Read Online Dare Truth Or Promise by Paula Boock - Free Book Online Page B

and swung back to her. “You didn’t guess? God, Louie, I haven’t been able to think of anything else since the day I met you.”
    “Really?” Louie was delighted. She touched Willa’s arm, her shoulder in its embroidered coat. It was so strange, so new to do that, and Louie felt awkward suddenly, as if she didn’t know how.
    “Louie,” Willa wrapped her arms around her knees and stared back down the empty runway. “There’s something I have to tell you.” Her voice was strained, choked. She turned to Louie, who was feeling that same icicle slide down her back. “This isn’t the first. I’ve had a … a relationship before.”
    Louie blinked. “With a woman?”
    “Her name was Cathy. She was my best friend at Miller Park. It happened in the Christmas holidays.” Willa’s arm jerked as she pulled at some grass and Louie heard the tuff, tuff of it coming away. “Neither of us were really sure about it. Well, Cathy got pretty weird, and I tried to end it, then she got more upset. I just didn’t know what to do, what she wanted me to do. Does this make any sense?”

    Louie nodded.
    “I really ended it back in February, but every now and then she’d spin out and I’d get a panic call. She was freaked out by her family. They’re fundamentalists, and she was terrified her stepfather would find out. Also she thought God was going to send her to eternal damnation or something.”
    Louie snorted a little, then wondered what the Catholic Church’s view would be. She had a fair idea.
    “One day, a few months ago now,” Willa continued, “I got this phone call from her and I went around. She was in a mess and I was just hugging her, you know, not doing anything, and her weird stepbrother came in. Keith. He was always hanging around. Anyway, he went berserk and started all this arm waving and calling down God and so on, and next thing I know all their family are there, and Cathy’s taking their side. They called the school, they called my mother, it was hideous.”
    “Oh, Willa.”
    She turned to Louie fiercely “I want you to know this. I want you to know everything, and then if you don’t want to have anything to do with me, go now. Go now, Louie, because I can’t help what I feel.”
    This time Louie touched her without awkwardness, she held her close and Willa clung to her. “I’m not afraid, Willa,” she said. “I love you, and I’m not afraid of that.”
 


9
Willa
    Judas knew about hats too. As soon as she shoved the black hat on her head he began leaping about and sniffing at the door. Willa ignored him. She looked again at the photo Louie had given her. It was a picture of the two of them in a held, an enormous blurred aeroplane behind them. Louie was crouched, laughing, her hands over her ears, and Willa was jumping high, one arm outstretched, the other out of the picture as if she was being snatched away by someone invisible. They’d been back at the airport several times now, and the last time Louie had brought her super-duper automatic everything camera and set it up on a fence post to take photos of them. Willa carefully put it back in her wallet just as the phone rang.

    It was Louie.
    “When are you coming?” she asked.
    “I was just about to leave.”
    “Good.”
    “Why, am I late?”
    “No, no.” Louie lowered her voice. “I just wanted to hear your voice, that’s all. Dad’s had another argument with Marietta so she’ll be grumpy.”
    “Oh great.”
    “It’s all right, no one takes any notice of her. Nic’s arrived too. Must have smelt the cooking. Anyway, come soon, please.”

    “I’m on my way.”
    “Judas?”
    “He’s coming too. Is that all right?”
    “Yep, fine. See you then.”
    “See you.” Willa was smiling to herself.
    “Bye.
    “Bye.
    “Au revoir.”
    “Louie, this is dumb. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” Willa hung up and hustled Judas out the door.
    p.

    Tony Angelo was in expansive mode. He waved his arms in welcome to Willa, he