The Newcomer

Two

Mac and Gina might be enjoying new love, but that didn’t keep them from spending plenty of time talking about their families. While Gina only had one child, sixteen-year-old Ashley, Mac had three kids. His oldest, Eve, also sixteen, his son, Ryan, was twelve and another daughter, Dee Dee, was ten. Recently, their sixteen-year-old daughters seemed to take up most of their conversations about kids—Eve was a little too in love with Landon, sometimes worrying Mac, and while Ash had had a steady boyfriend for the past year, she had seemed a little out of sorts lately. Ashley was sulky and down in the dumps.

“Things haven’t been what you’d call hearts and flowers between Ashley and Downy lately,” Gina said, wiping down the counter. “All Ashley will say about it is that Downy seems to be too busy to take her calls or return them, something that hasn’t happened before now.”

“And I’ve got nothing but hearts and flowers between Eve and Landon,” Mac said. “Doesn’t help me sleep at night, either.”

Since teenage girls can fluctuate between true love and moodiness with regularity, Gina didn’t worry overmuch about Ashley’s sulk.

* * *

After work, Gina walked home to find a message from the high school on her answering machine. The school had resorted to leaving recorded messages that informed parents if their child had been absent. Ashley had missed her last two classes. Since she’d borrowed Gina’s Jeep for cheerleading practice after school, Gina wondered what was going on. She immediately called her daughter, but Ashley didn’t answer her cell phone. Gina then called Eve, who answered right away. “She skipped practice,” Eve said. “I don’t know why—she didn’t say anything to me.”

“Do you have any idea where she could be? She’s not answering her phone.”

“I have no idea,” Eve said. “If she calls or shows up, I’ll be sure she calls you.”

Gina’s mom, Carrie, had just returned home herself, and hearing Gina’s story she said, “You know how these girls can get distracted. You left her a message, right?”

Of course she had. And Gina was not typically a worrier, but Ashley had been in a real funk for the past week, complaining that Downy was acting weird, as if he couldn’t be bothered with her. After a year-long, intense romance, one in which the phone calls and texting seemed annoyingly constant, even Gina wondered what was up. But Downy was a college freshman now and baseball was in full swing. He was attending Oregon State on an athletic scholarship; he was a baseball star. Maybe he just had a lot going on.

A couple of hours later, just as the sun was going down, Gina called Downy’s cell phone. He didn’t answer, either, and she left yet another message. “Downy, it’s Gina. I don’t know where Ashley is and I’m really worried. Have you heard from her? Call me please.”

A half hour later Carrie said, “You’re pacing, Gina. Call Mac. Maybe he’ll have some advice.”

Gina sat at the kitchen table and punched in his numbers. “Mac, I have a problem. As far as I know, no one has seen or heard from Ashley since about one o’clock this afternoon. She skipped her last two classes, didn’t go to cheer practice, isn’t taking or returning calls. Eve hasn’t seen or heard from her and Downy isn’t picking up.” She felt her voice go all warbly. “I’m worried. I don’t know what to do. I’d go look for her, but I don’t know where to look. Could Downy be playing ball? Maybe that’s why he isn’t picking up?”

“Stand by, let me check,” Mac said. A moment later he said, “No game today. The next game is in three days and it’s a home game.”

“My God, where could she be?”

“Leave another message for Downy. Maybe call some of her other girlfriends?” Mac suggested.

“Okay, I’ll see what I can find out.” Gina disconnected and placed another call to Downy. This time she used her mother voice. “Crawford Downy, I can’t find my daughter. If I don’t hear from you in five minutes, I’m going to call the police.” Then she clicked off.

“You did call the police,” her mother said, placing a glass of wine in front of Gina. “Calm down. What are you so afraid of?”

She looked at Carrie imploringly. “That she’s in some kind of trouble. That she’s missing. That she ran off with Downy or something...I don’t know. This really isn’t like...” Her phone twittered. “Downy,” she said to her mother. She picked up the call immediately. “Where’s Ashley!” she demanded.

“Easy, Gina,” Downy said smoothly. He’d grown up in Thunder Point, just like Ashley had. He’d known Gina and her mother since he was a little kid. “She’s on her way home. She’s fine.”

“On her way home from where?” she demanded.

“She came here, to State, to Corvallis.” He took a breath. “She wanted to talk about our...ah...situation. I was going to talk to her in person after our weekend game—I was coming home mostly to talk to Ash. But she couldn’t wait and drove up here.”

Gina sank weakly onto a kitchen chair.

“She’ll be home in a couple of hours or less,” he said.

“She drove all the way to Corvallis to ask you why you don’t pick up or return her calls and you say she’s fine? Downy, what the hell is going on?”

“Can you just ask Ash about that, okay? Because it’s—”

“Is my daughter pregnant?”

She felt rather than saw her mother sit straighter, even more alert. Gina had been an unmarried teenage mother.

“No! God, no!” Downy nearly yelled into the phone. “Listen, really, if you’d just talk to Ashley about this when she gets home...”

“Tell me right this second, Crawford Downy! My daughter has been upset about your relationship and she lied to me to take my car, drove three hours to Corvallis to talk to you and she’s just now on her way home? Tell me right now or I’ll call your mother!”

The young man took a deep breath. “I don’t want to tell you this, Gina. It’s really between us, but...I felt like we might be getting too serious. I thought we should take a breather, maybe date around a little, you know.”

Gina felt her stomach tie itself in a tight knot. Oh, God, her poor girl. No one could know better than Gina how something like that felt.

“Let me guess, there’s someone at State you’ve started dating a little?” she asked acidly.

“Come on, hey. I’m all the way up here, only see Ash a couple of weekends a month at the most. It got kind of old, sitting around my room alone twenty-six days of the month. She should be getting out more, too. It’s not that big a deal. We just need to lighten up a little, y’know?”

“Why didn’t you tell her this before she drove all the way to Corvallis to find out what’s going on?”

“I didn’t want to say it over the phone! I wanted to be decent about it!”

And he hung up on her.

It was just as well. She was going to have to kill him, anyway. Downy was eighteen. His behavior was hardly odd for a boy his age. Still...

Gina looked at her mother. “I would not have let her drive all the way to Corvallis alone. Driving home alone. At night.”

“I know. But she’ll be okay,” Carrie said. “She’s a bright girl. There’s no rain tonight. She knows the way as well as you do.”

“God, I hope she’s okay,” Gina said.

There was a knock at the door. “Mac!”

Carrie got up from the table and let him in. “Hey, Mac,” she said.

“Hey, Carrie. What do we know?”

Carrie just inclined her head toward Gina.

“She drove to Corvallis to talk to Downy, who, I gather, dumped her and sent her back home.”

Mac lowered his gaze and shook his head.

“She’ll be home in a couple of hours,” Gina said. “But what if she’s so upset she’s not safe and something happens?”

Mac walked into the kitchen, slipped a strong arm around Gina’s waist and pulled her against him just briefly. He put a finger under her chin and looked into her eyes. “Never a good idea to drive when upset, but try to be realistic—if teenagers who just had a breakup had accidents, the accident rate would be too shocking to imagine. The road is good, the weather is good, she’ll get here. And she’ll need some comforting, I imagine.” He lifted one of her hands, which was trembling. “I think the wine is a good idea. Just calm down and be ready to be wise and understanding.”

“What if I have to go get her or something?”

“I’ll do it. Or Carrie will. Gina, honey, stuff like this happens. It’s not deadly.”

“It sure feels that way,” she said in a small voice.

* * *

Gina and her mom sat at the kitchen table together talking quietly, waiting for Ashley to arrive, while Gina sipped on a glass of wine. They were two women who knew how deeply a girl of sixteen would feel the trauma of a breakup. Leaving the two of them to talk, Mac stepped away, into the living room, where he used his phone.

When Ashley started dating Downy, Gina was brutally honest with her about the possible consequences of too much love too fast. She tried to discourage the dating, but there was little she could do—they saw each other at school every day and it was a match made in heaven. Gina had worried about what would happen when Downy moved on to college, leaving Ashley—who was two years younger—behind. But they had managed to make it work. Downy was back in Thunder Point most weekends, especially during football season and for holidays, and they talked and texted every day, many times a day.

And then, in the peak of spring, with love all around, suddenly and without warning, Ashley said, “Something is wrong. Downy sends me right to voice mail and he doesn’t call me back. Mom, something is wrong.”

Gina had said, “He’s probably overwhelmed. He’s got baseball and, academically, he sometimes struggles. Try to be patient.” Downy was a jock, but not a strong student, which presented problems for some college athletes.

“It never happened like this before,” Ashley wailed. “He’s said about ten words to me in a week. He’s busy, he says. He’s studying, he says. He doesn’t call me back because he doesn’t have time. He doesn’t answer my texts. He always texted more than me—right during class. I think he might be with someone new.”

“Did you ask him?”

“Of course! He said no! But he’s lying. I can tell he’s lying. And he’s never lied to me before!”

“Ash, he’s only eighteen. You’re only sixteen. Let’s try not to go crazy here. Maybe this is a little adjustment of some—”

“He said he loved me! What am I going to do?”

The poor darling, Gina thought. Shattered and helpless. She took another sip of wine. Glancing at her glass she said to her mom, “Good suggestion.”

“It’s always more dramatic when it’s your daughter. It cuts deeper,” Carrie said.

“I don’t want her to ever hurt.” Gina whispered.

“I know,” Carrie said. “Believe me, I know.”

Gina hadn’t taken Ashley’s pout over Downy too seriously. After all, he was the scholarship kid with the atomic arm, gone to State to play ball and it was spring—baseball was the game of the day and Downy, a freshman, was starting pitcher. He was busy with practices and games, maybe too busy now to text and call Ashley all day. But Gina’s attention was definitely snagged by Ashley’s flight to Corvallis and Downy’s explanation that, stated simply, he was done with her. There was not a woman on the planet who didn’t know how much getting dumped could hurt. And as for mothers? It hurt more when your little girl suffered than when you suffered yourself.

Mac came into the kitchen, poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down with Gina and Carrie. “I called my aunt Lou and told her what was going on and that I’d be staying with you until we knew a little more. Lou will manage the family while I’m here. And I talked to Eve. She knew Ashley was all sideways about Downy and she was worried about her, but she didn’t know she’d driven to Corvallis. I find that strange—they usually know everything the other is doing. Eve thought Ashley just skipped out on practice. So I’ll stay with you until she’s home.”

“You need to get home to your own family, Mac,” Gina said, but inside she thought if he left her now, she’d collapse. “It’s just a broken heart.”

“There’s no such thing as just a broken heart,” he said.

And he should know, Gina thought. His young wife left him with three little kids when he was twenty-six years old and even though Gina hadn’t known him then, she knew him now and knew he hadn’t been with a woman in the ten years since. Until Gina. They were two single parents who had waited a long time to find each other.

Mac muttered something about how, given a choice, he would never want to go back to those youthful days—those young years are so serious and painful. Gina said even more painful was when your kids hurt.

“I’ll never forget when Ash wasn’t invited to the very first boy-girl party ever because the mother of the little girl throwing the party didn’t approve of me, a never-married single mother. Ash didn’t understand that, but she was devastated by being excluded and I had at least six months of guilt and pain.”

“When Eve was six,” Mac said, “after Cee Jay left us, she didn’t want to go to school. She was afraid her mother might come home during the day and Eve didn’t want to miss her.”

“When I was a young mother,” Gina said, “there were very few other young mothers with small children who were friendly toward me. Certainly none who were sixteen...”

“Small towns are brutal,” Mac said. “The best thing about Thunder Point was leaving Coquille, where I made all my mistakes. Of course, they followed me—my kids were soon known as the kids of the deputy and the woman who abandoned them.”

“Is there any way to keep them from paying for our mistakes?”

“Yeah. They’ll eventually make enough of their own to take the heat off. Meanwhile, we just have to stay strong and know we are doing the best we can.”

Carrie got up from the table and started rummaging around in the refrigerator. Being the owner of a deli and catering service, she always had special meals on hand. She did a little slicing and scooping, microwaved a couple of plates—tri-tip, red potatoes, Broccolini spears, a little dark au jus. She made a large helping for Mac, smaller ones for Gina and herself and the three of them ate, though not with big appetites. Everyone at the small kitchen table had personal experience with this kind of heartache. Then Carrie cleaned up and put a pan of her healing chicken soup on the stove. “She might not want anything to eat, but if she does at least it’ll be something soothing,” Carrie said.

It was eight-thirty when they heard the car. Everyone stood expectantly, fearful of what they would see walking in the door. And then Ashley came into the kitchen through the back door.

She was messy; there was evidence of crying in her puffy eyes and pink cheeks. Her beautiful red hair was flat and slack and her clothes wrinkled, but otherwise she looked normal. Except for the expression on her face, which was one of pure agony.

“I had to do it, I had to go to State,” she said. “I sent him two hundred texts and voice mails that he ignored, so I went to face him. I’m sorry I lied and took your Jeep. I promise, I’ll never do it again.”

Carrie took a step toward her. “I made you some soup, honey.”

“Thanks, Gram, but I don’t want any....”

“I’ll be going. Now that you’re home safe,” Mac said.

“You don’t have to go, Mac,” Ashley said. “I’m going to bed.”

“We need to talk, Ashley,” Gina said.

“There’s nothing to say,” she said, walking through the house toward her room, her head down, dragging her backpack behind her.

“Ashley,” Gina said, following her. “Ash, I really want to talk to you. Please.”

She turned sharply to face Gina. “He doesn’t want me anymore,” she said coldly, tears gathering in her eyes. “I gave him everything he wanted and now he’s done with me. The guy I saw today? I don’t even know that guy. That was not my Downy.” Then she went into her room and closed the door.

Gina turned back to face Mac and her mother. “Oh, God,” she said. And then the only thing she could think of. “Thank God there were no cell phones when my heart was being ripped out.”

* * *

Ashley laid down on her bed in her clothes. In fact, she laid there for a while before sitting up and throwing off her jacket.

She was probably about six years old when she first noticed Crawford Downy Junior. Everyone had always called him Downy; only his mother called him Crawford. Ashley went to school with his younger brother Frank. There was a third brother two years younger than Frank—Lee.

That was back when Ashley’s mother or grandmother wrestled her naturally curly red hair into braids in the morning. Downy called her twerp or carrot top or pesky pants. She alternately crushed on him or thought he was a giant turd. She liked him when he said things like, “Good catch, CT,” instead of carrot top. She hated him when he said, “Stand back, she’s going to let down her hair!” and put out his arms as if her curly mane would be bigger than the Goodyear Blimp. Right up to junior high she had those ridiculous red ringlets and thick glasses. Frank had thick glasses, too, so Downy never teased her about the glasses. Then when she’d barely figured out how to control her wild hair, she had braces. “When you getting the tin out of your mouth, CT?” he’d ask her.

Ashley and Eve McCain met in seventh grade and spent the next two years studying teen magazines for trending clothes, makeup and hairstyles. Eve was always naturally beautiful with thick dark hair, bright blue eyes, but she also had braces. It was one of the first things that had bonded them. That and the fact that they had single parents and neither had much money to spend on clothes—so they improvised and shared.

Sometime in ninth grade, Ashley made peace with her hair. She discovered the magic of detangler, the circular brush, a blow dryer. Her thick crazy hair became soft waves. Some of the orange of her youth was replaced by a darker, copper-red. The braces came off, she got contacts and she made the junior varsity cheerleading squad. And one day in the spring of her sophomore year, when she was wearing her short, pleated cheerleader skirt, Downy said, “Hey, Ashley.” He actually used her name!

And she said, “Hey, Downy.”

He was a senior then and the toast of Thunder Point athletics. He played football, hockey and baseball. Frank was more academic and Lee was still too young to be taken seriously.

And Downy said to her, “We should go out sometime.”

“Out?” she asked.

He laughed and said, “You know. On a date.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?” he repeated. “Is that a yes or a no?”

She nearly died. But before she died she said yes. But she was fifteen and Gina would only let her go if they double-dated. He took her to a movie in Bandon along with two other couples. But the other couples went in one car and she was alone with Downy so all the way there they talked and laughed. After the movie they went to a pizza place. She was the only sophomore—the rest of them were all seniors. After pizza they went to a pretty secluded outlook facing the ocean and made out. Downy kept trying to get under her shirt and she kept slapping his hand away. At some point he said, “I knew I shouldn’t be messing with a fifteen-year-old. You’re just too young.”

She said, “Fine. We won’t go out again. But don’t think you’re all that and I’m going to just give it up because you’re good at sports and kinda cute.”

He grinned and said, “You think I’m cute?”

“Not that cute,” she said.

But he walked her to every class, held her hand, leaned into her at her locker to kiss her, asked her repeatedly if she’d be at his game. They talked on the phone every night when they weren’t together, texted all day until Downy had his phone confiscated by a teacher for two weeks. Then, at assembly, his full ride scholarship to State was announced. At the end of summer, he’d be gone to football camp and then to school, three hours away. “I suppose you’ll just break up with me now,” she said.

With a look of serious misery he said, “I’m trying to figure out how to take you with me. I think I love you.”

So she let him touch her breasts. And said, “I think I love you, too.”

Before summer was very old, Ashley was on the pill. Surprisingly, college had not seemed to be the barrier Ashley had feared. They talked and texted constantly, Downy came home to Thunder Point as often as possible if he didn’t have a football game or practice and since he was a freshman, he wasn’t first string, so he had a little freedom, though he practiced hard all week. “And by the time I’m playing a lot, you’ll be at State and we’ll be together,” he told her.

And then in one week in March, almost exactly a year since they started dating, it all fell apart without warning. The calls dwindled to nothing; the texts weren’t answered. He didn’t come home on the weekend and knowing—knowing—something was terribly wrong, she drove to Corvallis. She went to his frat house. He was sitting on the porch with a girl, his arm around her shoulders, leaning close to her like he was finished kissing her or just about to start.

“Downy!” she shouted.

“Ash!” he shouted back, backing off the girl like she was on fire.

“Who is that?” the girl with him asked.

He stumbled and blubbered for a moment before he said, “The girl I dated back home.”

“Well, take care of the child and call me later,” she said, getting up and walking away. Gliding away, full of confidence, not the least bit intimidated by Ashley.

To Ashley, the girl looked like a sophisticated runway model, full of poise and beauty and maturity, all the things she didn’t feel she had.

The next two hours were a blur. He wouldn’t talk to her at his frat house within hearing of his fraternity brothers. They went to Gina’s Jeep, sat in it and Ashley sobbed and fought and yelled while Downy just shrugged and shook his head. He said he worried they’d been getting too serious, needed a little space, a little freedom, a little dating experience. “Have you slept with her?” Ashley demanded. “Are you doing her, Downy?”

“It’s different in college, Ash. People don’t make such a big deal about sex in college.”

So of course he had.

He finally insisted she go home. She wasn’t done with him but he was clearly done with her. “I care about you, Ash,” he said. “But we need to cool things down a little right now. I can’t get home every weekend during baseball—I’m playing every game. It’s not like football where I’m the junior player and mostly warm the bench. I’m starting. In fact, the baseball coach will probably make me quit football—we can’t start the season with injuries. We should use this time to...you know...branch out. Date around, maybe.”

“And summer? What about summer?” she asked. “You just plan to get back together again in summer?”

“I don’t know. I’m thinking about staying up here. Taking some classes, getting a job...I’ll play ball all summer if we make finals and it’s too far to commute. Then football camp is in August. If I’m still playing football then.”

She sobbed so hard all the way back to Thunder Point she could hardly breathe. She had to pull over once because her chest started hurting. She knew her mother was going to be furious that she’d taken the Jeep but she didn’t care. There were moments on the drive home that she wondered if life wouldn’t be easier if she just went off the road at one of the high-cliff curves, but something kept her going.

When she was alone in her room, she called Eve’s cell phone. She could barely tell her story, the sobs came so hard. And Eve was outraged. “Want me to call him, Ash? Give him a piece of my mind?”

“It won’t matter—it wouldn’t help. He dumped me for a college girl. And she’s beautiful, Eve. She owns him. You could tell in one second!”

“He’s slime. He’s scum. I will never forgive him for this!”

“But...what do I do without him?” Ashley had cried.

After they hung up, Ashley just cried for another hour. There was a light knocking on her door and she knew it was her mother. She didn’t answer or say “come in.” She laid there, her head on her pillow, leaking tears, gripping her cell phone in case Downy called her to say he’d made a terrible mistake.

Gina came into the room and sat on the edge of the bed. “I brought you some tea,” she said, her hand on Ashley’s back.

“No, thank you,” Ashley said thickly.

“Ash, I’m sorry this happened.”

“Really, I can’t talk about it anymore.”

“Just a little, please? So I can understand where you are right now? Emotionally.”

Ash rolled onto her back, her wet eyes red and swollen. “He has another girl. A beautiful, snotty college girl who he’s screwing because he says it’s not that big a deal. And right now I just don’t want to even live.”

“Ashley, please, don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.”

“I’m not going to school tomorrow. Maybe not the next day, either. Maybe never.”