A Girl Like Me

by Ginger Scott

  “It’s Wes,” he says, pulling the door open completely.

  “Hey, Coach. I’m sorry I just showed up. I…umm…do you think you could wave to the cop guy out there? That light’s really annoying,” Wes says, his smile crooked to match the tilt of his hat. His clothes are wrinkled, and I can tell he probably threw them on and raced out of his bedroom the minute we finished texting.

  My dad waves his arm, which results in rent-a-cop waving his light a few times, but eventually he turns it off and mutters something before getting back in his car.

  “I hate this so much,” I say under my breath. Only Wes hears me, and I’m glad.

  “Come on in, Wes. We were just sitting down to eat. You should join us,” my dad says.

  My heart pounds nervously, because as much as Wes and my dad are comfortable together, there’s a new layer over all of us now that my dad has linked the past to the present. And even though we haven’t talked about it yet, I know that layer is there for Grace, too.

  “Are you sure?” he asks, one arm hidden behind his back. I lurch to look, but he catches me and turns his body, grabbing my wrist when I try to fight my way in.

  “I’m sure,” my dad says, his eyes catching Wes’s touch and his mouth falling flatter.

  My dad moves back toward the dining table, but Wes and I stay near the door, a cool breeze cutting through the screen door and the sounds of crickets marking what’s left of the sun.

  “I uh…I sorta did a thing,” Wes says, dipping his head so all I can see is the brim of his hat and the hint of the shy smile dusting his lips.

  His hidden hand comes between us, clutching a small bouquet of pink flowers, tied together with a ribbon, a wet paper towel wrapped around the cut stems.

  “They aren’t peonies. I think they’re called phlox. My mom grows them in a pot in the backyard,” he says, tipping his hat up. I catch the bashful wrinkle to his eyes, and I fall for him a little more. He holds the flowers higher, pushing them closer to me. “She said I could. I was just trying to follow your signs, and I’m pretty sure you were giving me the flowers vibe.”

  My hand covers his as I take the bundle from him, leaning forward to smell the petals, already wilting slightly. It’s a sad bouquet, and Wes knows it. I love it, still.

  “Thank you,” I whisper, my lips resting in a flirtatious smile. Wes’s eyes dim and his lip curls to match mine. “And phlox is a really stupid word for a flower.”

  His chest shakes with his quiet laugh, and I bring the drooping bouquet up to my nose. They smell sweet.

  “Grace…she’s going to want to talk more than we did earlier, when you drove from the airport,” I say, leading Wes across the living room, to the dining table filled with steaming pots and plates and napkins and silverware. It feels like a holiday, but it’s only Monday. “I’m pretty sure she knows who you are.”

  Wes’s chest lifts as we approach, and he draws a quick breath, nodding slightly to me and straightening his shoulders before reaching a hand out to my grandmother.

  “I’m sorry for just showing up, ma’am,” he says, and I catch my dad rolling his eyes at Wes’s formal greeting.

  I fill a glass with water in the kitchen for my bouquet. When I return to the table, Grace is holding Wes’s palm in both of hers, covering the top and patting, just as she did with me when I showed up in Tucson. Her eyes narrow in on Wes’s face, her head tilting a little to the side before she reaches up with one hand and pushes the brim of his hat up just a hair.

  “You shouldn’t hide eyes like that,” she says, her mouth curved slightly, as if she knows a secret. I’m certain she does. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen eyes like that, you know.”

  Her hand comes to cup his face with familiarity, and her eyes dazzle looking at him. Her attention is making him nervous; I see it in the way his jaw flexes and the way he swallows slowly, trying to hide his nerves from the rest of us.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Wes responds, pulling his hat off completely, setting it on the counter behind him.

  “Grace, Wesley. You can call me Grace,” she says, using his formal name, just as she likes to do with me. She holds a hand out to encourage him to sit.

  He does, smirking as he looks down at his empty plate.

  “Grace is one of my favorite names,” he says through a smile, glancing at me sideways. My heart beats a little stronger for just a breath. With just a subtle look and a few words, he can take me back in time to when we were children.

  “Speaking of my name…Joss was about to say grace,” she says, and without warning, my mouth and attitude kicks in, and I breathe out a sigh that makes my father laugh and makes my grandmother twist her mouth with disapproval.

  “Sorry,” I say, clearing my throat, pursing my lips and gnashing my back teeth together. “I’ve never done it before…is all…”

  “I can,” Wes cuts in.

  My hero in all ways, I swear.

  “Thank you,” Grace says, smiling at him, but letting her mouth fall straight when she moves her gaze to me.

  Glancing at me in the seat next to him, Wes gives me a closed-mouth smile and slides his hand toward me along the tabletop, lifting his fingers just enough for me to slide mine under his palm. He does the same to my grandmother then looks across the table to my father, who is just as awkward as I am at this. I wait for Wes’s cue, dropping my chin to my chest but not closing my eyes right away. I can see my dad from my periphery, and I notice he’s doing the same—his open eyes blinking as they stare at the table’s edge.

  “Dear Lord, please excuse the poor etiquette I’m about to display. I’ve never really done this…said grace at a dinner table with friends. My family isn’t much for the formalities of religion, but that doesn’t mean that you and I don’t talk. We do. I’ve talked a lot lately about the people I need in my life. I’ve prayed for their safety and health…I’ve prayed for their forgiveness.”

  His hand squeezes mine with a gentle force, and I feel the pang of his words in the center of my chest. I squeeze him back.

  “You’ve given me more than I deserve, and I thank you for this day…for this evening, here at this table with three other people I know would each give of themselves completely just to make sure the others would have one more dinner like this. We’re grateful for the food and for the shelter, but above all, we’re grateful for the relationships—for the people who make us better, and who lift us at our worst. Thank you…for this life. Sometimes it feels as if it may be more than we can handle…at least it does for me. Doesn’t mean we won’t try, though. I promise I will try.”

  At some point during Wes’s words, my eyes fell closed. We all sit silently for a second or two, and eventually Grace leads us by saying, “Amen.” We all repeat her words, and everyone lets go of their grasp on the hand next to them. I let my hand fall below the table to Wes’s knee, and his eyes lock with mine.

  “That was lovely, Wes,” Grace says, holding a large plate weighed down with stuffed eggplant. She scoops one onto Wes’s plate, but leans toward him before handing the platter over to me. “I’ve never given thanks before a meal either,” she admits, her eyes sliding to mine briefly, teasing me before moving back to Wes. “I’m pretty sure the last time I heard someone give thanks, in fact, it was you. You were three, and you lived in that house right over there,” she says, turning her head and nodding to the house next door, where Shawn used to live. “Even back then, you were thankful for her. ‘Thank you for Joss,’ you said. The words came out with a lisp, and you followed them up with a cookie. We all thought it was cute, but I had this feeling that you really meant it.”

  My boyfriend and my grandmother stare into one another, both holding the heavy plate of food between them, slight smiles drawn from cheek to cheek. I glance to my father, and his brow is heavy, dimpled with the weight of dots he hasn’t quite fully connected.

  “I remember you now,” Grace says, finally taking control of the plate and passing it to me. I hold it, but remain focused on the qui
et conversation next to me. “And I remember the things you can do.”

  Seventeen

  “What can you do?”

  Really, it’s a question I’ve held on the tip of my tongue since the first time I witnessed Wes do something extraordinary. It’s why I tested him for so long. I wanted the truth, sure—to know for certain he was Christopher. But I also wanted to know what he could do.

  We’ve been sitting out on the curb in front of my house, about a dozen yards behind rent-a-cop, taking turns throwing small pebbles at the sewer cover in the center of the street. We never discussed the rules, but we both know that the closest rock to the center of the cover wins. So far, Wes has me beat by about six inches.

  “Is this because of what Grace said in there? At dinner?” He leans forward, propping his arms on his bent knees, and looking at me with one eye squinting.

  “It’s a little because of that…yeah,” I say, shrugging then lining up my toss, shooting the small rock with basketball form, landing it right next to his. I twist to face him and lift my brows once.

  “Couldn’t just let me win, could you?” he chuckles.

  “Aw, Wes. I’m sorry, want me to start throwing left-handed?” I push my lips out in a pout and he rolls his eyes.

  “No,” he sighs. “With my luck, you’re better at this with your wrong hand.”

  On a whim, I fling a rock in the direction of our target with my left, skipping it along the road, and it lands next to the other two we’ve both landed there. Wes’s mouth curves slowly, his tongue caught in his back teeth as he shakes his head.

  “I swear that was an accident,” I say, giggling.

  Wes exhales, pretending to be a sore loser, and tosses the few pebbles left in his hand out into the road. The lights from an oncoming car cast shadows along the ground, glowing underneath the rent-a-cop’s car, and I hear his door open in response. I hold my breath, and I draw my legs in close, preparing myself to stand—to run. The car passes slowly, turning into a driveway about six or seven houses past mine, and I slowly unravel the grip my fingers had on my knees.

  “He had his radio out, ready to call someone,” Wes says, nodding toward our watchman. His door closes again, and he resumes the comfortable position he was in, bringing a large Styrofoam cup up to his mouth and tilting it to let the ice slide out.

  “He’s had sixty-four ounces today, I swear. I wonder when he pees,” I say, hushed.

  “Joss,” Wes says.

  I turn to him with a, “Hmmm?”

  He reaches for my fingers, still gripping my leg, and he pulls them into his hand, revealing the small indents left behind from my fingernails. Shifting slightly to the side, he keeps my hand in his, running a finger from his opposite hand along the marks on my leg.

  “I don’t like how nervous all of this makes you,” he says.

  My eyes focus on my leg for a few quiet seconds while I think of the right words to say. I am scared, but I’m also done letting fear tell me what I can and cannot do.

  “You know what’s weird?” I begin, my gaze shifting from Wes up into the starry sky. “The more nights I sleep with the idea that this is my life, the more okay I am with it.”

  His forehead creases.

  “Not just since the car being totaled, but since…I don’t know, my leg maybe?” I say. “It started out as a sort of coping mechanism—some piece of wisdom I picked up from one of the dozens of doctors who tried to tell me the best ways not to be depressed, because of their medical expertise, of course. Not that a single one of them had ever lost a limb…when they were seventeen.”

  Wes nods slightly, sympathy coloring his cheeks and sloping his eyes. He rests his chin in his palm, waiting for me to explain.

  “I go to sleep and tell myself that this is just what it is—my life is this. And in the morning, it will be there waiting for me, and I’ll get up, and I’ll go to school, or to my job, or to the field, or…wherever. And I’ll be in this body, with Eric Winters as my dad, and with sour memories of my mom,” I say, breathing in and holding the air in my chest, puffing it out as I turn to look Wes in the eyes again. “But then there’s also you.”

  My mouth quirks, and his eyes squint suspiciously, his mouth hinting at a smile.

  “I’m not under the same delusions that Shawn is, Wes. I’ve tried to accept them as real, but they just aren’t. This is my life,” I say, holding my finger up in the air between us. “I decide to get drunk, and it goes this way,” I say, lowering my finger to my knee. Wes covers my hand with his and pushes my finger down to the ground, and I look at him sideways, even though I know he’s right.

  “My dad makes an effort, and my life does this…” My finger begins to draw a slow slope back up in the air between us. I stop when it’s at my shoulder’s height, and I leave it there.

  “The state of California can’t afford to fix a bridge,” I chuckle, dropping my finger back down, this time to the sidewalk we’re sitting on. “I meet Rebecca,” I say, raising my finger again, slowly as I continue to speak. “I work hard. I train. I get a magazine story. I meet my grandmother. I love my grandmother.”

  I shake my head, my mouth forming a crooked smile. Then I draw my hand into a fist and let my fingers stretch back out as my mouth makes a quiet explosion sound.

  “My dad racks up some serious debt,” I laugh.

  I hug my knees to my chest and rock back a little, my face tilted up and my eyes moist from laughing.

  “There’s a reason for every dive and climb, Wes. There just is. And my life, it depends on my choices, on my dad’s decisions…on some government vote…on you. I wake up smiling now, because of you. And not because I think I need you to save me, or because of the weird shit you can do,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t Wes. I can ride the waves, and I know I’ll be just fine. Because of me. I can count on myself, and that…that is a pretty fuckin’ healthy place to be, don’t you think?”

  His eyes on mine, Wes’s mouth puckers into a slight smile as he leans in and pulls my head toward his lips, kissing me as he sweeps the tiny loose hairs from my skin. His fingers touch my chin next, and his mouth dusts mine with a brushing of a kiss.

  “I can fly,” he whispers against me, pulling away just enough to look me in the eyes. My lashes lower and my focus shifts from his left eye to his right, my heart beating faster the more milliseconds that pass. My stomach starts to dive, and my eyes begin to widen just as Wes’s mouth twitches into a curl.

  “You ass!” I shout, pushing him until he rolls into a ball along the curb, his laughter echoing off our garage door.

  “I couldn’t help it…and you called me weird!” he teases, righting himself and poking my side where I’m ticklish.

  “You are weird!” I say back, pushing him again.

  He catches my wrists in his hands this time, tugging me close and kissing my lips a little harder than before.

  “I’m yours,” he says, his head falling against mine.

  “Yeah?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he says. “I’ll be the reason you wake up smiling. That’s hero enough for me.”

  Wes stands, holding a hand out to help me to my feet. We both dust our legs off, and I walk with Wes toward his truck parked on the other side of where rent-a-cop sits. Our guard looks up as we pass, so Wes holds up two fingers to wave. Our watchman nods, grumpily, then goes back to reading something on his iPad.

  “Must be a good book,” Wes jokes.

  “I bet it’s porn,” I say.

  Wes shakes his head and pulls me into his arms, swallowing me completely in his embrace. “It’s not porn,” he says, pressing his lips on top of my head. “You can’t get a strong enough signal out here.”

  I smack lightly at his back then find bliss in the raspy laughter that echoes in his chest.

  “Take you to school in the morning? TK and Levi are riding with Taryn.”

  I hold on to the front of his shirt and nod yes while he pauses with his driver’s side door open, his keys dangling from his t
humb.

  “Good,” he says, nodding over his shoulder toward my house. “You better get inside. I can see your grandmother at the door.”

  “Good night, Wesley!” Grace calls out.

  I tuck my head into his chest, embarrassed, but Wes only responds with more raspy laughter.

  “Good night, Grace,” he says, waving over my shoulder then sliding back into his front seat. His thumb brushes over my bottom lip, and I feel it seconds after he drives away, all the way inside my house.

  “That young man grew into some gentleman, didn’t he?” my grandmother says.

  “He did,” I say, my mouth falling closed into a grin. My dad busies himself with the dishes in the kitchen, and I notice that he’s whistling lightly. My body grows warm inside hearing it, and even though I can’t remember a time my dad whistled like that before, I know he has, and I know I heard it somewhere. This feeling—it’s the kind that prickles from memories—good ones.

  I walk into the kitchen to kiss my father goodnight, then do the same to Grace, thanking her for dinner. On my dad’s orders, I gather up the spare blankets and make him a bed on the sofa, my fingers kneading at the sheets I laid down for Wes.

  “I’m just fine sleeping here, you know,” Grace says, already kicking her shoes from her feet and pushing them to the side of the couch.

  “I insist,” my dad says, drying his hands and leaning on the counter as he picks up the TV remote. “Unless you want to join me out here for the Motor two-fifty. I recorded it this weekend, and I managed to avoid hearing who won, so I’m gonna sit back and watch every lap.”

  “Well I could tell you who won,” Grace says, my dad’s eyes flashing wide instantly. She sniggers and winks at him. “I’m kidding. You enjoy your race. I’ll have Joss help me get settled in.”

  We both head down the hallway to my dad’s room, and other than a few stray dirty shirts and a pile of papers from his visit today to the police station, my dad’s room is pretty clean and bare.

  “There’s an extra quilt in the chest,” I say, lifting the lid to show her. “And if you don’t like his pillow, I’ll switch you with one of mine. We share the bathroom…oh…and Dad has one of those air-filter things. If you like to have white noise, or whatever.”