“Let him take you. You’ll get home before she gets back from the factory.”
“He’d take it as a sign that I like him. You know I’m not going with boys from around here. All they want is to get in your pants.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Shut up. You’re such a slut.”
Pam shoved makeup back into her bag. “Look, let Kerry take you. It’s not like you have to marry him or nothing.”
The bell rang and footsteps hustled down the hall.
“Shit,” Shannon said. “We’re late.”
After class, Shannon headed toward double lines of fuming yellow buses behind the school. She cut between the rumbling giants toward the student parking lot. She caught Kerry Rucker unlocking his truck’s door.
“Hey, Kerry,” she said.
He looked up at her from underneath his John Deere cap. “Hey.”
“Look, I need a ride somewhere.”
“Sure. Okay. Jump in.”
“Don’t you want to know where?”
He shrugged. He had a dimple she had never noticed before. “I don’t care.”
“Okay.” She walked around and got in the passenger side, slamming the door loudly. He slid behind the wheel and started the truck.
She turned to him. “I need to go out the road in front of my house. You know where I live?”
“Yeah.”
“I need to go to a house way out that road—to see my dad.”
They rode in silence for a dozen miles. His long-limbed body relaxed against the driver’s door. He smoked slowly.
“I think that’s the one,” she said. Two feet of mud splatter ringed the bottom of the brick ranch in place of shrubbery. Dust covered the lopsided mailbox, the windows, even the leaves on the trees. Shannon was glad to see that her daddy wasn’t doing any more upkeep on Bootsie’s place than he had on theirs.
“Wait here,” Shannon told Kerry. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Bootsie opened the door a few inches, hesitated, and then opened the door wide. “Come on in. I’ll tell Roger you’re here,” she said. In the front room, a red velvet couch was backed by an ornate mirror flanked by gold curlicued candle sconces. An arrangement of red plastic roses sat on a doily in the middle of a coffee table. The wall-to-wall carpeting was worn but clean. Shannon could see back into the small kitchen where spider plants sprouted from macramé hangers with fat wooden beads.
“Baby girl.” Her father hugged her quickly. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you.”
“Something wrong?”
The back of her throat tingled, but she forced the sensation down. He motioned her outside, down the concrete steps into the sliver of dry yard where crabgrass twisted in crazy swirls. Their likenesses quivered in the storm door. People always said how much they favored each other. The same colorless hair, pale eyes, and freckled skin. They were both tall and willowy, a little hunched in the shoulders. Shannon saw their reflections and straightened her posture.
“I needed to see you.”
“Shannon, you can’t come here.”
“Daddy, it’s been three months.”
“I know. But I got a new life now. I made a decision and I got to stick to it. It’s easier this way.”
“Easier for you.”
He reached for her, but she backed away. “Don’t touch me.”
“Shannon, you don’t understand the things that go on between adults.”
“I understand you don’t care about anybody but yourself.”
Kerry sat in the idling truck, smoking and staring into the field across the road. He turned in their direction, and her father gave a half-hearted nod as if to say everything’s all right here. Shame warmed her face.
“It’s hard when things change,” he said.
“We need money.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of twenties. “Here,” he said. “I don’t have much money right now. I’m moving the shop and all.”
Shannon slapped the bills from his hand and ran to the truck. “Drive off,” she said. The truck’s tires kicked rocks into the yard as they pulled away. In the side mirror, Shannon watched her father stoop to retrieve the money.
They drove back roads. Kerry didn’t ask questions or try to comfort her. She stared at fading crops and fields dotted with hay bales. They passed the Calvary Baptist Church where her aunt Patsy worshiped in Mt. Zion, and Penn’s Meats where Roger always bought a salt-cured ham for Thanksgiving. Kerry drove narrow roads threaded through small communities clustered in bottoms, don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-’em sorts of places with names like Whitewood, Roachville, and Black Gnat. The truck rumbled at crossroads as if thinking about which way to turn. Other trucks passed by and Kerry raised a hand to the drivers. They returned the gesture.
Finally, he said, “You like beer?”
“I don’t know,” Shannon said. “Never drank any.”
“Seems like a good time to start.”
The county line cut through the middle of Big John’s parking lot. At the drive-through, the man said, “What can I do you for?” without taking his eyes from the ballgame on the twelve-inch crammed in among liquor bottles.
“Six-pack. Bud. Ponies,” Kerry said with authority. The man passed Kerry a brown bag, made change, and slammed the window shut.
“He sold you beer like it was nothing,” Shannon said as they pulled back onto the winding lane that fronted the store.
“Good thing about a drive-through. Everybody’s twenty-one.”
They drove over the dam at Green River Lake. Far below, a gray edge of limestone rimmed the reservoir, and boats left wakes of white Vs behind them in the shadowy water. The road curved around through state forest land, thick with redbud and coffee trees. As the road dropped down toward the basin, the woods opened up to an empty gravel beach and a marina.
“Hungry?” Kerry said. Her stomach had been in knots. She hadn’t realized it was suppertime.
“I guess.”
“Come on. I’ll buy you a burger.”
The aluminum ramp to the floating restaurant screeched. Boats bobbed gently in slips and the dock rocked under them. Silver flashed from the minnow well. Pleasant chirps and a distinctive musty smell came from the cricket box. The words LONE VALLEY BOAT DOCK had been burned into a wooden plaque above the screen door. Inside, upright coolers held sodas, luncheon meats, and small tubs of night crawlers. Plastic pouches of rubber worms, lures, and sinkers were tacked to a pegboard beside the register. Life preservers, fishing rods, and water skis lined the walls. Tan men sat on stools around a U-shaped countertop, their hands holding plastic cups, occasionally flicking ashes into metal trays. Conversation stopped when they entered. Casey Kasem’s voice crackled on an unseen radio.
“Hey, Sarah,” Kerry said to the girl behind the counter. Food sizzled on the grill and oil popped in the fryer. “Give me a couple of burgers and fries to go. Make mine all the way.” Kerry leaned over the counter, winked, and said, “But no onions.”
They sat on the hood of Kerry’s truck, sharing fries and a big pile of ketchup. The lake was going dark and