Damage - A. M. Jenkins [4]
You drive, Curtis rides shotgun, Dobie’s in the back. The pickup bumps across the field house parking lot, bottles rattling and bouncing around in the bed.
Since it’s Friday night, the Dairy Queen is pretty crowded. You have to park way back in the corner of the lot, next to the close-cropped grass lawn of the church next door. When you get out of the truck, you’re close enough to read the weekly quote-on-a-sign in front.
First Baptist Church of Parkersville, Texas
BE JOYFUL ALWAYS.
1 Thess 5:16
Curtis gets out and slams the door. Dobie climbs over the tailgate. You stand there looking at that sign—the three little words in bold black letters: Be joyful always. It’s almost like God’s speaking to you personally.
Things are about to get under control. Sure they are. Once the season starts, they will. Every year since ninth grade, crossing that goal line for the first time pumps you so full of joy, it all overflows and gets reflected back by a thousand people in the stands feeling the same thing. That first Friday night always puffs you up so light you could float out of the stadium and onto the bus.
This is senior year. It’s bound to be great.
It’s going to be a great year.
You join Curtis and Dobie, walking across the parking lot. “I’m kind of hungry, too,” Dobie’s saying. “I might have a burger or two just to keep y’all company. Oh, man,” he adds. “Look who’s here.”
He nods toward the cherry red Miata parked in front, a bright patch of color between the fluorescent lights and the darkness.
And there they are next to it—Heather Mackenzie and Melissa Larkin, standing at an outside table, talking to some other girls. You dated Melissa for a while last year; it was an amicable breakup and the two of you still get along fine. And Heather is hands down the most beautiful girl in town, the number one girl on every guy’s “Top Ten To Do” list.
But that’s not the only reason she captures your eye. It’s because you’ve always thought she’s like a jigsaw puzzle that’s just a little bit incomplete. And you like the feeling of holding someone else’s missing piece in your hand.
“Look at Austin, making plans,” Dobie observes. “You can just about see the gears turning.”
You weren’t really making any plans at all, but now you have to make a big point of looking like you were. So you walk a little slower and let a slow-moving grin take over your whole face while your eyes take a little extra time appreciating Heather’s long legs.
“Aw, I was just kidding,” Dobie says quickly. “You know she won’t go out with nobody our age. Remember how she shot Cox down when he asked her out in front of everybody?”
Yeah, you heard about that. But still you look at Heather—there’s something like a string pulling your eyes toward her. Heather’s like you; her father died when she was little. Of course, nobody talks about it, not right out. When Heather moved here in the third grade, the story was that her parents were divorced, and her dad was still in Ohio. But somehow word leaked out that Mr. Mackenzie killed himself, and, of course, the news zipped along phone lines and flashed in whispers from ear to ear. It’s been years since you’ve heard anybody mention it—but that hasn’t kept you from thinking about it, from wondering whether the Mackenzie house has a dark jagged hole at the heart of it, like Curtis’s, or whether it’s just a house, like yours.
Tonight the first thing that captures your eyes, like always, is Heather’s rear end, tight and tilted like the back of a Camaro; and when that brief surge of interest is gone you look a little longer anyway, wondering if she’s ever had to click on a button or two to get Heather Mackenzie up and running.
Curtis doesn’t slow, just walks right past them; the only thing he’s interested in is that Kat’s not at any of these outside tables. You don’t say anything to Dobie, and you certainly don’t say anything to Heather. You just follow Curtis through the door.
Inside at