Kristen’s ninety-two.”
“I know. Doesn’t that suck? I didn’t even crack the top fifty.” After the third match, they called it a night, and he walked Kristen back to her car, which wasn’t actually her car, but her mother’s. She said she hadn’t had a car since she totaled her Jetta before Christmas, and her father was going to see how she behaved before getting her another one. When she said that, they looked at each other, and he knew she was thinking about that night. But neither of them said anything.
“Did you kiss her?” Carrie would ask.
“No.”
He went to kiss her. “Well, goodnight,” he said, and leaned forward, but he didn’t head directly for her mouth. He slowly headed toward her face and at the last second he turned a little, or maybe she did, and he only caught the edge of her mouth.
Carrie would ask, “Are you sure?”
“Why, what’d she say?”
“She said you kissed her goodnight.”
“On the lips?”
“Yeah.”
He’d laughed. He knew his sister well enough to know she was fishing. “She’s a nice girl. I don’t think she’d kiss and tell.”
Carrie let out one of her whiny groans. “Come on.”
“There’s nothing to tell. We went to the movies. We played shuffleboard. What do you want from me?”
“Hello, I want dirt.”
“Shut up, Carrie. I’m not in the mood for this high-school crap.”
“Jeez. Aren’t we a little cranky today.”
Jim couldn’t remember exactly how much time passed between that first time they played shuffleboard and the day he heard about the diary, but it was probably a good month. That Saturday, a few hours before Kristen killed herself, his sister called him around noon and said, “Did you hear?”
“Did I hear what?” he asked, still groggy.
“Kristen’s mother found her journal.”
“Yeah, so?”
“And hello, there was sexual stuff in there.”
Jim’s eyes opened wide. She now had his full attention; he was completely alert.
“What sort of sexual stuff?”
Silence. She didn’t answer right away, and the longer she waited, the more impatient Jim became because he knew it was for effect. Finally, he snapped.
“Goddammit, Carrie, what sort of sexual stuff?”
“That night she got drunk at the frat—”
He felt his whole body go tense. “Yeah,” he said, breathlessly, “what about it?”
“She had sex.”
“It’s in there? She wrote about it?”
“Totally. Remember that doctor we took her to? He fucked her.”
His stomach dropped.
“What?”
“Yeah. She lost her virginity to that guy. She told me right after it happened. But I was sworn to secrecy. Now everybody’s going to know. Her parents are totally going to press charges.”
His head was swirling. He felt for a second like he was going to faint.
“Who knows about this?”
“I don’t know. Her parents. The police. I think they’re on their way over to her house.”
“What?” He rolled over and looked at his clock radio. “When?”
“I don’t know. What’s wrong?” Carrie asked.
“Nothing.”
“You sound like shit, Jim. Dad told you to lay off the booze.”
“I wasn’t drinking.”
“Jim?”
“I wasn’t. I swear.”
He sure as hell felt like having a drink now, though. “You’re at home?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Are the cops going to talk to you?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Probably at some point.”
“Well, stay there. I’m coming over.”
“If they talk to me, Jim, I’m going to tell them the truth,” she warned. “I’m not going to lie for her. I can’t. I told her.”
“Well, I’d like to know just what you think the truth is.”
Jim and Kristen had never talked about what happened to her that night at the doctor’s house. Not in any detail, anyway. But there were hints that she had feelings for Cogan. She told him about the whole knife music thing—how he played music while he operated—and how she’d made a CD for him, which got Jim kind of jealous. He didn’t want to talk about the guy, but she kept bringing him up, and one day when he met her, she was pretty down. When he asked what was wrong, she said she’d run into Dr. Cogan at the Safeway and he’d been pretty frosty.
“Are you stalking him?” he’d remarked jokingly, not really understanding why she cared whether he was frosty or not.
She glared at him. Whenever he made a snippy comment about the guy, her expression would darken and she’d give him a hard look.
Still, there were certain questions he had to ask. He couldn’t help it. He’d think them, and suddenly they’d come out of his mouth. Is she into him? She is. I know she is. And bam, before he could stop himself, he was asking, “You like him, don’t you?”
“Dr. Cogan? As