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“Why don’t you tell her?”
“The truth?” She eyes me like I’m an alien that’s just landed in her studio. She thought she knew me. Now she realizes she doesn’t know me at all. “God, no,” she says. “That would cause all kinds of problems.”
“And your dad?”
She gives me a funny look. God, I have so much to teach her. More than dance I learned on the internet, that much is clear. In the meantime, it’s good to let people think they’re smarter than you. That way, they drop their guard. “What kind of problems? Maybe I can help.”
“You mean like you’ll tell my parents? Um… yeah. No. Thank you.”
“No, I mean like give you advice. I’m not a parent. Thank God.” I make sure my eyes bulge for good measure. Teenagers appreciate drama. So do grown women for that matter. “I don’t even like kids, really.”
She accepts the truth in my lie. “There’s nothing I can do…” she confesses sadly. “They let me back in school. But now everyone treats me differently.”
“There’s always murder,” I say. I should be careful. The power of suggestion is far-reaching.
She laughs. I do too.
“My friends abandoned me. I mean—” she starts and then she pauses. Her breath catches, and I can see Grant Dunn really does have his hands full. It’s no wonder it takes him six hours to respond to a text. It takes half as long to get the truth out of his kid. He’s still working at it.
It looks like she might cry, and God— I do hate kids. Finally, she takes a breath. “I can tell they think I did it.”
I shrug. “Anyway. Who needs friends?”
She studies my face carefully. She can’t tell if I’m serious. Eventually, she offers a tight smile.
“Anyway—you have me now.”
I watch her eyes. They always give it away. I’ve said too much. Sometimes I like to apply a little pressure just to see how far I can get.
She turns toward the door. “My mom will be back soon.”
“From work?” I ask, although I know Josie doesn’t know real work.
She shakes her head. “No, from church.”
“Your mom goes to church?” I already know the answer but details would be nice.
She furrows her brow. “She invited you. Remember?”
Shit. I bite my lip. Now, I’ve made her suspicious. “Yeah, I don’t really like church.”
“That’s too bad,” she says. “You might not want to mention that to my mom. She practically is the church.”
That, I didn’t know. “And your dad? Does he go too?”
“Are you kidding? He created religion.”
I assume this is the teenager in her coming out. I don’t know what to make of it. I recall the way her father bent me over in the woods. I remember the way he laid into me on the hood of his car, the way he pushed my head down in the kitchen at Lucky’s, further and further, until there was no more give. Nothing seemed particularly religious about that. Maybe I don’t know religion like I thought. That reminds me, I never took Josie up on her offer to get me to church. Now, I realize I need to rectify that.
Avery leads me through the house. She’s taking me straight through to the front door, I realize a tad too late.
“Say,” I whisper. “Can I get a water for the road?”
She turns on her heel, like a ballerina and beckons me to follow.
Josie is in the kitchen putting away groceries. We catch her off guard. “Oh,” she says, shoving a carton of OJ in their sub-zero fridge. “You.”
She looks from her daughter to me and back. I can see she’s wondering if she’s forgotten something. “I didn’t know you were coming—”
