“Sure you can.”
I pulled myself to my tallest posture, but I still only came up to his shoulder. “Look, I don’t know what impression you have of me, but I’m not that kind of girl.”
“I didn’t think you were. But I also didn’t think you were the kind to let a bunch of archaic social conventions keep you from having an adventure, either.”
“An adventure is one thing; ruining my reputation is quite another.”
“It won’t be ruined if nobody knows about it.” He put his hands on my shoulders. “Here’s the plan: You’ll pack a bag while your friend and your landlady are at work. Leave a note just stating the facts: that you got a phone call at work telling you that Uncle Leo had passed away, and you’ve gone to Mississippi to his funeral. You’ll be back Saturday.”
“Saturday! That’s three nights from now.”
“Yeah.”
“I’mnotsharing a room with you.”
“I don’t expect you to. You’ll have your own bedroom. And I promise to treat you with the greatest dignity and respect.”
“Will there be a chaperone?”
He looked me straight in the eye. “No.”
“So it’ll be just you and me out in the woods?”
“That’s right. But I give you my word I will be a total gentleman. Your virtue will remain intact.”
I knew better. I knew it wasn’t prudent. I knew my parents would have a stroke if they ever found out. But I wanted to go so badly that I convinced myself it would be all right. I told myself that he was an honorable man—after all, he was an Army Air Force officer,wasn’t he? Surely I could trust the word of a man that the government entrusted with an enormous bomber, thousands of pounds of explosives, and the lives of other crewmen.
In retrospect, I was overlooking one important fact: the person I couldn’t trust was myself.
Looking back on it now, it’s hard to explain exactly what it was about Joe that affected me like catnip affects a cat. It wasn’t just his appearance, although—Lordy, oh Lordy!—he was one good-looking man. Joe just had something extra. He was more alive than most people, as if God had packed an extra dose of vitality into him, or maybe a double soul. He radiated something—heat or light or magnetism or some such. He sparkled and shone and shot off electric sparks.
And when he turned his attention on me full throttle, it was like standing in front of a fire hose. It knocked me plumb flat.
Joe was impervious to the rules that everyone else lived by. And when I was with him, I felt impervious, too.
That was my big mistake. I forgot who I was—a small-town girl, bound by small-town rules.
16
hope
Iwasn’t sure if the rumbling of the garbage truck outside her house broke Gran’s storytelling trance or if her memory just suddenly shifted gears, but one moment she was weaving a spell with her words, and the next she was leaning forward, gripping the arms of her chair. “The photos of Joe—I know where they are! They’re in the attic, in a box marked ‘bed linens.’”
Eddie and Ralph had brought down all the attic boxes—and I’d gone through most of them. “Is there more than one box marked ‘bed linens?’”
“No, just the one.”
“I went through it yesterday,” I said. “There weren’t any photos.”
“It’s hidden under an extra piece of cardboard at the bottom.”
Oh, no.My stomach knotted. “I—I threw that box out.” Remorse welled up like nausea. “And the garbage truck just came.”
“Well, child, go and get it!”
I raced outside. Gran’s old metal garbage can stood empty on the curb, but the truck was stopped in front of Matt’s house. “Wait!” I yelled.
Two trash workers froze, each holding one of Matt’s thirty-gallon plastic bins.
