I blink, trying to get my head on straight. I manage to hand the bottle back to Connie and stumble out of the kitchen into Sunny’s living room. Someone has the radio on too loud, or maybe I’ve just had too much to drink. It’s that song about the house of the rising sun, and the lead singer’s growling voice is full of desperation and sadness. As if he knows exactly how I feel.
My friends are all here, and so is the rest of our crowd – lots of Johnny’s friends and some of their girlfriends, too. Tough girls like Connie and the rest but not part of our tight inner circle. There’s already been two fistfights in the backyard, one lovers’ quarrel in the bathroom, and several beer bottles smashed against the chain-link fence. In a different neighborhood, someone might call the cops. But not in this one.
Even though Sunny and Ray thought this would be a good way to blow off steam and forget about how miserable we all are about Johnny, it’s all everyone at school can talk about, even kids who aren’t part of our crowd. I’ve even heard some of the teachers gossiping about it in the hallways, and when Mama tried to find out what was going on this morning, she couldn’t stop with the questions.
‘Evie, honey, I’m worried about you,’ she said, perching uncertainly on the foot of my bed as I stared up at my bedroom ceiling. ‘You’re not yourself. Is this because of the arrest? Connie Treadway’s brother and that boy from River Oaks?’
That boy from River Oaks. All that made me want to do was start crying as I remembered Preston Fowler’s rough hands and terrifying taunts. I turned toward my bedroom wall and curled up, hot tears threatening to sneak out of my eyes. My throat ached. I wanted to say something but couldn’t figure out the words. And besides, I didn’t want to start crying in front of my mother. She worried about me enough as it was, and I was pretty sure Cheryl’s phone call had her worried already.
‘Evie?’ my mother tried, a hand hovering over my knees, then anxiously resting on my leg. ‘Evie, won’t you talk to me?’
I’d already let Mama down so much. I already wasn’t the daughter she’d imagined having, and something in me doubted that I was ever going to find a clean-cut, sensible guy and settle down like she seemed to want so much. How could she ever understand a girl who’d gotten caught in such a terrible position with Preston Fowler? Instead of saying anything, I just buried my face into my pillow and shook my head until my mother gave up and walked out, shutting my bedroom door softly behind her. Her steps sounded heavier than ever.
Mama didn’t know what to do with me, and Connie’s brother was going to pay for a crime he didn’t commit. A crime that started because I’d gone to the bathroom alone and hadn’t been tough enough to make it out of there on my own. Connie would have fought off Preston. Sunny and Juanita, too. Even Diane had managed it.
I knew thinking like this was absurd. Stupid, even. But I couldn’t help it.
So it’s no surprise I’m half-drunk at this Friday afternoon party, numb and weirdly giddy as I stumble through the living room, trying not to trip over people. Pushing open the front door, I find Sunny and Juanita on the stoop, smoking and talking.
‘Evie, sit,’ says Juanita, patting the empty space next to her.
I obey, but as I collapse onto the steps, I almost fall over.
‘Watch out, Evie!’ Juanita says, holding out a hand to steady me.
‘I’m all right,’ I offer. But here, on the cool cement steps, I realize how swimmy the yard in front of me seems. I put both hands down and brace myself.
‘No more for you,’ Juanita says. She reaches over and puts an arm around me.
‘You’re not my mother,’ I say, surprised at how forceful I sound.
Juanita just laughs. ‘No, I’m not,’ she says. ‘But I do know when you should probably slow down.’
Sunny glances at me and smiles. ‘Hey, you can’t blame Juanita for looking out for you. After all, she’s the reason you even hang out with us.’
I roll my eyes. I always feel like a kid when the girls bring this up. The way they like to remind me of how Juanita adopted me like one of the stray dogs that roam our neighborhood.
‘Don’t roll your eyes!’ Juanita says in protest, laughing. She lights a fresh Salem. ‘And anyway, it started with your eyes. You came across the yard that one Saturday and asked me how I did my makeup. You wanted eyes just like mine. I still remember the way your voice shook a little. I knew right then I was going to make you my little pet.’
I bat my eyes at Juanita, and she and Sunny start laughing. As they laugh, I lean into Juanita, rest my cheek on her soft shoulder. She smells like cooking vanilla, which she sometimes dots behind her ears as perfume. Juanita is right. My voice did shake that Saturday afternoon when I saw her outside smoking and babysitting her niece. My heart, still breaking and confused over Cheryl, did thump as I took a handful of steps across our property line, like I was crossing into some unknown world. And my smile did explode as Juanita turned to look at me, her head bent in curiosity, her eyes wide as I asked her just how she made her eyes look so tuff.
And so Juanita helped me after she’d warned me Mama and Grandma wouldn’t like it. She sat there on her backyard stoop, her pink tongue pinned between her teeth as she painted my eyes with her kohl eyeliner. I felt like I was being inducted into some secret society. Some new way of being. Something that didn’t involve having to get married and moving to some army base in Killeen with a boy you barely knew.
‘You loved the way it looked,’ Juanita says. ‘But I was right. Your grandmother sure didn’t.’
‘She was sure my new eyes meant I was headed straight for hell,’ I say. At this the three of us laugh. When we run out of laughter, Sunny exhales and rests her chin on her hand.
‘I feel bad for laughing,’ she says. ‘I mean, with everything that’s happening.’
Juanita and I nod in agreement. It does feel bad to laugh. Things have been so rotten.
‘If they would only let someone visit him,’ Sunny says. ‘Isn’t it against the law that they haven’t been able to visit? Connie says she couldn’t get in yesterday.’
‘The fuzz are going to do whatever they want,’ Juanita replies. ‘That boy’s daddy can pull all kinds of strings.’
‘Did you know that Johnny’s parents didn’t even try to go downtown to see him?’ Sunny mentions, lowering her voice even though we’re the only ones out here. ‘Their own son.’
‘Doesn’t surprise me,’ I say, remembering the fresh bruises I’ve sometimes seen on Johnny and Connie. Not bruises they earned on the streets, either.
‘Yeah,’ Sunny says. ‘It’s still sad, though.’
The sun has started to set just a little – Grandma has to be so upset that I’m not home yet – and the dip in October temperatures has started to sharpen my fuzzy thinking. ‘What I don’t understand,’ I say, ‘is how they can possibly have enough evidence to charge Johnny.’
‘You read the same papers we did,’ Sunny says. ‘They knew the blade was the same type Johnny carried from the other times they’d hauled him in, and they got enough of those tea-sipper kids to lie and say they’d seen Johnny threatening that rich boy at Winkler’s earlier on that night.’