“I know,” Sam said. “But where were you?”
Whitney’s teeth stood out like milk glass beneath the stain of Mocha Mousse lip gloss. “Does Sam know what you’ve been doing? Does he know what happened with Mr. Stains?”
Sam felt Shelby working her way out of his grasp as if he were the one she needed to escape from. “Shelb?”
“You could have done anything else to get attention,” Whitney said. “Why did you have to screw things up for him?”
He wanted to hold Shelby against him, to keep her safe from them. He wanted them to be wrong. “What is it, Shelb? What are they talking about?”
Tears glimmered in her eyes as she backed away. “Don’t ask me, Sam. Please don’t ask me.”
“Shelb. I’m here, don’t you see? I’m just trying to help you.”
“Well, you can’t.”
“Maybe you owe me.”
“I don’t owe you anything. I don’t have to respond to any of this if I don’t want to. That’s what they said.”
Whitney lifted her chin like a hound on the scent. “Who said that? The cops said that? Is that what they told you when you reported Mr. Stains?”
“Shelby.” From somewhere in the distance, Sam heard the sound of his own suspicious voice. “Did something happen between you and him?”
“No,” she cried, “Oh, no.”
“Then, what?”
“Not like what you’re thinking.”
“Then what’s everybody talking about it for?” Adrenaline surged up his spine. “Are you the student they were talking about at the assembly yesterday?”
Of course he had known something was wrong, with the way her mother had gone on and her stepdad had peered out of the peephole and the way she’d had to be coaxed into her dress.
But in sort of a naïve, superhuman way, he had thought nothing could have gone wrong for Shelby that his caring about her couldn’t fix. In his wildest dreams, he couldn’t have imagined this.
If that teacher’s done something to her, I’ll kill him.
Questions dropped on them, raining down from every direction, sifting groundward, as if they were standing in the woods and leaves had begun to fall.
“What exactly did he do to you, Shelby? What was so bad that you had to run to everybody and blab?”
“You must feel guilty, don’t you?”
Sam scooped his arm around her waist, tried to propel her out of the crowd. And mouthed, Come on, Shelb. I’ll take you home.
“Remember last week when you told me he was your favorite teacher, Shelb? I do.”
“How’s he your favorite teacher if, the next week, you say something that ruins his life?”
“I don’t want to go home,” she said, wresting away from Sam. “I’d rather die than go back to that place right now.”
“You’ll be safest—”
The voices around them shrill and hostile, “But Mr. Stains will never be safe. You made him lose his job.”
Whitney’s white hand lifted like a chalice above their heads, as if she could reach beyond everyone’s questions and string them together to her liking. “Shelby, you can’t leave the dance without this.”
“Without what?”
“Your crown.”
“Why don’t you get that later?” Sam asked, a little angry at Shelby now, and frightened because of it. “Let’s get out of here. Somebody else can pick it up, okay?”
He tried to steer Shelby away, applying pressure against her spine, against that vulnerable, beautiful curve that he loved, where white chiffon and zipper and gathers met. There was a general rustle of skirts, some cautious, jittery laughter, a hush of ugly expectation. Up it came, passed from hand to hand, as the dancers split or moved tightly together to let the thing pass through.
“Here you go,” somebody said, and Sam heard her gasp. Her eyes had adjusted to the blinking dark-and-light faster than his own, but he saw it a moment later. He saw the thing staring out over them like a round, inflated head. It wore a rhinestone crown. Someone had given it eyes, a nose, a hackneyed, thin grin.
It’s just the stupid soccer ball, he lectured himself. They got it out of her house or something.
Hand-sewn, it said. Gyro KwikGoal. Shelby’s ball.
The face had probably been drawn with a Sharpie, or something else that would never wash off. The eyes were big and weepy, the upturned nose drawn like a pig’s nose.
“That’s mine.” Shelby grabbed the ball from Whitney, locking it away beneath her arm. “Where did you get this?”
“I don’t know,” Whitney said. “It just showed up.”
A roomful of people exchanged blank stares. Not a one of them seemed to know anything more than that. Not one girlfriend stepped forward to stand beside Shelby or to support her. Sam knew that, since they’d started dating, she had cut herself off from most of them. And from somewhere in another world, the strobes were still pounding, Voltstar Productions was still churning out dance party songs.
“This is for the girls who love to make noise,” the deejay shouted, his mouth jammed up sideways against the microphone. Drums picked up the rhythm and music swelled. Who let the dogs out? Uh-oh-oh-oh?
Sam could see the curse words that they’d scribbled across the leather, to accompany their pictures, written in bold, dashy strokes.
LIAR.
LIAR.
LIAR.
Shelby yanked off the tiara they’d taped on it and pitched it across the floor. It didn’t take more than a moment for the thing to be broken beneath someone’s feet.
“You’ll get ink on your dress,” Sam urged her. “Give me the ball, Shelby. Please just let me carry it for you.”
“No,” she said, clutching it, refusing to let it go. “I can carry it by myself.” With defiance, she tucked it tighter inside the crook of her elbow.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The storm began as a black stain against the stars to the east, the underbellies of the clouds lit by the streetlight on the corner of Montgomery and Elbow Knob that stayed burning all night long.
First came the dry rasp of leaves across rooftops, the soft scudding as the wind lifted leaves from the ground, swirling them in the corners between houses. Lydia heard the rain begin just after midnight, while she lay in bed knowing she wouldn’t sleep—those first few drops that smacked the pavement and left a wet spot the size of your thumb.
Lydia’s nose burned with unshed tears. And every time she closed her eyes, she envisioned sheets of water like sheets of grief, falling the way they fell into the Brownbranch when a storm was windy and pouring, like ruffles on the hem of a petticoat surging across the ground.
She closed her eyes. This time, as she struggled to pray, words finally came into her mind.
No tears. Please God, no tears.
And even as she thought it, she wiped her face with the back of her hand and found it wet.
The rain spattered off awnings and poured out of gutters like someone had turned on a spigot. It ran down the glass panes and splashed on the shingles and sang its way in rivulets down the eaves.
I know I’m supposed to believe in Charlie. But all I feel is punished.
And somewhere beyond the clatter of the autumn storm, Lydia almost thought she heard tapping at the door.
Father, why would you let adolescent girls have to know the things Shelby knows?
She rolled to her other side, punched up the feather pillow that had seen better days, closed her eyes.
Why would you let broken lives be the picture of your love?
Her eyes opened. Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap.
She listened for the wind, realized it had passed. Only the rain made any sound, and that had settled to a tender soak. She heard the knocking again.
Off went the covers. With a blind hand and a huge clatter, she felt around for her cotton robe, knocking a stack of magazines and her massive bottle of women’s vitamins off the top of her nightstand. The lampshade jostled. She finally found the robe, sailed it ac
ross her shoulders, shoved an arm into each sleeve. She made her way downstairs on cold, bare toes, letting each step groan with her weight before she moved on to the next one.
When she peered out the oval, beveled glass, everything looked rain-streaked, a mercury gray. But on the porch she could see the small, hunched form, the watercolor smudge of something white. A young woman. A child.
“Shelby.”
She couldn’t get the lock opened fast enough. She flung the door open to the fresh ozone smell of rain. And to the girl who, like a cat, looked smaller because she was drenched.
Water plastered Shelby’s blonde hair in strings to her head. Her dress clung to her small thighs, to the athletic shapes of her legs, the knobs of her knees. Water sheeted her lips and dripped off her chin. Her mouth was trembling, almost blue. Lydia threw open the screen and guided her by the elbow. The robe came off Lydia’s shoulders and went around Shelby almost before the girl could be ushered inside the door.
“Come into the den,” Lydia said. “Get yourself dried off. There are coals. It won’t take a minute to open the damper and warm up the house.”
Shelby nodded without saying anything. She stepped forward with frozen, small, shuffling steps, her teeth chattering.
“I’m getting towels,” Lydia said, still directing her toward the stove. “You stand right there.”
With everything else going on, Lydia hadn’t done laundry in a week. In the bathroom, she pulled towels from the hamper and shook them out one by one. She found one or two that seemed useable and dry. As an afterthought, she grabbed an old nightgown, too, thinking it might be best to coax the girl out of her wet clothing.
I believe this is my job, Lord, but how many times do you want me to stand beside this child? No matter how much it hurts, why do you keep sending her to me again?
Shelby stood where Lydia had left her, huddled beside the Vermont Castings stove where the coals made red, roving patterns in the ash, like hidden threads of silk. “Let’s get you out of that wet stuff, okay?”
“T-this is m-my new dress,” Shelby whimpered.
Lydia peeled the robe off Shelby’s shoulders as Shelby shuddered with cold. Chills racked the girl’s arms. The chiffon dress was not only wet; the skirt had been torn. Mud plastered her bare legs. She must have been running for miles through the brambles.
Shelby was shivering violently when Lydia saw the horrid thing knotted in her elbows against her body.
“What’s this?”
Lydia held out a hand for the soccer ball.
For a long moment Shelby just shook her head at Lydia, shuddering. Then, even then, she really didn’t let the thing go. She just loosened her arms around it and the ball rolled out, bouncing onto the floor.
Lydia watched it roll away, reading it all the way until it bobbed against the trim in the corner.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry.”
She cupped Shelby’s purple fingers inside her own and blew.
Shelby leaned in, touching her wet head to Lydia’s.
“I j-just feel so ashamed.” Her first words since stumbling inside the door. “I c-can’t make it stop. People are l-looking at me and… and thinking. And if they’re not thinking about what I’ve done, then they’re thinking that I’m a liar.”
Lydia began to towel Shelby off, her face gone taut with anger. She tousled Shelby’s hair. She rubbed hard, as if she was trying to remove something that was much worse than water.
“H-He was my favorite teacher. I don’t know why I—” She lifted her face. “There isn’t anybody who can help me, Miss P.” Shelby’s shoulders rose and fell.
The embers in the grate had caught fire again. Once she’d finished toweling the girl off, Lydia slipped in a few extra lengths of hickory and adjusted the flue. She held up the nightgown. “You can put this on.” And got the first smile she’d gotten out of Shelby since she’d walked in the door.
“You want me to wear that?”
“You can be fashion conscious if you want to,” with a lift of her eyebrows. “But it’s dry.”
The girl peeled off the straps of her dress while the fire played blue-golden on her skin. Then she stopped, blushing with modesty, her arms crossed over the loose bodice of the dress.
“Oh, Shelby. I’m sorry. I hadn’t even thought—” Lydia handed over the huge wad of flannel. “There’s a guest bedroom where you can change in here. Bathroom’s that door on the right. Put your dress on a hanger over the bathtub where it can drip.”
That age, Lydia thought, where one minute they’re ready to take on the world and the next they’re terrified by it.
When Shelby returned, she’d wrapped her wet hair into a towel turban. The nightgown enveloped her, dry and warm. She stood in front of the stove, which was kicking out breakers of heat, while tiny glints of fire reflected in her eyes.
“You going to be okay?”
She was still buttoning, settling into the flannel the way she would settle into a hug. “Yeah.”
“Good.” A little smile of satisfaction, shared between them. Then Lydia asked, “Shelby, does your family know where you are?”
The girl shook her head no.
“How did you get all the way over here?”
“I ran.”
“Where did you run from?”
“From Sam. From the dance. After they did this—” she nodded toward the soccer ball. “Now I know what everybody thinks.”
She told Lydia how she’d burst away from Sam as he’d tried to lead her away from the kids who were taunting her, how she’d sprinted through the woods. She told how she hadn’t been able to lose him until she’d stashed the ball inside the fork of a sycamore and climbed up into the tree.
“And, does Sam think you’re a liar, too?”
“He wants me to be lying. I can see it in his eyes.”
As new hickory began to zing and hiss in the woodstove and cocoa began to warm on the burner in the kitchen, a gentle silence overtook them. Their two sadnesses, once separate, churned and mingled.
Oh, Lord. Where are you when you feel this far away? Where are you when it hurts like this?
Lydia could smell cocoa scorching in the pan. She stood and asked, “You want marshmallows in your hot chocolate?”
“Oh, yes. Please.”
Lydia poured the hot drinks, stirring each mug with a careful twirl. She didn’t know where this awful feeling of shame was coming from as she stood there in the kitchen, the spoon handle turning warm in her hand. It was as if something inside herself had suddenly grown too heavy to bear.
If you are there, Lord, how could you allow something to happen that would let a guiltless girl feel shame?
Lydia opened the bag of marshmallows and pitched a handful into each cup.
Why won’t you take this away? You know it’s something I never wanted to walk through.
“I’m going to call your parents, Shelby,” she said when she walked back into the den. “I’ll tell them you’re safe here and that I’ll bring you home. I don’t want them to worry.” The spoons clattered when she set everything on the coffee table. Lydia took a quick sip of hers, gulped hard because it was hot. “I’ll also tell them to call Sam and let him know you’re okay.”
“Thank you,” Shelby said. “That’ll be good.”
Lydia didn’t have to look up the Olins’ number. She had called it so many times during this past week that she had it memorized. After she’d spoken with them, she returned to the sofa and sat down.
“What’s this thing?” Shelby held up a clothbound book with the embossed etching of a tiger surrounded by stars. THE LICHEN BRIDGE PECK-N-PAW it said in silver leaf across the bottom.
“Oh, that?” Lydia gave a light laugh of dismissal. “My high school yearbook.”
Before Lydia could stop her, Shelby started snooping through. “Are you in here?”
“No.” Lydia shrugged it off. “Well, sort of. Maybe in one or two places.” And no need for anybody to fi
nd the right pages, either. “Nothing big.”
“Were you popular?”
“No.”
Shelby smiled for the second time tonight.
“Why does that matter? Why are you smiling?”
“Because you keep saying no to everything. I guess you just wanted to look at yourself when you were young!”
“Oh.”
Shelby spooned a pile of melted marshmallow into her mouth. And Lydia decided Shelby’s smile had been enough of a treasure that she could let her guard down a little.
“I was looking at it because of homecoming,” Lydia offered. “When you kids celebrate yours, it makes me think about mine again, too.” She touched the girl’s shoulder. “I was thinking of the times I’ve gone back home since I moved here. Did you know I was even planning a trip back there during the Christmas holidays? But I don’t think I’m going now.”
Shelby kept thumbing through the pages. She held it high in both hands and raised her voice to read aloud. “‘To one of the nicest chicks I’ve ever met.’” A sidelong grin. “Ha! He called you a chick, Miss P. Who is this? Was he cute?”
“None of your business. Give that back.” But when Lydia tried to swipe it away, Shelby giggled and lifted it higher.
“‘Never forget Mrs. Bodkin’s French class and the FOOT patrol and the way Mr. Johnson made meatloaf in the Petrie dish and the famous noise like a rhino. I STILL think you were the best lab partner. Remember, never eat Johnson’s meatloaf! I know you will go far in life (especially with the rhino noise). Call me when you visit Northwestern, Stay sweet and good-looking, Gary.’”
“There. Now you’ve read my yearbook. Are you happy?”
“I want to hear the noise like a rhino.”
“Well, you can keep wanting it, because that’s something you’ll never hear.”
On page 21, Shelby found the Future Scientists Club page and, beside a picture of a hanging skeleton someone had written, “Mr. Jarrett after he loses 300 pounds.” They giggled at a bonfire picture with a wiener caught in mid-air where someone had circled the wiener and noted, “The mysterious and profound floating hot dog of LBHS.” In the back of the book, in the advertising section, someone had turned a milk carton that read “In Horn’s Dairy There Is Strength,” into a milk carton that read “In Lichen Bridge There Is Nothing.”
When You Believe Page 12
