by mcdavis3
“You know, she’s not bad-looking, but…I don’t know—weird, that’s all.” They left, and I finally came out, too numb to cry.
That night, Annie had been drinking quite a bit by the time I got to her house. Stew had left for good, the week before, and it seemed like she hadn’t put the bottle down since. That made me even sulkier and I kept my head bent over my books, scarcely saying a word.
“Well, kiddo, what’s the matter?”
“Nothin’, Annie.”
“C’mon, tell me. You’ve never been this sulky. Is it, those kids?”
“No—well…”
“C’mon, I know it is. You just tell me what they said.”
Slowly I lifted my head. Ashamed and angry, my words were too hard and too loud. “They said…they said I must be crazy to be friends with a crazy old lady like you.” My head fell back on my books, and I cried until my eyes puffed almost shut. After a long slow time, Annie walked over and put her arms around me.
“You know something, my movie star. They’re probably right. They’re probably right, you know. Yes, they…” She walked to the tiny window and looked hard at the night. Frantically I ran and threw myself around her, sobbing.
“No, they didn’t say that, Annie, they really didn’t.”
“I’ve watched over that pussywillow tree for too long a time, I guess,” she said quietly. Then she turned and lifted me up, pushing me towards the door. “Now, listen here, Renee. You go home and show ’em. For me, d’y’hear? You go home and show all them kids for me.”
“Uh huh, Annie.” Still crying, I stumbled down the ramp and hurried home.
The next day, after school, I walked up her little ramp again, but the house was empty. The jar of sea things was waiting in the center of the table, and I cried for weeks with the whelping loneliness of a lost puppy, but I never saw Annie again. The next summer, Dad sold the last lot in Oceanside Park, so we moved out to Helm Lake, because there was a sudden fad for lake homes.
Four years have passed now, and I’m a freshmen out here at Western. It’s Christmas vacation and I’m on my way home. But we get the city papers up at school, and just last week, I read where a car hit a drunk woman crossing the street. She died at the hospital, but all they could get from her was that her name was Annie Layman and she came from a town on the coast.
So I’m driving back down Main Street now, looking for I don’t know what. I leave my car at the edge of the marsh and trample over to the house. The tree on the side is still sturdy, but the door is gone now, and most of the things are, too. Some little girls must have found a new playhouse, for a tea table is set up with dolls around it, and a coloring book lies on the floor. I wander out of the house and up the beach. The summer homes are boarded up and the sea sweeps in rather peacefully. I watch the sea for a long time. And then I find myself looking up at the miles of driftwood and wondering which is Annie.
1 Devin’s successful, popular and awesome. F-ing Devin.
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