Page 12 of August Lane

Jessica cringed and shuddered whenever country played on the radio.

She called it redneck music. Anytime he thought about her stumbling over his copy of Learn to Live , his stomach sank at the prospect of her ridicule.

“How could anyone actually like Darius Rucker?” she’d probably ask.

Meanwhile, the thought of playing “It Won’t Be Like This for Long” for August made him light enough to float.

“It isn’t fair to compare them,” Luke said, for his own benefit as much as his brother’s. “Jess isn’t a music person. Plus, I’m pretty sure I’m not August’s type.” He pictured Richard, who looked and smelled like a men’s magazine ad.

“Well, if she’s your friend, ask her about Country Star . I heard they’re doing auditions in Nashville next month. She might know something.”

Luke took both their plates to the sink. “What’s Country Star ?”

“A talent competition. American Idol for country singers.”

“Sounds corny.”

“It probably is. But people love shows like that. You should audition.”

Luke scrubbed the dishes to give him time to think of a gentle way to remind his brother that he was Black. Those producers would laugh him out of the building. And even if they didn’t, filming would probably take months. He felt guilty whenever he left Ethan alone with Ava for twenty-four hours.

“I’m not built for TV,” Luke said, which was true. All those cameras pointed at you. All those lights. “I can play around here.”

“Where? Delta Blue?” Ethan’s voice hardened when he mentioned the local bar. “You should stay away from that place.”

“Because of Silas King?” Luke heard stories about August’s uncle but had always questioned whether they were true. He couldn’t believe some big-time criminal would settle in a town with a single gas station. “I’ve never met him.”

“Not because of him. Because of the drinking,” Ethan said. “You don’t know how to stop.”

Luke said, “Yes, I do.” But it didn’t sound as convincing as he would have liked. He glanced at the clock, grateful to see the late hour. “Go get dressed for school.”

Ethan rolled his eyes, slid from the chair, and shuffled to his room.

Luke busied himself emptying the trash, which had been neglected for days.

The top was covered with his empty beer cans.

This must have been what Ethan had seen when he walked into the kitchen that morning.

Luke usually counted, sometimes with little tally marks on napkins, to make it easier to keep track of how many he’d had.

Last night had been different. It got away from him.

It had been three days since August lost her notebook of song lyrics.

Three days of retracing her steps in an escalating panic, bracing for the public humiliation that whoever found it would unleash at any moment.

The worry had worn on her so much that she could barely hide her misery from her grandmother.

“You study for that test?” Birdie asked while adding five lumps of sugar and half a pint of cream to her coffee. She studied August with concern, somehow frowning without creasing her preternaturally smooth skin. She was terrified of getting wrinkles and being identified as the grandmother she was.

“Of course.” August watched Birdie slurp down what she’d effectively turned into dessert.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Are you ready?”

To fail? Absolutely. She’d been too distracted by her notebook to memorize any chemistry formulas besides water. “As ready as I can be.”

Birdie motioned for August to stand. “Let me look at you.”

August took her time standing, a silent protest of the daily ritual. Birdie refused to let her leave the house without inspection. August wore jeans and a striped top, but something about it made Birdie pause.

“That shirt’s a little tight.”

August rounded her shoulders and folded her arms over her stomach. “It’s fine.”

“Is it the right size?” Birdie walked around the table to look at the tag.

It was a large, the size she’d insisted August buy, even though they were too big for her.

The shirt wasn’t the problem. It was how her body looked in the shirt, particularly her breasts, which had only recently stopped growing.

Bands of thick black stripes made them more noticeable.

“Go change.”

August didn’t move. “I’ll be late.”

“Excuse me?” Birdie raised her eyebrows and pointed to the bedroom. “Pick a different top.”

And that was that. August changed into the baggiest T-shirt she could find because arguing with her grandmother was like being sucked into a black hole. Boundless and soul crushing, circular in ways that made you lose any hope of escape.

She returned to the kitchen and did a slow, mocking turn for Birdie’s benefit. “Do I look respectable now?”

Birdie smoothed August’s hair behind her shoulders and kissed her forehead. “Don’t be smart.”

August made it to school with only a few minutes to spare. People stared at her as she climbed the front steps, but she was used to it now. The key was to avoid eye contact while glaring at the walls like someone had already pissed you off.

She was relieved to see Mavis near her locker.

But then her cousin was joined by a group of her volleyball teammates, one of whom was Richard’s ex-girlfriend.

Mari Stanfield glared at August and whispered something to her friends before bursting into tears.

They all converged, rubbing her back while shooting August dirty looks.

The bell rang. August tried to duck into her classroom but slammed into the tall wall of Luke Randall instead.

“Whoa!” He grabbed her waist to steady her and flashed that crooked smile she hated. It looked like flirting. It felt like a finger sliding down her back. August tried to right herself and stumbled, which only made him tighten his grip. The smile became a furrow of concern. “I got you.”

“You’re in my way,” she said, but it didn’t come out nearly as rude as she wanted.

Too breathless instead of the stone-cold bitchiness she’d been going for.

Luke stepped aside but kept his eyes on her longer than he should have, probably staring at her ass the way his friends did.

Shane Adams, one of the least annoying members of that group, made a wounded noise when she walked past and gestured at her oversized shirt.

“I liked Friday’s outfit better,” he said, and cracked up laughing.

August had made the mistake of wearing a dress last week, something Birdie preferred to jeans. By lunch, she’d wanted to rip it off. The sight of her bare skin had kicked the harassment into overdrive. The girls were nastier. The boys were hornier. August had vowed never to wear it again.

Luke said nothing about her outfit. He’d been respectful so far, but so had Richard at first, who’d opened her car door and asked permission before kissing her.

She could picture Luke doing that. She could picture him being so sweet and gentle on a first date that she’d immediately crack herself open again and offer up the pieces.

All the seats in the back of the classroom were taken.

August sat near the window to have something to focus on besides the people around her.

The sun was blazing, the summer heat relentless.

She hated sharing a name with this month.

The stubbornness of it. The way it refused to let the season fade gracefully.

She didn’t realize Luke was sitting so close until he was assigned as her partner to think/pair/share the poem they’d been reading.

August had spent the five minutes allotted to think about her assignment watching squirrels brawl over an acorn.

She quickly skimmed the Langston Hughes poem so she wouldn’t embarrass herself.

Luke had scribbled something on his worksheet. Upon closer inspection, she realized it was music notes. He covered it with one hand and nodded at her blank paper. “Let’s use yours.”

“You read music,” she said, abandoning her plan to stay cool and aloof so he’d stop looking at her the way he was now: hopeful and cautious, as if she wielded power she wasn’t aware of. “When you said you wrote it, I didn’t think you meant literally writing it down, instead of just playing it.”

“Yeah,” Luke said, with a slight head dip like there was something to be embarrassed about. God, to be so lucky. She’d love to read music, but everyone in her family played by ear. “This poem, the rhythm of it… I can hear the melody.” He shook his head. “That sounds so fucking stupid.”

“No, it doesn’t.” She snatched the sheet from under his hand, then stared at what he’d written. It was like trying to decipher hieroglyphics. “What does it sound like?”

He looked over her shoulder. August turned around and saw Shane eyeing them with wide eyes and a giddy smile. He mouthed “ Bad girl ” to August. She flipped him off.

“None of that!” Their teacher, Mr. Ferris, glared at August. “Turn around and do your work.”

Luke leaned against his desk and lowered his voice. “Ignore that dude,” he said, nodding at Shane. “He’s messy but harmless.”

“He’s never harmed you ,” she said, shoving Luke’s paper onto his desk.

He straightened quickly and glared at Shane. “Did he hurt you?” His voice was low and tight. Heat flowed through her, and she lowered her eyes, staring at her paper until it passed.

He had to know what he was doing. Guys like him always did.

The way everyone fawned over him—he’d have to be oblivious not to notice his effect on people.

Three weeks into the school year, she’d realized that half the girls were in love with him, probably because he didn’t seem to notice or care.

Despite his flirtatious demeanor, August had seen no evidence Luke was unfaithful to his girlfriend, something few of her classmates could hide.

Their hands always wandered. Their eyes revealed secrets.

Luke seemed impenetrable, except apparently, while talking to strangers in the dark.

He cleared his throat. “What did you think of the poem?”

August looked down at the handout titled “Harlem.” A list of discussion questions followed the text. What dream is Hughes referring to? What do you think happens to a dream deferred?

She tapped her pencil against her desk. “We don’t have to talk about it.

No one else is.” She looked pointedly at the bored expressions of their classmates.

“I could write the answers and put our names at the top.” Luke looked disappointed.

He glanced down at his paper with its mysterious music notes, and August realized she’d just screwed up her best chance to satisfy her curiosity.

“Sure, okay. This is more your thing anyway. Poems.” Luke leaned back in his chair, adopting a careless pose. “I might actually get an A because of you.”

“These questions are easy.” She wrote RACISM in capital letters. “That’s all he wants us to say.”

He glanced at their teacher. Mr. Ferris stared at the clock, picking his nails into angry red nubs. “Do you always mess with that man this way?”

“He only assigns Black writers because he’s forced to. He doesn’t want to talk to us about them.”

“I mean, do you blame him?” Luke looked pointedly at the person beside them, whose worksheet was covered with Biggie Smalls lyrics.

August sighed and erased her answer. “Fine.”

“You’re welcome.” Luke straightened the line of brand-new pencils on his desk. There were four, way more than he needed. August had only one, which was covered in tooth marks and hadn’t been sharpened since the first day of class.

“What do you think it means?”

He shook his head. “I asked you first.”

She read the poem again, slower this time. “ Does it dry up / like a raisin in the sun? / Or fester like a sore / And then run? ” She read to the end silently. “I vote explosion.”

“Unsurprising.”

She stared at him. “Why do you do that?”

“What?”

“Talk like you know me.” She thought about her journal, but then immediately put it out of her head. If he’d found it, he would have told someone or returned it by now. Keeping it for three days without saying a word made no sense. “We only had one conversation.”

“Oh, so you do remember. I thought you got amnesia the minute you saw my face.”

The hurt in his voice surprised her. It had never occurred to her that their conversation at the fair had been as meaningful to him as it had been to her.

For August, it had been a brief, unguarded exhale that made her realize how long she’d been holding her breath.

But she didn’t want to talk about it in front of their classmates.

Luke flattened his hand over his pencil collection and rolled them under his palm. August watched the movement, her eyes drawn to a bruise on his wrist. “What happened?”

He slid his hand under his desk and glanced at the clock. “We should probably finish working on this.”

August gestured at his pencils. “Why do you have so many of those?”

“So I always have a sharp one.” He shot a quick, judgmental look at her pencil, with its tip blunted into the wood, barely usable. August picked it up and waggled it between her fingers.

“Does this bother you?”

He frowned and folded his arms. “No.”

“You look stressed.”

“I have a sharpener if you want to use it.”

“Why would I do that when there are four perfectly good pencils right here?” She reached for one of his. He grabbed her hand to stop her. August laughed and said, “Why are you so possessive?”

“I’m not,” he replied, his firm grip softening into a cradle before slipping away. “Maybe you just have that effect on me.”

She pressed the hand he’d held against the desk, using its cool temperature to erase any lingering warmth. Then she leaned in and asked in a lowered voice, “Did you take my notebook?”