Looking for Jamie Bridger
Page 12
There she stood in the kitchen doorway peering at Bridger. As if he had just come in from playing outside she said to him, “Jamie, honey, you should wear your jacket. It’s starting to get cold. How was school?”
He shrugged and turned to Jamie. “How was school?”
“Fine.” She liked her new school, which had a can-do attitude. It had not been necessary for her to repeat a grade after all, just make up some missed work. Jamie said to her mother, “Mamaw, I like your flowers.”
“Flowers?”
“Your paintings.”
Mamaw blinked, uncomprehending. Her boy was here, so her flower paintings did not exist. “Supper?” she courted Bridger, though usually Mamaw did not cook anymore. “What would you like for supper?”
“Ma, I just ate!”
“I’m hungry,” Jamie said, and for just an instant Mamaw looked at her with what might have been recognition before she turned away and smiled on her son again.
Sleeping that night in the front bedroom, the one with the peach-colored wallpaper, Jamie dreamed of turtles rising like angels out of their shells and dancing across fields of flowers.
She got up the moment she awoke. On a sunny Saturday morning, who could stay in bed? It was really early, though, barely past dawn. Even Shirley was not up yet. And of course Mamaw was still asleep. Her medicine made her sleep a lot.
Early though it was, Bridger was dressed and outside already. Jamie spotted him from the bathroom window. He was wandering around at the bottom of the yard, looking at the grass, the sky, hunkering down to converse with the turtles.
Jamie dressed fast, ran downstairs and headed out there, treading carefully to make sure she didn’t step on Otto or Suzy or anybody. “Morning!” she sang to Bridger, unnecessarily. Of course it was morning. It was about as morning as it gets. Heady air. Glowing rosy sky.
“Hey, Sis.” He gave her his wide, warm smile. “Whatcha doing up so early?”
“You should talk. What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” But Jamie could tell he had something on his mind. He seemed restless, full of energy. Pacing from turtle to turtle, tree to tree.
“Ma seems better,” he said.
In a sunny-morning mood Jamie did not really feel like talking about Mamaw. She was thinking that she should have brought her sketch pad out with her. But the way Bridge was prowling around the yard—maybe he needed to talk.
“I can’t believe those paintings she did,” he called to Jamie.
“Yeah. They’re good.”
“She’s stretching toward the light,” Bridge said.
“Huh?”
“She’s growing. Changing.” Bridge stood still a minute to look at Jamie. “Why don’t you call her Ma, Sis? It might help her face that she’s your mother.”
Jamie sighed, but had to admit it was a valid question. Okay, it looked as if she and Bridge were going to use the morning solitude to have a serious conversation. She thought before she answered. “Partly, I’m still mad at her.” Being told a lifelong whopper of a lie can reasonably have that effect on a person.
Bridge stepped closer, looked at her and nodded, unsurprised. “You planning to forgive her eventually?”
“I guess.” Jamie thought some more. “Mostly, I just can’t get used to it,” she admitted. “Like, Mamaw being my mother—that’s scary. What if I turn out like her?”
Bridger’s eyes crinkled as he smiled. “As in, a wonderful cook? As in, big and old and cushy?”
“As in, crazy! What if I get mental when I turn thirty?”
Bridger walked over and leaned against the fence beside her, giving her his full attention. “Why would you?”
“People say girls always grow up to be just like their mothers.”
“Bull.”
“Well, isn’t mental illness hereditary?”
“Not what she has. Jamie, listen.” Bridge turned toward her, stretching out his hand to her. “No way are you going to end up like Ma, because you’re a lot tougher than she’s ever been. Look at the way you took hold after Pa died. Look at the way you fought back when that son of a bitch was beating you around, the first time I saw you.” His voice went husky with emotion. “Look at the way you moved heaven and earth to find me.”
Jamie blinked, for a moment seeing herself the way another person did: She was strong, a fighter, a person who got things done? Then the doubts took hold again. “Maybe Mamaw was braver too, when she was younger.”
“Maybe a little, but I doubt she was like you, Jamie. I see the old man in you.”
“Thanks a lot!” Jamie still remembered Grandpa—no, her father—with loathing.
“What’s so bad? That’s not bad. Remember, he was smart, and tough, and he did what he decided to do. The bad things about him you can leave behind. You don’t have to be just like him. I’m his son; am I just like him?”
“Noooo, not hardly.”
Bridger couldn’t have been less like Grandpa. Easy to talk with. Funny, the more they talked the more they had to say. And Jamie talked with Bridger a lot. He had been phoning her every few days since he had known her, and she called him almost as much as he called her, and they saw each other at least once a month at Shirley’s, and Jamie was going to New York to visit him around Christmastime. If Kate was her best friend and sister, then Bridge was her other best friend and brother. She was lucky to have found him. Bridge was so special. There were things he understood without saying, and other things she could tell only to him in the whole world.
One of which was on her mind this very minute, as he stood there running a fingernail along the fence wire.
“Bridge …”
He looked up at her. “What?”
The thing about having family was … No, she couldn’t say it. “Never mind.”
He stopped making fence music, stood up straight, and looked at her. “Never mind what?”
No. He might be hurt, he might get angry and never forgive her. “Nothing.”
“Jamie, c’mon.” He stood watching her—somehow he knew it was important. “Tell me. I’m your brother. What’s the matter?”
He was her brother. That was kind of the problem. But he was her brother, so he had to forgive her. Quickly, before she lost her nerve, Jamie blurted it out. “What if I’m gay?”
“What? Jamie—”
She stood up straight and planted her feet. “I’m just like you!” she cried at him. “What if I’m gay?”
“Lesbian?” He came close to her and stood facing her, very serious. “Homosexual? Any particular reason you should be?”
“You are!”
“I wear a size thirteen shoe too. That doesn’t mean you have to. Are you having sexual feelings about girls? About Kate, maybe?”
“No! That’s disgusting!” Then Jamie realized what she had said. Was it disgusting that Bridge loved David? She felt herself flush deep red. But Bridge was laughing and hugging her.
“You’re fine,” he said, kissing the side of her head. “I give you a one-in-ten chance, same as anybody else. Do you like boys?”
“Not really.” Jamie blushed harder.
“Are they disgusting too?”
“Kind of.” Though there was this one boy in art class that Jamie looked at a lot.
“Good attitude. Keep it a few more years. Sis, you never cease to amaze me.”
“Why?”
But he just grinned and hugged her again, then let her go. “C’mon. You can help me.”
“Huh?”
“Just c’mon, before everybody gets up.” He was prowling so early for a purpose, then? Evidently. He strode to the little white toolshed at the bottom of Shirley’s yard—a former outhouse, actually—unlatched the door and reached in for—a shovel?
“Oh, no. Did a turtle die?” Jamie hoped not. It was too soon for another funeral.
“No!” Bridge gave her a startled glance. “No, nothing died.” He hesitated, then his voice grew soft. “Something’s alive.”
“Huh?”
Bridger propped the shovel against the shed as if he needed both hands to show her something. But then he grew very still, just standing there, looking back at her. Almost shy. Almost afraid.
“Bridge?”
The way he stood with his hands not quite touching, his mouth not quite speaking—it was as if he were holding his breath. Or praying.
Slowly he reached into his jacket pockets. He extended his hands toward her. Half a dozen brown, inert objects lay in his palms.
“Flower bulbs?”
In a low voice he said, “Resurrection lily bulbs.”
Jamie gawked at him.
“You thought it was just Ma’s name? So did I, up till a few weeks back.” Bridger handed the bulbs to Jamie and picked up his shovel again, turning toward it, Jamie sensed, mostly for an excuse to turn his face away. “David showed me in a catalog. It’s a real flower, called the resurrection lily. It comes up in the springtime, this big cluster of bright green leaves. But then they die, the whole thing dies, there’s nothing there—until August, when all of a sudden a stalk shoots up.” Bridge pivoted and faced her. “Then it flowers. A big, dusky-pink lily flower.”
Jamie looked down at the drab, onionlike objects in her hands.
“So, anyway,” Bridge said very softly, “of course I had to get some, and Shirley said I could plant them here. I’ve been trying to settle on a spot. Can’t seem to make up my mind.”
Jamie knew why. He really, really wanted them to grow. They had to go in just the right place.
“How about outside the fence?” Jamie suggested. “Away from the trees? They’ll get sun and rain, and the turtles won’t dig them up or eat them.”
Bridger stood a moment as if listening to the air, then nodded and gave her a glance that said thanks. “See, I knew I needed you. I’m a city boy. I don’t think of these things.”
Once they selected a place, it didn’t take Bridger long to dig up a short trench, laying the sod to one side, loosening the dirt underneath. Jamie sat and watched, not talking, letting Bridger alone. The earth looked rich and loamy—good garden dirt. Once Bridger was satisfied with his flower bed, he laid the shovel aside and knelt down on the ground. “Want to stick some in?”
He tried to sound very casual, but Jamie knew he was not casual about this at all.
She started at one end of the trench with three bulbs, and Bridge started at the other end with his three, and they met in the middle, neither of them saying a word. They covered the bulbs, patted down the loose dirt and replaced the grass sod on top, then just sat there like a pair of kids making mud pies.
Jamie knew why her brother had bought the bulbs, why he was planting them here. “So you think Mamaw can do that?” she teased gently. “Flower late? Come to life again when it looks like she’s finished?”
“I hope so.” But he did not look up, and she realized with a jolt that he was crying.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“You didn’t do anything.” He wiped his face with his sleeve, then looked at her, getting his smile back. “I’m fine. Never mind me. Stupid flower names. I’m just glad she didn’t name you Daisy, and me Bud or something.”
He made Jamie laugh out loud, and he laughed with her. How could he do that, laugh when he had just been crying?
He laughed, and lay back in the grass. The world smelled good, like rich dirt. A turtle, Burp, supervising the activity from the other side of the fence, peered at Bridger then swung its head to eye Jamie. Bridge eyed her too, smiling his warm, slow smile.
“Don’t ever quit, Sis,” he said.
“Huh?”
“Ever since the first day I met you, you’ve been looking for Jamie Bridger. Did you find her yet?”
Jamie momentarily choked on the joke of everything, then grinned.
“Well, did you?” Bridge insisted.
“No.” Then Jamie thought of all that had happened. “Well, yes. Kind of. Some days.” She thought of all the things she still wanted to do and know and find out. “Not yet. I’m getting there.”
“Keep getting there,” Bridge said.
“Till I’m a hundred, you mean?” A breeze blew like the earth breathing. In a minute Shirley would come out and bang on her kettle, and the turtles would do their slow, slow dance. Bridge lay mellow in the grass, Mamaw would rise up and paint flowers, and Jamie wanted to keep it all forever in her sketchbook. She smiled, because for that moment she knew who she was—kind of. Maybe she would be a world-class artist, maybe not. But when she was a hundred and fourteen years old, she wanted to be heading down the road in a white Ferrari, still young, still going somewhere, looking for Jamie Bridger.
About the Author
Nancy Springer has passed the fifty-book milestone with novels for adults, young adults, and children, in genres including mythic fantasy, contemporary fiction, magic realism, horror, and mystery—although she did not realize she wrote mystery until she won the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America two years in succession. Born in Montclair, New Jersey, Springer moved with her family to Gettysburg, of Civil War fame, when she was thirteen. She spent the next forty-six years in Pennsylvania, raising two children (Jonathan and Nora), writing, horseback riding, fishing, and bird-watching. In 2007 she surprised her friends and herself by moving with her second husband to an isolated area of the Florida Panhandle where the bird-watching is spectacular, and where, when fishing, she occasionally catches an alligator.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author᾿s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1996 by Nancy Springer
Cover design by Drew Padrutt
ISBN: 978-1-4976-8909-1
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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