Tumble & Fall Read online

  The outlines of Nick’s hands turn to tight fists in the wet pockets of his cargo shorts. She can see his skin changing color in the dark, from pale pink to red, like a brutal, sudden sunburn.

  “What?” Zan says. She takes a step back. “What are you talking about? What did he tell you? Look at me!”

  Nick finally lifts his eyes, and this time, Zan knows she will win. She will keep his eyes on hers as long as she possibly can, until they’ve told her everything. “Nothing,” he says, pleading. “I swear, he told me nothing. But he made me promise I’d go along with his story. He made it up. I didn’t need anything for the boat that day. He needed an excuse, said he needed to take care of something. That’s all I know, I promise.”

  Zan feels her heart pounding in every square inch of her body. She takes another shaky step back and is quickly on the ground, the cool grass tickling the outsides of her knees.

  “Zan.” Nick crouches beside her. “I’m sure it’s nothing. I’m sure he was just on one of his adventures. He was probably trying to surprise you. That’s why I never said anything. He made me promise, and it’s not like I had any idea what he was up to. You know the way he was.”

  Zan feels Nick’s arm around her back. She tries to focus on the in and out of her breathing. The wet of the grass. The white of the painted lines on the court.

  “I have to find her,” she says quietly.

  “Find who?”

  “Vanessa.”

  Nick laughs, but Zan can hear he doesn’t mean it. “The girl on the receipt?” he asks. “Zan…”

  “What?” she hisses. “I’m the one still here. If there was something going on, you don’t think I deserve to know about it?”

  Nick peels his arm away from her shoulder and rests it on his lap. “No. I mean, I don’t know,” he stutters. “I don’t know what I think. I just don’t … I don’t see how it will help.”

  “Help what?” Zan cries. She’s practically yelling now; she can feel the force of her words as they hurtle through her and out into the night. “He’s already dead, Nick. Don’t you think I should at least know the truth about what happened?”

  Nick picks at the grass between them. “I know he’s dead,” he whispers. “I meant that I don’t know how it will help you.”

  Inside, a song ends and the crowd erupts into boisterous applause. She feels Nick turn to look at the side of her face, feels him watching the single tear that’s sinking toward her chin.

  “Zan, you have to let him go.”

  A quick, shifting breeze flips a lock of her dark curls across her nose. She tucks it back, wiping the wet marks on her cheek and pushing up to her feet. She brushes her hands on her shorts, feeling the grass marks indented into the skin of her palms.

  “No,” she says firmly. “I don’t. Not yet.”

  SIENNA

  “Don’t play with your food,” Ryan commands, with all of the authority of a sixty-five-year-old governess. Sienna pushes a snakelike pile of cold sesame noodles around on her plate. The two of them are settled at the empty end of a long table, tucked in the back of the Martha’s Vineyard Community Center. Many of the hundred or so people crowding the old converted barn are already up and dancing, or at least that’s what Sienna guesses they think they’re doing. Dad and Denise included.

  “Fine.” Sienna shrugs. “I’ll play with yours.” She reaches across to Ryan’s plate, piercing a piece of pasta salad with her recycled bamboo fork.

  “Cut it out!” Ryan whines, boxing her out with his elbow. She rolls her eyes and turns back to the stage. A group of older men with long gray beards are playing old-timey bluegrass music on instruments that appear to predate the Civil War.

  If it hadn’t been for Ryan nosily spotting the flyer on the floor of her room, they would never have come to the Community Center concert. But he was drawn to the cartoon lettering, and soon the four of them were piling in the car, stopping at the only bakery still open to purchase a last-minute pie, and swinging into the overflowing parking lot.

  On stage, the music stops abruptly and the old-timers are taking curt little bows. The next group files quietly in behind them, and it isn’t until the bearded banjos are cleared from the stage that Sienna spots Owen. His long dark hair is tucked behind his ears and he’s wedged impressively behind a portable keyboard, with two separate levels of keys and a series of pedals at his feet.

  There’s a drummer, a girl with short blond dreadlocks, and a skinny Asian kid playing guitar. The three of them immediately dig into their instruments, and a heavy wall of sound fills the room. From behind a curtain pulled to the side, a girl walks slowly and deliberately to the microphone.

  Sienna doesn’t recognize her right away. Her small, curvy body is tucked into a floral-print dress with a narrow leather belt cinching her tiny waist, and on her feet, brown suede ankle boots with tassels on the sides. Her shoulder-length fire-red hair is teased so that it looks like it’s been through a tornado.

  But there’s something about the way she walks—slow, almost dreamlike steps—that feels familiar. In a flash, they’re on the beach. Sienna is running, being chased by a boy with seaweed in his hair. Behind them, a little girl drags her feet lazily through the waves, a rainbow on the belly of her faded one-piece suit.

  Sienna looks up at the stage. Owen plays with his eyes closed and his body hunched and tight, his long fingers frantically stretching across the keys. He’s good, but he was right; Carly steals the show. Even before she’s opened her mouth to sing, Sienna can’t stop staring. Neither, it seems, can anyone else in the crowd; at the sight of her, they immediately start cheering and hollering like crazed college football fans.

  And then there’s her voice. Owen was right about that, too; it is like sandpaper. Gravelly and gruff, but tinged with little girly riffs and a strong, belting vibrato. Instead of the indie hipster music Sienna expected, the band plays a full set of standards, upbeat love songs and bluesy ballads.

  “Wow.” Sienna turns, after what feels like ten seconds but must have been at least four songs, to see that Ryan is gone. Dad is squeezed into the flimsy folding chair beside her, his blue eyes glassy and focused on Carly. Sienna knows what he’s thinking before he says it. “Your mother would have loved this.”

  Sienna’s stomach twists into a knot. They used to be able to talk about her, not all the time, but after a while they’d each found their own way to say her name out loud. But now it feels different. It feels wrong and cheap and forced, as if Dad’s making a special point to remind her that just because he’s seeing somebody new, she’s not forgotten.

  “Where’s Ryan?” Sienna asks flatly, pushing back from the table and scanning the length of the room.

  “He went with Denny to get more food.” Dad gestures to the buffet behind them. “Said something about you contaminating his plate?”

  Sienna rolls her eyes and fakes a smile. On stage, Owen is in the middle of a solo. His hands are flying over the keys, alternating quick, short runs with full, complex chords. Carly sways beside him, and every so often he looks up from the keys to catch her eye. It’s as if he needs to know she’s watching, like he’s playing just for her. Sienna feels something hard in her chest, followed by a sinking numbness.

  She doesn’t realize that the music has stopped until the applause is almost over. She joins in late, clapping as Carly and Owen hug on stage. Owen hops to the floor and Sienna watches as he’s swallowed by a crowd of his friends.

  She gets up to refill her plate. The Center is packed with bodies and all of them seem to be funneling her into the buffet line. There are rows and rows of dishes and plates, half-ravaged pans of lasagna, big chopped salads, and cooling ears of corn on the cob. Sienna lifts a plate from the top of a short pile and is hovering over the selection of salads when she hears a familiar voice behind her.

  “You showed up,” Owen says, nudging her with his elbow and plunging a spoon into a sheet pan of lukewarm mac and cheese. He steps back and Sienna sees that Carly is hovering b
ehind him. “See?” Owen gloats to Carly. “I told you she was real.”

  “Oh my God,” Carly says quietly. Her speaking voice is a full octave higher than when she sings, and Sienna has a hard time believing that this is the same girl she just saw swaying seductively up on stage. “You look exactly the same. The hair, the freckles, the perfect teeth.”

  Sienna lets her tongue run along the inside row of her bottom teeth. She’s never thought of them as perfect. She’s never thought of them as anything, except teeth.

  “So.” Owen reaches around her to grab silverware. “What’d you think?”

  “Ugh.” Carly groans. “Don’t interrogate her. If she wants us to know, she’ll tell us.”

  Sienna smiles. “You guys were awesome,” she says. “Seriously.”

  “Didn’t I tell you this girl can sing?” Owen wraps an arm around Carly’s waist and hugs her to his side. Sienna’s stomach does another surprising flip-flop and she can feel her heart clanging against her ribs. Across the room, another band is setting up, and Owen surveys the crowd. “Come on.” He gestures with a toss of his head. “These guys are great.”

  Carly finishes piling her plate with hearty scoops from the various trays and follows him away from the buffet. Sienna stands as if glued to the floor, her empty paper plate still flapping in one hand. Owen turns around. “Coming?” he calls back.

  Sienna shakes her head. “My brother’s over there somewhere,” she says, gesturing to the tables. “I should go find him.”

  Owen smiles and waves, placing a protective hand on the small of Carly’s back and leading her through the groups of jostling fans. Sienna tosses her plate in the trash and looks around for the door.

  * * *

  What she really wants is a cigarette.

  She found Dad and told him she wanted to leave, that she didn’t mind walking. It wasn’t far. But he insisted he was ready, too. Denise wanted dessert but then they could all head home. That was twenty minutes ago.

  Sienna finds an old rope swing with a paddle seat, hung low from the branches of a towering oak. She gives the rope a good tug and sits down, pushing off with her heels.

  She didn’t smoke until she got to the House, and even then it was only once in a while. The House was a mix of teenagers and college-age kids, and the over-eighteens were allowed to smoke in the courtyard with permission. Sienna would occasionally bum from one of them and sneak out late at night, when whatever staff was on duty had less of a chance of telling the difference.

  She hated it at first, hated the taste and the chemical smell it left on her hands, but she liked the excuse it gave her to get outside. It was the one time of the day when she felt free.

  From the dark shadows of the trees, Sienna sees Dad and Denise before they see her. Denise is carrying a plate full of leftovers, Dad’s walking close beside her. From here, they look like strangers, a happy couple she doesn’t know.

  Sienna drags the tops of her feet and hops off the swing to the gravel. Dad turns at the sound. “There you are,” he calls. “Ryan’s washing his hands. Meet us at the car?”

  Sienna nods and sticks her hands in the pockets of her shorts, watching as Dad and Denise shuffle slowly toward the back parking lot. She sits on the bottom step of the Community Center entrance, next to a sandwich-board sign that reads “All Are Welcome!”

  Sienna takes her phone out of her pocket and checks the time. She’s starting to wonder why she doesn’t just wear a watch; she never uses the phone for anything else.

  “You’d get better service out by the water.”

  She turns over her shoulder to see Owen. He sits on the other side of the steps and passes her a paper plate. “Doughnut?”

  Sienna tucks her phone back into her shorts. “No thanks,” she says, hugging her knees between the insides of her bony elbows.

  “Come on,” Owen pleads. “They’re not popovers, but they’re still pretty good.”

  Sienna smiles and relents, carefully picking up the sticky treat. It’s honey-glazed with rainbow sprinkles. She wonders if there has ever been a more disastrous food to eat in public.

  “So, I had this idea.” Owen leans back against the concrete and stretches his long arms. He turns his head away, like he’s looking for someone. Sienna is grateful for the opportunity to take an unobserved bite.

  “It might sound totally insane, or, like, random, or whatever … and, I mean, I haven’t really thought it through but I figured that’s probably okay. Do I really need to think everything through all the way? I mean, does that even make sense?”

  Sienna stops chewing, a few sprinkles stuck to the outside of her lips. “What are you talking about?” she mumbles through a mouthful.

  Owen turns to face her and she can tell that he’s trying not to laugh. “Well, first of all, you have frosting all over your face,” he says drily. Sienna swallows and shields the bottom half of her face with her hands.

  “Second of all,” he says, cracking his knuckles one at a time, “I was thinking maybe we should go out sometime.”

  Sienna licks the tips of her fingers and runs them along the corners of her mouth. “Go out?” she repeats.

  “Yes,” Owen says softly. “Like. A date. Is that crazy?”

  Sienna stops with one finger frozen near her lips. “A date?” she repeats. “Um, yes. That’s crazy.”

  Owen looks away and his nose twitches, the few dark freckles stretching out across his skin. “Yeah,” he says. “You’re probably, like, really busy with family stuff, right? It’s not, like, the best time to just … hang out, I guess.”

  Sienna stares at him. Family stuff? “I mean, it’s crazy because of Carly,” she says. She drops the doughnut on the plate and balances it on the step.

  “Carly?” Owen asks. “What about Carly?”

  “Aren’t you guys, like…” Sienna is whispering. She doesn’t know why.

  Owen stares over her shoulder, the corner of his mouth pulling in. “Sienna,” he says softly. “There’s something I guess you don’t know about Carly.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Sienna asks. “What’s that?”

  “Let’s just say I’ve never really been her type.”

  Sienna feels a hard laugh escaping and rolls her eyes. She knows these excuses. There were days when she used to feel like she invented these excuses. “Why?” she scoffs. “You guys are just better as friends? Or, let me guess: she never dates guys in the band.”

  Owen hurries to his feet and stands in front of Sienna, so that she couldn’t move if she tried. “Yeah.” He nods. “All that. And she’s gay.”

  “Who’s gay?”

  Sienna turns and sees Ryan standing in the door. The light of the entryway behind him sticks to the top of his parted hair and casts the rest of his face in dark shadow. His arms are crossed and he’s glaring at them like they’ve done something wrong.

  “Nobody,” Sienna says. “We were just … never mind.” She pushes herself up and holds out her hand. “Let’s go, Ry.”

  Sienna reaches for Ryan’s shoulder, catching Owen’s eye over the top of her brother’s head. She smiles sheepishly, wishing she had more to say.

  “Wait!” Ryan squeals, wriggling from Sienna’s grasp. “What about the president?”

  “The president’s not gay,” Sienna assures him, steering him down the steps.

  “I know that,” he insists. “But he’s about to make a speech.”

  Ryan stops in his tracks and points through the window. Owen runs up the steps and peers inside. “It does look like people are waiting for something to happen.”

  Sienna and Ryan follow him inside and they wait by the door. There’s a buzz in the crowd, a confused murmur as people stand in clusters facing the stage. They hear a high-pitched squealing noise, feedback from the speakers, and then a woman’s voice.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, if I could have your attention for just a minute.” The woman is tall and thin. She clutches a clipboard to her chest and huddles at one corner of the stage. “My nam
e is Miranda Lowe, I’m on the board of directors here at the Community Center, and…” She takes a deep breath and fiddles around with the microphone, sending more piercing feedback into the crowd. “I’m sorry about that, I’m just, I wanted to use this time to thank you for coming, but I’ve been told that the, uh, the president, is holding an emergency press conference. I figured it’s something you’d all want to hear, so … Daniel, if you would…”

  Miranda nods offstage to a gray-haired man in a leather jacket, busy rigging up another microphone and holding it out to an old-fashioned boom box.

  “What’s going on?” Sienna asks. Owen shakes his head and Sienna feels Ryan’s small hand slipping inside her own. A crackle fills the air, followed by loud, offensive static. The man plays with a knob until a clear, familiar voice comes through.

  “Good evening.” The president’s voice is fierce and sudden, and a thick, reverent silence settles into every corner of the room. “As of six o’clock this evening, we have new information about the asteroid Persephone and her course. As many of you may be aware, under my authorization the Department of Defense has approved a new mission, in conjunction with NASA officials and the International Space Alliance: an attempt to deflect the asteroid away from a potential collision with our planet.”

  There is a pause, a somewhere shuffling of papers. People turn their heads at similar angles, glancing around as if the president could very well be among them. On the radio, he clears his throat. “According to plans I have reviewed with my advisers and other world leaders, the B-eighty-three one-point-two-megaton nuclear-tipped rocket will be launched from a classified location shortly, and will indeed make contact with Persephone, exactly three days from today.”

  There is a ripple through the crowd, people turning to their neighbors with questions in their eyes. Sienna feels a tightness closing in around her heart. Owen’s shoulder is pressed against hers, and she feels herself leaning into him just slightly. Up near the stage, there’s a celebratory shout, and a group of guys are slapping each other on the backs. They’re starting to get rowdy when somebody else across the room yells, “Quiet!”