The Little Woods

by McCormick Templeman

  I nodded again, not giving a shit, and prayed—literally prayed to God—that there would be Froot Loops in the dining hall.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  IT WAS RAINING THE NEXT night when just after study hours, I got a call from Danny. I cried when he told me he was back home. He sounded good, if characteristically taciturn, and promised me he’d try to stay out of trouble. I was possibly too vociferous when I told him I loved him, but he seemed happy about it. When he asked how I was doing, I couldn’t think of anything to say. I didn’t want him to worry about me, so I told him about Freddy and her lollipops, and he thought that was funny.

  I hung up the receiver and walked back to my room, unable to keep from smiling. When I walked in, I found Pigeon going through my clothes while Helen reclined on her bed.

  “Pigeon’s raiding your closet,” Helen said. “I couldn’t stop her.”

  “I want to trade dresses for prom. You’re small like me and you have a black one that I like. I want to see what else you have. You can borrow mine too.”

  I was appalled and started moving to stop her, but Helen put a hand on my arm.

  “She has a vintage Givenchy in her closet,” she said, winking. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

  What’s a Givenchy? I started to say, but just then there was a knock on the glass door and Alex ducked inside. He was beaming.

  “They released Reilly,” he said, wiping stray droplets of rain from his smiling face. “Someone came forward with an alibi.”

  “What?” Helen gasped.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Pigeon cried, waving her hands in Alex’s direction. “No boys allowed in here. I’m not decent.”

  She was swimming in the oversized red sweaterdress I’d taken from Kim’s closet. I was pretty sure it was from 1982.

  “Oh my God. What the hell am I wearing, Cally? Did you actually buy this?” She winced at herself in the mirror.

  “That’s great,” I said to Alex. “Is he here? Have you been to see him?”

  “Not yet. I was thinking you might want to come with me.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, sure.” Reilly wasn’t my favorite person, but I was happy for Alex, and happy an innocent man wasn’t going to go to jail.

  Pigeon was on her knees, rummaging through the clothes at the back of my closet. A moment later, she emerged with my army jacket.

  “Ooh, can I borrow this too?”

  “Sure,” I said. I was just starting to walk out with Alex when Pigeon let out a shriek.

  “Oh my God, you guys!” Her eyes were wide. She held something in her hand. “No physical intimacy. It’s a school rule.” And then she let out a peal of earsplitting laughter.

  And that was when I realized she was holding an open condom wrapper. It was one of those moments when time stopped and you knew nothing would ever be the same again. I couldn’t believe what was happening, and that it was my own fault. I’d been so confused that day with Jack. My mind had been far away from my body. I’d shoved the wrapper into my pocket, intending to dispose of it, only apparently I never had.

  The room was silent. Alex stared at the wrapper, anger burning in his eyes. Helen looked at her feet, but Pigeon just stood there like a child trying to understand a grown-up joke.

  “Why are you being so weird? Everyone knows you guys do it. I mean, come on.” She laughed.

  I stared at Alex, and he stared straight ahead.

  “Alex,” I said, reaching for him, but he pulled away.

  Slowly he turned to face me, rage simmering in his eyes. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t break up with you.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, panicked. “Because you did the same thing to me?”

  He shook his head. “This is different. We didn’t even sleep together.”

  Without making a sound, Helen slipped out of the room, and Alex and I were left staring at Pigeon.

  “Oh, wow. Oh my God,” she said at last. “I’m gonna … I’m gonna go.” But just as soon as she’d left, she darted back in again. “Is it still okay to borrow the jacket?”

  Incredulous, I nodded, and she bounced back out the door.

  “Alex,” I pleaded.

  “It’s Jack, isn’t it?” he said, looking at the bed, at the closet, anywhere but at me. “No, I don’t want to know. I don’t even care. It’s not worth caring about.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You messed up, Cally. You really messed up.”

  “I know. I don’t know what to say.”

  “There’s nothing to say,” he said. “We’re finished.” He started to leave, then stopped himself. He looked me directly in the eye for the first time. “It was Helen,” he said. “The person I hooked up with, it was Helen.”

  “No,” I said, trying to laugh, trying to make it be a joke. “It was someone from home.”

  “No it wasn’t. It was right before break, and it was Helen. I just thought you should know the kinds of friends you think you have.”

  Then he was gone. Stunned, I sat on the edge of my bed. I felt like my whole life had just exploded in my face. How could Helen do something like that to me, and how had things gotten so out of control with Alex? How had it come to this? I tried to remember that day at the pond, him gentle and kind, me shy and infatuated. What had happened to those people? Where had they gone? Somehow, despite all the time Alex and I’d spent together, we’d never managed to find them again.

  I climbed into bed, turned out the lights, and pulled the covers over my head. When Helen came back, I pretended to be asleep. She knew that I knew. Otherwise she would have woken me up to find out what had gone down with Alex. She changed quickly and got into bed, pretending to be asleep as well. I lay there for hours, listening to the darkness, dreading the morning.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE ROOM WAS QUIET AND empty when I awoke, the sunlight filtering through our dusty beige curtains, infusing the room with a velour kind of white. I made my bed only to sit back down on top of the comforter. I had just tucked a pillow behind my back and leaned up against the wall when Helen slipped in, emerging from behind the curtain in a lovely yellow chiffon dress, her hair in a neat bun and, unless I was mistaken, tiny diamond teardrops in her ears. Behind her the day swept into the room, all beautiful and blue.

  “Hey there, Never Mind the Bollocks, why aren’t you dressed? We’re supposed to be ready in ten minutes. God, what are we going to do with that hair?”

  Pain tore across my chest. I stared at her, my eyes filled with tears, but she turned away, pretending not to see. I wanted to hide. I tried to put on a fake smile, but my voice was flat. There was nothing I could do about it.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  She rolled her eyes and thrust her jaw out for effect. “Your head is always in the clouds, I swear. Brunch, remember? Pigeon’s mom’s in town. We’re having brunch at the Coeur de Lyon.”

  She placed a hand on her hip, and I noticed she was shaking, tiny little tremors sweeping through her suntanned shoulders.

  I had a vague recollection of something involving Pigeon’s mother and food, but it had been so long before that I couldn’t quite get my head around what that meant for me.

  “Yeah, I kind of remember. We’re going to brunch?” I stared at her, searching for any sign of acknowledgement.

  “She’s been planning this for months,” she said, turning from me, pretending to rifle through her desk for something. “She’s here from Spain and she’s taking us to brunch at her hotel. It’s pretty much the only decent restaurant between here and San Francisco. Don’t tell me you haven’t got anything to wear.”

  I closed my eyes, trying to process the information, trying to remember if I had anything to wear. I certainly didn’t have anything approaching what Helen was wearing.

  “How fancy is this place?” I said, clearing my throat, trying to get myself together.

  “Really fancy. Wear your black cocktail dress.”

  “It’s dirty.
I wore it to formal dinner.” I shook my head, staring at her.

  “Yeah, like three weeks ago.” She laughed, still averting her eyes.

  Helen rifled through my closet, wincing and holding articles of clothing at a distance. She found the black dress and laid it out on the bed, trying to dust and pat it into shape.

  “God, Wood, is this avocado?”

  “I know. I need to get it dry-cleaned or something,” I said, unable to keep the wonder from my voice.

  How could she act like this? Like everything was completely normal. She had to know that I knew. But she didn’t say a word about it. Instead she held her arms akimbo and shook her head from side to side, slipping more comfortably into her disappointed-older-sister role, then turned to her own wardrobe.

  “There’s got to be something in here that will fit you,” she sighed, and emerged with a dress. She held it out to me, and for a second I considered not taking it, not going at all, but I didn’t want to be rude to Pigeon’s mom. I took the dress and tried it on in silence.

  It was a powder-blue A-line strewn with white polka dots, and to say it didn’t suit me would be a vast understatement. Helen had this habit of purchasing hideous clothes that only she could look great in. It was way too long, and bulky in unexpected places. The tag read Dior. When she’d finished with me, Helen stood back and appraised her creation, pleased with her paper doll. I refused to smile at her, and she avoided eye contact.

  When we met the other girls on the lawn at the top of the school, none of them acknowledged me. Standing there with them, I felt strangely ashamed of myself, cast out, even. They all looked ideal, of course, Pigeon especially, in a white strapless eyelet dress that emphasized the bronze sheen of her skin and hinted at her minuscule waist. I’d never seen her so happy before. She was so excited to see her mother that all the annoying had been siphoned off and drained away for the day. Still, there was a definite chill to the air. Why were they all giving me the silent treatment?

  “What’s going on?” I asked, and Noel looked away.

  “Cally,” Helen snorted, embarrassed by me.

  “What?” I said. “Did I do something to you guys?”

  Freddy raised her eyebrows, patrician nastiness settling onto her like a little lace shawl.

  “We just think what you did to Alex was really uncool,” she said as if coolness were one of the lesser-known beatitudes.

  “What?” I laughed. “Why does that have anything to do with you guys?”

  “It just does, okay?” Freddy said. “There are lines you don’t cross. There are things you simply don’t do. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Since when am I Hester Prynne here? So I’ve been having some boy trouble lately. So I kind of messed up, and I’m sorry, but I’m sorry to Alex, not to you guys. It’s not like I pledged to uphold some ridiculous idea of decorum when we became friends.”

  “I wouldn’t call us friends exactly,” Freddy said.

  “What? What about you, Freddy?”

  “What about me?”

  “You’ve been sneaking around with Cara Svitt’s boyfriend for months. That’s okay?”

  “That’s really different,” she said, completely convinced of her own moral authority.

  “How is that different?”

  “It just is,” Pigeon said, nodding sadly.

  “Seriously, Cally,” Helen said. “What you did to Alex was really lame, and I think we’re all just feeling a little uncertain about our friendship right now. But let’s not mess up Pigeon’s lunch. Let’s not make this all about you, okay?”

  “And you,” I said, turning on her. “You hooked up with Alex.”

  She stared at me, not admitting a thing.

  “He told me,” I said.

  A car was heading up the hill. Pigeon’s mom would be there soon, and I felt like screaming.

  “You’re not going to admit it?” I asked. I looked to Noel, who’d been silently staring at her feet the whole time. She wrapped her arms across her chest and looked like she might cry.

  “Admit what?” Helen asked, smiling at me.

  “I can’t believe you. He told me. I thought you were my friend.”

  Just as the limousine pulled up in front of us, Helen sighed, put her hands on her hips, and looked at me with meretricious pity. “Oh, Cally, you know, I am so tired of living with you.”

  That was it for me. The four of them and their fancy brunch could fuck off. I headed up to lunch, practically storming into the dining hall. I grabbed two slices of white bread, slapped some bologna inside, and headed out to the porch balcony.

  I sat alone out there, unable to eat, burning with anger. Why did it have to be like this? Was there something wrong with me? It couldn’t just be that every single person in my life was an asshole. I had to bear some responsibility. I must be doing something wrong. I couldn’t believe that I was simply unlucky. I gave in to the sadness swelling within me, bursting in my chest, and the tears began to flow. Soon my body was crumpling into sobs, finally defeated by grief.

  I pulled myself to sit upright and wiped my eyes. The afternoon sky was growing dark, flushed with an odd mixture of dark clouds and bursts of bright white sunlight. A wind picked up, and I wrapped my arms around my knees to protect against the chill. And then I heard it. At first I thought it was the wind thrashing leaves against the roof above me, but then the noise revealed itself to be the beating of great wings, and as if from the heavens a giant creature descended and circled out above the side of the hill, gliding, and then with a final beat of its wings, it came to perch before me on the railing of the balcony. For a moment I took it to be an angel, something not of this world, but then I perceived its remarkable white neck, a wonderfully serpentine thing that glided up to a set of obsidian eyes and a dagger of a beak. A heron. I’d seen one once, a long time before, when my father had taken us to a pond near his childhood home. That one had been larger, with cool gray feathers and a black-streaked head. A great blue heron, he’d called it. The bird before me was less blue, and a touch smaller, but it would do.

  “Hi,” I whispered without really meaning to.

  It stared at me, and as the clouds shifted, shafts of sunlight illuminated the gray-blue of the creature’s downy wings. The bird held my eyes, and for a moment I almost felt it was communicating with me. A calming liquid warmth rushed through me, and I was overcome with the desire to keep the bird with me forever, to take it back to my room, to make it be my friend. And then a noise from below, a girl laughing, and the bird reacted, an undulating feathery spasm spreading through the torso and out into its wings. The heron turned, pushed forth, lifting off with one great beat of its wings, and glided down into the ravine and out of sight.

  I sat there for a moment, stunned, unsure of what had just passed. Maybe other people had moments like this all the time, but I didn’t, and I couldn’t help thinking it was some kind of message, the universe trying to help me out when I was too paralyzed to do it myself.

  Sometimes something or someone comes into your life, and it’s like their presence shocks you out of a bad dream. You hadn’t been looking for them—you hadn’t even known something was missing—but once they were there, you wondered how you ever could have gotten by without them. I didn’t make friends easily, not close ones, not ones to whom I revealed my heart without fear of criticism. There was just Sophie, but somehow I’d ruined it. Maybe, though, it didn’t have to be ruined for good. Maybe there was some way to fix it. It was worth trying. I cleared my eyes and pulled myself up. I headed over to her room.

  “Come in,” she called when I knocked on her door. She was sitting on the floor, leafing through her vinyl collection.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey,” she said, avoiding my eyes. She chose Etta James, pulled it from its sleeve, and set it on the turntable.

  Slowly Etta swept into the room, thickening the air, opening the channels for peace.

  “I want to say I’m sorry.
This is going to sound weird, but your friendship means the world to me, and I don’t want to lose it. I don’t want to lose you,” I said.

  She looked up at me, her forehead creased with emotion. “I don’t know that I want to have this talk.”

  “Please just hear me out. I am so sorry about what I did. I am sick with regret about it. I’m sorry about not telling you. I’m sorry about doing it, but most of all, I’m sorry about not knowing. A better friend would have known.”

  She shrugged and wiped her eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe I was being melodramatic.”

  “No,” I said. “That first day, I could see what was between you guys. I saw the way you looked at each other. It was the first thing I noticed about you, but I chose to ignore it, because I liked him too, but I shouldn’t have ignored it. And I promise you, whatever we were doing, it’s over now. I swear.”

  She shook her head. “No, maybe I was being kind of crazy. That’s asking too much of a friend.”

  “Maybe it isn’t,” I said. “Can we start over?”

  “I would love that,” she said, standing to hug me. “I know it hasn’t been that long, but I’ve really missed you. There have been so many times when I wanted to tell you something, but you weren’t there to tell.”

  “I know,” I said, wiping my eye. “Me too.”

  “Oh my God,” she said, her eyes suddenly wide. “Did you hear about Reilly?”

  “Yeah. I heard he has an alibi.”

  “Okay, but did you hear who the alibi was?” She waited for me to shake my head. “Mrs. Harrison.”

  “No way.”

  “Yeah. Pretty awkward, right?” Sophie winced and smiled at the same time.

  “Mrs. Harrison and Reilly? But I like her. She calls me sugar.”

  “Everyone likes Mrs. Harrison. Apparently Mr. Reilly does too.”

  I started to laugh, but just then there was a knock at the door, and Cara Svitt started talking to Sophie about prom decorations. Sophie gave me an apologetic cringe.