Chapter 55
Chapter Fifty-Five
ALICE
“I don’t like him.”
I ignore Emma and try to stay focused. I’ve made it all the way up to the observation deck on Four Pines Peak without passing out—hands on the guardrail, eyes closed—and I’m going to finish making this Edna wish if it kills me. I didn’t come up here for nothing.
It isn’t the same wish as last time; this one isn’t for me. The wish I’m trying to make today is about Charlie and that interview he’s been so nervous about, the one he’s at right now. Keeping my eyes pressed shut, I picture him as the new kindergarten teacher at Ponderosa Elementary, his big dream finally coming true. I picture him happy and getting the life he wants, even if that life doesn’t include me.
“I don’t like him,” Emma repeats as I open my eyes, and I sigh.
“He’s been nothing but nice to me—and you. What’s not to like?”
That man single-handedly saved my entire trip to Ponderosa Falls. He turned a horrible situation into something I’ll always cherish, and he’s taken such good care of me. He takes such good care of everyone.
He wasn’t even mean to Emma when she got all weird at breakfast. Seriously—what’s not to like about Charlie Roscoe?
“He’s rough around the edges,” she says, and I give her a sideways glance.
Maybe Emma was America’s favorite ice princess a few years ago at the Olympics, but she’s not dating another figure skater. Her boyfriend is a hockey player who’d rather punch than talk, and he’s broken up with her multiple times. If she thinks Charlie has rough edges, what does Royce have?
She can see it in my eyes, exactly what I’m thinking, and Emma scowls. “He has a bad reputation,” she says, keeping her focus on Charlie. “I heard people talking at lunch.”
“He had a rough childhood, but he turned things around a long time ago.”
“People who get in that much trouble when they’re younger don’t just turn things around.”
I have a million responses, and every single one is a spirited defense of Charlie. But I never get the chance. My mom defends him first.
“Well”—she scrunches her face, looking almost sheepish—“I wouldn’t say nobody ever turns things around.”
Emma gets ready to charge back into battle, but when she glances at my dad for backup, his face is scrunched too. Though whatever that look is he’s giving us, I don’t think you could call it sheepish.
“I told you we’d have to talk about this eventually,” our mother singsongs, and he sighs.
Talk about what?
“Girls,” our dad says slowly. “I think it’s time to talk about how your mother and I met.”
Emma rolls her eyes. “We already know. You met on Christmas Eve when you were home on leave—when Grandma wanted you to hang up more lights outside, but it was too icy. Mom was your ER nurse.”
We know this story by heart; we love this story. But my mom’s face is still scrunched, and she tilts her head from side to side. “Or…that’s when we met again—the second time. And the first time we met was in prison.”
My dad coughs out a laugh. “The police station—not prison. We met at the police station. And the fact that you don’t know the difference just proves you’ve never been to prison.”
She shrugs. “I would’ve gotten there eventually.”
He coughs out another laugh, both of them sharing an “aren’t you adorable” glance before we can get them back on track. Emma’s shock does the trick.
“ The police station ?”
Our dad shrugs. “I was nineteen, and my uncle’s wedding ended in a fistfight. We all got arrested, even Grandma.”
Emma blinks, and I think all this altitude has left me lightheaded. And prone to hallucinations. “Grandma got arrested for fighting at a wedding?” I manage.
“Technically, Grandma and I were just eating cake when the cops showed up, but we might’ve thrown a little too…”
Emma blinks again, and our mother nods.
“But I was there because I’d gotten caught shoplifting. Again.”
“Shoplifting?” I whisper.
“Again?” Emma squeaks.
“I had a rough childhood. I’d like to say I got in with a bad crowd, but I was the bad crowd.” She pauses to give my dad another loving glance. “Until I met this really cute guy when I was waiting to get fingerprinted at sixteen, and he suggested I might want to clean myself up. So I did.”
I knew some of this about my mother already—that she’d had a rough childhood. Her parents haven’t been in the picture for years, and she even spent some time in foster care. But the rest of it is news to Emma and me, the shoplifting and getting arrested. My sister looks horrified, as if this is not the meet cute she ordered, but I think it’s better. More honest and full of rough edges.
“It’s easy to end up well when you start well,” my mom tells Emma. “But it’s something else to have to fight for it. To have the odds stacked against you but turn out okay anyway.”
She pauses to glance at me. “I like Charlie. Maybe we should all keep in touch after we leave.”
She tries to make that sound casual, but I can sense my mother’s intent. The way she’s searching my face like she’s trying to decipher how I feel about him. I want to play it cool—my feelings don’t matter if he doesn’t like me back—but my face flames, and I glance at my father for help.
He’ll get me out of this. That man doesn’t like anyone, especially not for his daughters. One nice objection from him, and my mother will forget all about me and my bright red face. And I can forget about my feelings for Charlie—because that man will never like me half as much as I like him.
Except my father betrays me. Instead of protesting, he shrugs, and my face flames harder. “Maybe you’re right,” he says. “Maybe we should keep in touch. Charlie’s not the worst guy in the world.”
To anyone else, that might sound like an insult, but Kilpatricks know high praise when they hear it. Coming from my dad, “not the worst guy in the world” is basically a five-star review.
I glance at Emma next, my angry little failsafe. She’ll dump some rain on this Charlie parade. If anyone can set me straight and tell me all the reasons this will never work, it’s her.
But she’s still a little dazed from story time. All she can manage are two measly words, neither of them about Charlie.
“ Shoplifting?” she mutters. “Arrested?”
Our mother’s big secret renders Emma useless for the rest of the afternoon. I’m useless too, but for a very different reason. By the time I drop my family off at Muriel’s and head back to Charlie’s, I’m still useless. All I want to do is see him and hear how his interview went.
The second I walk in, I know something’s wrong. I hear the music for Moonglow Prairie in the living room, see my sister’s face, and my stomach ties itself in knots. Nicki isn’t crying, but I can tell she has been—recently—and my sister never cries.
Her laptop is hooked to the TV, so their video game is larger and easier for her to see, and they’re too busy fighting skeletons in a forest to notice me at first. After they kill the last skeleton, a puff of purple smoke envelops the woods, and a small man with a pointy red hat appears. My sister cackles with delight, her voice still a little wobbly from crying. “Gnomes!”
“See?” Charlie says. “I told you we’d find them eventually.”
There’s gentle reassurance in his voice, the sound that comes from helping someone through a rough patch, and I understand what happened. I hear his voice, and I know everything.
Charlie glances up, finally realizing I’m home, and I can see it in his face too. In the soft smile he gives me before he focuses back on the woodland gnome. A dialogue box pops up on the television, and he reads it out loud for my sister.
His mother is drinking coffee in the kitchen, and I check with her to make sure my suspicions are correct, keeping my voice low. “He didn’t go to his interview?”
She shakes her head, and she has the most complicated look on her face. As if she’s so proud of him but so disappointed at the same time, as if her son is the only person she knows who can do the right thing and the wrong thing simultaneously. “Your sister was really upset, but she didn’t want him to tell anyone—she was too embarrassed. He didn’t want to leave her here alone.”
It’s the sweetest thing he ever could’ve done, but my heart squeezes as panic sets in. I can feel it slipping away, my Edna wish. That perfect teaching job and all those things Charlie wanted—but that doesn’t mean this is actually over. Just because the situation feels hopeless doesn’t mean that’s true.
Sometimes life falls into place easily, the exact way you planned. But other times—maybe most of the time—you have to make your own wishes come true.
“Could he go interview for the job now? If I take over?”
“Principal Sutter is leaving for vacation with her family this afternoon. She’s probably already gone.”
Probably.
I hear that one hopeful word, and I cling to it. Backing out of the kitchen, I race outside to see if I can track down Principal Sutter on my own, to see if I can fix this without getting anybody’s hopes up. Charlie and I passed the principal’s house on our big hedgerow walk a couple days ago, and it’s only a few blocks away. Maybe if I run, I won’t be too late.
I’m a mess by the time I get there, after sprinting the entire way. Panting and sweaty—but it’s worth it. Her car is still in the driveway, her family waiting inside with the engine running as Principal Sutter locks her front door. I’m not too late.
When she spots me on the sidewalk, I hesitate.
This is the part I’m not ready for, the big conversation. This is the stuff I’m never good at. As she moves closer, my mind goes blank—it basically dies—but I force myself to talk anyway.
“I’m sorry Charlie missed his interview. It’s all my fault.”
That gets her attention, and the truth spills out in a rush, all the facts and details Nicki would kill me for saying out loud. I tell Principal Sutter about my sister’s condition, how she never gets upset about it. How Nicki has refused to cry and always acts like nothing’s wrong. I tell her how she crumbled today, and the only one there to help her was Charlie.
“I know he didn’t show up,” I say. “He canceled his interview last minute, and I know how bad that looks. But isn’t that the kind of teacher you want? Somebody who cares about what happens to others? The kind of teacher who always makes sure their kids are okay?”
I’m too upset to know if I’m saying the right things, too overheated and tired. I can’t tell if I’m helping Charlie or hurting him. But then my words die out, and Principal Sutter’s face says it all.
Her eyes are gentle, but her smile is firm. “It was nice of you to stop by, but now isn’t the time. Maybe I’ll catch up with him when I get back in town.”
Maybe.
It’s another halfway word, another probably, but this time, there isn’t any hope in it, nothing to cling to. The way she says it, maybe doesn’t feel like the beginning of anything; it feels like the end.
“I hope so,” I say softly, begging myself not to cry. “I hope you really do give him another chance. Later—when you’re back in town. Because Charlie is one of the nicest people I’ve ever known, and you’d be lucky to have him.”
That’s all I can do, all I can say. I retreat down the sidewalk, defeated, and the thing I’m most proud of is how I make it all the way around the corner before I fall apart. Then I get lost—the streets around me a teary-eyed blur—and I’m way less proud of that.
Even when I calm back down, I can’t shake the feeling this is my fault. That Charlie probably had a real shot at that job before I showed up. I’m so lost in my own guilt, I barely notice the car parked by the curb as I finally reach Charlie’s schoolhouse.
A familiar sedan with its engine running and a family waiting inside. Principal Sutter’s family.
She’s standing in the front yard, chatting with Charlie, and I’m pretty sure I’m dreaming. That this is what dying of heatstroke feels like, and none of this is real.
On the way back to her car, Principal Sutter breezes past me on the sidewalk, her voice quiet but kind. “Guess you were pretty convincing. Let’s just hope you aren’t wrong about him.”
I’m not. I know I’m not, and I nod in a daze, barely able to breathe as she drives away. The street is quiet for a few seconds before I glance at Charlie, and he’s in a daze too.
The baffled look on his face doesn’t break until I reach him. He grins, scooping me into his arms to hug me tight, and his happiness feels like sunshine. Like wishes coming true.
“I don’t know what you did, Carrots. But I think I just got hired.”