“Oh, um, wow. So, uh, what do you do with a degree in astrophysics?”

“Become an astrophysicist.”

Joshua stared at me. I was being impossible again, saying things he didn’t know how to respond to. Serial conversation killer, Renee called me.

When she came back with the mail, I expected her to give me an accusatory look, since Joshua and I were sitting there in silence. Instead, she slammed the front door and practically ran across the room to the kitchen.

“Wavy, will you come in here?” she called.

7

RENEE

I went down to get the mail to give Joshua and Wavy a chance to talk in private. She did need to get on with her life. Then I saw what was in the mailbox: a pizza coupon flier and one of those familiar, heartbreaking envelopes. A fancy envelope, addressed to Jesse Joe Barfoot, Jr. Inmate #451197. Stamped UNAUTHORIZED CORRESPONDENCE in big red letters. Except this one wasn’t. This envelope had a big red stamp that said RELEASED.

A less romantic person might have taken a more measured approach. Me, I thought, Screw moving on. This is true love! Clutching the mail in one hand, and my boobs in the other, I ran up both flights of stairs.

I put the envelope down in the middle of the kitchen table, and when Wavy walked in, I was staring at it in disbelief. She picked up the letter and her hands started to shake. I can only imagine what was going on inside her head, because my brain was lit up like the Vegas strip.

“Does that mean he’s been paroled? Don’t they have to notify you? If he’s out, why hasn’t he come to see you?” I said.

Oh, right. If he hadn’t been getting her letters, he wouldn’t know our address. It wasn’t like he could drop by her aunt’s house and say, “Hey, where’s Wavy?”

How was he going to find her?

He wasn’t. We were going to find him. At last, I wasn’t just a fat college girl watching a soap opera. I was part of the drama. I was going to rewrite the third act and change it from tragedy to happily ever after.

While Wavy sat there in shock, the envelope pressed between both her hands, I picked up the phone and started making calls, all of them long distance and out of state. I wondered what Mrs. Brenda Newling would say when Wavy’s phone bill hit triple digits.

“Hey, what’s up?” Joshua said. He stood in the doorway, looking unbelievably sexy.

“Give us a couple minutes, okay?” I was on hold with someone at the office where they kept the records for the state’s sex offender registry, a thing I hadn’t even known existed until somebody at the Department of Corrections transferred me there.

“Is she okay?” He was looking at Wavy, who seemed a little shaky.

“She’s had some news—”

“Ma’am?” Someone came back on the other end of the phone line. “Do you have the offender’s full legal name?”

“Jesse Joe Barfoot, Jr. I don’t know what the process is—”

“One moment, please.”

Wavy looked at me expectantly.

The woman came back on the line and read me a street address, apartment number, and city. Wellburg, which was across the state line, less than three hours away. I wrote it down on the back of the pizza flier, and as soon as Wavy saw it, she jumped up from the table and brushed past Joshua in the doorway. I knew exactly where she was going: to get ready for her reunion with Kellen.

“So, do you think I have a chance with Wavy?” Joshua shot me a panty-melting grin.

For a few seconds, a whole scenario played out in my mind. After I broke the bad news to him about Wavy’s fiancé being paroled, I would usher him into my bedroom. Wavy could drive herself to Wellburg. Meanwhile, I would comfort Joshua, listening sympathetically, while I arranged myself on my bed in a flattering pose. I would make him feel sexy and smart and funny.

That’s exactly what I was imagining. I would get him in my room and seduce him, thereby accomplishing the whole point of me inviting him to the party in the first place. He really was amazingly good-looking. It wouldn’t be a hardship to fall into bed with him, but what kind of lies would I have to tell myself to pretend I wasn’t a second choice rebound?

“The thing is,” I said. “Wavy has a lot of baggage. Like a nine-piece matched set of hard-sided Samsonite. The girl is so far—”

For the first time in my life, I stopped. It wasn’t my story to tell.

“What? Help me here,” Joshua said. Even though I wasn’t going to kiss his booboo and make it better, I yanked the Band-Aid off.

“Wavy’s engaged. She’s going to see her fiancé as soon as she gets out of the shower.”

*   *   *

I would have needed new clothes and hours to get ready. Wavy showered, fluffed her wispy hair, and put on her favorite dress. It was gray with thin white stripes in it, worn to limp softness. She hadn’t seen him in almost seven years and that’s what she was wearing.

On the drive, we made a plan. Or I made a plan anyway. I would drop Wavy off at Kellen’s house, and then I would go to the library at Wellburg College and work on my Women’s Studies essay. That way my evening wouldn’t be a total waste, and Wavy could check in with me before I drove home.

By the time we got to Wellburg, it was late afternoon and it had started to rain. We circled Kellen’s address and then parked half a block back, where we could see the front door to the apartment building, which was a run-down brick tenement. It faced onto what was basically an alley, with garbage Dumpsters on the sidewalks.