Afterwards, I’d hightail it back to Hartville before anybody noticed the blaze. If Betty Jean woke up while I was gone, I’d tell her that I had went for a drive to clear my head. I done that every now and then, and I always blamed it on insomnia. So far, she’d never made a big deal out of it.

Joyce stayed next door only a little over a hour. When she came home, I was in bed. “Odell, I’m back,” she yelled from the living room.

“I’m in here, sugar,” I replied in a weak tone. “I . . . I’m in bed.” I needed to sound as sick and pitiful as possible. Then she wouldn’t expect me to get affectionate with her. With all that was going through my head, sex was the last thing on my mind.

Joyce rushed into the bedroom with a concerned look on her face. “That must be some headache.” She leaned over and felt my forehead. “You look flushed, but you don’t have a temperature.” She sat down on my side of the bed. “If you keep getting sick, I’m going to make an appointment for you with Dr. Patterson.”

“I ain’t that sick,” I insisted. “I just been working too hard.”

“Well, you better slow down.”

I knew I couldn’t play sick too many more times without Joyce or somebody else making a fuss.

She went on. “When I told Milton you had a bad headache, he wanted to come over here and check on you.”

My chest tightened. Just hearing that gave me chills. I didn’t want a man I was going to murder, spending any more time in my house than necessary. It was a bad omen. “I’m glad he didn’t. I didn’t feel like having no company,” I mumbled. “I took some pills and I feel a little better, though.”

“I would have stayed over there a little longer because I was having a good time. I swear, that Willie Frank is so funny. I bet if he joined a circus, people would pay big money to watch him dance.” Joyce chuckled. She stood up and started taking off her dress. “But the more I thought about you over here by yourself, sick as a dog, the guiltier I felt. When I brought that up to Yvonne, she made a comment about you never feeling guilty about leaving me by myself so often.”

“Our personal life ain’t none of her business!” I snapped.

“I know, but I didn’t say anything. I just let her ramble on like always.” Joyce grabbed her nightgown off the foot of the bed and put it on. “Oh! I forgot to tell you that she and Milton invited me to have supper with them one evening next month.”

I sat up and blinked. “Did their invitation include me?”