Nothing But Blue (24 page)

 

2

 

The more I thought about it, the more I decided I definitely wouldn't like Melita. And then I saw her. Dad went to pick her up at the bus station. I opted to stay home and read. But when the car pulled up, I stood in the doorway and watched. Stared is more like it. Melita stepped slowly out of the car, not timid at all, more as if she were disgusted. Bear came loping over and jumped on her. She screamed. Dad dragged him off and scolded him, apologizing to Melita.

Melita stooped to gather her luggage, then stood straight. She was tall and curvy. There
was
something striking about her. Her skin was silky tan, like coffee with extra cream, and I wondered if that's why her mother named her what she did. Her cropped hair, jet black and crunchy with gel, had a bright purple streak running down the middle and was held back with a sparkly barrette. Her nose stuck out at a peculiar angle, giving her face a distinct nonperfect perfection. Her eyes moved around slowly taking it all in. I didn't usually like taking pictures of people, but I wanted to capture her on film.

She wore a sheer black T-shirt you could see her bra through, and she had enough there to need one. Her jeans hung so low on her hips her bellybutton was able to catch flies. On her feet was a pair of black criss-cross sandals with a fat platform heel that made her look even taller than she was. A few kids in school would have liked to dress like her, but their style didn't even come close. Not that there is anywhere near Plattville where you could buy stuff like that. The closest mall was hours away, and that was no fashion mecca.

I could tell Melita was sizing me up at the same time. Probably seeing my crazy hair unraveling from its corkscrew braids, my tiny pig nose covered in freckles, my nonexistent eyelashes, and my tiny chest. And wouldn't you know it, I hadn't had time to change like I'd planned, and I was still wearing my overalls with a big grease stain on the front.

“Phoebe,” Dad said. “Why don't you show Melita around the place? Make her feel at home.”

I glared at him, then turned to Melita all smiley. Her lips were colored with a dark mauve shade of lip-gloss and pursed together tightly as if she were trying not to breathe. I'd show her what the rugged life was like.

“You want to see the sheep?” I asked.

“Sheep?” Melita said, dropping her suitcase in the entryway. Dad passed us with the rest of her bags, three in all.

“You might want to change your shoes.” I held up a ratty pair of sneakers. “Here. These should do.” I looked at her feet. Her toenails were painted bright gold. I could just make out a dark mark on her ankle like a smudged tattoo. It looked like some sort of bug, a butterfly maybe, about the size of a grape.

She sneered at the sneakers, but I could tell she was trying to be polite. “That's all right. I'll wear what I have,” she said.

“You'll have to step in dirt and poop and everything,” I said.

She reached for the sneakers, then hesitated. She rubbed the tattoo. It looked like it was done in Magic Marker.

“Just wear them.” I smiled, and to my surprise she smiled back and put them on, leaving her pretty sandals on the bench under the coat rack. The funny thing was, the ratty old sneakers looked great on her.

On the way to the sheep, we passed the goat's pen.

“This is Petunia,” I said, stroking Petunia's neck through the fence. “She's going to give birth any day now. She's so fat she'll probably have twins. She had twins last year. Two girls. That's good. You don't want to have boy kids because they're harder to sell.”

“How come?”

“Boy goats aren't good for anything except breeding. Females can always give milk. They're good luck, too.”

I opened the gate and motioned for Melita to follow me. She did, but looked ready to bolt if necessary.

“You can pat her,” I said.

“She won't bite? I thought goats eat anything.”

“They only nibble, really. Petunia's the friendliest goat in the world. Right, Petunia?” I put my arms around Petunia's neck and hugged her. Petunia nibbled at my hair. “Oww.” I laughed as I pulled it out of her mouth. “See?” I said to Melita.

Melita cautiously reached out her long, thin arm and patted Petunia between her pointed ears. She patted up and down, more like a tap than a pat. I can always tell how comfortable people are with animals by the way they touch them. The way Melita was tap-tapping on Petunia's head meant that she didn't trust animals. But after all, Melita was from the city and had probably never even seen a goat before.

“Nice goat. Nice Petunia,” Melita said. Petunia blinked every time Melita's hand came down on her head. “She's not as soft as I thought.”

“Try her neck. Like this.” I took Melita's hand and put it on Petunia's warm neck and then ran it across her back. I let go, and Melita kept her hand there, perched.

“Soft,” she said.

“Feel her belly,” I said. “Sometimes you can feel the babies kick.” We put our hands on Petunia's fat belly and kept them still, waiting for a sign of life. I held my breath.

“I can't feel anything,” Melita said.

“Shh,” I said, as if we might wake them. “Just wait.”

We waited.

“There!” I said. “Did you feel that?”

“No.”

“It was there. It kicked. You didn't feel it?”

“I didn't feel anything.”

“That's too bad. Maybe you'll be here when she gives birth.”

“See them actually come out?” Melita said.

“Yeah, it's cool to watch. Gross, too. Last year, she had them at three in the morning. Dad woke me up and made me come out to the barn.”

“I'd like to see a birth.” Her hand was still perched on Petunia's belly as if she was expecting the kids to come out any second.

“Come on. Let's go to the sheep,” I said.

I don't know why I was so chatty with Melita. I guess I wanted to prove that just because I lived on a farm and had never been to California or New York, or even out of the state, I wasn't stupid. But I wasn't about to admit that I read fairy tales to the goat.

As we were heading out the back of the barn, I heard the rattle of the familiar red truck pull up the driveway.

“It's Michael!” I said and immediately turned back.

“Who's Michael?” Melita asked, following.

“He helps Dad with some of the farm stuff.” Secretly I thought of Michael as my prince, my knight in shining armor, who would someday recognize my unseen beauty and we would live happily ever after. I know he thought of me as a kid, but in five years, when I was eighteen and he was tweny-five, the age difference wouldn't be such a big deal. Most fairy tale girls were teenagers when they married. Not to mention pioneer times, when girls would marry at thirteen.

“Come on.” I darted through the barn, past Petunia, and through the swinging gate to the driveway where Michael was stepping out of his truck.

“Hey Phoebe-Dweebie!”

I smiled. When Phil or anyone at school called me Phoebe-Dweebie or Phoeb-the-Dweeb, I wanted to pound him to a pulp, but the way Michael said it just made me smile, and I felt the warmth rush to my face. Anything he called me was okay as far as I was concerned.

“Who's your pretty friend? Not from around here, eh?” he asked.

It hadn't occurred to me that Michael would think Melita was pretty. But of course she was. Did he want to touch her hair, too?

I also realized that although Michael called me a lot of things, he never called me pretty. No.
Cute
seemed to be my word. Cute like a rabbit.

“Aren't you going to introduce us, Phoebe?” Michael asked.

“Uh. This is Melita Forester. She's here for the summer.”

Michael stuck out his hand and said, “Very charmed to make your acquaintance, Melita. The name's Michael. At your service.” And he did a little bow. “That's a lovely name. Melita. Where are you from?”

“All over,” Melita said. “I was born in LA, moved to New York when I was a baby, then New Mexico for a little bit, we were in London for a year, and now back in New York.”

“Wow,” Michael and I exclaimed at the same time. I noticed that Michael was still holding her hand, and Melita didn't seem to mind.

“But now I guess I live in Maine.” She said “Maine” like it was a word with dirt on it.

“Aw, it's not so bad here. And you're in good hands. Phoebe knows this place inside out. Though I bet this farm and small town must seem awfully puny to you, huh?” He finally let go of her hand and winked at me. In spite of myself, I grinned.

“It's okay. I patted the goat.” Was there a slight hint of soft pink on Melita's cheeks?

“Never a dull moment around here, right, Phoebe? You gonna be in the same class as Phoebe when school starts?”

“Oh, I'll be back in New York by then,” Melita said. “This is only temporary. Besides, I'm older than Phoebe.”

“You look older. What're you? Sixteen?” Michael raised his eyebrows and ran his hand through his curls.

“Fourteen. I'm starting high school in the fall.”

“Where are your parents?”

Melita haphazardly kicked the dirt with her foot. “My father's out of the picture. He lives in Sicily. And Mom”—she paused—“she's on vacation.”

“What is this? Twenty questions?” I butted in. I wanted to save Melita from questions about her mother, or her father for that matter. Maybe introducing Melita to Michael wasn't such a great idea after all. “We're on our way to see the sheep.”

“Hey, that's always fun,” Michael said. “A good look at Lambchops and Patty before they end up in the freezer. I'll be in the barn brushing Star, if you girls want to hang out later.”

I mumbled something like uh-uh, then headed to the sheep pasture as Michael began unloading some stuff from his truck.

“Isn't Michael great?” I said, feeling Melita out.

“He's all right. He asks a lot of questions.” She shrugged.

Melita kept walking, and I tried to read her face to see if she was pretending not to care. Her expression looked exactly the same. Blank.

 

The sheep were at the far side of their pasture. We keep
them out there during the day and in a stall next to Petunia at night. The sheep are never considered pets because we buy two every year and keep them only a few months before they are slaughtered. I try not to get too attached, like I do with the goats. When it comes time for Dad to take the shotgun into the pasture, I hide in the old hayloft at the top of the barn with a pillow over my head, but still the sound of gunfire echoes all over the farm. It doesn't bother me so much once they're dead, but the killing is not something I ever want to watch.

I unlatched the wire fence and we walked in.

“What are their names?” Melita asked.

“Lambchops and Patty.”

Melita laughed. “You mean Michael wasn't joking? Those are really their names?”

“Yup. We always name them that, just so we don't forget what they're here for.”

“You really eat them?”

“Sure. What did you think?”

“I don't know. It just seems so sad. You don't”—she paused—“you don't eat the goats, too, do you?”

“Of course we don't eat the goats! How could you even think of such a thing? Petunia gives us milk. We drink that. You eat meat, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you just buy yours in the store and you don't see where it comes from. That meat was once a cow or a pig or a sheep. It's the same thing.” I tried to make it sound like it was no big deal, and usually it wasn't. It was just a part of the farm. How could I explain this to Melita when just looking at her pretty face made me feel ugly?

Lambchops and Patty sauntered over. Lambchops was slightly bigger and had a black muzzle, but otherwise they looked the same.

“What's the matter with this one's tail?” Melita pointed to Lambchops, who had his rear end toward us. I put my hand on his back, and he skidded a few feet away.

An elastic was wrapped around the base of his tail. My father had put it there because the tails get dirty and gross and there is no way the sheep can clean itself. Eventually the blood stops circulating and the tail falls off, making it easier and more comfortable for the sheep. I don't know why Dad bothered doing this, since we eat the sheep anyway. Maybe it was just courtesy. I told this to Melita. Her face scrunched up like she was going to puke.

I bent down to pull Lambchops's little tail to show her. As I lifted the tail up, Lambchops ran off. I looked at my hand. Clutched between my fingers was the tail, a fluffy, gray thing sodden with poop and urine.

Melita let out a scream and then said, “Gross, gross, gross,” over and over.

I was stunned for a second, then burst out laughing. “That's what's supposed to happen. It doesn't hurt him. It's like Eeyore. Now we get a tack and just tack it back on.” I thought that was pretty funny, but Melita just stared at the tail.

“That is totally and utterly gross,” she said.

“I suppose, if you aren't used to things like this,” I said. The tail, which looked like a piece of dirty cotton, hung limp in my hand.

I remember when I first found out about this rubber-band technique. Dad explained to me about cutting off
the circulation slowly so the sheep didn't feel anything. He told me the same thing would happen if I wrapped an elastic around my finger. I wanted to see if he was right, so I tried it on my thumb. I wound the rubber band so tight that in less than a minute my thumb turned from red to purple to blue. I panicked and took it off. Then I tried it on one of my braids and left it there until bath time came and we had to cut the elastic to get it off, but my braid was still intact.

“Can we go back?” Melita asked.

“Sure. Here, do you want this?” I dangled the smelly tail in front of Melita's pretty face. She shirked away.