by Linda Benson
Now, not only am I working weekends delivering hay, but on Sunday, the only free day out of my entire week, I have to go sit and make small talk with some stodgy old guy I don’t even know. I mumble under my breath as I wander back upstairs to put on my work clothes. Swede always reminds me to wear a long-sleeved shirt, because when you load hay it gets all over you. I glance out the window at the gray skies. I’m definitely wearing a long-sleeved shirt. It’s pouring outside.
My mother is coming out of the bedroom, tying her pink bathrobe. “Did your dad tell you the great news?” she asks. “About your appointment with the senator?”
“Yeah. What’s so special about it, though?”
“It’s hard for someone like that to make time out of his schedule,” she said. “You should be grateful that Dad was able to pull a few strings and get you the interview.” She reaches to push the hair off my forehead with her fingers, but I duck away. “It helps to have someone like your father on your side, you know. Making things happen.”
“I guess.” I hustle down the stairs and wait for Swede outside, under the front porch overhang. Just before eight a.m. I hear the diesel engine of his big Dodge truck as it crests the last hill on Upper Ridge. He is never late.
Dodging the pelting rain, I slide into the front seat of Swede’s truck, which smells like hay and coffee. There are two pairs of hay hooks and gloves lying on the console between us.
“I brought an extra pair for you,” he says. “Did you eat good?”
I nod. I ate a bowl of cereal, but not a huge breakfast. We drive back up Upper Ridge and past Olive’s house. No one is stirring. I notice the Free Puppies sign at the end of the driveway. The “ies” has been changed into a “y” so now it reads: Free Puppy. I wonder which one is left? I really liked that little female called Goldy. I’ve barely seen Olive lately, my schedule has been so crazy with basketball and working and everything.
Behind Swede’s mobile home is a huge barn loaded with hundreds, maybe thousands, of bales of hay. I climb to the top of the stack and throw some bales down, and Swede loads and stacks them in the truck.
“Remember how I told you?” Swede can stack the bales faster than I can toss them. “Always put them crossways to each other,” he says. “Makes a nice tight stack that way, so they don’t fall off the truck.”
I nod, wondering who’s going to be getting the hay this time. Swede sells hay all winter, and I guess it amounts to a lot of his income. I wonder how much all that hay was worth in the barn that burned. We travel to the other side of town, out to a small ranch home with a nice new barn behind it. Swede honks as he goes past the house and pulls right into the hay barn.
After he backs the truck up inside, I climb up onto the load in the back of the pickup and throw the bales back down to Swede. He must be at least fifty years old, but he slings those bales around like he’s twenty. Pretty strong guy. When we get halfway done, he stops for a breather.
“Your turn,” he says.
By this time the stack in the barn is about four bales high, and it’s not so easy throwing the rest of the bales up on top. I grab each one with a pair of hay hooks. I can feel the strain in my back and in my arms, but I don’t want to look weak to Swede, so I don’t say anything. I just throw and push bales the best I can, and finally they’re all in a stack. The ones on top don’t look as neat as the ones Swede stacked, but he doesn’t mention it.
“Water?” he asks, reaching for a bottle from the cab.
“Sure.” Even though the gray drizzle outside is constant, I have worked up a good sweat inside the barn.
Swede takes a long drink from his water bottle. “I just wanted to tell you, son, that you’re turning into a pretty darn good worker.”
I duck my head.
“I’m sorry we got off to a bad start, what with the barn burning down the way it did. But I’m proud of you for showing up like you have been to work.”
Not only am I sweaty outside, but I feel warm inside, too. Swede is a pretty good guy after all.
“By the way,” he says, reaching into his pocket. “I was going to wait until you were all done with your contract to give you this. But I guess I’ll just give it to you now.” He hands me the ring that I lost that day on the raft trip. Grant’s championship football ring.
“Where—?”
“In the mud leading down to the river, where you boys dragged your raft back to the water that afternoon.”
“You mean—you knew?”
“Well, it wasn’t too hard to figure out who did it. The ring’s got a name—Tellington—stamped on it, and I knew there was only one Tellington boy that could have been on the river that day.”
I’m at a total loss for words. Swede could have turned me in at the very beginning, but he didn’t. And now that Grant’s coming home, at least I have his ring back. I fit the ring onto the fourth finger of my right hand and a huge weight floats off my shoulders.
“Tomorrow morning, and then one more weekend, right?” I ask. “And then I’ll be done.”
“Yup. You’re almost there. And next year, if you’d like a job bucking hay for money, you’ve got it. You’ve proved that you can work hard when you need to.”
I twist Grant’s ring around on my finger and smile. “Thanks,” I say.
37-Olive
Aunt Trudy’s been going on about my birthday party for days. She came back from town with carrot cake mix and paper plates, and when she thought I wasn’t looking she hid a package of birthday candles way in the back of the junk drawer.
I don’t know what the big deal is. Unless something really special is happening. A surprise. And I think I might know what it is. I’ve been counting the days. Not just the days until my fourteenth birthday, but until six months is up, and my mother will probably be out of jail. I think my mother’s going to show up on my birthday to surprise me. That’s why Aunt Trudy is being so secretive, and making so much out of this upcoming celebration.
I go back and forth about whether I should invite David to the party. Friday morning, I still haven’t decided. What if he actually came? I can’t imagine him meeting my mother.
“Hey, Goldy,” I chirp. “Miss your brothers and your sisters, don’t you?”
I lean down to feed her before school. “If I could just convince David to take you, then you’d have a real home. His mom is there all day long, and she could keep you company while he’s at school.”
Goldy yaps and whines for attention, but then digs into her food. “Hopefully I’ll see him on the bus today and I’ll ask him, okay?” She’s getting so gangly, almost past the cute puppy stage. Will anyone still want her?
I brush my hair really nice and fix it in two braids. David hasn’t ridden the bus much lately, but he was there last Friday, so maybe he’ll be there today. I think about putting mascara on, but unlike my mother, I’m not good with makeup. David might like it, though.
I rustle around in the back of Aunt Trudy’s bathroom drawer. I find old tubes of lipstick and a yucky eyelash curler, but no mascara. I glance at the clock and it’s almost time for the bus. As I dash to grab my books, I can already hear the engine chugging up the hill on Upper Ridge.
I rush out the front door into the rain and pull the hood of my sweatshirt up over my head, which totally squashes my braids. I sprint down the driveway and race for the bus as it pulls into the turnaround at Tucker Road. I’m not watching where I put my feet, and I step in a puddle of brown rainwater at the edge of the road. My old tennis shoes soak through instantly, and I can feel the cold liquid seep into my socks. Great. I should have let Aunt Trudy buy me a pair of winter shoes when she was still in the mood.
I trudge to the back of the bus, wet shoes making a squishing sound in the bus aisle, and of course, David is not there. I press my nose against the glass and watch out the window into the gloom as the bus winds its way up the highway toward town. My feet are cold and I shiver. We pass the farm store, the library, and the Chevron station. The Greyhound bus is there
, unloading passengers that just arrived from the south. I wipe the steam off the window and search the faces of the passengers. My mother might be getting off that bus. She could be. It’s possible.
When we finally reach the middle school, I hunch my book bag onto my shoulders and plod off the bus, feeling a chill all the way up my legs from my wet shoes. I pull open the big doors and see David standing by himself in the hallway, looking over some notes in his hand. I’ve never seen him in this corridor before school. Maybe it’s some sort of sign. But for some reason I feel suddenly shy.
I mean, even though he still goes to middle school, just like me, he’s actually a freshman in high school. I’ve never really talked to him at school. And just ’cause he came up to see the puppies that one day, and sort of held my hand when we sat on the bench, it’s not like he’s really my boyfriend. I sort of made that part up in my head. Besides, I’ll probably be going back to California with my mother soon. When she gets here—for my birthday.
But then I think about Goldy and how she needs to find a home before she gets too big and she’s not cute anymore. That makes me feel brave so I wander over. “Hey,” I say.
“Hey, Olive,” he grins. “I’ve barely seen you at all.”
“I know. You haven’t been riding the bus.”
“Basketball,” he says. “Season just started, and we leave during last period for practice over at the high school. My mom picks me up when we’re done.”
“Oh.”
And, like he can actually read my mind, he says, “She’s been bringing me to school in the mornings, too, which is why I haven’t been on the bus. So, how ya been?”
I think about my wet feet inside my soppy tennis shoes. I think about sitting in my room day after day with no friends except for cats and dogs. I think about waiting, always waiting, for someone to come, something to happen. I shrug my shoulders.
“Fine,” I say.
“Do you still have the puppies? Because I went by your house with Swede last weekend, when we were delivering hay, and the sign said—”
“Puppy.” I smile. “Yeah, some really nice people saw the sign and fell in love with Mr. Spots. But we still have Goldy. She—”
“She’s like the cutest one,” he finishes. “I can’t believe no one’s taken her yet. Plus, she looks just like the yellow dog.”
“I know. She totally reminds me of him—Calypso. Aunt Trudy says no one’s seen that dog at all, and it’s been a couple of weeks.”
“I hope he’s okay,” says David. “I mean, I hope he didn’t get run over by a car. Maybe he found a new place to live. Do you think that’s possible?”
I love the way David and I start talking again, just like we’re best friends. And even though we’ve sat next to each other a lot, I’ve hardly ever stood next to him. He’s so tall, he reminds me of my brother. I think he’s asking me a question, but my mind goes suddenly blank. So I just babble on, “If you’re playing basketball, are you still doing construction work?”
He looks down the hallway, as if trying to see the clock on the wall at the end. Students are moving into their classrooms, and I’m sure the bell for first period will ring soon.
“We got the barn all finished,” says David, “which was a good thing, right before all this stinking rain started. But I’m still working for Swede. Delivering hay on the weekends.”
Maybe I should invite him to my birthday party after all. I mean, he knows Swede already.
“Uh, David?” I say, trying to gather my words and the courage to ask him.
“Yeah?” says David. “Hey, I gotta run. I have an Algebra II test this morning, and I want to go over my notes some more before class starts. See ya, kid.” He brushes past me, hustling hard down the school corridor.
Kid? He probably just thinks of me like a kid sister. What was I even thinking? As David scoots down the hall and turns a corner toward the ninth grade wing, I feel pink rising to my cheeks. I almost totally embarrassed myself by inviting him to my party. I mean, he’s on the basketball team and probably doesn’t have time for birthday parties any more.
Besides, my mother will likely be there, and I don’t want David to meet her. She’ll just be getting out of jail. Maybe she’ll still be wearing her jail uniform. Do they even give you clothes to wear when you get out of jail? I remember that she packed all of her clothes away in boxes before she left, to store at her friend Lily’s house.
My mother will probably find some way to fix herself up, though, like she always does. She’ll probably get her hair colored and wear it in a new style. And she’ll have on a whole new set of pretty clothes.
That stupid David. It ticks me off that he only thinks of me as a kid. But it doesn’t matter. When my mother comes, we’ll leave here anyway, and I probably won’t ever see him again. We’ll go back to California or maybe some other cool place, and I’ll have to think real hard about whether I’ll even send David a postcard.
38-David
I’m glad I got to talk to Olive. I had a hard time concentrating on my Algebra II test, because I kept thinking about how cool she looked with her hair in braids. I’ve never seen her wear it that way before. With her cute figure and her freckles, I pretty much thought about her all day long.
I sort of wish I was still riding the bus home again so we could sit and talk, but I have basketball practice. Maybe I should start riding in the morning again, but I hate sitting with the little kids. But I could maybe see Olive tomorrow after I finish my hay deliveries. I can’t do it on Sunday because I have that stupid interview with the senator. Yuck.
It seems like I’ve had no time at all to myself to do anything I really want to do. To just be free. I keep thinking about Calypso, the yellow dog. Olive says he’s still out there running loose somewhere. Maybe he found a good home with someone to throw a ball for him all day long and go for long walks with him. I hope so. I feel the same way that dog must have felt, like I’m trapped on a chain with a tight collar. But the yellow dog didn’t let that stop him. He just busted free, not once, but twice. I wonder what freedom feels like.
When basketball practice at the high school is done, I wander across the parking lot looking for my mom’s SUV. It’s drizzling, and I shake the rain off my face as I search for her car. Lately, she’s been right on time to pick me up.
“Hey, David. How’s it going, man?” Sherman drives up alongside me in his shiny new Toyota. He rolls down the window about two inches.
“Are you driving that thing by yourself now?”
“Yep,” he says. As if to demonstrate, Sherman moves the car forward a few feet, making a slow turn in each direction while I stand and watch. “My sixteenth birthday was Tuesday, and my dad took me down that same day to get my license. Pretty cool, huh?”
“Definitely. I wish you could give me a ride home, but my mom should be here any minute.”
“I can’t drive any friends around for the first six months, remember?” he says.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Besides,” he says, “I’m not that used to driving in the rain.” He fumbles with the levers on his steering column, and finally the windshield wipers come on.
“So how’s your hay deliveries going?”
“Pretty good,” says Sherman. “It’s harder than I thought it would be. But dude, did you hear about James?”
“No. I haven’t seen him for a while,” I say. “I can’t remember what days he’s scheduled for.”
“He’s gone. His parents left town. Moved to Idaho, or somewhere, is what I heard.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding. What about finishing his contract with Swede? Won’t he get in trouble?”
“I don’t know,” says Sherm. “Maybe not, if he leaves the state.”
“Great,” I grumble. “We work and he skates. Like that’s fair.”
“I know,” says Sherman. “His parents always let him get away with stuff, and he just keeps getting in trouble.”
I see my mom’s SUV pulling into the parki
ng lot, and wave to Sherman. “Don’t get in a wreck with that thing,” I say.
“Not a chance,” he says as he revs the engine.
I open the door to climb in my mother’s car, and I notice she looks different. Her hair, which has been platinum blond for as long as I can remember, is now kind of reddish, like a pale fox.
“What’d you do?”
“Sorry, I’m late, hon,” she says, fluffing her hair with her fingers. “I’ve been at the beauty salon. This is called Strawberry Cream. What do you think?”
I shrug. “It looks fine. I guess.”
“I just wanted to look special,” she says. “You know, for Grant, when he comes home.”
I roll my eyes but she doesn’t see me. I’ve been here all this time, but I don’t remember her fixing herself up special for me.
At least Mom’s not lying on the couch all the time like she used to. Something about her has changed. Besides taking me to school and picking me up after practice, she’s been doing tons of projects around the house. She started redecorating the upstairs bathroom, which I share with my two brothers whenever they’re home. She bought new furniture for the family room, and even ordered new drapes for the living room.
“Oh, I don’t want to forget,” she says, as we pull into River Crest Drive. “Mr. Hanson called. He wants to know if you can help with hay deliveries in the afternoon tomorrow, too, besides your regular morning shift. One of the other boys, James, isn’t going to be available.”
Fine, I think. The story of my life. James doesn’t like the contract with Swede, so his parents just move away. My dad agreed to the contract, so I have to stay here and finish it—right to the bitter end. Now I have to work the whole stupid day tomorrow. Guess I won’t be going up to see Olive.
