The Girl Who Stopped Swimming - By Joshilyn Jackson Page 0,25
slate, it was probably easy for Shelby to mistake the mute endurance for shyness; she saw in Bet what Thalia’s stories had prepped her to see.
“That other boy, that fag one, is about to get his butt beat,” Bet said in a pleased voice. Scottish accent or no, she got this part.
Laurel and Shelby and Mother all paused and looked at her. Bet watched the screen, oblivious.
“Call Sissi,” Mother mouthed at Laurel as she came close to hand her a steaming cup. Laurel nodded, taking the coffee. Mother tilted her head sideways, and her eyebrows came down. “Laurel, you’re pale as bedsheets. You’re supposed to take things easy today, David said. Now get up off the floor.”
Laurel stayed where she was. “How’re you doing?” she asked Shelby.
Shelby shrugged, pinching her shoulders up and then only half dropping them, so she stayed turtled up.
“You look tired. What time did you girls crash out up there in the rec room?” It was the most innocuous of all of Moreno’s questions, but Laurel was still surprised to hear it coming out of her mouth.
“I don’t know,” Shelby said. She glanced at Bet but found no help there. Bet had turned her head to look at Laurel, her eyebrows creasing in as if she were slightly puzzled. Either the movie or the conversation had lost her, there was no way to tell which.
Shelby went on. “We were watching some stupid cartoon or something. I fell asleep in my beanbag.” Another glance at the inert Bet Clemmens, and then her voice got the slightest bit louder. “I think I fell asleep first. Isn’t that right, Bet?”
Bet’s gaze snapped back to the screen, and the faintly puzzled look was gone. She nodded, too vigorously, and Laurel’s mom antennae, finely tuned to catch these things, vibrated. Shelby had silently asked Bet to back her up, and Bet had agreed.
Laurel’s throat tightened, and her mouth went desert-dry. She stared at her daughter and realized Shelby was looking between Laurel’s eyes, not into them. It was an old theater trick of Thalia’s for doing love scenes with someone you hated, or hate scenes with someone you loved.
“It also makes lying a hell of a lot easier offstage,” Thalia had said more than once, no doubt when Shelby was around with her little pitcher’s ears wide open. It worked, too, but only from across the room. This close, Laurel could see the faint disconnect, and all at once she wondered if Moreno had been on to something. Molly and Shelby had been so close. If Molly had been somehow grossly involved with Stan Webelow, Shelby could not be entirely ignorant.
“Come and talk with me,” Laurel said gently, gently, as if her insides hadn’t all turned to ice. She turned one hand palm up, extending it toward Shelby.
“Grandma says I’m supposed to be taking it easy, too.”
Shelby came down hard on the word “supposed,” just as Mother had done, as if the gap between how the world should be and how it actually behaved were a grievous thing.
“We could go lie down together,” Laurel coaxed. “You’ve had a hard night.”
Shelby didn’t move, but at least she was looking straight into Laurel’s eyes. “Where is she?” Shelby asked. “Where’s Molly?”
Laurel felt the question like a belly blow. “She’s in heaven, sweetie,” she said.
Shelby’s mouth tightened. “I’m not four, and I’m not stupid. Daddy said the ambulance took her, they took the actual her, they took her—” She floundered, and Laurel realized she was trying hard not to say the word “body.”
If Thalia were here, she would say, “At the morgue, babe. Somewhere across town, educated people are prowling around Molly’s flesh for evidence, and why was she in our yard? What were you girls up to? Were you supposed to meet someone? Had she been spending time with Stan Webelow? Have you?”
Thalia would heat her up and pop her open like an oyster, because if Shelby broke, she might let slip things that would help Laurel protect her. Shelby was hiding something. She’d just looked Laurel right between her eyes and lied, and Laurel wasn’t equipped to handle it. She rallied, readying herself to say these hard things to her damp-eyed, angry girl.
“To a funeral home, my darling.” Mother stepped in before Laurel could make words come out. Of course Mother had a beautiful lie at the ready, horses and acrobats to soothe and distract. “They’ll put her in fresh clothes and brush her pretty hair. They’ll take good care of her.”