The Ballad of Ami Miles

by Kristy Dallas Alley

  “Back when this place was a resort and campground, they wanted people to swim in the pool and stay out of the lake,” Hanna said. “But no one has ever seen any sign of a gator as long as we’ve been alive. Trust me, I would not be gettin’ in that water if there was any chance of bein’ eaten by alligators!” I nodded and gave her a nervous little laugh, not wanting to seem chicken. There was a little log-cabin-looking shed near the dock, and Nina and Ben ran inside and came back out with their arms full of shriveled old black tire tubes. They tossed them on the ground, then Ben went back in for an old foot pump and started plumping the tubes up with air. As soon as the first one was done, Nina grabbed it and started running toward the water.

  “Look, Ami!” she hollered before tossing the tube straight off the end of the dock and then jumping on top of it. I was pretty sure that trick was what she wanted me to look at, but I was distracted by the fact that she was half-naked. She must have stripped off most of her clothes while I was watching the pumping, because she was down to a little strapped top like the one Jessie had worn that morning and her underpants. I looked around in shock to see if anyone else had noticed, only to see that the boys were wading in wearing nothing but shorts, and Hanna and Melissa were in pretty much the same getup as Nina. I stood frozen to the spot. Did they expect me to follow suit? I was still getting used to wearing shorts and short-sleeve shirts! They were all in the water by then, and they all turned to look at me expectantly. Will’s chest was muscled and tanned, and Ben’s was skinny but wiry. I felt my face turn beet red once again.

  “Come on, Ami, don’t be scared,” Hanna called. “Look, it’s not even deep!” She stood up to show that the water was only about waist-deep on her. Her top was a dark blue, practically black now that it was wet, but it clung to her breasts like a second skin. I felt my mouth go dry as I tried to look anywhere but at her chest.

  “I, uh, it’s not that,” I muttered. “I’m not, uh, I don’t think I’m dressed right.” I was standing on the land end of the dock, and I looked down at my feet as I spoke. I tried to imagine taking my shorts off and having everyone see the high-waisted cotton underpants I wore. Was I wearing the ones with little faded blue flowers or the plain white ones that had been washed so many times they’d turned grayish? It didn’t matter because those shorts were not coming off. Melissa waded around to the side of the dock to get closer to me.

  “It’s okay, Ami,” she said in a quiet voice. “You can keep your shorts and everything on.” She smiled up at me reassuringly. I looked down at her sweet freckled face and thought about climbing down to wade in where she was. Then I looked toward the end of the dock, where everyone was off to one side in chest-deep water, watching me. I took a deep breath and blew it out slow, then I started running. I hit the end of the dock and launched myself as far as I could, angling away from the group. For just a second, I was flying, and I felt as free as I ever had in my life. Then I hit the water and sucked about half the dang lake up my nose when my feet slid out from under me on the muddy bottom. I came up coughing and sputtering, my hair sliding forward from its knot on the top of my head. I saw everyone’s faces looking horrified, and that made me laugh. I laughed and coughed and blew lake water out of my nose, and then everyone else started laughing too. Once I could breathe again, I undid my hair and then went under, remembering to hold my nose this time, and came back up so the whole mess was slicked back from my face.

  Nina handed me a tire and showed me how to sit on top of it so my bottom settled down into the hole in the center and I could lean back with my arms and legs draped over the tube. It started to feel kind of peaceful with all of us floating around the dock, watching the sun drop down toward the edge of the water. I noticed that Hanna had her foot on Will’s tube so they wouldn’t drift apart, and when Melissa hooked my tube the same way I felt grateful. We stayed like that until the sun touched the edge of the water and then, quicker than seemed possible, dropped below the edge of it. We were quiet, but it was a comfortable kind of quiet.

  “When I was little, I thought the sun lived in a treehouse,” I said. “I wonder what I would have thought if I’d seen it like this, setting into the lake every night.”

  “Why a treehouse?” Ben asked. His voice was closer to me than I expected, and I guess anytime Ben talked I was kind of surprised.

  “Well,” I said, “I don’t rightly know. There were a lot of trees all around the compound where we lived, no big open spaces like this lake makes. It seemed like the trees caught the sun in their branches before it could drop too low in the sky. And Ruth, that’s my grandma, she would tell me the sun was going to bed so I should too. I guess I imagined the sun going to bed in its own little house way up high in the trees since that was the last place I saw it go.” I glanced sideways over at Ben, feeling a little silly and wondering why I’d felt the need to share that story. I hadn’t even thought about the sun’s treehouse in a long, long time. His face was in shadows now, but as far as I could tell, he wasn’t laughing at me.

  “Aw, I love that!” said Melissa. “When I was little, I thought that cats and dogs were the same animal, but cats were girls and dogs were boys.” Will laughed and rolled his eyes, and she used the side of her hand to shoot water toward his face. He kicked his feet to splash her back but got Hanna just as much as his sister. Pretty soon, it was all-out war, with everyone kicking and splashing and slipping down under the water to stay “safe,” which didn’t make any sense at all but still felt like it did. Finally, the splashing and laughing died down, and we all dragged ourselves back up onto the dock and laid onto the warm boards to dry. It was full dark by then, with a sliver of moon and about a million stars giving the only light. I’d never seen so much of the night sky in one big piece like that, and it nearly took my breath away.

  “Penny’s gonna be so mad she missed this,” Nina said. “I thought they’d be back by now, but surely they won’t be more than another day or two.”

  “Who’s Penny?” I asked dreamily, but I was thinking how it was a shame that Jessie was missing this too. I was a little glad she hadn’t seen me snorting lake water up my nose and blowing it back out again, but mostly I wished she was there.

  “She’s my best friend,” Nina said. “She’s the only other girl my age around here, plus she’s brown-skinned like me. Even though her mama is white.” In my comfortable haze, I didn’t understand what she meant at first, then shock settled over me. In my head, I heard Papa’s voice saying the mixing of the races is an abomination unto the Lord. I started to react, but no one else seemed to think there was anything wrong, and of course they would have known about this their whole lives. I was glad for the darkness that hid my face, but I didn’t know what to say. I could feel Nina beside me, waiting for me to carry on my side of the conversation.

  “I hope they found some of the things on my list,” Will said from the other end of the dock. “I need that stuff to get my lab set up.” I felt suddenly thankful for Will’s constant need to talk about himself.

  “Will has been studying all the medical and science books we can find,” Hanna said admiringly. “He says it’s time we started making up for lost time and figuring out some of the old medicine we lost after the Break.”

  “Well, I hope they bring back some clothes or at least cloth,” Melissa said. “I’ve, uh, grown out of most of my tops.”

  “More like busted out,” Nina said, and all three girls started to laugh.

  “Stop!” Melissa protested, but she was laughing too. “I can’t help it. Mama says it’s the curse of the Landry women.”

  “Must be nice,” Nina said from beside me as she sat up and looked down at her own flattish chest. “My mama says she was a late bloomer, so I prob’ly will be too.”

  “Yeah, well, at least your clothes still fit,” Melissa said.

  “Ladies, you’re embarrassing poor Ben over here,” Will called.

  “Mhm, Ben,” Hanna said. I thought of Hanna standing waist-deep in the water in her wet top
and felt suddenly, uncomfortably hot. I’d never thought much about my own breasts unless it was to try to imagine nursing a baby. And they definitely weren’t anything Ruth or my aunts would have talked or joked about to me. Maybe Amber might’ve, if we’d been close like that. Thinking of my grandmother and aunts hearing this conversation sent a jolt of shame through me, and all the warmth and comfort I’d been feeling up and went in an instant. What was I doing here with a bunch of strange kids who thought it was fine to run around half-naked and joke about indecent things and didn’t bat an eye at the thought of being friends with a half-white, half-brown girl whose mama had flouted the law of God? All those sermons I’d heard Papa preach about the temptations of the world, and yet here I sat, jumping in with both feet and barely a thought in my head.

  I had to get out of there. Before I knew it, I was on my feet, stepping over Nina and off the land end of the dock onto the tall grass. I heard voices calling my name, asking where I was going, but I just called back that I had to go. I wondered if they could know my thoughts, and my face flamed up. But wasn’t it them who should feel ashamed? Somehow it didn’t feel like it, but that was confusing. Was I wrong to go along with their ways that went against everything I’d ever been taught, or was it wrong for me to judge them for living a kind of life that felt normal to them even though it was strange to me? Let him who is without sin cast the first stone, I remembered. I stopped in my tracks, suddenly wishing I could go back. But it was too late; the moment was broken. I would have to make up an excuse, say that I felt sick or something. Lying is a sin, said a voice in my head. Sinner. Who was I to judge anyone?

  I trudged back to my room but couldn’t sleep. Instead I tossed and turned on my lumpy mattress, feeling homesick for my own bed in my own little room at Heavenly Shepherd. Maybe I was lonely there and things weren’t perfect, but at least they weren’t confusing. I’d never had any reason to question my place or the things Papa and Ruth had taught me. But at Lake Point, everything was confusing. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this place or these people. The only two things I’d planned on were finding my mama, which I had but hadn’t done, and finding a man I’d want to have a baby with, which most definitely had not happened. And why not? I had to admit, Will was pretty nice to look at, but for some reason, that didn’t seem to have any effect on me, and besides, Hanna seemed to have those kinds of feelings for him. And then there was Ben, who was just fine, but he was so quiet, and again, I was pretty sure Nina had him claimed. Not that I was sad about it.

  I tried to think about the other men I’d seen around the place. They all seemed so much older, even though some of them looked like they might only be in their early twenties. But that was older, wasn’t it? They were nowhere near as old as Zeke Johnson, and my grandparents were ready to match me up with him. That thought was enough to turn my stomach and send me tossing and turning almost clear out of the bed. What was I going to do?

  I flipped over onto my back and stared up at the ceiling in the dark. And then my thoughts went to the same place they seemed to go all the time lately: to Jessie. I played back over that first night, the way her hair hung down shiny and black by the light of the fire. I could hear her singing almost as clear as if she’d been in the room, her voice that could carry so much sorrow, then danger, then laughter.

  I flopped over onto my stomach and thought about our morning working in the gardens, just that same day, which seemed impossible. I could see her standing in the sunlight, dangling that hat from her finger, so much skin showing warm and golden in the heat. I saw the straps of that thing she called a shirt and couldn’t help but think of Hanna wearing almost the same thing, standing in the lake. It wasn’t hard to imagine Jessie’s top wet and clinging like that. But why was I imagining that?

  Suddenly the heat in the room was suffocating, and I knew I was never going to fall asleep. I wished I could go back and jump in the lake, let it wash away all these thoughts of Jessie, then lie back under the stars and watch them until my eyes closed on their own. If I were back home, I would have taken my blanket roll and slept out in the woods, but there were too many people here, and these weren’t my woods. I settled for the next best thing, standing under a cool shower. I should have washed the lake water out of my hair anyway, and I set myself the task of untangling it with the slippery soap and my fingers. By the time it was clean and rinsed, I felt cooler inside and out. I took the tangled sheets off my bed, shook them out, and put them back on smooth and straight. Feeling like my world was at least a little more orderly, I opened my window to let in the breeze, then finally fell asleep.

  Sixteen

  A long, low, rumble woke me that next morning, thunder so deep it seemed to rattle my bones. Rain was blowing into the open window, and I hurried over to shut it. “So much for garden work this morning,” I said out loud. I didn’t talk to myself as much as I used to now that I had real friends to talk to, but old habits were hard to break. As much as I hated to admit it, I’d been hoping Jessie would be assigned to garden beds again today, even though I knew the regular rotations only lasted a day. Would she switch with someone to see me? I wondered, and then, Why would she do that? I had to get out of that room! I got myself dressed and wandered downstairs to breakfast.

  It was early, and there weren’t many people eating yet. I guessed the rain gave folks a welcome excuse to sleep late, or at least lie around in bed longer than they usually could. I ate by myself and didn’t mind it. I picked a seat close to the big windows across the back of the room and watched the rain beat against the glass. The sky was dark, and I could see trees bending and blowing in the wind, but that somehow made it feel even more safe and cozy to be inside with a warm bowl of oats sprinkled with nuts and berries. I took my time eating and watching the rain, and when it didn’t let up, I decided to check out the library Jessie had told me about. I needed something to read if I was going to be stuck inside all day, and I was curious about all those other books she had mentioned reading in their little school.

  I walked around until I found where the library had been set up in a row of smaller rooms along one side of the big window room. The entrance was just a little nook with a desk and rows of old wooden cabinets full of little tiny drawers, and there was a woman there.

  “I—Is this the library?” I asked, even though I knew dang well the sign I’d just passed said LIBRARY in big ol’ letters. I just didn’t know what else to say.

  “It sure is,” the woman said kindly, “and I’m the librarian. You can call me Miss Jean.” I nodded, feeling a little more comfortable. There was something about her that made me feel like I was welcome to be there, and I realized that was the opposite of what I’d expected for some reason.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I’ve heard of you. From the other kids, you know.” I mumbled that last part, trailing off. I wasn’t getting any better at talking to new people.

  “Well,” she said, “it’s good to know my fame precedes me!” She winked at me like I was in on the joke. “Why don’t I give you a little tour; would you like that?” I nodded and she started off through a doorway behind her.

  “These rooms were designed for meetings back when business people used to come here for things like that. They were all connected to each other with doorways, but we took the doors out and put in shelves, and voilà, the library was born!” I stopped and stared. Someone had used plain boards to build in shelves from floor to ceiling and corner to corner on every wall in each of the rooms, and on all those shelves were books! So many more books than I could have ever imagined, right there for anyone to borrow and read.

  “Now this first room is the children’s section,” she said, stopping so I could take it in. The room was small but cozy. There was a rag rug on the floor, bright strips of colored cloth braided together into a big oval. I’d never imagined there could be a whole room of books just for children. I walked over to get a better look at one shelf. Most of these books were wide and flat, their spines looking w
orse for wear but still holding together. I slid one out, and it was full of colorful pictures with just a few words on each page. It made me sad to know that these books had existed when I was little but that I never saw them or got to read them then.

  The next room was full of “young adult” books, which Miss Jean said meant teenagers like me but that a lot of adults liked them, too, because they were fun to read. In that room and the room labeled ADULT FICTION, there were smaller signs over each section that said things like FANTASY, SCIENCE FICTION, ROMANCE, REALISTIC FICTION, MYSTERY, and THRILLER. Miss Jean talked as we walked, explaining what each label meant and telling me examples like “This will be your wizards and dragons and vampires and such.” I still didn’t understand a lot of that, but I tried not to ask too many questions.

  Then there were rooms with labels like HISTORY, SCIENCE, PSYCHOLOGY, MYTHOLOGY, and RELIGION above the shelves. It seemed funny to me that the religion section could have any books besides just the Bible, but Miss Jean said those shelves were full of books about how different people understood the Bible, which I guess I had never thought about before, and others with titles like Major World Religions, which was also a new idea to me, that there could be more than just the one I knew. I decided I would spend a lot of time in that room, starting as soon as the tour was over.

  When we came to the last room, I saw a sign over the door that said ARTIFACTS, and Miss Jean walked in ahead of me.

  “Well, hey, Jessie. I didn’t even realize you were back here. You must’ve snuck right by me!” she said, wagging a finger but not seeming at all bothered or even surprised to see Jessie there. I wasn’t that surprised either, to tell the truth, and if I’m really telling it, then I guess I had hoped she would be there. “I was just givin’ our visitor the tour. Have y’all met?” She stepped out of the way so Jessie could see me. She did look surprised but in a good way. She flashed me her big, pretty smile.