Secrets Everybody Knows

by Christa Maurice

  He didn’t know how long he’d been working when he heard the door creak. It had been a while. Through the wall slats he could see darker blue climbing the sky. Grabbing a rag, he wiped his hands in case Dad was coming out for a head to head. It didn’t seem likely. Dad didn’t usually venture into the barn.

  “Johnny?” The high female voice didn’t sound like Sue and certainly not like Mom.

  “Yeah?”

  Elaine stepped into the circle of the fluorescent work light. She blinked as her eyes adjusted. “Are you all right?”

  Jesus, just what he needed. Pity from the little girl. He threw the rag back on the table behind him and grabbed a wrench to loosen the bolts holding the hood to the body. “I’m fine.”

  “I just–that fight sounded pretty bad.” She sidled to the front fender. “Your dad was pretty mad.”

  “My dad is always pretty mad.” Johnny started unbolting the hood.

  “He does have a bad temper, doesn’t he?” Elaine laced her fingers together resting them on the fender. “Everybody knows what happened wasn’t all your fault.”

  “Poor judgment and impulse control,” Johnny muttered.

  “What?”

  “My probation officer said it was poor judgment and impulse control.” He walked to the other side of the car. Elaine was standing right where he needed to be. She wasn’t such a girl anymore. At some point in the last year, his little sister’s little friend had gotten a good start on a woman’s body. “Can you move?”

  “Oh, sorry.” Elaine shifted to the nose of the car, twisting the end of her ponytail around her finger. It was such a cute gesture, he couldn’t look at her.

  “Put your hands on that hood. I’m going to have it loose in a minute. Don’t want it falling on your head.”

  Elaine reached up to hold the hood in place. That was much worse than her girly fidget. Now he had her womanly torso stretched out in the corner of his eye. Sixteen, he reminded himself. Sixteen.

  The wrench slipped, and his knuckles bashed into the engine. “Son of a–” Johnny jammed his fingers in his mouth before the rest of the expletive could come out.

  “Oh my God, are you all right?” Elaine let go of the hood and it crashed down as she hurried to his side. “Let me see.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “It didn’t sound like nothing.” She grabbed his wrist and he lost the ability to fight her. “You’re cut.”

  “It’s fine. Happens all the time.”

  Elaine straightened his fingers over her palm, assessing the damage. She gently brushed blood and dirt away with her thumb. “You should get this cleaned out and bandaged.”

  Cleaned out and bandaged meant going in the house where Elaine wasn’t and Dad was. This smacked of poor judgment, but he didn’t want first aid at that price. “Bandage would just get dirty.”

  “At least let me wash it off for you.” She took a tissue from her pocket and started cleaning the wound. “It looked a lot worse than it was. It’s already stopping bleeding.”

  “Thanks.”

  She wadded the tissue up and tucked it back in her pocket. “I dropped your hood.”

  “Didn’t hurt it.” Johnny lifted the hood over her head and propped it against the back wall. “It’s getting pretty dark out. Gonna be even darker in the woods.”

  Elaine peeked through the wall. “I didn’t realize it was that late.” Worry creased her eyes. “I better get home.”

  “You want me to walk you?” Johnny offered. Immediately, he wished he wasn’t such an idiot. Elaine Hammersmith was exactly the type of girl he needed to stay far, far away from. Just a whiff of impropriety and Myers would be all over him. He was still pissed off the judge hadn’t sent Johnny to prison.

  “There’s nothing more dangerous than a stray cat out there.” Elaine’s voice held just the slightest quaver.

  “Bats,” Johnny suggested. Poor impulse control. He couldn’t resist needling her.

  “Bats!” Elaine wrapped her arms over her head.

  “Come on, I used to walk you home all the time. It’ll be just like old times.”

  Elaine smiled and rolled her eyes. “You mean last summer?”

  Last summer it had been a pain in the neck. This summer it looked like it was going to be a pain somewhere else. Johnny wiped off his hands. His knuckles had stopped bleeding. That was a plus. He flexed his hand as he pushed open the door for her.

  “Does your hand still hurt?”

  Johnny shrugged. “A little. Happens all the time. Don’t worry about it.” He led her down through the orchard to the head of the path into the woods.

  “So now what are you going to do?”

  It was darker under these trees than he’d expected. Being in intimate darkness with an underage girl was the last thing he needed. “I’m going to restore Grampa’s car. I want to take it to car shows and stuff.”

  “No, I mean now that you’ve graduated.”

  “Don’t have much choice. Work for my dad.”

  “Do you like working for your dad?” Elaine sounded really grown-up now too. Last summer he remembered her yammering about idiot kid stuff, and all the sudden she’s thinking about the future?

  “No, but I’m not going to be able to get a job anywhere else with my BS police record.”

  “Couldn’t you explain it to them?”

  “I could, but it’s still a felony.” Johnny climbed down to the edge of the stream and held out his hand for Elaine. She moved with such neat, graceful steps. He didn’t remember that from last summer either. Did Shelly Myers have him completely blind? Was he not remembering that Elaine Hammersmith was well underage? “What about you? Do you have plans?”

  “I’m only starting my junior year.” Elaine crossed the flood pan of the stream and hopped across the water.

  “But you’re going to go to college and stuff.” Johnny tried to remember if she was one of the smart kids. It seemed like she must be.

  “Yes. I think I want to be a teacher.”

  “A teacher? You’d never get out of school.”

  Elaine shrugged. “I like school. I tutor some of the kids in my class, and it’s fun to help them get better grades.”

  “I guess.” Johnny gave her a hand up the other side. “You’d be good at it.”

  “You think so?”

  “Well, yeah.” Johnny fished for something to back up that comment. Pretty wasn’t going to cut it. Nice? Nice might work. “You’re nice.”

  “Nice?”

  Maybe it wouldn’t. “You know, some of the teachers are so busy talking about their own thing that they don’t notice us. You notice the kids. Like when you came to the barn to see if I was okay.”

  “I just felt bad.”

  “Your family probably doesn’t do that. Yell at each other over dinner.”

  “No,” Elaine mumbled. She shoved her hands in her pockets.

  Her dejection caught him in the throat. “Is everything okay at your house?”

  “Well.” Elaine sighed. “I guess so. It’s just real quiet. Your family yells, mine stops talking.”

  “Sounds nice.”

  “It’s not.” Elaine put her arms around herself. “My mom and dad are mad at each other about something and they aren’t talking. Kathy is always gone. She sneaks out at night after everybody’s in bed. I don’t know what she’s doing. I’m afraid she’s running around with Greg Fitzroy and Jeff Wilson and some of them. It’s a relief to come to your house lately.”

  “Must be bad.” He didn’t know how old Elaine’s sister Kathy was, but if she was running with those boys she was in over her head. “Would it help if I asked around? Maybe I can have a talk with them.”

  “Would you? I’m afraid of what kind of trouble she could get into. She’s only thirteen.”

  “I’ll talk to them.” Johnny could see the edge of the field behind Elaine’s house through the trees. She might come ask him if he’d talked to Greg and Jeff. Or she might not. She might realize how much bad news h
e really was and stay away. After all, he’d been pals with Greg’s older brother, Tim, until his arrest. If they were trouble he was worse and more of it. How could she know he’d made a conscious decision to distance himself from them? “So, sweet sixteen and never been kissed.”

  “I guess.”

  “What do you mean, you guess? You don’t know if you’ve been kissed?”

  Elaine shrugged. “None of the boys really seem interested in me.”

  “Are you sure? Boys can be pretty stupid.”

  “I’m sure.” She shrugged again. “It’s fine. I don’t need a boyfriend.”

  “Right.”

  “No, really. I’m fine on my own.”

  “Sue freaks out when she’s between boyfriends. She starts swanning around about how she’ll never have another date and she’s ugly and pathetic. It’s a huge pain.”

  “Well, I’m different from Sue by more than just one grade level.”

  “I noticed.”

  Elaine glanced up, but it was too dark to read her expression. Johnny stopped at the edge of the trees and she stopped too. “Anyway, I don’t need a boyfriend.”

  “But do you need kissed?”

  She didn’t run away. Instead she shifted from foot to foot. “Are you offering?”

  “Are you accepting?” Johnny pressed his palms against his jeans. Sweaty hands were not cool.

  “I don’t know how.”

  “To accept?” The way his heart was hammering wasn’t cool either.

  “To kiss.”

  “I’ll tutor you.” He put his hands on her bare shoulders. She tensed. “Relax.”

  She did as he instructed, but her breath came in shallow hitches. Johnny felt his own breath shorten as he leaned down to her, drawing her closer. Her delicate, tiny body leaned toward his. When his mouth touched hers, she held her lips tightly closed, shivering. A regret-laced desire stirred in his belly. He moved his hand to the middle of her back and pulled her against him. The motion startled a gasp from her that parted her lips. He restrained himself from taking advantage. Kissing her at all was insane.

  Johnny shifted back, keeping his arm around her. Her eyes opened wide. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. Stepping back a pace, she slipped out of his arms and he missed her.

  “I’ll talk to those guys about your sister.”

  “Thanks.” Her voice was soft and rough. “I guess I’ll see you.”

  Johnny gave her a lopsided smile. “You know where I live.”

  She hurried across the field and her backyard without looking back. Johnny waited in the shadow of the trees until the door closed behind her. He had to get up early in the morning to get that car tuned up. No point in standing around here all night.

  Except that he’d just made a huge mistake and he wanted to feel guilty about it, but he couldn’t stop staring at her house and daydreaming about the promise in her kiss.

  * * * *

  Elaine answered the door in her bathrobe. Beth surveyed the scene. “You realize it’s ten o’clock.”

  “I do and I don’t care.” Elaine folded her arms. What sleep she’d managed to get last night had been filled with dreams about Johnny. Not restful in any way.

  “Look, Lily’s having a panic attack. We need to get over there and bail her out before she does a swan dive off the church steeple.”

  “No, we don’t. You do it if you want. I don’t feel well.”

  Beth pressed her palm against Elaine’s forehead. “You feel fine. Go put on some clothes and let’s go.”

  “I told you, I’m not leaving the house today. I didn’t get any sleep last night, and I don’t feel well.”

  “Work is just the thing to distract you from your trauma. Which, by the way, you didn’t cause. We did tell you you didn’t give John a heart attack. He’s been working on that most of his life.”

  “The hospital said this morning that he was still critical.”

  “Sitting around the house worrying about it isn’t going to get him out of ICU either.”

  Elaine rolled her eyes. How little Beth knew. “You took the whole festival off this year.”

  “I have excellent reasons.”

  “And what is Mr. Excellent’s name?”

  “Don’t go there.” Beth put her hands on her hips. “Listen, if this thing tanks, the whole town is going to look stupid. Do you want Weaver’s Circle as a whole to look stupid because you didn’t sleep well?”

  Elaine threw up her hands. “Fine. I’ll get dressed. But I’m not talking to anyone. You guys do the talking. I’m not calling anyone, and I’m not going to anyone’s house.” She trudged through the house to her bedroom.

  “I need to stop at the grocery store on the way, but that’s it.”

  “Grocery store? I need ice cream,” Elaine shouted, pulling her jeans on.

  “You need?”

  “Yes, need. Ben and Jerry’s Chubby Hubby.”

  “Need.”

  “You heard me.” Elaine pulled her t-shirt on and plodded into the bathroom.

  “We’ll pick it up on the way home. You can spend the night in a threesome with Ben and Jerry.”

  Elaine watched her face turn brilliant red in the mirror at the mention of a threesome. Her dreams last night had been plenty graphic, she didn’t need Ben and Jerry thrown into the mix. By the time she’d tamed her blush and returned to the living room, Beth was on her phone asking a favor. Beth never asked for favors, she gave orders. It worked often enough that she hadn’t gotten out of the habit, so whatever she needed now must be important.

  “All right, pit stop at the grocery store to drop off my list, now including Chubby Hubby ice cream, and then to Lily’s. She has a whole flock of disasters to deal with. Are you really going to wear those?”

  Elaine crammed the huge pink sun hat on her head and added the largest sunglasses she owned. “I am.”

  “You look like you shop in the Salvation Army’s Dumpster.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You know you didn’t make John have that heart attack. You don’t have the heart attack touch or anything.”

  Elaine slouched in her seat and peered out the window. Beth didn’t know the half of it, and Elaine liked it that way. After the grocery store, they drove to Lily’s house, a block from Elaine's parents’ house–Elaine's mom’s. Dad didn’t live there anymore. She stared at the woods, trying to find the old path that led to McMannuses’. Lily threw open her door and met them in the yard. “Thank God. I didn’t know what to do. You guys are the natives. I’m just a carpetbagger.”

  “Lily, you’ve lived here for five years.”

  “And you’ve both been here for generations. You know everybody. How are we going to fix this stuff?”

  “I figured we needed reinforcements, so I stopped the new sheriff on the way here and asked him to pick up the cookies from Mrs. Coin.” Beth herded them into the house.

  “The sheriff?” Lily asked.

  “He was happy to do it. More or less.”

  Elaine dropped onto the couch and considered sticking her fingers in her ears. She had enough insane chattering going on inside her head. She didn’t need more from the outside.

  “Not a sheriff’s deputy, but the sheriff himself.”

  “The sheriff himself.”

  “So you asked the sheriff to pick up the cookies from Mrs. Coin’s,” Lily said, sounding haughty. She sat down in a leather wingback chair and crossed her legs.

  “Yes. They’re on their way if they aren’t already there.” Beth nodded.

  “And you picked up Elaine and brought her here.” Lily and Beth looked at Elaine, who sat on the couch glaring back at them. If there had been any way to avoid this, she’d have done it. As soon as the festival issues were dealt with, both of them were going to shift into fix-it mode and try to solve her problems. Problem. Lily had never met her problem, and Beth knew him mostly by reputation. Neither of them knew what the problem entailed. No one did. Elaine had been keeping the secret
all these years and Johnny hadn't been around to tell.

  “Getting her in the car was the hardest part. Eventually her civic pride won out,” Beth explained.

  “You promised I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone but you two. No phone calls, no visits,” Elaine insisted.

  “I promised.” Beth folded her hands in her lap. It was her Waterloo gesture. Whenever anyone had gotten as much as they were going to get from her, she folded her hands in her lap and pursed her lips. The lips would be next.

  “And Chubby Hubby ice cream.” Elaine reminded her before the lips went into action.

  “Bob is getting it as we speak.”

  “That’s the other thing,” Lily broke in. “You got Bob to do your grocery shopping?”

  “I gave him a detailed list. He’s going to be at the grocery store anyway.” Beth shrugged. “It’ll take him half the time it takes me.”

  “You asked the manager of the grocery store to get your groceries for you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Bob.”

  “Yes.”

  “To put the groceries in the basket for you.”

  “Yes.”

  “And ring them up.”

  “All right already!” Elaine shouted, leaping to her feet. “Lily, get it through your head. Bob is getting Beth’s groceries for her so all she has to do is pick everything up on the way home. How hard is it to understand?”

  Lily stared at Elaine for a beat, then turned back to Beth. “Michael’s father.”

  Elaine stomped into the kitchen. “Christ. Lily, do you have any wine around here? Beer? Rum? Vodka? Rubbing alcohol?”

  “Yes, Michael’s father, but they’re Nonie’s groceries. Elaine, don’t drink rubbing alcohol. It’ll make you go blind,” Beth called.

  Elaine opened every cupboard in the room. Lily actually was a teetotaling schoolteacher. She didn’t even have cooking sherry. Elaine yanked open the fridge. Potato salad, lunch meat, the decimated remains of a rotisserie chicken, brown bottles. Elaine pulled one out. Beer. It might work. After opening all the drawers, she finally found a bottle opener.

  Elaine walked back in making a face as she swigged from a bottle. “My God, this stuff is awful.”