I closed my eyes and pressed my lips against her ear. “I don’t know what to do,” I said softly, not sure I wanted her to hear me.

“Yes, you do,” she said. “Yes, you do.”

And I found that I did know. In a moment, my lips were on her breast, and the blood was pounding in my ears. I swam up only once, in that amazing moment when she pressed hard against my fingers, but I was soon lost again in the rhythmic motion as she rocked back and forth against the heel of my hand.

Hours later, I fell asleep with her face pressed against my shoulder, her arms wrapped tightly around my waist. Rumours played on the stereo in an endless loop, and I dreamt about women in gauzy white skirts dancing around a bonfire on a foggy mountaintop.

Chapter Thirteen

I woke up with my head on her chest. The sun was streaming through the window blinds, bathing us in horizontal lines of light and dark. I held very still, not wanting to wake her but wondering how I might contrive to put my pajamas back on. Everything was different at night. There, it was our secret, and it all seemed right. In the morning, it was a fact to be examined and analyzed. What would she say when she woke up? Would we talk about it? What did it mean? Did it mean anything?

I knew what it meant to me. Confirmation. Affirmation. Joy and fear.

From the other end of the house, I heard a scratching sound followed by a whine. Maurice. If I didn’t get up and let him out soon, he’d destroy the laundry room door. Then Susan would have to tell her parents what he was doing in there, and they’d wonder what we were doing in here, and why I didn’t just get up and let him out. Maybe they’d talk to my mother, and she’d suspect, she’d know, she’d see it in my face. I couldn’t hide it. If I didn’t grin like an idiot, I’d weep. All my suspicions and clues, my half-dreamed awareness, it was all there for everyone to see.

Beside me, Susan moved slightly, shifting into a more comfortable position. I lifted my head, and she rolled over, facing me, but she didn’t open her eyes. I watched the light move through the blinds from her shoulder to her elbow. Slowly, carefully, I slid off the end of the bed and made my way to the bathroom. I put my clothes on quickly and quietly and tiptoed down the hall. I opened the back door and let Maurice out of the laundry room, pausing only long enough to check for damage. There was none. I closed the door behind me, walked across the wet grass, and hopped the fence into my own backyard.

The house was quiet. I sat on the back porch and put my shoes and socks on. Over in the Savas’ yard, the sprinkler switched on, scaring seven kinds of hell out of Maurice. It scared the hell out of me, too, until I remembered that it was on a timer. Maurice, trapped between the jets of water, was running back and forth, trying to find a way out. Any minute now, he would start barking and wake up the whole neighborhood. I crossed the yard again and whistled for him. He couldn’t figure out how to get around the sprinkler. I had to go in, pick him up, and lift him over the fence. I got drenched in the process.

I checked Susan’s window to make sure she wasn’t watching. Then, I leaned my head over the sprinkler and let the cold water blast me in the face.

My mother was the only one up. She sat at the kitchen table, eating a fried bologna sandwich and reading the Sunday paper.

“Your hair’s all wet,” she said. “You’re all wet.”

I nodded quickly and turned my back on her to open the refrigerator door. “I got caught in the automatic sprinkler. Do we have any orange juice?”

“You’ll have to make some. There’s a can in the freezer. I wish I’d gone with you last night.”

I knocked the butter dish to the floor, shattering the glass lid.

“Careful,” my mother said. “You’re as jumpy as a cat. What time did you blow out of here last night? Was it before or after he lit the drapes?”

“Before,” I said, picking up the pieces of the butter dish and dropping them into the trash can. I sniffed. “Is that what I smell? I left when he tried to light the dog. How long were you up?”

“I haven’t gone to bed yet,” she replied, taking another bite of her English muffin. “He passed out about four-thirty. Mama and I dragged him off to bed. If it had been up to me, I’d have left him on the living room floor, wrapped in burnt chintz.”

I wiped the butter off the floor with the dishcloth. I’d been planning to make a big production number out of yawning and surprised myself by doing it for real. “I think I’m going to go to bed now myself. I’m really tired.”

“Didn’t you and Susan sleep?”

My heart pounded up into my throat. “No, no, no, we slept.”

“Oh. I thought you spent the night catching up on gossip. I assume you took the dog with you. I hope her parents didn’t mind.”

“They weren’t . . . ,” I began, and then stopped myself. “They don’t care. It wasn’t a problem.”

“I think we should get rid of him,” my mother went on. “This is no kind of life for that poor dog. We need to find him a good home.”

“We should keep the dog and find Hunter a home.”

“There’s no pound for drunks.” She folded up her newspaper and took her reading glasses off. “Poppy,” she said, looking at me closely, “I’ve been thinking. You graduate in two months. I know you want to go to college . . . ”

“I want to go to UNC,” I said firmly.

“I know that, but I was thinking if you went to N. C. State, you could live at home. Not here. You and I could get an apartment together, someplace near campus.”

I turned on the tap and let the cold water run. “An apartment? But what about Nana? We can’t just leave her here with Hunter, not by herself.”

“She’s married to him,” my mother said. “That’s her choice. She could divorce him if she wanted to. I can’t live here anymore, and I don’t want you to, either. If you go to UNC, you’ll have to pay for room and board. It’ll be cheaper to live with me and go to State. Besides, I don’t know that I want you off in Chapel Hill.”

I stopped chopping at the frozen lump of orange juice I’d dropped into the pitcher and looked up. “Why not?”

My mother sighed and shook her head. “Because it’s full of weirdoes.”

“It is not!”

“It is. Just think what happened to your cousin Sammy when she went. She had a full-ride scholarship, books, tuition, everything. They even gave her spending money. She wasn’t there a year before she dropped out and became a dirty pot-smoking hippie. Next thing we knew, she was living in a shack with ten other dirty pot-smoking hippies.”

“There aren’t any hippies anymore, Mom. It’s 1984.”

“Try telling that to your father,” she replied. “He doesn’t know what year it is.”

“Lucky Eddie’s not a hippie. According to Hunter, he’s a greasy bohunk.”

“Are you going to invite him to your graduation?”

“No way.”

“He’s expecting it.”

“How do you know?”

“He called this morning, just before you got home. Don’t ask me why he was up, and on a Sunday as well. He asked when your graduation was, so I told him.”

“I don’t want Lucky Eddie at my graduation. I don’t want anyone to meet him.”

“Well,” she shrugged, “he says he’s coming. I’ll tell you what else—he also says he’s bringing you a car for your graduation present. I asked how he could afford it when he was so far behind in his child support. He said that’s why he’s behind. Can you believe it?”

“No, I can’t believe it, and I won’t count on the car.”

“That would be wise.” She put her reading glasses back on and picked up the newspaper. I saw now that she was scanning the classifieds, apartments for rent.

“I want you to think about N. C. State,” she said. “Together, I think we could afford a nice two-bedroom apartment. You’re planning to work part-time, right?”

“Poppy.” Susan draped her jacket over the back of the chair. “You’re here. What are you drinking?”

“Merlot. It’s not very good.”

“I’m sorry I kept you waiting. I had to change after my rounds. I should have said eight-thirty instead of eight.” The waitress came over and Susan ordered a glass of white Bordeaux. I looked at the stains on the tablecloth where I’d sloshed my glass and wished I’d ordered white Bordeaux. “Poppy, how have you been? You look great.”

“Thanks. I’ve been fine. Busy. Well, not busy. I had surgery recently.”

“Really? Your mother didn’t mention that.”

“Must’ve slipped her mind. What with . . . you know.”

She reached across the table and held out her hand. After a moment’s hesitation, I reached back, upsetting my wine glass. “Leave it,” she said. “Let the tablecloth soak it up. It’s only a drop. Poppy, I’m sorry about your grandfather. I’m sorry he’s dying, and that you’ve had to come back home to deal with this. I want you to know that we can talk about him tonight. We can talk about my mother, too. We can talk about anyone and anything, about what they did to everyone with their affair. What they did to us, you and me.”