Ultraviolet. Nancy Bush

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СКАЧАТЬ hoping I wouldn’t get rear-ended or sideswiped as there wasn’t much of a shoulder, then walked back. I had this nebulous plan about acting like I was a senior at Lakeshore. Would the fact that I was their rival eject me from the group? I knew better than to try to pretend I attended Lake Chinook High. And what if they asked me why I looked so old?

      With that in mind, I pulled my hair into two pigtails like the Wilson girl, one on either side of my head. I didn’t dare look in a mirror because I was afraid I’d scare myself. I didn’t have any cute bows to add to the “look,” but I didn’t think it would matter. I put my cell phone on vibrate, slung my purse strap over my shoulder, then walked from my car to the party. Another car pulled into the drive as I approached, and a young guy glanced out his window at me. I smiled shyly and waved and he slowed to a stop and rolled down the window.

      “You guys played good tonight,” he said, checking out my sweatshirt. “Just not good enough.” He grinned.

      “Well, you know, Keegan was just so great.”

      “Yeah, he is. Surprised you guys don’t hate his guts.”

      So Keegan was on the Lake Chinook High team. I hadn’t been sure. “Well, you know,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders.

      “You here with anybody?”

      “Nah…I…” I looked down the road. “My best friend and her boyfriend are fighting, and I kinda wanted out of the car. I’ve been walking around.” I shrugged a bit woefully. “Maybe they forgot me.”

      “Where do you live?”

      “Actually, I don’t go to Lakeshore. I’m just staying with my dad,” I improvised, waving toward the north. “Just got the sweatshirt for fun.” This was a better idea all the way around. Sometimes I awe myself with my inspired lying.

      “Hey, well…” He looked down the drive. “We got a party going. What school you go to?”

      “Sunset,” I said, pulling out the name of a Beaverton high school.

      He was already past that and onto other things. “Well, get in. I’m not a psycho. Or you can walk down the driveway but it’s wet.”

      “I’ll get in,” I said, heading around the front of his car and climbing into the passenger seat. I don’t carry a gun and I’m kind of a wimp, but I’d picked up a rock on the way and my fist closed around it inside the pocket of my sweatshirt. My first instinct is always to flee, but if someone attacks me I’m going to come out swinging. This kid looked like he weighed about a hundred pounds. I thought I had a good chance.

      But he simply drove me down a long, curving gravel driveway that opened up in front of the construction zone. Several cars were angled around. We parked next to the red Taurus. I climbed out as another car pulled up behind us. I could see that pretty soon there would be no backing out unless the cars behind moved first. It was interesting, however, as I saw no one parked behind DOINOU. “Who’s got the Jimmy?” I asked my friend.

      “Keegan. Of course.” He smiled. “Don’t want to piss him off.”

      “Guess not,” I said.

      “I’m Brett.”

      “Ronnie. Short for Veronica.”

      We shook hands. I have this alias I trot out whenever I can, Veronica Kellogg. I know it’s best to use an alias similar to your own name so you respond to it correctly, and I did all right with the Kellogg part—not too far from Kelly. But Veronica is nothing like Jane and I don’t care. So sue me. I like Veronica.

      I could tell Brett was warming to me. I wondered what his social status was, and why he seemed so eager to include me. Maybe it’s that I’m older and have a strong sense of self-preservation, something missing during the teen years, but I never include people into my life so quickly. Maybe I would’ve in high school, but looking back, I don’t think so. I’m just naturally suspicious.

      Or maybe he was one of the guys Dwayne wanted to nail. Maybe his affability was all an act.

      The car behind us unloaded five kids and they tromped up to us, loudly reliving the game, loving the fact they’d beaten Lakeshore. Spying my sweatshirt, they all had something to say to me, mostly about how Lakeshore sucked and Lake Chinook was the best, all the while eyeing me as if, as the enemy, I might suddenly whistle to a hidden army and take them out in a giant, bloody melee.

      Brett explained how I was visiting my dad and that I’d just picked up a Lakeshore sweatshirt for fun. One of the guys, Glen, long-haired and kinda dopey looking, instantly stripped off his Lake Chinook sweatshirt and handed it to me. It was about two sizes too big, but he insisted I wear it. I traded my Lakeshore one for it and was horrified to watch the group of them drag it through the mud puddles surrounding Do Not Enter until it was crusted with brown goop; then Glen balled it up and hurled it skyward where it unfurled to catch in a thin overhead limb of a bare-leafed maple. The group of them all saluted it with their middle fingers, stumbling around. I figured they’d been imbibing awhile. I was burning inwardly. I’d paid good money for that shirt and now I had Glen’s castoff, the arms of which hung to my knees. I scrunched them up and pretended to think it was a great joke. If Glen thought he was getting his shirt back, he could damn well think again.

      It turned out most of the kids normally wouldn’t be caught dead in school rah-rah gear, but on game day anything went. The rule wasn’t that much different from when I was in school. Half of them wore the light blue and white colors of their school; half were in black and denim, the tacit colors of general teen acceptance. They also were about the only two colors that were safe for outdoor use in rainy Oregon weather. Forest green and navy can work, too, but tonight the kids were all about black jackets and jeans.

      I picked Keegan out without any trouble. He sat on a tree stump someone had hauled inside the house, situated at the end of the room. This would be either Do Not Enter’s living room or great room. A string of red lights wrapped around the two-by-fours that made up the wall behind him. I could see the heavy-duty extension cord they’d jerry-rigged to the temporary power pole located at the far end of the drive. Must have been sixty feet long. A half rack of beer was being watched like a hawk by a thin boy with lank, dark hair that fell in his face. He looked out of the locks with a grim, dark-eyed stare. I had to fight the urge to tuck the strands behind his ears. It made me keep wiping imaginary strands of hair from my own face.

      Keegan wore a black jacket over a black shirt, thick denim trousers and work boots. The other kids wore work boots, too. This appeared to be a fashion statement as I doubted any of them had jobs in the great outdoors or anywhere else. Keegan was coolly smoking, dragging smoke into his lungs, then dropping his arm to lazily flick ash onto Do Not Enter’s plywood floor. Bad form all around, especially for QB One. I wondered what transpired on Monday mornings when the construction workers came on the job and found the evidence.

      That question was answered when a subservient female minion made it her job to clean up after Keegan and the others whenever they were involved in other pursuits. She kept darting in to clean up or disguise the evidence, rubbing mud over the ash, picking up cigarette butts and empty bottles or cans. Very interesting caste system they had going. The men—at least some of them—were the rulers. Like Dwayne, I found the guys in charge disturbing. A better-than-thou attitude percolated from Keegan on down, and it felt like there was some big secret, some inner joke, that escaped the rest of us but fueled the amusement of the elite guys at the top of the pyramid.

      I didn’t like it one bit.

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