“Clyde,” I whisper.
“Yeah,” Blanche says. “I had a feeling that’s who Buck was callin’. Hmm, I wonder where he got that car.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Shh. I’m trying to hear them.”
“Shouldn’t be hard,” I say. “Ever notice that Buck talks as loud as a megaphone?”
Blanche laughs. “Nothin’ has been more true. But that boy has his reasons. Now, shh.”
Two lights flick on.
Buck comes back to the car, flashlight in hand. “Blanche, no fightin’ me on this. Either you don’t get out of this car or yous go wait at Bonnelyn’s ma’s house.”
“No,” I say, beating Blanche to a response. “I’ve been avoiding my ma. Don’t think she’d be too keen ’bout my black eye or the fact that my husband up and left me.”
“Option one it is,” he says, and twists his head in through the window to kiss Blanche. “Baby, you stay here.”
Buck pulls back, taps on the door once, then strides away with Clyde. Beams of light dance ahead of them as they make their way to my house.
Blanche huffs. “The fact he told me not to go anywhere only makes me want to go somewhere. You’d think he’d know that by now.”
“You two bicker like an old married couple.”
I wait for her to say something disparaging ’bout marriage, but she only grins and says, “We do.”
With her smile, a pang of sadness overcomes me. Roy and I should be fighting like an old married couple. We’re the ones married. But no, he’s God knows where, doing God knows what. While Clyde … I didn’t expect Clyde to slip into my head at that moment.
But Clyde, he’s here—in my head and in real life—helping me.
I clasp my hands together, my wedding band digging into my skin.
Blanche seems just as tense as me, but for different reasons. Her fingers grip the steering wheel, as if she’s ready to scoop up Buck and get the hell out of here at the drop of a hat.
Every now and then, Clyde’s and Buck’s flashlights cast a glow through a window of the house, and Blanche and I hold our breath.
The wait is torture. Finally, two shadows appear on the front porch.
Blanche exhales.
Buck comes back to Blanche’s window, leaning in. “No sign of anyone. Someone tore up the house, probably looking for some clams. Sorry, Bonn.”
“I want to go see if anything is missing.” Not that I have too much of value. Even my family earrings are more sentimental than anything.
“Tomorrow,” Buck says. “I don’t want you staying there tonight, and it’s getting late.”
I sigh. My gaze falls on Clyde, next to Buck, or at least what I can see of him. Standing straight, his face is above the car, but not his tattoo. “Thanks,” I say absently, studying the initials USN beneath his short-sleeve shirt.
“Not a bother,” Buck says. “But I do need a drink. How ’bout you, Clyde? Fancy joinin’ us at the apartment?”
“All right,” I hear, in that same captivating voice I remember from the alleyway. “But she’s hot.” He takes a hand out of his pocket and points toward the other car. “Got to take her back first.”
I tense, Blanche shakes her head, and Buck laughs.
He laughs, at his brother stealing a car. As if he does it every day. Maybe he does. It’s a feeling I can’t shake, even after we get to Buck’s apartment. The stifling heat doesn’t help matters much. I take one sip after another of my beer, trying to cool my body and my nerves. ’Cause, sure, Clyde stole that car to come help me, but it’s not like I asked it of him. He did it on his own accord, and fast. Within minutes of getting that call from Buck, there he was, so easily and readily breaking the law.
The Barrow boys are nothin’ but trouble. Though I reckon I’m the reason why they put themselves in a precarious situation this time. I’m the reason Clyde stole a car.
Perhaps I’m nothin’ but trouble, too.
I take a big gulp of my drink.
A knock sounds on the door and my stomach flutters. I swallow my beer. Blanche skips toward the door, grins at me over her shoulder. She yanks it open, and there stands a boy ’bout six inches taller than Clyde Barrow.
Roy’s back.
24
There’s an old newspaper on the coffee table. Before I know it, I have it rolled into a weapon. I race ’cross the room and whack Roy repeatedly, between sobs, each smack fueled by warring emotions.
He stands there, lets me.
Eventually, I stop. I drop my paper, rest my head against his chest, and will air back into my lungs. “Are you hurt?”
He wraps his arms ’round me. “From your spaghetti arms? I’ll survive.”
I push him away, look him over. Besides the gash on his lip, he looks fine. “I mean from the past ten days you’ve been gone, you ass.”
“I’m fine, Bonn.”
“Where on earth have you been?”
He sighs. “Can I come in? This hallway is suffocating.”
“I’m going to suffocate you,” Blanche says, back on the couch, “if you don’t start answering her questions. You should be on your knees, groveling, right now.”
“Pipe down,” he says to her.
“No,” I say to him. “You won’t talk to her that way. Who do you think helped me look for you every day? Who do you think kept my spirits up while you were God knows where?”
Roy runs his hand through his hair. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I’ve just been on edge the past few days.”
I stretch out my arm, blocking his way into the apartment. “You’ve been on edge? You run away, leave me holding the bag. You’re lucky I wasn’t home when Jenkins came by. He broke in, Roy. Made a mess of our house.”
Roy’s nostrils flare. “When?”
“I don’t know. Today.”
“That bastard.” His jaw tenses. “I just paid him. If I ever see his face again—”
“You ain’t gambling ever again, so there won’t be a need to see his face ever again.”
Roy licks his lips, looks like he’s ’bout to say something, but then thinks wiser of it.
“Say”—Buck comes up beside me—“things are heated out here.” He laughs at his joke. No one else does. “Come in, sit down. We’ll all have a drink and get to the bottom of this.”
“Bonn?” Roy says.
I roll my eyes and drop my arm from the doorframe. “Fine.”
Buck is the true saint and makes small talk while he gets everyone something cold. Roy sits on a chair opposite the couch. He finishes his first drink in a matter of gulps. Buck, Blanche, and I line up on the sofa, ready to interrogate him. I start by pinning Roy with a glare, waiting for him to spill where the hell he’s been. Now that I know he’s okay, anger is all that’s left.
Roy’s knee bounces as he takes one sip after another of his new drink. “At first, I didn’t know where to go,” he begins. “I just knew I had to get out of Cement City. Town’s too small. Wandered a bit in Dallas. Walked all night, actually, racking my brain on where I was going to get that kind of money.” He takes another gulp of his drink.
“And?” I prod.
“I ended up with nothin’ but cobwebs up here”—he taps his head—“sitting on the steps by the promenade.”
“At school?”
He nods.
“We checked there,” I say to myself.
“I wasn’t outside long. I had a stroke of luck and Hazel came by—”
“Hazel Griffin?” I ask, as if there’s another Hazel he’d be referring to. Blanche reaches out, pins my hand to my knee. It may stop me from slapping him ’cross the face, but it doesn’t stop my tongue. “You were with Hazel—the manipulating, conniving Hazel Griffin who wants nothin’ better than to steal you from me?”
He won’t meet my eyes, but he says, “Relax, Bonnelyn.”
I grit my teeth at his response and at the idea of him alone with Hazel, her cooing and dabbing his bloody lip. Blanche pushes down harder o
n my hand, her fingers just as tense.
“Hazel’s working on a summer project for the newspaper, so she has a key to the school. She let me in and I hid out there.”
“And that’s it? She simply let you in?”
“I mean, no, she came by from time to time, brought me food, a change of clothes. She has an older bro—”
“I know.” I don’t want to hear ’bout her brother.
Thus far, Buck’s kept his mouth shut, one leg crossed over the other. Now he leans forward, narrows his eyes at Roy. “How’d you get the money, lad?”
The money. The name Hazel Griffin was a whack to the face, and I didn’t even think ’bout that part. “If you borrowed money from Hazel Griffin, I will never forgive you.”
Roy freezes, his near-empty drink halfway to his scabbed lip. “I had a man who wanted nothin’ more than to rearrange my face, and you’re worried ’bout your ego?”
His words came out a touch slurred. Blanche’s voice comes out dangerously low and slow. “Watch yourself, Roy.”
Buck wraps his arm ’round my best friend. “I think you best explain, lad. Or I won’t stop Blanche and Bonn when they rearrange your face. In fact, I’ll hold you down myself.”
Roy swallows. “All right, all right. Hazel’s brother knows ’bout stocks from his classes at the university. He had a few ideas ’bout how to get rich quick thataway. I took a li’l from our bank account.”
I narrow my eyes but don’t say anything, once again warring with myself. I’m angry as a busted beehive, but I’m also relieved that money was there for him to use. This is Roy. Roy, my husband. I made a vow to him, and now that I’m in this mess, I got to keep this marriage together and honor that.
At my lack of verbal response, Roy shrugs. “It worked out. I didn’t need much. I borrowed most of it from a, um, broker, on margin.”
“That um—what’d that mean, Roy?” I ask.
“Look, Buster helped me out. He was happy to do it.”
“You went to my brother?”
“It’s fine, Bonn. Really.”
“No, it ain’t. What if you would’ve gotten him hurt somehow?”
Roy shakes his head. “That goon Jenkins doesn’t even know Buster exists, and, like I said, Buster was happy I came to him. He’s been having a hard time getting clients, being he’s green ’round the gills. But we made a bundle, and fast. He’s on the map now. He can contribute to your family again. You should thank me.”
“Thank you?” I stand. “I’m staying here tonight. I think it’s best you go home, alone. Now.”
I keep my expression stern. Roy’s in the need of some hard lovin’, even if I am counting my blessings that he’s close enough to touch.
When Roy delays, both Blanche and Buck stand up beside me.
Slowly, Roy also pushes to his feet. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asks, and gently touches the fading bruise on my face.
“Yes,” I say. I’ll give him that. I need to give him that, ’cause I got to believe that we’ll be fine in the light of a new day. Being with Roy is all I’ve ever really known.
* * *
Tomorrow comes, just as it always does, and I go home. What I ain’t expecting is what I see. I let out a string of small gasps as I walk through the door. Buck gave me an idea of how badly Jenkins messed up my house. But now, as I scan the living room, not a pillow is out of place. In fact, those pillows are fluffed.
I continue into the kitchen—where for the past six months, the cabinets were unfinished and hardware was missing—and I find Roy, up on a ladder, tool-thingy in hand, putting on what appears to be the final knob.
“You did all of this last night?” I ask.
Roy startles, nearly falling off the ladder. He lets out a low laugh at his own clumsiness, then steps down to the floor. “And this morning. You’re halfway to a smile. I missed that smile. Got to thinkin’ what life would be like if I never saw it again.”
His words are soft, like butter, but mine are sharp when I say, “You can’t do that to me again, Roy. Leave me like that. You can’t do that to us. I won’t have it.”
He steps closer, cups my face with his hands. “I won’t. I promise. I’m sorry I put you through that, for you getting this”—he trails his thumb over my fading bruise—“and for how I acted last night. When I got there, Blanche had it out for me. My guard went up and it wasn’t right of me.”
That’s all good and well, and I can forgive Roy’s erratic behavior. I can even understand why he hid out. But the visual of him with Hazel Griffin is hard to swallow. I can picture her doe-like eyes oozing all sorts of sympathy all over him, and Roy eating it up like jam. However—and it’s a big however—a demanding voice in my head says, Let it go. Me harping on Hazel will only cause added strain. Besides, he didn’t seek Hazel out … the way I welcomed Henry’s attention at Doc’s. Or how I wonder what attention from Clyde Barrow would be like.
Clyde. I’m just now realizing he never showed last night, though I got to imagine that’s for the best. Someone like Clyde Barrow probably steals hearts faster than cars.
“Bonn?” Roy says, and dips to my height. “Can you forgive me?”
I push aside the disappointment and focus on the here and now. “For better or for worse, right?”
“Better, then.”
“Better,” I repeat, needing to believe it.
25
I’ve a pep to my step as I pull open—no, Roy beats me to it, holding open the door to Southwest Dallas High School for me. It’s our first day back, and I offer him a smile and a thank-you.
After Roy came home, the days and weeks that followed were light and fun, better. Roy and me were both on our best behavior, having more nights reminiscent of the one we had on New Year’s Eve. We’ve been trying to put—and keep—the pieces snugly together, and my grip loosens on the fear that things are slipping away.
I reckon some of my pep is also ’cause we’re entering a new school year, with a renewed focus on becoming a teacher and a news reporter.
The sense of stability I’ve always wanted is within our reach, ’specially with the house nearly complete. Only took us close to a year and a half, but just yesterday I lost track of time, simply staring at how the living room has been transformed, with its elegant wallpaper, polished floors, crown molding, and elaborate, ritzy draperies. All how I once imagined.
Each month we pay the mortgage, chipping away at what we owe the bank.
On a good month, we put money aside for a rainy day, and I like to imagine what important thing we’ll use the money on. That trip to Paris, perhaps.
Roy takes my hand in his, leading me down the school hallway. I tilt my chin up, smiling whenever anyone takes notice of us: married, no longer at odds, onward and upward.
This was the moment I hoped for, six months ago.
Outside my classroom, Roy stops, pushes me back against the lockers.
He leans closer, closer, kissing my forehead. “See you after school.”
“You tease,” I whisper, receiving a wink in return, and walk into English.
I groan, as if on cue. I knew I’d see Hazel Griffin today, at some point, but first period of the day, and in my favorite subject, is a bit cruel.
Blanche’s pep talk pops into my head: If she gives you any lip ’bout cozying up with your Roy Toy, smack that tramp right in the kisser. I smile to myself, imaging the sting of my palm meeting Hazel’s rosy cheek.
“Somebody’s in a good mood,” Hazel says from her desk.
“Why Hazel,” I start, and greet her with a fake grin, “if you keep going out of your way to talk to me, I’m going to think you want to be friends.”
She wrinkles her nose. “That could get awkward, since Roy and I spent such intimate time together recently.”
And there it is, I think, just as Blanche predicted.
Hazel holds up her pointer finger. “Although you had no problem sharing a man with Blanche.” Hazel shrugs. “What do you think, ladies?”
/> Hazel’s flock snickers.
My smile only grows, and I purposely use my left hand to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, flashing my silver wedding band. “Yes, I’ve been meaning to thank you for helping my husband. He told me all ’bout it.”
Some of Hazel’s queen-bee resolve slips, showing in the tightness of her lips. “It was my pleasure.” With that, she flips her hair and returns to her minions.
“Have a wonderful morning, Hazel,” I say, knowing her practiced ears will still hear me.
I don’t like the way she insinuated pleasure—with my husband—but if that’s all she’s got to throw at me, so be it. In fact, I do believe I’ve won a battle with Hazel Griffin, and, as the hours tick by, my winnings include not having to see her for the rest of the day, even though her insinuation does linger in my mind.
After the final bell, I meet Roy, waiting by our bikes. I kiss him, deepening the kiss with a frisky nip of his lower lip.
Roy touches his mouth. “Good afternoon to you, too.”
“Hello.” But that’s all I say, for now. Soon, we’re pedaling toward home.
I turn my head toward Roy, the wind tossing my hair into my face. “Hazel tried to stir things up with me today.”
“Oh?” He raises an eyebrow.
“Yeah, it was kind of pathetic how she implied things happened between you two.”
His feet stop, and he coasts forward on his bike. “You know Hazel likes to talk.”
I do. I also know his reaction and his response don’t quite add up, and I narrow my eyes. “Like I said, pathetic.”
“Well,” Roy says, pedaling again. “You won’t have to worry ’bout her for long. Decided today that I’m going to drop out of school.”
I twist my handlebars toward Roy, my bike swerving. “You what?” I don’t like his flippant expression. “But it’s the first day.”
“Yep. Which means no more school paper, which means”—he flicks a finger at me as if he’s ’bout to make some monumental point—“no more Hazel.”
Dust kicks up ’round me as I plant my feet on the ground, nearly throwing myself over my bike. Roy stops soon after, adjusting on his seat to see why I’ve stopped.
Becoming Bonnie Page 21
