Chapter 8
Johnny excused himself from the dinner table as soon as he could. Sitting between the puffy, clumsy version of his mother and the waxy, hollow version of his father gave him indigestion. Sue didn’t look much more comforted by the more familiar presence of their parents than he was. The meeting last night had been a shock for her. Too many familiar faces with similar stories. They weren’t so much surprised that she was there but that it had taken her so long to show up.
In the barn, he spread the papers Larry had given him out on the workbench. The only one that really amounted to anything was the summary, and the number at the bottom was likely to give him a heart attack. He couldn’t stop staring at it. That’s what he was doing when the door opened.
“Don’t panic. It’s not Dad,” Sue said. “What’s all that?”
“Stuff from the bank.”
Sue held up her hand. “Don’t tell me anything else.”
“I can’t do anything with it either, but it’s like a car accident. I can’t stop staring.” Johnny shook his head. “What did you want?”
“I have to want something?”
“To come in here you do.”
Sue looked around the room. Traces of the car that had sat there for forty years, but left fourteen years earlier, still lingered on the floor. “What did you do with that car you rebuilt out here? Dad said you stole it.”
“It was Grandpa’s. I took it back to him. He cried when he saw it. We did car shows until he got too old, and then he sold it to a collector.”
Sue nodded. She dragged her foot across an oil spot. “I talked to Kitty Hammersmith today.”
Johnny swallowed and decided to plead ignorance. “Kitty? Who’s that?”
Sue met his eyes. Her face hardened. “Don’t screw with me.”
“What do you mean?” Johnny leaned on the workbench and struggled to maintain his poker face.
“I talked to Kitty Hammersmith today,” Sue repeated. “She said she had a really interesting conversation with her sister yesterday.”
Johnny caught himself not breathing. There could be a lot of conversations Kathy and Elaine could have that Kathy would relay to Sue, but only one Sue would bring up to him. “Oh?”
“You’re screwing with me again. Cut it out.” Sue rubbed her hands together. “Did you have a thing going on with Elaine Hammersmith?”
“No, she was underage.” He cursed himself for answering too fast.
Sue pressed her hands into her stomach. “How do you know that?”
The silence in the barn stretched out until a cricket in the far corner felt safe enough to start singing. How did he know that? He wasn’t supposed to have anything in common with Elaine. There was no reason for him to talk to her at all. Why couldn’t he think of a reason? His brain must need grease. It was working far too slowly. “She was your friend back then. I just assumed.”
Sue studied his face but didn’t speak.
“She told me one day too. Remember that day she borrowed my bike? She told me she got contacts for her sixteenth birthday.”
“And you remember that.”
Johnny shrugged, but instead of moving smoothly, his shoulders jerked like a marionette with a bad puppeteer.
Sue’s face turned red, and she started breathing in short gasps. “So she wasn’t the reason you left town.”
“No.”
“Then why did you?”
Johnny swallowed. He’d worked up some lame excuse years ago when he sent that postcard telling his family he’d gone to Florida, but he couldn’t remember what it was. His grandparents hadn’t believed it, and he doubted his parents did either. Sue might have, but she was only sixteen and had been willing to believe anything he said. “It was Dad. You know how he was. I was nineteen. I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“So Kitty lied to me.”
Johnny hesitated. If he said Kathy–Kitty–lied now and things worked out the way he wanted them to, he would have to explain the truth to Sue later. If he just told her the truth now she’d be mad because he’d been lying this long and she might sabotage him out of spite. The papers behind him seemed to crowd over his shoulder, like an avalanche about to collapse on his head.
Sue held up her hand. “Never mind. Don’t tell me. It’s all over your face.” She walked to a post and leaned on it. “I can’t believe it. You were screwing around with my only friend and I didn’t even know it.”
“Sue, I’m sorry. I’m trying to fix things now.”
“What was it with you? Did you have a burning need to destroy everything around you?”
“Yes, I guess I did, but I don’t anymore,” Johnny protested. “Can’t you see I’m trying?”
“Do you really think you can fix anything?”
“If I can sort out this mess at the bank and get Mom and Dad sobered up, we can have a normal family for once.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m working on it.” Johnny pounded his fist on the workbench. “I had a meeting with Larry today. I’m going to talk to an accountant. I called the hospital about getting Mom and Dad into recovery. We went to the Al Anon meeting. It’s salvageable. It has to be.”
“So if you can–” Sue swallowed. “If you can turn things around here, you’ll stay.”
“Yeah.”
Sue’s lower lip started to quiver. Fat tears ran down her cheeks.
“Why are you crying?” Johnny demanded.
Sue shook her head. “Because you’ll stay for her and not for me. Because you love her enough to want to change the world for her. Because nobody’s ever wanted to change anything for me.”
“Sue.” Johnny took a step toward her.
“No, don’t.” Sue strode to the barn door. “Let’s just pretend this conversation didn’t happen. I’ll go around the house and clear out their stashes and you work on saving the family farm so you can have your dream girl. Just give me a couple of days to get over the bitterness.” She backed out and closed the door behind her.
Johnny covered his face with his hands. No matter how hard he tried, everything he did made people miserable. Everyone would have been better off if he’d never been born.
* * * *
“Did you hear Greg Fitzroy is up for parole?” Mrs. Vorac asked.
Elaine blinked to focus on the older woman. Mrs. Vorac wore her gray hair in a neat helmet of curls. She had been Elaine’s history teacher in her junior and senior years of high school. She tended to know everything that went on in town. Rumor had it that the trustees had built the new admin building down the road from her house so it would be easier for her to keep tabs on things. “Greg Fitzroy?”
“You must remember him. He’s been in the state pen for the last eight years for holding up a liquor store. He was only a little older than you.” Mrs. Vorac smiled. “I hope he’s learned his lesson, but I doubt it. He was always a bad seed. Not like Johnny McMannus.”
Elaine concentrated on adjusting the bunting on the cookie sale table. Why was Mrs. Vorac bringing up Johnny? Getting through the next couple of days was going to be difficult enough without being poked in her sore spots. “Is this straight?”
“It looks all right to me.” Mrs. Vorac brushed her hands along the cloth. “Johnny McMannus is home now too. He came home to help out after his father had his heart attack.”
Elaine leaned on the table and refused to scream.
“He seems to have grown into such a nice young man. I wasn’t so sure about him when he was younger, but the time he spent away seems to have done him good.”
Elaine nodded.
“I wonder if I shouldn’t warn the sheriff about Greg Fitzroy, though. He wasn’t here when that one went away.”
“I’m sure someone has told him,” Elaine said. She turned to the next table. Its bunting was already straight. Too bad. Ellen and Cora Kohler were hanging quilts for the quilt show. Ellen’s daughter Cindy was playing hide-and-seek under the ones they had already hung. J
ohnny thought he was the biggest scandal in Weaver’s Circle? Ellen had been eight months pregnant when she graduated and everybody knew Tim Fitzroy was the father. Ellen had survived the stigma of being an unwed mother in a small town and lived to tell about it.
“I just think he should be warned.”
Elaine turned to Mrs. Vorac. “Is there anything else that needs done here? It looks like everything’s about taken care of.”
“I think it is. Thank you so much for your help, dear.” Mrs. Vorac patted her arm. “You look tired. Are you sleeping?”
Too much. “Yes. I’m fine. Thanks.” Elaine hurried away from the table. In the hall she met Sheriff Daniel going the other way. “Mrs. Vorac is looking for you. She wants to warn you that Greg Fitzroy is up for parole.”
“Thanks. I have no idea how I’d do my job if it weren’t for her.” He rolled his eyes. “Everything going okay?”
“Fine. We’ll be ready to go tomorrow right on schedule.”
“Good to know.” He nodded and went down the hall.
Elaine watched him go. He was a good-looking guy. Broad shoulders, nice sense of responsibility. The kind of guy who should appeal to a schoolteacher. If only she could summon up some kind of emotion for him. Every time she looked at him all she could think was “good-looking, but could he change my oil?”
She wasn’t the only one in town who had misgivings. Beth had made a halfhearted play for him when he arrived, but he’d rebuffed her and she’d never bothered again. Lily had tried a couple of times over the past five years, as she had with every other man in town who wasn’t George, but Daniel didn’t respond to her either. Elaine wondered if he’d met the perfect mate and lost her and that was why he’d stopped searching. It was a perfectly plausible reason. She’d been using it herself for years.
The fact that Johnny wasn’t interested in her kind of skewed the whole thing, though.
“Hey, Sheriff!” she called.
Sheriff Daniel turned back at the gym door.
“Save me a dance Saturday night.”
“Sure.” He rounded the corner into the gym.
It wasn’t the enthusiastic response she’d hoped for, but then he probably thought she was a lesbian like everyone else did. Dancing with him Saturday night might change that rumor at least. A step in the right direction.
She walked out the front door of the high school. Across the street, Johnny and George stood with Zack Jarvis and Becky Raney. Becky didn’t appear to know where to focus her charm. She also didn’t appear to be part of the conversation. George caught Elaine’s eye and waved her over. Elaine glanced around hoping there was someone else he could be waving to, but no one else was anywhere near her. She looked back at George, who frowned and waved more insistently.
With a heavy sigh, Elaine crossed the street. Johnny, standing on the far side of the group beside George, started studying the gravel parking lot. Becky Raney stopped looking everywhere else and fixed her gaze on Johnny. Zack gave his goofy smile to each one without prejudice. He settled on Elaine with a complete lack of anything deeper than pleasantness. Sad, really: first she couldn’t summon up any interest in the good-looking sheriff and now she couldn’t inspire interest in the town playboy, but the reformed bad boy thought she was too much of a Goody Two-shoes to touch.
“Why did your mom take you to the hospital yesterday?” George asked. He put his arm around her shoulders, guiding her between himself and Zack. Elaine figured she was safe until Lily put in an appearance.
“A combination of hypochondria and Munchhausen syndrome.” Elaine shrugged. “You know how my mother is. No day is complete without a trip to the hospital.”
“The buses are running. Johnny said he talked to you about it Sunday,” George said.
“Briefly.” Elaine found Johnny’s eyes on her like a spotlight. What was that look? Pissed off? Frustrated? Afraid she would spill their secret? “So there’s one for the supermarket lot, one going to the Catholic church in Henderson, and one for Henderson High, right?”
“Plus the one for Kohler’s farm,” George added.
“What?” Elaine glanced at Johnny again. He was still watching her. Beth was watching him, and Zack was watching everybody.
“Kohler’s farm. For the berry picking.”
“I thought they were going to use the tractor like they always do.”
George shrugged. “Mr. Kohler said he talked to Lily about it and she said it was okay.”
Elaine frowned. What the hell else had happened during her twenty-four-hour nap?
“You want me to ask her?” George stepped out of the group, headed for Lily. He’d seize any excuse to talk to Lily.
“No!” Elaine grabbed his arm. Now they were all staring at her except Johnny. He was studying the gravel again. “I mean, it’s not necessary. I’m sure she did. I just don’t understand why. They’ve taken people out on the hay wagon for years.”
“Maybe it’s a liability issue,” Johnny said. “If somebody got hurt, it would be their fault.”
Elaine glared at him. “You’d think they would have thought of that years ago.”
“At least they’re trying to fix it now.”
“I think it has more to do with their image,” Elaine snapped.
“What would it have to do with their image?” Zack asked.
“There’s Lily.” George set off up the road at a trot, leaving Elaine standing next to Johnny.
Elaine tried to send out bristling vibes, but it didn’t seem to work. Johnny shifted his body so his arm brushed hers with every deep breath. He seemed to be breathing very deeply.
“I better get back to the library.” Becky looked over her shoulder. “Andrea’s gonna wonder where I am. Zack, are you gonna dance with me Saturday night?”
“Of course.” Zack grinned.
“What about you, Mr. McMannus? Will you save me a dance Saturday night?” Becky fluttered her eyelashes at him.
Johnny shuffled his feet, bumping into Elaine. “I’m sorry. I can’t. Working.”
Elaine shifted away from him.
“Maybe at the Winter Festival then. Bye.” Becky waved over her shoulder as she checked the street for traffic.
“I better hit the road too. I’m supposed to be on duty.” Zack gave them his most boyish grin and wandered toward the patrol car parked in the shade of the bus garage.
George and Lily had stopped half a block away, stranding her alone with Johnny. If not for the circumstances, Elaine would have been thrilled to see George and Lily standing with their heads bent together talking.
“Meet me at the stream,” Johnny whispered.
“What am I? Suicidal? No.”
“Please. I have to talk to you.”
“No,” Elaine hissed. She twisted to walk away, but he grabbed her arm. Momentum swung her around to face him again. For a split second she thought he meant to kiss her, but then his face changed into an expression she couldn’t pinpoint. Not a kissing expression for sure. “Let me go.”
“I just want to talk privately.”
“We’ve done a lot of ‘privately’. I need some ‘publicly’ now for balance.” She jerked her arm out of his grasp and walked away.
“I thought I told you Mr. Kohler wanted a bus,” Lily said when Elaine got closer.
“It doesn’t matter. It just took me by surprise.”
Lily narrowed her eyes. “Did you get too much sun? You’re all red.”
Elaine touched her face. “I don’t know, maybe I did. I’m going to go in the church and see how things are going there.”
“But–”
Elaine half-ran to the fellowship hall doors and upstairs to the big room where the church hosted a running program of recitals, talent shows and independent local movies designed to allow people to have a place to sit down. There was nothing for her to do in the church. Reverend Thomas had been doing this festival longer than she had. A team was putting the finishing touches on the stage while another team readied the kitchen. Before s
omeone could spot her, Elaine headed for the classrooms downstairs. They would be used for first aid, nursing and the lost and found. Everything would be ready for those stations so she should have the place to herself.
Strong hands pushed her through the door of the infants’ nursery. By the time she turned around, Johnny had shut the door and was leaning against it. The only light in the room was a sliver of daylight making its way down the hall from the stairwell and through the long narrow window in the door.
Chapter 9
“Johnny, what the hell are you doing?”
“I needed to talk to you, and you wouldn’t meet me at the stream.”
“No, I’m not going to meet you at the stream. I’m not meeting you anywhere.” Elaine put her hands on her hips. “There is nothing you can say to me, Johnny McMannus.”
“Why did you go to the hospital? Are you hurt or sick?”
“No.” Profoundly depressed, the doctor had said. Not hurt or sick, just depressed.
“Elaine, are you sure you’re all right?” Johnny reached out to touch her face.
Elaine batted his hand away. “I’ll be fine as soon as you let me out of this room.”
“I’m trying to get my parents into rehab.”
“I know. My mother told me.”
“Your mother?”
“Things changed after you left. My mother went back to school and became a nurse. My parents got divorced.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh, stop it.” Elaine folded her arms. “You act like you caused everything. It’s your fault your parents are alcoholics. It’s your fault your sister never left home. It’s your fault we were seeing each other when we shouldn’t have been.”
“I knew better.”
“And I didn’t? Oh, I’m so afraid of the dark, dark woods. Please walk me home ’cause I’m ascared,” Elaine said in her prissiest tone. “Did you honestly think I needed a big strong boy to protect me through woods I’d been playing in since I was old enough to be out of my mother’s sight?”
Secrets Everybody Knows Page 9
