by Lucy Connors
“I hear you had a busy weekend,” she said, giving me a look that was somewhere between curious and pissed off.
“Trust me, you don’t even want to know.”
“Actually, I do. The next time you use me for a cover story, at least do me the courtesy of telling me,” she fired off. “I had the unique experience of hearing that the matriarch of the Whitfield family was at my front door, demanding I tell her where to find her granddaughter.”
I stopped fumbling with my locker and turned to her. “Oh, no. Denise, I’m so sorry. You said you were going out of town, or I would have told you—would have asked you—and I never gave them your last name, and—”
“Do you really think anybody in this town would have had a hard time figuring out who the Denise in your classes was?” She gave me a look. “Just because you’re blond doesn’t mean you’re stupid.”
I banged my head against the locker. “Yeah. I kind of am. And I need a friend. A real friend. Can you forgive me, and we can go somewhere to talk?”
She stared at me for a long, silent beat before the look in her eyes softened. “Oh, come on, then. It’s not like I’ve never screwed up.”
We bailed on school—I was turning into a truant officer’s nightmare—and went to Dairy Queen. The twenty-something behind the counter gave us our Blizzards and burger combos, nodded to a table around the edge of the counter, out of sight of the front door, and waved off our thanks.
“Emergency carbs have no calories, right?” Denise stared down at her red plastic tray.
“You think I’m going to eat salad after a weekend like I’ve had?” I poured extra salt on my fries.
“I hope Pete and your brother are okay,” she said, reinforcing my belief that everybody knew everything in small towns.
“Buddy is doing great. And the doctors tell us Pete is doing well in recovery. Thanks,” I said.
I sat there at the Formica-topped table, surrounded by mint-green walls and posters of ice-cream sundaes, and told Denise everything. Well, almost everything. I left big chunks of it out, actually—anything too private between Mickey and me, and anything that sounded like an accusation of criminal conduct. Oh, and the part about Anna Mae and my dad.
Okay, actually, I didn’t tell her a whole lot.
Enough to blow her mind, though.
“How is it you even want to be my friend?” I took a sip of my soda and stared down at the sandwich and fries I felt too nauseous to eat. “Why aren’t you hanging around with the other cheerleaders in a flock or something?”
“It’s a pom pom,” she said, grinning. “A flock of geese, a murder of crows, a pom pom of cheerleaders.”
“A touchdown of football players?”
She considered that. “No, more like a jockstrap, I think. A jockstrap of football players.”
I laughed out loud for the first time in days. “I like that. Denise, I’m really sorry. You’re really the only person who has tried to get to know me and, like a jerk, I used your friendship. Please forgive me. I just . . . I’m just caught up in something that’s way over my head.”
Instead of instantly accepting my apology, Denise stared at me over her Blizzard for a long minute. Finally, she nodded. “Accepted. But don’t ever do that again.”
“I promise,” I said miserably, feeling about two inches tall. Then she smiled—a warm smile—and I felt better.
“And to answer your question, I never quite fit in here, either,” she admitted. “I’m too smart for the jocks, too dumb for the brains, not nerdy enough for the geeks, etc. etc. They all kind of tolerate me, but I’m not swimming in BFFs, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh, yeah. I understand completely.” I’d blown just enough curves on exams with my grades; I’d dressed up okay but never been ruled by clothes and makeup. Simone, who’d been the indie-rock goddess of Ashford-Hutchinson, had always told me I’d figure out who I wanted to be one day.
Somehow, this didn’t feel like what she’d had in mind.
“Speaking of jockstraps, Sam didn’t mean it,” Denise said, her face troubled. “He’s really a good guy, but he was worried sick. His mom lost her job last year, and they’ve been having hard times as it is, so now with his dad . . .”
My soda turned to acid in my stomach.
“I know,” I said. “I’m so sorry. I did hear one piece of good news about that, at least. A friend of my grandmother said she’s in a big hiring push on her ranch because a bunch of her staff retired and a couple quit to have babies—a lot of things like that all happened at once. And it’s just the next county over. If I give you the information, can you find a way to get it to Sam and anybody else you know who needs it?”
“That’s pretty nice of you, considering what he did,” she said, and her gaze lingered on the side of my face, where there was still a little bruising and swelling.
I shrugged, uncomfortable with the attention. “He didn’t mean to hit me, and the rest was just talk. Gran and her staff are calling everybody with the information, but some people aren’t picking up their phones when they see the call is coming from us.”
“Are you okay?”
I didn’t know how to answer that, so I evaded the question. “Well, Buddy is doing well, charming all the nurses, and—”
She put a hand on my arm. “I don’t mean Buddy. He’ll be fine. Little boys are resilient. Are you okay?”
I very carefully put my cup down on the table and looked up at her. I couldn’t hide the misery that was threatening to crack me open any longer.
“Mickey Rhodale told me he’s falling in love with me, and I think I’m falling in love with him, too.”
“Holy shit,” she whispered.
“But we don’t have a chance at a relationship, because there’s something so dark inside him that I don’t know if he can ever control.”
“Holy shit,” she whispered again.
I couldn’t have agreed with her more.
We devoured our Blizzards and fries, ignored the burgers, and talked. She told me about cheerleading, and I told her about boarding school. She told me about the miniature golf course her family owned, and I told her about racehorses.
“I never got the appeal,” she said, almost apologetically, as she reached over to snag my last fry. “I mean, all that money and all that training for the Kentucky Derby, and it lasts, what, two minutes? Why don’t they at least run a long race, like the Indy 500 or something, so you guys can get your money’s worth?”
I blinked at the idea of a horse running five hundred miles and tried to frame a reply, but then I realized she was joking.
“Ha! Got you!”
I laughed and realized I’d been doing that a lot with her while we ate and chatted. The entire interlude had been like a shiny bubble of escape from the misery and drama of my life.
“You could come out and ride with me sometime,” I ventured.
Her entire face glowed with excitement. “I’d love that! Can I ride a racehorse?”
“Not a chance,” I said cheerfully. “Pete won’t even let me ride them, but we do have other horses you can ride.”
“Probably better, anyway. Knowing my luck, I’d break a million-dollar horse and have to spend my life mucking out stalls to pay for it.” She chuckled, and I joined in.
“That’s a lot of horse poop,” I advised her, and she started to howl.
“Mount Horse Poop, the h-h-highest hill in K-K-Kentucky,” she said, barely able to breathe for laughing.
The mother who’d sat at the table behind Denise with her two little boys glared at me, and for some reason I found that hysterically funny. I put my head down on my arms and laughed until I couldn’t catch my breath, while Denise made more and more outrageous poop jokes.
Finally the clerk walked over.
“Shut up or I’m kicking you out,” she said, grinning at us both. “And have a
nice day.”
By the time we pulled into the school parking lot, the bell was about to ring so I decided not to bother going back in. Denise did the same, and we sat in the truck for a minute, comfortable with our budding friendship but not quite sure where to go next.
“You realize you need to come over for a real study date now, right? To balance the karmic scales?” Denise shot me a sideways glance.
“I’d like that. And maybe you could come for a sleepover or something,” I said hesitantly, before I immediately felt like a fool. “Do we still do that? Sleepovers at our age?”
She whistled. “You really are a special, sheltered snowflake, aren’t you?”
I hung my head. “Two years of boarding school in Connecticut. I can teach you how to make a school uniform look slutty, but I can’t figure out the social norms of conventional high schools just yet.”
Denise burst out laughing, but I could feel that it wasn’t directed at me. It was more just near me. “You? Slutty? I doubt it. Also, ‘social norms of conventional high schools’? Oh, honey. You are flying your nerd flag high.”
My cheeks heated up a little and I sighed. “Yes, I confess. I’m a closet nerd. Geek. Whatever you want to call it. I can tell you the details of every show that’s been on the Syfy channel for the past four years, and I read Jane Austen for fun.”
She was gasping for air now. “Syfy? I knew it! Those hot alien dudes just get you, don’t they?” We both cracked up simultaneously.
“I can tell this is going to be a wonderful friendship,” Denise said. “I have to go now, or I’ll get stuck digging out the balls under the Sleepytime Palace.”
I blinked. “I’m sure that makes sense in your world, but—”
“Mini golf, remember? Someday I’ll write a book about the seamy underbelly of mini golf,” she said darkly, and then she waved and climbed out of my truck.
I watched her bounce over to a smallish green Chevy (bumper sticker: A WOMAN’S PLACE IS IN THE HOUSE—AND THE SENATE) and a tiny tendril of warmth unfurled inside me. I’d just made my first real friend in Clark, Kentucky.
Maybe friendship would help me get over the dangerous boy I couldn’t stop thinking about, no matter that I was so angry with him and almost his entire family. Friendship and Dairy Queen.
All this ice cream and I was going to need some bigger jeans.
Chapter 42
Mickey
By mid-afternoon, the scent of cleaning liquid and Windex was gradually winning over the smell of dust, grime, and my own sweat, and the place was looking more like a garage and less like the setting for a horror story about chainsaw-wielding psychopaths.
Derek, my spy at school, had been texting me periodic updates.
Victoria showed up but then she and Denise ditched.
They’re still not back.
They’re still not back.
Quit nagging me, they’re still not back.
And, finally:
They’re back, but only in the parking lot. Denise looks hot today.
I rolled my eyes at the corkboard I’d just finished installing on one wall of the garage and then texted him back.
Just ask her out already. Quit being a pussy.
Seconds later, I had a response.
Why would I ask Victoria out?
Denise, idiot.
Yeah, like I’m taking love life advice from you, loser.
I turned off my phone after that, because he was right. I was a loser. Victoria had dumped me, Coach had kicked me off the team, the principal had suspended me, my brother had committed attempted murder, and I was one step away from a life of crime. I already had the gun to go with my future mug shot.
College, hell. I’d be lucky to get into the prison library and learn how to make license plates. Did prisoners still make license plates? I didn’t even know—more evidence of my headlong rush toward mediocrity.
Mom called my name, and I left the garage, blinking at the bright sunlight like Edmond Dantès emerging from the Château d’If. Maybe that was the trick. I’d vanish for a few years and then return to Whitfield County triumphant and with a different name, like some kind of redneck Count of Monte Cristo.
“I brought you some lemonade,” Mom said, holding out a tall glass that sparkled from the crystalline drops of condensation running down the sides.
I drank most of it in one long swallow. “Thanks. I needed it. I’m beginning to have hallucinations about Dumas novels.”
Mom, who’d read The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers to me when I’d been around five, when most moms were reading picture books to their kids, laughed. Tales of sword fights, corruption, and revenge had been the lyrics to the melodies of my childhood, and I’d loved every bit of it. I remembered how I’d talked Ethan and Jeb into playing musketeers instead of cowboys and Indians sometimes, and Jeb had always run around the neighborhood brandishing his plastic sword and yelling “On garden!” instead of en garde.
I grinned at the memory. “On garden, Mom.”
She laughed again. “Poor Jeb. He was always a brick shy of a full wheelbarrow, wasn’t he? Bless his heart.”
“Any news?”
She sobered and shook her head. “No word of Ethan, but he could be sitting pretty in the middle of Anna Mae’s kitchen and we’d never know. Last I heard, Pete is still recuperating slowly but steadily, and Mr. and Mrs. Whitfield will be bringing Buddy home from the hospital in Louisville in a few days.”
“Leaving Victoria to deal with the mess they left here. Typical,” I said, kicking the riding lawn mower. Hard.
Ouch.
“That’ll teach that mower a lesson,” Mom said.
“She hates me, Mom,” I said quietly. “She never wants to see me again.”
My mom sighed and then hugged me. “Are you sure? Right now, she might be hating herself.”
She stepped back and looked up at me. Then she flinched, so evidently the raw pain that was ripping through me must be clear in my expression.
“I need a better poker face.”
“You already have a pretty good poker face, Mickey. But I’m your mother. Mothers know these things. That’s why I want to tell you to stay away from her.”
“That’s what she wants, too,” I said bleakly, and then I drained the glass. “Thanks, Mom. I’d better get back to it.”
“Dinner’s on your own tonight, kid. I’m forcing your father to take me to see a movie over at the mall. I need a little escapism, and if he spends another evening staring at his phone, waiting for word about Ethan, I’m going to go mad.”
“Wouldn’t be a long trip,” I told her, grinning a little.
She shot me a mock glare, but then she sighed. “I said I want to tell you to stay away from her, not that I will. Try again with Victoria, Mickey. I saw the way that girl looked at you. The last thing in the world she wants is to push you away, no matter what she thinks.”
Hope blazed through me. “I love you, Mom.”
She walked off, nodding. “I know, I know. I am very lovable.”
Maybe it was true—maybe I did have another chance.
But did I deserve one?
I thought back to the way Victoria had responded to my kisses on our picnic with such innocent eagerness that I’d had a hard time putting the brakes on, and the sound of her voice in the dark, telling me about her dreams of being a vet. The look in her brilliantly green eyes when I’d told her she was beautiful.
The way she kept standing up for me, over and over.
Please, let it be the truth.
Chapter 43
Victoria
I arrived home after school to a flurry of movement. Gran was stuffing things in an oversized tote bag, and Melinda was carrying a suitcase down the stairs.
“What’s going on?” I dropped my backpack and tried not to freak out.
“Is it Pete? Is he worse?”
“Calm down, everything’s fine,” Melinda said, and I realized that she sounded almost like her old self. Calm, confident—I hadn’t heard this Melinda in a couple of years.
“Are you drinking again?” I stepped closer and sniffed, but I didn’t smell any alcohol.
She rolled her eyes. “No. I’m not drinking, Inspector Whitfield, but thanks for asking. In fact, I hope never to drink again. That’s what this trip is about.”
“Trip? What trip?”
Gran walked in from the direction of the kitchen. “We’re going to check out that rehab facility you found before Richard changes his mind or Priscilla tries to stop us.”
I looked from one to the other, but they both appeared to be completely serious. “I’ll run and throw some stuff in a bag. Give me five minutes.”
“No,” Gran said. “You’ve got school and, with Pete gone, there has to be at least one Whitfield here on the property. What if the new staff has questions?”
“We both know that I’m not the person to answer any staff questions, and that Pete’s second-in-charge will be on top of everything,” I said impatiently. “I’ve lived here for five minutes, in relative terms, anyway, and I don’t know anything. Why don’t you stay, and I’ll drive Melinda to rehab?”
“I want Gran,” Melinda said, and her voice held a trace of shakiness—just enough for me to back down, fast. “I’m sorry, Victoria, but I’ll feel a little better about this if Gran goes with me to hold my hand.”
“And you have to learn this stuff, anyway. Who do you think is going to run this place after I’m gone?” Gran picked up the enormous saddle-brown leather purse that she still insisted on calling her “pocketbook” and started rummaging through it, completely unaware that she’d just knocked me on my figurative butt with that statement. “Also, I trust you to block any inquiries from the Louisville contingent until I can get back.”
Melinda took a deep breath. “If I like this facility, I’m going to check in. Today. There’s no time like the present, right?”
I hugged her. “I’m so proud of you, Mel. So proud. I hope it’s a great place.”