Wreath (30 page)

Wreath gave a laugh. “Some days are slow, but not like they used to be.”

The bell rang.

“How about Saturday afternoon?” Julia asked, standing.

“That might work.”

“Nice outfit,” Julia said as the girl headed to the door.

Wreath looked down at the teal stretch pants and floral cotton blouse she had found in a chest of drawers in a rusty mobile home. The art teacher was right. Everyone certainly had different tastes.

The temperature turned cold overnight, pleasant days replaced by a chilly drizzle, Wreath’s constant companion. Hardships were commonplace in her daily life, but getting caught in a cold rain ranked right up there in her least favorite things.

KEEP UP WITH WEATHER
, she wrote in her journal and tracked the temperature online at school or the library or on the television in the state park office.

A cheap umbrella from the Dollar Barn turned inside out during a gust of wind, and Wreath became obsessed with finding a jacket with a hood. She scoured dozens of vehicles at the junkyard and dug through box upon box of old stuff at the store, but came up with only a couple of sweatshirts, a snazzy but impractical nylon Windbreaker, and a double-breasted wool jacket with several large burn spots in it.

While reading a newspaper in Miss Watson’s class, a picture of an all-weather coat in a thrift shop advertisement caught Wreath’s eye. “Winter clothes, home accessories, and more!” the advertisement said. Wreath pulled out her journal and copied the store’s name and address before heading to art class, which had gotten much more bearable since Miss Watson had started helping her earlier in the month.

“Art is a matter of perspective and individual taste in some regards,” Julia told her. “But if you learn the principles from Mrs. Colvin, you’ll be able to adapt them to all sorts of artistic endeavors.”

The lessons were also paying off at Durham’s Fine Furnishings, where Wreath looked for ways to incorporate what she was learning about color, and she seemed to be getting along better with the cranky art teacher, too. Destiny slipped Wreath a note as the chattering students settled into their desks, and Wreath unfolded it with care. She had never, in twelve years of school, gotten a note from a student.

The lined notebook paper was decorated with flowers and smiley faces.
Haven’t seen U on the bus 4 a while. Want to come to PZA party at church Fri. nite? W8 for me after class
.

Wreath smiled, thinking the note looked like something she would write in her journal, and was astonished that Destiny had invited her to a party.

“Do I have your attention, Miss Williams?”

Closing her eyes for a second, Wreath held in the groan that tried to slip out. Just when things were getting better with the teacher, she had been caught with a note. The woman was standing two steps from Wreath’s desk, holding up a fashion drawing Wreath had done, using props from the junkyard.

“I, I …” Wreath stammered. “I’m sorry, ma’am….” Her voice trailed off as she eyed the drawing, which looked different hanging there from her teacher’s hand.

“I thought my announcement would surprise you,” Mrs. Colvin said. “I’ll admit it caught me off guard, but your work is improving now that you understand the rules better.”

When Wreath was a little girl, Frankie would lie next to her at bedtime and talk, and sometimes Wreath would be so sleepy that she had no idea what her mother was saying, although she could make out the words. She had that feeling at this moment and wondered what had managed to surprise Mrs. Colvin.

Wreath slid Destiny’s note off the desk into her lap and waited.

“Thanks to the efforts of me and Miss Watson, your fashion design has been chosen to be printed in a regional magazine, and you’ll receive a laptop computer,” the teacher said. “What do you have to say about that?”

Stunned, Wreath wondered how those around her would respond if she admitted she didn’t have electricity or running water. The laptop sounded like a dream, though.

A handful of students around her cheered, and a smattering of applause rang out.

“Way to go, Wreath,” Destiny yelled, and Mrs. Colvin didn’t even frown.

Chapter 28

O
n Wreath’s seventeenth birthday, four days before Christmas, the sun shone, and the air was crisp and clear.

Stepping out of the Tiger Van, Wreath blinked at the glare, grabbed a sweatshirt from one of her tidy stacks of winter clothes, and moved her single folding chair so she could sit in the sun to eat her cereal bar. Two bright red cardinals flitted in and out of the small cedar tree she had draped with a string of store-bought popcorn. In the van, she had a three-inch tree that had come with tiny ornaments glued to it, and hanging on the rearview mirror was her prized glass wreath from Mrs. Durham.

Wreath could not remember the last time she had been this excited about her birthday—not because she was turning seventeen or expected presents or attention. She hadn’t told anyone it was her birthday, but today they were having the long-awaited Christmas open house at the furniture store.

Faye had kept her word and paid her extra for all the merchandise they sold out of the attic, which meant she had been able to buy a raincoat at the thrift store and add another hiding place to her cash stashes. Her savings accounts, as she thought of them, were now scattered in five places around the Rusted Estates.

Wreath couldn’t have been any happier about the store’s success if it had been her own business. Nor any more exhausted.

Between her semester finals, which she had aced, and work, which was full time while school was out for the holidays, she barely had a minute to think about life in the junkyard, worry about Big Fun, or write in her journal.

Today she absolutely had to make a list, a birthday tradition she’d started when she was ten. Each year she came up with five things she intended to do in the next year, pushed in the past by her mama to

“make them bigger and better than ever.”

“You have to dream and set goals,” Frankie had said, always talking to Wreath as though she were older. “Otherwise you’ll drift along and turn out like me.”

“That’d be good, Mama. I want to turn out like you.”

“No, you don’t, honey. No, you don’t.”

Every year since, Wreath had made a Give Me Five list for Frankie. “I want you to be proud of me, Mama,” she whispered as she started writing.

That entry made her melancholy, but the months were flying by, and Faye depended on her. Wreath intended to find a responsible girl—or guy—to pick up the slack when she moved on.

She debated long and hard over her fourth goal, but wrote it down anyway.

She’d never even been out on a date, but she wanted to get dressed up and go to the prom and have her picture made. When Wreath was little, Frankie had told her about her prom at Landry High, making it sound like a fairy tale. Wreath had dreamed of going to prom since. And to go with Law? That seemed like too much to hope for.

She’d considered postponing this goal until she turned eighteen but didn’t think she could wait that long. When she started college, she needed to know Frankie was resting in peace.

With the list made, Wreath set her morning traps around the campsite and got dressed for the day. Apparently the former residents of the vehicles had not been festive people, and Wreath’s holiday wardrobe was severely lacking. The best she had come up with was an old pair of black stretch pants and an oversized forest-green sweater. She’d cut a Christmas tree out of felt and stitched it over a moth hole on the sweater and even bought a tube of pale pink lipstick from the Dollar Barn.

One detail remained before she could start to town. For the past few days, she’d been working on a Christmas gift for Faye, a wreath made out of vines she’d foraged from the woods and trimmed with bright red berries and cedar sprigs. Using red-plaid ribbon, she’d topped it off with a bow.

With the wreath in hand, she decided to walk into town, knowing the store would stay open late and willing to ask Faye for a ride home. Letting her drop her at the road down the way was a risk but worth it on cold winter nights when her feet ached from moving around the store so much.

Not five minutes into Wreath’s walk, Clarice’s car appeared, coming from town. The lawyer did a quick U-turn and rolled down her window. “Going my way?”

Wreath just smiled, put her pack in the back, and laid the wreath on her lap as she climbed in.

“What a beautiful wreath,” Clarice said. “Is that for the store?”

“It’s a Christmas gift for Mrs. Durham,” Wreath said, straightening the bow. “Do you think she’ll like it?”

“She’ll love it, not only because it’s pretty but because you made it.”

Wreath grinned, picturing the way Faye looked when they came up with a new design.

“You look awfully happy today,” Clarice said.

“It’s my birthday.” She hadn’t intended to tell anyone, but she couldn’t hold it in.

“So you
were
a Christmas baby,” Clarice said.

Wreath blushed as she remembered her first encounter with the lawyer. “Instead of naming me Holly or Noel, my mother chose Wreath.”

Clarice laughed. “Well, at least she didn’t name you Jingle Bell.”

Wreath was relieved to have cleared up one small deception. She looked forward to the day she could wipe all of them from her life, and vowed that once she turned eighteen, she would never tell so much as a fib.

“Happy birthday!” Clarice said. “Dare I ask how old you are?”

“Old enough to know not to tell you how old I am.” Wreath cut her eyes at the attorney. “And old enough to know you’re going out of your way today to give me a ride. You were heading out of town.”

“I’m killing time until the big holiday open house at Durham’s Fine Furnishings,” she said with a wink.

“You’re coming to the open house?”

“Daddy and my husband and me,” Clarice said. “I’ve only been in the store a few times over the years, but my father has been a
preferred
customer for years.” Wreath liked the way Clarice put air quotes around words every now and then, steering the car for a second with her knee.

“Billy Durham was the first person in Landry to give my daddy a charge account, as a matter of fact. Back when African Americans were not allowed in the front door at some businesses, the Durhams were always welcoming.”

Wreath wouldn’t have believed that of Faye when she had first started work, but she could easily see it now. “Hmmm,” she said.

Clarice stopped the car near the front of the store and reached into the backseat, handing Wreath a small present. “I didn’t know it was your birthday, but I bought you this for Christmas.”

“But I don’t have anything for you,” Wreath said.