Shocking Pink

“I bet,” her mother continued, “whoever she is, she doesn’t have any children. She’s unencumbered. No runny noses to wipe, no childish disagreements to break up. Plenty of time to make herself look pretty and feel sexy—”

“I don’t love you anymore. I don’t love us anymore! That’s what this is about, it’s not about Leeza.”

“Your secretary?” Her mother’s voice rose. “My God, she’s twenty years younger than you are!”

Leeza Martin. Her father’s secretary. Andie squeezed her eyes shut, picturing her, young and pretty, wearing short skirts and a bright smile. Andie used to look at her and think she was so cute, she used to look at her and long to be as cute herself.

Pretty Leeza had stolen her daddy.

Andie’s stomach turned, the taste of hatred bitter on her tongue. All the time Leeza had been smiling and being so nice to her, she’d been … been … sleeping with her father. Breaking her mother’s heart.

Her mother was sobbing, begging him to stay, pleading with him to think of the kids. He made a sound of disgust. “How could you want me to stay if I don’t want to be here? How could you want me to stay only for the children? That’s not a marriage. It’s a prison.”

Andie sprang away from the door as if it were on fire. The tears, the pain welled inside her until she thought she would burst. She longed to throw herself at him and beg him not to go. To cry and plead. Just as her mom was doing.

It wouldn’t do any good. There was someone he loved more than his family, someplace he would rather be than here with them.

He had promised he would always be here for her. Always. He’d told her that nothing in the world was more important than his family, their happiness.

He’d lied. He was a liar. A cheater.

Raven. Her friend would help her; her friend would make everything okay.

Andie turned and ran back to her bedroom. She closed and locked the door behind her, crossed to the window and opened it. With one last glance backward, she climbed over the sill and dropped to the ground.

It was late, the sounds and smells of the night assailed her senses: the perfume of some night-blooming flower; the call of the crickets and a bullfrog; the scream of a horn somewhere in the distance.

Andie picked her way across her yard and through the hedge that separated the Johnsons’ property from their’s. A car swung out of the driveway across the street, momentarily pinning her in its headlights. Andie froze, afraid that Mrs. Blum, a third-shift nurse at Thistledown General, would see her and call her mom.

Mrs. Blum moved on. So did Andie.

Within moments, Andie found herself below Raven’s bedroom window, tossing pebbles up at the glass and praying her friend would come. How many times had Raven come to Andie’s window, seeking comfort? Too many to count, Andie acknowledged.

Now it was her. Andie’s chest ached at the realization. For the first time ever, her home didn’t feel safe and happy, it didn’t feel … perfect anymore. For the first time, she wanted to be somewhere else.

The moment Andie saw her friend’s face, she started to cry. Raven slid the window up, her expression alarmed. “Andie?” she whispered. “What’s wrong?”

“My parents are … they’re splitting up.”

“No way.” Raven shook her head, her expression disbelieving. “Not your parents.”

“Yes, they’re—” Andie struggled to find her voice. “My dad’s … he’s leaving us.”

Raven leaned farther out the window. “Hold on,” she whispered, the breeze catching her white-blond hair and blowing it across her face. She swept it back. “I’ll be right down.”

A couple minutes later she emerged from the house, fully dressed. She came to Andie and put her arms around her. “Oh, Andie. I can’t believe it.”

Andie pressed her face to her best friend’s shoulder for a moment, clinging to her. “Believe it. He called us all together for this bogus meeting about how much he still loves us and everything.”

She wiped her runny nose with the back of her hand. “Then I heard the whole truth later. He’s been screwing around on my mom.”

Raven gasped. “Not your dad!”

“With his secretary.”

“That perky little bimbo? She’s … she’s like a Barbie doll. Your mom’s way better than her.”

Andie sank to the ground and dropped her face into her hands. “I feel so awful. I don’t know what to do.”

Raven sat beside her, wrapping an arm protectively around Andie’s shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”

“How did you make it?” Andie asked brokenly. “After your mom took off, I mean. I feel like I’m going to die.”

For a long moment, Raven was silent, as if lost in her own memories. Then she cleared her throat. “You know what I think? That parents suck. Especially fathers.”

“I always thought I had the best family in the whole world. I never thought my dad could do—”

“Anything wrong,” Raven supplied, and Andie nodded miserably. “You thought he was perfect. A hero, or something.”

As she spoke, something crept into her friend’s voice, something mean. Something Andie didn’t recognize. Andie looked at her. “Rave?”

Her friend met her eyes. “But he’s no hero, is he, Andie? He’s just another prick.”

Andie looked away. It hurt to think of her dad that way. It hurt almost more than she could bear.

“Let’s get Julie.”

“Julie?”

“Why not?” Raven smiled. “Screw ’em all. Let’s get out of here.”

“But your leg. Can you, I mean, doesn’t it hurt?”

Raven glanced down at the bandage and shrugged. “Yeah, it hurts. So what? Worst case, I blow out a few stitches.”

Andie swallowed hard. “How many did you get?”

“Twenty. Would have been less but the cut was so jagged. You should have seen my dad, he turned green and had to leave the room.” She shook her head. “I don’t get human nature. My dad turning green at that? My dad? Unbelievable.” She got to her feet and held out a hand. “Come on.”

Andie shook her head. “You’re going to hurt yourself. I don’t want that.”

“It’s for you, Andie. Don’t you get it? It doesn’t matter if I get hurt, not when it’s for you.”

Andie agreed without saying a word. She didn’t have to ask where they would go after they collected their friend; she knew. To their place, the abandoned toolshed on the edge of one of farmer Trent’s fields. They had discovered it two summers ago and immediately claimed it as their special place. Small, dilapidated and smelling faintly of oil, they loved it. Because it was theirs. A place where they could be together and be themselves, away from prying parents and annoying siblings.

Julie lived on Mockingbird Lane, three blocks behind Andie and Raven, in Phase II of Happy Hollow. The two girls wound their way across and around the streets and connecting yards without discovery. Not that there was too much chance of that, the streets were deserted, every house dark and locked up tight.

Andie found the quiet unsettling. She moved her gaze over Julie’s street, taking in the row of houses with their unnaturally blank windows. Since R. H. Rawlings, a machine manufacturer and one of the town’s major employers, had closed six months before, about forty percent of the Phase II houses were for sale or rent and empty. Of the ten houses on Mockingbird Lane only three were occupied. Many of the empty homes were still owned by Sadler Construction, the builder. Andie had heard her father remark that it was a good thing the Sadlers had such deep pockets.