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him the tire tracks chronicled the whole sad, blameless story. Clear cognizance of guilt, when you cover up the crime. But covered up it was. Now nobody had to know.
    My smoke screen didn’t last long.
    The phone blasted me out of sleep. I hadn’t been dreaming. I hadn’t had a dream in days.
    I jumped for the phone.
    I said, into it, “James?”
    Randy said, “You thought it was James?”
    Randy.
    I said, “It could be James.”
    He said, “Theresa—”
    “Stop talking, okay? Why are you even calling me?”
    He said, “What, I can’t call you anymore?”
    I said, “I think it would be better if you didn’t.”
    I’m the shooter, you’re the gun. Stay out of my hands.
    He said, “Ever?”
    I said, “Yeah. Pretty much ever.”
    He said, “Okay, but before I hang up…I take it they still haven’t found the body.”
    I wanted to ask if that was really why he called. I never did.
    I just said, “Right, they still haven’t.” It was easier that way.
    He said, “But it might be good for you to accept that they will.”
    I said, “I don’t think James would do a thing like that.”
    He said, “You hardly knew him.”
    I said, “He was a solid guy. You know? I can’t feature it on him.”
    He said, “Theresa. By your own admission he was a relative stranger.”
    “It still seems out of character,” I said.
    Then, after I hung up, I realized I’d just admitted James did not spin out on a curve. Which Randy probably knew anyway.
    All is discovered, I thought.
    But there was nothing I could do to change that. So I went back to bed.

FIVE
    No More High School. Ever.
    James took me to the party on the back of his motorcycle. Even though it was barely a mile away. I suppose we could have walked if we’d wanted to. But we didn’t want to. We wanted to come roaring in and impress the hell out of everybody. I wanted him to park the bike where everybody would read my name on the gas tank. I wanted Randy to be sick with jealousy.
    By the time we got there, I felt like I was about to throw up.
    The inside of the barn was fixed up in the most natural way possible. Actually, maybe “fixed up” is the wrong way to put it. It’s just that normally, because there are no horses, there’s no hay or straw. So Frieda had some of the guys borrow a pickup and go out and get some. So, that was pretty much the whole motif. Simple. Hay and straw. On the barn floor. In the stalls. The cool thing about it was this: every surface became a seating area. Just get comfortable any way you please.
    Randy and Rachel weren’t there yet. I sat on the straw with James and tried to tell myself they’d never show. The whole thing had just been a sick joke. Nothing that terrible was about to happen to me.
    Meanwhile I glanced obsessively at the barn door. About two times per second. More often than most people blink.
    I think James noticed, but he kindly said nothing.
    “Want me to get you a drink?” he asked. When he needed to say something. And I guess nothing else was floating around wanting to be said.
    “Um. No. I don’t, really. Drink.” That just sat on the straw for a moment. While James was nice enough not to contradict me. I said, “That one time you saw me drunk was totally an exception to the rule. I hate drinking. I think it’s stupid. I was just upset that night.”
    “How ’bout a soda or something?”
    “Yeah. Okay. Thanks.”
    I looked around while he was gone. Well, not gone exactly. The drinks were waiting in a series of big picnic coolers in a far corner of the barn. There were only about ten people here. We were too early. We should have come fashionably late.
    A girl I barely knew from school slid by and bumped me on the shoulder. When I looked over, she gave me a sly thumbs-up. I think I mostly returned an ignorant, questioning stare. I had no idea what she was trying to tell me. She flipped her head in the direction of James at the coolers.
    Oh. Right. James.
    I smiled and nodded. Wondering if it was