Through Her Eyes

by Jennifer Archer

“We’d better buy a padlock. We can’t risk him venturing down there and getting trapped. Or worse, falling in.” Her cell phone trills in the living room—the Twilight Zone music that Papa Dan always whistles, her signature ring. “Would you grab that?” Mom calls as she starts for the door to get Papa Dan. “It’s probably Jayne. She said she’d call.”

  I head for the living room, hoping it’s Hailey instead of Mom’s editor. My cell phone’s dead, and Hailey knows Mom’s number.

  The phone is on the fireplace mantel. I press Talk and say hello without looking at the display, disappointed when Jayne’s voice says, “Tansy? Are you guys in Texas yet?” I talk to her for a minute then, when Mom enters the room, pass over the phone. As she raves to her editor about how “fabulous” the house is, I return to the boxes in the kitchen.

  After the movers are gone, we drive into Cedar Canyon to eat at the Longhorn Café. Our van jostles over the redbrick streets, past Cedar Canyon Hardware, the public library, and the two-story courthouse with its tall clock tower. We turn on Main, a street lined with shiny black lampposts and storefronts flanked by wooden barrels of mums. Mom parks in front of the newspaper office—the Cedar Canyon Gazette—which is directly across the street from the Longhorn Café.

  Walking past the bull statue, we open the door and step into a sea of denim jeans, sneakers, and work boots. Nothing sets a single person apart from anyone else; at least that’s what I think until a door beneath the Restroom sign at the back of the café opens and the one exception walks out—a girl about my age. She wears white shorts, sparkly black flip-flops, and an orange cheerleader jacket. Her cheerleader status must be a big deal to her; it’s short-sleeve weather, but I guess she thinks the jacket is worth the sweat.

  The girl stares at us as she parts the denim sea. She looks a lot like Hailey. She has the same big eyes and pale blond hair that she wears in a ponytail. The girl is tall and thin like Hailey, too. I watch her cross to a table where two people sit who I didn’t notice before—a girl with long, wavy auburn hair and a freckled guy with messy curls. Seeing them all together, I feel a stab of loneliness. Just before the cheerleader slides in across from her friends, she turns to speak to a woman at the table behind her, and I see the name Alison written across the back of her jacket.

  A waitress leads us to a booth on the far side of the room. Everyone in the café seems to know everyone else. They call out to one another as we weave around them. Hey, Bud, hey, Sarah. Billy, how’s work? We missed you in church on Sunday. How are the kiddos? A lot of talk. A lot of laughter. I’m pretty sure we’ll soon be the topic of conversation, since most of them look at us as if we just flew in from outer space. I could be imagining this, but I doubt it. We don’t exactly fit in. Papa Dan wears his beret slanted to one side and the lenses of his round, tortoiseshell glasses are so thick that his eyes look like bulging green grapes. Mom wears a pink satin blouse with a mandarin collar, baggy black pants, and pink ballet slippers. Then there’s me; I like hats, my grandfather’s mostly. He has a collection—berets, fedoras, old-fashioned newsboy caps. Today I’m wearing a gray felt fedora with a black satin band. The brim hides my eyes. A bonus.

  I was right when I guessed the Longhorn Café wouldn’t have a vegetarian menu. At first I think that means no dinner for me, since I don’t eat meat. But the waitress points out a salad bar, so I walk over to check it out. The containers are filled with more pasta, canned peas, and mayo-coated salads than fresh vegetables, but it’s better than nothing. I pick up an empty plate and put some carrot and celery sticks on it.

  “The potato salad’s good,” a guy’s voice says beside me. “But I’d stay away from the cottage cheese gelatin mold.”

  I look up into the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. The guy grins, and I remind myself to breathe. We stand almost elbow to elbow, and everything about him hits me at once. Tall, but not too tall. Wide shoulders. Hair the color of honey. I lower my gaze to his black T-shirt, which reads Bobcat Football #10. Just my luck—a jock. Translation: huge ego. I smile anyway; I can’t help myself. “Thanks for the tip,” I say.

  “No problem.” He hands me the spoon for the potato salad as I look back at the containers of food. “You passing through town?” he asks.

  “You could say that.” I scoop the salad onto my plate and move down the bar.

  “We get a lot of travelers off the highway.”

  After placing wilted spinach leaves on my plate, I lower the tongs. He reaches for them and our fingers brush. I glance up quickly, embarrassed because I’m so flustered. “Your family owns this place?”

  “My uncle does.”

  I move to the next container and spoon more food onto my plate.

  Following me and filling his plate, too, he asks, “Where are you from?”

  “California.”

  “I like your hat.”

  I frown and look up again, thinking he’s making fun of me. But he isn’t laughing. He looks sincere. “Thanks. It’s my grandfather’s,” I say, and he glances across the café at Papa Dan, then back at me. We smile at each other again. I’ve reached the end of the salad bar, and I feel like a total idiot standing here grinning at him, but I can’t seem to stop. “Well, I’d better go. Thanks for warning me off the cottage cheese.”

  “Anytime. Have a good trip.”

  As I make my way toward the booth where Mom and Papa Dan sit drinking iced tea, I feel better than I have since we left California. But just after I pass Alison’s table, I hear a girl say, “Oh, please. Look at that corny, lame hat.”

  I glance back. The girl with auburn hair is staring at me and laughing, one hand covering her mouth. I look quickly at the guy beside her, and one corner of his mouth curves up. “Corny and lame, but awesome,” he says. I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or if he means it. Sarcastic, I decide when the cheerleader named Alison hisses, “Shanna! Jon! Shut up!” She swivels around to face me, her eyes wide and apologetic.

  I start for the booth again, walking as fast as I can, scanning the room until I spot the guy from the salad bar. He sits at a far-off table with a man. They don’t act as if they heard anything, but I still want to crawl underneath the booth as I slide in beside Papa Dan.

  “Do you have a fever?” Mom says, one eyebrow raised.

  Scowling at her, I say, “That’s random. What are you talking about?”

  Mom gestures at my plate, and I glance down at a mound of ham salad next to a few spinach leaves covered with bacon bits and the scoop of potato salad. I look up quickly, and Mom nods at the football jock across the café. “Good-looking hunks have the same effect on me.” Grinning, she adds, “See? Not everyone in Cedar Canyon is a cowboy, after all.”

  “Mom. Be quiet,” I whisper, ducking my head. “You know I don’t like jocks. And he isn’t a hunk. Which is a stupid word, anyway.”

  She laughs. “When do you want an appointment to have your vision checked?”

  Glaring at her, I mouth shut up, but Mom only chuckles. I turn my attention to Papa Dan, wanting to change the subject. “What did you order?” I ask, not expecting an answer.

  Later, after we eat, we head to the register to pay the bill. Mom has her cell phone pressed to her ear. Her editor called again halfway through the meal and they’re brainstorming the best way to “off” one of Mom’s characters. From what I can hear, they’ve narrowed down the weapon choice to either a blowtorch or a Weed Eater. I step closer to the door and pull the brim of my hat a little lower.

  Neither of us notices until it’s too late that Papa Dan has wandered to a stranger’s table and sat down. Mom ends her phone call quickly, and we dart over. While she apologizes to the lady, I hurry my grandfather toward the door. The laughter seems louder as we work our way around tables and chairs. I hear the girl named Shanna mumble in a disgusted tone, “Ohmygod. Did you see him?”

  I look over my shoulder, hoping the guy from the salad bar isn’t watching. The man with him is leaning across the table, talking and glancing our way. The hot guy cu
ts his gaze in my direction, his expression odd and strained. Unsure of what to make of their exchange, I turn away, and for only a second, my eyes lock with Alison’s. The sympathy on her face stiffens my spine. I don’t need her or anyone else to feel sorry for me—besides, it’s probably fake compassion. I should be the one pitying her. I only have to live in Podunk, USA, for a few months, but I have a feeling that she grew up in this rinky-dink Dairy Queen town.

  4

  We stop at the Food Fair grocery store on our way home. It has six aisles and two checkout lines, with only one checker working tonight. Country music cranks out from the sound system. We have to hurry because the place closes at 7:00 p.m. The whole town probably shuts down then, every light goes out, and the sidewalks fold up. I wouldn’t be surprised.

  The store has no deli, which makes me glad I’m a vegetarian, since all they have is nasty-looking prepackaged sandwich meat. Based on the amount of bologna in stock, I guess it’s Cedar Canyon’s top seller, with pickle loaf coming in at a close second. Disgusting.

  The checker talks on her cell phone as we unload our cart. She’s short, pudgy, and cute. She doesn’t look much older than me, but she wears a wedding ring. “That’s the day of the Watermelon Run and the Pruitts’ fund-raiser,” she says into the phone, watching us while she talks. “We’re working the bake sale, remember?”

  Mom and I only grab a few essentials, including a combination lock for the cellar door—the kind used on school lockers. I push the empty cart to the corner up front where the others are shoved together as Mom places the last item on the counter. It’s a blue notebook full of blank pages she’s buying for me. She keeps bugging me about starting a diary, saying that writing down my feelings about the move will make me feel better.

  “Hey, Sis, I’ve gotta go,” the checker says. “Call me tomorrow.” I turn around and return to the checkout line as she’s putting the phone in her purse on the floor behind her.

  “Hi,” Mom says to the girl.

  “Hi, Miz Moon.”

  Mom tilts her head to one side, her eyes surprised. “I’m sorry. Have we met?”

  “No, Aunt Eloise told me you guys made it in.”

  “Eloise Moyer who leased us the house?” The girl nods, and Mom squints and says, “You do look a little bit like her. You have her pretty red hair.”

  Mom chose the right profession when she decided to write fiction. She lies with ease. Unless Mother Nature took psychedelic drugs the day Eloise Moyer was conceived, this girl didn’t inherit her red hair from her aunt. It came from a box in aisle two.

  The checker starts scanning our purchases. “My cousin Jeri works over at the Longhorn,” she says. “Jeri reads all your books. She called a sec ago and told me y’all were eatin’ over there. She heard you say you were headin’ this way.”

  Mom laughs. “Cedar Canyon has quite a grapevine.”

  “You don’t know the half of it. When I was goin’ to school? If I got in trouble last period, my mom knew about it before the bell rang. It’s pretty much that way with everything around here.”

  Translation: The people in Cedar Canyon are a bunch of gossips. I cross my arms, wondering if the whole nosy town’s going to read about Papa Dan sitting down at that lady’s table in the paper tomorrow. That probably qualifies as big news around here.

  “So you grew up in Cedar Canyon?” Mom asks.

  “Yes, ma’am. I was salutatorian of my senior class year before last.”

  “Good for you!” Mom exclaims. I know her well enough to read her mind, though. She’s wondering why the girl didn’t go on to college with credentials like that.

  The checker runs the last item across the scanner, then tells Mom the total. While Mom swipes her bank card through the machine, the girl bags our groceries and keeps on talking. As if she read my mother’s mind, too, she says, “Soon as my husband, Tyler, and I save up the money, I’m going to quit working and start taking classes at the junior college in Amarillo.” Laughing, she holds out her left hand and wiggles it so that the tiny solitaire diamond on her ring finger sparkles in the light. “Tyler and I started kindergarten together. We tied the knot last year. He works at the beef processing plant.”

  He and the rest of the town. Mom told me that Texas Beef Processors is Cedar Canyon’s main employer. I guess if you’re from here, your options for the future are either cutting up cow corpses, farming, being a store clerk or waitress, or getting out of Podunk as fast as you can after graduation. I’d choose the “get out” option. I wouldn’t have to think twice about it.

  “I’m Reagan Blake,” the checker says as she finishes bagging our groceries.

  “Call me Millie,” Mom says, gesturing toward a wire rack a few feet away where Papa Dan stands. “That’s my father-in-law, Dan, rearranging the books. Sorry about that.”

  “Oh, no problem. Every kid who comes in here moves those around.” Wincing, Reagan adds, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that he’s—”

  “It’s okay,” Mom hurries to assure her, but I’m less forgiving. I hate it when people act as if my grandfather is five years old.

  Reagan waves at Papa Dan. “Hello, sir!” Then she grins at me and says, “Tansy Moon…what a cute name.”

  “It’s Piper,” I tell her.

  She frowns. “Piper Moon? I thought it was Tansy.”

  “It is.”

  Reagan’s face goes blank. “Oh,” she murmurs. Behind her on the floor, her cell phone trills in her purse and she stoops to look at the display.

  I take the opportunity to glance at Mom and cross my eyes.

  Mom sends me a quick scowl before Reagan stands up again.

  I grab two sacks and head for the door. The girl is about as bright as a dusty lightbulb. If she was the second smartest kid in her graduating class, what does that say about the Cedar Canyon school system? I decide to ask Mom that question and to point out the risk to my young, impressionable mind she’s taking by having me educated here.

  At home, I help unload groceries then hurry upstairs, maneuvering my way through the minefield of boxes and furniture in the middle of the living room floor. When we pulled out of the grocery store parking lot, Mom got all over me for being rude to Reagan. I defended myself by saying I didn’t speak more than two words to the girl, and she snapped, “Exactly.”

  Maybe I was rude—I don’t know. Reagan just rubbed me the wrong way, as Papa Dan used to say. So far, everyone here has left me feeling raw. Except the guy at the salad bar. He didn’t say anything stupid. He was totally friendly, even if he is a jock.

  Mom lectured me the whole way home, accusing me of being difficult. She said I’m judging the people around here without getting to know them. I didn’t waste my breath arguing with her. Lately, she rubs me wrong, too.

  I put sheets on my bed and plop onto it, too numb to move. I want to read the journal, but knowing Mom she’ll barge in without knocking and ask me what I’m doing; better to wait until she’s asleep. I haven’t hung any posters in my room yet, and everything about the small space, from the pale blue walls to the scratched wooden floors, seems unwelcoming and cold. As reluctant to accept me as I am it. Only the tree outside the window feels friendly, the scratch of leaves against the side of the house a familiar sound. I had a tree outside my bedroom window in San Francisco, too. The wind didn’t blow as much there, but when it did, I’d hear the same noise.

  Sighing, I get up and dig through all the junk on the floor that I dumped there earlier until I find the book I was reading in the car. Propping up on pillows, I open the novel to the chapter where I left off.

  It’s almost eleven o’clock when Mom pokes her head in to say good night. “You forgot this.” She puts the blue notebook on my dresser, then says, “I hope you’ll use it.”

  I shrug. “I don’t see why a diary is such a big deal to you.”

  She stares at me a few seconds, then says, “Get some sleep.” Before she closes my door she adds, “My bed is piled high with stuff, and I’m too tired to
make it up anyway, so I’ll be on the couch downstairs if you need me.”

  “Okay.” I close my novel and set it aside. “G’night, Mom.” I smile, hoping she’s over being ticked at me. I sort of regret not talking to her the entire trip. And I feel bad about being a jerk at the grocery store. She does her best. The cities and houses I live in change, as do the schools I attend and the kids I hang out with. But Mom and Papa Dan are permanent; I can always count on them to be there for me.

  Mom smiles back. “I love you, Tansy.”

  Relieved, I say, “Love you, too.”

  She closes the door, then I take my camera case from the closet and spread Henry’s things across the bed. I promised Hailey I’d call tonight at nine o’clock California time. She said she’d stay home and wait. I have five minutes. Plenty of time to read Henry’s next poem, but for some reason, I can’t bring myself to open the journal. I don’t want to rush when I read it. I want to savor each word. I’ll wait until after Hailey and I talk.

  Earlier, I reset Henry’s watch and wound it. I pop open the cover, and when the minute hand points straight up, I punch Hailey’s number into my cell phone. After the tenth ring, I end the call and dial her landline. Mrs. Fremont picks up right away.

  “Hi, this is Tansy,” I say. It’s great to hear her voice. I like Mrs. Fremont. She’s an old-fashioned stay-at-home mom who makes the best brownies ever. We talk about the trip and Cedar Canyon for a little while, then I ask if Hailey can come to the phone.

  “I’m sorry, Tansy,” Mrs. Fremont says. “Hailey went to a concert.”

  “A concert?” I sit up.

  “Yes, with that boy from work. Corey—no, that’s not right, it’s—”

  “Colin?” My stomach drops.

  “Yes, that’s his name. They went to see a local group…Kinky Red?”

  “Blue,” I murmur. “Kinky Blue.” Colin’s favorite band.

  “Hailey won’t be home for a while. I know she’ll be sorry she missed you. I’ll tell her to call you tomorrow.”