Dance Away with Me(28)

He turned. “Who said I don’t like you?”

His words didn’t exactly sound confrontational, but close enough. “You said you don’t like me.”

“I never did.”

“Your face did. Your words do. You can barely resist sneering at me whenever you see me.”

“I never sneer.”

“You’re sneering right now.”

“That’s the way my face looks. I can’t help it.”

She planted one hand on her hip. “How about this, then? I might not like you.”

“Understandable. I’m not long on charm.”

“I’ve noticed.”

But he was long on talent. A talent he didn’t seem to want to use. And she was beginning to suspect he might—just might—have more humanity than he wanted anyone to see.

*

She was draped in a shawl and naked from the waist up when someone knocked at the front door. Worried that Eli’s wound had reopened, she wrapped herself and Wren tighter and went to open it.

Three teenage girls—two white and one black—stood on the other side. She recognized Ava, daughter of the unpleasant Kelly Winchester, but she didn’t know the other two. One had braces, light brown hair, and a scatter of pimples across her forehead. The other had an uncertain smile and a bright pink plastic headband holding her curly hair away from a heart-shaped face. Tess waited for one of them to say something, but they weren’t making eye contact. Tess eventually broke the silence. “What can I do for you?”

Ava licked her lips nervously. “Is that the baby?”

“Yes. Why don’t you step in? I don’t want her to get chilled.”

Ava was one of those rare teens with straight, shiny blond hair; a creamy complexion; and perfect, metal-free white teeth. “It’s sad about her mother dying.”

“It’s been difficult.”

Ava nodded toward the other girls. “This is Jordan and that’s Imani. If you ever need a babysitter, all of us are good with kids.”

“It’ll be a while before Wren can have a babysitter.”

“Is that her name?” Ava reached out to touch the baby’s head, but Tess moved back before there was any contact. “She’s still frail, so I’m not letting too many people touch her. You might have a cold you don’t know about.”

“Women should have babies in the hospital with a real doctor,” Ava said, so firmly that Tess knew she was parroting something she’d heard, probably from her uptight mother.

“That’s not always possible.”

Jordan, the girl with the braces, had been looking around the room and interrupted. “My mom and dad went to school here.”

“So did mine,” Ava said. “And my grandma and papa.”

“My parents had to go to school at Jackson,” Imani said.

The other two girls nodded. “That’s because black kids couldn’t go to the same school as white kids back then,” Ava said. “Some of the white people around here still don’t like that we have black friends.”

Imani rolled her eyes. “You have one black friend. Don’t make it sound like you have more.” And then, to Tess, “I’m like their token BFF so they don’t look like as big of racists as their parents.”

“My parents aren’t racists,” Ava protested.

“We’d like Imani even if she wasn’t black,” Jordan said earnestly.

Imani looked more indulgent than offended. Tess smiled. She decided she liked all three of these girls, even perfect Ava, whose flawlessness she would have hated when she was their age.

The other two were starting to look twitchy. Ava finally pulled a folded piece of yellow paper from the pocket of her jacket. “We heard you wrote this.”

Tess recognized the pamphlet she’d tucked next to the condom display that had raised Kelly Winchester’s ire. What You Need to Know about Safe Sex.

“We’re in tenth grade,” Jordan said. “But they don’t teach us this stuff in health class.”

“All they teach is don’t do it,” Imani explained. “It’s like an abstinence-only class.”

“Mandated by the state,” Ava said.

Her terminology reminded Tess that the teen’s father was in the legislature. “And we’re not doing it!” Ava added so quickly that Tess wondered if she were lying. “We’re all virgins. But the thing is . . .”

“Ava and I both have boyfriends,” Imani said. “And . . .” She trailed off. The room fell silent.

“And,” Tess said, “you’re thinking about having sex?”

“No!” Ava and Imani shook their heads too vigorously. “We only have some questions. Things we might need to know for, like, when we’re older.”

“I mean, we tried to find stuff on the Internet . . . ,” Ava said, “but, like . . .” Air quotes. “Parental controls.”

“Have you talked to them?” Tess asked. “Your parents?”

They looked at her as if she’d descended from the planet Neptune.

“My father’s pastor at Angels of Fire Apostolic,” Imani said in explanation. “He’s really strict, and he’s on the school board.”