Darcy was rocking lazily on the rusted swingset when she saw something glittering in the dust of the driveway. She knew it was probably just a bit of broken glass or twisted metal from one of her brothers’ decaying cars, but she promised herself that if she could hop all the way there on just her right foot, then it would turn out to be a quarter or maybe even a half dollar. Halfway there, though, she lost her balance and fell onto the parched remains of the lawn, re-opening one of the scabs on her knee. So she walked the rest of the way, but Indian-style, with one foot carefully in front of the other.
Nine years old is old enough to know that real diamond rings do not just materialize in front of decrepit San Joaquin Valley farmhouses. But that is what it looked like: a slim golden circlet inset with tiny chips that glinted like broken bits of the sun. And when Darcy picked it up, it felt heavy and true, not at all like the plastic fast-food giveaway she had expected.
She cast a careful sidelong glance at the house. But it only sagged in the heat, flaking pieces of gray stucco like skin after a bad sunburn. Satisfied that nobody was watching, she slipped the ring onto her left middle finger, where it fit perfectly. She held up her hand for a moment, admiring it, thinking that even with the dirt under her bitten-short fingernails, it looked elegant.
Suddenly, she thought she heard a car approaching. She quickly slipped the ring into the front pocket of her faded cut-offs, and crept onto the shade of the porch, hoping that her mother was coming home. A moment later, she was relieved to see a faded green pickup turn onto the driveway. Despite the truck’s noisy muffler, she knew Ray must have gotten his radio fixed, because she could hear it blasting out AC/DC.
The passenger door opened, and her mother emerged with a paper bag in one hand and a case of Budweiser in the other. Darcy squinted at her as she juggled them for a moment, trying to get a hand free to shut the door. She tried to see her mother as a stranger might. At thirty-seven, JoEllen was still pretty, her long hair bleached a shade of honey blonde that set off her tan nicely. Her short shorts and black cut-off T-shirt showed off her good figure, and her pink lipstick matched her sandals almost exactly. JoEllen liked to laugh to her friends, "Well, Tina’s fine, like me, but my other daughter must’ve got her looks from her father." Darcy did not remember what her father looked like, so she would try to imagine an older, masculine version of herself, short and mousy, with changing hazel eyes.
"Girl, get off your butt and help us with these fucking groceries!" Darcy hadn’t noticed that the music had been cut off and that Ray now stood by the driver’s side, another case of beer under one arm and a scowl on his face.
She started to trudge over to the truck until she remembered she was now an elegant lady, and then she glided instead. She took the bag from her mother’s arms, but JoEllen didn’t really look at her. Darcy could tell she was in the middle of another fight with Ray.
The bag was heavy, and Darcy was puffing a little as she reached the front door. She put it down on the splintery porch floor, and held the screen door open as JoEllen entered without a word. When Ray stepped onto the porch a moment later, still glaring, Darcy stepped back and opened the door as wide as she could. One of the cats slipped out, and Ray nearly tripped over it. He kicked at it and swore, but managed not to drop his parcels. Darcy picked up the bag and followed him into the kitchen, shutting the door behind her.
JoEllen had slammed the case of beer onto the kitchen counter and stomped off toward her bedroom, not even pausing to put away the groceries. With her gone, Ray’s mood seemed to suddenly lighten, and he smiled widely at Darcy. She liked it when he smiled—his sandy mustache would turn up a little at the ends, and his gray eyes would get squinty and crinkled. She grinned back, and then removed a gallon of milk from her grocery sack. As she was placing it in the refrigerator, Ray stood behind her and snapped the strap of her halter-top.
"Look what I got for you," he whispered conspiratorially.
She turned around, and saw that magician-like, he had caused a candy bar to materialize in his hand. A Milky Way, her favorite. She grabbed it quickly, and hid it beneath her shirt in case her brothers came in and took it.
"Don’t I get a thank you kiss?"
He bent over, and he smelled like her brother Scott: a pleasant mixture of sweat and grease and beer and cigarettes and peaches, because it was peach season at the cannery. Shyly, she gave him a peck on his cheek, and they both laughed when she hit her head lightly on the brim of his baseball cap. He straightened just as Scott walked in from the hallway. Mike trailed him like a shorter, broader shadow.
Both of Darcy’s brothers were covered liberally with dirty oil and grease, and Scott’s spiky black hair had gone gray with dust. Scott walked by her without even bothering to scowl, and ripped open the box of beer. He threw a can toward Mike, who caught it neatly, and then he grabbed one for himself.
"Those ain’t even cold," Ray warned them.
"Yeah, well at least they’re wet," Scott retorted, pulling open the top and then nearly draining the can in one long gulp. Ray shrugged and then took one for himself. Scott threw his empty can into the sink and took another full one. "C’mon, Mike. Let’s get that transmission back in before I gotta go to work. Oh, hey, Ray. Can I catch a ride with you tonight?"
Ray nodded and took a sip of his beer.
Scott left, followed by Mike, who pulled Darcy’s ponytail lightly as he passed.
"Hey, Darc, put away the rest of the groceries, will you?" Ray asked, smiling at her again.
"Okay," she answered. She wondered if he would let her borrow his tank top, which had a drawing she liked of a man on a motorcycle. She thought it would make a good nightshirt. Before she could get up the courage to ask, though, he followed her brothers out the door, swatting her playfully on the behind as he went by.
From JoEllen’s bedroom, a stereo started blasting, and Darcy knew her mother was probably crying. She always played loud music when she cried.
Darcy turned back to the refrigerator and unpacked
the rest of the groceries.
It was too hot to do anything that night. Ray and Scott had left for work a few hours ago, and Mike was still outside, trying to reassemble Scott’s Camaro. She wondered why he bothered: whatever he did, Scott would complain that it was not right, and would insist on redoing it himself.
JoEllen had emerged from her room only long enough to fish a new pack of cigarettes out of the carton on the kitchen table, and to retrieve a six-pack from the refrigerator. She told Darcy to fix herself something for dinner, so Darcy made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which she cut into thin slivers. She had read a book last week in which the characters were always eating finger sandwiches, and she thought that this was very sophisticated. She also had two of the small, blotchy apples from the stunted tree in back of the house. She had her Milky Way for dessert, savoring it with tiny bites.
For a while, Darcy wandered around the little house, unable to settle herself. The cable had been disconnected a few weeks ago, and the television would only pick up snowy ghosts. She'd finished the last of her library books that morning.
Finally, she ended up in the hallway, peering at the family photo gallery. There were the school pictures, full of carefully combed hair and gap-toothed grins. Both Scott's and Mike's pictures ended in mid-adolescence; neither had bothered to get them taken past junior high. When Tina was just a little older than Darcy was now, her smiles were suddenly replaced by pouts and frowns.
There was JoEllen in ruffles, arm around a handsome boy in an ugly brown suit. The boy had Scott and Mike's dark hair and tight eyes. JoEllen had told Darcy once that she was already pregnant when that picture was taken. The girl smiling into the camera had no idea this would be her last school dance.
And in a place of honor all by itself, there was Ricky, a chubby toddler surrounded by oversized props from the photo studio at K-Mart. Darcy had heard so much about him from JoEllen that sometimes she thought she could remember him herself, even though she knew he died before she was born. He'd fallen from an apartment balcony. Sometimes Darcy dreamed that she heard him crying.
Tiring of the pictures, Darcy decided it was too hot to do anything but sleep. She rediscovered the ring when she was changing into her nightgown. For a long time, she simply sat on her bed, turning her hand this way and that, watching the way the diamonds (for surely that's what they were) sparkled in the light from her bedside lamp.
She knew it had to be a magic ring.
If she were a princess in a fairy tale, she supposed she'd wish for a handsome prince, perhaps with sandy hair and crinkly gray eyes. But of course this was real life, where JoEllen said men were creeps, like Darcy's father, and they hit you or cheated on you or simply walked out and left you.
She slipped the ring off of her finger and held it in her palm. It felt heavy. When she wrapped her hand around it, it was warm, as if she held something alive.
Tina clattered into the room very late, smelling
of cigarettes and, faintly, of something strange and exciting. Darcy woke
to discover the ring still clutched in her fist. She tucked it under her
pillow and went back to sleep.
When she woke up the next morning, Darcy knew she'd had a vivid dream, but she couldn't quite remember it. On the other side of the room, Tina was snoring softly, still clad in leopard print spandex. Darcy crawled across her bed toward her Spice Girls wall calendar. Still another three weeks until school started. She sighed.
She pulled on her shorts and a green T-shirt and wandered into the kitchen. All the milk was gone already, though someone had left the empty jug in the refrigerator. She hoped JoEllen would bring pick some more up on her way home from work. There was a grocery store right down the street from Costa's Automotive, where she kept the books.
Darcy heard music coming from out back, and loud laughter. Tentatively, she poked her head through the back door. Ray and her brothers were standing around the Camaro, peering into the engine compartment like it contained the secrets of the universe.
"...so I told her to shut the fuck up." Scott paused to take a drag off his cigarette. "Stupid bitch."
Mike looked puzzled. "I thought you weren't seeing Lori anymore."
"You thought wrong." Scott flicked the butt away, toward the garage. His eyes narrowed. "Since when are you the big expert on chicks, anyway?" He laughed, and Ray joined him. Mike looked away and caught sight of Darcy in the doorway.
"Hey, stupid! You're gonna let the flies in."
Darcy stepped onto the back stoop and shut the door behind herself. Scott and Ray ignored her and went back to discussing carburetors and head gaskets.
She sat on the top step, squirming a bit at the feel of the hot concrete on the back of her thighs. She hummed quietly to herself and picked at the scab on her knee until it started bleeding a little. Then she leaned back on her hands, feeling the grit of the cement, and watched the guys at work. She admired the way Ray's fingers moved so dexterously among the bits and chunks of metal.
Scott and Ray worked easily together, trading banter and bits of advice. Mike mostly looked on, although every so often they would command him to fetch a part or a tool. She thought it was funny that her mother's boyfriend got along better with Scott than with her mother, but, then, Scott and Ray had known each other longer, ever since Scott began working at the cannery three summers ago. He'd only introduced Ray and JoEllen this past spring. And at 29, Ray was as close in age to Scott as he was to JoEllen.
Ray looked up from the car and flashed Darcy a grin
and a wink. She tilted her face toward the sun, closed her eyes, and felt
her cheeks fill with warmth.
By mid-day Darcy had taken refuge in the relatively cool darkness of the living room. She had wanted to listen to the little radio she had got gotten for her birthday last month, but Tina was still sleeping and would yell at the noise. Instead, Darcy stretched out on the worn mushroom-colored couch, imagining herself as Sleeping Beauty awaiting her Prince.
When she opened her eyes, Ray was standing over her. She wasn't sure why the expression on his face made her stomach clench and her ears sound like a jet plane was rushing overhead. She didn't move as he knelt beside her on the scratched wooden floor. He bent forward and her head filled with the sweet smell of peaches. She noticed that he had a tiny scar over his left eyebrow. She wondered if it was from the same dirt bike accident that had messed up his shoulder.
Gently he brushed her cheek with his fingertips, and she marveled that she could feel his calluses. Then he placed his hand on her chest. It was so heavy she could barely breathe.
There must have been a slight sound. Ray jumped up and swung around so quickly he almost lost his balance. Mike was standing in the doorway in his McDonalds uniform.
Without saying a word, Ray strode across the room
and brushed past Mike. Mike stood there a moment, looking as though he
was going to say something to her. But then he turned and walked away too.
She waited until after Scott and Ray had left for work that evening. Tina was gone, too, her boyfriend having whisked her away with a squeal of tires and a blast of Marilyn Manson.
"Mom."
"Hmm?" JoEllen was sitting at the kitchen table, her bare feet up on one of the wicker and chrome chairs. She was watching her cigarette smoke snake through the still air. Darcy started to drape herself across her shoulders, but JoEllen shrugged her off. "Don't. It's too hot." So she leaned against the refrigerator instead, taking care not to knock loose any magnets.
"Mom, are you and Ray gonna get married?"
JoEllen snorted a gray cloud. "I been married enough."
Darcy looked down at the scuffed vinyl floor. "Do you love him?"
JoEllen tipped her head back until her ponytail hung almost straight down.
"Mom?"
JoEllen sighed. "That's just a fairy tale." She lifted her head and looked straight into her daughter's eyes. For a moment, she said nothing. Darcy stared back mutely. JoEllen said firmly, "You're too young to start worrying about love."
"But Tina's only fourteen and--"
"Never mind Tina!" JoEllen lit another cigarette. As if to herself, she muttered, "That girl's too much like her mother."
Darcy took a step toward her. "But Ray--" she began.
JoEllen's face closed up before she could say any more, and the rest of
the sentence hung in the air with the trails of smoke. Darcy stood for
a moment and then she walked past her mother and through the door into
the living room. JoEllen sat at the table and toyed with the empty box
of Marlboros.
Late that night Darcy lay on her bed, watching the full moon rise over the bean field behind her house. Her sheet was twisted beneath her feet in a pink floral knot, and her hair pressed in damp clumps against her neck.
The bedroom door creaked open and someone entered the room, but she didn't turn her face from the window. It wasn't loud enough to be Tina. She felt the mattress sag as Ray sat beside her, but still she kept her head turned away, watching the way the moonbeams tickled the walnut tree and slid down the roof of the barn.
Ray put his lips so close to her ear that she could feel his mustache brush against her skin. "Can you keep a secret?" he whispered.
Her lips moved, but her answer was so quiet even she could not hear it.
He moved his head away from hers, and she forgot to breathe. Then a hard and agile spider alit on her foot and began slowly climbing up her bare leg. Outside, the walnut leaves shivered in the sudden delta breeze. The spider crept over her knee.
"So pretty," Ray rasped, and Darcy knew it was a lie. As his fingers brushed her thigh, she sat up and pushed his hand away with hers, and she fixed her hazel eyes on his gray ones. She thought of the ring, which lay hidden beneath her pillow, just inches away. She said loudly: "No."
Ray's face turned brick red and the corners of his mustache turned down. With a jerk, he lurched off of the bed. He rushed through the door without looking back.
Darcy jumped out of bed and slammed the door shut.
Bare feet patting on the oak floor, she returned to her island of pink
flowers. She pulled the ring out and, grasping it between her thumb and
forefinger, held it up to the window. It shone and sparked in the moonlight.
She woke to the sound of shouting.
She could not make out much of it through her closed door and her mother's, but the heavy tread of Ray's work boots was shaking the house as he paced back and forth. Now and then a burst of words was audible. She heard her mother say her name several times, and Mike's, and once she thought maybe Tina's. Ray yelled back, sounding as if he were losing control.
The fight went on for years, she thought.
Then there was a crash of a fist through plaster and the slam of the front door. And a minute later, the angry roar of an engine.
When Darcy eventually crept out of her room, the house was silent. She found JoEllen sitting in the living room, lit only by the moon and the glowing tip of her cigarette. She was dry-eyed. She heard Darcy's steps in the hall and looked up to give her the shadow of a smile. Darcy blew her a kiss.
Darcy walked down the hallway, past the family photos. She went into JoEllen's room and saw the dent in the wall to the right of the dresser. There was a pile of Ray's clothing on the floor by the open closet.
Silently as a hunter in the jungle, she padded across the room, stopping in front of the nightstand. She opened her hand and dropped the ring onto its dusty surface, right next to the white plastic alarm clock.
She turned around and went back through the hallway, across the kitchen that glowed in blue and silver, and out the front door. Ignoring the little splinters that dug into her feet, she walked Indian-style to the front railing. She pressed against it and felt the wood dig into her belly. Stretching her arms high, she leaned forward and let the breeze dry the sweat off her body.