Little Girls(63)

“I have a secret,” Abigail said. “A good one.” And then, just like that, Abigail’s eyes softened. Her mouth worked itself shut.

All around Laurie, the world seemed to swim back into focus. Even her breathing began to regulate. She was acutely aware of the sweat that coated her flesh.

Across the playground, Susan hopped down off the swing and hurried over. She was smiling and her hair was in her face.

“Did you see me on the swing, Mommy?”

“I sure did.”

“You were great,” Abigail said.

This was the icing on the cake. “Thanks!” Susan crowed. Then she saw the photo in Laurie’s hand. “What’s that?”

“It’s nothing,” Laurie said, tucking the photo back into her pocket.

Liz Rosewood appeared, some sort of embarrassed half-smile on her face. “It’s always something with that girl,” she said, already digging another cigarette from the pack. “I’ve known the Laws for some time now. Their daughter is a bit of a troublemaker.” She turned to Abigail. “But that doesn’t give you permission to sink to her level. Do you get what I’m saying, Buster Brown?”

“No,” Abigail said.

“It means you don’t have to be mean just because someone else is.”

“Oh.”

“Now go over and apologize to that girl.”

Abigail narrowed her eyes and stuck out her lower lip. “I don’t want to.”

“It’s the nice thing to do.”

“But she started it! Susan’s mom saw!”

Laurie shrugged. “The other girl threw something, too, I think.”

Liz waved a hand in front of Abigail’s face, as if swatting away invisible flies. “I don’t care. I have to live in this neighborhood with these people. Get off your rump and go apologize, Abigail.”

Pouting, Abigail swung her legs over the bench seat and got up from the table. Her fists were clenched as she stormed across the playground to where the chunky red-faced Law girl stood with her mother and some other women. The chunky girl flinched when she saw her coming. Laurie wondered if it gave Abigail some satisfaction.

“Can I go, too?” Susan said, tugging gently on Laurie’s arm.

“No. You stay here.”

Liz sat on the bench and puffed her smoke. “Girls will be girls,” she said.

“I suppose,” said Laurie.

“You and your husband should come by for dinner one night,” Liz suggested. “You haven’t even met Derrick yet.”

“We’re terribly busy at the house. . . .”

“It’ll do you good to get out.”

“Yes,” said Laurie. “Everyone keeps telling me that.”

Susan jabbed a finger at Liz Rosewood’s cigarette. “That gives you cancer!”

“Yes, they do,” Liz agreed, still puffing.

Laurie swatted Susan’s arm down. “That’s impolite.”

“But those things kill people, Mom.”

Liz laughed. She was unattractive when she laughed—too brutish and loud, and she opened her mouth too wide. “Very smart little girl.”

At the other end of the playground, Laurie watched as Abigail spoke to the red-faced chunky girl and her mother. The girl’s mother smiled at Abigail and went to pat her head or her shoulder, but Abigail sidestepped the pat with such agility that, for a moment, the woman’s hand hung in midair, a confused and somewhat startled expression on her face.

“Please,” Liz said, though there wasn’t much pleading to her tone. “Tonight. We can grill up some steaks. It’ll be nice.”

“I want to eat over at Abigail’s house again,” Susan said.

Once more, Liz Rosewood laughed. She had an elbow propped on one knee, smoke trailing from the cigarette held loosely between two fingers. She looked like a magazine advertisement. “It’s really no trouble,” she said.

“I’ll have to check with my husband. He’s been trying to get some work done while we’re here. It hasn’t been going very well for him. “

Like a small wooden soldier, Abigail marched back over to the picnic table. She was unsmiling. One of her pigtails was coming undone and there were loose strands of dark brown hair swiped across her sweaty forehead. A greasy smudge stood out sharply on her left cheek. “There. Are you happy?” she said as she sat down.

“Yes,” said Liz. “Thank you. And what do you have in your hand?”

Glancing at Laurie, Abigail held up what looked like a pink barrette for Liz’s inspection. It looked like one of the barrettes that had been in the hair of the chunky red-faced girl.

“Where did you get that?”

“I found it.”

“Stop picking up trash,” Liz scolded her. “Go throw that in the garbage can.”

“We’re eating dinner at your house tonight!” Susan informed her friend.

Still pouting, Abigail said, “That’s not my real house.”





Chapter 20


At an easy two-hundred-twenty pounds and a gruff, workmanlike appearance, Derrick Rosewood seemed a poor match for Liz’s easygoing liberalism. He possessed a large, angular, red face that reminded Laurie of a stop sign, and there was dark grease in the creases of his neck and smears of it along his sunburned forearms. His hands were big paws and his eyes were the dim brownish-yellow eyes of a jungle cat. He ate in his work clothes, which consisted of a matching white-and-green jumpsuit which he unzipped down the front so that his stomach could protrude over the elastic waistband, and he exuded a smell that was ambiguously mechanical in nature, though not necessarily offensive. He was also very friendly.