Starling House(45)
A lot of good lies are wasted because people go belly-up at the first sign of trouble. I hold one hand up in a peacemaking gesture, speaking in the voice I learned from the high school guidance counselor. “Okay, I can see you’re upset.” (“Upset!”) “I don’t know what’s happened, but I—”
Jasper thumps the dashboard. “Let me tell you what happened, then. Today in fifth period I got called to the principal’s office.” This would not have been noteworthy for me, who spent at least thirty percent of my brief academic career in the principal’s office, but the only time Jasper’s ever been in trouble was when Mrs. Fulton accused him of cheating because he got a perfect score on her stupid math quiz. “But when I got there Mr. Jackson wasn’t behind his desk. Instead it was this uptight corporate bitch”—a rushing sound fills my skull, along with the syrupy smell of fake apples—“who told me she was worried about you, and hoped I could, and I’m quoting here, ‘remind you of your obligations.’ What kind of mafia bullshit is that? Since when do schools let strange adults talk to students alone? She locked the door, for fuck’s sake. And she had—she said she liked my videos.” His outrage wobbles, tilting toward simple fear. “I haven’t even posted that last one yet.”
I put the truck in gear and pull back onto the road. I should be inventing some comforting cover story, but there are exactly two thoughts in my brain, swelling like tumors: first, that Jasper swears with significantly more familiarity than I’d previously suspected, and second, that I am going to dismember Elizabeth Baine and leave her remains for the fucking crows.
“What did you say to her?”
I’m not looking at him, but I can feel the seismic roll of his eyes. “I said yes, ma’am, thank you and booked it as soon as the bell rang. I’m not stupid.”
“Good boy.” It occurs to me that he didn’t run to, say, Tractor Supply Company. “And did she tell you where to find me? Where I’m working?”
His second eye roll would probably register on the Richter scale. “Did you really think I didn’t know? One of those candlesticks had an S stamped on it, for the love of God. And you’re always texting people who aren’t me—why is there someone named Heathcliff in your contacts?—and you have like zero friends. So I called Tractor Supply a month ago and Lacey told me you hadn’t worked there since February. She says she’s praying for you, by the way.”
“Wow, okay. Wow.”
“Anyway I thought it was really dumb, but like, you seemed happy and at least you weren’t getting groped by Lance Wilson anymore.”
“Hey, how did you know—it was a mutual groping, for the record.”
“A good summary of every relationship you’ve ever had.”
I feel dimly that the ref should blow a whistle and call foul on that one, because it’s not so much a comeback as a disembowelment. I’m left scooping my guts off the floor, spluttering. “As if you have any idea—you don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“I am literally begging you not enlighten me. Jesus, Opal.” Jasper sags back against the seat with a middle-aged sigh, infinitely wearied. A half mile passes in near silence, except for the rattle of the engine and the wet whine of spring peepers through the window. “I kept waiting for you to tell me what was up.” Jasper says it to the roof, his neck draped over the headrest. “The night we got pizza. The day at the movies. I thought you were psyching yourself up for it, but you never did. Instead I had to hear it from a stranger in an ugly-ass pantsuit.”
It’s a cool evening, and the fog is already rising off the river in pale tongues, licking over the land. It looks strangely solid in the glow of the headlights, as if I’m driving among the slick white flanks of animals. “Look, Jasper.” I wet my lips, dredging every ounce of sincerity out of my insincere soul. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
I chance a glance at him at the next stop sign. He’s still staring meditatively at the roof. “Are you? Or are you just sorry you got caught?” I don’t answer. He sighs again, far longer than seems physically possible. “That house is bad news. You know that, right?”
“It’s just talk.” I do a gentle, condescending snort, like a skeptic making fun of a fortune teller. “I’ve been working there for months and the worst thing I’ve ever seen is Arthur Starling in a towel.”
I’d opened a door I was positive had been a closet the day before and found Arthur toweling his hair in a second-floor bathroom. He’d made a sound like a wounded car horn, a sort of strangled bleat, and I’d slammed the door so fast I stubbed my own toes. I’d spent the rest of the afternoon blinking away the bright purple afterimages of his tattoos: crossed spears and spirals, a snake bent in a figure eight, a sharp-faced Medusa grinning between two birds.
Jasper’s eyebrows are in danger of disappearing into his hairline. With the air of a person stepping carefully over something unmentionably gross, he says, “And what if it’s not just talk? You know Mrs. Gutiérrez, at Las Palmas? She told me her brother-in-law was driving past the gates one night and he saw that guy in the driveway. Swinging a sword around, at nothing. Looked right at him as he passed. And that same night, her brother-in-law has a heart attack.”20