At school and Miss Opal’s. At the bus stop in the mornings, walking home from work in the evenings.
Razor sharp, the fear left her every sense heightened, her every nerve twitching. Waiting. For the worst to happen. Waiting for the moment when she would come face-to-face with Ricky and Tommy, for the moment when they would find her alone and completely vulnerable.
Oddly, the same fear that heightened her senses also numbed them, creating a wall between her and the world, a barrier that kept her from experiencing anything but her fear.
So she lived with it. She ate it and slept with it, it accompanied her to school and work. She awoke in the night, breathing hard, bathed in sweat, feeling suffocated by the emotion. Sometimes she awakened to the smell of Ricky’s foul breath, to the sensation of his hands on her breasts, between her legs, and she would hold the pillow to her face to muffle her cry of terror. Of revulsion. Those nights she would be unable to sleep again. She huddled under the blanket, watching light touch the sky, praying for sleep yet praying more that it wouldn’t come.
She had lost weight. Her eyes had become shadowed. Already quiet, she had stopped talking at all. No one had noticed. Not her mother or a sibling, not a teacher or Miss Opal.
But then, she hadn’t expected that anyone would. Just as she hadn’t considered telling anyone what had happened. She knew, in her heart and gut, that telling would only make her situation worse.
Becky Lynn retrieved the broom and dustpan from the back of the beauty shop and began cleaning up. Miss Opal had just finished her last appointment of the day and Fayrene and Dixie had left more than an hour ago. It had been slow, even for a Wednesday.
She tucked a hank of her hair behind her ear, moving the broom over the shiny floor, making sure she found every corner and cranny, wanting to do a good job for Miss Opal. The woman had gone to the high school principle and convinced him to give Becky Lynn special dispensation to miss last period study hall so she could work afternoons at the Cut ‘n Curl.
Becky Lynn bent to maneuver the broom under Fayrene’s workstation. She had needed the money, and she was only too happy to get away from school early. She drew her eyebrows together in thought. She had feared the first day of school, feared seeing Ricky and Tommy, so much she’d been physically ill. Yet that day and the ones following had slipped by until a month had passed without incident. The boys hadn’t approached her again. They hadn’t touched her, hadn’t exposed themselves or teased her much at school. In fact, they had been distant. Almost polite.
She had told herself that she was safe. She had told herself they had forgotten her, that they were busy now with football, their girlfriends and school functions.
Yet, no matter how often she reassured herself, something about their distance unsettled her. And her sense of being threatened grew with every day.
She frowned and swept the last of Mrs. Peachtree’s gunmetal gray hair into the dustpan. In the delta, the quieter, the more still and heavy the air, the worse the coming storm was going to be. That’s the way the air had felt to her every day since the river. Heavy, ripe with waiting and so still she could hear her own heart pump.
Maybe they had scared themselves, she thought, shuddering. Maybe Buddy Wills’s words had sunk into their thick skulls.
Or maybe Randy had demanded they leave her alone.
She tightened her lips into a grim line and emptied the dustpan of hair into the trash. Her brother was no hero—especially hers. The last thing he would ever do was stick up for her. He had made that clear the day by the river and every day since. The bastard wouldn’t even look at her.
The bell jangled against the shop’s glass door. Becky Lynn glanced over her shoulder, expecting to see Miss Opal’s husband, Talbot. He usually stopped by around this time to see how his wife was doing and to find out what she had planned for dinner.
Instead, Ricky and Tommy sauntered through the beauty-shop door, their lips twisted into self-satisfied smirks. She froze, a chill racing up her spine. Had they come looking for her?
Of course not. Becky Lynn drew in a deep breath, working to calm herself, to slow her runaway pulse. She wasn’t alone. They couldn’t touch her now, they couldn’t hurt her.
“Hello, boys.” Opal snapped the cash drawer shut and smiled. “What can I do for you?”
“Hello, Miss Opal, ma’am.”
Tommy stopped at the counter, Ricky a step or two behind him. Becky Lynn tightened her fingers on the broom handle, praying neither of them looked her way.
“Mama sent me by to pick up a bottle of that strawberry shampoo she likes so much. She said to tell you she’d pay you when she came in on Saturday.”
“That’ll be fine.” Opal took the receipt book out of the drawer and began writing up the transaction. “We goin’ to win that big game Friday night?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ricky said proudly. “We’re goin’ to kick some Wolverine butt.”
“You bet,” Tommy added. “Those boys’ll be sorry they ever came to Bend.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” Miss Opal rummaged under the counter, then made a sound of annoyance. “I had a bottle of that shampoo set aside to take home myself. I bet Fayrene up and sold it. Lord knows, I shouldn’t expect her to walk ten feet.”
“Becky Lynn,” she called over her shoulder, “fetch me one of those strawberry shampoos from the display in back. You know which one I mean.”
Becky Lynn watched in horror as Tommy and Ricky turned and looked at her. The broom slipped from her nerveless fingers, clattering against the linoleum floor. She stared stupidly at them, unable to breathe, to move.
Ricky’s mouth curved into a cold smile. Her heart began to thrum, her palms to sweat. She’d wanted to die, and they’d just been having a little fun.
Miss Opal frowned. “Becky Lynn? The shampoo.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she whispered, turning and crossing to the Redkin display. She took a bottle from the shelf, her hands trembling so badly she almost dropped it.
A little fun. They’d just been having a little fun.
She carried the bottle to Miss Opal, her eyes downcast, her feet leaden.
“Hiya, Becky Lynn.”
She lifted her gaze to Ricky’s, terror choking her. He looked her straight in the eye, arrogantly, without apology or fear. His gaze, as flat and emotionless as a shark’s, mocked her. She had a sense that he knew everything she felt, and that she amused him.
She curled her fingers into fists. Because of who he was, he thought he could get away with anything. “Hello,” she said, digging her nails into her palms, her voice high.
He smiled again, this time broadly for Miss Opal’s benefit. “I haven’t seen you much around school. Where have you been hiding yourself?”
Aware of Miss Opal’s gaze, she shook her head, her mouth dry. “Nowhere. I’ve been…nowhere.”
Ricky picked up the bottle of shampoo and tossed it to Tommy. “We’ll catch up with you later, Becky Lynn. Right, Tommy?”
