Read Online Johnston - I Promise by Joan Johnston - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Joan Johnston
Ads: Link
from me without askin’, so I guess her claim to this here scrap of cotton is only secondhand.
“And this here patch is from your first pair of long pants. I made ’em myself. Kinda cute, don’t ya think, boy?”
He could remember feeling agonizingly embarrassed as a nine-year-old by the scrap of pale blue denim embroidered with a brown teddy bear. Now every time he glimpsed it while making his bed, he got a lump in his throat.
A photograph of his grandmother as a young woman sat on the copper-plated dry sink. It was the only thing he had that gave him even a remote idea what his mother might have looked like. He had overheard his grandmother confiding to a friend that his father had torn up every last picture of Rosemary North in front of Marsh’s crib one night in a drunken frenzy.
If it hadn’t been for Grandma Dennison telling him again and again that his father was only grieving, that he didn’t mean the awful names he called his son, Marsh might have turned out a lot worse than he had.
As it was, he had absorbed enough of his father’s invective in the years after his grandmother’s death to become the worst discipline problem Uvalde High School had ever known. He had been angry with his father and taken it out on the whole world.
He had spent almost as much time suspended from high school—for smoking in the bathroom, disrespect to teachers, and fighting—as he had in class. He lost his driver’s license the third time Sheriff Davis caught him driving drunk. He was nabbed shoplifting at Shepherd’s clothing store on Getty Street and spent an uncomfortable hour sitting on an upended wooden crate in the storage room until his father came to get him. Cyrus had paid for the fancy tooled leather belt Marsh had swiped, then taken him home and beaten him with it.
Because of his looks—and because he seemed reckless and a little bit dangerous—a lot of wide-eyed girls had been his for the asking. He had taken his share of them out in his pickup and kissed them and held them and pretended he had more experience than he really did.
Gloria Perkins, the mother of one of his classmates, had seduced him the summer he turned sixteen. After that, he had found girls with reputations like his who would go all the way. He had been lucky none of them ever got pregnant. It sure wasn’t because he had been careful, because he hadn’t.
A short stint for vandalism in the Texas Youth Commission’s Brownwood Correctional Facility—he had spray painted some downright nasty words on the bus of a visiting football team—had made him realize that his father wasn’t suffering as much from his antics as he was. After that, he had pretty much straightened up his act, at least enough to finish high school.
Of course, the damage to his reputation was already done. In a small town, once you’d made a name for yourself, it was pretty near impossible to change people’s opinion of you. He was known in Uvalde as “that wild North boy” and would be until the day he died.
It had never much mattered to him what people thought. Until now. He had an idea what kind of hassle his reputation was going to cause with Delia Carson’s family. She was the pampered princess of the Circle Crown. He was the town’s bad boy.
Why had Delia agreed to go out with him in the first place? Maybe there was a little bit of rebel in her, too. All Marsh could think about was seeing her again. He wondered whether she would show up at the live oak to meet him. He hoped she would. It surprised him just how much it mattered.
Delia knew she was asking for trouble. Her father had made it plain what the consequences would be if he caught her with Marsh North. But it had occurred to her as he held a gun to her head and threatened her, that he might kill her someday whether she was guilty or not. She might as well be guilty.
When she arrived at the spot where North was supposed to be waiting for her, she was disappointed to find he wasn’t there.
“And this here patch is from your first pair of long pants. I made ’em myself. Kinda cute, don’t ya think, boy?”
He could remember feeling agonizingly embarrassed as a nine-year-old by the scrap of pale blue denim embroidered with a brown teddy bear. Now every time he glimpsed it while making his bed, he got a lump in his throat.
A photograph of his grandmother as a young woman sat on the copper-plated dry sink. It was the only thing he had that gave him even a remote idea what his mother might have looked like. He had overheard his grandmother confiding to a friend that his father had torn up every last picture of Rosemary North in front of Marsh’s crib one night in a drunken frenzy.
If it hadn’t been for Grandma Dennison telling him again and again that his father was only grieving, that he didn’t mean the awful names he called his son, Marsh might have turned out a lot worse than he had.
As it was, he had absorbed enough of his father’s invective in the years after his grandmother’s death to become the worst discipline problem Uvalde High School had ever known. He had been angry with his father and taken it out on the whole world.
He had spent almost as much time suspended from high school—for smoking in the bathroom, disrespect to teachers, and fighting—as he had in class. He lost his driver’s license the third time Sheriff Davis caught him driving drunk. He was nabbed shoplifting at Shepherd’s clothing store on Getty Street and spent an uncomfortable hour sitting on an upended wooden crate in the storage room until his father came to get him. Cyrus had paid for the fancy tooled leather belt Marsh had swiped, then taken him home and beaten him with it.
Because of his looks—and because he seemed reckless and a little bit dangerous—a lot of wide-eyed girls had been his for the asking. He had taken his share of them out in his pickup and kissed them and held them and pretended he had more experience than he really did.
Gloria Perkins, the mother of one of his classmates, had seduced him the summer he turned sixteen. After that, he had found girls with reputations like his who would go all the way. He had been lucky none of them ever got pregnant. It sure wasn’t because he had been careful, because he hadn’t.
A short stint for vandalism in the Texas Youth Commission’s Brownwood Correctional Facility—he had spray painted some downright nasty words on the bus of a visiting football team—had made him realize that his father wasn’t suffering as much from his antics as he was. After that, he had pretty much straightened up his act, at least enough to finish high school.
Of course, the damage to his reputation was already done. In a small town, once you’d made a name for yourself, it was pretty near impossible to change people’s opinion of you. He was known in Uvalde as “that wild North boy” and would be until the day he died.
It had never much mattered to him what people thought. Until now. He had an idea what kind of hassle his reputation was going to cause with Delia Carson’s family. She was the pampered princess of the Circle Crown. He was the town’s bad boy.
Why had Delia agreed to go out with him in the first place? Maybe there was a little bit of rebel in her, too. All Marsh could think about was seeing her again. He wondered whether she would show up at the live oak to meet him. He hoped she would. It surprised him just how much it mattered.
Delia knew she was asking for trouble. Her father had made it plain what the consequences would be if he caught her with Marsh North. But it had occurred to her as he held a gun to her head and threatened her, that he might kill her someday whether she was guilty or not. She might as well be guilty.
When she arrived at the spot where North was supposed to be waiting for her, she was disappointed to find he wasn’t there.
Similar Books
