“We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,” Devon said gently.
Raven kept her eyes on the road. Her lips pressed tightly together. The surfboards rattling in their rack overhead. Neighborhood streets were getting farther and farther apart the closer they got to the mountain, replaced with pine trees and boulders. The carved wooden The Keaton School sign loomed ahead. Devon glanced at Raven again, but she seemed oblivious to the approaching turn.
“You can drop me at the bottom of the hill if that’s easier?” Devon tried. Raven didn’t acknowledge her or the sign. The Volvo sped right past where Devon needed to go. Raven used her bracelet-laden hand to wipe the tears off her cheeks.
“Or, if you want to take me back to Monte Vista? I can wait for the next bus.” Devon realized she didn’t know this girl at all. Really, Raven could be anyone: a crazy girl scooping up stray Keaton students and taking them on joyrides. Bodhi could have turned this lunatic onto Devon out of spite. Had she pissed him off enough to deserve this? “Raven?”
“Hang on,” Raven said.
She turned a quick left onto a dirt road. Once again, Devon caught her speaker as it slid across the dashboard. Once that was back in place she gripped the sides of her seat. The Volvo kicked up a cloud of dust and the decade-old shocks lurched at every bump as they climbed up the gravely hillside. The dense trees gave way to grapevines tied to stakes. Row after row, the grapevines stood tall in perfect precision. Devon felt the cans of Sprite jostle around her feet; she’d have to remember to tell Maya not to open those immediately. If she ever got them to Maya. Where the hell were they going?
Out the window the vines seemed endless, stitched across the hillside. To her left a row of pines seemed to demarcate the property line. Devon caught a glimpse of the Keaton flag waving proud at the top of the hill in the distance; they were on the mountainside behind school. The car took a right turn and suddenly Devon was sitting in a circular driveway in front of a small craftsman house. They lurched to a stop.
Raven killed the engine.
“This property belongs to Reed Hutchins, Hutch’s grandfather. This is the Athena Vineyard, named after Reed’s wife. Reed hired Bodhi and me to work here over the summer. Hutch came down in July and lived here in the guest house.”
Reed Hutchins. The name rattled in her head. He’d gone to Devon’s dorm room and now here she was on his property. What was the connection?
Raven nodded toward the battered wooden door. She turned to Devon, fresh tears brimming from her eyes. “Every day Hutch.…” She exhaled slowly, collecting herself. “Every day he brought me lunch. No matter where I was on the property, he made sure I didn’t work through lunch. It was just a stupid peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but he never missed a day.” Raven looked out the window toward the vines.
She’s looking for him, Devon thought. She recognized that look, that searching, like Hutch could still be hanging out where you last left him.
“You know, he said there were two kinds of people in this world.” Raven said.
“Those that like peanut butter and those that don’t,” Devon responded without thinking. She could almost see Hutch in the vineyard, walking through the dirt in his hiking boots, bringing Raven a sandwich on the vineyard. He probably made a game out of it.
Raven’s mouth fell open.
“I heard him say that once, too,” Devon said. “He was a peanut butter person.”
“Yeah, he was.” Raven smiled, but her chin quivered. She leaned across Devon and flipped open the glove compartment. She pulled out a small pouch of tobacco and rolled herself a cigarette. “Want one?”
“Um, no thanks. I don’t smoke.”
“Of course you don’t.” Raven licked her cigarette and lit it. After a long smoky exhale, “It wasn’t suicide, Devon.”
“You and I are the only ones that seem to think so,” Devon said. She found herself heaving a shaky sigh of relief. Raven was no psychopath. Raven was a girl in pain, just like she was. True: No matter what she thought, Hutch was still gone. But here was Raven, fighting just as hard as Devon to keep her memories of Hutch fresh. Devon wasn’t alone in her beliefs anymore. “Maybe, it’s up to us to