The sour cherry surprise

Right away, Des had a pretty good idea what had been going on. She just hadn’t known it was going on in Dorset.

The lipstick Jen Beckwith had on was hot pink. She wore no other makeup. Jen was a slim girl with blue eyes and long, shiny blond hair. She was almost but not quite pretty. Her forehead was a bit high, chin too pointy. And her mouth was drawn terribly tight. Hers was not the face of a girl who smiled easily. Jen wore a cropped, sleeveless belly shirt, a pair of thigh-high shorts and flipflops. She took care of her body. There wasn’t an ounce of extra flab on her toned, muscular arms or shapely golden legs. Her right knee jiggled nervously as she sat there on the sofa. Her hair and clothing appeared totally neat. No scratches. No signs of a struggle.

Des took off her big hat and sat in the armchair across the coffee table from Jen. Outside, the Jewett girls backed out of the driveway and steamed up the lane for home. “Hey, Jen, I’m Resident Trooper Mitry.”

“I know who you are.” Her voice was small.

“I won’t ask you who else was here tonight because I know you won’t tell me and it would just be embarrassing for both of us. But do you want to tell me what happened?”

“I had some friends over,” Jen replied, her eyes fastened on the carpet. “We had some beers and stuff. Nothing major. But then my heart started beating really fast and I remembered I’m not supposed to drink because of these pills I’m taking so I-”

“Going to stick with that story, are you?”

“It’s not a story,” Jen insisted, raising her sharp chin at her.

“Okay, fine. But tell me something-was this your first?”

“My first what?”

“Rainbow Party.”

Jen reddened. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Girl, do you honestly think I don’t know what was going on here? These things started in the inner city at least eighteen months ago.”

“Look, I don’t want to talk to about it, okay?”

“Then do you want to wipe that dumb-ass lipstick off your mouth? You look like you just chugalugged a whole bottle of Pepto-Bismol.”

Jen heaved a suffering sigh, then reluctantly got up and fetched a tissue from the kitchen.

“Okay, here’s what I’m guessing happened,” Des said as the girl sat back down, wiping her mouth clean. “Tonight was your very first one. Maybe you weren’t even totally up for it. It was more like something of a dare. And when things started moving right along, well, you realized you really weren’t happy.”

“I didn’t punk out,” Jen objected heatedly.

“Didn’t say you did. I’m saying you showed a healthy dose of respect for yourself. Trouble was, you couldn’t exactly take off because this is your own house-so you dialed nine-one-one and pulled the plug. Smart move, Jen. Give yourself a high five. Only, now here comes the bad news: I have to contact your mother. And take you to Shoreline Clinic for a blood sample to determine your drug and alcohol level.”

“But I didn’t do anything!”

“Your call was logged, Jen. I have to follow the rules. If I don’t, I lose my job.”

“My mom’s on Block Island. I’m not even sure of the phone number.”

“Then I have to call your grandmother.”

The girl’s eyes widened. “You mean right now?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Have you ever met my grandmother?”

“No, I’ve never had that pleasure.”

“Oh, this is going to be just great…”

“Do you have to tell her everything?”

“She already knows about the drinking,” Des pointed out as she steered her cruiser back toward Dorset. It had been quiet at the clinic tonight. They’d whisked Jen in and out. Now the two of them were headed for her grandmother’s house.

Patricia Beckwith was waiting up for them. When Des had phoned her the old lady hadn’t tried to talk her out of the blood test. Or demanded to accompany them, as was her legal right. She’d simply intoned: “Our society’s laws apply to everyone. Do what you must. My porch light will be on.”

“And I’m afraid I do have to tell her what else you were up to,” Des added.

“But that is everything,” Jen pointed out.

“Then I guess I have to tell her everything,” acknowledged Des, who was not entirely happy about it. Because if she landed too hard on a kid like Jen then Jen would never reach out to her if something truly awful was going down. Kids got high. Kids got busy. It wasn’t Des’s business to tell their parents how to raise them. But it was her business to make sure nobody got stupid. Some of those kids who Marge Jewett had seen hightailing it from Jen’s may have been over the legal limit. And that was the very definition of stupid. She glanced over at Jen, who’d thrown on a Dorset High hoody and was hugging a book bag in her lap, looking all of thirteen. “How about you? Do you have someone who you can talk to about this?”

Jen let out a hollow laugh. “I have my shrink. She’s the one who put me on Zoloft.”

“What happens when you’re not on it?”

“Why do you care?”

“Just asking.”

“I obsess, okay?”

“About…?”

“My flaws. Like if I screw up a single answer on a test. Or miss one free throw in a game. Trust me, I can turn myself into a real nut job.”