The Steep and Thorny Way(6)

“Hanalee!” said Robbie, the louder of the twins, with a clap of his hands. He removed his cap and swaggered my way with a grin that stretched to his ears. “I see you have a bag all packed, darling. Are we eloping tonight?”

His brother, Gil, brayed a laugh that made his chewing gum fall out of his mouth and splat against his left shoe. Laurence frowned and turned his attention back to the truck’s tires, testing out a back one with a solid kick of his foot.

I stepped past Robbie, smelling cigarette smoke from his clothing. “I’m just here to visit Fleur.”

“Here”—Robbie grabbed the valise from my hands—“I’ll carry that for you.”

“All right. Thank you.” I proceeded up to the porch with Robbie close to my side.

At the top of the steps, he shot me a sidelong glance and said, “You seem tense tonight, Hanalee. What’s wrong?”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Nothing.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Come on, we need to get going, Robbie,” said Laurence. He bent down in front of the truck’s grille and turned the starter crank. The congested old vehicle coughed and shuddered to life, and Laurence circled around to the driver’s side of the cab. “Quit chatting with Hanalee.”

“Quit flirting with her is more like it,” said Gil with a laugh that carried a bite, and he climbed over the back slats of the rumbling truck.

Robbie set my bag on the steps by my feet. “Is it Joe’s return that’s bothering you?”

I picked up the valise without answering.

“Joe Adder’s not right in the head, Hanalee.” Robbie leaned his left hand against the wall beside the Paulissens’ screen door, above the brass doorbell. “He’s dangerous.”

“H-h-how . . .” I swallowed. “How do you mean, ‘not right in the head’?”

“He’s immoral. Depraved. Disgusting.” Robbie sniffed and wrinkled his nose. “If you see him, telephone Sheriff Rink immediately.”

“Come on, Robbie,” called Laurence from behind the steering wheel. “You’re gonna make us late.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” Robbie fitted his cap back over his hair and galloped down the steps. “Just protecting our womenfolk, unlike you two useless boobs.”

“She’s not our womenfolk,” said Laurence, the boy who used to race me into the woods on hot summer days—the first boy I’d ever kissed. With his face tipped toward the steering wheel, Laurence peeked up at me from the tops of his sky-blue eyes, and, without a trace of feeling in his voice, he added, “It’s just Hanalee. You know what I mean.”

I shifted my bag to my other hand and lifted my chin, as though his words hadn’t hurled a dagger into my chest.

Robbie climbed into the passenger side. Laurence broke his gaze from mine and backed the truck down the driveway. In the truck bed behind them, Gil gripped the wooden slats and whooped with the cry of a coyote embarking upon a hunt.

I swung open the screen door and ducked inside the Paulissens’ front room, a modest-size space filled with doilies and potted plants and butterscotch-colored furniture. The house always smelled like cinnamon and Christmas, no matter the time of year, and it immediately made me feel better.

“Fleur?” I called across the empty room.

From the kitchen, in the back of the house, came muffled adult voices and laughter. To my right, a clock made of blue and white delft ticked away the seconds on the mantel above the brick fireplace.

“Are you here, Fleur?” I asked, strengthening my grip on the suitcase.

“I’m upstairs,” she called. Her footsteps hurried across the floorboards above. “Hello!”

She emerged at the top of the stairs and scampered down the steps with a copy of Motion Picture magazine tucked beneath her left arm, the white lace of her hem swishing against the curves of her legs, a smile brightening her eyes, which were as blue as her brother’s. She was one of those blondes so fair that even her eyebrows and lashes looked as yellow as morning sunshine, and she was prettier than all the motion-picture stars in the magazine she carried—all of them combined.

“Hanalee . . .” Her smile faded, and she slowed to a stop on the last step. “Why do you look so upset? Did the boys say something to you out there?”

“Would your mother mind if I stayed here tonight?”

“What did they say?”

I peeked over my shoulder at the empty driveway. “Are we able to talk privately without anyone overhearing?”

“Mama’s in the dining room with Deputy Fortaine.”

“She is? Why?”

“He ate Sunday dinner with us. She invited him. Come here.” Fleur backed down the hallway next to the stairs and beckoned with a wiggle of her right index finger. “I’ll show you, so you can see what you think of this little tête-à-tête.”

I lowered my valise to the floor, and we tiptoed past Mrs. Paulissen’s framed needlepoint meadowlarks and chickadees, which were hung on flowery red and yellow wallpaper that also reminded me of Christmas. At the far end of the hall hung a photograph of my family and theirs picnicking in the woods, back when we children hadn’t yet grown old enough to start at the schoolhouse on the edge of town. My father held us girls on his lap, and Laurence sat between our mothers, wearing a crown of leaves I’d made for him. Mr. Paulissen had taken the picture with his Kodak camera.