Steplings: A Novel

Chapter 13

Paige drove Lisa back into town, and Jorge went along for the ride. They tried to make her feel better by claiming that they wanted to swing by his place and pick up some CDs, anyway, that he'd forgotten to bring. " If you need anything, please call," urged Paige as Lisa was getting out at the dorm. She appreciated that they'd been solicitous and sensitive toward her feelings, but she ached to imagine that when they got back to Ashley's house, they'd spend half the night yakking about Lisa's trailer-trash soap opera. It was close to seven o'clock, and Tera was sitting in her robe with a towel swathing her hair as she texted her boyfriend who went to Baylor. They often drove the hundredmile stretch between cities on weekends alternately, so Lisa was a little surprised to find her in the room. "You're not going to \'(laco?" "Stevie's coming down here tomorrow. 'Sides, I thought maybe, you know...." Gal-pal solidarity or just another person itching to live inside somebody else's high-voltage troubles? "Well, thanks. The police came out to interview me. They said -" " I saw the Amber Alert," said Tera, nodding at their TV set perched on Tera's dresser. She spoke approvingly, as if it were a special program that Lisa had had a hand in producing . On the set, presently muted, QVC beamed a special on 205 cubic zirconia earrings. " I haven't seen the whole thing yet." "Oh, I should've saved it for you! But I guess it'll show agatn." "I'm sure it will make the reruns." Lisa collapsed back on her bed. Tera wasn't her bosombuddy or even a confidante, but it felt comfortable to be with her right now. She didn't know people at the party Lisa had just ostracized herself from. Though she'd been Lisa's roommate since the start of school, Tera's attachment to her guy in Waco had made her inaccessible during leisure hours, and so they hadn't grown really close, but, in the present instance, she was like the person seated next to you on the plane that you wind up revealing things to that you'd never confess to friends. " I love this guy but I'm sick of him." " Lovesick? " "No, definitely not. Sick of love." "Didn't you just write him the 'let's be friends' note?" "I'm afraid it didn't sink in or he just can't accept it and that he's coming here to badger me or beg or whatever." "Maybe the police will get to him first." "Maybe." She had mixed feelings about that-it would be a relief but would only put off a later encounter. And she'd feel guilty that he risked so much to see her but didn't get to. "Well, if they don't-" Tera picked up a pair of scissors and brandished them. "Not to worry. \'(le'll get a crew to cover your back, girl!" "Oh, I don't think he'd ..." But she didn't know for sure, did she? Maybe the Jason she knew eons ago could be trusted, but. ... " I guess you have to do something dire enough that he finally gets it." Tera grinned. "You know what I did to this nerd who kept bugging me in the tenth grade? I told him to think of us as Lancelot and Guinevere and that if he wanted to hook up with me, he was gonna have to perform some really cool stunt or retrieve something for me, and so I told him this bullshit story about how this older guy I'd known had taken some 206 thong panties he stole from my drawers and took them up to the top of the water tower in the middle of Lufkin, you know, and was gonna like fly them like a flag but where he put them it turned out nobody could see them-and I told this nerd he had to climb the tower and bring them back to me." Tera laughed. "That was inventive." Lisa was thinking that Tera had a mean streak she hadn't noticed before. Her major was fashion merchandising. "Did he buy it?" "Well, he did go all the way up. That night. In the rain. And he called me from his cell...