Almost Kings by Max Doty Page B

raccoon-eyed despite a complete lack of mascara. It was the first time I’d seen her without makeup. I unlocked the passenger-side door, and she got in.
    “Hey,” I said. “How you feeling?”
    “I’m fine,” she said.
    “So everything went okay?”
    “No.”
    Her eyes were wet, and she reached into her purse for a compact. She flipped it open and examined her face.
    “God,” she said. “I look horrible.” She wiped away her tears and started applying mascara, but it still ran a little. “He won’t stay with me now. Everyone at school wants him so bad. I mean, he was going to have to screw up at least once. I shouldn’t have gotten so upset. Two years together, and just one screw-up, right?”
    She’d go back to him. At her feet was Hass’s backpack, the yearbook inside. She took out foundation and started dusting her cheeks. She was going to let him get away with it, and he’d never change.
    “Could you hand me that bag?” I asked.
    She picked it up, set it on my lap, and went back to applying her makeup. I looked across the hospital parking lot checking for the other Kings’ cars or some sign of my brother. It wasn’t much past 8:30, though, and they were probably still asleep. Truck hadn’t even come by.
    I unzipped the backpack and took out the yearbook.
    “Here,” I said. “Flip to the back.”
    I handed her the wrinkled book and watched her turn to the last page. She read the contract and the scoreboard and flipped back to the middle to see the girls’ scores. She wasn’t crying now, just very quiet, taking it all in. She looked back at the scoreboard and double-checked my brother’s columns, as if hoping they’d gone blank. Then she closed the book and stared into space.
     
    Lizzie didn’t say much more as I drove her home. She held the yearbook clutched to her chest like a teddy bear. Morning was melting the thin sheet of snow that had fallen over the valley, and the white was scabbed with patches of grass and dirt. It was the kind of snow that looked ugly.
    Truck was sitting on Lizzie’s front steps when we got to her house. A bouquet of weathered roses lay at his side, and he had worn out brown lines in the snow with his pacing. I wondered how long he’d been out here.
    “Lizzie,” he said as I stopped the Ford and we got out. She tried to blow past him and get to the door, but he stepped in front of her. She shoved the yearbook into his chest.
    “The worst thing is I knew half of these girls,” she said. “They knew we were engaged.”
    My brother pulled the ring out of his pocket. He reached for her hand, trying to put it back on.
    “You don’t have to marry me now,” she said. “It’s been taken care of.” The mascara she’d so carefully applied was running now, dripping down past her chin and into the snow at her feet.
    “Lizzie,” he said. “Please—”
    She pushed him aside, and he let her pass.
    “It’s over,” she said as she walked up the stairs and closed the door behind her.
    My brother stood still, breathing steam into the cold air, tightening his hands into fists and then loosening the fingers, over and over. He stared at the closed door for a long time. His roses sat against the wet concrete steps, looking wet and dead.
    He pulled Lizzie’s ring from his pocket and held it up to the sun, where its tiny diamond caught the light. Then he put the ring back in his pocket then turned to look at me.
    “Truck,” I said. “I—”
    “God damn it, Ted,” he said. “I trusted you.”
    He walked right past me to the driver’s side door. Before I could even reach for the passenger’s side handle, he started the engine and peeled out of the driveway. A few seconds later, he’d disappeared around a corner, and I was alone.
    It was four miles back to my place, some of it along the highway. Maybe I could ask Lizzie for a ride home. But her car was still at Reggie’s place, and I couldn’t bring myself to climb those steps. I wished I’d worn boots