I could hardly spit out the word, but I managed a faint “You.”
“Me?What’s so funny about me?”
With a fist pressed into my mouth, I clamped my lips together, pulling back just enough to say, “Not you. Yourwilly!” With that I rolled over on my back, kicked my legs in the air, and squealed.
Johnny spread his knees apart and looked down. “What’s so funny about my willy?” He eyeballed Leon, who shook his head, unable to speak. But when Johnny stretched out his legs on the rock, tucking his willy inside, the rest of us nearly fell over the cliff, roaring with laughter.
It was the cure I needed.
5:30 p.m.
After the chilly night we’d had, lying in the sun felt heavenly. None of us said anything for the longest time, at least thirty minutes. I was nearly asleep when I heard Leon say, “Too bad you guys missed Suzie Q this morning. She stole the show.”
Johnny propped up on his elbow. “What show?”
“She sang her heart out on the Hog Farm stage. Got a standing O!” He stood up to clap, all the while beaming down at me. In light of Livy’s physical perfection—dressed or nude—it boosted my confidence.
Johnny sat up straight, peering at me. “Hang on a minute. You’re a singer?”
I shook my head. “I enjoy singing, but I’m not a real singer.”
“She had to give it up a few years ago,” Livy explained, her voice raspier than ever. “I was the one who told her to sing at open mics.”
With a deep furrow between his brows, Leon sat back down next to me. “Why would you ever give up singing?”
I released a slow sigh before answering. “It’s a long story.”
Livy pushed herself up, gathered all her hair to one side, and then raked her fingers through, like she was brushing. “Her dad’s psycho. That’s why.” With a crazed, wild-eyed face, she wriggled her fingers on either side of her head.
Leon stole a quick glance in my direction, as if he was waiting for me to say something.
I was still gathering my thoughts on how to respond when he took it upon himself. “That’s not nice, Livy.”
“I’m not saying anything she wouldn’t say herself. Right, Suzannah?”
It wasn’t the disrespectful gesture that bothered me; I was well on my way to forgetting Dad existed—at least for the weekend. What riled me up was Livy’s perpetual know-it-all attitude and, yes, her audacity to prance around nude in front of Leon. As hard as I had tried to put that out of my mind with the pot and the laughter, the anger came roaring back. I was so mad I couldn’t look at her. “Yep. He’s a psycho,” I said to Leon, not Livy.
But Aphrodite couldn’t let it rest. “When John Lennon said the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, Psycho Dad burned her concert tickets.” She paused. “They were her seventeenth-birthday present. Paul was her whole world.”
The Paul comment was mortifying. My chest tightened. I could see red. With pulse pounding, I sat straight up, glaring at Livy. “He wasn’t just my whole world.” I tapped my chest. “Millions of other girls felt the same way. Still do.” I took an angry breath. “George was your whole world. Davy Jones was too.” Shifting my gaze away from her, I stared at the lake.
The time had come. Even though Leon and Johnny were with us, I had no choice but to finally confront her about what had happened three years ago. As I opened my mouth, intending to say,Are you ready to admit your lie? And tell me the truth that you gave Marianne Gentry my Beatles ticket?something she had said hit me like a baseball bat to the face. Did she just say Dadburnedmy Beatles tickets? I slowly turned my head toward her, as if I had a crick in my neck. “Dad banned me from the concert. But he did not burn my tickets. He gave them to you.” I pointed straight at Livy’s face, a real Southern no-no.
With a slight shake of her head, she squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them wide, as if she was not hearing me correctly. “What?No, he didn’t.”
“Oh yes he did. So you could take yourmotherandlittle sister.”
A loud gasp spewed from Livy’s throat. “That’s not what happened! You must have forgotten.”
The tension, thicker than a copy ofWar and Peace, caused a hush to fall over all four of us.
It was high time I stood up to her. Unable to hold back another second, I leaned toward her. “I have not forgotten one single detail about that day. I still think about it way more often than I should.” My nostrils flared as I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “I know what you did, Livy. Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”
“Find outwhat?” There was a sharp edge to her voice.
“You know very well what I’m talking about.” With fresh daggers hurling, I dared her to look me straight in the eye and lie to my face. Yet again.
Her shoulders fell. She picked at her toes. “I didn’t think you knew.”
