Real Bad Things(9)

Jane risked a glance at Warren. The end of his cigarette glowed orange when he inhaled. Ashes flickered down to lightly singe her skin. She scratched at the spot.

“Did you want something?” Jane tried to tamp down the tremble in her voice. She felt incapable of anything but the smallest of breaths. If she didn’t take a big gulp of air soon, she worried she might pass out.

“You better watch yourself, girl,” Warren said.

“Yes, sir,” she said, and hated herself for it. Hated that he could waltz into their lives and control them all, and Diane let him. But Jane wouldn’t let him think he’d scared her, that he had some sort of control over her. Not even if it meant getting a kick to the face. Maybe she’d let him. Maybe he’d go to jail. Maybe that wasn’t a bad plan.

Warren smiled and blew a smoke ring. “Get inside the house. Help your mom.”

With what? Picking out a skintight top for another late night at Crawdaddies, her favorite bar? She watched Warren’s reflection in the hoarder lady’s window. Him standing right behind her. Over her. Threatening.

“We’ll go inside when we’re ready.”

Before Jane could react, Warren lunged toward her. She yelped and scrambled back toward the screen door, banging the metal at the bottom. Warren’s hand landed on her jaw, his grip one second shy of tight. Heat emanated from his body like a just-stoked fire. Go on. Bring up a bruise.

“You little cunt,” he whispered.

Over Warren’s shoulder, she saw Jason in the corner of the porch, the sharpened stick held tight, his fist shaking.

The porch light flicked on. Warren released his grip and straightened. The door hit Jane in the back, releasing another metallic smack into the air.

“What are y’all doing out here?” Diane’s voice rang with suspicion and dread.

Jane watched Warren; he watched her. The sweat on her skin chilled with the shifting wind. An owl hooted in the distance and seemed to quiet the other creatures, including the incessantly barking dogs. Everything seemed to pause for her response.

“Nothing,” Jane said, eyes locked on Warren’s. For years, Jane had been able to slip by and out of sight of people who could harm her, whether her mom’s boyfriends or kids at school. But something in that moment unleashed her mouth. A feeling rushed through her. She wanted to hurt Warren, to put him on the opposite side of all the pain he and other men tried to inflict on girls like her and Angie, boys like Jason.

“Warren’s in one of his moods,” Jane said. Must be on the rag. She kept Warren’s shitty words out of her mouth.

Warren yanked the screen door open, and the handle flew out of Diane’s grip. He shoved past her and disappeared into the house.

Diane grabbed at the shoulder he’d knocked on his way in and gaped at Jane. “What the hell’s going on?” What’d you do? her expression asked.

When Jane refused to answer, Diane eyed Jason. “He hurt you?” Meanwhile, Jane’s back was on fire, and she rubbed it, but Diane didn’t seem to notice. If she did, she definitely did not care.

“No,” Jason muttered.

“You got to learn to stick up for yourself. Ain’t always gonna be someone around to protect you. You gotta learn to hit back.” Diane had never offered that advice to Jane. It was always Keep your mouth shut and stay out of the way.

“I know how to hit.” Anger crept into Jason’s voice.

Diane smacked a mosquito on her arm and then scratched at the skin. “Y’all stay out here awhile. Don’t come in till I tell you to.” She grumbled and shut the door, complaints trailing behind her about the AC, the cost of electricity, unnamed but knowable trouble Diane would endure because Jane had the audacity to open her mouth.

Jane arched her back to release the tension and ache from where the door had clocked her spine and Warren had gripped her. Jason sat rigid in the corner of the porch, the stick still clutched in his fist, but the shaking subsided. His eyes wide, jaw set tight. The look he always got after her fights with Warren. Wanting and always unable to do more.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “Don’t let him get to you.” She smiled away the tears brought on by adrenaline and the fear that this time, somehow, she’d gone too far.

“I’m not the one he got.” Jason broke his stick in half, threw it to the ground, and left her on the porch alone.





Four

GEORGIA LEE

Rusty stretched his limbs along the length of the recliner, sleepy eyed from one of his extended underemployment naps. He checked his watch and then frowned when he noticed what Georgia Lee was cradling in the crook of her arm.

“Again?”

Georgia Lee dropped the bucket of fried chicken on the too-expensive dining room table. Golden crumbs scattered across its espresso sheen. Jesus on his iron crucifix accused her from across the room. Groceries were the last thing on her mind. She tossed her purse onto the long buffet that completed the dining room set and grabbed a bottle of wine from the liquor cabinet. Tim and Tate, the twins, lumbered down the stairs and nearly knocked her down, as if she were a player from an opposing team. They raced toward the table like a couple of heathens who hadn’t been raised right. Didn’t even say hello or What’s for supper?

Not for the first time, she fantasized about what it would be like to come home to an empty, quiet house. Forever.