Part of Me

by Kimberly Willis Holt

  On the ride over, Ryan stared out the window, staying quiet in the backseat. Annabeth wondered if Gamma Rose’s comment had embarrassed him or if he was planning another scheme to torture her. She’d tried to be a little more patient with Ryan since things had been so bad at home. Her dad had lost his job again, and this time they had to sell their home. Her parents sent them to Gamma Rose’s while they moved to a rent house in Marrero, another suburb on the New Orleans Westbank. Her mom had been upset about losing their home, but for Annabeth the move meant a new school and maybe a new life.

  Gamma Rose drove fast. When they came to the hilly parts, it felt as if the wheels were flying above the road. “I wonder if Merle Henry will call tonight?”

  Annabeth thought it sounded strange to hear her dad referred to as Merle Henry. He’d dropped the Henry part a long time ago, just like her mother now went by Lily instead of Lily Bea.

  They pulled into the Hilltop Baptist Church parking lot where the bookmobile parked. The Buick’s tires crunched the gravel as they found a place to stop. Ryan jumped out and ran ahead.

  “I’ll take your books for you, Gamma Rose,” Annabeth offered.

  Gamma Rose shook her head. “I can carry them. That’s why I brought this tote. Haven’t lost all my strength.” Then she added, “Yet.”

  “Hello, Rose,” Miss Erma said.

  “Morning, Erma. Doesn’t look as if the weatherman is going to get his rain.”

  “Nope,” said Miss Erma. “I’ve learned to just check my cat instead of listening to the weather reports.”

  “How do you check your cat?” Ryan asked.

  “If she’s licking her face, it’s a sure sign we’re going to get some rain.” Miss Erma held up a book. “I’ve got a new animal story for you, Ryan. I remember someone else who liked to read animal books. I sure miss him.”

  “I do, too,” said Gamma Rose. Luther had died the year before in a car accident, driving back from Alexandria.

  Miss Erma handed the book to Ryan. “Your daddy, Merle Henry, used to like animal stories, too.”

  “I know,” Ryan said. “He gave me Old Yeller for my birthday.”

  “That’s a good one,” Miss Erma said.

  Annabeth felt sorry for Miss Erma. She wondered when Miss Erma had turned into a plump bookmobile librarian.

  Annabeth sucked in her stomach. That wouldn’t happen to her. By the time her parents returned, she would have changed herself into a new person. She’d go by her middle name, if she had one. She could be just Beth. She didn’t feel like a Beth, though. Beth made her think of the meek character in Little Women. At least she didn’t want to feel like a Beth.

  She thumbed through the two fairy-tale books in the bookmobile. She knew she was getting too old to read about Cinderella and Snow White, but she still yearned for magical moments. And as if she’d read her mind, her grandmother said, “I’ve always loved a good fairy tale myself.”

  Annabeth smiled.

  “The only thing is,” said Gamma Rose, “firstborn girls sure get treated shabby in those stories.”

  That was true, Annabeth thought. It always seemed like the older sisters were ugly and cruel.

  “Well, maybe with a few exceptions,” added Gamma Rose. “Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty were firstborns, weren’t they?”

  “Yes,” Annabeth said. “Well, I think they were only children.” Annabeth glanced over to Ryan, who was pulling yet another book off the shelf, making a mess on the floor. He acted as if he were two years old instead of nine. Being an only child was a heavenly thought right now.

  Annabeth chose a thick volume of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales. In fourth grade she’d read a biography on Andersen and learned how he was an ugly duckling. She’d felt that way herself last year.

  Back at Gamma Rose’s house, her grandmother asked Annabeth to turn on the oven timer for thirty minutes, then she said, “No, make that twenty-five.”

  I wish life was like that, thought Annabeth. If she could turn back time and make things different, she’d have never chosen to wear white jeans that day. They had been brand-new. Before she left for school, she’d checked herself in the mirror and decided she looked cool. If only she’d known what would happen in a few hours.

  Annabeth changed into her bathing suit and spread a mixture of iodine and baby oil over her body. With the fairy-tale book in hand, she stretched out on her stomach atop a towel in the front yard. Once comfortable, she glanced at her watch. Four o’clock. She’d have to remember to flip over at 4:30.

  A few pages into “Thumbelina,” she heard a galloping sound on the road that ran in front of her grandmother’s house. Soon a young man on a white horse appeared. She liked the way the boy rode, confident and free. A few minutes later, he passed again. Even though the house was a good distance from the road, she thought she noticed him turn his head and look her way.

  “Who is that boy?” she asked Gamma Rose, now sitting on the porch swing, sipping a glass of iced tea.

  “That’s Tommy Hopkins’s boy. He and his wife adopted him when he was just a baby. He’s a show-off, but he can sure ride a horse.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Goodness, child. I don’t know. Seems just the other day he was a little thing going to vacation Bible school.” After a quick pause, she added, “I expect he’s about high school age. Funny, I can’t remember that boy’s first name.” She snapped her tongue and shook her head.

  The next day, Annabeth was tanning in the front yard, reading, when the boy passed by again at four sharp. This time, his horse walked with a high-stepping gait. Gamma Rose was right. He was a show-off. But the following day, Annabeth found herself making her way to the front yard around four in the afternoon.

  When Gamma Rose saw her dressed in her bathing suit, she said, “You sure you’re not getting too much sun? You’re looking kind of red to me.”

  “I’m fine,” Annabeth said. “I have to burn a little before it turns into a tan.”

  Gamma Rose shook her head. “In my day, we didn’t want to have a tan.”

  Annabeth ignored her remark and went outside. When the boy passed this time, she made her way to the mailbox on the other side of the road, timing it perfectly so that when the boy reached the mailbox, she’d be there. Now she felt stupid standing, mail in hand, waiting. She also felt naked when she realized she was wearing her bathing suit, even though it was a one-piece. For a second, she thought of dashing back to the house to slip on a pair of shorts, but quickly changed her mind because she’d risk missing him ride back by. After thumbing through the mail a few minutes, she started moving at a snail’s pace across the road.

  But when she heard a clop-clop sound, she froze and turned.

  The boy slowed his pace, then stopped. “Hey!” he called out, pushing his hat back on his head and exposing his blond hair.

  “Hi,” Annabeth said. “Pretty horse.”

  “You can pet her.”

  Annabeth reached out to stroke its nose, but when the horse raised its head, she quickly pulled her hand away.

  The boy laughed and she noticed his white teeth. The front two overlapped, but he had a great smile just the same. “She won’t hurt you. That’s just her way of saying hello.”

  “Oh.” But Annabeth didn’t try to pet her again.

  “Aren’t you Mrs. Harp’s granddaughter from New Orleans?”

  Annabeth felt nauseous when he mentioned New Orleans, as if this Forest Hill boy would know everything that happened to her there. “Rose Harp is my grandmother, but I’m not from New Orleans.”

  “Could have sworn someone told me that.”

  “I’ve lived on the New Orleans Westbank for a year, but that doesn’t make me from there.” They’d also lived in Montana two years before and Kansas eighteen months before that.

  Grinning, he said, “Okay. Fine by me. You can be from wherever you want.” He leaned forward and stretched out his arm toward her. “I’m Colton.”

  “Nice to meet you,
” Annabeth managed to say, briefly touching his hand. She noticed Colton’s blue eyes.

  “You got a name?” he asked.

  Annabeth blushed. “Yes, sorry. I’m Annabeth. Annabeth Harp.”

  Colton laughed. “I figured that part out. The Harp part, I mean. My daddy and yours were good friends growing up. He knew your momma, too.”

  “Oh,” she said. Her parents had married very young because her mother was pregnant with her. She wondered if Colton knew that, too.

  Colton straightened in the saddle. “Well, Annabeth Harp. Lady Luck and me better head back home.”

  “’Bye.”

  He started on his way, then glanced back. “You gonna be here long?”

  “A few weeks.”

  “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Later that night she curled up in her grandfather’s recliner and read “The Snow Queen,” but her mind kept wandering back to Colton and his horse. She’d never ridden on a horse, though she’d sat on one once. Her parents had the picture to prove it. One of those traveling photographers with a pony took a picture of three-year-old Annabeth, wearing her Dale Evans outfit—complete with Western boots, cowboy hat, and fringed vest.

  “You didn’t like it much,” her mother told her. Now the idea of sharing a saddle with Colton held great appeal to her. She closed her eyes, concentrating on that vision. Lady Luck galloped in slow motion. Annabeth looked great—her long hair flowing in the breeze, her body a golden bronze, and her arms surrounding Colton’s waist.

  So the next afternoon she settled on a towel in the front yard, listening for the sound of Lady Luck’s hooves hitting the road. When she did, she raised on her elbows for a better view. This time, Colton stood on the saddle as he passed Gamma Rose’s house.

  “Show-off,” Annabeth said under her breath, blushing as if Colton had heard her.

  The screen door swung open and Ryan raced into the yard. “Wow! Did you see that? That was so cool.” He took off toward the road.

  Annabeth sat there, paralyzed. She felt like she’d been smacked. She’d planned to walk out to the mailbox that afternoon like she did the day before, then changed her mind because it would have been too obvious. If there was anything she’d learned from observing the popular girls, it was that to attract a boy you had to play it cool. But now Ryan was waiting at the road for Colton to make his trip back around.

  When Colton did, he stopped and Annabeth could see Ryan talking to him. Then Ryan raced back to the house, letting the screen door slam behind him.

  “Gamma Rose!” he yelled.

  “You don’t have to holler. I’m not deaf yet.”

  “Can I ride the horse?”

  “What horse?”

  Ryan pointed to Colton and Lady Luck. “That guy’s horse.”

  Annabeth was annoyed. Ryan hadn’t even bothered to ask Colton his name.

  Gamma Rose walked onto the front porch and peered across the yard to the road.

  “Oh, that Hopkins boy. Did he say it was okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Only if you ride with him and only for a little while. We’ll be eating shortly.”

  But Ryan was already off the porch and halfway to the road where Colton waited.

  A moment later, Annabeth saw Colton dismount Lady Luck and help her little brother onto the saddle. Then he got back on, positioning himself behind Ryan, and they rode off.

  Gamma Rose came out of the house and onto the porch. “Colton. That’s that boy’s name. Just thought of it. I used to be good with names. That’s how old age gets you, one piece at a time. Pretty soon there’ll be nothing left of me. And to think I’m only forty-eight.”

  Annabeth stared at the road.

  “Are you looking forward to school?” Gamma Rose asked.

  “I guess.”

  “I always fancied you as the writer type.”

  Annabeth hardly heard her grandmother’s comment. She wondered where Colton and Ryan were now.

  “Do you think you’d ever want to be a writer? You write such nice letters.”

  “Hmm?” Annabeth turned toward Gamma Rose. “I don’t know. I doubt it.” All she could concentrate on this summer was planning how she would survive eighth grade.

  Gamma Rose started back into the house, but stopped at the doorway and turned. “You ought to think about it. Being a writer would be a fine life.”

  Though it seemed like an hour, Colton and Ryan were gone about ten minutes. Annabeth knew it was ten minutes because she’d checked her watch every twenty seconds. It took a lot of restraint for Annabeth not to punch her brother silly. She hated Ryan. She should have been on Lady Luck with Colton. Ryan was always weaseling his way into where he didn’t belong.

  Colton rode Lady Luck into the yard until he was just a few feet from Annabeth. She looked down, wishing she’d polished her toes with the bottle of Pink Parfait on Gamma Rose’s nightstand. He helped her little brother off the horse, grinned at her, and asked, “You want to be next?”

  Her heart pounded so loud, Annabeth feared Colton might be able to hear it. “No, thanks,” she said, immediately wondering who on earth answered for her. She was always doing that, saying no to things when she meant yes. Or agreeing to things when she meant to say no.

  Colton tipped his hat. “See you around.” Then he called out to her brother, “’Bye, Cowboy.”

  Annabeth watched Colton ride away, her heart sinking.

  “That was dumb,” Ryan told her.

  Annabeth agreed. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

  “I would have gone again,” Ryan said.

  “Annabeth,” Gamma Rose said, “come help set the table.”

  During dinner, Annabeth could think of nothing else but her stupid answer. After the meal, not even her grandmother’s lemon icebox cake could make her forget the ride she’d almost had. Her face and chest felt hot.

  Gamma Rose noticed, too. “You look like a crawfish. No more sun for you.”

  Ryan didn’t help matters. All he talked about was the horse ride, spitting his words between bites of cake. He acted like they’d gone on a cattle drive to Texas instead of down the road to Butter’s Cemetery and back.

  He swallowed a quick gulp of milk. “And Colton made Lady Luck walk backwards. And he showed me how.”

  “Shut up and eat,” Annabeth said.

  Gamma Rose shot her a stern look. “He’s just excited. Surely you can understand that?”

  Annabeth wished she could understand. After dinner, she helped her grandmother do the dishes in the small kitchen. She hoped her dad would get a job soon so they could finally afford to buy a dishwasher. Her hands were starting to look chapped like those people on the television commercials before they started using Palmolive.

  With the last plate put away, Annabeth filled the bathtub and poured in some bubble bath. But after testing the water with her foot, she drained some and added cold until the water became lukewarm.

  She read another fairy tale while she soaked, something she knew she shouldn’t do. What if she dropped the library book in the water? Tonight she didn’t care. She wanted to get her mind off the afternoon, but the words on the page wouldn’t sink into her head. Normally after the water cooled, she turned the left knob with her big toe, adding more hot, but tonight her skin felt sensitive and her shoulders throbbed from the sunburn.

  A few minutes passed when she heard a knock at the bathroom door.

  “There’s a bottle of aloe vera gel in the cabinet under the sink,” Gamma Rose said. “You might want to put some on before you dress.”

  Finally she dried off, slathered the aloe vera gel over her skin, then changed into her nightgown, and made plans for the next day. She decided she’d meet Colton at the mailbox the first time he passed by, not wait for his return trip. She didn’t care if she looked obvious. And when he stopped, she’d say, “I’ll take that ride now.” Nothing could give her a fresh perspective like a fairy tale and a bubble bath.

  The next day A
nnabeth watched the time and when four o’clock came around she headed outside toward the mailbox. She’d worried that Ryan would be there, too, but her grandmother’s neighbor Faith Winslow had dropped off her grandson, Sammy. He and Ryan were sprawled out on the living room floor playing Battleship.

  Afraid that she’d miss Colton, Annabeth rushed to the mailbox. But when she looked down the road, no one was there. She started back toward the house, taking the tiniest steps, until she reached the halfway point. She heard a car and turned in time to see blue-haired Mrs. Lucy Cartwright drive by in her little pickup truck. She waved to Annabeth and Annabeth waved back. Finally, she went to the mailbox, opened it, and took out the mail. She walked slowly back to the house, resisting the urge to glance over her shoulder.

  The next morning, she awoke to a pitter-patter sound hitting the tin roof. She looked out the window. Sheets of rain fell from the sky, but by noon it stopped and the clouds parted, making way for the sun. Hope filled up in Annabeth until four o’clock came and went with no sign of Colton.

  Later, when Gamma Rose asked “How about a movie in Alex?” Annabeth agreed without hesitation. She needed the distraction.

  * * *

  They decided to go to the early evening movie at the MacArthur Village Cinema. Pippi Longstocking was playing. The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, starring Paul Newman, was playing on the other side.

  “We’ll have to see pretty blue eyes when it’s just us girls,” Gamma Rose said with a wink.

  Annabeth didn’t tell her that she was glad they were going to see Pippi Longstocking. She’d read the book when she was younger.

  Ryan rode in the back with Sammy while Annabeth sat in the front seat, examining her face in the visor mirror. The sunburn had faded to dark pink, but her nose and chin had started to peel. She was thankful movie theaters were dark.

  While they stood in line for the tickets, Annabeth heard a familiar voice. “Hey, Cowboy.”

  At the back of the line stood Colton. Annabeth took a deep breath when his eyes met hers. Now was the time to say it, she thought. Say the words she’d practiced in her head as she walked to the mailbox. I’ll take that ride now.