“Why not?”
“You know why,” I say, wiping my face.
If Dad catches me with a book about the e-word—evolution—I’ll be in big trouble.
For a minute, Alice doesn’t say anything. Then she gives me a big hug.
“You’re supposed to say thank you.”
• • •
When I get home that afternoon, Dad’s on the front porch. He’s been working in the yard all day and his face is slick with sweat.
“Been waiting for you,” he says, marching across the lawn.
I hide the book behind my back. “Me and Alice were just—”
“I don’t want to hear about Alice,” he snaps. “Understand? I need you working here at the shop. Not running all over Pinecraft.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You left my good shirts on the line. And you forgot to pull out the pockets. The jeans are still wet.”
He’s disappointed in me again. Why can’t I do anything right?
“I’ll take care of it,” I say, moving toward the clothesline.
Dad grabs my wrist. “What’s this?”
The book tumbles into the grass.
I lunge for it, but Dad’s quicker. “If you keep reading so much, it’s bad for your eyes. You hear?”
Yeah, I’ve heard that before.
He flips through The Blue Planet, not saying a word. The more Dad reads, the deeper he frowns.
“Where did you get this?” he asks.
“It’s a present. Alice gave it to me. Please. Can I have it back?”
“You have enough books,” he says. “You don’t need more.”
He’s wrong.
I can never have enough books.
Dad goes over to the workshop. The garbage bins are heaped with plywood boards. Rusty nails. Whatever he can’t use. He shoves my book into the pile.
“Don’t be filling your head with lies,” he says, walking away.
The Blue Planet isn’t a lie.
It’s the world we live in.
When he’s finally gone, I plunge my hand into the garbage. I feel around for my book, but I can’t move those heavy boards out of the way.
That’s when I make up my mind.
I’ll go to that party with Alice tonight.
I don’t care if I have to lie.
chapter three
floating
Faron’s truck is parked behind the empty lot. It doesn’t look like it can go very far. A piece of rope dangles from the bumper. The faded red paint is scabbed with rust. I stand there, looking at it.
He slides behind the wheel. “You girls coming or what?”
Guess I don’t have a choice.
“Can’t you talk?” he says.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “When it’s someone worth talking to.”
He blinks, as if he doesn’t know what to do. Old Order boys are weird. That’s for sure.
Alice tugs herself up into the truck bed. There’s a lot of junk tossed in the back—fast-food wrappers and crumpled beer cans. I crouch next to her on the rubber mat. Already this feels like a big mistake.
We swerve onto Fruitville Road, speeding past motels with names like Seabreeze and Sundial and a mini golf course shaped like a pirate ship. All the parking lots are lit up, but their spaces are empty. A car swerves in front of us, blaring its horn. I scoot down lower and hope nobody sees me.
“Isn’t this fun?” says Alice, waving like a princess on a float.
Fun isn’t exactly what I’d call it.
When we pass the drugstore near the highway, Alice thumps the glass between us and the boys.
“Can we stop for a minute?” she shouts at Faron.
“What for?” he says.
“I need something.”
“You think this is a taxi?” he says, but we make a U-turn and pull into the parking lot.
The boys sit in the truck while me and Alice climb out. The drugstore is surrounded by a wall of scorched-looking palm trees. My dad never buys anything here. He says it’s wasteful, the money people spend on things they don’t need.
Tobias leans out the window. “Don’t take too frickin’ long. You hear?”
“Yeah, I hear,” Alice mutters.
“What the hell are you getting anyway?”
“None of your business,” she says, blowing a kiss.
We march up to the store’s gleaming front entrance. The door swishes open, all by itself. There’s a line of people waiting at the cash register. Little kids shoving potato chips in their mouths. A lady with plastic curlers in her hair.
“They’re so strange, those Amish girls,” she says under her breath.
It’s me, not Alice, she’s staring at. My long-sleeved dress. The prayer cap on my head. The things on the outside that make me different.
Go ahead. Keep whispering like I can’t hear you.
“Look at all this stuff.” Alice whistles as she drifts through the store. I still don’t know how to whistle. She’s walking so fast, I can’t help feeling like she wants to get rid of me. If she’s trying to pass as English, she probably doesn’t want me hanging around in my plain clothes.
Alice disappears around a corner. I’m trying to keep up, but a couple of girls are blocking the aisle. They’re so busy squeezing lotion on their hands, they won’t get out of the way.
“Excuse me,” I mumble.
“Oh. Sorry,” says the dark-haired girl. But she’s not sorry. She grins at her friend, who’s even smaller than Alice. They’re both in denim shorts and flimsy tank tops, their bare shoulders pink with sun.
Her friend giggles. She’s got a million rubber bracelets stacked up her arms and rainbow streaks in her hair. Maybe I’d dress like that, if I lived in their world. They’re like me and Alice. The same, but different.
“Where’s your horse and buggy?” she asks.
“It’s my day off,” I tell her, pushing ahead.
They’re laughing at me. I can tell by the way they’re glancing back, then looking away, like I’m too dumb to notice. This is why I hate shopping outside Pinecraft. Sometimes I just want to hide in my room with my books and never go anywhere.
Alice is in the next aisle, reaching for something on the shelf. I’m still thinking about the girls, their fun clothes and perfect teeth. All of a sudden, I feel dizzy. I need to get away from all these people. I head straight for the door and step outside.
Faron’s pickup truck is a bright red smear across the parking lot. The boys are sitting behind the windshield, their faces lit by the streetlight. They’ve got the windows rolled down and I can hear them talking. I crouch down behind a car and pray they don’t see me.
“I thought this place would be different,” says Tobias, reaching under his seat and pulling out a can of beer.
“Different how?” Faron asks.
Tobias cracks open the beer and takes a long gulp. “I don’t know,” he says. “Florida’s not so great. I mean, yeah. The girls are real pretty. But they’re kind of stuck-up.” He wipes his mouth on his sleeve. “Everybody’s got money down here. You see the cars in this parking lot? All brand-new.”
“Not the one you’re sitting in.”
“Yeah, that’s the problem. Up north, it’s all beaters. That’s because it snows every frickin’ day,” he says, glancing up, like it might snow inside the car. “Girls won’t even look at you unless you’ve got money.”
“If you think money’s going to solve all your problems, you’re in for a big surprise,” says Faron.
“Well, it got me away from home.”
“Freedom, huh? That’s what you want?”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
“The whole world’s looking for it,” says Faron. “Most of the time, they don’t go farther than their own backyard.”
“Whatever. Soon as I’m up north, I’m getting my own ride,” says Tobias. “Maybe an old-school muscle car.”
“Let me guess,” says Faron, lighting a cigarette. “You want a big old spoile
r on the back?”
“Yeah.” Tobias grins. “That would be awesome.”
“Don’t waste your money on a spoiler.”
“Why not?”
“It won’t make you go fast.”
“But it looks cool.”
“Looks don’t mean nothing,” says Faron. “If you can’t go fast, it ain’t worth driving.”
“Speaking of looks, who do you think is prettier? My girl or yours?”
“The quiet one? She ain’t mine.”
Tobias laughs. “Only fair to share. What do you say?”
“I say you need to shut your mouth.” Faron tugs up his hood and climbs out of the truck, like he can’t stand to listen to Tobias anymore. He leans against the bumper, looking up at the night sky, as if he’s counting stars. He’s got his back to me, so I quickly turn and head inside the store.
It doesn’t take long to find Alice. She’s in the exact same spot where I left her.
“Where did you go?” she asks.
“Just needed some fresh air,” I mumble. My head is pounding. The dizzy feeling won’t go away. “So what are you going to buy?”
She grabs a tube of lip gloss off the shelf. “Nothing,” she says, cramming it inside her sock.
“You better put that back,” I whisper.
“Why?”
“You’re going to be in so much trouble.”
Alice smirks. “Only if I get caught.”
A man in a white jacket is at the cash register, watching us. He catches my stare and I look away.
“Now it’s your turn,” Alice says.
I glance at the shelves. Lip gloss that’s guaranteed to last through every kiss. Foolproof mascara that lengthens and shines. I don’t want any of it, but Alice has a way of talking me into things.
“Come on, Lucy. Hurry up.”
I reach for a bottle of nail polish. It thunks on the floor, gushing pink ooze. I’m so embarrassed, I want to run out of the store.
Somebody puts a hand on my shoulder. The man in the white jacket. He glares at the stain on the carpet, then at me.
“Start explaining,” he says.
My fingers begin to tingle. A buzzing drills my ears, like the sound of all the thoughts zinging through the world. The man’s voice fades away. Now I’m on the floor, looking up at the ceiling.
I open my mouth to scream.
Nothing comes out.
Alice is next to me, stroking my forehead. “Lucy,” she keeps saying. “Please get up.”
The man in the white jacket is standing behind us, talking on a cell phone. When I open my eyes, he gets this strange look on his face.
“I think you two should leave,” he says.
Alice grabs my hand. We run out of the store into the parking lot. By the time we reach the truck, I’m out of breath.
“Are you okay?” Alice says, gasping. “I mean, was that for real? You weren’t faking?”
Why would I fake something like that?
“Yeah, it was for real.”
“Were you sick?” she asks.
I try to describe it. I’m stuck in my body and I can’t breathe. Can’t even move a finger. I want her to believe me, but I’m not sure she understands.
“I’ve had those kinds of dreams,” she says. “Scares me so bad, I wake up screaming.”
“It wasn’t a dream,” I tell her.
“How do you know?”
“I’m not dreaming now, am I?”
Alice is quiet.
The shame burns through me. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t,” she says. “As long as you don’t tell Mom about me and Tobias.”
I promise. But the way Tobias was talking about girls, you’d think he wasn’t even her boyfriend. I don’t trust him. Not one bit.
We climb back into the truck. I’m still thinking about dreams, how they slip away like the tide in the morning light.
“About time you got back,” says Tobias, cranking the window.
Alice leans back against the truck bed. She slides a finger in her sock and pulls out the tube of lip gloss. “So when you passed out . . .” she whispers to me. “Did you see anything special? You know. Angels or something?”
I shake my head. “No.”
She smears the lip gloss across her mouth. “I never believed in them anyway.”
chapter four
water tower park
The truck slows onto a dimly lit street. Dozens of cars are lined up at Water Tower Park. I’ve played Frisbee golf here with Dad lots of times. The rusty baskets are scattered around the woods, each target flagged with a number. In the distance, the tower rises above the oaks.
“This doesn’t look like the beach,” says Alice.
We get out and start walking. Tobias wastes no time, cracking open another beer. He passes it to Alice and she tilts her head, gulping it down.
“Here.” Faron shoves a damp can at me. “There’s only one left, but we can share.”
I tip back the can and swallow a warm, sudsy mouthful. I don’t like the taste of beer, but I like how it loosens something inside me.
“You’re from Pinecraft, right?” he says.
My face burns as I take another sip. “How did you know?”
He points at my dress. “The girls back home, they only wear gray or brown. Nothing fancy like yours.”
“It’s not that fancy,” I say.
Alice comes up behind me and grabs my arm. “Let’s go. I want to dance.”
The Old Order girls are dancing behind the oak trees. They remind me of ghosts swaying in their long dresses.
“I don’t know how.”
“It’s easy,” she says. “I’ll show you.”
Everything’s easy for her.
“We’re supposed to be having fun,” Alice says, pulling me closer. “So what do you think of Tobias?”
I shrug. “He’s okay, I guess.”
“Well, I think he’s amazing. I mean, he’s not like other boys.” She looks back at him and smiles.
“Go on,” I tell her. “I’ll wait.”
The loud music is making me nervous. Same for the beer going sour in my mouth. I just want to get out of here. I turn around so fast, I bump into Faron.
“Whoa,” he says, laughing as I take a step backward. “You in a hurry or something?”
I glance up at him, all the planes and angles in his face. I’m probably staring. Faron turns around and his eyes meet mine.
“Want to go someplace quiet?”
“Sure.” That sounds good to me.
As we walk through the woods to the canal, he doesn’t say much, but that’s okay. The Rumspringa boys are always running around, making noise, but Faron is quiet and still. I feel pulled to his stillness. It’s exactly what I need right now.
When we reach the footbridge, I lean over the railing and peer down. “This canal used to look a lot bigger when I was a kid,” I say, breaking the silence.
“That’s because the world got smaller.”
His sneaker bumps mine and I don’t move.
“Are you from up north?” I ask.
He nods. “Drove down from Maine last summer.”
I figured he was on Rumspringa. Now I’m confused. If Faron drove to Pinecraft last summer, he’s not a snowbird.
Then what is he?
“Alice is from up north, too,” I say.
“Old Order.”
“Yes. Her mom’s trying to push her into getting baptized.”
“Don’t blame her for running.”
“What if Alice doesn’t join the church? I mean, will she . . .” I struggle with the words. “Is she going to be shunned?”
“If she ain’t baptized, they can’t shun her.”
“But she can’t go home.”
We’re both quiet for a moment.
“You never felt like running away?” he says.
I scrape a piece of flaking paint off the railing. “Not really,” I say, which isn’t even the truth. “What
about you?”
“Sure,” he says, tugging up his hood. “But the world’s too small a place to hide in.”
Is Faron hiding from something?
“Well, running away isn’t going to fix anything,” I tell him.
He reaches into his pocket and takes out a pack of Reds. “You got it real easy, growing up in Pinecraft.”
“What makes you say that?”
“It’s different here,” he says, flicking his lighter. “You’ve got a lot of nice things.”
“Like what?”
“Well, you can go to the beach anytime you want.”
“There’s beaches up north, too.”
“Not like this,” he says. “The Florida Amish have it real good. You can drive a car. Watch TV.”
“My dad won’t let me watch TV.”
“Yeah?” says Faron, blowing out smoke. “That’s probably the one thing you don’t got.”
“What about Rumspringa?”
“You don’t need it,” he says.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s always Rumspringa in Florida.”
He’s laughing at me. Does he think this is a joke? I dig my fingernails into the railing, scraping away more paint.
“So where did you get that truck?” I ask, trying to put him on the spot.
“Built it myself.”
I’m surprised. “You built it?”
“Most of it’s scrap,” he says. “Saved up, working in my dad’s lumber yard. He really hated that old Ford. Used to make me park it behind the barn.”
“So you’re working for your dad?”
Faron tosses his cigarette. “We don’t talk no more.”
Now I get it.
He’s been shunned.
What would it feel like if your family pushed you away? It scares me, just thinking about it. No Sunday picnics. No Christmas, either. No afternoons on the front porch, watching my dad carve driftwood into windmills and birds. I’d probably miss that the most.
“Is that why you’re in Pinecraft?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “After my dad kicked me out, I jumped in my truck and headed south. Then I just kept going.”
I don’t know what to say. For some reason, I can’t stop shivering. I hold onto the bridge railing with both hands, but my fingers won’t stay still.
“You cold?” he says, unzipping his sweatshirt. “You’re shaking something fierce.” Before I can answer, he drapes it over my shoulders.
Snowbirds Page 3