Real Bad Things(12)

Diane approached Jane slowly, like she might be a stranger hoping to fool her and carry out some violent action. Jane got this reaction all the time walking in the city. When other women realized she wasn’t a man, they slowed their steps, their bodies releasing the tension. They slipped the keys out from between their fingers, fists no longer ready to fight.

Diane walked up the steps and took in Jane’s appearance when the porch’s motion light flickered on. Her body relaxed. “Well, if it isn’t the infamous Lezzie Borden herself.”

The cases weren’t even similar. But Jane felt a kinship with her nicknamesake’s desire to deliver forty whacks to her mother. Diane looked like hell, like she hadn’t eaten or drunk anything but pork rinds and pickle juice for years. Underneath, there was still that rugged beauty. Her voice still plucked at Jane, making her crave the tender moments Diane rarely gifted her.

“I thought you were going to pick me up. I sent you the flight number, the arrival time.”

Diane yanked the screen door open and fiddled with the front door lock. “You didn’t say specifically you needed a ride. And you didn’t say you was planning on staying here.”

“You asked me to come.”

Diane gripped the handle and shouldered the door until it swung open. She snorted. “Not ’cause I missed you.”

Jane flinched but let the comment go and followed Diane inside. The country-craptastic fabric on the couch and the chairs near the windows had faded from the sun. The chandelier Diane had inherited from her grandmother and insisted Warren install still hung above the kitchen table, collecting dust on each prism. The wood paneling and wall-to-wall carpet caved Jane in and compacted her back into a teenager. She’d sat right there under the chandelier at the kitchen table with Jason and made him do his homework before bed. She’d read books with Georgia Lee on those backbreaking couch cushions when Diane and Warren were gone—Stephen King for Jane, Danielle Steel for Georgia Lee. She’d opened a can of pork and beans in that kitchen. Cut chunks of hot dogs with a dull knife from that silverware drawer. Thrown them into a burnt-bottom pan she bet she’d still find in that cupboard. Called it supper and served it to Jason like it was something special.

Diane plunked her purse onto the scratched kitchen table. They both stood there and looked at each other, waiting for the other one to go first, like a game of chicken. Jane chewed on her bottom lip, trying to think of what next. What now. She wanted to sink into sleep, real sleep, deep sleep. The kind of sleep she couldn’t remember ever being graced with.

“I’m gonna head to bed,” Jane said and made her way toward the hallway.

“I got rid of your bed. Wasn’t no sense in keeping it.” Diane flicked a cigarette out of its pack. She kept her eyes on the flame of her lighter and the tip of the cigarette, not once looking up at Jane. “Jason doesn’t come around, so what’s the point?” The absence of Jane’s name stung, even though she understood why. Why would Diane want the person who confessed to killing her husband to visit?

“I wouldn’t expect you to keep it.”

“Well, I couldn’t. I don’t have enough room to be storing all the crap you left and mine too.” Diane exhaled, adding another layer of precancer to her lungs and stench to the room.

Jane adjusted her backpack and grabbed the handle of her luggage. “You got any clean sheets? A blanket?”

Diane glared at her.

Jane tossed her backpack onto the couch and released a long sigh. She’d slept on worse.



Sunlight streamed onto Jane’s face. She yanked out the rolled-up sweatshirt she’d used as a pillow and pulled it onto her head. She always had a hard time waking up because she always had a hard time falling asleep. The slightest noises elevated her heart rate. Terror spiked when she imagined someone sneaking around outside, peeping in the windows with ill will, even though Diane had always told her, People don’t break in to steal from people who don’t have nothing. Then again, she didn’t have a window in the Sebastian County Juvenile Detention Center, and she had learned how much worse it could feel without windows and with thirty other criminally minded girls surrounding you.

During the night, she had dreamed of Georgia Lee. But they weren’t dreams. They were replays of their time together. The edges of one moment gathered in her mind and then came into focus.

The air had been ripe for a thunderstorm. A breeze blew in through the living room window to cool their skin. Georgia Lee nudged Jane awake after she’d fallen asleep reading. She’d been making sounds, tossing. Georgia Lee asked what was wrong. Jane told her it was nothing. Just a dream. Georgia Lee propped her head on her hand and asked about the dream. Her golden hair drifted across her face.

Jane tucked it behind Georgia Lee’s ear and stretched.

“Hard to wake up.” Her head felt groggy, her body like cement.

Georgia Lee nudged her with her toe. “Is it a secret?”

“What?” Jane rubbed her eyes.

“The dream.” Georgia Lee leaned in. She smelled like green apples. A smile, a spark in her eyes. “Was it about me?”

Jane laughed. Things were so much easier with Georgia Lee, like the light came on in a room. Joy in human form. Like nothing could ever be bad and whatever problem came her way could be fixed with the right attitude. “No.”