Chapter 8 Jane
Jane
Summer for us isn’t like summer for other teens. Ours are filled with chores, with work.
Right now it’s not even nine in the morning, and already my hands are stained purple, my arms slashed with scratches from the wild blackberry vines. It’s picking season for both the blackberries and blueberries, just one of the things I’m in charge of.
I’ll rinse my harvest later, piling the berries high on a cotton towel to let them dry before Mom turns them into preserves.
If there’s extra, Pa aims to make batches of homemade wine from the fruit.
He’s been sneaking me his homemade wine since I was thirteen.
Just little nips in the evening when he thinks Mom’s not looking.
I drag my wooden bucket to the next aisle, kneel on the soggy ground. This work, I don’t mind so much. I’m at the edge of our land, high on a ridge behind the pond, far from the house.
Far from Mom, far from Julia.
Ugh. Why is my sister so harsh?
Just yesterday she ripped my head off out of nowhere.
It was dusk, and I’d just gotten back from the swimming hole; she and I were watering the gardens.
Our vegetable and herb garden, plus the adjoining one, Mom’s poison garden.
It’s fenced off with chicken wire to keep baby Molly out, as well as the livestock, because the plants there can both heal and kill you.
Mom is highly skilled at dosing, knowing the right combos to use in her potions.
Anyway, during summer, we water at night so that the sun can’t burn off the moisture, robbing the plants of what they need.
We watered in silence, except for the fact that I started whistling, happy and sunbaked from the river.
Which seemed to irritate Julia. She didn’t say anything, just got huffy, so, as usual, I tried to placate her.
My bikini was hanging next to us, drip-drying, when the thought came to me. “Hey, you should totally come with me sometime to Miller’s. The swimming hole. Lotsa cute boys. And you can borrow my suit!” I eyed it, adding, “It’d look so cute on you!”
I looked up at her and grinned, trying to break through her moody silent treatment.
She just laughed to herself, a sad, wicked little sound, then said, “You just don’t get it, do you? You think you’re so cute. Little Miss Hot Thing with your skimpy bikini. You think you look so good in it. But you don’t. You just look slutty. And desperate. Which is all you’ll ever be.”
Tears stung my eyes, which made Julia smile even wider, and I dropped the hose, then ran into the house.
I hate that she can still get to me. That I haven’t grown a thick enough skin to not care.
But despite her nastiness, I miss her. I do.
I miss the sister who used to be my one and only best friend.
The one I used to race through fields with, prairies tall with grass, covered in wildflowers.
She was my confidant, before she turned on me, became a stranger.
So yeah, I like it here where I can be alone, where I can let my thoughts run wild and free as a river, especially when I think about Luke, my stomach pinching with longing.
It’s him I really miss. Our fingers laced together as he sped through West End in Dallas in his Camaro, taking me to the clubs.
Our kisses tasting of the clove cigarettes we’d smoke.
His hand on my thigh as he shifted gears, the car bucking with each change, then taking off like a rocket through the sooty underpasses.
My hair is wringing with sweat as I twist the blackberries off the vines, but I put the headphones on anyway, press Play on my Walkman. A gift from Luke, as is the mixtape that begins to whir in my ears.
“Fall on Me” by R.E.M. starts and I spread out my thin blanket, lie in the shade of the orchard. It’s a broody song, but Luke can be broody. It’s the side of him I like most, the romantic side.
When we get out of this place, he often said, his voice low and rough in my ear, there’ll be nothing holding us back.
This place meant Dallas. Meant school. Meant his lousy homelife with parents who were too hardworking and who judged him too harshly.
New York City, that’s where I’m taking ya, he’d promise as his hands roved down my sides. I’ve never been to New York.
Dallas is one of the biggest cities we’ve ever lived in.
I was born in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, but we moved right after, when I was just a few weeks old, so I don’t even remember it. My entire childhood, my whole life, really, has been us picking up from one small town in the Midwest and moving to another, migrating south as we went.
It’s Pa’s business. He makes custom furniture for the wealthy, and small towns only have so many of those.
So we have to move, sometimes hit the cities.
I don’t usually mind, except now I miss Luke.
I’m gonna quit early today, fix my usual ham-and-cheese sandwich for lunch, then ride Cookie to the general store so I can call him from the pay phone.
We have a phone, of course, but I like to call him in private.