And that turned the tide because I told it in a way that made everyone laugh, and then my father started telling one of his funny trip-and-fall stories, and my mother smiled at me across the table like she was saying, Thank you, Hanna, and yes, all in all it was a very good birthday.
Chapter 16
Hanna
Memorial Day weekend
There was a parade in town and we went with Gran and Grandpa.
We brought lawn chairs and sat on the curb, watching the scouts, fire engines, and politicians, and the Lions, Moose, and Elks clubs go by.
When the old VFW soldiers marched into sight, Grandpa pulled out a hanky and mopped his eyes, and when the band went by and played the “Star Spangled Banner,” he actually took off his cap and put his hand over his heart.
At first I was embarrassed because nobody does that, but then my mother looked like she was feeling it and Gran had taken Grandpa’s arm and my father looked really solemn. I was like, Oh my God, they’re killing me, so I gritted my teeth and finally the band moved past.
The town always gives out free hot dogs in the park afterward, but Gran’s knees were too bad to walk that far and my parents wanted to go home and get our own picnic going, so I said I’d just walk through real fast—and it would definitely be fast because I was alone, and hanging out alone is no fun—and I’d meet them back home.
So they left and I walked down to the park, where the cliques were in full swing, which made it kind of boring except that Crystal’s brother told me they were having another party in the woods Monday afternoon if I wanted to come.
“Sounds good,” I said and decided to leave because there was really no one there I wanted to see, so I cut across the park and was heading up the sidewalk when a Harley appeared over the hill, and yes, it was Jesse.
My heart gave this weird leap, and at first I thought he wasn’t going to stop at all, then I thought, Okay, maybe he’s just going to wave and keep going, so I tried not to take it personally, but then at the last minute he pulled the bike to the curb and shut it off.
“Hi,” I said, unable to stop smiling.
“Hey, Hanna,” he said and gave me this quirky smile, like he was kind of bemused at seeing me in the daylight. “What’s up?” He took off his shades, hesitated, and then pulled off his helmet. He had on a red bandanna underneath it.
“Nothing much,” I said, beaming.
He shook his head and gave this laugh, a good laugh, and just looked at me. “You always this happy?”
“No,” I said, laughing. “It’s you. Every time I see you, I just…I don’t know. You make me smile.”
“Well, that’s good,” he said, grinning.
“Yeah, it is,” I said because, oh my God, it was the best feeling. “So, you going to the park?”
“When I get there,” he said, putting down the kickstand and relaxing. “You leaving?”
“I was,” I said with a shrug. “Nobody’s really there but Crystal’s brother. He said there’s another party in the woods on Monday afternoon.” I smiled again; I couldn’t help it.
“Oh, yeah?” he said, looking away and smiling. “Too bad I’m working.”
“On a holiday?”
“Double time plus,” he said, nodding. “So where you headed?”
“Home,” I said. “We’re having a picnic with the neighbors. I’ll be the only one there under forty.” The minute I said it, I wanted to take it back, because there was no way he could bring that tattoo to a family picnic. “I mean, I don’t really care…”
He let it go. “No Crystal or your other friend?”
“No, they’ve got boyfriends, so I hardly see them at all,” I said, wedging my hands in my back pockets and cocking my head. “I’m kind of on my own now.”
He nodded. “Staying out of trouble?”
My smile widened. “Not of my own free will.”
He laughed and we kind of hit a stalemate.
“Well…” I said after a minute.
“I didn’t bring an extra helmet, or I’d give you a ride home,” he said.
“Oh, that sucks,” I said, making a face. “Riding’s fun.”
He gazed at me as if deliberating, then looked down at the row of bikes lined up at the edge of the park and the guys gathered around them. “Well, Granger’s down there and so is Big Steve. You want me to see if I can borrow you one?”
“Okay,” I said happily.
“Jesus, Hanna,” he said, laughing again. “Sit tight and I’ll be back.”
I watched him rumble off, and he was back in a minute with a candy apple red helmet tucked under his arm.
“You can thank Steve’s girlfriend for this,” he said, handing it over and glancing back down the hill toward the cluster of bikes.
I followed his gaze and, on impulse, stood on tiptoe and waved even though I had no idea who I was waving to.
From the center of the crowd, an arm rose and waved back.
“Cool,” I said and pulled on the helmet. It fit snug and smelled like flowery shampoo, and I climbed onto the back of the bike like I was born to be there, which made him smile again, and slid my arms around his waist. “Ready.”
“Then let’s roll,” he said, and we rumbled away from the curb. “You in a hurry?”
“Not really, but I can’t be too late,” I said. “Why?”
“I figured we’d take the scenic route down along the canal,” he said. “It’s maybe an extra ten minutes.”
“Perfect,” I said.
It was beautiful meandering through the cool woods and along the sparkling water, just riding without even talking, with my hands settled on his sides at his belt, and every so often him resting a hand on my knee.
“You okay?” he said, following the curve in the road and steering wide of bicyclists.
“I could do this all day,” I said. “You’re a good driver.”
“Thanks,” he said.
But the canal road finally ended and we had to turn onto the road to my house.
“You don’t have to pull all the way in,” I said, getting nervous. “You could just stop at the end of the driveway and I’ll jump off.”
“Your parents don’t like bikes?” he said.
“I don’t know,” I said, praying no one was out on the front porch. “The last time you brought me home, no one was here, so they never knew.”
“Okay,” he said, flicking on his signal light to make the turn into my driveway.
I didn’t see anyone on the porch, so they were probably all out back, but this area was so quiet except for the birds that they probably heard us coming a mile away. The key was to get him out of here before anyone came around and waved us toward the house. The key was to keep that tattoo, and all they would interpret it as, out of sight.
He pulled in and did a half-moon at the edge of the driveway.
I fumbled with the helmet, yanked it off, and handed it to him. “That was fun. Thanks for the ride home.” I glanced at the house and saw my mother standing in the front door, watching. Still, the combination of the motorcycle engine plus the acre between her and me would let me pretend that, even if she called, I wouldn’t hear her.
“Sure, no problem,” he said, glancing at me, then past to my mother, then back at me. His smile deepened. “Have a good one.”
“You, too, and you know, I’m probably not even gonna go to that party on Monday now,” I said in a rush, flushing as his smile grew quizzical. “I mean…I don’t know. I might have something else to do. Stop it,” I said, laughing and giving his arm a playful whack. “Go already or who knows what’ll come out of my mouth.”
He laughed. “That could be interesting.”
“Go,” I said and waved as he pulled out.
My cell phone rang.
I pulled it from my pocket. “Hi, Mom.”
“Since when do you know boys with motorcycles?” she said.
“Oh my God, I only know one,” I said, waving to her.
“Who is he?” she said
, coming out onto the porch.
“Jesse Yennet,” I said matter-of-factly, walking up the driveway toward home. “His mom used to be my fifth-grade art teacher, remember?”
“Yennet,” my mother said musingly. “Ohhh…she got sick, didn’t she? Uterine cancer?”
“Ovarian,” I said.
“Terrible,” my mother said, sinking onto the porch swing. “Yes, I remember now. My God, her husband was a basket case and—”
“Did you guys eat yet?” I interrupted because if I didn’t, she’d go on forever.
“No, we were waiting for you,” she said, rising and giving me a look. “We’ll talk about this when you get here.”
“Okay,” I said and stuck the phone back in my pocket. Waited until she went back inside, then did a wacky little happy dance right out there for the world to see.
I never went to the party on Memorial Day. Crystal wasn’t going to be there and the only other reason would’ve been to dig myself up a boyfriend and I just wasn’t into it.
Weird, I know.
But get this: on Tuesday, Seth showed up on one of my new hall routes, not his usual path at all, and said, “Hey, stranger, where you been?”
So I was nice back, not crazy in love like before, where everything he said was funny and every move he made adorable, but friendly, and I could tell he didn’t know what to make of it because he said, “So who’re you going out with now? Do I know him?”
And I laughed and said, “Nobody. I’m free as a bird.” And gave a very strange but totally spontaneous little skip, caught his surprise, and said, “What?”
“You tell me,” he said. “Why so happy?”
“Why not?” I said with a shrug. “We’ve only got like four days of school left—”
“Yeah, that reminds me,” he said. “You doing anything this summer?”
“What, like a vacation? No, I’ll probably just be hanging out,” I said. “Why?”
“Well, if I hear about any good parties, you want me to give you a call?” he said, stopping and leaning against the lockers.
“Sure, that’d be cool,” I said, and my voice didn’t even waver.
“Okay,” he said and ambled a few steps backward. “Well, I have to give Bailey a buzz now, so I guess I’ll see you…”
“See you,” I said and headed off in the opposite direction, only then realizing that he’d done it again.
School is out. I made it with one A, two Bs, a couple of Cs, and two Ds, and no one caught the mandatory community service thing, either.
The funny part is that I don’t see anything so much more superior, character-trait-wise, between the kids who did the service and me. I mean, I serve who I want to serve without being graded on it; I plant Grandpa’s tomatoes and feed the cats and in the fall and winter walk the back acre route with Gran, pulling the little cart filled with food for the deer, and I do it to help them, not because I need a good grade on it to pass school.
So what good is it if they make you do it? Isn’t the whole idea to want to help on your own, and if you don’t, you just don’t?
I don’t know. Maybe it’s me, but I’ll tell you this: if you’re only doing it because other people are watching, then what is it really worth?
Well.
Crystal called and told me Jesse left on a monthlong cross-country motorcycle trip with a couple of friends.
“Oh,” I said. “Wow. That’s half the summer. When did he leave?”
“Yesterday,” she said. “You didn’t know?”
“Why would I know?” I said, but yeah, he could have mentioned it on Memorial Day weekend or something. “We’re not going out or anything.”
“Well,” she said. “He called, and before he talked to my brother, he spent all this time telling me about the website he set up where they’d be posting pictures from the trip, and I was thinking, yeah so, who cares, but now I wonder if he was telling me so I would tell you.”
“What’s the url?” I said.
So she told me and I went there and it was a black screen with a few biker graphics and a couple of shots of him and two other guys packing gear and then riding out of town. There was one picture of him, though, where he was next to his bike and looking straight into the camera with this gorgeous smile that I swear made me feel like he’d meant it for me, so I copied it off his site, printed it, and stuck it in my wallet.
It never hurt to have a cute guy around for company.
Chapter 17
Helen
I sit on the back porch in the shade petting Serepta and watching Hanna come and go. She’s so busy these days, so lively, and I’m happy for her, I am, because her world should be expanding, she should be meeting new people and having new experiences, only…
I miss her.
Lon has taken to napping through the hottest part of the day. The heat drains him in a way it never did before, and that worries me because we have no air-conditioning and can’t afford to have it put in. I have a fan set up in the bedroom and another in the hallway and he says this helps, but it’s still stifling up there.
And when he sleeps, the silence that settles over the house scares me.
I go up to check on him often, forcing my knees to take the stairs and avoiding the creaky spots in the hallway. I ease the door open, and if he isn’t snoring, I watch his silhouette in the murky light until I’m certain I can see his chest rising and falling, then go carefully out and back down the stairs.
I should go out to the garden and weed or pick cucumbers or walk the deer path or hang some clothes but I don’t want to be too far away in case he needs me.
I would never forgive myself.
Chapter 18
Hanna
I got a new job!
I am now a counter girl at this ratty little sub shop outside of town that caters mostly to construction workers, so I’m definitely flexing my flirt muscles and earning big tips.
The owner, some crabby old lady named Olympia, trained me and then left me alone to fend for myself with nobody but her father, Antonio, an ancient, wizened little peanut of a man with chipmunk cheeks and crippling arthritis who putters around all day washing the dishes and cutting the moldy parts off the sub rolls. He has a heavy accent and I can’t always understand him, but he’s nice, so it’s cool.
There was a keg party down Crystal’s after the Fourth of July parade.
I went, thinking maybe Jesse would be back by now, but he wasn’t. His last website post had said, Riding hard for home, and that had been two days ago from wherever they were, along with some new pictures of the Rocky Mountains, the Grand Canyon, and one of him and some girl with huge boobs and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s standing on the bank of the Mississippi River. He looked beautiful, tanned, lean, forearms muscular and body relaxed, straddling the Harley, and I don’t know, maybe it was because I was getting older, but the whole thing kind of bemused me, knowing I’d kissed him and it hadn’t ruined anything because we were pretty much just flirting anyway.
It was cool. We were cool.
That girl with the boobs, though…she bugged me.
Jesse came into the sub shop today.
He must have been working at a construction site because he came in with the normal group of guys and almost dropped his teeth when he saw me behind the counter.
“Hanna,” he said, stopping dead in surprise.
“Hey,” I said, crouching to pick up the wad of boiled ham I’d lost hold of when he walked in and handing it to little old Antonio, who would trundle it into the kitchen, wash it off, and use it for a takeout order. “You’re back.”
“Yeah,” he said, running a hand over his bandanna and flushing under the gleaming-eyed scrutiny of the other construction guys. “I didn’t know you worked here.”
“Mm-hmm,” I said with a noncommittal smile and waving at a guy behind him that always left me a great tip. “Hey, Ronnie.”
“Hey, gorgeous,” he said.
“So how was your trip?” I said while motioning t
o the guys to spew their orders. I wrote them down as fast as I got them—most of these guys ate the same thing, the same way, every day—and said to Jesse, “What’re you having?”
“I don’t know, it went right out of my mind,” he said.
“Yeah, she has that effect on all of us,” one of the guys said with a grin.
“Speak for yourself, Huey, I’m married,” someone else said, winking at me.
“Well, it looked like your trip was a blast,” I said.
“You checked out the website?” he said.
“Oh, yeah,” I said and, thinking of boob girl, hauled a long slab of salami out of the refrigerated case, stuck it on the meat slicer, and proceeded to lop off about six inches in slow, even, determined strokes. “Let me know when you decide what you want, okay?”
“Uh, okay,” he said and stepped back to let the regulars pick up their orders.
It was mayhem for the next ten minutes, and in the midst of it, he finally ordered a number four, so I whipped his together, too, only I saved his paying for last.
“I still can’t believe you’re working here,” he said, pulling a wad of cash from his pocket and peeling off a damp ten. “Sorry, it’s a little sweaty.”
“Aren’t we all,” I said blandly, taking it and making change.
“Keep it,” he said when I offered it to him.
“No, I still owe you gas money,” I said, trying to hand it to him.
“I told you to forget that,” he said, shaking his head.