‘She just called,’ Grandma says. ‘Maybe I was imagining it, but she sounded upset. And she called on a weekday afternoon. She asked for Evie.’
My mother puts down the cigarette she was about to put to her mouth to light, and she looks up at me, clearly nervous. ‘What did she say, Evie? Tell us.’
‘We only spoke for a minute,’ I say, trying to avoid my mother’s eyes as I grasp for a plausible lie. ‘She … she and Dennis had an argument about … about how he isn’t as romantic as he was when they first got married.’ It sounds absurd as I say it. I stare at my mother’s hands paused above the pink plastic ashtray, her unlit Salem in one hand and a book of matches in the other. I can feel her uncertain gaze, and Grandma’s, too, but I’m too nervous to look up.
‘That sounds … strange,’ my mother says. ‘Are you sure that’s what it was about?’
‘Yeah,’ I say. I finally look up.
My grandmother is looking at me, her head tilted, her eyes trying to read mine. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘young marriages can be tricky sometimes.’ She says this like she doesn’t believe it but has to say something to break the awkward silence.
‘Yes,’ Mama says. ‘They can.’
A beat later I beg off to the bathroom, where I stand and stare at my reflection in the mirror before flushing the toilet and running the water to avoid suspicion. When we sit down for dinner later, I keep hearing Cheryl’s sobs in my right ear. I keep playing her words over and over.
Why is Dennis pushing her to have a baby, and so soon, too? To make her stay with him? I think he’s lucky to have Cheryl – she’s pretty and smart and kind – and she only went to the prom with him because he asked first and early, and she didn’t want to hurt his feelings by saying no. Maybe he thinks without a baby to tie her to him, she’ll leave. Cheryl promised me he was nice to her, but now I don’t know.
‘Evie, you’ve barely touched your chicken,’ Mama says.
‘She came home early with a stomachache,’ Grandma offers, and I realize my hunger has disappeared since Cheryl’s telephone call.
‘I’ll have a few more bites,’ I say, trying to ward off their concern.
After dinner and washing up, we head into the den to watch television, namely the evening news. My mother and grandmother like Channel 11 best, and I figure I’ll watch, too. Maybe there’ll be something about Johnny.
He turns out to be the lead story. The anchor, in a suit and spectacles, says an arrest has been made in the killing of the son of Lamar Fowler, and suddenly a picture of Preston Fowler pops up on the screen, staring at me like he knows me. He’s dressed in a madras shirt and a smirk, and my mind is flooded the image of Preston’s blood flecked on Diane’s dress that night. The feeling of total helplessness as he dragged me into darkness. The skittering sound of my feet kicking up gravel.
Maybe I only need a minute.
‘Oh,’ I say, surprising even myself. Before I know it I’m down the hall, crouching over our toilet, all of my grandmother’s chicken making its way back up.
There’s a knocking on the door. My mother is calling my name. ‘Evie! Are you all right, sweetie?’
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and flush the toilet. Shaking, I stand up and manage to cry out that I need a moment. After I splash my face with cold water, I open the door and Mama immediately has her hand on my forehead, her face lined with concern.
‘You must really be sick,’ she says. ‘Do I need to call Dr Curtis?’
‘It’s nothing, just a bug,’ I say, wanting to sink into my mom’s arms and cry even though I can’t remember the last time I did such a thing. I swallow, the taste of bile strong in my mouth. I feel warm tears start to prick behind my eyes.
‘Maybe you need to lie down. You look so pale.’ She doesn’t seem to be connecting what just happened with what was on the news broadcast.
‘I will,’ I say. ‘I’ll go lie down. But … Mama, that boy on the news? The one they arrested? What happened to him?’
My mother’s face grows grim. ‘I recognized the last name,’ she says. ‘That’s that girl Connie’s brother, isn’t it? The one who works down at the Texaco when he’s not off doing God knows what.’
I nod, not wanting to get into all that. Just wanting to know what’s happened. Just hoping for confirmation that all they’ve done is called him in to scare him or get him to talk.
‘Mama!’ my mother shouts from the hallway toward the den. ‘What’d they do with that Treadway boy? The one who they arrested today for that stabbing at Winkler’s? Evie’s asking.’
‘Is Evie all right?’ Grandma shouts back, ignoring the question.
‘Grandma, what about Johnny Treadway?’ I shout. ‘He goes to my school.’
‘Oh, that,’ she answers, her voice as calm as can be, like I’ve asked her about the weather report. ‘It said he’s being charged with murder.’
Miss Odeen is sitting quietly at her desk, reviewing our compositions, while we’re supposed to be working on some grammar exercises. Normally, I don’t mind Miss Odeen’s grammar work, because she makes an effort to write funny phrases for us to correct, sentences that include mentions of the Beatles and the Supremes and her pet cat, Mr Whiskers.
But today, I can barely focus. Ever since we heard about Johnny’s murder charge the other night, it’s been impossible for any of us to think straight. This morning Mama tried to get me to tell her why I was acting so out of sorts. She’d be even more worried if she knew I cut school yesterday and spent the day with Juanita and Sunny at the park, smoking and talking in circles about Johnny’s murder charge. Juanita and Sunny want to believe that the charges can’t stick. That there isn’t really enough evidence to hold Johnny. After all, the switchblade couldn’t be connected to Johnny for sure, and lots of kids carry blades like that. But we’d read in the paper that some of Preston Fowler’s friends had claimed they’d spotted Johnny and Preston in an argument earlier near the bathroom. It had all been made up, of course. But who was going to believe a bunch of kids from the wrong side of the tracks over tea sippers with daddies in important places?
Diane cut school yesterday, too, but she’d been too upset to join us at the park. The same for Connie, who cut again today.
Diane did drag herself to Eastside High this morning, though, her face pale and her eyes red-rimmed from crying. As I glance at her from my desk in Miss Odeen’s class, my heart sinks. She’s seated next to me and keeps staring straight ahead, her expression bleak. She won’t pick up her pencil to try and complete Miss Odeen’s assignment.
But when I peer back at her again toward the end of class, I find her looking over at me. She looks magazine-pretty as always, her auburn hair pinned back in a ponytail, dressed in one of her many sharp dresses, this one dark blue with tiny mother-of-pearl buttons running down the front. When our eyes meet, she glances down to the floor. Beside her bright white Keds, I spy a folded-up piece of composition paper. She slides it toward me with her right foot, and in one quick and hopefully graceful swoop, my eyes on Miss Odeen, I reach down and grab it.