“C’mon, man.” Will elbows him and jumps in. Hurry up. We may never get another opportunity to ride in a varsity player’s way-back ever again.
Will sits down on the laundry basket and Tyler crouches across from him. “Are these all the leftover rally socks?” Will’s voice contains the hushed awe of the first man to see Niagara.
“All yours,” says Ben.
“Really? Won’t you guys need ’em for the tournament?”
Ben shakes his head once. “Plenty more where those came from. Trust me.”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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fifteen
CONNIE BONINE BARELY looks up from the TV when the bell jangles over the door at Second Sands Treasures. Her husband, Willie, had three storage units packed with crap when he died in the First Gulf War. His jeep got smacked by an armored Humvee in a freak accident on a base in Afghanistan, and in a town without a Goodwill at a time before eBay, Connie smelled a goldmine.
Using Willie’s pension, she leased an empty storefront to sell off his junk, and though she never cashed in on much of her late husband’s stuff, she has successfully cornered the market on the old clothes of anyone who’s passed on since 1992. Now most funeral arrangements include an appointment with Connie the week after the graveside service or internment. Her rusty old delivery van will show up anywhere in town to cart away the belongings of your deceased friend or loved one, free of charge. For those too overwhelmed with grief to do the job themselves, the fact that Connie will sell everything off at a small profit seems to be a fair trade.
The people who left this stuff behind may be dead, but the smell of Connie’s store is a living thing. Mothballs from your grandma’s basement mixed with old rubber shoe soles, and long velvet drapery panels filled with cigarette smoke that can stand up on their own. It’s the scent of trash that never became treasures, left to molder for a couple decades.
Mrs. Bonine’s hair is a bomb blast of wiry gray curls that would spill down her back if she didn’t have it all tucked up into a bright blue Buccaneers bandanna. This grooming annoys my mother. Once a year or so when Mom manages to wrestle away from Will the shoes he’s destroyed and jeans he’s outgrown, she drops off a bag of donations and huffs about why Connie won’t cut that mess once we’re out of earshot. Or at least color it, for heaven’s sake.
Behind the counter, an old thirteen-inch black-and-white TV with rabbit ears pulls in a grainy signal. It looks like Mrs. Bonine’s watching the news on a microwave. I imagine saliva pooling inside her down-turned mouth as she waits for the beep and am jolted back to reality by a voice I recognize. Sloane Keating gives a preview of her “full report at five” on the “Coral Sands Rape Case.” Something about those words—lined up all in a row like dominos—stops me in my tracks.
Rachel and Christy are already picking through the racks of ancient dresses. Will and Tyler have found an old drum set. Mrs. Bonine glances over as Ben and Lindsey lean in on either side of me to hear the news. Her lips stretch and roll like a lazy cat in a sunny spot, a smile lighting up her face and lifting her off the stool behind the counter.
“I have a Buccaneer in my store! Wait!” She holds up her hand, palm out. “Don’t tell me.” She squints and chews her cheek. “Starting forward. Jersey is . . . seven . . . ?” (She squints one eye open.) “No! Seventeen. Cody! Is it . . . Barry? No! Don’t tell me . . . Ben!”
Ben smiles and nods.
Connie Bonine beams at us in victory, then remembers the TV and grabs a pair of pliers, jamming them into a small hole next to the screen where a knob apparently used to be. She gives a sharp twist and Sloane flashes once, then flattens into a glowing line that shrinks to a tiny pinprick of light. Going . . . going . . . gone.
“Terrible news. Those boys must be friends of yours?”
Ben nods slowly.
“Well, I just think it’s awful what that Stallard girl is doing to them. Dragging their good names through the mud. If you ask me, they oughta arrest her mother and put that poor girl in a good Christian home.”
“Did they say her name on TV?” Lindsey stops Mrs. Bonine with a question.
“What?” She turns back to the TV as if to check. “Oh no. No, no. They won’t release her name. Not that they have to around here. LeeAnne comes by looking for white shirts to wait tables in all the time. Used to hold the good ones back for her, but I can assure you that won’t be happening any longer. That little girl of hers was in here, too, just the other day—Saturday, in fact. Day of this party everybody’s so worked up about. Whining at her mama about having to buy other people’s old clothes. Well, beggars can’t be choosers, I say, but they can at least cover up their butt cheeks, for Chrissake’s.”