‘Evie knows, too,’ Diane murmurs. ‘I told her yesterday.’
Sunny sighs, frustrated. ‘Can someone please catch me and Juanita up?’
Connie lights her cigarette and takes a puff. ‘Don’t worry,’ she says. ‘Diane is going to lay it all out for us. Before my brother got carted off downtown for a stunt you pulled’ – at this Connie nods pointedly at Diane – ‘you claimed you loved him, but you abandoned him months ago, and you never said a word. You never even sent him a postcard, and you broke his damn heart. And then you show up at our school this fall, and you can barely give him the time of day? I mean, you act like you don’t even know him?’ Connie flashes her angry brown eyes at Diane. ‘So don’t worry, Sunny. She’s going to explain everything. Right here and right now.’
After this speech, Diane peers at me, then Connie. She takes a breath and lifts her head up, looking around at our small circle.
‘I’m glad it’s out,’ she says at last, and there’s a boldness beginning to build in her voice. ‘The truth is, Connie, it’s been killing me not to be able to talk about it. But listen. I’m only opening up my mouth if you promise to believe me first.’
Connie scoffs at anyone trying to set the limits of a conversation with her, but Diane doesn’t waver. Just stares back at Connie evenly.
‘Believe me or nothing,’ she says.
Connie takes a slow drag, leaving us in suspense. She nods first at Juanita and then at Sunny, who flank her like an Eastside version of ladies-in-waiting.
‘I believe you, Diane,’ I say, breaking the silence. My heart is pounding, but I say it anyway.
Connie glares at me, then nods almost imperceptibly in Diane’s direction.
‘Fine,’ she says. ‘Just talk.’
For Sunny’s and Juanita’s sake, Diane explains how she and Johnny met at the Jive Hive the summer before last. She fills in some of the blanks for Connie, too, who admits she hadn’t known every single detail. When Diane recounts how Johnny picked her up at the record store by proposing the game where he’d be forced to remember her phone number, Connie smirks.
‘That’s my brother, all right,’ she says, and she softens, if only for a moment.
Diane keeps talking, and as she describes the places she and Johnny used to go to and the time they spent together, her voice chokes up, and she gets tears in her eyes. Juanita reaches out, tentatively at first, and rests her hand on Diane’s back. I’m grateful.
‘Connie,’ Diane says, taking a deep breath and trying to regain control, ‘you have to believe me. We really did care for each other. We loved each other. I … I still love him.’
‘So what the hell happened?’ Connie says, leaning forward.
Diane gets up to the part of her story where her parents walked in on her and Johnny in her bedroom. Her cheeks flare up red just like they did with me in the listening booth, only this time they burn an even brighter red. In a rare moment of good manners – or maybe because the boy involved is her own brother – Connie doesn’t say anything nasty. She just listens as Diane describes her father threatening to shoot Johnny.
‘We’d kept it private until then, of course,’ Diane says. ‘My parents would have killed him. Killed me. My mother’s been planning my coming-out at the club since I was in first grade. Do you think they would have approved of someone like Johnny?’
Upon hearing these words, Connie mutters, ‘My brother’s not trash, you know.’
Diane’s eyes flash at Connie, unafraid, and her voice is angry. ‘I know that, Connie! Your brother wasn’t trash to me. He … he was everything to me. We could spend forever talking. About music. About our families. About what was going to happen to us when we were old enough not to care what my folks had to say about how I lived my life.’
At this Diane stands up suddenly and moves to one of the living room windows. A crack snakes through the glass pane. Diane brings her finger up to it. Traces it slowly. Her back is to us.
‘But a few weeks after they caught us together, my parents sent me away to this place up in Dallas,’ she says, her face still turned toward the window, her voice so soft we can barely hear her. ‘It was really terrible.’
After a beat or two of silence, she finally turns toward us. Her flushed cheeks have faded quickly, and her expression is blank. Vacant, really. An eerie feeling settles over me, and I doubt I’m the only one sensing it.
Sunny frowns, confused. ‘A terrible place? Like … ?’
‘Like the state school in Gainesville where they sent me?’ Connie asks, her voice quieter than it’s been since Johnny was hauled in. Her brow furrows. ‘Like a place for …’ It’s rare to find Connie at a loss for words, but her voice trails off and she’s silent.
My mind wrestles with what Diane is telling us. This place. I can tell from Diane’s face that it hurts her just to think about it, much less talk about it. I try to make eye contact with her, to let her know that I’m here for her, listening to her. But she just keeps staring out at nothing. Eventually I glance toward Juanita, and she looks at me, her beautiful, lined eyes wide with confusion. I respond with a look that is equal in its bewilderment.
‘It was like a place for bad girls,’ Diane offers at last. ‘Girls who … broke the rules.’
Connie snorts ruefully, then nods in understanding. ‘Yeah, the rules,’ she says. ‘It seems they’re different for girls, though.’
Diane finally looks at Connie, and maybe I’m dreaming it, but it feels like a sense of quiet understanding is passing between them. Diane hesitates, then walks toward us, takes a seat on the floor, and stares at her hands folded up in her lap.
‘It was an awful place,’ she continues. ‘I was watched every minute, and the women who ran it read all the mail. Every letter anybody wrote or received.’ She scowls at the memory.
‘Up in Gainesville they forced me to write two letters home to my parents every week,’ Connie scoffs. ‘Like those assholes even wanted to hear from me.’
‘I think my parents were perfectly happy not to get a single letter from me the whole time I was up there,’ Diane says, that empty look returning to her eyes. ‘So I never sent them one. But I also couldn’t send any to Johnny. That’s why he didn’t know where I was.’
I wonder, not for the first time, what sort of place Diane was sent to. Maybe there are special, private versions of Gainesville for girls from rich families.
‘You have to believe me, Connie,’ Diane continues. ‘And when I got back, my parents wouldn’t let me out of their sight. I couldn’t call Johnny. I tried to mail him a letter, but they caught me and ripped up what I’d written. I even tried to bribe my little sister, Patty, to help me get a message to him, but she called me awful names and said she was ashamed to be my sister.’ At this Diane’s voice cracks.
‘I’m just confused about Dallas. Was it like … like a jail?’ Sunny asks.
‘Do you think she really wants to talk about that?’ Connie snaps. ‘God, Sunny, please.’
‘Sorry,’ Sunny says, shrinking back, wounded. Then, defensively, she shoots back, ‘You talk about Gainesville all the time, Connie. Like how you were the toughest girl up there.’