Chapter 5: The Loft

Joanna drove me to the co-op in her farm truck with a towel under me.

I dripped pond water on her seat the whole way, and she didn't say a word until she parked.

"You let them do that to you," she said finally.

"I let them do it once."

"Mason."

"Once, Jo. And everybody in that yard filmed it."

She turned off the engine.

For a second she just looked at me, with her braid coming loose and her hands tight on the wheel.

"I wanted to put Dale through the fence," she said.

"I noticed."

"I'd have enjoyed it."

I laughed, and it hurt my ribs, and I kept laughing.

She climbed out and slammed her door.

The packing shed was a long tin building on Mill Road, smelling of cardboard and cold produce.

At the back, a steel stair led up to a loft where the co-op kept old crates and a cot.

Joanna had hung a curtain across one corner and set a lamp on an apple box.

"My brother used it when he came home from the Army," she said. "He doesn't need it now."

"Jo."

"Don't thank me. Just get out of those clothes."

She tossed me a folded flannel shirt and a pair of canvas pants.

"These will be short on you."

"I'll live."

She turned her back while I changed, and neither of us said anything about it.

When I turned around, she was holding a first aid kit and looking at my arm.

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