Fireflies in December

by Jennifer Erin Valent

  “Ain’t the same now, and you know it.”

  It irritated me that he was bringing up a sore subject, but I fought down the inclination to be harsh. Instead I shrugged and said, “Ain’t much to be done about it. Things will be like whatever they’ll be like, and I’ll just have to deal with it.”

  It was Luke’s turn to kick a pebble, but his rocketed about four feet off the ground and sailed ahead into the bushes at the side of the road. “Ain’t right a girl’s got troubles like this,” he said, his voice laced with frustration. “It just ain’t right!”

  I smiled at the angry creases I saw on his face. The very fact that Luke Talley was upset for me put an extra spring in my step, and though we said little else on the rest of our journey, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

  When the school came into sight, I slowed my pace, but we still reached it far too quickly. Most of the kids were already there, talking noisily in groups scattered across the weed-ridden schoolyard. The boys were separated into four groups, the girls into six, and there wasn’t one to which I felt I belonged.

  I took one deep breath and steadied myself. “Guess I best get goin’.”

  Luke took me by the shoulders, and though I was tall for my age, he slumped so he could look me square in the eye. “You have any trouble, you get to the teacher and let her know, you hear?”

  “You askin’ me to tell tales?” I asked with a snip in my voice. “Ain’t nobody here that tells tales don’t get picked on. Ain’t I got enough troubles already?”

  “You already got troubles; that’s right. That’s why I’m tellin’ you to get to your teacher if anybody gives you trouble.”

  I didn’t see me doing any such thing, but I smiled at him to make him feel better.

  He took my smile as an agreement and stood up straight. “Now,” he said, tucking my arm into his, “let’s get you on inside.”

  I hadn’t expected him to walk me any farther, and when he started leading me past the groups of girls, I knew he was trying to help me out by being seen with me. There wasn’t a faster way to get respect from the girls than to be seen on the arm of a good-looking older boy, and he knew it.

  I didn’t know if his plan would work, all things considered, but I didn’t try to stop him. The way I saw it, even if his plan fell dead flat, it was worth it all the while. As we walked by, heads turned, those of both boys and girls, their interest likely being in more than my alliance with Luke.

  I’d always been the tomboy amid the real girls, so I had never attracted much attention from anyone of any sex. I just fell somewhere in the middle of things. But now I was learning what it was like to be the center of attention among my peers. I was quickly becoming sure that I didn’t like it.

  The bell rang as I mounted the steps to the school, and I turned to look at Luke. “Well,” I said, my voice catching in a sort of hiccup. I cleared my throat and continued, “Guess I gotta go in.”

  “You remember what I said now.” He tucked a stray bit of hair behind my ear and grinned. “You’ll be fine. I feel it in my bones.”

  His sweet touch had thrilled me enough that I believed in his optimistic prediction for the first five minutes of being in that musty school, but it only took until I found my seat and got my pencil out to have the trouble start.

  “You can’t sit there,” I heard Matt Cokely say. I thought he was talking to me, and I looked up, ready to challenge him. But I quickly found that he was talking to Cy Fuller’s daughter, Missy, who had sat at a desk beside me.

  “What for?” she asked.

  “You gonna sit next to a nigger lover?”

  Even though my heart was racing, I glared at Matt, not saying a word.

  Being a little backward, Missy didn’t seem to fully understand the boy. More to the point, she probably had no idea why he was talking to her at all, because with his good looks and popularity, he wasn’t the type of boy who would normally talk to a homely girl like her. That was the beauty of this prejudice, I was quickly discovering. It spanned a wide range of social classes.

  For my part, all I kept thinking was how Missy had sat down next to the girl who may very well have killed her daddy, and I cringed when she turned to study my face. I knew she was mulling over Matt’s words, but I imagined she was picturing me with a rifle in my hand, her daddy’s blood spilling out on my front lawn. The searing guilt stung like a hornet, and it was all I could do to keep from telling her how sorry I was. Only she didn’t know what I was sorry for.

  Missy shot me an uncertain look before she moved herself and her things to another seat. I smiled at her awkwardly so she wouldn’t think I was mad at her. After all, if I’d killed her daddy, she had every right to keep as far away from me as possible.

  Matt simply stared at me a moment more, his head wobbling in a way that I assumed was meant to show me how clever he thought he was. Then he took a seat two rows in front of me.

  I had chosen a seat at the back of the class in hopes of attracting less attention, and not one seat was taken on either side of me. Most of the children seemed to have very definite opinions about me, but the ones who didn’t followed along with the rest in ignorance.

  My teachers weren’t much better. Except for Mrs. Polk, my English teacher, each one of them treated me as though I were nonexistent. Whenever I heard a teacher say, “You there,” I knew they were referring to me, the “nigger lover” in the back row.

  Their rejection of me worked in favor of my education, though. In those first few days, I focused more on my schoolwork than I ever had. When I had my nose in a schoolbook, the rest of the class, their snickers and gibes, all faded into the background.

  Each day I spent the dinner break under a willow tree behind the school, while the other children crowded around in groups in the schoolyard. I took one of Miss Cleta’s novels to school with me and spent the half hour reading fantastical stories while I ate.

  On Friday, I had gone through the looking glass with Alice and was paying no attention to what went on around me when a familiar voice interrupted my serenity.

  “I can think of better things for a girl like you to be doin’ than readin’ stories.”

  I snapped my book shut as though I were writing in my diary and wanted to keep it from prying eyes, then looked up. Walt Blevins was leaning against a tree about fifteen feet away, his thumbs resting in the belt loops of his pants.

  “I can teach you better’n books, little girl,” he said with a grin. “Anytime you want to learn, you just come to me.”

  I packed my things and stood to leave, but Walt blocked my way in an instant.

  “What do you want from me?” I asked, my emotions frayed.

  He laughed. “Now, you’re old enough to know about that. And anything you don’t know, I can teach.”

  I stepped to the right, but he followed, so I stepped back to my left. He blocked my way each time. We were like two clumsy, unwilling dance partners.

  “Stop!” I cried desperately after two tries to elude him. “I just want you to stop! What did we ever do to you?”

  “What’d you do? Girl, it’s people like you who threaten me and every law-abidin’ citizen in this country.”

  “Why? There ain’t nothin’ we’ve done that goes against the law. We ain’t hurt no one.”

  Walt leaned in and lowered his voice. “From what I hear, you hurt someone enough that he ain’t breathin’ no more. And this—” he pulled his shirt aside to reveal the bullet wound I’d gifted him with—“this ain’t no beauty mark. As I remember it, it hurt more’n a little.”

  “You deserved that. You know what I’m talkin’ about. I’m sayin’ we ain’t hurt no one by havin’ Gemma with us.”

  “Well then, that’s your opinion, ain’t it? That’s all. Thing is, it’s you and your kind that make niggers out to be the same as white folks, and that ain’t good for no one.”

  “Why not? You give me one good reason.”

  Walt shook his head slowly, grinning like I was the stupidest thing
he’d ever seen. “Girl, they don’t belong in civilized society. Ain’t you figured that out yet? We white men got to protect what’s ours. We made this country, and we ain’t like to let them take what’s rightfully ours.”

  “The color of someone’s skin don’t make ’em any less a person,” I argued. “God made us all for a reason.”

  “But He ain’t made us all the same, pretty girl.” He took my book and tipped my chin up with it. “Don’t take nothin’ but one look at you to prove that.”

  I snatched the book from his grimy hands. “Let me by. I have to get back to school.”

  “Don’t rush off now . . .”

  Walt reached for me, and my skin prickled with terror. My entire body tensed in dreaded anticipation and my mind reeled, searching for a solution to my problem. I was so preoccupied by my circumstances that the sudden clang of the school bell made me jump, but it was the very thing that saved me.

  “They’ll be expectin’ me inside,” I told him with a broken voice. “You want them comin’ out to look for me?”

  He backed up and made a motion ushering me by. “Don’t let me stop you, princess. I ain’t never gotten in the way of good ol’ book learnin’.”

  I rushed to get past him, but he stuck a foot out to stop me momentarily.

  “You do me one favor and get a message to your daddy for me,” Walt whispered in my ear. “You tell him he best not go pushin’ his ideas on other people if he wants his family to keep out of trouble. And you tell that Luke Talley to keep his dirty hands out of my business.”

  I ignored his words and sidestepped his booted foot.

  But he caught me by the arm and stuck his face into my hair. “You have fun bakin’ them pies last night? Blackberry, I hear they was.”

  My whole body froze, prickles racing up my spine.

  “That’s right. I get good information. You think you’s alone out at that farm?” he asked. “No ma’am. There’s eyes on you. It just ain’t the eyes you’d expect, is all.”

  I wrenched away from him, but I couldn’t take my eyes off his face.

  Walt smirked at my terror. “Done got you scared now, ain’t I? Well, you can’t be too careful these days. You best take my warnin’.”

  I managed to get my feet to move, and with one last bit of fight, I avoided his grasping hands and ran.

  “You just remember,” he called as I fled into the school, “I got eyes and ears everywhere. I know what you’re up to day and night.”

  I turned and took a last look at his sneering face.

  Walt nodded at me and hollered, “That’s right. Day . . . and . . . night.”

  I whirled back around and tore off into the school. His words had put new fears into my heart. Someone was keeping tabs on me. Someone who could get close to us. The very thought made me ill.

  From then on, dinnertime for me was spent inside at my desk.

  I never passed Walt’s message on to my daddy. I had gone to a place in my mind where I believed if I pretended things were all right, they would be. I had kept secrets before, and the way I saw it, my near-imprisonment had come from those secrets being revealed. I hated being the victim, followed and coddled by those who feared for my safety.

  All I wanted was to stop feeling afraid.

  By Tuesday afternoon of our second week of school, everyone could tell that we had a good storm blowing in. Summers in Calloway could bring a lot of rain, late summer in particular, and we had become pretty used to it. The gloom moved in slowly throughout Tuesday, and by the time I walked home from school with Luke, the trees were swaying in a steady wind.

  Luke carried his hat since it wouldn’t stay on his head, and with the wind in my face, I had to work hard to keep up with his long strides. We didn’t say much. He seemed solemn, a rarity since Luke was normally cheerful and smiling. But then, he had taken to brooding a bit these days. It wasn’t so much that he was unhappy; he just seemed thoughtful, caught up with concerns. We were all like that really, but on this particular afternoon, Luke seemed to be in an especially foul mood.

  Several times I glanced at him, thinking of saying something, but I changed my mind each time.

  We were rounding the corner to home when he said his first words since hello. “I got a visit at work today.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Don’t know. Just found a message in my locker.”

  “Who from?”

  “Didn’t say. But it said somethin’ about you. Said if I wanted the letter explained, I could ask you. Seemed to me somebody was tryin’ to warn me you could be hurt if I didn’t watch my step.”

  I just kept walking, staring straight ahead.

  “Jessilyn,” Luke said, taking my arm to stop me, “you been bothered by anyone?”

  I stared at him, my mouth open with no words coming out.

  “I asked you a question,” he said. “Have you been bothered?” I lowered my eyes because I didn’t want to tell him, but I couldn’t lie to him either.

  My actions told him what he wanted to know, and he yelled into the wind, “This is gonna stop. Ain’t no reason why good people gotta suffer for bein’ right.”

  I watched him while he ranted, thinking it best to keep out of his way.

  Luke paced and muttered and beat his hat until it looked wrinkled and ragged. Then he pointed the hat at me. “You tell me when someone gets on you, you hear me?”

  I shook my head at him without thinking.

  “What do you mean, no?” he demanded.

  “I won’t tell you if you’re gonna tell my daddy.”

  “You can’t go around keepin’ stuff from your daddy.”

  “I can too! I’m tired of causin’ trouble for him. Besides, I know he’s been havin’ money troubles. He can’t keep it from me no matter how much he tries. I know people round here ain’t been buyin’ from him. We might lose the farm over this.” I shook my head adamantly. “No sir. Ain’t nothin’ more I’m worryin’ Daddy with. He’s got a pocketful of worries as it is.”

  “Now you listen here,” Luke said, edging up in front of me. “We’re all in this thing together. Ain’t just you involved here.”

  “You think Walt Blevins would be botherin’ us so much if he didn’t have it in for me? I shot him, and now he wants to hurt me back. And what about Cy Fuller? We got worries about the law because of that.” A lump formed in my throat at the mention of Cy, and I spun away from Luke to keep him from seeing me cry.

  “You ain’t done nothin’ wrong. Not one thing, you hear? Don’t you let that get into your head.”

  “Stop tellin’ me not to worry.” I turned to face him without fear of exposing my tears. “Everyone tells me not to worry. Meantime, I ain’t allowed to leave the house alone. I look behind me all the time, scared to find someone sneakin’ up on me. Ain’t nothin’ that don’t make me scared no more. Nothin’! And every day of my life, I got to wake up thinkin’ I murdered somebody’s daddy.” My last words tore me up inside, and I started crying a river, feeling like a fool the whole time.

  Luke dropped his hat onto the ground and pulled me to him, burying my face in his chest. I about soaked through his shirt with my tears, but he didn’t seem to mind. He kept patting my back and smoothing my hair, saying all sorts of nice things to me like, “You’re a tough one. You’ll be just fine, Jessie girl. Don’t you worry now.”

  Through the wind and my hiccuping sobs, I couldn’t hear everything he said, but with my ear against his chest, I could feel the vibrations of his deep voice, and it put me at ease.

  Eventually I pulled myself together, and Luke tipped my chin and wiped my cheeks with his handkerchief. “Ain’t no reason for you to feel bad,” he said. “You let those people make you feel wrong for protectin’ yourself, and they’ve won.”

  “But I killed him,” I moaned. “I got to live with that. I can’t never look Cy’s family in the eyes again.”

  “You ain’t killed that man. I feel it deep down. Don’t you go worryin’. Just don’t you do
it.”

  I wiped my face with his handkerchief before I said, “Luke . . .”

  “What’s that?”

  “I meant what I said. I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’ if you don’t swear not to tell my daddy.”

  “Jessilyn,” Luke said, dragging my name out in exasperation, “your daddy’ll kill me if he finds out I knew somethin’ and didn’t tell him.”

  “Walt came to school,” I blurted out.

  “What’d he do?” he asked, his jaw tightening. “He hurt you?”

  “He said his usual things about me, things he shouldn’t say.”

  “Did he touch you?”

  “Not really, he just talked.” I crossed my arms, my trademark stubbornness returning. “But I won’t tell you what he said if you don’t swear to keep it secret.”

  He sighed and pushed his windblown hair back. “It ain’t right.”

  “Then I’ll deal with it on my own,” I said, charging off toward home.

  Luke grabbed the back of my shirt and pulled me to a stop. “All right. You swear to tell me everythin’, and I won’t tell your daddy nothin’.” He pointed at me and added, “But you better not skip anythin’, you hear?”

  I nodded and wiped my leftover tears with the back of my hand.

  “Now, you tell me the rest of what Walt said,” he said.

  Before I got the chance to, I caught sight of something out of the corner of my eye and glanced over in time to see Luke’s hat whipping across the field.

  “Your hat’s runnin’ off,” I told him, managing to grin.

  “Holy smokes!” he exclaimed, running after it.

  I watched him, enjoying every bit of his wild chase. The old tattered hat teased him mercilessly, stopping here and there only to fly off again whenever he got close enough to catch it.

  Luke approached me sheepishly once he finally retrieved it, but it didn’t take him long to remember our earlier conversation. I spent the rest of the short walk home telling him about Walt, and he spent the rest of the walk getting more and more upset. It seemed we were all in a sort of war in those days.

  I took comfort in knowing Luke and I were in it together.