I came to see Jenny,” he told her. “I like her.”
She looked him up and down. “Your shirt is inside out.”
“It’s not what you think,” said Billy.
“Tell me the truth for a change,” said my mother.
“Okay.” Billy looked her straight in the eye. “I used to like my shirts, but now I think the pictures and jokes are mostly stupid and we don’t have money to buy new ones . . . so . . .” He pulled the material away from his chest and let it snap back. “I turn them inside out.”
I heard a car in the drive and the sounds of two doors slamming.
“Ask me anything,” Billy offered.
“I’ll let the police ask the questions from now on,” she said. And then the doorbell rang. She had called 911 before cornering Billy in the family room. I ran, beating her to the front door.
“It’s a mistake,” I blurted out before they could say anything. “I invited a boy from school over and my mom didn’t know.”
I recognized one of the policemen from church. Officer Redman.
“Everything okay, Jennifer?”
“Yes, yes.” I sighed. “I had a friend from school over when Mom was out of the house. We were just talking.” If they let me I would have repeated myself for hours.
On his way down the hall toward the family room, Officer Redman spoke into the crackling walkie-talkie on his shoulder strap.
The other officer, whose name was Davis, rocked on his heels, his belt full of weapons clinking and swaying.
“We’ll sort it out,” he reassured me.
I could hear voices from the back room but couldn’t make out what was being said.
“We were just talking,” I said again. “I have no idea why she called the police. This is really embarrassing.”
Officer Davis nodded without judgment.
“Don’t you think I should tell my side of the story?” I asked.
“Everything will be okay,” he said. “Just relax.”
I couldn’t stand not knowing what was being said down the hall. But before I could think of a way to get Officer Davis to let me go to them, Billy came toward us followed by Officer Redman and then my mother. Billy looked ashamed and slinked past me.
“Don’t arrest him,” I begged.
My mother stayed at the open door with Officer Redman, exchanging a few quiet words as Officer Davis put Billy into the back seat of the waiting police car.
The back window was rolled up and Billy wouldn’t look at me. “He was my guest,” I said. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”
“He’s not under arrest, honey,” said Officer Redman as he went to the driver’s door. “We’re just taking him home.”
And they drove off. My mother watched them until they turned the corner at the end of the block.
“Why did you do that?” I followed her inside. “Why would you call the police on him?”
She waited until the front door was closed tight. “He’s been arrested before, you know.” Her face was dark and serious as she looked down at my feet again. “Jennifer, did you dance for him?”
I realized then I was still walking around in my toe shoes. “Nothing happened,” I told her.
“It’s over,” she said. “Not another word about it.”
Did she mean the argument was over? Or my friendship with Billy?
“And change out of those shoes.” She closed herself in the study.
I wanted to slam a door in her face. The rooms in my house felt like prison cells—my bedroom was a coffin. There was not even one corner of space in my house that I felt at home in. I unlaced my toe shoes and left them in piles of ribbon on my floor beside the bed. I went to the family room and lifted the dowel out of the tracks in the sliding glass door. I slid it open as silently as I could and closed it again after me. The sun had hid itself and the sky was pale gray. The breeze was cold, but I needed air. I took deep breaths and remembered Billy talking about lying out on his lawn like a confused animal. I watched how the blades of grass in my own yard curved all in the same direction and fluttered in the wind.
I walked out into the lawn barefoot and sat down before stretching out on my back. The breeze danced my hair around, tickling my face. The sky was a watercolor of grays and whites and lavenders.
Somewhere, I thought, there’s a place where this sky touches down to the ground in every direction instead of going