Harold sees the Toyota and he starts cheering, “McGunn’s!”
I smile because Harold, the smartest kid in our class, sees how incredible Gus’s job is. And I think that surely, with all of us—Harold and me and Lexie and Irma Jean—screaming and carrying on, Victoria will realize she ought to be impressed, too.
Instead, Lexie takes a step away from us. She calls, “See you tomorrow, Auggie!”
“Wait,” I say. “You’re not coming to McGunn’s?”
“Victoria’s giving me a ride!” she shouts.
The two of them race toward Victoria’s fancy car, while I stand there in a dress that doesn’t look like fall; with Weird Harold, who sees crazy conspiracies even when there aren’t any; and with the girl who lives next door, who sews her own clothes out of hand-me-downs.
Victoria swings open the back passengers’ door of her father’s car, and her mouth droops as she points toward the end of the drive. Toward Old Glory, dragging an awful, terrible-looking car. Other new classmates follow, their mouths drooping at the rusted, wrecked pile of garbage that Gus is dragging up the drive.
Right then, Old Glory looks about a hundred years older than the cars at Dickerson—she’s shaped differently, with her fat fenders, and she growls and clanks louder than all the rest of the cars put together. I cringe at the sight of the winch and the job box propped across the bed and the word salvage on the door.
At that moment, as I stare at Victoria, her skin seems the same shade as imported chocolates. When I look down at my legs, beneath the hem of my sundress, my skin looks like ordinary old mud.
No—not ordinary. I was ordinary at Montgomery. At Dickerson, I’m the girl from the poor neighborhood who doesn’t have fancy new clothes, and who lives with her grampa the trash hauler.
Old Glory honks to get my attention. Gus calls out, “So how was the first day?”
I don’t want to show any hurt feelings in front of him, so I smile wide, like I’m trying to show off a trip to the dentist.
When Gus sees that smile, he cocks his head to the side and sighs. “Come on—climb in,” he tells me. “I’ve got something I need to show you.”
As Old Glory slows down a few blocks away, I realize last night’s storm sank its monstrous teeth into the Hopewell Community Church. Our church looks like a piece of white angel food cake with a giant bite taken out of it. The steeple hangs, broken. Shattered stained glass from the enormous windows glitters across the parking lot.
My stomach feels yanked—the same way those trees around Hopewell must have felt when their roots were pulled right out of the ground. Crisscrossing power lines are draped like useless, broken rope across nearby car roofs.
“Went to Sunday School there when I was a boy,” Gus mutters. “Got married there. Baptized your own mother there. Had your grandmother’s funeral there.”
Tiny groups cluster on the sidewalk, staring at what’s left of our little white church. Women are huddling close, blowing into Kleenexes. They rub each other’s shoulders and shake their heads.
I watch how everyone stands back from the old church—like it’s a dead body or something. A dead body with a white sheet draped across it. The only one who’s close to the church is the minister.
Even from a distance, I can make out the black canvas and white leather toes of his high-tops—the shoes he always wears because his name is stamped right there on the ankle: Chuck Taylor. Chuck says he also wears them because they’re like the strings people tie on pinkie fingers to remind themselves of something. And what the Reverend Charles V. Taylor (Chuck for short) wants to remember most are the back alleys his feet used to linger in when he was a real troublemaker. He says remembering those times makes him a better minister.
Gus always tells me it happens that way sometimes. The wildest kids can grow into the straightest and narrowest adults.
Even though Chuck is wearing his same old shoes, there’s nothing usual about the scene at all. He stands in front of the crooked front door, shaking his head and rubbing his chin like he knows he needs to go in, if only he could get up enough courage to do it.
I know exactly how he feels as I sit in worn-down Old Glory, with an awful wrecked car attached to her, on our way to a junkyard filled with trash, and with a whole year at Dickerson stretched out before me.
Courage, I think as I stare at Chuck, can sometimes be like when you’re dying for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but there’s only a skiff of peanut butter left on the side of the jar, and no matter how much you scrape, you begin to wonder if you’ll ever get enough on your knife to cover an entire slice of bread.
• • • 7 • • •
The first Saturday after school starts, Lexie and I circle our bicycles in and out of each other on the sidewalk below the old billboard that can be seen high against the sky almost anywhere you plant your feet in Willow Grove. Our wishing spot, that’s what we’ve always called it.
The old ad for the dress shop is faded now, ripped in places. A giant black sticker with AVAILABLE and a phone number covers a big section in the middle. But I can still see the face of the woman on the billboard, still see that she has her head thrown back, her mouth open like she’s in the middle of laughing. Like whoever took that picture caught her in some joyous moment. And I can still see that she’s beautiful.
I know that the woman on the billboard is my mother. Gus has told me so, a hundred different times. Gus, and everybody else in Willow Grove. It was my mom’s special-something: she was beautiful.
Shining brighter than any star. That’s what everyone always says about my mom, that she’s off somewhere incredible, like California, shining brighter than any stars out there—the ones twinkling in the sky or on the silver screen.
Which is why her picture has always felt like the most natural place for me and Lexie to put our wishes.
“What’re you going to wish?” I ask Lexie. “I’m going to wish that we could all go back to Montgomery.”
“What for?” she asks, her nose crinkled.
“Don’t you miss it?” I ask. “I wish I could open my eyes and find out that a desk with my name across the front of it has been waiting for me there, all this time.”
Lexie shrugs, rustling the waves of her hair that she’s letting spill across her shoulders today. “I don’t miss it so much. If we hadn’t gone to Dickerson, we never would have met Victoria.”
I nod, pretend that I’ve been glad to share Lexie, but I have to admit, the past week has felt a little crowded because of Victoria. She’s always around—at lunch, during recess. And even though I try to find things about her to like, there’s something about her—I can’t quite put my finger on it yet—but for some reason, she reminds me more of a parent than a kid. Maybe it’s the way her shirts are always ironed and color-coordinated with her socks, or the way she never has any Band-Aids on her knees. Or maybe it’s the way she’s always sitting in class with her feet crossed and her chin in one hand, all prim and proper.
“I have to go,” Lexie says.
“Where?”
“I have this thing I’m doing with Victoria,” she says.
When my face falls, she explains, “I’d invite you, but it’s kind of a two-person thing.”
“Oh,” is all I can manage.
And like that, she lifts her backside from the seat, standing up to get more leverage. She peddles extra-quick, down the street, out of sight.
I grab a notebook from the metal basket on the back of my bike. “Dear Mom,” I scribble, because I sometimes write letters to her—even in my head when I have something to say and no paper around.
Today, I feel ready to ask her to come back. Because she’s glamorous, that’s what everybody says. So glamorous, anyone could tell just by looking at her that she’d spent years floating around on one of those inflatable mats in a movie star’s swimming pool, sipping big drinks full of umbrellas, smiling her enormous smile.
I’m still sitting on the curb, staring at my unfinished letter,
when a pair of black-and-white high-tops stops on the sidewalk in front of me.
When I turn my eyes up, they land on the face of the Reverend Charles V. Taylor.
“Hello, Auggie,” he says, seeming honestly happy to see me.
“Reverend,” I say, forcing a smile and nodding once.
“I thought you and I were on a first-name basis,” Chuck complains.
I have to admit, it really is a pretty formal thing to call a minister. Most other churches around call their ministers “pastor” or “brother.” But I always figured it kind of showed how much we all respect Chuck—even if he does always wear sneakers to church.
He tilts his head, says, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you at the wishing spot without Lexie.”
I hug my notebook to my chest, as though I can cover the wound inside my heart. What I really wish is that friendship didn’t have to be so slippery, so hard to keep hold of.
Chuck squints at me a good long while, like he’s thinking something over, as Mom’s billboard looms behind his shoulder. He follows my gaze, up toward her old picture. “She was my best friend, you know. And I sure do miss her, now that she’s gone.”
“Seems like there’s one person who does the leaving, and one person who does the missing,” I blurt.
He lets the tiniest hint of a grin crack into the side of his face. “I never did tell you about the snake, did I?”
I shake my head no.
Chuck’s grin grows like a flower blooming on fast-forward. “Then I’ll tell you as I walk you home.”
• • • 8 • • •
“Your mom and I sure were troublemakers back when we were younger,” Chuck reminds me as we head back toward the giant brick sign, branded SERENDIPITY PLACE. “That’s what everyone called us, anyway.” He’s walking awfully slow—so slow, I can’t ride my bike. I have to steer it beside me, guide it along like a blind dog. So I know he’s gearing up for a pretty long tale. “Of course, we didn’t feel like we were trouble back then. Felt like we were out finding freedom.
“We were barely older than you are now,” he goes on, “hanging out one day, early on in the fall. That time of the year when it still feels good to be in a T-shirt, and all you want to do is be outside.”
I smile, because Chuck has a way of telling stories that makes me feel like I’m there.
“So we were hanging out behind the church—our very own Hopewell. You know how that church butts up against a big wooded lot?”
I nod. “Yeah,” I say. “And the old creek where they used to do the baptisms.”
“Well, we figured nobody’d come looking for us there, and it was so beautiful, full of fall colors. I remember, it was the kind of day you want to put in a bottle. Which was why we’d ditched school. We didn’t think we could be in school on such a perfect fall day. And out behind the church, we were soaking it all in—the autumn sun and the leaves. And we were hiding from the truant officer. And—now, don’t tell Gus, because he’d kill me for admitting this . . .” He leans down to whisper, “We were sneaking cigarettes.”
“Chuck,” I say.
“Shhh. Now, like I said, the sun felt really good to us that day. Must’ve felt good to that snake, too, because here he comes right out of the shade. Here he comes, heading straight for the light.
“Bad part was, he had to get past us so that he could stretch out on the church’s nice, sun-warmed back step.
“That snake, he saw us, but he refused to skitter away. He acted like he was used to everyone being afraid of his angry-looking orange-brown stripes. He must have learned to expect it. Everybody who lives in this part of the country knows a copperhead when they see one.”
“They’re unmistakable,” I jump in, because my heart is racing. “Everybody knows a copperhead is poisonous.”
“I saw those copper-colored stripes,” Chuck says, “and I was ready to run. But your mom? She reached out and grabbed that copperhead behind his head. Grabbed him, like there was no way that snake would ever hurt her.
“Auggie, your mom stared that snake down. Stared, even while I was yelling at her to leave him alone. But she never budged. Stood there, like she was telling that snake something just by looking. And you know, when she finally put him back down, he slithered off as fast as his scaly belly would take him. Ran away, like he was scared of your mom. Probably was, too,” he adds with a chuckle.
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite as safe as I did right then,” Chuck admits. “With your mom at my side, I knew whatever bad thing might come my way, it would take one look at her and run off, too.”
• • • 9 • • •
My head buzzes like the beetle traps in Harold’s yard as I try to figure out why Chuck told me this story. There’s a reason for everything with Chuck, though. I try to take as many notes as I can, in my head, because I’m already betting that I’ll need to remember his story later.
As we get closer to Serendipity Place, he says, “Let’s turn down Joy Boulevard. Take the long way to your house.” Chuck glances around while he walks, breathing deep like he’s in the midst of something wonderful.
“Always did love this neighborhood,” he says. “You know, these houses were built before electricity,” he adds, as though this is really something to admire. “Wires had to be put in later on.”
Not that it really matters. It’s not like anybody in our neighborhood has a computer or even cable TV. We’re more like taped-together rabbit-ear antennas and antique everything. As we get closer to my house, at the corner of Sunshine and Lucky, it feels like we all have as much need for electricity as a camping tent.
“Lot of history in this neighborhood,” Chuck insists.
Sure. History. As I stare at my own house, I think that “history” is cloth awnings over side windows, each of them dotted with giant mismatched patches of material. It’s duct tape on screen doors. It’s a whitewashed house with gray shutters, every inch of paint peeling like skin after a sunburn. It’s a fence made out of wrought iron so rusty, nasty orange grit comes off on my hand when I touch it.
For the first time, it hits me that maybe the only fancy thing about my neighborhood is its pretty name.
“See you tomorrow,” Chuck says, swinging open my front gate. “At Montgomery.”
“Montgomery?” I ask. My heart beats a little faster.
“Sure. We had to find a place to hold church services,” he says, his face turning as dark as a storm cloud.
“Isn’t Hopewell getting fixed up?” I ask, feeling a tight, worried twist in my stomach.
“Of course,” he says. “But we need a place to have church in the meantime.
“I saved everything,” he goes on. “Even the tiny little broken bits from the stained-glass windows. Not sure what I’ll actually do with them, but—sometimes, when you love something, the letting-go can’t happen with a single sweep of the broom.”
He forces a little strip of sunlight into his smile as he motions for me to walk through the open gate.
“Tomorrow then,” he says.
And because I don’t know how to say anything to him about the forced sunlight in his smile, I nod and agree, “Tomorrow.”
• • • 10 • • •
When I step inside Montgomery the next morning, the first thing that hits me is how scooped-out the building feels. Without the benches and the desks and the plaques and the teachers, Montgomery feels like an ice-cream cone with the Butter Brickle already licked out.
Gus steers me into the all-purpose room, though, and I instantly start to feel different. Because Chuck has set up rows of folding chairs and his own makeshift pulpit, and everyone from Serendipity Place is pretty much here already, milling around the aisles and talking and taking it all in, this new but familiar place where we’ll be holding church every week. I start to feel a smile on my face—a real, honest smile.
It’s good to be back at Montgomery, I think. So good, in fact, that as I look at the faces of my neighbors filling up the school I
loved so much, I get a warm glow in my chest.
Old Widow Hollis—it’s all we’ve ever called her, since she’s so knobby and wrinkled, the only word we ever think of to describe her is old—eases herself into a folding chair and slowly stretches her feet out in front of her. She crosses her legs at the ankle, and scratches at her scalp, her frizzy white hair making her look like a dandelion gone to seed.
Widow Hollis’s little great-grandson, Noah, mimics the sound of a track gun firing, sprints, and launches himself over her legs like they’re hurdles.
Mrs. Shoemacker, the neighborhood ears, steps in, folding her arms over her cardigan. Without so much as a nod hello to anyone, she slinks into a seat in the back. As usual, she leans forward and listens in on everybody else, watching out the corner of her eye as the Widow Hollis grabs Noah by the back of his shirt and wraps him into her arms, saying, “Honey, every time you start acting up, I’m gonna kiss you and hug you. . . .”
Noah’s face turns bright red and he struggles to free himself, eyeing me in a way that pleads with me to keep quiet about him being kissed by his grandmother in public. Noah lives with his great-grandmother, and it seems like I’m always watching the Widow Hollis use her kisses to try to embarrass him into behaving. But at six years old, Noah is a scabbed knee waiting to happen. The kind of kid who could accidentally stab himself with a pencil, spit on the bleeding hole in his hand, and move on without a second thought.
I’m still glancing around the room, taking in the sight of the members of my church packed inside of my favorite school when I hear a familiar, “Hi, Auggie,” from somewhere over my shoulder.
“Lexie!” I shout. I turn and lean in to hug her, thinking, Everything’s coming back. First Montgomery, now my best friend. But there’s something funny about the way she hugs me—it’s like trying to hug somebody through a mattress.
The Junction of Sunshine and Lucky Page 3