Dark Places

back, that’s what he wanted, and then Diondra was yelling his name from her bedroom.
    He turned the corner and she was standing by her glittery red answering machine, with her head cocked to the side, and she just said, “You’re fucked,” and hit the button.
    “Hey Dio, it’s Megan. I’m
to
tally freaked
out
about Ben Day, did you hear about it, that he mol
est
ed all these girls? My sister is in
sixth
grade. She’s fine, thank God, but god what a
sicko
. I guess the cops have arrested him. Anyway, call me.”
    And then a click and a whir and another girl’s voice deep and nasal: “Hey Diondra, it’s Jenny. I
told you
Ben Day was a Devil-dude, did you hear about this shit? I guess he’s, like, on the
run
from the cops. I guess there’s going to be some big conference about it at school tomorrow. I don’t know, I wanted to see if you want to go.”
    Diondra was standing over the machine like she wanted to crush it, like it was an animal she could do something to. She turned to Ben and screamed, “What the fuck?” turning pink and spitty and Ben immediately said the wrong thing: “I better go home.”
    “You better go home? What the fuck is this Ben, what is going on?”
    “I don’t know, that’s why I should go home.”
    “No no no no no, momma’s boy. You fucking
worthless
fucking
momma’s
boy. What, you going to go
home,
wait for the police and leave me here while you go to jail? Leave me just sitting here waiting for my fucking
dad
to get home? With your fucking
baby
I can’t get rid of?”
    “What do you want me to do, Diondra?” Home. That’s what he kept thinking.
    “We’re leaving town tonight. I have about $200 cash left over from my parents. How much can you get at your place?” When Ben didn’t say right away, his brain on Krissi Cates and whether the kiss was something to be arrested for and how much was true and whether the cops were really after him, Diondra walked over to him and slapped his face, hard. “How much do you have at your place?”
    “I don’t know. I have some money I’ve been saving, and my mom usually has a hundred bucks, two hundred, hidden around. But I don’t know where.”
    Diondra swayed, closed one eye and looked at her alarm clock. “Does your mom stay up late, would she be awake?”
    “If the police are there, yeah.” If they weren’t, she was asleep, even if she was scared out of her mind. It was the big joke in the family that his mom had never celebrated New Year’s Eve, she was always asleep before midnight.
    “We’ll go there, and if we don’t see a cop car, we’ll go in. You can get money, pack some clothes, and then we’ll get the fuck out of here.”
    “And then what?”
    Diondra crossed over to him, petted him where his cheek still stung. Her eye makeup was halfway down her cheek, but he still felt a surge of, what, love? Power? Something. A surge, a feeling, something good.
    “Ben baby, I am the mother of your child, right?” He nodded, just a bit. “OK, so get me out of town. Get us all out of town. I can’t do this without you. We need to go. Head west. We can camp out somewhere, sleep in the car, whatever. Otherwise you’re in jail, and I’m dead from my daddy. He’d make me have the baby and then kill me. And you don’t want our kid to be an orphan, right? Not when we can help it? So let’s go.”
    “I didn’t do what they said, with those girls, I didn’t,” Ben finally whispered, Diondra leaning on his shoulder, wisps of her hair curling up, vining into his mouth.
    “Who cares if you did?” she said into his chest.

Libby Day
NOW
    L yle was bouncing in his seat. “Libby, did you notice? Holy crud, did you notice?”
    “What?”
    “Diondra’s porn name, the one she used all the time, did you notice?”
    “Polly Palm, what?”
    Lyle was grinning, his long teeth glowing brighter than the rest of him in the dark car.
    “Libby, what was the name your brother had tattooed on his arm? Remember the names we went through? Molly, Sally, and the one I said sounded like a dog’s name?”
    “Oh God.”
    “Polly, right?”
    “Oh God,” I said again.
    “I mean, that’s not a coincidence, right?”
    Of course it wasn’t. Everyone who keeps a secret itches to tell it. This was Ben’s way of telling. His homage to his secret girlfriend. But he couldn’t use her real name on the tattoo, Miss DisappearingDiondra. So he used the name she used when she was playing. I pictured him running his fingers over the