Criminal

off or making trouble?” He forked another piece of roast for Amanda. “Or both?”
    Evelyn said, “We’re likely going to get a black man out of jail.”
    Kenny laughed. “Making friends wherever you go.”
    “No kidding.” Evelyn finished her glass of wine. “This particular fella is called Juice.”
    “Like the football player?” Bill topped off Amanda’s glass, then refilled Evelyn’s. “Rushed for seventeen hundred yards in ’68.”
    “Seventeen hundred nine ,” Kenny corrected. “Ran 171 against Ohio State in the Rose Bowl.”
    “To football.” Bill raised his glass.
    “Hear, hear.” Kenny followed suit. They clinked their glasses in a toast. Amanda felt a warmth spread through her body. She hadn’t realized how tense she was until the wine made her relax.
    Evelyn said, “The non-football Juice seems to have a crush on Amanda.” She winked across the table. “Says she’s a fine-lookin’ woman.”
    “A very astute man.” Kenny winked at Amanda, too. She took a large drink of wine to cover her embarrassment.
    “He’s a pimp,” Evelyn said. “We met him at Techwood Homes last week.”
    Amanda felt her heart lurch in her chest, but Evelyn kept talking.
    “He runs white women.”
    “My favorite kind.” Bill refilled Amanda’s glass. She hadn’t realized she’d finished the first one already. Amanda looked down at the food on her plate. The vegetables had obviously been frozen. The meat was overcooked. Even the roll was burned around the edges.
    “This prostitute, Jane—” Evelyn rolled her eyes. “Her apartment was not what you’d call tidy. What was it you said, Amanda? ‘I’ll look for back copies of Good Housekeeping ’?”
    The men laughed, and Evelyn continued the story. “She was an absolute terror to deal with.”
    Amanda sipped from her wineglass, which she kept pressed to her chest as she listened to Evelyn talk about the Techwood apartment, the mouthy whore. They all laughed when she mimicked Jane Delray’s trashy accent. There was something about the way Evelyn told the story that made it sound funny instead of frightening. She could be relaying the plot of a television sitcom where two plucky gals stick their noses where they don’t belong and end up escaping through wit and humor.
    “Exit, stage left,” Amanda said.
    They all laughed, though Evelyn’s smile wasn’t quite as genuine. She tugged at the back of her hair.
    Bill reached out and affectionately slapped away her hand. “You’re going to snatch yourself bald.”
    Amanda asked, “Was it hard getting your hair cut?”
    Evelyn shrugged. Obviously, it had been, but she said, “After Zeke, I didn’t have time for it.”
    The wine had made Amanda brazen. She asked Bill, “Did you mind?”
    He took Evelyn’s hand. “Anything that makes my girl happy.”
    “I cried for at least an hour.” Evelyn laughed, though her heart wasn’t into it.
    “I think it was closer to six,” Bill said. “But I like it.”
    “It’s very stylish,” Kenny offered. “But long is nice, too.”
    Amanda patted the back of her hair. She was worse than Evelyn.
    “Why don’t you let it down?” The request came from Kenny. Amanda was both surprised and deeply embarrassed. She was also dangerously close to complete inebriation, which was probably why she complied with the request.
    Amanda silently counted out the bobby pins as she pulled them from her hair. Five, six, seven. There were eight total, plus the hair spray, which made her fingers sticky as she ran them through her hair. It draped to the middle of her back. Amanda cut the ends once a year. She only kept it down in the winter, and then only at night when she was alone.
    Evelyn sighed. “You’re so pretty.”
    Amanda finished her wine. She was already dizzy. She should at least eat a dinner roll to absorb some of the alcohol, but she didn’t want to hear the sound of her own chewing. The room was quiet except for the record playing. Sinatra singing “Autumn in New York.”
    Bill picked up the bottle and topped them off again. Amanda thought to cover the glass with her hand, but she couldn’t make herself move.
    The phone rang in the kitchen. Evelyn startled. “Gosh, who could be calling this late?”
    Amanda couldn’t be alone in the room like this. She followed Evelyn into the kitchen.
    “Mitchell residence.”
    Amanda pulled back her hair, twisting it around the crown. She stuck the bobby pins back in. Her movements were clumsy. Too much