Georgia Rules

by Nanci Turner Steveson

“Yeah,” Lucy mimicked.

  Sue and Kori were stocking shelves in the store when we got there. Sue shook my hand so hard I thought the bones might break. “Happy to finally meet you, hon,” she said before turning back to her work.

  Kori hugged me gently. “You look so much like your dad,” she said. “And that’s a fine thing.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  She waved her hands in the air and laughed. “Oh, no, that won’t do. I know you’re from the South, but you may not call me ma’am. That’s my rule, okay? You’ll make me feel old before my time.”

  “Yes, ma’am, of course. I mean, um, yes, Mrs. Parker, I mean—” My face must have been twelve shades of scarlet because Biz and Lucy couldn’t stop giggling.

  “Kori,” she said. “Just plain, simple Kori.”

  The two girls each took a hand and pulled me toward the back of the store. “Come on, come on!”

  Kori smiled again and waved good-bye. “Good luck, Maggs.” My heart rose in my chest. She already had a nickname for me.

  We went outside to where we’d eaten our ice cream a few days before, but we didn’t stop until the girls had dragged me across the driveway, past the little graveyard, and all the way inside the old barn. James had a pitchfork in his hands. He thrust the tines into a giant pile of hay in the corner, then tossed dried grass over the side of a rough-built stall. Inside, a black and white pony buried its head in the hay and stamped black hooves at the flies. In the middle of its hindquarters, a black marking spread in half circles on either side of the tail, then trailed down to a point, making a near perfect heart. Biz and Lucy watched my face carefully.

  “Is this your pony?” I asked.

  They nodded.

  “It’s pretty. What’s its name?”

  “She’s a mare. Her name is Sassy Pants,” Biz said.

  “I can see why you’d name her that.”

  “We didn’t name her,” Lucy said. “She came that way, but we didn’t change it.”

  “I see.”

  Biz nudged past Lucy to get closer to me. “Do you like ponies?”

  “I mean, I guess,” I said. “I’ve never really been around them too much, but they’re fine.”

  “If you got one, would you want to keep it?”

  There was this group of horse-crazy girls I’d known since elementary school who cantered in the halls between classes and made whinnying noises when they met up with each other. They’d always been nice to me, even though I didn’t ride, and invited me to their birthday parties. I didn’t mind their behavior that much until they were still doing it in sixth grade and Irene made fun of them. When Irene picked on someone, she expected me to at least support her privately, but that time I couldn’t. Not when those girls had accepted me in their circle even though I wasn’t really one of them. It caused a big fight, but in the end, I hadn’t given in and Irene lost interest in being mad.

  “I wouldn’t really know what to do with it,” I said.

  They turned to James at the same time. “See?” Lucy said.

  “She doesn’t want her anyway,” Biz said. “I told you.”

  “I don’t want who?”

  James leaned his arms over the top board of the stall and stuck a piece of hay in his mouth. “They’ve been a mess ever since Deacon told them you were coming to live here because they thought you’d want the pony.”

  “Why would I want their pony?”

  Sassy Pants turned around with a wad of hay sticking out both sides of her mouth. She took one look at me and laid her ears flat back against her neck. No one had to tell me what that meant. She felt as warm and fuzzy about me as Sonnet and Kendra did.

  “Because she isn’t really ours,” said Biz.

  Lucy shook her head from side to side, her little pink mouth turned down.

  “Whose is she?”

  Her voice was so tiny I thought I didn’t hear her right. “Yours.”

  “Mine? How could she be mine?”

  James pulled the hay from his mouth. “Johnny Austin bought her for you. He told the girls they could keep her here until you came back. They’ve been scared you were going to take her away.”

  “Why did he buy me a pony?”

  “I guess because you’re his daughter,” James said.

  “But I wasn’t even here.”

  He shrugged. “Parents do weird things.”

  The whole thing unnerved me. The fact that my daddy bought a pony for me when I’d only seen him once since I was four years old was weird enough. But then, to give it to two little girls who were afraid she’d be snatched away someday—what was he thinking? Even if I had wanted her, I didn’t know where we’d be after the year was up. What would happen to a pony if we moved away?

  Sassy Pants stamped her hoof to dislodge another fly. She laid her ears back when she saw me looking, then shoved her face into the pile of hay. Biz and Lucy both looked like a flood of tears was about to burst from their eyes.

  “I think you probably misunderstood,” I said quietly. “I think she’s supposed to be yours, forever.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Kori told me that I shouldn’t wait for an invitation to come over whenever I wanted. “Don’t even knock,” she said. “Mi casa, su casa.”

  “That’s Spanish,” Lucy said. “It means my house is your house.”

  Back in Georgia you never simply waltzed into someone else’s house without being invited. Not even Irene’s. This Vermont way of doing things took a bit of getting used to, but the third time Kendra had to trudge all the way down the stairs from above the store when I knocked on the back door, she made it clear my Georgia rules were a pain.

  “Look,” she said, “they like having you here, but I’m not the butler. Next time just come in, or you can stand out there until one of the parrots decides to get off the couch and come down themselves.”

  I wanted Kendra to like me because I was going into seventh grade, and she was going into eighth, which meant we’d be in the same school. She wasn’t having any part of it.

  On days I wasn’t exploring the woods near the sugar shack or being dragged from town to town on shopping trips with Mama—who wasn’t nearly as captivated by nature as I was—I spent my days putting books away as a volunteer at the library or I went to the Parkers’. There was always something entertaining to do there. Sometimes I did odd jobs in the store, like restocking the freezer with ice cream. Other times I walked to the far field to fill the water trough for Sassy Pants and the mule. I collected eggs in a wire basket whenever Haily forgot, and James taught me how to handle the pony without getting bitten so I could supervise Biz and Lucy, who had to have someone with them when they rode.

  On a rainy morning in the first week of August, James called to ask if I would come play board games with Biz and Lucy. “The library needs me early, but I’m on babysitting duty. The girls already got into tussles with both Kendra and Sonnet, and Haily’s not feeling well.”

  I laughed. “How could I say no to such a tempting offer?”

  An afternoon managing two cooped-up girls was still more appealing than staying home listening again to Mama’s running commentary from the couch of her favorite villains on General Hospital. She complained about the daytime shows being stupid, but without anything resembling city life to occupy her 24/7, she was getting restless. The more restless she got, the more shows she added to her daily viewing schedule.

  The Monopoly game was already set up when I got to the Parkers’, and I’d been assigned banker. “We trust you. Not like Haily. She cheats,” Biz said.

  Lucy bounced on the couch, her tiny feet sinking deeper into the cushions with each jump. “Yeah, she cheats!” She had her hair pulled into two miniature pigtails, but it was so curly they sat on the top of her head like little gold balls. James glanced at me from the door and silently mouthed, Good luck!

  An hour later, I was already losing when Kori came upstairs to make lunch.

  “I got a house!” Lucy waved her arms in the a
ir. “A house, a house, a house!”

  Biz put her hands on top of the board. “Stop! You’re gonna tip it over!”

  Lucy bent down and placed her green house carefully on Atlantic Avenue. “I never had a house before!”

  Kori kissed both girls and gave me a quick shoulder squeeze. “I wanted to convert the old garage into a padded playroom for days like today, but the pony won out, and now it’s a barn. At least it means I get new furniture every year.”

  She disappeared into the kitchen. Pretty soon the whole house smelled of cheddar cheese and butter. “Grilled cheese sandwiches are ready!”

  Kendra appeared from a hallway and walked briskly to the kitchen with her headphones on. Biz and Lucy abandoned me and Monopoly without even a backward glance. Sonnet slipped silently through the room, drawn by the same smell that was making my stomach growl. James hadn’t said anything about lunch, so I sat on the couch, not sure whether I was supposed to go home now or wait for them to finish. I could hear them all in the kitchen.

  “This one is burned on the crust. I don’t want it,” Lucy complained.

  “Just pour ketchup over it,” Kendra said. “Everything you eat looks like blood.”

  Biz giggled. “That’s gross!”

  “Yeah, gross!” said Lucy.

  Sonnet passed the other way through the living room with a plate in her hands, her eyes on anything except me.

  “Sonnet’s leaving.”

  “Yeah. She’s eating in her room again.”

  “Don’t you worry about Sonnet—she’s my business, not yours.”

  “It’s been almost five months and she’s still doing it.”

  “I said, it’s none of your business.”

  Five months. It had been five months since my daddy died. Is that what they meant?

  “Can’t I have chocolate milk?”

  “No chocolate.”

  “Why don’t we ever get Kool-Aid?”

  “Because then you’d be drinking and eating red, that’s why.”

  “I don’t put ketchup on my pancakes!”

  “No, but you’d put red dye in the syrup if Kori’d let you.”

  “I would not!” Something slammed against the table. My stomach growled.

  “Where’s Maggie?”

  Kori poked her head around the corner. “Hey, lunch is ready. Don’t you like grilled cheese?”

  “Oh, I didn’t know if I was supposed to eat—”

  Kori smiled and everything around her sparkled. “You silly, of course there’s a sandwich for you. You’re one of us.”

  One of us.

  I swear I felt like I was walking on air all the way to the kitchen. Biz scooted over and shared half a chair with Lucy.

  “Sit next to us, Maggie, right here.”

  “Yeah, sit next to them so they won’t bug me,” grumbled Kendra. She was already at the far end by herself.

  “Be nice.”

  Kendra rolled her eyes and pretended to smile.

  Kori wiped Lucy’s face with a paper towel. “You and your ketchup face.”

  Haily burst into the kitchen, her hair all wild around her head and a red mark on her neck.

  “Why didn’t you call me for lunch?”

  She grabbed a sandwich from a platter on the counter, plopped down at the table, and poured a glass of milk.

  “I’m glad you decided to join us,” Kori said. “I thought you might sleep until the next full moon.” She walked over and pulled Haily’s hair back, staring at the red mark.

  Haily jerked away. “What are you doing?”

  Kendra didn’t even try to hide her grin. “Busted! You can’t hide a hickey with hair. You need makeup, FYI.”

  Haily’s hand went right to her neck. “What are you talking about? Shut up!”

  “That’s enough,” Kori said sharply. “Come with me.”

  “I’m still eating,” Haily said, stuffing the sandwich into her mouth and looking at her mother like, See?

  “Put your sandwich down and come with me.”

  “I’m not done.” She gulped two long chugs of milk.

  “If you don’t come with me right now, we will have this conversation in public, and I am pretty sure you would rather have privacy when we discuss the kinds of things that happen to girls who are loose with boys when they are only sixteen.”

  Haily glanced at me like it was my fault, then pushed her chair away and stormed from the room. Kori followed her. A minute later, Sonnet came in smiling.

  “Could you hear?” Kendra asked.

  Sonnet put her hand around her own throat and nodded.

  “Ahhhh, she’s gonna get it!” Lucy said.

  Biz giggled. “So is the bf! Is Kori gonna tell his mom and dad?”

  “I bet she does,” Lucy said.

  “Yeah,” echoed Biz.

  “She should know better than to waltz in here with that hickey sticking out like a smashed tomato,” Kendra said.

  Sonnet pointed to her own neck. “Yup, big hickey, big trouble.”

  “Yup, big hickey, big trouble,” Lucy said.

  She took a long drink of milk, then looked at us, her eyes all wide and blue, a white mustache dripping from her upper lip, and asked, “What’s a hickey?”

  Sonnet giggled first, then Kendra, then me and Biz, and pretty soon we couldn’t stop laughing. Lucy’s face turned crimson. I reached for her, thinking she was about to cry, but when she saw she was the center of attention, she grabbed ahold of her neck and danced around the kitchen on her tippy-toes, pretending to choke from laughter.

  The sun came out after another game of Monopoly, and the girls begged me to stay while they rode Sassy Pants. Biz rode first, splattering mud around the paddock, while Lucy snuggled up next to me on the fence. She leaned her cheek against my bare arm.

  “Maggie?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Me, too.”

  A half a minute went by.

  “Maggie?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Will you tell me what a hickey is?” she whispered.

  I looked up at the brilliant blue Vermont sky, and the tops of emerald-green trees waving side to side, and smiled. It looked so much like the ceiling at the library. How many times had my daddy been here with these girls—the closest I’d ever have to real sisters—while they rode the pony he’d meant for me? How many times had he felt warm and loved by this family?

  I put my arm around Lucy and squeezed. “Sure,” I said. “We’ll look it up together.”

  NINETEEN

  Mama took me to register for school two weeks before Labor Day. She hauled along the biggest of my track trophies, a stack of report cards, and a copy of the newspaper article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

  “Trust me, sugar,” she said, parking in front of a redbrick building in the center of town. “They’ll put you on the track team without even a tryout when they see all this!”

  “They’ve probably already started, and they may not even care, anyway.”

  “They’ll care,” she said, checking her hair in the mirror. “Let me do the talking.”

  It was hard to get excited about a new school year when I knew every day Mama’d be planning what she now referred to as “our escape.” The more time we were in Vermont, the more I wanted to stay. I’d tried dropping hints, but either she was ignoring me, or she was completely immune to the possibility. Every few days she shoved new pictures of houses for sale in places like Houston and Los Angeles across the dinner table to me. She wanted to live in a place with “lights and traffic and lots and lots of noise.” Looking at the photos made my stomach sour, but so far I had no plan to get her to reconsider selling the farm.

  Mama gave the lady at the front desk our names. She was ushered into the registrar’s office, and I was whisked off for a tour of the school with someone named Angela, who was wearing running shorts and a tank top. I followed her down a short hall and out a door.

  “Our k
indergarten through fourth grade kids are in this building,” she said. “I teach spelling and grammar to the little guys, and English and social studies in the middle school, which is where you’ll be.”

  “You teach at both schools?”

  “We’re all one school, just different buildings, and yes, we all cross teach.”

  “Wow, that’s a lot of work.” We walked over a grassy yard toward a narrow, two-story building.

  “Not too bad. We only have a hundred and forty kids in all thirteen grades, so it’s not that overwhelming.”

  “Wait, what?”

  She laughed. “You’ll find this is very different from a city school. There are only ten kids in your entire grade.”

  “Ten?”

  “It’s nice,” she said. “Small town.”

  “Is there a track team? I was pretty good in Atlanta.”

  “We’re very dedicated to our sports. And we know about your track history. Bob is excited to meet you. He’s our track and field coach. And our basketball coach. And he teaches history to fifth through twelfth grades. You’ll like him.”

  “Do I call him Bob? Or Mr. something?”

  Angela grinned and pulled thick hair out of a ponytail, letting it billow down to her shoulders. “Bob will do. He’s my husband.”

  “In Atlanta, if we didn’t call the teachers ma’am or sir, we’d get sent to the principal’s office.”

  “You might get sent down if you do call one of us ma’am or sir here,” she said. “All of Vermont is like that, but you’ll find our school to be even more liberal than most of the state.”

  “Don’t say that to Mama,” I said. “She calls it the L word.”

  Angela waved to a man loping across the grass with a large camera in his hands. “There’s my hubby now.”

  Bob was every bit of six and a half feet tall, with dreadlocks pulled into a ponytail well past his shoulders.

  “Almost got the scarlet tanager,” he said, pointing to a red dot in the sky. “Don’t see them too often out in the open. That guy must be lost.” He stuck his hand out and smiled, showing off teeth almost as white as Mama’s. “Magnolia Grace, right?”

  “She goes by Maggie,” Angela said.

  “Maggie,” Bob said. “Nice to meet you.”