Little Blackbird (7 page)

“The Lees,” Matthias said.

“Yeah, the Lees. I saw their daughter, Martha, I think, and her friend in the yard a little while ago. I invited them over,” Benjamin said.

Panic zinged up from Kate’s toes all the way to her chest, where it lodged itself. She looked at Geoffrey, but he still wasn’t paying attention to her. The brown bottle in his hand held him captive while he drank. She didn’t want anyone to know she was at Geoffrey’s house. Martha would tell
everyone
she saw, and then it would get back to Kate’s parents, and then Kate would be grounded until she was seventy-six.

“Their daughter is sixteen, Ben,” Matthias said.

“So?”

“So, isn’t that a little too young for you?”

Benjamin made a show of counting on his fingers. “Nine years. If you’d seen how excited she was for the invitation, you wouldn’t question it,” Benjamin said with a smirk.

“I’m always going to question your motives,” Matthias said.

Benjamin walked past Matthias and clinked their bottles together. “Maybe I invited her over for you. Or for Tiger Lily to have a couple of playmates.” He winked at Kate as he passed her and walked out into the garden. Richard laughed and followed Benjamin outside.

Kate turned to Geoffrey. “Take me home.”

Geoffrey nearly spewed beer from his mouth. “What? Why?”

She placed her half empty soda bottle on the kitchen counter and walked toward the garage door.

“Wait, Kate,” Geoffrey called. He hobbled to catch up with her in the hallway. “Why?”

“I can’t have girls like Martha knowing I was over here when your parents were away. Do you have any idea what that would make me look like?”

“She won’t care.”

“Yes, she will,” Kate argued. “She’d care so much that she’d probably blab to the entire town as soon as she gets home today.”

“Stay,” Geoffrey said. “You just got here.”

“Why? So your drunk brother can come up with other insulting names to call me?”

“He’s not trying to insult you. That’s his way. He teases.”

“Please, take me home, Geoffrey. This wasn’t a good idea.”

Matthias stepped into the hallway. “You can’t drive her home,” he said.

Kate’s eyes widened before she straightened her shoulders. “I’ll walk then.”

Matthias wrinkled his brow. “What? No,
I’ll
drive you. Geoffrey, you’ve been drinking,” he said as he pointed to the bottle in Geoffrey’s hand. “I’ll drive Kate home. We don’t need another car wreck.”

“I’ve had
one
beer.”

“I said no,” Matthias responded.

Geoffrey shoved his narrow fingers through his dark hair. “Wow, this did not turn out how I imagined.”

For a moment, Kate’s expression softened.
Geoffrey had imagined her being in his house.
But none of that mattered now. Not with Benjamin’s insults, not with the alcohol, not with Martha Lee exposing Kate’s lies. Kate opened the garage door and stepped outside. In a minute, Matthias joined her, and they got into the car.

For the first few minutes, they were both silent during the drive to Kate’s bicycle. As soon as they drove over the bridge and away from town, Matthias spoke up.

“I’m sorry about my brother,” he said.

“Which one?” Kate stared at the trees as they blurred past the window.

“Mostly for Ben.”

“Because he’s a rude drunk?”

Matthias laughed. “Among other things, but yes. And for Geoffrey.”

“What for?” she asked, turning to look at him.

“He’s young. He doesn’t always know how to handle a situation. But he is right about Ben. Ben’s a real jerk sometimes, but he teases a lot too. He wasn’t trying to insult you. In his own way, he was calling you a princess. You know, the princess from
Peter Pan
?”

“I know who Tiger Lily is. I can read,” she snapped. “I’m only
half
Cherokee. It’s not as though I’m some other subspecies. I’m still a girl, and I was
born
in this town. I’m not that different from anyone else. I have feelings, ya know?”

Matthias glanced over at her. “Who are you trying to convince? Me or yourself? I know all of that.”

Did he? The Hamiltons were used to fitting in, to being the admired family, to being the most popular boys in school, to having everything they’d ever wanted. Did someone like Matthias really know what it was like to be set apart because of something he couldn’t control?

“Pull over there,” Kate said, pointing out the window to a spot up ahead.

“I’m not dropping you off on the side of the road.”

“No, my bicycle. It’s in the woods.” Kate’s ears warmed, and her cheeks flushed. She stared straight ahead. “Here is fine. I’ll ride my bike from here.”

“Why is your bike in the woods?” Matthias pulled onto the shoulder of the road.

Kate exhaled. “Geoffrey picked me up here. He…he couldn’t very well pick me up at my house.”

“Because you’re too young to date?”

“Date?” she blurted. “We’re not dating.”
Sneaking out of the house twice is
not
considered dating. In fact, I don’t even know what we’re doing other than being inappropriate.
“I told my daddy I was going to a girlfriend’s house.”

“Why?”

For so many reasons.
Kate sighed. “Your parents were away. I’ve never even been to a boy’s house before, and I certainly wouldn’t be allowed to go if his parents weren’t home.”

“And yet you did,” Matthias said. The corner of his lips lifted into a half smile.

“A mistake.” She opened the car door but didn’t meet his gaze. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Kate, I’m sorry. Really.”

She shrugged, finally looking into his pale, blue eyes. She hated the pity she saw there.

“I’m used to it.” She slammed the door harder than she intended, and she didn’t look back as she ran into the safety of the woods. Once she found her bike, she slumped against a tree, covered her face with her hands, and cried. Only the birds came down to console her.

K
ATE WAS THANKFUL her daddy was busy working on architectural plans by the time she rode her bike down the driveway and came inside. He barely looked up from the kitchen table papered in blueprints, so he didn’t have an opportunity to notice her swollen, bloodshot eyes. She went straight to the bathroom and stood beneath the scalding hot water in the shower until she was sure she’d washed away the last remnants of her sadness. As she toweled off, she tried to rub away the ache in her chest, but it itched and throbbed like a poison ivy rash.

When her mama came home at dinnertime, Kate was still sitting down by the river, tossing pebbles into the water and sketching pictures of Honeysuckle Hollow’s chandelier into the dirt with her finger. Someone walked through the grass toward her, and Kate knew it was her mama, barefoot and determined.

“Martha Lee’s?” her mama asked.

Kate didn’t look up, didn’t turn her gaze toward her mama. “For a little while.”

“I didn’t know you were friends.”

Kate shrugged. “Just getting to know each other.”

“Did you find the alcohol beneath her bed?”

“Mama!” Kate protested.

Her mama sat down beside her, with her skirt flowing around her legs like a blanket as red as a cardinal’s wing. “I was only asking a simple question. Your dad said you didn’t stay long.”

“I didn’t feel well.”

“Maybe it’s because you had peanut butter pie for lunch,” her mama said.

Kate looked at her then with wide eyes. Her mama smiled and shook her head. “Your dad. As if I wouldn’t notice the missing pieces.”

“I didn’t have any.”

“I know. He admitted to that. Did you have a good time at Martha’s?”

Kate shrugged and tossed a torn blade of grass into the water. “Depends on your definition of a good time. It was different.
They’re
different.”

“How so?”

“They’re rich.”

Her mama laughed. Sunbeams changed directions and shined on her face, illuminating her skin. “You mean they live in a big, fancy house.”

They sat in silence for a while, and Kate watched the sun drop below the pines across the river, casting a red-orange glow behind the trees, looking like a distant forest fire.

Kate hadn’t expected her mama to understand. Her mama’s definition of
rich
was having good health, having overflowing happiness, having one’s family close, and being surrounded by nature. “It’s like they live in a completely different way than we do. Everything they have looks antique and expensive. It’s like a dollhouse. Everything is perfect.”

“And boring,” her mama said with a smile.

“Mama, you don’t understand.”

“I never do,” her mama said.

Kate frowned. “You never wondered why Evan wanted to hang with them.”

Her mama’s hands stilled and her gaze stretched across the water. “Oh, I knew the answer to that.”

“What was it?”

“He was never mesmerized by their riches or their way of life. They were drawn to
him
. They
needed
him. He had something they lack sometimes.”

Kate’s eyebrows knit together. “And what is that?”

“The light.” Her mama’s sigh bent the reeds lining the river, and they dipped toward the water.

Kate thought of the sunlight trying to press its way inside Honeysuckle Hollow, only to be held at bay, only to be let inside when allowed. She wondered if they had constructed ways to keep the light out of their hearts too.

No one in Mystic Water had been able to construct a way to keep Evan out. He walked around as though he had happiness tucked away in his pockets and he gave it away for free to anyone who needed it.

Her mama was right. Mystic Water
needed
people like Evan. But they could probably do without another busted up person like her.

Her mama stood. “Come inside. Dinner is almost ready.”

During dinner, Kate pushed her carrots and broccoli around on a blue plate with a chipped edge that revealed the darker material beneath the lacquer. Her daddy’s plate was white, and her mama cut her chicken on a china plate patterned with red toile du jouy. Kate would bet her favorite plant guidebook that the Hamiltons never ate on cracked, mismatched dinnerware.

That night Kate fell asleep thinking of
Peter Pan
and how she would always be Tiger Lily and never Wendy, the girl everyone remembered, the girl everyone wanted to be.

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING Kate awoke and stared at the sunlight streaking across her bedroom floor. A square of shadow marred the straight beams of light. She looked at her window and saw something was stuck to a pane. Kate threw off her covers and rushed to her window. She unlocked the latch and pushed up the sash. Humid summer air poured into the room, slinking down the wall and covering everything with a sticky mist.

Kate reached outside and pulled a taped piece of paper from the glass. She unfolded the creased stationary and held her breath.

Dear Miss Kate,

I wanted to apologize for yesterday. I had intended to spend a day with you in the garden, getting to know you better. Nothing turned out as I had planned, and I didn’t even get to see you home. I hope you will forgive the disappointing day and are willing to meet with me again. If you are, a group of us are going to the park this afternoon at two, and I would be happy if you would join us.

Sincerely Sorry,

Geoffrey

Kate read the letter three times before she refolded it, sat on the edge of her bed, and slid the note beneath her pillow. She passed glances toward the hidden note.
A group of us
, she thought.
Who’s us? Would
us
be his family? His friends? Girls from the neighborhood?

You can’t possibly go. Just act like this never happened.
She wouldn’t have to suffer through the anxiety of declining his offer because she wouldn’t have to see him or call him or write a return response. She could go on with her day and pretend he’d never stood at her darkened window, never thought of her, and never left behind an epistle of apology.