One Summer by Karen Robards

Rachel reached out and curled her hand around Johnny’s hard-muscled upper arm, urging him forward until he stood beside her. Not by so much as the blink of an eyelash did any of the trio betray the slightest awareness that this was Johnny’s second visit to the restaurant that evening.
    Jane eyed him up and down, from the overlong hair to the scuffed boots, in a single disapproving glance.
    “Miz Morris.” If Johnny’s acknowledgment was terse, it was more than matched by the nod Jane bestowed on him.
    Once more into the breach, Rachel thought with slightly hysterical humor. “So what’s your special tonight, Jane? I’m hoping for meatloaf.”
    “You’re in luck, then.” Jane’s demeanor thawed as she focused once again on Rachel. “Meatloaf and mashed potatoes it is. You want iced tea?”
    She was leading them to a table in the back as she spoke. Victory, just as Rachel had expected. When Jane turned to walk away, beckoning them to follow, she had felt an easing in the tight muscles of Johnny’s forearm before she released it. Apparently he had not felt as confident of the outcome of the confrontation as she had.
    But she supposed that, by virtue of simply being Johnny Harris, he was used to rejection.
    “Glenda,” Jane called to a pink-uniformed waitress as they reached their destination. “Rachel here’ll have iced tea and the meatloaf.” Her eyes slid to Johnny, who, like Rachel, was settling into a seat. “What about you?”
    If there was a certain hardness to her tone, at least she had spoken directly to him, which in Rachel’s eyes was ahuge first step. It was not in Jane to snub someone without reason once she had been brought to acknowledge them.
    “I’ll have the same.”
    “Make that two,” Jane called to Glenda, then smiled at Rachel. “Tell your mama I said hi.”
    “I will,” Rachel promised. Drawn by the arrival of more customers, Jane hurried away.
    “Here’s your drinks. Food’ll be up in a minute.” Glenda removed two tall, wet glasses from a tray and placed them on the table. Then, apparently seeing Johnny for the first time, her eyes widened.
    “Why, Johnny Harris! What’re you doin’ out of jail?”
    Rachel winced. Johnny took a sip of his tea, then smiled at the woman.
    “You should’ve known they’d be letting me go eventually. You been waitin’?”
    Glenda giggled. “Hell, I got four kids now. Cain’t hardly call that waitin’.”
    “No, you can’t.”
    It was clear to Rachel that these two had once known each other rather well. She knew who Glenda was, now that she thought about it. By birth she was one of the Wrights, who were considered trash just like the Harrises. Rachel hadn’t placed her right off because Glenda had never gotten as far as high school. With her bottle-blond, perm-frizzed hair and the web of wrinkles around her eyes, she looked older than Johnny, but Rachel realized that they must be about the same age.
    “I saw your dad yesterday. He didn’t say nothin’ about your comin’ home.”
    Johnny shrugged and took another sip of tea.
    “Glenda! Can you get these people their drinks?” Jane sounded harassed.
    “Sure, Miz Morris! Good to see you, Johnny. You take care.”
    “You, too, Glenda.”
    “It’s obvious she’s glad to see you,” Rachel observed blandly after a moment’s awkward silence.
    Johnny’s mouth twitched into an involuntary half-smile as his eyes met Rachel’s. “Yeah. There’ll be a few.”
    Glenda was back with heaping plates of food, which she set down on the table with a snap. “Need ketchup?”
    “Yeah.”
    “No.” They spoke at the same time. Rachel looked at Johnny, then nodded in the direction of the waitress. She needn’t have bothered. Glenda was already setting the catsup bottle on the table before hurrying off to take care of her other customers.
    “Hey, it kills the taste,” Johnny said in response to the look on Rachel’s face as he reached for the bottle, uncapped it, and dumped what