“Yeah, I know. She loves y’all a whole lot,” Trey said.
“Well, she’s forever our sweet Caroline.”
“Sweet Caroline,” Trey repeated with a chuckle. “That’s her, all right. Ha!”
Kasey pictured Trey as a little boy, wondering if he’d ever been sweet. Caro said he had. She’d mentioned a handful of times when he said nice things or did nice things, and Kasey squinted her brain to try and see those things the same way she tried with Roy. Tried to force herself to see him as a person worth loving, as a person who could love.
“Sweet Kasey,” Trey said, leaning over to put his hand on her bare leg.
She let him.
She sat still.
“You’re truly beautiful, Kasey. Lord have mercy, that dress. That dress is a problem, you know that? I mean, I know how much you love Caroline and I love her too. You and I weren’t friends in high school or anything, but I remember thinking Silas was the man for bagging you. Honestly. But I mean, you’re way hotter now.”
“Oh…well…thank you, Trey,” she said, looking down at her legs.
“You’re welcome.”
“You hungry?” she asked, licking her bottom lip and biting it slowly. She stared into his blue eyes. She hoped Caroline’s baby had her warm eyes and not Trey’s cold ones. Kasey made sure her face wasn’t as loud as her thoughts. She softened it some more.
“I am,” he said.
“For what?”
“For whatever you want me to eat.”
They both let the tension thicken.
When she stood and turned, she heard Trey get up too. He put his arm around her waist.
She let him.
Maybe there was some other way to do this. Maybe they could…maybe she could—
He grabbed her ass, squeezing gently. Both different and the same way Roy had done it the time she pulled a knife on him. Everylivingthing inside of Kasey flashed to that moment. How scared she was. How alone she was. How she’d wanted to die. How she prayed for God to kill her so she wouldn’t have to live one more second like that. She wished she’d never been born. She wished she’d been in the car with her daddy when he died so she could’ve died too. How she went to her room and put that knife under her pillow and cried so hard she made herself sick.
She gasped and snatched Trey’s wrist away.
“Ah. Let’s eat first, right? Then dessert,” she said to him. She felt like a different person putting that voice on and that was good. She imagined herself as a smoldering actress, playing a part. It wasn’t her voice; it was the actress’s voice. Frangible, feigned. The voice that was going to get her through this.
“All right,” Trey said, smirking at her and leaning against the counter.
She got her salad and put his lasagna on a plate, telling him she wasn’t that hungry yet since she’d done all the cooking.
*
It was after Trey had drunk the rest of his bourbon and eaten one big slab of lasagna, half of another, and a huge piece of pecan pie that he’d gotten up and tried to sit on Kasey’s lap. She had dark ripples of worry earlier, thinking that they hadn’t put enough LSD in the bourbon or that they’d cooked the mushrooms too much, but Trey was giggling and completely spaced out now. Everything had worked properly.
“Trey, you’re a big boy. You need to sit in your own chair,” Kasey said, making herself giggle back at him.
“You’re so fucking good-looking, though. It’s been a hell of a few days. My wife is good-looking too, but she’s in the hospital,” he said.
She saw Caro’s disfigured face in her mind. Heard the doctor saying the words almost fractured an orbital bone. Pictured the surgeon putting a metal plate in Caro’s shoulder. Saw the deep cuts on her arms, the dark bruises, the violet swell of her eye.
No. Kasey couldn’t let fear in. Her focus had to be revenge and revenge only.
“Right. She’s in the hospital,” she said, pushing him gently, fighting the urge to stab him to death at the table. “Hang tight, I’m going to the bathroom.” Kasey got up. Trey was back in his chair now, completely zoned out to everything but the rest of his lasagna.
Behind the bathroom door, she texted Rosemarie and Ada in their group chat.
Go look at the moon.
It was the code for the girls to meet her outside in ten minutes. They knew to leave their phones at home so no one could place them at the farmhouse. Now it was time to get Trey near the water.
He was at the kitchen counter, sloshing more laced bourbon into his glass.
“It’s been a long time since I drank this much. I’m drunk off my ass. Sorry about that. Want some?” he said, slurring. He shoved the glass at her but she said no thank you. “This farmhouse is amaaazing. Your dad built this? Sorry, your black dad built this?” Trey said.
“Yep. My black daddy built this house, Trey, and you’re right. It is amazing. Come here and I’ll show you something,” she said to him, taking his hand and leading him out the back door. She pointed at the roof and told him about the rain barrels her dad had painted, but none of it registered one bit to Trey, because he was tripping balls on another planet. He was putting his hands all over her and Kasey let him, not worried he’d feel the knife.
Wouldn’t matter if he did.
Wouldn’t be much longer now.
“Whoops. Stars are spinning and I’m seeing all kinds of weird…like…glowing turtles. Did you see a glowing turtle up there? I think I need to sit,” he said, pointing at the roof, then down at the ground.
“Let’s do that, cowboy,” she said, pulling his arm toward the far end of the property where the water licked at the rocks. “Let’s go out on the dock and do it. It’s prettier.”
They walked up the steps and down to the edge. She sat first and tugged on his jeans so he’d sit too. Then, she climbed on top of him, laid him back and leaned down. He closed his eyes and kissed her.
She let him.
Wouldn’t be much longer now.
“Do you feel good?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said softly.
“Do you want to come with me no matter where I go?”
“Hell yeah, Kasey. Kasey Fritz. Your name feels so good to say. My mouth. Feels good in my mouth, Frasey Kritz.”
“So, let’s pretend to go to sleep so we can catch those turtles, okay? Let’s go swim with the turtles. It’s turtles all the way down. Will you come with me?” she said into his ear as a soft, weird snore escaped his mouth. He moved his head with his eyes half-closed and mumbled something about not being able to swim. “I know. That’s okay. I’ll go tell those turtles we’re on the way. They’ll take good care of us.” After waiting until it seemed like he was asleep, she stood and walked toward the farmhouse, pssting for Rosemarie and Ada.
They stepped into the moonlight.
“He’s completely out of it, so we need to get him in the water now,” she whispered to them.
“God, he’s huge, though,” Ada said.
“We don’t have to put him in far. It’s deep,” Rosemarie said.
“I’ll jump in with him. Come on,” Kasey said.
When they got to Trey he was kind of awake again and the expression on his face had changed into a smug half smile. He was moving his head back and forth on the wood like it felt good to do it.