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That alone shuts Billie up. Just how rigid Tonya is in her seat, arms straight and stiff, jaw working up a storm, her nostrils flared.
Billie doesn’t try offering up solutions or reasonings again.
It’s a tense drive through the town.
The whole way, Tonya is stiffer than a snooker cue in the driver’s seat. All that moves is her jaw, tensing, then rolling, tensing, then rolling, like she’s chewing on her anxiety.
Billie has no words for her.
She should say something semi-comforting, like ‘she probably fell asleep when she got home’, or ‘I definitely heard her come in last night, she just left early’,something. But she has nothing.
Nothing that Tonya wants to hear anyway.
If she utters a damn word, she’s convinced that Tonya will backhand the booze right out of her.
So all Billie does is stuff her dress into her backpack, check her cell for a message from Gigi (none, but one from Preston, says that he had to bail Trevor out from the drunk tank last night—guess he thought of Billie, memories and all—and if she might want to have lunch later and talk).
She ignores the text.
Instead, she keeps working on her morning ‘hair of the dog’ from her near-empty bottle.
She drinks a bit more than usual for this early, when the morning birds are still singing away like they’re trying to hit the Billboard charts. Might have something to do with Tonya’s sudden speed as she floors it when they leave town limits and turn onto the main road, Mist Boulevard, building up some unease in Billie as she shifts in her seat. Or, maybe it’s her mind chugging to keep up.
She remembers it. Gigi definitely came into the room last night. The girls were all asleep, but Billie stirred awake briefly, yet long enough to hear the gentle steps down the side of the bed, to open her heavy eyes and see the shadow move in through the doorway.
Then she went back to sleep.
So…
It must have been her.
Grace’s parents are out of town.
Grace’s brother is gator food—probably gator shit by now.
Who else could it have been?
Billie shakes her head, as if to throw the thoughts from mind, and looks out the side-window. She watches the trees whizz by much too fast. It’s the same scenery all the way past the turn to the trailer park on the left. Past the road that cuts off to the harbor. Until, finally, Bower Street comes into view on the right, interrupting the trees, the street that leads to the shacks. The cabins in Southside.
Tonya doesn’t slow down much. She hits the brake, hard, to take the sharp right. But once they’re skidding onto her street, she’s flooring it again.
Billie closes her eyes against the wave of nausea rolling over her. Not such a good idea to mix liquor and speeding and the game of hard-turns first thing in the morning.
She’s having second thoughts about tagging along, now.
But relief ribbons through her, relaxing her wound-up muscles, when they pull up to the driveway—and Gigi’s car is parked on the side of the road.
Billie sighs a quiet sound and leans her head back against the seat. Her eyes stay on the car as Tonya pulls into the empty driveway.
‘See?’ she wants to say. ‘She came over last night, left early in the mornin’. Told ya so.’
Makes sense, since Gigi wasn’t too warm on the sleepover. Probably couldn’t handle it, so she bailed.
But Billie doesn’t say what she’s thinking.
Tonya rams the car in park, shaking her head and muttering unintelligible words under her breath. Billie only catches a couple of words, ‘lazy bitch’.
Seems she’s on the thought-train that Gigi just fell asleep when she got home and didn’t bother to call or text them. If that’s the case, she’s probably still asleep, considering it’s only inching towards 7AM, an ungodly hour.
