Today’s caller didn’t use the word escape; he asked if he could learn how to become English. Only he asked it in Pennsylvania Deutsch, the German dialect, making Gideon’s skin grow clammy with memories.
“Where are you now?”
“Outside of Harrisburg at a truck stop.”
“That’s a long ways away.”
“I know. But if I get to you, can you help me?”
How could he say no? It was what he did, part of who he was: someone to believe in. “I can. Call me again when you get to the Smoky Mountains. Try to get a ride to Gatlinburg, in Tennessee.”
“Thank you.” The lightness to his voice made Gideon relax.
“How did you hear about me?” he asked before hanging up.
“Everyone knows about you, Gideon. You’re the Getaway Savior.”
Gideon worked off his frustration by ordering three cases of motor oil from his supplier and completing the inspection for a 2003 Jeep owned by the local librarian. Then he repaired the parking lot. When he finished, he duct-taped a cardboard sign with “do not trespass” in bold letters to one of the cones, looked at his work, and figured that should do the trick. Inside the shop, he interrupted Luke and Ormond’s discussion on the recent University of Tennessee football game to emphasize that under no circumstances were they to let anyone walk or park on the lot. Then, as his stomach rumbled, he washed his hands and set out to Another Cup, the local tea shop, for a sandwich and some green tea.
He sat at the counter where he always did, in the corner near a jukebox he’d never heard play. He didn’t bother with the menu—he wanted hot green tea and a roast beef on rye. He’d heard green tea was filled with antioxidants, good for the body, and now that he’d tried it, he liked it. As he ate, he read the newspaper, his shop’s copy that he had persuaded Ormond to hand him. While Ormond focused on the sports page, real news always fascinated Gideon. Growing up, he’d had no idea there were shootings in the Middle East, plane crashes, and oil spills. Life had been about his remote community alone.
When the new manager approached him, he grinned at her and put his paper aside. Mari was her name. She was young, probably twenty-five, thin, dark hair and eyes. When she smiled, it was like being at the beach on a summer day. Last time they’d talked, she said she’d just moved here from Atlanta to take on the manager job at this tearoom. Today she eyed his green tea and said she was surprised.
“Surprised? Why?”
“Never met a man who drinks green tea.” Her voice was gentle, her dark eyes flashed warmth.
“In Asia, doesn’t everyone?”
“Sure. But we’re in little Twin Branches, and most of the men I know here don’t touch hot tea.”
“I’m not from around here. Maybe that’s why.”
“Where are you from?”
“Pennsylvania.” He didn’t want to add he was once Amish.
“I’ve been there a few times. Isn’t that where they have all those funny people who ride in horses and carriages?”
He swallowed hard, then said, “Uh, well … Where did you grow up?”
“Far from here.” Picking up a cloth, she wiped down the counter to the left of him. “Everyone thinks I grew up in China. Can you believe that?”
Gideon felt a little silly; he’d assumed she was Chinese.
“They ask me about crazy things that have nothing to do with my ancestors.” Seeing his clueless expression, she said, “Japan.”
“Oh, of course,” he said much too loudly. “Japanese, right.”
“My great-grandparents came to the States from Kobe. I’ve never been there, never been to Japan at all.” Her gaze shifted to the wide window behind him. “They felt life would be better here. But I don’t know.” She sighed and slipped her hands into her apron pockets. “There are no perfect places, are there?” Her face clouded and her jaw grew tense and he was afraid she might cry.
“These mountains here are nice,” he said with feeling. She didn’t respond, so he continued. “Especially now that it’s fall, the colors are really pretty. Have you been up to Cove’s Peak?”
“I dread the winter.”
He wanted to see her smile again, so he thought of one of Ormond’s jokes, one about the difference between a cougar and a lawyer. But as he set out to tell it, he realized he’d forgotten the punch line. He stood to pay his bill.
Della—an older woman with a pile of dyed, blond hair and heavy makeup who called everyone Sugar—entered from the kitchen. She took his twenty, handed him change, and said she hoped he had a good day. He wished her the same; it was the American Way.
When he turned to tell Mari goodbye, she was nowhere in sight. The cloth she had been using lay abandoned on the counter. His eyes rested on the clear canister that held fresh pies. He considered getting a slice of blackberry to go, but it was best he got back to work.
3
Principal Peppers’ office was like a busy intersection, the kind Mari warned her not to ride her bike across. Teachers, the vice principal, and even a bus driver all wanted to discuss something with the middle-school’s headmaster.
And here Kiki sat again, in the same chair across from his desk as she had been in last week. She studied his desk, eyes glued to a silver name plaque with his first and last names engraved on it. Dusty Peppers. No wonder people made fun of him. Between his name and his love of Hawaiian shirts, he was recognized and talked about wherever he went in Twin Branches. Kiki had heard that he once ate three bowls of peach ice cream at the state fair, then topped it off with a fried Twinkie.
“I called him,” the VP said. She met Principal Peppers’ gray eyes, then looked Kiki up and down. Her frown never left her wrinkled face. “He’s on his way over.”
Kiki’s feet itched. She wished she could remove her shoes and scratch them. She heard Angie Smithfield’s voice in her head, ringing like a phone that wouldn’t quit. “Miss Stevenson! Miss Stevenson, Kiki’s in big trouble.”
How did Angie know these things? How could the girl accuse Kiki of riding her bike over the parking lot at the auto shop yesterday? Kiki was sure she’d not been seen.
Principal Peppers reassured the driver it was school policy to not tolerate disrespect on the bus. Should the behavior continue, the eighth graders who were tossing cantaloupe slices out the bus windows would be banned from riding. The bus driver thanked him and left.
Kiki’s pulse raced. She was alone with Principal Peppers. Swallowing hard, she wished she had her puppet Yoneko. Mari told her not to bring Yoneko to classes because middle-school girls did not carry toys around at school. Toys. Didn’t her sister realize Yoneko was more than a toy? Mama had sewed the cat’s front paw back on with orange thread last year, making the stuffed puppet whole again.
“So,” the principal said from behind his massive desk. He took off his wiry glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Kiki, what is this I hear about you?”
The urge to get out—get moving and away from this scene—raced across her mind. But her feet were like boulders. And they still itched. She saw her cement-caked sneakers, the ones she’d hidden until Mari closed her bedroom door last night and went to sleep. Then Kiki had rushed outside to start her cleanup. She’d used the garden hose on both shoes, scrubbing the soles with a kitchen scouring pad she later threw in the garbage. Had Angie seen her then? Kiki’d slipped back into the house with wet feet, dried them on a towel, and hoped she’d wiped the hallway well enough so that Mari would never guess what she’d done. Perhaps she’d been so concerned about not waking her sister that she hadn’t noticed Angie spying on her next door.
The principal was peering at her, his glasses back on his face.
His eyes matched the blue-gray of his shirt. She liked that color. It was neither bright nor dark, one of those in-between tones that made her think of the arrowheads she had in her collection.
“Are you happy here?”
Happy? Happy. She rolled the word around in her mind. Did anyone care about happiness? Had that stern woman f
rom social services with the bad hair and teeth asked if she was happy to be leaving Mama’s house in Asheville? No, she had just said Mama was unfit to raise a child.
“The school year just started, and already you’ve been in here three times.”
Kiki recalled the last time. They’d called Mari. Then Mari, stressed from having to leave the tearoom, had to listen to Principal Peppers explain that Kiki had thrown her math textbook onto the floor and threatened to burn all the stupid math books.
She could not face Mari being mad at her today. “Please don’t call my sister. For the sake of Pete, please, please, please.”
The principal sighed. He shuffled the pages in a manila file the VP had handed him.
Kiki was not only good at holding her breath, but she could also read upside down pretty well. The name on the file was hers. She bet that if she looked inside, it would have in large, mean letters: Retard.
But she was not a retard, she was autistic. That’s what Dr. Conner said. And it wasn’t bad to be autistic. That’s what he told her whenever she shouted how she hated being this way. Being autistic just meant she was unique. The key was learning how to make her uniqueness work in a complex world. Complex.
Suddenly Kiki wanted to ask the principal if he knew what that word meant. She looked across the desk at him as he burrowed through her file.
Before she had a chance to speak, he asked, “Did you get into trouble at your school in Asheville?”
She wanted to say, “No way!” but that was a lie. In all her thirteen years, she couldn’t recall ever not being in trouble. But she wouldn’t tell him that. She opened her mouth to say something—she wasn’t sure what would come out. Then the door scraped open and in walked the man from the auto shop, wearing his work clothes and smelling of the identical aftershave her social studies teacher wore.
“This is Mr. Miller.” The VP motioned the newcomer toward the chair by Kiki and then closed the door.
Without looking at Kiki, Mr. Miller sat down.
“Thank you for coming by,” the principal said. “I’m sorry to bring you down here, but I thank you for your time.”
Kiki lowered her eyes. With a sidelong glance, she focused on the man’s hands, soiled with grease and dirt under his nails. Her fingers got that way sometimes, especially in Asheville when she helped Ricky repair bicycles. Ricky had taught her how to use a wrench and a screwdriver.
“As we told you on the phone, Mr. Miller, Kiki, here …” He coughed, cleared his throat, and apologized.
Had it been a different day, a day she didn’t feel so shaky, Kiki would have offered to get him a glass of water. She liked to get Mari water whenever her sister got a tickle in her throat.
“Apparently,” the principal said, “Kiki rode her bicycle over your parking lot when the concrete was wet.”
Perhaps, Kiki thought, this man would be kind. Perhaps he wouldn’t yell or scold or—
“I want her to stay away from my shop.”
Kiki’s stomach morphed into a ball of jelly.
“Well.” The principal cleared his throat. “Well.” He coughed into his hand. “Kiki, what do you have to say to Mr. Miller?”
“I’m sorry. Sorry, really sorry.”
The principal nodded her way. Perhaps that meant she was supposed to say more. “I didn’t know it was wet.”
With heat in his voice, Mr. Miller said, “I spent all afternoon pouring the concrete, and then I had to do it all over again.”
Kiki felt the man’s anger seeping from his skin and coating her like a bad dream. Perhaps this was a dream, and she’d wake up. She held her breath and starting counting.
“Maybe Kiki could show you how sorry she is by coming to your shop to help out.”
The principal’s voice was soft. Kiki raised her head, stopped counting, and smiled into his face. He might have a funny name, but today she didn’t mind.
“I think that Kiki could work off her indebtedness to you,” the headmaster said.
Her heart bloomed like it did when Mama made mashed taters for dinner, even if they were the kind from a box. The warmth from the bloom was almost as sweet as when the soloist at church sang “Silent Night” during the Christmas pageant. “Yes! I can help you! I am a good worker.”
“Kiki, you may sit down.”
She hadn’t realized she’d jumped to her feet. Reluctantly, she sat.
Principal Peppers directed his next statement to Mr. Miller. “She could help you after school for a few days.”
“Oh, please! I can work at your shop!”
“No,” the man said. “That will not be necessary.” He turned to Kiki. “Just stay off my property.”
She winced.
He stood, one hand gripping the chair. With his jaw as firm as his voice, he added, “Please.” Then he shook the principal’s hand and left.
Kiki slumped into her chair. This was not good, not good.
“You may go,” Principal Peppers said, his eyes now focused on papers spread over his desk. His black pen moved across a page. He licked his index finger and rubbed it against another page.
“For Pete’s sake.” Something inside made her spring out of her chair. “I could help him at his shop.”
“He doesn’t want help.”
“I’m good with tools.”
He looked at her. “Kiki, he wants you to stay away. You need to abide by his wishes.”
Kiki felt like hitting the wall, felt like making the brown-and-gold-framed awards with Dusty Peppers written in bold letters, sway. If she did that, the school would call Mari. She stuffed her hands inside her jeans’ pockets and, with loud steps, left his office. If only Yoneko was here, she’d cuddle the animal’s soft fur and shut out this unfair world.
4
Back at the shop, Gideon busied himself with a 2002 Mustang the youngest Stuart son had brought in for a brake job. The Stuarts, like most of the mountain folks around Twin Branches, loved to hunt and fish and could use rifles and fishing lines almost before they could feed themselves with spoons. The Mustang’s body was in good shape, but Gideon didn’t think all the Born to Hunt and I’d Rather be Fishing stickers added anything to its value.
Yesterday Gideon had replaced the master cylinder, and today he was replacing the rear rotors and pads. As he worked on the car, he fumed. Did that girl who’d ruined his parking lot really believe he’d want her getting under his feet at the shop? He didn’t need her help. He sighed and wondered why it bothered him that he was so peeved. She’s a kid. And she’s not right in the head. You can tell by looking at her.
Ormond interrupted his thoughts by handing him the cordless phone. The call was for him. Gideon wiped his hands on a shop rag. How would he ever get anything done today?
“Can you pick me up?” the caller asked.
“Who is this?” The accent was familiar, but there was nothing wrong in making sure.
“It’s Amos. I called you the other day.”
“Hello, Amos.” The kid sounded more desperate. Had being in the real world already thrown him for a loop?
“Can you pick me up?”
“Where are you?” He stuffed the rag into his back pocket.
“Gatlinburg. I got a ride here this morning from Charleston.”
The kid had made good time. Gideon paused to determine if today was the day his contact in Gatlinburg made the trek to Twin Branches. He opened the bottom drawer in his tool cabinet and took out a crinkled paper with Bruce’s delivery schedule. If Amos could get to Bruce’s depot by one o’clock tomorrow, he would be willing to drive the kid to Twin Branches. He’d driven many teens here from communities in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana—kids wanting to escape bonnets, buggies, and the Old Order.
Gideon gave Amos directions. “You want to go to Lyle’s Produce at 676 Fairmont Place.” As many times as he’d given this address, he knew it by memory.
“6176?”
“Do you have a pencil? Paper? Write it down. I’ll wait.”
G
ideon heard some muffled voices, then Amos said, “I got the paper and pen. What was that again?”
Slowly, Gideon repeated the address of the trucking company that carried fresh produce over the mountains each Wednesday. “When you get there, ask for Bruce. He’ll drive you here.”
“What if he wants money? I’m out.”
Of course, these kids were always out. “I’ll cover it when Bruce gets here.”
The driver would take him to 102 Azalea Avenue, the apartments where Luke lived. Hiber Summers, the landlord, offered inexpensive furnished places for Gideon’s “brethren,” as he called them, because he was a kind man. He also enjoyed having his 1988 Volvo serviced for free and detailed at least three times a year—a little arrangement he and Gideon had.
Still Life in Shadows Page 2