Perfect Glass (A Young Adult Novel (sequel to Glass Girl)) (16 page)

“Meg Kavanagh.”

“Is your mother Adele?”

“Yes,” I said, smiling.

Jo lifted one eyebrow. “Good artist. We don’t get many like her in Chapin. Usually they’re all copying me. It gets tiresome. Your mother is an original.”

“Thank you. I’ll tell her that. She thinks a lot of your work. She’d like you to show at the Kaelin Gallery soon.”

“No.”

I laughed under my breath. “Yeah, dumb idea, huh?”

“I need you to get that woman out of my house, Meg Kavanagh.”

“That woman. Jenny?” I glanced back at the doorway, but it was empty. “Your nurse? I can’t tell her to leave. She’s here to help you.”

“Tell her I hired you.” She raised her hands and made bony fists. “Tell her she can choose between sudden death or instant paralysis.” I laughed when she punched the air with each fist.

“Okay, that should do it,” I said.

“Your first job—wash my hair and take me to town.”

For a moment, I considered saying no. I thought I should tell her I was already late to school. But in my head, I could hear Henry’s mom saying something like I should look for the ways God reaches his hand into our world.

“Yes, ma’am. I’d love to take you to town. Just let me make a quick phone call.”

Stepping out into the hall, I realized Jenny had been listening, which made sense. She was here in an official way and I wasn’t.

“I guess you heard all that?” I grimaced, knowing I had probably overstepped a boundary.

“Yes, and I think it’s fantastic.”

“But she said to tell you to leave.”

“Look, Meg. I’m a home health nurse. I stop by for one hour a day to make sure she’s taking her medicine and eating. That leaves twenty-three hours of solitude Jo has to endure.” She placed her hands on both of my shoulders and stared into my eyes. “And it is a race of endurance—this being alone all the time. It messes with her head. In all truth, Jo needs you more than me.”

I nodded. “She does need a friend.”

“You do know she’s a famous artist, right?” Jenny said. “It could be cool for you. Tell her you’ll be back today after school.”

***

Mr. Landmann barely acknowledged me when I slowly opened the classroom door. I tiptoed in and stayed close to the wall on the way back to my seat. I only decided to show up for first period because Jo overheard Jenny telling me I could still make it to class on time.

Someone tapped the metal of my chair with a pencil. Quinn, in the chair behind mine, leaned forward on his elbows. He held the palm of his hand up so I could read what he’d written on it—
You + my mom
.

I smiled and nodded and he dropped his head and grinned, too, using his thumb to rub away the ink on his palm. He definitely had his mom’s blue eyes and her open smile.

Mr. Landmann had a parent conference so he let us out of class early. I’d only caught fifteen minutes of the lecture. Quinn slid his notebook to me so I could copy his notes. He watched me write, unable or unwilling to wipe the grin off his face. His shirt was unbuttoned over a gray t-shirt that said SMILE. It had a picture of a tiny vintage camera.

“What’s up with you today?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said, standing up and gathering his books. “I just think it’s cool you spent the morning with my mom. She texted me when you showed up.”

“Yeah, about that, I’m probably going to see her a lot.”

He tilted his head and watched me. “I heard.”

“What else did you hear?”

He closed his eyes and his face transformed into his mother’s. He had her voice and movements down perfectly when he said, “Meg is so precious.” He put his hand on his hip and leaned into it like a girl.

I smiled. “Stop it.”

“No, I’m serious.” His voice returned to normal. “She thinks you’re great and brave and all that. I have to admit, I’m surprised you’re trying it again. You’re willing to walk through fire for humanity’s sake.”

I laughed until I realized he was staring at me. Not laughing.

“Why
are
you doing it, Meg? I thought the video thing was your ticket into UW.” He motioned with his chin for me to follow him into the hall. “Wouldn’t you rather spend your free time doing inane senior year things with me? We could string the cheerleaders’ panties up in the hall. Steal the other team’s mascot and tie it to the flagpole.”

“What other team?”

“The one we don’t like?”

At that moment, I couldn’t find words to explain my motivation. I’d been thinking about it since I left Jo’s house. I stared at my feet. I stared at Quinn’s canvas shoes he’d drawn on with a black marker.

“Do you believe in God?” My words surprised me. I’d wondered this about Quinn since I heard him make the comment about theodicy in Mr. Landmann’s class, but maybe because of how I was raised, maybe because of
where
I was raised, this wasn’t a question you asked out of the blue. Really, it was too private.

I chewed on my lower lip and fixed my gaze over his shoulder, on the exit sign at the end of the hall. I could tell he was shaking his head slowly, though.

“No, Meg. I don’t.” The humor that usually colored everything he said was gone. “That doesn’t mean I think you’re weird or anything if you do. Everyone has their thing.”

“Everyone has their thing?”

“Yeah, I mean…it’s not that I don’t get why people are spiritual. I think it’s a huge part of who we are.” We both leaned against nearby lockers at the same time, facing each other.

“It’s just that I don’t think it necessarily has to translate into a belief in a god,” he said. “It can be, like, a belief in the goodness of humanity or the power of nature. I just don’t think things are as black and white as that.”

“Black and white?” My voice cracked with emotion. “There’s nothing black and white about it. I think I saw things as black and white before. Now, things are…just less cut and dried. It feels like everyone deserves a chance. Everyone needs compassion. No one is here by accident. There’s a reason I met Jo.”

Quinn sniffed and stayed quiet for a minute. I could tell he was worried he’d offended me and he wanted to proceed with caution. “Everything you just said is what I believe. That’s what I mean…about spirituality. We’re closer than you think, Meg. It’s just semantics at this point.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Okay. Prove it.” He reached out and touched my shoulder to get me to look at him. His face was sincere and this moment between us felt significant. I’d only ever had this conversation with Henry and my parents. It still felt too new to me. Like I needed to work the stiffness out first.

“Okay?” he said. “I’ll let you prove it to me.”

“I’m not good at that.” I shook my head and moved away from him.

“I’m not asking for a miracle, Meg. Just…show me what you mean by faith and belief and God.” He smiled crookedly. “I could be your first convert. That used to mean we’d be linked together for life. I’d actually be okay with that.”

I met Quinn’s gaze and tried to return his smile. The bell rang, making me jump and start toward my locker. Quinn stayed by Mr. Landmann’s door.

“Wait,” he said. “There’s one more thing.”

I turned around and raised an eyebrow. His eyes were wary and he lacked his usual confidence.

“Will you go to the Winter Dance with me?”

henry

“N
ot quite like a Wyoming winter, is it Henry?”

Sam and I watched the sun come up in the courtyard, shelling beans for Rosa. My fingers were stiff with the effort so I stretched them toward the already warming sun and used the bottom of my t-shirt to wipe sweat from my forehead.

“No, sir,” I said. “We’d be frozen in these chairs if we were in Chapin.” In my head, I pictured winter in Wyoming. The tall banks of snow lining the roads. The frozen rivers. The barn stacked with enough feed to last four months.

Winter meant seeing the inside of your house for too many hours in a row. It meant watching every single breath come out in a thick white fog. Pulling out the block heater for the truck and stocking up on antifreeze. Trying to keep cattle from dropping dead.

“What’s on the agenda today?” Sam asked. “Can we get the kids involved in part of this construction mess?”

I glanced up to see if he was serious. “I guess if I’ve got enough patience today I might find something they could do.”

“I think that would be big of you.” Sam laughed. I’m sure he knew he’d just guaranteed another nonproductive day for me.

I shouldn’t complain. Things had run smoothly since Sam and Janice arrived. Lessons were taught and kids were entertained and loved. That was not to say we didn’t all miss Kate, John, and Whit.

I couldn’t spend a lot of time thinking about home. Imagining my family gathered around the table mourning the loss of one of our own children. Hannah, who probably would’ve been a barrel racing rodeo queen like her mama and kept her daddy on his toes, was missed. Sometimes the crushing pain of it woke me up at night out of a deep sleep.

As the kids started peeling away from the breakfast table, coming outside in groups of twos and threes, looking for activity, I smiled at them. They were happy. They were protected from the worries that filled my head.

Sam and I bagged up five sacks full of shelled beans and delivered them to Rosa, who poured them directly into her huge pot of boiling water. “
Gracias, mijo
.” She tried to pat my back, but she’s tiny and I’m a freak of nature, so she ended up patting me on the rear end, which led to an awkward moment or two.

“You’re moving slow these days, Henry,” she said. “Are you heartsick?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, cheer up.”

“Okay.” I smiled to let her know I was mostly teasing.

Outside, I clapped my hands and motioned for the kids to gather around.

“All right. Today, we’re going to crush rocks with our bare hands.”

A few of the older boys laughed. The girls looked like they might faint, so I picked Karalyn up and swung her through the air. “I’m joking,
mis amigos
. But we are going to move rocks. We’re going to clear the area right around the flex building so we can have a garden there one of these days. We need to smooth it out. Remove the
rocas
. ¿
Comprende
?”

I set them to work. The older kids went for the larger boulders and even attacked them with shovels when necessary, while the younger kids filled their shirts and pockets with smaller rocks. I marked off a zone around back where they could offload the rocks, and within a couple of hours I had a large group of hot, sweaty, tired kids, and a respectable pile of discarded boulders.

The girls sat down to rest first. The older boys figured out quickly they were being watched and used the opportunity to flex muscles and make fools of themselves. Every one of the kids, down to the littlest, smiled. I wanted to tell them all to hang onto how this felt.

I swigged water and tried to gain control over my lousy emotions because I knew this scene, like the vapor it was, would disappear soon.

When the kids were done and they’d scattered to lunch, I stayed behind even though my stomach growled loudly. I couldn’t get my body to move away from our tower of stones. About that time, an unfamiliar black sedan turned into the property. My heart skipped a few beats.

This could be the first visit from a social worker looking to take our kids or this could be law enforcement here to investigate something Raf had got himself into. Or the Ministry of Family making sure John had fired me. I couldn’t see a thing through the tinted windows.

A door opened and closed behind me and Sam stepped out to stand with me. My fingers itched for a rifle, so I wiped my hands down the front of my jeans.

But a familiar guy got out of the sedan and my nerves reset themselves to zero as soon as I saw his face. Patrick Lane, the character witness who’d helped me in Managua. He grinned as he walked toward me, hand extended.

“You look like you’re ready to face down a firing squad,” he said.

I laughed, shook his hand with both of mine, and introduced him to Sam with a brief explanation of his role in the gang fight debacle.

“I don’t guess you’ve heard about the heat that children’s home are taking right now.” I motioned with my chin for him to follow me to the dining hall.

“I heard,” he said. “Thought I’d check in with you and John to see if there’s anything I can do to help.”

Sam, Patrick, and I took a left toward the office to talk in private. The sounds of laughing children carried through the thin walls. Patrick got quiet and smiled when he heard them, even pressing his ear to the wall.

“Dang, I miss my kids,” he said. “Where’s John?”

“He and his wife, Kate, are home on furlough for a while.” I figured it would be fine for Patrick to know the situation. “Kate had a miscarriage a few weeks ago. I’m not sure when they’ll return or if there’ll be much to return to.”

Patrick nodded gravely and cleared his throat.

“I’ve got friends in the consul’s office.” He tapped his fingers on the desk. “They’ve filled me in on
Programa Amor.
What’s your game plan, Henry?”

I stole a look at Sam, who stared out the window, looking thoughtful and calm. He seemed to be waiting to hear what I had to say, too.

“Right now my game plan is to use a tough defense,” I said. “Protect the power zone, put maximum pressure on the man with the ball, and force bad shots.”

Sounded good. I mean, man to man…sports analogies worked. A grin crossed Patrick’s face, but it faded when he saw I wasn’t laughing.

“Oh, I thought you were joking, but that’s really your plan?” he said. “They suck at basketball in Nicaragua. They play baseball and you’re up to bat. Now, Henry, what’s your real game plan?”

Patrick rapped his knuckles on the desk again. He seemed to need constant movement to burn his huge energy reserve.

I decided to shift the focus. “After you gave me your business card in Managua, I Googled your company. What exactly do you do for Holton Industries?”

“I’m VP of Operations. I scout out new locations and move on, usually.” He stretched his arms over his head. “This time, looks like I’ll be long-term in Nicaragua.”