Protector - Laurel Dewey [139]
Without realizing it, Emily looked down and to the left as she nervously licked her lips. “Yeah. That’s all.”
Jane saw the telltale signs of a lie. As much as she wanted to verbally force the truth out of Emily, she knew she couldn’t. Jane suddenly felt like an outsider and hated it. “Fine. Come on! We’re getting out of here!”
“We can’t leave yet!”
“I said in and out of here in two hours or less!”
“We’ve been here less than an hour! We can’t leave before we help with the cherries or it’ll look weird!”
“I don’t give a shit what it looks like!”
Emily approached Jane with a stern look. “Well, I do.” She brushed past Jane with a petulant step. Jane reached out to grab her arm, but Emily moved too quickly.
“Emily!” Jane said irritated, under her breath. “Goddamnit!”
Emily trod with purpose across the grass and into the house. Jane went after her. However, once Jane rounded the corner of Kent’s workshop, she slowed her pace in order to not draw attention. She caught up with Emily inside the house, just as the child was handed a huge bowl of fresh cherries by one of the women. Jane started to move toward Emily but stopped the minute she saw Kathy. She knew that if she pulled Emily away from the women, Kathy’s case against her would be wrapped up.
“Patty, darling,” Kathy said, a tinge of nervousness in her voice. “How ’bout if you hold that bowl while P.J. scoops out the cherries into the machine.”
Emily looked up at P.J., a fleshy woman who was dressed in an aqua pant suit and jaunty matching baseball cap. “What does P.J. stand for?” Emily asked quietly.
“Peggy Josephine,” P.J. said with a halfhearted smile on her face as she eagerly dug the cherries out of the bowl using two hands. “You can just imagine how that name went over with the kids in school. So, I decided to become just P.J.!”
Emily held the bowl steady, as P.J. continued to unearth more cherries and transfer them to the pitting machine. “I have a friend named A.J.—” Emily offered.
“Take it easy with those cherries, P.J.!” Kathy instructed with a smile. “There’s already a bunch of them bruised and leaking at the bottom of that bowl!”
Emily stole a glance through the crowd of women at Jane. Jane, in turn, regarded her with steely eyes, still smarting from their backyard confrontation. Kathy didn’t miss Emily’s glance, nor Jane’s irate facial reaction. As P.J. got down to the bottom of the ceramic bowl, she shoved her chubby hands into the cherries and screwed her face into a disagreeable expression. “Oh, Kathy! I see what you mean. We got ourselves a passel of bruised cherries at the bottom of this bowl!” P.J. withdrew both her hands from the bowl and revealed them to the group. Her skin was stained red from the cherry juice and dripping with red pulp. “How do you like that, girls?” she said with a chuckle.
The group of women chortled as they continued chatting amongst themselves. Not one of them noticed Emily’s reaction. No one, except for Jane.
Emily’s eyes fixated on P.J.’s hands. Her eyes followed one drop of scarlet juice as it traveled down P.J.’s wrist and disappeared under her sleeve, leaving a moist stain on the material. Her glance drifted down to the near-empty bowl filled with remnants of bruised cherries, floating in several cups of crimson juice. Everything went into slow motion. The women’s voices were muffled; Emily focused on the bloodred cherry juice sloshing against the bottom of the bowl. Without realizing it, she tipped the ceramic bowl, causing a stream of scarlet juice to pour onto the floor. The small puddle encircled her shoes. Her heart pounded wildly, her throat tightened and her eyes filled with sheer terror. Suddenly, a piercing scream cut through Emily’s memory. She quickly let go of the bowl as it crashed to the floor, smashing into hundreds of tiny pieces.
The sound of the breaking shards jolted Emily back into reality. For the first time, the dark memory held on just long enough for the sharp scream to linger amidst the din of female voices in the kitchen. The child looked