A Little Help From My Friends (Miracle Girls Book 3)

by Anne Dayton

  Dean’s dad laughs. “Nothing wrong with the piccolo.” He jerks his thumb at the stage behind him. “I should get going,” he says as several guys in dark suit jackets take the stage. “Nice to meet you, Zoe.” He turns and starts walking, but calls over his shoulder, “Enjoy the show.” Dean smiles and sits back down on the bench.

  “He’s nice,” I say and lower myself down beside him.

  “Yeah, real jim-dandy.” Dean’s eyes dance as he gives me a wry grin.

  “Whatever.” I roll my eyes, kicking myself. It was kind of a silly thing to say, but what are you supposed to say about someone else’s dad? I certainly can’t say that he’s handsome, or how much Dean looks like him, or how much I hope to talk to him—the missing piece in the puzzle that is Dean’s family history.

  “You know what’s nice?” Dean asks as he leans forward to grab our drinks. “Being here with you.” He takes a frosty glass in each hand and holds one out to me, and our fingers brush as I take it from him. Dean smiles, and my heart does that flip it makes whenever he looks at me. “Are you doing okay?”

  He raises his soda to his lips and watches me over the rim of his glass. Dean knows about my parents, and he knows about Nick, and about Ms. Moore, but I know what he’s really asking about. He wants to know if I’m okay about the Marcus thing.

  “Yeah.” I let out a long breath and take a sip of my Coke. It’s cold and sweet and strangely refreshing. “I’m fine. It’s just . . .” I trace my finger along the edge of my glass, leaving a trail in the condensation. The truth is, I feel horrible about Marcus. I’ll never forget the look in his eyes as he walked away, brokenhearted. I hate that I did that to him. But somehow, despite all that, being here with Dean still feels right. I guess maybe I’ve liked him for a while, if I’m honest. There’s something electric in his touch, something in his eyes that draws me in like no one else ever has before. “It’s been weird.”

  “You know I’m here for you,” Dean says, ducking his head. He pulls his arm from the back of the booth and gives me a fist-bump, then lets his hand gently rest on my knee for a second. “If you want to talk.”

  “Thanks.” I want to do more than just talk, and I inch my body closer to him, but Dean doesn’t lean in to kiss me or lace his fingers through mine. I move my hand closer, waiting for him to reach for it, and my body tenses in anticipation. But he just smiles, crosses his arms over his chest, and slouches down against the back of the seat. He lets his shoulder rest gently against mine as the band begins to play.

  34

  I glance at my watch and say a silent prayer of thanks when I see that I’m five sweet minutes from getting out of El Bueno Burrito. Getting up early on Saturday definitely stinks, but it’s the one day of the week I don’t have to help close this place down. The sour mop, the gross bits of food everywhere, counting the money—closing is the absolute worst.

  This has been the longest week of my life. Nick was out all the time, doing who knows what, Dreamy and Ed are dividing up their assets, and Marcus is avoiding me. Never mind that Dean is still playing tricks with my mind—are we friends? Are we more? And still God doesn’t seem to be giving me any miraculous signs from above about how to fix my problems.

  I tap my fingers on the stainless steel counter and try to remind myself that every minute I’m here means I’m that much closer to a car, let alone food for the week, but I still watch the second hand strike out the final minute and sigh in relief. I give Ryan a high five, clock out, ditch my soiled apron in the laundry bucket, grab my things out of my locker, and then stroll out the front door into sweet freedom.

  The sun is high in the afternoon sky, and I blink a few times when I step out. I recognize Ms. Moore’s boxy Honda in the parking lot. Huh. She doesn’t usually work Saturday mornings. I make a split-second decision to treat myself to a mocha and say hi to her. I pull open the door, and the sweet smell of old paperbacks and coffee drinks hits me. She definitely has the better job.

  I walk up to the front counter, but there’s only one bored-looking guy standing there. Where is everybody? A quick bolt of laughter peals through the store, and I follow it, weaving my way through the stacks to the children’s area. There, on the brightly colored rug, standing around the neon green beanbags, four bookstore employees huddle around Ms. Moore. I duck behind a long bookshelf and press my face to the heavy gardening books to eavesdrop.

  “Tim.” Ms. Moore leans in and gives a balding guy a hug. “Thanks for giving me a chance to come in here and shake everything up.”

  He laughs, his big belly shaking. “I’ve never had someone fight me so hard on the classification of memoir.”

  She hugs a quiet woman who is wearing a baggy sweater that ties at the waist and then a blushing college kid.

  “Have fun in Boston,” the guys squeaks out, and my ears prick. Boston? Is Ms. Moore going on vacation? This is an awfully heartfelt good-bye if she’s coming back in a week or two.

  “Cross your fingers for me, everyone?” A few of the employees hold up crossed fingers, and Ms. Moore begins to make her way to the front door, clutching a small cardboard box. “I’d love to get back to teaching.”

  She waves a few more times, distracted by their well-wishes and good-byes, and nearly walks right past me.

  “Zoe!” She flinches as I step out into the aisle. “What . . . um, hi there.”

  I cross my arms over my chest. If I didn’t know any better, this would look exactly like a good-bye party. “What’s going on?”

  Ms. Moore glances back at the store employees and tries to smile. “Come on.” She motions to the door with her head. “Follow me.”

  I stay still for a second, watching her walk to the front of the store. Ms. Moore is originally from the Boston area. If she were to give up on this whole strange adventure, Boston is exactly where she’d go.

  Ms. Moore props open the door of Bayside Books and smiles sheepishly at me. I give in and trudge to the front, moving as slowly as possible. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe we’ve been fighting so hard for her, and now she’s going to give up.

  I follow her in silence to her car. She hands me the box, which contains two ceramic mugs, a few paperback books, and a framed picture of an old couple, then pops her trunk.

  “Here.” I put the box in her trunk, then turn and start to walk away. How could she do this to us? She lets me get a few feet away without saying anything, and for a second I worry this is how we will leave things forever. She clears her throat.

  “Zoe, I was going to tell you.”

  I freeze. Likely story. I storm off, more determined this time.

  Ms. Moore slams her trunk. “There’s a lot I have to tell you, actually.”

  I stop again but don’t turn around. “Would you like to come over for a while? I don’t work for Marina Vista anymore, so it’s okay. Besides . . .” She lets out a long breath, and I finally face her. “I have something for you.”

  She gives me a half smile, but there are dark circles under her eyes. This isn’t how I want things to end.

  Without a word, I follow her to her car.

  ***

  Ms. Moore hands me a mug of hot tea, and I perch on the edge of her brown couch. It’s overstuffed like a marshmallow, and I sink into it. The furniture in her apartment is a little outdated, but it feels comfortable somehow.

  “I was going to tell you, Zoe. I only just found out, and nothing is definite yet.”

  I snort. It looked pretty darn definite to me. Why else would she quit her job at the bookstore?

  Ms. Moore grips her hand-painted ceramic mug. She takes a sip of her tea, and I notice the subtle lines around her eyes. Sometimes I forget that she’s not one of us. She’s an adult, with adult-size problems. “I got a job interview at a private school in Boston. And I want to visit my family while I’m up there, so I needed the time off. But the bookstore couldn’t accommodate that, so I quit.”

  I take a sip of tea to try to steady my quivering chin. I will not cry in front
of Ms. Moore. I will not.

  “Please try to understand. It’s the kind of thing I’ve always dreamed of doing, being able to teach what I want, having a real budget to work with . . .” She frowns at my pained look and puts a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t have the job yet, so it’s not definite. But I do feel like I have to explore this opportunity. I’ve been out of work for almost a full year, and teaching is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do.”

  I set my mug down and rub my hand over my face. I guess I hadn’t thought about the toll this must be taking on her. I’m sure she misses teaching, but she’s probably also struggling to make ends meet.

  “I would have never left without saying good-bye.”

  “You taught us to fight for what we wanted. You said you were fighting for this. What changed?” I ask in a small voice. Her apartment smells like old books. “Why leave now? We’re making progress.”

  Ms. Moore sighs. “I don’t know how much I’m allowed to tell you, but the school board is planning to settle out of court.” She puts her mug on the coffee table and kicks off her worn white athletic shoes. “They’re not going to renew my contract unless thecase is dropped.”

  “But he didn’t have a case! This—” I grab her shoulder and give it a small shake. “Is not the kind of thing you get fired for.”

  Ms. Moore smirks. “How did you find out about that?”

  Oops. Ashley didn’t want us talking about the details with anyone. I shouldn’t have said that. “It’s not important.” I push up my sleeves, but the worn-out elastic won’t hold them, and they slide down again. “What’s important is that this whole thing goes to trial and Dr. Anderson loses and we have a chance to clear your name.”

  “Dr. Anderson is suing the school, not me. I can’t make it go to trial.” She tucks a section of hair behind her ear. “Plus, if I understand what’s going on over there, Ashley won’t testify against her father.” She walks across the room to the bookshelf and scans for something. “And I wouldn’t want her to. I’m only a teacher. Her family is forever.”

  I lean my head back and exhale. How am I going to save someone who doesn’t even want to save herself?

  She pulls a binder off the bottom shelf and flips it open, rummaging through the pages and finally pulling out a folder. “Here it is. I was going to frame each of these and give them to you guys.” She walks back to the couch, clutching the folder to her chest. “But I don’t know if I’ll have time now.” She lowers herself onto the couch next to me and slides the folder over.

  My heart slams around in my chest as I take it. I pray that this is not what I think it is, but of course it is. I lift the top paper off the stack and suck in my breath when I recognize my own handwriting.

  These are the essays we wrote that first day in detention. Ms. Moore assigned us to describe the day our lives changed. We were just a bunch of shy, isolated freshmen, all aching and hurting in our own ways, and this is how we learned . . . about each other. We learned that the four of us had more in common than we ever imagined.

  I run my fingertips over the page, feeling the indentations where my pen pressed into the paper, and skim the first paragraph. It feels like I wrote this in another lifetime. My essay is about the day Alfalfa dragged me through the woods. I thought I was dead for sure. You don’t get dragged half a mile behind a horse and survive, but somehow, miraculously, I did.

  That day changed everything. Every moment of my life has been different since I slipped off that saddle; even though I walked away with just a few scratches, I am scarred permanently by it. As I flew though the woods, my head scraping along the ground, I realized what it would be like to die, and it scared me. I stopped riding after that and withdrew into myself. I have lived every day since then knowing that God saved me for a reason, feeling the unbearable weight of divine responsibility pressing down on me. I slide my eyes over the paper and tears begin to sting my eyes.

  “Yours is not the only one in that folder,” Ms. Moore says quietly. I don’t move, afraid that motion will send tears splashing down onto the paper. “The others are there too.”

  Slowly, I scoot my essay aside, and even through my tears I recognize the drawings in the margins of Christine’s paper. The familiar doodles bring another wave of grief, and I feel it again, that eerie sense I had that day, that something much bigger than us is behind this. The letters on the page begin to blur, and I start to wonder if the day I was dragged wasn’t really the event that changed everything after all. Maybe it was only the means. I let my eyes rest on Christine’s dark, angry handwriting. Perhaps being saved that day was only the beginning of my miracle.

  I was so lost and confused, and then . . . it was like we were called to be there, in Ms. Moore’s classroom in detention, like it couldn’t have happened any other way. God saved all four of us for something.

  Maybe he knew it would take all four of us to save her.

  “How did you know?”

  I lift the corner of Christine’s paper and see Ana’s precise letters on the sheet below it. I’ve wondered about this for years. How did she know that we needed each other so much? We were so different back then: the pink-haired freak, the type-A new girl, the jaded cheerleader, and of course, the red-haired, pudgy band geek. We had absolutely nothing in common on the surface, and yet she saw something.

  “Teacher gene.” Ms. Moore laughs. “You either have a sixth sense about these things or you don’t.”

  Goose bumps raise on my arm. All of the Miracle Girls have experienced something like a sixth sense here and there, a certain sureness that comes over us. I always thought it was because we got a second chance at life. I wonder if Ms. Moore . . .

  “Reread yours.” She nods at the paper in my hand. “I don’t think you’ll recognize that scared little girl anymore.”

  I glance down at my paper and scan my words. I hardly described the accident at all. I describe the weird way my mind flashed back to the day we first got Alfalfa, but then I spent most of the page writing about how dangerous horses are and how quickly a huge mistake can happen. I sound like a nervous wreck.

  “You see what I mean?” Ms. Moore smiles at me. “You’ve all grown up so much. Christine’s family has made a fresh start of things. Ana and her parents actually communicate with each other now. Even Riley learned that she’s not invincible.”

  I bite my lip. “But I’m still . . .” Since that day when Nick and I took the horses for a walk, I haven’t been near the stable.

  Ms. Moore puts a hand on my knee. “You’ve changed. You’ve faced so many obstacles, and you’ve . . . you’re filled with a self-confidence that I’ve never seen before. It’s like you’re not afraid of anything anymore.” I nod because I can’t bring myself to correct her.

  “You even stood up to me today.” Ms. Moore pushes herself up and walks into the kitchen, then comes back with the teakettle. She pours more water in my mug.

  “I was so proud of you. This new Zoe—she’s not afraid to go out and get what she wants.” She gives me a weak smile, and her eyes water for a second. I pick up my paper again and lay it carefully on top of the stack.

  I swallow slowly and bore my eyes into the carpet. She’s right. Again. I have to go out and get what I want because it’s not going to just turn up on my doorstep.

  No more sitting on the sidelines. No more Mr. Nice Guy. Zoe Fairchild is not going down without a fight.

  35

  I don’t even go inside. After Ms. Moore dropped me off, I pedaled at top speed all the way from El Bueno Burrito. My muscles are tired, but if I don’t do this now, I’ll lose my nerve. I lean my bike against the porch and run. The breeze feels good against my cheeks as I dodge tree branches and upturned roots, each step bringing me closer to the thing I fear the most.

  I reach the stable in record time, racing against the sun that has already begun to set. No time for backing out. No time for dawdling. I don’t want to be riding through the woods at night. That’s too dangerous when you’re alone. I
won’t go far. I’ll just saddle him up and see what happens.

  I open the door, and panic floods through my veins.

  I can’t do this. This is a mistake.

  But I can’t get Ms. Moore’s words out of my head. Does she really believe I’m not afraid of anything? Or did she say it to spur me on because she suspects the truth? I think about the papers shoved into my bag and how much we’ve all changed. After her mother died, Christine gave up on God because the world seemed too cruel to have a creator, but now her family is making a new life together. Riley learned that even though God loves her to the moon and back, she’s not invincible. Even Ana realized that only the truth would set her free.

  I force myself to turn back around and face my fears. I go through all the steps to get Alfalfa saddled up: bridle, blanket, saddle, adjustments. My hands work quickly, and in what feels like the blink of an eye, he’s ready to go. I take a deep breath and lead him out into the fading sunlight, then pray for courage.

  “Hey there, buddy. Did you miss me?” I rub my hand gently along his nose. It’s soft and warm and solid. “Want to go for a short ride? Hmm?” I touch his mane and remember how in middle school I would braid it with ribbons and flowers. I used to spend every waking moment out in the stable with Alfalfa. He was my first true friend.

  I catch his eye and swear for a moment I see a glimmer of something, of understanding and compassion.

  “Okay, buddy. Here we go,” I whisper.

  I walk around to his left side, keeping a hand on his body at all times so that he doesn’t get spooked. I grab the saddle horn with my left hand, put my left sneaker in the stirrup, and swing myself up in one easy movement.

  “Ahg!” A small inscrutable sound escapes my lips. I grab the saddle and remind myself not squeeze his sides. That’s the signal to go, and going is about the last thing I need right now. I shut my eyes and focus on slowing my breathing. Be calm. Good horse. Be quiet and still. You’re a good horse.