November 12, 2006
Chapter 13
(Filed under: The Novel)The underwear raid, as they came to call it, had happened four years before Isabelle's death. When they got back to the tent Isabelle wouldn't tell them how she'd done it.
She wouldn't play truth or dare anymore, which was how Anwyn expected to find out what had happened. But Isabelle just laid back and looked at the stars and quiet slowly pervaded the tent and they all went to sleep.
As Anwyn walked home from babysitting with Oliver she still remembered that night and still didn't know how Isabelle had walked away from Dominic Warren's house with a pair of his underwear.
And now that she thought about it, Dominic Warren was a senior at Howe High School.
She didn't know him. She only knew him from a few childhood memories from summers spent in Kansas. Actually a single summer spent in Kansas, since that was the last time Anwyn and Isabelle had come to Kansas for the summer. The next year Isabelle got a job and it just seemed like too much.
The next day at school she decided to ask Lynn in biology.
"Do you know Dominic Warren?"
"Whoa," Lynn said, picking her head up from her desk. "Somebody's got an agenda this morning."
"Do you know him?" Anwyn asked again.
"There are only 265 students in this school," Lynn said. "Of course I know of him. But I couldn't introduce your or anything. Why?"
Anwyn sat down, letting her bag fall to the floor next to her desk.
"I want to talk to him," she said.
"And that's your big plan for the day?" Lynn asked. "What happened to coming in and sitting down and we could grunt at each other, maybe compare notes on Mr. Craven's hippy tendencies."
"Sorry, I'm just complex," Anwyn said.
"Ooh, big city girl," Lynn said, waving her hands in mock alarm.
"Well, if you must know, I'd like to inquire about a pair of underwear," Anwyn said with a devilish grin.
"Whoa," Lynn said, doing her best Joey Lawrence impersonation. "I don't think I need to know anything more about that." Anwyn laughed. She remembered watching Blossom back in the day. Isabelle had a crush on Joey Lawrence, perhaps in the pre-Justin Crenshaw crush days.
"Or I need to know everything about it," Lynn said, giving Anwyn a raised eyebrow. Anwyn leaned towards Lynn.
"It's a long story," Anwyn warned.
"Aren't they all?" Lynn asked.
"Well, I'm not sure if I can get into it now," Anwyn said.
"You can't just leave me hanging," Lynn said. "C'mon, how many stories do I get involving seniors and underwear? OK, more than I'd like to admit, but you still can't leave me hanging."
"It may be nothing," Anwyn said.
"And it may not be," Lynn insisted.
"At lunch," Anwyn said and turned back to her desk. Mr. Craven was about to start class.
At lunch Anwyn and Lynn holed up at a table in the corner so they could talk alone. Their usual table of friends gave them an odd look, but they ignored it.
"OK, my sister and I used to spend summers in Kansas and one summer we played truth and dare late at night with Oliver and his sister."
"Familial bonding. Nice," Lynn said.
"Catalina dared Isabelle to steal Dominic's underwear—and she did it," Anwyn said.
"How?" Lynn asked.
"That's just it," Anwyn said. "I don't know."
"That is steamy," Lynn said. "Though why the sudden interest?"
"There's more," Anwyn continued. She told Lynn the story about seeing Isabelle and Dominic kissing by the river, how her and Oliver had been watching and took off before they saw what happened.
"You and Oliver, huh?" Lynn asked. "I thought you guys had a history. Espionage and intrigue, apparently."
"And there's more," Anwyn said, looking down at her sandwich, which she really wasn't planning to eat.
"More?" Lynn asked incredulously. "Seriously, girl, you have some juicy stories."
"Isabelle is dead," Anwyn said, just throwing it out there. "She killed herself last August. That's why my parents got divorced. That's why my dad and I moved back to Kansas."
Anwyn had been sticking with the divorce story, not wanting to be the suicide girl's sister. She dealt with that in St. Paul and some people walked on eggshells around her. It wasn't worth it.
Lynn didn't say anything. She put her own sandwich down, and she wouldn't pick it up again.
"You're serious?" Lynn finally asked. Anwyn nodded. Lynn swore. "That's not a steamy story anymore." Anwyn nodded again. "So what do you want from Dominic?"
"I don't know," Anwyn said. "I never knew my sister that well to begin with, but things like the whole Dominic episode and of course her suicide really throw me for a loop. I want to know why she did it."
"You think Dominic and his underwear have something to do with it?" Lynn asked. "That's quite a pair of underwear." Anwyn smiled and looked down at her uneaten sandwich.
"It sounds stupid, doesn't it?" she asked.
"You want me to be honest or supportive?" Lynn asked with a grin. "Honestly, yeah it does seem kind of crazy. I don't think you're going to discover anything. But if you want me to be supportive gal, yeah, sure, let's go track Dominic down."
Then Anwyn spotted Oliver walking into the lunch room and she flagged him down and waved him over.
"Oliver, what do you know about Dominic Warren?" Anwyn asked. Oliver sighed and sat down at the table.
"Hola to you, too," Oliver said. "What's this all about?" He had a pretty good idea.
"Remember the night we slept in the tent in your yard and played truth or dare? We went to Dominic's house and—"
"Yeah, I think I remember sneaking across town after midnight," Oliver said. "What about it?"
"I think Dominic might know a side of Isabelle we never knew," Anwyn explained. "I just want to know if that side of Isabelle explains anything."
Oliver exchanged glances with Lynn.
"That was four years before Isabelle killed herself," Oliver said. "Do you really think it means anything?"
Anwyn exhaled slowly. Her sandwich still sat in front of her, uneaten and not looking especially appetizing. She looked at Lynn and then at Oliver.
"I'm sounding kind of obsessive, aren't I?" she asked. She watched Lynn look at Oliver and then back to her. Lynn nodded slowly.
"Forget about it," Anwyn said. "This is crazy. That was four years ago. It wouldn't mean anything."
"We can ask Dominic, if you want," Lynn said. Oliver didn't say anything. He had knew who Dominic was. For years he lived three blocks from him. If he had wanted to know what happened at the river or that night while they played truth or dare he could have asked. But he also knew Dominic was just as likely to tell them as Isabelle had been. Some things are meant to be secret. And some secrets die with people.
"No," Anwyn said. "I'm sounding crazy. Let's just forget about it." She pushed her sandwich away and sat there quietly. Oliver didn't know what to say. Lynn did.
"You know what this, don't you?" Lynn asked. Anwyn shook her head. "It's the biggest, craziest, story I've heard since moving to Kansas. Nothing happens here. This is amazing."
"Technically," Oliver said, "The suicide happened in St. Paul."
"Shut up," Lynn said, shooting him a look. "The make-out session at the river—OK, that happens all the time—but the underwear swap, and now you're back where it all happened. You and Isabelle are intimately tied to Kansas. I claim the story as one of our own stories of weirdness."
"I feel so honored," Anwyn said.
"You should be," Lynn said. "I don't have cable—I've got to work with what I have."
"And it wasn't an underwear swap," Anwyn said. "Isabelle just stole Dominic's underwear."
"That's what you think," Lynn said. "Why would a boy just hand over a pair of underwear? Don't you think he came up with some sort of trade? I bet they swapped underwear."
"Who swaps underwear?" Oliver asked.
"Did you check when she came back?" Lynn asked. "Was she wearing underwear? Or was she going commando style?"
"I didn't check!" Oliver said, his eyes getting wider and starting to feel a little weird.
"Nobody checked," Anwyn said. "We tried to pull it out of her when we got back to the tent, but she shut us down. No one thought of pantsing her to find out."
"Well, you should have," Lynn said. "We wouldn't be having this conversation if you had the forethought to just pants her back then."
"Because that's one of the memories I want of my dead sister," Anwyn said, "The time we pantsed her."
"Well, you couldn't have been worried about that at the time," Lynn pointed out.
"That's just it," Anwyn said. "Nobody expected what she did. There weren't any warning signs. There was no discernable reason." Now the table became quiet. Their lunches sat there uneaten and the minutes slowly ticked by. Before they realized it the bell rang and lunch was over.
Posted by kevin at November 12, 2006 3:54 PM
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