The Lies They Tell(32)
Pearl pushed her hair behind her ears, watching a nearby match without really seeing it. “Tristan didn’t mind that his little sister was tagging along with his friends?”
“I guess not. They didn’t talk much. She always found her own rides places, things like that.” Bridges paused. “She said she was on a break.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I heard her playing at all last summer. Weird. Usually her music was all over their house.”
A silent piano. A suddenly full social calendar. And a video of someone breaking a door down. Pearl wanted to keep pushing, to reach into Bridges’s mind and rake through what he’d seen, what he knew—he’d been there, in the Garrisons’ house, at the Little Nicatou parties—but she was on the verge of prying too hard as it was. She picked up a pebble, tossed it away through the fence. “Think Akil really would’ve hit Quinn?”
“Everybody wants to hit Quinn. But, nah. You’ve got to know by now that Akil’s ninety percent talk.”
Interesting, considering how fast Bridges had gotten between them. Pearl looked off at the club, picturing Akil’s face on the other side of that door on the Islander, his shoulder slamming the wood. “Would he have hit Cassidy?”
“Are you kidding? He treated her like a princess—for him, anyway. Akil’s not stupid. He knew he was getting crazy-lucky. I mean, Cassidy Garrison? That’s like . . .” Bridges hesitated, got to his feet. “Well, lots of guys would’ve traded places.”
Pearl plucked at her racket netting, feeling the slight twist of—not exactly jealousy, but a resurgence of what’d she felt the night before Christmas Eve when she’d watched Cassidy’s poise and grace and known with a hollow certainty that she’d never, ever have that. Not even close. What did it take to inspire awe in people, to be the kind of girl that guys treated like royalty?
“So . . . do you ever check your mail?”
Pearl looked up sharply. “What?”
“I’ve been waiting for you to say something, but you should’ve gotten it a couple days ago, so . . .”
She stood. “How’d you manage that, anyway? Those invitations were mailed by the club.”
He grinned. “Are you saying you’ll come? You don’t have to work it, do you?”
“No. I’m working lunch that day.” Going as Bridges’s date would mean total exposure, see-and-be-seen by both members and staff. Word would almost certainly get back to Dad. It was a risk. “I don’t know. Hoity-toity people in diamond tiaras . . . ?”
“I’ll leave mine at home, promise. Come on, my gramps is making a big deal out of it. The whole club’s going to be there. He really wants me to go. And he likes you. I can tell.”
“All I did was bring him some scones.”
“It’s because you were cool. You didn’t try to kiss his ass. He respects that.” Bridges stood up. “So . . . do you have time to get a dress before Friday?”
She gave him a look. “I’ll get my designer right on it.”
He loped over and picked up the tennis ball, reminding her a bit of a golden retriever puppy, shaggy-haired and guileless. “Still feel like learning to play?”
They spent an hour batting the ball around, laughing at their mistakes; when Pearl stopped, winded, she realized she was having fun, genuinely enjoying herself with Bridges, and not for the first time, either. Then she heard one of the mowers approaching.
Dad rode by, following the nearest edge of the golf course. Bridges’s conversation faded behind the sound of her own heartbeat, the blood rushing in her veins as she stood still, sure Dad must’ve seen her through the chain link, that he’d cut the engine now and come over to ask her what the hell was going on.
But his gaze passed over her and moved on without hesitation. As if, without her uniform, with a racket in her hand, she was unrecognizable. A completely different person.
Twelve
SUMMER DUSK, A long, shimmering stretch of afternoon bleeding into twilight.
Pearl was home with supper ready—mac and cheese, Veg-All—when Dad got out of work. They ate in companionable silence; then she cleaned up, turning from the sink when she heard him putting his shoes on by the door. “You’re leaving?”
Dad didn’t look at her, taking his time checking his pockets for his truck keys. Was it her imagination, or was there more gray in his dark hair than the last time she’d noticed, more salt in his two days’ growth of stubble? His scarred left hand found the key chain, jingled it into his palm. She wondered if she’d ever be able to look at his hands without picturing him trying to get into the Garrisons’ burning parlor, being held back by the flames, finally having no choice but to retreat to the fence and watch the place go up until the first responders arrived, the whole time thinking the family was alive, unreachable. “Heading over to Yancey’s to help him with the tractor.”
Ah. The project without end. “Has that thing ever run?”
“Once in a blue moon.” He hesitated briefly, something in his posture making him seem no older than Pearl herself. “You mind?”
“No. Go for it.” But she sounded stiff, and she saw a flash of Mom standing at this same sink, up to her wrists in soapy water, turning her back on Dad for going out. “Be safe.”