“Yes, I’ll be back.” Surprised at my own certainty, I smiled.
“Well, we’re burning daylight. I’ll let you get to work. Annie’s needed your help for a while.” He glanced at the sky and took in the clouds for a long moment. “I’ve got to patch a barn roof before it rains.” He reached around me and pulled the door open. “Ma’am,” he said with an exaggerated drawl, a twinkle in his eyes.
“Okay. I’ll see you in English tomorrow,” I said quietly, trying to keep my voice level. Ma’am? A barn to finish?
“See you, Meg.” And he was gone. He climbed into a black Ford F250 extended cab parked next to my Jeep, pulled on an old baseball cap, and backed out. The truck was muddy and properly beaten up for a work truck. The custom grill on the front had a “W” in the middle of it, and his tag said “Farm Truck.” He looked like a Ford commercial…made me want one. I turned slowly to go into the store and found Annie waiting patiently for me. She was trying to hide what looked to me like a knowing smile.
“Hi, Meg,” she gushed. “I hope your first day was okay. Please come and meet Thanett.”
Thanett blushed and looked down, kicking at something in the carpet. I stepped forward and held my hand out to shake his. His handshake was firm but I could tell that his hands had been affected by his cerebral palsy.
“I’m really glad to meet you, Thanett,” I said. “You and I will have to stick together since we’re the only city kids in this town.”
Thanett chuckled and smiled at me. “Yeah, I guess we can stick together.”
“What do you do for the football team?”
“Oh, just play gofer, mostly. I’m at every practice getting water and towels and whatever else Coach needs. I work all the games—home and away. I’m hoping it’ll look good on college applications. Plus, I love football, so it’s win/win.”
His voice was halting and difficult to understand, but I’d had some practice with my friend, and I’m patient. I noticed, though, that Thanett never met my eyes.
“I don’t know much about football,” I admitted. “I do like basketball, though. How’s the team here?”
“They do pretty well,” he answered. “Football is definitely king here, though. We usually go to State.”
“Well, you’ll have to teach me about the game, I guess.”
“I can do that.” He smiled and finally glanced my way. I caught a glimpse of his piercing blue eyes, and noticed that he had a real sweetness to his face. I felt crushed again when I remembered how he was treated in the hall at school. I wondered if he goes to school afraid every day…or if he’s really risen above the “nonsense” as Henry said.
Annie interrupted the awkward silence. “Thanett, do you mind shelving journals this afternoon? I’m going to be keeping Meg busy down here learning our system.”
“Sure, Mom. See you later, Meg. We’ll stick together tomorrow.”
“Absolutely,” I said. Thanett grabbed a coke from his mom’s desk and headed up the metal stairs. It wasn’t an easy thing for him. He relied on his upper body strength to pull himself up. He tripped five or six times before he reached the top, and I heard myself blow out a breath when I saw him land safely at the top.
“Thanks, Meg,” said Annie, after Thanett had disappeared into the stacks of journals. “He has a hard time. He’s smart as a whip, and sweeter than anyone you’ll ever meet, but not many people are patient enough to hear him. Once you hear his heart, though, you can’t help but love him.”
“I like him already,” I said, shifting my feet. “I’m sure we’ll be friends. What did you do in Chicago, Annie?”
“I was on the English department faculty at the University of Chicago. I switched gears a lot here so that I could slow down and enjoy life with Thanett. His father—my husband—passed away five years ago. We needed a change of scenery. I bought this place because my first love was a book and I haven’t lost my passion for them yet. I’m hoping it will give me the time and inspiration to finish the novel I’ve worked on for a couple of years.”
She smiled, lost in her thoughts.
“I can tell that this is where you belong. I’m really glad I met you and Thanett. I feel like it was fate.”
The rest of the afternoon passed quickly and at six o’clock, Annie locked the door and we said goodbye. When I got to my Jeep, I found my dad there leaning against the door, smiling.
“How was your first day, Meg?”
I was so glad to see him that I gave him a long hug. “It was okay, Dad. No big tragedies. A couple of the kids have been nice and I love my job, so all in all, it was definitely survivable.”
He laughed quietly and his eyes looked happier than I’d seen them since Wyatt died. “You don’t know how relieved I am to hear you say that. I thought about you all day today. I know it wasn’t easy on you, and I’m sorry this is the way life has worked out for us. But I’m glad to hear things were okay.”
He took my keys from me and opened the Jeep, leaning over to raise the lock on the passenger side. “Climb in, babe,” he said. “I’m taking my best girl to dinner.”
I threw my backpack into the back and pulled myself into the passenger seat.
“Where’s Mom?” I asked.
“She wasn’t feeling well…something about a headache. She’s already in bed.”
A storm flashed through his eyes as he thought about her.
“So, what are you hungry for, sweetie? Burgers, Asian, or steaks?”
“Hmmm…I wonder how the Asian is here. Do they have a sushi bar?”
He chuckled. “Yes, they do. It was a job condition for me. I’ve heard it’s not bad. Would you like to try it?”
We spent the evening together, eating salmon rolls and tempura, talking about the day, and not talking about Mom. Avoidance seemed to be our unspoken plan of action.
When we got home, the house felt too quiet. Dad looked at me meaningfully and then whispered good night. I nodded, understanding more than I wanted to from his look, and walked to my room. After working through some homework, I took a bath, and fell into bed. First day down—only one hundred and seventy-nine to go.
Dear Wyatt—
Were you here today? Did you see what happened in the hall? What can I do to help Thanett?
There’s a boy—Henry. He reminds me of you. All velvet and steel. Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne. Remember that part in The Quiet Man when Thornton refuses to fight over money and he’s got all this strength and resolve and passion simmering under the surface? That’s Henry. You know, I think you might trust him with your little sister.
Love,
Meg
The next few weeks of school passed in uneventful tedium. I’d fallen into a routine of meeting up with Tennyson and her friends, Taylor and Sara, in the parking lot before school since we had every class together. They’d been extremely patient with my reticence about life in Pittsburgh. I’m sure at this point they were wondering if I was in the witness protection program. I still believed it would be best for everyone if I didn’t bring an elephant into the room. Once they knew about Wyatt, things would just be too awkward.
The highlight of my day had become English class. Mr. Landman was a quirky guy. He loved to throw weird ideas out there, and then let us figure out if he was serious or not. He actually did the whole Dead Poets Society thing the first week and had us stand on his desk to get a new perspective. When he helped me down, he winked and said, “Carpe diem, Meg.” Oh well, at least he knows how cheesy he is.
The class was made up of juniors and seniors, and after weeks of observing, I had finally started picking out who the seniors were. Like Henry, who was a definite favorite of Landman’s. Henry answered the hard questions in class because he seemed to have worked through the hormone fog that sucked the brain right out of most guys. A lot about him just didn’t fit in a high school classroom. I caught him staring at me all the time, but even when I glanced up and met his eyes, he didn’t look away. It was very hard to breathe when he did that.
I liked to watch Henry when he talked. He smiled with one side of his mouth no matter what he was talking about, not in an arrogant way, but in a totally self-deprecating way. He was definitely confident and knew who he was, but he wasn’t about to make anyone else feel uncomfortable. I’d never met anyone like him, and I found myself inching closer to him when I saw him in class or in the hall. Tennyson picked up on this, and decided to invite him to sit with us at lunch one day. He brought Thanett over and they found a place at our table. Neither of them talked much but they seemed to find the girl chatter humorous. They chuckled quietly and raised their eyebrows at each other constantly. They’d made it a habit lately—sitting with us at lunch. They usually sat on the end of the table with me, and since I never said a word, they had no trouble hearing the other girls.
Sometimes other guys wandered over to talk to Henry and Thanett. Today, two of the missing links from the incident on the first day of school—Grayson and Shawn—came over and slapped Henry on the back. My stomach lurched into my throat when they stood so near to me. I’d been avoiding Grayson in the hall since he touched me, but he always laughed when he saw me.
“Hey, Hen,” Grayson said, with a wicked smile. “What do you hear from Brooke?”
Henry glanced up at him with a look that said he could tear Grayson apart in ten seconds if he continued this line of questioning.
Grayson kept it up. “We’ve got a bet going about how well you got to know her this summer. So far, nobody’s bet against you, dude. Women throw themselves at you.”
Grayson’s eyes flickered over to me and Tennyson to make sure we were listening. Other guys gathered around and they were all snickering like ten-year-olds who’d found their dad’s Playboy under the bed.
“Didn’t your mother teach you any manners, Grayson?” Henry said, quietly. Then he met Grayson’s wide-eyed stare and continued. “It’s called discretion, man. You should try it; it might help you convince a nice girl to go out with you.”
These guys, who don’t have ten brain cells between them, seemed to read something lewd from Henry’s answer. “I think that tells us what we wanted to know, Whitmire,” Grayson said with a grin.
They walked away laughing, and Henry turned back to his food and looked angrily at the table, his hands wrapped around the bench. Tennyson and I glanced at each other and raised our eyebrows. “What was that?” I mouthed to Tennyson. She shrugged and shook her head. I put it out of my head and tried to act normal because whatever happened was having a tragic effect on Henry’s mood.
The next day in Landman’s class, we drew names of poems out of a literal hat. I smiled at Landman when I saw that it was a dirty John Deere cap. He smiled back, insanely happy that I seemed to get the irony. The poem we drew would become our major project for the year. We’re supposed to write a twenty-page paper that analyzes the poem, the poet, and the historical context. Landman meant business. Papers weren’t due until May, but he apparently liked to get the assignment made early, hoping that kids would actually work on it between other projects.
When the hat came to me, I reached in and felt the scraps of paper like they contained some clue. Finally I just took a breath, grabbed one on top, and unrolled it slowly. It said “Home Burial”—Robert Frost. I’d never read it, but I’d written about Frost before, and I felt comfortable that I’d drawn an easier poem. I heard groans from other students as they pulled out Neruda or Pelutsky or Stevens. Ouch.
“What’d you get, Meg?” Tennyson whispered.
“Frost,” I answered, smiling.
“Lucky dog. I got Sylvia Plath. I’m sure it’ll be completely depressing. Didn’t she kill herself?”
I nodded then glanced at Henry and raised my eyebrows. He smiled and showed me his paper. It was Langston Hughes’ “Mother to Son.” I showed him my paper and he rolled his eyes and nodded.
“Trade you,” he said, grinning. He seemed to have returned to his normal casual self after yesterday’s cafeteria debacle.
“Not a chance. I like Hughes, but Frost is my favorite. Plus, it’s so easy I don’t have to get started until after the holidays.”
“I like Frost, too.” He rolled his paper up and straightened his long leg so that he could tuck the paper in his pocket. “Hey, Meg, I’ve been thinking. I bet you’ve never been on a trail ride in the mountains. We’ve got a stable on our land and we do guided rides up into the foothills of the Owl Creek Range. You should come out and let me take you on a real tour.”
“Really? Me on a horse? I’ve never thought about it. Do you have pretty good hazard insurance at the stable? Because if there’s a way to get seriously hurt, I’ll find it and, I should warn you, we are a litigious family.”
He smiled crookedly. “I won’t let anything happen to you. No need to involve your attorneys. The horses are used to non-riders.” He laughed softly. “We’re actually closing for the season, but I’m around most days working. I’ll be there every Saturday this month because we’ve got hay being delivered from the back pastures. I’ve got to get it out of the weather into the stables.”
Tennyson interrupted. “You really should do that, Meg. It’s beautiful and if you don’t like the scenery, you can just watch Henry’s wranglers. They’re easy on the eyes.”
“Is there one in particular, Tennyson?” Henry asked wryly. “I could arrange a meeting.”
“Yeah, the one from Texas…what’s his name?”
“That would be Dylan. He’s a nice guy, but you’d break his heart and I can’t let that happen. Anyway, he’s probably not one your dad would cheer about. He dropped out of Texas A&M to come up here and saddle bum around with my horses year-round. Knowing your dad, I think you’d better be looking for a pre-med honors student.”
“Leave my dad out of this,” laughed Tennyson.
Later as we were walking to our cars, Tennyson asked me what I was doing this weekend.
“Oh, you know, the usual—a whole lot of nothing, with some television breaks.” I said.
“Well, you’ve got plans tomorrow night,” she said with a sly grin.
“I do? And they are…?”
“We’re going to take you on your first mountain camping trip.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Me, and Taylor and Sara, of course.”
“Have any of you actually been camping before?” I pictured my Pittsburgh friends camping, and the image was absurd enough to make me laugh out loud.
“Meg, we grew up in Wyoming. Of course we’ve been camping. I’ve got everything we need. You just bring really warm clothes and a sleeping bag and come to my house at five o’clock on Saturday.”
“Where are we going? I’ll have to tell my parents.”
“Oh, I know a little camping area just outside of town. Tell them it’s off Highway 789.”
“Okay. Sounds like fun. Thanks for asking me.”
“Get some sleep tonight because you might not sleep a whole lot out in the woods.” She winked and climbed into her car.
On Saturday, I dug through the boxes we hadn’t unpacked to find my old sleeping bag. I wasn’t sure it was exactly a camping quality sleeping bag—more of a sleepover quality bag. I picked off some old, stuck-on popcorn and remembered the last time I’d used this—Lydia Weller’s eighth-grade birthday party. It was the first time I realized that some girls actually sneak out of the house during slumber parties and meet up with boyfriends. I would’ve never known if I hadn’t gone to the bathroom at midnight and caught Macy and Adrienne climbing through the bathroom window.
I pulled out my mom’s warm long johns and put them on with Canning Mills sweats over them. I added my old ski jacket and found some ratty mittens that my mom kept for some unknown reason.
When I came into the kitchen, Dad laughed, “Ready for a blizzard?”
“Hey,” I protested. “Tennyson said to wear something really warm. I guess I can pull off the sweats if I’m dying. Do I really look ridiculous?”
“No. You look cute. So, it�
��s you and three other girls and you’ll be off 789, right? Do we know if this is a public camping area? Possibly staffed by armed security?” He arched an eyebrow hopefully.
“Dad, I’m sure it’s an area where she’s camped with her family before. Tennyson wouldn’t do anything stupid. She’s scary smart in all my AP classes. They all grew up here so this is like going to the mall in Pittsburgh for us.”
“Okay. Well, have fun, and come home in one piece. Don’t let yourself be a bear snack.”
I drove to Tennyson’s house on the newer side of town, next to the tiny mall. Taylor and Sara laughed at my sleeping bag when I pulled it out of the trunk. I ignored them and helped Tennyson carry out bags.
“Shouldn’t we take my Jeep?” I thought of the Jeep’s off-road capability compared to her old Sentra with the motorcycle tires.
“Absolutely not. My car is fine.”
I noticed we were putting in a bunch of sacks of snack food, sleeping bags for everyone and pillows. I didn’t see what I recognized as a tent. But what did I know, I’d never been camping.
Tennyson drove pretty fast, and it didn’t take long to reach Highway 789. We came into some rolling hills and grassland. In fact, it started to look an awful lot like pasture land. I saw black cows here and there, and they had adorable furry white faces. They watched us as we passed. Then Tennyson signaled to turn onto a private road with a gate. She hopped out and unlatched the gate like a pro and pushed it open. Sara climbed into her seat and drove the car through while Tennyson shut and latched the gate.
I got a little worried that we weren’t supposed to be here. “So, whose property is this?” I asked.
“A good friend’s,” Tennyson answered. “He said we can camp here. You worry too much, Meg.”
I caught Sara glancing sideways at Tennyson and they shared a slight smile. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Taylor, in the backseat with me, grinning. I was being set up somehow. Were they driving me somewhere to sacrifice me as the only virgin they knew? I dug my fingernails into my hands to fight off my attacking nerves.
Glass Girl Page 5