Chapter Eight – Oasis

“Married?!” Ryan’s eyes looked as if they would pop out of his head at any moment. “As in, ’til death do us part married?”

“Yeah.” Ryan was handling Dawn’s news about as well as I was. His mouth had hung open the whole drive to school, a look of shock and awe plastered on his face. The look picked right back up when we sat down at the lunch table. It pretty much mirrored how I had looked all weekend. Every time I tried to get Dawn alone to ask her what was going on, she had some ready-made excuse to get away from me. This morning, she wouldn’t leave her room until five minutes before Ryan picked me up, even though I knew she was awake. Dawn has always been a morning person.

He picked at his food. “Isn’t Dawn a little…young to be married?”

“I don’t know, man. She’s nineteen. I guess that’s old enough.” I was beyond trying to make sense of this. Maybe someday Dawn would stop avoiding me and just explain things. For now I was just going to pretend things were the same as always and forget about the last few days.

Ryan continued to pick at his slice of pizza, carefully pulling any bit of bacon he could from between the other toppings. “I just,” he started quietly. His pause was way long, before he finished with only, “wow.”

It was no secret that Ryan had long harbored a crush on my sister. When we were kids, he used to leave anonymous love notes for her taped to the back door. I’m not sure if she ever let him know that she knew it was him the whole time, but I bet he realized by now. I wondered what he was thinking. It was unlike Ryan not to have something concrete to say.

An ear-splitting shriek yanked me out of my reverie. Savannah Heaton stood at the end of lunch table five, her shirt and mini-skirt dripping with milk. I watched as her face blitzed through five different shades of red, before settling on a deep reddish-purple. It seemed as if her skin was glowing.

Beside her, holding a now empty tray, stood Sadie Marks. What on Earth was she doing at school today? Her eyes were red and puffy; the tray shook in her trembling hands. For a while I thought she was going to break down crying right there, but eventually she squared her shoulders and faced Savannah.

“I’m so sorry,” she said boldly, “I didn’t see you there.”

If possible, Savannah’s face got even redder. “How the hell didn’t ya see me? Look what you did, you whore!”

Gasps reverberated throughout the entire cafeteria, and Sadie’s gaze dropped to the ground. She set her tray on the table and turned and walked silently out of the cafeteria.

“What a bitch,” Ryan was saying beside me. “Seriously, she’s a piece a work. This school would be so much better if Savannah wasn’t here.”

I was still thinking about what Ryan said when I left school that afternoon and saw the flyers. They were everywhere – posted to all the pillars out front, tucked under windshield wipers of all the cars in the lot. Savannah and her followers were handing them to anyone who walked by. Numbly I took one, knowing it couldn’t be good.

The glossy paper advertised the only strip club in Vicksburg, the Oasis. Of course, we didn’t call it a strip club; that wouldn’t be proper. It was a Gentlemen’s Lounge, because that was so much classier. All I knew about it was that it was even farther out of town than the crappy little gas station I worked at, Ryan’s older brothers loved going out there on the weekends, and according to Savannah and her mama, anyone who frequented such a place was earning a one-way ticket to hell.

So why was she advertising for such a place? Sure, she might change into sin clothes on her way to school everyday without her mama knowing, but even I didn’t think she would support a place like the Oasis. I studied the paper closer, trying to figure out what she was getting at.

My heart jumped into my throat. Oh, no.

“Classy, huh?” Ryan sidled up next to me and grabbed the flyer out of my hand. “If my mama wouldn’t skin me alive for hittin’ a girl, I swear I’d lay Savannah right flat in this parking lot.”

I couldn’t even form a response. My mind was still burned with the image of Sadie Marks on the flyer. Featured dancer, it said. No wonder Mr. Marks was so upset about her having work.

We reached Ryan’s truck; he pulled the flyer from beneath the wiper and shredded it, throwing the pieces into the bed. It was just after I climbed in to the passenger side that I saw her: Sadie Marks sat on the curb across the street from the parking lot. She had her knees tucked up to her chest with her head resting on them. Even from this distance I could see the glisten of her tears. My stomach churned and anger burned hot through my veins.

I was beginning to think Ryan was right at lunch. This school would be a much better place without Savannah Heaton.