How could I fight him? The barest lifting of my chin answered yes.
The phone rang again. Daddy emitted a sigh, then rose to answer it. I knew who it was. My eyes closed, burning, as I listened helplessly to his words.
“No, you cannot talk to her,” he clipped. “I'm very disappointed in both of you, Greg, and I blame it mostly on you. You should have known better. Your life has now caused trouble for ours, and we'll have to deal with it long after you're gone. I don't want you contacting Jackie again.”
He dropped the receiver firmly back into place.
“Go get dressed for school.”
I pushed to my feet and stumbled from the kitchen.
I
don't know how I managed to go to school that day. Somehow I got myself dressed and out the door with the rest of the family, eyes red and stomach hungry since I'd had no time for breakfast. I wore a blouse that would hide the chain and Greg's ring. No one said a word in the car as Daddy drove us to school. One look at our faces, and Clarissa and Robert had known to leave well enough alone.
The pain of losing Greg would have been enough. I wanted to slink through the day, wiping my eyes unnoticed by no one. Instead I found myself surrounded and watched like some fascinating pariah.
Alison stuck by me. Most of the other girls did not. They were mad at me to begin with for not telling them who Greg was. I'd hidden information from them, treating them like peons while I played Cinderella with the visiting prince. Then for me to behave on a first date the way stupid Charlotte had said. In a way I couldn't blame the girls, hearing their parents' stunned questions as surely they had. Nicole and Cherise, Millicent and the others needed to distance themselves from me, to let all know that they neither approved of my behavior nor had consorted to keep it a secret. The boys proved far worse, their knowing expressions and under-the-breath remarks telling me all I needed to know. They viewed me with a mixture of awe and judgment.
Well, well,
I could practically hear them thinking,
Jackie Delham. Whoever would have thought?
Billy Sullivan acted the worst of them all. I'd put him in his place a few times, and he clearly enjoyed getting me back. And then some. I will say Jacob did not take part in any of the guys' muted conversations, at least from what I saw. Alison had probably threatened not to talk to him if he did.
Teachers went out of their way to treat me normally. To act as if they hadn't read that article, no sir, wouldn't stoop to believing such gossip. Their tight smiles and averted eyes in the hallway spoke otherwise. Clearly, they didn't know
what
to say. So they said nothing at all.
The irony of the situation was not lost on me. Years before, Daddy had faced days like this, although admittedly his had been far worse. But then, he'd deserved it, I reminded myself. I didn't.
Besides Alison, only one other person at school remained truly kind to me that day. Derek.
He ambled up to Alison and me as we sat on a bench in the yard during lunch. Despite my lack of breakfast, I hadn't felt like eating and certainly didn't want to face our usual table. Derek must have scarfed down his own meal in order to be outside so soon.
“Hey,” he said, his head tilted as he gazed down at us.
“Hi.” I focused on his ankles, idly wondering about his socks.
“How's your computer?” he asked. The typical Derek question.
If he only knew what that computer would mean to me now. The computer I was not supposed to use to e-mail Greg. And fully intended to use in such a manner anyway. “Fine.”
He stood awkwardly, trying to think of something else to say. I felt a rush of gratitude. Derek was strange, but he was obviously going out of his way to be nice to me. “Do you want to sit down?” I asked. Alison shot me a look as if I'd lost my mind. “Come on.” I scooted toward Alison, patting the bench slats. Derek plunked down without a word, pant legs rising. My mouth dropped open.
“Derek, your socks are the same color.”
He stuck out a foot and inspected it. Then the other. “Oh. Yeah.”
“There's Jacob,” Alison said. I looked up the yard to see him exiting the lunch building. “I'd better go, okay?” She eyed me, not sure whether to leave me alone with Derek. Good grief. Big, bad Derek. I nudged her off with a toss of my head. Once she'd gone I moved over to where she had sat, turning to face Derek, elbow resting on the back of the bench.
“So why are your socks the same color?”
He shrugged. “I hadn't really noticed. Just pulled two out of the drawer.”
Something about the way he drummed his long fingers against his knees, eyes on the groundâI didn't believe him. I picked a piece of lint off my jeans. He studied an ant crawling over the grass. Decisively, then, he looked at me. “I heard about what happened at your house Friday night. I'm real sorry you had to go through that.”
I worked to keep the surprise from my face. It wasn't like Derek to say something right out like that. “Well. It . . . turned out okay.”
He jerked his head in a nod. The ant caught his attention once more. Suddenly I wished I could really talk to him, ask him what he thought about his sister's past, and could we really believe she'd changed for good? “Did you know about Katherine's fiancé?” I ventured.
He glanced at me sharply. “No.”
“Did you know, I mean . . . Do you talk to her much?”
“Enough, I guess. But she talks to Mama a lot more than she does to me.”
I remembered what he'd admitted during the at-home. About not really knowing Katherine, that she'd left when he was six. “Derek, are you glad she came back?”
For the first time he looked deeply into my eyes without flinching, as if trying to read the fears behind my question. “I am now,” he replied slowly. “At first it was hard, frankly, because she got so much attention. Mama and Daddy were all happy, which made me jealous. But now I'm glad our family's back together. And that my parents aren't all worried about her like they used to be.”
I smiled at him briefly, touched that he would be so honest with me. “How about you? You glad she came back?”
Wasn't that the question. Had it been any other day, I never would have answered. But I felt worn, my defenses down. Then again, had it been any other day, Derek and I would not have been talking.
“I won't tell her what you say, you know,” Derek offered.
Somehow, I did know that. “Daddy's in love with her. Even after last Friday. And she's been real nice to me.” I pictured her convincing Daddy to let me see Greg. That was all it took. My words trailed away, my thoughts immediately veering to Greg and where he was right now, how hurt he must be. I focused on nothing in the distance, thinking I
had
to e-mail him as soon as I got home. Tell him I still loved him. Tears seeped into my eyes.
“But?” Derek prompted gently.
I looked at my lap, hoping he hadn't noticed the tears, knowing he had. Surely, he would mistake their meaning, think they were related to Katherine. Well. In a way, they were.
“It's okay, Jackie,” he said, and that's all it took to spill the tears right out of my eyes. Once they started to flow I found them hard to stop. I couldn't believe itâsitting in front of Derek, crying like that.
“I'm afraid she's goin' to hurt him. I'm afraid she'll get bored of Bradleyville, and up and ditch one day. And Daddy will just . . . die.”
The tears came harder. It was a notion I couldn't bearâthat Daddy could hurt over Katherine the way I hurt over Greg right now. Even as mad as I felt at Daddy, even as unfair as he'd been, I wouldn't wish that on him for anything.
Derek said nothing. What could he say? He'd probably never faced a crying girl in his entire life. So different from Greg. When I'd cried in front of Greg, he'd known what to do. Impatiently, I swiped at my tears, feeling foolish. “I'm really sorry.” I pushed firmness into my voice. “This has been a hard day, that's all.”
Chatter wafted across the yard. I glanced over my shoulder to see more students leaving the cafeteria. Lunch hour was almost over. Better get my act together.
“I need to go get my books and stuff.” I threw Derek a wan smile and pulled to my feet. “Thanks for listening.”
He stood also, peering down at me with his warm gray eyes, the rest of him all legs and arms and neck. “Thanks for tellin' me.” He reached out and squeezed my arm. For some reason, I thought of his words to me the day Robert broke his legâ
You're easy to be kind to.
I remembered the way Derek had looked at me then, as he did now.
I mushed my lips, nodding goodbye, then turned away to leave. After a few steps, I looked around. “Derek?” He hadn't moved.
“Huh?”
“Why are your socks the same color todayâreally?”
His mouth opened. Closed. He rubbed the thumb and fingers on his right hand. “They've been the same color since church on Sunday,” he said. “This is just the first time you've noticed.”
J
ust after the last bell, I stopped Derek in the hallway, asking for his e-mail address, and did he mind if I wrote him? He blinked in surprise as he pulled out a piece of paper to write it down. I gave him mine also.
“Thanks,” he said. “I hope you do write.”
I promised I would. Keeping my reason to myself, which I knew was entirely unfair to Derek and would hurt him. I needed to be e-mailing people other than Greg. I needed an excuse to be on the computer in case Daddy caught me at it.
I crossed the school yard toward the street corner where Grandma awaited, thanking God I'd survived the day. Well, half of it. I still had to face Daddy that evening. At least the next few hours would provide a brief respite.
So much for positive thinking.
Robert accosted me the moment I reached to help slide his backpack from his shoulders. “Why didn't you tell me about the newspaper this morning?” he demanded, shrugging away from my touch. “All I've done is hear stories about you all day! I near got in a fight four times. If I didn't have these crutches, I
would
have.” He faced me, narrow-eyed, for all the world the smaller version of Daddy that morning.
I gaped at him, struck with the realization of Daddy's and my self-absorption. We should have thought of Robert and Clarissa. We should have warned them.
“Robert, I'm so sorry, I just saw it before we left, andâ”
“Why'd you
do
it?”
“I . . . if you mean what the newspaper said, it's a lieâ”
“I saw the pictures, Jackie! Trevor Caine brought the whole page to school and passed it around the class.” Robert's last words bent upward, his eyes glistening.
My legs turned to stone. I so rarely saw my brother cry. “Robert, please. Just get in the car and we'll talk about it, okay? I'll tell you everything.”
I reached to help him, but he jerked his arm and knocked my hand away. “Leave me alone!” He wrestled with his backpack until it lay on the ground. Opening the car door for him, I stood back as he threw himself inside. I placed his backpack on the floor.
Before I could turn around, Clarissa hit me from behind, throwing her arms around me and bursting into tears. “Everybody's talkin' about you! Alma Sue said you're bad, and she won't play with me anymore!”
I hugged her wordlessly, feeling about an inch high. When she calmed down, I urged her into the backseat, where she perched beside Robert's casted leg, sniffing and wiping tears with the back of her hand.
“My goodness, what a day,” Grandma breathed as we drove away. “I think we all need to go home and have a good talk.” She patted me on the shoulder. Her gentle touch made my own eyes fill with tears. I blinked them back. For heaven's sake, that's all we needed, the three of us crying at once.
At home, Grandma came inside and made us all sit in the family room. “We need to talk about this,” she declared. “Secrets don't do anybody any good.” She looked to Robert. “You want to start?” He shook his head, arms folded. Apparently his outburst had exhausted him. “Clarissa?”
My emotive sister had little trouble spewing all the things her friends had said about me, what she'd said back, and who were now her enemies as a result. By the end of her diatribe her eyes flashed, her feet swinging against the couch. I couldn't tell how much of her anger was directed at me, but even a portion would suffice.
Grandma sighed, loud and long. “Okay, Jackie. Now you get to tell us what really happened.”
I told them the sordid tale of Charlotte, how she'd put me and Bradleyville down, what Greg had done in response. Even as I defended myself and Greg to my own family, I felt stripped bare. Never would I have dreamed I'd have to detail my first date like some witness in a court case.
Had Katherine felt like this, explaining things to me?
“That girl said that?” Robert pressed when I was done, clearly peeved. “She said Greg shouldn't be with you just because you're from Bradleyville?”
“Well, that's what she implied.”
Robert cut his gaze to the carpet, full lips pressed in indignation. For some softball player's similar sin against him, he had careened into the first fight of his life. I could practically hear the wheels in his head squealing to turn a different direction. We awaited his pronouncement. “She's a jerk,” he declared after a moment, giving me a look of absolution. Then abruptly he pushed to his feet and grabbed his crutches. “Can I go now?” he asked Grandma. “I have homework to do.”
Poor Robert. First Katherine, now me. We'd probably just about done him in.
Clarissa seemed appeased as well. “I'm gonna tell Alma Sue off,” she announced. “I'm gonna tell her if she doesn't want to play, that's just fine with me. I don't need her candy anyway!”