His hands fell to his sides and he shook his head as he said, “Eggs? Poisoned? Julianna, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Inside I was so angry and hurt and embarrassed that I didn’t even feel like me. “I’m talking about the eggs that I’ve been bringing over to your house for more than two years— eggs that my chickens laid that I could’ve sold! Eggs that your family has been throwing away!” I was shouting at him. Shouting at an adult, like I’d never shouted at anyone in my entire life.
His voice got very quiet. “I’m sorry. I don’t know about any eggs. Who did you give them to?”
“Bryce!” My throat choked closed as I said his name again. “Bryce.”
Mr. Duncan nodded slowly and said, “Well,” then went back to pruning his bush. “That probably explains it.”
“What do you mean?”
He sighed. “The boy still has a ways to go.”
I just stared at him, not trusting myself with the words sizzling on my tongue.
“Oh, he’s a very handsome boy, there’s no denying that,” he said with a frown. Then he snapped a branch and added, “The spitting image of his father.”
I shook my head. “Why are you over here, Mr. Duncan? If you don’t think I need the help and you’re not feeling bad about the eggs, then why would you do this?”
“Honestly?”
I just looked at him, straight in the eye.
He nodded, then said, “Because you remind me of my wife.”
“Your wife?”
“That’s right.” He gave me a little smile and said, “Renée would’ve sat up in that tree with you. She would’ve sat there all night.”
And with those two sentences, my anger vanished. “Really?”
“Absolutely.”
“She’s … she died?”
He nodded. “And I miss her terribly.” He tossed a branch into the heap and chuckled. “There’s nothing like a head-strong woman to make you happy to be alive.”
The last thing in the world I expected was to become friends with Bryce’s grandfather. But by dinnertime I knew so much about him and his wife and the adventures they’d had together that it seemed like I’d known him for a very long time. Plus, all his stories made the work seem easy. When I went in for the night, the bushes were all pruned back, and except for the enormous heap in the center of the yard, things were already looking a whole lot better.
The next day he was back. And when I smiled and said, “Hi, Mr. Duncan,” he smiled back and said, “Call me Chet, won’t you?” He looked at the hammer in my hand and said, “I take it we’re starting on the fence today?”
Chet taught me how to plumb a line for the pickets, how to hold a hammer down on the end of the handle instead of choking up on it, how to calculate an adjusted spacing for the pickets, and how to use a level to get the wood exactly vertical. We worked on the fence for days, and the whole time we worked we talked. It wasn’t just about his wife, either. He wanted to know about the sycamore tree and seemed to understand exactly what I meant when I told about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. “It’s that way with people, too,” he said, “only with people it’s sometimes that the whole is less than the sum of the parts.”
I thought that was pretty interesting. And the next day during school I looked around at the people I’d known since elementary school, trying to figure out if they were more or less than the sum of their parts. Chet was right. A lot of them were less.
Top of the list, of course, was Shelly Stalls. To look at her, you’d think she had everything, but there’s not much solid underneath her Mount Everest hair. And even though she’s like a black hole at sucking people in, it doesn’t take them long to figure out that being friends with her requires fanning the flames of a wildfire ego.
But of all my classmates, the one person I couldn’t seem to place was Bryce. Until recently I’d have said with absolute certainty that he was greater—far greater—than the sum of his parts. What he did to my heart was sheer, inexplicable magic.
But inexplicable was the operative word here. And as I looked across the room at him during math, I couldn’t help feeling crushed all over again about how he’d thrown out my eggs. What kind of person would do that?
Then he looked my way and smiled, and my heart lurched. But I was mad at myself for it. How could I still feel this way after what he’d done?
I avoided him the rest of the day, but by the end of school there was a tornado inside me, tearing me up from one end to the other. I jumped on my bike and rode home faster than I ever had before. The right pedal clanked against the chain guard, and the whole bike rattled and squeaked, threatening to collapse into a pile of rusty parts.
The tornado, however, was still going strong when I skidded to a halt in our driveway. So I transferred pedal power into painting power. I pried open the gallon of Navajo White my dad had bought me and started slopping paint around.
Chet appeared about ten minutes later. “My,” he laughed, “you’ve got an enviable amount of energy today, don’t you?”
“No,” I said, brushing back some hair with the back of my hand, “I’m just mad.”
He produced his own brush and an empty coffee can. “Uhoh. Who at?”
“Myself!”
“Oh, that’s a tough one. Did you do poorly on a test?”
“No! I … ” I turned to him and said, “How did you fall in love with your wife?”
He poured some Navajo White into his can and smiled. “Ah,” he said. “Boy problems.”
“I do not have boy problems!”
He hesitated but didn’t argue. Instead, he said, “I fell in love with her by mistake.”
“By mistake? What do you mean?”
“I didn’t intend to. At the time I was engaged to somebody else, and in no position to fall in love. Fortunately for me I saw how blind I’d been before it was too late.”
“Blind?”
“Yes. My fiancée was very beautiful. She had the most magnificent brown eyes, and skin like an angel. And for a time all I could see was her beauty. But then … well, let’s just say I discovered she wasn’t a fraction of the person Renée was.” He dipped his brush in the coffee can and stroked a picket with paint. “It’s easy to look back and see it, and it’s easy to give the advice, but the sad fact is, most people don’t look beneath the surface until it’s too late.”
We were quiet a minute, but I could see Chet thinking. And from the furrow in his brow, I knew it had nothing to do with my problems. “I’m … I’m sorry I brought up your wife,” I said.
“Oh, don’t be, that’s all right.” He shook his head and tried on a smile. “Besides, I wasn’t thinking of Renée. I was thinking of someone else. Someone who’s never been able to look beneath the surface. At this point I don’t suppose I even want her to.”
Who was he talking about? I wanted to know! But I felt it would be crossing some line to ask, so we painted pickets in silence. At last he turned to me and said, “Get beyond his eyes and his smile and the sheen of his hair—look at what’s really there.”
The way he said it sent a chill through me. It was as though he knew. And suddenly I felt defensive. Was he telling me his grandson wasn’t worth it?
When it was time to go in for dinner, I still didn’t feel right, but at least the tornado was gone. Mom said Dad was working late, and since the boys were off with their friends, it was just the two of us. She told me that she and Dad had talked about it and that they both felt a little strange having Chet come over like he was. Maybe, she said, they should find a way to pay him for his help.
I told her I thought Chet would find that insulting, but the next day she went ahead and insulted him anyway. Chet said, “No, Mrs. Baker. It’s been my pleasure to help out your daughter on this project,” and wouldn’t hear another word about it.
The week ended with my dad loading the back of his truck with all the clippings and scraps before he set off for work on Saturday morning. Then Chet
and I spent the rest of the day hoeing up weeds and raking and readying the dirt for seeding.
It was on this last day that Chet asked, “Your family’s not moving, are you?”
“Moving? Why do you say that?”
“Oh, my daughter brought up the possibility at the dinner table last night. She thought that maybe you’re fixing up the house because you’re getting ready to sell it.”
Even though Chet and I had talked about a lot of things while we were working, I probably wouldn’t have told him about Mr. Finnegan or Uncle David or why the yard was such a mess if he hadn’t asked me about moving. But since he had, well, I wound up telling him everything. And it felt good to talk about it. Especially about Uncle David. It felt like blowing a dandelion into the wind and watching all the little seeds float off, up and away. I was proud of my parents, and looking around the front yard, I was proud of me, too. Just wait until I got my hands on the backyard! Then maybe I’d even paint the house. I could do it. I could.
Chet was pretty quiet after I told him the story, and when Mom brought us out sandwiches at lunchtime, we sat on the porch and ate without saying a word. Then he broke the silence by nodding across the street and saying, “I don’t know why he doesn’t just come out and say hello.”
“Who?” I asked, then looked across the street to where he’d nodded. The curtain in Bryce’s room moved quickly back into place, and I couldn’t help asking, “Bryce?”
“That’s the third time I’ve seen him watching.”
“Really?” My heart was fluttering about like a baby bird trying to fly.
He frowned and said, “Let’s finish up and get that seed sown, shall we? You’ll want the warmth of the day to help with the germination.”
I was happy to finally be planting the yard, but I couldn’t help being distracted by Bryce’s window. Was he watching? During the rest of the afternoon, I checked more often than I’d like to admit. And I’m afraid Chet noticed, too, because when we were all done and we’d congratulated each other on what was sure to be a fine-looking yard, he said, “He may be acting like a coward now, but I do hold out hope for the boy.”
A coward? What on earth could I say to that? I just stood there with the hose in one hand and the spigot valve beneath the other.
And with that, Chet waved so long and walked across the street.
A few minutes later I saw Bryce coming down the sidewalk toward his house. I did a double take. All this time I’d thought he was inside the house watching, and he was really outside walking around? I was embarrassed all over again.
I turned my back on him and concentrated on watering the yard. What a fool I was! What a complete idiot! And I had just built up a nice head of angry steam when I heard, “It’s looking good, Juli. Nice job.”
It was Bryce, standing right there on our driveway. And suddenly I wasn’t mad at me anymore. I was mad at him. How could he stand there like my supervisor and tell me, Nice job? He had no business saying anything after what he’d done.
I was about to hose him down when he said, “I’m sorry for what I did, Juli. It was, you know … wrong.”
I looked at him—into those brilliant blue eyes. And I tried to do what Chet had said—I tried to look past them. What was behind them? What was he thinking? Was he really sorry? Or was he just feeling bad about the things he’d said?
It was like looking into the sun, though, and I had to turn away.
I couldn’t tell you what we talked about after that, except that he was nice to me and he made me laugh. And after he left, I shut off the water and went inside feeling very, very strange.
The rest of the evening I bounced back and forth between upset and uneasy. The worst part being, I couldn’t really put my finger on what exactly I was upset or uneasy about. Of course it was Bryce, but why wasn’t I just mad? He’d been such a … scoundrel. Or happy? Why wasn’t I just happy? He’d come over to our house. He’d stood on our driveway. He’d said nice things. We’d laughed.
But I wasn’t mad or happy. And as I lay in bed trying to read, I realized that upset had been overshadowed by uneasy. I felt as though someone was watching me. I got so spooked I even got up and checked out the window and in the closet and under the bed, but still the feeling didn’t go away.
It took me until nearly midnight to understand what it was.
It was me. Watching me.
Bryce: Looming Large and Smelly
Sunday I woke up feeling like I’d been sick with the flu. Like I’d had one of those bad, convoluted, unexplainable fever dreams.
And what I’ve figured out about bad, convoluted, unexplainable dreams of any kind is that you’ve just got to shake them off. Try to forget that they ever happened.
I shook it off, all right, and got out of bed early ’cause I had eaten almost nothing the night before and I was starving! But as I was trucking into the kitchen, I glanced into the family room and noticed that my dad was sacked out on the couch.
This was not good. This was a sign of battles still in progress, and it made me feel like an invader in my own territory.
He rolled over and kind of groaned, then curled up tighter under his skinny little quilt and muttered some pretty unfriendly-sounding stuff into his pillow.
I beat it into the kitchen and poured myself a killer bowl of corn flakes. And I was about to drown it in milk when my mother comes waltzing in and snags it away from me. “You are going to wait, young man,” she says. “This family is going to have Sunday breakfast together.”
“But I’m starving!”
“So are the rest of us. Now go! I’m making pancakes, and you’re taking a shower. Go!”
Like a shower’s going to prevent imminent starvation.
But I headed down to the bathroom, and on my way I noticed that the family room was empty. The quilt was folded and back on the armrest, the pillow was gone … it was like I’d imagined the whole thing.
At breakfast my father didn’t look like he’d spent the night on the couch. No bags under his eyes, no whiskers on his chin. He was decked out in tennis shorts and a lavender polo shirt, and his hair was all blown dry like it was a workday. Personally I thought the shirt looked kind of girly, but my mom said, “You look very nice this morning, Rick.”
My father just eyed her suspiciously.
Then my grandfather came in, saying, “Patsy, the house smells wonderful! Good morning, Rick. Hi there, Bryce,” and winked at me as he sat down and put his napkin in his lap.
“Lyn-et-ta!” my mother sang out. “Break-fast!”
My sister appeared in a triple-X miniskirt and platform shoes, with eyes that were definitely of the raccoon variety. My mother gasped, but then took a deep breath and said, “Good morning, honey. You’re … you’re … I thought you were going to church this morning with your friends.”
“I am.” Lynetta scowled and sat down.
Mom brought pancakes, fried eggs, and hash browns to the table. My father just sat there stiff as a board for a minute, but finally he shook out his napkin and tucked it into his collar.
“Well,” my mother said as she sat down, “I have come up with a solution to our situation.”
“Here it comes … ,” my father muttered, but my mother gave him a glare that shut him down cold.
“The solution is … ,” my mom said as she served herself some pancakes, “ … we’re going to invite the Bakers over for dinner.”
My father blurts out, “What?”; Lynetta asks, “All of them?”; I put in, “Are you serious?”; but my grandfather heaps on another fried egg and says, “That, Patsy, is a marvelous idea.”
“Thanks, Dad,” she says with a smile, then tells Lynetta and me, “Of course I’m serious, and yes, if Juli and the boys want to come, they’ll be invited.”
My sister starts cracking up. “Do you know what you’re saying?”
Mom smooths the napkin into her lap. “Maybe it’s about time I found out.”
Lynetta turns to me and says, “She’s inviting the
core of Piss Poor over for dinner — oh, this is something I really woke up expecting!”
My father shakes his head and says, “Patsy, what purpose does this serve? So I made some stupid cracks last night. Is this the next phase in my punishment?”
“It is something we should have done years ago.”
“Patsy, please. I know you feel bad about what you found out, but an awkward dinner party isn’t going to change anything!”
My mother ran syrup all over her pancakes, popped the top closed, licked her finger, then locked eyes with my dad. “We are having the Bakers over for dinner.”
And that, she didn’t have to tell him, was that.
Dad took a deep breath, then sighed and said, “Whatever you want, Patsy. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He took a bite of hash browns and mumbled, “A barbecue, I suppose?”
“No, Rick. A sit-down dinner. Like we have when your clients come over.”
He stopped chewing. “You’re expecting them to dress up?”
Mom glared at him. “What I’m expecting is for you to behave like the gentleman I always thought you were.”
Dad went back to his potatoes. Definitely safer than arguing with Mom.
Lynetta wound up eating the entire white of a fried egg and almost a whole pancake besides. Plain, of course, but from the way she was glutting and giggling as she ate, it was obvious that at least she was in a good mood.
Granddad ate plenty, even for him, but I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He was back to looking more granite than human. Me, I’d started tuning in to the fact that this dinner could be more than awkward — it could be trouble. Those rotten eggs were back from the grave, looming large and smelly right over my head.
Sure, Granddad knew, but no one else in my family did. What if it came up at dinner? I’d be dead, fried, cluck-faced meat.
Later, as I was brushing my teeth, I considered bribing Juli. Getting her on board so that nobody brought up the subject of eggs. Or maybe I could sabotage the dinner somehow. Make it not happen. Yeah, I could — I stopped myself and looked in the mirror. What kind of wimp was I, anyway? I spit and headed back to find my mom.
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