Tommy Nightmare(61)
When it reached seven o' clock, Jenny drove her old car across town to pick up Darcy. Darcy didn't live in one of Fallen Oak's nicer neighborhoods, but it was an actual neighborhood. Jenny's house was a little way out of town, basically in the woods, and Jenny didn't have any neighbors close by.
Darcy stood at the end of her driveway with a huge canvas purse slung over her shoulder. She opened Jenny's passenger door and jumped inside.
“Let's scoot fast,” Darcy said. “My dad's being a total tool biscuit.”
“Okay.” Jenny pulled out of her driveway.
“Cool car!” Darcy said.
“Thanks.”
“It's kinda old, isn't it?” Darcy asked. “But I mean in a good way.”
“Yeah, I like it,” Jenny said. “Seth bought it for me for Christmas. From Merle Sanderson.”
“He bought you a fucking car?” Darcy scowled for a second, then quickly went back to her smile.
“I don’t think it was very expensive,” Jenny said. “It clunks a lot. Not really that great of a car.”
“Yeah, I guess I'm just jealous because I don't have one,” Darcy said. Her tone attempted to be pleasant, but Jenny thought she could detect something nasty underneath. “I mean, a car or a boyfriend. I've never even had a boyfriend. Just that one time with Bret Daniels, when we sinned really bad. I mean, he sinned my brains out. But he never acted like he cared about me after that.”
“I'm sorry.”
“That's how boys are, I guess. They act like they love you, but then they don't really care at all.”
“They aren’t all like that,” Jenny said.
“But I think they are,” Darcy said. “I bet even Seth might leave you. They really are jerks underneath.”
“I don't think so,” Jenny said. “We're pretty happy.”
“I mean, I saw how he just dropped Ashleigh all of a sudden, and she cried so much after that.”
Jenny found it hard to imagine Ashleigh Goodling in tears, unless it was to manipulate somebody into doing something for her. “Seth's been really nice to me,” she said.
“Oh, I don't mean to say anything bad about him,” Darcy said. “Just guys in general.”
Jenny glanced at Darcy's pregnant belly and decided not to argue. Darcy had her own bad experience to cope with. A huge, life-changing bad experience.
“Anywho,” Darcy said. “You like Chronicles of Narnia, right? ‘Cause I brought the DVD’s.”
“Sure,” Jenny said. She’d never seen it, nor had a strong desire to, but she was trying to make friends.
“I also brought the Lord of the Rings trilogy if you want to watch that.” Darcy grinned. “We can do a movie marathon!”
“Okay,” Jenny said.
They stopped by the Little Caesar's, located in a half-empty strip mall on the edge of town, and got a pair of pizzas for dinner, plus a two-liter of Coke. At Jenny's house, they set up camp on the living room couch.
They played the movie on the cheap DVD player Jenny had bought with her own money, since her dad thought there was no point moving on from VHS, even though DVD players were only like twenty bucks now. They had to keep the volume low because of Jenny's dad sleeping at the back of the house.
“We should have gone to Seth's house,” Jenny whispered as Chronicles of Narnia began. “But his parents are in town.”
“His parents don't like you?” Darcy asked.
“Pretty much. They think I'm a dope fiend who corrupts their perfect son. They don't even know we're together.”
“Oh, that won't work,” Darcy said. She bit into a pepperoni-topped square of pizza.
“Hopefully they'll get over it.”
“I doubt it. People like that—rich people, you know?—they only like their own kind. They can tell we don't belong with them.”
“They just never gave me a chance. But they loved Ashleigh.”
Darcy smiled, then quickly pushed it to a frown. “That's what I mean. The Goodlings had more money. I mean how's it going to work when he goes to college, anyway?”
“I don't know,” Jenny said. “I don't really want to move to Charleston. I just don't like big cities. The idea of leaving town scares me. And my dad needs my help around here.” Jenny had the odd feeling that a weight was lifting from her shoulders, one she hadn’t even noticed. She never got to talk about her relationship with Seth, or anything girls might talk about. Just sharing her fears made her feel better.
She was almost tempted to tell Darcy everything—about the Jenny pox, and why Jenny couldn't live anywhere with a lot of people—but she swallowed back that urge. As much as she needed to talk about it, it was much too dangerous to tell anyone.