Jaded (5 page)

Chapter Eight

JohnScott was the best cousin in the world. Even though I had yet to lay eyes on Clyde Felton, the rumors still made me nervous, and I saw no reason to risk running into the rapist on my own. So at closing time, my cousin picked me up again. As he eased his truck down Main Street, one hand on the steering wheel, the other lolling out the open window, he looked sideways at me. “What do you think of the new family?”

Truth be told, the name Cunningham was beginning to nauseate me. “This town is obsessed.”

JohnScott read my thoughts. “It's sort of nauseating, but I get the feeling they're good people.”

He pulled to the curb in front of my house and killed the ignition. We sat in silence while I contemplated the overly friendly behavior of all three Cunninghams and wondered w
hy they were so nice to me.

“I like the math teacher.” JohnScott spoke as though he were thinking out loud. “But I can't figure him being a preacher.”

I didn't answer.

“That bother you?” he asked.

“Should it?” The breeze tossed a strand of my hair across my neck, and I flicked it over my shoulder.

“That answers my question, I guess.”

Sometimes it seemed pointless for JohnScott and me to bother speaking. We understood each other without words.

“Little cousin …” He gave me a reproachful look.

“What?”

“Today at lunch. Nazis? Really?”

I examined the house. Momma had forgotten the porch light again. “Nazis, Christians, whatever.”

He sighed. “Not the same, Ruthie.”

“Okay, but if the Cunninghams are so nice, why do I feel like they're talking about me?”

He grazed his palm along the steering wheel. “I don't know about that. They're just different somehow, but I can't decide if they're different in a good way or a bad way.” He shifted to lean against the door, laying his arm across the back of the dusty seat. “You know, today at practice, Grady paraded around the field house meeting all the guys, even the ones most players ignore.”

“The kid could talk a hole in a cement block.”

“Yeah, but it's more than that. He was trying to remember everyone's name and position.”

The porch light flicked on, illuminating the sparse grass and weedy flower bed, and Momma opened the door, still wearing her brown polyester uniform from the diner. Her long hair was wadded into a messy bun on top of her head, and she wore house shoes. “Is that you and JohnScott, Ruth Ann?”

The truck sat fifteen feet from the porch, so I answered without raising my voice. “It's us, Momma.”

Ambling across the yard, she asked, “You hear about the new folks?” She rested one hand on the rearview mirror outside my window, the other on her hip.

I grunted. “And nothing else.”

She crossed her arms, exhaustion showing in her eyes. “You kids be careful with them.”

“Aw, Aunt Lynda,” JohnScott teased, “we don't even know them yet.”

“All I'm saying is watch out. I don't want no family of mine getting dragged through the mud.”

I squeezed the handle that rolled up the window. Even though I agreed with her, I wished she would stop treating me like a teenager. “We know, Momma.”

She gave me a final lingering look before turning toward the house.

JohnScott called after her, “Thanks, Aunt Lynda.”

She paused at the door but didn't turn around, and then the screen slammed behind her.

That was Momma. A living Eeyore. Except Momma was beautiful on the outside. She attracted lots of attention from men in town, which only made her more grumpy, since most of them were married.

I rested my elbow on the doorframe of the truck. “Remember when she was happy?”

JohnScott reached across the truck to finger a strand of my hair, tugging gently.

We sat in silence. Moths already swarmed the porch light, tapping against the glass, desperately wanting what they couldn't have. I took a deep breath and let it out, spying a tarantula picking his way across the yard on rubber-band stilts.

JohnScott murmured, “Speak of the Devil.”

I glanced at him questioningly, then noticed Dodd and Grady jogging toward us, running at a steady pace as they talked.

I reached for the door handle, but JohnScott snapped, “Ruthie, don't.”

As the Cunninghams approached the driver's side of the truck, Dodd called, “It's JohnScott, right? Is this where you live?”

“Naw, this is Ruthie's house.” JohnScott pointed his thumb toward me, and Dodd and Grady bent to look into the truck.

The preacher glanced at me, making brief eye contact before focusing his attention on something down the street.

Well, that was subtle.

Grady grinned. “Hey there, Ruthie-the-checker-girl. We meet again. I didn't know you lived here. Our house is just a few streets over.”

He sounded ridiculous. Not only did everyone in Trapp live a few streets over, but the church had used the same house as a parsonage for as long as I could remember.

“Right, Grady,” I answered. “I know where you live.”

JohnScott tapped his fingers on the seat, warning me to behave.

“Can I ask you guys a question?” Grady said. “What's the deal with all those cows on the edge of town?”

“You mean the feedlot?” asked JohnScott.

“That's quite a smell you've got there, Coach Pickett,” Grady said.

JohnScott bobbed his head. “When the wind blows just right, it'll knock you down.”

Grady snickered. “Maybe this town should've been named Crap instead of Trapp.”

JohnScott's shoulders shook with stifled laughter, not because of what Grady said—we'd heard it a million times—but because it came from Grady. The goody-goody preacher's brother saying a dirty word. JohnScott collected himself. “You ready for the game on Friday?”

“The jury's still out,” Grady admitted. “I'm not big on football, but it appears I ought to play regardless.”

“Yeah,” replied JohnScott. “Everybody who's anybody plays football. In Trapp, at least. No pressure or anything.”

“Oh no. No pressure at all.” Grady smiled. “I'm thinking it's a good deal, though. Dodd said it'll be like becoming all things to all men.”

JohnScott looked from Grady to Dodd. “I'm not following you.”

The screen door thumped, and Momma appeared in the doorway, sending a surge of condemnation from her heart to mine. “Ruth Ann, come in the house. Now.”

Grady poked his head into the truck and whispered, “Is that your mom, Ruthie? I'd love to meet her.” But the screen door had already slapped against the frame, prompting Grady to hurriedly add, “Never mind, maybe later.”

I slid out of the truck, miffed at Momma but grateful to have a reason to get away. As I tramped across the yard, JohnScott and Grady continued their conversation. The teenager asked if JohnScott had ever been to church, and my cousin replied, no, his family wasn't the churchgoing type. Apparently this was Grady's standard break-the-ice question.

I looped my finger through the cool metal handle of the screen door and glanced over my shoulder. Grady leaned against the driver's-side door, but Dodd still hovered a few feet away. When our eyes met, the preacher held my gaze, as though he was going to say something, and a ripple of raw curiosity sloshed through my nerve endings, sickening me. But I waited a second or two, not wanting to seem bad mannered.

Sweat had dampened his hair, and he breathed irregularly because he'd been running. He took a half step toward me but appeared to change his mind and moved to the shadows of the truck, where he could join the discussion.

I entered the house with a shrug.

Momma lay on the couch watching a rerun. “Stay away from them, Ruth Ann.”

“I will.”

“They're nothing but trouble.”

Getting irritated with her always produced more problems, so I perched on the arm of the couch. “Everything go all right at the diner today?”

Her eyes flashed as though I'd accused her of shoplifting. “Work went fine. Just like every other day.” She grabbed the remote and punched the volume up a notch.

Why even try?
Momma's depression prevented her from carrying on a normal conversation.

I moseyed into the kitchen to scrounge up a snack, settling for a bowl of Rice Krispies. After that I soaked in the bathtub until I wrinkled, then brushed my teeth and slipped on an oversize T-shirt before sliding between the bedsheets, where I lay awake pondering the day's events.

School would be back to normal tomorrow. Or at least the day after. Soon everyone would get used to the Cunninghams and stop paying them any mind. It might take longer at the United, since most of the customers didn't interact with the Cunninghams every day. They'd have to jabber the new family out of their systems. The thought made me pull my pillow over my head, but even then, Dodd Cunningham's face appeared. I pictured him as he peered in the truck at JohnScott and me.

And then he clammed up.

His silence irked me. Not because I wanted to talk to him but because he hadn't had any trouble speaking to me at the United. Or that morning in the office. And certainly not during our tour. No, he only ignored me when other people were around. A familiar cloud of inferiority pressed me into the mattress.

What was it he expected from me when nobody was around? At first I thought he considered me loose, but now I wasn't so sure. He didn't seem the type to act on that knowledge, even if it were true. Which it wasn't.

Grady, on the other hand, caused me a different dilemma. Why so chummy? Friendliness could be tricky when I didn't know what motivated it, and I suspected his kindness held underlying motives.

An hour later, as I stared at the ceiling with my jaw clenched tight, I heard JohnScott rev his truck and pull away from the house.

Chapter Nine

The next day JohnScott acted odd. If I hadn't known he'd talked to the preacher for so long the night before, I wouldn't have thought anything of it, but by the time I slid into his truck for our speedy shuttle to the United before practice, I was fed up with his aloof behavior.

“By the way …” I didn't even wait until we were out of the parking lot. “I never asked you about your extended conversation with the Cunninghams last night in front of my house. Pushing two hours.”

“Was it that long?” He tilted his head away from me as he made a left turn. “I guess they're the sort of people you feel like you've known for years.”

“Give me a break.”

“I know what you're thinking, Ruthie, but they're different.”

“Like you said, that's the city. It'll wear off.” I fumbled with the zipper on my purse, unzipping it a half inch, then zipping it. “So what did you talk about?”

“They were telling me about the Bible.”

He said this as though it was the most normal event in the world—like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.

“They're trying to get you to go to church.”

“Honestly, they didn't mention church at all.”

The thought of JohnScott sitting in a pew contradicted everything I had ever known about him, but I had to ask anyway. “Do you want to go to their church?”

He whistled through his teeth. “Of course not.”

As he pulled into the United parking lot, I pondered his words. The preacher's family impressed JohnScott, which was weird. After all, we had pretty much been raised by the same woman, and Velma always warned us to tread cautiously anywhere the Bible might be lurking. “What did they say about Momma and me?”

“Nothing.”

I opened the door, and the fall breeze whipped my hair across my face, slapping reality against my cheeks. “But they will.”

 

By the time I clocked out that evening, thoughts of my cousin churned through my mind until I thought I might be sick. When I locked the United's front door behind me, I breathed deeply of the cool night air and felt an odd sense of relief that JohnScott hadn't arrived on time to pick me up. I could do without another religious confrontation. The parking lot was deserted, other than an old sedan I didn't recognize, so I took off across the asphalt at a steady clip, knowing JohnScott would see the darkened store and realize I had gone on home.

I hurried past the sedan and angled toward Fifth Street—not the shortest route to my house, but the best way to avoid JohnScott when he finally showed up. As I stepped into the shadows between streetlamps, shame niggled at my conscience, and I almost turned back. I stood motionless in the middle of the street, giving myself a pep talk. JohnScott was my best friend, but even if he was, he wasn't necessarily acting like it.

Behind me a car door moaned. Someone was in that old sedan, after all, but who? Trapp shut down on weeknights. Friday and Saturday would boast late-night activity as teenagers and young adults met in town to entertain themselves, but Tuesdays were quiet like the dead. Everyone in town knew the routine, except the Cunninghams and—

Goose bumps fingered across my neck. An out-of-style tennis shoe emerged from the car, then another, gravel gritting against asphalt as the owner pulled himself up to tower above the vehicle.
Clyde Felton.

The humming outdoor lights of the United, partially dimmed for the evening, failed to adequately reveal the man's appearance. I could clearly see his forehead, but not his eyes. His cheekbones, but not his chin. His biceps and broad shoulders, but not his elbows or hands. He nudged the car door, closing it with an echo, then glanced casually around the parking lot before rotating his neck to examine the darkness where I stood.

Could he see me?

Slowly I backed away until my thighs pressed against the bumper of an RV parked at the curb.
But good grief.
Just because Clyde had attacked a woman before didn't mean he would do it again. Still, the shivers running down my spine compelled me to run. Compelled me to get away from him, to find JohnScott, to save myself. But my limbs were frozen.

I searched for the darkest shadow while Clyde slumped against his car, lit a cigarette, slowly lifted a hand in my direction.

The fact the rapist waved at me barely registered. He knew where I was. A streetlamp illuminated an area of pavement in front of the camper, so I slipped into the blackness behind it. Most likely, Clyde Felton could outrun me—I'd never been much of an athlete—so I crouched behind the RV as sweat trickled down my sides. One hand rested on the smooth bumper, the other splayed in sandy grit on the street.

When Clyde shoved his weight back to his feet, my nerves exploded, and I inched toward an acrid-scented plant on my left. Peeking between the fronds, I watched him drag the soles of his shoes across the pavement, covering ground rapidly because of the length of his gait. Already he approached the streetlamp, swaying toward the RV.

Ice shot through my heart when his deep, garbled voice called out, “That camper don't hide you none.”

I'm not sure why I didn't scream. It would have been logical, resulting in porch lights being flicked on and sleepy residents coming outdoors in their pajamas, but fear paralyzed reasoning, and my primal reflex was
escape
.

“Lord, help me.” The words came out of my mouth in a strangled moan, more reflex than intent, but I found myself wondering if God Almighty might notice anyway.

Five blocks separated me from my home, so I pushed away from the bumper and stumbled toward the safety of brighter streetlights one block over on Main. My legs, numb from squatting, behaved in a nightmarishly sluggish manner, and I lost my footing, landing on all fours among a cluster of potholes. My palms stung, and my right knee burst into pain, moistening my jeans as they rubbed across a fresh wound.

A skinned knee.

When I was five, I bloodied both knees jumping rope, but Fawn held wet paper towels against my skin until the bleeding stopped. I wondered where she was tonight.

With my cheek close to the pavement, I peered under the camper to see Clyde's tattered tennis shoes making their way past the front passenger tire. A whimper flipped my lungs into a deep, ragged breath as I leaped into a stumbling sprint, careening past a low hedge, which clawed at my clothing. My muscles turned to clay, and my feet to sandstone slabs, and when I rounded the corner at the stop sign, a brick flower-bed border sent me sprawling across the sidewalk just as a car turned from Main, its headlights blinding me where I lay.

JohnScott.

The recognition of my cousin's truck finally pulled a scream from my throat, and I crawled, then ran, slamming against the passenger door before scratching for the door handle. I scurried inside and yanked the door shut as Clyde staggered to the corner, balancing himself against the stop sign.

JohnScott sped away, but I stared at Clyde through the back window, his menacing gaze following the truck until we were out of sight.