Wreath (40 page)

J. D. hung his head. “I care for you, Faye, and I care for the girl. I didn’t want to mention it until I knew more. But with her missing and sick, I couldn’t stand it any longer.”

“I don’t want to go behind her back,” Faye said. “She’s so independent that if we take the wrong approach, she might up and run.”

“John David was like that. From the time he could walk, he wanted to do everything for himself.”

Having a hard time pulling her thoughts together, Faye motioned toward two matching recliners, one draped with a furry throw she had made. A vase of greenery sat on a dark Mediterranean-style table, next to a stack of design magazines, fanned out, and a heavy glass dish with a few pieces of candy in it.

J. D. sank into one chair and Faye eased into the other. For a moment, she felt like they were an old married couple and wished Wreath could be her granddaughter,
their
granddaughter.

“Do you remember John David’s girlfriend’s name?” she asked after a moment. “Was her last name Williams?”

He shook his head. “John David’s girl was a Willis.”

“The names are close enough. Perhaps Wreath’s mother changed her name, or married someone else.”

“Wreath could have a whole family out there looking for her,” J. D. said. “I’m trying to bring a piece of my son back.”

“Do you remember the girlfriend’s first name?” Faye asked, afraid to get their hopes up, yet longing for this to be one of the answers for Wreath’s future.

“Her name was Frances,” J. D. said. “But John David called her Frankie. I tried to track her down a time or two through the years, but she moved around a lot after she left Landry. I decided I was being foolish and quit trying.”

Faye could barely take in what J. D. was saying, her ears ringing with the name Frankie. “Oh my” was all she could manage to say at first. Then she was adamant. “We cannot stir things up for Wreath until she’s stronger.”

Never in Faye’s life, not even when Billy had died, had she been so tied up in knots.

On one hand, she was thrilled beyond belief that Wreath could have an honest and good man like J. D. to look after her. On the other, she feared Wreath wouldn’t be able to fathom why her father’s family had abandoned her for all these years.

When Faye remembered the thin girl who first stepped into the store in need of a bicycle, an almost physical pain shot through her. All that time, a family and someone who cared had been only a few yards away.

Piecing the puzzle together made it all look so obvious. At times she had seen a similar expression on the faces of the man and the girl and not quite been able to place it. The two were both voracious readers, and they kidded each other constantly about what the other was reading. Wreath was never without her journal, and J. D. carried a small notebook in his shirt pocket, jotting down one list after another.

They even had the same nose.

But Faye didn’t know whether the teenager would be thrilled by the revelation or brokenhearted, whether it would stir up questions and issues best left undisturbed or bring a new wave of joy. She could not bear to see the girl hurt, even if it meant she never knew her father’s family, and insisted they not tell Wreath until they were completely certain.

“We simply cannot bring this up without more to go on,” Faye said on their first supper date, a few nights after their conversation at the store. “She’s just now beginning to get over the death of her mother.”

“I’m concerned, too,” J. D. said. “Have you heard anything more about this cousin she’s living with?”

“Not a word,” Faye said. “It’s as though he doesn’t exist.”

“What if she rejects me?” J. D. said. “Or hates me for leaving her and her mother on their own all this time? Clearly she and her mother did not have much going for them.”

“They had each other, and that mattered a lot to Wreath.” Faye laid her hand on his. “Frankie told her that her father was a good boy, that they were kids when they met, and he was killed.”

“My mind keeps thinking of the ways this might affect her, and about half of those aren’t great.”

“You won’t know unless you tell her,” Faye said.

“I’m afraid to tell her.”

“We need to wait until the time is right,” Faye said. “I couldn’t love that child more if she was my own flesh and blood, and I won’t have her hurt. To top it off, she’s worried about college.”

“I want to help her with that. I have more than enough money stuck back,” he said.

“Wreath’s not much for taking money from others, and she’s about as stubborn as anyone I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure she’ll accept your help.”

J. D. paused. “John David’s mother said he had the personality of a mule, and she blamed that on my side of the family.”

“Maybe you should hold off for a while and see what happens.”

“As long as you’re convinced Wreath’s not in harm’s way,” he said. “No one—and I do mean no one—will hurt that girl if I have anything to say about it.”

A week after her bout with the flu, Wreath confirmed her acceptance into a community college up in Alexandria, buying a money order for her deposit.

“It’ll be okay,” she told Julia while doing makeup work at lunch. “It’s not exactly what I dreamed of, but it’s a start.”

“At least you’ll be close to Landry,” Julia said.

Wreath grinned and tried to overcome her disappointment at not making an A-level university. “That’s what Faye said, too.”

“Wreath …” The sound in Julia’s voice caused a knot in her stomach. “Is all of your paperwork cleared up for graduation?”

“Sure.” Wreath closed the textbook and stood. “I think I’m done with this. And my project was satisfactory, right?”

“Your project was outstanding, as always,” Julia said, but the look on her face didn’t match her words.

Wreath grabbed her pack and hurried to the door, but her teacher spoke again before she could escape. “Sometimes transfer students have loose ends to tie up. Be sure to check in with the counselor.”

“Will do,” Wreath said and headed toward the cafeteria, checking her watch and wondering how she could clear up the mess she was in.

Law, Mitch, and Destiny were nearly finished with lunch when she slid into a cafeteria chair at their table.

“What’s up?” Law asked. “You look worried.”

“Nothing,” Wreath said, fumbling to get an apple out of her pack. “There’s just a lot going on.”

“Does it have something to do with Aunt Faye?” Mitch asked.

Wreath threw him an exasperated look. “Of course not,” she said and then glanced at Law. “She didn’t want me to move back in with my cousin, but she’s all right with it.”

“My dad thinks Aunt Faye’s up to something,” Mitch continued. “He says she’s as jumpy as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”

Wreath laughed, but a butterfly flitted through her stomach. “I think she’s falling for J. D. They spend a lot more time talking lately.”

Wreath had moved back to the Rusted Estates after only a week at Faye’s house, much to the woman’s dismay, but reassured Faye that she would stay every weekend with her and keep going to church. Law had kept his word and not told anyone that she lived at the junkyard.

“That doesn’t mean I have to like it,” he’d said when Wreath came back to school. “Are you sure you’re safe out there? Miss Watson said they haven’t found that Procell guy yet.”

“I’m safer out there than I’d be in a metropolitan area,” she said with a laugh. “I have a baseball bat that will keep all varmints away.”

She set her traps each day and settled easily back into her routine, her legs strengthening again on the bike rides into town. In the evenings in the Tiger Van, she read and reread the junior college catalog and filled out more paperwork.

She was still neck and neck with Law in the senior class standings, and Wreath had begun to believe that maybe God did have a plan for her life after all.

Chapter 37

F
aye and Julia teased Wreath about “The Great Prom Project” when April arrived.

Confident she’d find a used dress, she had decided to scrimp on her outfit but splurge on extras for the evening with Law, digging up one can of her savings.
Dear Brownie
, she wrote in her diary,
I’ll never be a senior again, and I want this to be special
.

Her prom list included choosing a dress
(TEAL or AQUA!!!)
, finding killer shoes, and deciding whether she wanted to put her hair up or not. She asked Julia and Faye for opinions on where to get her hair done and what color her nails should be. She experimented with an expensive tooth-whitening paste from the drugstore and frequented the thrift shop in search of the perfect dress and matching pair of shoes.

As the days passed and no dress appeared, she repeated her strict instructions to Faye to be on the lookout at garage sales. “It needs good lines and a soft fabric,” Wreath said. “I’m hoping for something in green or blue, maybe black, but only if it doesn’t look like a funeral dress.”

“We’ll find you one,” Faye said. “If we don’t, we’ll drive to Lafayette, and I’ll buy you a new one.”

Wreath shook her head. “I want to look pretty, but I don’t want to waste money on a dress. The school applications cost more than I expected, and I’m trying to save more money for moving to college.”

Julia had gotten into the prom spirit, too, and signed on as one of the chief faculty sponsors and chaperones. “I haven’t gotten involved in school activities before,” she said at the store one afternoon. “Now’s the time.”

Wreath clapped her hands and did one of her happy hops. “I’m so glad,” she said. “It’ll be more fun having you there.”

“How about Shane?” Faye asked. “Will he be wearing a tux that night?”

“Unfortunately, he’s on duty the entire evening. He did promise to stop by and check out my dress.”

“You’ve already got a dress?” Wreath whined. “I can’t find one.”

“Not yet, but I’m thinking about it.”

Wreath’s excitement about the prom and graduation spilled over into her enthusiasm for the store, and she came up with a long list of possible rooms to put together. “I have a new idea for the window,” she told Faye, rushing in from school. “Let’s do a prom thing, featuring clothes and furniture from the fifties.”

Then another idea hit her. “We can offer to let girls who buy dresses here have their picture taken in the store displays, wearing their dresses.” Wreath, generally fairly calm, buzzed around the store, framing imaginary pictures. She even dashed to the sidewalk to see how the idea could work from outside.