‘But they couldn’t pin that exact blade on him,’ I protest. ‘Lots of kids carry a blade like that.’
Juanita shrugs. ‘Like I said, that boy’s daddy can pull a lot of strings.’
‘I guess,’ I manage. ‘I feel so lousy about it. So guilty.’
‘Hey, you’ve got to cut that out,’ says Juanita, putting her arm around me. ‘Honest, Evie.’ Our eyes meet, and I offer her a grateful smile.
Just then we hear the front door open behind us. It’s Diane, her cheeks red, like maybe she’s been drinking, too.
‘Evie, can I talk to you privately for a minute?’ says Diane. Her voice is soft and just this side of slurred, and suddenly I’m sure she’s been drinking.
‘Of course we can talk,’ I say, standing up, thinking of her note in my pocket.
I wish I knew how we could help Johnny … I want to come up with something. A wild image of Diane trying to spring Johnny from prison while I drive the getaway car pops into my mind. The idea is ridiculous, I know.
Juanita and Sunny glance at us as I follow Diane to the side of Sunny’s house, our shoes sinking a bit into the cool, wet ground. I can hear yelps and bottles breaking and laughter coming around the corner from the backyard.
‘How are you?’ I ask. Diane’s face is cast in the strange shadows of a setting sun, making her look sadder and more lost than she does even in the daylight. She’s still pretty, though. The sort of pretty that would make a boy like Johnny Treadway take notice.
‘Evie, I can’t take this anymore,’ she says. She closes her eyes and manages a shaky breath. ‘I can’t take knowing I’m here, free, and Johnny is in prison for something I did. I can’t stand it!’ She clenches her fists, brings them up to her chin, and squeezes her shut eyes even tighter.
‘I know, Diane,’ I say, reaching out for her, touching her shoulder lightly. ‘But we have to hope that the case against Johnny will fall apart somehow. They don’t have any real solid evidence.’ Even as I say these words out loud, I know how foolish and hopeless I sound.
‘I can’t wait for something that will never happen,’ she says, reading my mind. ‘Forget talking here. Can you walk home with me?’
‘Sure,’ I answer, drawing my arms up around myself to guard against the cool evening and my building anxiety about just what Diane is thinking. ‘I should be getting home anyway, before my mother and grandmother have a fit apiece.’
‘Let’s just head off,’ she says, growing more upset by the moment. Her breath stinks like cheap alcohol, and she presses her fingertips to her cheeks, wiping away a few tears that have escaped. ‘I don’t want to have to talk to anyone else. Just walk with me. Please?’
‘All right, okay,’ I say, trying to reassure her. We decide to cut through the backyard, and I worry whether Sunny and Juanita will be concerned about us, but Diane is so clearly in distress I don’t have time to think about that much. As we move, she drunkenly trips and stumbles a few times, and I have to help her catch her balance.
Diane’s aunt’s house isn’t far from Sunny’s, and by the time we get there, Diane is crying, hard. Wordlessly, she leads me to the back door and holds up her hand for me to wait. She heads inside and then comes out a moment later.
‘She’s not here,’ she says, sniffling. ‘As usual. I think she has a new boyfriend or something, and she’s been staying with him. Will you come and sit with me in my room for a little bit?’ I nod, and Diane drunkenly leads me through the dark and gloomy kitchen, which she’s managed to clean up a bit in her aunt’s absence, I guess. We retreat to her oasis of a bedroom, still neat and tidy. But this time sadder to me. The practically blank walls and no records, the cosmetics and perfumes set in their rows, like they’re desperately holding on to a sense of order in the middle of all the gloom. All of it is depressing. We sit on her bed, me toward the foot, Diane toward her pillow.
‘Evie,’ she says suddenly, and her tears start again. ‘Oh, Evie.’ At this she falls over, sobs into her pink chenille bedspread, and reaches out for her tiny teddy bear and clutches it close to her chest. I want to reach out and touch her, pat her comfortingly on the back. But I also wonder if she wants to be touched. Something tells me maybe she doesn’t.
‘Diane, what is it?’ I ask. There’s something fresh and urgent in her tears, and I find my heart starting to race.
‘Evie, do you know what?’ she manages through her tears, sitting up so I can see her face. ‘I think you know this, but I want to say it anyway. I don’t regret Johnny. No matter what happened. I loved him. I love him. I mean, it was hard to be with someone from another world, but it wasn’t hard, either, do you know what I mean?’ She doesn’t give me time to answer, just plows ahead. ‘When we were together, we could talk about anything. We would trip over each other to finish each other’s sentences, be the next one to speak. We talked about music, and he took me seriously, you know? Maybe that’s dumb, but it mattered.’
She dabs at her eyes with her teddy bear. ‘And we could make each other laugh, always. Johnny thought I was funny, too. Not just a laugh machine for his jokes. Even though he was funny, too.’ She smiles briefly at some private memory.
I nod, wondering where this speech is headed and why she’s delivering it now. Just then, Diane sits up, wipes at her nose with her bare hand. She takes a deep breath.
‘And Johnny … he made me feel good,’ she says, looking me right in the eyes when she says it. ‘He told me he would, and he did.’
She says this without any shame.
‘I understand,’ I say. And then I surprise myself when I add, ‘I’m glad it was like that for you.’
She nods, grateful.
‘But … Evie, I never thought about …’
She stops talking and my mind races, trying to fill in the blanks.
‘What?’ I whisper, barely able to hear my own voice.
‘Evie, I never thought about … a baby.’
A baby. Oh my God.
The hair on my arms jumps to attention. My eyes widen. I’m sure I gasp, loudly, too.
‘Diane, did you … Were you … ?’ I manage at last. But I can’t say it. I’m not sure how to say it out loud myself. I remember Cheryl’s sobs when she told me about Dennis and the prom, and I think about something that happens every so often at Eastside High and probably at every high school in the country. A girl comes around to each class with a withdrawal slip clutched in her hand, asks her teachers to sign it, then turns in her textbooks. As she stands in the doorway of the classroom, face toward her feet, cheeks pinking up fever-like, everyone pretends they don’t know why she’s leaving. Why she’s being forced to walk like a criminal through the halls of her own high school. We don’t talk about it, of course. But we know.
Sent to help a sick aunt.
Left to go live with family friends who need a mother’s helper.
Disappeared as if by magic trick, possibly never to be seen again.
Or in Diane’s case, being sent to someplace in Dallas.
I remember those mean girls by the concession stand at Winkler’s, making fun of Diane and questioning how she could ever show her face in public again after what she did, and my heart breaks for her again.