How Sweet It Is (27 page)

I take her hand between my fingers and gently squeeze it. “You are beautiful,” I say.

Quickly, she says, “No, I’m not.”

“Oh yes, you are. Don’t tell anyone, but when I first came to The Center, I thought you were the most gorgeous. And I mean on the outside
and
the inside.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. I even wrote about you in my journal.”

She takes a long look at me, and even in the darkness I see her eyes dance. “I have a journal, too.”

“That’s great.”

“It’s the only place I can be myself.”

I know all about that, I think as I picture my own journal with the apple pie cover. Me, the one who hated my writing class; me, becoming close friends with a journal and a pen!

“You can talk to me,” I say. “I’m good at keeping secrets.”

Her eyes peer into mine as though she wants to believe me. And I want her to.

We sit for a few silent moments, and then I convince Charlotte that together we can go back to the group and face whatever awaits. My confidence surprises Charlotte and makes me jumpy in my own skin.

Back at the campsite, Charlotte sits close to me by the fire. Earlier, Bubba and Bobby found sturdy logs and stones to place around the fire as chairs.

Zack smiles at us. Even when I look away from him at the others, I can sense his gaze in my direction.

“Charlotte is back,” Dougy says. “Did you miss us?” He hands her a thin stick, which she reluctantly takes. “We’re getting ready to cook up more marshmallows.”

“We were waiting for you,” says Joy. “You two took forever.” She emphasizes
forever
like it’s a disease.

If you would learn to be more pleasant… I stop myself from completing the thought. I look up to see Zack smiling at me. I smile back.

“Bedtime,” he announces after everyone has roasted a few dozen more marshmallows and eaten just as many without toasting. Eight bags wasn’t too much, after all.

I volunteer to walk with the kids to the restrooms to brush their teeth and use the bathroom before bed. I am like the Bionic Woman—try and stop me. I feel I can do anything. This time I put on my jacket.

As I escort the kids along the path through the woods, everyone shining his or her flashlight, some aiming their beams in the pine trees, Darren switches his to high beam. The next thing I know he is in step beside me.

The girls rush into their side of the building, giggling about something Dougy said. Charlotte is with them, and I am glad to see she’s included. No one better laugh at my girl, I think. Or they’ll be messing with me.

Darren, still by my side, says, “I got scars, too.”

I feel like I’ve just come out of the cold and entered a room that’s warm. Who is he talking to? Certainly not me.

The boys have all entered the building. Only Darren and I are on the path.

“Mine are on the bottom of my feet.” His face, lit by the single bulb shining from the front of the washhouse, holds a sincerity I have never seen from any of the children thus far. His dark eyes are glued to mine. This child who has refused to answer my questions and help in the kitchen, this kid who told me that cooking was a waste of time, has voluntarily spoken to me.

Once when I was seven, my teacher gave me a snowflake ornament crafted from the thinnest glass I have ever held. While the gift was an honor to receive, I was so afraid of dropping and breaking it that the ornament made me nervous. I feel like I did then right now. I don’t want to drop and break Darren’s new trust in me.

He doesn’t seem fearful of me or angry at me. He continues to keep his face toward mine and says, “My scars are usually covered up so no one sees them.” Then he gives me a look that transcends anything I can describe. It is as though he can see into my heart and knows everything about my scars even though he is only twelve years old.

I start to say something, but if I did I would be talking to myself. He has dashed into the boys’ bathroom.

Rubbing my arms, I stand on the dirt path with my mouth hanging open.

When the girls come out of the building, their giggles echo across the campground. Soon the boys join them, and like a stampede, they take off toward our campsite, beams of flashlights bouncing off the trees and each other.

Rainy stops and turns toward me. “Aren’t you coming back with us?”

I am still trying to catch my breath.

————

At eleven o’clock, the adults make sure the children are all accounted for. Robert, who has better luck with wood and matches than Zack or the rest of us, sits on a log by the edge of the fire pit and adds kindling to the dying fire. The kids have been sent off to their tents. There are two boys’ tents and two girls’ tents and a counselor in each tent with the kids.

“Settle down,” Zack commands. “Get some sleep so you can wake up for breakfast and a hike tomorrow.”

“What’s for breakfast?” asks Bobby from inside the tent he is sharing with Bubba.

“Pancakes and sausage.”

“Did we bring syrup?” asks the boy.

Zack looks over at me.

I say, “Yes, and butter. The real kind.” I also packed the jar of pig’s feet Mom sent me. You never know—perhaps I can get someone to try it, eat it up. I certainly won’t be ingesting any.

“Don’t start without me!” Bobby shouts. Then he tells Bubba to move over, and we hear the zip of his sleeping bag. “Don’t snore, Bubba, okay, okay?”

To which Bubba mutters, “I’m trying to sleep.”

There is a last cry from Bobby. “When will it be breakfast? Why can’t it be morning already?”

thirty-seven

W
hat’s wrong with Rhonda?” I ask.

Robert glances back at the area behind us where the tents are and says, “She’ll be all right.”

“Did the talk about God upset her?”

When the children were finally settled in their tents, Robert, Zack, Rhonda, and I had circled around the campfire with mugs of decaf coffee. I’d supplied the coffee—Starbucks Hazelnut. I even provided a small carton of half-and-half. We boiled the beans in a pan with water until the water was the color of charcoal. Then we filtered the dark liquid into our mugs. The taste wasn’t Starbucks, but it was hot and strong.

Our discussion centered on God and building the kids’ faith in Him despite all the hardships the children had been through and continued to deal with.

Zack said he had solid hope that showing God’s love to each of the kids would result in something positive. He said he felt every child who attended The Center had showed improvement.

Rhonda disagreed. “They can’t experience love,” she said as her eyes reflected the fire. “They’ve been too scarred.”

Zack asked if she thought they were a lost cause.

She said, “No, but I don’t expect any miracles anytime soon.” Her tone was melancholy. Her shoulders slouched, and I wanted to tell her to sit up straight, but I’m glad I didn’t. After all, talk of Lavonna Dewanna and her hunchback isn’t welcomed at every event.

Zack said, “Don’t give up.”

“On what, Zack?” she demanded.

If ever there was an undercurrent, that was it. Clearly, she was no longer referring to the kids at The Center, or the other children she and Zack worked with at Social Services. She was jabbing at something else.

He looked over at her, across the flames. In a steady voice, he said, “Only on the kids.”

She left after that, heading to the tent she shared with Lisa and Charlotte.

Now, after pouring another cup of coffee and adding cream to it, I try again. “Is Rhonda okay?”

Robert eyes Zack.

Zack tosses a stick into the fire. “She’s mad at me.”

“Oh.” I understand the feeling. I’ve been mad at him, too. I guess we’re all taking turns. Except Zack and Rhonda went out on a date so this is probably some sort of lovers’ quarrel. I’m glad I don’t have to deal with love anymore. I think of Jonas’s words: “No, no. They went out to talk things over. Zack is like that.” Well, I don’t know if Jonas knows what is really going on. I sure don’t.

The fire crackles, and we hear the boys talking in their tent. I wonder if any of the kids is capable of being quiet for any length of time. I see the beams of flashlights dart across the tops of the tents from inside. I hear Rainy say, “Let’s tell ghost stories now.”

Darren calls from his tent for Zack, and Zack leaves the fire.

Robert edges closer to me. “You know Rhonda has been trying to get Zack’s attention for months.”

Well, I would say so. I recall their embrace in the kitchen when I walked in on them at the end of August.

“Zack thinks he has to be nice to everybody. I tell him that he has to learn when it comes to being chased by someone you aren’t interested in, you have to show some character.”

“You told him that?”

“I sure did. He has to tell her where she stands.”

In his arms in the kitchen
is what I think, but I say nothing.

“I had this woman chase me once.” He looks up at a sky of piercingly bright stars and a moon partially covered by a wispy cloud. “I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it.”

I try to remember if anyone has ever hounded me for a date, or for my attention. Nope—unless you count Lester Hurman, and that was back in sixth grade, when I had braces and wore a training bra.

Robert is about to say more, but Zack returns and eases his lean body onto a stone planted across from me. The fire illuminates the features of his face as I wonder if he really doesn’t care for Rhonda. Then I shift on the flat stone where I am seated, draw my knees to my chest, and think, Give it up, Deena. You have sworn off all men. You don’t need any more confusion in your life. Let it go. Let Zack go.

“Is everything okay?” Robert poses the question to Zack.

“Darren needed his medication.”

“He asked for it?”

“Yeah. Two points for him, huh?”

“That’s a good sign.”

“An improvement over two weeks ago when he refused to take it at school and called the teacher a ‘spineless mutation with freakishly large elbows.’ ”

“That got him detention, I heard.”

Zack nods. “That mistake cost him a week.”

I never recall calling a teacher any name. I never had detention, either. I couldn’t; my mother would have disowned me and then fried me up at the annual barbeque. At least I had a mother who cared about me. And a father. Darren has never known his dad, and over the years, his mother has been charged with and imprisoned for child abuse and neglect. Darren has a good grandma, though. A senior saint.

Robert excuses himself and heads toward the restroom, and now Zack and I are alone.

I sigh and watch the embers glowing against my arms. I’ve taken off my jacket again, because by the fire—it’s warm. My scars don’t look as pronounced in the darkness; in fact the fire almost softens them. Maybe if I lived the rest of my life in the evening at campsites, I’d feel more comfortable with my body. Jeannie says when she goes out on dates, she likes to eat at restaurants with candlelight. “I have fewer wrinkles by candlelight,” she told me once, as I watched her put on makeup before her dentist-date arrived. Turning to me she said, “But you don’t have to worry about wrinkles now, Deena. Wait till you hit thirty-two.”

“Thirty-two? That’s not that old, Jeannie.”

I used to think that by age thirty-two, I’d be pregnant with my youngest child—that is, if Lucas and I stuck to our plan of having two children, two years apart. He wanted a boy first and I wanted a girl. Then I told him it didn’t matter which gender arrived first.

Suddenly I realize it has been a while since I’ve wondered what Lucas is doing. The good thing about being in North Carolina is that I can’t run into him like I could in Atlanta. I can shop at Ingle’s without worrying that as I decide how much chicken I need for dinner’s pot pie, he’ll be next to me, looking at steaks to grill.

“A cupcake for your thoughts.”

I look over at Zack, who is roasting a marshmallow on a large stick. Coming from anyone else, that line would sound corny. Coming from Zack, it just makes me feel content. I think of the chocolate cupcake Band-Aid on Jonas’s forehead and the identical bandage I placed on Charlotte’s finger. That was what caused Zack to realize that the woman who put the bandage on his brother was the same one who bandaged Charlotte. Then his mind put two and two together, and he knew all the things about Deirdre his brother had shared with him were really things about Deena at The Center. Which means, he knows so much about me. And I still know very little about him.

“Are you thinking of Atlanta?” Zack asks with a smile.

“How’d you guess?” I can’t tell him that I was actually thinking about him and Jonas.

“You have that city-lights glow to your face.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“The city is nice.”

“Have you ever lived in one?”

“Visited plenty of them. And once those trips were over, I was always glad to be back in the mountains.”

“So would you ever do a jigsaw puzzle of a city?”

Zack laughs lightly. “Jonas must have told you that I did a one-thousand-piece puzzle of Boston.”

I smile, nod. “He said it took you only six days. He is so proud of you.”

We are silent for a while as the crickets and cicadas sing in the woods around us—an orchestra of nature’s finest elegance. Instinctively, I listen for the owl. He must be too tired to join in tonight.