by Beth Neff
Despite her willingness to admit that she was wrong about Jenna, that what she overheard was purely an invention of Lauren’s, Cassie has still not allowed herself the luxury of believing that Jenna sees her as a friend. Cassie has decided she is just outside of the realm of friendship, a kind of satellite, imagines herself orbiting beyond the common universe, unequipped for its requirements.
But Jenna came today, asked her to the river, even though they aren’t going to swim.
After they cross the bridge over the creek, Cassie moves behind Jenna so they can walk single file into the woods, zigzagging through the trees to get to the swimming hole. Jenna stops abruptly just before the log bench, and Cassie peers around to see what has halted her. They both stand mesmerized by the transformation.
Cassie’s voice is almost a whisper. “Do you think it ever floods?”
The river has become a raging torrent, the water muddy brown, roiling and snapping at the banks. Tree branches are floating on the surface, revealing the speed of the water, and several have gotten hung up on limbs extending from the river’s edge or are clumped together against a grassy island on the opposite shore, beaten mercilessly by the fuming current. A ripple of foam rises and disappears just past the swimming hole where the river makes a severe bend and the girls can see that the water is at least several inches higher than it was they last time they were here.
Jenna shakes her head slowly. “I don’t know.” She sounds a little worried. “It’s like discovering a whole new personality. Doesn’t feel like our river.”
Cassie doesn’t answer for a minute. “I kind of like it.”
Jenna looks at her, surprised. “Really? Why?”
Cassie shakes her head, lifts her shoulders. “It’s just kind of exciting. It seems like it’s good to know all sides. Know what it’s capable of, like a hidden power.” Cassie looks back at the log and sees that it is soaked.
Jenna sees her looking at it and springs toward it in mock heroism. “Never fear. Hefty is here.”
“Who?”
Jenna just laughs and shakes her head.
“Never mind,” she says and pulls a neatly folded plastic garbage bag out of her back pocket and spreads it over the log, extends her arm and bows slightly. “After you, madam.”
“Wow. Good thinking.”
“Thanks.”
They are quiet for a while and then Jenna says, “Where do you think all this water goes?”
“You mean, where does this river go?”
“Yeah.”
“Lake Michigan.”
“Really?”
“Yes. But it flows into the St. Joseph River first. And through a couple of dams, I think, before it gets there.”
Jenna is suddenly facing Cassie, alert and focused. “Dams? Like where? Near here?”
“Um, I know there’s one upstream at Weston and another one downstream at Somerset. They built power plants there to generate electricity.”
“Like at the Hoover Dam.”
“Hoover Dam?”
“Yeah, out west. It’s the same thing but huge, built all the way across the Colorado River in Arizona, I think.”
“I’ve never heard of it. What made you think of that?”
Jenna seems suddenly shy. She has picked up a stick and is digging in the soft dirt between her feet, wedging out a divot and spraying little clods of dirt onto her foot. She glances at Cassie, down again.
“You know, I think I might have been to one of those dams before, maybe even one of the ones on this river. It’s weird.”
“What is?”
“Oh, just how you remember things. And thinking about my mom doing stuff like that with me when I was little. It was like this park with picnic tables and stuff. And I remember the building. Seemed huge to me, like a giant square, the brick all crumbling down. But there was this sign and I was still just learning to read, you know, working it out. That’s why I remember. I couldn’t quite get the name, but the rest of it said ‘power plant.’ And for some reason, I loved the sound of that, kept saying it over and over again until my mom finally got so mad she said we weren’t even going to stay there to eat our sandwiches unless I shut up.”
Cassie smiles, says, “Power plant. Yes, I can see why you would want to say that over and over again.”
Jenna nods, seems to be a little uncomfortable. They are both quiet for a bit. “I know about Hoover Dam because of my book,” Jenna mutters.
“Your book? Oh yes.”
“You probably thought it was weird that I wouldn’t talk about it in group when Ellie asked me about it.”
“I didn’t think it was weird. I just thought maybe it felt private to you. Some of the poems kind of felt that way to me. It would have been hard to say them out loud.”
“Yeah.” Jenna has stopped digging, is holding the stick across her knee, gazing up at the place where the rope swing attaches to the overhanging branch.
“I guess I just couldn’t think what to say about it. At first I loved it and now . . . I kind of hate it.”
“Why?”
“Well, see, the story is about this little girl and in the first book, The Bean Trees, this woman is taking care of her because someone just kind of dumps her in her car—”
For just an instant, Cassie’s mind blinks off and then on again. Did Jenna say a little girl dumped in a car? Is Jenna saying this because she thinks it’s something Cassie needs to hear, a story about some terrible evil woman . . . ? But, no. Jenna is just going on, talking about something else.
“—and she had obviously been abused and didn’t talk for a really long time. But in the second book, the little girl, her name is Turtle, sees a guy fall into the spillway around the Hoover Dam when they’re there on vacation. At first, her mom, well, her adopted mom, is the only one who believes her, but then they find the guy and get him out and Turtle kind of becomes a hero.”
The child. The child becomes a hero. It’s a story, a made-up story, and Jenna isn’t talking about Cassie at all. Still . . . “But that’s just, like, the first chapter,” Jenna continues, oblivious to Cassie’s agitation. “Because of the publicity, the people back at the place where Turtle is originally from, an Indian reservation, find out about her and it sort of becomes a fugitive story because they want to get her back and her new mom, Taylor, doesn’t want to give her back. I guess it’s against the law or something for people to take Indian kids away from the reservation unless everyone agrees on it.”
Jenna abruptly stands, throws her stick overhand, hard and fast, into the river. It plunks in almost gently, seems to become completely absorbed by the current for one long moment, and then goes bobbing quickly away.
Jenna slowly backs up to the bench, sits back down beside Cassie.
“I guess I’m not really mad at the book. I’m more mad at myself.”
“Why?”
“Because it made me feel . . . I don’t know, like, jealous. First, this great little kid gets to be adopted by this mom who really loves her, even though she isn’t hers, and then all kinds of people want her, a whole goddamn Indian reservation wants her and she’s got, like, this instant family and a cultural heritage and a history that belongs to all of them. At first, I wanted to tell about it, just because it’s a really good story, and then, when I imagined what I would say about it, I realized . . . I couldn’t. Not without . . .”
Cassie feels a little chastened, reacting the way she did. This is about Jenna, not her. “You couldn’t without talking about yourself,” she says.
Jenna asks Cassie, “Is there anything you miss from your other life, the life before this?”
Cassie isn’t exactly sure how to answer, her thoughts jumbled and confused between the pretend Cassie of her memories and the real one of right now, the girl who gave her baby up and the one who now w
ants her back.
“Well, I miss Gram. I really miss the Gram she was when I first knew her. I miss what it felt like to have her in that narrow window between figuring out that my mom wasn’t coming back and Gram getting sick. I have so many questions now but there is no one to ask.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, mostly about my mother, I guess. And why Gordon kind of ran her life like he did, why she let him do that. And why she’d cut herself off from the world in so many ways, even before she got sick. But by the time I was probably seven or so, she was already starting to forget things. And I realize now that she might have always been a little, I don’t know what you’d call it, maybe unbalanced. By the time I got really curious about how things might be different for us than they were for other people, Gram was bad enough that she couldn’t manage by herself so I wouldn’t have been able to go to school anyway.”
“Except that people find other ways of taking care of old people besides having little kids do it.” Jenna tries to keep her disgust hidden, but Cassie can hear it.
“I know. I know that now. I just, well, I miss that Gram is all I meant to say, the one who read to me and brushed my hair and told stories and took walks and went shopping and laughed at things other people laugh at, normal things. But she has been gone for a long time. I think she might be dead.”
“You mean really dead?”
“Yes. I just have this powerful feeling that, after they put her in a nursing home or whatever they did with her, she died.”
“Wow. Does that make you really sad?”
“I guess not really. The last year or two, she was pretty bad and certainly not happy.”
“Would you have gone back and taken care of her after this if you could?”
Cassie has thought about this a lot but is still composing her response, feeling like, once the words are out, she’ll have to be committed to them.
“I suppose it isn’t very kind, but I wouldn’t want to. I didn’t mind it then because I didn’t have anything else. Now, maybe I would mind. Do you think that makes me a bad person?”
“Of course not. Cassie, I don’t think you could be a bad person even if you tried. I think you gave your grandmother as much as anyone could, even an adult, maybe more than an adult. You don’t owe anybody anything.”
“Maybe not. What about you, do you miss anything? Besides music, I mean.”
“No.”
“Nothing?”
“You sound surprised.”
“I guess I am. It just seems like, well”—and Cassie hesitates—“you know how things work. You know how to be a part of how they work.”
“And that’s why I ended up here?” Jenna laughs sardonically.
“No, that’s not what I meant. It just seems like you would have had, I don’t know, things you liked to do and people you liked to do them with. I’m not trying to say that it’s not really hard to have to live with people who aren’t your parents or to be so disappointed in your own mom, but I just figured you had a lot of friends, you know, people who you did like.”
“Why in the world would you think that?”
Cassie is a little cowed by Jenna’s anger, is sure she has said the wrong thing, broken some rule she didn’t even know about.
“I’m sorry. I guess just because everybody here really likes you, looks up to you, you know. You seem strong and brave and worldly, like you’ve turned hurt into something you use to protect yourself and get what you need.”
Jenna is swallowing hard, keeps her face turned away from Cassie. Cassie is afraid she’s just going to stand up and head back to the house. She stays very still, sits perfectly straight with her hands folded neatly in her lap, thinking if she makes no movement or sound, that Jenna will stay. She’s cold and the river is starting to make her nervous and she’s pretty sure it is getting close to dinnertime. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Jenna clenching her jaw, digging her toes into the soft dirt.
Finally, Jenna says, “I’m not mad at you.”
“Okay.”
“No, really, I just . . .” Jenna is shivering now, and she pulls her second shirt more tightly across her chest. She straightens her back and takes a deep breath.
“This is the first time I’ve really had a friend, like, a good friend.”
Cassie turns to look at Jenna, an expression of bafflement on her face.
Jenna laughs. “You, stupid.”
Cassie raises her eyebrows, presses her lips together in a crooked smile. “Oh. Okay. Thank you.”
“I think you’ll make a great mother.”
Cassie feels her face go hot, even though the rest of her body has started to shiver. The words surprise her, and she wants to hear them again.
“What?”
Jenna laughs a little uncomfortably. “Not like I’m exactly an expert or anything. I just think, I don’t know, how that kid is going to feel when she finds out how much you wanted her, how hard you worked to get her back.”
Cassie nods, the lump in her throat too large for any words to get past.
Jenna looks embarrassed now, taps her stick against her knee.
“Do you remember when we got here and Ellie told us that even if we didn’t get into the whole thing with the food and farming or whatever, that we’d maybe learn what it might feel like to, I don’t know, figure out what you want and try to get it?”
Cassie nods, not failing at all to notice Jenna’s hesitancy to say the word “love.”
“Yes, I remember.”
Jenna shrugs. “Maybe that’s what we’re actually learning to do.”
With that, Cassie can’t hold it in any longer. She can’t tell Jenna that she overheard the conversation with Lauren, is too embarrassed to admit that she believed what Lauren was saying but she has to let her know how much Jenna’s friendship means to her, too. “I made a terrible mistake,” she says breathlessly. “I, well, I didn’t understand why you wanted to be my friend and I got afraid. I think I was sort of mean, and I didn’t want to be. I just—I just didn’t know how to be sure.”
Jenna is blinking her eyes rapidly, glances at Cassie then away. “Yeah. I kind of wondered if I’d done something . . .”
“No! You didn’t. It was . . . it was just me.”
Jenna nods. “Okay. That’s good. Thanks. I mean, thanks for telling me.”
Cassie feels like she is going to burst with happiness and relief. She’s done the right thing. Now, if she only knew why she still feels so uneasy about Lauren’s deceptions.
THURSDAY, JULY 19
LAUREN IS IN THE KITCHEN WHEN ELLIE BRINGS IN THE mail, her face pale underneath the tan.
For a long time, Lauren balked at doing dishes, but she has figured out that being in the kitchen is a lot better than being in the garden, particularly in the late afternoon. With all the work there is to do, Donna has taken to washing dishes as part of the evening shift, leaving both breakfast and lunch dishes until she returns to the kitchen to prepare dinner so she can spend more time in the garden during the day. The schedule suits Lauren, allows her to come inside during the worst heat of the afternoon. The soapy water helps to get the garden dirt off of her hands, and she can take as long as she wants at it. Donna doesn’t stand over her like Grace does and actually seems to be glad when Lauren lingers, is willing to wash the cooking utensils and pans as Donna finishes up with them. Often, Ellie will come in an hour or so before everybody else to spend some time in the office and stop into the kitchen to talk to Donna, and Lauren likes to be there to hear their conversation. They never talk about anything of tremendous interest, but it makes Lauren feel powerful to be right there while they are chatting, to imagine they will forget she’s there and say something about one of the other girls or about Grace. But it hasn’t happened until now.
Ellie is holding all th
e mail in one hand except for a single letter, which she is dangling out in front of her like she suspects anthrax. She lays everything on the table, and Lauren sees the white envelope off to the side, looking official and important, though she can’t see the return address. Ellie laughs nervously as Donna steps over to the table to flip through the stack, makes a point of pushing the letter right under Donna’s hand so she’ll have to pick it up. Ellie isn’t exactly whispering, but her voice sounds breathless.
“Why would they be sending us a letter? I’m having a mini–panic attack about this. You open it.”
Donna does, her hands steady as she unfolds the letter on the table. Ellie sits down beside Donna, watches her eyes move down the page, studies her face for any change of expression. “What does it say?”
Donna turns the page over, reads the last couple of paragraphs, then lays it down on the table, and reads the whole thing again. She raises her eyes to Ellie’s, but her expression still hasn’t changed.
“Here. You need to read this.”
“It’s bad news, isn’t it?”
Donna bangs her fists once hard on the table, stands up and presses the heels of her hands to the sides of her head, mumbles, “Shit!” with more venom than Lauren could have ever imagined her saying anything. Ellie’s eyes have grown wide watching her, and she seems almost more hesitant to read what the letter says after Donna’s response, glares at the tri-folded sheet of paper for a second before carefully picking it up and smoothing it in front of her.
Lauren begins drying the dishes, though they don’t usually do that, quietly putting them away so she can watch better.
