“Hi.”
I couldn't see his socks.
He drummed his fingers on both legs. “Robert's okay, I hear.”
“Yes.” I felt like an idiot, finding so little to say. I did not want him to think me unfriendly after all he'd done yesterday; he didn't deserve that. “Thanks again for your help with Clarissa, Derek. I really appreciate it.”
He nodded. “You're welcome.”
Well. If Pastor Beekins didn't preach an appropriate sermon that dayâ“Forgiven, But Not Forgotten.” What had he done last night, I wondered, been a fly on our wall? “What do we do,” he asked, “when God has forgiven us of a sin, but the natural consequences of that sin remain to trouble our lives, maybe even the lives of those we love?” Pastor Beekins leaned over the pulpit. “Because I'll let you in on a little secret. God will forgive you, but nature won't.”
Derek shifted in his seat, his arm rubbing against mine. He drew it away.
My mind wandered back to Daddy and Mama. And Celia. For the hundredth time I wished I'd never listened to that conversation last night. Never, ever. Vaguely, I heard Pastor talk about God's turning even the negative consequences of sin in our lives to good. But I could not concentrate on his words. Over and over again I heard Mama's voice, telling me how she'd always loved Daddy. Never once letting on that she'd been so hurt. I'd thought their relationship so perfect.
How
could he have done it?
. . . So I'll stay
Hung up on you,
That's all I can do.
I just keep on dreamin',
My thoughts on you schemin'
To make you my own,
My love for you's grown.
I'm nothin' but hung up,
You just got me strung up,
I'm nothin' but hung up on you.
Tiredly, I hummed along with Greg and LuvRush as I changed the sheets on my bed Sunday afternoon. Katherine had come over and sat in the family room with Daddy and Robert. Clarissa played with Alma Sue. My mind still reeled with thoughts of Daddy and Mama and Celia and Katherine, and I just wished it would be
quiet.
Then I happened to glance out my window and spotted Clarissa, kicking through the front lawn, arms pumping, chin in the air. Mad as a hornet.
Oh, great. Something else I'd have to take care of.
The door banged open. I met her in the hall. “Trouble with your friends?”
“Yes!” Her eyes blazed. “Alma Sue won't let me do
anything
I want. She always has to be the boss of everything. Plus, she cheats!” She stomped away from me and back again. “We played checkers, and I had to go to the bathroom, and when I got back, she'd moved the
whole board
around. Sayin', âLook, Clarissa,'” my sister's voice mimicked in singsong, “âI can jump this man, and this one and this one.'” Clarissa breathed hard, tears filling her eyes. “Sometimes I just
hate
her!”
Daddy appeared. “What's goin' on?”
“She's fightin' with Alma Sue again.” I patted my sister empathetically on the head. “Just stay here, sweets, you don't need to play with her anyway. What about Della?”
“She can't play this afternoon.” Clarissa crossed her arms and pressed them against her chest. “Oooh, Alma Sue makes me so
mad!”
“Well, make sure you stay that way.” I couldn't resist the dig. “Don't go easin' up on her just because she offers you a bag of candy.”
Clarissa seared me with a look, as if to ask how could I possibly
think
she'd stoop so low.
“Come on, Clarissa, Katherine's here.” Daddy urged her down the hall. “She's playin' with Robert on the computer. I'm sure they'll give you a turn.”
“I don't
want
to play on the computer! I don't
want
to see Katherine. I am just too
mad!”
Clarissa humphed her way into her bedroom and slammed the door. Daddy and I looked at each other. “Must have gotten your mama's temperament,” he commented.
Katherine materialized in the family room doorway. “Did I just hear a tornado blow in?”
“Yup.” Daddy eased to her side. “Wanna get under a desk somewhere?”
They smiled at each other secretively, forgetting my presence. I swung away toward my bedroom, irritated and weary and hopelessly sorry for myself. Couldn't even summon the energy to finish making my bed. Instead I found myself dawdling before the LuvRush photo, staring with longing at Greg's face.
Some fifteen minutes later I sat at my desk, flipping halfheartedly through the pages of
Teen Dream
when I heard scraping noises on the porch. I tried to ignore them, but they did not stop.
Now what?
Sighing, I tossed down the magazine and went to investigate. Only to find Clarissa, with creased forehead and a determined jaw, setting our lightweight outdoor folding chairs around the perimeter of the porch.
“Clarissa.
What
are you doing?”
“Guardin' our property.”
“Guardin' it? From who?”
“Alma Sue.” She made a
tsking
noise, as if I were an idiot to have to ask.
I gazed at the chairs, which weren't much heavier than the wind. “Hm. Looks like a real fortress.”
“I know she won't be happy to stay in her own house and leave me alone,” Clarissa said in a rush. “She'll come over here with her big self, sure as you're livin'. And if I'm not out here to watch things, no tellin'
what
she'll do.”
I forced my mouth not to smile. “I see.” I leaned against the door, clearing my throat with all seriousness. “You gonna just sit out here?”
“Yyyup.”
“Anything I can do?”
“Nnope.” She puckered her chin at me. “I got it all under control.”
“Okay.” I left her to the war.
I didn't see what happened next. Suppose that's a good thing, because I'd surely have wrung a neck. But, as Clarissa poured out her sordid tale not one hour later, I could well envision the scene.
At first, Clarissa played the good soldier, sitting cross-legged on the porch and keeping watch. She soon found this quite boring, however. No harm in keeping occupied while she guarded, she thought. Quickly fetching a brand-new coloring book and a box of crayons, she lay on her stomach on the porch, soon absorbed in filling out a picture. The warm air made her more than a little sleepy. Besides, coloring always did tend to demand her utmost concentration.
Somehow, she let down her guard.
Next thing she knew, Alma Sue stood on the top step, glaring down at her, water pistol clutched in her hand.
“What's this?” she taunted. “A little girl coloring?” And with that, she swept her athletic body through the folding chairs. Clarissa faced a moment of unadulterated terror as she stretched her neck up to view the dreadful apparition towering above her, complete with the barrel of a gun.
Pffzzzt.
A stream of water shot out of the pistol onto her page. A second shot, and a third, and before Clarissa could even react, the coloring book lay in utter ruin. Alma Sue, coward that she was, turned and ran. Wailing to the heavens, Clarissa picked up the book by one soggy corner and hightailed inside in full retreat.
“I'll
never
talk to her
again!”
Clarissa sobbed, her coloring book leaking blue-and-yellow drops onto the hall floor.
“Thatâthat Amazon!” I pried the evidence from my sister's hands, holding a palm under it to catch the water. “We should call her mama right now.” I marched to the kitchen and dumped the book into the trash. By the time I returned, Clarissa sat in Daddy's arms, crying into his shoulder like a toddler.
“What are you going to do about it?” I demanded.
Daddy rubbed Clarissa's back. Katherine's hand rested on her shoulder. Robert had hobbled over on his crutches and looked on in empathetic silence.
“Maybe we oughtta break Alma Sue's leg,” he offered.
Daddy tossed him a look.
“All right, Clarissa.” Daddy slid her down to the floor. “You're gonna be all right. Not the nicest thing to happen, I know. But you just stay inside now for the rest of the day. Let Alma Sue cool off.”
Clarissa sniffed. “But now I don't have anything to color.”
Katherine watched her mournfully. “Maybe tomorrow we could buyâ”
Daddy held up a hand, stopping Katherine in midsentence. “You have other coloring books, Clarissa. And you have plenty of games, and books to read, and the computer.”
Before long, Clarissa and Katherine were playing dominoes on the coffee table. I watched for a while, a tirade of accusations against Alma Sue running through my head. That girl was nothing but a big bully. Somehow I had to teach Clarissa to stand up to her. Without getting creamed.
One of these days, I promised myself, Clarissa was going to learn to fight back.
Katherine carved out a few moments to talk to me in my room that afternoon, but we found ourselves at an impasse over the eavesdropped conversation. I did not want Daddy to know I'd listened. He'd be so disappointed, and he'd lose some of his trust in me. Katherine gently insisted that it wasn't her place to talk to me about what had happened in Daddy's personal life so many years ago.
I knew I'd put her in a difficult position. In a way she betrayed Daddy by not telling him, yet she'd betray me if she did. She'd chosen me, and for that I felt grateful. I just wasn't sure why.
That evening Katherine suggested that she and Daddy take a drive. Well. Guess I couldn't listen to any conversation that way, could I? As they left, I avoided looking at her, imagining the hint of a knowing smile on her lips.
I don't know how Katherine finagled it. Except through pure use of her charm. But somehow during their talk that night, she convinced Daddy to allow me to meet Greg. After he got home, Daddy came into my bedroom and told me he'd changed his mind.
With all that had happened, I needed some good news. I nearly went nuts.
“Oh, are you sure?” I cried, bouncing up and down. Then instantly thought,
What a stupid thing to say! Like you want him to take it back?
“Oh, thank you, Daddy, thank you, thank you!” I threw my arms around his neck.
He hugged me back almost wearily, as if he wondered what on earth he'd let himself be talked into. “Yeah, well, thank Katherine,” he said as he nudged me off of him. “You've got a friend in your corner, that's all I can say.”
For the second night in a row I hardly slept, this time due to sheer excitement. You might wonder how I managed to so quickly push aside my pain over what I'd heard about Daddy's past. Looking back, I realize my confusion and hurt were deep enough that subconsciously I sought a diversion. Well, I'd certainly found one, and I would use it to its fullest. A naïve thought, as I would discover. Diverted pain does not magically disappear. It merely sinks to a deeper level, flowing like a hidden stream beneath the bedrock of one's soul.
Katherine called Monday afternoon, and I thanked her profusely for what she'd done. “Do you know anything more?” I prodded. She wasn't sure when Greg and Celia would arrive, she replied. They'd be driving in from Lexington in the next day or two.
The next
day
or two? That really sent me over the edge. I could hardly enter my room without ogling Greg's picture. Clarissa caught me swooning over it more than once. Each time, I swung away as if caught at something. I taped Greg's song “Hung Up on You” from the radio, then played it over and over and over again. I knew every word, every nuance and note of harmony in that song. I read the article on him ten times, forming questions to ask. Telling myself that when we met I'd be calm, cool, and collected, full of charm and grace.
So much for realistic thinking.
I
dreamed my way through school the next three days, Alison bugging me constantly with, “Do you think he's here today, do you think he's here?”
“Would you chill?” I whispered to her furiously at lunch Thursday. “You're makin' me crazy!”
She feigned a pout. “I'm just like tryin' to be a best friend, show I'm all excited for you.”
After school, Grandma Delham waited near the elm tree to give us a ride home, which she'd committed to do until school let out for the summer. No more softball practice for Robert, and he certainly couldn't walk home on crutches.
I set my books on the floor of her backseat, then helped Robert ease his way inside the car, his casted leg stretched across the seat. Clarissa clambered in front. “Grandma,” I said, “I brought some money with me today so I could stop by the dime store. I'll just walk home. Robert and Clarissa will be fine until I get there.”
“You can stay for a while and see our computer, Grandma,” Clarissa chimed in. “I'll show you how to play âRising Creek.'”
“Oh, that would be fun.” Grandma grinned at her, then turned to me. “I can take you by the store if you'd like.”
“That's okay, I want to walk.” I needed some time to be with my own thoughts. Plus, I didn't want to explain to Grandma why I could not wait to buy a certain bottle of perfume. I shut the car door and waved as they drove away.
What a beautiful day. On that fourteenth of May, the sodden humidity of summer had not yet descended, and a light breeze ruffled the trees. I set out walking downtown, thinking of Greg, enjoying the sun on my arms.
I entered the relative coolness of the dime store and turned down the personal items aisle. A guy stood in one-quarter profile, checking out the shampoos, one hand reached out and resting on a bottle. He looked up distractedly as I neared him. And my heart stood still.
I knew every inch of that tanned face. His brown eyes, deep-set, and utterly captivating. His upturned mouth that carried a hint of mischief. Dark hair, tumbling over his forehead. It looked even thicker than in the LuvRush photo. He stood before me, about five inches taller than I. Real, dressed in jeans and a red T-shirt. In the Bradleyville dime store.