Wildwood Creek (24 page)

I opened the door, and Wren was lurking on the other side. Clasping her hands behind her back, she played innocent, but her reason for being there was clear enough. My mind flew back over the last few sentences. Had the word
iPhone
been used?

“Well, hi, Wren!” Kim sashayed out the door, gave Wren a hug, then proceeded onward, her dress swaying as she went.

I hoped I hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of my life.

“The zookeeper just came to pick up the kids.” Wren frowned over her shoulder with a lemon-lipped sneer. “I told her to tell my mom I’m staying here with you. It’s hot. I want to go down to the creek and swim, and there’s no one else to take me. So you can.”

I was dumbfounded. “Wait. Hold the phone a minute.”
Oh man, did I just use the word
phone
?
“Wren, I don’t have any plans for swimming today. I have laundry to do.” It wasn’t even that I minded going to the creek, but the idea of being
saddled with babysitting Wren Godley was horrifying. This morning she had me doing her hair. Now, swimming supervision? Pretty soon she’d be moving in here full time.

What Wren really needed was to learn to get along with kids her own age so she’d have friends to play with. What she didn’t need was another adult catering to her every whim.

Hands on her hips, she jutted her chin out and upward, a challenge. “If you
don’t
take me, I’ll tell
everything
I know about that cell phone. You think I didn’t found out about that?
And
the tennis shoes,
and
the clothes you have hidden in your bed? How
stupid
do you think I am? I know
everything
.”

My eyes flew open like kernels of popcorn in hot grease, and the next thing I knew I was bent over in a face-to-face standoff with an eleven-year-old force of nature. “Listen,
little
sister
. I am not, I repeat
not
going to be bossed around by someone who is
still
in elementary school, thank you very much. I’ve had three older stepsisters strong-arming me and three little siblings yapping at my heels most of my life, and if you don’t think I know how to fight back, well then, half-pint, you are sadly mistaken. You either lighten up, or you’re going to find out just what kind of a big sister I can be.”

Wren’s cupid’s bow mouth squeezed tighter, and her blue eyes narrowed to slits. “See if I
care
. I didn’t
want
to go to the water with
you
anyway. I just needed
somebody
.” The muscles clenched beneath her freckled cheeks. She swallowed hard, a sheen of water rimming her eyes.

I felt like the world’s biggest jerk.
This is not me. This isn’t who I am.

Right now Grandma Rita was probably giving me a smack from somewhere in the unseen realm of angels.
There’ll come a day, Allie,
she was saying,
when we’ll give an accounting of what we did with this one wondrous life. Be careful what
you put in your book, darlin’. Don’t let anybody or anything write in your book but you.

“Okay, Wren, listen. Here’s the deal. You and I are either friends, or we aren’t. If we
aren’t
friends, we don’t do things like go to the water together, or hang out and fix hair in the mornings, or have little girly-girl chats about your favorite rock star or whatever you like to do back home. If we
are
friends, then you don’t boss me around, threaten me, or talk to me like I’m the waitress at the Taco Hut and you’ve just been served a cold plate of nachos. Do you get me?”

Wren’s stubby little fingers twitched in a moment of decision—draw down on me and take another shot, or cooperate and get what she really wanted? “Yeah.”

“Yeah, we’re not friends? Or yeah, we have an agreement?”

“Yeah, okay. I get it. Can we go to the water now?”

“As long as we’re square.”

“We’re square.”

“All right, then.” Victory, I hoped . . . or at least a little battle won in the war of pretend sisterhood. The moment felt slightly Shakespearean.
The Taming of the Shrew
came to mind.

Wren and I discarded a few layers of unnecessary garments, I slipped my capris on underneath what was left of my skirts, and we departed the schoolhouse with what felt like a fresh understanding between us. The walk to Wildwood Creek was nice, actually. I knew the way, of course. I led Wren to the little spot near the water where I had seen the fawn before. She took off her shoes and stockings and I helped her slide out of everything but her chemise and pantaloons so she could wade. Stripping down to my chemise, I tucked the bottom in at the waist before rolling my capris as high as I could to produce what amounted to an unattractive bathing ensemble, encompassing a shameless mixing of centuries.

We chased tiny minnows and searched for the limestone fossils of sea snails, spiny urchins, and little round sea biscuits, distinguishable only by their shape, until you rubbed a dampened finger across the top and the imprint of a star magically appeared on the domed surface.

“My grandmother used to tell me that these are a lot like people.” I held the stone in my palm, letting Wren pluck it up between two fingers to study the star. “You pass right by them, day after day, and a lot of them look plain enough from the outside. But the thing is, you never know what might be hiding under the surface until you stop and take the time to look. Grandma Rita told me the water is like love. Sprinkle a little of it on, and sometimes you’re surprised what comes out.”

Wren’s face softened as she studied the stone, watching the moisture slowly evaporate, the exterior turning bland and dusty again. Leaning over, she dipped a finger in the water and wet the stone again. “My grandma says people get what they can, while they can . . . just like my mama. Last time we went to stay with
my
grandma, like, when we were in between stuff and the rent check bounced, she opened the door, and said, ‘Oh no. If you don’t wanna work, Tracie Godley, that’s your problem. I’m not havin’ it in my house anymore. You take your bastard brat and get off my porch.’ And then she slammed the door.” Wren’s knobby shoulders shrugged, the bones poking upward along the chemise’s lace edges. “But it doesn’t matter. Because I got
this
job, and this job’s gonna be my big break, and then we’re gonna rub it in her big, stupid face like crazy.” She swept the sea biscuit through the water again and lifted it, quicksilver streams pouring from her fingers in the afternoon light.

“Wren . . .” I waited for her to look at me again and saw someone I recognized. My lost, lonely, wounded self at nine,
at ten, at eleven. Thank God for Grandma Rita. She taught me that I was worth something, that I mattered. Sometimes, just one person is enough to make you believe it.

“Whatever mess your family is in, it’s not
your
fault. You can’t let it become who you are. It’s not your job to fix your mom or your grandma or to take care of them. Your job is to find Wren, and to make sure that when you find her, you find all the best things inside her, all the beautiful and unique things—just like the star on the top of the rock. God made you smart, talented, and pretty. Put that stuff on the surface. There’s no reason to go around taking a swipe at people before they can take a swipe at you. Just give them a chance, and see how it goes.”

A driftwood raft decorated with iridescent green, blue, and copper dragonflies floated by, and our conversation ended abruptly as we splashed down the creek to chase it.

When the afternoon was over, Wren and I walked back to the village, strangely at peace with each other. Bonded, in a way. I took her up the hill as far as the big house, where Genie and Netta were working in the garden they’d planted, along with Lynne Everly and her granddaughter, Alexis, who had stepped into the lives of Asmae and Essie Jane, slaves in the Delevan household. Andy, the blacksmith, was with them, taking a break from his shop to operate an antique hand cultivator.

They waved at me and invited Wren to help them in the garden. I told her good-bye, then stood and watched for a few moments as Netta gave Wren instructions for pruning the Seven Sisters roses that had been found growing native around the Wildwood site. It was nice to see Wren enjoying something for once. Maybe there was hope for the whole crazy bunch of us after all.

I felt good about the day, as I took the spring creek path to
Bathhouse Row to retrieve the phone from Kim. Relief settled over me when I found her back at work among the massive open-air laundry tubs. Her dress was damp, and, understandably, she didn’t have the phone on her. “It’s hidden in a safe place, I promise.” She glanced over her shoulder as she stood, bucket in hand. From the porch, she was being eyeballed by Annie, the forty-something ex-Army ranger who ran the place with a slightly excessive bent toward authenticity.

“Just let me keep it a couple days, okay? It was so good to talk to Jake today—well, I only had enough tower strength to text, but it was so awesome.” She clasped my forearm, trying to control a sudden rush of the giddies. “Let me talk to him a few more days. Then I’ll get the phone recharged for you and give it back. But only if I can borrow it again in not too long.”

I felt the parameters of our arrangement sliding dangerously toward the edge of a cliff. Kim’s resistance to temptation when she really wanted something was practically nil.

“Kim, how, exactly, are you going to recharge the phone?” I was afraid even to ask.

“There’s a grip up the hill who’ll do it for me. . . . And don’t look at me like that. He’s a friend. He won’t tell anybody.”

Her shoulders jerked upward, and she gritted her teeth as her boss yelled from the porch, “This isn’t picnic time! We’ve got customers to take care of. And they pay in gold.” Annie had already raised the price of baths and laundry service for the miners, in anticipation of Wildwood’s new gold-inflated economy.

“I’ve gotta go,” Kim grumbled. “I’ll take care of things, I promise. Oh, and you didn’t have much information from Stewart. There was one attachment on an email—something about Bonnie Rose—but I couldn’t get it to download to the phone, so I couldn’t read it. Other than that, he’d sent a
couple texts just sort of . . . shootin’ the breeze and asking what it was like here. He wanted to know if you needed any supplies or anything, and he sent you some information that looked like it was out of a survival manual or something—how to preserve meat, and what kind of tubers you can dig up and eat, and that kind of stuff. He said he mailed a package to the village post office for you—something about a copy of
Jane Eyre
that had the information you wanted. Anyway, I answered him and just pretended I was you. I told him a little bit about life since go-live, that kind of thing. I figured, since I’m going to be keeping the phone for a few days, I can just keep checking your messages for you.”

“Kim . . .” Right now, Stewart’s emails were the least of my worries. What I did know was that I’d let a monster out of the box when I’d told Kim about the phone. “But listen, you need to give me the phone so I can turn it in. It’s just going to get us in trouble.”

“Well, it’s not like I can go get it right now. Don’t worry, okay? I’ll be careful. I gotta scoot before Annie comes after me with a pitchfork or something. If I don’t kill that woman before the summer’s over, it’ll be a miracle.”

There wasn’t much choice but to let her go back to work. Still, a bad, bad feeling lingered as we parted ways. I walked on toward the schoolhouse, counting the paths along the spring as I went, knowing where each one would lead. Above, the village played its evening melodies—kettles clanking, roughhewn wooden doors banging, wheels and axles singing bass and soprano, hammers adding rhythm, intermingling with a horse’s high-pitched whinny, a dove’s call, a whippoorwill’s song, the first raucous yip of a coyote.

The scents of suppertime meals tickled my nose and moistened the back of my mouth. I hadn’t even thought about food, although there was a biscuit, butter, and muscadine jelly left
from breakfast, along with few bites of bacon. I could get by without attempting to light a cooking fire and preparing something. It seemed silly, cooking for one in the evenings. Cooking and cleaning dishes here was so much work.

Smoke hovered in the air as I climbed the path to the school. When I rounded the cedar bushes, there was Blake Fulton, sitting on a chunk of log beside the fire, his boots propped near the ring of stones. I wasn’t used to seeing him, other than first thing in the mornings. My stomach did a strange little flip-flop that had nothing to do with the smell of whatever was in the cast-iron frying pan he’d set over the coals. I remembered our conversation from this morning, how natural and easy it seemed.

Maybe he remembers too.
I found myself entertaining a little fantasy that he’d come back here tonight because of our coffee time earlier. Silly of me, probably. Risky. The last thing I needed was to get involved with a guy who probably traveled around from production to production and had a girl in every location.

But despite the obvious reasons I should’ve passed by and continued on to my room, I felt my dinner-for-one vision for the evening suddenly morphing.

A smile parted his lips when he saw me, and the strangest rush of sensations skittered through my body—a tingle of excitement, a strike of lightning, but also the soft, comfortable feeling of snuggling into an old quilt. Somehow the sight of him there at the end of the day felt so much more natural than it should have. Like I’d been waiting for it, hoping for it without realizing I was.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Actually, yes.” It occurred to me then that I was sans most of my proper 1861 under attire and still wearing my slightly damp capris pants beneath my skirt. I circumvented the fire,
not coming too close, but trying to lean over and see into the pan. “What’s for dinner?”

“Fish and beans. Camp food. Sorry, but I was afraid to try corn bread. I’ve never been much good with a Dutch oven.”