House of Secrets Read Online Free Page B

almost imposing, sitting there on top of the hill at dusk. She watched her nephew walk slowly up the sidewalk, carrying the clear plastic case with the rose corsage in front of him, doing it carefully, as if it were a liquid that might spill. When he returned minutes later, the girl Stella was with him.
     
    Teresa Boron got out of the van and walked toward them, a camera in her hand. She could see the parents hovering near the front doorway on the deck. They didn’t come out to introduce themselves. Teresa didn’t approach. She figured this was no time to chat. After all, this was Joey’s night. Besides, Stella Sexton had captured Teresa’s eyes. My God, she thought, this girl is very pretty. Her dark brown hair was pinned up on her head. She was wearing a full-length formal, not one of the tight body dresses or skimpy satins popular with teenage girls today. The outer shell was white lace, her bare shoulders covered with a transparent lace shawl. The color was powder blue and white, the same shades as Joey’s tux. Stella had pinned a white carnation on Joey’s lapel. But Joey was still holding the red rose corsage in front of him, the flower still in its plastic case. In the back of the van, the two of them said nothing. They remained silent for miles. The two shyest students in Jackson High School have somehow found each other, Teresa thought. A perfect match. Teresa broke the silence, asking about their plans. Stella said her father and brother would be picking them up from the prom. She spoke in a hardly audible voice. “I have to be home early,” she whispered. Teresa thought, on prom night? That would not be the only deviation in prom protocol. As Teresa dropped them off at the Civic Center, Stella still hadn’t put on the red corsage. Later, Teresa learned the flower never left its plastic case.
     
    Stella Sexton had emerged from the house on Caroline Street wearing a blue-and-white wrist corsage. She would not replace it with the rose.
     
    “It’s a gift from my father,” she said. s They watched them in an awkward slow dance. A couple of times, Joel tried to hold her hand, but Stella would touch him only for a few moments, then slide her fingers away. They sat at Terry and Traci’s table. When Joel slipped away for a cigarette, Traci followed him outside. He sucked hard on the smoke. Traci Turify had never seen him so frustrated. “Man,” he said. “She hardly says anything.” Traci was feeling like little miss matchmaker. She’d personally gone to Stella Sexton and told her that Joel Good wanted to ask her out. Only after she said she’d probably go did Joel decide to invite her as his date. “Maybe she’s nervous,”
    Traci said. “Nervous?”
     
    “Well, she’s not well-liked at school. You know that.” They’d talked about her pregnancy. Neither Traci or Terry had been able to get a straight answer from Stella about the father of her baby, whether he was ever coming back. “Maybe that’s it,” Traci said. “This boyfriend in the service.”
     
    “I don’t know,” Joel said. Joel wanted to ask her to a class trip the next day to Cedar Point, a world-class amusement park west of Cleveland. “But, man, she sure is shy,” he said.
     
    Coming from him, Traci thought, that had to be about as shy as shy gets. They went back inside. Well before midnight, Traci came back from the dance floor and realized Joel and Stella were gone. A couple days later in school, Traci asked him, “So, how did it SA)
     
    Joel looked disappointed. “I took her home and that was it.”
     
    “You didn’t go to Cedar Point?” she asked. He shook his head. Joel Good never mentioned Stella Sexton again until their graduation ceremony. Stella had just walked past Traci with her diploma. She said hi, but Stella just kept walking, not even bothering to look at her or wave.
     
    When she saw Joel, she asked, “Hey, what’s the deal with Stella?”
     
    “I don’t know,” he said. “She doesn’t