Girl Trouble by Holly Goddard Jones

Author:Holly Goddard Jones [Jones, Holly Goddard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-08-17T22:00:00+00:00

4.

We finished painting on a Monday afternoon in early August, four days ahead of schedule. Burt, the supervisor, had tried to stretch the work out—he was a good guy, and he knew most of us would miss that extra two hundred bucks or so, and sorely—but there wasn’t anything else left to do. The factory walls were all painted, the trim, the offices. The weather took a cool turn that week—temporary, I knew, but still a preview of the coming fall. Summer, at least in my own head, was over.

Robbie clapped me on the back as we walked outside together for the last time. I wasn’t sorry to be going—to escape that heat and the constant racket and those god-awful paint fumes. But I felt worn out and empty. April hovered at my side, knuckles barely brushing mine.

“Don’t forget about Friday,” Robbie said, pointing a big, dirt-creased finger at me, grinning. “Nashville. You and me, friend. We’re gonna get sauced.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” I said, trying a laugh. I couldn’t even look at him.

April stood on tiptoe to hug Robbie—he could have pitched her like a javelin—and kissed his cheek. It was a tender gesture, and final. “You take care,” she told him.

“Hell, girl, we’ll see each other.” He still had the grin on his face, but I saw, for the first time, uncertainty. Fear of being left behind.

April just nodded.

I drove her home—for the last time, as things turned out. It had been just over a week since my afternoon with Tina, and April and I hadn’t had sex since then. We’d tried. She’d invited me over to her place on Saturday, and we went through our usual song and dance: takeout, making out, and we’d even made it as far as her bed—her shirt off, my pants unzipped—when I knew for sure that I couldn’t go through with it. I wanted to, and it seemed to me that sex with April would somehow be the right thing—the noble thing, even. If I could sleep with April again, I’d be bound to her, and I’d never have to tell her about Tina. If I could sleep with her again, I could erase the terrible thing I’d done, and we’d go to Western together, and everything would be all right. But I couldn’t. I mumbled some excuse about my stomach bothering me and hightailed it out of there as soon as I had an opening.

Now, in the car, she was pushed up against the door with her arms wrapped tightly across her chest. She had a flannel shirt on—much too large and probably her father’s—and it accentuated her frailness, making her seem tender and precious. Her hair had the faintest reddish cast; I hadn’t noticed it before.

“You look pretty,” I told her, and meant it. I couldn’t have said it before.

Her mouth twitched a little. She didn’t believe it. Or else she didn’t believe that the compliment came without some price. “Thanks,” she said.

I glanced back and forth between her and the road.

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