A Table By the Window (36 page)

“But you know, checking out some stores might be a better idea.” She was not sure if enough time had passed since Aunt Helen wrote the check, but then, she halfway hoped the girl would figure it out anyway. “Tomorrow, we could go into town, maybe hang out at the mall for a little while, have a bite to eat.”

Brooke's face was a mingling of anticipation and uneasiness. “I only have seven dollars left from payday. But at least that's enough to buy my meal. I don't guess it hurts to look, does it?”

“It doesn't hurt to look,” Carley said.
Unless you're broke, and you'll find out tomorrow that you're not
.

“That looks too small,” Carley said when Brooke held up a pink knit shirt in JCPenney at Turtle Creek Mall. “You want room to move around in. And the dryer shrinks cotton.”

The girl's nod lacked enthusiasm. “Loose clothes aren't, well, sexy.”

Why does a seventeen-year-old want to look sexy?
Carley asked herself, then thought of the thirteen-year-olds she had seen walking down the sidewalk looking as if they had stepped out of a rock video. What were their parents thinking?

You're getting old,
she told herself. She dug a size large from the rack. “Humor me. Just try it on. Anyway, feminine's more attractive than sexy.”

Brooke gave her an odd look. “Huh?”

Carley sighed. “If you show off your
body,
guys only think about one thing when they look at you. You could have the brains of an amoeba and it wouldn't matter.”

Whether to appease her or not, Brooke tried on the larger clothes.

“You look great,” Carley said every time she stepped from the dressing room.

With an embarrassed little smile, the girl conceded at the mirror that she did. She selected three shirts large enough to allow for shrinkage, a pair of black slacks, jeans she could actually move around in, a khaki skirt that fell to a modest just-above-the-knee length, brown loafers, and to save for cooler weather, a hooded fleece jacket.

“You're still not gonna tell me who gave you the money?” Brooke asked at the checkout.

“Nope.” Nor did she need to know that Carley had added almost seventy dollars of her own.

“Won't you give me a hint?” the girl said on the way to the car. “This is so nice. Was it your aunt? Or Miss Byrle?”

Carley unlocked the trunk. “The person—or persons—wishes to remain anonymous.”

“Anono—?”

“Anonymous. Means ‘doesn't want you to know.' And I'm going to say that every time you ask me.”

“But I want to say thank you.”

“You can, by wearing the clothes.”

After browsing for a half hour in Books-a-Million, they went next door to China Garden. Carley allowed Brooke to spend her own money. She didn't want to make the girl feel like a complete pauper.

“My first Chinese food,” Brooke said, raising lo mein noodles with her fork. “Dad said he wouldn't give a dime to Chinks.”

“Brooke!” Carley hissed, and looked over her shoulder. Fortunately, the waiter was pointing something out on the menu to a foursome several feet away. “Not a good word.”

The girl colored. “I'm sorry.”

She apologized again on the drive home. “Really, Carley. It just slipped out.”

Eyes on Highway 98 unrolling before her, Carley said, “I'm not angry. But just as a future thought, most slang words for a person's race are offensive.”

“But people call us rednecks.”

“Well, that's wrong too,” Carley said, wincing inside.

“I'll try to do better.”

Carley smiled at her. “Me too.”

Headlights came from the opposite direction when she turned onto Third Street. She recognized Dale's Mustang coupe as they passed, and in the rearview mirror saw the lights swing into a driveway and out again. He parked behind her.

“I thought I'd missed you,” he said, closing his car door. He was dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a black knit shirt. “Hi, ladies.”

“Hi,” Brooke mumbled. To Carley she said, “I'm gonna put away my clothes now.”

Carley handed her the keys, thinking it was time to trust the girl with the extra one in her desk. She smiled at Dale. “We've been shopping.”

“What did you buy me?” he said, raising brows playfully.

“Well, a fifty-pound sack of sunflower seeds.”

“Ah…thanks. You shouldn't have.”

“Or maybe we'll just give it to Mrs. Templeton. You can help me unload it.”

He flexed his biceps. “Pretty lady, stand aside. Let strong man work.”

As Carley directed, he carried it over to the neighbor's porch and propped it beside the door. “Should we knock?”

“No. She goes to bed early.”

On their way back through the yard, he nodded toward Carley's house. “She doesn't like me.”

“I'm sure you're mistaken. She hardly knows you.”

“She knows I busted her boyfriend. Have you asked about him yet?”

“No. But she doesn't get letters from anybody.”

Dale gave her a sidelong look. “He's not the literary sort.”

They sat side-by-side on her top step. Lowering her voice, Carley said, “As long as he's in reform school, he's not a problem. Right?”

“That's why I'm here,” Dale said. “I checked. He'll be released in three weeks.”

“I'll have a talk with her.”

“You ought to send her back to her old man. There's no way she's not gonna see him.”

Carley shook her head. “I have to give her a chance. But I'll warn her that if she even
meets
him anywhere for a date, she'll have to leave. I wouldn't be able to leave the house without worrying that he could come over and steal something. Not to mention being afraid to sleep. I don't need the added stress.”

“I just hope it works,” Dale said doubtfully. “You're too trusting, Carley.”

“I'm not as trusting as you think.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I can be very cynical.”

“I'm glad to hear it.” He hesitated. “You're not cynical about
me,
are you?”

“I don't know.” Carley gave him a measured look. “You claim to be this big-time land baron, but I haven't seen proof of it yet.”

“All right, all right,” he said, holding up both palms in surrender. “Picnic? Sunday?”

“That sounds nice.” Carley smiled. “And thank you for looking out for me, Dale.”

He rested a hand upon her shoulder. “I like looking out for you.”

It was the most natural thing in the world, to close her eyes and meet his kiss halfway.

“M-m-m, nice,” Dale said when they drew apart again.

What are you doing?
managed to pierce Carley's light-headedness.
Too soon
. The friendship stage should not involve kisses that made her toes curl.

“I'd better go inside,” she said, albeit regretfully. “I have some things to do to prepare for work in the morning.”

“All right,” he said with regretful voice, getting to his feet as well. “See you tomorrow.”

“You mean Sunday.”

“The cafe's not open this week?”

“Oh…yeah.”
You need to come down to earth,
she told herself.

****

One of the advantages—or disadvantages—of an attic fan was that for a room to be ventilated the door had to be open. Brooke was seated in the wicker chair, painting her fingernails with a paper towel over her lap.

“May I come in?” Carley said at the door.

The girl shrugged. “Your house.”

“It's your room as long as you're staying here.”

“Ah…okay. Then, come in.”

Carley sat on the side of the bed. The tea set was out of the package, arranged on the dresser beside the flat Christmas-decorated Oreo cookie tin in which Brooke kept her earrings. The crumpled JCPenney bag peeked from the top of the trash basket. “You've already hung up your clothes.”

“I didn't want them to get wrinkled. Are you dating him?”

Right to the point,
Carley thought. Why not? Better to jump into a cold pool, adjusting all at once, instead of a few inches at a time. “Sort of. Why don't you like him?”

“I never said I didn't.” Brooke blew at the fingernails of her left hand.

“Oh, so you
do
like him?”

The girl twisted open the bottle again. “I shouldn't have asked you. It's none of my business.”

“Don't shut me out now, Brooke,” Carley said. “I'll never be angry at you for telling me what you think. And I'm going to tell you what
I
think. You don't like him because he arrested your boyfriend.”

She did not reply right away, seemingly concentrating on painting the pinkie nail of her right hand. “Brad said he hit him.”

“Then, there was probably a struggle. Some seventeen-year-old boys are as big as men.”

“How do you know how old he is?”

“Because he's getting out in three weeks, when he turns eighteen.”

Brooke looked up, visibly shaken. “I didn't know.”

“Do you plan to see him?”

“He's my boyfriend.”

“Then, you have some time to think about this,” Carley said. “If you do, you'll have to move back home.”

After a hesitation, Brooke said, “What if he doesn't come here?”

“Doesn't matter. I need to feel safe, more than you need the company of a thief.”

Anger flashed in the green eyes. “Then I'll move back tomorrow.”

“I hate to hear that.”

“Why?”

“Because I like having you here,” Carley said.

“You mean that?” Brooke said, expression softening a bit.

“I do. You're good company.”

“But if you're telling me who I can date…”

“I'm trying to look out for you, even though you can't see it.” Carley massaged her temples. “Look, did you really mean it all those times you thanked me for inviting you here, or were you just schmoozing me?”

The girl's face clouded as if she would weep. “I meant it, Carley.”

“Then, I'm asking you to repay me. Simply take the three weeks and think about this. We won't even discuss it unless you bring it up. That's what I'm asking for in return.”

****

“Would you like to come to the Hudsons with me after work?” Carley asled Brooke on Thursday morning. Aunt Helen and Uncle Rory's son, Ken, and wife, Glenda, had arrived from Raleigh the day before, fleeing Hurricane Isabel.

“Thanks for asking,” the girl replied, smiling, “but I think I'd rather just prop up my feet and watch
Columbo.
”

A
détente
had existed between the two since Monday. They got along fine, but Brad Travis was an ever-present, almost palatable witness to every smile they exchanged, to every
please
and
thank-you.

After dropping the girl off at the house, Carley brought a gallon of tomato basil soup and container of field green salad over to Fifth Street, to go with the fried chicken the Kemps were picking up from Henderson's deli. Ken Hudson was a compact-looking man with thinning salt-and-pepper hair. Glenda, taller than her husband, wore a more sober demeanor, but then, her home had been assaulted by a hurricane hours earlier. The family spent most of the evening in front of the television, watching news accounts of the deadly storm's aftermath, particularly in North Carolina.

During a commercial break, Uncle Rory related how Carley had given Brooke a job and a room in her house.

“How kind of you,” Glenda said.

“Thank you. I enjoy having her there.” She blew out a long breath. “But it's not without its frustrations.”

Ken laughed. “In other words, she's a teenager.”

“All young people should be forced to play basketball,” Blake said. “By the time Patrick comes in from practice, his hormones are too worn out to act up.”

“
Dad
…” the boy said, blushing.

Aunt Helen smiled and turned to Carley. “Would you mind if we invited her to church Sunday?”

“Of course not. But don't get your hopes up. She probably won't go.”

“Why? Have you discussed it?”

“Not at all.” Religion was one subject Carley avoided studiously around the girl. Her own experiences gave her no right to embitter a child. “For all her bravado, I think she's self-conscious when out of her element.”

“It never hurts to ask,” Aunt Helen said.

****

“Brooke, we're pretty busy out here,” Carley said in the kitchen Friday afternoon. “I need you to check the bathrooms.”

Besides the usual Tallulah High pre-home-game influx, a church van from Yazoo City had arrived with eleven women and men on an antique shopping outing.

The girl released the lever to the sprayer nozzle and quickly dried her hands. “Got it, Carley!”

Affable and helpful as always, Brooke still didn't look her in the eyes.

Had she erred in simply giving the girl time to think over the matter? Carley mulled it over that evening, while the attic fan pulled in football game sounds on a sixty-degree breeze.

She well understood how a teenage girl with zero sense of self-worth could cling to any male who would pay her a compliment, just to feel that she mattered. But did Brooke understand that? Would three weeks of simply avoiding the subject cause the girl to reach some sort of epiphany? What if Janelle Reed would have simply allowed her to stew in her own juices?

You have to talk with her
.

****

“Want me to make you some?” Brooke asked Saturday morning while studying the measuring instructions on a box of pancake mix.

Carley, in the middle of a yawn, waited to reply. “I'm just going to make toast.”