Capture the Wind for Me

by Brandilyn Collins

  He glanced at me sharply. “No.”

  “Did you know, I mean . . . Do you talk to her much?”

  “Enough, I guess. But she talks to Mama a lot more than she does to me.”

  I remembered what he’d admitted during the at-home. About not really knowing Katherine, that she’d left when he was six. “Derek, are you glad she came back?”

  For the first time he looked deeply into my eyes without flinching, as if trying to read the fears behind my question. “I am now,” he replied slowly. “At first it was hard, frankly, because she got so much attention. Mama and Daddy were all happy, which made me jealous. But now I’m glad our family’s back together. And that my parents aren’t all worried about her like they used to be.”

  I smiled at him briefly, touched that he would be so honest with me. “How about you? You glad she came back?”

  Wasn’t that the question. Had it been any other day, I never would have answered. But I felt worn, my defenses down. Then again, had it been any other day, Derek and I would not have been talking.

  “I won’t tell her what you say, you know,” Derek offered.

  Somehow, I did know that. “Daddy’s in love with her. Even after last Friday. And she’s been real nice to me.” I pictured her convincing Daddy to let me see Greg. That was all it took. My words trailed away, my thoughts immediately veering to Greg and where he was right now, how hurt he must be. I focused on nothing in the distance, thinking I had to e-mail him as soon as I got home. Tell him I still loved him. Tears seeped into my eyes.

  “But?” Derek prompted gently.

  I looked at my lap, hoping he hadn’t noticed the tears, knowing he had. Surely, he would mistake their meaning, think they were related to Katherine. Well. In a way, they were.

  “It’s okay, Jackie,” he said, and that’s all it took to spill the tears right out of my eyes. Once they started to flow I found them hard to stop. I couldn’t believe it—sitting in front of Derek, crying like that.

  “I’m afraid she’s goin’ to hurt him. I’m afraid she’ll get bored of Bradleyville, and up and ditch one day. And Daddy will just . . . die.”

  The tears came harder. It was a notion I couldn’t bear—that Daddy could hurt over Katherine the way I hurt over Greg right now. Even as mad as I felt at Daddy, even as unfair as he’d been, I wouldn’t wish that on him for anything.

  Derek said nothing. What could he say? He’d probably never faced a crying girl in his entire life. So different from Greg. When I’d cried in front of Greg, he’d known what to do. Impatiently, I swiped at my tears, feeling foolish. “I’m really sorry.” I pushed firmness into my voice. “This has been a hard day, that’s all.”

  Chatter wafted across the yard. I glanced over my shoulder to see more students leaving the cafeteria. Lunch hour was almost over. Better get my act together.

  “I need to go get my books and stuff.” I threw Derek a wan smile and pulled to my feet. “Thanks for listening.”

  He stood also, peering down at me with his warm gray eyes, the rest of him all legs and arms and neck. “Thanks for tellin’ me.” He reached out and squeezed my arm. For some reason, I thought of his words to me the day Robert broke his leg—You’re easy to be kind to. I remembered the way Derek had looked at me then, as he did now.

  I mushed my lips, nodding goodbye, then turned away to leave. After a few steps, I looked around. “Derek?” He hadn’t moved.

  “Huh?”

  “Why are your socks the same color today—really?”

  His mouth opened. Closed. He rubbed the thumb and fingers on his right hand. “They’ve been the same color since church on Sunday,” he said. “This is just the first time you’ve noticed.”

  chapter 35

  Just after the last bell, I stopped Derek in the hallway, asking for his e-mail address, and did he mind if I wrote him? He blinked in surprise as he pulled out a piece of paper to write it down. I gave him mine also.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I hope you do write.”

  I promised I would. Keeping my reason to myself, which I knew was entirely unfair to Derek and would hurt him. I needed to be e-mailing people other than Greg. I needed an excuse to be on the computer in case Daddy caught me at it.

  I crossed the school yard toward the street corner where Grandma awaited, thanking God I’d survived the day. Well, half of it. I still had to face Daddy that evening. At least the next few hours would provide a brief respite.

  So much for positive thinking.

  Robert accosted me the moment I reached to help slide his backpack from his shoulders. “Why didn’t you tell me about the newspaper this morning?” he demanded, shrugging away from my touch. “All I’ve done is hear stories about you all day! I near got in a fight four times. If I didn’t have these crutches, I would have.” He faced me, narrow-eyed, for all the world the smaller version of Daddy that morning.

  I gaped at him, struck with the realization of Daddy’s and my self-absorption. We should have thought of Robert and Clarissa. We should have warned them.

  “Robert, I’m so sorry, I just saw it before we left, and—”

  “Why’d you do it?”

  “I . . . if you mean what the newspaper said, it’s a lie—”

  “I saw the pictures, Jackie! Trevor Caine brought the whole page to school and passed it around the class.” Robert’s last words bent upward, his eyes glistening.

  My legs turned to stone. I so rarely saw my brother cry. “Robert, please. Just get in the car and we’ll talk about it, okay? I’ll tell you everything.”

  I reached to help him, but he jerked his arm and knocked my hand away. “Leave me alone!” He wrestled with his backpack until it lay on the ground. Opening the car door for him, I stood back as he threw himself inside. I placed his backpack on the floor.

  Before I could turn around, Clarissa hit me from behind, throwing her arms around me and bursting into tears. “Everybody’s talkin’ about you! Alma Sue said you’re bad, and she won’t play with me anymore!”

  I hugged her wordlessly, feeling about an inch high. When she calmed down, I urged her into the backseat, where she perched beside Robert’s casted leg, sniffing and wiping tears with the back of her hand.

  “My goodness, what a day,” Grandma breathed as we drove away. “I think we all need to go home and have a good talk.” She patted me on the shoulder. Her gentle touch made my own eyes fill with tears. I blinked them back. For heaven’s sake, that’s all we needed, the three of us crying at once.

  At home, Grandma came inside and made us all sit in the family room. “We need to talk about this,” she declared. “Secrets don’t do anybody any good.” She looked to Robert. “You want to start?” He shook his head, arms folded. Apparently his outburst had exhausted him. “Clarissa?”

  My emotive sister had little trouble spewing all the things her friends had said about me, what she’d said back, and who were now her enemies as a result. By the end of her diatribe her eyes flashed, her feet swinging against the couch. I couldn’t tell how much of her anger was directed at me, but even a portion would suffice.

  Grandma sighed, loud and long. “Okay, Jackie. Now you get to tell us what really happened.”

  I told them the sordid tale of Charlotte, how she’d put me and Bradleyville down, what Greg had done in response. Even as I defended myself and Greg to my own family, I felt stripped bare. Never would I have dreamed I’d have to detail my first date like some witness in a court case.

  Had Katherine felt like this, explaining things to me?

  “That girl said that?” Robert pressed when I was done, clearly peeved. “She said Greg shouldn’t be with you just because you’re from Bradleyville?”

  “Well, that’s what she implied.”

  Robert cut his gaze to the carpet, full lips pressed in indignation. For some softball player’s similar sin against him, he had careened into the first fight of his life. I could practically hear the wheels in his head squealing to turn a different direction.
We awaited his pronouncement. “She’s a jerk,” he declared after a moment, giving me a look of absolution. Then abruptly he pushed to his feet and grabbed his crutches. “Can I go now?” he asked Grandma. “I have homework to do.”

  Poor Robert. First Katherine, now me. We’d probably just about done him in.

  Clarissa seemed appeased as well. “I’m gonna tell Alma Sue off,” she announced. “I’m gonna tell her if she doesn’t want to play, that’s just fine with me. I don’t need her candy anyway!”

  She flounced off to play in the backyard with Winnie. I felt a certain amount of vindication at her resolve against Alma Sue. All the same, I wondered how long it would take for it to melt away.

  The moment Grandma Delham left, Grandma Westerdahl phoned. And did I hear an earful, worse than anything I’d heard all day. Even worse than Daddy that morning. In between her rants, I tried to tell her the newspaper story told mostly lies and that the “sordid picture” that she so decried had been nothing more than a brief hug.

  “What is going on in that household?” she demanded. “Oh, I knew this would happen. If only Melissa were there. Bobby just doesn’t know how to handle your growin’ up. Lettin’ you go out with a boy like that! Who sings that loud music and dances. There’s nothin’ Christian about that, and you shouldn’t have a thing to do with it!”

  “Grandma.” I fought to keep the anger from my voice. “Greg is a Christian. There’s nothin’ wrong with the songs he sings.”

  “They’re full of bad words and talk of love and terrible things!” she wailed.

  What, I felt like retorting, Christians can’t fall in love? “They are not full of bad words, Grandma, I don’t listen to music like that. I promise you, Greg’s committed his life to God.”

  “You can’t be a Christian and play that kind of music,” she declared, her feet planted in concrete.

  I hung up the phone and dragged a hand over my eyes, wondering if this day would ever be over. Then, gathering myself, I headed for the computer, hoping desperately for something from Greg.

  An e-mail sat in my inbox. I clicked on it, brimming with apprehension.

  Dear Jackie,

  I an not believe what happens. Iam so SORRY! People warn us that these things will happen and that being in the public is not fun always. But Iam so sorry to cause you trouble ...

  The e-mail was so filled with apology and hurt and worry that it brought tears to my eyes. He knew he wasn’t supposed to contact me, Greg added, but how could he not? He had to know if I was okay.

  I wrote him back, spilling my heart. Your ring’s around my neck, I told him finally. That’s what got me through the day. Please don’t worry about Daddy. He’s mad now, but he’ll come around as he learns more about what really happened. I’ll write you every day. Don’t forget Ilove you. And don’t forget to get those concert tickets. IWILL see you then.

  As soon as I logged off-line, Katherine called. Good grief, I groused to myself, never a dull moment. “Your phone’s been busy, busy, busy,” she said. “I don’t imagine it’s for good reasons.”

  “I was on the computer.”

  “Oh.” I heard the understanding in her tone and realized how transparent my actions would be to Daddy. It was a good thing I’d gotten Derek’s e-mail address, I thought. Even so, things couldn’t go on like this for long. I’d have to bring Daddy around in a hurry.

  “Katherine, you have to help me! Nothing’s like the newspaper said, and Daddy—”

  “I know, Jackie, I know.”

  I stopped short. “How do you know?”

  “Because I’ve talked to your daddy. And before that I talked to Celia.”

  “Why would you talk to Celia?”

  “She called me, desperate to try to straighten things out before she and Greg left town. Greg had told her what really happened. She’d wanted to go straight to your daddy, but Greg had said he’d sounded so mad that she wasn’t sure that was a good idea, and she wanted my advice. I kind of . . . paved the way for her to call him.”

  I caught my breath. “Did they go see him?”

  “Yes. Your daddy agreed to come home for a short while so they could stop by on their way out of town. They didn’t want to meet at the bank, with all the eyes watching.”

  That was easy to believe. “What happened?”

  “Well, from what your daddy said, Greg apologized profusely and told him the whole story. I don’t think your dad’s as mad at you and Greg about the pictures as he was, but he’s still upset about the fact that you parked after you left the restaurant. Greg even admitted you’d done it more than once.”

  Great. Why did Greg have to be so honest?

  Clarissa stopped playing with Winnie in the backyard to watch me, worriedly assessing my expression as I talked on the phone. I forced a plastic smile, then wandered into the family room. As I sank into a chair, I wondered if Katherine knew what I’d said to Daddy. Despite all that Greg had done to set things right, Daddy would nurse his hurt from my hateful words. Particularly since it was the second time I’d personally attacked him in an argument about Greg.

  No wonder Daddy thought Greg was bad for me. We’d never fought like this before.

  “So like what does Daddy think now, Katherine?”

  She blew out air. “He thinks that it’s still for the best that Greg has gone. He just hopes you all can get back to your normal lives now.”

  Normal life? I’d never have a normal life again, not without Greg. “Will he let Greg talk to me?” I closed my eyes, afraid of the answer.

  “I don’t know, Jackie. We’ll have to work on him some more.”

  I focused on the computer, sitting silent and black-screened on the desk across the room. My link to Greg, so easily broken by the mere pulling of a plug.

  “Jackie? I want you to know that I’ll help.”

  As she had before, numerous times. That I had to admit. Still, I pondered Katherine’s apparent complicity. What might she say to Daddy that she wouldn’t say to me? Did she tell him my words, as she now told me his?

  “Thank you.”

  She paused. “Well, I have an idea to start. Actually, though, I can’t take credit for it. It was Celia’s.”

  My, weren’t we all complicit. “What’s that?”

  “Take your next-door neighbor some cookies.”

  Fortunately, I’d had plenty of experience in baking from scratch. Within half an hour, a sheet of chocolate chip cookies lay cooling on the counter, with a second sheet in the oven. As soon as those came out, I could leave them cooling and trek across the yard to Mrs. B’s with the first batch.

  Mrs. B received me with utmost pleasure, as I knew she would, both for the cookies I offered and the juicy details she might extricate oh-so- skillfully from me. After all, to a much-loved Christian woman whose weakness lay in gossip, I was the hottest ticket in town.

  “Fight fire with fire,” Katherine had said. “Celia says you need someone spreading your side of the story, and she’s right. You need to get folks back on your side so they won’t keep talking in your daddy’s ear.”

  The idea had sounded nothing short of brilliant.

  “Oh, chil’, you shouldn’t have,” Mrs. B gushed as she ushered me inside, arthritic hands waving in the air. “Frank,” she called to her husband, “come see who’s here!”

  She led me to the couch, clumping across the floor in her solid-heeled shoes. Mr. B joined us, graciously accepting the cookies with a trembling “Bless you, young ’un.” He set them on the coffee table, offering me a seat. Both he and Mrs. B eased themselves with care into their armchairs.

  “Well, now,” Mrs. B breathed, “how is your family after that awful mess last Friday?”

  I knew she’d take her time getting around to the more recent subject, but she’d get there all right. All I had to do was follow her lead, the innocent teenager talking to her neighbors. Mr. B said little, his aged, watery eyes moving from his wife to me and back as we talked. As much as I liked him, I almost w
ished he’d leave us alone. Something about the play of muscles around his mouth—in amusement, perhaps?—made me wonder if he couldn’t see right through me.

  “Well,” Mrs. B said finally, patting the straggling hairs from her white bun, “I just want you to know, dear chil’, how upset we are with the Albertsville Journal. Filthy rag of a newspaper. You know Jessie called ’em first thing this mornin’, said she was cancellin’ her advertisement for her sewin’ shop. Said they weren’t printin’ news; that was just straight gossip. She gave ’em pause, I can tell you. That ad’s been runnin’ straight for four years now.”

  I blinked in surprise. So intent on spreading information, I’d never thought to glean some myself. Fleetingly, I wondered at the storehouse of Bradleyville knowledge Miss Jessie’s aunt must be.

  “You know advertisin’s the only way that paper keeps goin’,” Mrs. B added as if to ensure I understood the import of her niece’s action. “Since it’s delivered free and all.”

  I nodded, searching for the right words. “I, um . . .” I dropped my gaze to the floor. “I’ll have to thank Miss Jessie for that. I’m glad she realized what that paper said isn’t true.”

  “Well, of course, chil’, we know you better than that.” She shook her head with righteous indignation, then eyed me expectantly. Mr. B tapped a gnarled hand against his leg.

  “If you’ll excuse me for a moment, ladies.” He pulled forward, placed his hands firmly on the chair arms, and wrestled to his feet. Mrs. B waited for his exit, channeling her impatience by reaching for a cookie. Once up, Mr. B gave me a little smile and shuffled off down the hall, presumably to the bathroom.

  “Well, now, that’s probably better anyway,” Mrs. B remarked. “Little hard to talk with men around sometimes.” She tossed me a grandmotherly now-you-can-relax look, then settled back in her chair. “So. You were sayin’ that article wasn’t true.”