The Familiar Dark(20)

I stood near my car, eyes scanning the doors of the school until I saw Hallie walk out, her reddish hair covered by a gray beanie. When I called her name, she pivoted, brought one hand up to block the sun as she peered at me.

“Hi, Hallie,” I said as I approached. “I’m Junie’s mom. We’ve met a few times.”

“I remember,” she said, voice cautious. She clutched a notebook to her chest like a shield. Around her, kids peeled off toward the buses, eyeing us with curiosity but not slowing down.

“Can I talk to you?” I asked.

Hallie glanced at the buses and then nodded. “For a second. I don’t want to miss my bus.”

“Okay, sure.” I stepped away from the doors and Hallie trailed behind me. When I turned around, she was biting her bottom lip, her eyes on the ground.

“I’m really sorry about Junie,” she whispered. “And Izzy, too.”

I knew people were trying to be kind, but I was already tired of this ritual. Did people actually think their being sorry helped? That my hearing an endless litany of worthless words over and over and over again made anything better? But Hallie was just a kid, I reminded myself, the same age as Junie. I swallowed down what I really wanted to say and managed a thank-you instead.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” I said. “Was Izzy dating an older guy?”

Hallie’s eyes flew up to mine, and I knew right then she hadn’t been raised in a house like the one where I grew up. She had no poker face. My mother would have eaten her alive. “What?” she managed to stumble out, her cheeks flaring red. “No. I don’t know.”

I raised my eyebrows at her and waited. I figured it would take twenty seconds of silence to break her, but it only took ten. “I mean, she wasn’t like dating him. But she liked him.” Hallie paused, shifting her weight from foot to foot. “They messed around some.”

“Who was he?” I asked, my heart a steady drumbeat pounding got him got him got him.

Hallie shrugged. “I don’t know. Honest,” she added when she glanced at my face. “Izzy would never say.”

“Did Junie know who it was?”

“Yeah, I think so. But she always kept Izzy’s secrets.” Hallie took a step closer to me, lowered her voice. “They fought about it, though. Junie was threatening to tell someone if Izzy didn’t stop. She seemed really worried about Izzy.”

“Do you know how old this guy was?” I asked. Eighteen, I was thinking. Please say eighteen and not something worse.

“Old,” Hallie said. “I don’t know exactly. But maybe thirty?”

“Why would you say that?” I tried to keep my voice steady even as my stomach bottomed out.

“Just the way they talked about him. He wasn’t a teenager. Not even close.” Hallie looked over her shoulder, started shuffling backward. “I gotta go. I’m gonna miss the bus.” When she met my eyes again, I could see it there, something she wanted to say but wasn’t going to. Something that was trapped behind her clenched teeth.

“Hallie, wait.” I reached forward and snagged at the sleeve of her sweatshirt, but she pivoted away from me.

“I can’t. I have to go.”

I watched her walk away, her eyes on the sidewalk. Frustration pounded through me, and I could feel the part of me that belonged to my mama wanting to race after her and grab a handful of her red hair in my fist. Jerk her bald-headed until she talked. Someone yelled to her from the bus, and she picked up her pace, grabbing the handrail on the bus steps to swing herself inside. Just before she disappeared, she looked back at me. “Talk to your brother,” she called, barely loud enough for me to catch the words. By the time the syllables had sorted themselves out inside my head, the door was closing. As the bus pulled away, I caught a glimpse of Hallie’s face in the window, her eyes skating away from mine.

Cal. Who loved Junie like his own. Who’d grown up breaking the law—stealing food when I was hungry, fighting kids who wronged me, running drug errands for Mama so I didn’t have to—and now lived to follow it. Cal, who all the women wanted but could never seem to catch. He always said it was because he was focused on work or they were too needy, wanted too much of him—a shudder ran through me—but maybe they were just too old.





NINE


Thomas almost bowled me over with a stinking bag of trash when he barreled out through the back door of the diner. “Jesus Christ,” he said, pivoting to avoid me at the last second, the plastic bag thunking against my hip. “What the hell are you doing out here, Eve?”

I leaned sideways, wrinkling my nose at the smell. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to trip you.”

Thomas heaved the sack over the railing and into the open dumpster, the lid closing again with a hollow clank. He wiped his hands on his apron. “Didn’t answer my question,” he said.

I shrugged. “Having a smoke.” Truth was, after talking to Hallie, I hadn’t known what to do with myself. I’d called Cal, but he hadn’t answered. I couldn’t stand the thought of going back to my empty apartment. The diner was the closest thing I had to a home. And if that thought wasn’t depressing enough, sitting out here with the smell of rotted trash in the air and broken bottles and cigarette butts at my feet really sealed the deal.