Melissa kept her back turned and tried not to smile. She hated that others were talking about her, especially Sharon. What a pain. She was from the other side of the tracks, a better neighborhood—her dad was a lawyer or something. Sharon always had her nose in the air and looked down on others, but Melissa had to admit, at least to herself, that she wasn’t far from the truth. Melissa was in love. She’d found the one. And it was the real thing, not some high school crush. She’d had those before. No, she and Brian had something special. Every time she heard that Whitney Houston song on the radio, she saw his face and that crooked smile of his and she sang along—“I will always love you.” Well, she didn’t actually sing, she mouthed the words, but it was the same. They had found each other, him with his family problems a mirror to hers. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. And he felt the same about her.

Thunder sounded in the distance. Melissa reeled in her line, the bobber skipping across the water and leaving a V in its wake. She picked up Kelly’s and did the same.

“Come on, tell me,” Kelly said. “What did Lee say to Brian about me?”

A big sigh. “Lee likes you. Thinks you’re pretty. Gorgeous.”

“He said that? He called me gorgeous?”

“Not with words, more with grunts. Like a caveman. He’s not a good guy, Kelly. But I can tell I’m not going to be able to talk sense into you.”

Kelly rose and stretched, yawning. Her shirt rose above her pierced navel. “He thinks I’m gorgeous.”

Melissa grabbed the stringer of fish from the water and dumped the bucket of minnows into the lake. “Here, take the rods. We need to get back before the rain comes.”

They walked the dirt road near a cornfield with plants that peeked out of the ground as if looking for the sky. In the summer the corn would be higher than Melissa’s head, and she made a mental note to come back when she could grab a few ears for supper without being seen. Who would miss a few ears of corn?

“What’s Brian going to do after graduation?” Kelly said, trudging behind. “He got that planned out?”

The question touched a nerve and made Melissa queasy. She answered a little too quickly, her voice sounding uncertain. “He’ll find a job. He’s just concentrating on finishing school first.”

A flash of lightning in the distance and then a low rumble. They picked up their pace, approaching a hackberry tree that towered above them.

“They’re closing down a section of the plant where my dad works,” Kelly said. “He might have to drive to Indianapolis . . .”