Page 36 of Healing Conviction
“Go for it.”
“Were you really going to stab that guy back there?”
Her heart stilled, but she scoffed and rolled her eyes at his question. “Come on, Drake. You really think I could do that?”
She knocked on the door again, more insistently, silently begging for literally anyone to answer.
“After what I just saw? Yeah.”
Her eyes snapped to his and her knock paused midair, right before the blue door swung open wide from underneath her hand to reveal an elderly woman glaring at them.
Praise sweet baby Jesus for distractions.
“Oh, um… why hello, ma’am.” Unsure of which direction to go, she went for the default overly nice Southerner. “I’m so very sorry for botherin’ you, ma’am. We were lookin’ for someone. Maybe you know her. Her name’s Shanna Jacobs?”
“I’m Shanna Jacobs. Who’s askin’?”
“Uh…” Nora glanced at Drake before looking back at the old woman, whose scowl had contorted fine wrinkles into defined, carved lines. “I’m sorry. Uh, maybe we’ve got somethin’ mixed up. The Shanna Jacobs we’re lookin’ for is, um… she’s around my age, maybe—”
“I’m twenty, bitch. Now who the fuckarey’all?”
Nora swallowed her objection, taking a moment to compare the woman in front of her with the mental picture of Shanna she had in her head. That smiling, vibrant young woman wasnotstanding before her.
Her formerly tan skin was sunken and sallow, and smile lines were the only wrinkles missing on her face. The long, wavy bleached-blonde hair that had perfectly framed teenaged Shanna’s round face was now half bleached, half brunette, greasy, and chopped short. Like someone had blindly taken scissors to it. And she wasteeny-tiny. Her thin camisole and terry cloth shorts revealed every skinny bone in her body. Had it not been for the woman’s same haunted brown eyes as young Shanna’s, Nora wouldn’t have believed her.
The pain there squeezed Nora’s heart, and she pushed past the overwhelming urge to steal this woman away and force-feed her sustenance and self-love until she was healthy again. But the deep-seated anger radiating from Shanna’s tense body told Nora the woman would put up a hell of a fight.
“Shanna, oh my gosh, girl, hey!” At the woman’s blank stare, she pointed to herself and Drake. “It’s me! Lucy! And here’s my bae, Ricky. Do you remember me?”
“Um… no. Am I fucking supposed to?”
“Girl, I am so sorry! It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other, I don’t know why I assumed you’d remember me. I know we’ve just sprung up on you, but we came into town and I was hopin’ to stop by and chat about old times. Good ol’ Cambo High. Those were the damn days, right? God, I miss softball. Coach Teller was a straight up B-I-T-C-H though. Don’t miss her at all.”
“Wait… you were on the softball team? When?”
“A few years ago. Mind if we come inside? It’s hot as blue blazes out here.”
“Oh, um… sure, I guess.”
“Ah! Thank you, thank you, thank you. This dress would totally show if I sweat through it. Come on, babe.” She hooked her arm loosely around Drake’s forearm and dragged him inside, chattering nonsense, until Drake closed it behind them.
When they were finally inside, a rancid stale vinegar smell invaded Nora’s nostrils and she immediately stopped breathing to get her bearings and avoid throwing up. Drake didn’t seem to be too affected, but she wondered if his position leaning next to the door was more than a simple defensive strategy. Even the small wafts of air coming through the cracks would be a nice reprieve.
Nora glanced around the dark room to sit, hardly able to see thanks to the sheets covering the curtained window and the dim light of the single lamp bulb. It was useless anyway. Whatever caused the smell was certainly not any kind of cleaning agent. Everything was covered in clothes, food wrappers, or… other things. She shuddered and focused on the task at hand, choosing to stay standing instead.
“So…Lucy. Cambo grad? When did you say that was again?”
Nora snapped her gaze back to Shanna to find her sitting on the bare mattress with a beer can in one hand and an already lit cigarette in the other.
“After you obvi. You really don’t remember me? That’s alright. I was kinda a loner, but I remember you!”
Shanna shook her head with narrowed eyes as she took a long sip before leaning against the dingy wall where a headboard was supposed to be. “Sorry… I’m tryin’, but you ain’t ringin’ a bell. It’s weird, too. ‘Cause I remember faces.”
“Oh no, that’s a shame. Hey, but I bet you remember…” Nora went in on every fact she’d memorized about Cambo High during the four years Shanna was enrolled, until the tenseness in the woman’s posture relaxed. That was when Nora made her move.
“Hey, listen. Maybe you can help me with somethin’?”
“I can try, whatcha got?”