The Weird Sisters - Eleanor Brown [114]
But whatever the reason, she did it, and Rose sat back in the passenger seat and told her what to do, and watched her do it, and we didn’t feel unsafe, even then. Cordy lay in the back, her hands on her bloated belly, moaning softly to herself, and Rose turned the radio down.
At first Bean pressed too hard on the accelerator, and we bucked and shook out of the parking space and then screeched to a halt at the edge of the lot as she looked right and left. Wild in the wind, a motorcyclist came in beside us, the shriek of rubber on the pavement, the flatulent rev of the engine, and she started, taking her foot off the brake and allowing the car to drift into the road. Rose inhaled sharply, gripping the edge of the seat, but Bean placed her foot firmly on the pedal, and then accelerated.
The pleasure in driving is lost the more you do it, but that night it was fresh and cold independence, and we sped down the road, faster than technically prudent, and Bean hardly saw the shape of the deer leaping over the pasture fencing and into the headlights.
Rose saw it. She swears she did, she saw it an instant before Bean did, but she couldn’t even open her mouth to scream, it was that fast, and then the heavy thud of the impact, and the squeal of the brakes and the way the car fishtailed crazy into a fencepost. In the back, Cordy slid off the seat and ended up arched over the tiny hump on the floor, bumping her head on the door handle as she went. She cried, of course, but when Bean and Rose opened the doors and went shrieking out into the night, she pulled herself up and came out behind us, one tiny slick tear trail cutting through the ice cream on the side of her cheek, looking pitiful and confused. It struck us as we stood there that the amount of trouble we were going to be in was immeasurably large. This was the worst thing we had ever done. Even our parents, who were incapable of consistently applying groundings or time-outs or any punishment more severe than a stern talking-to, were going to have to do something.
“I was driving,” Rose said. Oh, Rose—sensible even in the face of disaster, and don’t think we don’t love her for it. But Bean didn’t even hear; she was standing in the middle of the road, her hands pinned to her mouth in horror. The deer lay just to the side of the thick yellow lines down the middle of the road, as if obeying the signs: this is a NO PASSING zone. A doe, still a rich butter-chocolate brown from the summer, a patch of white at the base of her neck. Every time she lifted her head, trying vainly to move her body, the white fur flashed like a star in the headlights.
Rose tried to keep Cordy from seeing it, but she struggled out from under Rose’s firm hands and stepped into the road. She reached for Bean, who stood, still silent, panting under her cupped hands, staring at the deer, watching its death throes, hearing its quiet groan, a plea for assistance. Bean refused Cordy’s touch, turned away from her, but her eyes were still locked with the doe’s. One of its legs was broken and there was blood on the pavement.
Who knows how long we stood in the road, shell-shocked, sugar-shocked, until the police cruiser came by. We knew the deputy, Officer Franklin; he had breakfast at the diner next to the bookstore, and when he walked by us on the street, he’d pull a quarter from one of our ears and make us laugh. He was young, and we would ask if we could try on his hat, partly to laugh at the way the wide brim slipped down over our foreheads, and partly to see the vulnerable pink