pulled an all-nighter and almost missed my ride.”
“So what else is new?” Jessica asked.
Annie Sue shook her head, but the rest of us just laughed.
Jane Ann is the family’s biggest procrastinator. She’s bright. She’s observant. She can and will do whatever’s required. But she never finishes anything until the very last minute, and too often that last minute is five minutes too late because she never allows for any unexpected delays. She spent her whole high school years doing extra work to compensate for overdue assignments, and it would appear that college had not changed her.
“Where’s your car?” Ruth asked, clicking a picture of her cousin, who looked perfectly beautiful, even in a UNCG hoodie, no makeup, and her hair skinned back from her face.
“I left it in Greensboro. Something’s wrong with the brakes and I didn’t have time to take it in to get it fixed.”
This got her more snickers from her cousins.
“Come on, y’all. Quit laughing. It’s no biggie. I got a ride with some friends from Makely and they let me sleep all the way over. Besides, tired as I was, Mom and Dad ought to be happy I didn’t try to drive myself after what happened to Mallory. Oh, God! I couldn’t believe it when I started getting all the messages. Do they know why yet?”
Being rather golden herself, Jane Ann would of course have known a golden girl like Mallory Johnson, despite being a year ahead of her. Listening to the girls, I realized that Mallory had been part of the court when Jane Ann was named homecoming queen last year. No surprise that Mallory had been this year’s queen.
As we rolled and cut, and shuttled pans of cookies in and out of the oven, my high school nieces brought Jane Ann and Annie Sue up to date—the last time each of them had spoken to Mallory, whom she’d last dated, their speculations as to why she had wrecked her car on a straight stretch of road, and whether she’d been buckled up, thrown out of the car, or crushed behind the wheel.
They described the memorial they had helped construct and place at the crash site yesterday morning and Ruth brought up pictures of the cross and wreath on her camera. “I’ll upload them and send y’all the link,” she promised.
“What’s with the beer cans and Bojangles’ box?” Jane Ann asked.
“Oh, that’s just the trash that was in the ditch across from where she crashed. I picked up a bunch of it while they were doing the wreath so it’d look nice along there. People are such slobs.”
Jane Ann squinted at a picture of gray with black streaks across it. “And what’s this?”
“Her skid marks. She only laid down rubber for a few feet,” said Ruth. “I guess she was trying to keep from hitting a rabbit or possum or something at the last minute.”
“No,” Jane Ann said. “It would have to be a lot bigger. At least the size of a deer or a really big dog.”
She sounded so sure of herself that I was curious. “Why do you say that?”
“Because her dad hammered it into her that you never swerve for an animal in your lane. Never. He told Mallory that too many kids flip over trying not to kill something. That they cut the wheel and then overcorrect. Before he let her get her license, he took her out on the road a few times till they found a squirrel or a rabbit or something in her lane and he made her run over it. Can you believe that? Told her not to brake and not to turn the wheel. She could take her foot off the gas, but that’s all.”
“Hey, that’s right,” Jess said. “In Spanish class this fall, she was real down about hitting a turtle that she didn’t notice till the very last minute and she said the same thing. How she had promised her dad that she absolutely would not swerve around any animal in her lane. And she loved turtles.”
“Must have been a deer, then,” Annie Sue speculated.
Emma told of how shattered Joy Medlin was by this latest death. “She had a voice mail from Mallory right before the game and she says she’s never going to delete it. She’s got Stacy’s last voice-mail message, too. It’s so sad.”
When all this talk started, I had briefly considered Mary Pat and Melissa’s tender ages and whether I ought to send them outdoors to play, but they had immediately let me know that they knew all about this latest tragedy, and they were not shy about voicing their own thoughts and opinions.
“Mom told Erin that she has to turn her phone off when she’s driving us,” said Mary Pat.
“I’m never gonna turn mine on in the car,” Melissa said.
Mary Pat looked at her enviously. “You have a phone already?”
“No, but I’m hoping they’ll break down and get me one for Christmas. It’s all I really want.”
“Me, too.” Mary Pat sighed.
(I knew for a fact that they had better chances of getting a blizzard for Christmas than their own cell phones.)
“Mallory probably did have hers on,” Emma said quietly. “She texted the whole squad from the party Tuesday night.”
“Were you at that party?” I asked, knowing what a tight leash Barbara keeps her two kids on.
Jessica glanced up from putting cinnamon drops on some sugar cookie stars. “What party?” She made a face. “You don’t mean Kevin Crowder’s party, do you?”
Emma hesitated. “All the other cheerleaders were going, but you know Mother. She always makes Lee bring me straight home after a game.”
“Who’s Kevin Crowder?” Annie Sue asked. She and Jane Ann were the same age, but she had attended Dobbs Senior High, not West Colleton as had the others.
“He’s a shooting guard on the basketball team. Has a wicked three-pointer but he’s a real assh—” Jess caught
