Desert Crossing Read online

  “That’s the problem. You don’t think.”

  I frowned. That was interesting, coming from Kit.

  “Look, it was a dumb thing to do. I’m sorry.” I looped an arm around Oscar’s neck and pressed my face into his fur. “Really. I wouldn’t have said it if I thought anything like this might happen.”

  We both glanced back toward the hallway. The house was silent. Beth’s door was still closed, and the air seemed to thicken around it, full of everything that had changed.

  “You’re crazy,” Kit said.

  He still wouldn’t look at me. I couldn’t believe he’d kissed me. Why had he done that? I knew he wasn’t gay. I’d seen him with girls for years, for almost as long as I’d known him. He always had a girlfriend.

  I’d only been kissed once before. At the eighth-grade dance, the Friday before middle school graduation. Scott Lampere, who was kind of cute: tall and skinny, on the basketball team, with nice eyes. He was in three of my classes, and Ginny and I both liked him. But in a lazy way, never meaning to do anything about it. Plus, he had braces and some sort of wire mouthpiece that he had to wear for six months, so Ginny said kissing him would be like kissing the metal tab on a soda can.

  But he got his braces off that spring. At the eighth-grade dance, he and I walked into the hallway to get something to drink, and he grabbed my arm and started kissing me. I was so surprised I didn’t even know what to do. He had really wet lips, and they were sliding all over mine. I tried to cooperate, but the whole time he was kissing me, I was thinking about something I’d seen on TV. A show about the space program, about how, when a shuttle comes back to earth, if it doesn’t enter the earth’s atmosphere at exactly the right angle, it just bounces off into outer space. And that’s what it felt like, kissing Scott: so slippery and uncertain that at any moment my mouth might slide off his and go flying into oblivion.

  It was different when Kit kissed me. It felt smooth and snug, like the angle was exactly right.

  16

  “Let’s go someplace,” Kit said abruptly, standing up. “No point hanging around here. Let’s get breakfast.”

  I nodded. I didn’t really want to be in the house when Beth and Jamie finally opened the bedroom door. “But the car,” I said. “Where did Jamie put the keys?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll take her truck. The keys are on that hook in the kitchen. It’s okay. She let us drive it yesterday. I mean, jeez, it’s the least she can do, considering.”

  “Considering what? That she’s in there with Jamie instead of you?” It surprised me how mean that sounded. “Forget it,” I said quickly, before Kit could get mad again. “I guess she won’t care.”

  We turned the corner into the kitchen and I stopped dead, Kit bumping into my back and almost knocking me down. Beth was standing at the sink, delicately peeling a tangerine. Her nails made neat scores in the rind, and she curled back the segments like petals. She glanced up when we came in. Her face was carefully blank, but everything else about her pulsed with feeling.

  “Hi,” she said.

  I could barely look at her. Had she heard us talking? The bedroom door was closed. Jamie must still be sleeping. I could feel my face get hot. But why should I be embarrassed? She was the one who’d done something wrong.

  “Hi,” Kit said, stepping forward. “Can we borrow your truck? To get some breakfast?”

  Now I glanced up. Her face seemed so controlled—I watched the calm arch of her eyebrows—as if the least sign of expression would reveal too much. “Sure,” she said. “But you don’t need to. There’s plenty of food here.”

  “Well, we kind of feel like going out.” Kit sounded casual. He smiled at her.

  Beth turned away. She placed the half-peeled tangerine gently on the edge of the countertop, where it hovered like an exotic flower. “Okay,” she said, wiping her hands on the dish towel. She took the keys from the hook on the wall and tossed them to Kit.

  “Thanks.”

  I still hadn’t said anything. I couldn’t. Beth faced the window, gathering her hair with both hands and twisting it into a knot. A pink flush crept over her cheeks.

  * * *

  It wasn’t until we were on the highway that Kit spoke, and his voice sounded glum. “They were probably screwing all night long.”

  “Stop it!” I reached across the seat to punch his shoulder. “Stop talking about it. It’s too gross.”

  But there wasn’t really anything else to talk about. I flattened my sketch pad on my lap and squinted out the window at the expanse of desert. The random thatches of grass seemed temporary, a futile defense against the dry ground. I wanted to draw them, but Kit was driving too fast and the highway was bumpy in spots.

  “It was just a mistake, don’t you think?” I said after a minute.

  “I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “I don’t.” I sighed, shifting in the seat, fiddling with the frayed strap of the seat belt. “But it won’t happen again, right?”

  Kit snorted. “Don’t bet on it.”

  I winced. “How old do you think she is? She’s got to be close to forty. Isn’t that illegal or something?”

  Kit’s mouth twisted a little. “Everything fun is illegal.”

  “Come on, seriously.” I was trying to think. There’d been something at the high school a few years ago. Some scandal. “Wasn’t there a problem at Westview with a gym teacher a couple of years ago? And that girl, she was a junior or something. Didn’t he get arrested?” Ginny and I were sixth-graders at the time, but I remembered my mom had been upset about it. I remembered her with Jamie in the kitchen, agitated, lowering her voice so I wouldn’t hear.

  “Well, yeah, Mr. Brimley. But that was totally different.”

  “Why? He was older. He was married.”

  “But it was a teacher-student thing. And the girl was fifteen, I think. Her parents sued.”

  “Well, how is this different?” I persisted. “Beth’s too old for Jamie.”

  “It’s just different.” Kit shrugged. “Jamie wanted it.”

  “Maybe that girl wanted it, too. It’s still wrong.”

  Kit shook his head. “It’s different. With an older guy like that, the girl might not—” He stopped, glancing over at me. “I don’t know. When the guy’s older, like Mr. Brimley, and a teacher, it seems like the girl’s more of a victim or something. Like it wasn’t her choice.” He paused. “Nobody forced Jamie, plus he’s eighteen.”

  I settled back against the vinyl seat. That was true. I thought of Jamie’s face in the moonlight, and the way he took Beth’s hand.

  “It’s too weird,” I said finally. “It should be illegal.”

  Kit grinned. “Don’t be such a prude.”

  There was no point in talking about it with him. I looked out the window, watching the gravel shoulder blur by.

  “Hey, which way are we going?” I asked suddenly.

  He knew what I meant. “We passed it already,” he said.

  “We did? Was the police tape still there? I didn’t see it.”

  “Yeah, it was still there.”

  “It feels like it’s been more than two days, doesn’t it? It seems so long ago.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  I flipped open my sketch pad and turned the pages till I came to the girl. I’d almost finished the drawing, but it wasn’t quite right. The eyes and the mouth had no expression, and without that, her face just didn’t look real. I kicked off my flip-flops and put my feet on the dashboard, angling the pad against my thighs. I started drawing again, hollows and ridges, the geography of cheekbones and brows. Faces were like landscapes.

  “You draw all the time,” Kit said. “What is that?”

  I hesitated. “The girl.”

  He looked over now, quick glances, steadying the wheel with one hand. “Hey, that’s pretty good,” he said. That was the first nice thing he’d ever said to me.

  “Thanks.”

  “The lips aren’t right.”


  “What’s wrong with them?” I mumbled.

  He shrugged. “Something. Her mouth was different.”

  I looked at his mouth when he said that, and felt a rising flutter in my stomach. It was only Kit. But I kept thinking about how he’d kissed me. Part of me still couldn’t believe it. Kit had kissed me. Kissed me. I snuck another glance at him, at the curve of his lips. I couldn’t look at them without thinking how they felt against mine.

  I went back to the drawing and erased the top of the girl’s lip, changing the line to soften it. He was right. It looked more like her already.

  * * *

  “How far is this place?” I asked. “We’ve been driving forever.” The desert was changing, turning to foothills with dark clumps of shrubs as we neared the mountains.

  “I don’t know. The restaurant Jamie and I went to yesterday was a lot closer. But it was in the other direction.”

  “Why’d you go this way then?” I turned to him impatiently. “I don’t remember seeing anywhere to eat out here.”

  “Yeah.” He looked sheepish. “I don’t know. I wanted to drive by it again in the daylight.”

  “Oh.” I nodded, wishing that I’d looked when we passed by. “What do you think happened to her?”

  He was quiet, one hand gently shifting the steering wheel. “Somebody killed her.”

  Hearing him say it out loud made me shiver. I thought of the way I’d felt finding her body; the way I’d felt when I thought she’d died because of us. “But how? I mean, there wasn’t any blood. Was there?” I didn’t remember seeing anything like that. I stared at the face on the page, that lifeless oval. “I don’t know. She seemed so calm.”

  “Yeah, but she was, what, in her twenties? People don’t just die in their twenties.”

  “No, I guess not.” He was right. She must have ended up there because of someone. Finding her was like finding half a picture ripped down the middle. What was on the other half?

  Kit ran his fingers through his hair. It made red-gold waves across his head, cresting in curls at the nape of his neck. I gripped my pencil and went back to the sketch, shading the line of her throat.

  Kit was still talking. “And you said the police didn’t find anything on her, no wallet, no ID. That means somebody must have taken it.”

  I cringed, thinking of the bracelet. But there was no name on it, not even initials. It wouldn’t have told them anything. Still, why had I done that? It was the same as stealing. I knew my mom would think that. So would Jamie.

  “What if—” I stopped. The idea was forming in my head, and it seemed almost too fragile to say out loud, especially to Kit. “Listen, we’re driving back in the same direction we came from that night. She was on the right side of the road. So whoever … whoever left her there was probably driving the same way, you know? When we stop, we could ask if anyone saw her. We could try to find out—”

  Kit was shaking his head. “No way. We’re not doing that.”

  “Why? We have to stop anyway, for breakfast. There are so few places out here, maybe she went to one of them, too. You know, to get gas. Or eat. Why can’t we just ask? Maybe someone saw her. I’ve got my sketch.” I was talking faster now, pleading with him. “It’s not the same as a photo, but you said yourself it’s good, it looks like her. We could try to find out what happened to her.”

  Kit shook his head. “That’s just dumb. What are you going to do, drive around the state showing people some drawing you did? Let the police figure it out. It doesn’t have anything to do with us.”

  “But it does. We found her.”

  “And she was already dead! It’s over. We’ll be in Phoenix by tomorrow night.”

  “No! I’m not going to Phoenix. Not till we find out what happened to her.” It sounded ridiculous even as the words came out of my mouth, but I realized I wasn’t just saying it to argue with him. I meant it. I felt connected to her in some way, as though our lives had crossed and braided, even though she was a stranger. Or maybe because she was a stranger. Because she had come out of nowhere and might disappear into nowhere unless we tried to find out what had happened. “I’m not leaving her,” I said quietly.

  Kit looked at me in disgust. “You’re crazy. And you know what? It’s not up to you.”

  He turned the wheel sharply and we bumped off the highway into an unpaved parking lot. I hadn’t been watching, but here it was, a little restaurant and minimart, a beige building with gas pumps in front and a rough wooden sign hanging from the roof: Blue Mountain Café. Kit swerved into a parking space, braking hard, and the pinkish-brown dust rose in clouds all around us.

  17

  Kit switched off the ignition.

  “Kit,” I said. “Can’t we…” I gathered the pages of the sketch pad, flipping the cover closed and holding it against my chest.

  “What?” He was frowning, impatient, but he was looking straight at me for the first time since he’d kissed me. I reached over and touched his arm. He flinched, his eyes flicking down to my hand. I realized with a start that he was nervous, too.

  “Please,” I said.

  “Why does it matter to you? Why are you so obsessed with that girl?”

  “I don’t know.” All I knew was that I couldn’t stop thinking about her. “Don’t you feel anything? I mean, she was left by the road, dead, and we were the ones to find her. Don’t you feel … responsible for her somehow?”

  “No! No, I don’t.” He jerked his arm away and got out of the truck. “Look, you do what you want. I’m not helping you.” He slammed the door so hard the truck shook. I watched him stride across the parking lot to the restaurant, kicking up dust with each step. After a minute, I followed him.

  I half expected he’d want to sit alone when we got inside, but when I walked in, I saw him watching me from a table in the corner, and he pushed out a chair with his foot.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, looking around.

  It was a small room with a dozen tables crowded close together and a long counter with stools at the back. The walls were dull pink, and the one behind Kit was covered with old calendars and photographs of different places, all of them lush and tropical. An older woman was frying hamburgers at the stove. Two men were sitting at the counter, but otherwise the place was empty.

  The waitress came through a swinging door carrying two glasses of water. She had curly blond hair and crow’s feet so deep her skin looked corrugated, like cardboard. Thick streaks of silver eye shadow glistened over her eyes. She slid the glasses across the table and took out a pad. “Hiya,” she said. “What can I get for you kids?”

  She smiled at Kit, and I watched him shake off his annoyance with me and smile back, a quick, warm grin. “You tell me,” he said. “What’s for breakfast?”

  “Breakfast?” She laughed. “Not much. We stopped serving it at eleven.”

  “Oh,” I said, “is it that late?” Nobody was listening to me.

  Kit picked up the menu. “No pancakes?” He kept smiling at her.

  “Well, I guess we could fix you some pancakes. But only because we’re not busy.” She glanced at me. “What can I get for your girlfriend?”

  “I’m not his—”

  “She’s not my—”

  We both said it so quickly, horrified, that she laughed again. “Okay, okay. My mistake. What can I get for you, hon?” She turned to me, pen poised.

  “Scrambled eggs? With toast?”

  “Sure. Juice?”

  We both nodded. She started to turn away. “Wait,” I said. I looked at Kit. “We were wondering—” He groaned and shook his head, but I flipped open the sketch pad and pushed it across the table before he could stop me. “Do you recognize this girl? She might have been here a couple of days ago.”

  The waitress looked at the page and then back at me, her face suddenly sharp. “That’s a lot like the photo the police were passing around yesterday,” she said. “Some poor girl that was killed on the highway. You kids know anything about it?”

&nbs
p; “No,” Kit said quickly. “Well, actually, we were the ones who found her, but we don’t know anything. Lucy—this is my friend’s sister”—he said this with a resigned roll of his eyes—“she had this idea that we could help the police figure out what happened. But I told her they knew what they were doing. And since they’ve already talked to you”—he glared at me—“if we could just get some breakfast, that would be great.”

  The waitress seemed to relax again, clicking her pen and sliding it through the spiral ring of her pad. “Sure. Coming right up.”

  “Wait,” I said again. “Sorry, but do you recognize her?” I didn’t look at Kit. “Has she been here?”

  The waitress shook her head. “No, hon. I’ve never seen her before.”

  “But—” I said. Kit kicked my shin under the table. “Ow!” I gave him a look. “But there aren’t many restaurants around here, are there?”

  The waitress slipped her pad in the pocket of her blouse. “No, nothing around here. Junie and I were talking with the police about that. There’s a diner about an hour or so east, in Kilmore, toward the state line.”

  Kit frowned at me. “Anything else? Want to dust the place for fingerprints?”

  The waitress laughed, winking at Kit. “I’ll get those pancakes, hon.”

  “Jeez,” Kit said when she left. “Will you give it up already? I told you the police would look into it. Stop hassling people.”

  “I wasn’t hassling her. I was just asking. She didn’t care.”

  I ran a finger across the water glass, making wavy lines in the condensation on the sides. I wanted to drive to Kilmor. But I knew better than to say anything about it to Kit.

  18

  We drove most of the way back to Beth’s in silence. I had my pad open across my knees, and I sketched the mountains, just the silhouette of them, a jagged line rising over the horizontal sweep of land.

  “How far away are they, do you think?” I asked Kit.

  He shrugged. “An hour or two.”

  I hesitated, then said carefully, “Can we stop, when we come to the place where we found her?”