A Walk to Remember (10 page)

“It is, sometimes. Don’t get me wrong—I love my father with all my heart—but there are times when I wonder what it would have been like to have a mother around. I think she and I would have been able to talk about things in a way that my father and I can’t.”

I assumed she was talking about boys. It wasn’t until later that I learned how wrong I was.

“What’s it like, living with your father? Is he like how he is in church?”

“No. He’s actually got a pretty good sense of humor.”

“Hegbert?” I blurted out. I couldn’t even imagine it.

I think she was shocked to hear me call him by his first name, but she let me off the hook and didn’t respond to my comment. Instead she said, “Don’t look so surprised. You’ll like him, once you get to know him.”

“I doubt if I’ll ever get to know him.”

“You never know, Landon,” she said, smiling, “what the Lord’s plan is.”

I hated when she said things like that. With her, you just knew she talked to the Lord every day, and you never knew what the “Big Guy up-stairs” had told her. She might even have a direct ticket into heaven, if you know what I mean, being as how good a person she was.

“How would I get to know him?” I asked.

She didn’t answer, but she smiled to herself, as if she knew some secret that she was keeping from me. Like I said, I hated it when she did that.

The next night we talked about her Bible.

“Why do you always carry it with you?” I asked.

Now, I assumed she carried the Bible around simply because she was the minister’s daughter. It wasn’t that big of an assumption, given how Hegbert felt about Scripture and all. But the Bible she carried was old and the cover was kind of ratty looking, and I figured that she’d be the kind of person who would buy a new one every year or so just to help out the Bible publishing industry or to show her renewed dedication to the Lord or something.

She walked a few steps before answering.

“It was my mother’s,” she said simply.

“Oh. . . .” I said it like I’d stepped on someone’s pet turtle, squashing it under my shoe.

She looked at me. “It’s okay, Landon. How could you have known?”

“I’m sorry I asked. . . .”

“Don’t be. You didn’t mean anything by it.” She paused. “My mother and father were given this Bible for their wedding, but my mom was the one who claimed it first. She read it all the time, especially whenever she was going through a hard time in her life.”

I thought about the miscarriages. Jamie went on.

“She loved to read it at night, before she went to sleep, and she had it with her in the hospital when I was born. When my father found out that she had died, he carried the Bible and me out of the hospital at the same time.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again. Whenever someone tells you something sad, it’s the only thing you can think to say, even if you’ve already said it before.

“It just gives me a way to...to be a part of her. Can you understand that?” She wasn’t saying it sadly, just more to let me know the answer to my question. Somehow that made it worse.

After she told me the story, I thought of her growing up with Hegbert again, and I didn’t really know what to say. As I was thinking about my answer, though, I heard a car blare its horn from behind us, and both Jamie and I stopped and turned around at the same time as we heard it pulling over to the side.

Eric and Margaret were in the car, Eric on the driver’s side, Margaret on the side closest to us.

“Well, lookee who we have here,” Eric said as he leaned over the steering wheel so that I could see his face. I hadn’t told him I’d been walking Jamie home, and in the curious way that teenage minds work, this new development took priority over anything that I was feeling about Jamie’s story.

“Hello, Eric. Hello, Margaret,” Jamie said cheerfully.

“Walking her home, Landon?” I could see the little devil behind Eric’s smile.

“Hey, Eric,” I said, wishing he’d never seen me.

“It’s a beautiful night for strolling, isn’t it?” Eric said. I think that because Margaret was between him and Jamie, he felt a little bolder than he usually was in Jamie’s presence. And there was no way he could let this opportunity pass without sticking it to me.

Jamie looked around and smiled. “Yes, it is.”

Eric looked around, too, with this wistful look in his eyes before taking a deep breath. I could tell he was faking it. “Boy, it really is nice out there.” He sighed and glanced toward us as he shrugged. “I’d offer you a ride, but it wouldn’t be half as nice as actually walking under the stars, and I wouldn’t want you two to miss it.” He said this like he was doing us both a favor.

“Oh, we’re almost to my house anyway,” Jamie said. “I was going to offer Landon a cup of cider. Would you like to meet us there? We have plenty.”

A cup of cider? At her house? She hadn’t mentioned that. . . .

I put my hands in my pocket, wondering if this could get any worse.

“Oh, no . . . that’s all right. We were just heading off to Cecil’s Diner.”

“On a school night?” she asked innocently.

“Oh, we won’t be out too late,” he promised, “but we should probably be going. Enjoy your cider, you two.”

“Thanks for stopping to say hello,” Jamie said, waving.

Eric got the car rolling again, but slowly. Jamie probably thought he was a safe driver. He really wasn’t, though he was good at getting out of trouble when he’d crashed into something. I remember one time when he’d told his mother that a cow had jumped out in front of the car and that’s why the grille and fender were damaged. “It happened so fast, Mom, the cow came out of nowhere. It just darted out in front of me, and I couldn’t stop in time.” Now, everyone knows cows don’t exactly
dart
anywhere, but his mother believed him. She used to be a head cheerleader, too, by the way.

Once they’d pulled out of sight, Jamie turned to me and smiled.

“You have nice friends, Landon.”

“Sure I do.” Notice the careful way I phrased my answer.

After dropping Jamie off—no, I didn’t stay for any cider—I started back to my house, grumbling the whole time. By then Jamie’s story had left me completely, and I could practically hear my friends laughing about me, all the way from Cecil’s Diner.

See what happens when you’re a nice guy?

By the next morning everyone at school knew I was walking Jamie home, and this started up a new round of speculation about the two of us. This time it was even worse than before. It was so bad that I had to spend my lunch break in the library just to get away from it all.

That night, the rehearsal was at the Playhouse. It was the last one before the show opened, and we had a lot to do. Right after school, the boys in drama class had to load all the props in the classroom into the rented truck to take them to the Playhouse. The only problem was that Eddie and I were the only two boys, and he’s not exactly the most coordinated individual in history. We’d be walking through a doorway, carrying one of the heavier items, and his Hooville body would work against him. At every critical moment when I really needed his help to balance the load, he’d stumble over some dust or an insect on the floor, and the weight of the prop would come crashing down on my fingers, pinching them against the doorjamb in the most painful way possible.

“S-s-sorry,” he’d say. “D-d-did . . . th-th-that hurt?”

I’d stifle the curses rising in my throat and bite out, “Just don’t do it again.”

But he couldn’t stop himself from stumbling around any more than he could stop the rain from falling. By the time we’d finished loading and unloading everything, my fingers looked like Toby’s, the roving handyman. And the worst thing was, I didn’t even get a chance to eat before rehearsal started. Moving the props had taken three hours, and we didn’t finish setting them up until a few minutes before everyone else arrived to begin. With everything else that had happened that day, suffice it to say I was in a pretty bad mood.

I ran through my lines without even thinking about them, and Miss Garber didn’t say the word
marvelous
all night long. She had this concerned look in her eyes afterward, but Jamie simply smiled and told her not to worry, that everything was going to be all right. I knew Jamie was just trying to make things better for me, but when she asked me to walk her home, I told her no. The Playhouse was in the middle of town, and to walk her home, I’d have to walk a good distance out of my way. Besides, I didn’t want to be seen again doing it. But Miss Garber had overheard Jamie’s request and she said, very firmly, that I’d be glad to do it. “You two can talk about the play,” she said. “Maybe you can work out the kinks.” By kinks, of course, she meant me specifically.

So once more I ended up walking Jamie home, but she could tell I wasn’t really in the mood to talk because I walked a little bit in front of her, my hands in my pockets, without even really turning back to see whether she was following. It went this way for the first few minutes, and I hadn’t said a word to her.

“You’re not in a very good mood, are you?” she finally asked. “You didn’t even try tonight.”

“You don’t miss a thing, do you?” I said sarcastically without looking at her.

“Maybe I can help,” she offered. She said it kind of happily, which made me even a little angrier.

“I doubt it,” I snapped.

“Maybe if you told me what was wrong—”

I didn’t let her finish.

“Look,” I said, stopping, turning to face her. “I’ve just spent all day hauling crap, I haven’t eaten since lunch, and now I have to trek a mile out of my way to make sure you get home, when we both know you don’t even need me to do it.”

It was the first time I’d ever raised my voice to her. To tell you the truth, it felt kind of good. It had been building up for a long time. Jamie was too surprised to respond, and I went on.

“And the only reason I’m doing this is because of your father, who doesn’t even like me. This whole thing is dumb, and I wish I had never agreed to do it.”

“You’re just saying this because you’re nervous about the play—”

I cut her off with a shake of my head. Once I got on a roll, it was sometimes hard for me to stop. I could take her optimism and cheerfulness only so long, and today wasn’t the day to push me too far.

“Don’t you get it?” I said, exasperated. “I’m not nervous about the play, I just don’t want to be here. I don’t want to walk you home, I don’t want my friends to keep talking about me, and I don’t want to spend time with you. You keep acting like we’re friends, but we’re not. We’re not anything. I just want the whole thing to be over so I can go back to my normal life.”

She looked hurt by my outburst, and to be honest, I couldn’t blame her.

“I see,” was all she said. I waited for her to raise her voice at me, to defend herself, to make her case again, but she didn’t. All she did was look toward the ground. I think part of her wanted to cry, but she didn’t, and I finally stalked away, leaving her standing by her-self. A moment later, though, I heard her start moving, too. She was about five yards behind me the rest of the way to her house, and she didn’t try to talk to me again until she started up the walkway. I was already moving down the sidewalk when I heard her voice.

“Thank you for walking me home, Landon,” she called out.

I winced as soon as she said it. Even when I was mean to her face and said the most spiteful things, she could find some reason to thank me. She was just that kind of girl, and I think I actually hated her for it.

Or rather, I think, I hated myself.

Chapter 8

T
he night of the play was cool and crisp, the sky absolutely clear without a hint of clouds. We had to arrive an hour early, and I’d been feeling pretty bad all day about the way I’d talked to Jamie the night before. She’d never been anything but nice to me, and I knew that I’d been a jerk. I saw her in the hallways between classes, and I wanted to go up to apologize to her for what I’d said, but she’d sort of slip back into the crowd before I got the chance.

She was already at the Playhouse by the time I finally arrived, and I saw her talking to Miss Garber and Hegbert, off to one side, over by

the curtains. Everyone was in motion, working off nervous energy, but she seemed strangely lethargic. She hadn’t put on her costume yet—she was supposed to wear a white, flowing dress to give that angelic appearance— and she was still wearing the same sweater she’d worn at school. Despite my trepidation at how she might react, I walked up to the three of them.

“Hey, Jamie,” I said. “Hello, Reverend . . . Miss Garber.”

Jamie turned to me.

“Hello, Landon,” she said quietly. I could tell she’d been thinking about the night before, too, because she didn’t smile at me like she always did when she saw me. I asked if I could talk to her alone, and the two of us excused ourselves. I could see Hegbert and Miss Garber watching us as we took a few steps off to the side, out of hearing distance.

I glanced around the stage nervously.

“I’m sorry about those things I said last night,” I began. “I know they probably hurt your feelings, and I was wrong to have said them.”

She looked at me, as if wondering whether to believe me.

“Did you mean those things you said?” she finally asked.

“I was just in a bad mood, that’s all. I get sort of wound up sometimes.” I knew I hadn’t really answered her question.

“I see,” she said. She said it as she had the night before, then turned toward the empty seats in the audience. Again she had that sad look in her eyes.

“Look,” I said, reaching for her hand, “I promise to make it up to you.” Don’t ask me why I said it—it just seemed like the right thing to do at that moment.

For the first time that night, she began to smile.

“Thank you,” she said, turning to face me.

“Jamie?”

Jamie turned. “Yes, Miss Garber?”

“I think we’re about ready for you.” Miss Garber was motioning with her hand.

“I’ve got to go,” she said to me.

“I know.”

“Break a leg?” I said. Wishing someone luck before a play is supposed to be bad luck. That’s why everyone tells you to “break a leg.”