Speak words of kindled wrath to me When dead as dust in funeral urn Sank every note of melody
And I was forced to wake again The silent song, the slumbering strain.
I don’t care about myself. Not really. I might be a coward now, but I wasn’t when it really counted. If there are consequences, so be it. It’s why I’m not like Mama. It’s why we made it, Jenessa and me, and why we always will.
If you ask me, it’s a strange teenage ritual on a Saturday night to gather together at someone else’s house to eat snacks and drink pop. I mean, didn’t we all just eat dinner, pop included?
“That’s not the point,” Melissa says, amused. “It’s a chance to get to know your classmates and make friends outside school. You’ll have fun,” she says with a grin. “I wouldn’t imagine the Carey I know to be scared by a little party.”
“Who’s scared?” I fire back, taking the bait, but still. “Anyway, I promised Pixie I’d go. Her mother won’t let her go otherwise.”
Delaney, eavesdropping in the doorway, rolls her eyes. I put away the last of the silverware, the cleanup helping burn off nervous energy.
Nessa likes to listen to our conversations from the kitchen table after its cleared, where she swings her legs and draws pictures of Shorty and my father scrunched beneath rainbows that take up half pages, or of Delaney and Melissa smiling beneath bulbous yellow suns. The drawings aren’t half-bad, actually. They crowd the refrigerator doors, held in place by tiny black magnets. I count another three drawings taped to the pantry door, and one sketch of our woods through Jenessa’s eyes, framed and hung on the dining room wall— the first Nessa ever drew for Melissa.
That one’s my favorite, drawn in old, familiar Bic, the trees scratching the page with a straight-lined elegance, the camper in the clearing, the creek running off the bottom of the paper. Nessa could be an artist, one day.
“It’s nice of Carey to take Courtney to the party,” Melissa says, giving Delaney an impromptu hug as she passes.
“Mom, really. You’re messing up my hair.”
“I’d imagine she has one tough row to hoe,” Melissa continues, “being young and accelerated. It doesn’t surprise me you two would hit it off.”
I bristle. “Why? Because we’re freaks?”
I watch Melissa climb barefoot onto the counter to put away the crystal bowls on the cabinet’s top shelf. My father doesn’t like it when she does that. He wants her to use the step stool, even if it’s a pain to unfold and heavy to drag in from the hallway closet.
Melissa climbs down and turns to me.
“Freak? Where did you hear that?”
We both look at Delaney through the archway, where she languishes on the sofa, reading Star and People. Freak’s a word she’d use forever if I admitted that, one, I don’t know who any of the people in People are, or why some of the older women look like cats—cats with huge lips— and two, to me, the teens look bizarre with their blinding white smiles, impossibly perfect hair, and expensive purses and bags. Ness and I could’ve lived in the woods for a year, maybe two, with the money it costs to buy one of those “Louis Vuitton” bags.
A horn bleeps outside. Delaney rushes to find her coat, then pops her head through the doorway.
“I’m going now. Bye!”
Melissa stops her.
“Are you sure you don’t have room for Carey and Pixie, Delly?”
I cringe. Adults can be so optimistic. Delaney’s face could wither one of Nessa’s smiling paper flowers into a petalless, slumped brown shoot.
“Sorry, Mom. We’re going to Kara’s house first, and then the party. I can’t make the girls wait.”
Melissa looks at me, and I’m the slumped brown shoot. Not that I’d go to the party with Delaney anyway. I’d rather eat skunk, which (thanks, Saint Joseph!) Nessa and I never had to do.
“We understand. Have fun, honey. No drinking, and wear your seat belt! And no texting while driving, you hear? Anything untoward, and you have them stop the car and I’ll come pick you up.”
Delaney groans. “And I’d be the laughingstock of high school.”
“I don’t care. At least you’d be a live laughingstock!”
The front door slams behind her just as my father comes in from the back.
“Who’s slamming doors around here?”
Jenessa raises her hand and giggles.
“Oh, you think so, huh?”
He descends on Ness with tickling fingers, her bubbly laughter loud and infectious, so close to real words, I almost expect her to talk out loud. Smart as the shuffle fox, she slides under the table, but it’s obvious she doesn’t really want to escape.
“That’s enough now,” Melissa warns. “She just ate dinner.”
Still laughing, my father helps Jenessa back into her chair, her hand so tiny in his large one. I know it’s considered impolite, but I can’t help staring at him. It’s like finding something you didn’t know was yours, and the only way to get to know it is to look and look. With his tousled hair and wide smile, he looks younger and happier than he did that first day in the woods. He doesn’t look like a guy who doesn’t care about his daughters.
Everyone loves Nessa. Melissa, Delaney, Mrs. Haskell, Mrs. Tompkins, the entire second- grade class, and obviously, my father. It should be hard for Ness, like it is for me, but for her, it’s not. It’s like when we went food shopping with Melissa last weekend and on the way home, the SUV caught one green light after another.
Lucky. Easy. That’s how it is for Jenessa.
I smile at her, a pink smile, seeing the candy necklace she’s gnawing on. She must’ve gotten it at school. Or from Melissa. She’s eaten most of the candy beads, except for the pink ones.
A strong rap on the front door, and we all turn our heads.
“I’ll get it,” my father says.
I watch from my chair as he greets Courtney and her mom. I’m surprised by how young Pixie’s mom is.
“Would you like to come in?”
Pixie’s mom shyly holds out her hand. “I’m Amy Macleod. Carey is all Courtney talks about.”
Pixie turns almost as red as her hair. “Mom!”
“Let me take your coat,” Melissa says warmly.
I’ve been ready for ages. My puffer coat hangs on a peg by the door, with thick wool mittens the color of dusty rose shoved in a pocket apiece. I’m wearing the new boots, which cling like a second skin all the way to my knees, and which, Melissa says, fashion trends aside, are really equestrian boots.
I reckon they look good with my black leggings and the chunky jay-colored cable-knit sweater that almost skims the tops. Even Delaney had looked me over appreciatively, for the split-second before she caught herself.
“I have an idea,” my father says. “How about I drop them off at the party, and you two ladies can visit, perhaps have a cup of tea?”
“That’s a wonderful idea, Charles. What do you say, Amy?”
Pixie grins, looking from me to her mom and back again. “I think that sounds lovely.”
My father takes Amy’s coat and hangs it on the peg where mine used to be.
“After you, ladies,” he says to us, with Pixie hanging on his every word.
It’s obvious she’s never had a father, either. I puff up like a Christopher robin. I don’t mind sharing at all.
Pixie giggles as my father gives us the lowdown before letting us out of the SUV. We’re parked in Marie’s driveway, the birthday girl, one of Delaney’s closest friends. The whole sophomore class has been invited. From the looks of things, almost all have come.
“No drinking. No smoking. No drugs. Got it, girls?” “Yes, sir.”
Pixie pulls a serious face, but she can’t keep it up.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Blackburn. I’ll keep Carey out of trouble.” My father and I exchange glances, but neither of us corrects her.
That’s when I realize she doesn’t know about Delaney and me. The winter air is exhilarating, when you’re snug in a puffer coat.
I pause in the driveway, squinting into the headlights as my father
honks once and then backs out onto the road.
Marie’s house is at least the size of one million of our campers
put together.
“Scared?” Pixie says, reading my face.
Two freaks out past their bedtime, I think, like Delaney had cracked
earlier, cackling like a Halloween witch.
“No,” I say, drawing myself up taller. “Contemplative.” “ ‘Contemplative’? What is this, a funeral? You’d better file away
those SAT words for tonight, Blackburn. It’s time to par-TAY.” Pixie dances crazy, and I grab her arm before she slips on the sleekness coating practically everything. Even though Melissa says everyone uses salt. Salt, to melt ice from steps and walkways. And no,
not the kind we use on our chicken or steak.
“That woulda sucked. Thanks, Carey.”
I think of Mrs. Macleod, who looks just like Pixie, red hair
and all.
“You look just like your mom, you know.”
“Everyone says that. Probably because she looks so young. She
got pregnant with me in high school. She was fifteen. I’m not supposed to say or anything.”
I think of Ness. “It’s hard to raise a baby when you’re that
young.”
“I know. I told my mom how you used to take care of your sister
all the time, before you moved here, and she said I could go tonight,
if I went with you. I still can’t believe she said yes!”
“Yup, that’s me.” I smile wryly. “Old reliable.”
“You kinda are, though. I guess we both are,” she adds, sighing. “But not tonight. I reckon we’re going to guzzle pop and eat unnecessary snacks with the best of them!”
“You don’t get out much, do you, Blackburn?”
“Like you should talk.”
We stand side by side, admiring the house. It’s breathtaking,
draped in Christmas lights, both clear, twinkling bulbs and long
strings that mimic icicles. I’ve never seen anything like it in my whole
life. Lights on houses and spiraled up the trunks of trees, even. The
lights sketch the dark into a fairy world, like straight out of one of
Nessa’s picture books.
“By the second week of December, whole neighborhoods will be
decked out. We’ll take some drives so you girls can see the lights,”
Melissa had promised, and it was a promise she’d kept. I knew a little about Christmas from before the woods, although I was so young, I don’t remember much. Jenessa, on the other hand, has spent her life Christmas-free. We’d been too busy surviving to
celebrate.
Pixie pulls on my coat sleeve. “Let’s go in. I don’t want to spend
my whole first party shivering in the driveway!”
I hold her up all the way to the front door.
“You’ve got some heels on those shoes, huh?”
She blushes with delight that I’ve noticed.
“No tiptoes. See?” She rings the doorbell.
“I think we’re supposed to just go in,” I say nervously. But then the door opens and Marie peeks out, regarding us with
lofty amusement.
“If it isn’t Pixie Macleod and Fiddle Girl,” she purrs. Pixie gives a little hop in place and Marie smiles.
“Oh hell, if you’re that excited, come on in.”
“Thanks,” Pixie gushes, pulling me in behind her.
The noise is like an assault— the house vibrating with laughter
and music and chatter. My heart thumps sideways, out of rhythm
with the driving beat.
“Look!”
Pixie drags me into a room off the hall. There’s actually a whole
separate room for coats.
“Feel that in your chest? Isn’t it cool? It’s dance music, like at the
clubs.”
I keep my coat on. I’m wishing I had my violin case, just to have
something to hold on to. Even worse, I’m wondering if there’s a way
to get a spare case and take the handle off. I could hold it in my
pocket, where no one could see.
Pixie tugs my sleeve.
“Aren’t you going to hang up your coat?”
“I think I’ll keep it on.”
What if someone swiped it? It’s the nicest coat I’ve ever owned.
When I wear it, I feel like civilized Carey. Carey with a hope. “Suit yourself. If you get too hot, you can always hang it up
later.”
Back in the great room (Pixie knows these things), the noise
squashes me like a bug against the wall.
“You’re the literal definition of a wallflower, you know that,
Blackburn? Don’t you want to dance?”
I shake my head no, my smile glued in place. I can’t breathe.
Can’t t hink.
“You, um, go ahead. I’ll—I’ll be fine.”
Pixie sashays off across the polished marble, the room’s furniture
huddled against the back and side walls to make way for dancers.
She stops at the glass fireplace in the center, rubbing her hands together. She smiles and waves at a group of girls from En glish lit, who
wave her over. They dance together in a circle, laughing and shouting over the din.
She makes it look so easy. I feel a twinge, watching her. Jealous.
Jealous of Pixie.
I imagine dancing, something I’ve never done in my life, and
Delaney and her ladies-in-waiting laughing and pointing. I jump when a skinny guy leans in toward me, his head wagging
to the beat.
“Want some?”
He holds out what looks like a homemade cigarette, the smoke
sweet, like when Ness and me threw moss into the campfire. “What is it?”
“Fun.”
I stare at him blankly.
“You’re joking, right? You really don’t know what this is?” I shake my head no, and he laughs like a hyena, so loud that the group next to us turns to stare. He leans in toward me, and I recoil
at his breath. Like Mama on the moonshine. I inch away. “Stuck-up bitch. All girls like you are stuck-up bitches.” I think of my shotgun. Just the sight of it, steadily pointed,
could set the knees of grown men quaking.
Pixie catches my eye and gives two dancing thumbs-up. I smile a
shaky smile. I can do this. I inch along the wall. I have no idea where
I’m going. I’m a scientist in the wild, I tell myself, observing the social
behavior of caribou. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that a part of
me keens to be a caribou, too.
“Sorry,” I mumble as I bump into a couple. I catch my foot on a
root, only here, it’s someone else’s foot. My arms flail.
He catches me, his body shielding me from the gyrating crowd,
and I hang in his arms. It’s as if I’m one of Nessa’s Disney princesses; we’ve been dancing, and he dipped me.
“You,” he says.
But Lancelot mused a little space; He said, “She has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott.”
I fall into those eyes that feel like swinging real high with your head thrown back.
“Lucky I was here to catch you. You could’ve been trampled.”
By caribou. Just the thought alone hurts.
I think of the way it felt, screaming at him in the woods. My face screwed up. The words ugly. I’d come undone. I’d never come undone before.
“Ryan,” I say, my voice barely a whisper. I search his face, but it’s like the open book has closed.
He sets me back on my feet.
I stand next to him, our arms touching, watching the crowd. I want to say something, anything, but the words won’t come. He leans in toward me and forces a smile, a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
“I haven’t seen you around all week.” His breath is minty fresh, like Delaney’s Tic Tacs. “I’d say you’ve been avoiding me. Have you been avoiding me?”
I look away, my chest expanding with that all-too-familiar ache that seems to await me around every corner.
“No. I don’t know.”
“Well, is it yes, or no?”
“It’s just . . . I just—”
“Just what? I no longer deserve any common courtesy? People make one mistake with you and they’re out in the cold?”
“No! I didn’t think you’d want to see me. I thought—I mean, I thought that—”
He turns my face to his, but unlike Mama’s, his grip is phoebebelly soft.
“I thought we were friends,” he says.
My eyes fill, but he doesn’t let go.
“I was hoping we were more than that, but at least friends.” His hand drops to his side. “Either way, that’s not how you treat people who care about you. At least not where I come from. Was I wrong about you? I thought . . .”
I wait, until I can’t wait any longer. “What? Thought what?”
“That you were different. That’s all.”
Right then, my heart breaks. It’s like it’s been waiting to break forever, and Ryan’s words crack it wide open.
“I am different,” I squeak as the tears slide down my cheeks. “That’s the problem.”
My life’s a tangle of past and present, like two separate puzzles with their pieces tumbled together. Nothing fits.
“No kissin’, ya hear? Touchin’s fine, but no kissin’. This ain’t romance; it’s b’ness,” Mama says, her words spit out like buckshot.
The man’s eyes glint. His face is already flushed. But they always listen to Mama.
He expects me to be afraid. His eyes register his disappointment when he sees I’m not. But it’s been this way as long as I can remember.
“Time rubs the shine off things,” Mama says later, when she finds me crying on the cot. “You’ll get used to it.”
“I don’t want to get used to it. I don’t like it.”
“We need ya’ pullin’ your weight around here, girl. No one wants to be the garbageman or the undertaker, but someone has ta do it.”
It’s a vicious circle, what a girl can get used to. And compartmentalize. That’s what the psychology textbook called it— “compartmentalization.” “Sexual desensitization.”