You had to wait until they stopped and looked at the camera again.
This was no movie, the new voice assured her. This was real life.
And if it isn't them, what was that envelope doing in this car?
3
Now her eyes fixed upon the woman's right hand, which was pressed lightly against (Lester's) her boyfriend's neck. She had long, shaped nails, painted with some dark polish. Judy Libby had had nails like that. Sally remembered that she hadn't been at all surprised when Judy stopped coming to church. A girl with fingernails like that, she remembered thinking, has got a lot more than the Lord of Hosts on her mind.
All right, so it's probably Judy Libby. That doesn't mean it's Lester with her. This could just be her nasty way of getting back at both of us because Lester dropped her when he finally realized she was about as Christian as Judas Iscariot. After all, lots of men have crewcuts, and any man can put on a blue tee-shirt and a pair of pants with white coach-stripes running up the sides.
Then her eye happened upon something else, and her heart suddenly seemed to fill up with lead shot. The man was wearing a wristwatch-the digital kind. She recognized it even though it wasn't in perfect focus. She ought to have recognized it; hadn't she given it to Lester herself, for his birthday last month?
It could be a coincidence, her mind insisted feebly. It was only a Seiko, that was all I could afford. Anyone could have a watch like that. But the new voice laughed raucously, despairingly. The new voice wanted to know who she thought she was kidding. And there was more. She couldn't see the hand under the girl's skirt (thank God for small favors!), but she could see the arm to which it was attached.
There were two large moles on that arm, just below the elbow. They almost touched, making a shape like a figure-eight.
How often had she run her finger lovingly over those very same moles as she and Lester sat on the porch swing? How often had she kissed them lovingly as he caressed her br**sts (armored in a heavy J.
C. Penney bra carefully selected for just such conflicts of love on the back porch) and panted terms of endearment and promises of unflagging loyalty in her ear?
It was Lester, all right. A watch could be put on and taken off, but moles couldn't be... A snatch of an old disco song occurred to her: "Bad girls... toot-toot... beep-beep... "Chippie, chippie, chippie!" she hissed at the picture in a sudden vicious undertone.
How could he have gone back to her? How?
Maybe, the voice said, because she lets him do what you won't.
Her breast rose sharply; a hissy little gasp of dismay tore over her teeth and down her throat.
But they're in a bar! Lester doesn'tThen she realized that was very much a secondary consideration.
If Lester was seeing Judy, if he was lying about that, a lie about whether or not he drank beer wasn't very important, was it?
Sally put the photograph aside with a shaking hand and pawed out of the envelope the folded note which accompanied it. It was on a single sheet of peach-colored stationery with a deckle edge.
Some light smell, dusty and sweet, came from it when she took it out. Sally held it to her nose and inhaled deeply.
"Chippie!" she cried in a hoarse, agonized undertone. If Judy Libby had appeared in front of her at that moment, Sally would have attacked her with her own nails, sensibly short though they were. She wished Judy were. She wished Lester were, too. It would be awhile before he played any more touch football after she got through with him. Quite awhile.
She unfolded the note. It was short, the words written in the rolling Palmer Method hand of a schoolgirl.
Darling Les, Felicia took this when we were at the Tiger the other night. She said she ought to use it to blackmail us! But she was only teasing. She gave it to me, and I am giving it to you as a souvenier of our BIG NIGHT. It was TERRIBLY NAUGHTY Of yoU to pUt your hand under my skirt like that "ight out in public," but ' me SO r it got HOT. Besides, you are SO STRONG. The more I looked at it the more "hot" it started to make me. If you look close, you can see my underwear! It's a good thing Felicia wasn't around later, when I wasn't wearing any!!! I will see you soon. In the meantime, keep this picture "in remembrance of me." I will be thinking of you and your BIG THING. I better stop now before I get any hotter or I'll have to do something naughty. And please stop worrying about YOU KNOW WHO. She is two busy going steady with Jesus to worry about us.
Your Judy Sally sat behind the wheel of Lester's Mustang for almost half an hour, reading this note again and again, her mind and her emotions in a stew of anger, jealousy, and hurt. There was also an undertone of sexual excitement in her thoughts and feelings-but this was something she would never have admitted to anyone, least of all herself.
The stupid slut doesn't even know how to spell "too," she thought.
Her eyes kept finding new phrases to fix upon. Most of them were the ones which had been capitalized.
Our BIG NIGHT.
TERRIBLY NAUGHTY.
SO HOT.