The Diary Read Free Page B

look bad. Elizabeth was well aware that she was exceptionally pretty. Even if she hadn’t known it from looking in the mirror, the steady flow of compliments she’d been receiving all her life would have confirmed it. When she’d been a baby in her carriage, it had been common, according to Mildred, for people to stop on the street to admire her. Nowadays, with her dark hair and classic features, her slim hips and shapely bosom, she frequently drew comparisons to her namesake, Elizabeth Taylor. The only difference between her and the star of National Velvet , it was often said, was that Elizabeth Harvey’s eyes were hazel instead of violet, the color of greenstone shot through with veins of ore.
    But if AJ found her attractive, he didn’t remark on it. “Have a seat,” he said, motioning once more toward the wooden folding chair opposite his easel. She gingerly lowered herself into it, glancing nervously about as she did. But though there were people milling about, on their way to the food stalls or the dime-toss or the Tilt-a-Whirl grinding away to its tinkling refrain, she saw no one she recognized who would be likely to report back to her mother. The fairgrounds were located in the neighboring township of Shaw Creek, twenty miles east of Emory, and thus drew crowds from two counties. It wasn’t difficult to get lost in the crowd.
    AJ squinted slightly as if to set her in his sights, then began to sketch with quick, sure strokes. Observing him out of the corner of her eye as she held her pose, Elizabeth was surprised and impressed. Had he been this good at drawing in school? If so, he’d kept it under wraps because she couldn’t recall having seen a single piece of artwork. In those days, when he wasn’t prowling the halls like a lone wolf, he sat in class without contributing much. (Despite which, his grades never seemed to suffer—another mystery about AJ.) She found herself remembering other things as well, like how she occasionally used to catch him eyeing her and her friends, wearing an expression of bemused disdain as if he found the whole scene, with its pom-poms and letter jackets and class rings, vaguely pathetic. Which was odd, she reflected, since most people would have thought it was AJ’s life that was pathetic.
    From the age of nine he’d lived with his grandparents just outside town, along one of the county roads in an area called Cement Town, so dubbed because of the cement factory that dominated the landscape. Unfortunately, jobs weren’t the only thing the factory provided: Its belching stacks deposited a gritty dust, like a gray pall, over everything within a one-mile radius. It was said by those who lived in Cement Town that no amount of hosing or sweeping could remove that dust. It was embedded in the weave of carpets and curtains and upholstery. It clung to shelves, and to the books and knickknacks that lined those shelves. It ran like a line drawn in gray chalk along baseboards and ceiling moldings. It worked its way into hair and clothing and the treads of shoes. At times it could even be felt gritting like graphite between one’s back teeth.
    Dead center in all that grayness sat Joe and Sally Keener’s small grocery store. How they eked out a living was anyone’s guess, given the modest means of their customers. Everyone, including the Keeners themselves, must have wondered how they managed to stay afloat year after year, peddling jarred and boxed goods with more dust on them than on the pavement outside, shrunken heads of lettuce, gray-tinted lunch meats of indeterminate origin, and crackers and loaves of bread long past their expiration dates. The likeliest reason was that they were the only grocers for miles around and many of the people who lived in Cement Town didn’t own cars.
    Once, on her way to visit a friend at one of the outlying farms, she stopped at the Keeners’ store, where AJ worked after school and on