A Hole in the Universe - Mary McGarry Morris [49]
“Me and Polie’ll be in the bar. It’s right across the street. The Tower. We’ll be there. We’ll be watching.”
“Yeah, like a cop’s not gonna know, right, me standing out in the rain.”
“Say you’re waiting for a ride, for your mother to pick you up.”
“Yeah, right.”
“C’mon. I told you before, you’re like my star. The cops, they don’t stop girls. They don’t want to be checking your underpants and have you start yelling rape or something. C’mon, piece of cake.” He held out his hand.
She thought of Polie and shivered. “No, I can’t. Plus, I got a ton of homework. I got all these tests tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow’s Saturday.” He grinned.
“They’re special tests. I been sick.”
“Come on! All right, how much you want? Twenty-five?”
“Yeah, like I ever see it.”
“That’s Marvella’s fault. So this time we don’t tell her. C’mon!”
“I can’t. I’m hungry. I was just gonna eat.”
“C’mon. Twenty minutes this’ll take, and after, you can have whatever you want to eat. Anything!”
“Burger King?” Without a car, she never got to go there.
“Sure! Whatever!” He mussed her hair, and she grinned.
She sat in the backseat, trying to avoid Polie’s eyes in the mirror. Disgusting creep, he wouldn’t dare put a move on her now. She studied the shiny black hair curling over Ronnie’s collar. She wouldn’t mind him being her father. A mean son of a bitch, but at least he cared what happened to her. She hated running drugs, but her mother usually made her go, and besides, she liked being needed, liked being able to help him out in a bind. If she got caught, she wouldn’t face nearly the time an adult would, but they’d definitely take her away from her mother, and if they didn’t send her to juvie, they’d put her in foster care again. And that scared her more than anything else.
Gordon came outside the minute Jilly Cross pulled up. She had called a while ago to say she’d be right over if he still wanted to see those condos. She looked tired. Her eyes were puffy, and her hair was twisted into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. “I’m sorry about last week,” she said as they turned the corner.
“That’s okay.”
They drove for a while. Finally, he asked where the condo was. Collerton, she said, but so close to the line that part of their service road was in Dearborn. Her voice trailed off. He tried to think of something to say, something to tell her. Anything to get her attention.
“Look! See? See that? That used to be the hot dog plant.” He pointed to the dreary clump of cement-block buildings they were passing. “Every month we’d go there and buy hot dogs. My dad and me. A five-pound box. Half skinless and half natural casings.” He smiled, recalling how his father hated to pay full price for anything. New shoes came from the factory store that sold seconds and over-stocks. “It was great! The whole city was like that, so many interesting places to go and things to do.” There had even been an underwear factory in the city then and one that made jackets and coats. For half price they could buy juice by the case from Whipple’s, the fruit-juice company. “If you want, I can show you sometime where they all are,” he said as she turned down the road to the condo complex. “Where they were, anyway,” he added as she parked the car.
“So, what’s your sister-in-law like?” she asked, throwing him off base a minute.
“Very nice. She’s a very nice person.” He looked out at what appeared to be clusters of attached English Tudor cottages. “I don’t know, it looks pretty expensive here.”
“Kind of, but Dennis said your sister-in-law’s getting you a job at Harrington’s. You’d make a lot more there.”
“Oh, no. No, I’m fine where I am. I like it there. I don’t want to work at the brewery.”
“That’s not what your sister-in-law wants.”
“I haven’t discussed it with her. Maybe she thinks I do, I don’t know.”