The River's Edge (3 page)

I glanced at Wendy, not knowing what to do. She looked as nervous
as I felt.

“Then say it!” Freckles yelled. “Say it!” He pushed again. “Say
uncle!”

“Billy, that’s enough. You’re killing him!” Reds raced over and
tried to pull them apart, but Freckles brought up his elbow and caught Reds in
the face. The blow knocked his baseball cap off, bloodying his nose. Freckles looked
back and seemed to realize what he had done. He released his strong hold on Owl
and went over to Reds.

“Jeez, man, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Enough. Cut it out,” Julie said. Everyone stopped what they were
doing and looked at her. The queen had spoken.

I stared in disbelief. What had I gotten
myself into? My heart raced. I never knew what to do or say in situations like
this.

A while after the fight, we sat around on logs by the river’s
edge, talking. Well,
they
were talking, mostly about their plans for the
summer. Since my future was so uncertain, I just kept quiet and listened. I
don’t know how much time had passed, but it was least an hour. I was almost dry
when we heard a voice from the top of the path.

“Hey, dorks, time for dinner,” a girl yelled. The sun forced beams
of filtered light between the trees, causing me to squint toward her direction.

“We’re not dorks,” Wendy yelled back.

“Who’s that?” Reds asked.

“Just my creepy little sister,” Wendy said. She tapped me on the
shoulder. “Come on, we better go.”

I grabbed my flip flops and followed Wendy up the path.

“See you guys later,” Wendy said halfway up the path.

“Yeah, see y’all later,” I said.

“Y’all?” Julie said in her best southern accent, mocking me.
“Where’re you from, New Girl?”

“Virginia,” I said over my shoulder as we hurried up the path to
meet Paige.

“I’m not creepy,” Paige said when we reached her. She was cute and
had brown hair down to her shoulders with the same root-beer colored eyes as
Wendy, but her complexion was darker than Wendy’s.

“Are too,” Wendy said.

“Hi, Paige.”

“Hi, Chris,” Paige said.

“You’re so big. Last time I saw you, you were just a little bird,”
I said.

“Why are you all muddy?” Paige asked me.

“None of your business, dork,” Wendy said.

“Better stop calling me names or else.”

“Or else what?”

“Or else I’ll tell Mom.”

“Tell her what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. That you were at the river.” She held up two
fingers as if offering a peace sign. After a moment, she grinned and put her
fingers against her mouth and inhaled on a pretend cigarette.

“You brat,” Wendy said, leaning into her face.

“It’s okay.” I pulled Wendy away from her. “She won’t tell, will
you, Paige?” I winked at her and put my arm around her shoulder. “I haven’t
seen you in ages. How old are you now?”

“I’m seven,” Paige said, putting her arm around my waist. We
walked arm and arm back to the cottage with Wendy following behind us.

As we neared the cottage, two kids exploded out of the neighbor’s
door, scaring me. They both had blond hair and looked like they were the same
age as Paige.

“Give it back, Cody. Give it back or I’ll—” The girl was pulling
on a rag doll that the boy was holding ransom.

The neighbor woman ran out the front door.
“Cody, give your sister her doll, and both of you, get back in this cottage!”

“Hi, Alice.” My aunt waved from the screened porch. “Getting
settled in I see.”

Alice looked apologetically at my aunt. “We’ve been here one day
and they’re already at it,” she said, defeated. “Twins. You’re lucky to have
yours so many years apart.”

“It still doesn’t make it easier. At least you got to get through
the diapers all at the same time.”

Paige walked over to them. “Hey, Callie, want to play?”

We slipped by my mom and my aunt who were still on the porch and
went in the back door so they wouldn’t see my dirty clothes. It led to a
hallway where the bathroom was immediately on the right. It was so small that
it only had a toilet in it, no sink. Straight ahead was the shower stall,
separated only by a frosty white shower curtain.

We crept into our bedroom.

“I can’t believe you swam out to Slippery Rock. That was brave,”
Wendy whispered. “I wouldn’t have done it, even if I knew how to swim.”

“I can’t believe it either,” I said, rubbing my muscles. “I really
didn’t think I was going to make it.”

“Please don’t tell my parents. I would get into so much trouble,”
Wendy said.

I ran my fingers across my mouth, turned an invisible key, and
threw it away.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” I whispered.

“I don’t,” Wendy whispered back.

“I don’t like it,” I confessed.

“I don’t think anybody does, but whatever Julie does, the rest
do.”

“Why does she act so stuck up?”

“Popularity. It changes people. When I was ten, I had to have my
appendix out, and she was the only one from camp who came to the hospital to
see me. She used to be real nice. Now she just pretends.”

I fumbled in my suitcase for some dry clothes. I changed as fast
as I could. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters so I felt weird being naked
in front of Wendy. I saw her looking at me and felt myself blush.

It was awkward and I think she felt it too because she quickly
said, “I’ll show you my scar.” Standing in front of me, she raised her T-shirt
and lowered her shorts a little to show me. It was still raised and angry
looking.

“Did it hurt?”

“It did at first, but it doesn’t anymore. It’s
just a reminder now.”

After I changed clothes, we went to the living room and sat down
next to Paige. The couch still smelled moldy from being closed up all winter.

My aunt and my mom were at the table sipping coffee. They talked
in whispers and every so often, my aunt reached over to touch my mother’s hand.
I tried to listen but Wendy and Paige kept asking me questions.

Not long after, Uncle Butch’s station wagon pulled up to the
cottage. He came inside, went right to my mom, and hugged her. “It’s so good to
see you again. It’s been too long.” He threw the car keys and his Lucky Strike
cigarette pack on the side table next to the chair.

“It has been too long,” Mom said, hugging him back.

“Hi, Uncle Butch,” I said.

“Well, hello,” he said. He came over and hugged me. I missed my
father and it felt good to be hugged by him. “You’re all grown up. Pretty, too.
You definitely get that from our side of the family, right, Jo?” He laughed.

“Yeah, right,” Mom said. “Like Mama always said, ‘We come from
good stock.’”

“Girls, set the table for dinner please,” my aunt said and
disappeared into the kitchen.

A few minutes later, my aunt came in from the kitchen and placed
bowls of fried chicken and mashed potatoes in front of us. Mom brought in
sliced tomatoes and corn on the cob. My stomach grumbled when I saw all that
good food. After my dad left, Mom didn’t cook much. We usually just heated up
frozen dinners and ate in front of the TV and watched
The Brady Bunch
. I
always imagined my mom re-marrying and I would have a whole houseful of step
sisters and we would all be happy, and I would never feel alone again because
me and my new step sisters would all be best friends.

Uncle Butch sat down at the head of the table and ran his fingers
through his dark hair, the same color as Mom’s.

It was hard to believe that he and my mom had ever been my age.
One time my mom showed me an old black-and-white photo of them when she was
thirteen and he was twelve. Looking at the dog-eared photograph, I couldn’t
imagine my mother ever that pretty, with her long dark hair framing her face.
She cut her hair short before I was born and always styled it up and away from
her face. She seemed mysterious in the photo, like she was hiding something.

“Uncle Butch?” I asked.

“Yeah, sweetie?”

“What about Grandpa?” I knew a little about my grandmother, and
even remembered her before she died, but I had never met my grandfather. Mom
never talked about him much so I thought this was the perfect time to find out
more about my relatives.

“Well . . .” He put down his fork as if trying to find the
memories.

“Mom said he smoked a pipe.” I was hoping this would jog a memory
loose because Mom had hers all wrapped up tight in her memory cave.

“He did smoke a pipe. I still remember the sweet smell of cherry
tobacco. I love that smell,” Uncle Butch said.

“I hate that smell. It makes me sick to my
stomach,” Mom said.

“What? You used to love it,” Uncle Butch said.

“Well, that’s what got him in the end, isn’t it. Throat cancer.
Now I can’t stand the smell. It reminds me of death. It destroyed his vocal
cords and he couldn’t even speak in the end. But his mind was sharp. It was a
shame that he was trapped inside his own head and he couldn’t tell us what he
was thinking.” She stopped abruptly. I knew she had more to say. I saw it in
the urgency in her eyes.

I shifted in my seat, sorry I brought it up.

“He also loved hot sauce on just about everything, including
eggs.” Uncle Butch’s voice was low, easing into the heated air like a light
breeze. “Remember, Jo? There was always a bottle on the table and he used it
like salt. We always had plenty of Frank’s hot sauce because he worked at the
factory.”

My mom’s face softened. “And he loved to listen to the Cincinnati
Reds on his transistor radio. Everyone in the house had to be quiet when he was
listening to his baseball game.” As quickly as her face softened, it suddenly
squeezed up into a tight ball of wrinkles. “He had a mean streak, too. Let’s
not forget that.”

“Yeah, he did. But that’s what made him unique.”

“Unique? Is that what you call it?” Mom’s voice pitched up as if
her memory cave was shaking itself loose.

“He wasn’t always like that.”

“Really? Well, you remember him
your
way, and I’ll remember
him
my
way.” Mom took a deep breath. “One time he got a parking ticket
and do you know what he did?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “He collected
enough pennies to pay the fine and put them in a jar.”

“He paid in pennies?” I was amused, but Mom wasn’t. Her voice was
strained.

“Not only that, he poured molasses in that jar and took it right
to the police station. Told them it wasn’t fair, and he shouldn’t have gotten
that ticket in the first place. He was parked in an emergency zone and he had
an emergency when he got the ticket, so it shouldn’t count.”

“What was the emergency?” I asked.

“Well, as he explained to the police officer, he was parked in the
emergency zone in front of the police station because he was inside paying for
his first ticket and if that wasn’t an emergency he didn’t know what was.”

“That wasn’t mean, that was just funny,” Uncle Butch said.

My mom cut him a look. “Yeah, that was hilarious. I laughed so
hard I cried.” She cocked her head, like she was remembering something. “Why
did we always have so many pennies in the house? I never understood that.”

“They grew up in the Great Depression. Every penny counted back
then,” Uncle Butch said.

“You’re right, I guess.”

“Do you remember taking pennies to the railroad track so we could
flatten them?” Uncle Butch asked.

“That brings back memories. Do you still have them?”

“I do.” Uncle Butch got up from the table and disappeared into the
master bedroom. He came back and handed something to Mom.

“I can’t believe it.” She turned it over in her hand and examined
it like it was a diamond. “Those were good times, huh Butch? We always had each
other’s back.” She looked at the penny, and then she handed it to me. “Here.
Penny for your thoughts.”

I looked at the penny but it no longer resembled a coin. I
couldn’t make heads or tails of it. It was smooth and flat. And it wasn’t a
circle anymore, it was oval.

“Is it worth anything?” I asked.

“Well, I don’t think you can buy penny candy with it,” Mom said.

I rubbed my fingers over its smooth surface, and then tucked it
into my pocket for safe keeping.

After dinner, I sat at the table with my cousins and played cards,
but I couldn’t concentrate. Mom was on the couch next to Aunt Lori and Uncle
Butch sat in his chair that seemed to have taken on his shape. They talked
quietly in that low voice they used when they didn’t want “the youngsters” to
hear, so I put away my Mickey Mouse ears and gave up trying to figure it out.

I thought about how I ended up here. About how my dad abandoned us
and set off a whole chain of events that landed me so far from home. Mom drove
all day and I co-piloted. During the drive, we sang, laughed, told stories. I
never felt closer to her. But, now that I thought about her leaving tomorrow,
there was no more laughter in my heart, and the summer was only beginning.