of Andie were everywhere. She’d pick them up and study the girl’s eager smile, thinking, You had no idea what fate had in store for you. She would imagine Andie being raped by the photographer, and even though she knew the rape had occurred inside the house, in her mind it took place at night on the front porch—a front porch that didn’t even exist at the mansion. Tim told her childhood stories about his sister, how she brought home stray kittens and how, at age seven, she tried to sneak into his hospital room when he’d had his appendix out because no one would let her visit him. How she’d tried to climb into the coffin at their grandmother’s funeral. The love CeeCee felt for Tim began to expand to encompass his sister.
“Can I meet her?” she asked one night when he was telling her Andie stories in bed.
“I’ll look into it,” he said. “She’s in Raleigh and they limit who can visit, but I think you should meet her. Y’all would really love each other.”
Funny how love could double and then triple. She even felt some of it toward Marty. Marty began to see her as friend rather than foe, and the night he said that her fried chicken was the best he’d ever tasted, she knew she was winning him over. That same night, he’d brought his guitar into the living room and played a lot of Creedence Clearwater Revival songs that he knew all the words to, while she and Tim stumbled through the lyrics. He’d had a guitar in ‘Nam, Marty explained to her, and music got him through some rough times.
The day before Halloween, she bought three pumpkins and she, Tim and Marty sat in the kitchen, carving jack-o’-lanterns and nibbling roasted pumpkin seeds. At first she’d wondered if it had been a mistake to put a knife in Marty’s hands, but he was careful with his carving, and his design turned out to be the most intricate, if also the most frightening, of the three.
Her mother had liked to dress up to open the door to trick-or-treaters, so CeeCee made a Jolly Green Giant costume out of green tights, a green turtle neck and an abundance of green felt. She had the feeling that Tim thought she was going a bit overboard, but he still told her she looked adorable in her outfit.
On Halloween night, she put on her costume, lit candles in the jack-o’-lanterns, and set them out on the front stoop. When the first trick-or-treater arrived, though, Marty panicked.
“Don’t open the door!” He’d been sitting in the living room with Tim, but now he headed for the stairs.
“It’s all right, Marty,” Tim said. “It’s just a kid looking for a handout.”
“Don’t open it!” Marty stood at the top of the stairs, and CeeCee, cradling a bowl of chocolate kisses, saw real terror in his eyes.
“It’s okay, Marty,” she said. “I won’t open it.”
Tim looked at her with gratitude. “Sorry,” he said.
She went outside and blew out the candles inside the jack-o’-lanterns, then Tim turned out the front lights. Standing in the middle of the foyer in her Jolly Green Giant outfit, she looked up at Marty, who was now sitting on the top step like a little kid, elbows on his knees and his chin resting on his hands.
“Get your guitar, Marty, and come downstairs,” she said. “We’ve got some chocolate to eat.”
Four weeks after their first date, Tim called her when he got out of his evening class. It was nearly ten-thirty, and CeeCee and Ronnie were lying in their beds reading, but when he asked if he could come pick her up, that he had something important he wanted to ask her, she didn’t hesitate.
“I’ll wait for you out front.” She hung up the phone and hopped off her bed. “He said he has something important to ask me,” she said to Ronnie as she stripped off her pajamas.
“Oh my God!” Ronnie put down her magazine. “Do you think he’s going to propose? Today is, like, your one-month anniversary and everything, right?”
That had been CeeCee’s first thought as well, though she and Tim had never even mentioned marriage. The tone of his voice, though, told her that whatever he wanted to ask her was serious business.
“I don’t know.” She pulled a T-shirt over her head, not bothering with a bra. “I just can’t see him asking me to marry him right now.” Did she want him to? She wasn’t sure.
“You’re practically his wife already,” Ronnie said. “You do his laundry, for Pete’s sake. Maybe he figures he should make it legal.”
CeeCee ran a brush through her hair, bending low to see her reflection in the mirror above the dresser. “It’s probably nothing like that.”
“I bet it is.” Ronnie sat up on her bed, hugging her knees. “What will you say if he asks you?”
She gave her hair one final swipe with the brush as she thought about the question. “I’d say no,” she said finally. “I mean, I know he’s the right one, but I want to be out of college and supporting myself before I get married. I don’t want to be dependent on him.”
Ronnie held up the issue of Cosmopolitan she’d been reading. “You need to take a look at this article,” she said. “He’s rich. Let him support you.”
CeeCee opened the door, then turned back to her friend with a smile. “One day,” she said. “But not today.”
Chapter Six
Today you rubbed my back after I got sick. It felt so good. It’s like you’re the mother now and I’m the child. You’re a natural-born caretaker, CeeCee. How did I get so lucky to have you as a daughter?
SHE CLIMBED INTO TIM’S VAN AND LEANED OVER TO KISS him, and she knew right away that he was nervous. His smile was brief and false and he didn’t hold her gaze the way he usually did. Instead, he started driving.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing. I just don’t want to talk in front of your house.” He probably thought Ronnie would be watching from the window. “Should we go to your house?”
He shook his head and turned the corner into the parking lot of an old Baptist church. “Marty’s there,” he said, “and I want to talk to you alone.”
Oh, God. He was going to propose.
He turned off the ignition. “It’s getting kind of chilly out. Will you be okay if we just sit here for a while?”
“I’m fine,” she said.
The parking-lot lights filled the car and he looked pale, almost sick, in their glow. “I’ve got something heavy to talk to you about,” he said.
She couldn’t stop her smile. “Okay.” She would have to be very kind when she turned him down, very loving. She’d make sure he knew it was the timing that was wrong, not the proposal itself.
Tim rubbed his palms together as if trying to warm himself up.
“There’s a way you can help Andie,” he said.
Surprised, she swallowed the words she’d been ready to say. He was not going to ask her to marry him. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved
