Second to No One (15 page)

“No, I never hated you. I just didn’t get you. I didn’t know how to be a big sister if I couldn’t order you around. I guess I just distanced myself from you. I didn’t know what else to do. You kind of intimidated me.”

I watched Bridget silently and full of awe at what she was saying. All these years, all this time, I thought she despised me and wished I was never born. But in the end, it was all just a misunderstanding. The logs in the fireplace were still popping, but the light was beginning to dim, and my eyelids were growing heavy. Bridget’s were already lightly closed, and I thought she might be asleep until she added one more thing. “I always thought Mom and Dad liked you best.” She smiled sadly. “I guess it’s kind of hard to like the person that puts you in second place.”

“I’m sorry, but we’re not taking any volunteers.”

I looked around me at a dozen or so elderly people lining the walls of the assisted living center. They looked hopeless, drained of life, and withered like brown leaves in the fall. “But I’ll work for free. How can you not be taking someone who will work for free?”

The women at reception, whose badge indicated that her name was Mary (though I definitely would have guessed Mildred or Glenn Close) looked at me beneath her stern eyebrows and slightly balding head, “I run a very tight system here at Brookwood Assisted Living, and I don’t have time to be finding things for you to do.”

“I could just read to the people. Books. About Christmas. Or maybe the Bible or the Quran if that’s what they’d like. Or we could just sit and talk. I’ll be their friend. You won’t even know I’m here.” I couldn’t exactly put into words the reason I wanted to do my community service in that place full of old, dying people. But there was something about facing death, facing the reality of it head on that made everything with my dad feel slightly less painful. Besides that, I was desperate. It had been two months since I told Trace I’d do community service, and I knew if I didn’t get it in while I was still grounded it would probably never happen.

Mary peered over my head at the line of residents sitting hunched over in their wheel chairs. They looked like old, abandoned string puppets left limp in a dusty storage closet. Mary took in a deep breath and shifted all two hundred pounds of herself to the other hip. “All right, you can read to them. But only if they want you to, and you better not get in the way of my staff.” She bent over and reached into a file drawer, then flopped a packet of papers in front of me. “You need to fill these out in order to fraternize with the residents.”

“Thank you,” I said. “You won’t be sorry.”

I spent the next forty-five minutes filling out eight pages of paperwork, answering questions about everything from my family history to the number of runny noses I’d had; then I made my way around the halls of the center, trying to get acquainted with the people who lived there. Most of them were too out of it to even notice that I was there, a few of them thought I was their daughter or granddaughter or wife, and the rest smiled and watched me with bright, wondering eyes that said, “I remember when I was your age. That was such a long time ago.”

I didn’t have any books or magazines with me, and I couldn’t find any around the center so I sat and talked for a while with anyone who seemed mildly interested or coherent enough to follow a conversation. Just when I was about to leave, I made eye contact with an elderly man in a red Christmas sweater and brown moccasin slippers.

“Hi,” I said, watching him carefully. I stepped toward him and reached out my hand, “I’m Gemma. I’m a new volunteer here.”

The man smiled back and took my hand in his. His teeth were straight and white and big. Really big. They had to be fake. “I’m Tag.”

I leaned closer. “Excuse me? Did you say Tag?”

His belly jiggled softly with a chuckle. “Yes, like the game. But it’s only a nickname. And who did you say you are?”

“I’m Gemma.”

“Ah, yes, a very appropriate name for these parts. I used to mine for gems over in Cowee Mountain. ‘Course that was years ago. Back then we had to bring our own tools. They make it too easy these days. “How old are you, Gemma?”

“Sixteen.”

Tag whistled. “I met the love of my life when I was sixteen years old.”

I sat down on a chair next to Tag, relieved to know I wouldn’t have to keep up this conversation like so many of the others I’d had that afternoon. “What was her name?”

“Angelina Fae Montrose.” His eyes sparkled as he stared off into the distance at her memory. “Everyone called her Fae though. And everyone loved her.”

“And she loved you?”

“Kind of surprising isn’t it?” Tag chuckled louder this time. “Even more surprising that she married me and bore all five of our children.”

I settled into my chair. “She’s your wife?”

Tag nodded. “She passed away last summer, but yes, she is my wife.”

“I’m sorry. You must miss her.”

“I couldn’t take care of myself without her. My kids came to visit on Thanksgiving and found me sleeping with the vacuum still running. I knew she was amazing, but I never realized how much I needed her.”

“Do your kids live nearby?”

“Yes, most of them. But I have a son in Florida and another one up in New York.”

“They must miss you.”

“Eh.” Tag stuck out his bottom lip and shrugged. “They call once a week on Sunday. They’re good boys like that.”

“My dad has cancer,” I offered, and I wasn’t sure why.

Tag watched me carefully. “Doctors sure know a lot about fixing cancer these days. Thirty years ago, it would have been a death sentence. But not anymore.”

“Yeah,” I said to my lap. “He’s doing okay with it all, I guess.”

“So what are you studying in school?”

“Oh, um. Everything I guess. My favorite class right now is photography.”

“So you’re a photographer. What kind of pictures do you take?”

“I don’t know. I’m just figuring it all out still.”

“Do you take photos of people?”

“Yeah, but so far just my parents and my sister. I’ve been grounded for the past couple of months, so they’re really the only people I see.”

“Grounded for a couple of months? Sounds serious.”

“It was stupid, really.”

“Would you mind taking a picture of me?”

I looked at Tag surprised. “Of course.”

Tag pulled himself forward in his chair. “I want to send a photo of myself with my Christmas cards.”

“You’re sending out Christmas cards?”

“Well sure, why not? Just because I’m too old to wash my own dishes doesn’t mean I don’t still have people I want to send greetings to for the holidays.”

“Yeah, of course,” I said feeling embarrassed. “Yes, I’ll definitely take your picture. I’ll bring my camera the next time I come.”

“Well, you’ll need to tell me what day so I can be dressed and prepared. I want to look my best. I want people to know that I’m surviving.”

I looked up and down the hallway at the other people sitting outside their rooms. Some were watching, some were sleeping, most were somewhere in between. “Do you think anyone else would want their pictures taken?”

Tag followed my eyes. “These people? No, they’ve all given up.”

“But maybe if they had their picture taken, maybe if we dressed them up really nice and made them look like they used to and took a picture of them that they could send to the people who used to know them like that, maybe that would help them feel a little bit better.”

Tag looked down the hall at the same people I was. “Tell you what, we’ll set a date for you to come back in a couple of weeks, and I’ll spread the word. If they’re coherent enough to come, then you can take their picture.”

I agreed, then I checked out at the front desk and headed out to my car. I knew I was supposed to go home… straight home, as demanded by Mom when I left two hours earlier, but that was the last place I wanted to go. I thought about breaking my punishment. I thought about doing something really deviant, knowing that in reality my mom would probably have no idea anyway. But then I realized that I had nowhere to go. Drew was with Bryce tonight and, well, she was pretty much the only real friend I had these days. I even thought about Trace, but he’d been spending a lot of time with Kaci Burmingham from the dance team lately, and Drew said she thought they were going out. The last thing I wanted to do was lead him on again, so I got in my car, pulled out of the parking lot and turned toward my house. Because even though I was only there so much lately under duress, it was really the only place that I actually belonged.

Chapter 12

I
was sitting in fourth period,
waiting for class to start and waiting for Jess to come in so I could watch him from the corner of my eye like I did every day at one fifteen. I was also contemplating my epiphany from the day before. Was my newfound solidarity the key to my photography? Was that the extraordinary thing that Ms. Delrose was referring to? Was I destined to be alone for the rest of my life? The thought of such a life spent in solitary confinement put me in a trance, and I didn’t even notice that Jess was standing at the edge of my desk.

“Earth to Gemma,” he said quietly.

I snapped out of my thoughts and looked up at his face. I hated that I missed him so much. “Hey,” I said after clearing my throat. “What’s up?”

He stooped down and propped his arm on my desk. “How’s your dad doing?”

I thought of the small, gray heap that was my dad balled up on the edge of his bed this morning when I left for school. “He’s okay. You know, considering. And thanks again for driving us to the hospital. I don’t know what we would have done.”

Jess sucked in his lips and nodded slowly. “So we should probably get together soon to work on our project. It’s due next week.”

I took in a deep breath. As much as I dreamed about hanging out with Jess again, I dreaded it just as much. I imagined him taking pictures while I watched him sadly, knowing that he would never want me the same way that I wanted him, knowing that maybe he did at one time, but somehow I blew it and I didn’t even know how. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“I have to work tonight, but I’m free for a couple hours right after school.”

“You work now?” I hated that I knew so little about the details of his life.

“Yeah, I got a job in town working at Dan’s auto shop.”

“Wow, okay, yeah. After school works.”

“Good. Can we meet at the lake? I need some pictures of it for my project.”

“Sure.”

“And try not to outshine me too much.” He smiled, and I instantly looked away and then he brushed past me and went to his own desk in the back of the room.

Walking to fifth period was difficult, seeing how I had to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other and contain my stupid excitement about seeing Jess after school. Him and me at the lake. Alone. My fantasies were endless. Though I wasn’t dumb enough to think that they’d ever really come true.

“Sit down, girls,” Lauren said as she entered fifth period behind me. Drew was hanging her bag on the corner of her chair, and we glanced at each other with confused eyes before both taking our seats.

“What’s going on?” Drew said, propping her chin on her fist.

“Okay.” Lauren sat in the seat in front of me. “You guys are seriously not going to believe this. I mean, I was there, and I’m still having a hard time adjusting.”

“What happened?” I said, looking at the clock. The bell was going to ring any second, and my curiosity was peaking.

“Jess. Just. Asked. Me. To. The. Christmas. Dance.”

I blinked. And then I blinked again. And then again.

“That’s great!” Drew said with her eyes forced wide. “That will be fun.”

“He just asked you?” I said. “Just now before fifth period?”

Lauren bit her bottom lip. “No, he asked before fourth. Just after lunch. I think he was waiting for me to be alone because he came up to me right when you two left for class.”

A feeling of hot, boiling anger swelled from the tip of my toes all the way up to my cheeks. How could he do that to me? He just acted so friendly and innocent in photography class. I hated myself for falling for his sweet voice and even sweeter smile. I felt like I didn’t even know Jess anymore. The boy I knew and trusted for all those years was gone, and I found myself hating him. Almost as much as I hated Lauren.

“Gemma.” Drew’s voice was accompanied by her fist hitting my upper arm. “Of course we’ll go dress shopping with Lauren, right?”

I looked at Lauren. I’d missed the last thirty seconds of the conversation. “Oh, um, no. I can’t. I’m still grounded.” Thank goodness.

“Still?” Lauren’s shrill voice annoyed me. “It was one stupid night. When are your parents going to let it go?” She shook her head, then looked at Drew again with excited eyes. “Can you believe he asked me? After all this time? I mean we went on our first date—what, two months ago?—and then nothing. I thought he was a lost cause. I thought he just wanted to be friends. And now he’s taking me to the Christmas dance!”

I looked at our teacher still sitting at her desk. I willed her to come start class and put me out of my misery. “I need to go ask the teacher a question,” I lied. “I’ll be right back.”