“Why should I trust you?”
He could be planning to take her somewhere else.Maybe Rodneywaswaiting for them. She didn’t quite believe that, but how could she trust her own instincts anymore? She’d been wrong about so much already.
Cal rolled down his window a crack and let out some of the smoke. “I don’t know. Maybe you shouldn’t.”
That didn’t relax her in any way, but at least it was honest.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Fern. You want to go for a ride or not?”
Her mouth went dry, and her body turned shivery when she realized she was going to say yes.
“Just for a little while,” she answered.
Cal held still. Surprised maybe. He tossed the cigarette out the window before turning on the engine. The car came to life, the slight odor of gasoline coming into the cab to mingle with smoke and the scent of his cologne. He pulled away from the curb, turned around in another driveway, and drove northeast, toward South Lakeshore Drive.
The moon hung somewhere behind a heavy banking of clouds. There was nothing but blackness over the lake and the revolving beam of light from the harbor lighthouse.
“Where are we going?” she asked, turning away from the window.
“Up to the Pier.”
The Pier was past the Loop, in Streeterville. She’d never been there, though she’d driven past it with her parents a few times. During the war, the Army and Navy had appropriated it, but now it was just a place for people to go and have fun.
“What are we going to do there?”
Cal glanced over. Fern could see him a little better now with the headlights on and other car headlights shining past.
“There’s a guy who makes these pretzels I like.”
Pretzels. He was taking her to a pretzel vendor at the Pier. A bubble of panic rose in her chest.
“I can’t.”
He lifted his hands from the steering wheel for a second. A gesture of confusion. “What, you don’t like pretzels?”
“I like pretzels just fine, but…the Pier will be crowded.”
Especially in the summer. It didn’t matter that a rainstorm could be blowing in off the lake soon; the Pier would probably be jammed with people. There was a theater there, and restaurants and a dance hall, a promenade for lovers to stroll, and a tram that trundled people all the way out to the end if they didn’t want to walk. Fern had read all about it, and when Buchanan had been a little younger, he’d said it was one of his favorite places to meet friends.
Cal drove on, making no reply. Whether he was angry or annoyed or trying to think of a new destination now, she didn’t know. She knew nothing about him that wasn’t skin-deep. That should have frightened her.
“He ever do that before?” he asked.
Fern didn’t understand the question; her mind was still on the Pier and soft pretzels, and her incomprehensible decision to go for a ride with him.
“What?”
“Your pop. He smack you around a lot?”
Oh.An image of her father came unbidden, his nostrils flaring as he glared down at her, where she’d landed on the carpet, her cheek and nose smarting from the crack of his hand.
“No.”
Fern supposed there were plenty of girls out there getting slapped by their parents on a regular basis, but she’d never really thought about it until right then.
“The pictures made him angry,” she said needlessly.
“That was the point,” he said with all the finesse of a meat tenderizer. “But I’m sure that doesn’t make your eye feel any better.”
