Wreath (18 page)

“Neither is this, as you can see.” She held up her skinned elbows.

“Have a seat.” Law patted the bench. “I’ll share the chips. Want a Coke or something?”

“I’d kill for one,” Wreath said, climbing clumsily off the bike, favoring her sore legs.

“Since I nearly killed you earlier today, I guess we’d be even. Hold on a sec.”

While Law dug around in his pocket for change, Wreath wiped the sweat from her brow and sneaked a look at how cute he was. He had on his park uniform, his hair shiny and his arms tanned.

“Diet or regular?” he asked. “I’m guessing regular. You don’t look like a girl who needs to diet.”

“You guessed right. I burn off a lot of calories going and coming to town.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew she’d opened an area for questions she would rather avoid.

“I forgot where you said you lived—where are you going and coming from?” Law handed her the soft drink as he spoke, condensation dripping off the can onto her shirt.

“I live out past your trailer.” She waved vaguely. “I stay with relatives. My mother will be coming about the time school starts.”

“I heard you work at Durham’s.”

So much for keeping a low profile. Apparently everyone in town knew about her, but at least they hadn’t figured out where she lived. “I manage the furniture store.”

“Really?” Law looked shocked.

“Of course not.” She laughed. “I sweep the floors and empty the trash.”

“You work for Miss Faye?”

“I do,” Wreath said.

“Mitch is her nephew. He tried to help out a little after his uncle died, but she told him she didn’t need any help. I’m surprised you got her to hire you. I’ve heard she’s sort of … well … stingy with her money. And a little hard to get along with.”

“She’s fine.” Wreath suddenly wanted to defend her boss. “It’s not the most challenging job, as you probably can guess, but it’s not so bad.”

“Sort of like mine,” he said.

“This looks like fun. I’d love to work at a park. It’s peaceful out here.”

“You haven’t been here when the hillbilly sorts come in or the family reunions descend. It’s a cross between a party you weren’t invited to and a big family squabble. The office gets two dozen calls on those weekends.”

“I’ve never been to a family reunion,” Wreath said.

“You haven’t missed much,” Law said. “My aunt decided we should have a Jolly Rogers reunion a couple of years ago. Get it? Law Rogers.” He grinned big. “Her boyfriend got drunk and fell into the bathtub, the potato salad made three kids and my great-aunt throw up, and my uncle and his buddy got in a fight over a game of dominoes and someone called the police.”

“You’re making that up.”

“I wish I was. That was also the day my mother destroyed our car. She ran into a guardrail on the highway and got her license suspended.”

Wreath knew well the look on Law’s face. He thought he’d said too much, and she decided to bail him out. “Must be nice to have a fancy car like Mitch has.”

“Yeah, he’s got it pretty good,” Law said. “Are you saving for a car?”

“I don’t know how to drive.” Wreath laughed, not even self-conscious. “For real?”

“For real. It’ll be two wheels for me for a while. I don’t want a car.” Truth was, Frankie had seldom owned a car, and Wreath had never thought much about it. She decided she’d add that to her dream list when she got back to her campsite.

“I want a car bad,” Law said. “Or a pickup. Something fast.”

“I thought you were saving for a guitar.”

“I can’t believe you remembered that.” Law grinned. “I should have enough money at the end of the summer to get a used guitar, but my granddad says he’ll buy me a car if I get into college next fall.”

“Sweet,” Wreath said.

“Well, half sweet. I don’t know if my mother will let him.”

“Why wouldn’t your mother let someone buy you a car?” Wreath couldn’t imagine Frankie turning down a car under any circumstances.

“My mother and my grandparents have what people around here call ‘bad blood’ between them. Most people don’t approve of my mother’s choices. At least that’s how Grandpa puts it.” Law smashed a chip between his fingers and watched it fall to the ground. “I probably shouldn’t be talking to you about this.”

“Why not?” Wreath asked.

He shrugged. “My family’s kind of weird.”

Wreath could only imagine what Law would say if he knew how weird her life was. “Oh,” she said, feeling a real smile on her lips. “Tell me about them.”

“My mother says my grandpa’s a meddling old jerk.”

“Is he?”

“They’re probably both right in their own way. My mother acts pretty strange sometimes. What about your mom? What’s she like?”

“She’s great,” Wreath said, thinking of how funny and affectionate Frankie had been. “But she’s real private. Kind of shy.”

“Like mother, like daughter,” Law said. “I thought you were kind of stuck up at first, but I think you’re kind of shy, too.”

“I guess I am,” Wreath said, scuffing her feet against the pavement. “I never thought about it one way or the other.”

Law looked at his watch. “It’s time for my shift. Do you want a day pass?”

Wreath shook her head. “I’ll head home and make sure my legs don’t fall off.” She gingerly touched the bandage. Law grimaced. “Sorry,” he said.

“That’s all right,” she said. “Your story about your family get-together was worth the pain of the wreck. I think I’ll suggest we have one in my family.”

Law laughed as she rode off, and she hoped he’d forgive her for the lies if he ever found out the truth.

Chapter 18

W
reath knew she was telling too many lies to too many people. She lived with a made-up family called Williams. Her mama would move in soon.

When she’d made her plan, she knew she’d have to be sneaky. But she hadn’t planned on lying every day. The untruths to Law had hurt doubly bad. They’d made her miss her mother, and she’d felt like she was betraying a friend. She hated it.

Dear Brownie
, she wrote,
I messed up. I didn’t think about all the people I would have to talk to in my ordinary life. I didn’t plan on making friends this year, and now I like a boy named Law. Yes! Me! In less than a summer, I have a crush on a boy. I am Wreath Willis. You know I don’t get crushes on boys. You know how boyfriends made Frankie’s life harder—and, therefore, my own. But Law seems different. He listens when I talk, and he’s good-looking
.

She scratched the last few sentences out and started over, writing,
What am I going to do when school starts?

She had to do well at school, earn enough money to live on, and make the junkyard into a place she could live even when it got cold.

For what seemed like the millionth time, she poked around the vehicles, searching for anything she might use, looking for fire ant hills and watching for snakes and trespassers. In today’s search, Wreath found an old Landry High School yearbook and thumbed through it, wondering what had happened to the students who looked so cheerful and … well, active.

She sat down on a set of falling-down steps, avoiding a huge splinter, and flipped through the heavy book again, its purple cover padded with an insignia that had
LHS
in gold. Chuckling at the photos of club activities, she realized the clothes in the pictures resembled the ones she was wearing, apparently quite stylish at the time.

Flipping to the back, she drew in her breath. A full-page advertisement congratulated Clarice Janice Estes. Clarice wore a Landry High cheerleader outfit, including a short skirt, and was holding pompoms. “Future Supreme Court judge?” the headline read. “We are proud of you, Clarice! Love, Mother and Father.” Wreath could hardly believe how young and cute the woman was. Nor could she believe how big and alive the school seemed in the yearbook.

Putting the book on the shelf she had made on the dashboard of the Tiger Van, she loaded up her pack and got dressed, hoping she didn’t smell after using another of her precious wet-paper wipes to take a bath. She wondered if Mrs. Durham would approve of shorts yet again today.

She scanned the area and went to the clump of bushes where she had hidden the bike the evening before. She was torn over whether to put things in the same spot or to move them around, still not sure if people were snooping around when she was gone.

She hiked around the edges of the field, reassuring herself that no one lived nearby and looking nervously over her shoulder. Thankfully, there was no sign of activity near where she stayed, and she vowed to use her flashlight only inside the van, when she could hide it under her blanket.
Don’t lose focus
, she’d written in her small notebook.
Watch for people
.

After arranging her belongings, hiding her money in different places, and setting a trap or two, she hopped on her bike, not sure if her shakiness was from nerves or her accident.

The yearbook prompted her to do what she could put off no longer.

With a sense of determination and a tinge of excitement, Wreath rode right up to Landry High and circled it twice, sizing up the place where she would get her diploma. The old brick building was two stories tall with a sprawling campus. At first glance it seemed almost stately, but a closer look showed peeling paint around the windows, blinds hanging crooked and bent, the flower beds a withered mess. To the side were four tennis courts and a large building that must be the gym. Parking lots had sprouted around the building, probably added through the years. In the very back were six or eight metal structures, the kind called T buildings at her other schools. The parking lot was mostly empty, and the door to the gym was propped open.

Wreath leaned her bike against a back wall, hidden from sight, and tried a side door, which squeaked loudly as she pulled it open. She breathed in the smell of books and paper and the musty odor left behind from students. A janitor waxed a green linoleum hall in the distance, and Wreath turned the other way, dismayed to see that most classrooms were closed up, visible only through a small window on each door. The air was hot and stale.

She tugged at one door after another, eager to see what the school looked like, which classrooms might be hers, but hesitant to cross the threshold into the official world of the office.

“Young lady, what do you think you’re doing?” a deep voice bellowed. Wreath turned guiltily from where she had been staring into a science lab. A middle-aged man and a woman walked toward her.

A glimmer of surprise raced across the young woman’s face at the same time that Wreath recognized her, looking totally different than she did in her running clothes.

Julia, in jeans and a sleeveless black shirt, turned to the man. “This is one of our new students, Mr. Bordelon. I told her to meet me here later, and I’d show her around.” She looked at Wreath and winked. “You must not have been paying attention when I told you I was busy until late afternoon. Mr. Bordelon’s our principal at Landry High.”

“Nice to meet you, sir,” Wreath said, her bewilderment not totally feigned. “I’m sorry I got the time mixed up.”

She stood back as the two adults wrapped up a conversation about a training session. “Be on time tomorrow, Miss Watson,” the man said, and Wreath turned away, shocked to hear a teacher reprimanded in her presence.

“I’ll be here,” Julia said and turned to Wreath. “Now I’ll give our new student the deluxe tour.”