Love Edy (35 page)

Wyatt’s feet took to the task even as his
mind spoke the order into existence. He didn’t bother with a coat,
crossing the gaping maw of his bedroom—shrunken and mocking on any
other day. He yanked on battered Converse and a wrinkled flannel
button up, pulled on a ball cap, thundered downstairs, and grabbed
his dad’s keys as the old man slept in his standard recliner by the
door. A plan formed as he moved, quickening his motions, burgeoning
confidence, igniting the quivering flame he called a heart until it
roared fierce as the fires of hell. On his way out, he kicked over
Hassan’s untouched donations.

~~~

Edy stood at the top of the stairs with
railing and a bit of wall for cover. At her back, Hassan waited for
his cue. In the shadows of the stairwell, her mother’s slim,
jutting silhouette descended at leisure. There’d been such novelty
in her voice, such an off putting sense of gratification, of velvet
indulgence, of utter bliss. A concept so foreign to Edy’s ears it
snaked through her, knotting white hot fear with the iciest
contempt until nothing but numbness remained.

Buoyancy enveloped Edy on her descent, so
she felt nothing. Her hand drifted along the banister with Hassan
close behind.

“Now listen to me,” Edy’s mother said from
the first floor hall. “We know all we need to know. You’ll ruin our
leverage by lashing out indiscriminately. Donations have been
coming in, which, as you may recall, was the point.”

Edy hesitated, uncertainty gathering like
ghost fingers at her neck, ready to seize her by throat, should
suspicion prove unsupportable.

She shot a look at Hassan, whose dark brows
and thick lashes slipped low, face an effigy of intolerance. A
silent conversation shot between the two before she nodded in
agreement. He was right. Edy’s mother sounded . . . weird on the
phone with Cam. Giddy. But Hassan was right. The night of a
shootout wasn’t the time to tackle that. But tackle that, they
would.

Another laugh, one silky as the first, shot
a spike straight up Edy’s spine. They froze on the staircase and
the doorbell rang.

“Cam! Someone’s
here
, at this hour.
Can you believe it?” her mother said.

Edy cautioned a look back at Hassan. Judging
by the stark horror swallowing his face, they’d narrowed their
candidates down to the same people: his parents.

“Good evening. Mrs. Phelps?”

“Wyatt?” Edy said.

She shot down the staircase.

“Edy!” Hassan cried and rushed after.

Edy’s mother shot them an annoyed glance,
phone wedged between her shoulder and ear. “Hold on, Cam. This
looks involved.” She shot Wyatt an intolerant look.

“Go on, Wyatt. You were saying something
about my daughter having boys in her room.”

Hassan laughed.

Edy’s mouth fell open, hinges dissolved,
lost in the wake of this new storm. This friend—this best friend of
hers—he’d come to tell on her?

That old fish faced traitor; she’d split him
from gut to gullet and leave him on Mass Ave for traffic.

“Whoa!” Hassan plucked her from thin air;
the first indication to Edy that she’d gone for Wyatt’s throat at
all—aside for the whites of Wyatt’s eyes suddenly way too
visible.

Edy’s mother groaned, as if put off by their
drama, before slowing at her daughter’s appearance.

“I’ll call you back, Cam,” her mother said.
She turned her attention on Wyatt. “I’m glad you came and I’m even
more thrilled that you have taken an interest in the company Edy
keeps. It’s a subject I obsess about, as well, when said company
appears out of nowhere. Tell you what. Take a trip with me into the
study, will you?”

Edy’s mother started off, barefoot and still
somehow glamorous, but paused when Wyatt held off, back pressed to
the door.

“We could ask Hassan to be your bodyguard if
it’ll make you feel better.”

He followed her, eyes on Edy till he
passed.

They returned less than a minute later, with
Edy’s mother holding a few sheets of paper. Wyatt, on the other
hand, had taken on a robust shade of Christmas green, as if Edy’s
mother had fed him a shovel full of vomit in the interim.

Well, it was a possibility.

“Chaterdee, Rhode Island,” Edy’s mother
announced.

Hassan shot Edy a questioning look.

I’m from Chaterdee. A soot-filled town on
the edge of Pawtucket, where steel mills blot out the sun.”

Edy wondered if now would be a good time for
her dad to wake up. She wondered it, but she didn’t dare say it.
Not yet. She had to know what was on that sheet of paper.

“225 Willow Lane. Distress call received at
5:10 p.m. Police arrival 5:21 p.m. Incident Type: Assault.” Her
mother looked up with a grin bearing wisdom teeth before
continuing. “White, adolescent male, Wyatt Green, Reporting party.
White adolescent female, Lottie Davis, victim, found semi-conscious
on living room floor. Breathing is without distress. Multiple blows
to the face, torso and legs. Knuckles scrapped. Fingernails torn.
Clothes torn and
poorly
rearranged.”

Edy’s mother tsk-tsked. “So much
evidence.
” She looked from Wyatt, who refused to look at
anyone, to Edy, her smile smug.

“Mom,” Edy said. “If this is for me, I
don’t—”

Oh.
If looks bore teeth, if looks
sprouted fangs, then this one would have clamped down on Edy’s neck
and sunk its venom deep. It would have taken its time with her.

“The reporting party, Wyatt Green,” her
mother continued, “initially indicated that there was an accident,
though declined to go into further detail regarding the type or
location of accident. Closer examination of the reporting party
turned up surface abrasions on both hands and a half inch scratch
on the left cheek. Green attributes these to difficulty cutting
grass earlier in the day.”

Edy’s mother tossed him a wink.

“Davis regained consciousness before the
arrival of the ambulance. She exhibited considerable reluctance to
cooperate with treatment or with the identifying of a viable
suspect. She indicated that on arriving home, she encountered a
masked assailant who attacked her. Her account depicted him as six
feet tall with a black shirt and blue jeans, and no other
identifying markers. A thorough search turned up no signs of forced
entry.”

She looked up, at last. “This is what I do,
Mr. Green. I make it my business to know your business the second I
meet you.
That’s
my real trade.”

Edy had no recollection of compelling her
feet to move, yet the audible
thump
of the back of her head
connecting with wall confirmed as much. She’d found Alice’s
Wonderland bottle labeled “DRINK ME” and guzzled when she hadn’t
meant to, choking on its contents till she shrunk down and drowned
in her problems. She found the cake labeled “EAT ME” and shoved it
in her mouth, gouging without hunger. She swelled on her mother’s
suspected affair with Cam, on what Wyatt might have done, on lips
that wouldn’t call her father, on tears that wanted to and couldn’t
fall. The night had no bottom at all.

“I have more ammunition,” her mother said
and deigned to look in Edy’s direction. “Like a knock next door. In
case you need persuasion to shut your mouth.”

Hassan took a step closer to Edy and placed
a hand at the small of her back. Up until then, he’d been a model
of indifference for the most part, removed from their spectacle,
gathering intel.

“Or what?” he said.

“Quid pro quo. We can all pretend it’s
yesterday. Friendships for everyone. Or rather, almost everyone.
Cam and Rebecca, Hassan and Edy.” Her mouth dragged in an
exaggeratedly sympathetic look at Wyatt. “None for you, I’m afraid.
All I can promise is that we’ll be discreet about your background.
I don’t think you’ll convince Edy to—” a giggle escaped her, and
she placed a hand to her mouth to cover it “—date you.”

Outside, headlights flashed, illuminating
the entire living room.

“What in the world?” Edy’s mother murmured,
and took on a purposeful stride towards the window.

“No,” Hassan moaned.

He shot past her, threw open the curtains,
and cursed. “Get down. Get down now!”

He exploded full throttle. Every bit of
muscle and mass gunned until he slammed Edy to the ground. The room
flashed black, then white, and the taste of bitter metal filled her
mouth. Suffocation. With Hassan atop her as if he could shield her
from the Earth’s existence, she could find no oxygen at all.

“Hassan, please. Let go of my ankle!” Edy’s
mother shouted as if touching the ankle of an elected official were
a serious government matter.

“Please don’t move,” he whispered.

Numbness toyed with Edy’s limbs. Eventually,
moving wouldn’t be an option.

“What are you playing at?” Wyatt said, from
the floor. Though she couldn’t see him, trembles laced every word.
“Who’s outside, exactly? Another girl?”

“Shut. Up,” Hassan said. “And stay on the
floor.”

“He had other girls,” Wyatt hissed. “There
have
always
been other girls.”

He came into Edy’s peripheral when he stood
and ventured toward the window. “Who’s out there that we’re not
supposed to see? And why? Ask yourself that!”

Wyatt yanked the curtains and crumpled in a
hail of gunfire.

Love Edy
continues Fall 2014

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Acknowledgments

Whoa. This novel represented such a group
effort that without the help of family and friends, it wouldn’t
have been possible. First, to my husband, Pierre, who worked out
countless early incarnations of characters and plot with me: thank
you. Thanks to Nova Southeastern University and Brenda Serotte for
shaking out the potential in these characters and in a young,
unpublished, writer. Thanks to those in the trenches with me: Ian
Thomas Healy, Allison M. Dickson, Tavares Jones, Lashanta Charles,
and Leona Romich. Thanks to the members of Scribophile and the
Fiction Writers Group on Facebook, the latter of which has a talent
for putting up with me. As always, I’m ever grateful for the love
and support I get from my parents, Dorothy and Alain Leroy, from my
family, and my cherished alma mater, Alabama A&M University. To
the fans of
Crimson Footprints
who find themselves here, I
have big hugs for each and every one. Trivia for you: I penned
Love Edy
at the same time as
Crimson Footprints,
book
one. I must have been insane. In any case, to readers old and new:
Thank you.

About the Author

Shewanda Pugh debuted as
an adult contemporary romance author in 2012 with the
Crimson Footprints
series. Shortlisted for the AAMBC Reader's Choice Award, the
National Black Book Festival's Best New Author Award, and the
prestigious Rone Award for Contemporary Fiction in 2012 and 2013,
she has an MA in Writing from Nova Southeastern University and a BA
in Political Science from Alabama A&M. Though a native of
Boston, MA, she now lives in Miami, FL, where she can soak up
sunrays without fear of shivering.