“I don’t want to cut you off from your family.”

He gave a deep, throaty, scoffing laugh. “You think the whole tribe of them haven’t chewed my ear? You think they haven’t been telling me from day one that I gotta give you up for my own good? They’re like the Hallelujah Fucking Chorus, girl! Wailing warning and hymns of doom. My aunts, my sisters! And Clarence! Oh you should hear Clarence Goodall on the subject of Miss Roxanne Granville.” In the light from the dashboard I saw his jaw tighten. “Last time I saw him, Clarence handed me a pair of white gloves and told me to wear them when my black hands touch your skin.”

I was appalled to hear this. I could so picture Clarence’s cold correctness. “You never said that they knew about us.”

“Oh, they know! My family, my friends, they don’t need no Secrets of the Stars to be up on all the gossip. In my family, everyone’s doings get poured out with your morning cup of coffee. I been taking shit about you all summer long.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why should I? Just to make you unhappy? Your people sure as hell don’t know about me, do they? And you don’t need a diploma to guess what they would do, what they would say. What would they say, Roxanne?” he demanded, glancing over at me. “Really. I’m asking. What would they say?”

“Their wrath would be . . .” When I thought of Leon’s response, the image that leapt to mind was Godzilla destroying Tokyo.

He turned his gaze back to the road. “Well, I’m not giving you up, no matter if Ruby and Clarence, Coralee and all the rest of them think that the butler’s nephew shouldn’t be sleeping with the little princess of Summit Drive.”

“Please don’t call me the little princess. It makes me feel stupid, and I’m not.”

“You’re not stupid,” he said, taking a deep breath, “you are beautiful and brave, and I’ve never met anyone like you.”

“Do you love me?”

“You know I do.”

“And I love you. Isn’t that all that matters?”

“No, and you are crazy to think so.”

“I’m only crazy for you, Terrence.”

“Well, sign us both up for the loony bin, Liza Jane.”

“As long as we have a room together,” I added, hoping to elicit a smile from him, but silence crackled between us. Anger bristled off of Terrence like static on a radio. After a while I said, “The world is never going to be kind to us, honey. I guess we need to accept that, and live around it.”