Breath of Scandal(37)
"I've changed my mind. We should wait, give ourselves plenty of time to make the correct decision." Hastily, she licked her lips. "But even that's not good enough. We need to date other people. We've gone steady ever since we were old enough to date. I want you to ... to start dating other girls. "
For several moments he stared at her speechlessly. Then his eyes narrowed with suspicion. "This has something to do with Neal Patchett, doesn't it?"
A trapdoor seemed to open up beneath her. She felt herself falling through a black void. "No," she denied hoarsely. Obviously he mistook her horror for guilt. "The hell it
doesn't," he sneered. "He's been sucking up to me for more than a week. Ever since you got 'sick.' He's been
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acting like a man with a delicious secret that he's just dying to tell. Now I know what it is. He wanted to rub my nose in it. You went out with him, didn't you?"
"No. 11
"Don't lie to me. Donna Dee looked as guilty as sin when I mentioned his name, too. Is that what you quarreled with her about?"
"Donna Dee?" she said in a negative tone.
"I chased her down after school today. She's been avoiding me almost as diligently as you have."
"What did she say?"
"Don't, worry. She didn't rat on you." He shook his head. "So, you finally fell for Neal's irresistible charm. That ought to make your mother happy. "
Jade's dark hair whipped around her head as she vehemently shook her head. "No. I despise him. You know that, Gary."
"So you say." He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, barely containing his fury. "Maybe I'll ask him myself." He turned toward the door, but hadn't taken more than two steps before Jade launched herself against his back and clutched at him. "No, Gary, no. Stay away from him. "
He turned and angrily pulled her against him. "If you had to cheat on me, why'd it have to be with Patchett?" "You're wrong, Gary. Please don't think-' I "Patchett, for God's sake!" He released her so abruptly
that she staggered backward. Gary yanked open the door and strode out.
I'Gary! 11
He didn't look back, although Jade knew he heard her calling his name until his car was halfway down the block. Jade stumbled back inside and slumped against the door. The tears that she had been holding in erupted in a torrent. She cried until she had no more tears left, and then she was seized by dry, racking sobs.
6K!
At first Gary considered driving straight to the Patchetts' estate and challenging Neal face to face. He could probably
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whip Neal in a fair fight, but he didn't want to give the bastard the satisfaction of knowing that he had provoked him. He would let him be smug and go around wearing that shit-eating grin if he wanted to. Gary Parker wasn't going to stoop to his level.
By the time he reached home, Gary's anger had given way to despair. The farmhouse looked uglier than ever as he drove into the yard. He hated the old house with its peeling paint and sagging porch. He hated the chickens that pecked about in the yard and the stink of the hog pen. He resented the laughter and chatter of his younger siblings as they ran to tackle him around his legs and impeded his progress across the dirt clearing.
"Gary, Mama said you have to help me with my arithmetic tonight."
"Gary, make Stevie stop following me." "Gary, can you take me into townT' "Shut up!"
Six pairs of astonished eyes looked up at him. He gazed around the circle of faces and hated their trusting, loving expressions. Who did they think he was, a saint?
He pushed them out of his path and, scattering chickens, ran across the yard to the barn. Inside, he found a dark comer where he dropped down into the hay and covered his head with his arms. Yearning and hate and love warred within him.
He yearned to get away from this place. He hated poverty, ugliness, dirt, and his lack of privacy. Yet he loved his family. In his recurring daydreams, he returned from college like a bountiful Santa Claus, handing out goodies to them. But the responsibility of making those dreams a reality was burdensome. Often, he considered simply disappearing.
He never would, of course. Not merely because his sense of responsibility was so deeply ingrained in him, but because of Jade. She made all the ugliness in his life bearable, because in her lay the promise that it wouldn't always be so. She was the nucleus of all his hopes.
"God," he groaned. How could he stand a life without her? Jade, he thought miserably, what happened to you, to
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us, to our shared future? They had planned to get their educations, then return to Palmetto and make the community more egalitarian. Now, it seemed, she had defected to the other side-to the Patchetts. How could she?
.'Gary?" His father entered through the wide barn door. Otis Parker wasn't yet fifty but he looked at least a decade older. He was thin and wiry, a slight man with perpetually stooped shoulders. His overalls hung loosely on his bony frame. He found his son sitting in the shadowed comer on a mound of sour-smelling hay.