by Penny Reid
“Well since I’m not a mind reader, what is your favorite color?”
“Blue.”
“Blue? What color blue?”
She stared at me, her lips parting again like she was about to respond. But then she snapped her mouth shut and frowned, lowering her gaze to the sausage plate.
Scratching her neck, she shrugged. “Well now, that’s personal. And we were talking about something else, so don’t try to change the subject.”
“What are we talking about? I don’t remember.”
“That you don’t like Ben McClure because his family is nice, and—as I’ve stated previously—that’s stupid.”
Leaning back on my hands, I crossed my ankles. “That’s not why I don’t like Ben McClure.”
“Ah ha! You admit that you don’t like him!”
“Fine. I admit it. But you already knew that, since you’re a mind reader.”
“Why the heck don’t you like Ben? Everybody likes Ben.”
“See, that’s just it.” Restless, I stood and paced away, not sure where I was headed, only that I couldn’t stay still. “Everybody likes Ben. Everybody. And of course they do. Why wouldn’t they? He’s ‘so nice.’ But, again, there’s the problem.”
“That he’s nice?”
I turned when I made it to her tent, searching the ground for her fire stick. “No. I don’t care that he’s nice. But what else would he be? Did his daddy beat him? Or his momma? Did he ever worry about whether or not his brother was in jail, or plot and plan to keep his family safe?” Finding the stick, I yanked it out of the ground and had to fight the desire to stab the earth with it. “Did he ever wonder whether he was going to eat on any particular day, at the whim of his father? Did he ever walk through town and feel folks’ eyes following him, everywhere, waiting for him to make a mistake and prove he’s got bad blood, that he’s trash, just like his old man?”
Instead of stabbing the ground, I turned the stick in my hands, looking for rough spots and bark, tearing them away and giving myself splinters in the process. I didn’t even realize what I was doing until Scarlet was suddenly next to me, her hand covering mine, stopping me. I closed my eyes. I breathed out. I ground my teeth.
But then I felt her other palm cup my face and I heard her soft voice say, “Billy . . .”
I lifted my fingers to hers and pressing her hand to my jaw. She was cold. Her fingers were freezing. She needed gloves. I’ll bring her gloves tomorrow.
“No one thinks you’re trash,” she whispered, her voice sounding raw, like just the idea pained her. I sensed her shift closer. “You’re so admired. I admire you. That other stuff is in the past. It’s nothing you need to worry about. And even if it were, you shouldn’t think poorly of Ben because of it. It’s not his fault, how other folks behave.”
I shook my head, opening my eyes so I could see hers. She was stunning, like this, up close. Her gaze soft and searching, concerned. I took a moment to savor her worry for me, enjoy being the center of her attention.
But I couldn’t stand mute forever, so I said, “I don’t like him because he’s rewarded for something he ain’t got any control over and he acts like he does. He hasn’t earned it. He hasn’t fought for it. It doesn’t really belong to him. Folks heap on the praise anyway and he accepts it all like it’s his due. So, yeah. I don’t like Ben McClure.”
Her eyebrows came together, her stare sympathetic. “You’re jealous.”
I lifted my chin. Her palm slipped from my cheek and I scowled, stabbing the ground again with the fire stick. “You just read that out of my mind?”
“No.” Her tone was still soft, her eyes still concerned. “It was on your face.”
We locked stares. Damn right, I’m jealous.
But not for the reasons she assumed. Truly, I didn’t care about Ben McClure. He was a dolt (dolt being my brother Cletus’s favorite insult at present). But to my brother Jethro? Ben McClure hung the damn moon.
And then, there’s Scarlet . . .
“I guess I am jealous,” I admitted quietly, dropping my eyes to study the splinters in my hand. “But not like you think.”
“What do I think?”
“It’s not the praise. It’s . . .”
“What?”
I shook my head, trying to figure out how to tell her the truth without revealing too much.
Finally, I decided on, “It’s the stability. The constancy of it. The respect. The easiness. People just do what he says, give him what he wants. They want to please him, make him happy. It’s the trust. Folks trust him, believe in him.”
My brother Jethro believed in three things: Darrell, the Wraiths, and Ben McClure. But Ben McClure most of all. So, yeah. I didn’t care about Ben McClure, but clearly a part of me hated him.
Glancing at Scarlet, I saw she looked confused. “But, Billy, Ben has never given people a reason not to trust and respect him.”
“But respect shouldn’t be given by default. You haven’t ever given people a reason not to believe in you, and yet—” I lifted my arms, gesturing to the woods and the tent and her frozen clothes hanging on the line “—here you are. Staying in a tent behind the old Oliver house.”
“I like my tent,” she said, cheerfully like always, breaking my heart a little.
She deserved better than a tent and sleeping bag and uninspiring hopes and dreams. What did she say she wanted yesterday? A kitchen?
That’s right, I remembered. She’d said yesterday, “My biggest dream is to one day have a kitchen.”
A kitchen.
With talent like hers, she should’ve been dreaming of stardom and stadiums. But instead, all she wanted was a kitchen. Her big dream was a damn kitchen. She deserved so much more and better, and she certainly deserved more and better than Big Ben.
Over the course of my life, I’d wanted to punch Ben in the face many times, but never more than last Wednesday when he’d invited Scarlet to Thanksgiving dinner like he was doing her a favor. I hadn’t allowed myself to think about it. But now, just the idea of Scarlet with Ben—sitting in his car, him holding her hand like he had a right to touch her—felt like sandpaper rubbing against the inside of my lungs.
“Well, I don’t like your tent.” My voice rose and an edge of anger entered it, which I knew had more to do with the McClures than her tent. “Do you think, if you were Ben McClure, Green Valley’s golden son, you’d be sleeping out here? People would be lined up to give you a place to stay. They’d fight over the honor of it.”
I couldn’t help the resentful direction of my thoughts, How nice that must be for him to always feel safe and protected. I wonder what that’s like.
Scarlet’s eyes narrowed just briefly, and I thought for a second she’d actually read my mind. But then she smiled, like I’d said something amusing.
“What?” I asked, wanting to know what she was thinking.
Taking a deep breath, she unhooked her headphones from around her neck and withdrew the CD Walkman from her jacket pocket, wrapping the audio chord around the carriage body. “It wouldn’t do any good if folks lined up to give me a place to stay, Billy.”
“Oh, really? It wouldn’t?”
“Yeah. It wouldn’t.” She nodded once, with feeling, her smile spreading until she laughed. “Because you’d just keep figuring out ways to trick me into staying with you.”
“City you most want to visit?”
I snuck a glance at her profile. Scarlet stared forward, her hands in her pockets, her gaze unfocused as we marched through the woods. Leaves crunched under foot with every step and it was so cold my cheeks and forehead stung. I didn’t mind.
We were on a walk. After another music lesson, she’d been determined to show me how to navigate in the forest so I wouldn’t get lost without her. I didn’t much care where we were, so I went along.
We’d talked about my family, a lot. She loved hearing stories about us kids, different pranks we pulled on each other as well as funny memories.
But now, I want
ed to know what dreams she had other than one day having a kitchen, if she had any dreams. And if she didn’t, then I wanted to help her come up with some, the bigger the better.
“I don’t know,” she finally responded. “I haven’t much thought about it.”
“Well then, name any city you’d like to visit.”
Her eyes flickered to mine, then away. “You go first.”
“Rome.”
She grinned. “Italy?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It’s the Eternal City. I’d also like to go to Cairo, but Rome is at the top of my list. I want to see the Colosseum, the Pantheon, walk in the ruins. All that human history, great leaders—”
“And not so great leaders,” she cut in dryly.
“Yeah, they had some not so great leaders too. But they had Marcus Aurelius, and out of everyone alive or dead, he’d be who I’d most want to meet.” I nudged her with my elbow. “How about you?”
Scarlet lowered her chin, her attention on the ground, and she shook her head. “How about me, what?”
“Out of everyone alive or dead, who would you most want to meet?”
“I’m not really sure who Marcus Aurelius is. He was an emperor, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, but he was also a philosopher. Dolly Payton—you know her? Daisy’s sister? She gave me a book of his philosophy when I started at the mill this year. I’ve read it at least twenty times.”
“What’s your favorite of his philosophies?” She was looking at me now, a sweet smile on her face.
“You mean, my favorite quote?” I scratched the hair at my jaw and her eyes moved to the spot, her smile growing.
“Yes, Fuzzy Beard. What’s your favorite quote?”
“Fuzzy Beard?” Now I rubbed my jaw.
“Yep. That’s your name until you let me trim that mess on your face.” She laughed, pointing at my chin with a circling finger. “So, favorite quote?”
Giving her a mock glare, I took a deep breath, pretending to think about the question. I didn’t need to think about it though. I knew my favorite quote.
“‘If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.’”
Scarlet’s smile waned, her stare thoughtful as she looked past me. “Marcus Aurelius said that?”
I nodded.
“Not much of a philosophy though, is it? I mean, he’s just kinda pointing out the obvious. ‘If the stove is hot, don’t put your hand on it.’”
Laughing, I touched her elbow and brought her to a stop. I had no idea where we were, and I was enjoying this conversation too much not to give it all my focus.
“But for the time, it was a revolutionary statement.”
She shrugged, still looking thoughtful. “I guess I like poetry better than philosophy, and music best of all.”
“Why music best of all? Other than the obvious.”
“What’s the obvious?”
“I mean, other than the fact that you—your voice—that you can, uh—”
“That I like to sing?” she supplied, saving me from making a fool of myself. I’d been dangerously close to telling her she had the voice of an angel; that I looked forward to hearing her sing more than just about anything; that the sound of it was transformative, she’d transformed me; and that, if she didn’t make music her career, then I’d question everything I knew about the world.
The statements were corny, but they were also true. Even if a fact is cliché, it doesn’t make it any less a fact.
“Don’t you feel like . . .” she started, stopped, frowned, and began again, “A song with lyrics is all of it, don’t you think? Poetry plus all the wordless feelings in the music itself. Complex things, ideas are communicated without words. The instrumental part can make the spoken part ironic—like when the lyrics touch on love, but the accompaniment is loud and angry. I love that. But the score can also make the lyrics more true and sincere, the feelings deeper.”
She stared beyond me as she spoke, using her hands for emphasis and huffing when she seemed frustrated by her struggle to find the right words. But I thought all her words were the right ones. Watching her talk about music was almost as transformative as listening to her sing it.
Again, her attention flickered to me and a brief smile claimed her mouth, one that looked self-deprecating. “Sorry. I wish I were more eloquent.”
“You are eloquent,” I said without thinking but didn’t regret it. It was true.
“Sure.” She rolled her eyes and snorted lightly. “I guess the short answer is, I love poetry, especially when it’s set to music. But I’m not so sure about philosophy.”
My feet shuffled a half step closer and I said softly, “How about this quote then, ‘The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.’”
Her eyes cut to mine, like I’d surprised her, held. “I like that,” she whispered breathlessly, like she was telling me a secret. “Who said that?”
“Marcus Aurelius.”
Standing close, we looked at each other, a slowly spreading smile claiming her features, and it was like watching a sunrise or a flower bloom—cliché, corny, but still true.
“You know, Scarlet,” I continued, “It’s okay to have dreams, to want things.”
She took what looked like a deep breath, her smile waning. “I know that, Billy. But it’s also dangerous too.”
Dangerous? “How so?”
“Have you ever wanted something you know you can’t have?”
Her question struck such a loud chord within me, I didn’t respond for a few seconds. “All the time,” I finally said, resisting the urge to admire the contours of Scarlet. Again.
“Then you know dreaming can be dangerous. Wanting something impossible can make a person bitter, angry, resentful. It can make you hate the thing you want, and I don’t ever want to be a hateful person.
“So you, what? Don’t allow yourself to want things? That doesn’t seem right.”
Her eyes narrowed and she turned her head, peering at me but still smiling. “Sometimes it’s not about right and wrong, Billy. Life ain’t fair, didn’t you just get finished ranting about the unfairness of Ben McClure’s sainted status in Green Valley?”
Likewise, I narrowed my eyes. “Unfairness doesn’t mean we shrug our shoulders and accept whatever life gives us. It means we fight for what we want, and we take it when we can.”
“I am fighting for my dreams,” she said, her smile spreading, looking mischievous. “I have every intention of living in a real house one day, with a kitchen.”
Now I was smiling even though her statements, meant to be funny, frustrated me. “Dream bigger, Scarlet. You’re not just capable of bigger, you deserve it. Here’s another quote for you, ‘Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.’”
“Another of your homeboy’s quotes?” she asked softly, her smile also soft.
I nodded.
At length, her gaze lost focus and moved beyond me. She seemed to be contemplating my words. So, naturally, I contemplated her.
Today, her irises matched the color of the sky peeking through the trees, cloudless blue. And her hair, now unbound from its braid, was messy around her shoulders and echoed the deep golds and reds of the leaves covering the ground.
She’s the colors of the forest, I realized with a fair degree of wonder. Her skin pale like the white birch, her freckles the rich tawny and light brown of new pinecones, her lips peachy pink and rust red like the river stones we’d used to encircle the firepit yesterday. She was beautiful and wild and genuine, and I could not stop staring at her.
“Any chance I could borrow that book?” she asked, yanking me back to the present. “The one Dolly Payton gave you about Marcus Aurelius.”
I blinked—startled by the absurdity of my thoughts, comparing Scarlet to the forest—just as a bird’s song filled the air somewhere high overhead, a loud, melodic trill.
“Of course,” I said, scratching at the prickly d
iscomfort at the back of my neck as I turned and walked in the direction we’d been heading. “Anytime.”
Off-limits.
Scarlet was off-limits. Even if she wasn’t off-limits, I had no indication she was dealing with similar, disruptive ideas about me. And that was good. If she gave me any sign, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop myself from doing something stupid, like kissing those full lips of hers and tasting that big, bossy mouth.
“We’ll trade. I’ll let you borrow any of my CDs you want,” she said, falling into step next to me. “I don’t have a lot, but you’re welcome to any of them you please.”
“Sounds fair.” I stared forward and was punished for my earlier absurdity, struggling not to notice how everywhere I looked I now saw shades of Scarlet.
Chapter Sixteen
*Scarlet*
“… people want to be circled by safety, not by the unexpected. The unexpected can take you out. But the unexpected can also take you over and change your life. Put a heart in your body where a stone used to be.”
Ron Hall, Denver Moore
I sat on a huge, felled log facing Billy while he gathered kindling ten or so feet away, a frown of intense concentration making two slashes between his eyebrows. The look on his gorgeous face, you’d think he was solving math equations in his head. One hand and one arm were stuffed with small sticks. I now had enough kindling for six months, at least.
As I watched him—or rather, as I creepily snuck glances at him—I also frowned. Billy Winston was a big old puzzle. A conundrum. A riddle. Let me tell you why.
First, today was Sunday. It was our last day off school for Thanksgiving break and here he was, just like Friday and Saturday, spending the whole day with me. It wasn’t like we were living it up, partying, or doing anything especially interesting. We just hung out. My favorite was when he told me stories about his family, about his sister and brothers and the funny things they did.
Sometimes we talked; sometimes we walked; sometimes we did neither. Mostly, I told bad jokes and he laughed.