After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away by Joyce Carol Oates Page B

the kind of spoiled-sounding things a rich girl might say, and the fact that some of Trina’s things are expensive, like her boots, which are actual leather, not fake, her wristwatch she keeps losing, her wallet.
    We’re walking up the driveway to Trina’s house. T-Man has let us out on the street. After school we’d been hanging out at the mall with Kiki Weaver, but Kiki’s mom came to pick her up, saying we should come with her too, she’d drive us both home, but Trina wasn’t in the mood, so luckily we ran into T-Man and his friends. T-Man drives his SUV so fast, laughs, swerving into somebody else’s lane and cutting them off, I’m in the backseat, jamming my fists against my mouth, not wanting anybody to know how scared I am, how I’m thinking: They don’t know. They don’t know what it is like when the vehicle you are riding in begins to lose control, swerves, and crashes, and when screaming is so raw in your throat, it feels like flame. And that half second when you begin to know you have lost control but can’t get it back. My friends don’t know.

    It’s cold tonight. Our breaths are steaming. There’s snow everywhere, but out here by the golf course, on Trina’s street with the fancy name, Palmer Woods Pass, there’s more snow than in town, now in the dusk it looks sort of bluish, long, graceful hills like dunes, like something sculpted. And Trina’s house she doesn’t so much as glance at is so beautiful. From the street you can see Christmas lights winking inside: white and blue. A tall Christmas tree in the front window like a display window. Every house I’ve seen on Palmer Woods Pass is large like the Hollands’ house and new-looking, lavishly decorated for Christmas, so it looks like they’re floating in an ocean of snow.
    I tell Trina her house is beautiful. Trina mumbles what sounds like “Sure.” Like she’s embarrassed or—who knows why?—pissed at me.
    Maybe because it’s so obvious? That the house Trina lives in is beautiful? It’s like “Well, duh,” Trina wants me to know.
    Or maybe Trina is embarrassed she’s a rich man’s daughter. Not like the crowd she hangs with.

    Why we’re here I’m not sure. Trina’s mom kept calling her on her cell, leaving messages more and more frantic: Trina, where are you? Trina, you know you are grounded until Sunday. Trina, if I don’t hear from you, I am going to report you as a runaway to the state police; they will bring you home in a squad car, which made us all laugh. Trina says her mom is crazy but she’d better check in, calling the cops on her is the kind of crazy thing her mom might do. But when Trina tried to call her mom back, the line was always busy. So T-Man has dropped us off, I’m not sure if he’s coming back to pick us up. If I call Aunt Caroline, she’ll be upset, she doesn’t like me spending so much time with Trina, not that she knows anything about Trina. When I’m late getting home, Trina advises me how to talk to Aunt Caroline: always calm and polite to get your way, never brattish; adults are waiting for you to be brattish so they can attack. Already I’ve used the excuse that I’m doing my homework with Trina Holland because her dad has a special computer for research. When I tell Aunt Caroline this, she is always eager to believe.
    “Into the belly of the beast, baby. Hold your breath.”
    Trina keeps nudging me in the back, pushing me forward. We’re entering her house by a side door, into a kitchen where lights are dimmed. Just a light above the most beautiful stove I have ever seen, and another light recessed in the ceiling above a breakfast nook. The Hollands’ kitchen is twice the size of the McCartys’ kitchen, like something you’d see in a showroom. There’s a smell here of burn and scorch and a sweetish rancid smell like something has spoiled. The sink is filled with scummy gray water, plates are soaking there, and more plates are stacked on the counter. The door of the dishwasher is