Free The Girl Who Stopped Swimming by Joshilyn Jackson Page B

Laurel was blocking her view.
    “That boy there wants to ballet-dance, I think,” Bet said, pointing. “I can’t hardly understand a word he says.”
    “It’s
Billy Elliot,
” Shelby said.
    She’d ordered it and
October Sky
from Netflix specifically for Bet’s visit, as if the films would help her feel more at home. In Shelby’s head, DeLop was probably as cinematic as the mining towns in those movies. She’d never seen the real DeLop, and Laurel’s descriptions had been soft, to say the least.
    “As soft as Dairy Queen cones, and just as fucking ersatz, Jesus Bug,” Thalia had scoffed once. She’d overheard Laurel telling Shel how much her cousins had enjoyed the Tinker Toys. Thalia had amused herself by taking Laurel’s gentling even further, telling Shelby long made-up stories set in a picturesque DeLop, one eyebrow cocked ironically at Laurel.
    Thalia had peopled her purely fictional small town with big-eyed, delectably shabby orphans pulled straight out of velvet paintings from the seventies. They were watched over by Dear Old Aunt Enid, who, in Thalia’s version, possessed both teeth and a kind spirit. Enid lined the orphans up in clean, well- mannered rows to get their packages each Christmas. “Oh, please, convey our deepest thanks to Shelby,” Thalia’s orphans warbled, tears moistening the red ribbons Shelby had curled with a pair of blunt-tipped scissors left over from her grade-school days.
    Laurel didn’t think Shelby had stopped to compare the real DeLop girl in her house right now with Thalia’s version. Bet had never warbled in her life, but she was such a blank 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