Rirefly Lane / Улица Светлячков. Книга для чтения на английском языке

As always, the minute Tully stepped into a party, she was “on.” Gone was the edge of depression, the hesitant smile, the irritation at losing the job. Kate watched in awe; her friend instantly grabbed everyone’s attention.

“Shout!” Tully yelled out, laughing. Boys moved in close, drawn to her like moths to a flame, but Tully barely seemed to notice. She surged onto the dance floor, dragging Kate along with her.

It was the most fun Kate had had in years.

By the time she’d group danced to “Brick House,” “Twistin’ the Night Away,” and “Louie Louie,” she was hot and sweaty.

“I’ll be right back,” she yelled to Tully, who nodded, and then she went outside, where she sat on the low brick wall that marked the property’s edge. Cool night air breezed across her sweaty face. She closed her eyes and swayed to the music.

“The party’s inside, you know.”

She looked up.

The guy who’d spoken was tall and broad-shouldered, with wheat-colored hair that fell across the bluest eyes. “Can I sit with you?”

“Sure.”

“I’m Brandt Hanover.”

“Kate Mularkey.”

“Is this your first frat party[121]?”

“Does it show?”

He smiled and went from good looking to gorgeous. “Just a little. I remember my first year here. It was like being on Mars. I’m from Moses Lake,” he said, as if that should explain everything.

“Small town?”

“Speck on the map.”

“It is kind of overwhelming.”

The conversation moved easily on from there. He talked about things she could relate to. He’d grown up on a farm, feeding cows before dawn and driving his dad’s hay truck when he was thirteen. He knew about feeling both lost and found in a place as big and sprawling as UW.

Inside, the music changed. Someone turned the volume way up. It was ABBA’s, “Dancing Queen.”

Tully came running out of the house. “Kate!” she yelled, laughing. “There you are.”

Brandt immediately stood.

Tully frowned at him. “Who’s this?”

“Brandt Hanover.”

Kate knew exactly what was going to happen next. Because of what had happened to Tully in the dark woods by the river all those years ago, she didn’t trust boys, didn’t want anything to do with them, and she was committed to protecting Kate from any kind of harm or heartbreak. Unfortunately, though, Kate wasn’t afraid. She wanted to date and have fun and even maybe fall in love.

But how could she say that, when Tully was only trying to protect her?

Tully grabbed Kate’s arm, pulled her to her feet. “Too bad, Brandt,” she said, laughing a little too loudly as she dragged Kate away. “This is our song.”

“I saw Brandt at the HUB today. He smiled at me.”

Tully fought the urge to roll her eyes. In the six months since that first toga party at the Phi Delts, Kate had found a way to mention Brandt Hanover at least once a day. You’d think they were dating, as often as his name came up. “Let me guess: you pretended not to notice.”

“I smiled back.”

“Wow. A red-letter day.”

“I thought I’d invite him to the spring dance. We could double date.”

“I have to write an article on the Ayatollah Khomeini[122]. I figured if I keep sending stuff to the paper, sooner or later they’ll publish something. It wouldn’t hurt you to try a little harder to—”

Kate turned to her friend. “That’s it. I renounce our friendship. I know you have no interest in our social life, but I do. If you don’t go—”

Tully laughed. “Gotcha[123].”

Kate couldn’t help laughing. “Bitch.” She slung an arm around Tully. Together they walked along the grass-dotted sidewalk of Twenty-first Street and onto campus.

At the campus security post, Kate said, “I’m headed to Meany. How about you?”

“Drama/TV.”

“That’s right! Your first broadcast journalism class – and with that famous guy you’ve been stalking since we got here.”

“Chad Wiley.”

“How many letters did you have to write to get in?”

“About a thousand. And you should be coming with me. We both need this class.”

“I’ll get in as a junior. You need me to walk you over?”

Tully loved her friend for that. Somehow Kate knew that despite her show of courage, Tully was nervous about this. Everything she wanted could start today. “No, thanks. How can I make my big entrance with someone else?”

She watched Kate walk away from her. Standing there, alone among the crowd of students moving between the buildings, Tully took a deep, relaxing breath, trying to still herself. She needed to appear calm.

She strolled confidently past the fountain of Frosh Pond and went into the Drama/TV Building, where her first stop was the restroom.

There, she paused in front of the mirrors. Her curled, sprayed hair was perfect, as was her makeup. The skintight, flare-legged jeans and shiny white tunic blouse with gold belt and Nehru collar[124] managed to be both sexy and businesslike at the same time.

When the bell rang, she hurried down the hallway, with her backpack bouncing against her ass as she moved. In the auditorium, she walked boldly down to the first row and took a seat.

In the front of the room, the professor sat slumped in a metal chair. “I’m Chad Wiley,” he said in a sexy, whiskey-rough voice. “Those of you who recognize my name get an A in the class.”

There was a smattering of laughter around the room. Tully’s was the loudest. She knew more than his name. She knew his whole life story. He’d come out of college as a kind of wunderkind in broadcasting. He’d moved up the ranks fast, becoming a network anchor before he was thirty. Then, quite simply, he’d lost it. A pair of DWIs[125], a car crash that broke both of his legs and injured a child, and his star had fallen. There’d been a couple of years with no mention of him at all, and then, finally, he’d surfaced at UW, teaching.

Wiley stood. He was unkempt, with long dark hair and at least three days’ growth of gray-black beard, but the intelligence in his dark eyes was undiminished. The stamp of greatness was still on him. No wonder he’d made it.

He handed her a syllabus and started to move on.

“Your coverage of the Karen Silkwood[126] case was inspired,” she said, smiling brightly.

He paused, looked down at her. There was something unsettling about the way he stared – intensely, but only for a second; like a laser beam switched on and off – and then he kept walking past her and on to the next student.

He thought she was just another front-row suck-up who wanted to curry favor.

She’d need to be more careful in the future. Nothing mattered more to her right now than impressing Chad Wiley. She intended to learn everything she could from him.

Part two. The eighties

Love is a battlefield heartache to heartache, we stand[127]

Chapter nine

By the end of her sophomore year, there was no doubt in Tully’s mind that Chad Wiley knew who she was. She’d taken two of his classes: Broadcast Journalism I and II. Whatever he taught, she took; whatever he asked of her, she did. Full-bore. Balls to the wall.

The problem was this: he didn’t seem to recognize her talent. They’d spent all of last week reading the news from a teleprompter. Each time she finished, she immediately looked at him, but he barely glanced up from his notes. Rather, he spooled off a criticism as if he were relaying a recipe to a troublesome neighbor, then called out, “Next.”

Day after day, week after week, class after class, Tully waited for him to respond to her obvious talent, to say, You’re ready for KVTS. Now it was the first week of May. With about six weeks left in her sophomore year, she was still waiting.

Plenty of things had changed in her life the past two years. She’d cut her hair shoulder-length and gone with bangs. Her style icon had gone from Farrah Fawcett-Majors to Jessica Savitch. Nineteen eighty was made for Tully: big hair, bright makeup, glittery fabric, and shoulder pads. No pale colors or sorority-girl styles for her. When she walked into a room these days, people noticed.

Except, of course, for Chad Wiley.

But that was about to change; Tully was sure this time. Last week she’d finally racked enough credits to apply for a summer internship position at KVTS, the local public programming station[128] that was housed on campus. She’d gotten up at 6 A.M. so that her name appeared first on the sign-up sheet. When she’d been given the audition piece, she’d gone home and practiced it endlessly, trying it at least a dozen different ways until she found the tone of voice that perfectly matched the tone of the story. Yesterday she’d nailed the audition. She was certain of it. Now, finally, it was time to found out what position she’d earned.

“How do I look?”

Kate didn’t look up from The Thorn Birds[129]. “Awesome.”

Tully felt a flash of irritation that was more and more familiar these days. Sometimes she just looked at Kate and felt her blood pressure skyrocket. It was all she could do not to yell.

The problem was love. Kate had spent all of their freshman year mooning over bad-haircut Brandt. By the time they finally dated, it was a letdown that ended fast. Still, Kate didn’t seem to care. Through most of sophomore year, she’d dated Ted, who supposedly loved her, and then Eric, who most certainly did not. Kate went to one fraternity dance after another, and though she never fell in love with any of the doofuses she dated – and definitely didn’t have sex with them – she talked about them constantly. Every sentence lately seemed to start with some guy’s name. Even worse, she hardly ever mentioned the broadcasting plan. She seemed perfectly happy to take classes in other departments. Whenever one of their sorority sisters got engaged, Kate rushed to be a part of the crowd that swooned over the ring.

In truth, Tully was sick of it. She kept writing news stories that the school paper wouldn’t publish and hanging around the campus TV station, where no one would give her the time of day, and throughout all of this failure, when she could really use her best friend, Kate just kept yammering on about her latest date. “You totally aren’t looking.”

“I don’t have to.”

“You don’t know how important this is to me.”

Kate finally looked up. “You’ve been practicing one news story for two weeks. Even when I got up to pee in the middle of the night, I heard you rehearsing. Believe me, I know how psyched you are.”

“So how come you’re so Joanie about this?”

“I’m no Joanie. I just know you’ll get the anchor job[130].”

Tully grinned. “I will, won’t I?”

“Of course. You’re wicked good. You’ll be the first junior to actually be on air.”

“Professor Wiley will have to admit it this time.” Tully grabbed her backpack and slung it over her shoulder. “Want to come with me?”

“Can’t. I’m meeting Josh for a study group in Suzzallo.”

“That pretty much falls in the blows-chips category of dating, but to each his own.” Tully snagged her sunglasses off the dresser and headed out.

The campus was bathed in cool sunlight on this mid-May day. Every plant was in bloom and the grass was so thick and lush it looked like patches of green velvet tucked neatly between strips of cement. She strode confidently through campus to the building that housed KVTS. There, she paused just long enough to smooth her sprayed hair, then went into the quiet, utilitarian-looking hallway. To her left was a bulletin board thick with notices. Roommate wanted: pot smoker only was the first one that caught her eye. She noticed that all the phone-number tabs had been ripped off of it, while the ad next to it (Roommate wanted: Born-again Christian[131] preferred) looked sadly intact.

Room 214 was shut. No slice of light ran along the floor beneath the door. Beside it, a piece of paper was tacked to the bulletin board.

SUMMER INTERNSHIP POSITIONS/DEPARTMENT

News/Anchor..............................Steve Landis

Weather...................................Jane Turner

Marketing & Community Relations......Gretchen Lauber

Sports.......................................Dan Bluto

Afternoon Planning........................Eileen Hutton

Research Desk/Fact Checking...........Tully Hart

Tully felt a surge of disappointment, then anger. She yanked open the door and slipped into the dark auditorium where no one could see her, muttering, “Chad Wiley, you sorry-assed loser. You wouldn’t know talent if it grabbed your tiny pecker and squeezed—”

“I imagine you’re talking about me.”

She jumped at the sound of his voice.

He was not twenty feet away from her, standing in the shadows. His dark hair was even messier than usual; it hung in curly disarray to his shoulders.

He moved closer, his fingers trailing on the back of the chair to his right. “Ask me why you aren’t an evening news intern and I’ll tell you.”

“I couldn’t care less why.”

“Really?” He looked at her for another long minute, unsmiling, then walked away from her, down the aisle and up onto the stage.

She could either keep her pride or risk her future. By the time she made her decision and hurried after him, he was backstage.

“Okay…” The word seemed to catch on something in her throat. “Why?”

He stepped toward her. For the first time she noticed the lines on his face, the creases in his cheeks. The dim overhead lighting accentuated every flaw, every hollow and mark on his skin. “Whenever you come to class, I can tell you’ve chosen your clothes carefully and spent a lot of time on your hair and makeup.”

He was looking at her now, seeing her. And she could see him, too. Past the shaggy unkemptness to the sharp bone structure that had once made him so handsome. But it was his eyes that grabbed her; liquid brown and sad, they spoke to the empty places inside of her. “Yeah. So?”

“You know you’re beautiful,” he said.

No stammering, no desperation. He was cool and steady. Unlike the boys she met at frat parties or on campus or in the taverns playing pool, he wasn’t half drunk and desperate for a feel.

“I’m talented, too.”

“Maybe someday.”

The way he said it pissed her off. She was gathering her wits for a scathing comeback when he closed the distance between them. All she had time for was a bewildered, “What are—” before he kissed her.

At the touch of his lips, gentle yet firm, she felt something exquisite and tender blossom inside her; for no reason at all, she started to cry. He must have tasted her tears, because he drew back, frowned at her. “Are you a woman, Tully Hart, or a girl?”

She knew what he was asking. As hard as she’d tried to conceal her innocence, he’d sensed it, tasted it. “Woman,” she lied, with only the barest wobble on the w. She knew now, after just one kiss, that whatever there was to know about sex, her pathetic rape in the woods had taught her none of it. Although she wasn’t a virgin, she was something worse somehow, a reservoir of bad and painful memories, and yet, now, with him, for the first time she wanted more.

That was how she’d felt with Pat that night, too.

No. This was different. She was a long way from that desperate, lonely girl who would have gone into any dark woods to be loved.

He kissed her again, murmuring, “Good.” This time the kiss went on and on, deepening into something that pulled at her insides and made her ache with need. By the time he began pressing his hips against hers, igniting a fire between her legs, she’d forgotten all about being scared.

“You want more?” he whispered.

“Yes.”

He swept her into his arms and carried her to a broken-down sofa tucked against the shadowy back wall. There, he laid her down onto the bumpy, scratchy cushions and slowly, gently began to undress her. As if from far away, she felt her bra unsnap, her underpants peel off. And still his kiss went on and on, stoking this fire inside her.

When they were both naked, he lowered himself to the sofa and took her in his arms. The springs sagged beneath their weight, pinged in protest. “No one has taken time with you, have they, Tully?”

She saw her own desire reflected in his eyes, and for the first time she wasn’t afraid in a man’s arms. “Is that what you’re going to do – take your time?”

He brushed the damp hair away from her face. “I’m going to teach you things, Tully. Isn’t that what you wanted from me?”

It took Tully almost two hours to find Kate. She began her search at the study tables in the basement of the sorority. Next, she spun through the TV room and their bedroom; she even checked on the sleeping porch, although at four o’clock on a sunny May day, it was understandably empty. She tried the undergraduate library and Kate’s favorite carrel, then the graduate reading room, where several hippie-looking older students shushed her just for walking through the stacks. She was about ready to give up when she remembered the Annex.

Of course.

She ran through the sprawling campus to the small, two-story, peaked-roof house that they called the Annex. Sixteen lucky upper-class girls got to move out of the main house and into this place every quarter. It was party central[132]. No house mothers, no one to monitor the doors; it was as close to the real world as any of them were likely to get until they left the sorority altogether.

She opened the front door and called out Kate’s name. Someone in another room answered.

“I think she’s on the roof.”

Tully grabbed a pair of TaBs[133] from the fridge and went upstairs. In a back bedroom, the window was open. She leaned through the opening and looked out on the roof of the carport.

There was Kate, all by herself, in a skimpy white crocheted bikini, lying on a beach towel, reading a paperback novel.

Tully climbed out onto the ledge and crossed the carport roof, which they all called Black Beach. “Hey,” she said, offering Kate a TaB. “Let me guess: you’re reading a romance novel.”

Kate cocked her head and squinted into the sun, smiling. “The Promise by Danielle Steel[134]. It’s really sad.”

“You want to hear about real romance?”

“Like you would know anything about it. You haven’t gone on a date since we got here.”

“You don’t have to go on a date to have sex.”

“Most people do.”

“I’m not most people. You know that.”

“Yeah, right,” Kate said. “Like I’m supposed to believe you got laid.”

Tully grabbed one of the towels that had been left there and stretched out on it. Trying not to smile, she stared up at the blue sky and said, “Three times, to be exact.”

“But you were just going to check on the summer internship…” Kate gasped and sat up. “You didn’t.”

“You’re going to say we’re not supposed to have sex with our professors. I think it’s really more of a recommendation. A guideline. Still, you can’t tell anyone.”

“You had sex with Chad Wiley.”

Tully sighed dreamily at the way that sounded. “It was totally cool, Katie. I mean it.”

“Wow. What did you do? What did he do? Did it hurt? Were you scared?”

“I was scared,” Tully said quietly. “At first all I could think about was… you know… the night with Pat. I thought I was going to get sick, or maybe run, but then he kissed me.”

“And?”

“And… I just sort of melted. He had my clothes off before I was even paying attention.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Yeah, but not like before.” It surprised Tully how easy it was suddenly to mention the night she was raped. For the first time it was a more distant memory, something bad that had happened to her as a kid. Chad’s gentleness had shown her that sex didn’t have to hurt, that it could be beautiful. “After a while it felt amazingly good. Now I know what all those Cosmo articles are about.”

“Did he say he loved you?”

Tully laughed, but deep inside, it wasn’t as funny as she wished it were. “No.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“Why? I’m not good enough to fall in love with? That’s for nice Catholic girls like you?”

“He’s your prof, Tully.”

“Oh, that. I don’t care about stuff like that.” She looked at her friend. “I thought you’d go all romance-novel on me and say it was some kind of fairly tale.”

“I need to meet him,” Kate said firmly.

“It’s not like we can double-date.”

“Then I guess I’ll be the third wheel. Hey, he can probably get the senior rate if we go out to dinner.”

Tully laughed. “Bitch.”

“Maybe, but I’m a bitch who wants more details. I want to know everything. Can I take notes?”

Kate got off the bus and stood on the sidewalk, looking down at the directions in her hand.

This was the address.

All around her, people milled about the sidewalk. Several jostled her as they passed. She squared her shoulders and headed for the door. There was no point in worrying about this meeting – she’d been worrying for more than a month, and for most of that time she’d also been nagging. It had not been easy to get Tully to agree to tonight.

But in the end, Kate had said the magic words – thrown the Yahtzee: Don’t you trust me? After that, it had only been a matter of scheduling.

So now, on this warm evening, she was moving toward a building that looked like a tavern, on a mission to save her best friend from making the biggest mistake of her life.

Sleeping with a professor.

Really, what good could come of that?

Inside the Last Exit on Brooklyn, Kate found herself in a world unlike anything she’d ever seen before. First off, the place was huge. There had to be seventy-five tables – marble ones along the walls and big, rough wooden ones in the center of the room. An upright piano and stage area seemed to be the centerpiece. On the wall beside the piano, a graying, curling poster of the “Desiderata” poem[135] grabbed her attention. Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence[136].

Not that there was peace or silence in here. Or breathable air.

A thick blue-gray haze hung suspended, collecting in the high ceilings. Almost everyone was smoking. Cigarettes zipped up and down throughout the room, caught between fingers that gestured with each word. At first she didn’t see any empty tables; everyone was full of people playing chess, or reading tarot cards, or arguing politics. Several people sat in chairs around a mic, strumming their guitars.

She made her way through the tables toward the back corner. Through an open door, she could see another area out back filled with picnic tables, where more people sat around talking and smoking.

Tully sat at a table way in the back, tucked in the shadowy corner. When she saw Kate, she stood up and waved.

Kate eased past a woman smoking a clove cigarette and sidled around a post.

That was when she saw him.

Chad Wiley.

He wasn’t at all what she’d expected. He sat lazily in the chair, with one leg stretched out. Even in the smoke and shadows, she could see how handsome he was. He didn’t look old. Tired, maybe, but in a world-weary kind of way. Like an aging gunslinger or a rock star. The smile he gave her started slowly, crinkling up his eyes, and in those eyes, she saw a knowledge that surprised her, made her miss a step.

He knew why she was here: a best friend coming to save a girl making a mistake by dating the wrong man.

“You must be Chad,” she said.

“And you must be Katie.”

She flinched at the unexpected use of her nickname. It was a forcible reminder that Chad knew Tully, too.

“Sit down,” Tully said. “I’ll go get a waitress.” She was on her feet and gone before Kate could stop her.

Kate looked at Chad; he eyed her back, smiling as if at some secret. “This is an interesting place,” she said to make conversation.

“It’s like a tavern without beer,” he said. “The kind of place where you can change who you are.”

“I thought change started from within.”

“Sometimes. Sometimes it’s forced upon you.”

His words caused something to darken his eyes, an emotion of some kind. She was reminded of his backstory suddenly, the bright career he’d lost. “They’d fire you – the university – if they found out about you and Tully, wouldn’t they?”

He drew his leg back, sat up straighter. “So that’s how you want to play it. Good. I like direct. Yes. I’d lose this career, too.”

“Are you some kind of risk junkie?”

“No.”

“Have you slept with your students before?”