Some people might wonder why we don’t sell the farm and buy a place in town, but that would devastate my dad almost as much as losing my mother did. I’m just as glad, because it would devastate me, too. I love this farm and wouldn’t want to ever live anywhere else. I was born here. I know all the paths through the woods and which rocks they lead to, I’ve seen the trees grow, and every night the sunset is different. The only thing that would get me to leave is studying photography with one of the masters, like Ansel Adams or that guy who took photos of still lifes of fruit and made them look like landscapes. Too bad they’re dead. Like I said, I should have been born in a different era.
All through dinner, Phil went on about Crystal, his newest girlfriend—how cool and pretty she was, how she liked him. Phil is the opposite of me. He’s popular. Everyone thinks he’s good-looking, he always has a girlfriend, he’s smart without being too smart, and no one ever makes fun of him for being arty or too quiet. Phil and I used to play all the time when we were little kids, but ever since he started high school, we’ve drifted in different directions. Now he was excited about his last year of school while I was dreading eighth grade. I wished I could be almost out for good. Summer was, by far, my favorite season. No school.
I was quiet through dinner. Not unusual for me. When we were done, Phil got ready to excuse himself.
“Just a sec,” Dad said, scratching his beard. “There’s something we need to discuss.”
“A family discussion?” Phil groaned. “I told Crystal I’d call her.”
“This involves us all. You can call her after,” Dad said.
“What is it?” I asked, taking a sip of water.
“I got a call from an old friend from college,” Dad said. “A close friend of your mother’s.”
Phil stopped fiddling with his fork, and I put my glass down with a kacbink. Dad hardly ever mentioned our mother. I was only two when she died of cancer, so I don’t remember her at all. She used to be a designer; she made clothes and sets for the theater and stuff, but she gave it up to have kids and raise them on a farm. Phil says he remembers Halloween, when she sewed our costumes by hand. One year he went as a dog and I went as a turtle. She made the shell out of wire and soft fabric.
“This woman was your mom’s best friend at NYU. Her name is Gerelyn. She’s an actress. She has a daughter.” He paused and we waited for more. “Gerelyn did okay after college. Moved to Los Angeles and got a few bit roles in movies, and she was in some commercials. She made good money. She got commercial jobs for the baby, too.” I had never heard anything about this friend. My mother, and father, too, knew a real actress? Why hadn’t he ever mentioned this? “She’s living back in New York City now. She’s having a hard time.”
“Dad, I’m glad you had friends and all, but Crystal’s waiting. Can I go?” Phil asked.
“Just a minute, Phil.” Dad took a breath. “Gerelyn needs some help and is going to check herself into a clinic for a couple of months. She battles with pretty severe depression.”
No one said a word. Everyone gets depressed nowadays, but to go to a clinic for it, that’s pretty serious.
“I think she may have attempted suicide,” Dad said, barely above a whisper.
“Oh, geez. That’s bad,” Phil said.
“Yes, it is. And it’s why we should help her out. She was a good friend to your mother.”
“I don’t get how this involves us.” Phil edged back in his seat.
“She lost touch with us after a while. But she turned up for the funeral, toddler in tow.” Dad seemed to be talking more to himself than to us. He rubbed his face with his hands and continued, “Well, the gist of it is, Gerelyn is going to go to a clinic this summer and needs a place for her daughter to stay.”
“Here?” said Phil. “She’s going to stay here?”
“Well, it might be a good thing. She’s close to Phoebe’s age. She could help on the farm, keep you kids company.”
“I’ve got Crystal to keep me company,” Phil said. “Unless she’s cute.”
I shot Phil a look.
“What?” he said. “There’s no harm in looking.”
“Whether she’s cute or not, it’s something I want us to consider. It would be a huge help to Gerelyn, and I’d like to help her.”
“What’s the daughter’s name?” Phil asked.
“Melita,” Dad said.
Phil burst out laughing. “Like the coffee?”
“I suppose so,” Dad said. “I remember she was an unusual baby. Very striking.”
“Where would she stay?” I asked, fearing the answer. My mind was trying to grasp the idea of someone else being around. I didn’t like it. I also didn’t like what I thought Dad was going to say.
“She could sleep in the guest room,” he said.
“That’s my workroom!” I groaned. It was true. Sort of. I kept my photographs in there and some art supplies in case I ever wanted to do something creative. I hoped someday it would be my darkroom. But I hadn’t used it all year. Just clicked my crappy camera and collected rolls of film.
“You can work in your bedroom for a summer, Phoebe. It’ll be good for you to have someone your age around,” Dad said. This meant he had already made up his mind. “You need more friends,” he added. Dad is always telling me I need friends. But I disagree. I have the goats. I have my books. I have my art. But most of all I have my mind, which, as far as I can tell, is more imaginative than any of my fellow classmates’ in all of Plattville. Not that there are very many—twenty-two in my entire year. In the fall we would all start at the fancy new consolidated school in Dunham, where kids would be bused in from all over. It was a bigger school, but not necessarily better.
“Let’s make this work, kids,” Dad said. “The point is that we’ll have another person around for the summer. The poor kid probably needs some stability in her life.” Dad loved taking care of things. That was the whole idea behind living on the farm. He could take care of the animals. But a person was different. “So what do you think?” He lifted his eyebrows in a question that was already answered.
“Why not?” Phil said. “I’ll be hanging with Crystal most of the time anyway.”
“Phoebe?”
No! I wanted to scream. I have big plans this summer. Of course I don’t exactly know what they are yet, but they certainly don’t involve some crazy person’s kid named after coffee being in the way! But I shrugged my shoulders. “I guess,” I said.
There went everything. Down the drain.
2
The more I thought about it, the more I decided I definitely wouldn’t like Melita. And then I saw her. Dad went to pick her up at the bus station. I opted to stay home and read. But when the car pulled up, I stood in the doorway and watched. Stared is more like it. Melita stepped slowly out of the car, not timid at all, more as if she were disgusted. Bear came loping over and jumped on her. She screamed. Dad dragged him off and scolded him, apologizing to Melita.
Melita stooped to gather her luggage, then stood straight. She was tall and curvy. There was something striking about her. Her skin was silky tan, like coffee with extra cream, and I wondered if that’s why her mother named her what she did. Her cropped hair, jet black and crunchy with gel, had a bright purple streak running down the middle and was held back with a sparkly barrette. Her nose stuck out at a peculiar angle, giving her face a distinct nonperfect perfection. Her eyes moved around slowly taking it all in. I didn’t usually like taking pictures of people, but I wanted to capture her on film.
She wore a sheer black T-shirt you could see her bra through, and she had enough there to need one. Her jeans hung so low on her hips her bellybutton was able to catch flies. On her feet was a pair of black crisscross sandals with a fat platform heel that made her look even taller than she was. A few kids in school would have liked to dress like her, but their style didn’t even come close. Not that there is anywhere near Plattville where you could buy stuff like that. The closest mall was hours away, and that w
as no fashion mecca.
I could tell Melita was sizing me up at the same time. Probably seeing my crazy hair unraveling from its corkscrew braids, my tiny pig nose covered in freckles, my nonexistent eyelashes, and my tiny chest. And wouldn’t you know it, I hadn’t had time to change like I’d planned, and I was still wearing my overalls with a big grease stain on the front.
“Phoebe,” Dad said. “Why don’t you show Melita around the place? Make her feel at home.”
I glared at him, then turned to Melita all smiley. Her lips were colored with a dark mauve shade of lip-gloss and pursed together tightly as if she were trying not to breathe. I’d show her what the rugged life was like.
“You want to see the sheep?” I asked.
“Sheep?” Melita said, dropping her suitcase in the entryway. Dad passed us with the rest of her bags, three in all.
“You might want to change your shoes.” I held up a ratty pair of sneakers. “Here. These should do.” I looked at her feet. Her toenails were painted bright gold. I could just make out a dark mark on her ankle like a smudged tattoo. It looked like some sort of bug, a butterfly maybe, about the size of a grape.
She sneered at the sneakers, but I could tell she was trying to be polite. “That’s all right. I’ll wear what I have,” she said.
“You’ll have to step in dirt and poop and everything,” I said.
She reached for the sneakers, then hesitated. She rubbed the tattoo. It looked like it was done in Magic Marker.
“Just wear them.” I smiled, and to my surprise she smiled back and put them on, leaving her pretty sandals on the bench under the coat rack. The funny thing was, the ratty old sneakers looked great on her.
On the way to the sheep, we passed the goat’s pen.
“This is Petunia,” I said, stroking Petunia’s neck through the fence. “She’s going to give birth any day now. She’s so fat she’ll probably have twins. She had twins last year. Two girls. That’s good. You don’t want to have boy kids because they’re harder to sell.”
“How come?”
“Boy goats aren’t good for anything except breeding. Females can always give milk. They’re good luck, too.”
I opened the gate and motioned for Melita to follow me. She did, but looked ready to bolt if necessary.
“You can pat her,” I said.
“She won’t bite? I thought goats eat anything.”
“They only nibble, really. Petunia’s the friendliest goat in the world. Right, Petunia?” I put my arms around Petunia’s neck and hugged her. Petunia nibbled at my hair. “Oww.” I laughed as I pulled it out of her mouth. “See?” I said to Melita.
Melita cautiously reached out her long, thin arm and patted Petunia between her pointed ears. She patted up and down, more like a tap than a pat. I can always tell how comfortable people are with animals by the way they touch them. The way Melita was tap-tapping on Petunia’s head meant that she didn’t trust animals. But after all, Melita was from the city and had probably never even seen a goat before.
“Nice goat. Nice Petunia,” Melita said. Petunia blinked every time Melita’s hand came down on her head. “She’s not as soft as I thought.”
“Try her neck. Like this.” I took Melita’s hand and put it on Petunia’s warm neck and then ran it across her back. I let go, and Melita kept her hand there, perched.
“Soft,” she said.
“Feel her belly,” I said. “Sometimes you can feel the babies kick.” We put our hands on Petunia’s fat belly and kept them still, waiting for a sign of life. I held my breath.
“I can’t feel anything,” Melita said.
“Shh,” I said, as if we might wake them. “Just wait.”
We waited.
“There!” I said. “Did you feel that?”
“No.”
“It was there. It kicked. You didn’t feel it?”
“I didn’t feel anything.”
“That’s too bad. Maybe you’ll be here when she gives birth.”
“See them actually come out?” Melita said.
“Yeah, it’s cool to watch. Gross, too. Last year, she had them at three in the morning. Dad woke me up and made me come out to the barn.”
“I’d like to see a birth.” Her hand was still perched on Petunia’s belly as if she was expecting the kids to come out any second.
“Come on. Let’s go to the sheep,” I said.
I don’t know why I was so chatty with Melita. I guess I wanted to prove that just because I lived on a farm and had never been to California or New York, or even out of the state, I wasn’t stupid. But I wasn’t about to admit that I read fairy tales to the goat.
As we were heading out the back of the barn, I heard the rattle of the familiar red truck pull up the driveway.
“It’s Michael!” I said and immediately turned back.
“Who’s Michael?” Melita asked, following.
“He helps Dad with some of the farm stuff.” Secretly I thought of Michael as my prince, my knight in shining armor, who would someday recognize my unseen beauty and we would live happily ever after. I know he thought of me as a kid, but in five years, when I was eighteen and he was tweny-five, the age difference wouldn’t be such a big deal. Most fairy tale girls were teenagers when they married. Not to mention pioneer times, when girls would marry at thirteen.
“Come on.” I darted through the barn, past Petunia, and through the swinging gate to the driveway where Michael was stepping out of his truck.
“Hey Phoebe-Dweebie!”
I smiled. When Phil or anyone at school called me Phoebe-Dweebie or Phoeb-the-Dweeb, I wanted to pound him to a pulp, but the way Michael said it just made me smile, and I felt the warmth rush to my face. Anything he called me was okay as far as I was concerned.
“Who’s your pretty friend? Not from around here, eh?” he asked.
It hadn’t occurred to me that Michael would think Melita was pretty. But of course she was. Did he want to touch her hair, too?
I also realized that although Michael called me a lot of things, he never called me pretty. No. Cute seemed to be my word. Cute like a rabbit.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us, Phoebe?” Michael asked.
“Uh. This is Melita Forester. She’s here for the summer.”
Michael stuck out his hand and said, “Very charmed to make your acquaintance, Melita. The name’s Michael. At your service.” And he did a little bow. “That’s a lovely name. Melita. Where are you from?”
“All over,” Melita said. “I was born in LA, moved to New York when I was a baby, then New Mexico for a little bit, we were in London for a year, and now back in New York.”
“Wow,” Michael and I exclaimed at the same time. I noticed that Michael was still holding her hand, and Melita didn’t seem to mind.
“But now I guess I live in Maine.” She said “Maine” like it was a word with dirt on it.
“Aw, it’s not so bad here. And you’re in good hands. Phoebe knows this place inside out. Though I bet this farm and small town must seem awfully puny to you, huh?” He finally let go of her hand and winked at me. In spite of myself, I grinned.
“It’s okay. I patted the goat.” Was there a slight hint of soft pink on Melita’s cheeks?
“Never a dull moment around here, right, Phoebe? You gonna be in the same class as Phoebe when school starts?”
“Oh, I’ll be back in New York by then,” Melita said. “This is only temporary. Besides, I’m older than Phoebe.”
“You look older. What’re you? Sixteen?” Michael raised his eyebrows and ran his hand through his curls.
“Fourteen. I’m starting high school in the fall.”
“Where are your parents?”
Melita haphazardly kicked the dirt with her foot. “My father’s out of the picture. He lives in Sicily. And Mom”—she paused—“she’s on vacation.”
“What is this? Twenty questions?” I butted in. I wanted to save Melita from questions about her mother, or her father for that ma
tter. Maybe introducing Melita to Michael wasn’t such a great idea after all. “We’re on our way to see the sheep.”
“Hey, that’s always fun,” Michael said. “A good look at Lambchops and Patty before they end up in the freezer. I’ll be in the barn brushing Star, if you girls want to hang out later.”
I mumbled something like uh-uh, then headed to the sheep pasture as Michael began unloading some stuff from his truck.
“Isn’t Michael great?” I said, feeling Melita out.
“He’s all right. He asks a lot of questions.” She shrugged.
Melita kept walking, and I tried to read her face to see if she was pretending not to care. Her expression looked exactly the same. Blank.
The sheep were at the far side of their pasture. We keep them out there during the day and in a stall next to Petunia at night. The sheep are never considered pets because we buy two every year and keep them only a few months before they are slaughtered. I try not to get too attached, like I do with the goats. When it comes time for Dad to take the shotgun into the pasture, I hide in the old hayloft at the top of the barn with a pillow over my head, but still the sound of gunfire echoes all over the farm. It doesn’t bother me so much once they’re dead, but the killing is not something I ever want to watch.
I unlatched the wire fence and we walked in.
“What are their names?” Melita asked.
“Lambchops and Patty.”
Melita laughed. “You mean Michael wasn’t joking? Those are really their names?”
Nothing But Blue Page 18
