich has vanished. Mine still sits in front of me.

  What were those moths thinking of, I wondered, when they flew so close to the flame?

  SEVEN

  I change out of my uniform, put on my favorite pair of bell-bottoms. I let my hair out of the elastic and shake my head. Wild hair. Theresa picks me up in her orange Bug. We’re going to Katherine LeBlanc’s party. I wasn’t planning to go—it seemed wrong with Gabe missing—but I had promised to find out what I could, and a party was a good place to start. I certainly wasn’t going to learn anything sitting around at home. I made Mom promise to call the LeBlancs if Gabe was found.

  Theresa’s wearing a short peasant dress and sandals. She is practically sitting on her long straight hair. She will be the only one wearing a dress tonight, but everyone’s used to her having her own style. I stare at her, and then I try to remember my own image in the bathroom mirror. I can’t. Already, I’m fading away. Our favorite song, “You Sexy Thing,” comes on the radio. Normally, I would crank it, and Theresa and I would sing at the top of our lungs. But tonight we’re distracted.

  Theresa and I talk about Gabe. I think he’s been kidnapped like Patty Hearst. He’ll be brainwashed into robbing banks and acting as a terrorist. Or, worse, he’ll be forced into a life of prostitution.

  “Well, he does have the bod,” says Theresa. “He’d make big bucks.”

  I give her a look that says, Oh, that’s sympathetic.

  “But you know where I think he is?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer. “I think Bernadette’s pregnant. I bet Gabe drove her down to Boston last night. Maybe she scheduled an abortion for today. Maybe something happened. Maybe she chickened out and Gobe’s still with her. That’s what happened to Sue Hopkins.”

  Theresa had told me about Sue. They’re in drama club together. Kids consider Theresa knowledgeable, a little worldly. That’s why they’re always confiding in her. Sue probably figured that she would tell me, but that didn’t concern her. Where could it go next?

  I think about Sue and her boyfriend riding the subway all night long. It makes me feel so sad. “Benny broke up with me today.”

  Theresa pulls over to the side of the road. She bangs the horn. “Again? He is so cruel. What is it with you and cruel guys, Jocelyn?” She hugs me over the stick shift, and I wonder what she means. For years I wouldn’t even try to talk to a guy. I have only had one boyfriend. I have only had Benny.
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br />   I wait for her to ask me why: Why; did he break up with you? I want to explain. I want to say that Benny’s scared. But Theresa doesn’t ask why we broke up. It’s as if she knew it was coming, the way she knew that the sun would rise today. It was simply a matter of time.

  EIGHT

  Mrs. Cavanaugh is watching me and Gabe. My mother is at school learning to be a counselor. Gabe’s mother is doing her volunteer work at church. Mrs. Cavanaugh gives us Pop-Tarts and tells us to eat them outside. Strawberry Pop-Tarts. “But don’t go into the garden,” she says—just like Mrs. Rabbit. And just like Peter, that’s where we head first.

  Gabe is standing on a daffodil.

  “Stop killing it,” I say.

  He moves off it. Then he picks it. “Hey,” he says, “let’s pick a whole bunch of these!”

  “Mrs. Cavanaugh said not to go in the garden.”

  “Let’s pick bunches of flowers and sell them,” says Gabe.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “For money.”

  “Who will get the money?” So far any money I had went into the collection basket at church.

  “We will, stupid. We’ll buy candy.”

  “We can sell the flowers on Pine Street and then go to Ray’s Market.”

  Mrs. Cavanaugh will be furious if she sees that we’ve picked her daffodils and early lilies. Shell scold us until we pretend to cry if she finds out that we’ve walked to Ray’s. But I know that Ray’s has wax lips. And I have always wanted wax lips.

  Gabe and I try to pick only the flowers that are in the middle of leaves so Mrs. Cavanaugh can’t tell. But I keep seeing that Gabe has more than me, and he keeps seeing that I have more than him, so we keep picking until our own bunches get bigger and bigger.

  Then we knock on doors.

  There is no one home at the first house.

  At the second house a mother in curlers comes to the door. She thinks we look cute. We tell her that a bunch of flowers costs ten cents. She buys a bunch of flowers from each of us. I don’t know how many flowers to give her, so I watch Gabe. He gives her four, so I give her four. She gives us each a dime.

  We walk up the path of the next house. There are daffodils and crocuses all along the walkway. Whoever lives here likes flowers, I think. We’re gonna be rich.

  We knock on the door. A dog barks.

  “Nobody’s home,” Gabe says.

  “Yes, there is,” I say. I can hear someone telling the dog to stop barking. “Knock louder.”

  Gabe and I both knock on the door at the same time. I put one hand around my eyes and look through the skinny window next to the door. There is a diamond pattern in the glass. I see an old woman. She sees me and walks down her front hall.

  She opens the front door, and before Gabe has a chance to ask her if she wants to buy flowers, she screams.

  “You picked my flowers! Get out of here. Shoo! I didn’t want my flowers picked. Get out of here!”

  I have never seen an old woman holler. Her mouth grows large, and her crooked teeth stick out at me. I drop my flowers on the step and run to the end of the walkway.

  “They’re not your flowers. We didn’t pick your ugly old flowers!” Gabe shouts at her.

  “Go. Go now or I’ll call the police,” she threatens him, using her finger.

  Gabe turns and walks toward me. The woman shuts her door. Gabe picks up a rock that edges her pretty path and hurls it toward the skinny window.

  We run down Pine Street so fast, I can’t feel my legs. I hear the crash over and over in my mind. I picture diamonds raining all over her front steps.

  We see a black car at the stop sign ahead. “Come on,” says Gabe, and he pulls me into some scratchy bushes. I stare at the baby leaves on the bushes and try to stop shaking. The car passes. It’s a police car.

  I start to cry. Gabe wraps his arms around me. “Don’t cry, Jocelyn. We didn’t pick her flowers. Besides,” he says, not worried at all, “my daddy’s strong. He won’t let them put us in jail.”

  That night my window is open. I hear the O’Neils’ phone ring. I hear Gabe’s daddy take him outside. “What were you thinking?” he shouts. “How do you think that behavior reflects on us? You do something like that again and you can pack your bags.”

  I picture Gabe walking away with all his toys in crumpled paper bags. I close my eyes when I hear the belt. Cry, Gabe, I think. Please cry.

  But he doesn’t.

  NINE

  I see him. We’ve no sooner gotten out of the car when I see Benny walking into the house with Mark Shaw, an all-star baseball player. Unlike last night’s party, this is an invitation-only affair. Theresa and I got invitations because we completed Katherine’s yearbook assignment. Last I knew, Benny didn’t have an invitation. My stomach lurches somewhere between hope and nausea. What has changed?

  No one greets us at the door. There are no records playing. No giddy voices made high from pot smoked in the backyard. Then I see why. Officer Beauchamp, affectionately known as Champy and another cop are at this party. They’re looking for information. They’re looking for Gabe.

  Theresa and I move toward the side of the room. I take a chip from a bowl on the baby grand and plunge it into some onion dip. It takes everything I have to keep from looking at Benny.

  Katherine and her friends hold Pepsi bottles like microphones and talk to the jocks who are waiting to talk to the police along the sliding glass windows at the back of the room. Behind them is this amazing view of the mountains.

  Father Warren arrives. Katherine’s parents, who would normally have removed themselves to the upstairs bedroom, feel the need to stay and chaperone. They move toward Father Warren to welcome him. He is an older priest, but not too old. His hair has just begun to turn white, and he looks kind of cool in his black clothes.

  He walks toward Theresa, and I get ready to back away.

  “Hello, Jocelyn,” he says before I have the chance. I’m surprised that he knows my name. I smile a goofy smile and say nothing. He reminds Theresa that the parish house is always open and that if we’re troubled by Gabe’s disappearance, it’s a place to come, a place to talk. I stare at his hands while he’s talking. They are long and freckled and kind, I think.

  He turns and talks with the police and then moves to the, back of the room to join the players. They open the circle to welcome him. Although he’s been in town a year and a half, Father Warren has retained the popularity of a new boy. Mr. LeBlanc leans over the crowd to hand Father a beer, something he would have done for everyone if the police hadn’t showed up at the party too.

  Benny is on the edge of their circle. I’m about four circles away. I use my peripheral vision to watch him.

  Father Warren pulls Benny into the jock crowd and introduces him to a graduate. I can tell that Benny says hi in that smooth way of his—friendly, but with something held back. Like everyone in the room, Father Warren is appropriately somber and concerned, but he bends a little closer to the guys to talk privately. He rests one of those kindly hands on Benny’s shoulder. I predict a priest joke. Sure enough, the group chuckles loudly enough to startle one of the cops.

  Benny’s eyes shift with the laughter. He looks right at me. He raises his hand in a sort of half wave, but he frowns a little.

  I try to look indifferent, but my heart is begging a ride. Benny mouths words to me. I don’t understand what he’s saying. I tell myself to go over and talk to him, but I can’t. We both know that between the jocks and me looms a line that I, Miss Doesn’t Rate, can’t cross.

  Father Warren glances over at me, smiles an all-knowing smile, and then pulls Benny back into the discussion.

  TEN

  I’m sitting at the table trying to stay within the lines of a picture in a coloring book when Margo, carrying a big shopping bag, pushes open the front door. Gabe comes running past her.

  “Let’s go catch frogs,” he says.

  “Not so fast, honey,” says Margo. She plops her bag down on the couch and says, “Come
see what I have for you, Jocelyn.”

  “Well, good morning to you, too,” my mother says to Margo.

  I come closer, and Margo pulls a poofy white dress from the bag. At first I think it’s a party dress, but then I see the hat and I know it’s for a bride.

  “This was Mary’s First Communion dress,” Margo says. “I thought you might like to wear it when you make your First Communion.”

  She holds the dress up to me. White showers me from shoulders to toes.

  “You know that I was going to ask you to stand in for Jocelyn’s godmother,” my mother says.

  “Of course you were,” says Margo. “Who else would you ask?” Both my mother and Margo laugh.

  I can’t believe it! Margo is my fairy godmother, and she’s going to make me beautiful, just like Cinderella’s godmother made Cinderella beautiful.

  Margo says, “I have something else for you.” She lifts a little blue and white box out of the bag.

  Gabe comes running over to see what other gifts his mother is bestowing on me.

  Inside the box is a gold cross hanging from a fragile, gold chain.

  “Oh,” says my mother.

  “I want a cross,” says Gabe.

  “This cross is for Jocelyn,” says Margo.

  “Why?” asks Gabe. “You’re my mother. How come you’re giving the cross to Jocelyn?”

  “This is a girl’s cross,” replies my mother in a voice that says, That should settle it. But it doesn’t.

  “Boys wear crosses too,” Gabe says to Margo. “Just like this cross. Plain gold.”

  “That’s true,” says Margo, holding the chain closer to her eyes, and for a moment I believe she is going to change her mind. But instead, she undoes the clasp and says, “Come here, Jocelyn.” She spins me around and clasps the cross around my neck.

  “That’s sweet of you,” my mother says.

  “She’s a sweet girl,” says Margo.

  “When she’s sleeping.”

  I thank Margo and follow Gabe outside to catch frogs.