Real Bad Things(38)
For years, Georgia Lee had given excuses about not going in the swimming pool or a lake despite her swim career, preferring to sun on a towel instead. She’d let her mind tuck the reasoning away alongside the night that Warren bled into the earth.
It’d been a little over a week since she’d learned of Warren’s remains. Now she stood inside a pizza parlor next to Jane, an uncaged suggestion that had escaped her mouth before she’d had a chance to stop it. She told herself she needed to learn more about why Jane was in town and what would happen next. But an old haunt of days past also tugged at her, a fear of watching Jane walk away, not knowing what might happen while they were apart, if Jane would be there the next day, or gone or in prison. She wanted to put everything on pause. Take a break. Go somewhere alone where they could talk, where she could stare at her face and hear her voice and see how much had changed, how much hadn’t. But then she’d realized her mistake. They weren’t like everyone else. They couldn’t go just anywhere. And not within Maud. She should’ve given Jane a ride home and left it at that.
How could she sit with her and act like old friends, knowing that Jane was about to suffer the consequences for someone else’s crime?
But Jane had agreed. As soon as they left Maud city limits, Jane asked if Georgia Lee meant to kidnap her or if she was embarrassed to be seen with her. Georgia Lee had pressed play on Beyoncé, thinking that would make an impression on Jane, how hip and with it Georgia Lee still was—or at least work as a lubricant to conversation, maybe trick Jane into singing along as she’d done in the past—but Jane only stared out the window, aggrieved at the passing scenery, or at something else.
Pizza in Fort Smith would be fine, she tried to convince herself. Safe for an evening out. Anyone from Maud Bottoms would go to Maud Proper for a change of scenery. Anyone from Maud Proper would go to Fayetteville. No one would go to Fort Smith. Georgia Lee only went occasionally for a conference. They were almost thirty miles from Maud. No one knew her here. That was a city, not a town. Dinner with a friend was normal behavior, she told herself. Nothing suspicious. She breathed in. Dough baking in the oven. The sizzle of just-baked pepperoni and sausage. The fizz of carbonated soda in the mouth. Better than a spa. Food had always been their comfort. Just what she—they—needed.
Jane hesitated after they entered the building. “Did you bring me to Jesus Pizza?”
Georgia Lee followed Jane’s gaze across the vast building that had once been an equipment warehouse and then a nightclub before giving itself over to pizza, to where large letters on the wall read: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Georgia Lee hadn’t really noticed before. Bible verses were a bit of a thing in Arkansas. On walls. In yards. On shirts.
Maybe they could abort the plan for pizza. It’d been a long, hot day. Jane couldn’t have been comfortable in all black at the cemetery. Not to mention the dirt and her nose. She considered canceling right there on the spot. Maybe claim a sudden stomach bug. But then what? Georgia Lee had nowhere to go but home, where Rusty had probably bought another item they could barely afford in his attempt to trick himself and everyone else that they had as much wealth as appearances would have people believe, that their faith and marriage were stronger than they were. Tim and Tate had probably left their laundry and empty soda glasses outside their rooms again like she was hotel staff. All those irritations, and she’d still have those nerves knocking on her insides.
She nudged Jane forward. “It’s really good pizza.”
Jane looked around. “Does it come with a side of homophobia?”
“No one will bother you.” She exuded enough confidence to convince herself it was true.
“Until I go to the bathroom,” Jane muttered. Georgia Lee plastered a smile on her face and walked up to the girl waiting at the register, who gave Jane a once-over.
Really, if Jane didn’t want to be confused for a man, then why dress like one and get her hair cut like one? That made no kind of sense to Georgia Lee. Still, if she was being honest, when she’d noticed this person in the cemetery staring at her, she’d thought it was a man and even gotten a little thrill when the alleged man looked at her with what she’d perceived as interest. Back in school, Georgia Lee would sometimes wonder what it’d be like if Jane were a boy, or if Georgia Lee were. And if they could have real pictures displayed for the world to see, like others did. Hugs, kisses, hands placed on knees, arms around waists. Pictures people didn’t consider against God, or porn, just because they saw two girls. Georgia Lee wondered what it’d feel like to be voted Most Romantic, like Christlyn and Jake. She wondered what it’d be like to see themselves in the yearbook, holding hands, standing in the way normal couples do.
“Pizza’s on me,” Georgia Lee said and handed Jane a cup and tray. Jane begrudgingly took them.
Georgia Lee navigated them through a nest of metal tables topped with glass containers of shake cheese and hot pepper flakes until she found one near the back, away from the few people scattered among them. The whole walk, she agonized about Jane comparing and contrasting what Georgia Lee’s butt looked like then versus now. What she wouldn’t give for those compression tights. Eyes shifted in their direction. She searched every face for a match to her memory.
“Crowded for a Monday night.” She didn’t know what she had been thinking, bringing Jane here. Even outside Maud. What a fool. Once again, Georgia Lee had gotten it into her head that she was right. Once again, she was wrong. She was getting real tired of being wrong. But they were here now. No point in beating herself up over it. She busied herself with her napkin and silverware, explaining how the servers would bring all varieties of pizza right to their table, including dessert pizza like chocolate chip and Bavarian cream, because she didn’t know how to even begin. What conversation could they have that did not lead to the very thing they needed—but she truly did not want—to discuss?