Chapter 11
By the time we make it back to Billy’s motel room, it’s dark.
We stumble through the door—tired and dusty and laughing. I plop down on the couch while Billy picks up a piece of paper from the kitchenette counter.
“Where’s Evay?”
he holds up the note. “She took a car back to LA. She said the unprocessed air was invading her pores.”
“You don’t look too broken up about it.”
he gets two beers from the fridge and shrugs. “There’s more where she came from. No shit off my shoe.”
Billy picks up the guitar lying across the coffee table and strums a few chords. Then he reaches under the cushion and takes out a clear plastic baggie. he tosses it to me. “You still roll the best joints this side of the Mississippi—or has the establishment completely assimilated you into the collective?”
I smirk and pick up the bag. Rolling a good joint takes concentration. Use too much weed and it’s just wasteful—too little and you defeat the purpose.
It’s a relaxing process. Like knitting.
I lick the edge of the paper and smooth it down. Then I pass it to Billy.
he looks at it admiringly. “You’re an artist.”
he puts the joint between his lips and flips open his Zippo.
But before the flame touches the tip, I snap the metal cap closed.
“Don’t. I could get a contact high.”
“So?”
I sigh. And look Billy straight in the face. “I’m pregnant.”
his eyes go wide. And the joint falls from his lips.
“No shit?”
I shake my head. “No shit, Billy.”
his turns forward, staring at the table. he doesn’t say anything for several moments, so I fill the dead air.
“Drew doesn’t want it. he told me to have an abortion.”
The words come out detached. Flat. Because I still can’t believe they’re true.
Billy turns back to me and hisses, “What?”
I nod. And fill him in on the more sordid details of my departure from New York. By the time I’m finished, he’s on his feet, pissed off and pacing. he mumbles, “That motherf*cker owes me a gun.”
“What?”
he waves me off. “Nothing.” Then he sits down and pushes a hand through his hair. “I knew he was an a*shole—I f*cking knew it. I really didn’t take him for a Garrett Buckler, though.”
Every town has two sides of the tracks—the good side and the not-so-good side. Garrett Buckler came from the good side of Greenville, with its automatic sprinklers and stucco-sided McMansions. he was a senior, our sophomore year in high school. And from the first day of school that year, Garrett was focused on one thing: Dee Dee Warren.
Billy hated him on sight. he’s always been distrustful of people with money—money they didn’t earn themselves. And Garrett was no exception. But Delores blew Billy off. Told him he was being ridiculous. Paranoid. Said she wanted to give Garrett a chance.
So she did. She also gave him her virginity.
And four weeks later, behind the bleachers at school, Delores told Garrett she was pregnant. Apparently we Greenville women are quite the Fertile Myrtles.
Don’t spit on us—you might knock us up.
And yes, despite all the sex education Amelia gave us, it still happened. Because—here’s the thing a lot of people forget about teenagers—sometimes they just do stupid things. Not because they don’t have the education or resources, but because they’re too damn young to really understand that actions have consequences.
Life-changing ones.
Anyway, as you can imagine, Delores was terrified. But like any moon-eyed, romantic, adolescent girl, she figured Garrett would be there for her. That they’d get through whatever was coming together.
She was wrong. he told her to f*ck off. he accused her of trying to trap him—said he didn’t believe that the kid was even his.
history’s a lot like shampoo that way—rinse, repeat, and repeat again.
Delores was crushed. And Billy . . . Billy was f*cking furious. I was with him the day he stole a white Camaro from the Walgreen’s parking lot. I followed him in the Thunderbird to a chop shop in Cleveland, where he got paid three hundred dollars for it.
Just enough to pay for the abortion.
We could’ve gone to Amelia, but Delores was just too ashamed.
So we went to the clinic ourselves. And I held Delores’s hand the whole time.
Afterward, Billy dropped us off at my house. Then he went looking for Garrett Buckler. When he found him, Billy broke his arm and fractured his jaw. And he told him if he ever breathed a word about Delores to anyone, he’d come back and break his other four appendages—including the one between his legs.
To this day, it’s the best-kept secret in Greenville.
“You know what? F*ck him. You make good cash, so you sure as shit don’t need his money. And as for the whole dad thing? Overrated. You had a father for like, five minutes . . . me and my cousin never did. And the three of us turned out great.”
he rethinks that statement.
“Okay—maybe not Delores. But still—two out of three ain’t bad. We could—”
I cut him off. “I think I’m gonna get an abortion, Billy.”
he goes silent. Totally. Utterly.
Completely.
But his shock and disappointment pound loudly—like a big bass drum.
Or maybe that’s just my own guilt.
Remember about twenty years ago, when that Susan Smith lady drowned her two children, because her boyfriend didn’t want a woman with kids? Like the rest of the country, I thought she should’ve been strung up by her fingertips and had the skin scraped off her body with a cheese grater.
I mean, what kind of woman does that? What kind of woman chooses a man over her own flesh and blood?
A weak one.
And that’s a characteristic I’ve already admitted to, remember?
It’s been in my mind for a while now—like a cobweb that’s clinging to a corner but you walk on past because you just don’t have the time to deal with it.
I’m a businesswoman, first and foremost. I’m analytical.
Practical.
If one of my investments isn’t turning out the way I thought it would? I get rid of it. Cut my losses. Simple mathematics—if you take the emotion out of it, it’s a no brainer.
I know. I know what you’re thinking. But what about that little boy you pictured? That beautiful, perfect boy with dark hair and the smile you love?
The truth is, there is no little boy. Not yet. Right now, it’s nothing more than a cluster of dividing cells. A mistake that’s standing in the way of me and the life I was supposed to have.
I don’t know if Drew and I can ever get back to where we were—but I know giving birth to a child he obviously wants nothing to do with isn’t going to win me any points. And it would make everything so much easier.
Like getting my eyebrows waxed. A simple procedure for a lifetime of convenience.
You think that makes me a cold bitch, don’t you?
Yeah . . . well . . . I guess you’re right.
Billy’s voice is cautious. hesitant. Like he doesn’t want to ask the question, and he wants to hear the answer even less. “For him?
You’re gonna get an abortion because of him?”
I wipe at the wetness on my cheeks. I didn’t even know I was crying. “I can’t do this on my own. Alone.”
It always comes back to that, doesn’t it?
Billy grabs my hand. “hey. Look at me.”
I do.
And his eyes are burning. With tenderness. And determination. “You are not alone, Kate. And you never will be. Not as long as I’m breathing.”
I bite my lip. And shake my head slowly. And the lump in my throat makes my voice raspy and frail. “You know what I mean, Billy.”
And he does. Billy understands better than anyone, because he was there. he knows how hard it was, how bad it felt. All those nights when I went out with him, for ice cream or to the movies— leaving my mother home in an empty house.
All the awards and graduation ceremonies, when my mother’s face glowed with pride, but her eyes shone with sadness. Because she had no one to share it with.
Every holiday—New Year’s Eves and Thanksgivings and Easters—when I couldn’t make it home from college, and I’d cry in his arms after getting off the phone with her, because it killed me that she was spending the day by herself.
Billy was there for all of it.
And Amelia. he saw his aunt struggle—financially, emotionally—trying to be two parents in one for him and Delores. he watched her date guy after guy, looking for a Mr. Right who never showed up.
Theirs were the anti-lives. The ones I never wanted for my own.
And yet, here I am.
Billy nods. “Yeah, Katie—I know what you mean.”
I rub my eyes hard. Frustrated. Aggravated . . . with myself. “I just need to make a goddamn decision. I have to figure out a plan and stick with it. I just . . .” My voice breaks. “I just don’t know what to do.”
Billy breathes deep. Then he stands up. “All right, screw this.
Let’s go.”
he walks around the corner and digs into the cabinet under the kitchen sink. I have no idea what he’s looking for.
“What do you mean? Go where?”
he pops up holding up a screwdriver. “To the place where our problems can’t touch us.”
Billy pulls the truck into the parking lot. And the headlights illu-minate the huge darkened sign.
Can you see it?
ROLLER RINK We climb out. “I don’t think this is a good idea, Billy.”
“Why not?”
We walk to the side of the building. here’s some advice I learned young: When you’re walking in the dark? Or running from the cops through the woods? Step high. It’ll save your shins and the palms of your hands a world of pain.
“Because we’re adults now. This is breaking and entering.”
“It was breaking and entering when we were seventeen too.”
We get to the window. I can just barely make out Billy’s face in the moonlight.
“I know. But I don’t think Sheriff Mitchell’s going to be so quick to let us off the hook now.”
he scoffs. “Oh, please. Amelia said Mitchell’s been bored out of his gourd since we left. he’d kill for some excitement. Kids today . . . too lazy. There’s no creativity to their vandalism.”
Wait. What?
Let’s back up a moment.
“What do you mean, ‘Amelia said’? Since when does Amelia talk to Sheriff Mitchell?”
Billy shakes his head. “Trust me—you don’t want to know.”
he holds up the screwdriver. “You still got it? Or have you lost your touch?”
For the second time tonight, I accept his challenge. I snatch the screwdriver and walk up to the window. And under twenty seconds later, we’re inside.
Oh, yeah—I’ve still got it.
The roller rink was our place: breaking in after closing, our national pastime. Idle hands really are the devil’s tools. So—for God’s sake—get your kids a hobby.
Ten minutes later I’m flying across the slick floor in worn, size-six skates.
It’s a wonderful feeling. Like floating on air—spinning on big, puffy clouds.
The stereo system plays the eighties’ greatest hits in the background. Billy leans against the wall—toking up and blowing the smoke out the open window.
he inhales deeply. And tufts of white puff out from his lips as he says, “You know, you could come to California with me. Set up your own shop. I have friends—guys with money—they’d invest with you. My friends are your friends. Me casa es su casa—and all that.”
I stop sliding as I consider his words. “Actually, that means, ‘My house is your house.’”
Billy’s eyebrows come together. “Oh.” he shrugs. “I always did suck in Spanish. Senorita Gonzalas hated me.”
“That’s because you crazy-glued her Lhasa apsos together.”
he giggles, remembering. “Oh, yeah. That was a great night.”
I chuckle too. And go into a spin that any Olympic ice skater would be proud of. The song changes to “Never Say Goodbye” by Bon Jovi. It was our prom song.
Raise your hand if it was yours too. I’m pretty sure, after 1987, it’s been the prom song of every high school in America at least once.
Billy snuffs out the joint with his fingertips. Then skates up to me. he holds out his arm, doing his best Beetlejuice impression.
“Shall we?”
I smile. And take his arm. I put my hands on his shoulders, and while Bon Jovi sings about smoky rooms and losing keys, we start to sway.
Billy’s hands sit low on my back. I turn my head and rest my cheek against his chest. he’s warm. his flannel shirt is soft and smells like pot and earth . . . and home. I feel his chin against the top of my head as he asks me quietly, “Remember prom?”
I smile. “Yeah. Remember Dee Dee’s dress?”
he laughs. Because Delores was the original trendsetter—even then. Lady Gaga’s got nothing on her. her dress was white and stiff, like a ballerina’s tutu. And it had a string of twinkling lights along the hem. It was really pretty.
Until it caught on fire.
her date, Louis Darden, put it out with the punch bowl of spiked Kool-Aid. She spent the rest of the night sticky and smelling like a doused campfire.
I continue our trek down memory lane. “Remember the last day of junior year?”
Billy’s chest rumbles as he snickers. “Not my stealthiest moment.”
It was the final day of school—and about one hundred and three degrees inside our sadly under-air-conditioned school. But Principal Cleeves refused to let us out early. So Billy pulled the fire alarm.
Right down the hall from where the principal was standing.
A hot pursuit ensued, but Billy successfully avoided capture.
So the principal went on the intercom system and tried paging him. “Billy Warren, please report to the main office. Immediately.”
“I know I’m not the brightest bulb in the box, but come on.
Did they really think I was stupid enough to actually go?”
I laugh against Billy’s shirt. “And then as soon as you walked in senior year, Cleeves grabbed you and was all like, ‘Mr. Warren, there’s a chair in detention with your name on it.’”
And there really was. They stenciled his name on the back of a chair, like a director’s chair on a movie set.
Billy sighs. “Good times.”
I nod. “The best.”
And as words about favorite songs and loves that would never end swirl around us, I close my eyes. Billy’s arms tighten around me just a bit, pulling me closer.
Do you see where this is going? I didn’t.
“I’ve missed this, Katie. I miss you.”
I don’t say it back, but it’s nice to hear. And it’s even nicer to be held.
To be wanted.
I haven’t felt anything more than friendly affection for Billy in a long, long time. But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten. The girl I used to be. The one who thought there was nothing sweeter than looking into Billy Warren’s eyes. Nothing more romantic than hearing him sing. Nothing more exciting than riding in his car, late at night, after curfew.
I remember what it feels like to love him. Even though I don’t love him in quite the same way anymore.
I gaze up at Billy’s face as he sings the song’s words softly. To me.
Looking back now, I’m not exactly sure who leaned where, who moved first. All I know is one minute we were dancing in the middle of the skating rink . . . and the next, Billy was kissing me.
And it only took a second before I was kissing him back.