Folk Around and Find Out (Good Folk: Modern Folktales #2)(90)

“Thank you, Marty Sue Winston, for spelling it out for me,” I growled, my head pounding. Try as I might, I simply could not recall the Charlotte from my youth beyond blurry snapshots of a tall, sporty girl with scraped knees. A girl who dressed for comfort rather than style, who wanted to turn everything into a debate. A young, improper miss with long, streaky, blond hair and long legs, who always chose dare instead of truth, who hung around Baby Winston, who interrupted me and Beau more than a few times, wanting in on our schemes.

But that’s all I recalled: snapshots I’d never taken the time or energy to organize or save.

“Was I jerk to her?” I asked before I could stop myself, bracing.

“Eh.” He shrugged, then sipped his gin and tonic. “Yeah. But you weren’t any more or less of a jerk to Charlotte than you were to anyone else.”

His response made the band around my chest tighter. I needed to be a more polite person, but I also needed to figure out how to stomach it. Growing up, my parents’ friends would comment on my lack of manners but never comment on how my parents screamed at me or smacked me around in front of them.

It isn’t polite to comment on abuse to an abuser, and God forbid someone be impolite.

“Come on, Hank. You’ve mellowed as you’ve gotten older.” This came from Jethro. He wasn’t laughing, but he still grinned. “So have I, so have we all.”

“And you were a hellraiser,” Roscoe said, his smile somehow both grim and fond. “You taught Beau, Duane, and me how to pick locks and pick pockets. Every card-shark move I know is one you taught me. And where’d you get all those fireworks? You seemed to have an endless supply and were always setting them off at community garden events and society tea parties.”

“My mother was the head of the Green Valley Garden Society,” I said, distracted by my sinking stomach.

Why would I have asked Charlotte to her junior prom? If I understood the circumstances, I’d remember more. Covering my face, I rubbed my eyes. I needed to talk to Charlotte about this. I needed to apologize. Speaking of, why hadn’t she said anything to me? Had she forgotten, too?

“My point is, you were shipped off to boarding school during the year when you were a kid, and too busy raining down chaos over the summers and breaks to notice Charlotte or anyone else. The only person you ever had time for was Beau,” Roscoe said.

I let my hands drop to my lap and regarded him warily.

Roscoe returned his glass to the coaster, seemingly careful to set it directly in the center. “When you returned for college breaks, you had no interest in a sixteen-year-old high school student or taking her to prom. That doesn’t make you a jerk. I’d say it’s healthy that a nineteen-year-old man didn’t see a sixteen-year-old girl in that way.”

“Hmm,” was all I said, not wanting to interrupt his monologue, hungry for more details that might jog my memory.

“But she liked you.” He shrugged, his movements looser than earlier in the evening. I noticed he’d almost finished his most recent gin and tonic. “I don’t think you had any idea. During that particular Christmas break, she would ask you about what books you were reading and then force you into conversation by asking you tons of questions. Charlotte was pushy back then. I’m not talking assertive, I’m talking pushy. Never wanting to take no for an answer, always testing boundaries, always pushing. She’s different now, but her oldest daughter is just the same.”

“If I wasn’t interested in Charlotte, then why I’d ask her to prom?” I wished he’d get to the point instead of editorializing the trivialist of details or telling me things I already knew.

“It was a bet,” Jethro filled in. “Just tell him the rest, Roscoe. Put him out of his misery.”

“Fine.” Roscoe’s chest rose with an expansive breath and he leaned forward, eyes on me. “The year you asked her, you weren’t around as much. That summer, you only spent from July 19th until August 17th in the valley, and then you skipped coming home for Thanksgiving. But you did come home for Christmas, December 23rd through January 2nd. Those dates are the only time you and Charlotte interacted that I’m aware of, and even then, it wasn’t a lot. Just a few minutes here or there as you and Beau came and went from the house.”

I squinted at him and his ridiculously impressive recall while I still drew blank nothingness. “Okay . . .?”

“But three days after Christmas, my momma was gone with Billy and Cletus overnight, leaving Beau and Duane in charge of me. Ashley was long gone to college by then. Charlotte came over. So did you. And you told us that if we could manage to score some beer from the Corner Shoppe, then you’d grant us each one wish. Her wish was that you would ask her to prom.”

Staring at the tabletop, I scoured my mind, still encountering a void. “So I did?”

“Yep.”

“And then?” Beau spared me from asking the next obvious question.

“That’s it.” Roscoe shrugged. “You said, ‘Charlotte, will you go to prom?’ And she said, ‘Yes.’ And that’s it. That was the whole conversation. You and Beau left and drank all the beer, getting totally shitfaced. Billy found you both the next day—”

“Oh, shit. I remember that,” Beau said, his eyes losing focus. “Damn. We got so sick.”