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“It’s a mean one, it is. One they’ve been saying since she was in fifth grade, for reasons that weren’t even her fault.” He clears his throat, as though uttering it is painful, and looks me straight in the eye.
“They call her Dirty Sally. Just because she’s poor.”
Billi glances up at me, secondhand shame evident in her expression then resumes staring at her lap.
The air isstale by the time we walk out Mr. Bailey’s front door, much like the material I got to begin this article. The unpleasant scent of a chicken farm drifts in on the breeze, and I do my best to keep from breathing.
“So, do you want to tell me the story behind your brother, or are you going to force me to ask the police about it? I can do either, but the police might not like my line of questioning, and you know how reporters are, never taking no for an answer. Now’s your chance to tell me what really happened.”
Billi opens the passenger door and slumps into her seat. I guess I’m driving us back. “There was never a police report filed,” she mutters, closing the door on a sigh. “They were just being stupid.”
“So, it wasn’t just him?”
She shakes her head. “No, it was a whole group from the basketball team. He was a senior in high school, and it was the night before they were set to leave for the state championship game in Searcy. They’d been drinking, Eric Westman—the captain of the team—took them on a joyride, and they wound up in front of Sally’s house. You know how kids are…”
Unfortunately, I do. I was a drunk teenager once, and that combination goes together about as well as gasoline and a Zippo lighter.
“The bullies picked on the underdog, an age-old story,” I say.
She sits up straighter in her seat. “Not bullies, per se. But they weren’t nice that night. Hacked away at her vegetable garden with pocketknives, carved their initials on the side of her house—if you can call it that. And then—” She pauses.
“Then?”
“Someone sailed a brick covered in expletives and human waste through her window. The brick hit her stove and sent embers flying, igniting a small fire that she managed to get out. Almost hit her. Probably would have killed her if it had.”
I cringe at the mental image.
“Your brother is the one who threw it?”
She shrugs. “He said it wasn’t him specifically, not that it mattered. His initials were already carved into the house, and once you’ve done a little damage to someone, does it count that you didn’t do a lot?”
There it is again, another Billi-ism that tugs at my heart. “I suppose not. What happened after that?”
“The team was ejected from the state championship, and everyone blamed my brother. Everyone but the guys who knew what really happened that is.”
“Did Sally press charges?” I ask. “Or sue?”
This earns a bitter laugh from Billi. “Who would she sue? No one would side with her. If you’d met her, you’d see for yourself why.”
“Maybe I should meet her then.”
“Maybe you should. Just don’t ask me to come with you.”
“That afraid of her, huh?”
“Not afraid of her, really. It’s just hard to look her in the eye once you’ve seen her circumstances. Especially once you know that someone you love might have made them worse.”
There’s so much weight aroundher circumstancesthat I feel it in my gut, and my mind immediately spins with possibilities. The woman who wandered into the hotel looked unkempt and, well…dirty. Nothing a long shower wouldn’t fix, but something tells me there’s more behind the cruel nickname than a little soot and stench. But even a reporter can’t go around asking intimate questions to people he’s never met. Plus, the point of my trip here is the anniversary of that fire, not some little old woman with no friends. My boss is calling tonight for an update, and I haven’t written a single word. The sooner I sit down and start typing, the better.
I turn right onto the two-lane road leading back to the hotel. The plan is to drop Billi off and head for my room, where I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon listening to Mr. Bailey’s interview and beginning my article. There isn’t much to go on, but I have enough to give me a head start, a strong beginning paragraph or two at minimum. If I have something to report to Bing, it should appease him for the moment.
After that, I need to spend the day at the library.
Nine words.That’s how many I wrote when I turned off my word processor and headed for the library. Despite all my attempts at self-disciplinary focus, the thought of research kept calling me. As did Bing, my boss.
“How’s the story going, Hardwick?” he said by way of hello while I was trying to start the article, his gruff voice making my left ear itch.
“Working on it now,” I responded while staring at the cursor on my document, blinking at me from a stark white, blank page.Liar, liar,it seemed to say, keeping time with my rising guilt. I typed in the words “Tragedy struck Silver Bell, Arkansas nearly thirty years ago” just to make myself feel better. An odd pick-me-up on the back of someone else’s misfortune that I’m not proud of, but in this case, desperate times call for lies.
