As Diane and I flip through records, the only patrons in the store, I can tell she’s a bigger music fan than I am. Sure, back in February I watched the Beatles on Ed Sullivan – that’s when I decided Ringo was my favorite. Everyone else already had crushes on John and Paul and George, and I thought liking Ringo the best made me different. And of course I know all the words to ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ like everyone else on the planet, but Diane’s knowledge of music runs deeper than all of that. She asks the quiet, bespectacled man at the counter what’s come in that’s new, and she shuffles through 45s, gazing at pictures of Mary Wells and Roy Orbison and Martha and the Vandellas, her mouth twisted in serious thought.
‘Oh!’ she says suddenly as she flips through a bin. ‘Irma Thomas!’
‘Who is she?’ I ask as Diane holds up a record.
‘She’s a soul singer from New Orleans,’ she says, her voice growing wistful. ‘I used to adore playing this.’ She flips the 45 over and over, transfixed. I can’t help it anymore.
‘Diane,’ I say, suddenly feeling bold. ‘If you love music this much, how come you don’t have any records in your bedroom?’
She swallows hard and doesn’t say anything right away, and I wonder if I’ve made a huge mistake. But she just looks at me and whispers, ‘Evie, can I trust you with something?’ She peers over her shoulder, even though there’s no one around but the man behind the counter, and then turns back toward me, steps closer. I can still smell her perfume. ‘I mean,’ she says, her soft voice insistent, ‘can I really trust you?’
My heart picks up speed, knowing I’ve come close to finally discovering at least something about this strange girl from the right side of the tracks who had the guts to save my life. I owe her something. At the very least I owe her my word. That and my friendship are all I have to offer her, and it hits me hard that maybe it’s what she needs more than anything else right now.
‘Yes, Diane, of course,’ I say.
She takes my hand in hers and leads me to one of the listening booths in the back of the shop, holding up the copy of Irma Thomas’s record in her hand. The bespectacled man nods, and as we enter the tiny, musty, closet-sized space with the turntable and bench seat covered in cracked red vinyl, Diane slips the record on and gently dips the needle down to play it.
‘This song is called “Ruler of My Heart”,’ Diane intones, her face serious. ‘Just listen to how beautiful her voice is. I mean, it’s heavenly.’
We sit side by side, our shoulders pressed tight against one another’s. I can still spy the rows of records through the glass window in the listening booth door.
Irma Thomas’s throaty, rich voice swells around us as she talks about waiting for the man she loves to return. A piano builds, and so does Irma Thomas’s yearning. It gives me shivers.
‘I really like it,’ I say.
And Diane looks at me and says, her voice a whisper, ‘Johnny Treadway and I used to dance to this in my bedroom back when I lived in River Oaks with my family.’
I blink once. Twice. I realize I’m holding my breath.
Johnny Treadway. Connie’s twin brother. Johnny with the wounded eyes and the dark hair and the bad home life. Johnny who wouldn’t look twice at me, a kid. Johnny, the tuffest boy in the entire neighborhood.
Johnny and Diane?
It’s like trying to picture the beaches of Galveston covered in mountains of snow or my mother the maid wearing the crown jewels.
‘What?’ I manage, and it comes out like a croak over the music.
‘Evie, he would hold me so close to him,’ she says. ‘And it was the best feeling in the whole wide world.’ Diane’s eyes fill with tears and then spill over, but she’s smiling at the same time. In fact, she’s almost laughing. It reminds me of the sort of laughter that comes with staying up too late and not getting enough sleep. Mama always calls it punch-drunk.
‘God, it feels good to tell someone,’ she says. ‘It feels good to tell you, Evie.’
My mind flies through yesterday and today, remembering the way Johnny and Diane stared at each other, how Johnny couldn’t take his eyes off Diane. How her cheeks pinked up and her voice softened around him. But they acted like they didn’t even know each other.
The record ends, and Diane starts playing it again.
‘I bet you’re wondering how, huh?’ she asks. She sniffles and takes a tissue from her skirt pocket and blots her reddening eyes.
‘I’m wondering a lot,’ I say, trying to make sense of everything I’m feeling. Astonishment? Worry? Maybe even a thin slice of envy?
‘I’ll tell you – I want to – but do you promise to keep this between us? At least for now? Please? The others are sweet, but I just met them.’ The way she says that last bit, like she expects and hopes to one day be close with them, sort of crushes my heart. She’s so lonely. It’s enough for me to promise Diane she has my word. I even cross my heart for emphasis.
‘We met the summer before last,’ she begins, clutching her tissue. ‘We met here, of all places. We’re both crazy about music.’ I know that much is true about Johnny. For all his delinquent habits, he’s held a regular job at the Texaco in our neighborhood for a few years now, and Connie always says he spends his money on three things – hair grease, cigarettes, and new records. They’re the three things he comes by honestly.
‘I was here this one Saturday in June,’ Diane says as I lean in, anxious to catch every detail. ‘I went with some girlfriends. And at the time I was going steady with someone. Actually, a friend of Preston Fowler’s.’ She bites her lip and looks away at her own mention of the dead boy. At the sound of his name, my stomach drops.
Maybe I only need a minute.
I shake my head at the sound of his voice in my mind, and Diane lightly touches my knee.
‘I’m sorry, Evie, I shouldn’t have mentioned him.’
‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘Go on.’
Diane sniffs a bit, starts the record over. ‘I knew Johnny wasn’t from my neighborhood,’ she says, and she grins at a private memory, her eyes wrinkling up around the edges.
‘And he must have known you weren’t from ours,’ I say.
Diane nods, and she unfolds her story. She shells out tiny details – the way Johnny admired her choice of a King Curtis record. How she caught him staring at her through the glass window of the listening booth when she tried it out to make sure she liked it.
‘It was this very booth,’ she says, peering out the window. ‘I caught him peeking in here. And I knew we were from different worlds. But …’ She blushes. ‘There was something about him.’
I smile, wanting to say something about how Johnny is dreamy. But I don’t know if I should.
Diane keeps talking in a whisper over the music, describing how Johnny managed to catch her in a corner of the Jive Hive and invited her to play a game with him.
‘A game?’ I ask, confused.
‘Yes,’ Diane says, her face wearing a full-fledged smile now. ‘He said if I gave him my telephone number and he could remember it, I would have to go out on a date with him.’