Free Rohn Federbush - Sally Bianco 02 - The Appropriate Way by Rohn Federbush Page B

him.”
    Sally shuddered. Art draped his arm around Sally’s shoulders as if to protect her. The three of them sat in silence until a small, almost fat girl came up and asked Art in a halting voice to dance with her. Art turned a questioning look to Sally, who nodded politely. Encouraged by his willingness to dance, four other girls lined up for Sally’s permission.
    After the sixth beauty whisked Art away, Jill couldn’t resist. “Art seems to be having a good time away at school.” Sally admitted Art made a lot of friends, but then how could a handsome man not be flattered by all the attention. When Art sat down again, Jill said, “We have to get back. I want to start out early for home.”
    Art kissed Sally in a long embrace before he let her get into the car. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you. I’m reading Robinson Crusoe every day. Can you get a car of your own?”
    “I will.” Sally planned to come down every weekend.
    Even though Sally bought her own car, events surrounding Jill and Tony stopped the planned trips to Lincoln.

Chapter Four
    First Thursday in January
    Sheriff Woods was glad to let Tim drive the police car from Wayne to Geneva’s countywide police station. The visit to Tony Montgomery parents’ home flooded him with memories of Sally, Mrs. John Nelson now, and the fate of his friend, Tony. When he was only twenty years old, Art wanted Tony to see the light, stop being such a stud and develop a few feelings. But Tony jumped off an emotional cliff. After Jill dumped him, his friend wouldn’t attend classes at Lincoln College, wouldn’t eat, couldn’t seem to sleep.
    ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
    October 1958
    “There are other girls,” Art said to Tony, once.
    Tony met his eyes, let him see the agony. “You should take me out somewhere, behind a deserted barn and put me out of my misery, the way you would a dying dog. I’m not good for anything now.”
    Art started staying with Tony, offering him water, soup, to call his folks, anything. Two weeks after homecoming, Tony‘s father came down south to Lincoln College to pick up his failing son. “He’s high-strung like his mother.” Mr. Montgomery had said, before he took Tony’s last suitcase out to the car. “Hard work will snap him right out of this.”
    Art wasn’t sure of a cure for Tony’s fixation with Jill. He’d had no experience with people suffering to the degree Tony allowed.
    Alone now in the dorm room he had shared with Tony, Art reached for Robinson Crusoe. The page he opened read. “When I came down the hill to the shore, I was perfectly confounded and amazed; nor is it possible for me to express the horror of my mind, at seeing the shore spread with skulls, hands, feet, and other bones, where the savage wretches had sat down to their inhumane feastings upon the bodies of their fellow creatures.”
    Art summoned up a vision of the strutting braggart Tony was the last time he drove him home from high school. Jill had spit Tony out like a prune pit. Now, Tony was shriveled up in the back seat of his father’s car.
    Art went back to Crusoe. “Recovering myself, I looked up with the utmost affection of my soul, and with a flood of tears in my eyes, gave God thanks that had cast my first lot in a part of the world where I was distinguished from such dreadful creatures.”
    Surely, Sally would never have thrown him away for someone with more money, as easily as Jill discarded Tony.
    Sheriff Woods tried to remember why he broke up with Sally. They’d separated after Jill’s wedding, after Tony suicide. He couldn’t remember the cause. He doubted he’d ever allow himself to love again. Love became a dangerous word, an emotion to be avoided. He often told Gabby he cared for her because she loved him.
    His contentment was real, but not the passionate love Tony claimed for Jill. Sheriff Woods kept himself sane by staying free of deep emotional entanglements. He didn’t want to experience the fearful degree of rejection