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she was talking about. Then he gave a little smile, as if he had it all figured
     out. “She said I was the best teacher she had ever had. That she wants to take woodshop every semester from now on until she
     graduates.”
    “No. That isn’t it.”
    “Mr. S? Mr. S!” A cluster of girls bounded up in the hall just then, bouncing and eager, a mixture of gawky colt and prima
     ballerina.
    They surrounded Charlie. “Hey,” he clapped his hands, not quite as enthusiastic as usual, reluctant to draw his eyes from
     Lydia’s. “What’s all the excitement here?”
    One girl wore her hair in blonde tufts that resembled the weeds growing from the cracks in the outdoor basketball court. “We
     want to help with homecoming decorations. If we come out during sixth period, will you let us do something?”
    Lydia focused on his left jaw, the inverted heart-shaped fold and shadow of his ear. “I can’t do it then,” he said. “I have
     to leave the building during sixth period.” He stepped sideways and caught Lydia’s gaze. “Because I’ve bought a fishing boat.”
    It was something, he’d confided to her, that he’d always dreamed of having. Once, sitting on the edge of Cy Porter’s new dock
     at sundown, their bare feet skimming ribbons in the water, he’d told her he’d had a name picked out for it since he was thirteen.
    Charlie’s Pride.
    “This is it, Lyddie,” he started off, grinning at her. “I know maybe it sounds crazy. There are so many other things we—”
     He stopped.
There are so many other things we’re going to need once we get married.
If he’d said too much, it didn’t matter. The troupe of girls had already lost interest and disbanded toward their lockers.
     “They had a sign about it up over at Show Me Kwik Gas,” he said. “Somebody dropped this boat, in its trailer, off in the front
     lawn of Big Tree Baptist. In the middle of the night.”
    “Charlie,” she said, knowing she had to make him listen. “By law, I’m required to report the story Shelby told me.”
    “Just parked a boat by the front door and drove away. Church folks decided that Jesus or God or somebody must want them to
     auction it off. They’ve been taking sealed bids all week down at the Show Me.”
    Lydia made a small, indeterminate sound. It should have been one of those slightly comic moments, something she could tease
     him about later, her fiancé purchasing something he said he’d always wanted right before they announced their engagement to
     everyone they knew.
    “Somebody called this morning and said I’d won.” He looked like a little boy who’d bought something he shouldn’t have. “I’ve
     never had a fish finder, either. That came with it.”
    Before Lydia could stop him, he pitched the keys to his truck to her. “You mind driving me back in the GMC? That trailer isn’t
     too sturdy and I wanted to keep a close eye out the window.”
    “Charlie—”
    “And you know,” he said, winking at her, “it isn’t just
any
girl that I would trust to drive my truck.”
    “—did you hear me?”
    Just a smile in the hallway, a conversation or two, a distant knowledge of Shelby’s family, an adolescent girl who’d seemed
     a little over friendly, anxious to have a friend.
    How could I think I don’t trust him? How could I even think?
    “You have to understand that they don’t ask me to pass judgment. And I’m not. Certainly not about this.”
    He took one step toward her. “Lydia, what are you talking about?”
    “You don’t know?” she asked, and then she wanted to smack herself because she’d made it sound like she expected him to.
    “No, I don’t.”
    Now that she’d come this far, she did not want to voice the ugly thing. But she forced herself, while his truck keys lay heavy
     and warm in her hand. “Shelby Tatum. Have you ever touched her, Charlie? Have you done anything wrong?”
    “Huh?” He jerked up his chin and frowned at her. “Whadyousay?”
    “Has anything