by Garcia, Kami
He nodded, disappointed, and walked back toward the counter. "Say hello to Miss Amma for me."
"I take it he doesn't like your girlfriend?" She said it like a question, but I didn't know what to say. Was a girl still technically your girlfriend if she drove off with another guy? "I think Professor Ashcroft may have mentioned her."
"Lena. My -- her name is Lena." I hoped I didn't look as uncomfortable as I felt. Liv didn't seem to notice.
She took another sip of her tea. "I'll probably meet her at the library."
"I don't know if she'll be coming by the library. Things have been weird lately." I don't know why I said it. I barely knew Liv. But it felt good to say it out loud, and my insides untwisted a little.
"I'm sure you'll work it out. Back home, I fought with my boyfriend all the time." Her voice was light. She was trying to make me feel better.
"How long have you guys been together?"
Liv waved her hand in the air, the weird watch sliding down her wrist. "Oh, we broke up. He was a bit of a prat. I don't think he liked having a girlfriend who was smarter than he was."
I wanted to get off the subject of girlfriends, and ex-girlfriends. "So what's that thing, anyway?" I nodded at the watch, or whatever it was.
"This?" She held her wrist over the table so I could see the clunky black watch. It had three dials and a little silver needle that rested on a rectangle with zigzags all over it, sort of like one of those machines that track the strength of earthquakes. "It's a selenometer."
I looked at her blankly.
"Selene, the Greek goddess of the moon. Metron, or 'measure' in Greek." She smiled. "A little rusty on your Greek etymology?"
"A little."
"It measures the moon's gravitational pull." She turned one of the dials, thoughtfully. Numbers appeared under the pointer.
"Why do you care about the moon's gravitational pull?"
"I'm an amateur astronomer. I'm interested in the moon, mostly. It has a tremendous impact on the Earth. You know, the tides and everything. That's why I made this."
I almost spit out my Coke. "You made it? Seriously?"
"Don't be so impressed. It wasn't that difficult." Liv's cheeks flushed again. I was embarrassing her. She reached for another fry. "These chips really are brilliant."
I tried to imagine Liv sitting in the English version of the Dar-ee Keen, measuring the gravitational pull of the moon over a mountain of fries. It was better than picturing Lena on the back of John Breed's Harley. "So let's hear about your Gatlin. The one where they call fries by the wrong name." I had never been any farther than Savannah. I couldn't imagine what life would be like in another country.
"My Gatlin?" The pink spots on her cheeks faded.
"Where you're from."
"I'm from a town north of London, called Kings Langley."
"What?"
"In Hertfordshire."
"Doesn't ring a bell."
She took another bite of her burger. "Maybe this will help. It's where they invented Ovaltine. You know, the drink?" She sighed. "You stir it in milk, and it makes the milk into a chocolate malted?"
My eyes widened. "You mean chocolate milk? Kind of like Nesquik?"
"Exactly. It's amazing stuff, really. You should try it sometime."
I laughed into my Coke, which spilled on my faded Atari T-shirt. Ovaltine girl meets Quik boy. I wanted to tell Link, but he would get the wrong idea.
Even though it had only been a few hours, I had the feeling she was a friend.
"What do you do when you're not drinking Ovaltine and making scientific devices, Olivia Durand of Kings Langley?"
She crumpled the paper from her cheeseburger. "Let's see. Mostly I read books and go to school. I study at a place called Harrow. Not the boys' school."
"Is it?"
"What?" She scrunched up her nose.
"Harrowing?" H. A. R. R. O. W. I. N. G. Nine across, as in, gettin' on in years and can't take much more a these harrowin' times, Ethan Wate.
"You can't resist a terrible pun, can you?" Liv smiled.
"And you didn't answer the question."
"No. Not especially harrowing. Not for me."
"Why not?"
"Well, for starters, I'm a genius." She was matter-of-fact, as if she'd just said she was blond, or British.
"So why did you come to Gatlin? We're not exactly a genius magnet."
"Well, I'm part of the AGE, Academically Gifted Exchange, between Duke University and my school. Will you pass the mayo-nnaise?"
"Mann-aise." I tried to say it slowly.
"That's what I said."
"Why would Duke bother to send you to Gatlin? So you could take classes at Summerville Community College?"
"No, silly. So I could study with my thesis adviser, the renowned Dr. Marian Ashcroft, truly the only one of her kind."
"What is your thesis about?"
"Folklore and mythology, as it relates to community building after the American Civil War."
"Around here most people still call it the War Between the States," I said.
She laughed, delighted. I was glad someone thought it was funny. To me, it was just embarrassing. "Is it true people in the South sometimes dress up in old Civil War costumes and fight all the battles over again, for fun?"
I stood up. It was one thing for me to say it, but I didn't want to hear it from Liv, too. "I think it's time to get going. We've got more books to deliver."
Liv nodded, grabbing her fries. "We can't leave these. We should save them for Lucille."
I didn't mention that Lucille was used to Amma feeding her fried chicken and plates of leftover casserole on her own china plate, as the Sisters had instructed. I couldn't see Lucille eating greasy fries. Lucille was partic-u-lar, as the Sisters would say. She liked Lena, though.
As we headed for the door, a car caught my eye through the grease-coated windows. The Fastback was making a three-point turn at the end of the gravel parking lot. Lena made a point of not driving past us.
Great.
I stood and watched the car skid onto Dove Street.
That night, I lay in my bed and stared up at the blue ceiling, my hands folded behind my head. A few months ago, this would've been when Lena and I went to bed in our separate rooms together -- reading, laughing, talking through our days. I had nearly forgotten how to fall asleep without her.
I rolled over and checked my old, cracked cell. It hadn't really been working since Lena's birthday, but still, it would ring when someone called me. If someone had.
Not like she'd use the phone.
Right then, I was back to being the same seven-year-old who had dumped every puzzle in my room into one giant, miserable mess. When I was a kid, my mom sat on the floor and helped me turn the mess into a picture. But I wasn't a kid anymore, and my mom was gone. I turned the pieces over and over in my mind, but I couldn't seem to get them sorted out. The girl I was madly in love with was still the girl I was madly in love with. That hadn't changed. Only now the girl I was madly in love with was keeping secrets from me and barely speaking to me.
Then there were the visions.
Abraham Ravenwood, a Blood Incubus who had killed his own brother, knew my name and could see me. I had to figure out how the pieces fit together until I could see something -- some kind of pattern. I couldn't get the puzzle back into the box. It was too late for that. I wished someone could tell me where to put even one piece. Without thinking, I got up and pushed open my bedroom window.
I leaned out and breathed in the darkness, when I heard Lucille's distinctive meow. Amma must have forgotten to let her back inside. I was about to call out to tell her I was coming, when I noticed them. Under my window, at the edge of the porch, Lucille Ball and Boo Radley sat side by side in the moonlight.
Boo thumped his tail, and Lucille meowed in response. They sat like that at the top of the porch steps, thumping and meowing, as if they were carrying on as civilized a conversation as any two townsfolk on a summer night. I don't know what they w
ere gossiping about, but it must have been big news. As I lay in bed listening to the quiet conversation of Macon's dog and the Sisters' cat, I drifted off before they did.
6.15
Southern Crusty
Don't you lay a finger on a single one a my pies until I ask you to, Ethan Wate."
I backed away from Amma, hands in the air. "Just trying to help."
She glared at me while she wrapped a sweet potato pie, a two-time winner, in a clean dish towel. The sour cream and raisin pie sat on the kitchen table next to the buttermilk pie, ready for the icebox. The fruit pies were still cooling on the racks, and a dusting of white flour coated every surface in the kitchen.
"Only two days into summer and you're already under my feet? You'll wish you were over at the high school takin' summer classes if you drop one a my prizewinnin' pies. You want to help? Stop mopin' and go pull the car around."
Tempers were running about as high as temperatures, and we didn't say much as we bumped our way out toward the highway in the Volvo. I wasn't talking, but I can't say anybody noticed. Today was the single biggest day of Amma's year. She had won first place in Baked and Fried Fruit Pies and second place in Cream Pies every year at the Gatlin County Fair for as long as I could remember. The only year she didn't get a ribbon was last year, when we didn't go because it was only two months after my mom's accident. Gatlin couldn't boast the biggest or the oldest fair in the state. The Hampton County Watermelon Festival had us beat by maybe two miles and twenty years, and the prestige of winning the Gatlin Peach Prince and Princess Promenade could hardly compare to the honor of placing in Hampton's Melon Miss and Master Pageant.
But as we pulled into the dusty parking lot, Amma's poker face didn't fool my dad or me. Today was all about pageants and pies, and if you weren't balancing a pie wrapped as snugly as someone's firstborn, you were pushing a kid in curlers holding a baton toward the pavilion. Savannah's mom was Gatlin's Peach Pageant organizer, and Savannah was the defending Peach Princess. Mrs. Snow would be overseeing pageants all day. There was no such thing as too young for a crown in our county. The fair's Best Babies event, where rosy cheeks and diaper dispositions were compared like competing cobblers, drew more spectators than the Demolition Derby did. Last year, the Skipetts' baby was disqualified for cheating when her rosy cheeks came off on the judges' hands. The county fair had strict guidelines -- no formal wear until two years old, no makeup until six years old, and then only "age-appropriate makeup" until twelve.
Back when my mom was around, she was always ready to take on Mrs. Snow, and the Peach Pageants were one of her favorite targets. I could still hear her saying, "Age-appropriate makeup? Who are you people? What makeup is age-appropriate for a seven-year-old?" But even my family never missed a county fair, except last year. Now here we were again, carrying pies through the crowds and into the fairgrounds, same as ever.
"Don't jostle me, Mitchell. Ethan Wate, keep up. I'm not gonna let Martha Lincoln or any a those women beat me out a that ribbon on account a you two boys." In Amma's shorthand, those women were always the same women -- Mrs. Lincoln, Mrs. Asher, Mrs. Snow, and the rest of the DAR.
By the time my hand was stamped, it looked like three or four counties had already beaten us there. Nobody missed the opening day at the fair, which meant a trip to the fairgrounds halfway between Gatlin and Peaksville. And a trip to the fairgrounds meant a disastrous amount of funnel cake, a day so hot and sticky you could pass out just from standing, and if you were lucky, some making out behind the Future Farmers of America poultry barns. My shot at anything but heat and funnel cake wasn't looking too good this year.
My dad and I dutifully followed Amma to the judging tables under an enormous Southern Crusty banner. Pies had a different sponsor every year, and when it couldn't be Pillsbury or Sara Lee, you ended up with Southern Crusty. Pageants were crowd-pleasers, but Pies was the granddaddy of them all. The same families had been making the same recipes for generations, and every ribbon won was the pride of one great Southern house and the shame of another. Word had it that a few women from town had their sights set on keeping Amma from winning first place this year. Judging by the muttering I'd heard in the kitchen all week long, that would happen when hell froze over and those women were skating on it.
By the time we had unloaded her precious cargo, Amma was already harassing the judges about table placement. "You can't put a vinegar after a cherry, and you can't put a rhubarb between my creams. It'll take the taste right out a them, unless that's what you boys are lookin' to do."
"Here it comes," said my dad, under his breath. As the words came out of his mouth, Amma gave the judges the Look, and they squirmed in their folding chairs.
My dad glanced over at the exit, and we slunk outside before Amma had a chance to put us to work terrorizing innocent volunteers and intimidating judges. The moment we hit the crowds, we instinctively turned in opposite directions.
"You going to walk around the fair with that cat?" My dad looked down at Lucille sitting in the dirt next to me.
"Guess so."
He laughed. I still wasn't used to hearing it again. "Well, don't get into trouble."
"Never do."
My dad nodded at me, like he was the dad and I was the son. I nodded back, trying not to think about the last year, when I was the grown-up and he was out of his mind. He walked his way, I walked mine, and we both disappeared into the hot and sweaty masses.
The fair was packed, and it took me a while to track down Link. But true to form, he was hanging out by the games, trying to flirt with any girl who would look at him, today being a prime opportunity to meet a few who weren't from Gatlin. He was standing in front of one of those scales you hit with a giant rubber mallet to prove how strong you are, the mallet resting on his shoulder. He was in full drummer mode, in his faded Social Distortion T-shirt, with his drumsticks stuck in the back pocket of his jeans, and his wallet chain hanging below the sticks.
"Lemme show ya how it's done, ladies. Stand back. You don't wanna get hurt."
The girls giggled as Link gave it his best shot. The little meter climbed up, measuring Link's strength and his chances of hooking up at the same time. It passed a REAL WUSS and WIMPY and headed toward the bell at the top, a real stud. But it didn't quite make it, stopping about halfway, at CHICKEN LITTLE. The girls rolled their eyes and headed for the Ring Toss.
"This thing's rigged. Everyone knows that," Link shouted after them, dropping the mallet in the dirt. He was probably right, but it didn't matter. Everything in Gatlin was rigged. Why would the carnival games be any different?
"Hey, you got any money?" Link pretended to dig around in his pockets, like he might actually have more than a dime.
I handed him a five, shaking my head. "You need a job, man."
"I've got a job. I'm a drummer."
"That's not a job. It's not called a job unless you get paid."
Link scanned the crowd, looking for girls or funnel cake. It was hard to tell which, since he responded equally to both. "We're tryin' to line up a gig."
"Are the Holy Rollers playing at the fair?"
"This lame scene? Nah." He kicked the ground.
"They wouldn't book you?"
"They said we sucked. But people thought Led Zeppelin sucked, too."
As we walked through the fair, it was hard not to notice that the rides seemed to get a little smaller and the games a little shabbier every year. A pathetic-looking clown dragged a cluster of balloons past us.
Link stopped, hitting me on the arm. "Check it out. Six o'clock. Third Degree Burns." As far as Link was concerned, a girl couldn't get hotter than that.
He was pointing at a blond who was headed in our direction, smiling. It was Liv.
"Link --" I tried to tell him, but he was on a mission.
"As my mom would say, the Good Lord has good taste, hallelujah amen."
"Ethan!" She waved at us.
Link looked at me. "Are you kiddin' me? You've already got Lena. Tha
t's just wrong."
"I don't have Liv, and these days I don't even know if I have Lena. Be cool." I smiled at Liv, until I noticed she was wearing a faded Led Zeppelin T-shirt.
Link saw it at the same time I did. "The perfect girl."
"Hey, Liv. This is Link." I elbowed him, hoping he'd close his mouth. "Liv is Marian's summer research assistant. She works with me at the library." Liv held out her hand.
Link stood there gawking. "Wow." The thing about Link was, he never embarrassed himself, just me.
"She's an exchange student from England."
"Holy wow."
I looked at Liv and shrugged. "I told you."
Link broke out his biggest smile for Liv. "Ethan didn't tell me he was workin' with a hot babe a cosmic proportions."
Liv looked at me, pretending to be surprised. "You didn't? I find that rather tragic." She laughed and linked her arms through ours. "Come on, boys. Explain to me exactly how it is you make this strange cotton into candy."
"I can't give away national secrets, ma'am."
"I can." Link squeezed her arm with his.
"Tell me everything."
"Tunnel of Love or the Kissing Booth?" Link grinned even wider.
Liv tilted her head. "Hmm. That's a tough one. I'm going to go with ... the Ferris Wheel."
That's when I caught sight of the familiar black hair and the scent of lemons and rosemary in the breeze.
Nothing else was familiar. Lena was a few yards away, standing behind the ticket booth in what had to be Ridley's clothes. Her black tank rode up on her stomach, and her black skirt was about five inches too short. There was a long streak of blue in her hair, twisting down from where it parted around her face, and down her back. But that wasn't what shocked me most. Lena, the girl who never put anything on her face but sunscreen, was covered in makeup. Some guys liked girls with crap all over their faces, but I wasn't one of them. Lena's black-rimmed eyes were especially disturbing.
Surrounded by cutoff denim and dust and straw and sweat and red and white plastic checkered tablecloths, she looked even more out of place. Her old boots were the only thing I recognized. And her charm necklace, dangling like a lifeline back to the real Lena. She wasn't the kind of girl who wore stuff like that. At least, she didn't used to be.