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Chapter 3
Angela Riding lifted the hem of her strapless blue dress and offered her gloved hand to her prom date. "One for old time's sake?"
Alex loosened his bow tie, took her hand, and let her guide him to the dance floor. The DJ began spinning Miami Sound Machine's new hit, "Conga," and the floor slowly filled with young couples.
Except Alex and Angela were no longer a couple. True enough, they had dated, on and off, since junior year. The courtships lasted long enough for them to fall into that uncertain state between longing and love. Some weeks, they decided they were mad for each other, and they would sneak off the school grounds at lunchtime to find a furtive spot along the river to make out. On two moon-crazy weekend nights, wild with passion, they dedicated their lives to each other and made love deep in the woods out at Heartbeat Road.
Invariably, the romance would end in a stormy dust-up, followed not many days later by furtive glances, rekindled desire, tentative reconciliation, and a new round of contentious love-making, before the entire cycle repeated itself. The flareups, they decided, were part of this whole Opposites Attract ritual that they had come to embrace. They basked in their differences. Angela, spry and wiry, all but bounced off the walls. Wind her up and watch her go! Alex, by contrast, was born to be laid back. He didn't hang with any of the cliques in school, though he was on good terms with the stoners, thanks to his next-door neighbor and friend Gordo. That created a bit of tension between Angela, who urged Alex to cut Gordon loose and begin using his God-given brilliant intellect, and Gordon, who coaxed Alex to slack off, take another hit, and dump his tight-assed girlfriend.
Gordon didn't always fare well in this spitting contest. That he was even in the game was an accident of geography: Alex and Gordon were born the same month next door to each other in Boonton, N.J. Alex's father died when Alex was five. Gordon's mother ran off with the plumber a year later. The boys became bonded by the daily reality of their new lives: Gordon's father became a mean drunk, a bear of a man who was quick to bring out the belt. Alex's mother drove him away with her clinginess.
"Let me lead," Angela said, and glided their bodies in rhythm with the music. He smiled at her, but the smile masked heartache. Angela had called it quits three months before, and this time the breakup seemed to stick. He was surprised when Angela suggested they attend their prom as friends, and he agreed, considering the plan beat going solo, and maybe there were still some embers left to stoke.
Now he nuzzled her neck and smelled the freshness of her hair. He held her tighter and noticed she was wearing their perfume. She smiled, rested her head softly on his shoulder. He slid his hand from her bare liquid shoulders to the small of her back and thought about how natural it felt. He moved his fingers up and down the bumps of her spine, thinking of all the massages he'd given her. How could he let her go? He could love his girl.
He caressed her head in his palm and she looked up, blond hair spilling onto soft shoulders, her lips only inches from his. God, she smelled like heaven.
She furrowed her brow. "I smell a joint on your breath. Alex."
He frowned. Half hour ago he had ducked out the back door and shared a quick doobie with Gordo, who was hanging outside in the shadows. "C'mon, it's prom night. God knows I need a buzz."
She flashed that little look of disappointment that he found so ... disappointing. Just like Angela, trying to save him again. She rested her head on his chest and they slow-danced a little longer. "Alex, I need to tell you something. I got a letter today, from Cal."
He waited a few beats. "Who's Cal?"
She looked up, hesitant. "The University of California. I got early admission into Berkeley."
He stopped moving. Completely froze in the middle of the dance floor. Berkeley was 3,000 miles away. Before they broke up three months ago, they talked about attending Rutgers together, an hour to the south. "But, we had a plan."
"I was afraid to tell you. They've got a good broadcast journalism program there." She tried to nudge his body into dancing again, but he wouldn't move. "And I— I needed to get away."
Away from him? But how could she, when there was still a spark? When there was even the remotest glimmer of possibility that, despite all their differences, they were meant to be together? Angela! Don't!
He struggled to find the words. He broke from her grasp, backed away, and rammed through the emergency exit on the side of the school gym. He walked unsteadily through the parking lot in the dark shadows and soon found himself on the track in front of the bleachers. He climbed to the top, sat, and stared at the sinister moonlight washing over the grounds.
Then, footsteps. "Saw you bail, partner." Gordon climbed the bleachers, nearly toppling over. The man was wasted. Earlier, after Alex and Gordon shared a hit of weed from Thailand, Gordon popped a couple of orange methamphetamine pills and chased them with a pint of tequila. Gordon had just started dabbling with meth, and Alex wanted no part of it. But he couldn't really blame Gordon, who just needed some escape from his old man's beatings. Angela had tried to interfere there, too, saying they should call Social Services. Gordon went frickin' ballistic.
Alex turned away, trying to ignore his old friend. Right now he just wanted to be left alone.
"What's your problem, man?" Gordon said. "Why you been blowin' me off?"
It was true. He hadn't been returning Gordon's phone calls the past couple of weeks. He'd been doing a lot of thinking and decided Angela was right. He needed to get it in gear, get a plan together and make something of his life. The stoner thing was getting old.
Alex kept up the silent treatment until Gordon finally said, "Man, I saw her in that outfit tonight. Lookin' real fine. Wish I could have me a piece of that."
Asshole. Alex now regretted all the details he passed on to Gordon after he'd broken up with Angela. About what they'd done, where they'd done it.
"She's going away to school. Berkeley," Alex finally said.
Gordon looked up, surprised. "Is that why you're so frickin' mope? I thought you were over her." He let out a scornful laugh. "That's why you look like shit. She really beat you up again."
"Fuck off, Gordon." Alex stood and plodded down the wooden seats, leaving Gordon behind. He'd had enough bullshit for one night. He fingered the keys to the rental car, found the Lincoln in the parking lot, and pulled up to the gym exit. He was done for the night, with or without Angela. He left the motor running and tried the gym door. Locked. He strode to the front entrance, went in, and told Angela he was leaving. I'll go too, she said. He hit the john to take a quick whiz while Angela said her goodbyes and headed out the side exit. She spotted the Lincoln Town Car at the curb up ahead and climbed into the passenger seat.
Alex stepped out the side door less than a minute later — only to see Gordon pile into the driver's seat, hit the automatic door locks, and peel backward. He rolled down his window and looked straight at Alex. "Don't worry, I'll give her what's comin'."
Angela looked too startled to move. Then Gordon gunned the motor, burned rubber, and shouted out the window, "Heartbeat Road, here we come."
Alex stood, frozen. What in God's name? He turned and tried the gym door. Locked. He banged on the door and shouted above the throbbing music. The only movement in the parking lot came from the switchblades of blue and red light spilling from the windows. He began running, trying to fathom what Gordon meant. If he ran full tilt he could make it home to his car in 15 minutes. His dress shoes slipped and he sprawled onto the sidewalk. He got up slowly and heard a car engine start. The vice principal revved her Ford Grenada, opened the window, swore softly, then got out and entered the gym with her pass key. The car was still running.
Alex didn't hesitate. He jumped into the Grenada, backed up and tore out of the parking lot. He caught sight of the vice principal in the rearview mirror, cursing and waving her fist, but Alex knew he hadn't been seen. He tried to calm himself. Maybe he was misreading things. But the look on Gordon's face worried him.
He pulled off Route 46 in Montville, took the two turns on the winding side roads, slowed down, and stopped. Somehow he must have missed the entrance. After another mile he doubled back and finally found the dirt entrance to Heartbeat Road. When they were freshmen he and Gordon used to come here to get high and spy on couples making out. It was the perfect lover's lane — just a spooky old dirt road that cut through a thicket of poplars and oaks.
The Grenada skidded over loose rocks. Damn you, Gordon, if you touch her, I'll break your neck. But he hoped to God he wouldn't find them there.
His headlights caught the back end of a black car up ahead, parked along a small embankment that lined the edge of a dried-up creekbed. The car's headlights were on. The Lincoln. Damn it.
He pulled up and got out, heart thrumming. He took the full night into the hollow of his lungs. The air was warm and sticky, like a dead animal. Then he heard a noise, to the left. Someone was moving in the shadows, under the shapeless trees. He crept closer and made it out. Just a squirrel, skittering over the stiff leaves.
Then he heard voices coming from a little way down the road.
"Please no." Angela's rasp tore harshly at the night. "You're hurting me!"
It was coming from the ditch. He ran over and peered down.
"Gordon," he snapped. "Angela. What—" He couldn't form the words. He couldn't see them, but he could tell something horrible was happening in the dark. Could Gordon be doing this? He stood on the embankment, sick with disbelief.
He heard a low groan. Then he saw something move in the black light of the moon. Gordon. He hitched himself up, zipped his pants, and steadied himself on the steep wall of the ditch. "Your turn, partner. I saved some for you."
Gordon! I'll kill you! Anger rose within him, a brilliant white blade of rage.
Gordon began to bull his way up the embankment. Alex swung his leg and kicked Gordon on the side of the head, sending him hurtling back into the darkness. But he got up and came toward the embankment again.
Suddenly something moved behind Gordon. Angela Riding's face came into the headlights. Her eyebrows were knitted in wrinkles of pain, her blue dress torn and muddied.
"You bastards!"
Then he saw it. Out of the darkness, she brought the rock down with a cold, precise fury. Gordon just began to turn when it came crashing against the back of his head. Alex heard the sickening sound of rock against skull. The body thudded onto the side of the ditch.
They both froze and stared at Gordon's limp body. The woods were still now, except for the crickets. The smell of the onion grass hung heavy in the air. Angela raised her eyes toward Alex. She began clawing up the wall of the embankment, bloody rock in hand.
"You helped him, you bastard!"
"No, Angela, no!"
She came at him. Alex reeled backward, tripping over a tree branch. "He told me. He told me you were in on this."
"He was lyin'! Jesus!" He tried to get to his feet, but his ankle was jammed and pinned under the branch.
She raised the bloody rock, and he shielded his face, bracing for the impact. She brought it back behind her head, then dropped it and sank to her knees. She cried, a deep, piercing, soul-wrenching wail unlike anything he had ever heard.
He climbed into the ditch and checked Gordon's pulse. Nothing. He let her cry another five or ten minutes. He tried to comfort her, but she wouldn't let him touch her. At last, it was time to go. Alex retrieved the keys to the Lincoln from Gordon's pants pocket.
"I'll drive you to the hospital," he said.
"No. No, I just want to go home."
He tried to insist, but she wouldn't go, and he finally relented. She had her reasons. Even in her fury and anguish, Angela knew one thing: that she had killed someone. Beyond that fact, she was certain of nothing. She wasn't sure she could trust Alex to take her side. Gordon was his friend, after all, and had Alex been in on this? Gordon raped her, but the rape was already over when she struck him. Could some coldhearted, macho prosecutor accuse her of killing Gordon out of revenge rather than self-defense? She wasn't able to articulate all this, but she sensed that the safest thing to do was to just get home.
"I'll take the Lincoln," she said in a throaty rasp. "You can return it tomorrow." She took the car keys, her hand trembling a little. She stared quizzically at the Grenada. "You take the other car."
She drove off, and he watched the darkness swallow the Lincoln's tail lights. Then he brought the Grenada forward and shone its headlight into the ditch. Little pools of blood gathered below the slumped red body. He considered, briefly, taking the body back, but then they would find out who stole the vice principal's car, and he'd be expelled for sure.
He left Gordon's body in the ditch.
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