by Lisa Wingate
She added the words five children, and then pushed the ENTER key, sending the kilobytes of my history floating off into the ether. As the computer whirred, she swung my way like the pendulum striking on a clock. “Look, Deborah told my mom that a couple months ago, you ran your other car into a tree and almost killed yourself. You’re not driving me home.”
“Deborah exaggerates.” I could hardly admit that, at the time of the accident, I’d been driving Annalee’s car. I’d brought it out with the intention only of circling the block a few times to run the engine. As the sunlight streamed into the interior, warming the seats, the scent of Annalee’s perfume became so clear, so convincing, that I’d been certain she must be there in the car. Her voice echoed in my ear, and I’d turned toward the passenger seat, seen her or imagined her there, her head tipping back in laughter, her hair curling over her shoulders. I’d reached for her, and then the next thing . . . impact.
Epiphany touched my hand now, but instead I felt Annalee. They were Annalee’s eyes that I saw, large, beseeching, brimming along the bottom. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, okay?” she whispered.
A tenderness swelled inside me—vulnerability of the sort I hadn’t felt since . . . since Roy was alive? Was that when I threw myself so completely into my work, walling myself off from Deborah and Annalee, allowing them to process their grief together, without me? “We’re at an impasse, then, aren’t we?” I observed. “Either way, someone is at risk.” Risk. I’d been unwilling to take the risk of showing my pain to Deborah and Annalee, of letting them see the depth of my grief and guilt, of even experiencing it myself. I’d helped Roy choose that car, the Mustang, never stopping to consider what sort of trouble a fast car could lead a boy into.
I shook off the past, shedding it like water from an impermeable barrier. What was the point in revisiting old wounds? “I’ll call next door and speak with Hanna Beth. She has two nurses who live in her upstairs apartment. One of them leaves for the night shift a bit before ten. I can pay her a little something to drive you home.”
“I can take the . . .”
I whipped a hand upward to stop the argument. “It’s settled. I can’t let you go walking off in the dark, and by the by, no gentleman would. You’ll do well to remember that, in terms of dating in the future. Any boy who expects to pick you up and drop you off at the curb is not worth your time. A young lady must respect herself if she’s to demand respect from a boy.”
Epiphany didn’t answer. She’d turned her attention back to the screen, her rounded shoulders indicating that she was weary of my lectures. I only hoped they were penetrating her armor. “J. Norm, look,” she whispered, pointing to the screen. “It came up with something. There’s a listing about books.”
I leaned close to make out the text. An East Texas Timber Town History, by M. L. White, Pinewood Publishing Company, it read in blue type, and below in black, a listing for a book with two hundred and fifty pages, published in 1991, and following that, a quote: . . . tramps along the railroad. I remember in January of 1940 a big house along the track burned down, with five children, their mother, and a colored maid inside. My daddy was the sheriff at the time, and there was a suspicion that hobos off the train had caused the fire, but . . .
“My word,” I breathed.
Epiphany nodded, then moved the arrow to the listing and pushed the button. She seemed to be holding her breath, as was I.
The hourglass spun and spun.
We waited.
Epiphany tapped her fingernail impatiently against the button.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s not coming up, or . . .” The screen changed finally, turning white at first, and then a notification appearing: Address not found.
Muttering, Epiphany tried again, and then searched for the author, M. L. White, with the same results. I went to the phone and called next door to arrange a ride for Epiphany, while she searched for further information about the book or the publishing company. She came up with an address in Groveland, Texas, and a phone number. After completing my call next door, I dialed the publishing company’s number, thinking to receive an automated message regarding business hours, but the number now belonged to a dollar store in Groveland, Texas. The teenager who answered the phone had never heard of the book or the publisher. A call to directory assistance confirmed that there was no current listing for the Pinewood Publishing Company.
“Tomorrow I’ll try the library in Groveland,” I told Epiphany, as we went to Deborah’s room and selected a few model rockets for Epiphany’s history project. “With any luck, the Groveland library will have the book in their collection, or they can direct me to a place that might—a museum or historical society. I’m sure that with enough digging, we can track down something.”
“I hope so,” Epiphany said, and then we proceeded downstairs to wait for Hanna Beth’s nurse to swing by. Epiphany was still thinking about the Internet listing. “Where’s Groveland, Texas?”
“East and south, down in the Piney Woods,” I told her. “Not so far from here. Perhaps three hours’ drive, I’d say.”
She chewed her lip, and to my surprise I realized that I’d come to know her well enough to understand the meaning of that expression. She was cooking something up. “We could go there. This weekend. We could take your car. I could drive.”
I was momentarily blindsided. “I hardly think your mother . . .”
Her mouth hung open, as if I were a numbskull. “Russ and her are heading to Oklahoma this weekend, on Friday. They’ll never even know. If we went to Groveland in person, we could find out everything.” Her eyes widened, and her mouth lifted into a slow, crafty smile that beamed with the light of the rising idea. “Just think about it, J. Norm. You and me on a road trip.”
I’m ashamed to say that I actually found myself considering it, the taste of an adventure tantalizing the dusty, understimulated corners of my mind. “And then there’s Deborah.”
“Maybe she’ll stay mad. She didn’t come by today. Maybe she won’t all weekend.”
“There’s no telling, with Deborah.”
“If she doesn’t come by tomorrow or Friday, can we go?”
Lights shone in the driveway, and I unlocked the door for Epiphany to leave, but she wouldn’t. “Come on, J. Norm. It’ll be an adventure—like launching for the moon. Who knows what we’ll find in Groveland?”
I wrung my hands, the temptation overwhelming. An adventure into the unknown, when I’d thought all the great adventures of my life were past. Camelot, one more time. “We’ll see how the remainder of the week develops,” I answered finally.
Not yes. But not no, either.
The possibility remained.
Chapter 16
Epiphany Jones
I got Russ to call me in sick again on Thursday, but by Friday morning, I didn’t have any choice except to go to school. Russ was busy getting ready for the flea market in Oklahoma, and Mama was crashed out in bed after working like crazy to get ahead on cleaning her houses so she could go on the big weekend trip. She’d had a cancel today, so she was done for the week, and she’d already called in sick to work for tonight so they could leave. When I passed by in the hall, she rolled over with her eyes closed and babbled out, “. . . uuungo to shhhschool.” Which was more than I usually got. She sure didn’t want me hanging around bugging her today.
When I passed by Russ in the kitchen, he asked if I wanted to go to Oklahoma, like maybe he felt bad about leaving me here for three days again. I told him I had to finish my English essay and do my report in history class today, so I couldn’t skip school, and then J. Norm needed me at work. I didn’t want anybody getting ideas about making me get in the truck and go to some swap meet all weekend. I couldn’t think of much that would be worse than being smushed in the front seat with Russ and Mama while they either cuddled or fought all the way to Oklahoma.
For once, I wasn’t really lying, anyway. J. Norm a
nd me did have plans, and I really did need to get the stupid speech over with in history. The teacher had already warned us that ditching school wouldn’t get us out of it, and besides, if I stayed home any longer, I was gonna be so far behind, I’d never catch up. Hopefully, now that a couple days had gone by since J. Norm’s big visit to the principal’s office, DeRon would be cooled down. I’d basically saved his rear on the backpack deal, anyway, and J. Norm was paying for the damaged books, so DeRon came out of it all right. I couldn’t keep hiding out from him forever. There were still six weeks to go before summer. Six weeks and one day, if I lived that long, and we’d be done for the year. By the time summer was over and it was time to go back again, I wasn’t gonna be here. With the money I was stashing away, and now having J. Norm’s computer for research, I could blow this joint by the middle of the summer, go look for my daddy’s family, and find out the truth about all those ladies in the big hats and the beautiful dresses who bothered to pose for pictures with me at my first and only birthday party.
Turning that plan over in the back of my mind made it easier to gather up the stuff for my history report and walk down the street to the school bus stop, looking over my shoulder for DeRon all the way. My stomach bubbled and curled like plastic in a fire when I thought about getting on the bus, with people giving me looks and saying things like, “Hey, cream pie, yo’ mama get that shirt outta the trash somewhere?” or, “You want some chewin’ gum, Jemima?” And then they’d throw some used gum across the bus, or come by and try to smash it into my hair. When I moved out of the way, they’d be like, “What, you too good for my gum?”
This morning wasn’t any different, of course. Now that DeRon wasn’t on my side anymore, we were back to the same stupid stuff, except they’d all heard what had happened in DeRon’s car, and how I ran to J. Norm’s house after that, and they were all making jokes about it, like, “Yeah, you jus’ like 7-Eleven, got a open-door policy. Take ’em young and old. You got you a old-dude boyfriend, cream pie? Maybe somebody betta tell him watch his back. You gonna give it to him like you done with DeRon, then go call the principal ’cuz he don’ wanna be your boyfriend after? Who gonna be a boyfriend wit’ some nasty thang like you, anyway?”
“What you got in that bag, there, cream pie? Awww , you got a little toy rocket? You gonna blast off back to the moon?”
By the time I got to school, I was tired. Tired of ducking and dodging, tired of listening and not saying anything, tired of trying to keep the gurgling pool of rotten breakfast inside me from coming up. Tired of everything.
I was sorry I’d brought stuff from J. Norm’s for the history report. It just gave them another reason to rag on me. I shouldn’t have bothered. If you did your work at this school, it just made the other kids pick on you.
I put everything in my locker as quick as I could, so there was one less thing to worry about. Walking down the halls, I kept watching for DeRon. It didn’t take me long to figure out that he’d gotten a couple days of in-school suspension, because after the principal’d talked to us, he’d grilled a couple of the kids who ran around with DeRon, and somebody leaked it that he spray-painted my backpack on purpose. Now the other kids hated me worse than usual. Of course, the story going around was that I’d gone all the way with DeRon in his car, and then I was mad when he wouldn’t be my boyfriend.
By ten o’clock, I’d decided that if I made it to the end of school in one piece, it was gonna be a miracle.
During lunch, I went in the bathroom and pulled my feet up above the stall and just hid out there, because I knew what would happen in the cafeteria. Even on a good day, there weren’t enough teachers to keep people from throwing food and walking by and poking you with forks, and today wasn’t a good day.
By the time history class came along, my stomach was so empty I was sick, and my head was pounding. I botched the report about rockets, not that anybody cared. Mostly, they slept through it. DeRon’s old girlfriend, Lesha, stared me down and let me know I was dead if she and her bunch got ahold of me.
As soon as the bell rang, I scooted out of there, dumped stuff in my locker, and moved down the hall to my next class. Once I was there, I let out a big ol’ sigh and laid my head on my desk, thinking, I just want to get out of here. In English class, we watched a movie, but I couldn’t pay attention to it. A hammer was banging in my head and I felt like I was ready to throw up. Before class was over, I told the teacher I was sick, and I took off for the bathroom. That turned out to be the biggest mistake of the day. The hallway was empty, and all of sudden there was DeRon. He caught me by the arm, and before I knew what was happening, he’d pulled me into the boys’ bathroom and pinned me against the wall, his body solid and heavy, pressing me into the cement blocks. The smell of hair wax and sweat and bad breath filled my nose, and my stomach rolled over, then clenched. I couldn’t remember what I ever liked about him—why I thought I wanted to be his girlfriend.
“Hey, babe.” His lips pulled back into a sick kind of smile—not the smile he used to charm the ladies, but the kind that said he was thinking of something bad and already imagining how it was gonna feel. “You been tryin’ to hide out?” He opened his fingers where they held my wrist pinned against the wall, slid his palm slowly over my skin. My arm stayed frozen there, like it’d been tied to the cinder blocks. For a second, I couldn’t move. All I could think about was that day in the car. If I hadn’t climbed out the window, what would’ve happened? Would he have pulled me into the backseat and pinned my body like this?
“Cut it out.” My voice was weak and thready. “Leave me a—” His lips came down, covered mine, pressed hard, and took away the rest of the words. His hand moved lower, his thumb and fingers circling my neck. Then he lifted his head again, leaned back to look down at me, his thumb stroking back and forth over my windpipe, just hard enough that it hurt a little. “Yeah, you still want me,” he murmured, and grinned again. “You got a little game on, gettin’ me in-school suspension. Tellin’ everyone I messed up them books.”
“You know I didn’t tell them anything,” I bit out, the words going higher and lower when he pressed on my throat. What was he doing in the hall, anyway? Kids in the in-school suspension room weren’t allowed to go anywhere on their own. Did he sneak out, or did the teacher let him go? How much longer until somebody came looking for him, or the bell rang? How many minutes? There was a security camera right outside the bathroom door, a class right across the hall. DeRon couldn’t do much to me here. Could he? If I screamed, someone would hear. Right?
But I knew better, really. Just a month before I came, some girl got a concussion in the restroom. People still talked about it in the lunch line. Next week, they could be talking about me. My heart lurched and fluttered so hard I was sure DeRon could feel it through my skin.
“Your old-man boyfriend told ’em I messed with them books, though, didn’t he?” DeRon’s eyes narrowed, two black beads as cold as glass. They didn’t fit with his thick, dark lashes. “You been givin’ that old man some, Epiphany? He pay you good for it?”
“You’re sick.” I turned my face away, and he pulled it back, pushed on my throat hard enough that I coughed. I was afraid to turn away again.
“You wanna sell it, girl, we can make us a little money. I know guys that’ll pay.” He blinked real slow, like he was enjoying watching my eyes go wide and my mouth drop open. “You don’t mind old guys, I can get us some real money.”
I moved my hand off the wall, slammed both palms against his shoulders, tried to push him off, but he didn’t move. I wasn’t getting out of here until the bell rang or he let me go. My mind raced ahead, looking for a way I could get free. There was no car window to crawl through this time. “Get away from me, DeRon. You do anything to me, you get in any more trouble, you’ll be off the basketball team, and then what’ll happen to all those big scholarships you’re always talking about, huh? You’ll just be another loser like all the rest of the losers walking the streets around here.”
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nbsp; His lashes flared; then narrowed again. “Well, you just too good for all us now, are ya? Miss A-plus-plus? I wanna see what somethin’ that good tastes like.” He kissed me again, his fingers massaging my neck, squeezing, then letting go, pushing little puffs of air between our lips, his body pressing against mine before he whispered, “Come on, baby, don’t be so cold. I know you been givin’ it to that old man. I seen you stayin’ at his house all night long when yo’ mama ain’t home. You think I didn’t come lookin’ fo’ you that night after you ran outta my car?”
He lost his balance a little, his body arching away from mine. Twisting in the empty space, I shoved him off me. He stumbled to one side, his foot tangling between mine.
The bell rang, and all I could think was, Thank you, God. Any second now, the hallway would be full of kids heading for the lockers and teachers and security guards trying to make sure nobody got in a fight.
DeRon knew he had to give it up before he got caught in here with me. Standing between me and the door, he rubbed a hand over his hair. “You bes’ stop gamin’ on me, Epie.”
I pulled my T-shirt straight, tried to keep my hands from shaking. Ever. You got girls lined up out the door, anyway. Go find one of them.”
He grinned again, the flirty kind of grin this time, like we were just playing. “I been with all a’ them, Epiphany. I want me somethin’ new.”
“Leave me alone, DeRon.” I took a step toward the door, grabbed the handle to see if he’d move. He stuck his foot in front of the door, blocking it just an inch open; then he leaned over me from behind. “Guess I better go do me a public service, then.” His voice was low, deep in his throat, the growl of a dog that’s already decided to bite. “Guess I better go tell the counselor and the principal that old man been gettin’ it on with you, keepin’ you at his big ol’ house overnight. Lettin’ you drive around in his car, buyin’ you stuff. Yeah, I seen you at Wal-Mart the other day. You all smilin’ at him, and him shuckin’ off that credit card like it ain’t nothin’.”