by Sue Pethick
Winona’s niece, Sissy, was in the break room, taking a load of towels out of the dryer.
“Hey, Renny. How’s it going?”
Renee hid a rueful smile as she hunted in the refrigerator for her Tupperware container. Sissy had been mispronouncing her name for so long that she no longer bothered to correct her.
“Oh, fine,” she said, extracting a blue plastic box from the second shelf.
“I heard what Savannah said about your tip. That wasn’t nice.”
“It’s okay,” Renee said. “It’ll all work out.”
She popped a corner of the container, set it in the microwave, and pressed the “reheat” button.
Sissy plopped an armload of towels into the laundry basket and set it beside the table.
“Do you mind if I set the folded ones here?”
“No, go ahead. I don’t need that much room.”
“That’s what I thought,” the girl said, setting down the first folded towel.
When the timer went off, Renee grabbed a fork and started stirring the food in her container. Sissy raised an eyebrow.
“What you got there?”
Renee picked out a bite of food.
“Leftovers,” she said, putting it in her mouth.
“Kinda looks like puke. No offense or nothin’.”
Renee shook her head. Sissy was a good soul, but the filter that kept most people from blurting out the first thing that occurred to them had not taken root in her brain.
“Well, in fairness, it’s a combination of three different meals,” she said. “But my kids would probably agree with you.”
The tower of towels was getting precarious. Sissy pushed it aside and started a second one.
“How are your kids?”
“Fine.” Renee took a swig of Diet Coke. “Dylan’s coach thinks he’ll be offered a football scholarship to Clemson—”
“Ooh!”
“—and McKenna’s found some nice girls to hang out with after school.”
“And how’s your little fella, Kieran?”
Renee swallowed hard. How was Kieran, the troubled, brilliant, “problem” of the family?
“He’s okay,” she said. “I’m having a conference with his teacher after work. Maybe I’ll know more then.”
Sissy shook out another towel.
“I read where the things kids eat can affect the way they act sometimes. Junk food and such can make ’em kinda crazy.”
Renee kept her eyes on the food in front of her. Sissy meant well, but this wasn’t a subject she wanted to pursue. She knew her son was different, but all kids were a little strange when you came right down to it. It was a phase, that was all. Kieran would grow out of his odd behaviors the same way he’d grown out of short pants and thumb-sucking.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’ve read that, too.”
For a few minutes, the only sound in the break room was the snap of the towels as they were shaken out and folded. Then Sissy said:
“How was the blind date? Was he as nice as your daddy said he was?”
Renee shook her head.
“I don’t think Dad and I have the same ideas about who I’d be interested in,” she said, still stung by Friday night’s humiliation.
She swallowed, feeling her stomach clench as she relived the last few minutes of her disastrous date with Butch.
“A few good swats to your boy’s backside would stop that nonsense right away.”
As if Kieran’s facial tics were simply a way to gain attention! Renee ground her teeth, feeling an unreasonable anger at Sissy for reminding her of that awful evening.
“That’s too bad.” Sissy sighed. “I wouldn’t mind if my daddy helped me find someone.”
“Believe me,” Renee said as she got up from the table, “it sounds more appealing than it is.”
She washed her Tupperware in the sink and grabbed a fresh apron.
“Oh!” Sissy said. “Before I forget . . .”
She went over to her cubby and took out a small brown paper bag.
“I saved these for you.”
Renee opened the bag and saw the hair-filled plastic bags inside. She looked up and smiled.
“Thanks, Sissy. I’m sure Kieran will appreciate it.”
“No problem. Just, um, make sure he doesn’t tell anybody where he got them, okay?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll remind him.”
She reached into her pocket and took out her cell phone.
Sissy frowned. “What are you doing?”
“Texting my dad,” Renee said as she headed for the door. “I want to remind him that I’m going to be late for dinner—I mean supper—tonight.”
“Lucky. My daddy would’ve let us all starve before he’d’ve cooked us a meal.”
Renee tucked the phone in her pocket and went back to her station. Sissy was right, she thought. She was lucky to have her father around to help her. It was, however, a decidedly mixed blessing.
CHAPTER 4
Kieran sat outside the principal’s office, swinging his legs in the too-tall chair as he waited to talk to the school counselor. Mrs. Dalton had told him to go see the lady in the principal’s office and that she and his mother would talk about it that night, but she hadn’t said what would happen once he got there. Was the counselor nice? he wondered. Would he have to take a test? He hoped it wouldn’t take too long. It was almost time for lunch, and he didn’t want to run into Cody again.
He put his right hand into his coat pocket and fondled the piece of dog fur he’d taken from his hair collection. Rubbing the wiry strands between his fingers seemed to work a kind of magic on Kieran, giving him the same calm feeling that he’d had when he was with the dog. He wished it hadn’t run away. If it had followed him home, maybe his mom would have let him keep it. Then he’d have someone to play with after school instead of just hanging out in his room alone.
Kieran closed his eyes and rubbed the fur harder, wishing that his mother would let him walk home from school so he could see if the dog was still there. If it was, maybe the two of them could do fun stuff together, like play pirates or build a fort. He opened his eyes and sighed wistfully. And if that happened, he thought, maybe she would even let him keep it.
The principal’s office door opened, and a woman in a blue dress stepped out.
“Hey there.” She smiled. “Are you Kieran?”
He nodded.
“I’m Dr. Joan. Why don’t you come on in so we can visit awhile?”
Kieran took his hand out of his pocket and followed her inside.
There were two leather chairs in front of the principal’s desk—one on the left with a manila folder on it and one on the right that was empty. Dr. Joan took the folder off the left one and sat down. Kieran took a seat in the other and looked around. He’d never been in the principal’s office before, but he knew some kids who had. They told stories on the playground about what happened in there—none of them good.
“So,” she said. “How are you today?”
“Okay, I guess.”
“Do you know why you’re here?”
He shook his head.
The counselor frowned and checked the folder, then mumbled something and set it aside.
“Kieran, Mrs. Dalton tells me that you like to count your steps when you’re walking around the school. Is that true?”
He squirmed in his seat.
“I don’t really like it,” he said.
“But you do it because you have to?”
He stared at her for a moment, then nodded slowly.
“Is that also why you make faces sometimes or cough when you don’t have a cold?”
Kieran swallowed. No one had ever asked him about why he did those things before; they’d just told him to stop. He nodded again.
“And how does it make you feel when you count your steps or make faces?”
He ducked his head. “Bad.”
Dr. Joan wrinkled her brow. “Bad like a stomach ache or bad like a bad perso
n?”
“Just bad.” He glanced away. “People make fun of me. They call me a freak.”
“Does everybody call you that or just a few?”
Kieran fidgeted, unsure what to say. If he told her it was Cody Daniels, would she tell the principal? Things were hard enough at school; he didn’t want to make things worse. He shook his head.
“Just some. I can’t remember who.”
She nodded. “So, there are some people who make fun of you and some that don’t.”
“I guess.”
“And that bothers you?”
He gave the counselor a searching look. Was she making fun of him? No, Kieran decided. Adults just liked to ask dumb questions like that. He nodded.
Dr. Joan opened the folder again and starting writing. While he waited for her to finish, Kieran continued his survey of the room. There were trophies in a glass case and a shelf with a football helmet and a bobble-headed tiger on it. He saw something moving on the floor and saw a bright red ladybug crawl under the principal’s desk. Mrs. Dalton said that people used to like ladybugs because they were cute and ate stuff nobody wanted, but now they were just pests.
The counselor looked up, her pen poised.
“I have just a few more questions for you and then you can go. All right?”
He shrugged. “Okay.”
“When did you first start counting or making faces or funny noises?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, was it when you lived in your old house or after you moved to Bolingbroke?”
“In my old house.”
“And how much would you say, on average, that you count?”
Kieran frowned. “You mean, like how high?”
“No. I mean, how often do you feel the need to count things? Would you say you do it every day or a couple of times a week?”
“Every day, I guess.”
“More than once a day?”
“Yeah.”
“More than five or six times in a day?”
Kieran licked his lips. He’d never noticed how many times a day he counted or wrinkled his nose or made noises. Sometimes he didn’t even know he was doing it until someone told him to cut it out. Mostly, he just hoped it would stop and then tried to forget about it when it did. He shook his head.
“Maybe,” he said. “I’m not sure.”
“Have you ever started washing your hands and found that you couldn’t stop?”
Kieran rubbed his hands together.
“No.” He paused. “Maybe.”
Dr. Joan wrote something else in the folder.
“What about opening or closing doors?”
Kieran felt a whisper of panic. He could almost feel himself opening and then closing a door, over and over . . .
“No.” He shook his head. “I don’t do that.”
She nodded.
“All right, let’s stick with the counting, then. Is there anything that makes you want to do that?”
“I don’t want to do it. I just have to.”
“Of course,” she said. “I’m sorry. What I should have said was, is there something that makes you feel as if you have to count things?”
He shrugged, thinking about the steps he’d been counting on the way to the office.
“When I’m nervous, I guess. Or scared.”
Like now.
There was a feeling like a tickle in his cheek; the kind he got right before he made a face. Dr. Joan was writing something in her folder again. Kieran tried to wipe the tickle-y feeling away, hoping she wouldn’t notice.
She looked up and smiled.
“Would you like to stop doing the things that people make fun of?”
Kieran nodded again.
“Well, that’s good,” Dr. Joan said. “Because I think I can help you. Would you like that?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Now, I see that Mrs. Dalton is going to speak to your mother about this tonight. If she agrees, then we’ll put your name on the list, and I’ll send a release form to your parents.”
“Not parents,” Kieran said. “Just my mom.”
“Oh. Well then, I’ll send it to your mother.”
He glanced over at the door.
“Can I go now?”
“In a minute.” Dr. Joan closed the folder. “When you feel like you have to count or make faces, is there anything that helps you stop? Something you can think of or do that makes the bad feeling go away?”
Kieran thought about that.
“Sometimes I think about stuff my grandpa tells me.”
“What does he tell you?”
“Well, if I get scared because I’ve lost count, he reminds me that it’s okay to start over.”
“That’s nice.” She smiled. “It’s good to have a grandpa like that.”
Kieran nodded.
“And if I’ve had a bad day at school, he says, ‘Don’t let those little shits get to you.’ ”
“I see.” Dr. Joan cleared her throat. “Is there, um, anything else that helps you? Other than the things your grandfather says?”
“When I talked to the dog.” He reached into his pocket. “When I was with him, I forgot to count or make faces. It was nice.”
“I’ll bet it was,” she said. “I’m glad you have a pet like that to talk to. Dogs can be especially good at helping children deal with their anxieties.”
She closed the folder and stood up.
“Well, I think that’s all the questions I have for you today, Kieran. Thank you for coming by to see me. Hurry on back to your classroom now; it’s almost time for the lunch bell.”
Kieran headed back down the hallway in a daze. Dr. Joan had said that a dog would help him stop counting and making faces! When his mother heard that, she’d have to let him get one, wouldn’t she? And when she did, he thought, he knew exactly which dog he wanted. He almost couldn’t believe his good luck.
Then the lunch bell rang, and suddenly every door in the hallway flew open as hungry students poured out of their classes and headed for the cafeteria. Kieran began pushing his way through the crowd that moved against him like an onrushing tide. This was what he got for daydreaming, he told himself. Why hadn’t he been paying attention?
The crowd had thinned some by the time he reached his classroom. Kieran grabbed the brown bag from his cubby and hurried out the door. As he made his way back the way he’d come, he kept his head down and willed himself to be invisible.
He was almost to the cafeteria when he heard a door slam open behind him and the sound of menacing laughter fill the hallway. Kids on their way to lunch were jostled as the group of sixth-grade boys tumbled out of the room, shoving each other and making rude comments to the girls.
Hearing Cody’s distinctive bray, Kieran started walking faster. He was almost past the lockers now; just another few feet and they’d be close enough for the lunch monitors to see them. If he could just stay out of Cody’s reach for a few more seconds . . .
“Out of my way, freak!”
He felt a hand on his shoulder, then a shove, and before he knew it, he was slamming into a locker, the clang of the metal door ringing in his ears. Kieran staggered, dropped his lunch, and watched helplessly as Cody and his minions trampled it underfoot.
CHAPTER 5
Renee chewed an antacid as she sat in the hallway outside Kieran’s classroom, waiting for his teacher, Mrs. Dalton, to call her in. This meeting was in addition to the regular parent-teacher conferences that were held twice a year, and bolting down her dinner had done nothing to settle either her stomach or her jitters. Was Kieran in some sort of trouble?
She heard voices coming from the other side of the closed classroom door but couldn’t make out the words. That was good, she thought. Nothing worse than having to air your dirty laundry in public. If Mrs. Dalton did have a problem with Kieran, Renee preferred that it not be broadcast to the world at large. He’d had enough trouble back at his old school. She didn’t want the people in Bolingbroke
to take against her son before they’d even given him a chance.
Renee looked down at the snippets of hair that clung to her skirt and brushed them away, only to find that they’d reattached themselves to her leggings. She shook her head ruefully. It seemed like the perfect metaphor for her life: Every time she thought she had a problem solved, it just cropped up somewhere else.
The solid sound of bootheels on the concrete floor caught her attention. A tall man with salt-and-pepper hair was walking toward her, his cowboy boots echoing in the hallway. In a dress shirt and a bolo tie, jacket, and Levis, he looked a bit like the Marlboro man—all he needed was a Stetson to complete the look.
Their eyes met and he returned her smile.
“Waiting for someone?” he said.
She threw a thumb over her shoulder.
“Conference with the teacher. You?”
“Killing time while I wait for a friend.” He indicated the chair next to hers. “Mind if I join you?”
“Feel free.”
As he took his seat, the man reached up as if to doff a nonexistent hat, confirming Renee’s suspicions. The revelation made her curious. Raising livestock was only a small part of the economy in Bolingbroke. Either the outfit was an affectation or, like Renee, he was new to the area.
“Conference with the teacher, huh? You don’t look like you’re even old enough to have a child in school.”
Renee shook her head at the false flattery.
“I’m plenty old,” she said. “And I’ve got three kids, not one.”
“Hmm. Maybe it’s the hair.” He pointed. “I like the pink.”
She reached up and touched her bangs self-consciously.
“I’m a hairdresser. Comes with the territory.”
“Well, it looks good on you,” the man said. “Maybe I’d look better with pink hair.”
Renee raised an eyebrow.
“Now you’re just making fun of me.”
“Not at all. The truth is, I could use a lift. But where are my manners?” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Travis Diehl.”
She took his hand and felt calluses on the meaty palm.
Who knows? she thought. Maybe he is a real cowboy.
“Renee Richardson,” she said. “Nice to meet you.”
“Same here,” Travis said, stretching his legs out in front of him.