Wreath (11 page)

She had come to the high school intent on shaping young protégés and paying off college loans. Instead she was teaching antsy students how to read the newspaper and why the Constitution mattered. Most of her students were good kids, but a few of them made her want to pull her hair out. The subjects bored her, too, so she understood why she couldn’t make hyper teenagers care.

She had slid into a paycheck and health benefits and wasn’t sure she had enough cash to make a move, even at the age of twenty-four.

Julia wondered if she might turn into someone like her landlady, Faye Durham, whose daily routine seemed closed off and dull. The very idea made her want to pack her car and drive up the road to anywhere but here. She was scared, though, that wherever she went she would find more of the same.

Turning into the park, she sprinted down the entrance lane and headed toward the restroom for a splash of lukewarm water out of the faucet. As she entered the building, she thought for a second about the teenager she’d encountered earlier in the summer.
Wreath. What an unusual name
.

She hadn’t seen the girl since, but Julia couldn’t quite forget her. She wondered if the family had been camping for fun or if they moved around, living at parks like this. She had heard some families had to do that. Something about the girl Wreath niggled at the edge of Julia’s mind.

Lawson Rogers stood outside the park office as she ran past, and she doubled back to speak, hitting P
AUSE
on the timer on her watch. Law was one of her favorite students, a conscientious boy who didn’t sleep in class and made good grades. She’d heard her colleagues in the teachers’ lounge say his father was in jail, but he’d never mentioned it to her. He was so polite that it was hard to believe his father was a scoundrel.

“Too hot to run today, Miss Watson.” The boy walked from the shade to where she stood. “Where’s your water bottle?”

Just like in class, he noticed details. “I forgot it,” she said.

“If you have a minute, I’ll get you some from the office.”

“That’d be great,” Julia said. “It probably is too hot to run at this time of day, but I have a meeting later and want to get my run in.” While the boy went inside, she sat on a wooden bench, catching her breath.

“How’s the job?” she asked when he returned with the water.

He grinned. “It’s good, but don’t tell my friends. They think it’s lame to work here. I like the park. Makes the days go faster.”

“Go faster?” Julia gulped a swallow of water. “I thought high school students wanted summer to last forever.”

“Not this high school student. I’m ready to graduate and head on to college.”

“You have the grades for it,” Julia said. “Wish that would rub off on your fellow students.” Julia had noticed many of her students didn’t even think about college. The principal seemed happy if he could keep them interested enough to finish high school.

Law shook his head, a rueful look on his face. “Most of my friends aren’t that interested in school. They want to get a job and buy a new truck.” He looked sheepish. “Not that I’m criticizing them. College costs a lot of money, and most of them haven’t been out of Landry. They don’t think about what’s out there.”

“So you’ve traveled?” Julia asked.

“I’ve read about places and seen them in movies. I want to see them in person, and I want to make money.” He stopped. “Sorry. You didn’t ask for my life plan.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, how will you pay for college?” From what she’d seen, the boy didn’t have a lot of money.

“Loans. Scholarships, I hope. I’ll work, too. My grandparents. Whatever it takes.”

“Sounds good,” she said. “Let me know if I can help. I’ll write a recommendation for you.”

Julia glanced at her watch and stood. “By the way, have you seen a girl around here lately? About your age, long brownish-reddish hair, backpack?”

Law didn’t pause to think about that one. “Is her name Wreath?”

“That’s her,” Julia said. “Do you know her?”

“Not really. I’ve run into her a couple of times, and she seems real nice.” He blushed. “Is she in some kind of trouble?”

“Not that I know, but I met her out here and wondered if she might need help.”

“She doesn’t talk much, but she acted like everything was okay when I saw her,” Law said.

“Will you let me know if you bump into her? I want to give her a hand if she needs one.”

“Sure,” he said. “I hope I do see her again.”

Chapter 11

W
reath had found happiness in being needed by her mother, and she was surprised to find a similar pleasure at Durham’s Fine Furnishings.

She still tiptoed around the furniture store owner, always afraid of losing her job, most of the time ignored. But Wreath had begun to feel a level of accomplishment at the store. Some days she looked forward to propping her bike against the post out front and scooting inside, wondering what she could do today to make the place look better.

At the junkyard, she walked to the trunk of a rusty old Chevrolet and pretended to unlock the trunk, though the hinges had sprung long before. She reached inside and counted her small stash of cash, putting most of it back under the spare tire. She also hid cans of food, bottles of water, and a picture of her mother.

Taking her bike out of its hiding place, this time in the bed of a pickup covered with a blue plastic tarp, she pedaled down the road, enjoying the wind in her hair and anticipating a visit to the library before work.

She kept careful track of every day she worked, using little ink marks in her journal along with a comment or two about Mrs. Durham.
Dear Brownie
, she wrote one day.
My boss almost paid me a compliment today. When I finished dusting, she said the spiders must wonder what’s happening to the place. Wow! She actually made a joke. She’s not the joking kind, but she pays me in cash and lets me have a few old items from the back
.

Mrs. Durham had told her she could take whatever she wanted “out of that pile of junk,” and Wreath chose an item or two every day, trying not to look obvious. Today her pack held an outfit she had picked from a cardboard box in the storeroom, and she looked forward to cleaning up at the library and putting it on.

The hot air felt like a blow-dryer on her skin as she rode, and she wondered what cooler weather would be like in her new home. Every time she stepped through the library door, she savored the cool air, tired of being hot and sweaty. She breathed in the familiar smell as she walked in, the scent of paper and ink, a clean scent that felt like visiting the home of a friend.

Walking into the bathroom, Wreath glanced under the stalls to make sure the room was empty, then washed her arms, hands, and face. This was not as good as a shower at the state park, but it was a lot easier and didn’t cost a dollar, so she had done it several times in the past weeks. She stepped into one of the stalls and slipped into the cotton skirt she’d paired with a faded blouse. Surveying herself in the mirror nearby, she felt presentable. Almost pretty.

The library had become one of the few public places she allowed herself to linger, stopping in most days before work. The employees were friendly and sometimes offered her a snack from the story hour for little kids or a book club meeting. She read magazines and scanned regional newspapers, curious if she might see her name. Stories about missing children from California to Connecticut always caught her eye, but no one seemed to be looking for Wreath Willis.

Today was the day for another of her big steps.

She went directly to the main desk. “I’d like a library card, please.”

The gray-haired man who worked weekdays looked over his glasses and picked up a pen. “It’s about time you decided to check out a book,” he said with a kind wink, not the creepy kind that Big Fun had sometimes thrown her way. “My grandson’s about your age and likes to read. I can recommend his favorites, if you’re interested.”

“That’ll be great,” Wreath said, although she already had a long list of books she wanted to check out.

The man handed her a pen and a form on a beat-up clipboard. “Fill this out, and we’ll get you taken care of.”

Wreath settled into one of her favorite chairs, where the sun came through the window like a pretty lamp, but also near an air-conditioning vent where cool air blew on her face. Her eyes scanned the form, and she relaxed. She hated lying, but the form was brief. She filled in the blocks one by one, listing her real age. She gave the address of the furniture store as her home address.

When Wreath wrote the new last name, she felt a piece of herself slip away.
Williams
. One of the worst things about hiding was giving up her name. “We are Willis women through and through,” Frankie always said.

Perhaps getting a library card wasn’t such a great idea. The information could be pieced together to track her down. She would take a book in her pack without checking it out. She’d bring it back in good shape. Wreath started to rip the form in half, but longing clung to her as she looked around. She didn’t want to be accused of stealing books from the library, and she couldn’t depend on the few books at Wreath’s Rusted Estates. They were mostly horror stories or technical manuals for various pieces of equipment that had been thrown out, and were falling apart, no matter how careful she was.

Only the old, mildewed Bible had interested her, and she had searched for stories she remembered Grandma Willis telling and looked for the words she’d found in the notebook.
Lo, I am with you always
. They sounded like something you might find in the Bible, but she couldn’t locate them. She wondered again who had made the entry in her diary.

But here, at her fingertips in the library, were free books. She didn’t have money to go to a movie and had no electricity, even if she could afford a television. She needed a library card. So she kept at it and felt good when she came to the spot for the date under her signature. At least that wouldn’t be a lie.

She looked across the room at the big calendar behind the copy machine and sucked in her breath.

Eight weeks ago today Frankie had died. Clenching her teeth, Wreath let her chin droop to her chest. She missed her mother so much that for a second she felt as though she’d suffocate.

By now they should have moved on together, not Wreath all by herself. They would have found a place to rent, and Frankie would have gotten a job as a waitress or a clerk. They could have come to Landry together, and her mama could even have worked at the Dollar Barn. They could have turned the evidence over to the cops and gotten Big Fun sent away for good. Or would he have gotten out again?

Wreath tried to pull herself together when she saw the man from the counter walking over to her chair. “Everything all right?” he asked, his look of concern so intense that she wanted to burst into tears. “Need help with that form?”

“I’ve got it.” Wreath was glad her voice didn’t shake. “I’m almost finished.”

Nodding, he moved on to a group of toddlers and the women who must be their mothers, and Wreath’s eyes lingered on the gathering. The children were adorable, and the women sat cross-legged on the floor next to them, pointing to pictures in colorful books and rubbing their backs or embracing them.

Frankie took her to the library once, when Wreath was about seven. They had chosen a stack of books and practiced reading together. After that, her mama was always working or cooking or “trying to find a nice man,” as she put it. Wreath went to the library at school or, when she got older, with a friend or sometimes the old neighbor in Lucky.

Wreath squeezed her eyes shut to block out the sight of the happy children, and gritted her teeth as she finished the short, official-looking form. She walked back to the front counter before she could change her mind, and tried to smile as she handed the man the form, but all she could think about was how Frankie should be here with her, how Frankie had looked that last day, the cover pulled up under her chin, her body so still.

The library employee glanced over the form, his now familiar smile on his wrinkled face, his teeth big and somewhat yellowed. Wreath drew in her breath when his brow furrowed. “You’re only sixteen, Miss Williams?”