There are two long tables pushed together in the carport with “Happy Birthday” tablecloths and plates and napkins and streamers and balloons. Addie sits at the far table, across from Danny Brewster with his stringy ponytail and too-tight “Keep On Truckin’” T-shirt. He keeps glancing out at his car parked along the curb. Danny’s car is his life; it’s all he talks about. A shiny banana-yellow Barracuda with a black 440 decal, fender fins, chrome wheels, wide tires. He sat in it for his senior picture.
Roland is at the head of the main table, flanked by his sister and her friend Louise White. Louise is a sophomore whose older brother died in Vietnam. People at school treat her like a hero.
Addie doesn’t believe in war.
Louise has strawberry-blond hair and freckles. Whenever Roland talks, she laughs, tinkly as a bell. Roland passes her things out of order, the hotdogs and chili before the buns, the baked beans twice before anyone else has had them. Even Pet is kind to her, sprinkling her with questions like how is her father getting along and what’s she going to do this summer. Louise sits up straight and holds her elbows at her side and delicately pinches her fork. Her dad, she says, has lined up a job for her at the tile plant, second shift. She’s grateful he could get her on, jobs being so scarce and all. She’s trying to save money for college.
She is so open, so uncomplaining.
Pet tut-tuts and says she’s sure Louise will get a scholarship.
Louise smiles serenely. She has a heart-shaped smile and straight white teeth. “I hope so,” she says.
She lives behind the Presbyterian Church, in a yellow house with an ivy-covered yard. When her brother died, her mother had a breakdown. Now Louise has to take care of things at home and isn’t available for after-school activities. But she’s popular anyway, because of her perfect smile and perfect figure, and because she knows how to act in any situation. Tonight she’s smiling, sugary, but when she and Roland’s sister pass Addie in the hall at school, they look down and don’t speak.
“I love this neighborhood,” she says. “My grandfather remembers before they built the golf course or any of these houses, when this was all farmland. He and his friends would come over in winter when it snowed. They would start up there”—she points, her arm sleek and confident—“and go sledding all the way down to the creek. It’s one long hill, if you look at it.”
Roland’s parents are fascinated — the idea of people sledding through their living room! Roland stares at Louise like she invented snow.
“Remember those big round Coca-Cola signs?” she says. “They could get three people in one of those signs. But there was no way to steer, so they’d go spinning like crazy and about half the time end up in the creek.”
“I know where we can get one,” Danny Brewster says loudly, to nobody.
“Where I grew up,” Pet says, “it never snowed. That’s one thing I’ve liked about moving up here, how it gets cold enough to snow.”
“It used to snow more,” Addie says. “Even in my lifetime. I remember when I was small, it snowed more than it does now.”
“I wouldn’t want any more,” Pet says.
Roland’s birthday cake is from Fancy Pastry, chocolate, in the shape of a cutaway electric guitar. Everyone sings the birthday song, Roland makes a wish and blows out his candles, and Pet cuts little pieces of cake that everyone eats with plastic forks, scraping the frosting off their plates. Before they can ask for seconds, Roland stands up.
“I want to thank you all for coming.” He speaks in his deep, practiced, performer’s voice. “You’re the best friends anybody could ever have.”
“Keep on truckin’!” Danny yells.
“I wish you could stay here forever. I really do. And”—laughing his dry, amused-with-himself laugh—“you can if you want to. But I’ve got to go. I promised Louise a ride, and she has to be home by nine-thirty.”
No one else laughs. Louise blushes, but only slightly, as if she can control even the flow of her blood. Addie glares at Roland but be ignores her. Of course, she thinks. He doesn’t want to know how he’s wrecked her night. She’s here without a car or a ride home; she walked over hoping he would take her home, hoping that, for at least the short drive down Fairview, they could be alone again. Now he’s leaving without her, leaving his own party, and it’s too late to call her parents. Claree can’t drive at night and Bryce will be drinking. He would come anyway if she called, driving fast and loud like he does, screeching up to the curb, blowing his horn.
Roland doesn’t want to know any of that.
He opens the car door for Louise, closes it behind her, gets in and drives away. Addie imagines them cruising across town, Louise telling stories, Roland huck-hucking, laying his arm along the seat behind her. Louise leaning her head back.
He won’t just drop her off. He will walk her to her front door. Addie pictures them standing there, Roland pressing his hand into the small of Louise’s back, waiting for her to invite him in.
Louise’s house will be quiet and clean: no blaring TVs, no spilling-over ashtrays. Louise’s father will be sitting up in the den, reading a magazine under soft yellow lamplight, listening to jazz on the radio. Louise will whisper to Roland, “He’s so protective.” Which will make Roland think about Louise’s dead brother and broken mother and feel sorry for her. He will kiss her — not on the mouth; on the cheek, maybe, or forehead. He will take his time with her. He’ll think to himself, With this one I’m going to get it right.
Across the table, Danny Brewster taps his plastic fork on his plate. Danny has a horse-shaped face and thick glasses that make his eyes seem closer than they are. “I can give you a ride,” he says to Addie, more quietly than she knew he could talk.
“Can we leave now?”
“Fuckin’ A.” Danny forks up his last few crumbs of cake and pushes himself up from the table. “Far-out party,” he tells Roland’s parents.
Addie doesn’t bother with good-byes or thank-yous.
The yellow ’Cuda gleams under the streetlight. “Hop in,” Danny says, opening the door. The seat is slippery, like it’s been polished. Danny cranks the engine and his eight-track blasts Edgar Winter, the bass boosted so loud it rocks the car. Addie buckles her seat belt. She hopes Roland’s parents are watching. She hopes they all are. She hopes the neighbors are flocking to their windows.
Danny reaches into the glove box and pulls out a joint big as a cigar. “Happy birthday, Roll,” he says, and hands Addie a lighter. “Do the honors?”
“Fuckin’ A,” she says.
Late that night, when her family is sleeping, Addie sneaks out of bed, tiptoes into the kitchen, lifts the receiver on the new harvest gold wall phone, and dials Louise White’s number.
“Hello?” Louise says, her voice muffled. “Hello, who is this?”
Addie hangs up.
She calls again the next night, and the next. One night Louise’s father answers. Addie starts hanging up faster, before anyone can pick up. She starts calling at all hours. Midnight, five in the morning, different times — whenever she’s near a phone. During the day, when no one’s home, she can let it ring longer. She can let it ring and ring and ring.
Addie’s senior yearbook contains no evidence of Roland-and-Louise, even though at school they have become one word. There are no pictures of Roland propped against Louise’s locker, none of him with his arm draped across Louise’s shoulders or smiling at Louise from the stage during senior assembly. All the pictures are from before.