“You and Jade have a tiff?” Gary nodded. “Well, it’ll blow over. A female’s got to have her spells every now and again or she wouldn’t be female. When they get on a tear, just leave ’em be for a while.” Having dispensed that sage advice, he ambled toward the door. “Comin’ up on suppertime. Best get your chores did.”
Gary watched his father leave. His rolling, bowlegged gait carried him across the dismal yard, which was littered with broken, secondhand toys and chicken droppings. Gary covered his face with his hands, wishing that when he lowered them and opened his eyes he would be a million miles away, untethered from his obligations.
Everyone, including his family, expected too much of him. He was doomed to failure before he began. No matter what mountains of achievement he scaled, he could never live up to everyone’s expectations. He could never be good enough, rich enough. He could never be Neal Patchett.
For God’s sake, did Jade have to run to him? So what if Neal was the richest boy in town? Jade knew how shallow he was. How could she stand to let him touch her? As Gary gazed at his derelict surroundings, the answer became instantly clear: Neal Patchett never went to school with chicken shit on his shoes.
Resentment gnawed at him like the raw liquor in his belly. She would be sorry. Before long she would come crawling back. She had a crush on Neal, that’s all. It wouldn’t last. It was him, Gary, she truly loved. What they had was too deep and abiding to throw away. Sooner or later Jade would regain her senses. In the meantime, he would… what?
His sense of responsibility reared its ugly head and drew him to his feet. He went out to slop the hog.
Chapter Seven
“Say, Jade.”
Jade turned away from her locker, clutching her textbooks to her chest. So few of her classmates spoke to her anymore that she was surprised and pleased that someone—anyone—had approached her.
The facts were murky, but the scuttlebutt around Palmetto High School was that Jade had been unfaithful to Gary Parker with Neal Patchett. It was said that as a result of Jade’s two-timing, Gary had dumped her. In two and a half months, she had gone from being the most sought-after girl in the senior class to a social leper. While her classmates were caught up in the festive whirl preceding graduation, Jade was shunned.
The gossip wasn’t contained within the walls of the high school. It had filtered into the community at large. When it reached Pete Jones’s ears, he fired her from her part-time job with the thin excuse that he would prefer to have a young man working for him.
Things were no better at home. Velta complained that she was getting the cold shoulder at work. “I heard my co-workers whispering about you. Didn’t I tell you that you’d be blamed for what happened? You should have had that colored man bring you straight home. It was a big mistake to go to the hospital. Once you did that, you sealed your fate and mine.”
Jade had no one to take her problems to. She would never forgive Donna Dee for betraying her. Apparently Donna Dee hadn’t forgiven her, either, for inciting Hutch’s libido. The chasm between them could never be bridged, but since there wasn’t anyone to replace Donna Dee, losing her best friend and confidante was like losing a limb.
But it was for losing Gary that Jade wept bitterly every night. It was obvious from his attitude that he believed the lies being circulated about her. His anger and confusion were a fertile ground for ugly suspicions, which Neal Patchett had sown and cultivated. Working as subtly as the serpent in the Garden of Eden, Neal continued to torment Gary with innuendos. He tracked Jade like a bloodhound, his smoldering looks conveying that they shared a naughty secret. His suggestiveness made her sick to her stomach. But she hated Neal’s gloating worse for Gary’s sake. His self-confidence and pride had taken as brutal a beating as her body had.
“Hi, Patrice,” she said to the girl who had the courage to buck the trend and speak to her.
Patrice Watley was plump, bleached, and wild. Jade didn’t recall having a conversation with her since junior high, when the line between the good girls and the bad girls was distinctly drawn. Until recently, they had been on opposite sides of that line.
Patrice’s mother had recently obtained her fourth divorce and was in hot pursuit of husband number five. Her active love life had always kept her so busy that Patrice had been left to her own devices. As a result, she had packed a lot of living into eighteen years.
“I don’t mean nothing by this, you understand,” she whispered, moving closer to Jade. “But are you knocked up?”
Jade’s knuckles turned white against the spines of her schoolbooks. “Of course not. What makes you ask a thing like that?”
Patrice smacked her lips with impatience and a trace of sympathy. “Say, look, Jade, I said I don’t mean nothing by asking, but I know the signs, okay? I’ve been there twice myself.”
Jade bowed her head, mindlessly poking her thumb into the silver coil of her spiral notebook. “I haven’t been feeling well, that’s all.”
“How late are you?”
Jade felt herself crumbling on the inside. “Two months.”
“Je-sus! And you’re supposed to be smart. You ain’t got much time, girl. You’ve got to do something fast.”
Jade had refused to acknowledge what her late periods might signify. She hadn’t even considered what she would do if the worst possibility became an actuality.
“You’re gonna get rid of it, aren’t you?”
“I… I hadn’t thought—”
“Well, if you decide to, I can help,” Patrice offered.
“Why would you?”
“Is it Neal Patchett’s kid?”