The Familiar Dark(2)

“I promised Junie I’d be home early and we’d have pizza and watch a movie. I haven’t seen her since yesterday.” I didn’t need to see Louise’s eye roll to know how pathetic she found my version of an exciting Saturday night. She’d already told me enough times that youth was wasted on me. Thirty going on fifty was one of her favorite commentaries on my nonexistent social life.

“When mine were that age, I’d a been happy if someone had taken them away for a week at a time. Little smart-asses.” Louise shook her head. “Where’s she been, anyway?”

“She stayed over with Izzy Logan.” I kept my gaze on the swath of counter I was wiping. Ignored the pinch in the base of my skull.

“Those two are thick as thieves,” Louise said, and I didn’t miss the slight note of disbelief in her voice. I was used to it by now, understood that girls like Junie and girls like Izzy didn’t usually run in the same crowd. Especially not in this town, which might as well have a neon strip painted down the middle. Poor white trash on this side. Do not cross. Didn’t seem to matter that 90 percent of the town was stranded on the wrong side. The invisible line wasn’t budging based on majority rule, at least not when it came to mixing with Jenny Logan’s family. When I was in junior high, out searching the roadside ditches for cans I could recycle, I used to see Jenny tooling around in her little white convertible. She left for college when I was a sophomore in high school, and I’d assumed she was gone for good. But she’d returned two years later with half a degree she’d never used and a college boy groomed to take over her dad’s boat dealership. They weren’t anything special by city standards, but around here the Logans were practically royalty. It didn’t take much. A decent job and a house that wasn’t moveable usually did the trick.

“Yep,” I said. I hated how everyone acted like I ought to be grateful that Izzy liked my daughter, that Izzy’s parents welcomed Junie into their home. No one ever asked me what I thought, probably would have been surprised to discover that I wasn’t grateful at all. That I would’ve put a stop to the friendship a long time ago if I could have figured out a way to do it without breaking my daughter’s heart. I resented the phone calls from Jenny arranging get-togethers, always assuming, even after constant reminders to the contrary, that my schedule was endlessly flexible. I looked away from the perfunctory waves Izzy’s father, Zach, gave from the front porch when I pulled up in my ancient Honda, the back window jury-rigged out of cardboard and duct tape. I kept waiting (and wishing) for the first bloom of friendship to fade, for some stupid drama to tear the girls apart. But it had been years now, and so far, the bond they had was made of stronger stuff. And I didn’t like that, either. Hated thinking about what it might mean.

I dropped the rag on the counter and pressed my hands into my lower back. I was too young to feel like such shit at the end of the day, my legs aching and spine a dull throb. You would have thought the snow might’ve made for a quiet day at the diner, but weather was everyone’s second-favorite topic, right behind politics. The place had been hopping all day, only now emptying out as everyone made their way home for dinner. The pie rack had been cleared out, and I didn’t want to estimate how many cups of coffee I’d poured in the last eight hours. Lots of jawing and not a whole lot of tipping. My least favorite kind of day.

“Looks like your brother’s pulling in,” Louise said. “Hope he doesn’t want a piece of apple. He’s shit outta luck.”

I straightened up, watched Cal’s car slide to a stop out front. Even after all these years, the sight of my brother behind the wheel of a patrol car came as a little shock. We’d spent the majority of our childhoods evading the cops, grew up always keeping one eye out for the law. The kind of public service that might earn us an extra dollar from the dealers using our mama’s cracked countertop as a storefront. So cop hadn’t exactly been at the top of my list of promising potential professions for my brother. But he’d surprised me, first by becoming one and then turning out to be good at the job. Word around town was he was tough but always fair. Which was more than could be said for his boss and the other lazy-ass deputies. Once, when Thomas had spent a night in jail after he’d made a drunken mess of himself, he’d told me that Cal had “a real nice way about him, even when he was putting on the cuffs.” Praise for the law didn’t come higher than that, not around here.

“He’s not usually in town on Saturdays,” I said. The cops around here were spread thin, patrolling not just Barren Springs but multiple small towns and the long stretches of almost empty highway in between.

“Maybe the man needs a cup of coffee,” Louise said. “I’m sure he’s had a long day.” She fluffed her hair with one hand. Louise was old enough to be Cal’s mom and then some, but even she turned ridiculous in his presence, wanting to baby him and flirt with him in equal measure.

“Maybe,” I said, but something heavy settled in my stomach as Cal unwound himself from the front seat of his cruiser. He shut the door and then stood there, head hanging down, dishwater-blond hair catching the light. After a moment, he straightened up, set his shoulders. Steeling himself, I thought, and the heavy knot in my stomach bottomed out through the floor. Those sirens . . . I told myself they had nothing to do with Junie, who was too young to drive and too old to be fooling around on a playground. I grabbed the rag and looked away from the window, went back to scrubbing at the cracked Formica countertop, didn’t look up even when I heard the bell jangle over the door.