Now She's Gone: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

leave me the hell alone until I dance with him, so I get up, hold out my hand and say, ‘One dance. And if you try to cop a feel, you’re gonna regret it.’
    Well, you’d think I’d just told him he’d won the lottery. He jumped up and we danced, even though it was awkward as hell. He was a big guy and had two left feet. He kept stomping his big old brogan feet all over mine until I pushed him off me and told him I’d had enough.
    He made me so sad when he said, ‘One day you will like me, Sandy.’
    I ignored my feelings and said, ‘Oh, and when will that be, Wayne?’ The poor guy just dropped his head and wouldn’t look at me. I felt bad, so I said, ‘I like you, Wayne, but not like that.’
    And I scoffed as if to say, ‘No one would ever like you like that.’ I was just so not nice to him.
    ‘I know, Sandy. I won’t bother you again.’
    And that just broke my heart. He walked out of the gym with his head down and I could have burst into tears. I suddenly felt like my mother, hating all men for no reason other than I thought I should. I was tired of feeling like that, too.
    I ran after him. He was nowhere to be seen. I ran to the parking lot and he was getting into his Ford pick-up. I waved at him to wait. He did. I told him I was sorry and he asked me if I wanted to go for a drive.
    I grinned and said, ‘Let me find Kelsey.’
    He grinned back and I went back inside and found her. She did not want to come with us.
    ‘Wayne Eberhart ,’ she said as if I’d just told her we had a date with someone totally undesirable. ‘He always smells like cow shit!’
    ‘He doesn’t tonight,’ I said. ‘Now come with me!’
    So, we went driving around with Wayne and had a really good time. I sat in the middle next to him and I remember trying to keep our legs from touching. It didn’t always work because he took us on all these pig trails and our legs would touch, or, rather, bump, whenever he ran over a rut in the road. And there were a lot of damned ruts in the road. His leg seemed so much larger than mine. So much more strong.
    We had a lot of fun. Well, Kelsey and I did. I guess he did, too. He just sat there and grinned most of the time and even once said, ‘All the guys at school will be mad at me, driving around with two of the prettiest girls in school.’
    His compliment made us beam with pride. We always thought we were the prettiest and we were just glad someone else thought so, too. Our assumptions were confirmed.
    It was getting late when he took us back. My mom was waiting in the parking lot, so I told him to drive around back and Kelsey and I ducked down in the seat so she couldn’t see us. She would have killed me if she knew I’d been driving around with Wayne or anyone else. We said goodnight, hopped out, went back into the gym and then walked out like we’d been in there the whole time. That was the first time I had tried to pull anything over on my mother and when it worked, it made me want to do it more.
    Later, Kelsey told me, ‘You know, that Wayne Eberhart isn’t too bad a looking guy.’
    So I decided to give him a try.”
     
    I stopped reading and thought, Yup. That’s Sandy. Give him a try.
     
    “Hey, you!
    Yeah, that’s better. I guess. It still sounds a little stupid. ‘Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret.’ (Crack me up!) ‘Are you there God? It’s me, Sandy…’ I think I read that book a million times.
    Hell, I’ll just go with it. If anyone ever reads this—”
     
    I suddenly felt guilty as hell. It didn’t stop me from reading, though. It should have but it didn’t.
     
    “—then they can give the obligatory eye roll and that will be fine with me. Who would read it? Who would want to?”
     
    Oh, shit, guilt. No. Yes . I put the journal down and stared at it. Oh, fuck it. It wasn’t like she was coming home. It wasn’t like she cared about me anymore. I could read the damn thing if I wanted to. She wasn’t around, was she? No. And if she ever found