Grit Page 4

  I jump under the cool spray, then whip my wet hair into a ponytail, swallow a couple aspirin, and head downstairs, where Libby sits at the table stirring sugar into her coffee and pretending to read the paper. She watches me over the top of her glasses; figures she’d be smug as a cat on a sparrow, seeing me get in trouble. Holding her gaze, I swallow handfuls of dry cereal to put something into my stomach before I throw up (I’ve got half a memory of doing it last night, too) and think of all the things I’d love to say to her.

  Mom comes in and gets her keys, purse, and the fleece jacket she brings to work because it’s so cold in the E. F. Danforth refrigeration plant. She’s actually come home with frostbite on her fingers before. Got it right through her gloves.

  Crunching Froot Loops, I mutter, “Can’t believe they just left.”

  She stares at me like she’s considering giving me my first thrashing since grade school. “I told them to leave. Your sister knocked on your door for about five minutes. Nell wanted to go in and shake you.”

  She goes outside and I follow her, but she stops me on the porch. “Uh-uh. Forget it. You’re not making me late for work.”

  “It’s on your way!”

  Mom shrugs. “Guess you shouldn’t have missed your ride.” She opens her car door, then stands there for a second, almost like she’s looking through me, or seeing somebody else. She exhales and shakes her head. “I hope you know enough not to get yourself pregnant.”

  She leaves me standing there with the wind knocked out of me.

  I go inside to find Libby leaning back in her chair, taking the world’s longest sip of coffee, tilted at the perfect angle to watch Mom and me out the front window.

  Now that it’s just the two of us, the tension is electric. I scowl at her as I stuff my feet into sneakers, and she lowers her chair to the floor, hitching her big boobs up onto her folded arms and giving me a look like I know you, little girl. As if she’s got the slightest clue. I could cut her so deep with the truth. I’d make her bleed, if it wouldn’t mean doing the same to Nell. I open the door, say, “Don’t you have anything better to do than eavesdrop?” and bang out before she can answer.

  It’s hot. I’m about four miles into the walk down 15, and I can see the barrens over the next rise. Sweat rolls down my back. Serve Mom right if I keel over. Death from dehydration. They’ll find me in the ditch with crows picking at me, and the cops will bring her up on child abuse charges, and I’ll laugh. Laugh from my ditch.

  A car slows behind me, but that’s been happening all morning and nobody’s stopped yet, so I don’t even turn around. A maroon truck crosses the line and pulls into the breakdown lane in front of me. I recognize the toolbox in the bed and jog over.

  “Thanks.” Inside the cab, Hunt’s got the air-conditioning cranked and I sigh, closing my eyes for a second as it blows over me. Stars burst against the back of my lids. “Really. I almost died.”

  He checks the rearview mirror. “Hot day for a walk.”

  “You’re telling me.” I crane my neck to look at the oncoming lane. “You’re good.” I flop back. Classic rock plays softly on the radio. I wonder if Mom knew Hunt would probably come along on his way to work and get me, or if she even cared. I know better than to tell him what happened—Mom will kick my butt if I air dirty family laundry—so I leave it alone.

  He’s wearing his work duds, which are almost exactly the same as his handyman duds: chambray shirt, fat carpenter pencil in the chest pocket, Dickies pants, boots. He sees me looking and gives me one of those Hunt smiles, humor showing only in his eyes and playing around his mouth. “Good year for berries?”

  “Oh, yeah, they’re all over the place. We’re killing ourselves.” My stomach does a dipsy-doo all of a sudden and I sit up straight. Swallow. Ugh. Tastes sour. Hunt’s watching me. “Uh . . . I think . . . maybe . . .”

  He pulls over again, quick. Thank God I make it onto the shoulder before I heave up the aspirin and cereal and whatever else is left in my poor stomach.

  I stand there, hands on my thighs, head hanging. Broken Bud glass glints in the dirt. I’m so embarrassed that I think about making a run for the woods, but then he’d think I was crazy on top of not being able to hold my liquor. I can’t look at him as I get back in the truck. “Sorry.”

  He puts a thermos cup in my hand. It’s iced black coffee that smells like it could peel paint. I drink, making a face. “Better eat some of this. Take it slow.” He’s unwrapped half a bologna-and-cheese sandwich—he’s giving me his whole lunch here—and I start to argue, but his expression is so serious that I do what he says, fighting it down until my stomach settles. Finally, he says, “Long night, huh.”

  I laugh weakly. “Oh, yeah.”

  “Maybe I ought to take you home.”

  “Nah, I’ll be okay. I’ve raked more hungover than this.” He doesn’t move. “Seriously. And I need the money.” I guess he knows it’s true, because he shifts into first and we go.

  He drops me off at the top of the barrens road and I wave. I don’t have to worry about him telling Mom anything; I know our ride is between us. And Mom’s so closemouthed that she’ll never ask if he saw me, anyway. Those two could split one word down the middle and make it last the whole day.

  Mags straightens up at the sound of Hunt’s truck leaving, but Mrs. Wardwell gets to me first. “Look what the cat drug in.” She eyes me from her lawn chair, fanning herself slowly with a Hannaford flyer. The chalkboard where she keeps track of who’s in the running for top harvester leans against the camper; Shea’s name is number six. The rest are all migrants, names I don’t know. “Your sister said you were sick, missy.”

  “I was.” I duck into Mags’s car to get my gloves and cowgirl hat. “Now I’m better.”

  She grunts. I hear her sipping soda as she watches me walk into the field, those hawk eyes of hers burning a couple dime-size holes into my back. The thing is, I really hate being late. I hate looking like a bad worker. But I don’t think anybody would believe that on my best day.

  Mags says to me as we rake, “You call Hunt for a ride?”

  “No. I was walking and he picked me up.”

  She’s quiet. “You could’ve told us you were going to the quarry last night. We waited for you.” I don’t answer. I didn’t tell them because I knew they’d try to talk me out of it. “Let me guess. Kat set ’em up and you knocked ’em back until you couldn’t see straight again.”

  Color creeps into my cheeks. “I drank what I wanted. It’s not her job to stop me.”

  “She thinks it’s funny when you’re drunk, Darcy. She wants you to make an ass of yourself.”

  “I can do that without her help.”

  “Mom fell asleep on the couch waiting up for you.”

  I stop, not realizing how out of breath and dizzy I am until I almost lose my balance. I must’ve walked right past Mom in the dark last night after Kat dropped me off. Was she awake, the throw pillow under her head, watching me do a careful drunk step through the living room and up the stairs? Things have changed since Rhiannon, and I know it. Moms’ minds go straight to murder when their kids come home late. I look at the ground. Mags doesn’t have to say anything more.

  I focus on work until I have to stop and take a long drink from Mags’s water jug, scanning the rows to our right and left. Today, the sight of Jesse makes me feel like I bit into a lemon. He’s sexy as hell, shirt off, tanned so deep that he doesn’t have to worry about burning anymore. Shea tosses something at him—a garter snake—and Jesse jerks away, laughing and cussing him out. Mason checks the snake over and then sets it on a rock, out of reach. I remember last night at the quarry and turn away.

  Jesse was there, with his hands all over Emma Bowen. Hanging his arm over Maddie Clark’s shoulder. Grab-assing with Kat, who most guys stay away from because Kenyon’s always around, even though Kenyon doesn’t care. I was probably the only girl Jesse didn’t touch last night. In fact, he didn’t talk to me at all except to say hi. And here I was, pantin
g for him, getting all giddy over a pair of old gloves. Wow.

  At quitting time, I go up to headquarters to get our paychecks. Duke McCutcheon’s cinching the straps on a truckload of boxes bound for Danforth’s. Shea’s hanging off the other side, holding them taut. If I squint, I can see the family resemblance between him and Duke; add thirty pounds, a handlebar mustache, and a Harley-Davidson T-shirt, and you’ve got it. Duke climbs down from the flatbed and swings into the driver’s seat. Funny to think that after those berries go through the winnower at Danforth’s, Mom will be sorting through them, fingers freezing through her gloves, picking out anything squished or white.

  The guy in front of me in line for checks is a migrant, a short, muscular guy with skin the color of rosewood. I wonder what it feels like to be that dark. He speaks with a pretty thick accent when he tells Mrs. Wardwell his name. “Say again?” She squints up at him.

  He repeats himself. There’s grumbling from people behind me, and I hear somebody say, “Don’t sound like English to me.”

  The guy’s back has gone rigid, and he says his name a third time, slowly: “Al-e-jan-dro Sán-chez. Do you want me to spell it?”

  More muttering. “Awright, shut up back there.” Mrs. Wardwell finds the check and gives it to him. He gets out of there pretty fast. I wonder what they’re saying about us locals up there in the cabins. Can’t really blame them for not wanting to mix with us, considering the way people treat them now. You can’t help but wonder if the ugliness was always there, though. I don’t think this much hate grows overnight, just because of Rhiannon. “You”—Wardwell crams all three of our checks into my hand—“keep the line movin.’”

  As I leave, I hear somebody say, “Ale-who?” to a couple of snickers.

  Mags and Nell are already walking to the car, Nell looking back with her hand cupped over her eyes to make sure I’m coming. I stoop to grab our water jug when somebody comes up behind me and slides their hand into the front pocket of my shirt, tucking in a bundle of buttercups. It’s Jesse, so close that I smell his fresh sweat and sports stick. He smiles, showing the chipped tooth that makes him look a little off center, a little wild. “There.” He walks backward, framing me with his hands. “Perfect.”

  Speechless, I touch the flowers and watch him go.

  SEVEN

  MOM TAPS OUT a Kool, sweat glistening along her hairline as she fishes in her pocket for a lighter. It’s too hot to eat, too hot to move, and the girls are already out on the porch squabbling over a game of Crazy Eights, but she raises her eyebrows at me when I push back from the supper table. “Hold it. You’re on dish duty.”

  “For how long?”

  “Until I say.” She sparks the lighter three times, then pulls her mouth to the side, touching the tip of the cigarette to the flame. I run water into the sink, watching her, remembering how hard Mags tried to get her to quit those things a few years ago. Hardly anybody’s parents smoke; you just don’t see it. Mags used to hide Mom’s packs behind the couch or up in the attic, and then she’d leave printouts from the American Lung Association site on Mom’s nightstand. I took a look at some of those, and it made me notice little things about Mom, like the stains on her fingertips where she holds her smokes, and the faint yellowish tint to her skin. Finally, when my sister put a No Puffin sticker on the fridge smack-dab in the middle of all the clippings from Nell’s plays, Mom said, “Margaret, enough,” in the tone that brings things to a full stop in our house.

  Mags stared back at her, her hands in fists. “They’re killing you. Don’t you care?”

  Mom blinked—maybe winced—then turned away, smacking the top of the Kools carton. “I find any more of these missing, they’re coming out of your savings account.”

  I sweat while I scrub and rinse. A June bug bangs off the window screen above the sink. I watch it, thinking. “Has Hunt ever been married?”

  Behind me, Mom coughs. “What brought that on?” I’ve surprised her out of being mad at me. I’m glad Libby’s at work and not here to remind her.

  “Just wondering.”

  She’s quiet for a second or two. When I glance back, she’s letting smoke trickle out her nose, watching it waft onto the sticky evening air like moth wings. “He was. Before we knew him.”

  “What happened?”

  She shrugs. Her collarbones are sharp against her old wash-worn sleeveless blouse. “Didn’t work out. You don’t ask somebody for details about their ex.”

  Which meant they’d talked about it. I slide a dripping plate into the dish rack. “Well, she must’ve been an idiot to let go of Hunt.”

  “You think so, huh.” Her tone reminds me that she has a few opinions about idiots herself. I’m not off the hook with her.

  “Yeah. Seriously, Hunt’s awesome. He’s never a jerk and he knows how to fix stuff and he makes pretty good money at Danforth’s, right? And he’s cute, for an old guy.” My words land hard when I remember what she said about me getting pregnant this morning. That’s right. I’m supposed to be mad at her, too.

  Mom inclines her head. “Hunt fixed up this house with his wife. Put that trailer out back so his mother could live close. Planned to build a barn, too, so his wife could have horses.” The Kool grinds into the cut-glass ashtray, and then she’s crinkling the pack for another. She still wears her wedding ring, the one Dad bought at a pawnshop with his whole week’s paycheck. It’s engraved with some other couple’s names inside, but Mom didn’t care; it was a joke between them, calling each other Wendy and Greg, signing cards to each other that way sometimes. “Marriage went south before they had more than the foundation laid. Hunt filled it with dirt so one of you kids wouldn’t fall in and break your neck when you were out running around in the woods.”

  “I didn’t know that.” She lifts a shoulder. “Wait. Is that where all the lupines grow?”

  “Mm-hmm. He seeded it.”

  I haven’t been that far out back for a while, but I can picture it, a field of white, pink, and purple, shifting in the breeze. However things went down with his wife, Hunt couldn’t be too bitter if he planted those flowers where their life was supposed to happen. “What happened to his mom?”

  “She got Alzheimer’s and ended up in a home,” Mom said, considering the tip of her cigarette. “Believe she’s dead now.”

  As I dry our big salad bowl, I wander over to the front doorway and watch Mags and Nell play cards through the screen door. “Nellie,” I say, “what happened in the movie yesterday? I missed most of it.”

  She claps her hand to her chest and flops back onto the floor. “Oh!”

  “Nooo.” Mags holds her head, but it’s too late. Nell’s off.

  She runs through the entire plot, backtracking a lot to fill in stuff she forgot to mention, doing impressions that get me laughing. Mags shoots me a dirty look. “Thanks. It’s all she’s talked about since we got home last night.”

  “I don’t care. I loved it sooo much.” Nell’s cheeks flush. She’s dreaming about a Technicolor James Dean, all lit up and beautiful and bigger than life. “My favorite part was when Cal and Abra finally kiss on the Ferris wheel, right at the top”—she sighs—“and it was perfect. They have the whole town around them, but they’re still all alone. That’s how it should be.” She has her eyes closed, and at once I wish she’d stop talking, wish I’d never brought the subject up. She puts her hand to her chest like somebody moving in their sleep. “It’s best when nobody knows. When your love lives in your two hearts, and nobody else matters.”

  Mags stares at her, then at me. I say, “Only in the movies, right, Nellie girl?”

  She looks at me, eyes damp. “Uh-huh. Only in the movies.” She lies back, puts her hands behind her head, and starts to hum.

  I didn’t really forget about sending a photo and a bio to Melissa Hartwell, but I pretend I did when Nell reminds me. I’ve actually been worrying about it ever since the welcome meeting. Once the booklets are out there, everybody will know. Darcy Prentiss is on the ballot? How the hell
did that happen? I read through the Princess packet; Queen wins about $1,700 in scholarships, and second runner-up and Miss Congeniality get $100. I’ll be happy if I get out of this thing without a bucket of pig’s blood dumped on my head.

  I have no idea what to say in my bio. I feel silly even writing it.

  “How can I write a biography if I don’t have a life?” I push the laptop across Mags’s bedspread to Nell. “You think of something.”

  She pushes it back. “It’s about you. I can’t write it.” She wrote hers in ten seconds. Easy; she’s been practicing her acceptance speech since the fourth grade. She also has the business she wants to sponsor her all picked out: Weaver’s Flowers & Gifts. “They sponsor a girl every year,” she said. “Plus everybody gets their bouquets there anyway, so it’ll be one-stop shopping.” I tried not to laugh at how matter-of-fact she sounded, paging through one of my Seventeens. “You should ask Hannaford. The twins work there, so you know somebody. That helps.”

  “Give it to me.” Mags reads aloud as she types: “Darcy is an upcoming senior at Sasanoa Area High School. Her interests are . . .” She snaps her fingers at me. “Quick. Make something up. G-rated.”

  I throw her stuffed rabbit at her. “I’m gonna gut Mr. Buns while you sleep.” I take the laptop back, feeling a brain cramp coming on as I stare at the blinking cursor in the email. Finally, I type Darcy plans to travel after graduation, then hurry downstairs to get the camera and put on some makeup before I can change my mind.

  Don’t ask me where that came from, traveling. The farthest I’ve ever been was the Maine Mall in Portland back in seventh grade. I went with Rhiannon; her mom drove us and took us out for lunch. I remember Rhiannon and I bought necklaces at Claire’s, hemp chokers with little clay beads and half a heart charm each. Rhiannon got the one that said Best.

  I know Nell and Mags must’ve read what I wrote, but they don’t tease me about it when I come back. “Stand here.” Mags guides Nell back against the paisley throw with a picture of Janis Joplin on it tacked to the wall.