Durable Goods_ A Novel - Elizabeth Berg [14]
She looks away. “Well, I just don’t believe this.”
“You are the one,” I tell her, “who told me how big it gets. You showed me, remember? You drew on my history paper how big around it gets. That would not fit in a Coke bottle.”
She speaks slowly, wags her head from side to side to punctuate each word. “Well, I guess I know that.”
“So what are you talking about?”
She stands up, stamps her foot. “He screwed into it, you dummy! Into it!”
Well, I don’t know. There are some things you only can wait for time to give you.
“Oh!” I say, just to be done with it all.
“So that’s what I’ll tell Janie, that Bubba did that!”
“Euuww!” I say. “Yep. That should work.”
We use my phone. Cherylanne looks up Janie’s phone number. Wouldn’t you know it, a lot of sevens. Even her phone number is lucky. I give Cherylanne a Kleenex to put over the mouthpiece so she can disguise herself; then, for safety’s sake, give her two more. She dials the number. I hear a faint ring, then an eager, “Hello?”
“Yes,” Cherylanne says. “Is this … Miss Atkinson?”
So professional. Cherylanne is good at this.
I hear a faint reply. Probably she said, “Why, yes, it is,” and sat down with her legs crossed like she was going to win a million dollars.
“Well,” Cherylanne says, “we have some information that may be of use to you.”
A short response.
“First of all, Bubba Benson’s real name is Irwin Edgar Hammacker.” Cherylanne widens her eyes at me, holds back a laugh. I cover my mouth, nod at her. Go on, go on.
“Also, we think you should know he screwed into a Coke bottle in front of everyone at a party.”
A longer response. Cherylanne stops laughing and hangs up.
“What’d she say, what’d she say?” I ask.
She turns slowly toward me. “You want to know what she said?”
“Yes!”
“She said, ‘That was Simon LeBlanc, Cherylanne Benson. I was there, and you were not.’”
I have lost all my inside air.
Cherylanne is pale with fury. “I cannot believe I listened to your stupid idea!”
“Well,” I say.
“I cannot believe I did.” I start to follow Cherylanne out the door. She turns around, eyes wide. “Don’t even think of coming with me!”
“I wasn’t. I’m going out.”
“I am ruined. My reputation is just in shreds starting right now on account of you.”
“Well, I don’t think—”
She holds up a hand. “Don’t even say it. Don’t even try. I cannot believe I listened to your stupid idea.” She goes out the door.
I lean my forehead against the screen, watch her walk away. “It was your idea, anyway,” I say.
She turns around, murder in her eyes. “What?”
“Nothing.”
She walks off toward Vicky Andrews’s house. I go outside, do a handstand against the wall, look at the concrete close up.
I hear a truck coming. I kick down, straighten my blouse. Dickie lets Diane out. “See you tonight!” she yells after him, then walks up to stand before me. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” I follow her into the house. “Where you been?”
“Out.”
She never tells me. “You can’t go out tonight,” I say. “It’s Sunday.” We go to the Officer’s Club for dinner every Sunday night, wear dresses, he wears a suit.
“After,” Diane says.
“He’ll say no.”
She turns to me, decides yes, tells me, “He won’t know.”
“Oh.”
She goes upstairs. I hear the door to her room close. I wonder what she does in there all the time. It’s a small room. She plays records, I know, paints her nails. But then what? I am more an outside type.
I think for one second about getting Cherylanne to go swimming, then remember. She wouldn’t even go to the PX with me, now. She’ll be off limits for a good three days.
I go up to Diane’s room, knock on the door. “Can I come in?”
“No.”
I slide under my bed, regard the dust motes. Sometimes they are beautiful. They are how you can see air. I think about Simon LeBlanc. Sex is so shaky and mysterious. I will never unravel it. “Mom,” I whisper. “Are you there?” Not today.
There are times I try to understand. “He was raised by very cruel parents,” my mother said. She was wearing the blue apron, making apple crisp. She shook her head, waved her arm like she was pushing her own thoughts