Virgin Territory by James Lecesne

Author:James Lecesne [Lecesne, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-60684-184-6
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Published: 2010-09-13T16:00:00+00:00

A dead parent isn’t something you can keep secret. The fact sticks to you like a house on fire. Even your friends, who weren’t there to witness the actual moment of destruction, can smell the smoke. And everything you do, every action, is slightly singed around the edges, because you’ve been burned.

As we’re walking away from the house on Sweet Bay Circle, Angela breaks the news to me that it’s time to stop hiding the past. Like the Ouija board said—go on. Above us, the sky is turning a deeper shade of blue with every step we’re taking, but closer to the horizon the sky gets dipped in apricot and peach. All the houses are lined up along the street, silent and still as tombstones—the candy-colored kind.

“It’s time to be yourself,” Angela announces. “Your true self.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask her.

“Like, for instance, we knew that first house was yours,” says Crispy. He takes out a packet of fancy gum and offers everybody a slab. It’s got a kind of apple taste, which seems wrong for gum of any kind, but we all go for it without comment.

“But not right away,” Des offers. “Not that day. We figured it out later on.”

“How much later on?” I ask.

“I recognized the guy in the bed,” Angela says. “But, under the circumstances, I didn’t feel like breaking the news.”

This is what it feels like to have friends, I think. This is what it feels like to be seen, known.

At home, I do time with Doug at the dinner table (Chinese takeout again). I can tell that something’s on his mind, because he’s chewing extra loud. He always does that when he’s concentrating extra hard.

“What?” I ask as I put down my fork.

“What do you mean what?” he counters. But I’m not about to fall for that old trick. I’m smarter than that. I haven’t lived these fifteen years with him for nothing.

“Out with it,” I say.

“I got a call today,” he begins. “At work.”

It’s the way he says “at work” that makes me understand that he wasn’t expecting the call, and that it wasn’t a fun call. It was a call about me, and it wasn’t good news.

“Really?” I ask.

“I landscaped a yard over on Seaspray Lane about a year ago. Nice woman. Retired. Home all day. Basically a busybody, but who can blame her? See something, say something. Everybody and his brother’s got an eye out for everybody else these days.”

Okay, now he’s torturing me, giving me way too much information and trying to break me down so that I’ll either stab him in the hand with my fork or shout, “What the hell happened?” But I don’t do either of these things. Instead, I calmly continue shoving moo shu around my plate.

“She saw you inside the house next door to hers,” Doug says in a flat tone that’s meant to imply nothing more than just the plain facts. And then for his big finish, he adds, “In the company of some other kids.

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