Tobi put her other arm around me and held me against her shoulder.
“The worst part is, I haven’t been there for Mel at all.” I hadn’t meant to let this spill out—Tobi was so sensitive, I was afraid I would hurt her feelings. But here, in the cool of the autumn evening, with her holding me as the sun went down, I couldn’t help it. “I’ve been—very stupid. I’ve avoided her since spring, even though I’m supposed to be her friend. I think—it seems like she’s been pretty lonely.”
She stroked my hair quietly, and contrary to my expectations, her only reaction was to say, “I’m sorry, Em.”
We were quiet for a long time as the last rays of sunlight vanished. Then finally she spoke. “Have you ever prayed for Paige?”
My face grew warm. “No.”
She squeezed me, then let go. “It’s okay to be angry. That’s natural, when someone you love is hurting. But you still have to love her. Paige, I mean. Ask God to help you, then ask Him to help you want to pray for her.”
I sighed. How did Tobi always know? I hadn’t said a thing about being mad at Paige—about almost hating her for the hurt she was causing Mel and her parents.
A wall I hadn’t even known was there crumbled, and I realized for the first time that I’d pushed her away a little, just a little, because of what had happened with Jax.
And I remembered her talk about clouds.
“Okay,” was all I said.
The crickets started singing.
“Don’t you think that walk might be nice?” Tobi said. “Just a short one.”
“Okay.”
She stood up, then reached down her hands for me. I gripped them and let her pull me up off the steps. She smiled in the dusk and brushed a bit of hair behind my ear. “Just to the woods and back. It’ll be good for you.”
It would. Tobi was right, as she always was.
We started towards the woods together.
“Emily?” she said after we had almost reached the trees. “I have one positive thing and one negative. Which do you want first?”
“The negative,” I whispered, afraid to break the spell by speaking aloud.
“Well then—I know I probably distracted you from Melissa. I’m sorry.”
I swallowed. “It was my fault, not yours...”
“I’m still sorry. Just say you forgive me.”
“I do.”
“Okay. Now that that’s out of the way—I wanted to tell you tonight... that...”
She hesitated, causing expectation to bubble in my chest.
“Well, I think I might be ready to take that drivers test. Will they be open after church tomorrow?”
I positively grinned. “No, but I think they’re open late Wednesdays. I could take you after school.”
“Excellent.” She smiled back, the new moonlight making her hair purple again. “And... let’s ask Jax to come along.”
The last bit of cloud over my heart disappeared.
*****
The leaves started falling that week. We didn’t get the same brilliant colors that New England got, but even in our little town you could spot sparks of red and orange on a drive down the road. We saw them as October drove us to the DPS on Wednesday evening, with last sunlight filtering through them before touching her matching hair.
Jax leaned forward from the back seat of the Rivers’ car and squeezed her shoulder. “You can do it. I know you can.”
She smiled a little. “How do you know?”
“Because I know you.”
The smile softened as she pulled into the parking lot. She put the car in park and turned it off, then sat and waited.
We were silent.
“Will you two be all right?” she asked.
I nodded. “We’ll just run over to the bakery across the street.” I wanted to add “and you can call me if anything goes wrong,” but I didn’t want to undermine her fragile confidence.
She breathed deeply and got out of the car. We followed. She turned to face us, eyes asking for permission to move forward.
I darted at her and wrapped her in a hug. “We’ll go for ice cream after you’re done.”
“What if I don’t pass?” She hugged back.
“You will. But we’ll go for ice cream either way.”
She chuckled, then just said, “See you later,” and turned and walked through the door of the building.
Jax swallowed as he watched after her.
“Is she really going to do okay?” I asked him.
He turned and started walking across the street towards Johnson’s Bakery. “I hope so. Yes. She will.”
She would. He was right. She was smart, and she’d worked hard on this. Soon she’d be the one driving to pick me up.
We looked both ways, crossed the street, and reached the bakery, where Jax held the door open for me and we entered. The fresh, sweet, yeasty scent immediately assaulted my nostrils.
“Hey there, Jackson,” called Mr. Johnson, who was wiping a small two-person table. “Your parents back in town yet?”
“Yes sir. Just a couple weeks ago.” Jax stepped forward to shake the hand of the round, balding man.
“Good, good. I expect your mom will be in here wanting her sourdough bread soon.”
“I expect so.”
The man darted a glance at me. “This your girlfriend?”
“Gosh no,” Jax laughed. “It’s my cousin.”
“You’ve met me, Mr. Johnson,” I laughed, walking towards them. “Emily Baxter.”
“Oh to be sure, to be sure!” The baker wiped his hands on his apron and held one out to me. “So sorry. So—how can I help you today?”
We ordered two cream cheese kolaches and settled down at the table he’d just wiped to wait for them. This location provided an ideal view of the DPS across the street, where we watched for October to come out of the building and retrieve the car for her test.
The trees around the building were some of the more colorful in town, an imperfect gradient from green to yellow to orange to a brilliant, fiery red that rivaled Mrs. Tuttle’s hair, and back again.
“Are you doing okay?” I asked without looking at Jax.
We hadn’t brought up the topic directly since that evening.
“Eh. I’ve been better.” I could practically hear his shrug.
I picked up the salt shaker and toyed with it, picking at an imperfection in the glass on one side. What would happen if I picked it off, I wondered? Would the salt come pouring out? Or would it just reveal more glass underneath?
“I mean, I’ve been worse too,” he went on after awhile. “It’s not like I haven’t had crushes before.”
I looked up at him in surprise at this. “You have?”
“Um, yeah? I’m a teenage boy, Em. What did you expect?” He laughed, but his face reddened.
“Who?” I put the salt shaker down.
“Susan Freemont, I think...” His blush deepened.
I shouldn’t have laughed, but I did. “From third grade?”
“What can I say. I was a romantic kid.”
I laughed again.
“Well I was.” He smiled. “There was a girl named Katy at church, too, but I honestly don’t even remember her last name...”
“Katy James?”
“Yeah, I think so. And... maybe Melissa a little, here and there.”
“Melissa?” I raised my eyebrows.
He shrugged, picked up the salt shaker, and focused on the same imperfection I had.
Mr. Johnson brought us our kolaches, each in a little paper bag. We took them out, and I smoothed my bag out and set the warm bun on top of it. Jax, on the other hand, just gobbled his.
“I meant to ask him not to warm mine up,” I said.
“Just let it cool off. Knowing the DPS, we’ve got time.”
It was a fair assessment.
He finished his, and brushed a few crumbs off his mouth.
“I think Melissa might like you,” I said.
“Um, okay.”
“I mean it. She said you were looking handsome.”
He just shrugged.
Across the street, I caught sight of Mr. Rivers’ car backing up, and pulling around to the other side of the building. We must have missed seeing her come out.
“Was October just a crush?”
He watched as the car disappeared around the corner of the DPS. “As opposed to...?”
“I mean... like, were you—are you—in love with her?”
He kept staring out the window. “How do you tell?”
I looked back at him.
“Really, how do you?” He looked straight at me. “A crush is all feelings. Love is caring for someone. You can have both, though. And it’s hard to tell the difference, anyway.”
I looked down at my kolache and pressed one fingertip to it. Still warm.
“I talked to my mom some about it.”
I looked up. “About October?”
“Well, not specifically. I asked her if she thought it was possible for a guy and a girl to be best friends without anything getting weird, basically.”
“And what did she say?”
“She said she thought so, but that it was hard, and sometimes it was harder than it was worth.”
I didn’t like this at all, and a surge of irritation towards Aunt Sarah leapt into my chest. “That seems silly. What about you and me?”
“We’re related...”
“So? You and October are basically related. You’re like her little brother.”
He just shrugged.
“So what’s the difference?”
He sighed. “I don’t know. I just know there is one.”
I touched my kolache again, and found it mostly cool. I picked it up and ate it, trying to let the tart sweetness of the cream cheese filling soothe my feelings.
After a long period of silence, my cell phone buzzed and I looked down to find a message from October.
“Finished,” was all it said.
“She’s done,” I told Jax. He hurried to pay, and I gathered up our trash and deposited it in a can beside the door.
“Tell your mom I can have that sourdough ready if she calls ahead of time,” Mr. Johnson said.
“I will, thanks.” And Jax and I hurried back across the street.
October was sitting on the concrete steps in front, in the quickly dimming light, her face unreadable.
I gulped.
When she saw us, she stood up and walked to the car. We met her there.
“Well?” I finally asked.
“Well...” she said slowly, but I thought I could hear a smile in her voice, despite the lack of one on her face.
Pure happiness bubbled up within me. I jumped forward and touched her arm. “You passed!”
She grinned broadly and held up a shiny new driver’s license with an unfairly beautiful picture of her face on it.
I wrapped both my arms around her and jumped. She laughed and returned the hug, and Jax came up behind me and gripped both of us in his long arms.
The joy of victory was in her laugh.
Chapter Eleven
“I think I’m going to invite Tom and Helen over for dinner this week.”
Mom made the announcement during Sunday afternoon dinner. I had planned to have lunch with October after church, and wasn’t too happy that she had put her foot down about me coming home. I had protested that I was home all the time, but she would have none of it.
“Oh?” Daddy spooned some soup into his mouth, then choked a little and took a quick drink of water.
“I told you it was hot, dear. Yes... I don’t think it’s really very kind to have October over all the time and ignore them.”
I had almost forgotten about October’s aunt and uncle. Other than seeing them at church and the occasional ride in his car when she borrowed it, I had no reason to remember them. October never mentioned them. Not once, now that I thought about it. She would talk about books, about pictures or food or clothes or religion or philosophy, but not a word was said about the people she was living with, her mother who was dead, or her father who was not. It was as though she truly were an island, despite the old saying.
“I think it’s a good idea. What evening?”
“I was thinking Wednesday. We’d have October too, of course.”
Clearly she didn’t care about my opinion. Which was probably a good thing, because I wasn’t even sure I knew what my opinion was. Part of me felt resistant—being friends with October was no reason to spend time with her relatives, and it annoyed me that Mom would interfere in my friendships like that. On the other hand—maybe the rest of my feelings were only curiosity. Come to think of it, I didn’t even know which of October’s parents were related to which one of the Rivers. I had no idea what her life with them looked like, though it couldn’t be too significant. After all, she was out of the house all the time, sometimes coming back quite late, and there never seemed to be any repercussions that I could see. Then again, she was twenty-two years old.
All the more reason we didn’t need to worry about her aunt and uncle.
My opinion, however, clearly didn’t matter, so I might as well make the best of it and indulge my curiosity when Wednesday came.
I expected to hear from October before then, to hear her thoughts about the whole thing, but she neither texted nor called me in the three days following. Nor did I meet her out walking or at the library, her two favorite places. I told myself that she was busy—though with what, I could not imagine, since she didn’t work and she didn’t go to school. I just tried to focus on my own school and not think about it.
Wednesday finally came, finding me a little more eager to help with dinner than I usually was. Mom made soup again, chicken and rice chowder, with sourdough toast and salad. She liked making soup as soon as the heat began to fade, especially when we were having company—she said it was easy to make a large batch.
I chopped onions again, watching out of the corner of my eye as Patrick Charles came in and out getting plates to set the table.
“We only need seven,” I insisted as he trotted in to get the eighth.
He stopped with his hand midway to the stack of plates on the counter and looked at Mom.
“No, you were right, hon. Ten plates.”
He grinned triumphantly and picked up another plate.
“Ten?” I looked at Mom, feeling my eyes begin to burn and water.
“Sarah and Jim and Jax are coming over, too. Didn’t I tell you?”
She hadn’t. And I wasn’t sure how to feel about that, either.
It was a quiet dinner party. Even Patrick Charles seemed to babble less than usual. Jax was positively silent, as was October. After her initial greeting and hug, she barely looked at me the entire evening. She kept very focused on her soup, seeming intent on making sure there was the exact same amount of chicken, rice, and vegetables in every spoonful.
Was it just me or was her appearance toned down a bit as well? Her magnificent hair, usually shown off to its best advantage, was twisted up in a simple bun. Her blouse and skirt, while still her style, were a plain navy and brown.
Her aunt and uncle didn’t talk much, either. They both wore brown and gray, both had gray hair brushed tightly back, both seemed also a bit overly focused on their food.
Thus my parents and Jax’s parents had to carry most of the conversation.
“How are crops this year, Tom?” asked Uncle Jim after awhile.
Mr. Rivers swallowed and took a gulp of water. “Decent. We only did corn this year, just a few acres. Yours?”
“We’re only doing cows and chickens now. Seems like we downsize every year.”
This didn’t interest me in the least. It didn’t seem to interest October, either.
“So, October.” Aunt Sarah smiled across the table, a genuine, friendly smile. “How are you liking Pleasanton? Jax tells me you arrived shortly after we left.”
October looked up a little too quickly. “I’m liking it, tha
nk you.”
“And where are you from?”
“Chicago.”
I picked at a carrot in my soup, once again torn. I wanted Aunt Sarah to go on, to let me learn more about my friend, but I also wanted her to leave October alone. I didn’t want her upset.
“And how long do you think you’ll be here? Or is it a permanent move?”
October glanced sidelong at her aunt and uncle. Mrs. Rivers cleared her throat. Mr. Rivers spoke up. “We’re happy to have her with us as long as she wants to stay.”
Mom and Daddy exchanged glances. Aunt Sarah stopped asking questions.
I was glad when dinner was over.
Jax and his parents left right after dinner, to put the cows and chickens up. Mom and Daddy invited Mr. and Mrs. Rivers into the den to catch up. Patrick Charles ran off to play.
Tobi and I were left to clear the table.
I picked up a plate and began to circle the table collecting them. She followed my lead with bowls.
“I’m sorry if Aunt Sarah embarrassed you,” I said as we headed into the kitchen.
“Why would I be embarrassed?”
Her tight voice didn’t match her words.
I just sighed, and deposited my dishes into the sink.
She echoed my sigh. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m a—private person, I guess. You know that. But she was only being nice. I don’t mind.”
I couldn’t help the sense that she meant something other than what she was saying, but I nodded and started rinsing the dishes.
“Have you been driving much?” I asked.
Her face brightened. “Some. Not necessarily a lot, but I have driven a few times.”
“I’m so glad.”
“Me too.”
I squirted some soap on the bowls and wiped them out with a faded red dishrag.
She took the dishes I washed and dried them, thoroughly, precisely, chasing down each drop of water.
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