“R & B funk. The clubs dig us.”

“You play in clubs?”

“Every weekend. Give me a call, man, we’ll throw together a session.” Outside, the sun shone so bright Leo had to shield his eyes with his hand. He pictured himself in a dark nightclub up at the microphone with his harp like Ryder in New York City. Only Leo wouldn’t be drunk and he’d be getting paid. For playing. He ducked inside the drugstore again and bought himself a pair of aviator shades with blue lenses. Then he bought sunglasses for Allie too, the green horn-rimmed kind with white plastic frames like Marilyn Monroe used to wear. He stepped inside a store called Delores the Florist and bought a dozen long-stemmed roses from a woman with dyed red hair and a slight mustache.

“Are these for your sweetheart?”

“My fiancée.”

“Well good for you.” She put her glasses on to ring in the money. On the wall behind her was an electric clock shaped like a daisy. It was already close to eleven and Leo was supposed to meet Allie at noon. These roses were taking a bigger chunk of money than he’d figured.

“God bless you, son.”

“You too.” He put on his new shades and stepped back outside. Across the street, in front of a red brick building, was a man in a wheelchair. He had a green army cap on his head. A black band was tied around his upper arm, and on his lap was a big cardboard sign, but Leo couldn’t make out what it said. He climbed back into his father’s Valiant and drove out of town.

13

It was awfully hot, late July already. Allie kicked the sheet away and pulled her T-shirt off. The house smelled like coffee and paint and she could hear a warbler outside in the woods. Chris was out in the kitchen talking to their mom. His voice was nose-blocked and most of his sentences ended on higher notes than they started. She reached between her legs and felt her panties, though she knew if she really wanted the straight scoop she’d have to pull them down and look. But even if there was a blood spot, she would have to wait and see if her period showed up, if it was going to.

She thought about Billy Burrell last year. He was so sweet, too sweet even, and not too smart. It took all of October and half of November to find that out. But by then she had let him be the one, partly because of his wide neck and those mocha-brown eyes—that mix of muscle and soul—but what really cinched it was the dual knowledge that she had just turned sixteen and if girls like Nancy Titcomb were still virgins, she wasn’t going to be. So on a blanket on the floor of Billy’s father’s work shed she let a boy inside who had the good sense to pull on a rubber first. And that was a problem too: Billy’s good sense. From his sound homework habits—one hour right after classes, another hour after supper-to his insistence that Allie eat three meals a day, to his always wearing a hat in cold weather so he wouldn’t miss any school; boy, he got obsolete fast. Leo wasn’t big like Billy was in the back and arms, but looking into Leo Suther’s eyes, green like hers, she knew something was going on in there, and not just thinking, but feeling, so much of it.