Page 16

FOURTEEN

Lizzie scooped me off the floor and practically carried me to my bedroom.

“He dumped you, right?” she said, not waiting for me to regain my composure.

“Worse,” I said and sobbed out the news.

“Boys suck,” she said. “Men suck. Anything with a penis sucks.”

“Except Dad and Grandpa Mike,” I said.

“Yeah, but they probably sucked when they were Van’s age,” she said, wrapping her arms around me. “Don’t worry, sweetie. I got you. Just tell me what you need.”

“Matches. I’m going to burn every letter he ever sent me.”

“Screw the letters. You’ll feel better if you burn a joint and put yourself into a drug-induced state of self-pity.”

“Mmmmm, sounds good. You got one?”

“Me? Honey, you’re my weed dealer. I’m just the innocent little sister you corrupt. Call Johnny. He’s always selling.”

“I can’t call. He changes his cell phone number every couple of months.”

“So go over to his place. Get stoned. I’ll tell Dad you’re not coming into work today. All I have to do is say, ‘Maggie has lady problems,’ and he’ll wave his hands in front of his face and say, ‘Spare me the details.’”

“Thanks.”

“And don’t worry,” Lizzie said. “You’ll be okay. There are plenty of other guys out there.”

“I thought you said anything with a penis sucks.”

“Oh, I’m not going back on that, but if we’re going to preserve the species, some have got to suck less than others. It’s just that it’s impossible to tell the good ones from the bad ones.”

Johnny Rollo was the perfect case in point. He was foul-mouthed, quick to throw hands, and no stranger to the Heartstone Police Department. But there were times when he could be the sweetest, most caring guy on earth.

I remember saying that to Lizzie once, and her response was, “Yeah. Just like Michael Corleone before he had his brother Fredo whacked.”

Johnny lived in the old Marian Motel, a run-down, two-story stretch of connected rooms that dodged the wrecking ball in the late eighties and was reborn as the Marian Arms, an apartment complex where people paid their rent by the week.

Johnny supposedly lived there with his mother, although in the few times I’d been there to score weed, I’d never seen her. I remember asking him once where she was.

“She’s on sabbatical,” he said, his eyes serious, his voice earnest. “She’s a visiting professor at Crack University.”

I never asked again.

Johnny was not a morning person, so I waited till noon before I drove over. I parked, locked my car, went upstairs to unit 209, put my ear to the door, and instinctively jumped back when I heard the gunfire.

And then I remembered who I was dealing with. Johnny spent a good chunk of his time playing video games. I banged on the door.

“Nobody home,” the voice yelled from inside.

“Johnny, it’s Maggie McCormick,” I yelled back.

The shooting stopped. A few seconds later the dead bolt on the inside snapped back hard, and the door opened. Johnny stood there, shirtless, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, a pair of ratty jeans sagging down around his hips, exposing about six inches of red tartan boxers.

“Christ, girl,” he said. “You look like shit. Come on in.”

I stepped in. The entire unit was bedroom, living room, and kitchen all crammed into a single dark, claustrophobic space. A glass bong sat on the coffee table. The inside was crusted with brown-green grunge and looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in months—if ever. The whole place reeked of marijuana and ripe teenage-boy stink.

“Sorry to bother you,” I said.

“No bother. I was just saving the planet from alien invaders,” he said, dead-bolting the door and pointing at the pixelated creatures frozen on the television set. He picked up the controller, and the screen went to black. “Either you’ve got some real serious hay fever, or you been bawling your eyes out.”

“My boyfriend dumped me.”

“That sucks. You want a Pop-Tart? I got strawberry and chocolate.”

“Thanks, but you got anything stronger?” I pointed at the bong. “Maybe something we can put in there instead of in the toaster?”

He dropped his cigarette into an empty beer can. “Sorry, babe. All I’ve got left is the primo shit.”

“Fine. I’ll take it. How much?”

“Girl, after what you’ve been through, I’m happy to give it to you on the house. The problem is, you can’t handle what I’ve got. This shit is wheelchair weed. A couple of hits, and you won’t be able to walk.”

“I don’t care. I can handle it. Please.”

“No, man. I can’t be responsible for—” He stopped. “Unless...”

“Unless what?”

“Maybe we can shotgun one,” he said. “But just one.”

I gave him a blank stare.

“What are you—like in middle school? Shotgunning is a way to get double the pleasure from a single bag of weed. I’ll fire up the bong, inhale, and then I’ll pass that hit over to you.”

“How?”

He opened a drawer in the coffee table and pulled out an empty toilet paper roll. “With this remarkable high-tech device recommended by stoners everywhere. Allow me to demonstrate.”

The bong was loaded and ready to go. He lit it, inhaled deeply, held it in his lungs for about ten seconds, put the toilet paper roll to his mouth, and then gestured for me to put my mouth around the other end.

As soon as I was in position, he exhaled, and I sucked hard on the cardboard tube. He wasn’t kidding. This was not the marijuana I was used to. I felt it immediately. Or maybe I just wanted to feel it immediately. It didn’t matter. “Oh my God,” I moaned.

“Pretty good, huh? That’s the THC fucking with your brain’s happy campus. But don’t worry. You’re not getting the full blast. I am. You’re only getting secondhand smoke, so you won’t get totally trashed.”

He took another hit and exhaled through the tube. I inhaled deeply and got more than I bargained for. I gagged, started coughing, and finally spit out the piece of cardboard that I’d sucked in.

“This is nasty,” I said, my fingers on the soft, soggy end of the toilet paper roll. “How many people have had their grody wet lips wrapped around this thing?”

He shrugged. “Three, four, I don’t know.”

“Do you have anything cleaner?”

“Jesus, you’re high-maintenance.” He tossed the cardboard roll onto the floor. “Your only other choice is direct contact,” he said, tapping his mouth. “Your call, sweetheart.”

He took another deep hit on the bong, leaned in, pulled me close, and stopped just short of my lips.

I didn’t hesitate. I put my lips to his and drew in the smoke. Euphoria.

“I don’t do this with my guy friends, you know,” he said, grinning.

“I don’t care. Just shut up and do it again.”

He did. Then again. And again, only this time I wasn’t satisfied with the weed.

I put a hand on his bare chest and slid my fingertips over one nipple. It was much darker, much hairier than Van’s. And it was hard.

“Did I do that, or was it the weed?” I said.

“Do what?”

I stroked one nipple, then the other. “Did I get these two guys to stand at attention?”

He laughed in my face. “Jesus F. Christ, McCormick, that is so lame.”

“What?” I said.

“You. Coming on to me like one of those cheeseballs from The Young and The Restless .”

“I don’t know what you’re talking ab?—”

He grabbed my elbows and jerked me to my feet. “Let me save you the trouble, kid.”

He backed me against the wall and pressed hard against me.

The suddenness and the raw sexuality of it all petrified me and completely turned me on at the same time. My entire body quivered.

His jeans and boxers were already low on his hips. I didn’t think. I dug my fingers inside his beltline and pulled them to his ankles, pushed him back down onto the sofa.

I could see in his eyes that this turnabout was the last thing he expected from the cheeseball with the lame soap opera dialogue. I straddled him, lifted my hips, and like Van before him, and every man since, he moaned as he entered me and felt the welcoming warm wetness engulf him.

He cupped my breasts, and every pleasure receptor in my body began firing. The rage inside me turned to pure sexual energy. I’d learned a lot over the past year, and I knew just how to move to drive him to the edge.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he yelled, trying to pull out. “I don’t need no kids.”

“I’m on the pill,” I said, gyrating out of control.

That’s all it took. His hands gripped my hips, and he thrust upward hard. Once. Twice. A third time. He made it to nine before he exploded, and I pressed my head to his chest as that feeling of joy and the sense of power of what I could do for yet another man swept over me.

Johnny wasn’t the cuddling type. He rolled me off him, and the two of us lay there breathing heavily. I stared at the water-stained ceiling, the gray-brown paint peeling from the walls, and the lone cloudy window, a strip of flypaper speckled with God-knows-how-many victims, dangling from the head jamb.

And then—just like that—I started laughing. Hard.

“What’s so funny?” he said.

“This, dude,” I said, my hand sweeping across the dismal space. “Us.”

He sat up. “News flash, babe. There is no us. Never will be. You got what you came for. Johnny Rollo, at your cervix. One and done.”

He rolled off the sofa and pulled up his pants. “You hungry?” he said.

“Starving,” I said. “What have you got besides Pop-Tarts?”

“Beer.”

“Sounds like a party,” I said. “And while you’re at it, I’d like a bag of that killer weed to go.”

“You’re out of luck. That was the last of it. I’ll have more tomorrow. If you want some, track me down at the Pits after midnight.”

Track me down . If anybody else said that to me, I’d think, what an asshole. But in Johnny’s case, it was part of his charm.

I smiled to myself, knowing that as soon as I got home, my sister would ask how I’m doing, and I’d be ready with the perfect answer.

“Much better,” I would say. “I hopped on the bus to Bad Boy Town and revenge-fucked the mayor.”