Back Roads by Tawni O'Dell

Author:Tawni O'Dell [O'Dell, Tawni]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 1101209275
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2000-12-17T08:00:00+00:00

All week long I worked eight-hour days at Barclay’s, came home, asked if I got any phone calls, ate dinner, scraped trim for a half hour, asked if I got any phone calls, drove to Shop Rite, worked till midnight, came home, and woke Jody to see if I got any phone calls.

I told myself I wasn’t being unreasonable. Callie could’ve called me if she wanted to. We knew each other. We were neighbors. Our kids played together. They rode the same bus. There were all sorts of excuses she could make. She could have come up to the house with another book or a recipe.

I wasn’t completely without an ego though. Once I got through the first five or six hours Saturday and I hadn’t heard from her, I started to worry maybe someone or something was keeping her from me. Maybe her husband had found out. Maybe their house had burned down. Maybe she had hit her head and had amnesia. Maybe there had been a family emergency. Maybe she had been attacked by a rabid skunk.

But as the week dragged on, I knew none of those things had happened because I questioned Jody every night at dinner and found out that Esme’s mom put Esme on the bus every morning and met her at the bus every afternoon, and she looked happy and healthy.

I did my best to get Jody to go play at Esme’s house or invite Esme to ours but for the first time in the history of their friendship, Esme was booked solid for a whole week. She had a dentist appointment on Monday, her dance class on Tuesday, a Brownie meeting on Wednesday, and plans to play at Cruz Battalini’s house on Thursday.

I finally decided Callie Mercer thought I was a joke.

I couldn’t sleep at all Thursday night. I gave up and went upstairs around 5A .M. and sat at the kitchen table, staring at the phone. I knew she would still be asleep. I closed my eyes and made myself dizzy thinking about her stretched out naked in bed and me lying beside her. I knew what she felt like now. That was the worst part. Even if I could get her out of my mind, I couldn’t get her off my fingers.

I sat there for about an hour, until I heard the girls opening and closing dresser drawers and the bathroom sink running. I went out the back door with Elvis at my heels and started walking.

I stayed on Potshot Road for a while, then turned off into the woods. The morning was cool and misty and the woods were thick with wet spring undergrowth. Briars tore at my jeans and low branches swatted at my face, but I still went at a pretty good pace.

It took me longer than I thought to cover the three miles to the Mercer house. I came out on the bank across the road just as Brad Mercer’s Jeep pulled out of their driveway.

The bank was a steep one.

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