Body of Stars by Laura Walter (free ebook reader for iphone TXT) 📕

gone there with Marie once before, to the stuffy house with aqua carpeting and a screened-in porch patched with duct tape. The aunt lived alone, a single woman whose markings indicated she’d never marry or pursue a lucrative career. She chain-smoked on the porch, stabbing her cigarette butts against an antique ashtray shaped like a fish. The aunt wasn’t a modest dresser like Marie’s mother, and when I’d been there, she wore a camisole that showed stretched-out bra straps the color of dishwater. I could picture Marie sitting in her aunt’s house that night, picking at a stale piece of coffee cake and watching the clock tick its way toward the time she could leave.

My mother seemed in a good mood as she drove me to Marie’s house. I felt guilty for betraying her, and nervous that I’d be exposed, and afraid for what the night would bring if I succeeded in this deception. But when we arrived, I saw that Marie’s family had left lights on in all the windows, making the home look bright and safe. That, at least, was a relief.

I unclicked my seat belt and hurriedly thanked my mother for the ride. I worried she might insist on walking me to the door. Thankfully, Cassandra appeared in the driveway just then, illuminated by the headlights. She wore a red maxi dress with a long-sleeved cardigan. My mother waved to her.

“Cassie looks lovely,” she said. “Chic but covered up. Just the way she should be.”

For a moment, I felt guilty. My mother trusted me, would never suspect that I’d conspire with Cassandra in this way. There was so much she didn’t know about both of her children now. Again, my mind filled with visions of what might happen to Miles: An overdose. A respiratory infection. Slipping on ice and hitting his head.

“Have fun tonight, and be safe,” my mother added, but her words sounded automatic. She believed I would pass an uneventful evening inside Marie’s house. She couldn’t sense that something had changed, that I was capable of deceiving her.

I slid from the car before she could change her mind. Cassandra hurried over to me and, after one final wave for my mother, pulled me around to the back of the house. My mother, no doubt, assumed we were going straight inside the back door. Instead we stood hidden in the shadows, our backs pressed against the aluminum siding. The neighbors next door were having a party. Twinkle lights buzzed in soft focus along the fence, and the faint sputtering of jazz drifted our way. Against this backdrop, I listened as my mother’s car pulled away and took off down the street.

“What are we doing?” I asked Cassandra. We stood on wet grass, the dampness seeping through my shoes. When I exhaled, pale puffs of air floated away from my body.

“Our ride will be here soon. We just need to make sure your mom is gone.”

A pair of headlights shined into Marie’s backyard. We peered around the corner to see a blue sedan idling in the driveway.

“That’s him,” Cassandra said.

“Him?”

Without answering, she took my arm and led me to the car. Cassandra threw herself into the passenger seat, but I stood frozen, staring at the driver. It was Jonah. He leaned forward, his left arm draped across the steering wheel. As I watched, his fingers curled halfway into a fist and then flared open again.

“I told you she wouldn’t like this,” he said.

Cassandra turned to me. The passenger-side window was open, placing her within my reach.

“Get in,” she said.

I stood motionless in the driveway.

“If you don’t get in, where will you go?” she asked. “You’d have to walk the whole way home in the dark.”

The neighbors with their jazz and lights, the clink of glasses. I didn’t know those people, but I could go to them, could submit to their mercy.

“Celeste.” Cassandra leaned halfway out the window. “This party is safe. I promise. Do you really think I’d let anything happen to you?”

Cassandra was my best friend. My foolish, vulnerable best friend sitting alone in a car with a boy. In a dreamlike state I moved to the back door, watching myself reach out and hook my fingers under the handle. That handle was slick to the touch. It flashed silver in my eye, blinding, a pierce as sudden as a needle. It reflected all the reasons girls did things they never imagined doing.

The door heaved open with a creak. I slid onto the seat and shut myself in, away from the night. Before I was fully settled, Jonah reversed out of the driveway, shifted into drive, and pressed hard on the gas, jolting us forward and back again. I wondered how long he’d had his license. Boys could drive at sixteen, but girls had to wait until they were eighteen—the older age assured that we’d be out of our reckless changeling periods before operating vehicles.

“Your problem is that you take all this too seriously.” Cassandra leaned forward in her seat to peel off her cardigan. The dress underneath was sleeveless with a V neckline. Jonah swiveled his head to look, the car drifting in response.

“Girls have been changing since the beginning of time,” Cassandra went on. She rolled the cardigan into a ball and stuffed it into the space by her feet. “If things were as bad as you like to imagine, then women would be an endangered species.”

“I’m worried, Cassie.” My voice was small. “I’m afraid.”

Cassandra turned around and gave me a pitying look. “Poor Celeste.” She reached over the console between the front seats to touch my cheek. I felt a spark crackle between us. “Don’t you trust me?”

I turned my face to the window. We sped on toward the party, the night slipping past in pulses of light interrupted by long stretches of vacuous black.

*   *   *

We arrived at Rebecca’s house as if in a flickering dream, everything emerging through fog: a side door with a split screen, a staircase leading to a