Part 4 (1/2)
No need to reply. I sip my coffee and clamp the phone against my shoulder as I think about the sales proposal on my CRT.
28.
”I thought we'd go to Sister Moon. That okay with you?”
”Fine.”
”Then I thought we'd go to Platters and make love in a bathtub full of Jell-O in front of half the town.” Can't fool good old Fly By.
”Whatever. I don't want to be out too late, okay?”
”Afterwards, you'll wise up and admit you love me.”
That got my attention. ”Fly, we agreed not to go there.”
”Smell the coffee, girl. You know you've been the love of my life ever since we met.”
”So that's why you've bedded every woman in the tri-county area over the past fifteen years?” This conversation is so old I can recite it like the poem about Abraham Lincoln I learned in fifth grade.
”Got to do something while I'm waiting. You know, keep in practice for when you wise up. I wouldn't want to disappoint you.”
”I'm sure you could teach me a thing or two, Fly, but you'd get bored and I'd get hurt. Then what would I do? You're the only best friend I've got.”
”Have it your way. We'll always be together, one way or another.”
”I know, sweetie.”
A light flashes on my phone telling me the conference call is waiting. ”I'll talk to you later. Okay, buddy?”
”Catch you later.”
I punch the conference line. ”Good morning, all.”
The meeting drags on as usual, and after forty-five minutes of a jumble of voices droning through the speaker, I'm ready to bounce off the walls.
After all, Rebecca is waiting.
CHAPTER 7.
Senior year had moved into late September, and the summer's haze still clung to the sky like a humid blanket, saturating the region with wet heat. Jill and I had spent two hours after school in the gym's office to finish up a fund-raising project for the girls' basketball team. Silently, we walked toward the student parking lot.
Jill had never been a big talker, but since the beginning of the school year, she'd hardly strung together a dozen words at a time.
Whenever she did utter more than one complete sentence, she was talking to someone else.
Jill either loved or hated someone, without much middle ground, and it wasn't always clear how a person ended up out of favor. One day she'd like them and the next, for no apparent reason, she'd cross them off. If you asked her why, she'd say, ”He gets on my nerves,” or ”She thinks she's so cool.” And just like that, she was finished with them.
Lately, she'd been acting as though she was moving me to the hate category. I didn't know what I'd done to alienate her, but a showdown was coming and I wasn't looking forward to it.
”Want to shoot some baskets later?” I asked, shading my eyes against the afternoon sun.
”Maybe.” Jill didn't look at me, but focused in front of her as if fixing on an unseen target. ”I figured you had plans with your new buddy.”
I didn't understand her disdain for Lora Tyler. Lora was smart, funny, and made sure I had a good time, no matter what we were doing.
Sure, I'd spent a lot of time with Lora. Almost every day we'd cruise by Pizza Oven after school, and on Sundays we'd get together and watch campy horror flicks on channel six.
Okay, so Jill wasn't around, but it wasn't my fault she didn't like scary movies. And every time Lora and I went to Pizza Oven, we invited Jill, but she always had something more important to do, like go grocery shopping for her mom or clean her room. Fat chance. I'd been in Jill's 29
30.
bedroom a hundred times and knew the excuse was totally lame. She hadn't cleaned her room since eighth grade.
”Have you ever met Lora's mom?” I asked.
”No, why?”
”G.o.d, she's a hateful old woman. That house is like a concentration camp.”
The senior citizen I described couldn't have been over forty, but to my teenage eyes, she seemed ancient. She was the source of Lora's dark good looks, with thick undisciplined hair and penetrating brown eyes, but that was the extent of their likeness. Mrs. Tyler had the personality of a drill instructor. The first time I met her, she let me know my place with only a scorching look. I was to mind my manners in her presence, and I did so in military style.
It didn't take a psychoa.n.a.lyst to find the source of Mrs. Tyler's sour disposition. Lora's maternal grandfather spent his days at their house and his nights at the veterans' home across town. He was a dried-up old man who sat in a lawn chair on the front porch in his unders.h.i.+rt and blue mechanic's pants, smoking unfiltered Camels and drinking malt liquor from a can. In all the time I'd spent at their house, he'd never said a word to me, never looked in my direction, and didn't treat the members of the Tyler family any better.
”He was at Normandy,” Lora had explained. ”Mom says he was sh.e.l.l-shocked. Hasn't been himself since.”
But I'd been desensitized to violence by too many Jamie Lee Curtis movies. Real gore and death didn't register, so Mr. Kane looked like just another old geezer with an att.i.tude problem.
Jill glanced at me. ”For someone who hates it so bad, you sure do spend a lot of time at her house.” Her fixed look lasted an instant but fired a bullet into my chest.
”We've got a lot of studying to do.” I followed her to her yellow Volkswagen Beetle and leaned against its front fender as she fumbled through her purse for the keys.