The Secret Year by Jennifer R. Hubbard Page B

rasping of the tires on the plowed roads.
    “Thanks, Colt,” she said as she got out of the car.
    “Anytime.” I was sort of wishing it had been a longer drive. Kirby was the first person I’d been with in a while who made me feel relaxed.

chapter 12
     
    Dear C.M.,
    I couldn’t see you last Friday because Pam needed to talk to me. She’s my best friend, so I knew you would understand.
    Pam’s always telling me I should break up with Austin. She thinks he doesn’t treat me very well, and I guess sometimes he doesn’t. I don’t mean he hits me or anything. But he takes me for granted. He’s not too interested in what’s going on in my head. He likes me to be around, to listen to him, to dance with him. Sometimes Pam and I joke that we could make a Julia doll and send it on dates with him. Austin would never know the difference.
     
    Yeah, right. There were pages of entries like this in Julia’s notebook. And still she’d stayed with Austin.
     
    Tom came home for Christmas, but Dad still wasn’t speaking to him. Once or twice Dad sort of grunted at him, which Tom said was the first crack in the dam. My brother always was an optimist. Mom was better than Dad—she mostly treated Tom normally—but she sometimes got this uncomfortable look on her face, as if my brother had grown a long scaly tail or a second head and she was trying not to stare at it. I dealt with the whole thing by working almost every day over the break.
    One night Kirby came into Barney’s with Pam Henderson. I hadn’t seen Pam in months. She’d been away at boarding school, but I guessed she was home for vacation. It took me a minute to recognize her. She’d gotten thin and quiet, and her hair hung down in dull strings. Before, she’d been one of those sickeningly perky girls who never shut up. She and Julia were always giggling over their own private jokes. And now she was the first person I’d seen who showed Julia’s death on her face.
    Kirby smiled and said, “Which section is yours, Colt?”
    “This side of the room. I’m busing, though—I’m not a waiter.”
    “That’s okay. Pam, why don’t you get that table for us?” To me Kirby murmured, “She doesn’t want to see any of the Black Mountain kids, so I thought I’d bring her here.”
    “Yeah, they don’t usually pollute themselves by crossing Barney’s threshold, that’s for sure,” I said.
    “I’m sorry, Colt, I didn’t mean it that way.”
    “Forget it.”
    They ordered coffee and pie. It was about ten thirty and pretty slow, so the manager gave me a break. Kirby asked me to sit down with them.
    Pam ate her pie without looking at me. I couldn’t stop staring at her, though. She’d been the last person to see Julia alive. She knew what had happened that night. “How are you doing, Pam?” I asked.
    “Okay,” she said, still focused on her plate.
    “How do you like your new school?” God, I sounded like a long-lost uncle at her family reunion. But I didn’t know what else to say, how to start.
    “It’s okay.”
    I wished she would at least look at me. Maybe I could read something in her eyes. The weird thing about seeing Pam after so long was that it made me feel like Julia could come back, too, as if Pam were a gateway to Julia. Time folded back to the night of the accident. I heard the rain hit my bedroom windows again, remembered Syd’s call. That night I’d still had clothes in my room that smelled of Julia. I’d kept them out of the wash for a few weeks, but her scent had faded anyway.
    “Do you still see Austin and those guys?” I asked now, just for something to say.
    “No.” Pam stabbed a gooey chunk of apple, stuck it into her mouth, and chewed.
    Obviously she wasn’t going to volunteer anything. Why should she? I had to push a little. “I guess you miss Julia.”
    “Yes.”
    Kirby gave me a warning look. I knew I should shut up, but somehow I couldn’t. I had to know what had happened. Every detail.
    “Why did she get drunk