Shine - Lauren Myracle [17]
“Um, yeah,” I said. “You look pretty, especially your hair.”
“You look pretty,” she said wistfully. “Gosh, I wish I had your figure. And eyes. And pretty much every single thing about you.” She giggled. “Wanna trade?”
“Ha-ha,” I said, pretending she was teasing. “How does the new diet work?”
She told me about it, enthusiasm animating her features. She was a pretty girl underneath her extra pounds.
“. . .which means that in three months I’ll have dropped two full sizes,” she marveled. “Can you imagine? And then, once I’ve gone down another couple of sizes, well . . .”
Instead of finishing her sentence, she blushed. A heavy duty, this-is-serious blush.
“Omigosh,” I said, catching on. I shoved her shoulder. “Gwennie, you man-eater. Are you seeing someone?”
“No,” she said giddily. She tried to stop smiling, but couldn’t.
“Who is it? You know you have to tell me.”
She shook her head.
“Gwennie.”
She shook her head more, still beaming.
“Gwenn-ie,” I sang.
“Hush,” she said. “And don’t you say a word. Promise?”
I lifted my eyebrows and didn’t, just for the pleasure of teasing her.
“I’m serious, Cat,” she said. “You can’t tell a soul, especially with him laid up in the hospital and everyone and their mama already gabbing about him. Okay?”
My eyebrows came back down as I tried to put together the meaning of what she’d said.
She realized her goof a moment too late. “Never mind,” she said quickly. “I didn’t just say that. Nobody’s gabbing about no one.”
I half-smiled, because it was so Gwennie to think she could rewind the tape and erase her part of the conversation. Then the humor of the situation dribbled away. Gwennie had a crush on Patrick? How could Gwennie have a crush on Patrick?
He was crushworthy for sure, with his green eyes and light brown hair. He was the sweetest boy in all of Black Creek, and probably all of North Carolina. But he wasn’t just laid up in the hospital. He was gay.
I didn’t know what to say. Patrick and Gwennie would never be a couple. But what would be gained by telling her that?
When she was younger, maybe six, she and Beef came over for dinner along with their daddy. Afterward, we kids went outside while Aunt Tildy did the dishes and Roy and my daddy had a drink. Beef showed off his new .22 to Christian, and Gwennie and I chased after the tree frogs that come out at dusk. She caught one, and she was so happy she squealed. Then it peed on her, and she dropped it. When she lunged for it, she stepped right on it. Squish.
“Come on, Gwennie,” Beef pleaded when she wouldn’t stop crying and wouldn’t stop crying. He threw an anxious glance at our house. If Roy heard Gwennie fussing, Beef would be blamed for not taking care of his sister, and later he’d get a beating.
Gwennie bawled. She scooped up the dead frog and tried to poke it back into shape, until Beef, losing his patience, slapped it out of her hands.
“You killed it, so quit. You can’t bring it back to life.”
I remembered how Christian came over and put his arm around her. He was in the fourth grade and knew stuff. He had yet to lose the title of best big brother in the world.
“It’s in heaven now,” he told Gwennie. “If you stop crying, I’ll bury it, and then I’ll catch a new one for you.”
Gwennie went from wailing to sniffling, from sniffling to a few last gulping swallows.
Later, when we gathered on the front porch for dessert, I peeked at Gwennie to see how she was doing. Well, she was gobbling down her slice of Aunt Tildy’s homemade pound cake without a care in the world. Not only that, but she was sitting on the floor in front of my daddy, leaning against his legs. Her own daddy was one chair away, but she’d taken mine.
“That’s some cake, huh?” my daddy said, watching her eat. “We need to get you to the state fair this summer. Sign you up for the pie-eating contest—what do you think of that?”
He said it nice. She giggled.
“Aw, she knows how to pack in the food, all right,” Roy said. “Shoulda named her Patty. Fatty Patty.