Free Little Pretty Things by Lori Rader-Day Page B

through, dark and swift against the current. What had she ever seen in him? Good-looking, in a hard-labor kind of way, sure. But he didn’t run or play football or come to school events, or come to school, really, all that often. He was a farmer’s kid, who’d driven a tractor long before the rest of us could drive cars. Now he helped run the farm, or that’s what I’d heard. Midway was a small place, but in the ten years since graduation, I’d only seen Beck a few dozen times, and never in the Mid-Night. I didn’t want to see him. He might have gone out of his way not to see me.
    I watched the regulars nod their welcome. They were farmers, some of them. He wedged an elbow in at the bar among them and caught Yvonne’s attention.
    In his wake, the circle around me dissolved, and the room recovered its roar. Someone put a tragic song on the juke. For the moment, they’d all forgotten about me.
    Again I felt that rushing wave of certainty meeting uncertainty. Maddy Bell was dead. How could that be real?
    I looked around. It was real and now. Beck, me, all these people. Maybe we were here for more than gossip and gawking. For more than tip money, in any case, more than an overpriced drink.
    They were waiting, watching. Guys like Mack, slumped at the bar. Women from the plant down the street on their third happy-hour whiskey sour. Happy hour was long over. They had kids at home, but here they were. They held out for something that I hadn’t thought to give them.
    This was not my responsibility, this impromptu wake. No one had invited them here.
    Yvonne made a face at me from behind the bar. I searched the room for someone needing service. All the glasses were full, all hands held a bottle. When I glanced back to the bar, Yvonne was handing Beck a beer and jerking her head toward him.
    No way. We’d never had a kind word for each other, and we weren’t going to start tonight, as some kind of touching scene for the gathered audience.
    And then a terrible keening sound cut through the noise and silenced the room. We all turned to the front door.
    Our track coach, Coach Trenton, leaned into the room like a puppet with its strings cut. His face hung slack and tortured. Behind him, Fitz, our former assistant coach, wiped his face with his hand.
    “We just heard,” Fitz said. “The girls, at practice, someone got a text—”
    “It’s not true, is it, Jules?” Coach said. Only the terrible sobbing music on the jukebox kept the place from falling in on its own silence.
    I thought, suddenly, of all the calls I should have made. My mom—oh no. I hadn’t softened the blow for anyone.
    And then I swung, pendulum-like, toward rage. Why should they be spared? I’d found the body. I’d suffered more than any of these hangers-on. Maddy’s gray face would never leave me.
    But the truth was that I couldn’t have called anyone. I’d never have been able to say the words. And I hadn’t wanted to. I was carrying Maddy’s death around in my arms like a wriggling newborn, as though I could keep it confined and safe, and—mine. I couldn’t put it down. Meanwhile, the news spun away from me, growing monstrous.
    “It’s true,” I said.
    Coach seemed to crumple. Fitz held him by the shoulders. “Maybe we could talk, Juliet? Somewhere else?”
    “Sure.” When I turned to wave off-duty to Yvonne, I saw Beck watching, his fist clenched white around his beer mug.
    I’d thought we’d come for a funeral. All of us. We’d all come to be a part of the drama. Some of us had come to sell her memory for a share of the tips.
    Except Beck. Out of all of us, he seemed to be the only one who’d come to hold out hope.
    Well, too bad. None of us had any. Not anymore.

    I led them out into the night. Maddy’s car had been towed away. I stared at the empty space and, without a lot of options for where to take them, remembered Yvonne’s keys in my pocket and led the coaches back to the front doors and into the lobby. Fitz pulled Coach to