Dark Water - Laura McNeal [40]
Then he disconnected us, and the light went out.
Twenty-five
This was the day that I discovered a very useful thing: the river is a huge crack in the landscape of Fallbrook. There is the civilized world of groves and corrals and houses and yards, all of them on hilltops because people like views, but far below those hilltops and streets, in a dark, winding cut, lay the river world. You could hike straight into that world through marked gates, like the one on Willow Glen, or you could just climb down into it from the yards on the hilltops. And I learned this by climbing out of river world into the backyard of the house where Greenie lived with her brother and her parents and a dog named Poochie that fortunately remembered me.
Greenie and Hickey were sitting on her back deck when I came trespassing out of the peach trees. It was almost fully dark by then, and the evening mist coated leaves and grass. I had scratched both forearms, my shoes were full of dirt, and my hair felt like a dried plant sculpture.
“What the le feck?” Greenie said. She’d learned a little Franglish from Robby and me.
“Hello le bonjour,” I said. Poochie was a lapdog trapped in a Doberman’s body, so after barking briefly, she tucked her nose into my hand and lifted it impatiently, as if to say, “The hand is for petting me.”
Hickey stood up, too, and came lazily to the rail of the deck. He was wearing a ski cap that pressed his bangs into his eyelashes, and he casually hooked one finger in Greenie’s nearest belt loop. “Are you a werewolf or an amateur cat burglar?” he asked. He sounded hopeful about both, so I didn’t answer.
“If you want to come over and visit me, we still have a front door,” Greenie said.
I said that I was hiking and got tired, so I found a shortcut.
“Hiking?” Greenie said. “Again? What’s with you and the river these days?”
“Can I have one of those?” I asked. She and Hickey were sipping from brown bottles that I was relieved to see contained root beer, not real beer, probably because Greenie’s parents were home. Once I’d climbed the steps onto the deck, I could see the backs of their heads silhouetted by the television screen and hear sweeping orchestral music.
Greenie went inside and got me a root beer. I stayed where I was so that Mr. and Mrs. Coombs wouldn’t pose their usual questions about how my mother was getting along.
“So how’re you lovebirds?” I asked with false cheer. Since only old people use the word lovebirds, I immediately went quiet. Hickey and Greenie re-entwined themselves on the wooden swing, and I perched on the edge of a ratty lounge chair. I wondered if the Barbie wedding lodge was still in Greenie’s basement. We’d glued the Lincoln Logs together on a piece of particleboard so the building wouldn’t fall down if there were an earthquake during the reception. The Barbie health and safety code was pretty rigorous.
“Hickey wants to go to some club in Oceanside,” Greenie said, “but I told him my curfew’s too early.” She tossed her head in the direction of her parents, and I wondered if what made her look so different tonight was the back-from-the-dead eye shadow or her new Hickey-length bangs. “I think we should just go to that Paddy O’Whatsit’s pub downtown and eat fried chips or whatever they call them. Wanna be our chaperon?”
I didn’t. I wanted to go down to the basement and be nine years old. I wanted to make some miniature wedding cakes out of Sculpey clay, eat popcorn with real melted butter, drink Swiss Miss hot chocolate in Greenie’s kitchen, and then fall asleep in a plaid sleeping bag that smelled like cedar chips.
“Nah,” I said. “I don’t want to ruin your date.”
“You wouldn’t,” Greenie said. I sort of believed her, and I think she sort of meant it.
Hickey just took a long drink of soda. In the yellow light of the porch his freckles disappeared. He was a pale, angular sign that everything in my life had changed. “Maybe we could find a le dude for you,” he said. “One who’s into stealth-hiking.”
“Come on,” Greenie