“Gibby.” He slid into the pew beside me.
“Mr. White.”
“How are you, son?”
He spoke with gentle concern, and I smelled hair tonic and aftershave. I’d met him only once, on a Friday evening last year, a football game at home, halftime at the concession stand with Dana tucked against his side. He’d been pleasant then, and even now his eyes were kind. I nodded to his question, but didn’t really answer. People were watching. Not all of them, but enough.
“Listen,” he said. “I know about your brother.” He raised a hand, as if I might interrupt. “No need to speak of innocence or guilt—I’m sure you would say all the right things—but, at this moment, I’m responsible for Becky’s well-being. She’s a guest of my family. That means I must act in her interests, almost as a father. Do you understand that, son?”
“Listen, sir—”
“Please don’t sir me. I know you snuck into my daughter’s room last night. I won’t pass judgment on that alone—perhaps you felt justified, somehow—but it does speak to your character.” I felt heat in my neck, a sudden dryness in my throat. “What matters most is this: I can’t have you speaking to Becky today, not in church and not afterward, not until I return her to her own father. Do you understand?” He leaned closer, his arm along the back of the pew. “I’m not judging you, son, not on this murder business, and not on the actions of your brother, but this is a difficult thing whose full meanings are not yet known. Work with me, okay? Do the right thing, today of all days and here of all places.”
He gave my shoulders a squeeze, then slid out of the pew to rejoin his family. Becky looked my way, but I was burning too hotly to meet her eyes. Instead, I stared at the woman in front of me, at the lacquered hair and the floral dress. I thought everyone in church had heard what Dana’s father had said, and could see the shame he’d put inside me, this thing that was a flame. Pride alone kept me from leaving before the service ended, and even then, I kept my seat, watching to see who nodded or spoke or simply stared. Becky was the only one I cared about, so I rose as she entered the stream of people and found a place on my side of the aisle. Dana’s father was watching from behind, so she kept her eyes straight ahead, and said nothing at all to me, choosing instead to press her church bulletin into my hand as she passed. I waited until the church was empty, then looked down to see four fine words in Becky’s lovely hand.
Five o’clock.
The quarry.
* * *
The rest of the day was a lifetime. I met Chance, and we played pinball at the 7-Eleven, then sat on the curb and ate sandwiches sold cold for twenty-five cents.
“What’d you get?”
“Pimento cheese. You?”
“Egg salad.”
That’s how the conversation had been all day. It’s not that we couldn’t run deep, but that Chance understood the way our friendship worked. If he was down, my job was to be there and be cool. Same thing in reverse.
“I’m thinking something cold and wet.” Chance dunked his trash in the can, went back inside, and came out with a six-pack under his arm. I looked up with sun in my eyes, and he passed me a can. “This will help.”
“I guess you heard, huh?”
“That Jason killed a girl? Yeah, pretty much everybody’s talking about it.”
“That’s not all.” I told Chance about the guns and cash, and the biker Jason shot in the foot and leg. “Darius something or other. I was there. I saw it.”
“An actual shoot-out?”
“I guess. They arrested him right after. I was basically with him.”
“Okay, time-out. Back up.”
Chance wanted specifics, so I gave him the story in detail. “He was going to run, start a new life. He asked me to go with him.”
“You said no, of course. Please, God, tell me you did.”
I didn’t answer right away. Cars passed on the street. “I saw Becky in church today.”
It was a hard right turn, but Chance gave it to me. “Was she hot?”
“Sundress. Pretty hot.”
“Becky freaking Collins…”
“She wants to meet me this afternoon.”
“Be still my heart.”
He was trying to lighten the mood, but I felt cheap, like I shouldn’t have mentioned Becky at all. “Listen, I’m going to get out of here.”
“Something I said?”
I stood, shaking my head. “No, brother. We’re good.”
“Well, damn…” Chance stood, too, looking unhappy. “I know you’re upset about this—your brother and all—but we could go to the movies or the mall, take your mind off things.”
“I need to think this through.”
“One for the road?” He offered another beer. In response, I handed back the one I’d not yet opened. “Okay, all right. But call me later, yeah. Tell me what happens with Becky.”
I said I’d try, but doubted it would happen. Something had changed in the church. Maybe it was the way blood had risen in her cheeks at the moment she’d first seen me, or the curve of her neck, the vulnerability of that pale, smooth skin and the small hairs that brushed it like lashes. I knew only that something was different between us, like I was on the mountain once again, and too high above the world to breathe.
* * *
I took a drive to clear my head, but found no clarity at all. My thoughts wandered, and so did I, driving past the house, the police station, even the school. When I reached the quarry, I found a dull sky that pressed down on whitecaps and dark water. A single car was in the field, so I parked beside it, and walked down to the stony beach. Becky was there in blue jeans and a buttoned shirt. The wind took her hair, and streamed it like a flag. She wore no makeup, no shoes. If anything, she was prettier than she’d been in church. When she saw me, she pushed her hands into her pockets, so the jeans rode low on her hips. “It’s strange,” she said. “This place without our friends.”
Stupidly, I said, “I got your note.”
Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she smiled shyly. “I’m sorry about Dana’s dad.”
“Ah, Mr. White’s okay.”
“He thought people would talk. He just wanted to help.”
“You looked beautiful,” I said.
“It was Dana’s dress.”
“I’m not talking about the dress.”
The smile came again, and she led me along the shore, and it was quiet for a while. Barefoot, she picked her way along the quarry’s broken edge until we reached a stand of pine, where we sat on a bed of needles, and spoke of things like school and Chance and the future. She asked for my thoughts on Vietnam, and I struggled to find the right answer. The war was a mess, but others my age were fighting and dying.
“Do you think you’ll be drafted?”
“Odds are against it.”
She drew her knees to her chest, and watched me with those cornflower blues. “Are you thinking of enlisting?”
No one had ever asked me that straight on. Maybe no one saw me so clearly. “Why do you ask?”