Chapter Eight

JohnScott was the best cousin in the world. Even though I had yet to lay eyes on Clyde Felton, the rumors still made me nervous, and I saw no reason to risk running into the rapist on my own. So at closing time, my cousin picked me up again. As he eased his truck down Main Street, one hand on the steering wheel, the other lolling out the open window, he looked sideways at me. “What do you think of the new family?”

Truth be told, the name Cunningham was beginning to nauseate me. “This town is obsessed.”

JohnScott read my thoughts. “It’s sort of nauseating, but I get the feeling they’re good people.”

He pulled to the curb in front of my house and killed the ignition. We sat in silence while I contemplated the overly friendly behavior of all three Cunninghams and wondered why they were so nice to me.

“I like the math teacher.” JohnScott spoke as though he were thinking out loud. “But I can’t figure him being a preacher.”

I didn’t answer.

“That bother you?” he asked.

“Should it?” The breeze tossed a strand of my hair across my neck, and I flicked it over my shoulder.

“That answers my question, I guess.”

Sometimes it seemed pointless for JohnScott and me to bother speaking. We understood each other without words.

“Little cousin …” He gave me a reproachful look.

“What?”

“Today at lunch. Nazis? Really?”

I examined the house. Momma had forgotten the porch light again. “Nazis, Christians, whatever.”

He sighed. “Not the same, Ruthie.”

“Okay, but if the Cunninghams are so nice, why do I feel like they’re talking about me?”

He grazed his palm along the steering wheel. “I don’t know about that. They’re just different somehow, but I can’t decide if they’re different in a good way or a bad way.” He shifted to lean against the door, laying his arm across the back of the dusty seat. “You know, today at practice, Grady paraded around the field house meeting all the guys, even the ones most players ignore.”

“The kid could talk a hole in a cement block.”

“Yeah, but it’s more than that. He was trying to remember everyone’s name and position.”

The porch light flicked on, illuminating the sparse grass and weedy flower bed, and Momma opened the door, still wearing her brown polyester uniform from the diner. Her long hair was wadded into a messy bun on top of her head, and she wore house shoes. “Is that you and JohnScott, Ruth Ann?”

The truck sat fifteen feet from the porch, so I answered without raising my voice. “It’s us, Momma.”

Ambling across the yard, she asked, “You hear about the new folks?” She rested one hand on the rearview mirror outside my window, the other on her hip.

I grunted. “And nothing else.”

She crossed her arms, exhaustion showing in her eyes. “You kids be careful with them.”

“Aw, Aunt Lynda,” JohnScott teased, “we don’t even know them yet.”

“All I’m saying is watch out. I don’t want no family of mine getting dragged through the mud.”

I squeezed the handle that rolled up the window. Even though I agreed with her, I wished she would stop treating me like a teenager. “We know, Momma.”

She gave me a final lingering look before turning toward the house.

JohnScott called after her, “Thanks, Aunt Lynda.”

She paused at the door but didn’t turn around, and then the screen slammed behind her.

That was Momma. A living Eeyore. Except Momma was beautiful on the outside. She attracted lots of attention from men in town, which only made her more grumpy, since most of them were married.

I rested my elbow on the doorframe of the truck. “Remember when she was happy?”

JohnScott reached across the truck to finger a strand of my hair, tugging gently.

We sat in silence. Moths already swarmed the porch light, tapping against the glass, desperately wanting what they couldn’t have. I took a deep breath and let it out, spying a tarantula picking his way across the yard on rubber-band stilts.

JohnScott murmured, “Speak of the Devil.”

I glanced at him questioningly, then noticed Dodd and Grady jogging toward us, running at a steady pace as they talked.

I reached for the door handle, but JohnScott snapped, “Ruthie, don’t.”

As the Cunninghams approached the driver’s side of the truck, Dodd called, “It’s JohnScott, right? Is this where you live?”

“Naw, this is Ruthie’s house.” JohnScott pointed his thumb toward me, and Dodd and Grady bent to look into the truck.

The preacher glanced at me, making brief eye contact before focusing his attention on something down the street.

Well, that was subtle.

Grady grinned. “Hey there, Ruthie-the-checker-girl. We meet again. I didn’t know you lived here. Our house is just a few streets over.”

He sounded ridiculous. Not only did everyone in Trapp live a few streets over, but the church had used the same house as a parsonage for as long as I could remember.

“Right, Grady,” I answered. “I know where you live.”

JohnScott tapped his fingers on the seat, warning me to behave.

“Can I ask you guys a question?” Grady said. “What’s the deal with all those cows on the edge of town?”

“You mean the feedlot?” asked JohnScott.

“That’s quite a smell you’ve got there, Coach Pickett,” Grady said.

JohnScott bobbed his head. “When the wind blows just right, it’ll knock you down.”

Grady snickered. “Maybe this town should’ve been named Crap instead of Trapp.”

JohnScott’s shoulders shook with stifled laughter, not because of what Grady said—we’d heard it a million times—but because it came from Grady. The goody-goody preacher’s brother saying a dirty word. JohnScott collected himself. “You ready for the game on Friday?”

“The jury’s still out,” Grady admitted. “I’m not big on football, but it appears I ought to play regardless.”

“Yeah,” replied JohnScott. “Everybody who’s anybody plays football. In Trapp, at least. No pressure or anything.”

“Oh no. No pressure at all.” Grady smiled. “I’m thinking it’s a good deal, though. Dodd said it’ll be like becoming all things to all men.”

JohnScott looked from Grady to Dodd. “I’m not following you.”

The screen door thumped, and Momma appeared in the doorway, sending a surge of condemnation from her heart to mine. “Ruth Ann, come in the house. Now.”

Grady poked his head into the truck and whispered, “Is that your mom, Ruthie? I’d love to meet her.” But the screen door had already slapped against the frame, prompting Grady to hurriedly add, “Never mind, maybe later.”

I slid out of the truck, miffed at Momma but grateful to have a reason to get away. As I tramped across the yard, JohnScott and Grady continued their conversation. The teenager asked if JohnScott had ever been to church, and my cousin replied, no, his family wasn’t the churchgoing type. Apparently this was Grady’s standard break-the-ice question.

I looped my finger through the cool metal handle of the screen door and glanced over my shoulder. Grady leaned against the driver’s-side door, but Dodd still hovered a few feet away. When our eyes met, the preacher held my gaze, as though he was going to say something, and a ripple of raw curiosity sloshed through my nerve endings, sickening me. But I waited a second or two, not wanting to seem bad mannered.

Sweat had dampened his hair, and he breathed irregularly because he’d been running. He took a half step toward me but appeared to change his mind and moved to the shadows of the truck, where he could join the discussion.

I entered the house with a shrug.

Momma lay on the couch watching a rerun. “Stay away from them, Ruth Ann.”

“I will.”

“They’re nothing but trouble.”

Getting irritated with her always produced more problems, so I perched on the arm of the couch. “Everything go all right at the diner today?”

Her eyes flashed as though I’d accused her of shoplifting. “Work went fine. Just like every other day.” She grabbed the remote and punched the volume up a notch.

Why even try? Momma’s depression prevented her from carrying on a normal conversation.

I moseyed into the kitchen to scrounge up a snack, settling for a bowl of Rice Krispies. After that I soaked in the bathtub until I wrinkled, then brushed my teeth and slipped on an oversize T-shirt before sliding between the bedsheets, where I lay awake pondering the day’s events.

School would be back to normal tomorrow. Or at least the day after. Soon everyone would get used to the Cunninghams and stop paying them any mind. It might take longer at the United, since most of the customers didn’t interact with the Cunninghams every day. They’d have to jabber the new family out of their systems. The thought made me pull my pillow over my head, but even then, Dodd Cunningham’s face appeared. I pictured him as he peered in the truck at JohnScott and me.

And then he clammed up.

His silence irked me. Not because I wanted to talk to him but because he hadn’t had any trouble speaking to me at the United. Or that morning in the office. And certainly not during our tour. No, he only ignored me when other people were around. A familiar cloud of inferiority pressed me into the mattress.

What was it he expected from me when nobody was around? At first I thought he considered me loose, but now I wasn’t so sure. He didn’t seem the type to act on that knowledge, even if it were true. Which it wasn’t.

Grady, on the other hand, caused me a different dilemma. Why so chummy? Friendliness could be tricky when I didn’t know what motivated it, and I suspected his kindness held underlying motives.

An hour later, as I stared at the ceiling with my jaw clenched tight, I heard JohnScott rev his truck and pull away from the house.