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Earl Conners, which is why her mama stopped taking her to Endicott Johnson’s even though they had the cheapest shoes. “Yeah, Earl and all the rest of us will be right here, but not you.”
    “Stop, I’ll be back,” Virginia said and hugged Cindy close, the scent of Ambush cologne filling her head.
    “You’re lucky,” Cindy pushed her away. “Not that I’d want to go, I mean why in the hell would I want to go when I’ve got a husband and a baby. I mean I’ll read Peyton Place or Valley of the Dolls , but really I think books are used best for mashing flat a corsage or stacking them up so you can reach something if you’re small like me.”
    “You are lucky,” Virginia told her.
    “Well, learn something other than school, Ginny Sue,” she said, then no trace that she had cried except that her mascara, midnight blue then, was clumped in the corner of her right eye. “You’ve got a hell of a lot to learn.” She shook her head from side to side. “And I mean the important stuff, none of that what so and so who’s been dead forever said about the moon or the pope, you know? And don’t let them tell you stuff about Jesus that isn’t true, and don’t you tell that I brought Jesus up because I don’t want Mama or anybody else asking me to go to their Sunday school class.”
    “I won’t.” Virginia took hold of Cindy’s hand and squeezed that plastic Coke bottle key chain which Virginia thought was so tacky, even the day she saw Cindy pick it out and buy it in the check-out line at Roses, Virginia thought it was tacky.
    “God, toughen up. Stop acting like such a queer,” Cindy said. “You ain’t going to the moon.”
    “No.”
    “Jesus, God, two hours from home and you’d think you were moving to Russia.” Cindy jumped off the car, readjusted her little gold anklet. “I hope you’ll mature a little.”
    “You started it,” Virginia said, the blood flooding her face. “You cried about it.”
    “Shit, I cried for something else. Something a hell of a lot bigger than school, real things you know?”
    “What? Tell me.” Virginia had pleaded but Cindy only laughed and looked away. “You can tell me. I’m your cousin, remember?”
    “You wouldn’t understand,” she said. “Maybe someday when you’re all grown up and married with a baby like me, I’ll tell you or I won’t have to tell you ‘cause you’ll see for yourself.”
    “I’d probably understand right now.”
    “Oh come on. Now why would I spill my gut to somebody that has a chair with a school decal on it? Why would I trust somebody with such a queer and tacky chair?”
    “You fixed that chair!” Virginia screamed. “I have nothing to do with that chair. I didn’t pick out that damn decal. I would never have . . .” Virginia caught herself and looked away from Cindy.
    “Damn, ooh, ohh, Emily would be surprised to hear her little grandbaby said ‘damn’ and that Ginny Sue played technical-virgin sex with a boy so dumb he can’t write his name in a rented cottage at the beach while her mama thought that she was chaperoned all hours of the day and night.”
    “Cindy!” Virginia screamed. “I know things about you, too.”
    “Honey, I don’t care what you say about me because I’ve got enough stored right up here that could shock the earth.” She got in Madge’s car and blew the horn several short times. “I knew you hated the chair. Admit the truth, let the skeletons out of the closet.”
    “You’ve got some, too, and I’d never tell, never.”
    “What, that I got pregnant and then got married, me and the Virgin Mary, tell it, ain’t news to a soul. Tell how I got pulled and had to walk a line on I-95 coming back from Clemmonsville. My daddy paid the ticket.” She blew the horn again. “Tell how much I hate my sister Catherine and call her a slutbucket. Shit, I wrote that down on a piece of paper, signed my name to it and gave it to her. You can’t tell a thing on me that isn’t known.”
    “Your