The Tenth Circle Read online

The part of the day that Trixie was most dreading was lunch. In the cafeteria, the mass of students split like amoebas into socially polarized groups. There were the drama kids and the skateboarders and the brains. There were the Sexy Seven-a group of girls who set the school’s unwritten fashion rules, like what months you should wear shorts to school and how flip-flops were totally passé. There were the caffies, who hung out all morning drinking java with their friends until the voc-tech bus came to ferry them to classes on hair-styling and child care. And then there was the table where Trixie used to belong-the one with the popular kids, the one where Zephyr and Moss and a carefree knot of hockey players hung out pretending they didn’t know that everyone else was looking at them and saying they were so fake, when in reality those same kids went home and wished that their own group of friends could be as cool.

  Trixie bought herself french fries and chocolate milk-her comfort lunch, for when she screwed up on a test or had period cramps-and stood in the middle of the cafeteria, trying to find a place for herself. Since Jason had broken up with Trixie, she’d been sitting somewhere else, but Zephyr had always joined her in solidarity. Today, though, she could see Zephyr sitting at their old table. One sentence rose from the collective din: “She wouldn’t dare.”

  Trixie held her plastic tray like a shield. She finally moved toward the Heater Hos, congregating near the radiator. They were girls who wore white pants with spandex in them and had boyfriends who drove raised I-Rocs; girls who got pregnant at fifteen and then brought the ultrasounds to school to show off.

  One of them-a ninth-grader in what looked like her ninth month-smiled at Trixie, and the action was so unexpected, she nearly stumbled. “There’s room,” the girl said, and she slid her backpack off the table so that Trixie could sit down.

  A lot of kids at Bethel High made fun of the Heater Hos, but Trixie never had. She found them too depressing to be the butt of jokes. They seemed to be so nonchalant about throwing their lives away-not that their lives were the kind that anyone would have wanted in the first place, but still. Trixie had wondered if those belly-baring T-shirts they wore and the pride they took in their situation were just for show, a way to cover up how sad they really were about what had happened to them. After all, if you acted like you really wanted something even when you didn’t, you just might convince yourself along with everyone else.

  Trixie ought to know.

  “I asked Donna to be Elvis’s godmother,” one of the girls said.

  “Elvis?” another answered. “I thought you were going to name him Pilot.”

  “I was, but then I thought, what if he’s born afraid of heights? That would suck for him.”

  Trixie dipped a french fry into a pool of ketchup. It looked weak and watery, like blood. She wondered how many hours it had been since she’d talked out loud. If you didn’t use your voice, ever, would it eventually shrivel up and dry away? Was there a natural selection involved in not speaking up?

  “Trixie.”

  She looked up to see Zephyr sliding into the seat across from her. Trixie couldn’t contain her relief-if Zephyr had come over here, she couldn’t be mad anymore, could she? “God, I’m glad to see you,” Trixie said. She wanted to make a joke, to let Zephyr know it was okay to treat her like she wasn’t a freak, but she couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

  “I would have called,” Zephyr said, “but I’ve sort of been grounded until I’m forty.”

  Trixie nodded. It was enough, really, that Zephyr was sitting here now.

  “So…you’re okay, right?”

  “Yeah,” Trixie said. She tried to remember what her father had said that morning: If you think you’re fine, you’ll start to believe it.

  “Your hair…”

  She ran her palm over her head and smiled nervously. “Crazy, isn’t it?”

  Zephyr leaned forward, shifting uncomfortably. “Look, what you did…well, it worked. No question-you got Jason back.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You wanted payback for getting dumped, and you got it. But Trixie…it’s one thing to teach someone a lesson…and a whole different thing to get him arrested. Don’t you think you can stop now?”

  “You think…” Trixie’s scalp tightened. “You think I made this up?”

  “Trix, everyone knows you wanted to hook up with him again. It’s kind of hard to rape someone who’s willing.”

  “You’re the one who came up with the plan! You said I should make him jealous! But I never expected…I didn’t…” Trixie’s voice was as thin as a wire, vibrating. “He raped me.”

  A shadow fell across the table as Moss approached. Zephyr looked up at him and shrugged. “I tried,” she said.

  He pulled Zephyr out of her chair. “Come on.”

  Trixie stood up, too. “We’ve been friends since kindergarten. How could you believe him over me?”

  Something in Zephyr’s eyes changed, but before she could speak, Moss slid an arm around her shoulders, anchoring her to his side. So, Trixie thought. It’s like that.

  “Nice hair, G.I. Ho,” Moss said as they walked off.

  It had gotten so quiet in the cafeteria that even the lunch ladies seemed to be watching. Trixie sank down into her seat again, trying not to notice the way that everyone was staring at her. There was a one-year-old she used to babysit for who liked to play a game: He’d cover his face with his hands and you’d say, “Where’s Josh?” She wished it was that simple: Close your eyes, and you’d disappear.

  Next to her, one of the Heater Hos cracked her bubble gum. “I wish Jason Underhill would rape me,” she said.

  Daniel had made coffee for Laura.

  Even after what she had done, even after all the words that fell between them like a rain of arrows, he had still done this for her. It might not have been anything more than habit, but it brought her to the verge of tears.

  She stared at the carafe, its swollen belly steaming with French roast. It occurred to Laura that in all the years they had been married, she could literally not remember it being the other way around: Daniel had been a student of her likes and dislikes; in return, Laura had never even signed up for the proverbial course. Was it complacency that had made her restless enough to have an affair? Or was it because she hadn’t wanted to admit that even had she applied herself, she would not be as good a wife as Daniel was a husband?

  She had come into the kitchen to sit down at the table, spread out her notes, prepare for her afternoon class. Today, thank God, was a lecture, an impersonal group where she got to do all the talking, not a smaller class where she might have to face the questions of students again. In her hands was a book, open to the famous Doré illustration for Canto 29, where Virgil-Dante’s guide through hell-berated his curiosity. But now that Laura could smell the grounds, inhale that aromatic steam, she couldn’t for the life of her remember what she was going to say about this drawing to her students.

  Explaining hell took on a whole new meaning when you’d been recently living smack in the middle of it, and Laura envisioned her own face on the sketch, instead of Dante’s. She took a sip of her coffee and imagined drinking from the River Lethe, which ran back to its source, taking all your sins with it.

  There was a fine line between love and hate, you heard that cliché all the time. But no one told you that the moment you crossed it would be the one you least expected. You’d fall in love and crack open a secret door to let your soul mate in. You just never expected such closeness, one day, to feel like an intrusion.

  Laura stared down at the picture. With the exception of Dante, nobody chose to go willingly to hell. And even Dante would have lost his way if he hadn’t found a guide who’d already been through hell and come out the other side.

  Reaching up to the cabinet, Laura took out a second mug and poured another cup of coffee. In all honesty, she had no idea if Daniel took it with milk or sugar or both. She added a little of each, the way she liked to drink it.

  She hoped that was a start.

  In the latest issue of Wizard magazine, on the list of top ten comic book artists, Daniel was ranked number