Wreath

by Judy Christie

  Putting the book on the shelf she had made on the dashboard of the Tiger Van, she loaded up her pack and got dressed, hoping she didn’t smell after using another of her precious wet-paper wipes to take a bath. She wondered if Mrs. Durham would approve of shorts yet again today.

  She scanned the area and went to the clump of bushes where she had hidden the bike the evening before. She was torn over whether to put things in the same spot or to move them around, still not sure if people were snooping around when she was gone.

  She hiked around the edges of the field, reassuring herself that no one lived nearby and looking nervously over her shoulder. Thankfully, there was no sign of activity near where she stayed, and she vowed to use her flashlight only inside the van, when she could hide it under her blanket. Don’t lose focus, she’d written in her small notebook. Watch for people.

  After arranging her belongings, hiding her money in different places, and setting a trap or two, she hopped on her bike, not sure if her shakiness was from nerves or her accident.

  The yearbook prompted her to do what she could put off no longer.

  With a sense of determination and a tinge of excitement, Wreath rode right up to Landry High and circled it twice, sizing up the place where she would get her diploma. The old brick building was two stories tall with a sprawling campus. At first glance it seemed almost stately, but a closer look showed peeling paint around the windows, blinds hanging crooked and bent, the flower beds a withered mess. To the side were four tennis courts and a large building that must be the gym. Parking lots had sprouted around the building, probably added through the years. In the very back were six or eight metal structures, the kind called T buildings at her other schools. The parking lot was mostly empty, and the door to the gym was propped open.

  Wreath leaned her bike against a back wall, hidden from sight, and tried a side door, which squeaked loudly as she pulled it open. She breathed in the smell of books and paper and the musty odor left behind from students. A janitor waxed a green linoleum hall in the distance, and Wreath turned the other way, dismayed to see that most classrooms were closed up, visible only through a small window on each door. The air was hot and stale.

  She tugged at one door after another, eager to see what the school looked like, which classrooms might be hers, but hesitant to cross the threshold into the official world of the office.

  “Young lady, what do you think you’re doing?” a deep voice bellowed. Wreath turned guiltily from where she had been staring into a science lab. A middle-aged man and a woman walked toward her.

  A glimmer of surprise raced across the young woman’s face at the same time that Wreath recognized her, looking totally different than she did in her running clothes.

  Julia, in jeans and a sleeveless black shirt, turned to the man. “This is one of our new students, Mr. Bordelon. I told her to meet me here later, and I’d show her around.” She looked at Wreath and winked. “You must not have been paying attention when I told you I was busy until late afternoon. Mr. Bordelon’s our principal at Landry High.”

  “Nice to meet you, sir,” Wreath said, her bewilderment not totally feigned. “I’m sorry I got the time mixed up.”

  She stood back as the two adults wrapped up a conversation about a training session. “Be on time tomorrow, Miss Watson,” the man said, and Wreath turned away, shocked to hear a teacher reprimanded in her presence.

  “I’ll be here,” Julia said and turned to Wreath. “Now I’ll give our new student the deluxe tour.”

  “Thanks for rescuing me,” Wreath said as the principal walked away.

  “Most interesting thing that’s happened to me all day, and that says a lot about the state of my life,” Julia muttered. “I’ve had enough teacher training courses to last a lifetime. But enough about me.”

  No matter how dissatisfied she was, she knew she should not discuss teacher business with a student. “I do have to wonder why an out-of-town girl is roaming the halls of dear old Landry High in the middle of summer.” Her voice turned up at the end, turning the statement into a question.

  “Out-of-town girl?” Wreath said. “Oh, you mean when we ran into each other at the park when I was hiking. My mama decided I should finish school here. I’m going to live in Landry, go to high school. I came in to register.”

  “I see,” Julia murmured. “I can help you with that. I’m Julia Watson, by the way. You’re Wreath.” She looked at the girl from top to bottom, memorizing every detail. She was thin but not unhealthy looking and wore a white eyelet blouse and torn shorts.

  The girl nodded. “Wreath Williams. Thanks again for bailing me out.”

  Julia studied the girl, wondering what trouble she was up to. When she had seen her at the state park, she had been fairly certain she was a camper, taking a shower. Seeing her pedaling toward town had given her a new persona, like a determined woman trying to save herself. Now she was peering in classroom windows as though in search of something dear. “So what grade will you be in?”

  “I’m starting my senior year. My mother will be coming later, but she told me to pick up the paperwork.”

  “Most kids don’t move their senior year,” Julia said. She doubted Wreath would open up, but it wouldn’t hurt to try.

  “Bummer, isn’t it? We lived in Arkansas for years, but my mother wants to be near family. She knows she’ll be lonely when I go away to college.”

  “College? Good for you,” Julia said. “Lots of students here don’t get the chance to go to college. I’m happy to hear students talk about their future.”

  “It’s the most important thing to me,” Wreath said. “I want to get a scholarship.” She couldn’t believe she had just said that. “I need to get signed up first. But I will go to college.”

  Julia raised her eyebrows. She hoped the girl was not setting herself up for a disappointment. Landry High did not have the best reputation for sending students off to college.

  “You’ll need a parent’s signature to sign up,” she said. “Let me show you around. You interested in art?”

  The teacher led Wreath down two halls, filled with closed-up classrooms and lined with lockers. They walked briskly down a flight of steps and moved around a corner, past the room where Julia taught what had to be the most boring social studies class ever. Her feet never slowed.

  “Shortcut,” she said, her energy increasing as she headed toward the airy lab, which she thought of as her personal studio during the summer months. “This is the art wing.”

  Wreath stepped with her through the wide door, and Julia glided across the room. She stopped to eye a painting propped by the wall and moved to the back of the room to inspect a kiln.

  “So you teach art?” Wreath asked.

  Julia was so relieved to be out of the continuing ed class and back in the art room that she inhaled the smell of the room before she answered. “Art? No. I’m social studies. Mostly ninth and tenth graders, one group of seniors, so you may or may not be in my class.”

  “This is a social studies classroom?” Wreath frowned.

  Julia wandered through the room, spreading out large paper canvases and straightening a painting or two hanging next to a large whiteboard. She knew she should not have told Wreath how much she hated the continuing education class and should give her a quick tour of the school and direct her to the office. Then Julia should get herself right back to the training session.

  But she couldn’t bring herself to. She didn’t know if it was the loneliness she saw in the girl’s eyes or the boredom she felt in her own heart.

  “This is the art studio,” Julia said. “It’s my favorite spot in the school. My class is in the front wing, near where you were earlier. Not much to it.”

  “So you are an artist,” Wreath said, moving over to the easel.

  “An artist wannabe, I guess you might say,” Julia said, picking up the brush, dipping it in the water again and rubbing it against the thick paint. “I’m experimenting here with a technique I read about.
You put the bright paint on heavy and then brush it with water. It gives it a modern look, don’t you think?”

  “Sort of,” Wreath said. “Is this called abstract art?”

  “Abstract. Modern. Wild. Goes by lots of names,” Julia said with a small laugh. “With this medium you can try so many different things. I’m impressed that you recognized it. Where did you learn that?”

  The girl froze. “In middle school, I guess.”

  “Did you go to middle school and the first years of high school in Arkansas?” Julia asked, trying for a casual tone.

  “We moved around a lot,” Wreath said, looking like a wild colt about to bolt.

  “I see,” Julia said, wishing she did.

  “I’d better get going,” Wreath said but stretched her neck to see a rack of pottery mugs.

  “Look over here first,” Julia said. “I also use the kiln. I’m firing several pieces right now.” A motley collection of pottery pieces lined a shelf at the back of the room; there was a plastic tarp draped over a piece of equipment and the smell of mud in the air. Julia uncovered a block of clay and pinched a small piece from it, rolling it in her fingers and holding it up to Wreath’s nose.

  “I love the way clay smells,” Wreath said. “Like you could make just about anything from it.” She took a whiff and pinched a small piece off the block to roll in her fingers. “Which works are yours?” she asked, wandering around the room.

  Julia pointed here and there, showing off a huge canvas that depicted a scene in the country, but was painted with an abstract twist, and two small pencil sketches. Lined up on one side of the room was a display of nearly a dozen bold paintings, the hint of a story in each one of them.

  Wreath studied the works, and Julia tried to see them through her eyes, the bright colors, the definite strokes, the quirky perspective.

  “Why do you do all this if you’re not an art teacher?” Wreath asked. “Do you sell your work somewhere?”

  “I wish,” Julia said with a snort. “I do this because I love art, everything about art. I come in and play here during the summer, when the regular teacher isn’t around.”

  “I bet you’d make a great art teacher,” Wreath said.

  “I planned to be one, but there wasn’t an opening. Maybe one of these days.” She looked at the clock in the back of the classroom. “I guess we’d better get out of here.”

  “I need to head home,” Wreath said. “Mama will be looking for me.”

  “Pick up your registration papers, and get her to fill them out and bring them in right away,” Julia said. “The counselor can get your course schedule lined up, but you’re cutting it a little close. You’ll want to make sure the transcript from your last school gets moved over.”

  “I have a copy,” Wreath said. “My mother requested it before we moved.”

  “I can guarantee you the office will want an official copy,” Julia said. “You might want to have your mom follow up on that.”

  Wreath’s shoulders slumped for a moment, and then she rushed toward the door. Julia walked outside the room and pointed her toward the office.

  As she sat in the final training session of the day, she watched Wreath climb on a dilapidated bike and head off, backpack slung over her shoulder.

  Julia wondered how the girl had gotten her to do much of the talking. Wreath now knew more about her than lots of people did … and Julia realized she knew very little about the girl.

  She did know Wreath needed help. Most students did.

  Wreath twisted the stack of registration papers in her hands and then tried to smooth them out. Seeing the forms in black and white freaked her out. She was about to commit fraud, forging her permanent record at school. Frankie wasn’t coming back, and Wreath couldn’t postpone making the lies official.

  She used the copy machine at the library to change her transcript, panicking when she thought the nice man at the counter saw her. Using used correction fluid from the Dollar Barn, she whited out the name Willis and a couple of the dates and made copies, then filled in the blanks with the name Williams and recent dates.

  She got on her bike, adjusted her pack in the basket, and headed back to the school.

  Perspiring more than usual, she brushed her hair before she went back into the office. Then she straightened her blouse and practiced a smile.

  “Do you need something?” a woman asked, coming out of the office.

  Wreath forced herself to look her in the eye and held up the paperwork. “I’m registering. My mother asked me to drop these papers off.”

  “I’ll pass those along to the guidance counselor,” the woman said, glancing over the materials. “It looks like everything’s in order. Report to the office on the first day of school for your schedule.”

  Chapter 19

  Faye put her feet into her Dearfoam slippers and headed for the kitchen.

  With pleasure, she made a cup of hot tea, rescued from the years of bitter coffee Billy had preferred and, thus, expected. Real sugar and half-and-half cream helped start her daily what-if thinking, the closest Faye came to dreaming.

  The thoughts used to come almost every day, Tuesday through Saturday: How could she get out of opening the store today? On Sundays that transferred to how to get out of going to church without her absence being noted. And on Mondays she fretted over chores and bills and the dullness of her life.

  But now she found herself almost looking forward to going into the store. The girl who was helping her had brought about a change, not only in the shop but in how Faye felt about it. Wreath had come up with quick ways to get the store in order, and she didn’t chatter like most teens but kept to herself.

  Each day in the tacky store, she watched the somber girl straighten furniture, scrub long-neglected floors, and sort through stacks of junk, and somehow seeing things through Wreath’s eyes made the house seem even sillier.

  Steadily Faye made her way through her morning ritual in the outdated ranch house, once so fancy with its white carpet and French provincial furniture. She could scarcely stand it anymore, a symbol of the good life she had taken for granted. To pretend otherwise, she pampered the house, tidied it, and acted as though it was still grand, leaving only her sewing room untouched. She wanted others to think her world was as good as it was supposed to be, to overlook the middle-aged woman with the worn-out life. Faye still made a show of driving her aging Oldsmobile through the old subdivision with the big, well-manicured yards. Up until recently, she parked the car directly out front of Durham’s Fine Furnishings—her signal that Mrs. Faye Durham was open for business and not going to let the customer have the best parking place. Since Wreath had worked to make the entrance look better, Faye moved her parking place down to the end of the row, grumbling about the bicycle chained to the post but secretly pleased at the tidier appearance of her store. She had smiled when Wreath lettered signs that said PARKING FOR OUR VALUABLE CUSTOMERS and gotten J. D. to help her tack them along the posts on the front of the store.

  Today, Faye turned the old key in the stubborn lock in the big glass front door of the store, but the door opened easily, thanks to the hardware store owner’s help. She walked in, greeted not by the musty smell she had grown to hate, but by the scent of furniture polish. Wreath bought the product by the dozens at the Dollar Barn, it seemed to Faye, and this morning the fragrance was worth every cent.

  Flipping on the store’s charming, outdated lights, she refused to turn the OPEN sign around, clinging to a few moments of privacy.

  The bell jangled as someone tugged at the front door.

  “You forgot to turn your sign around again,” Nadine Nelson said, flipping the piece of cardboard over, a chore that made Faye’s stomach dip each morning but had gotten easier in the afternoons.

  “I must have been distracted by the phone,” Faye said.

  “J. D. told us you’d hired a helper,” Nadine said. “That’s great news.”

  Faye fidgeted with two faded throw pillows on an upholstered chai
r, not sure anymore what to say to the woman who had been her best friend before Billy died.

  “Whose girl is she?” Nadine continued.

  “You wouldn’t know her. She’s new to town.”

  “Well, Jim and I are so glad to hear you have someone.” Nadine sat down on the nicest new sofa in the room. “This store is a lot of work for one person.”

  “Billy had things organized,” Faye said, not willing to confess how hard times were. “The girl, Wreath’s her name, does cleanup work, that sort of thing.”

  “Since you have help now, are you sewing again?”

  Faye shook her head.

  Nadine sighed. “I need a shower gift for my great-niece, and I was hoping you’d make her one of those sweet jumpers.”

  “I’m sorry….” Faye let her voice trail off, not sure what she was sorry for.

  “Any chance you can join us for bridge one day? We never filled your spot, and we need another player. You haven’t been in ages.”

  “Oh, I don’t know if she’s ready to keep the store by herself,” Faye said. “She’s only a teenager.”

  Nadine stood and headed to the door. “We missed you at Bible study Sunday.”

  “Business keeps me tied up, but I’ll make it when I can.”

  “Nobody else in the class makes coffee as good as you do,” Nadine said. “It’s not the same without you.” She wiped away a tear. “I miss you, Faye.”

  “And I don’t even drink coffee.” Faye tried to sound jolly. “I only learned how to make it for Billy.”

  “We miss Billy, too. I wish you’d let us help. Anything. We’d do anything.”

  “You can’t bring Billy back.” Faye hated the tone of her voice. “Things aren’t the way they were.”

  Nadine gave a sigh. “We have such sweet memories, though, and the promise of a peace we can’t even understand.” She acted as though she would try to hug her old friend and pulled up short. “That’s all Jim and I know to count on when we have troubles. I pray that will help you, too.”

  “I’ll do my best to make it to church Sunday,” Faye said. “Wreath is a big help, so maybe that’ll free up my time.” She forced herself to give Nadine a half hug, waving as her friend walked out and chatted with J. D., who, as usual, was standing out front, book in hand.