All of a sudden I felt like I was walking onstage wearing a bathing suit with a spotlight on me. I wanted to die.
I put my hand on Colleen’s arm, to steady myself. “I don’t see Hunter anywhere. Do you know if any other JV cheerleaders were coming?”
“Beth and Ashley said they might.”
“Where are they?”
We peeked out on the back porch, where everyone was talking about a summer soccer camp on a college campus. No Hunter.
“Hey,” Colleen boldly asked one of the guys. “Is Hunter here?”
They all laughed.
“You would think so, since it’s his house,” one of the guys said. “Try the basement.”
“Come out here and talk to us!” one guy yelled. “We won’t bite!”
“Maybe later,” Colleen said, laughing.
We headed back through the kitchen. “When I saw Hunter today at the mall, he was with Kerry Donovan,” I said. “Look for Kerry.”
We threaded our way to the basement stairs, through people watching the Spoons game, and started to make our way down. Music wafted up the stairs, along with the smack of billiard balls, the sharp rhythmic rap of ping pong balls, and the buzz of people talking and laughing.
As we went down the stairs, the air got cooler. I felt chilly in my tank and shorts, and shivered. But maybe that was because I was nervous.
Downstairs, I finally saw Hunter. He and Kerry were playing pool with a girl named Megan, who was also on the girls’ soccer team. I had played some pool, since Mama and Barry had a pool table in the basement. It looked like they were playing rotation, where you start by trying to get the one ball in the pocket, and then the two, and so on, all the way up to fifteen. A few other people stood around watching. Two people were lying together on the couch beside the pool table kissing. The guy was rubbing his hand up and down the girl’s back.
On the other side of the rec room, a guy and a girl were playing a wicked game of ping pong.
“Stephanie! Colleen!” Kerry yelled. “You made it!”
Everyone looked at us, and I felt heat rising to my face. I was afraid to look at Hunter.
Suddenly Kerry, using his pool cue like a microphone, started singing along with the song, about being glad we came. Everyone started laughing, and then Hunter picked up another cue and started singing along too, like they were in a boy band.
“… and make you glad you came!” they sang together, swaying beside the pool table, then they counted down and did a turn together. Everybody clapped, laughing.
I was laughing too, and I felt warm all over.
“Come play some pool,” Hunter said. “We’ll take you on after this game.”
“Okay, sure!” Colleen said.
“Okay.” I smiled shyly at Hunter. He was dressed very preppie, with khaki shorts and a polo shirt.
“Have a Coke or something,” Kerry said, pointing to a refrigerator behind a bar in the corner.
“You act like you live here!” Colleen joked.
“He practically does,” Hunter said.
The chorus to “Glad You Came” blasted through the basement again and Kerry and Hunter sang into their pool stick microphones and turned around, laughing.
I took a deep breath.
15
DIANA
The microwave dinged and I opened it, and reached for the bottle. Shaking to mix it, I headed through the family room, past Grandma and Grandpa Roberts on the couch watching a Masterpiece Classic they had taped.
“Time for your bottle!” I told Star as I pushed open the sliding door to the sun porch. Star, lying on a pile of ski vests, scrambled to her feet.
“Maa!” she said. She had become attached to me already. When I was on the sun porch she followed me like a dog.
I knelt beside her and draped one arm over her neck, held the bottle up, and she eagerly grasped the nipple and began drinking. I made the push-pull motion that had been described in the online article.
“Yum, is that good?” I talked to her softly while I held her warm little body close to mine. She sure was noisy! She made loud sucking and breathing noises as she drank. But I liked hearing it. I was keeping her alive.
But what was going to happen tomorrow? Mom and Norm would never let me take her home. We didn’t have a sun porch at home. Where would I keep her … my room? What was I going to do with her?
The article had said that fawns should be fed only goat’s milk for the first week, and then the second week grasses and grain should be added. The baby should be weaned by about eight weeks of age. I imagined myself feeding Star grasses and grains. I imagined her scampering around our back yard. I imagined myself keeping her in my bedroom for six weeks, or until she might be old enough to be weaned.
After she finished her bottle, she nudged me and said “Maa!” and stamped her little feet for more, but the article had said four ounces was enough. Eventually she curled up with her head in my lap, and I sat there, blissfully stroking her narrow head.
“Diana,” Grandma said, standing in the doorway. She looked at Star with sadness in her eyes. I knew what she was about to say.
“Don’t tell me, I don’t want to hear it!” I said it so loudly Star scrambled to her feet and darted away from me. “Without me she would starve to death! I’m not going to let her starve!”
“Calm down, Diana,” Grandpa said, coming to the door. “Grandma’s right. We have to figure out what to do.”
“I’m going to ask Mom if I can keep her,” I said stubbornly. I got out my phone and thought about sending a text, then decided I might be better able to talk her into it if I called. I hadn’t wanted to interrupt their weekend, but this was important. Grandma and Grandpa left the doorway, with doubtful looks on their faces.
“Diana, is everything okay?” Mom’s voice sounded alarmed.
“Oh, yeah, everything’s okay,” I said. “How’s your vacation going?”
“Fine.” Now Mom’s voice sounded suspicious. She wasn’t going to talk to me about the marriage counseling, that was pretty obvious. “Has something happened?”
“Well,” I said. And I told her about everything, from hitting the deer to finding Star. I told her I’d taken Star back once, but that the mother had not come back for her. Surely Mom would understand how much I needed to keep Star. “I mean, I know I can’t keep her forever. But what if I keep her until she’s weaned, just a few weeks?”
“We have nowhere we could keep a fawn, Diana. You know that. Is there some expert you can call, someone who specializes in caring for orphaned wildlife?”
“I’m keeping her!” I yelled. “You can’t stop me!”
Mom’s voice warmed and became more gentle. “Diana. Remember what you learned about the wild horses? Wild animals are not meant to be kept as pets.”
“Please!” I begged.
I counted. Mom was talking, saying something else about the well-being of the animals. My heart sank. I did remember what I had learned about the wild horses. I sat stroking Star’s head. I ran my fingertips over her pear-shaped ears, her knobby forehead. I touched her amazingly long eyelashes. Yes, I remembered. My throat started to ache. My eyes to sting.
Part of it was just hearing Mom’s voice. Every word she said, I strained to listen, trying to figure out how she sounded. If things were good.
“Do you want me to talk to Grandpa Roberts?” Mom said.
“No, that’s okay.” My voice came out flat. Moronic Mood-o-Meter at about two.
“I’m so sorry, honey. I know how attached you get to these animals. How are you and Stephanie getting along with Grandpa and Grandma?” Mom asked.
“Stephanie’s not here.”
“What?” Mom’s voice rose in alarm. “What do you mean?”
So then I told her all about Stephanie’s mom coming to get her. Mom seemed much more upset about this than she was about Star.
“Let me talk to Grandma or Grandpa,” she insisted. So I gave Grandma my phone, and she went into the kitchen.
While Grandma was talking to Mom, I took Grandpa’s laptop out onto the sun porch with Star and looked up some more articles on caring for fawns. That’s when I saw it. The paragraph about the wildlife rehabilitator.
“If you find an orphaned fawn, please contact a nearby licensed wildlife rehabilitator for help.”
I looked up “licensed wildlife rehabilitator,” and typed in Grandma and Grandpa’s zip code. And a name and number came up. Kirsten Wiggins.
I sat with Star in my lap for several long minutes, staring at that name. Finally Grandma brought me back my phone.
“I think I might have found someone to call,” I said. “About the fawn.”
“Is that so?” Grandma said. Her footsteps were quiet as she came and laid her hand on the top of my head. “That sounds good, honey.”
“I guess I’ll do it now.” I pulled Star’s bony little body close to mine, where she curled next to my ribs and began grooming herself like a cat, carefully licking her own coat. Outside, the sun had set and crickets had begun to chirp. The water was dark as ink, with an indigo sky above. I took a deep breath. After a slight hesitation, I tapped in the number.
When I heard the voice that answered, I almost cried. I realized I’d been hoping no one would pick up.
“I found a fawn,” I said. I pushed the tears away and kept on talking.
“Did you feed the fawn anything?” she asked, after I described finding Star. Her voice sounded so concerned and caring.
“I’ve given her two bottles of goat’s milk,” I said. “It was hard to get her to take the bottle but she finally did. Now she loves it and she makes a ton of noise!”
“Okay. Good,” said Kirsten. “You’ve done a good job. Where are you located?”
“On Lake Norman.” My heart was sinking as I described nearby landmarks, and gave the address.
“I have another person who has called me, and I have to go there tomorrow morning, so I think I can get to you by mid-afternoon. Until then, keep giving the goat’s milk about every three or four hours. I’ll bring a dog crate for her.”
“So you’re going to take her?” My heart started beating funny. Star’s ears twitched in my direction. She wobbled over and pressed her little black nose up to the window, leaving a smeary spot.
“Yes,” said Kirsten. “That’s my job. I’ll bring her here to my house and I’ll take care of her until she’s ready to be released to the wild.”
I swallowed. “Okay.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow when I’m on my way. Thank you for calling me. You’ve done the right thing.”
After we hung up, I took Star out in the back yard so she wouldn’t poop on the sun porch. I put an old piece of ski rope around her neck like a dog leash. Standing out there with her, I watched the moonlight dance on the water. I wanted to text Noah about all of this. I had gotten used to telling him what was going on with me. But after what had happened this afternoon I didn’t know what to say to him. I closed my eyes and remembered the feel of his firm lips against mine. The way I couldn’t catch my breath. The flip-flop deep in my stomach.
I opened my eyes, shook my head just to clear it. Did that mean we liked each other? It couldn’t! Noah and I were just friends! What had happened was an accident!
And since I hadn’t heard from him, I was willing to bet that he was probably thinking the same thing I was thinking. Thank God it was summer. Thank God I didn’t have to see him in school next week. Still, I wished I could talk to him about Star.
Well, there was one person I could always talk to. Stephanie.
I took Star back inside, and she wobbled around the perimeter of the sun porch, testing how far she could go in each direction.
I got out my phone and texted Stephanie.
Someone is coming to get Star tomorrow.
I’m sad.
But, for the first time, Stephanie didn’t answer my text.
16
STEPHANIE
“Let’s play eight-ball,” Hunter said.
“Fine, rack ‘em up, fine sir,” Kerry said, pointing his pool cue at Hunter with a flourish.
After Hunter and I beat Colleen and Kerry in our first game, Colleen and Kerry went upstairs. The guy and girl who had been pounding the ping pong ball across the net at each other threw down their paddles and went upstairs, too. Even the couple that had been making out on the couch left, leaving us downstairs alone. We kept playing eight-ball, and I could feel Hunter’s eyes on me every time I leaned over the table to reach a shot. Someone started playing a song about twenty-seven tattoos upstairs, and between shots we started dancing and singing along.
A tingle of excitement ran up my spine. Hunter was paying attention to me, only me. I’d surprised him by being able to play pool.
I took a shot, and my cue ball barely touched the number four ball, nudging it a few inches.
“It kissed the four,” Hunter said, using pool lingo, but he smiled at me when he said it, and I could feel myself turning red. We were halfway through another game of eight ball when Colleen appeared on the stairs. “My parents are here,” she said. “Time to go.”
I leaned on my pool cue. I was stripes and Hunter was solids, and we each had two balls left on the table.
“Hang around,” Hunter said. “I can give you a ride home.”
“You could?” I knew I should go home with Colleen’s parents, but Hunter and I had been joking around, and everything felt magical.
“Are you coming?” Colleen said. “You have to decide now.”
I glanced at Hunter, who was chalking the end of his cue stick. His pastel polo shirt, his khakis, his pink cheeks.
Daddy would want me to go home with Colleen’s parents. Daddy wouldn’t have let me come to this party in the first place. What would Mama want? I didn’t know. She was so wrapped up in Barry, she probably didn’t care.
“You sure you can take me home?” I asked Hunter.
“Yeah, no problem.”
“Okay, then,” Colleen said, and she snuck me a wink. “I’ll tell my parents you have permission to stay, and I’ll text you later.” I watched her feet disappear as she headed up the stairs. “I hope you don’t get in trouble,” she called back.
Me too. Suddenly I felt nervous.
Hunter took a shot at the four in a corner pocket and just missed. The cue ball rolled to a stop lined up to put the eleven into another corner. Carefully, I leaned over the table and lined up my shot. Feeling Hunter’s eyes on me, I leaned forward a little more. Gently, I hit the cue. The eleven dropped in.
“Where’d you learn to play pool?” Hunter asked as I circled the table, looking for another shot. Apparently I hadn’t learned how to play well enough to line up my next shot like I’d seen Barry do.
“My stepfather has a table. When I was living with him and my mom, they used to play, and I’d play with them. I’m not very good.”
“You’re better than a lot of girls.”
“Well, thanks.” I rolled my eyes. “I think.”
On his next turn, Hunter sank both of his solids but then missed the eight. He would win on the next turn if I didn’t sink the nine now. I danced to the song playing upstairs, moving my hips, feeling like I had special powers, drawing Hunters’s eyes to me. I made the angle too sharp and missed, leaving Hunter an easy angle on the eight.
“Too bad!” Hunter said. He put the eight in, winning the game.
“Shoot! I gave you that. Well, good game.” I put my cue back in the rack on the wall, and headed for the stairs, thinking we’d go up now.
“Where’re you going? Let’s hang down here for awhile.” He sat on the couch.
I hesitated. “Don’t you want to see what’s going on upstairs? People might be wrecking your house.”
“I’m not worried.” He patted the couch next to him. “Come on.”
After a few seconds, I sat down next to him. Did he know I had a crush on him? Did I want to kiss him? My heart was skittering and my mouth felt dry. My thigh was
touching his, and my skin tingled in that spot. What should I talk about? Diana seemed to think I was so good at this, but suddenly I was drawing a blank.
“So, have you ever had to save anybody while lifeguarding?” I finally asked him.
“Yeah, the first weekend I was lifeguarding was Memorial Day, and the pool was really crowded. This little kid in the shallow end walked too deep and his face went under. His mom was talking to another mom and wasn’t paying attention. I jumped in and scooped him up. It happened in like, a heartbeat.”
“Whoa, scary. Good that you had your eyes on him.”
“Yeah. It was kind of freaky since it was my first weekend. But nothing else has happened since then. Lifeguarding is weird because it seems boring just sitting there but, I mean, something could happen in the blink of an eye.”
“Yeah. Do you have groupies?” I laughed as I said it. “When we used to go to the pool in our development, when we were about ten, we thought the lifeguards were really cool. We’d talk to them all the time.”
Hunter laughed and his cheeks flushed pink. “Yeah, there’s a group of ten year old girls who flirt with me all the time.”
“Ha, I bet you love it.”
Hunter gave a dismissive gesture.
Suddenly it sounded like a herd of elephants had stormed the house, as four guys from the swim team, juniors and seniors, pounded down the stairs.
“Hey, Wendell!” said one of the guys. “You didn’t think you could have a party without inviting your old buddy Tyler, did you?”
Hunter stood up laughing, his face turning pink. “Hey, how did y’all find out I was having people over? My parents just said I could have a few people.”
“Word travels, my man. Word travels,” Tyler said. He was carrying a tray with rows of tiny paper cups filled with what looked like green Jell-O. “And we all know no party is complete without …”
“Jell-O shots!” chorused the guys. Tyler put the tray down on the bar, and each of the upperclassmen took one of the small paper cups and downed the contents.
Hunter was laughing, but it seemed like he was embarrassed.
Tyler picked up a paper cup and held it out to Hunter with great ceremony.
“For you, my host with the most.”
Season of Change Page 9
