Tommy ended up coming over on Tuesday during spring break. Mom was home, putting together a care package for Greg in the kitchen. We hadn’t heard from him in a few weeks because he was on an active assignment. No one really knew what it meant except that Mom had to start working on a package for him. She bought magazines she thought he’d like, made cookies and wrapped them in bubble wrap, and tucked in all sorts of odds and ends with sticky notes to tell him why she’d included them. She sent cartons of cigarettes, too—even though she hated smoking—because Greg said they were better than money over there. It sounded a lot like prison to me. He was scheduled to come home in July, and sometimes I caught Mom flipping the calendar pages back and forth like she was counting down the number of flips until she could breathe easy again. You didn’t notice when she was moving around, which was like always, but when she sat at the dinner table or read books at night her hands trembled. I didn’t remember them doing that before Greg left.
When Tommy came over, he asked about Greg. I always forgot they’d been on the football team together when Greg was a senior and we were sophomores.
“Here, Tommy, write him a quick note. He’ll be glad to hear from you,” Mom said.
Tommy seemed flustered by the pen and sticky note, but he squeezed himself into a kitchen chair and did as she told him. I grabbed a few sodas for us out of the fridge before we went upstairs, and as I passed the table I saw he wrote (all in uppercase): HI GREG. YOU KILLED OSAMA YET? GO SPARTANS! TOMMY
“So do you wanna go for a drive?” Tommy asked when we got to my room. He looked like a monster on my little twin bed and I couldn’t help remembering what Portia had said. It was the kind of thought that just creeped in all by itself and started whispering, rapist, rapist. I wondered what Tommy was really capable of with his strong hands and soft brain. There was that whole Lennie Small angle to consider. Even though the gearshift stayed between us every time we made out in his pickup, he still tried to move his hand down my shirt to my jeans. And every time I pulled away and said, “No, Tommy.” Like a dog, like how you would train an overeager Labrador. Then he would apologize without meaning it and eventually take me home. There was no gearshift between us in my room, though. The bed was here. The door was mostly closed and Mom was all the way downstairs, humming along with the radio.
“Maybe later.” I reached into my backpack for my script. “I have to memorize the rest of my lines first, remember? Will you help me?”
“Seriously?”
I nodded and he groaned. “Come on, Hattie. I can’t read that stuff.”
“It’s good for you.” I smiled, a flirty little smile, and sat down on the bed next to him, opening the book. “See, you just have to read whatever comes right before Lady MacBeth’s lines and then make sure I’m saying them right.”
I pointed out the highlighted text, but Tommy was concentrating on other things. He pulled me against him and landed a sloppy kiss behind my ear.
“Not now.”
When I tried to pull away he tightened his grip, keeping me close.
“Just a little,” he mumbled and moved to my mouth.
Somehow his other hand found the back of my head and held me still as he kissed me. I felt like I was suffocating and couldn’t even picture Peter the way I usually did.
“Tommy,” I managed when he came up for air.
“What?” His hand squeezed my breast. How did he grow so many hands?
“Not now,” I repeated and managed to squirm away.
He grunted and lounged back against the wall, not even bothering to hide the bulge in his jeans. “It’s not ever with you.”
“My mom’s here. And I really do have to learn this.”
“I don’t understand why you’re doing this play.”
“I don’t understand why you play football.” I mimicked him in the same stupid tone as I cued the video camera on top of the dresser.
“Okay, okay.” He sighed and picked up the script, then squinted at it like it was in Chinese. “This part?”
“You’re a sweetheart.” I gave him a peck on the cheek and backed into the center of the room. While he worked up the nerve to say Shakespeare out loud, I let myself become Lady MacBeth. I looked at Tommy until the horny teenager faded away and he became my instrument. I looked at his fingers and saw a hand that was mine to wield, that I could drive to murder the king himself. I looked at his confused expression and saw the madness that we would soon share. I became cold, too cold to feel. By the time he cleared his throat to say his first line, I could taste my own death.
Somehow on the Friday of spring break we got a perfect day, the kind of nauseating perfection you only see in commercials. The sky was cloudless and the sun warmed you in your bones as it devoured the snowbanks. Dad immediately disappeared into the barn, getting his equipment ready for planting, while Mom paged through seed catalogs for her garden and hung sheets out on the line to dry. I was giddy because during my shift on Wednesday Peter had dropped off a flash drive with a single picture on it. It was a photograph of the barn.
“Enjoying your spring break?” he asked nonchalantly when he came back for the picture.
“It’s nothing special.”
“Maybe it’ll pick up by Friday morning.”
“Mmm, I hope so.” I tried to sound bored as I rang him up and contained the excitement that rocketed around inside me.
I left the house as if I was going to work and called in sick. Peter was waiting for me when I got to the barn. His wife and mother-in-law had gone to the hospital for a bunch of tests all day, so we hiked into the middle of their property, away from any roads or houses or outbuildings, where a giant oak tree marked the intersection of four fields. We’d both come prepared this time. I brought a quilt and the book he’d given me for Christmas and he brought a picnic basket and a bottle of wine. He flipped through the book and read some lines aloud while we picked at the cheese and crackers and sipped pinot noir from Dixie cups. I’d never had wine outside of church before and even though it tasted dry and coppery, I didn’t mind. I’d rather drink wine with Peter than all the beer in the world with Tommy.