She shook her head. “But we’re not talking about some mysterious stranger. This
is Steve’s father.”
He’d needed someone to talk to, someone who’d understand, someone who wouldn’t laugh at him. Only one person had fit that bil , though he’d had to
wait until she returned from her weekly trip to Medford with her mother.
They’d biked into the Pines, taking the easy way by finding a semipaved road running through the Wharton State Forest preserve. This was one of the
more civilized parts of the Pine Barrens, with canoeing and fishing areas, and even the restored Batsto Vil age. This time of year it was ful of tourists.
They’d parked their bikes and claimed an isolated park bench just off the roadway.
“You’ve got to tel somebody.”
Jack nodded. “I know. But who? And tel them what? What can I say without everybody thinking I’m crazy?”
“How about that deputy?” Weezy said.
She wore her usual black jeans, black sneakers, and a too-large black T-shirt with
used a long stick to draw patterns in the sand at their feet.
“Tim Davis?” He thought about that and decided it wasn’t a good idea. “Nah. He’d just think I was kidding him.”
“Then it’s gotta be your dad. I don’t think your sister or brother—”
“Tom? Puh-lease!”
“Wel , whatever, I don’t think they’ve got the gravitas to make the right people listen.”
“‘Gravitas’?”
She smiled. “My new word. It means substance, seriousness. I’ve been waiting for days to use it.” She patted the back of his hand. “Thanks.”
Jack’s hand tingled where she’d touched it. He felt something stir inside. He liked the feeling and wished she hadn’t taken her hand away.
He laughed to ease his inner turmoil. “You’re amazing.”
She smiled back at him. “And you’re very perceptive.”
They shared brief, soft laughter over that, then Jack sighed.
“I guess that leaves my dad.”
She looked at him. “You can’t talk to your dad?”
“Yeah, I can talk. But he doesn’t take me seriously. I’m fourteen but in his head I can tel he stil thinks I’m six.”
“At least you can talk to him. My dad …” She shook her head. “He doesn’t get me.”
Jack nudged her. “What’s not to get? You’re just a typical teenage girl al done up in fril y dresses and shiny little black shoes.”
He’d been joking but his chest tightened when he saw her eyes puddle up.
“That’s what he’d like me to be. But I just can’t be a bowhead. It makes me sick.” She blinked and glanced at him. “No, I mean real y sick. If I had to knot
a paint-splatter shirt at my hip, or wear floral-pattern jeans and Peter Pan boots, I real y think I’d throw up.”
“Only kidding.”
“I know, but my dad’s not. He wants me to look like everybody else. And he lets me know it.”
Weezy’s father was a pipefitter. Like everyone else in town, it seemed, he’d been in Korea. But he hadn’t fought. He’d been in the construction crew
that built Camp Casey. More than once Jack had heard his father say that instead of going to col ege after the war, he should have enrol ed in a trade
school and become a pipefitter like Patrick Connel . If he had he’d be less stressed and making more money.
“He just doesn’t get me.” She glanced at Jack again. “Do you?”
Jack hesitated. He wasn’t about to lie to her, but knew he needed to put this just right.
“Truth?”
“Of course.”
He took a breath. “I don’t get you either.”
She gave him a sharp look. “Oh, great.
He held up a hand. “Let me finish. I don’t get you, but I don’t need to. I don’t get the black clothes or the downer music—it’s like you’ve joined some club
