Even then, she’d been aware of her own poverty, but she was far from the only poor girl at school. Being one of the smartest and prettiest balanced things out.
That had changed in junior high. There were more kids, some significantly better off, with scorn for the impoverished. Confidence shaken, she’d retreated, dwelling on the shabbiness of her clothes, that her apartment was a dump, that her father was . . .
“A psycho lunatic,” she’d overheard Carol-Ann Ellis telling Sharon and Connie one day over a smoke in the girls’ bathroom. All three had been unaware that Gypsy was there, washing her hands at the sink. At first, she hadn’t realized that her former friends were even talking about Oran. But apparently, Carol-Ann had run into him on the street as he was preaching one of his sidewalk sermons.
Sometimes, he does it in street clothes. But occasionally, depending on the audience he wants to attract, he’ll wear a priest’s collar, or a robe, or some other religious garment.
That day, he must have been wearing a turban. The others giggled as Carol-Ann imitated him, striding around with a towel wrapped around her head.
“Repent, ye sinners, for the end is nigh . . .”
Looking into the mirror, Gypsy had seen tears spring to her eyes and red-hot shame flame her face, and in the background, filmy with tobacco haze, the other girls were seeing her. Wide-eyed, Carol-Ann had clapped a hand over her own mouth, but a snort of laughter escaped on a puff of smoke. Gypsy turned and walked past their little coven without a word, head held high, tears held back.
As soon as she stepped out into the hall, she heard raucous laughter erupt in the bathroom.
Junior high had been lonely, but that was all right. Gypsy didn’t need girlfriends. Nor did she need boyfriends.
Not then, anyway. Now she thinks about Greg Martinez a lot, and she wonders what it would be like to kiss him. Judging by the wistful way she’s caught him gazing at her, she’s suspected that he’s been wondering the same thing.
Today’s cafeteria conversation seems to confirm it. The girls are saying that he’s going to ask someone in his biology class to the Valentine’s dance. They’re filled with disdain over his choice, so it has to be Gypsy. There are only half a dozen girls in the class, and one is Carol-Ann Ellis. Sharon and Connie certainly don’t hate her. Of the other girls, two are already going steady, and two are nowhere near pretty enough for Greg, who looks like a movie star with black hair, soft eyes, and a sensitive mouth.
“If he was really going to ask, he already would have,” Connie is telling Sharon. “The dance is Friday night!”
“But Valentine’s Day’s tomorrow, and he wants to do it then. He’s going to bring a red rose to class and ask her.”
“How do you know?”
“Vinnie! How else?” Sharon’s steady is one of Greg’s best friends.
“That’s so romantic! Like a marriage proposal. I hate her, don’t you?”
“Of course! Who doesn’t?”
That clinches it for Gypsy. They’re definitely talking about her. But this time, their words don’t sting.
Who cares how they feel about her? Greg is going to ask her out.
“She doesn’t deserve him. Why her?”
“Well, I heard he’s kind of shy,” Connie says, “and he figured out she has a crush on him.”
“Like you have on Ricky Pflueger?”
“At least I’m not obvious like she is, the way she goes around fawning and mooning and—”
“Shh! Here she comes!”
It isn’t me. I’m not the one.
Gypsy peers around the pillar to see who it is, sandwich clogging her mouth like a wet sock when she sees Carol-Ann Ellis joining Sharon and Connie.
Her family isn’t well-off by any stretch. She, too, lives in Gypsy’s neighborhood. But Mr. Ellis works at Alexander’s and Mrs. Ellis works in a beauty parlor. Carol-Ann reaps the benefits. She’s wearing a wide-belted, patch-pocketed pastel minidress and white go-go boots. Her honey-colored hair is newly cut short with long bangs. Beneath the sleek side part, plucked brows and false lashes make her blue eyes look enormous.
Carol-Ann’s so-called friends welcome her to the table, and the three of them put their heads together. What would happen if Gypsy walked over there and told Carol-Ann what the others had been saying about her?
You think she’d believe you?
Greg has made his choice. He prefers a girl who looks like—and has the personality and IQ of—a department store mannequin. Good for him. Good for her.
Good for me, too.
Still hungry, she realizes that she’d shoved what was left of her sandwich into the brown paper bag, now wadded into a ball and clenched in her fist. She turns, takes aim at the garbage can, and tosses. It goes right in. She leaves the cafeteria without a backward glance.
Her father isn’t crazy. Judgment Day is coming, and when it does, they’ll all have to answer for their sins. Not Gypsy, though. The chosen ones—chosen by God, and not by Greg Martinez—will be in paradise. Then, her father says, none of this will matter.
If only it didn’t matter so much now.
Fernandina Beach, Florida
Melody had written to Travis over the weekend, words catapulting out of her onto three sheets of paper in a pastel stationery pad. She told him she’d fallen in love with someone else, and that she’s expecting his child. She told him what she’d found in his drawer, that she can’t stay married to a hate-filled man, that she wants a divorce.
She addressed an envelope to his APO and stamped it. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to tear off the pages and send them overseas.
Honeybee had telephoned a couple of hours ago. “Any word on Travis?”
“Now, don’t you think I’d have called you if there was?” she’d snapped, then said, “Oh, Mother, I’m sorry. But I can’t stand the phone ringing. Every time I hear it, I think . . .”
“They wouldn’t call you if something had happened. They’d show up in person, like they did across the street when the Bradys’ son—”
“For heaven’s sake!”
“I’m sorry, all I meant was—”
“I know. I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean to snap.”
“Well, of course you’re on edge, what with all the waitin’ and worryin’. You’ll come for supper tonight, won’t you? Raelene made chicken and dumplings.”
There’s no food in the house. She’s supposed to be eating for two, but she’s barely eaten for one. Still, she’d hesitated. Honeybee asks too many questions, gossips about everyone, notices everything.
Melody has lived all her life in this quiet, lamplit neighborhood of old houses and small businesses, tall foliage and tropical fronds lining streets with alphabetical botanical names. Walking to her parents’ house for supper, she crosses Date Street, Cedar, Beech, and Ash, where she makes a left turn toward the river.
The moon is full and the weather unseasonably balmy, but she senses a storm brewing out at sea. Or maybe it’s just inside her.
Her parents had spent a long weekend visiting old friends, but had called her long-distance daily to check in about Travis and reassure her that no news is good news.