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The girl, who had left to hunt down a security guard, led a man toward them with a paunch and a yellow band around his arm, wearing a navy-blue pair of pants and matching shirt.
She pointed at Birdie. “There she is. Arrest her.”
He seemed reticent. “Hey, Birdie.”
“Hey, Walsh.”
“You steal a purse?”
“If they said I did, who am I to argue?”
“Arrest her,” Maisie said impatiently.
“Um, I’m not really authorized to do that. I can only put her in a holding area and call the police.”
Maisie was less than satisfied. “Can you at least handcuff her?”
Birdie held out her wrists. “It’s better to do what they say, Walsh. It’s okay, go ahead.”
Walsh was nice to Birdie. He was newly married, expecting a baby, and took on the part-time security job at night to help pay the bills while working days at the feed store.
Sometimes they sat next to one another in the diner early in the morning after his late-night shift, where he ate a full breakfast and she could only afford a cup of coffee and piece of toast. She no longer had food from Bernadette to save her from hunger pains, so she began to perform odd jobs for those who were too old to do for themselves. Picking up groceries, washing windows, mowing lawns. Whatever earned her a buck or two.
“Excuse me,” a burly voice said, pushing through the throng of rubberneckers wanting to see firsthand what Birdie Wellborn had gotten herself into this time.
To her relief, it was the Fire Chief Hollis Walker and his wife, Lorraine. “I said move,” he growled, finally breaking through the crowd.
“Birdie, we waited for you by the gate.”
“I got detained,” she said, tilting her head toward the hateful glares.
She handed the purse to the Chief’s wife.
“Thank you so much,” the woman said with relief.
Chief Walker turned to Walsh, who held Birdie by the forearm. “What in the Sam Hill do you think you’re doing, Walsh?”
The younger man let her arm go as if he were burned. “They all said they saw her steal this purse and to call the police.”
The Chief shook his head back and forth. “She let us know she found the purse, you numbskull. She was supposed to meet us at the side gate so we didn’t have to fight the damned crowd.”
Walsh held his hands, palms up. “She admitted to stealing it. How was I supposed to know?”
Chief Walker turned to Birdie, who was still staring at Lucas. “Why didn’t you tell him the truth?”
Birdie shrugged again. “Because the truth doesn’t matter.”
Lucas’s eyes broke away from hers and he bowed his head, as one of his teammates yelled at him to hurry up. He gave her one last expressionless glance before trotting back toward the locker room.
Everyone finally dispersed, except for the four boys who had tried to talk her into going with them to the bonfire. They were still horsing around in the parking lot, throwing a football back and forth, and randomly punching one another in their junk.
She marched toward them, her heart empty and her throat constricted. “You guys still have that bottle of Jack?”
They smiled in unison as one of them raced to open the truck door and pulled the bottle from below the seat. After checking the parking lot for any nosy parents, he showed her the bottle as if classified information.
“Let’s party,” she said in a flat voice.
