“Aw, hell,” said Troy softly, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
She lifted a shoulder, and her eyes shifted downward once more. “It was a long time ago.”
He nodded, though he knew how little that mattered. He’d lost friends himself, a few under circumstances that had given him reason to know how it was to wake up in the middle of the night, cold with self-doubt and self-blame. And how sometimes the smallest thing could send him back there, to the place where the guilt and second- guessing waited in ambush.
“How did it happen?” he prodded gently.
“An accident.” The words made a small sticking sound.
And he understood that, too. He knew how hard it could be to talk about. And how important it was to do it anyway.
But before he could encourage her further along those lines, little April, the waitress, was there at his elbow, saying nervously, “Excuse me, sir, but is that your dog that’s doin’ all that howlin’ out there?”
So then he had to go out and try to bribe poor ol’ Bubba with the promise of a double cheeseburger if he’d calm down and let them eat their breakfast in peace. By the time he got back, their food had arrived. And naturally Charly jumped on that distraction like a duck on a june bug, energetically critiquing the selection of jellies, the doneness of her eggs, the temperature of the toast, the size of the holes in the pepper shaker as if those details were the most important things in the world to her.
And maybe, Troy thought, in a way, just then they were. Because what they were, it looked like to him, were sandbags she was using in a last, desperate fight to hold back the flood of memories she was scared to death was going to drown her.
Chapter 7
July 5, 1977
Dear Diary,
I’m so confused, I don’t even know how I feel.
Richie’s been calling all day, but I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t know what to say to him. What if he wants to go out with me again? I am so ashamed, I don’t think I can even look at him. Colin says I shouldn’t be ashamed. He came over a little while ago. I told him I didn’t want to talk to him, either, but he climbed up the back porch and came in my window, like he used to when we were kids. He was so sweet. We sat on my bed and he put his arms around me. I cried. He said it wasn’t anybody’s fault, that we’d both just had too much to drink, and that it was okay, nothing has changed, and as far as he is concerned we are still friends. He said we should consider it our secret, and go on as if it never happened.
But it did happen, and it seems like nothing is ever going to be the same again. I even keep looking in the mirror to see if it shows, but I can’t see any difference on the outside. I guess that’s a good thing.
Thought for the Day: I always thought losing my virginity would be something…I don’t know, special. So how come I feel like something the dog left on the lawn?
It was going to be a hot day, a typical June day in the South, already beginning to build toward the afternoon crescendo of thunderstorms. Charly thought she should have been prepared for it, but after twenty years in the land of sun worshipers, endless beaches and backyard swimming pools, she’d forgotten what humidity was like-the way it made the air feel heavy as wet cloth, and the softness of it, like a gentle mist on her skin. Southern California heat had the harshness of the desert in it, a burning dryness that baked the skin to delicious brownness, and then before you knew it, to old leather. In California people played in the sun. In the South they knew better. On days like this, Southerners sat in the shade and drank iced tea and fanned themselves. Those with any sense.
Which obviously didn’t include Troy. Charly, watching him from a shady spot on the steps of the bandstand in the middle of Courthouse Square Park, was ready to conclude that the man had not a lick of sense. There he was, gamboling in the heat with that incredible dog of his, playing tag and chase and fetch and wrestling around like a kid, showing off like some kind of grown-up Tom Sawyer. Just because he was-what?-in his mid-thirties, at least, and had a body like…
Oh, God, he did have a beautiful body, even fully clothed in basic polo shirt and blue jeans. Charly had just come from the land of beautiful bodies, and she’d never seen one that made her heart pound and her throat close up the way his did. And what a picture they made-beautiful man, beautiful dog, performing their own special ballet just for her, on a soft summer morning in the dappled shade of big old oak trees.
Watching them, she felt a strange sort of yearning welling up inside, one that succeeded in smothering temporarily the sharper pain that had already taken up residence there. This was a gentler ache, rather like homesickness. A misty prickling that almost-
Oh, no, you don’t! Charly, get a hold of yourself. She leaned forward and let her forehead rest on her knees. It’s this place, she thought, laughing silently, feeling not the least bit amused. It’s the South. I really think it must be a sickness, like malaria.
“Somethin’ funny?”
She lifted her head and watched them come toward her, both dog and master panting and grinning and looking vastly pleased with themselves. Bubba was once more attached to his leash, and Troy was carefully tying a knot in the top of a plastic bag, which he dropped into a trash can as he approached.
“What?” He hooked an arm over the bandstand’s wooden handrail beside her and leaned against it, just slightly out of breath, his face flushed and spangled with sweat, his grin tentative. Like a little boy, Charly thought, who knows he has mud on his shoes.
She looked away, keeping her ironies private for a moment longer, then shook her head and gave up a small huff of laughter. “You.”
“Me?” He looked around in exaggerated puzzlement. “What’d I do?”
What did you do? It was a question that was beginning to occur to her, and one she was afraid she wasn’t going to want to hear the answers to.
She tilted her head toward the trash can. “That something they teach you in the navy?”
His eyebrows rose. “What? You mean, pickin’ up after myself? Ah, hell no. I learned that a long time before I joined the navy.” He ran a hand over his short-cropped hair, his smile becoming wry. “My mama made the U.S. Navy look like summer camp.”
“That right?”
“Oh, yeah.” He glanced at Bubba, who was pulling against his leash, responding to some invisible siren scent, then straightened and held out a hand to Charly. She found herself taking it without a thought. She let him pull her to her feet, and they began to walk together slowly, aimlessly, not talking, letting Bubba sniff and ramble to his doggy heart’s content.
After a bit Troy went on in a voice rusty with reminiscence. “Yeah, my mama ran a tight ship. Had to, I guess. There were seven of us, and my dad was a trucker, so he was gone most a’ the time.”
“Seven,” Charly murmured, breathing a silent whistle. She’d heard most of this already, from Mirabella.
He laughed. “It didn’t seem like so many, growin’ up. Just every few years or so there’d be a new baby in the house, is all.”
“Are you the oldest?”
“Second. I’m the oldest boy-got one older sister. The rest are younger.”
“Well,” Charly said dryly, “then I guess you’ve done your share of baby-sitting.” Don’t think about it. Don’t think at all.
“I have that.” His laughter came so naturally. She was surprised at how much she was beginning to like hearing it, and how much she envied him the easiness of it. “Diapered, bathed, read to and done homework with more kids than most fathers ever do, I guess.”
