Dirty Faces - Book 2

Chapter 2: The Bluff

Chapter 2: The Bluff

Leslie Williams couldn't sleep; her racing mind made sure of that. When she was at school, she could think about school work. When she came home from school, she could think about her chores. But in those moments before she fell asleep, or those like this, when sleep evaded her, she thought of him.

She had tried reading to keep her mind off him and hopefully fall asleep. She had read books, the news, poetry, plays; but if the material itself didn't in some way remind her of him, her mind took it upon itself to drift off into thoughts of him.

It was going on three months since Kody Paserella had left for Cleveland and she had heard not one word from him. He had told her he would write her, and it wasn't like him to not keep his word. She wondered if it was something she had done, or not done; something she had said, or perhaps not said. And quite frankly, she was tired of wondering.

She had missed people before. She missed her late grandmother, especially on her birthday. Mamaw always made her the best presents. She missed her best friend Beth, who had moved to Michigan two years before. But the way she missed him was different. She didn't miss him more than she did them, it just seemed to eat at her in a way missing them didn't. It made her feel very vulnerable.

Maybe that was it. Maybe she made him feel vulnerable, and he was very much the type to shy away from any situation that made him feel that way. Or maybe Cleveland was agreeing with him better than Mabry's Ridge ever had. Maybe he had met some girl there who'd made him forget all about her.

She knew that if any ill had befallen him, she would have surely heard about it by now. She did go to church with the rest of his family, after all. No, she didn't worry that anything had happened to him. It was possible that the situation with his family in Cleveland was worse than he had let on, though, and she did worry about that.

It was true that he was a rather odd person in many ways and perhaps she hadn't heard from for reasons that she could never understand, reasons that only made sense to him.

No matter what was or was not the case, she felt she deserved to know, and that very night, resolved to find out. She didn't have a phone number to reach him, nor the money to pay the long distance fee, anyway. She hadn't even thought to ask him for a mailing address because he'd said he would write her, and he'd never given her any reason not to believe him.

A long distance telephone call was out of the question, she knew. But if she only had his Cleveland address she could write him and give him a piece of her mind, and maybe even hope to hear back from him. She hadn't the slightest clue where he lived in Cleveland, but she knew who did.

*****

Leslie stood outside the school library, running through what she would say in her head. She looked through the doorway and saw him lounging at one of the tables, his back to her. Pushing that rogue strand of flaxen hair that had been falling in her face all day behind her ear, she stepped into the library and walked over to where Jack Paserella was sitting.

His lips were moving but no sound came out; they stopped when she got to the table. He looked up at her with a mix of curiosity and suspicion as she pulled out a chair across from him and seated herself. "Afternoon, Leslie." She could tell by his tone that he knew she wanted something from him; Jack was not entirely the fool most people took him to be.

"Good afternoon, Jack," she replied, as friendly as possible. There was a brief, awkward silence as she waited to let him begin conversation, until she realized he was waiting for her to do the same. Leslie cleared her throat. "I didn't know you had a study period in here."