Chapter 19 #2
“Stay right there.”
My father pointed a camera at us. The shutter clicked. Janet complained that she wasn’t in it, so Mae and I beckoned her over. The shutter clicked again.
I saw these photographs later. I’m wearing the poodle skirt I pulled from the bin in Cocoa Beach, and a white blouse I found there as well.
In both pictures, I’m smiling, my arm around Mae in the first picture, around Janet in the second.
I think anyone who looked closely could see my smile was strained.
For me, Mrs. Lifton’s trick of pretending was like walking in high heels—I could do it, but awkwardly, and not for long.
“You should hold her,” Janet said. “You just have to wash your hands. There’s a sink out in the hall.” She was already tugging me by the arm to the door. I pulled back, but she didn’t let go.
“Janet, stop.” Mae’s voice was firm. “Nora’s tired. Can’t you see how tired she is? She’s been traveling all day. And you both have school in the morning.” She looked up at my father. “Monte, I’m sorry. Thanks for coming by. I’m actually pretty tired myself.”
My stepmother and I glanced at each other.
That was all I got, just a glance. But I caught the sympathy in it.
Mae wouldn’t make a habit of that kind of thing; I suppose she was afraid, perhaps rightly, that such a blatant acknowledgment of the truth would have been my undoing.
But that look from her is what stopped me, I think, from losing my mind completely.
Though for a long while, I would feel as if I had.
—
On my first day back at school, Roberta and Irene were waiting by my locker, where they gave me a card and a bag of watermelon Jolly Ranchers.
Roberta told me she liked my shorter hairstyle and asked how Mae’s mother was doing.
I said thank you and fine, relieved that I didn’t have to say more, as there was much they wanted to tell me: One of Irene’s poems had been selected for the opening page of the yearbook, and Roberta was head of the planning committee for the senior prom.
Irene rolled her eyes. “She’s not telling you the big news.”
Roberta lifted her hand shyly. The diamond was small, but it caught the light from the arched window behind us.
“Stan proposed?” I asked. “When? You didn’t write anything about that.”
She said that he proposed just the week before, on Valentine’s Day. The wedding would be in October. Her sister, good old Becky, would be her maid of honor, and she wanted me and Irene for her bridesmaids. Irene would already be up at Gainesville, but she’d come back for the wedding.
“You’ll be in town, right?” Roberta asked. “You’ll be at the junior college?”
I congratulated her and told her yes, absolutely, she could count me in.
My first class was Algebra II. Walking in, I was nervous, but no one stared or smirked.
Mr. Fray acknowledged my return, calling me “Miss Diligence” and pointing out that even though I’d been busy helping in a family emergency, I’d still turned in every assignment, done neatly and correctly, which was more than he could say for some people.
There were groans all around, aimed at him, not at me.
Then he turned the conversation to algebra, everything was the same, back to normal.
It seemed that Mae was right. People mostly believed what you told them.
I did my best to focus on what Mr. Fray was saying, but for the rest of class, I kept looking at the backs of my classmates’ heads, at the buzz cuts and pin curls and sprayed-stiff chignons, wondering what secrets they might hold. What I might never guess.
On my way to my next class, I had to walk by the junior courtyard.
The wall of bougainvillea was again in bloom, and two girls were sitting on the bench where Leonard and I first talked.
I was only grateful that as a senior I had rights to the better courtyard with the fishpond, where I’d never once talked with Leonard.
In three months, I would graduate. I only had to keep moving forward.
At lunch, Roberta and Irene saved me a seat on the fishpond’s retaining wall.
A sign forbade us from feeding the fish, but an unwrapped Twinkie floated near the middle of the pond, and Irene, a respecter of rules and of all living creatures, insisted on retrieving it.
Her first attempt was unsuccessful, and I was charged with grasping her non-reaching arm so she could try to get hold of the Twinkie without falling in.
When she finally lifted it from the water, I recoiled, as did Roberta.
The nearest trash can was a good ten feet away, but Irene got up on the retaining wall and made the shot.
More than a few people saw the Twinkie sail into the trash, so Roberta and I were not alone in cheering.
My laughter was sincere. For a full minute, maybe more, I was nearly the girl I’d been.
Someone tapped my shoulder, and I turned to see the freckled face of Hazel Morgan. I didn’t know Hazel well—in tenth grade, we’d both been in choir. And she’d been in my first class that morning with Mr. Fray. The back of her head, with its neat pageboy, was one of many I’d studied.
“Aren’t you good, Nora Chesnow, taking care of a relative all winter?”
She was smiling, but there was a meanness to her voice. To her right were two other girls I knew by sight, though not by name. They both wore the excited, vigilant expressions of people who’d paid good money to see a magician, but still wanted to catch the sleight of hand.
“Who was the relative?” Hazel asked. Her singsongy tone showed off her soprano range.
Heads turned. Other conversations grew silent.
I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t speak at all.
For several seconds, I heard only the birds in the branches above.
It seemed that Hazel and the girls beside her already knew everything, even about the marks the forceps left, the injuries to that tiny head.
Irene hopped down from the retaining wall, wiping her fingertips on her skirt. “Her grandmother fell. You know that, Hazel.”
Hazel’s gaze didn’t leave my face. “Must have been a bad fall. Where exactly in Arkansas were you?” She gestured to one of the watchers beside her. “Donna here is from Jonesboro. But she’s been all over the state.”