It takes only a few seconds to absorb all this before Connie explodes.
‘Damn you!’ she screams, running toward the police, her face red. Ray grabs her at the last moment and holds her back, tight around the waist, and she kicks and screams in his grip so hard one of her loafers goes flying.
I’m so focused on Connie I barely hear Diane next to me when she gasps, sharp and loud.
‘Johnny!’ she shouts, even louder than Connie. Diane’s hand is on my forearm, her grip is cool and tight. I feel her start to sink next to me, almost pulling me down with her.
Her cry is loud enough that even Connie stops to stare, but the one who really notices is Johnny. Something in him cracks. Breaks. His suddenly sad eyes fixate on Diane, noticing her there for the first time, and he opens his mouth for a moment, like maybe he’s going to shout back her name.
But he doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t yell back. Not at Connie or Diane. He doesn’t have the time, really, before the fuzz are shoving him into the back seat of one of the patrol cars, his broken eyes still focused on Diane.
I grab her and haul her up to her feet. She’s sobbing now, sobbing even harder than she did yesterday in the listening booth. She’s crying so hard she’s barely making any noise. Just gasping for air. Juanita and Sunny stare at her, confused. The boys are still too busy shouting at the fuzz to notice much.
Just then the biggest, burliest officer wanders over and tells us to scram. Ray and Butch and a few of the other boys act tough and curse and in general act like roosters on a farm, but they know they’ve lost. The officer is met by his buddies, who smirk in our general direction, pushing us off as the car carrying Johnny speeds away. Kids around me mumble in protest, but the crowd finally starts to break up and leave, and in the mess of it all I see Connie bullet toward Diane and grab her tight by the arm, so tight it must hurt, and her voice turns low and seething like a fire that refuses to be put out. I’m the only one close enough to hear what Connie has to say.
‘Listen to me, little rich bitch, there is no way my brother is going to pay for what you’ve done, do you understand me?’
In her misery I’m surprised Diane is even able to respond, but she does, her voice soft yet earnest. Sad but certain.
‘Oh, Connie,’ she says, finally spilling her secret out loud in front of all the girls, ‘you have no idea how much I love him.’
After Diane declared her love for Johnny in front of the girls, Connie nodded coldly, a look of what seemed like relief spreading across her face. All the cards were finally on the table. Juanita and Sunny simply stood frozen in shock. Then Connie looked at me and ordered, ‘Take her you-know-where. Don’t be obvious about it. I’ll be there with the others real soon.’
So down Wesley Street I hustle with a still-weeping Diane, checking over my shoulder every so often to see if anyone is behind us. A housewife hanging laundry in her backyard and a few stray cats are the only living creatures we spot, but they ignore us.
Surely most of our crowd didn’t go back to school, but it’s doubtful any administrator will be after us. Not after they find out it was Johnny Treadway who’s been arrested. They’ll roll their eyes and look at each other knowingly. We’re just typical Eastside trash and not worth doing much of anything about.
I guide Diane like a lost toddler, holding her hand. As we walk at a quick clip, I keep picturing Johnny’s tortured eyes as he stared at Diane moments ago. I keep hearing Connie’s screams and Diane’s sobs.
‘In here,’ I say, speaking at last.
It was Connie who discovered this vacant house at the end of Monroe near Telephone Road, a few blocks from her house. A treasure uncovered on some nightly escape out of her sorry excuse of a home. Maybe she’d been running away from her parents’ knockdown fights or her mother’s hard slaps or her father’s nasty jokes about her figure. Whatever it was, she found what she started referring to as our hideout, and the fact that I was too rattled to recall it the night Diane stabbed Preston Fowler is one more reason Connie Treadway usually calls the shots, not me.
It’s a junky place, once painted white and now a dingy, depressing gray, complete with busted-out windows and a sagging front porch made up of splintering floorboards through which we’ve spotted possums and raccoons scuttling. The electricity has been cut off, but the water is still on, somehow, and the first night Connie took us there, she used the tap water to stretch out the half bottle of bourbon she’d brought to share.
‘The boys were too stupid to find it,’ she told us as we sat in a circle on the well-worn, filthy carpet, ‘and I want to keep it that way.’
And we did, of course, using the house to drink and gossip. Not even Sunny spilled the beans, even though it would have made a perfect place for her and Ray to sneak away to when Ray couldn’t get the car.
I take Diane around back and kick open the stuck door with the doorknob that often doesn’t turn. We enter the kitchen, all grease stains and faded yellow wallpaper. Inside it smells musty and foul, like old cigarettes and fresh mold. Diane wrinkles her nose and tries to get her tears under control.
‘Does someone live here?’ she manages.
‘No,’ I tell her. ‘I think the family that did was evicted.’
We head through the kitchen into the living room, where an abandoned jelly jar Sunny rescued from one of the kitchen cabinets sits in the middle of the carpet, full of butts and ash. Diane collapses onto the floor. She doesn’t cry, though. She just presses her face into her hands. I sit next to her and slowly draw my hand up and place it on the small of her back. I don’t say anything. It’s silent except for the yapping of dogs and the low thrum of cars passing by on the main drag of Telephone Road.
At last Diane raises her face, peers through her fingers. Her pretty green eyes are glassy with tears. Her features sharp and fine. Pretty. Even in this mess, she’s one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen. I imagine Johnny spotting her for the first time. Handsome Johnny. So handsome as to be almost pretty, too.
‘Connie’s going to make me tell her everything, isn’t she?’ Diane says, her voice a whisper. She wipes her tears with the cuffs of her sweater. ‘She’s going to want to know every detail.’
‘I’ll be here,’ I say, ‘so don’t worry too much. I won’t let her hassle you. She already knows about the two of you, but I’m sure she’s wanted to ask questions. And now with …’ I pause, unable to say the words Johnny being arrested out loud. I just stop, uncertain.
We sit in silence for a few more moments, until at last we hear noise coming from the back of the house.
‘It’s cool,’ says Connie, walking through the kitchen, ‘it’s just us.’ And there she appears with Juanita and Sunny at her side, the three of them red-cheeked and wide-eyed, Juanita smoking a cigarette and Sunny staring at Diane with an expression that’s almost wonder.
Connie peers down at Diane, examining her with fresh eyes that don’t register any emotion. Not yet. I’ve known Connie long enough to realize she’s calculating something and keeping the solution all to herself.
‘Okay, so now we all know about it,’ she says at last, joining us on the filthy carpet and sliding out a fresh cigarette. ‘And not just me.’ Juanita and Sunny sit down, too, crossing their legs and huddling close.