Read Online Bury This by Andrea Portes - Free Book Online Page B

it’s getting worse each year. I just know it is. Each year, earlier and more frenzied. It didn’t used to be like this. Used to be, things were delicate. Small and special. Quieter. Used to be there wasn’t even this parking lot. Or this goddamned Walmart. Used to be, there was a little strip downtown, they’d light it up. Remember that? They’d light it up after Thanksgiving, and put a tree, and put some lights up in rows, with tinsel, twenty feet apart. A colonnade down Main Street. A promenade and we would walk it. We would walk through it, me and Beth, we’d walk along giggling into our mittens, snowflakes clinging to our scarves, and there’d be dumb little carols, “Let’s hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring-ting-tingling, too, come on it’s lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you.” “Si-iilent night. Hoo-ooly night. Aaa-all is calm. Aaa-all is bright . . . ”
    And we’d cuss and curse the dumb-ass carols, saying howwe were gonna smash the speakers hanging down from the lights, pull the plug. Beth in her baby-blue wool hat and scarf.
    Those black suede boots, remember them? They went up to just below the knee and even a stacked black heel. Classy. But, you know, that’ll be the day.
    And Beth said she just had to have a hot dog and left me there in front of the Walgreens, snow coming down. I was pissed. I remember, cursing to myself, I almost left. Coulda just left you there, little miss perfect. And then, feeling so stupid, what a jerk-face, when next week I open that bright red rectangle mystery present back home and it’s the that’11-be-the-day boots, right there in front of me, black suede boots, stacked heel, with a note:
    â€œFrom Santa Claus aka Beth. HA-HA, you thought I left you for a hot dog!”
    And I could’ve fallen off the face of the earth backward.
    Yes. 1976. Things were different.
    Their friendship, a castle made of sand. That day on the playground, years before. Beth, not even five years old, building a castle, all to herself. Four turrets and a tower. Even a moat. Around her, the older boys circling, running, shouting, playing pirate, playing spaceship, playing cowboys and Indians. In between them, Beth, the eye of the storm, meticulous, building, shaving, sculpting. And Shauna, one of the boys. Trying to be, anyway. But even then, outcast. They all knew where she lived. That dare-you-to-go-in house.
    One of the boys, the freckle-faced one, had taken an especially diabolical pleasure in destroying the castle, devastated inone kick. And Beth, seeing the four turrets and the tower and the moat, annihilated, burst into tears. It was Shauna, then, who saved the day. Shauna, then, who came to her defense, who walked right up to the freckle-faced boy and punched him. Punched him! Right in the nose.
    Then chaos on the playground. The boy’s nose streaming out blood, the little girls screaming, running to their mommies, and Beth looking up as if watching a play. Shauna had grabbed her by the hand and whisked her out of there.
    â€œC’mon, I know where to hide!”
    And they had sprinted, the scene falling back behind them. A gaggle of moms looking for the culprit. Of course it couldn’t have been a girl. Climbing up up up into a century-old elm at the other side of the park, peeking in. They couldn’t help but giggle. They were criminals. They were partners in crime. They were in love in that moment. And that moment lasted for years.
    It was only later, when Beth got into Hope and Shauna got into no hope, that the castle made of sand began to disintegrate. Weakened now. Exposed. Vulnerable to any kick on the playground from an errant boy.
    Yes. Those schoolgirl days. Things were different.
    Shauna now, thinking, this peppermint schnapps might not be right for a gift. Maybe it’s disrespectful, even. What if they think I’m saying something bad, like, “Here. Here’s a drink. I bet