Carnal Innocence

guided him in and he began to grind. “So much more fun than Junior. Why, since we got married, we don’t do it anywhere but in bed.”
    Highly flattered, Billy T. hitched up her hips, rapping her head against an open cupboard door. Since she was already coming, Darleen didn’t notice.
    Caroline was surprised she’d slept so well. Maybe it was her mind’s way of escaping, or the security of havingSusie Truesdale and her daughter tucked into the next bedroom. Or maybe it was just that she felt safe in her grandparents’ bed. Whatever it was, she awakened to sunlight and the smell of coffee and bacon.
    Her first reaction was embarrassment, that she should have slept while her guests fixed breakfast. That reaction struck her as so feeble after the horror of the day before, she was tempted to roll over and will herself back to sleep.
    Instead, she took a long cool shower and dressed.
    By the time she came downstairs, Susie and Marvella were already seated at the table, talking in hushed tones over coffee and scrambled eggs.
    There was enough resemblance between mother and daughter to make Caroline want to smile. Two pretty women with mink-colored hair and big blue eyes, they whispered together like children in the back pew of a church service. They both had bow-shaped mouths like kewpie dolls, that curved into sympathetic smiles when they spotted her.
    There was a closeness between them, a simple understanding and respect that Caroline had never enjoyed with her own mother. Seeing it, feeling it, she felt herself struck by a hard, unexpected wave of envy.
    “We hoped you’d sleep awhile longer.” Susie was already up pouring another cup of coffee.
    “I feel like I slept a week. Thanks.” She took the cup Susie offered. “It was so kind of you to stay, I—”
    “That’s what neighbors are for. Marvella, fix Caroline a plate.”
    “Oh, really, I—”
    “You have to eat.” Susie nudged her into a chair. “When you’ve had a shock like that, you need fuel.”
    “Mom makes great eggs,” Marvella offered. She tried not to stare at Caroline as she served. She wanted to ask her where she’d gotten her hair cut—though Bobby Lee would just about shit bricks if she had her own shoulder-length curls whacked like that. “You always feel better if you eat. Last time I broke up with Bobby Lee, Mom and I had great big chocolate sundaes.”
    “It’s hard to feel blue when you’re full of chocolate.” Susie smiled and served up a plate of toast. “I got some of your grandma’s wild raspberry jam out of the cupboard. Hope you don’t mind.”
    “No.” Fascinated, Caroline picked up the hand-labeled jelly jar. “I didn’t realize this was around.”
    “Oh, my, Miss Edith put by every year. Nobody had a hand like hers for jams and jellies. She won the blue ribbon at the fair the last six years running.” Bending, Susie opened a bottom cupboard and gestured toward the lines of jars. “You’ve got a good year’s supply here.”
    “I didn’t know.” All those pretty, colorful jars, so carefully labeled, so lovingly aligned. The sense of loss and shame closed her throat. “I wasn’t able to see her often.”
    “She was so proud of you. Used to talk about her little Caro traveling all around the world, and how you played music for royalty and presidents and all. Showed around the postcards you sent her.”
    “There was one of Paris, France,” Marvella put in. “With the Eiffel Tower off in the back. Miss Edith let me use it for a report.”
    “Marvella took two years of French.” Susie sent her daughter a pleased look. She herself had had to quit school four months before graduation, when she’d begun to show. It never failed to delight her that her daughter already held a high school diploma. She glanced at her watch. “Honey, hadn’t you better get on to work?”
    “Oh, lordy.” Marvella popped out of her seat. “Look at the time.”
    “Marvella works up in Rosedale as a legal secretary. They said she could come in late today, considering.” She glanced over as Marvella freshened her lipstick in the reflection of the toaster. “You go on and take my car, honey. I’ll call your daddy to come get me.” Rising, she rested her hands on Marvella’s shoulders. “You don’t stop for anybody, even if you know them.”
    “I’m not stupid.”
    Susie pinched her chin. “No, but you’re my onlygirl. I want you to call me if you’re going to be later than five-thirty.”
    “I