A Song for Julia Read online

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Why did you write that song?”

  I swallowed. I knew exactly which song she meant. I could play it off, I guess. But damn. Why bother? She’d heard it. Finally I answered, “You made a big impression on me.”

  She shook her head. “As big as that blonde whose ass you grabbed in the middle of the show?”

  I rolled my eyes, though she couldn’t see it while she was driving. “Yeah, at least that much,” I answered.

  She didn’t respond, and I finally said, “It’s part of the gimmick.” But that wasn’t really honest, was it? More often than not, I took a girl home after our shows.

  “You’re full of it,” she said. “You can’t keep your hands to yourself.”

  “Sure I can,” I replied, knowing my tone was defensive.

  She was silent for a few seconds. “You need to know, I’ve never done that before.”

  “Done what before?”

  “Invited a guy back to my room like that. Someone I just met.”

  I shrugged, but I didn’t mean it. For reasons I can’t explain, it really mattered. But no way in hell was I letting her know that. “Not really my problem.”

  She shook her head. “You saw the story?”

  “Crazy blogger bitch?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah, I saw it.”

  “That stuff she wrote—none of it’s true.”

  “Yeah, I figured. I wasn’t drunk enough to forget taking you back to the hotel.”

  She giggled. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Yeah, I know. But, seriously, no big deal. Is that what the fight with your mom was about?”

  She grimaced. “Not exactly.” She didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t want to push. Actually, I did want to. But somehow I sensed pushing on that subject would bring our … whatever the hell it was … to a screeching halt.

  “Okay,” I said. “Take the next exit.”

  She did, and I directed her through the narrow streets south of Broadway until we pulled up in front of my father’s house. I started to tell her to stop, but then I bit back the words. I don’t know why. Instead, I directed her down the block, where we took a hard right, then again down the alley behind the house. “There’s parking back here. This one, bang a right.” I pointed at the tiny gravel driveway.

  She pulled to a stop. The music was still playing, quietly now.

  “I’m sorry about your car,” she said. “Let me give you my number, we’ll settle it up right away.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Um … you want to come in for a few minutes, get a cup of coffee?”

  She looked startled, as if she’d never considered it. Probably hadn’t. I don’t think she liked me very much, last Saturday notwithstanding.

  “Sure,” she finally replied.

  I took a deep breath and said, “My brother’s probably still awake … just to warn you—Sean’s a little different.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Different?”

  “Um … Asperger’s. Sometimes pretty serious, sometimes pretty normal. I don’t really know what to expect from one day to the next.”

  She nodded. “I don’t know much about Asperger’s.”

  I shrugged. “Don’t need to really. It’s kinda like autism. He’ll come off as a little weird…talk about all kinds of obscure stuff and sometimes comes off as really rude. But he doesn’t mean to. He won’t look you in the eye. Makes some people bullshit when you won’t look ‘em in the eye. Just … all he needs is to be accepted. Know what I mean?”

  “Okay. That I can do.”

  “Great,” I said, and I opened the car door and got out. As always, I took a quick look at the surroundings. Then I said, “Make sure you lock up.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  That Rascal (Julia)

  Crank’s dad’s house was a very narrow two-story row house. I’d have trouble finding my way out of the neighborhood later. We’d come down several very narrow one-way streets to get here. The house itself was narrow, with greying clapboards and a sagging gutter at the edge of the flat roof. It was almost two in the morning, and it was quiet. A cold breeze blew off the harbor and cut down the blocks between the rows of houses. After the music in the car, it was eerie, but also calming.

  I was starting to drag a little. I’d been up since six o’clock in the morning, and with the delightful calls from my mother, the show, and the accident—I was exhausted.

  Knowing that, I don’t know why I accepted his invitation. Except maybe I was intrigued a little. I followed him up the cinderblock steps to the back door, which he carefully unlocked and opened. The door gave off a high-pitched squeak as it opened.

  Inside was a tiny, cramped and cluttered mudroom, which led into a kitchen. The kitchen and everything in it was old but immaculate. A red and white checked tablecloth covered the table, and one wall held a rack of hanging, well used pots and pans.

  A woman, maybe fifty years of age, sat at the kitchen table engrossed in a book. She waved as we entered, then after a moment closed the book and looked up. When she saw me, she stood up, looking a little startled. “Hello.”

  Crank gave her a wide smile. “Mrs. Doyle, this is my … friend, Julia. Julia, Mrs. Doyle.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, ma’am,” I said.

  “Nice to meet you, Julia.” She turned to Crank and spoke in a disapproving tone. “Isn’t it a bit late to be having visitors?”

  He nodded sheepishly. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Unfortunately, my car is a bit wrecked, and Julia offered me a ride.”

  I tried not to snort. He’d artfully avoided the fact that I was the one who wrecked his car.

  “Oh dear!” Mrs. Doyle said. “I hope no one was hurt.”

  “No, it’s all fine.”

  “And you weren’t drinking, were you?”

  “No drinking, Mrs. Doyle. You know me better than that.”

  She gave him a wry look, but her eyes reflected merriment. “Young man, you’ve been trouble since you were a toddler. You can’t charm your way into my graces.”

  He grinned, and it was the kind of broad, friendly grin that made my heart beat a little faster. “Only because you’re the loveliest and smartest woman in Southie.”

  The woman blushed a bright red! No question: Crank could be very charming when he wanted to be.

  “You rascal,” she said. “I’ll be going now. Sean’s in the living room playing one of his games.”

  “Thanks so much, Mrs. Doyle. You have no idea how big a help it is when you come watch him.”

  She smiled and stood up and Crank … that rascal … took her arms and kissed her on the cheek. She blushed again, then fussed a little as she got her things together and made it out the front door.

  Once she was gone, I followed Crank into the living room.

  Sean wasn’t what I expected. Based on the tone Crank had used when speaking about him, as well as the fact that they juggled babysitting whenever Crank’s father was gone, I was expecting a much younger kid. In fact, Sean looked to be sixteen or seventeen, almost my sister Carrie’s age. When we walked into the room, he was folded up on the couch, knees drawn up to his chest, and his eyes were fixed on the television. His hands held a video game controller, and the screen was a jerky display of mayhem: soldiers shooting, blood splashing, body parts flying everywhere.

  “Hey buddy,” Crank said.

  Sean didn’t respond at first, not until he’d killed his current opponent in the game. Then he paused it and responded in a loud, toneless voice, without looking away from the television, “Are you my brother’s girlfriend?”

  I felt my cheeks go red, and I stammered, “Um, uh …”

  Crank stepped in. “Sean, this is my friend, Julia. I don’t have a girlfriend, you know that.”

  Sean responded, his voice still loud, running his words together quickly. He’d turned his head toward us, but his eyes pointed off to the side, away from me and Crank. “What about the girl you met in Wash
ington? Dad said she might be your girlfriend, and that’s why I shouldn’t talk about her. So I found you on Google, and it said you might get married and that you took her back to your hotel with you.”

  Crank winced, and then he muttered, “Well, that’s awkward, isn’t it?”

  I looked at Crank out of the corner of my eye. He was red-faced. He also had a slight grin.

  “Sean,” I said, and Crank looked over at me, alarmed. “Crank and I are friends, but sometimes, because of who my family is, people write mean things about me. You know what I mean?”

  Sean shifted his head and spoke again, not meeting my eyes. Instead, he looked off somewhere over my right shoulder. I’d never realized how important occasional eye contact was. It was disconcerting to talk with someone who constantly averted their eyes. “Yes, I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes people say mean things about me, too.”

  For just a second, he looked lost when he said that. I don’t know why, but I felt a tug of sudden loneliness, of real sadness, at his words. I sat down on the couch next to him. “So, we’ve got something in common.”

  “I guess we do,” he said, his voice still very loud. “Have people said other mean things about you?”

  Crank was slack-jawed, his eyes darting back and forth between us, shocked.

  “Yes,” I said. “My mother sometimes. People at school. And that horrible woman who wrote the article you read.”

  “Do you want to play? I’ve got another controller, it can do up to four players.”

  I raised an eyebrow and joked. “I don’t know about all that blood.”

  He missed the joking tone. “I can turn the blood off, if it bothers you.”

  “No…no need. Let’s play. Crank? You playing?”

  I froze when I looked up. Crank’s expression was … angry? His eyes were narrowed, nostrils a little bit flared. He took a moment to respond and said, “Sure,” but not in a warm and fuzzy sort of way. He joined us on the couch, and Sean passed out the controllers.

  Crank sat next to me, a frown on his face, his whole body stiff. I don’t know what got him so bent out of shape. Sean seemed like a really nice kid, if a little odd. But you know what? I could deal with odd. So, we got down to it. Or, rather, they did. I’d never played a video game like this before. The first problem was I had no idea how to deal with the controls. They had about thirty-five freaking buttons all over the place, and none of them were labeled so I could see them. The game itself was fast and bloody, and I kept dying. And laughing. And dying some more. Pretty soon, all three of us were laughing, mostly at me, and honestly, it was the best time I’ve had in a very long time.

  It was about three in the morning when I yawned and said, “I should really get back.”

  Sean chimed in, “Can I tell you something? According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, more than 1,500 deaths happen every year from drivers falling asleep at the wheel. That’s out of 100,000 crashes each year from falling asleep and 40,000 injuries. Sleep deprivation for just seventeen hours can affect coordination as much as a blood alcohol level of one percent.”

  I blinked. “I didn’t know that.”

  He seemed to be looking past my shoulder as he spoke. “But, in most of the accidents the drivers are men. So your odds are better.”

  Crank coughed. “Why don’t you crash here? We can fix you up with blankets and stuff on the couch.”

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” I said.

  “You’ve already been in one accident tonight.”

  Oh. Right. I’d actually forgotten. I felt my face heat up.

  “Seriously, Julia. You’re safe here. You look like you’re going to pass out on your feet, I don’t want you getting hurt.”

  I swallowed. What would be the harm?

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “Sean,” Crank said. “Do me a favor? Can you grab a couple pillows and sheets and blankets from upstairs? For Julia?”

  Sean’s eyes seemed to skate off both of us.

  “Okay,” he said and turned away. A moment later, I heard his footsteps thumping upstairs.

  Crank turned to me, and the change in his voice made me gasp. It was cold and angry. “What the hell are you doing?”

  I opened my mouth, shocked by the sudden attack. “What are you talking about?”

  He grimaced. “Sean has been through hell and back with the kids in school. Not to mention our mother leaving.”

  What the hell? He wasn’t making any sense. I shook my head and said, “I don’t understand. What did I do?”

  “What did you do? Can you even imagine the cruelty kids in school put someone like him through?”

  In a bare instant, I had a series of images of Cindy Blanchard in my mind. The day I forgot to lock my locker in gym, and she snuck in and dipped my bra in the toilet while I was out on the field. Walking down the hall and hearing, “Slut. Slut. Slut. Slut,” whispered from both sides of me as I carried my books to class. The day I opened my locker to discover that dozens of graphic, hideous anti-abortion pamphlets and fliers had been stuffed inside. My mother saying, “I didn’t raise my daughter to be a slut.”

  Rage I didn’t know I even had flared up.

  “I can imagine a lot more than you might think.”

  His mouth turned down into a deeper frown, and he said, “Look. I’m sorry I asked you to come in. It’s my job to protect him. And you’re going to be gone in a day or two, or whatever. And I don’t want him to get his hopes up that all of the sudden he’s going to have someone treat him like a human being, and then have them dashed all over again.”

  My voice shook as I said, “Are you saying I shouldn’t be nice to him?”

  “I’m saying stay the hell away.”

  I was offended. No. I was hurt. Crank didn’t even know me, he didn’t know anything about me at all. How dare he judge me like that? “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”

  Crank glared at me. He was shaking. I was too. We both shut up when we heard the steps coming back down the stairs. Sean wasn’t even in the room before he started talking.

  I was so upset I missed whatever Sean started with, but after a moment, it was clear he was talking about the game, which was a sequel, and the design team that had made it. I wasn’t prepared for this right now, and Crank obviously wasn’t either. I nodded and half listened because I didn’t want to cut him off. I didn’t say another word to Crank as I arranged the sheets and blankets, but when Sean was finished, I said, “Thank you for the sheets and stuff.”

  “You are welcome,” he said. His formal tone and lack of contractions, not to mention the tone of voice, would take some serious getting used to. Not that I was likely to have the chance.

  “Come on, Sean,” Crank said. He and Sean made their way upstairs, so I lay down on the couch, then reached out to the table beside it and switched off the light. I closed my eyes. I was exhausted, but the unfamiliar couch and my racing mind were conspiring against me.

  What exactly did Crank mean by ‘you’re going to be gone in a day or two anyway’? What the hell? I didn’t do anything to give him any right to talk to me that way. Except apologize for wrecking his car, give him a ride home and be nice to his brother. Who obviously needed someone to be nice to him, if Crank’s behavior was anything to judge by. I understood being protective, but that was so far out of line, I wanted to punch Crank right in the face.

  As I finally started to drift off to sleep, though, my thoughts turned, unwillingly, to my mother. This happened sometimes, and it seemed like there was nothing I could do to turn it off. I remembered from when I was a child, so many times. That’s not how ladies behave, Julia. I expected better of you, Julia.

  I didn’t raise my daughter to be a slut.

  My last thought before I fell asleep was Screw you, Mother.

  Go get some clothes on (Crank)

  My insides were roiling as I went upstairs. What did Julia think she was doing? It was one thing to be polite. But
the way she’d behaved, it was if she was making a promise. A promise to be friends. Sean didn’t need anyone else appearing in his life and disappearing. And I’d seen enough girls like her in school. Polite to a fault. Preppy. Popular. Backstabbers.

  I wasn’t about to trust that she wouldn’t hurt my brother. In the morning I was getting her out of here. We’d settle up the car, and that would be the end of it.

  I tossed and turned for a while, I don’t know how long, before I fell into a troubled sleep.

  I was awakened by a loud thump and then a high-pitched, terrified scream.

  I jerked up into a sitting position instantly, my mind still filled with cobwebs, but there was another scream, and then a loud thump, and I heard a male voice from all the way downstairs let out a string of curses.

  I jumped up without thinking and ran to the stairs, then down them without pause, almost losing my footing in the dark. At the bottom I slapped the light on, and my eyes widened. I grabbed the doorframe to steady myself as I caught my breath. My heart was beating hard from adrenaline and shock. A second later, Sean bumped into me. He’d run down the stairs at the sound of the screams too.

  Dad was on the floor a few feet from the couch, legs splayed out in front of him, a look of shock on his face. He was still in uniform, one boot half-off, his gun belt and nightstick splayed out beside him. Julia was sitting up on the couch, her face reflecting shock and fear, blanket wrapped around her. Her cheeks were red, her hair a tangled mess, and a fold in the blanket revealed a long, toned leg. Her foot and ankle were small, her calf well muscled and curved, and my eyes wandered up and up.

  Behind me, Sean rocked in place, and his hands were flapping. He didn’t do that, except when he was deeply upset or scared. I put a hand on his shoulder to calm him, but he stepped away from the touch.

  “Ah, for Christ’s sake,” my dad said, his voice loud. “Sorry, girl, I wasn’t expecting anyone to be on the couch.”

  Julia opened her mouth to speak but didn’t say anything.

  “You all right?” Dad asked. “Seriously, I didn’t mean to scare you. I sat down in the dark without looking.”