Page 3 of Whatever Will Be

He’s Danny’s sidekick. Or, more likely, Danny is his. They’re a pair of sports-obsessed, obscene and careless best friends used to wading through lesser mortals and always getting their way.

In any case, I’ve known Trent for far too long to be intrigued by him. Since he’s never given a sign that he cares what I think one way or the other, this works out for everyone.

Like Danny, Trent is good at sports, indifferent to academics. Girls go wild for his Italian good looks and shitty attitude. I used to think Trent’s crappy home life was no excuse for his bad behavior but now that I have my own crappy home life I’m not so sure. His mother died three years ago and his father is increasingly senile. He has one brother, Liam, who moved in about a year ago to assume management of the family brewery. I don’t know much about Liam. He’s much older than Trent and as the son of his father’s first wife, he grew up down in the city instead of up here in Lake Stuart.

I do know Trent hates him.

Judging by the look on Liam Cassini’s face as he stands in the front yard and watches his younger brother getting shoved into a police cruiser, the feeling must be mutual. Liam isn’t exactly grinning but he’s pretty close. Until now I never took notice of how much Liam and Trent look alike. Both of them are black-haired, dark-eyed and square-jawed. But Liam has had time to pack on a lot more muscle and while Trent is bigger and stronger than a lot of guys at school, he’s still only a sixteen-year-old boy. When I look at Liam Cassini I feel like I’m gazing into Trent’s future. I doubt Trent would be pleased by this observation.

Danny is so distraught at the sight of his best friend getting hauled off in handcuffs that he jumps right out into the fray.

Jules whirls around. “Shit! Danny, stop!”

One of the cops stiffens and puffs out his broad chest before stepping up to block Danny’s path to the police car.

My brother yells to Trent again but Trent is now closed inside the backseat of the cop car and gazes straight ahead with furious defiance.

Before last summer I’ve never watched anyone get formally arrested. My father didn’t struggle at all when the cuffs were slapped on. He hunched his head down and lifted his shoulders up until he looked like a turtle trying to crawl into a shell. At least he wasn’t taken away in his underwear like Trent. After consulting with his lawyer via telephone, he dressed in a suit that had become far too tight and he waited on the front porch for the police to arrive.

I wonder what Trent has done. He is forever getting into trouble at school and anyone foolish enough to challenge him quickly understands that Trent doesn’t back down no matter how bloody and bruised everyone gets.

The truth is, Trent makes me nervous. He’s not a loudmouth like Danny but I get the feeling there are things going on in his head that I wouldn’t want to hear about.

Almost as if he can sense my critical thoughts, his face swivels in my direction. We stare at each other from behind separate panes of window glass.

The day I started screaming in math class, Trent showed up right after Mrs. Reinholtz slapped me. Somehow my purse had fallen, spilling out makeup and tampons and hair scrunchies. Trent picked everything up without thinking twice. He handed my bag to me and then yelled at the kids crowding in the doorway that they ought to back the fuck up and keep quiet if they wanted to stay healthy.

That was the only nice thing he’d ever done for me and I don’t think it matters that he almost certainly did it for Danny’s sake and not for mine.

Jules inserts herself between Danny and the cop and she says something that makes the officer relax. Though Danny is far bigger than Jules, she succeeds in dragging him away from the scene.

Trent’s eyes are still on me and he smirks, which is weird. I don’t see anything funny about what’s happening. He’s in the back of a Lake Stuart police car and I’m being taken to a mental health facility in Ithaca.

Lately I’ve learned something about people. Sometimes they laugh at weird times.

My mother laughed when she heard my father had accepted a plea deal that would mean spending twenty-five years at a state prison outside Syracuse. She only laughed for a few seconds before she tried to light a cigarette and couldn’t because her fingers shook too much to hold the lighter. She has filed for divorce already. She hasn’t gone to visit my father once and I don’t think she plans to.

Danny slams the car door once he’s back inside and I feel sorry for him. If Trent’s in enough trouble to get sent away for a while, then Danny will really be on his own and he’s not used to being on his own.

I turn around with the intention of reassuring him and then lose track of what I should say. I’d rather not lie and tell him everything will be all right when nothing is all right.

Jules climbs behind the wheel again and I wonder when she began looking much older than eighteen. Once she leaves for college I don’t know how we’ll manage. Maybe Danny never argues with her anymore because he understands the same thing I’ve come to understand.

Jules has become the glue struggling to keep the broken pieces of our lives connected.

Liam Cassini is speaking to the officers now and I can only see the shadow of Trent’s head in the rear window of the police car. Danny scowls in the backseat with his arms crossed.

Jules checks on me with a worried glance and smiles when she notices I’m already looking back at her. She drives away quickly so we don’t have to watch the aftermath of Trent’s arrest. Jules waits until we’ve turned a corner before she dips one hand into the slouchy black purse atop the armrest. She finds what she’s looking for quickly and passes it over.

“I almost forgot, Abigail sent this for you.”

Abigail Fisher’s impossibly bright smiles gleams up at me from the cover of Abigail Fisher’s Greatest Hits, all songs recorded many years before I was even born. Abigail Fisher speaks fondly of her Rosebriar years in interviews. She remembers my father as a little boy running amok through every corner of his grandfather’s resort. Every holiday season she sends us a colossal fruit and cheese basket. I suppose I ought to think of her as my benefactor since she’s footing the bill for my Ithaca stay.

I pop open the case and a square of white paper falls out, blue ink written in old fashioned spidery script.

“Whatever will be. Love, Abigail.”

I stare at the words. I try to picture Abigail thinking for a long and meaningful moment before scratching her ballpoint pen across the piece of stationary bordered with pink roses.

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