The Quarry Girls(63)

The bench ended up filling before she could get to it, so instead of sitting in the air-conditioning, we walked my bike back toward Pantown together. Talking to Claude would have to wait. We weren’t even out of the parking lot when Brenda broke down and confessed where she’d gotten the earrings.

“Ed gave them to me.” She was holding herself, walking fast like she was trying to run away from a bad idea. “I knew I shouldn’t have taken them. He gave that pair to Maureen, too. I think it’s how he rewards whoever is his favorite.”

I swallowed past a ball of glue. “Did he make you do stuff for them?”

“No, Heather, it’s not like that.”

I studied her out of the corner of my eye. She was so pretty, the prettiest girl I knew next to Maureen and Junie. She didn’t have a big head about her appearance, though, never had. She’d gone from an apple-cheeked kid to a quick awkward phase to all of a sudden a chestnut-haired, blue-eyed stunner who, whenever we left Pantown, was guaranteed to get stopped by at least one person asking if she was a model. She’d laugh and flick her wrist at them, like they were being silly. Sometimes, if they wouldn’t let it go, she’d tell them she wanted to be a nurse when she graduated high school. The thing was, it was true. Her mom was a nurse, and that’s all Brenda had ever wanted to be.

I stretched my fingers on my bike grips. The greasy odor of the sun cooking the food I’d spilled on myself turned my stomach. “If it’s not like that with Ed, then what’s it like?”

She tried to smile, but the expression melted. “I hang out with him because I don’t want to be alone. I think about too much when it’s just me. I can’t turn it off.”

Her shoulders heaved with the force of her sudden weeping. I led her under the single tree on the edge of the parking lot, a spindly elm that barely gave any shade. “You’re not alone, Bren. You have me, and Claude, and Junie. Your mom and dad, your brothers.” I threw out every name I could think of, hoping it would do the trick. I had to get her back on steady ground or I’d sink with her.

She finally calmed down enough that she could speak. “You know how Jerry was home on leave a couple weeks ago?”

“Yeah,” I said, struggling to keep up with the conversation shift. I’d thought this had been about Maureen.

“He was AWOL.”

I recognized the term from M*A*S*H. “He ran away?”

She swiped at her face before studying her fingernails. “Something like that. He has a drinking problem, and I guess he got a girl pregnant. It all got to be too much, so he ditched the military. Mom and Dad eventually talked him into going back and facing the consequences, but I hear Mom crying at night, and Dad’s so uptight all the time. Then what happened to Maureen. I feel like I’m sinking, you know? It’s like I thought I was living one life, but it turned out everyone else was living another, and the two just crashed into each other. I don’t even know what’s real anymore.” She shook her head so forcefully that her hair fell into her face. “It sounds stupid.”

“No, it doesn’t,” I said, speaking the truest words I’d ever uttered. “I know exactly what you mean.”

She didn’t act like she heard me. She swiped at her nose, her earrings bobbing, her voice gone small. “That’s why I hung out with Ricky, Ricky and then Ed. Just to feel something besides sad all the time. And I don’t think Ed even likes me. He gave me these earrings, but he doesn’t pay much attention to me anymore.”

I grabbed her wrist. I’d promised Dad I wouldn’t spill what he’d revealed about Ed, and as much as I wanted to punish Dad for being a cheater, I wouldn’t break my word to him, especially if it meant he’d lose his job. But I couldn’t say nothing. “He’s bad news, Brenda. Ed, I mean. You shouldn’t hang out with him anymore. I heard he . . . I heard he hurt someone in Saint Paul.”

“Got in a fight, you mean?”

I chewed the inside of my cheek. “Something like that.”

I felt her moving a little bit toward me, like it could be us two against the world again. I wanted more of that. “Are you going to Ricky’s party?” I asked tentatively.

She massaged one of the gold balls, her forehead creased. “I was thinking about it.”

“You want to come over to my place instead?”

I expected her to say no, but instead, she threw her arms around me. “Oh boy, do I! We could have a girls’ night. That’d be so much better. Ed’s pushy, Heather. Ricky and Ant do whatever he says, and I guess I do, too. He makes everything seem like it matters, at least when I’m with him. As soon as he’s gone, I feel like a fool. And you know what else?” She sucked on her bottom lip, and then her face lit up. She leaned over and whispered in my ear, “He’s a terrible kisser.”

“Ew,” I said. “Really?”

She was chuckling. “Yeah. His lips are all dry and tight, it’s like being pecked by a bird. I think he has to kiss that way because his teeth are so bad.”

“Stop it!” I said, laughing now, too.

“Oh, you’re going to hear all that and more tonight, so you better have the popcorn popped when I show up.”

We parted ways, me feeling better than I had any right to.