Burro Hills Read online

  Burro Hills

  Julia Lynn Rubin

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 2018 by Julia Lynn Rubin

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email [email protected]

  First Diversion Books edition March 2018

  ISBN: 978-1-63576-193-1

  Carve your name into my arm

  Instead of stressed, I lie here charmed

  —Placebo, “Every You Every Me”

  1.

  Show-off. That was the first thing I thought about Connor Orellana. Fucking show-off.

  But it paid off for him.

  Connor came to Burro Hills the spring semester of my junior year, transferring in from a school about an hour south of here in a little town called Creek Way. It was the year Mom lost her job as a movie theater ticket taker, the latest in a long succession of odd jobs, and the year that my father said he’d finally stop drinking and succeeded for more than a month. It was a spring of intense heat, fires burning a hole through the forested mountains, trailing plumes of heavy smoke into the white-hot sky. Looking back now on that time, the smoke seems like a signal, a warning or an omen of some kind. I knew Connor would change the game for me; I had no idea just how much.

  It was late April. I was squinting through my sunglasses from my usual spot on the steps out front after school, waiting for my boys to finish fucking around at their lockers so we could ride home together, like we usually did. That’s when I spotted him up close, and something changed in the air as I watched him. Something sparked. There was this bold new kid with an expensive-looking skateboard, doing ollies and slick freestyles in front of a gathering crowd. And it kind of pissed me off. It was hot as hell that day, but this kid had just turned up the heat a notch higher than it rightfully should’ve been.

  Connor was an instant hit with some of the cutest girls at school since he’d arrived back in January. But now that the weather was growing warmer, the wildfires increasing in intensity in the hills and the mountains, he was outside more often, showing off for them. Those same girls got moony-eyed and giggly when he’d swerve around a group of them on his board, turning around to wink at them and hear them squeal. In the halls, freshmen girls talked about how they loved the way he spiked the front of his jet-black hair, and how lean his body looked when he took off his shirt in the sun.

  He was a show-off for sure, and rumor had it he was a criminal.

  I heard it first earlier that year from Jess between snaps of her bubblegum. He’d been to juvie apparently, kicked out of St. Francis High School in Creek Way for punching the principal and breaking his nose. Smoked a lot of weed, slept with a lot of nearly unattainable girls—or so that was his alleged resume. I brushed it off at first. It was Jess. She ate up Bigfoot specials and ghost hunter shows. As much as I loved her, she wasn’t always a credible source and neither were the dumbass kids at our school.

  But the more I saw of him that semester, the more those urban legends seemed like they might have some truth behind them. Only a few months had gone by, and already it seemed like his name was on everyone’s lips, or at least the people that ran in my circle. Connor Orellana, his imagined deeds ingrained into Burro Hills High School lore. The rest of them either whispered about him in the hallway or blew him off as another loser, a junkie or a deadbeat’s son like the rest of us. I was hopelessly intrigued.

  He was in my math class for a few weeks until he was transferred into the Honors section, and this one time, I watched him slide a note to one of the hottest girls in school, some bleached-blonde bimbo named Maggie Turner. She’d wrinkled her nose and opened it carefully, like it was full of anthrax, then rolled her eyes and passed it to her girlfriends and some of the football team assholes in the back of the room. They’d thought it was hysterical, laughing and making comments like fifth graders, saying “fucking faggot” and that kind of thing. Someone had rolled the note in a little ball and tossed it at Connor’s head. I watched to see what he’d do, if he’d get pissed or something, but he just sat there grinning like an idiot, like he was the only one really in on the joke. Then he caught me looking at him and held my gaze for a second too long. I remember the warm rush I got, like I was in on the joke now too. And as the football assholes eventually simmered down and went back to talking about sports and all their bullshit, Connor pulled a pair of Ray Bans from his bag and slipped them on, slouching in his chair. Goodnight, assholes.

  He didn’t mind eating alone for the first few months or so—seemed to view it as some rite of passage—or walking to class alone through the sea of blank faces, earbuds lodged in his ears, snapping his fingers to an invisible beat. He spotted me in the hallway once and grinned that ridiculous grin of his. I’d nodded and tried to keep a straight face, but after he’d passed I couldn’t stop smiling to myself. I didn’t fully understand at the time what was happening, or why my eyes were always glued to him, but it was as if we were connected by some invisible but inevitable force.

  And then that hot day in April came, when the spark happened, when that intangible shift in the universe occurred as he did tricks just a few feet away from where I was sitting on the steps. I’d been thinking about it for a while now, but it felt like the right time. I convinced the boys to let him come with us on one of our freeway rides after school. They readily agreed. They’d watched him do his board tricks and light up fat blunts during lunch and before school for weeks on end, smoking right under security’s noses. Naturally he’d hang out with us, they said.

  Naturally, my ass. It was my idea.

  “What did you really do?” Max asked him the first time he came out for a ride. The air that day was thick with exhaust fumes that got stuck inside your throat. Connor sped ahead of him to do a few wheelies. Max pedaled hard to catch up, his sweat-soaked Looney Tunes shirt sticking to his back, his dark hair matted against his neck. I trailed behind, just close enough to hear them.

  “What do you mean?” asked Connor. He kept his focus ahead, on something across the horizon. Max panted like a bulldog and pedaled faster, nearly running over a spare tire on the side of the road.

  “At your old school,” Toby broke in, a familiar sneer on his face. “St. Francis. Don’t play dumb, man. You know what people say.”

  Connor squinted up at the burning blue sky, rolling his neck around. I watched his jaw clench up, the square muscle pulsing. “People say a lot of things, don’t they?”

  I cleared my throat to let the guys know I had this. “Just a couple things about getting kicked out and all that.” I paused to see how he’d react. “Breaking the principal’s nose, you know…”

  Connor’s face remained unreadable. “If I had touched the principal’s nose, would I even be walking around right now?”

  Max was gasping for breath at that point, trying with all his might to ride as fast as Connor. “So, is any of it true?”

  I opened my mouth to say something else, but Connor did a quick circle around us before pedaling fast ahead, trailing dirt and dust behind him as he rode into the edge of the sun.

  2.

  Max was sweating bullets and the car hadn’t even pulled up yet.

  Toby and I stood watch, hands in our pockets, trying to assume an air of nonchalance. A James Dean
casual, cool, don’t-fuck-with-me stance. Usually we did these deals alone, under the cover of dusk, but Toby had insisted Max come at least once and stop being such a pussy about the whole ordeal.

  “Do we have to do it here?” Max whined. He wiped his face on his Star Trek t-shirt and pulled his beanie down over his face. Toby yanked it off his head.

  “Cut it out,” Toby growled. “I told you if you wanted to come, you had to be cool about it.”

  I gave Max a pat on the back. “It’ll be fine, man. Just relax.”

  Max cracked his knuckles like he always did when he was nervous and took a deep breath. He tried his best to turn his face to cold, uncaring stone. The Shop N’ Save parking lot was just off the freeway, the roar of engines and occasional honks of angry drivers echoing across the wide expanse of concrete. It was cooler now that the sun was beginning to set, the sky a blend of buttery yellow and smashed orange.

  I checked my watch. Toby glanced over his shoulder, then stiffened suddenly, nodding in the direction of the store.

  Jess was here. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She was trailed by Anna and Lizzie, her two faithful, pretty-girl companions, and something about her was different. The bounce in her step was still there, the girlish way she popped her bubblegum and twirled her hair—yes, that was it! Her once raven-colored hair was now a bright, platinum blonde.

  It was just hair, just hair, I kept telling myself, girls always change their hair, but for some reason it made me feel itchy all over, like when someone pronounces your last name wrong and you really want to correct them. She looked like a piece of candy, a bright, sunny popsicle. She looked like all the other bimbo girls at our school.

  She looked like her fucking sister.

  “Hey boys!” Anna called out. She wrapped an arm around Max, and he blushed the color of his scarlet beanie that Toby was now pulling apart by the threads.

  “What you up to?” Lizzie asked. Every time she spoke, it made me think of a wind-up toy, dizzy and spinning and squeaking.

  Jess smiled at me, the secret Jess-and-Jack smile, the smile she usually gave me when we were alone in her room or my room playing Xbox or smoking pot or staring up at the ceiling, talking about our darkest fears and secrets and dreams of escape from this shitty little town. She couldn’t be here. The car would pull up any minute, they’d see the girls, the girls would see them, and the whole world would explode.

  “Nothing, just business,” Toby said, leaning into Lizzie. She rolled her eyes and shot a knowing look at the girls. What the hell was he doing flirting now? Didn’t he see how precarious this situation was?

  “Five minutes, Tobe,” I said, but it came out more like a cough. The girls frowned at me in confusion. Toby just shrugged. My eyes kept falling back on the freeway, watching for that one, burnt orange SUV to pull up any second now. For now, I could only see a blur of beige and black and white speeding down the road. Why did everyone pick the same damn color for their car?

  “So, who wants pizza?” Max asked. “I’m really hungry. Matter of fact, I could definitely go for a slice right now. I mean, it’s really important to eat three solid meals a day, nutritionally speaking, although pizza isn’t—”

  Toby kicked Max in the shin and Lizzie giggled.

  “You guys should go,” I said to the girls.

  Anna scowled at me. Lizzie crossed her arms over her chest and smiled like this was a game. Jess just seemed hurt.

  “Why?” Anna asked.

  “Business,” Toby said. “Jack’s right. We’ve got some shit to handle. We’ll see you girls later? Tonight maybe?”

  “I might host a party at mi casa,” Max added.

  Lizzie and Anna lit up at this, two little wind-up bimbo dolls. Party, party, party. Jess kicked at a stray bottle cap. I tried to tell her telepathically that this wasn’t the right time, that she shouldn’t be around for stuff like this, that she should go home and re-dye her hair because she was so beautiful and unique and so Jess before, and that she was too smart to hang out with wind-up dolls like Anna and Lizzie and losers like me and Toby and Max, and that if she got arrested I could never forgive myself.

  But I knew my attempts at telepathy weren’t working. Jess was frowning at me, waiting for me to tell the guys to let her and her friends stay.

  She was only one month older than me, but ever since we’d met in third grade, she’d felt more like a little sister. Someone I needed to protect.

  “Fine, we get the message,” Jess said. She looped her arms around Anna’s and Lizzie’s. “See you around, boys.”

  The three of them finally headed back to the Shop N’ Save. Jess kept glancing over her shoulder at me. I reached into my pocket, pulled out my phone, and texted her: Sorry. Explain later.

  “Showtime,” Toby said. Max was breathing faster now, clearing his throat and rubbing his hands together. I put my hand on his shoulder to steady him as the hideous orange SUV pulled up in front of us.

  “Just stand watch and relax,” I murmured in Max’s ear. “Act natural. But not…you know, not too natural. Not nervous.”

  Max nodded. We watched Toby slip into the car as the driver eyed us suspiciously. He was a big guy, bulky, tattooed, with a shaved head and pierced eyebrows. His eyebrows were like lightning bolts across his brow, his jaw set in a grimace. A real stone grimace.

  These were the kinds of guys that Toby and his cousins dealt with every day. These were the drug dealers I wanted far away from Jess.

  And hopefully soon, away from me.

  3.

  The kitchen smelled like a menthol ashtray.

  Mom was at the table when I walked in, wearing her tattered lilac bathrobe, hair in a tangled mess. The radio was on, a talk show host murmuring the lotto. She tapped her cigarette against a clay ashtray on the table, my fumble-handed attempt at a great white shark during my 4th-grade obsession with oceanography. Wrinkles moved in the creases of her eyes as she squinted up at me.

  “There you are,” she said, voice filling with smoke as she took a long drag.

  “Have you eaten?” I dropped my bag to the linoleum, nudged the dog’s snout from going near my crotch, and opened the fridge. Nothing but milk, beer, and a few sad-looking radishes.

  “Jesus, Mom, we need groceries,” I said. I searched the cabinets for a scrap of something semi-nutritional for her to eat, but found only a stale pack of marshmallows and my stash of Lucky Charms. I made her a bowl.

  Mom coughed deep from her chest and turned to the window. I opened the blinds to let the sunlight in and handed her the cereal. “Thanks, baby,” she said, reaching up to lightly touch my cheek. Her fingers were freezing. “You’ve always been good to your mother.”

  “Where’s Dad?” I asked. I leaned against the chair next to her and it wobbled unsteadily against my weight. I’d have to find the toolbox and fix it later.

  “Oh, you know, the usual church-and-brewskis Sunday afternoon. Probably downing a six-pack with Joel and the boys.”

  “Great.”

  “Should be back soon,” she said. She flicked her finger across her bubblegum-pink Bic, lighting another Menthol.

  I put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a little rub. “Mom, you really shouldn’t smoke so much. Remember what the doctor said?”

  She laughed dryly, mussing her frizzy curls. Streaks of gray were pushing through the roots, licking up the last of her natural auburn.

  “What for?” she asked dryly. “Fear of cancer, emphysema? I’m not afraid of dying. It’s the living that fucks us over, babe. Remember that.” She took a big, noisy bite of my cereal.

  The front door banged opened and the smell of cheap beer, sweat, and something sour I could never quite pin down followed in the wake of my father. He kicked off his mud-coated boots and tossed the keys on the coffee table with a familiar clang. My stomach tied itself into a knot.

  He strode over to smack me on the back a little too hard, like always. “Hey there, Jack, haven’t seen you around lately.”

  “You either,” I s
aid.

  Dad pushed past me to grab a beer from the fridge, snapped it open with the bottle opener clipped to his belt, and took a long swig. “You want one, son?” I shook my head and walked over to scratch the dog behind the ears. Old Gunther moaned and licked my palm.

  “Has he been out?” I asked. My parents didn’t respond, my father too busy thumbing through a thick wad of unpaid bills, Mom staring into the blue milk she stirred slowly around her bowl.

  “I’ll take him,” I said aloud to no one in particular. As I clipped on Gunther’s leash and reached for the doorknob, I heard them starting up again.

  “You want to tell me what this bill is for, Ellie? Huh? You gonna pay this fucking bill anytime this century?”

  “It’s my money, Jim! I can buy whatever the hell I want with my money.”

  “The hell it’s your money! Who do you think’s been keeping a roof over your head? When’s the last time you held down a job for more than two weeks straight?”

  “Three weeks, for your information. And you shouldn’t have opened my mail anyway. Federal offense, you know.”

  I heard my father sputter, imagining him gripping at his smelly old t-shirt like a slovenly cartoon character. “Federal offense? Goddamn it, Ellie, we’re married!”

  “Why don’t you sit down a minute, Jim. You’re raving drunk, for Christ’s sakes.”

  “Federal fucking offense! Two wasted years of law school and you think you know every motherfucking—”

  He’s been drinking, he’s been drinking, I told myself over and over as I stepped outside, inhaled the smell of lilacs and magnolia in the afternoon heat, and tugged Gunther down the road.

  4.

  She was pissed at me. Like, big time pissed. Every time I said something, made a noncommittal remark, gestured, sighed, she just went “Mmhmm,” and shrugged. She wouldn’t look at me.