The Year of the Beasts Read online

  Tessa felt sorry for her sister. She couldn’t be sure, but a thought struck Tessa. Maybe Lulu wasn’t trying to be cool or grown up about the whole thing at all. Maybe Lulu had been scared.

  chapter

  four

  chapter

  five

  The river cut through town neatly, running east to west, flowing out to sea. Most houses sat on the hills overlooking the water, but some had backyards that stretched down to touch the riverbanks.

  In the winters, the river whitened with snow and ice. In the spring, it broke and ran and rushed quickly by. In the summer, it slowed and rambled, and in the fall it clogged with leaves.

  No matter where you lived, everyone in town had a boat docked somewhere on the river.

  Celina’s backyard sloped gently toward a stretch of the river shaded by trees. When they were little, Tessa and Lulu believed fairies lived in all the woods around the county where they lived. Local legend told of a man who got lost in the woods, took a nap, and wandered out one hundred years later. Tessa and Lulu would take naps by the trees hoping that they would wake up older and in the future. They never did.

  School had been out for a week, and the carnival been gone for two, leaving a muddy mess of papers, garbage, and sawdust in its wake.

  Few would look at the field where it had stood and believe that any kind of magic occurred there. But that field had been full of kisses. And rides. And blushes. There had been hearts that caught in throats, eyes that glanced discreetly, and hands that reached for parts forbidden.

  Tessa hadn’t experienced any of those things, and so when she passed the field on the way to Celina’s house on her bicycle, she only saw the garbage that was left behind. The empty filthy field matched exactly the wreckage of her feelings for Charlie. Charlie who had taken Lulu out exactly three times so far. Lulu came back from each of those dates blooming.

  It was the first barbecue of the summer; the one that celebrated Independence Day. At Celina’s insistence, Tessa had reluctantly started to bring Lulu around more, and the girls, now a firm threesome, had conspired together to invite the boys to the Fourth of July celebration. There was going to be a big fireworks display set off by the firemen from a barge on the river. The whole valley would be able to watch from anywhere in the three towns. Celina’s parents had even invited the mayor to watch from their lawn.

  The party started early, and while Celina’s parents made mixed drinks and had adult conversations on the patio, the girls were nervous because Charlie, Lionel, Tony, and Dylan were late.

  “Do you think they’ll come?” Celina asked. “Did Charlie say they would?”

  Lulu nodded. She was now the one among them who had the inside information. She showed her authority by texting Charlie and then showing his response, which he’d signed with x’s and o’s.

  Celina clapped in approval.

  “Lulu, go help Celina’s mom,” Tessa said.

  “She already said she didn’t need any help,” Lulu said.

  No matter how hard Tessa tried to shoo Lulu elsewhere and get Celina alone, Lulu remained. She was always there, never getting the hint, acting like a shiny new thing.

  Eventually, the boys showed up with brushed hair, dress shirts, and bags of candy.

  The adults remembered what it was like to be young, and so they watched the teens closely for the first hour, making sure that no beer was stolen and that all the boys and girls hands were in proper places at all times. But as the day dragged on, and the liquor poured more freely, the adults became more concerned with their own drama and loud laughter. By the time the sun set, they had full confidence that no girls would get knocked up and no lines would get crossed.

  Tessa, Celina, Lulu, and the boys disappeared through the trees to spread blankets on the patch of grass near the dock to get a better view of the sky. As the sun sank behind the hills, making the river go from silvery to muted brown, they chattered nervously. Charlie sat next to Lulu, holding her hand and whispering quietly. It must have been something funny because Lulu laughed quietly, and no matter how far Tessa stretched she couldn’t catch what he was saying. Lionel, Tony, and Dylan flanked Celina, telling gross stories about zits and poop and other bodily things. Celina pretended to be disgusted but actually was loving every minute of it. Tessa busied herself putting the plates out. Tony broke off from the others and awkwardly tried to help her dole out the food they’d brought down from the patio. The light faded, the shadows lengthened, the sun disappeared, and when it was dark enough, the first evening stars came out.

  They all listened to the sound of rushing water and shouts on the barges as the firemen prepared to start the show. They lay down on the blankets and Tessa watched as Charlie turned toward Lulu and kissed her. Celina turned to Dylan, who was the boy that she had chosen for the night, most likely because he was the closest.

  “You’re cute,” Tessa heard her say, and she watched as Celina pulled him to her and began to kiss him.

  Their lips smacked together so loudly that Tessa, not even a foot away, thought that it sounded like a cow chewing. Lionel cursed, having lost out on his chance with Celina. He threw a clump of dirt at the boat that bobbed on the water in front of them.

  Tony screwed up his courage and dove in for Tessa’s lips. But he missed as Tessa moved away.

  No, thought Tessa as she dodged him. This is not the kiss I want.

  She had kissed Tony before and had felt his papery lips and probing tongue. But there was no spark. And she could see the sparks flying all around her. They flew around Lulu and Charlie like a swarm, and even Celina and Dylan had some. If Tessa was going to kiss, she wanted some sparks.

  The leaves on the trees rustled, their long branches sleepily waving her toward them as though they were promising something different than what was being offered on the checkered blankets.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Tessa said.

  “But the show is about to start,” Tony said, his voice low, as though that would somehow change her mind and tempt her to his lips.

  A flare shot into the night. The air filled with a dramatic string overture, the music skipping across the valley as the first starburst hit the air.

  “I’ll go in the woods,” Tessa said. “I’ll be right back.”

  She left him looking satisfied that she’d come back with an empty bladder and a soul full of passion for him. He lay back on his arms, smug with that thought.

  Tessa stumbled toward the trees. She tried not to look at the tangled legs and arms of the others as the colors in the sky lit them up softly. Fireworks sprayed the sky and exploded in time to the music. Tessa could relate to the display—very dramatic, and the music—all brass. The light fell from the sky toward the river. Tessa felt as though she were bursting inside in a hot and violent way. She felt like a bomb and not a pretty blast of light.

  As she entered the woods, she tripped on a root and found herself on the ground with the leaves and the dirt. Her eyes stung with earth and she heard a twig crack.

  She was not alone.

  “Who’s there?” she asked the trees.

  She wanted this night to be over. She imagined falling asleep. She wondered if she did if time would pass, like the man in the legend, and she’d wake up and run out of the woods one hundred years later. She would like that. The darkness was peppered every few seconds or so by reds, whites, and blues, and so she knew that she was still awake.

  She saw a body emerge from behind a tree. Was it a deer? A bear? A bird? No. It was a boy. He slid quietly toward her, his step sure, as though he belonged in those woods and knew them well even in the dark.

  “It’s me,” a voice said.

  Jasper.

  The dark was lightened suddenly by a series of white bursts that lit up the sky like it was high noon. She could see him perfectly. Every line of him. Every thread. Every bone.

  “You have dirt on your face,” he said.

  He came over to her and sat down. He took the bottom of his
t-shirt and lifted it up to her eyes and began wiping her cheeks clean.

  “Were you spying on us?” Tessa asked.

  “No,” he said. “I live next door.”

  Tessa had never known where Jasper lived. She knew nothing at all about him, except that he was strange. That he wore t-shirts with images and phrases that she didn’t understand. And that all those things combined made him seem so sure of himself in a way that no one else she knew was.

  “This is the best spot to watch from. And I heard voices. I wanted to see who was here,” he said. “It was all of you.”

  Tessa closed her eyes but could still see the lights from behind her lids. She felt the explosions in her chest. She sympathized with the sudden blast of trumpets.

  She wondered why he didn’t just join them when he saw them all sitting on the blankets. He would have been welcome to the fried chicken and to the hot dogs. He could have enjoyed the potato salad. He could have shared the last piece of chocolate cake.

  “We have some blankets,” she said. “We have food and a good view.”

  “I hate Lionel,” he said.

  “He’s not so bad,” Tessa said.

  “Lionel made me eat paste,” he said.

  “That doesn’t sound like Lionel,” Tessa said.

  “Well, people aren’t always what they seem,” he said.

  “I ate paste once, just to try it,” Tessa said.

  “I didn’t want to try it,” Jasper said.

  “That was a long time ago though, right?” Tessa asked.

  “I guess,” Jasper said. “Everybody dared him to do it. And he did. I don’t understand why people do what other people tell them to do.”

  Tessa knew that truthfully, Jasper would not have been welcomed on the blankets the way that he had welcomed her into the woods. They would make fun of his hair. Or his sweater. Or his sunken chest. They would all laugh under their breath and Jasper wouldn’t get that he was the joke.

  She heard a sound. Her name. They were probably calling her. Wondering where she was. But none of them would likely leave the blankets and come fetch her from the woods.

  She felt Jasper take her hand, and she did not let it go. His hand felt moist, but curiously familiar, as though it were a part of her. As though it were her very own hand. She leaned her head against the bark of the tree and the roughness of it made her open her eyes. Jasper was looking at her, and bursts of falling lights dazzled, making his hair glow like fire.

  There were things deep inside her bubbling up that she could not explain. There was his hand holding hers tightly. There was sweat on the soft fuzz of his boyish mustache.

  She moved toward him and put her lips on his.

  These were actions that she knew once done, could not be taken back.

  chapter

  six

  chapter

  seven

  Tessa wondered if that one night of kissing Jasper had made her look different because after two weeks of kissing Charlie, everyone agreed on one thing: Lulu looked different.

  Lulu looked light on her feet and translucent, as though she were made of Bohemian glass and caught the light in a special way. And when she walked, she glided. Or, she was always dancing. She had a secret skip that couldn’t be ignored by anyone. Lulu glowed with all the kissing that she had done with Charlie. And Lulu kissed Charlie whenever she could. Lulu kissed him on the porch. On the dock. In the diner. At the movies. In his barn. In his beat up old car. She kissed him in public for everyone to see. They kissed in a way that made sure everyone around them knew how they felt.

  At the breakfast table, their parents would tease Lulu until she turned red, and when her protests didn’t make them stop, she would resign herself to shoveling spoonful after spoonful of cereal into her mouth.

  “You are in love, Lulu,” their father would say.

  “Your very first love.” Their mother would sigh.

  Then Tessa watched as their parents would laugh and play with each others’ fingers as they looked at each other tenderly. As though the magic of Lulu’s first love had been catching and had rekindled something inside of them that they had misplaced for a while. Her father’s piercings would sparkle. Her mother’s tattoos would ripple with color and almost come to life.

  Tessa knew that she could have said something about her own kiss. Sometimes at night, in bed, she would kiss the tips of her own fingers and remember Jasper’s lips. Sometimes she wondered about her one kiss with him; wondered whether he would agree that it was the only kiss that had ever seemed to matter.

  That year, no one was going to summer camp because of the economy. Almost all of the kids would be staying in town, forced to entertain themselves. Celina invited the sisters over every day. After breakfast, Tessa and Lulu hopped on their bikes and wound their way over. Tessa wished that sometimes Celina would not remember to invite Lulu. But since that didn’t work, Tessa would remind Lulu that she could always hang out with her own friends.

  “But they don’t understand about boys like Celina and you do,” Lulu said.

  And that would always win Tessa over.

  They would leave their house early in the morning and wind over to Main Street to the café where they would order an espresso drink. Then they would window-shop and look at all the new antique items in the windows, things that most people they knew wouldn’t buy, but that they coveted: a Victrola, a stained-glass window, a sewing machine. The girls would fill imaginary houses with those antiques, only to lose them to the people who came up from the city for the summer. Those people had money and would rent the pretty houses and borrow boats to motor along the river. They would say they wanted to stay forever, but they always left with no fuss after Labor Day.

  Tired of looping Main Street, the girls would head over to Celina’s for lunch, arriving in time for summer salad or grilled cheese sandwiches or watermelon slices. And the rest of the day was filled with sun and iced tea and throwing the Frisbee around.

  Sometimes Tessa’s eyes would linger on the woods, wondering if she would see Jasper again at all that summer, or if she would have to wait for the first day of school. If she waited till then, she was afraid she would ignore him along with everyone else. But she would want to pull at the weird sweater he sported and hide out at the corner undesirable table near the garbage cans and read a strange book with him that no one else would have ever heard of. That is what drew her to him.

  “What’s that?” Celina asked.

  Tessa caught the Frisbee, and saw, in the woods, a glint of something. She threw it to Lulu.

  “I don’t see anything,” she said. But she knew that it was Jasper. He was watching them from the trees. He was wearing brown, blending in, except for his sunglasses, which kept catching the light as he moved his head from side to side, his eyes following the arc of the Frisbee.

  “Oh my God,” Celina said starting to laugh. “It’s that weirdo, Jasper.”

  Tessa froze. She knew that everyone thought that about him, but while her heart had jumped and thrilled at the sound of his name, Celina’s heart had recoiled. Tessa knew that Jasper was weird, but to hear someone say it out loud made her stumble as she jumped for the disc. She fell to the grass facing the dirt before she rolled onto her back. Celina and Lulu ran to her, not because they were worried that she was hurt, but because they were giggling.

  “He’s watching us. Do you think he’s a pervert?” Celina asked.

  “What’s a pervert, exactly?” Lulu asked.

  “It’s like when you watch people and it turns you on and stuff,” Celina said.

  “Well, maybe I’m a pervert,” Lulu said.

  “We’re definitely perverts, but we’re not weirdo perverts like Jasper,” Celina said.

  “Maybe we should ask him to join us?” Tessa said. Even though they were laughing at him, Tessa wanted to feel his lips on hers again.

  “Don’t be ridiculous! Jasper Kleine doesn’t hang out with anyone. He barely talks!” Celina said. “Besides, I don�
�t want cooties.”

  “Is there something wrong with him?” Lulu asked.

  “He might have been dropped on his head or had measles or something and that affected his social skills,” Celina said.

  “I think we’re too old for cooties,” Tessa said. She had kissed him and she hadn’t gotten cooties. None of them had had them since elementary school.

  “He’s still there,” Celina said. “I don’t want him watching us.”

  Tessa got up.

  “I’ll get rid of him,” Tessa said. “I’ll make him go away.”

  She walked, making sure that her walk looked normal. She didn’t want to run. She didn’t want to fly. It seemed like forever, but she finally arrived at the tree that he was leaning against.

  “Hey,” Jasper said.

  “Hey,” Tessa said. She was glad her back was to the girls. They couldn’t see that she was excited to be standing near him. She fingered the bark on the tree.

  “So, you’re creeping us out standing over here,” Tessa said.

  “Do I creep you out?” he asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “That’s good,” Jasper said.

  “Yeah. So, about the staring,” Tessa said. “People don’t like that.”

  “Yeah,” Jasper said. “I’m not good with people.”

  “You’re good with me,” Tessa said.

  “You think so?” Jasper said.

  Tessa smiled at him.

  “Tessa!” Celina was calling her. “Come on!”

  “I gotta go,” Tessa said. “You should go do something else.”

  Jasper blinked. He licked his lips. Tessa took her finger and touched his lips.

  “Meet me later,” he said.

  “OK,” she said, as she turned to run away from him. She was flushed when she met back up with Celina and Lulu who were now lounging on the patio furniture.