“Excuse me,” I say to him, to Blanche, to anyone in earshot, before he can speak.
With an empty glass in each hand and one tucked under my arm, I escape to the back room and close the door behind me, leaning against it. The subdued noise of the back room is a godsend. I don’t want to think ’bout how that boy looked at me, in a way even Roy doesn’t do—and this non-Roy has no right.
A voice distracts me, Buck’s voice, coming through the crack of the office door. “So what are we going to do?”
“How much attention are we getting?” another man asks.
“Enough. My brother’s heard of Doc’s,” Buck says, “and he hasn’t been back in town long.”
“Doesn’t mean the police got wind of us,” a girl responds.
It’s Mary. I should leave. I want to leave. But the last thing I need is her hearing me and thinkin’ I’m eavesdropping.
I don’t dare to step farther into the back room, nor do I dare backpedal into the main room and let the noise seep in again. I’m stuck.
Buck comes into view through the slit in the door. “Look, all I’m sayin’ is, when I picked up last night’s order, I felt like I had eyes on me, ya know?”
“Is there any way to be more discreet?” the man asks.
I hear a clucking noise, and then, “What if I do the pickup?” Mary. “No one would suspect a woman to pick up bootlegs.”
Buck laughs. A hand slaps him. The glasses are sweaty in my grip.
“It’s not a bad idea,” the man says.
“Not one bit, Dr. Peterson. But Mary ain’t exactly known ’round town as the Virgin Mary. No offense.”
“I’ll do it.”
It takes a beat of my heart to realize who just spoke. I’m not sure I truly believe it, ’til Buck’s head whips in my direction. “Well, hot damn, Saint Bonnelyn.”
But nothin’ ’bout me is hot. I’m cold, right down to the bone. Denial hits me. I volunteered. And worse, I did so for the sole purpose of winning over Mary. All so I can keep an illegal job and spend its dirty money.
I take a tiny step back, my heels bumping the door, and one of the glasses slips loose from my hand. It shatters, and the office door swings wider. Mary stands there, mouth dropped open, before her lips curl into a smile.
Beside her is a man I recognize from a photograph upstairs: Dr. Peterson.
“Welcome to Doc’s,” he says. “Glad to have you on board.”
Regret and worry shoot goose bumps down my arms. “God help me,” I mutter.
7
That bootleg run is coming soon? Who knows when Mary will tap me on the shoulder? For the past few days, I’ve been trying to keep myself distracted, falling into a routine: work at Doc’s, work on the house, work at Doc’s, work on the house. In between, worry wedges itself in.
Right now, it’s work on the house, and I dip my paintbrush into the bucket, stroke the white paint down the sanded-down fence.
“Bonn? You all right? I think you got that part of the fence just fine.”
I startle at Roy’s words and turn, craning my head back to see the roof through the late-August sun.
Roy smiles. But it’s not a lopsided grin. It’s not a smirk. It’s not laced with desire followed by a demand that I, and only I, make him a drink. I shake my head, clearing away the memory of Non-Roy from the other night, and glance again at the fence, where I’ve painted the same board multiple times.
It’s a peculiar thing, worry. It can morph into paranoia or disguise itself as guiltiness, sometimes even creates doubt.
“Sorry. Got a lot on my mind.” I pause and think of the update my brother gave me yesterday. “Buster saw a doctor.”
“Yeah, he told me.”
Broken in three places, a hand that’s no good to the foreman—for months—’til it heals.
“Bonnelyn, I’ll say it a third time. I can help—”
“We’re making it work.” I hurry my next words so he can’t ask how. Ma already questioned me ’bout the pantry full of food, and I ain’t sure she believed I had a gangbuster couple of days at the diner. With her working ’round the clock, she’s none the wiser. “How’s it going up there?”
Roy motions with his hammer to the roof. “So far, so good. This part is finally all patched up, and I only hit my thumb once.”
“An improvement over yesterday.”
He narrows his eyes at me, but in a playful way. Then he slides down the roof. I hold my breath, keep holding it while he not so gracefully scurries down the ladder.
“How we doing on paint?” he asks.
“Should be enough.”
The porch is already shiny as new, and the fence is just ’bout done.
“Oh, good. I reckon Old Man Willard doesn’t have too much to spare.”
I scrunch my brows. Old Man Willard. Right. I lied, again, sayin’ I got the paint from him in exchange for helping his daughter with her English homework.
“But we do need some things from the hardware store,” Roy says. “You want to come?”
“She can’t,” Blanche says.
Blanche? I look over my shoulder, and there she is. Big Bertha is parked down the road at my ma’s house.
Roy narrows his eyes again, but this time there’s nothin’ playful ’bout it. He and Blanche don’t see eye to eye, haven’t since she convinced me to pocket money from the offering plate for candy when we were seven. “And why can’t Bonnelyn come?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Blanche says.
“Blanche,” I say, between my teeth. I touch Roy’s arm. “I got to work soon.” I conveniently leave out where. “Thought you did too?”
“So why is she here?” Roy nods his head toward my best friend.
My mouth opens, but no words come out. So I do something that could bite me in the butt. I redirect Roy’s question, putting the much-deserved heat on Blanche. “I don’t know. Why ya here, Blanche?”
There’s amusement in her eyes, and it only makes me more annoyed. “I know you’ve got work later and I got a hankering for some cheese grits. Figured I’d give you a ride into Dallas.”
“How sweet. Could’ve taken my bike, though, like I normally do,” I say. Roy doesn’t look convinced, probably ’cause I forced the words out.
“What are friends for? I see you ain’t quite done yet, though,” she says. “And I ain’t one to get my hands dirty, even for grits. Is Buster Boy home? I’m sure he can keep me company while I wait.”
Roy rolls his eyes, then reaches for my paintbrush. “I’ll clean up here. You go ahead.”
“You sure?” I ask him.
“If you got to work, you got to work.”
“I do,” I say.
It’s the truth, nothin’ but the truth, but somehow it still feels like a lie. And there’s that worry, that guilt again, jabbing me in the belly.
“Oh, and Blanche,” he says. “You may want to lay off the cheese grits.”
Blanche slaps her hip. “Boys don’t have a problem with our curves. Ain’t that right, Bonn?”
“Hey, you leave me out of this,” I say to her. To Roy: “Don’t listen to her.”
“Never do,” Roy says, but I don’t think I’m the only one flinging lies.
I lean up onto my toes, peck his stiff lips. “I’ll see you at church tomorrow?”